March Against Monsanto

If Monsanto would just stop their *** lawsuits, I think they'd be the worlds most beloved company. I seriously cannot think of anything better than making food mass producible, more resistant to predators of all sorts, and all the other ***they do.

No one would ever eat the real banana.

inb4

BUT FISH TOMATOES GAIZ.

A gene is just a section of DNA code.
In the example above, the numbers would be the gene that dictates growth stages. Even if it isn't naturally occurring(because it has never encountered and adapted to that combination of chemicals in pesticides), we are just telling the plant how to cope with these things (do X and Y when these chemicals are present etc.).

To create a gene I believe they have to go through a plants DNA and find sections that have been used in the past to dictate resistance/reaction to certain chemicals (in this case, the chemicals in pesticides). Activate those switches (if they are off), put them together as a completed gene and splice it into the seeds DNA. This plant's seeds will then contain the same gene = mass production.

Such a fascinating subject.

You know, honestly those natural bananas look fairly good. Makes me wonder how crunchy the seeds are and if they taste at all good.

Molecular Biologist here. Anything you eat changes the microbiological flora in your gut. While it is true that there is research that suggests that changes in the gut that cause things like IBS and Chrones are releated to gut microflora, there is no link between the prevelance of IBS/Chrones to genetically modified foods. You eat half a carrot more one day and none the other and your gut microflora is going to change. If they genetically modify foods that have extra nutrients, of course that's going to change the microbial ecology.

It's true that antibiotics are worse because it entirely knocks out your gut ecology. In many hospital settings, they supplement probiotics after heavy antibiotic use to prevent IBS/Chrones. (Usually a strain of lactobacillus, which is typically found in your yogurt). The concept behind this is because when you kill all the harmless bacteria that is sometimes suprior at competiting for nutrients in the gut, it allows for other harmful bacteria to rise to concentrations enough to cause a problem.

That banana picture posted above is a wild type banana but the bananas we see in supermarkets are just a crossbreed of 2 different banana types(look up cavendish bananas).

You say countersuit but what kind of bizzaro planet are you living on that you can honestly think that a small family farm would have the kind of money to be able to afford anyone who could hope to compete with Monsanto's legal department?

I didn't say I had all the answers, but those should be points able to be used against those farms that let their pollen fly where ever.

Umm no. They simply went in and turned off whenever genetic code made the outside of the plant vulnerable to the chemicals used in their pesticide.

We've actually done something kinda similar to a human being, the only man ever cured of HIV (Berlin Patient). Turns out a small percentage of Northern European people are immune to the most common strains of HIV due to a mutation in their dna code that happened a long time ago. This mutation turns off the cellular connector that HIV use's to inject itself into the cell. They actually cured a man by killing off all his infected bone marrow and replacing it all with compatible bone marrow from a doner with the mutation. Years later still no HIV present in his body, he's been made immune to it via cellular transplant. If this mutated gene was placed into the DNA of a fetus in the womb then that fetus would also be immune to most HIV.

The point of the above is to illustrate that genes that have evolved are still part of the hosts DNA and can be inserted into non-evolved hosts to create the same effect. Normally this process of micro-evolution can take centuries if not longer, they've just sped it up significantly.

You know, for people who claim to resent the closed minded thinking of religious conservatives, you seem to act a whole lot like them. Fear of the unknown and all that.

This is quite a bit more than turning off or on a gene.

http://www.see-the-forest.com/IPV%20Search/Splashpage%20Maps/Map-Monsanto-5352605/Commentary.html


I'm not even saying this is a bad thing. Chimeric plants and animals aren't inherently bad either but you said they "Got Dicey"... just making sure you realize where these come from.

Please understand that the only thing I'm worried about is the potential for bad and that the company performing these things has no regard for human life or morals. Hell, their gm crops might even have further advantages over standard crops and I'm willing to accept that if it's the case.

And how is wanting unbiased scientific studies confirming the safety of potentially harmful changes to the very basis of our food supply close minded?

Wasn't referring to you so much as others in the thread.

"We don't know ALL the consequences of action A, therefor we should never do action A."

The flaw lies within the assumption that it's even possible to know "all" of anything to any degree of certainty. The best any scientist can do is "all the knowledge we possess now indicated that action A is safe, we have done these studies that have given us a high degree of confidence". You can study something for decades, even a century and still not know everything about it. Just ask Newton & Einstein , and their fields are a whole lot more concrete then biology. Thus the detractors will always attempt to enforce a rock so large that they couldn't move it.

The reality of the situation is that Monsanto is a business and must protect it's interests. It is unfortunate that a company that invests heavily into researching towards an overall better product (better yield, less water inputs, less chemicals) is the target of hateful and unfounded protesting. Let us not forget that Monsanto is not the only company in this field, and yet seems to be the only one continuously singled out, while it's competitors have either produced similar technology or licensed Monsanto's technology for their own use. Imagine that you own a company, and there are ten other companies operating in the same manner you are, but for some reason (likely Monsanto's less than glamorous past) you are singled out in the industry as a sort of demon. Monsanto cannot both produce new technology and sit in court rooms all day defending themselves against unfounded litigation. It is only natural that they preemptively work towards protecting themselves. Anyone who sights the small-farmer case is spreading misinformation.

*sniff sniff*
Everyone, quick get out your fire or acid weapons.

Monsanto is being singled out because their business practices are absolutely horrible. The above posters were not joking about them suing small farmers for having pollen / seeds from a nearby farm blow into their fields and produce Monsanto branded crops. Their not joking about Monsanto using EULA style language to ensure that farmers can only plant one with purchased seeds. Any unplanted seeds must be thrown away and your not allowed to plant a second crop from them. What you may not realize is that farmers do not sell all their crop at market, some of the crop must be used as a seed crop for the next growing seasons planting. Monsanto is using legal language to prevent that so that they can squeeze the most out of the farmer. Once a farmer starts using Monsanto seeds they must always use Monsanto seeds because they no longer have the ability to generate seed crops. Seed crops are often considered "trade secrets" and farmers don't often share those.

Essentially Monsanto is the Apple / EA of farming. Abusing the legal system via large army's of lawyers.

I have always wondered why none of these people sue Monsanto for criminal trespass.


It doesn't blow in from any Monsanto owned facility, it blows in from other farms.

I'm not talking about Genetically modified foods as a whole, just Monsanto's unique strains.


And again, it's more likely that any "Positive" result is being blown out of proportion. Correlation does not equal causation, etc etc. It's the Vaccine = Down Syndrome argument all over again.



Not sure if Banana or Zerg Overlord...

They changed an enzyme used to catalyze a reaction inside the plant. The only problem I see with it is they used a gene gun so who knows what they interrupted when they literally shot a gene into a plant and hoped it got stuck. Slight oversimplification but pretty accurate.

Monsanto should offer a $10,000 reward for each protestor if 25% of that crowd can offer a better description of a genetically modified crop than "its different and I don't like it".

I imagine it would be a pretty safe bet.

Let me translate this since most people won't know what this is.

Summary
Round-up herbicide that kills all plants.
They kill the plants by inhibiting a pathway involved in producing aromatic amino acids (EPSPS). Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Enzymes are proteins. You need them to function.

Solution: Make a plant that uses a similar pathway that isn't inhibited by this herbicide.

EPSPS is part of a pathway. It is an enzyme. Now if you used a human EPSPS, the protein would be different enough that it wouldn't be affected by their herbicide. However, it is SAFER to clone genes from organisms that are similar. In this case, you would want to put a plant EPSPS into it-- but no plant have been found to be resistant to their herbicide so this is where Agrobacterium (Agro for short).

Agrobacterium is a bacteria that has the ability to insert genes into plants. They typically form tumor-like structures on plants (thus the name) by inserting genes into their hosts. If they were not using a gene gun, modified Agrobacteria is the organism of choice to insert genes into plants. Agrobacterium also has EPSPS and since these two organisms interact so frequently, my educated guess is that they chose Agro because their EPSPS was very different-- different enough to not be affected by the herbicide, but function the same way and in similar physiological conditions. (Think, if you put a human EPSPS into this plant, the enzyme would likely function best at body temperature, which is not practical for plants).

All genes have an "on/off" switch. Agrobacterium has its own conditions (switch) to make EPSPS and this is why they had to add a Cauliflower Mosaic Virus 35S promoter. Normal organisms do not leave their lightswitch on for their proteins because it's typically a waste of resources. Because producing this enzyme is a life or death matter, they use a virus promoter (It's a super "ON" switch-- because normally, viruses need to be able to hijack host cells and out-compete plant processes).

So basically, what you have now is a plant that has a new enzyme that works in the presence of a herbicide. It is constantly producing this new enzyme to ensure that it will never be deficient in these key amino acid residues.

I bet the chloroplast transit peptide helps move the protein to the correct part of the cell, but I don't specialize in plant genetics so it's only a guess.

From a scientific viewpoint, there is no reason why I would believe this food is in any way harmful. The differences between Plant EPSPS and Agro EPSPS is nothing in the case of your digestion. It's all going to be broken down to the same amino acids that made them. As for the promoters, it's going to be broken down to the basic nucleic acids that will be recycled.

The stigma against GM foods is entirely unscientific. If there is an answer to 'world hunger' it's GM crops. Isn't it nice to live in countries where we can laud organic, non-GM foods even though organic agriculture wouldn't be able to support much more than 1/3 of the Earth's population?

If you wanted to make a plant that is resistant to Roundup, you simply have to grow thousands of generations of plants. Plant thousands of plants with enough roundup to kill 99% of the plants. Save the 1% for another generation and then inflict these plant with MORE roundup. Constantly do this over and over and eventually, you will have a roundup resistant plant. (But seriously, who has the time to do this? It would literally take decades)

The end result would be the same with the genetic engineering they have done above. You'll have a plant with a new type of aromatic residue synthase enzyme, a new enhanced promoter, and probably the shuttle proteins involved too. All which will end up to be the same building blocks after you eat them.

This is the same thing we do with do with cows, we breed big cows with other big cows and we keep choosing the biggest ones. Same with milk production. Somehow, genetic selection we've made for these animals over hundreds of years seems ok for "all organic" people but not ok when we develop them in smarter ways.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. How about round up itself?

There's talks about increasing the limits of how much can remain on food. So let's say GMO's are embraced by everyone and they gmo all types of crops and the use of roundup goes up. What effect does this have on human's gut flora? Our livestock and other wildlife? How about all the roundup that's absorbed by soil, run off in to the water supply or down streams/rivers and eventually the ocean? Will it start killing off all the plants there too? Is there some process or regulation to stop this?

Keep in mind that while I've done a decent amount of research in the past, like back in college, I haven't kept up on a lot of this and I'm mostly curious for answer's sake, not argument.

Gut flora: Unless these engineered foods produce molecules that are antimicrobial, the changes in gut flora will not change to a point where you'd notice anything. Most engineered plants are made to produce proteins and these are generally broken down through the digestive process into their respective LEGO pieces. Roundoff though, could be antimicrobial because some bacteria use the same synthase molecules to produce their aromatic amino acids. Unless it is strong enough to blast through a big chunk of the microbial population (extremely difficult, and highly unlikely), I don't see it making a large enough difference where it would affect you at all. To give you a scale of bacteria we're talking about, let's say in one mL of your gut, you have 10^10 bacteria. Let's knock out 90% of it. Sounds like a lot right? You now have about 10^9 bacteria. That's still a big number to me...

Round-up: There is no way for me know exactly unless I dig the literature in this-- This is not my specialty. I know that there was a lawsuit against Monsanto because a farmer inhaled this stuff and was injured so it's not completely harmless. But to avoid food just because of this is naive. How often is a consumer going to end up inhaling that much of this stuff? Every time you eat sushi, you eat a certain amount of mercury-- this can kill you in large amounts. Every time you eat ANYTHING with potassium, you gain radioactive potassium-- everyone has about 40mg of radioactive potassium in their body at any one time and people will die from cancer from their OWN radioactivity every year. Is it reasonable to avoid Gatorade just because of radioactive potassium? Of course, not. But I digress, even I'd like to see more numbers to explain more of what Roundup does, but there just isn't enough research to prove that it is dangerous enough that we need to ban it.

The rest of the questions are more for suited for biologist that specializes in Ecology. I only work in the molecular level so won't be much help there. I could imagine Roundoff could be detrimental if used improperly in an ecological sense, but my way of approaching it is to understand how well this molecule degrades, geographic information (where the water ends up going) etc.

All this being said, I never signed a non-disclosure contract.

I live on an tiny island in Hawaii in which Monsanto uses for "Test planting". None of the corn is edible...it is corn that needs to be FDA approved and it is only corn that is planted here. I myself worked for Monsanto as a Seed Researcher...technically no basis in chemistry or Botany mind you...I was just there to come up with what seed goes to what plot and which seed types will "Cross-pollinate".

Now in my time working there, it was an eye-opening experience, Monsanto does deal with Cross-species splicing, at one point we had a specific seed that had been spliced with scorpion DNA to be drought resistant. Again none of this is marketable, Monsanto is merely seeing if it is "Capable" or being mass produced at this stage.

I don't really care for the "GMO" aspect of the debate, I find it silly that people are really thinking if they stop the Seed market that Monsanto has its hand in is going to deal a fatal and crushing blow to the company itself...I mean, hell, first and foremost monsanto was and still is a pesticide company. They mass produce that stuff and slap another companies name on the bottle and sit back to make profit. Sadly Monsanto typically have their hands in almost everything agricultural in nature, from mulch, to top soil, to timber and perforated piping lol...if your gonna stop them, you gonna have to live like the Amish and cultivate from 4am in the morning till 9pm at night...***'s hard work but luckily we live in a world of conveniences.

Here's a video as well of a friend documenting a sad practice of Monsanto's on our island that no one can do anything about, to many loop holes in the matter...technically it's Monsanto creating a form of drainage when we get heavy rain on the island...the loop hole is the road in the middle of this act, flooding...which has always been there and has always flooded so the debate over it is in question...whats not right is the fact there's a peculiar "Man-made" path from the field leading to the road, which than over flows into a drainage that Monsanto built that runs off into the river which ultimately flows out to the ocean where most natives of the island still use for food(Fish, lobster, crab, etc. etc.)

Before the drain was created the flooded area would technically stay within the field and either "Drown" or uproot the corn which Monsanto would actually take quite a loss since its all experimental anyway.

Btw, don't mind his accent, good friend but he speaks a ton of pidgin English in this video lol...

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled... was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Relevance? (granted this IS ffxiah.com forums and I'm just looking for excuses to post pics tonight.)

"I couldn't tell which products were from GMO's, so I ate them all."