The new GM 'Salmon' by whozit

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The new GM 'Salmon'

POSTED BY: WHOZIT
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 06:00
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VIEWED: 1753
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Sunday, September 26, 2010 8:40 AM

It's much bigger than the old one.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/26/gm-food-battle-salmo
n

Those arn't boobs, they're lies! - Stewie Griffin

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Sunday, September 26, 2010 1:26 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

That is so wrong.

[/sig]

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Sunday, September 26, 2010 5:03 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
That is so wrong.

Just out of curiosity, where did it start to go 'wrong'?

Much of the food we eat today isn't really "natural". It's a result of humans selectively breeding plants and animals to yield either greater amounts of food or food that we want to eat. Ever see corn or wheat or cows or pigs ad infinitum before humans messed with them?

If we had to live off the produce nature provided without selective breeding, there'd be a lot less of us - and the ones living would be in a lot worse shape.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, September 26, 2010 7:27 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
If we had to live off the produce nature provided without selective breeding ... the ones living would be in a lot worse shape.

You are incorrect.
I could give citation after citation after citation about the benefits of traditional foods, grass-fed meats, raw cheeses, and vegetables grown in soil with adequate mineral content, if I felt like typing them all out, but I don't. It likely won't change anyone's mind, anyway.
I've been doing vast research into nutrition to keep myself out of the deathtrap that is diabetes. Not only am I now entirely out of those woods, but I've never felt better. I have more energy now than I did when I was a child. I'm happier than I have been in living memory. So I present myself as evidence, for those who don't want to read The Milk Book or the dozens of studies that have been done on the nutrient value of properly-fed animals vs. animals fed on soy and grain diets, or the dozens of studies on primitive cultures where lifespan averages in the 90s because they're getting the nutrition that they need, rather than living on processed grain products. I don't expect a lot of people to break out of the boxes that the food industry have worked so hard at building, but I do have to state that it's definitely a box, considering how much my quality of life and health have improved.

[/sig]

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Sunday, September 26, 2010 8:17 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Maybe just grow one big fish and everyone has a slice. Then the rest of the fish can just be left alone. Or something.

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Monday, September 27, 2010 3:26 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

That's the best idea since sliced-fish.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, September 27, 2010 5:48 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
I could give citation after citation after citation about the benefits of traditional foods, grass-fed meats, raw cheeses, and vegetables grown in soil with adequate mineral content, if I felt like typing them all out, but I don't.

Livestock and fruits and veggies may benefit from being raised in a natural environment, but they are almost always the product of hundreds and sometimes thousands of years of human manipulation by selective breeding, cross-pollination, hybridization, grafting, and other processes aimed at providing better yields and better taste. While 'natural' foods may be better due to the way they're grown, most of them are far from being the same in size, shape, taste and nutrition as their wild predecessors, due to modifications like those mentioned above, made by people.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, September 27, 2010 6:14 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Yep but there's a difference between selective breeding, and the process that can make a glow-in-the-dark zebra fish by inserting a jellyfish gene into its genome.

I'm an optimist when it comes to science solving humanity's problems, and I'm not superstitious; but if we're going to tinker with the building blocks of nature we have to do it cautiously and humbly, imo.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Monday, September 27, 2010 2:25 PM

FREMDFIRMA

PhoenixRose, this one can be whittled down to it's essential almost as fast as not polluting our envionment (which boils down to don't-trash-thy-living-space) and as such, is simplicity itself.

Do not work at cross purposes with Nature.

As mentioned, selective breeding and the like, that's bending the branch so it grows a certain way, instead of hacking it off and trying to graft something incompatible...

Nature knows what the hell she's doin, better than we do anyway, especially when greed and shortsightedness enter the picture, particularly when folks are completely willing to wreck the place since by the time those consequences will come to bear they'll be long gone, right ?

Now, lucky me, I got a pretty cool immediate source of fresh fruit - I dunno what it is with people, that they would rather go to the freakin supermarket instead of trusting a local farmers goods, that's like my ex refusing to eat strawberries SHE GREW cause they'd been in the dirt - and yet going to get boxes of em from the grocery store ?

People are fekkin weird.

Anyhows, we got these "decorative" fruit trees at site three, they been there about forever, and nobody will touch em, most of the fruit just falls and requires cleanup so it doesn't attract so many critters, yanno - perfectly good fruit without all the chems and other crapola, ignored cause it hasn't been chemically shined up and put in a pretty box and whatnot ?

Eff that - I got carte blanche to jack whatever fruit I please off them trees, which amounts to some tart, smallish apples, and some undersized by quite tasty cherries.

Don't even have to stop, since they're right on my security rounds too, just reach out, yoink, munch munch - people in the midst of plenty without a freakin clue, I tellya.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Monday, September 27, 2010 2:53 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
I don't expect a lot of people to break out of the boxes that the food industry have worked so hard at building, but I do have to state that it's definitely a box, considering how much my quality of life and health have improved.

Speaking of boxes, a very simple rule of thumb:

If a food comes in a box, it's bad for you. Prepared meal "kits", mac-n-cheese, etc.

Doesn't mean you have to be 100% strict about it, but it's definitely something to cut down on, if not cut out completely.

The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, September 24, 2010
I hate Obama's America. You're damn right about that.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:24 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Yep but there's a difference between selective breeding, and the process that can make a glow-in-the-dark zebra fish by inserting a jellyfish gene into its genome.

In degree, perhaps, but not in kind. Genetic manipulation is quicker, but just old-fashioned selective breeding has managed some pretty grotesque things.

Also consider that selective breeding in dogs has resulted in breeds with serious health problems, like hip dysplasia in German Sheperds.

So is your problem with genetic modification just that it occurs more quickly?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 4:45 AM

MALACHITE

I only read part of the article, as I had already heard about this on NPR last week.

I think the picture is rather deceptive. The GM salmon do not grow bigger than a typical salmon -- they reach maturity faster. That is, they become full grown adults in 18 months instead of 3 years because of an added gene that encourages the growth process.

Selective breeding in agriculture has been going on for thousands of years -- the plants that produce the most optimal fruits are selected for breeding the next time around. This is different because they are inserting another gene from a different species of fish, if I am remembering right. It is different than selective breeding, because in selective breeding, you pick which plant you want to continue based on normal trait variation in the population (such as which one survives the winter chill best, or matures earlier or is more pest resistant)-- not by adding new genes to the organism.

Whether it is "wrong" is up to debate. What are the risks? What are the benefits?

ETA: Here's another link which provides a bit more information. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/17/am-fda-mulls
-genetically-modified-salmon/

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:27 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
So is your problem with genetic modification just that it occurs more quickly?

No, it's that selective breeding is human beings hijacking and making use of a *natural* process, one with natural limits. You can breed a lion with a tiger, but you can't breed a monkey with a vampire bat to get a winged vampire-monkey.

Direct genetic manipulation is more limitless I think, so worth taking a pause.

I failed with my flying monkey picture

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 7:30 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
but you can't breed a monkey with a vampire bat to get a winged vampire-monkey.

Don't be giving folk ideas, now - you think that's horrible, imagine cats with primate grade intelligence and opposable thumbs!

We'd be doomed I tellya, DOOMED!

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 1:52 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Cats would retain some of us as servants, I'm fairly certain that's in their mindset.

Dogs would have reason to be worried.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 2:07 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
That's the best idea since sliced-fish.

That's the second funniest thing I read all week. LOL

The laughing Chrisisall

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:58 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by beatupplenty:
There is not enough information. Isn't it possible that eating something that is genetically engineered to grow faster is going to make us grow faster too?

We must put our trust in commercial science, Beat, they gave us totally safe food thingys like margarine & sorbitol & high fructose corn syrup (corn sugar now) & partially hydrogenated oils & saccharine & food dyes & nitrates & MSG & irradiated yuccky meats & stuff.

Go live on a farm if you don't like FDA approved poisons, you anti-American health-loving Hippie!!!

*goes to get a Twinkie, filled with lard & other life-sucking substances*

The snarking Chrisisall

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010 3:51 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by beatupplenty:
There is not enough information. Isn't it possible that eating something that is genetically engineered to grow faster is going to make us grow faster too?

You're eating genetically engineered food now. It's just that the stuff you eat now was genetically engineered by selective breeding, grafting, etc. instead of direct alteration to the genes.

Also consider that much of the selective breeding of both plants and animals was to conserve mutations humans considered valuable, such as bigger yields. Many of these mutations were caused by changes to DNA due to ambient radiation. So many of the things you eat now are actually radiation-induced freaks.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010 5:11 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

You're eating genetically engineered food now.

Go eat some bovine growth hormones, omnivore.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010 5:44 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Many of these mutations were caused by changes to DNA due to ambient radiation. So many of the things you eat now are actually radiation-induced freaks.

Well every gene on the planet is a mutation, having mutated at some point in history, so every living thing could be called a 'radiation-induced freak'.

Quote:
Also consider that much of the selective breeding of both plants and animals was to conserve mutations humans considered valuable, such as bigger yields.

That's not how selective breeding usually works. If you want to create a large breed of dog, you choose the biggest dog from successive litters and breed them, to create gradually bigger and bigger. But the initial big dog likely had that 'big' gene in its ancestry, and so wasn't a mutant...

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010 6:00 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
There is not enough information. Isn't it possible that eating something that is genetically engineered to grow faster is going to make us grow faster too?

No I don't think so. The theoretical dangers are more along the lines of the salmon escaping and interbreeding with the wild salmon populations. Or cross breeding, say of GM crops and wild plants, creating some sort of super-weed... I think...

It's not personal. It's just war.

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