Hard News: That Buzzing Sound
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Craig, Sacha, put it away, please. It's getting embarrassing.
George: What I find embarrasing and more than a little tiresome is being accused of calling someone a racist when I've done so such thing.
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I knew this Government would be good for satire. I had no idea it would be this good. They're writing it for us, literally.
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Erratum: they left out the mixed nuts.
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JLM,
@George, it's okay, I get it. I think we've had this conversation before on frogblog, anyway.
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I knew this Government would be good for satire. I had no idea it would be this good. They're writing it for us, literally.
I always wondered how they made rat poison
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Time to call "Time Gentleman, Please" on certain currents in this conversation?
I expect that Russell is preparing an exciting new posting for us, at the end of a very interesting week. In the meantime, I have my tickets for the Chiefs vs Brumbies tonight!
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Time to call "Time Gentleman, Please" on certain currents in this conversation?
I expect that Russell is preparing an exciting new posting for us, at the end of a very interesting week. In the meantime, I have my tickets for the Chiefs vs Brumbies tonight!
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and you get it twice!
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Time to call "Time Gentleman, Please" on certain currents in this conversation?
Hey if that"other" thread can get to almost 100 pages, so can we!
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Hi Paul
do you think that all universities and research institutions are as careful about their transgenic research
In New Zealand? Yeah the penalty in terms of lost funding is so great I don't know of anyone who would risk not being really careful.
That said there is an issue when the researchers concerned know with absolute certainty that what they are doing is risk free yet the regulations require them to treat the plants as if they were deadly organisms about to wipe the planet clean of all life.
It's really really hard to stay serious about safety sometimes because of the ridiculous nature of some of the rules. But as far as I know everyone really does try.
But with the best efforts possible issues still occur. There was a transgenic brocolli left in the field to flower that shouldn't have happened. Nobody in their right mind could consider that plant as "dangerous" but it still should have been pulled out, or more accurately the researchers still should have gone back to the field to make sure everything got pulled out on the first pass.
For me it's one of the basic problems with safety regulations. If you overregulate then you end up with situations where people have to handle safe things as if they were deadly - that inevitably leads to a bad attitude (that's human nature folks).
For the folks in NZ who do handle dangerous stuff I know they are very careful.
Worldwide? Who knows. My experience is that researchers are very aware of the real risks associated with their work and behave accordingly.
But when you are worrying about stuff it seems strange to worry about a group of people (researchers) who are universally trying to do good and who are all pretty smart about it. There are other groups of people I'd be much keener to have you worry about. It's perspective bro.
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Hi Mikaere
Fair enough, we'll disagree on the viability of keeping the research in the lab and still making progress.
I think you probably misunderstood me on this though
However, Bart, your post about the awesomeness of GE being realised in the near future with respect to longer shelf times etc, is basically a pandering to the worst kind of Western consumerism.
Storage and shelf life aren't just western issues. it's not about having 5 month old tomatoes that look just fine in the Parnell fruit store.
And I agree entirely eating "in season" food is a great idea.
But a huge amount of the food we produce on the planet for humans is lost because it rots before it can get to the people who need to eat it. Yes the business argument for storage life and shelf life is usually around supermarkets. But talk to the scientists and they'll point to places where there are no cool stores. There silly ideas like storage life become matters of hunger.
If it can't be bred conventionally, then ditch it.
On this we just will disagree. This ain't a discussion we could resolve online. Over coffee we could talk about whether there is any difference between breeding and engineering but it is too long and involved. And I'm also conscious that it steps into ideology areas and I just don't like trying to changes someone's ideology.
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I understand that alot of genetic research on plants is about enhanced natural selection (eugenics?). Once you isolate the gene you want, you can test for it and select your breeding stock. I also understood that more glysophate (roundup) resistant crops have been bred using these methods than using GM methods.
Yes sometimes it's easier/better to figure out how things work and then use directed breeding. But that's only a path to market because the better and simpler methods of engineering are blocked. Even with those blocks the vast majority of work will only see commercial viability as a transgenic.
No roundup resistance is almost all GE. It is plausible to breed resistance but not practical.
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Ahem, Craig (and Simon and Mark while I'm at it). I go away for less than a day and get mistaken for a racist. Not often that one prepares a rebuttal several days beforehand, which I presume you all missed:
Wha? No, no, no. It was just that you said "Asian" and "pie" in the same sentence, and my mind wandered off to a very strange place, somewhere beyond the motorway. What followed was in no way meant as a comment on your comments. Apologies if you thought that's what I was doing.
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JLM,
Bart, there was an article in he Guardian recently of a cereal strain that had been bred or sported that was Roundup resistant, but I can't find the article in a hurry.
I remember it was being grown in Europe, despite having similar qualities to GM seed.
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Where I draw the line is trying to register patents on plant varieties that are already widely used merely by virtue of having isolated and described their genomes.
Aye. I'm not jumping up and down about GE food and other products. I see it will have uses, and some of those uses will have real substantial benefits beyond cheaper, looking nicer, easier to grow etc. Like a lot of NZers I still find the process a bit creepy, and I'd like consumers to be given the information so they can make their own decisions.
When companies come in and start to take some sort of ownership over naturally occurring things: types of food, human dna etc, I feel that governments need to step in and bring out the 'declined' stamp. Some things should not ever be privatised.
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OK, I may have over-reacted (should never post while tired). Sorry, chaps. And no, I'm not going to claim that makes me a person of "character".
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JLM,
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Sorry JLM I wasn't very clear. Yes it is possible to breed roundup resistant plants sometimes. After all the first gene to provide roundup resistance in the GE crops was a plant gene.
But it wouldn't be possible for all plants, some just would never develop a resistant enzyme. And even for plants where is was possible it would take a huge effort, which would be pretty silly given the ease of using the GE approach.
And more important than the waste of time and resources - the exercise of selective breeding and in all likelyhood deliberate mutation to get a "naturally bred" roundup resistant plant would result in massive changes to the genome. Essentially you'd replace a relatively precise process of adding one gene with a random shuffling and mutation of the genome.
Both approaches should leave you with a plant that should need lots of testing to make sure the changes had done no harm. But oddly only the more precise technology would require such testing.
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I was once a molecular biologist, a lab-mate of Bart's even (Hi Bart!). I'm not a big fan of the Green Party's GE policy, but that didn't prevent me (eventually) joining them.
Several pages ago James Butler said
That's what I hear, but I'm yet to work out how without leaving my keyboard. Coming from an IT background what I want is a web FAQ or wiki page saying "How to moderate any policy with which you have an issue, using perl".
Substitute "python" for "perl" and that could be me. I said it so often that I ended up on the Green's policy committee (Hi JLM).
So, I'd like my fellow biologists to know that there is a diversity of opinion within the Greens on GE, as there is on most issues, and if any greens want to discuss it (Hi Mikaere) at the AGM or whenever then I'm happy to stand in for Bart in making the case that GE is not inherently dangerous.
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OK, I may have over-reacted (should never post while tired). Sorry, chaps.
Well, so did I -- and I'm sorry about that.
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JLM,
Hi Peter, you're on - if I have time! should be a great talk.
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Hi Peter
Good to hear you are still around and good to see you are standing up in the greens.
Oh JLM the link you gave refers to breeding of a herbacide resistant crop but it isn't roundup. Just a minor point but the herbicide is a bit nastier than roundup.
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JLM,
Thanks Bart, I should have read it more closely. While this is still a GE/GM thread, how will the current model deal with developing weed resistance to roundup?
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Heh I think it's just you and me here now JLM
Developing resistance is just a fact of life with any drug/pesticide/herbicide. The issues are the same with all. If you apply enough low level selection pressure you will see resistance.
That's one reason there is so much effort put into controlling how farmers manage BT crops - to avoid the development of resistance - and so far it's worked. The only Bt resistance seen thus far has been when BT was sprayed.
As for herbicide resistance yes it will develop eventually especially if folks misuse the herbicide. Not much more to say. Think of it as the same problem as antibiotic resistance and you'll see why scientists are keen to have farmers educated (conspiracy theorists would describe that as big business controlling the farmer).
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Heh I think it's just you and me here now JLM
Some of us don't feel they have to contribute their lack of expertise but are still keen to read on.
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