What You Eat Affects Your Genes 249
purkinje writes "Tiny bits of genetic material, called microRNAs, can make their way from the food you eat into your blood stream, and change how your genes are expressed, according to a new study. A team of Chinese scientists found tiny bits of white rice microRNA floating around in people's blood after a meal. When they looked at what was happening on a cellular level, they found that the microRNAs were changing gene expression, decreasing levels of a receptor that filters out LDL (bad) cholesterol. When the scientists gave mice both rice and a chemical to block the microRNAs, their levels of that receptor returned to normal — showing that the microRNAs weren't just swimming through the blood stream, but acting on genes in the animals' cells."
And your..... (Score:5, Funny)
... Jeans
Who needs jeans? (Score:2)
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Dude I love the links. I'm going to buy a kilt tomorrow.
Re:Who needs jeans? (Score:4, Informative)
"Ye know why it's called a Kilt? Because I kilt the last man who called it a skirt!"
Also, I would rock a wizzards robe at work if not for the dress code.
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I believe this is especially true for people named gene ;)
Re:chaneloutlet (Score:4, Funny)
Hugo Boss (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Boss [wikipedia.org]
Evidently, the eponymous founder of Hugo Boss was indeed heavily involved with the Nazis, including as a uniform manufacturer.
However, the stuff-made-of-human-skin myth seems ironic considering the actual horrors of Nazi Germany.
no problem (Score:2, Funny)
I eat lot of junk food, so only my junk dna is affected. And my sweatpants don't fit anymore. But that's ok; my virtual girlfriend still says I look good.
Re:no problem (Score:5, Funny)
Re:no problem (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, eating a lot of junk food makes your junk bigger. You heard it here first.
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Erh... no.
Wait, wait, what I mean is, I only eat salad! Honestly!
Truly Remarkable (Score:5, Interesting)
This is amazing and one more nail in the coffin of our long-held dogma of genes being passed down from two parents, expressed but otherwise unaltered, then passed down to our children, all with just a little bit of mixing and mutation. From epigenetic modifications, to massive variances of stomach flora even between relatives, now to food's ability to affect our very gene expression... we've got some serious reconsidering to do about what makes us who we are.
Very cool.
Re:Truly Remarkable (Score:4, Insightful)
I am given to understand that it was at one point; but friends-of-friends in the university lab scene tell me that, while still considered to be largely ill-understood, the study of epigenetics and other subtle environment/genome interactions was a very hot area, with lots of exploratory work being done.
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Most people have only read the intro-level stuff. What those in the field know needs wider circulation.
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>>lol wut
Edumify yourself:
https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/b360905554fdb7d985256ec5006a7755?OpenDocument [utk.edu]
Re:Truly Remarkable (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be your long held dogma, but people in the field have long known about epigenetic changes to DNA and it's implications. We've known about mitochondrial DNA for decades, same with DNA methylation. The microRNAs are fairly new and an open field but it has been realized that the "Central Dogma" (DNA -> RNA -> Protein) has been barking up the wrong tree for some time.
TFA is interesting and rather unexpected. Small, unprotected RNA molecules aren't "supposed" to survive long outside. If this is true, if it can be repeated it might explain some of the more confusing relationships between diet, growth, cancer and other diseases. The nice thing is that this experiment should be 'relatively' easy to replicate (at least from the detail one gets in TFA - they're not using anything all that unique, weird or expensive).
Since it is such a potentially high profile experiment, the cynic in me wonders why it didn't get published in a higher profile journal. Of course, not every important discovery is published in Nature or Science, but one wonders.
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Since it is such a potentially high profile experiment, the cynic in me wonders why it didn't get published in a higher profile journal. Of course, not every important discovery is published in Nature or Science, but one wonders.
I hate to nit-pick, but it was published in Nature [nature.com]
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But the title is wrong/hyperbole though, isn't it?
It's not genes which are affected, but the function they regulate in the body.
Ahem. (Score:2)
Duh... (Score:3)
This is why we have the phrase 'You are what you eat," after all.
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm going to start eating cats, to make me faster and cuter. I will become the king of Quake 3, and girls.
Sorry kittehs but I must consume you for your positive attributes.
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Diet-based gene expression regulation sounds like a fun way to semi-plausibly rationalize the idea of eating animals to gain their traits.
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Funny)
While it's true that eating lots of pussy could make you king of the girls, I doubt it'll help your Quake 3 skills.
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I'm afraid your grammar skills will deteriorate, however.
Can you really give up these +5 moderated slashdot comments for the sake of enjoying life?
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No that will make your kids promiscuous and playing Quake.
Might want to reconsider.
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Ah, that explains why most cultures frown on cannibalism so much - I guess it results in a stack overflow somewhere in the universe.
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More a problem of the stack growing into code. Remember, kids, we're old, old, old designs, we don't have fancy stuff like endless ram.
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This is why we have the phrase 'You are what you eat," after all.
Unless you are an autophage, in which case you eat what you are.
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If I eat lots of chicken............ i'm going to turn into a chicken?
I can't eat chicken without being afraid that this is true.
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Eat pecs to get pecs (Score:2)
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One of my grandmothers was afraid to eat eggs more than 3 times per week in case she turned into a chicken. I have no idea where she picked up that particular thought process.
Hrm... now I wonder if it's related that I play a lazor chicken in WoW...
Damn! More research now! (Score:2)
In ten years we could have scientifically proven "homeopathic" remedies.
Gene-doping through diet manipulation. Lose weight, increase brain function, increase blood flow while reducing blood pressure, even creating or discovering new gene functions. Perhaps a mutation that gives blood plasma a lubricating effect that prevents arterial plaque.
Or, for the vain men (and women) in the audience, truly reversing hair loss.
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Except for a small portion of the populace, all of those things are better controlled via diet and exercise. Ultimately, if you're too lazy to take care of yourself, perhaps you shouldn't expect to live to be a hundred.
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Except for a small portion of the populace, all of those things are better controlled via diet and exercise. Ultimately, if you're too lazy to take care of yourself, perhaps you shouldn't expect to live to be a hundred.
Legitimate question: Do you really want that last 20 years? There are healthy prosperous people at 80+ but they are the exception not the rule. Is that time you spend in your youth keeping healthy going to be repaid at the end of your life with extended misery?
Sodium Benzoate (Score:2)
Wikipedia: Sodium Benzoate: Safety & Health [wikipedia.org]
Diet Coke to drop additive in DNA damage fear [dailymail.co.uk]
Re:Sodium Benzoate (Score:4, Funny)
But it comes with a free frogurt.
Never mind, that was potassium benzoate.
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K or Na does not matter. It's the benzoate (benzoic acid anion) that matters.
I had read that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) could react with benzoate to make benzene, which is a known carcinogen.
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Oh then it's easy! Just cut back your Vitamin C intake, cancel all those oranges and lemons from your diet and you're set!
The question in my mind is... (Score:2)
How long do these changes last?
If this were a permanent change, one would wonder why all those Southeast Asian people who consume white rice regularly don't end up with high LDL counts counts and subsequently a high per-capita rate of heart attacks.
Is this a short-lived change, like until the affected cells undergo Mitosis again (~30 mins.), or is there another food in tyhese people's diets that counteracts this genetic change?
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actually, there are people in China who are becoming allergic to rice.... which turns out to be the mono-crop mass-produced Genetically-Modified variety that is, thanks to its lower price, not only making it difficult to re-establish native varieties, but is also killing people in the process. well, i guess that solves several problems all at once, then, doesn't it.
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The outstanding thing that comes to mind for me, is that such epigenetic influence could alter embryological development.
Subtle changes in gene expression can mean the difference between being born with a penis or not. (Activation of a specific horome causes atrophy of the mulerian ducts in mammalian embryos, causing them to develop as males. Disruption of this signal during a critical period of development can cause the formation of female or ambiguous genitals, despite having a male genotype. This is just
"you are what you eat" (Score:2)
such a trite, annoying phrase... yet, even more annoyingly, it damn well turns out to be true! i remember seeing this mural, done by some ayurvedic indian guru thousands of years ago. it depicted a tiger mauling its prey violently, and eating it. underneath was an obese man, mouth open and wide-eyed in the same expression as the tiger. i thought at the time, "yes very interesting" and really didn't give it much more thought. yet here we are, in 2011, and "modern science" now backs up "ancient wisdom" y
Genetic-Modified Foods (Score:2)
so tell me... why is Genetic Modification of food allowed? what's a direct consequence of introducing or removing genes from food that we eat? (answer: RTA). so how are we to know that Genetic Modified food will not have unintended consequences, as a direct result of the removal or insertion of genes that would otherwise never have gotten there?
it's been shown years ago that gut bacteria adopt the genetically-modified soya bean genes into their own RNA. what happens when someone decides to "leverage" foo
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Well then do it. Create a drug producing plant and get it to cross pollinate purely by chance.
Put up or shut up.
Selective breeding over generations is GM (Score:5, Interesting)
so tell me... why is Genetic Modification of food allowed?
Selective breeding over generations is genetic modification, and it's been going on for the past four millennia. Did you mean " recombinant genetic modification"?
what happens when someone decides to "leverage" food crops to produce drugs, and those accidentally cross-pollinate with the world's food supply?
Patent lawsuits like Monsanto v. Schmeiser.
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Selective breeding over generations is genetic modification, and it's been going on for the past four millennia. Did you mean " recombinant genetic modification"?
The phrase "genetically modified" means genetically engineered. No one uses the term to mean selective breeding.
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Selective breeding over generations is genetic modification, and it's been going on for the past four millennia. Did you mean " recombinant genetic modification"?
The phrase "genetically modified" means genetically engineered. No one uses the term to mean selective breeding.
Uh, selective breeding is engineering. :)
However, everybody knows what you meant. The parent's point is that the only difference between modern and ancient techniques for food modification is the speed with which it happens. That in itself does have some level of impact I'll grant, but then again our ability to detect disease is also greatly increased - for all we know half the problems with eating modern foods is that ancient farmers selectively bred foods that kill you over time and had no way to tell t
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so tell me... why is Genetic Modification of food allowed?
Because corporations rule the world and they don't a fuck about anything other than the next few quarters' profits.
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Well, those genes ain't some sort of "plastic" that our body can't use, they grow in a more or less normal organism, so you get some jellyfish with your corn or whatever.
In a nutshell, I'm more scared of trans fats than genecrap. Though, given the choice, I could do without either.
My Preference (Score:2)
Tobacco and Addiction... (Score:2)
I wonder if this will have relevant effects on research into addiction to nicotine and other drugs? Such as the addiction to those drugs possibly being written into our genes?
Victor Buono, "Heavy" (Score:3)
A Fat Man's Prayer:
Lord, my soul is ripped with riot,
Incited by my wicked diet.
"We are what we eat!" said a wise old man;
And Lord, if that's true, I'm a garbage can.
I want to rise on Judgment Day, that's plain;
But at my present weight, I'll need a crane.
So grant me strength, that I may not fall,
Into the clutches of cholesterol.
May my flesh with carrot-curls be sated,
That my soul may be poly-unsaturated.
And show me the light, that I may bear witness,
To the President's Council on Physical Fitness.
And at oleomargarine I'll never mutter,
For the road to Hell is spread with butter.
And cream is cursed; and cake is awful;
And Satan is hiding in every waffle.
Mephistopheles lurks in provolone;
The Devil is in each slice of baloney;
Beelzebub is a chocolate drop;
And Lucifer is a lollipop.
Give me this day my daily slice,
But cut it thin and toast it twice.
I beg upon my dimpled knees;
Deliver me from jujubes.
And when my days of trial are done,
And my war with malted milks is won,
Let me stand with the heavenly throng
In a shining robe - size 44 long.
I can do it, Lord, if you'll show to me
The virtues of lettuce and celery;
If you'll teach me the evils of mayonnaise,
The sinfulness of Hollandaise.
Of Pasta a la Milannaise,
Potatoes a la Lyonnaise.
And crisp-fried chicken from the South,
Lord, if you love me, shut my mouth.
In other news: (Score:2)
Genes are made out of what you eat!
Going to wait for other labs to confirm this. (Score:3)
I'm going to have a hard time believing this, until we get a couple more labs to replicate the findings.
Just about every animal on earth, including us, produces copious amounts of RNAse, an enzyme that shreds RNA molecules. And while most enzymes are rather fragile, RNAse is unusally robust -- you can boil some RNAses for hours, and they will retain their activity. They're everywhere, on your skin, in your body -- and it's a pain in the butt when you're working with RNA (you put RNAse inhibitors in everything to keep them from chewing up your material).
It's almost as if it were being produced as some kind of defense mechanism against... hmm....
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I'm still waiting for confirmation that the sun is the center of the universe. So far, that seems not to be the case. Earth is not conclusively the center of anything, either. So until I have a few more labs saying the sun is the center of the universe, I'll plug my ears.
Actually. (Score:2)
Given the amount [upiasia.com] of fraud [thelancet.com] in Chinese [rsc.org] science [nature.com] it makes a lot of sense to wait for confirmation from a more credible source.
And even if Chinese science were whiter than white, your blind-acceptance is decidedly un-scientific.
Really? How is this new news? (Score:2)
I guess it's good to see it mainstreamed. I just wonder what people with complete faith in genes believed activated genes.
Two questions, one criticism. (Score:2)
2. If not, are those populations less sensitive to the effects?
And just to mention here, why call it "white" rice in the summary? Same genes, whole grain or not. TDA doesn't suggest that white rice puts more microRNA into the bloodstream. It doesn't make a distinction anywhere.
But Remember: (Score:3)
A Nightmare (Score:2)
This is fucked up if true.
Antibodies from women with a rare condition known as immune infertility are used in the creation of GMO food
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may282011/gmo-not-food-cs.php [salem-news.com]
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Heh, that gave me a good chuckle.
Jones is classic dis-information - some controversial nuggets of truth mixed in with batshit-crazy to make sure the truths are dismissed as well.
"Oh, that's one of those Alex Jones theories - you know he's batshit crazy, right?"
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What you didn't read is the chance that that hazard will actually manifest, and the comparison between that chance and the chance of getting whatever the disease is preventing. Then there's the severity of side effects to consider... The worst likely side effect of most vaccines is discomfort for up to a few days. The worst likely side effect of many vaccine-preventable diseases is death.
Alex Jones is just as bad as Fox News. He presents only facts that support his particular crazy theory, and ignores every
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Their precious constitution was written over 300 years ago
And which constitution is that? The US Constitution is only 224 years old.
Also, what if you can't impose social jistice by fiat?
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Alexander Hamilton
But, Alexander Hamilton was a federalist!
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Food is essentially a chemical. DNA is a chemical. Should we be surprised that one chemical would have an effect on other chemicals?
Re:not my field.... (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed (Score:2)
And it does provide a new and more terrifying insight into exactly how a carcinogen might work. If the cell membranes aren't the bulwarks we thought they were it certainly explains how a cancer causing agent might get in to do its dirty work.
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I seem to remember reading about traces of certain plastic showing up in people's blood after many years of use. Anyone got more details on this?
Imagine if plastic flatware, cups, etc. is the "lead mugs" of the next few generations? In 2250 they'll look back on us and wonder what the hell we were thinking...
BPA (Score:2)
I seem to remember reading about traces of certain plastic showing up in people's blood after many years of use. Anyone got more details on this?
Imagine if plastic flatware, cups, etc. is the "lead mugs" of the next few generations? In 2250 they'll look back on us and wonder what the hell we were thinking...
You probably remember reading about BPA [wikipedia.org]. BPA is used in the plastic lining inside of cans, poly-carbonate water bottles, thermal printers used for the receipts you get at a typical store. Although BPA both accumulates and is eliminated from the body pretty quickly, some people are worried about long term exposure as it is pretty much in everything these days so we never really get rid of all of it from our bodies because of constant re-exposure...
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Not in dead tissue. In living organisms, enzymatic Q is a big deal. Achieving a high Q is pretty much the mandate of evolution toward complexity. See Freeman Dyson's little monograph "Origins of Life" from 1985. Interfering effects would tend to lower system Q, but now that we can examine the Swiss cheese in nanoscopic detail, I'm not surprising to find a few little green m
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That's a pretty vacuous statement. You could say that about pretty much every material thing. ....nothing happens."
"Cars are made of chemicals, trees are made of chemicals. Should we be surprised when a car crashes into a tree it sometimes knocks it over?"
How about "Gold is a chemical, helium is a chemical. Put them together and
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I know this is supposed to be humour, but it's surprising how many people don't realise that basically all matter is a 'chemical' compound of some variety.
The great unwashed masses seem to be blissfully unaware that there is no such thing as 'chemical free chicken' or what ever marketing spiel the ad men decide to pitch to you.
What we are really poor at is distinguishing between harmful chemical compounds and comparitively harmless compounds. Even water (H2O) is harmful in sufficently high concentrations, e
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Don't forget the profound physiological effects of excessive exposure to solid h2o, getting crushed under ice in an avalanche is pretty unhealthy as well.
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[citation needed] [huffingtonpost.com]
So we're to believe that eating sterile food means we'll become sterile after only three generations of inbreeding? Well, gee... good thing we haven't had seedless fruits for very long, and thank goodness we haven't been breeding food to be grotesquely large, or anything like that!
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Who are "they" and what did "they" study and how did "they" study it? Not to be crude, but links or gtfo. Seriously, nobody cares what you think "they" said or did unless you can prove it.
GMO means a lot of different things to different people. It could mean chemically modified DNA sequences or clever breeding techniques or even simply hybridizing plants using low tech means.
Language exists to express ideas. If you don't provide clarity and context, you're wasting everyone's time.
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Language exists to express ideas. If you don't provide clarity and context, you're wasting everyone's time.
Hrm... I need to make that into a sig file. Or an auto responder on twitter.
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I've never bought into the GMO hysteria, but this article does make me think twice about eating it. If, say, corn, is just digested, I couldn't care less. But if the GMO's DNA will be interacting with my cells, the level of safety concern is different.
I still think most GMO's get a bad rap - people are starving and going blind because of the fear (both worse than any GMO side-effects), but those are 3rd world problems, and I have 1st world problems to worry about.
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The reason to buy into GMO hysteria is that if something goes wrong, it can't be undone. I'm sure there are plenty of upsides, but the research needs to be done under laboratory conditions to ensure that nothing escapes into the environment where it can combine with random other genes in ways that haven't been fully considered.
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And here's your problem: How? How do you want to make sure that "pure" plants do not get "contaminated" by "altered" plants? You'd have to keep them separated by a few miles to make sure that no pollen gets spread. Well, good luck with that!
We also don't really have a choice anymore. Yes, you and me, we can most likely switch to "healthy", unaltered food. How many people can? How many are dependent on that cheap meat from the pig with six additional ribs and the cents-per-pound rice with the genes from god
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Some of those problems of starvation and reduced revenue are actually a direct result of GMO interference. Take cotton. There is a plant that yield three times the normal amount of cotton. Which is great. But it also requires a lot more herbicide because it's also more fragile. Which is, in the end, bad for the cotton farmer. In the end, he gets as much money for his cotton as he did before, because the increase in sales are eaten up by the herbicides (plus he gets a not-so-healthy dose of it with his hand
Re:GMOs - become sterile (Score:5, Informative)
Can't tell if trolling or just very ignorant. I could have modded, but I'd rather educate. First off, treating all GMOs as if they have the same traits is just stupid. There are bunches of different genes that have been inserted and potentially any gene could be used, so acting as if one trait should matter for every other one is beyond senseless. Second, the traits you're talking about were not designed for that purpose (although that was a side effect the companies no doubt considered), but rather was to prevent the flow of the genes to other people's crops (the very thing people are trying to sue Monsanto over now...they're evil bastards if they do, and evil bastards if they don't. Third, those traits are not in use anyway. Because most seed sold nowadays is hybrid seed (hybrid and GMO are different and commonly confused but not mutually exclusive things) farmers typically want to buy new seed anyway, as they have been doing long before GMOs came on the scene. Before you complain about something, might want to do some basic fact checking first. Fourth, I highly doubt the study you mention was done all that well in light of the hundreds [blogspot.com] showing no harm from GM food and the fact that the best causative mechanism for why GMO food would be inherently dangerous is...oh wait, no one has ever proposed any coherent way that could happen. Fifth, this new paper (assuming it is accurate) says nothing about GMO safety. There are thousands of genes for all sorts of stuff in every single thing you eat. I highly doubt transgenes are going to behave differently, especially considering that the only three traits currently in use (the Bt gene, an EPSP synthase gene, and viral coat protein genes) can very easily be found in non-GM food too. So basically, no, this has no relevance on genetic engineering whatsoever, but I have no doubt someone out there will cite it as such.
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And if it wasn't for gene manipulation, we'd still have no cheap insulin for the diabetic, I know, I know.
It has no bad side effects. That's what science says. And while I usually trust science, I doubt that we know enough about toying with genes to make such a bold statement. The whole thing isn't even a generation old, and, well, since we're talking about genes here, the real outcome will probably be visible in a generation or two, probably later. The question is whether it's too late by then if we missed
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I'm pretty sure I saw that one too. When I was 8, I had a subscription to both PS and Ranger Rick.
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Doe's that mean that i will turn into the Ribeye i just ate?
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actually, you're largely what you drink (hydrogen & oxygen), followed by what you breath (oxygen, carbon and nitrogen) which makes up 96% of what you are..
Re:Who Knew? (Score:4, Funny)
That's strange, I don't remember eating any sexy beasts.
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I dunno ... but I know a whole load of pseudo-diet-quacks are sure to be bashing out new books/products as we speak. Said books will take full advantage of the new word.
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They're not trying to make a *case* for anything, I'd guess. They studied some phenomena and found some interesting heretofore unknown behavior and reported it.
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You think it would have been better to use cats and rats?
Re:If this were done in an English speaking countr (Score:4, Funny)
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You suck cox.
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I told you, it's a glandular problem and I have heavy bones.
Yes! That's it! It's not that I eat too much fat and sit around my lazy butt all day! It's just those genes in my food that make my glands do some weird shit and that somehow cling to my bones.
Get those genes out of my food!