Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
Friday was the first full day of the 51st Maize Genetics Conference, and it was filled with all kinds of genetic fun. When I saw the program, I knew I would be up for the first talks of the morning at 8 am, because they were about transposons. The rest of the day was filled…
Welcome to the 29th edition of Mendel’s Garden, the monthly one-stop-shop for the best the blogosphere has on Genetics. I have hosted the Garden a couple times before on my personal blog, but this month we find ourselves on Biofortified. This is a group blog on plant genetics and genetic engineering, to try to sprinkle…
Are you a backyard breeder? Do you want to be? Well with this video, now you can! Well, I think if you are a plant breeding student, a breeder looking to train a new workforce, or someone who’s really just curious about how you can possibly make seeds to grow ‘seedless’ watermelons, you’ll like this…
By the year 2050, the Earth’s population will double. If we continue with current farming practices, vast amounts of wilderness will be lost, millions of birds and billions of insects will die, and the environmental cost will be immeasurable. Clearly, the world needs a better way to meet the demand for increased food production. To…
I’ve got a couple things to report. The first is that Pamela Ronald, who has just uploaded her first post at Biofortified, has been in the news lately. It isn’t often that plant breeding makes the news, and when she made top-of-the-wire headlines on CNN, I not only heard from colleagues back in Davis and…
In the debate over genetic engineering, there are many emotions in play, such as optimism, anxiety, compassion, greed, joy, and fear. One emotion seems to dominate the anti-GE activists, and that is fear. Fear of corporations, fear of science, and fear of the unknown are wielded as weapons to scare the public into rejecting the…