Year: 2012

Frankenfish is here and unlabeled

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The FDA announced it considers the Genetically Engineered AquaAdvantage salmon safe before Labor Day. The Alaskan Senator Mark Begrich called it “frankenfish.” The approved GE AquaAdvantage will be the first genetically engineered animal in the U.S. food supply. This fact will raise the stakes of the FDA’s approval process, as it is a precedent for all future GE animals. Because of a regulatory decision in the 1980s that no new laws are needed to regulate genetically engineered foods, the FDA is actually regulating the GE salmon as a drug.

View the original post here: musingsinthemaking: Frankenfish is Here and Unlabeled

Seed size Is controlled by maternally produced small RNAs

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Seed size is controlled by small RNA molecules inherited from a plant’s mother, a discovery from scientists at The University of Texas at Austin that has implications for agriculture and understanding plant evolution.

View the original post here: Seed Size Is Controlled by Maternally Produced Small RNAs – Bioscience Technology

Combating depression with green care therapies

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farming

One example of a promising but under-studied therapy is “green care” or “care farming,” a type of intervention that uses “nature and the natural environment to improve or promote health and well-being.” Participants in green care programs are offered the opportunity to spend time volunteering on farms, where they learn new skills, interact with other workers, and come into contact with farm animals.

View the original post here: Combating depression with green care therapies

Faith in nature can be fatal: Creating allergen free foods through GM technology

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cornucopia crops

Chemists now use the word organic to describe all complex, carbon-based molecules—whether or not they are actually products of an organism or products of laboratory synthesis.  But many educated people in Western countries think that only some crops and cows are organic, while all others are not.  How can one simple word — organic — have such different meanings? In reality, laboratory scientists can make subtle and precise changes to an organism’s DNA sequence, while high-energy cosmic rays can break chromosomes into pieces that reattach randomly and sometimes create genes that didn’t previously exist.

View the original post here: Faith in nature can be fatal- Creating allergen free foods through GM technology

US GMO regulatory system broken, new analysis shows

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GMO tomato

The development of genetically engineered (GE) crops in the 1980′s ignited a buzz in the agricultural community with the potential for higher crop yields and better nutritional content, along with the reduction of herbicide and pesticide use. However, the development of new GE crops has recently slowed to a trickle due to litigation over field testing and deregulation.

View the original post here: US GMO regulatory system broken. new analysis shows

GM crops + herbicides = Super-Superweeds?

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superweeds

Herbicide-resistant superweeds threaten to overgrow U.S. fields, so agriculture companies have genetically engineered a new generation of plants to withstand heavy doses of multiple, extra-toxic weed-killing chemicals. It’s a more intensive version of the same approach that made the resistant superweeds such a problem — and some scientists think it will fuel the evolution of the worst superweeds yet. These weeds may go a step further than merely being able to survive one or two or three specific weedkillers. The intense chemical pressure could cause them to evolve resistance that would apply to entire classes of chemicals.

View the original article here: New GM Crops Could Make Superweeds Even Stronger

The perfect milk machine: How big data transformed the dairy industry

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dairy cows

Dairy scientists are the Gregor Mendels of the genomics age, developing new methods for understanding the link between genes and living things, all while quadrupling the average cow’s milk production since your parents were born.

View the original post here: The perfect milk machine: How big data transformed the dairy industry

Your genes decide how old you get

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old age

If your grandparents were able to celebrate their 90th birthday there’s a good chance you might do the same. Our age is determined partly by our genes – not only how long we live, but also how we well we are, physically and psychologically. That some people become really old while others don’t even reach pension age is determined partly by inherited molecular variations in the DNA code in our genes.

View the original post here: Your genes decide how old you get

Synthetic DNA is tomorrow’s medicine

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XNA

An international team of researchers has created revolutionary proteins that can copy synthetic genetic material – the so-called XNA (Xeno-Nucleic Acids). The breakthrough could pave the way for doctors to start treating diseases with XNA by letting the synthetic genetic material intervene and stop essential processes in the course of a disease.

View the original post here: Synthetic DNA is tomorrow’s medicine

Real “Beautiful Mind”- College dropout became mathematical genius after mugging

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jason

Jason Padgett, 41, sees complex mathematical formulas everywhere he looks and turns them into stunning, intricate diagrams he can draw by hand. He’s the only person in the world known to have this incredible skill, which he obtained by sheer accident just a decade ago.

View the original post here: Real “Beautiful Mind”- College dropout became mathematical genius after mugging

Jews are an ancient Middle Eastern ‘tribe’, genes reveal

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Legacy book

In his new book, “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, claims that Jews are different, and the differences are not just skin deep. Jews exhibit, he writes, a distinctive genetic signature. Considering that the Nazis tried to exterminate Jews based on their supposed racial distinctiveness, such a conclusion might be a cause for concern. But Ostrer sees it as central to Jewish identity.

View the original post here: Jews are an ancient Middle Eastern ‘tribe’, genes reveal
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