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December 09, 2004
Chicken Genome Sequenced
Gleaned from Yahoo News (via Reuters):
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have cracked the genetic code of the chicken, showing it shares about 60 percent of its genes with humans and has a common ancestor that lived about 310 million years ago...
Posted by canton at 04:48 PM
December 07, 2004
Genetically Modified Super Coca?
Apparently, there's speculation that the Columbian drug cartels have been working on genetically modified coca plants. Whether GM technology is being used or not, it does appear that new crops are popping up that are herbicide resistant and produce eight times the yield of cocaine:
From a Reuters release:
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Giant coca plants said to resist herbicides and yield eight times more cocaine may be due to extra fertilizer, not a drug cartel's genetic modification program, a scientist said on Tuesday.
A Colombian police intelligence dossier quoted in the Financial Times said smugglers apparently received help from foreign scientists to develop a herbicide-resistant tree that yields eight times more cocaine than normal shrubs.
But a toxicologist who studied the plants for the police said he knew of no evidence that showed whether the plants were genetically modified or merely grew big because they received an unusually large amount of fertilizer.
...
"We regularly hear rumors that narcotraffickers are working to create a transgenic form of coca, but there is no scientific proof that they have undertaken such research," Phyllis Powers, Director of the Narcotics Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, said at the time.
Well it doesn't look like we've got giant GM coca monster plants yet... but it's not at all inconceivable. When you look at plants that have pharmocological value to humans, the evolution of those plants often gets kicked into overdrive.
A really (really!) great read is The Botany of Desire - A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan. In it, he talks about how one way of looking the evolution of plants is to consider how they have "used" humans. This is in the sense of how a flower "uses" a bumblebee. The bumblebee thinks it's just using the flower to satisfy its needs, but the flower thinks it's just the other way around. Michael Pollan considers how four plants -- the potato, the tulip, the apple, and marijuana -- have used humans to advance their own agenda.
When you think about it, marijuana has done this amazing job of using humans to extend its reach through the biosphere. I doubt any plant has ever expanded its habitat as quickly as pot has in the last thirty years. It grows in pitch-black basements, in frozen Scandanavian cities, and it will no doubt be grown in space someday.
Yes, this all happens with the help of humans and our technology, but to deny that we play a part in natural evolution would be like denying that bees play that same role. Have you ever seen how a beehive works? They have technology too!
Posted by canton at 10:29 PM
December 03, 2004
Fictitious Website Markets GM Virus Nanotech
My friend Steve Miller, prolific creator of venerable innervision-arts site mkzdk.org and current events watchdog site dvmx.com pointed me to this page:
http://www.head-space.org/virus/frameset.html
If you've ever read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age then this post-apocalyptic corporate sales pitch should be familiar.
Take a moment to meditate on the future of you and your beloved manufacturers. Knowing that commerce without attrition can lead to the eventual extinction of your product line, isn't it time you considered the fool-proof option of a fully controlled viral epidemic? Think of the instantaneous market share boost you would receive after your competitor's labor population was attrited with a virus made just for them.
Posted by canton at 03:50 PM
Non-Fiction Genetics Book takes Guardian Award
Gleaned from ic wales
I've got this on order from Amazon -- found a used copy for $12. Will report on it later after I've read it...
Genetic mutants scoop book prize
Dec 2 2004
Karen Attwood
A book about human genetic mutation has won the Guardian First Book Award 2004, it was announced tonight.
Armand Marie Leroi, reader in evolutionary developmental biology at Imperial College, London, was presented with the £10,000 award for Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body, described as a narrative account of our genetic grammar.
Theatre director Sir Richard Eyre, who was one of the judges, said Mutants was "extraordinarily thought-provoking".
...
"It is not just about the science of abnormality, but about everything that could possibly be affected by that science, from the lifespan of fruit flies to the depiction of nostrils in the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec."
This is the third time the award has been won by a non-fiction title since its launch six years ago.
The award, for first time authors, recognises and rewards new fiction and non-fiction writing.
Posted by canton at 03:45 PM