what is genetically modified food? and how does it work?

Answer 1

We have some 40 altered crops in the US. expressing either HT herbicide tolerance or Bt for Insect resistance. The crops include corn, cotton, soybeans, and canola. HT allows farmers to use a glycophosphate herbicide on the crop plant but only kill the weeds. Bt are genes of proteins expressed by the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. Bt is a catch all name for an entire genus that each attacks a different host insect. Putting a Bt protein in the plant lets the plant fight the specific insect that eats it. In sunflowers the pollen has already hybridized with wild sunflowers that are now much more hardy since they have an ability to resist their predators. 'A Bt transgene reduces herbivory and enhances fecundity in wild sunflowers.' Ecological Applications 13: 279-86.
The Ecological Risks of Engineered Crops lists six kinds of potential risks.
1 Crop escapes as weed
2 Crop hybridizes with wild versions
3 Viral vector is altered/repaired to escape bearing its insert
4 Crops gene insertion is toxic to unexpected organism
6 Crop diversity will diminish.
I'll add there is no nutritional value added or reduction in cost.

Humans are not the only ones occupying themselves with genetic plant modification. To confuse matters don't forget transposons genetically alter food crops. Mc Clintock showed there are mobile genetic elements native to maize. Some 48% of the human genome may be Alu transposons or their relics. Anything we add to a plant or animal won't be static nor will it be an unusual event.
Transposons in bacteria called plasmids are our current bane in moving antibiotic resistance into nonresistant strains.
All the mobile elements that participate in the horizontal transfer of genes are called mobile genetic elements (MGE)
All of this is a part of the horizontal transfer of genes that occurred with the rise of cellular life. Viruses & bacteria where long recognized to do this.
Viral replication is known to abscond with host DNA as part of the viral genome then insert the stolen DNA in another host cell resulting in a new form, even across species. Recombination is a powerful tool for evolution.
"May we not feel that in the virus, in their merging with the cellular genome and their re-emerging from them, we observe processes which, in the course of evolution, have created the successful genetic patterns that underlie all living things?" — Salvador Luria, 1959
Now we know far more than Dr Luria did in the fifties. Dr Mae-Wan Ho has stated horizontal gene transfer occurs in essentially the entire biosphere, with bacteria and viruses serving both as intermediaries for gene trafficking and as reservoirs.
A known benefit conferred by viral genes in humans is a sequence installed by a retrovirus that regulates the amylase gene cluster, allowing us to produce amylase in our saliva. This sequence that we share with a few other primates enables us to eat starchy foods we otherwise couldn't. - Coffin, John M.; Stephen H. Hughes and Harold E. Varmus, Eds. Retroviruses, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1997. p 403.
Genetically modifying our own food is very new to us but an old phenomena in evolutionary biology. The main difficulty being we want only beneficial changes with no long term detrimental effects like what could have happened to the Monarch Butterfly.
There a Bt bearing corn strain was approved for cultivation but the FDA only tested it on crop predators not other caterpillars. The high Bt presence in this one strain of corn pollen could have killed a very high percentage of the butterfly. By a fluke that strain of corn was not popular so by the time recall was announced the government, by fortuity, could claim victory.

Answer 2

Genetically-modified (GM) food is produced from plants or animals which have had their genes changed in the laboratory by scientists.


All living organisms have genes written in their DNA. They are the chemical instructions for building and maintaining life. By modifying the genes, scientists can alter the characteristics of an organism.

We might, for examples, want to boost yields, increase muscle bulk and make our crops and farm animals resistant to disease. Genetic engineering holds out these possibilities.

However, the technology is in its infancy. Very few food crops have been gene-altered using the new techniques, and there are no foodstuffs on sale in the UK made from GM animals.

And none of the GM crops currently being commercially grown around the world contain genes transferred from animals or humans.

Some will argue that this new technology is "unnatural". Others will point to the commonality that exists between species - from bugs and worms to monkeys and humans, we already share many of the same genes.

Answer 3

Scientists can take a gene from one plant and introduce it to another one. EG if a crop is ravaged by black fly then they introduce a gene from a crop that is resistant to black fly. Over simplified I know but that is the sort of thing they can do. They can make a plant resistant to any pest in this way. What is not known accept from computer generated information is what the long term effect is on that crop or on the consumer of that crop. In the case of Maize that would be the ingredient of Corn Flakes and millions of people eat Corn flakes. They cannot contain the experimental areas because the pollen from these hybrid plants spreads for miles. This is also a worry for the health of the bees that are exposed to the GM pollen and so it goes on right along the food chain.

Answer 4

Genetically-modified food comes from a plant, such as soybean, that has had a gene spliced into its genome that makes it grow bigger, or causes it to be resistant to pesticides or herbicides, so the farmer can spray the plants without endangering his crop. One kind of genetically-modified plant is the Roundup Ready soybean, which is resistant to weed killers. It's easier for the farmer to spray for the weeds than to pull them.

Answer 5

All food we grow is "genetically modified" with selected breeding and cultivation and so forth. People are just overreacting about genetically modified foods because they watch too many sci-fi movies.

Answer 6

definite, because of the fact i think human beings might desire to have the potential to make an recommended decision in the ingredients they consume. i think the furor over GM plant life has been blown way out of share and that there is numerous undesirable technology available, however the jury continues to be out on numerous those issues and lots greater helpful to ere on the area of warning than to have wellness issues appear years from now or in the subsequent technology. As for the rant from the no longer so surprising surprising Winger, enhancing genes in the lab is a thoroughly diverse pastime than breeding for characteristics. yet i assume regardless of if this is stable for sizable company we would desire to continuously all in basic terms duck our heads and say definite sir. luckily we've a president and a variety of of alternative individuals of congress who're devoted to creating our ingredients safer.