This is a real danger,.....

[KevM]

I've heard similar things ... seems like we're alway fucking with stuff ... first it was importing animals ... like killer bees ... cane toads etc ... now its genes.

But they have nice ads on tv about biotech saving the world so it must be good. NOT! When they have to brainwash us I get a little suspicious about motives.

 

[U2Bama]

I hate fire ants; they're all over the place here now.

 

[cass]

Monoculture.
What a horrid dangerous prospect.
Keep up the good work rono.

We should have an old gardenlovers forum maybe j/k
peace 2u

 

[Rono]

In Mexico they found native corn with DNA from Genetic altered cornplants. The pollen travel more than 100 km to infect the wild corn. The DNA survived a some generations. American siencetist did say, if the biotech corn push aside the native corn , the world will have a monoculture the is vulnerable for diseases. Biotech coporations always said, our products could not survive in the wild nature.

This is ` only ` corn but this is a real danger for our future. And the Big cooparatians are wrong. ( or lie )


Read you, Rono.

 

[Klodomir]

I'm a garden lover. I love my garden, but I don't make love in it, though - too many nettles.

Everything I grow is organic, so you can easily guess my stand on this.

Rono, how about a U2-patat-party in my garden next summer?

 

[Spiral_Staircase]

I agree that this is important information. But lets not panic. It is a big leap from pollen drift to the creation of "super-breed" of corn that will choke out all others. Pollen drift happens all the time, and genetics from hybrid corn moves to other nearby corn. But one hybrid has not taken over our environment. I'm not trying to say this isn't significant, but it's not time to panic.
KevM, I would not equate touting the positive aspects of a product with brainwashing. When Volvo says they have safe cars with side-impact airbags, are they brainwashing us? I would say no. They've created a product with attributes that they believe people want, so they tell us about it. Biotech companies are creating products with the potential to do tremendous good (something they believe people want), so they tell us about it. All I'm saying is nice ads don't equal brainwashing.

 

[Salome]

Originally posted by Klodomir:
Rono, how about a U2-patat-party in my garden next summer?

sounds yummie

------------------
Salome
Shake it, shake it, shake it

 

[Lilly]

Sorry, I'll sound like a nerd when I say this, but I just learned why this probably won't be a big problem in the future.
When plants reproduce, their sex cells combine just like ours do. Within these sex cells is DNA. In each cell there is half the required amount of DNA chromosomes as is needed to make a corn plant. The pollen from the altered corn will combine with the non-altered corn and they will use only selected alleles (the things that make traits i.e short ear of corn, long ear of corn...etc...) (wait, back up a second, on each chromosome are alleles that carry traits. Because there are double sets of these chromosomes, not all of the alleles will be used.) Some of these traits are recessive and others dominant. The dominant traits usually win out, but there are many plants that will be produced with all recessive traits and others with normal traits and others with all dominants. I suppose the DNA altered corn has dominant alleles to make long ears of corn (better for eating) and the non-altered has mixed up DNA. The two will mate and nature will run its course. Genes are prepared for these type of happenings. So no worries ok?

------------------
Go lightly down your darkened way.

[This message has been edited by Lilly (edited 12-05-2001).]

 

[Spiral_Staircase]

Keep up the good work, Lilly.

You're in St. Paul, eh? Studying plant genomics at the U?

 

[DrTeeth]

Originally posted by Klodomir:
Rono, how about a U2-patat-party in my garden next summer?

 

[Rono]

Originally posted by Lilly:
Sorry, I'll sound like a nerd when I say this, but I just learned why this probably won't be a big problem in the future.
When plants reproduce, their sex cells combine just like ours do. Within these sex cells is DNA. In each cell there is half the required amount of DNA chromosomes as is needed to make a corn plant. The pollen from the altered corn will combine with the non-altered corn and they will use only selected alleles (the things that make traits i.e short ear of corn, long ear of corn...etc...) (wait, back up a second, on each chromosome are alleles that carry traits. Because there are double sets of these chromosomes, not all of the alleles will be used.) Some of these traits are recessive and others dominant. The dominant traits usually win out, but there are many plants that will be produced with all recessive traits and others with normal traits and others with all dominants. I suppose the DNA altered corn has dominant alleles to make long ears of corn (better for eating) and the non-altered has mixed up DNA. The two will mate and nature will run its course. Genes are prepared for these type of happenings. So no worries ok?

No, not ok. There is nothing natural about biotech genes.

 

[Spiral_Staircase]

there's nothing natural about a liver transplant.

 

[Spiral_Staircase]

Originally posted by Rono:
In Mexico they found native corn with DNA from Genetic altered cornplants. The pollen travel more than 100 km to infect the wild corn.

Just to clarify, a quote from the A.P.'s report on this story:
"Scientists could not determine exactly where the foreign DNA came from. But Quist says the researchers suspect imported genetically modified corn was handed out by a government agency as food and may have been planted by recipients near their traditional crops."

"They do not believe cross-pollination happened over long distances because corn pollen is heavy, does not travel far, and is short-lived"

-Spiral

 

[Rono]

Originally posted by Spiral_Staircase:
there's nothing natural about a liver transplant.

No, but this is a example of ` the survival of the weakest `. and has nothing to do with natural selection.