by Karl Haro von Mogel on 1 April 2009 Editor’s Note: The following post was part of an April Fools Joke. Go here for more details.
By William Harvey:
As I always say, “All we know is still infinitely less than all that remains unknown.” As a statement of fact, it is plainly obvious, but what is less obvious is that it also makes a splendid guiding principle for life.
I try as best I can to base my life in the best that science has to offer, but I know (more than most it seems) that often times, science does not have all the information we need to make decisions. In many areas of science, from global warming to evolutionary biology, there are gaps in our knowledge that make deciding on a course of action difficult. So I think we need to return to some of the fundamentals.
Some scientists say that we don’t know enough about global warming, that the gaps in our knowledge of climate science are too big to make policy decisions based upon it. We could just listen to the majority of climate scientists, but ‘consensus’ is not a reliable guide for truth – it merely reflects the current state of knowledge, which in science, is always changing. But what is not changing is that large corporations continue to profit off of climate science denialism, and the risk of inaction outweighs the risk of action.
In evolution, creationists often point to ‘gaps’ in evolution, such as between one fossil and another, and are fond at pointing out when a new fossil turns up that the number of gaps have increased. I think they have a very valid point, and it got me thinking about food safety in the same terms.
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 1 April 2009 Editor’s note: The following post was part of an April Fools Joke. Go here for more details.
By William Harvey:
Hello readers, I am William Harvey, the Director of Global GMO Policy at Greenpeace International. In exchange for support of this blog’s continued operations, I will be posting regularly at Biofortified, and my office staff will monitor and moderate the continued discussion. We have made a few minor changes to the look of the blog. Now for my first blog post.
Everyone knows that every Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are patented by corporations. There is not a single GMO that can be grown without the explicit permission through a signed contract. This puts the power in the hands of multinationals, taking it away from the indigenous people of Hawaii, Southeast Asia, Africa, and even farmers in the U.S. are having their right stripped away. The right to save seed is fundamental to growing food, and anything that removes this right is morally wrong.
This is why Greenpeace has a strong stance against genetic modification, because as a corporate technology it inherently requires that farmers be unable to save seed. We also seek to eliminate hybrid crops, because these are another method for maintaining the dominance of seed companies over farmers. Hybrids do not breed true – and so farmers have to keep re-buying seed. Recently, we have added seedless watermelons to our growing list of ‘farmer suicide’ foods, because the triploid seeds must be purchased every year.
As we have learned from cases such as Schmeiser v Monsanto, the biotech companies will stop at nothing to prevent farmers from saving their seeds.
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 31 March 2009 Editor’s note: The following post was part of an April Fools Joke. Go here for more details.
Biofortified is sharing server space with several other sites that I manage, and the time has rolled around again to renew the account. It doesn’t sound like much when you divide it by 12 months, but when it comes all at once it is quite the pretty penny.
No worries, though! I have just brokered a deal
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 31 March 2009 I just read yesterday that Monsanto has just started blogging, using WordPress too! (Shake of the ol’ tassel bag to Jeff at sustainablog)
Well, not just now, but about two months ago, the new Monsanto blog put up its first post, Monsanto according to Monsanto. Taking a jab with the title at a recent documentary The World According to Monsanto, they explain why the big bad biotech giant has started a blog:
Unfortunately there’s no shortage of people, particularly on the internet, who have taken it upon themselves to speak about Monsanto – what the company is, what it does, and why. Many of these folks have their own agendas. If anyone should speak to Monsanto’s vision of the world, it’s those of us who come to work here every day and collectively make this company what it is. This is the main reason for this blog.
(Funny note: the filmmaker that made The World According to Monsanto didn’t interview anyone from Monsanto at all.)
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 16 March 2009 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 with poster presentations, talks about online genetic resources, and a discussion of gene annotation. Anastasia was there with me, and she’ll have all sorts of good stuff to talk about as we give the 51st MGC the exposure it deserves!
Transposons are really neat. Also known as Mobile Genetic Elements, Transposable Elements, or just “jumping genes,” they are sequences of DNA that are capable of popping out of a chromosome and inserting themselves into another. The most well known kind of transposon contains a gene that encodes for an enzyme called Transposase, which physically chops the transposon out of the DNA strand it is in, and puts it in another. The result is a gene that does not remain in a fixed location, and ‘jumps’ around the genome from Chromosome to chromosome, turning other genes on and off if it inserts in them or near them. Transposons were first described in Maize, by the famous Cornell biologist Barbara McClintock, and are thought of as some of the source of genetic variations that fuel evolution. Sometimes they can incorporate bits of other genes and move them around, causing all sorts of genetic modifications.
The morning talks were full of transpositional goodness.
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