[TheForge] OT: GM foods OT:

[peter fels]

Jerry...Just filter for emails that have "OT", or POL in the title.
It's pretty easy to do in most email programs..

My apologies. I'll throttle it back again.
And i promise not to say " You started it."


On May 26, 2011, at 8:53 PM, Jerry Smith wrote:

> Now I wish I had never brought up the issue of the eco coke. I may just drop out 
> of this group.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: peter fels <artgawk at thegrid.net>
> To: Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thu, May 26, 2011 8:02:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] OT: GM foods OT:
> 
> Replying off list.
> 
> 
> On May 26, 2011, at 4:48 PM, dann at wctatel.net wrote:
> 
>> I cannot understand why people fear GMO grains.
>> 
>> GMO foods are plant gene groups that were shifted from one kind of plant
>> into another, using a plant virus as the vector. When the jump has been
>> made, it is back to plain old cross breeding and hybrization to produce a
>> plant that has commercially viable grain yields.
>> 
>> The nuts and bolts of GM foods is basically good old fashioned, old school
>> plant genetics. Yes the modifications are now done in a lab, but the
>> mechanics are all biological processes that happen in nature.
>> 
>> Scientists search out a living plant with the desired genes, expose that
>> plant to a plant virus.  The plant virus does what all virus do when they
>> reproduce.  They randomly cut into and insert themselves into the plants
>> DNA, when they reproduce,they cut back out, but drag parts of the plant's
>> DNA with the virus' DNA.  Then the scientist  expose that carrier virus to
>> the desired plant species, in hopes that if they do it enough times,  the
>> virus will move the right sequence of genes from the initial cultured
>> plant into the new plant culture.  It can take thousands of cell cultures
>> ... to finally get the right genes to jump.
>> 
>> Case in point.
>> Monsanto had a herbicide : Roundup that when applied at the rate of one
>> quart to an acre, on a young growing plant,  pretty much killed all
>> plants. Not quite like a liquid frost, but the idea is there.
>> 
>> They wanted a soybean that would be immune to moderate rates of Roundup. 
>> They used soybean cell cultures.. thousands and thousands of petri dishes
>> that they applied diluted herbicides.. until they got some soybean cell
>> cultures that survived.  Then they grew these round up resistant  cell
>> cultures into  mature plants, and cross bred the round up resistance into
>> better yielding varieties.
>> 
>> Roundup Ready Soybeans were not GMO:  they were developed using  a
>> modified process of natural selection. But one of the first GMO sucess
>> stories was when the Soybean genes from the Roundup resistent gene package
>> was shifted from the soybean plant to other species of plants like Corn
>> using plant virus.  Once they got roundup resistent gene package shifted
>> to the corn, the next task was simply old fashioned cross breeding  to get
>> the Round UP Ready Corn  yields to production yield standerds.
>> 
>> At least that is how I remember my Genetics professor explaining what was
>> being attempted 40 years ago.
>> 
>> Dann
>> 
>> 
>> 
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