Quotation of the day

…the GM [genetically modified] food controversy is a feature of societies for which food is not a life-and-death issue. In India, where people literally starve to death…up to 60 percent of fruit grown in hill regions rots before it reaches market. Just imagine the potential good of a technology that delays ripening, like the one used to create the Flavr-Savr tomato. The most important role of GM foods may lie in the salvation they offer developing regions, where surging birthrates and the pressure to produce on the limited available arable land lead to an overuse of pesticides and herbicides with devastating effects upon both the environment and the farmers applying them; where nutritional deficiencies are a way of life and, too often, of death; and where the destruction of one crop by a pest can be a literal death sentence for farmers and their families…The opposition to GM foods is largley a sociopolitical movement whose arguments, though couched in the language of science, are typically unscientific.

From James Watson’s recent DNA The Secret of Life, p.160, the book is also a good introductory read on DNA issues more generally.

By the way, here is a picture of aquarium fish, they are genetically modified to glow in the dark, thanks to Chris Mooney for the link and commentary.

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