by
Anastasia on 6 September 2011
Threadless recently hosted* a t-shirt contest for Jeffery Smith‘s Institute for Responsible Technology: the No GMO t-shirt design challenge (see Karl’s post Vote for talking, not fighting for more details). One of the shirts really struck me: GMO Shortens Life Span by Michael. The artist proposes an equation:
plants + DNA = death
This slogan really makes me wonder – does the artist know that plants have DNA? Does he know that his own cells are teeming with DNA? That without DNA, life wouldn’t exist? Do most people know that DNA is essential for life? What would the average person say if told that they eat about 100 thousand miles of DNA in the average meal?
If this is the level of understanding, or rather, misunderstanding, that persons have, can we ever expect to have useful discourse on the subject of biotechnology or even biology itself? This worries me greatly. Just in case anyone out there reading this is concerned that DNA is dangerous, I’d like to provide a simple recipe that anyone can use to see and touch DNA for themselves.
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by
David Tribe on 3 July 2011
We celebrate the creation by Ernesto Bustamante and David Tribe of a Spanish language version of GMO Pundit (Pundit OGM en español) by a repost of their latest article:
La principal pregunta de todas es cuál es la naturaleza de la política ambientalista. ¿Es el Movimiento Verde de izquierda y anti capitalista? Mark Lynas lo cree así y que aquellos que posan como Verdes deben ser marginados y dejar que se extingan solos hasta que aparezca una nueva generación de ambientalistas pro mercado, como él. “Si se convierte en una guerra cultural como el debate del aborto, entonces no se puede ganar”, dice. “Quiero un movimiento ambientalista que esté contento con el capitalismo, que salga a decir sí antes que no, y que sea riguroso sobre la forma como trata a la ciencia. El Movimiento Verde necesita un momento tipo Claúsula Cuatro – el Partido Laborista tuvo que pasar por eso.”
Anti nuclear, anti capitalista, anti aviación: El Movimiento Verde habría alienado más gente de la que ha ganado y ahora ya se oyen pedidos de un nuevo tipo de ambientalismo
… el autor Mark Lynas dice que la oposición verde a la energía nuclear es un ‘error garrafal’.
En el 2008 el laureado autor ambientalista Mark Lynas experimentó un “momento eureka”. Mientras leía en el sitio Web de The Guardian los comentarios hostiles dejados bajo un artículo que detallaba sus objeciones a los alimentos GM, él se terminó de convencer que sus críticos probablemente tenían la razón.
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Genetic Contamination May Not Mean What You Think It Means
(This post originally appeared on Sustainablog on 8/1/11)
In the debate about GMO crops, the “threat of genetic contamination” is often raised as a reason to reject the technology. Is this threat real? Does it justify acts of vandalism? Could it lead to the “End of Organics“? Is it actually an over-blown issue? To answer these questions it is necessary to put this issue in the context of basic plant biology.
What We Are Talking About Is Really Just “Plant Sex”
“Genetic Contamination” is an emotional term which obscures the fact that the underlying biological process in question is quite normal, natural and highly necessary.
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