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Month: September 2014

Anti-GMO critics dominate National Academy of Sciences crop biotech evaluation

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The first two days of hearings on the latest round of scientific review for biotech crops and genetically engineered foods reflected that the National Research Council is tackling a highly politicized debate about the future role of biotech crops in American agriculture.

An ad-hoc committee of 18 scientists is tasked by the National Research Council with examining the science and ramifications of biotech crops by looking at the history of genetic engineering and the potential the crops and biotech foods hold for the future. Speakers offered the committee a range of views from university professors and non-governmental experts who have battled over biotech crops for decades.

Though the committee is just starting its task, there already is a lot of angst over assuring the report garners public confidence. Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin science communications professor, told the committee that the report needs to go beyond the science of biotech crops. He noted the highly politicized nature of biotechnology stems from the complex science and lack of overall public understanding of it.

Yet, a great many people have already framed their views and will validate their own opinions regardless of the report’s outcome through the process of “motivated reasoning.” However, the scientific committee would be wise not to ignore social concerns, Scheufele said.

Of the 17 speakers over two days, 12 were critical of crop biotechnology, mostly representing dedicated anti-GMO advocacy organizations, such as the Center for Food Safety, Consumers Union, ETC Group, Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists, among others.

Jon Entine, executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, offered an aggressive defense of biotechnology and lashed out at critics of genetic engineering when he spoke. Entine noted some representatives of consumer groups “invariably only point to one side of the issue” on biotechnology. Entine asked the committee to reject these views and focus on science. He asked the committee to ignore some claims published in what Entine characterized as “one-off studies by pay-to-play journals.”

Read the full, original article: Groups offer scientific panel a range of suggestions to study biotech foods

Media cycle helps pepetuate misleading ‘gene of the week’ cycle

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Science writer David Dobbs has definitively described the voracious appetite of the “selfish gene” meme, pointing out that the notion of individual genes exercising power on the outcome of events has been so good at mass producing itself, that “the selfish gene has become a selfish meme.”

At CGS, we have another name for this phenomenon: the gene of the week.

All “genes of the week” have something in common: they never actually live up to their billing. For starters, it is never true that a single gene just does something. Genes work together, and genomes work with their environments. But this inconvenient reality has done amazingly little to stem genetic determinism, or the funding of research that relies upon its framework.

How could this be true? Is it really the case, as Dobbs posits, that “the gene-centric model survives because simplicity is a hugely advantageous trait for an idea to possess?”

The adventures of “smart genes” provide an illuminating case study.

Read the full, original story: The stupidity of the “smart gene”

As 60 becomes new definition of middle-aged, how is human society changing?

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For millennia, if not for eons—anthropology continuously pushes backward the time of human origin—life expectancy was short. The few people who grew old were assumed, because of their years, to have won the favor of the gods.

The typical person was fortunate to reach 40.

Beginning in the 19th century, that slowly changed. Since 1840, life expectancy at birth has risen about three months with each passing year. In 1840, life expectancy at birth in Sweden, a much-studied nation owing to its record-keeping, was 45 years for women; today it’s 83 years.

The United States displays roughly the same trend. When the 20th century began, life expectancy at birth in America was 47 years; now newborns are expected to live 79 years. If about three months continue to be added with each passing year, by the middle of this century, American life expectancy at birth will be 88 years. By the end of the century, it will be 100 years.

Viewed globally, the lengthening of life spans seems independent of any single, specific event. It didn’t accelerate much as antibiotics and vaccines became common. Nor did it retreat much during wars or disease outbreaks. A graph of global life expectancy over time looks like an escalator rising smoothly. The trend holds, in most years, in individual nations rich and poor; the whole world is riding the escalator.

Read the full, original story: What happens when we all live to 100?

Live to be 100+? Extreme longevity research is futuristic privatized enterprise

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In the past year, three new extreme longevity companies, funded by big names have publicized themselves and their mission: slow the aging process and extending human life.

Google’s enigmatic California Life Company, called Calico, and Craig Venter’s Human Longevity, Inc, joined Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov’s 2045 Initiative, now 3 years old.

It’s impossible to know how much funding backs these companies. But, it’s definitely private. And this could be a big problem. Richard Koo, bioethicist at Ichan School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai noted the inherent inequality that will develop from this funding system:

“Private parties do not have to act for the greater good, each project presumably having to be held accountable to obtain a return on investment for the investors first.  Furthermore, depending on the structure of the organization and how it is capitalized, a project does not even have to share any details of what it is doing (see Calico).  There also exists the concern that in the hands of private parties, benefits to be gained from the technological advances from the project will be reserved for the wealthy few. Finally but not exhaustively, undertaking to address the socio-economic fall-out that comes with longer human life on average…e.g., how to provide for the social security, feeding, housing, health care and employment in societies where people live significantly longer on average…is undoubtedly not within the scope of any such project.”

Venter and Google (as far as anyone can tell) are exploring the medical and genetic side of aging. That seems more in line with the idea of accelerating known technologies.

The case of Itskov and his 2045 initiative, however, is of a different ilk. Itskov’s vision is definitely something out of science fiction. First, the program will design human like robots, called avatars, that can carry around brains after people die.

The avatars will be systematically upgraded to function and send back sensory information remotely. And finally, the brain will be reversed engineered to create artificial human intelligence to which our identities can be eternally uploaded. It’s a pretty ambitious roll out plan. For an animation rich, scientific content poor look, have a glance at the YouTube commercial for the project.

The initiative garnered a lot of publicity, as you might imagine brain hosting robots would. But, as Pete Shanks at Biopolitical times writes, Itskov appears to be behind schedule. The third congress of the initiative was never announced and no one’s heard from Itskov since the initial press explosion, he reports.

Which brings up another problem with privately funded research. Shanks considers when the money runs out or the billionaires change their minds,  or both what happens next?

“There are serious questions about relying upon the capricious whims of rich individuals to perform actual research. If Itskov has indeed dropped out of sight, that should remind us just how short an attention span can be. But … why did so many take him so seriously?”

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How brushing your teeth affects the microbiome of the placenta and infant

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I’ve written in the past regarding some of the seminal hypotheses of how the microbiome influences our health, behavior, and development. New supportive research backs this clock up just about as far as it can go – to the development of the embryo and placenta. Science Translational Medicine details a cross-referencing study that was performed in which the genetic profiles of placental microbiome cells were compared with genetic profiles of cells from non-pregnant women to identify the source of placental, preterm, and term infants’ microbiota. What they found was quite interesting.

Keep brushing

One of the most surprising findings is that oral bacteria DNA signatures from the mother most closely match the placental samples in the 320 infants tested – not from the alimentary canal or vagina as has long been assumed. This is also interesting empirical support for a philosophical point taught in graduate-level physiology and medical school classes as a passing item of novelty: When you floss your teeth and brush, you are actually causing low-level bacteremia to yourself – introducing bacteria into your bloodstream. Clearly this is not a problem for the vast majority of healthy individuals, but it does show that this vectoring of oral bacteria does occur – and that it seems to be a principal factor in the placental microbiome.

The authors of the study note, “The metagenomic survey alone can describe the microbial communities present, but clinical context and advanced inference analyses will be required to understand the factors that affect community composition.”

The context of this quote was derived from the researchers finding differences between slightly-premature babies (34-37 weeks) and term babies in their placental microbiome. Appropriate caution from the researchers here is warranted, because the microbiome differences observed were complex, multivariate and showed only an association–not a causal link. A difference was also observed between term babies’ and preterm babies’ microbiome with respect to whether mothers had early-term urinary tract infections (UTIs). The microbiological implications here would then seem to stem more from the mothers’ use of antibiotics in these cases, rather than the simple presence of the UTI, since the antibiotics are systemic, and the urinary tract organisms don’t tend to be a hallmark group in the normal placental microbiome.

The use of genetic testing, done almost in the way of forensic DNA testing, continues to tell us things about the world around us that we were totally unaware of because there are so many factors and variables that if we just assume we know what is going on with a certain mechanism, we’d be more likely to choose incorrectly. And the genetic data are helping us to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

Ben Locwin, PhD, MBA is a contributor to the Genetic Literacy Project and is an author of a wide variety of scientific articles for books and magazines. He is also a researcher and consultant for a variety of industries including behavioral and psychological, food and nutrition, pharmaceutical, and academic. Follow me at @BenLocwin

Louisiana govenor in evolution hot seat, was Rhodes scholar who studied biology

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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal dodged three questions on Tuesday about whether he personally believes the theory of evolution explains the presence of complex life on Earth.

“The reality is I’m not an evolutionary biologist,” the Republican governor and possible 2016 presidential hopeful told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

“What I believe as a father and a husband is that local schools should make decisions on how they teach,” he said. “And we can talk about Common Core and why I don’t believe in a national curriculum. I think local school districts should make decisions about what should be taught in their classroom. I want my kids to be exposed to the best science, the best critical thinking…”

The reporter interrupted Jindal, a Rhodes scholar who studied biology and public policy at Brown University, to press him on the original question of whether he believes the theory of evolution reflects the best scientific thinking about life on Earth.

“I will tell you, as a father, I want my kids to be taught about evolution in their schools, but secondly, I think local school districts should make the decision,” he said.

Pressed a third time on what he personally thinks, Jindal again sidestepped.

Read the full, original story: Bobby Jindal refuses to say if he believes in evolution

Neuroscience, mindfullness and reslience in school kids

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For scientists the concept of psychological resilience began in the 1970s with studies of children who did fine – or even well in life – despite significant early adversity, such as poverty or family violence.

For a long time a person’s level of resilience was thought to be inherited or acquired in early life. This idea was supported by the often-replicated statistics on what happens after a trauma: while most people bounce back to normal relatively quickly, and some even report feeling psychologically stronger afterwards than they did before, about 8 per cent develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to US figures.

The degree to which someone bounces back, or does even better – his or her resilience – has a genetic component. But “genes are not destiny here,” says Professor Dennis Charney, Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City.

As well as investigating psychological attitudes and mental strategies linked to resilience, Charney and Yale professor Steven Southwick have probed the neurobiology behind it. People whose bodies respond rapidly to a threat – with a surge of the stress hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol – but who then recover quickly seem to cope better with stressful situations and jobs, such as working in the special forces. Could this drug make you mentally stronger?

More resilient people also seem to be better at using the hormone dopamine – which has a role in the brain’s reward system – to help keep them positive during stress. Charney’s team, along with colleagues from the National Institutes of Health, studied a group of U.S. Special Forces soldiers. They found that the amount of activity in the reward systems of the soldiers’ brains remained high when they lost money in an experimental game, unlike in the brains of regular civilian volunteers.

This suggests the system in resilient people’s brains may be less affected by stress or adversity. Each of the soldiers’ brains also featured a healthily large hippocampus (which as well as enabling the formation of new memories also helps regulate the release of the fight-or-flight hormone adrenalin) and a strongly active prefrontal cortex, the brain region dubbed ‘the seat of rational thinking’.

This in turn helps inhibit the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes negative emotions such as fear and anger, allowing the prefrontal cortex to come up with a sensible plan to cope with a threat.

Read the full, original story: Secrets of the strong-minded

Don’t get your hopes up for finding your genetic soul mate

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Some online dating sites rely on a mathematical algorithm to match people. Others are based on pure physical attraction and a quick swipe to the left or right.

But a new online dating site promises deeper compatibility by testing users’ DNA. They say they’ve found the secret to “long-term chemistry” — what makes a relationship last — in people’s genes.

Two companies, SingldOut and Instant Chemistry, are working together to match users based on the results of both a personality test (evaluating “diet habits of a mate, how often they exercise, and so on,” according to a company press release) and a genetic test.

“Through intensive research, scientists have found that long-term relationship satisfaction stems from two constants — your DNA and core personality — and how those match up with your partner’s,” said Sara Seabrooke, a geneticist and chief science officer of Instant Chemistry, in a press statement.

Ultimately, geneticist Ricki Lewis said, the science doesn’t live up to the hype. “Testing for two genes out of 20,000 … is hardly useful — would you select a person to date based on four items on a 20,000 item questionnaire?” she asked. “Even if what those two genes do makes sense, it is simply too little information to have any value.”

Read the full, original story: The new science of matchmaking: Dating based on your DNA

World stem cell scientists look to Japanese human trial with hope

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“It’s awesome, it’s amazing, I’m thrilled, I’ve been waiting for this,” says Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

She is one of several researchers around the world to welcome the news that a Japanese woman with visual impairment had become the first person to receive a therapy derived from stem cells known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

A lot rides on this trial. If the procedure proves safe, it could soften the stance of regulatory bodies in other nations towards human trials of iPS cells, and it could pave the way for treatments for other conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. It could also cement Japan, recently plagued by a stem-cell scandal, as a frontrunner in iPS-cell research.

Pioneered in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka, now director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Applications at Kyoto University, iPS cells are created by inserting certain genes into the DNA of adult cells to reprogram the cells back to an embryonic-like state. The cells can then be turned into almost any tissue type, much as embryonic stem cells can. But because iPS cells can be derived from a patient’s own tissue, the hope is that they will dodge some of the controversial aspects and safety concerns of those derived from embryos.

Read the full, original story: Japan stem-cell trial stirs envy

Some patients with genetic risk start Alzheimer’s prevention strategies in their 30s

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Max Lugavere seems an unlikely patient to be sitting in an Alzheimer’s clinic.

The fit, 32-year-old, dressed in Converse All-Star sneakers and a white T-shirt, eats a carefully calibrated diet and exercises regularly. He takes supplements of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins B and D. He also has zero symptoms of memory or cognitive loss.

“I generally like to feel I have a handle on my health,” Lugavere says during a session with Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. “My mother is 62 and she has memory loss and cognitive difficulty.… So when I came across this idea of dementia prevention, it was eye-opening,” says Lugavere, a filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles and New York.

Alzheimer’s experts increasingly are researching ways to prevent or delay memory decline instead of just focusing on treating patients who have the disease. There have been encouraging results from some studies of preventive strategies, including lifestyle interventions in people at risk for dementia. Some 5.2 million people in the U.S. had Alzheimer’s in 2014, a number that is expected to about triple by 2050.

“There is growing evidence that lifestyle modifications do have an impact on our cognitive aging,” said Ronald Petersen, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “But to really say that we can prevent Alzheimer’s disease is a bit of a stretch.”

Read the full, original story: Alzheimer’s prevention for 30-somethings with no symptoms

Researcher probes why viruses remain genetically stable for some time, then rapidly mutate

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Unlike most kids, Katia Koelle’s first love was math, a passion she picked up from enthusiastic instructors.

“One of my high school teachers was so excited he would jump around the room,” Koelle says. Now an evolutionary biologist at Duke University, she’s using math to reveal how infectious diseases evolve and spread.

Koelle builds models that merge data from unfolding epidemics with information about pathogens and the human immune system. She also studies the genes of viruses to determine why they mutate. Her holistic strategy provides clues to puzzles that have long stymied researchers. For example, flu viruses seem to remain relatively stable for years, only to suddenly evolve into a more deadly form. Koelle’s models show that they pick up a range of mutations over time—
potentially setting them up for a significant change. Now, she’s exploring why certain areas of the world are hotspots for generating outbreaks.

Read the full, original story: The brilliant 10: Katia Koelle models how viruses turn deadly

Environmental activists sometimes hurt those they intend to help

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The religion of environmentalism … does everything it can to stop economic growth from happening. Preferring things to be more “natural” typically means restricting energy use, technological advancement and the progress of civilization itself.

Jon Entine, a senior fellow at the World Food Center at UC Davis, describes how much of the famine that has plagued Africa since the early 2000s could’ve been avoided if the affected countries had made use of available GMO seeds.

But environmentalists pressured governments in Europe (Africa’s main trading partner) to warn African countries that GMO use would mean reduced trade.

Entine notes that there are no nutritional or environmental differences between genetically modified crops and unmodified ones.

“A 29-year, billion-animal feed study showed zero impact of GMO crops on animal health,” says Entine. And GMO crops bring with them all sorts of benefits — they can bring greater nutritional value or make crops resistant to viruses.

As for organic crops, the “natural” ones that wealthy suburban moms favor, they require 20 percent to 40 percent more land to produce the same yield.

To go organic, Entine explains, “You have to clearcut more land to grow less food. You’ve used more tractors and consumed more carbon.”

Entine testified this week at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, where voices like his are in danger of being drowned out by environmentalist ideologues.

“There’s a hysteria created,” he says. But the “people who suffer most are poor. There will be 9 billion people on this planet by 2050 and organic farming alone would be a death wish.”

Read full original article: Greens v. the poor: It’s a movement of the ‘haves’

Let farmers, not activists, decide fate of GM crops in India

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Professor Dr. Shanthu Shantharam of the Iowa State University’s Seed Science Centre said that the decision on the usage of GM crops should be left to farmers and not to environmental activists. He was speaking at a seminar on ‘GM Technology – Myth and Reality’ organised by the Industrial Economist magazine on Saturday at the CLRI.

“Let farmers give the verdict,” said the scientist who has worked for biotechnology and bio-safety for the U.S.-AID and the UN-FAO.

Countering arguments that Bt Cotton was a failure, he said that farmers were using Bt Cotton in spite of the criticism leveled against it.

Some farmers at the event also agreed with the scientist. Raveendran, a farmer from Thiruvarur district pointed out that he has been able to increase his productivity and reduce costs on pesticides with the introduction of Bt Cotton. He said that the quality of the cotton produced was also better.

Others speakers at the event added that the scientific community must do more research in the area, and produce evidence to dispel fears.

Read the full, original article: ‘Decision on GM tech should be left to farmers’

Regulating research in Uganda does not mean stopping research

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Regulation should be part of any human activity as it creates a safe boundary for operation.

Regulation is part of life as is evident in living things including human beings that have inbuilt regulatory mechanisms that prevent their systems from collapsing under extreme conditions. When the temperature is high, the sweat glands release sweat and as it evaporates it takes the heat away from the body.  When it is very cold, the veins constrict and the rate of metabolism increases in order to generate heat.

The same applies to other aspects of science, where you find thermostats in heaters, speed limits installed in vehicles, circuit breakers in electric circuits. These are safety measures that should be in place and the law comes in to ensure those responsible to have them in place are held accountable, if those measures are not there. They are not meant to stop operations but regulate it.

All these science can be abused, if there is no regulatory framework in place.  Using the same principle, we find irresponsible individuals who add paracetamol commonly known as Panadol to elevate the boiling point of water, putting narcotics in foods, to using baking powder in milk.

Coming back to modern biotechnology, scientists in Uganda are carrying out several researches using the biotech approach to address various serious crop diseases and nutrients deficiencies that we have in the country.

They have been responsible and have shown that by their progressive research products that have been in use and yet that is not enough to make them operate without a legally binding safety framework.

Read the full, original article: Unregulated science is subject to abuse

Public GMO studies database finds GMOs safe, half of studies independent

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Critics of genetically modified crops often assert that all research into the plants’ safety is bought and paid for by industry. Not so, according to a newly compiled database of biotech crop research.

Independently funded, peer-reviewed research into GM crops “is common, conducted worldwide, and makes up half of the total research on risk associated with genetic engineering,” say the team behind the database.

The database was compiled by not-for-profit group Biology Fortified, which was set up in 2008 by plant geneticists Karl Haro von Mogel and Anastasia Bodnar, now both public sector scientists.

Biology Fortified board member David Tribe of the University of Melbourne collected more than 200 hundred safety-related studies on his website. Haro von Mogel and Bodnar gathered more than 100 independently funded studies to add to the list.

It quickly became apparent, however, that a few hundred citations would not be sufficiently useful or persuasive – and so work on the large searchable database, known as GENERA (for Genetic Engineering Risk Atlas), began.

So far released as a test version, GENERA includes 400 randomly chosen studies from the 1,200 studies of GM foods collected, covering topics from the productivity of GM plants to the safety of eating GM produce. These 400 have been read and categorised by a team of volunteers led by Haro von Mogel over the last two years.

The project received a $10,000 grant from the American Society of Plant Biologists in 2012. It received a further shot in the arm late last year, when Alessandro Nicolia of the University of Perugia completed a massive literature review on biotech crop safety research.

“We’ve made it really easy for people to find the information they are looking for,” says Bodnar.

Read the full, original article: GM food is safe according to independent studies

Ralph Nader: Is GMO science corrupt?

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The food we eat is increasingly engineered by corporate science. Biotech companies like Monsanto and DuPont have moved towards monopolizing the seed market — an antitrust investigation of Monsanto by the Department of Justice was quietly ended in 2012, and no steps have been taken by regulators since.

Monsanto, with its massive, relentless marketing and harassing litigation campaigns, has repeatedly claimed that its genetically-modified patented seeds (GMOs) are superior to traditional seeds — claiming that genetically modified foods are safe, cheaper, higher yielding, more nutritious, requiring lower chemical inputs, and resistant to drought and blight.

Yet Monsanto has refused to meet its burden of proof about these claims with evidence. Moreover, it intimidates independent scientists from testing its proprietary products!

Corporate science is, above all else, secretive. The flimsy excuse of “trade secrets” is used to prevent independent or academic scientists from evaluating exaggerated corporate claims. Scientists who wish to replicate or test the biotech industry’s claims about their products find a paucity of available grants, obstructed access to the products, and a litigiously backed up refusal to disclose.

Research on the migration of genetically-modified pollen from farms to non-GMO-farms; the level of developing bacterial, viral, and insect resistance to GMO-linked herbicides; and longer-run studies of the consequences of GMO seeds and crops on the environment is grossly underfunded, whether by government agencies or foundations. The cover-up continues.

Read the full, original article: GMOs and searching for the crashless car

Biotech industry appeasing anti-GMO critics

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Executives at the helm of every biotech company, every farm bureau and every commodity group are listening rather intently to the very people who seek to put them out of business.

The most blatant example is the biotech sector’s favorite go-nowhere meetings in Washington DC: the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21). These meetings have focused of late on just one thing: how to “protect” organic farms from GMOs, with nary mention of the fact that GMOs pose no risk whatsoever to organic crops, which of course explains why certified-organic farmers and GMO farmers have been farming side-by-side for two decades now without incident.

There was a glimmer of commonsense when President Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack suggested organic farmers could buy insurance to protect against GMO “contamination,” again, in spite of the fact that there’s no such thing. He said, in essence, If you want protection from something that scientists and the federal government say you don’t need protection from, then go to the private insurance market and buy insurance.

Rather than object, GMO executives went a step further. They got Republican Mike Pompeo to draw up a GMO labelling bill in Congress which, they hope, will be their industry’s salvation by providing for voluntary GMO labelling which will put a stop to all the mandatory labelling schemes like the one that Democrat Barbara Boxer tried to pass last year, or that is now law in the state of Vermont. And the way Pompeo’s bill will work is by establishing – for the first time ever – an allowable threshold-limit for GMO contamination in organic crops of 0.9%.

Hang on. There’s no such thing as contamination of an organic crop by GMOs. So, excuse me all you highly paid GMO executives, but isn’t this a huge step backwards?

Read the full, original article: The GMO Debate: Meetings about non-existent food safety issues

Can researchers make a biotech wheat that’s not a GMO?

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>Researchers have discovered “the most famous wheat gene,” a reproductive traffic cop of sorts that can be used to transfer valuable genes from other plants to wheat.

The discovery clears the way for breeders to develop  with the disease- and pest-resistance traits of other grasses, using a legion of genetic tools that can reduce crop losses and pesticide use while foregoing the cost, regulatory hurdles and controversy of Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs.

“The real exciting part of this gene is that it has tremendous potential for application,” said Kulvinder Gill, a WSU professor, who reports his findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Though it would be genetic modification, because of precise legal definitions that ban some genetic optimization but allow mutagenesis and other older forms of genetic modification, it would not have the same regulatory hurdles and controversy of modern GMOs.

Starting in 1958, just five years after the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, researchers suspected that a specific gene controls the orderly pairing of wheat chromosomes during reproduction.

“If this gene was not present, there would be chaos in the nucleus,” said  Gill.  But the gene also prevents wheat from breeding with related ancestors that can contain a vast array of traits preferred by growers.

Interest in the gene, called Ph1, has spawned scores of research papers, making it what Gill called, “the most famous wheat gene.”

In 2006, British researchers writing in Nature said they identified the gene.

“In this paper,” said Gill, “we show that their gene is not the Ph1.”

Knowing their findings would be controversial, Gill and his colleagues spent a year repeating the experiments that led to their conclusion. They are now moving on.

Read the full, original article: Genetically modified wheat, without the GMO drama

Do cancers act as a DNA time machine?

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Why has cancer proven so resistant to cures, why is it so widespread, and why has the War on Cancer gained such precious little ground?

One argument is that we’re looking at cancer all wrong. Rather than a motley collection of cells gone berserk, they might better be seen as “atavisms” evolutionary throwbacks to the dawn of multicellular life, when single cells began cooperating and forming rudimentary aggregations.

Basically: early life was akin to tumors, and cancer is just what happens when some switch gets flipped and the cells of body “revert” to this tumor-state. This idea was first formally proposed by physicists Paul Davies and Charles Lineweaver in 2011 in a paper in Physical Science, and Davies has been advocating it in numerous articles, arguing that cancer can only be properly understood as an evolutionary time-machine.

This idea has drawn ire from mainstream evolutionary biologists, and igniting a spate of highly critical responses. Chief among the critics is PZ Myers, author of the Pharyngula blog, who challenged the idea that cancers are evolutionary throwbacks. He called the idea “embarrassing” for its fundamental misunderstandings of modern biology.

In particular, “peculiar notions about molecular biology that allow them to imagine whole invisible networks of primeval genes lurking as atavisms beneath the polished exteriors of urbane and civilized modern cells.” There is no “layer” of primordial genes somehow hidden from the forces of evolution, yearning to be set free as tumors.

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