News

Candy company enlists genetic engineers to save chocolate from extinction

Story originally published by Newsweek. If your New Year’s Resolution was to give up chocolate, you might find it easier to do it in 2050, when scientists suspect chocolate may go extinct. Unless, that is, gene-editing scientists manage to save it. The persnickety cacao plant contains seeds that are the vital ingredient in chocolate. But the plant only grows in narrow bands of land in the rainforest, where the weather stays relatively wet and humid the whole year. Climate change is projected to alter this habitat so drastically in the next 40 years that cacao won’t grow there, according to a report by Business Insider. It might be possible for cacao to grow on steep mountains, but many of those areas are protected as wildlife refuges against agriculture.
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Scientists Are Engineering GMO Species to Self-Destruct After Breeding in The Wild

Story originally published on Science Alert. Genetically modified organisms could potentially do a lot of good for the world, like ending the spread of diseases, or maybe one day helping us grow more food to feed the hungry. There's a big problem, though. When you release altered species out into the wild, how can you prevent them from breeding with untweaked organisms living in their natural environment, and producing hybrid offspring that scientists can't control or regulate? "This is a problem that has been recognised for a while," says synthetic biologist Maciej Maselko from the University of Minnesota. Together with his team at the university's BioTechnology Institute, Maselko has come up with a radical solution to this scientific dilemma – but it's not one that any procreation-inclined GMOs will like too much.
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Highlights

There Is “Little Doubt” About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops

Article originally published by American Enterprise Institute. Executive Summary Genetically modified (GM) crops are plants in which DNA has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally through plant breeding. Genetic engineering transfers selected individual genes within or across plant species to produce plants with targeted characteristics. Some have questioned whether GM crops have been responsible for increased crop yields. Comparing US yields to European Union yields (where GM crops are banned) provides evidence that GM technologies have increased crop yields. Agricultural yields have increased over the past several decades. But, such increases are not fait accompli. Rather, they result from the development of new technologies. Banning yield-enhancing technologies means that food crop production will be lower than would otherwise be the case, and more water, land, and other inputs will be needed to increase global food production.
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Avoiding GMOs isn’t just anti-science. It’s immoral.

Opinion piece originally published by the Washington Post.

Of the several claims of “anti-science” that clutter our national debates these days, none can be more flagrantly clear than the campaign against modern agricultural technology, most specifically the use of molecular techniques to create genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Here, there are no credibly conflicting studies, no arguments about the validity of computer models, no disruption of an ecosystem nor any adverse human health or even digestive problems, after 5 billion acres have been cultivated cumulatively and trillions of meals consumed.


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