Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
At 10am central time, a discussion about biodiversity and agriculture will begin as part of the Biodiversity World Tour. The event is sponsored by CropLife International, a consortium of companies and industry groups. The discussion will be broadcast live and you can join the conversation by tweeting with the hashtag #BWT2010. It’s bound to be…
One important concept that is used in most countries to regulate products of genetic engineering is substantial equivalence. The way to determine substantial equivalence is comparative assessment. What do substantial equivalence and comparative assessment mean? Depending on the source we use, we might find different definitions and different opinions of how useful they are in…
Jorge Cham, the creator of the hilarious and successful online comic strip, Piled Higher and Deeper (Ph.D.), just visited NMSU’s Chili Pepper Institute, and took video! Check it out. PHD Tales from the Road – NMSU’s Chile Pepper Institute from PHD Comics on Vimeo.
A major philosophical issue that many people have with biotechnology is patents on genes or whole organisms. It seems obvious that a plant, animal, or even bacterium is very different than a new piece of exercise equipment or anything else that might get patented. Should a breeder or geneticist be allowed to profit from his…
Written by Kevin Folta Recently at the International Horticultural Congress in Lisbon, Portugal, a workshop was dedicated to transgenic crop biology and its integration with public perception. As mentioned in previous posts, the central theme is to placate the misinformed public opinion by using clever technologies to circumvent traditional unfounded criticisms of biotechnology. Dr. Franz…
Written by Matt DiLeo It’s been estimated that genetic resistance to every pesticide that will ever be invented already exists in some microbe in some field, somewhere in the world (simply because there are so many individuals of each species). If you invent an incredible new spray that kills, say, Phytophthora infestans, you’d know that…
Roundup Ready sugar beets have been back in the news due to the decision by Judge White to revoke approval. As I understand it, the USDA conduced an Environmental Assessment for Roundup Ready sugar beets but did not conduct an Environmental Impact Statement. According to regulation, an EA is sufficient if potential harm is found to…
We’ve talked about high fructose corn syrup many times here at Biofortified. There’s a lot of subjects to be considered, including whether we should be growing so much corn in the first place. The biggest concern about HFCS, though, judging by popular magazines and websites, is health. People are worried that corn syrup is worse…
We’ve discussed labeling many times at Biofortified, usually looking at things from a practical perspective, such as in the posts What’s in a label? and Labeling GMOs. I argue that anything that is scientifically proven to be a hazard should be a mandatory label. For example, a label that a product contains nuts is justified by severe allergic…
