Joe Ballenger « Biofortified

PHD comics the movie

by Joe Ballenger on 9 July 2011

If you’re a graduate student like I am, PHD comics is an essential source of comfort. Emotionally and physically, graduate work is difficult. You’re working long hours with little pay and often (but not always), little gratitude. There are reasons for this, but to get the job in the first place you’ve got to be bright and have at least some modicum of passion to get through it.

Genetic engineering on the Fringe

by Joe Ballenger on 19 May 2011

I like sci-fi. I’m not your typical Star-Wars nerd, instead I like B-movies. You know… the low-budget creature feature movies that entail some giant creature killing everything in sight? They’re fun, campy, not at all meant to be taken seriously, yet can be useful in teaching about biology due to their reliance upon urban legends. Still, some things about them do get on my nerves.

Let’s take an episode of the television show Fringe: Immortality (13th episode of the 3rd season). Fringe is your typical X-Files wannabe show with writing that’s sub-par even for prime-time TV. The show centers around investigators who investigate apparent criminal abuses of science. And there’s a doomsday device in a parallel universe, somehow woven into the plotline, which feels like a very uncreative and poorly done rip-off of the parallel universe in the Doctor Who episode Rise of the Cybermen.

Anyway, the Immortality episode is about entomology, in which a mad scientist genetically modified a sheep parasite which somehow has a protein which cures a deadly flu. The episode made no sense to me for reasons I’m going to get into in a few moments, but there’s something more important I’d like to get to first because I think it’s an important part of how scientists are viewed in popular culture.

Genetic modification of insects part 4

by Joe Ballenger on 4 January 2011

Using Mosquitoes to Conquer Disease Through Vaccination

One of the things I’ve been talking about here on Biofortified is the concept of a ‘pest’, which is a completely anthropocentric term. Different insects can be pests at one part of their life cycle and be totally cool in another. It’s one of those weird science paradoxes which make the field of entomology so much fun.

Why is ecology important to agriculture? Ask the Plataspids.

by Joe Ballenger on 12 December 2010

Before moving to the southern US, I lived in Iowa. If there’s one thing Iowa’s known for, it’s known for our row crops. Everywhere in the summer is green and pretty and filled with all sorts of farmland and not much visible biodiversity outside of that.

If you live in certain areas of the south, it’s really actually very similar. There are lots of rowcrops… peanuts and soybeans instead of corn and soybeans but still a similar concept. Lots of crops. Everything’s green and pretty without a whole lot of biodiversity. There’s one other major difference, though…lots of areas look like this:

The green curtain draped over everything? Kudzu.

Kudzu was a vine originally planted to control erosion which grew out of control. It grows quickly, is hard to kill and covers everything with a green blanket and crowds everything out by keeping sunlight from reaching the plants. The trees under that green carpet are all dead.

So… how can things get worse?

Simple, really… just introduce something which lives on kudzu.

Genetic modification of insects as pest control part 3

by Joe Ballenger on 7 December 2010

In part 1 of this series, I explained how we’ve been using genetic engineering of sorts for nearly half a century to control insects by using radiation to induce sterility or other dominant lethal mutations in insects. In part 2, I explained how we can use genetic engineering to make these projects safer and easier.

So… part 3. What’s the next step? Put it to the test!