h a l f b a k e r yClearly this is a metaphor for something.
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//it's not like non-GMO foods are harmful to me// The hasn't been satisfactorily proven. In fact, almost everyone who eats non-GMO food eventually comes down with some sort of illness or other, or else they age prematurely (ie, before reaching 200). Personally, I think that non-GMO, "as found" stuff is dangerous and ought to be withdrawn until there's more evidence. In the meantime, we can manage on GMO foods. |
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A nice nut and bolt penetrating an image of each of the GM
products would be a very clear indicator of the presence of
any Frankenstein foods. |
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[xenzag], you're a real risk-taker. Fancy, eating plants many of which have evolved all kinds of toxins to deter herbivores. And so little is known about these plants! I admire your courage, but I'll stick to things whose genomes have been properly looked at, thanks. |
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//Fancy, eating plants many of which have evolved all
kinds of toxins to deter herbivores.// |
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There's a simple way to protect oneself from the toxic
scheming of the plant world, by feeding the candidate
vegetation to pigs you can glean all sorts of
information. Did the pig prefer starvation to the plant
matter? Did the pig eat the offering and immediately
keel over? Is the pig able to live, grow and reproduce
with the candidate plant as a significant part of its diet?
If the latter is true, it's probably safe to eat the pig. |
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Max - I'll take my chances with none of Monsanto (agent
orange) carcenogenic toxins in my food. Have you read
Kafka's Metamorphosis? How do you think Gregor turned
into a giant cockroach overnight? |
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//Monsanto (agent orange) carcenogenic toxins// |
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Ah, my apologies. I hadn't appreciated that Monsanto put Agent Orange into their GM crops. Or did you mean other carcinogens? Please cite, for my enlightenment. |
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// How do you think Gregor turned into a giant cockroach overnight? // |
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Is that a trick question ? By standing for election on the Democratic ticket, of course ... |
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I think she's referring to Gregor Mendel, who invented jeans, and whose son was a composer. |
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//Monsanto (agent orange) carcenogenic toxins// |
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An how exactly do these toxins end up in GMO food? Does
Monsanto actually go to the trouble of modifying the
plants DNA to actually produce carcinogenic toxins?
Seems like a lot of work, and surely bad business. |
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...Or have we made the logical leap from thinking
Monsanto are uncaring profiteers, to actually thinking
they are overtly evil and seeking to cause harm? |
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That hardly seems rational. |
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I tell you what though, those links certainly gave me cancer. |
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The reason why GM crops are gradually being accepted more widely (apart from the fact that they continue to be benign and often beneficial) is that the anti-GM lobby are, on the whole, a bunch of frothing idiots who make claims such as [xenzag] did. |
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There are a few rational, sane arguments against GM crops, but not one of the fulminating twats seem capable of either understanding or expressing them. That is why they are gradually losing ground and credibility. |
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I have been disappointed that despite there being all sorts of GMO, there have been no freakishly weird newsworthy episodes related to said crops. All the news is the same old prosaic poisonings by industrial chemicals, salmonella in the peanut butter, horse meat instead of beef, aardvark meat instead of horse. A prion or 2. Bah. I was hoping the antiGMO folks might contract some Dr GMO Moreau working out of Western Sahara to construct some... things - unnatural at a distance sort of things - that would convert doubting folks like notexactly and Max. |
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Not that I am suggesting anything to xenzag. |
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I apologize if this was already the plot of a Syfy channel special. |
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If it has not already been that plot: Syfy - my rates are cheap! |
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Syfy: I'm cheaper. And I can bring my own GMOs. |
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I hear Putin's over-animated puppet is a big fan of
Frankenstein
food, and
Monsanto can look forward to his leering face endorsing their
products, with the simple slogan 'tremendous!' (hint to designer - attach a magnifying glass to the packaging to allow shoppers to read the label, which will be squashed down to the size of a postage stamp in one corner to make enough room for that giant flabby head) |
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//That is why they are gradually losing ground and credibility//
Actually, the opposite is true. The market share for 'Organic' produce is increasing. |
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In principle, I am in favour of genetic modification. However, I do not trust the companies (such as Monsanto) which control the technology. Is there a way I can campaign for GMO labelling (so as to enable informed consumer choice) without being associated with frothing loons? |
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//Some animal proteins have been proven to be carcinogenic// |
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Cool. Can you post a link? And what are they used for in GM crops? |
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//[link]s I don't know if you can get a plant to synthesize casein.// |
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You could get plants to synthesize casein. But then again casein is already present in dairy products, and in human breast milk. |
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Also, a quick trawl of the web suggests that there is no suggestion that casein is carcinogenic. The "theory" seems to come from a study in china in which consumption of larger amounts of dairy products was associated with increased cancer risk (and, as noted, dairy products contain casein - but they also contain a gazillion other things). Given that the chinese have been known to add melamine to milk in order to give apparently higher protein levels (melamine reacts the same way as protein, toward the assay used for protein), I think the whole thing is probably bollocks. |
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One of the most frustrating things about the GM debate is that the anti-GM lobby (like our own dear [xen]) never focusses on the real issues; instead, they come out with these completely bollocks stories based on complete and wilful ignorance of the subject. In general, they do exactly what they accuse the pro-GM outfits of doing. |
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If it's good enough for Trump (who practically controls Monsanto aka Frankentox Products) then it's good enough for Max. |
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Well, [bigs], what you say makes sense to me. |
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Yes, it's possible that high-protein diets have a link to cancer. It's also possible that animal protein is worse than plant proteins in this respect, but I would doubt it very much. Proteins are broken down into amino acids (plus a few di- and tri-peptides) very quickly on digestion. It's possible that some amino acids are actually carcinogenic, but we need amino acids, and good vegetarian diets provide roughly the same a.a. profile as any other diet. Given the other differences in diet (eg, do you barbecue meat? do you eat meat fats? etc etc), I would say that the idea that animal proteins are carcinogenic is basically hooey. |
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The idea that evolution has made resource-hungry animals more likely to get cancer is interesting but very dodgy. Evolution will tend to select for individual or species fitness. |
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And yes, obesity does increase cancer risk - partly because there's just more person to get cancer, and also because of all the metabolic crap (to use a technical term). High-fructose corn syrup (even from non-GM maize) causes more cancers than any number of Chernobyls and any number of asbestos-insulated houses. |
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Of course we should be very careful of what we eat, and should be wary of changing what we eat. Engineering crops to make more sugar (I don't know if it's been done - probably has) only makes sense if that sugar is used intelligently; if it's just used to make cheaper, sweeter sodas then it's a bad thing. |
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We should probably be very suspicious of any crops developed over the last 2-5000 years. The genetic changes in all major crops, including cereals and fruits, have been colossal - vastly increased yields and often much higher levels of sugars, starches and oils. We're just not evolved to deal with an agricultural, carb-heavy diet. |
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There are also reasons to be wary of GM crops in environmental terms. I can't however think of any specific concerns (except, as you mentioned, the possibility of GM crops contaminating non-GM crops). Glyphosate resistance (Roundup-ready) is only an advantage to the plant if the area is treated with glyphosate, so such plants are no more likely than any other to invade wild areas, or non-glyphosate-treated farmland. However, the transfer of glyphosate resistance is an issue to farmers, who may find that weed grasses (for instance) become glyphosate resistant. |
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Another possible environmental concern is insect resistance in engineered crops. For the farmland itself, it's a good thing if it reduces the need for pesticides, since it will kill only the insects that feed on the crop (rather than all or most insects in the area). If the resistance were to spread to wild relatives of the crop plants, that could be a bad thing. On the other hand, I haven't heard of insect resistance being transferred. And, on yet another hand, we do far, far more damage by introducing natural but alien species into environments willy nilly. |
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So (pausing for breath), there are some reasons to be concerned about some GM crops. The US has got it approximately right, although they should probably have been more cautious initially. The EU has never rationalized its ban on GM crops, and suffers economically as a result, with no net benefit to the environment (in fact, probably, net harm); but it is gradually becoming more open to rational argument. |
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And finally, to reiterate, what pisses me off almost infinitely is when idiots like [xen] base their arguments against GM on things like Donald Trump (seriously?) or "GM plants give you cancer". Those arguments will ultimately fail because they are uninformed and ill-educated nonsense; and any genuine arguments and concerns will be thrown out with them. As a result, we are likely to end up with too little, rather than too much, regulation of GM in the environment. |
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//base their arguments against GM on things like Donald Trump.// I should make you a little badge Max which says "If it's good enough for Trump to put in his mouth and swallow, then it's good enough for me" :-) |
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//Unfortunately glyphosate resistance is not present in bees.// |
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I'm not sure I follow. Is there evidence to suggest that glyphosate harms bees? OK - a quick Google suggests that the evidence is ambiguous at best (the most recent data says no; bee advocates say yes), but it's a fair point. |
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But then there's a corollary question: if farmers can't use glyphosate on growing crops, what do they use instead, and has it been tested for bee-safeness? If you're going to use any chemical on crops, glyphosate is one of the most benign; if it replaces a worse alternative, that's a gain. |
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//self pollinating plants ?// That's actually a very good idea, and I wonder if anyone is working on it. (Of course many plants self-pollinate; but crops that can *only* self pollinate would be good.) |
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//I should make you a little badge// [xen], even you know that you're making stupid (or at best, potentially amusing) arguments. If you are worried about GM crops then try learning enough to make cogent arguments. |
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// The whole 'engineered to grow anywhere' means they are very hard to get rid of
once established, and have many times have polluted non GMO crops so other farmers
cannot make a choice. // |
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I was under the impression that GMO crops are usually engineered to be incapable of
reproduction, so that the GMO companies get repeat customers. I was also under the
impression that that's actually a bad thing in that it costs the farmers more than if
they were able to take seeds from one year's crop to plant the next year. |
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Depends on the crop. As far as I know (and I haven't kept
up
with it over the last few years) Golden Rice, which produces
extra vitamin A, was developed and distributed pro bono,
and
can be regrown from harvested seeds. |
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[After a little Wikipeding]: Golden Rice is available without
licence (and can be regrown from seed) to farmers earning
less than $10,000pa from it, which includes almost all
farmers in the regions where vitamin A deficiency kills or
blinds about 1 million children per year. [xenzag] might like
to know that Monsanto (as was) was one of the companies
involved in granting these free rights. |
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Maybe we could work up a rice that doesn't concentrate
arsenic..? Nasty stuff doing damage that's not so easy to
spot. |
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Just edit it to bioaccumulate a different element from that group ... antimony, or maybe bismuth or selenium ? |
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// engineered to be incapable of reproduction // |
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Can you get GMO politicians yet ? |
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//bioaccumulate a different element from that group// |
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that's kind of the problem. Arsenate is a phosphate analog. |
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Is arsenic accumulation by rice a problem? I suppose it might
well be, in areas with unfortunate aquifers. My mate (in the
jovial, comradely sense; not the reproductive sense) is
working on a cheap biosensor for arsenic in well water (or,
more to the point, unwell water). |
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If arsenic bioaccumulation is a problem, it might be solved by
getting rice to express an arsenic binding protein (as used by
bacteria; and by my mate in his biosensor) in the roots, to
lock up that naughty arsenic and keep it out of the seed. |
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That sounds like something you could get a grant for. |
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We strongly suspect he's thinking more in terms of long-term royalties, stock options, a Nobel prize, and quite likely yet another statue to him somewhere ... |
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Not _too_ long term, if you don't mind. Re-roofing the
northeast pineapple house won't pay for itself. |
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