tagged w/ scientific research
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Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered a previously unknown route by which GM genes may escape into the natural environment.
By studying plant-fungi-bacteria interactions at plant wound sites, the team have identified a natural process stimulated by a hormone released by the wounded plant that would allow synthetic genes to move across organisms and out into the wild.
The bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens transforms plant tissue as part of its infection process. This natural process provides an important toolbox for scientists to genetically manipulate many species of plants. Recently this technology has been developed for non-plant organisms including fungi by the Bailey & Foster Group in Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences.
Their success has come from adding the plant wound hormone acetosyringone, which triggers Agrobacterium transformation mechanisms and allows foreign genes to modify cells (genetic transformation). In the natural environment Agrobacterium and fungi likely encounter each other at plant wound sites where acetosyringone is present, raising the possibility of natural gene transfer from bacterium to fungus.
Professor Gary Foster and colleagues tested whether transformation of fungi by Agrobacterium can occur in nature on plants. Their results clearly demonstrate that when placed together on damaged plant tissue, Agrobacterium readily transforms associated fungi. “This suggests a previously unknown route for horizontal gene transfer in nature,” said Professor Foster.
These results may have implications for the risk assessment of GM plants generated via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Agrobacterium can survive within plant tissue following artificial transformation in tissue culture, and can be detected within regenerated transgenic plants. This research shows that these bacteria have the potential to move the same genetic modifications to fungi in a natural environment.
Prior to release of a GM plant, elimination of Agrobacterium following modern genetic modification is a key concern of geneticists and policy makers as it is essential to prevent later escape of synthesised gene from Agrobacterium to other organisms.
Professor Foster said: “This study suggests that the encounter between Agrobacterium and a fungus on the plant surface may lead to gene flow in a previously overlooked way, potentially leaking GM genes into the natural world.”
The Bristol study, published online in PLoS ONE, was carried out with financial support from NERC.Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered a previously unknown route by... more
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Billed as "a political thriller on GMOs and freedom of speech", this film by the German film-maker Bertram Verhaag tells the stories of two scientists, Dr Arpad Pusztai and Dr Ignacio Chapela, whose research showed negative findings on GM foods and crops. Both suffered the fate of those who challenge the powerful vested interests that dominate agribusiness and scientific research. They were vilified and intimidated, attempts were made to suppress and discredit their research, and their careers were derailed.
Pusztai found that the internal organs of rats fed GM insecticidal potatoes either increased in size or did not develop properly compared with controls. His experiments turned up no less than 36 significant differences between GM-fed and non-GM-fed animals. Pusztai, encouraged by his research institute, gave a 150-second interview on British TV in which he summarised his findings and said it was unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs for GM foods.
For two days, Pusztai was treated as a hero by his institute. But following a phone call from UK prime minister Tony Blair to the institute's head, Pusztai was fired and gagged under threat of a lawsuit. His research team was disbanded and his data were confiscated. Lies were circulated about his research that he could not counter due to the gagging order, lifted only later when he was due to appear before a Parliamentary Committee. For Pusztai’s co-researchers, the gagging order remains in place for life.
Pusztai's results threatened the GM industry because they showed that it wasn't the insecticide engineered into the potatoes that damaged the rats, but the genetic engineering process itself. So the problem wasn't just with these GM potatoes but potentially with all GM foods on the market. The only solution for the industry and its friends in government was to shoot the messenger.
Traumatic though this was for Pusztai, it wasn't the biggest shock he had to face regarding GM foods. That came when he was asked to review safety submissions from the GM industry for crops we were already eating – and found that they were scientifically flimsy. "That was a turning point in my life," said Pusztai. "I was doing safety studies; they were doing as little as possible [in terms of safety testing] to get their foods on the market as quickly as they could."
Another scientist whose run-in with the GM industry is featured in the film is Ignacio Chapela, a molecular geneticist at UC Berkeley. His research, co-authored with David Quist and published in the journal Nature, revealed that Mexican maize had been contaminated with GM genes. The finding was explosive because Mexico is the centre of origin for maize and the planting of GM maize there was illegal.
Chapela found himself the target of a vicious internet campaign condemning him as more of an activist than a scientist and claiming that his paper was false. Nature's editor published a partial retraction of the paper. As Chapela points out in the film, the editor's action flew in the face of scientific method. In the normal way of things, a journal editor publishes a study that he and peer reviewers judge to be sound. It is for subsequent published studies to confirm or correct the findings. It is not for the editor to state that he would not have published a study had he known then what he knows now – without the benefit of further peer reviewed scientific input. The editor's move showed how the GM industry is rewriting the rules of science for its own ends.
To add insult to injury, the internet campaign against Chapela turned out not to have been initiated and fuelled not by his scientific peers but by fake citizens, "sockpuppets" invented by the Bivings Group, a public relations firm contracted by Monsanto.
Scientists Under Attack goes on to show how the GM industry has blocked the evolution of scientific knowledge. When Russian scientist Irina Ermakova's study found high mortality rates and low body weight in rats fed GM soy, and when Austrian government research found that decreased fertility in mice fed GM maize, the industry carried out its usual campaign of vilification. If the industry were interested in scientific truth, it would push for studies to be repeated with the alleged "flaws" corrected. But this never happens. Instead, GM companies use their patent-based ownership of GM crops to deny scientists access to research materials – the GM crop and the non-GM parent line control. So the original research showing problems with GM crops is buried under a deluge of smears and follow up studies are not done. For the public, the difficulty and expense involved in accessing full research papers makes it hard to find where the truth lies.
The film also highlights an extreme example of the corporate takeover of science – at University of California, Berkeley (UCB), where Chapela is a professor. In 1998, UCB entered into a $25 million research partnership with biotech company Novartis (now Syngenta). The deal provoked angry debate on campus and was criticized by a number of faculty members, including Chapela. Then in 2007, UCB entered into a $500 million research deal with oil giant BP. The partnership was negotiated in secret, without consultation even within the university. In return for its money, BP gained access to UCB’s researchers, control over the research agenda, and co-ownership of commercial rights over inventions. Chapela says of BP, "They decide what is called science."Billed as "a political thriller on GMOs and freedom of speech", this film by... more
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Excerpt:
"Neonicotinoids came into wide use in the early 2000s. Unlike older pesticides that evaporate or disperse shortly after application, neonicotinoids are systemic poisons. Applied to the soil or doused on seeds, neonicotinoid insecticides incorporate themselves into the plant’s tissues, turning the plant itself into a tiny poison factory emitting toxin from its roots, leaves, stems, pollen, and nectar."
One more excerpt:
"But University of Padua entomologist Vincenzo Girolami believes he may have discovered an unexpected mechanism by which neonicotinoids — despite their novel mode of application — do in fact kill bees.
In the spring,neonicotinoid-coated seeds are planted using seeding machines, which kick up clouds of insecticide into the air. “The cloud is 20 meters wide, sometimes 50 meters, and the machines go up and down and up and down,” he says. “Bees that cross the fields, making a trip every ten minutes, have a high probability of encountering this cloud. If they make a trip every five minutes, it is certain that they will encounter this cloud.”
And the result could be immediately devastating. In as-yet-unpublished research, Girolami has found concentrations of insecticide in clouds above seeding machines 1,000 times the dose lethal to bees. In the spring, when the seed machines are working, says Girolami, “I think that 90 percent or more of deaths of bees is due to direct pesticide poisoning.”
Girolami has also found lethal levels of neonicotinoids in other, unexpected — and usually untested — places, such as the drops of liquid that treated crops secrete along their leaf margins, which bees and other insects drink."
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2228
In nations like Germany, France, Italy, Slovenia the chemical has been banned.
In America is still "legal". For the USDA and EPA this is "safe".
It doesn't take scientific research to prove the harmful effects of these chemicals, common sense tells us that Nature's balance has been compromised and the chaos is here, among our plants, insects and our own very cells.
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/Excerpt:
"Neonicotinoids came into wide use in the early 2000s. Unlike older... more
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I guess everyone must have come across this question. So, let us take a shot at it.
In nature, living things evolve through changes in their DNA. In an animal like a chicken, DNA from a male sperm cell and a female ovum meet and combine to form a zygote -- the first cell of a new baby chicken. This first cell divides innumerable times to form all of the cells of the complete animal. In any animal, every cell contains exactly the same DNA, and that DNA comes from the zygote.I guess everyone must have come across this question. So, let us take a shot at it.... more
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Scientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cellsScientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by... more
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Scientists have identified the genes in cannabis that allow the plant to produce THC. This opens the path to either create drug-free hemp plants for industrial purposes, or to develop plants with much higher concentrations of the psychotropic chemical.Scientists have identified the genes in cannabis that allow the plant to produce THC.... more
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Borat’s Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has now been implemented. Kazakhstan entrepreneurs are developing pharmaceutical medicines and other hemp based products.Borat’s Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of... more
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Chemicals in cannabis have been found to stop prostate cancer cells from growing in the laboratory, suggesting that cannabis-based medicines could one day help fight the disease, scientists say.Chemicals in cannabis have been found to stop prostate cancer cells from growing in... more
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Medical Doctor urges Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to have a frank discussion with doctors and researchers on medical cannabis and the efficacy of various routes of its administration.Medical Doctor urges Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control... more
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The rigged contest over which University is awarded government Marijuana research grants has successfully thwarted meaningful academic inquiry into marijuana’s medicinal value, without which the debate over its efficacy is bound to endure.The rigged contest over which University is awarded government Marijuana research... more
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A British study has cast doubt on the supposed link between cannabis use and schizophrenia.A British study has cast doubt on the supposed link between cannabis use and... more
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What exactly is oncology research and who are the young creative minds performing it?
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A virtual reality exhibit is giving visitors the extreme ranges of sight and hearing that many animals have.A virtual reality exhibit is giving visitors the extreme ranges of sight and hearing... more
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Hundreds of images derived from classified data that could be used to better understand rapid loss and transformation of Arctic sea ice should be immediately released and disseminated to the scientific research community, says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report emphasized that these Arctic images show detailed melting and freezing processes and also provide information at scales, locations, and time periods that are important for studying effects of climate change on sea ice and habitat -- data that are not available elsewhere.
"To prepare for a possibly ice-free Arctic and its subsequent effects on the environment, economy, and national security, it is critical to have accurate projections of changes over the next several decades," said committee chair Stephanie Pfirman, professor and chair of the department of environmental science at Barnard College, New York City. "Forecasts of regional sea-ice conditions can help officials plan for and adapt to the impact of climate change and minimize environmental risks."
Projections of future Arctic ice cover are hampered by poor understanding of sea-ice physical processes because few observations exist at appropriate times and scales. Readily available satellite images are too coarse to capture the details, the report says. In addition, collecting ground-based data by maintaining manned-drifting stations is challenging due to rapidly changing environmental conditions and the weak platform of ice, and collecting data from observational aircraft flights is difficult and expensive.
"At a time when there is concern that Earth observation systems are decreasing and aging, releasing these images would be a step toward continuing the flow of critical information to the scientific community," said Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences. "We hope that these images are the first of many that could help scientists learn how the changing climate could impact the environment and our society."Hundreds of images derived from classified data that could be used to better... more
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What else will they pass on? And what then will we pass on to our own offspring in time as a result of our eating genetically altered food? Scientists claim they did this in order to test these animals to find cures for human diseases. I personally think it is cruel to use these animals for such a purpose and deprive them of a natural life. Wouldn't it be ironic however, to be using these genetically altered monkeys to look for cures to human diseases that are actually exacerbated by eating genetically altered organisms? The cures for diseases are not in green glowing monkeys... they are found in our natural world which provides all we need to survive. Why doesn't science concentrate on that instead of altering it with unknown consequences that may breed more problems than solutions? I am all for scientific research, but not when it intrudes on the natural order of our planet.
So, is this innovative scientific research, or animal cruelty?What else will they pass on? And what then will we pass on to our own offspring in... more
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This is an incredible story of intimidation, deception, and corporate espionage, and that description is not going too far. The story at this link is long and involved, but I ask you to read it from beginning to end. It describes the lengths Monsanto and their minions went to in order to silence the author of a study that showed that GM DNA was infecting the traditional corn vareties of Mexico and that the DNA was not even stable. We wonder where viruses like Swine flu originate. I am beginning to wonder if viruses are spread by the GM BT transgenic corn DNA blowing in the wind.
Also, in this article you will read about the deceptive and destructive PR Internet campaign Monsanto is waging in order to discredit those who criticize GMOS. If you were not convinced that GMOs are harmful to our environment and that their release into our environment was for profit alone and perhaps even criminal, this may change yoru mind. This needs to be seen and people need to know that in no uncertain terms GMOs must be pulled from our shelves.This is an incredible story of intimidation, deception, and corporate espionage, and... more
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