Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by tingletech on Friday July 23, 2021 @12:59AM
(#27927381)
As long as it’s not round up ready or otherwise encourage more pesticid use I’m cool with it
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by ncmncm on Friday July 23, 2021 @01:30AM
(#27927535)
Or making the plant produce pesticide of its own, causing bugs to develop resistance to measures needed by organic farmers, and also dosing humans with what would otherwise be easily rinsed off.
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by Shorel on Friday July 23, 2021 @12:54PM
(#27932869)
As long as this technology is not used to prevent country farmers to store their own seed whenever they want, and make it only legal to purchase 'Monsanto approved' seeds, I am completely fine with this.
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by shmageggy on Friday July 23, 2021 @04:18AM
(#27928428)
I'm looking forward to the day when we can collectively disentangle GMO from all of the other negative practices of big ag. I don't see a reason why responsible genetic modification can't be a part of a sustainable and equitable future agricultural system.
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by londons_explore on Friday July 23, 2021 @05:10AM
(#27928704)
"Genetically modifying food to increase yield is good for the environment" is a true statement, but you're going to need an awfully good PR firm to persuade the public it's true...
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by shmageggy on Friday July 23, 2021 @09:05AM
(#27930197)
Yeah exactly. And not only yield, but natural pest resistance, etc. I'm also imagining how genetic modifications might eventually be environmentally beneficial in the context of whole-ecosystem engineering if/when we ever move beyond a monocrop model, such as modifying native organisms to counter invasive species, etc. Admittedly a bit sci-fi currently but in principle possible!
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by trasz on Friday July 23, 2021 @04:34AM
(#27928513)
Can you explain the link between the methylation and adding that gene?
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by mnw21cam on Friday July 23, 2021 @04:56AM
(#27928626)
The gene that was added is translated into a protein that floats around the cell doing the RNA demethylation. The plants already have other genes that produce proteins that did that, but adding another one has an effect.
Edit: correction - thanks Scaevolus, my mistake.
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by Scaevolus on Friday July 23, 2021 @05:39AM
(#27928891)
Plants already have proteins that do this [1], but modifying them or adding new ones can affect phenotype as shown by this study.
[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2019.00500...
Re:RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50%
by londons_explore on Friday July 23, 2021 @05:38AM
(#27928888)
I'm surprised the plant lives at all in that state... One would imagine RNA methylation is used for all kinds of logic and mechanisms in plant cells, so arbitrarily removing them all would break stuff.
It would be like a programmer saying "let's just comment out every line of code starting with "if" in the windows source code, and then see if it boots faster!
People that dislike GMO aren't going to be any happier about adding _human_ genes to plants.