The GMO in question is a bacterium with an appetite for crude oil, ready to gobble up spills. Food and Drug Administration approves the Flavr Savr tomato for sale on grocery store shelves. The delayed-ripening tomato has a longer shelf life than conventional tomatoes.
Research shows that the super weeds are seven to 11 times more resistant to glyphosate than the standard susceptible population. The marketplace begins embracing GMO technology at an alarming rate. In less than a decade, the bugs have adapted to the genetically engineered toxin produced by the modified plants. Critics were concerned that the hormones could get into the milk supply and possibly harm the cows.
However, for the most part, the public and the farmers have accepted BGH. Bt Crops. In , agricultural researchers at the University of Washington discovered that a small, circular DNA molecule called a plasmid could insert itself into the nucleus of a plant cell and cause tumors. They had discovered what amounted to a natural form of gene splicing. Enzymes were also developed to make the walls of plant cells porous. By , scientists at two universities and the seed giant Monsanto had figured out how to take out harmful genes from plasmids, insert the desired gene and get the plasmid into the plant cell where it would introduce the gene into the nucleus of the plant itself.
These techniques opened the floodgates for genetic engineering, and lead to the development of Bt, Roundup Ready and other genetically modified crops that will be covered in the next story. Genetically modified crops have taken over in most of the major agricultural states.
Nebraska and South Dakota were the two highest percentage states at 97 percent each. Genetically modified corn was planted in 80 percent of the fields in the U. Again, sophisticated farmers in the Midwest led the way. This comment is primarily aimed at Sitn Flash? I am trained as a scientist math, physics, etc.
This must lead a disinterested observer to ask what they Monsanto, Dupont and their ilk are trying to hide, or at least to be receptive to even Conspiracy Theorists who claim on the basis of likewise anecdotal evidence that they cause cancer and other ills.
It would not be amiss here to mention the U. No, thank you. Even the farmer cannot use his own corn to plant a crop the following year.
Now, I am just a typical skeptical scientist drawing common-sense conclusions from the facts that I think I know. That is, they should have started feeding laboratory rats their Roundup-tainted corn e. Gabriel and Sitn? But I also want to feel that I can possibly make the choices I want to in what to eat, without having to worry that some corporate giant will have bought their label-free way into the food market, which would thereby affect me.
American plant in use for literally hundreds of years or more in that continent and that can be used broken up as a sweetener. And it has no side effects. However, the plant stevia has about 80 other molecules, which may or may not be the reason the other molecules why stevia has no side effects. See you in a couple of generations, and meanwhile may your grandparents not suffer the fate of mine! So …, I feel no scientific compunction in drawing my own conclusions in this case, or in trying to avoid being a Guinea pig for Monsanto.
And then avoid eating them. So call me a conspiracy theorist. Sounds like a sound theory to me! Hello and thanks for your comment! I am a scientist biologist. That is, the process of genetically engineering food does not make it bad for you. I think it is reasonable to label GMOs if it actually has useful information in it—like what the food is modified with.
Also, your understanding of how glyphosate-resistance RoundUp-resistance works is a little off. The plants do NOT bind the pesticide. Is that to say I think Monsanto is a great company that can do no wrong?
Given the RoundUp-resistant weed problem, we need to proceed carefully with investigating how they might affect our environment, and public-sector research is key for this! But I am hopeful that GM foods can do good in the world by helping us to lessen the environmental impact of farming. I am a high school student writing a paper on GMOs and I found this article and your comments to be very helpful! However, after researching for this product, I find this article and series very interesting.
I find it interesting that many people were upset by the part of the article that commented on price changes caused by GMO labeling. I completely agree with the article: if GMOs were labeled, it might cause the public to view them as something dangerous since they have to be singled out with a label therefore decreasing demand for them. GMO crop prices might also increase as producers tried to make a profit off fewer sales.
Overall, I found this article very informative; I especially appreciated your comment about allergies, since that is an angle I had never considered before. If you had any more information regarding GMOs and how they work, I would find that very interesting! Thank you for taking the time to read this! Excellent blog for lots of extremely use bits of information and facts!
It is a very good feeling to finally acquire such a handy resource. I have been previously searching the site over an hour or so now and also have really found out a lot. Just wanted to let you know. Of course these products can be dangerous to human life if not to follow it all, but everything is controlled by specialized commissions.
You accept it or not, but our future for GMOs, but otherwise everything is very bad. GMO will one day change us humans to superbeing. Would it be good or bad, only time will tell.
I found it very usefull. If provided me with tons of information for my project. I would reccomend this website to anyone who needs information on GMO technology. Thank you Harvard! If GMO is so great, why is there any debate about whether or not a product must be labelled? If I have no fear of competition, why vote for monopoly?
Putting two compatible strains of corn grass together in a field hoping to increase yield is substantially different than messing with the encoding of an organism on the genetic level.
Noticing desirable traits in two dogs and allowing them to breed them is markedly different than building a non-native chemical compound cooked up in a lab into a plants genetics. The modern era is punctuated by incredible technological potential in the hands of children playing with matches. If you remove one card from a house of cards and the house does not collapse, it is irrelevant, just pull another card — oh, no collapse yet?
Just keep pulling cards dummy, it will soon come screaming down around your ears, which in my opinion, is no great loss on humanity, one or more morons collapsing something large and heavy onto their fool heads. After reading your comment, I can immediately tell you are very misinformed. All of your argument is based on opinions that have been drawn from sources with insufficient evidence. The writing shows that you have not been properly educated on this subject, and therefore should not be making false comments on this article.
I must say, I am quite offended by your comment. My mom is a nurse, and some of my best friends parents are doctors, and all of us are vaccinated every year. And though we have been defeating diseases for years, they took a large toll on human society. For example, the black death killed a third of europe before it slowed down.
Some people dont think that GMO should be labelled because it would just add to the myth of the dangers of GMO, which many major companies are using to sell more products. And I am almost one hundred percent sure that you have eaten sweet potatoes, which are naturally GMO, and have been for years or so.
GMO is not super dangerous, and it is not super different from artificial selection. This is a scientific site, so please keep your trollish comments off of it. I found this article researching for a school paper, and I thought it was informative and well written. I just wanted to say that I thought it was a great article! What are genetics? What is modification? What are organisms? GMO seems too broad of a topic to me. A poodle is a genetically modified wolf right? My favorite replies are the ones who just reject opposition without facts.
Technically speaking, everything is genetically modified all the time. No two things have the exact same DNA. So, selective breeding is a modification, but the genes changes even if the organism replicates naturally. Modifying it through scientific methods is just more controlled. This insight from above article just shocking. These changes might be difficult to catch; their impact on the production of proteins might not even turn up in testing.
It is also true that many pro-GM scientists in the field are unduly harsh—even unscientific—in their treatment of critics. GM proponents sometimes lump every scientist who raises safety questions together with activists and discredited researchers. Most of them are nonscientists, or retired researchers from obscure institutions, or nonbiologist scientists, but the Salk Institute's Schubert also insists the study was unfairly dismissed.
Schubert joins Williams as one of a handful of biologists from respected institutions who are willing to sharply challenge the GM-foods-are-safe majority. Both charge that more scientists would speak up against genetic modification if doing so did not invariably lead to being excoriated in journals and the media. These attacks, they argue, are motivated by the fear that airing doubts could lead to less funding for the field.
Both scientists say that after publishing comments in respected journals questioning the safety of GM foods, they became the victims of coordinated attacks on their reputations. Schubert even charges that researchers who turn up results that might raise safety questions avoid publishing their findings out of fear of repercussions. There is evidence to support that charge. The paper showed that GM corn seemed to be finding its way from farms into nearby streams and that it might pose a risk to some insects there because, according to the researchers' lab studies, caddis flies appeared to suffer on diets of pollen from GM corn.
Many scientists immediately attacked the study, some of them suggesting the researchers were sloppy to the point of misconduct. There is a middle ground in this debate. Many moderate voices call for continuing the distribution of GM foods while maintaining or even stepping up safety testing on new GM crops. They advocate keeping a close eye on the health and environmental impact of existing ones. But they do not single out GM crops for special scrutiny, the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Jaffe notes: all crops could use more testing.
Even Schubert agrees. In spite of his concerns, he believes future GM crops can be introduced safely if testing is improved. Stepped-up testing would pose a burden for GM researchers, and it could slow down the introduction of new crops. That is a fair question. But with governments and consumers increasingly coming down against GM crops altogether, additional testing may be the compromise that enables the human race to benefit from those crops' significant advantages.
This article was originally published with the title "Are Engineered Foods Evil? Food, Inc. Peter Pringle. Tough Lessons from Golden Rice.
Martin Enserink in Science , Vol. Natasha Gilbert in Nature , Vol. Watch a video on how genetically modified crops are made at ScientificAmerican. David H. Freedman is a journalist who has been covering science, business and technology for more than 30 years. Credit: Nick Higgins. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options.
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