can someone explain genetic engineering?

[monsterone]

in laymen's terms. nice and simple.

i got in a discussion in the office today about the topic. (i thought the iranians refusing aid from israel was as dumb as kenya(i believe) refusing food from the us, for their starving population, b/c it ws ge).

god my mind is a shit, but it reminds me of the monk from the middle ages who would take the strongest and best tasting peas, and breed them with like peas.

forgive my retardation, the question is for real, but my wording in a lil blurry now. sorry. toocute, mizzle, educate away...

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[JPMNICK]

Genetic Engineering as a whole is huge and covers many area's of study and research. In the field that you are talking about(biotechnology), it deals with manipulating food. The reason they do this is to make it either; taste better, grow faster, require less water, or more resitable to desiese (among other things). These genitcally engineered foods produce more edible food per acre in most cases. They are good for third world countries were the soil is poor and they need to feed a lot of people. While this all sounds like a miracle, there are many people the do not like this.

Some problems include food allergies since the DNA injected into the the GE(genitcally engineered) food is from another type of plant. Think using peanut DNA to make corn more resistant to a certain bug. Now people with an allergy to peanuts may get sick if they eat the corn.

The debate is raging out there all over the place. People fear the GE(genitcally engineered) food, but at the same time people around the world are starving.

Try researching Norman Borlaug. He is a scientist who studies in this field. He may have won a nobel prize but do not hold me to that. Anyway, i remember hearing that he is the scientist considered to have saved the most lives in the world. An amazinf feat if you think about all the other scientists who have invented vaccine's. Anyway, he has GE's corn and wheat to help feed millions of people in third world countries. He is a great man and I had to mention him in this thread.

Anyway hope that helps a little. In a nutshell, it is a way to alter food at a molecular level without cross breading or waiting for a mutation. And BTW, the scientest with the peas was Johann Mendel. It was these expirements that help lead to the discovery of genitics and inheritance.

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[monsterone]

now by using the dna of another plant to benefit the plant, can that dna be a greater detriment that an allergy? for instance, becoming a carcinogen? is there scientific proof of that?

an in the instance of a starving people, if there were 1000 people who would starve to death, but if eating ge food would cause 15 of those to die, those odds are far better. i'm just not sure what the fear of ge food is.

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[JPMNICK]

There is scientific proof of people getting sick, allergy related, the GE food. In the New England Journal of Medicine it showed a study where people who were alergic to brazil nuts got sick when they ate a GE soybean with brazil Nut DNA.
As for causing cancer, it depends on who you talk to. Some groups say def. yes. Others say no. Breathing air can give you cancer so who the hell knows.

Now, as for the starving people. A lot of stuff I have read says the reason people die from hunger is not lack of food but lack of money to get the food. GE food would help solve this by not making more food, but allowing food that would not grow in a certain area to be able to grow there. I am not sure what the fear of GE food is either. People will throw a FIT though if they find out they are eating some GE corn or something.

In the coming years, way more research and stuff will be done on this, and hopefully some good will come out of it.

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[MizzleTizzle]

We've been genetically engineering food since the Agricultural Revolution by artificial selection.

[MizzleTizzle]

We've been genetically engineering food since the Agricultural Revolution by artificial selection.

There is scientific proof of people getting sick, allergy related, the GE food.


And scientific proof that people get sick from every other food known. And it was Gregor Mendel.

Come one people we've been doing GE for century upon century, unless we wish to discuss the age when the Wild Poodles roamed the earth.

How do you think we changed the earth's landscape into putting out the food we eat today? By doing GE by artificial selelction for, I'm guessing, 13,000 years.

Dangers? Yes. It may even one day approach the most dangerous activity the modern person will do over their lives; driving a car.

[jax]

I thought that the monk's name was Gregor Mendel

[jax]

just notieced miz the tiz had gregor on his paper too. i swear i wasn't cheating.

[sr71blackbird]

Ever see the mini corn they give you in Chinese resturants? Thats the original size corn use to be. Then, someone took the largest kernel and planted it, the corn grew bigger. That bigger corn had bigger kernels, they planted that, the corn got even bigger, teill we get the size we see today. Thats genetic modification, we have been doing it for thousands of years.

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[high fly]

Doesn't anyone have a Jacob Bronowski link?
Mizzle?
TooCute?
Anyone?

" and they ask me why I drink"

[Bill From Yorktown]

speaking of which - anyone get Crighton's new book Prey? it's Nanotechnology meets bioengeneering meets Jurasic Park - a page turner....

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[TooCute]

Doesn't anyone have a Jacob Bronowski link?
Mizzle?
TooCute?
Anyone?


Google?

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[MizzleTizzle]

speaking of which - anyone get Crighton's new book Prey? it's Nanotechnology meets bioengeneering meets Jurasic Park - a page turner....


Yep, a page turner, and another Crichton Novel that will be shit on when they make the movie. I think Stephen King has had better luck getting his books made into movies, and for the most part, King movies suck.

Crichton has become a bit predictable too; make that since the beginning:

1. Some Mega-Technology, seeimingly impossible, comes to be.

2. People check the Technology out; greedy people have an alterior motive.

3. The Technology goes wrong.

4. A group of people get trapped by this Technology; need to get from someplace to someplace else to fix it/ stop it.

5. Some die, some rescued; heads roll.

Timeline had such promise... sigh...
Airframe was awesome, but...
Prey, was OK, Jurassic park gone teensy...sigh...

[IrishAlkey]

You take genes and you <i>engineer</i> them...

Presto!

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[East Side Dave]

You take genes and you <i>engineer</i> them...


I sure wish somebody would engineer Mean Gene Okerlund!! Son of a bitch!!!

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This message was edited by East Side Dave on 1-1-04 @ 9:33 PM

[MizzleTizzle]

you engineer them...


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Once upon a time there was an engineer
Choo Choo Charlie was his name, we hear.
He had an engine and he sure had fun He used Good & Plenty candy to make his train run.

Charlie says "Love my Good & Plenty!"
Charlie says "Really rings my bell!"
Charlie says "Love my Good & Plenty!"
Don't know any other candy that I love so well!

[ADF]

Presto!

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This message was edited by ADF on 12-20-03 @ 10:48 PM