Democracy in action

[mikeh]

What about octopuses? I read an article recently that says their dna is "truly alien". Shouldn't people be banned from eating them, lest that alien dna contaminate the human race?

You should try reading articles by people who understand their topics. Even a brief look at the cited research would reveal that the authors' main point was that octopi have the same basic genetic makeup as other lifeforms on earth. Some sensationalist-seeking, scientifically illiterate media writers/editors took some language out of context.

 

But, why let reality spoil an idea?

[blackshoe]

I know, Zel. I thought it was amusing, that's all.

[mike777]

I recently read some short article about octopus and their like.

 

 

the main point was how life

intelligence can evolve in ways...many ways non human.

 

 

All are natural

---------------------------------

 

 

I should repeat none, none of those proves that live cannot be seeded.

 

Seeded through the vacuum of space from beings who want to spread life.

There does seem to be evidence that life can exist or the basics of life in a rock through the vastness of space.....open to debate

 

Of course I have no proof...just suggestions

--------------------

 

 

yes octopus may be alien life....humans may be more than mere star dust or not

humans on planet earth may or may not be pure random, chance

 

 

At this point let us all just follow the evidence and keep an open mind.

[onoway]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1505660#t=article The New England Journal of Medicine article calls for mandatory labelling of GMOs.

 

Germany reportedly has recently banned the growing of GMO crops, I haven't seen the article or tracked it down yet. It was sent to me as an adjunct to the news that Germany has also banned fracking. Perhaps the insistence of these companies that only self serving "scientific studies" are valid is finally backfiring. It's encouraging to think that a country such as Germany is apparently showing some sense of responsibility to future generations. Now if only others - or at least ours - would follow suit..

[Zelandakh]

Germany has a strong Green party, America does not. The political pressures are quite different so you should not necessarily expect the same response.

[blackshoe]

Heh. Fallen Angels, by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. In part a prediction of what might happen if the Greens ran the world.

[y66]

This is old news (March 17, 2016) but good news for progressive water cooler people who believe they are entitled to know what's in the food they buy: How Vermont beat Big Food. Cheers OP!

[helene_t]

The chances are quite considerable that there are already mouse genes within an elephant.

You mean homologues that are so close that the elephant version could turn into the mouse version by a naturally occuring mutation, for example by reacctivating and identical but silenced gene?

 

Pam's point is (correct me if I am wrong?) that a mouse gene inserted into an elephant chromosome can be a more complex mutation than the small steps that naturally occur from generation to generation.

 

It is also qualitatively a bit different since the artificially inserted gene is sometimes a combination of a foreign gene and a label.

 

I don't know if this is relevant from a health or environmental risk POV, but in any case it is a bit oversimplified to say that genetic engineering is just mimicking natural processes.

[Zelandakh]

You mean homologues that are so close that the elephant version could turn into the mouse version by a naturally occuring mutation, for example by reacctivating and identical but silenced gene?

it is quite a while aince August but I think I merely wanted to point out that even quite distinct species share a great deal of DNA, much more than one might suspect from the outward appearance. That mice and elephants share DNA is surely not controversial!

[barmar]

it is quite a while aince August but I think I merely wanted to point out that even quite distinct species share a great deal of DNA, much more than one might suspect from the outward appearance. That mice and elephants share DNA is surely not controversial!

There's more to a species than just its genes, though. If you implant a fertilized mouse egg into an elephant womb (the opposite is too horrible to consider), I don't think you'll get a baby mouse, because the mouse genes need to interact with the environment of a mouse womb to develop properly.

 

So there are many genes that are similar or identical across a wide variety of species, but they act quite differently depending on the rest of the genome or environment. For instance, the Hox genes that create limbs in vertebrates are also responsible for creating antennae in insects.

[onoway]

The Dark Act was defeated by a slim margin, and now a bunch of companies ( many of whom had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars or more fighting labeling) have decided to cut their losses and start labelling if there is GMO content in their products. If the cost of the food goes up, it isn't the labelling that did it, they could have changed over for far less than they spent on supporting anti labelling campaigns.

[PassedOut]

Saw an article about this in yesterday's NYT: Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops:

 

The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become indispensable to feeding the world’s growing population, while also requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides.

 

Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents, using independent data as well as academic and industry research, shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise.

 

An analysis by The Times using United Nations data showed that the United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields — food per acre — when measured against Western Europe, a region with comparably modernized agricultural producers like France and Germany. Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report found that “there was little evidence” that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops.

 

At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States, even as major crops like corn, soybeans and cotton have been converted to modified varieties. And the United States has fallen behind Europe’s biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides.

But the GMOs aren't completely without benefit:

 

The industry is winning on both ends — because the same companies make and sell both the genetically modified plants and the poisons. Driven by these sales, the combined market capitalizations of Monsanto, the largest seed company, and Syngenta, the Swiss pesticide giant, have grown more than sixfold in the last decade and a half. The two companies are separately involved in merger agreements that would lift their new combined values to more than $100 billion each.