h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do unmodified crops cross-pollinate with weeds? Not to my knowledge, but then again, you're a gradener, so you might know better... do they?

I would imagine that they do that: look at the cabbage family, for instance. All descended from sea cabbage and all quite happy to hybridise at the drop of a hat. However, the big issue is not whether the genes escape the testing compound, but whether they confer an evolutionary advantage when they do. Glyphosate resistance certainly won't, and boll weevil resistance will.

On that topic, if farmers can't get rid of GM glyphosate-resistant cotton growing in their GM soya fields, and the cotton isn't resistant to the boll weevil, you get a ready made natural reservoir for these gremlins. One would imagine that the glyphosate resistant cotton would be engineered as weevil resistant as well, but hybridisation could confer a wild strain with just the one advantage and it would flourish in such a situation. Then again, it might happen, it might not. The current situation, where gallons of insecticide are used to control one pest and end up indiscriminately killing all sorts of harmless (and possibly beneficial) insects, is a fact and not a possibility and hardly something to cherish either.

My dad is a gardner and a hayfever sufferer, Basically, according to his sensitive senses, pollen travels much fartehr than teh gM developers say. Really if you want to stop cross pollenation (keep in mind that Insects can carry pollen over surprising distances) you shoudl grow test crops in a contained environment.

Suppose you wanted an answer to the question of whether hybridisation took place in the wild anyway? Perhaps you could grow a crop identified with a harmless 'marker' gene in an open field and see exactly how much it gets into the wild population. That might answer the question for once and for all. That is if the likes of Greenpeace don't wreck the study first.

Good idea, wrecking teh study coudl be spun really abdly at them, along teh lines of "They don't want it to be proven harmless because they oppose progress and want us all to live in mud huts" Or do teh study in france where they don't like greenpeace.

I think the French took their dislike of Greenpeace just a little too far in the past. I'm not saying that GP don't often have a point, just that they have tended to voice opinions rather than facts in this matter.

re: someone's post above
"Science has no moral aspect. Science is knowledge, and knowledge is neither good nor evil. It is how that knowledge is gained and how it is used that needs morals"

OK, mabey the quote isn't exactly word-for-word, but that was the general theme that Lord Robert Winston said when he came and gave a guest-lecture here. (The guy of that "The Body" show).

Anyway, the point is you can't blame the Rutherford for splitting the atom because it created Nuclear Weapons when it also created Nuclear Power (which is a LOT cleaner than coal-burning). You can't blame the people who discovered Anthrax because it is now being used as a biological weapon.

Anyway, that's just my $0.02

=)

I like Lord Winston, he's a very wise chap. But I do think that science has a moral obligation to explain to the public what it is they are doing and discovering. Which after the GM debacle they surely will.

What gets me is how the anti-GM lot are trying to use the anthrax attacks to their own benefit. Bacillus thuringiensis is used as an organic insecticide, and a single gene from this bacteria (the toxin) has been engineered into some crops, most notably maize. They are claiming that because the two are related they are both as lethal. This is a good example of the green lobby using misinformation (i.e. lies) to sensationalise and demonise GM crops.

One more point:
Genetic modification allows you to take one gene from one organism and transfer it into another organism. One gene codes for one protein. That protein may have several different effects, but it is only one protein. If that protein is tested and found to be safe, then the organism which it has been introduced into will also be safe.

Also, not all genetic modification requires creating trans-genic organisms. Tomatoes have been made with their "ripen" gene turned off, so they don't go mushy when stored, and so they can all be ripened at the same time. How can something which has just had a gene turned OFF be any different? (also, you don't need to worry about cross-pollination. Any cross-pollination which does occur will result in fruit which don't ripen and so can't mature)

I think the problem is that a lot of people don't understand GM, and there is a lot of misinformation floating around. Like there are posters showing up all over campus saying "This is not a testing ground" with a picture of some native NZ bush. No, that isn't a testing ground - you already dug up the testing ground...

A very expensive and lengthy study recently published by the EU showed that GM organisms have no more risks associated with them than traditional varieties created using plant breeding. There is probably less risk just because of the reason you pointed out. Interestingly, the tomato has two ancestral parents, one is highly toxic. The two were crossed and then backcrossed with the non-toxic parent to 'dilute' the toxic parents genes, to try and remove the poisonous trait. We know this was sucsessful. However a recent genomics study on the tomato showed that 25% of the tomato genome is from toxic plant. If we were to do a similar breeding experiment nowadays with the technology we possess, we could guarantee that no toxins could be transferred over. I just wonder how many people were poisened before they got the toxic genes out of there...

I work for a genomics company. The main function of the place is to scan plant genomes for useful genes. The point of this is because at the moment transgenic crops are percieved in a bad light by the public. If you can say that this crop has not had any foriegn DNA engineered into it, just some genes turned on or off, it will be accepted more readily.

It infuriates me to see anti-GM acrivists ripping up fields of crops. They say that there isn't sufficient data about the environmental impact or safety of GM, then they rip up the testing sites. They are denying the public knowledge, wich is offensive in the extreme.

As I said before, the activists are afraid of the truth, which is that there is unlikely to be any more risk than through conventional plant breeding. *I* personally have problems with large suppliers gaining a monopolistic control of seed stock, but there's a lot more to the issue than that. However, the militant activists seem fail to, and even fail to want to, understand the broader issues, preferring to indulge their own fantasies and demonology of mad scientists and faceless multinationals. They simply prefer to 'tilt at windmills'.

Greenpeace et al seem more bothered with scaremongery and publicity stunts than to actually highlight the activities of these huge multinationals.

I've said this before, but, the problem isn't with the technology, it's with the way our society is run. But that's a different matter entirely.

the fundamental difference between GM technology and selective breading is the trans species insertion of genetic material. By use of this technology we are in manyways creating genetic mixes which could not exist or be developed in nature, this is the greatest strength and area of concern.

there has been much debate on the development of GM food and commodities for use in the third world, the justification being to reduce famine. If the worst case scenarios of the anti-GM campaigners come true it might just do that... by releasing a genetic strain into the environment which reduces the local population. ie less people less famine.

It would be interesting to find out that the 'best-case' scenarios of the anti-GM lobby actually were: whethEr they'd be prepared to concede that there might be little or no risk whatsoever to health. Somehow, I doubt it.

My main concerns are about *biodiversity* and *access*. I have no concerns about health risks or ethical issues. Those who do go on about ethical issues, in doing so turn a blind eye to poverty, starvation, etc. Their moral compass only seems to have one axis.

most people have a poor understanding of risk and probability, all technologies have associated risk, many are unpredictable (except with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. Many anti-GM protesters seem to be risk averse, at least that is the common critism, perhaps they have good reason. If a design fault in a ship results in its sinking a finite number of ships and lives will be lost dependant on the number of ships built. GM design faults have the potential to be self perpetuating, ie its like the fault in the ship design not only sank the ships it was built into but the fault could spread to other ships in the port and across the seas.

With this in mind, normal risk evaluation and management techniques become misleading if not downright dangerous.

I agree in principle, but I don't see any of the anti-GM campaigners jumping up and down about tobacco, a quantifiable, well-known and high risk to health. So this causes me to wonder whether these people really are concerned about health issues at all.

there is a difference, a fundamental one, its about choice. No one forces anyone to smoke, and avoidance of passive smoking is relatively easy these days (i manage) avoidance of a biological hazzard is somewhat more difficult. If this were not so dictators world wide would be petitioning marlborough for the plans for cigarette factories. They by dropping packs of 20 behind the lines they could disable the entire population over a 20 year period

But when relatively-undeveloped countries (such as Mexico) exercise their choice *in favour* of GM crops, the likes of Greenpeace get involved and try to get them to change their minds. And I'd disagree with you on the most fundamental point here: most smokers would choose to quit, but they're hooked on an addictive drug. One could say that heroin addicst have a *choice*. Or at least, that they had one.

all addicts have a choice, a difficult one but a choice. As for green peace and mexico... germany durring the 30s had a major ecconomic crisis, they solved it in a particular way too... the end does not justify the means

So are you taking issue with the means rather than the ends? I really don't think you have any idea of the issues involved at all. Your comparison of this issue with the work of the Nazis is particularly crass . I'd hardly compare deploying some GM crops in Mexico with gassing millions of innocent people. The first initiative was intended to help subsistence farmers grow maize in aluminium-poisoned soils. The second was to create hell on Earth for some unfavoured 'races'. But of course, some stupid people are unable to draw moral distinctions, even when the issues themselves are fairly blatant.

The choice facing governments here is that they put aside their qualms about GM and feed more people, or they give way to some fundamentalist bigots who think that their *views* regarding science and the environment should prevail at all times over those of the scientists who genuinely want to help people grow better crops and lead better lives *without* having to rely upon handouts from the West. The ends justify the means a thousandfold. And I don't really see why your naive and ill-informed prejudices should have any bearing on their decisions either.

By the way, you should spell out exactly what is wrong with eating or growing GM foods in this context. I'd be amazed if you can get beyond rehearsing the tired old cliches about multinationals and Mother Earth.