GMO has often been touched upon here and in other PriusChat discussions. If there is interest I will do my bit and as always learn from others. For structure there could be fundamental procedures, agriculture and biomedical (anything else?) Many crops are already 'GMO' with controversy and incomplete global acceptance. Part of controversy comes from Agribiz giants dominating. If GMO offers a good future it would arise from many other sources besides. Part of controversy comes from new traits getting into non-target plant species. Part of controversy comes from fundamental misunderstanding of how DNA in food affects consumers. Readers will have eaten plants and animals over years - has that DNA made you more like wheat, corn or cow? It has not. Please say if you feel otherwise. GMO bypasses (much slower) crop breeding. At least one company Avalo | A Revolution in Plant Evolution Plans 'AI' to accelerate traditional crop breeding. Several stories from GMO food animals also. Biomedical is complicated. The nice side is to move DNA clips from human pathogen risks into other 'vessels' to accelerate immunology, The less nice side is to anticipate future human pathogens by gain of function. I may not be the only one seeing problems there. GMO might be able to delete harmful genes from fetuses in utero. After that might come generalized genetic 'improvements'. I may not be the only one seeing problems there. == There are many more things that could be discussed.
I am not confident that we understand enough about DNA. Crossing a salamander with a tomato could cause unexpected results in our health years down the road. In our culture the way that GMO crops are produced has been linked with Round-up [Glyphosate], which is now flowing in most people's blood and nearly all mother's breast milk. The GMO industry has introduced poisons into our diet. It took us 40 years to figure out that Agent Orange is responsible for birth defects and nerve system determination. What will we learn about Glyphosate in 40 years?
I post a lot here, but that does not mean leadership. Only many ness. We learn here from all who present ideas in ways that be examined. I hope there will be more.
Source: Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory - Wikipedia In March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials falsely claimed that public health facilities in Ukraine were "secret U.S.-funded biolabs" purportedly developing biological weapons, ... In March 2022 a group of researchers from Moscow State University published an open letter in which they criticized the state media narratives and pointed out scientific inaccuracies in their postulates, such as "genetic weapons targeting exclusively Russians", which they described as "outright lie" and biological impossibility. They also discussed the "list of dangerous bacteria strains" published by Russia as "evidence for bioweapons program" and clarified that none of these strains were actually dangerous or used in biological weapons, and some of the strains, routinely used in biological research, were actually purchased by Ukraine from Russian companies.[26][27] The greater threat is monoculture ... like "Banana blight is a fungal disease called Panama disease, or Fusarium wilt, that threatens the banana industry." Bob Wilson
1. Stay on target. 2. Banana (Musa whatchamacallit) is probably the narrowest clone and fungal susceptible as any narrow one might be. New resistant clones are being developed. Worst global banana outage could last a few years with first years high priced then gradual improvement. Grieve! 3. Rubber-source Hevea concerns be more, as they are another clone disaster, and replacement trees will take more than a decade to get going. Tires 4U. Not. 4. REAL food crops (wheat corn rice soy) are now grown from more genetically diverse stocks than I see in doom and gloomers' reports. There absolutely are large areas (wrongly) done without genomic diversity; at risk of fungal whack. Partial loss of 1 year crop, partial support from other areas and silo storage. Grieve higher food costs! With sincere apologizes, this is just the thing to clarify global thinking that crop diversity has not yet been for-us optimized.
"Crossing a salamander with a tomato could cause unexpected results" I hope we can use words here well. No one can now or (probably) ever cross a salamander with a tomato. It is now possible to move genes from salamanders to tomatoes and vice versa. With enough understanding of what I vaguely call settings (but not without), some salamander genes might express in tomato, or vice versa. I imagine that someone might go to all that trouble in demonstration of some benefit. A different media 'draw' might be to create something really weird. But one must ask if any lab going for HG Well's Dr. Moreau vibe could get funded next year. Scoping this I'd need ~10 qualified staff, and stuff. Three to 5 $USD millions/yr. I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. Phylogenetically closer genomes can slide over, and might yield demonstrable benefits. With risks to be explored, because if you don't, no new money for you. It's not like in the movies. I promise.
The spliced in gene would have to produce something toxic to humans or an allergen. Very unlikely unless to goal of the splice is to add such to the tomato. The real harm of GMO comes from the legal issues. It is a case of pick your poison. The round-up cultivation method results in less erosion, soil degradation, and GHG emissions. Other plant species have been used to source latex, and it was the introduction of synthetic rubber that pushed Ford to abandon their rubber plantation. Work is already going on to bring back production from dandelions. Dandelion rubber for sustainable tires? – DW – 03/10/2021
"What will we learn about Glyphosate in 40 years?" A lot is already known and it's not great. I expect what we learn will have to do with bioconcentration along the food chain. Detectable amounts does not necessarily imply bioconcentration. "It is a case of pick your poison. The round-up cultivation method results in less erosion, soil degradation, and GHG emissions." Frankly that does not sound good. I looked at commercial phytotoxins and their metabolic pathways a while back. They all look bad. I hope that better ways of crop yield improvement and soil conservation can be used instead. Link to GMO is to make crops resistant to glyphosphate etc. Link to GMO 'leakage' is that resistance genes can get transferred to other plants (a thing that viruses are potentially capable of). Hope all this is clear to readers. == There are a huge number of plant species with sticky sap that be made into rubberlike elastomers. Dandelion sap is easier to convert than others in my understanding. Scaling up will be among the challenges. But not relying on (slow) trees and not planting vast areas of clones seems wise to me. "It was the introduction of synthetic rubber that pushed Ford to abandon their rubber plantation." This refers to Fordlandia in Brazil. A lot of things went wrong with that project: Henry Ford’s Calamitous Rainforest Utopia: Fordlândia — History is Now Magazine, Podcasts, Blog and Books | Modern International and American history https://allthatsinteresting.com/fordlandia-henry-ford But competition from synthetic rubber does not appear to have been a major factor. Major types of synthetic rubber are all petroleum-based. This might be seen as a long-term problem. They are superior in many applications to plant-based elastomers.
"Around the same time, industry advances in the production of synthetic rubber reduced the global demand for natural rubber." Plenty of errors in the Fordlandia project. It may never have succeeded no matter what, but the arrival of synthetic rubber to the market took away the main reason to keep trying. Even today, tire manufacturers will shift the amount of natural and synthetic rubber in a tire on the current costs of each.
