Another reason to avoid Kansas

USDA okays rice modified with human gene to be grown on 3,000 Kansas acres

We're all related

To yeast:

Strangely, though, Dr. Marcotte did not discover the new genes in the human genome, nor in lab mice or even fruit flies. He and his colleagues found the genes in yeast.

“On the face of it, it’s just crazy,” Dr. Marcotte said. After all, these single-cell fungi don’t make blood vessels. They don’t even make blood. In yeast, it turns out, these five genes work together on a completely unrelated task: fixing cell walls.

Crazier still, Dr. Marcotte and his colleagues have discovered hundreds of other genes involved in human disorders by looking at distantly related species. They have found genes associated with deafness in plants, for example, and genes associated with breast cancer in nematode worms. The researchers reported their results recently in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists took advantage of a peculiar feature of our evolutionary history. In our distant, amoeba-like ancestors, clusters of genes were already forming to work together on building cell walls and on other very basic tasks essential to life. Many of those genes still work together in those same clusters, over a billion years later, but on different tasks in different organisms.

Maybe THIS will get their attention?

Those manly men who don't want to acknowledge Rachel Carson did good work or that pollution should be controlled or that going green really is a good and healthy thing to do for ourselves and our planet:

Atrazine, one of the most widely-used weedkillers, can turn male frogs into females, researchers reported on Monday. “Atrazine-exposed males were both demasculinized (chemically castrated) and completely feminized as adults,” Tyrone Hayes of the University of California Berkeley and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The atrazine can turn male frogs into females that are able to mate and successfully reproduce.

Previously the chemical had been shown to disrupt development and create hermaphroditism in frogs, whereby they develop both male and female features. This latest study of 40 male frogs shows the process can go even further, Hayes said. “Atrazine has caused a hormonal imbalance that has made them develop into the wrong sex, in terms of their genetic constitution.”

Although banned in the European Union in 2004, atrazine is still one of the most commonly used herbicides across the globe. Its endocrine disruptor effects, possible carcinogenic effect, and epidemiological connection to low sperm levels in men has led several researchers to call for banning it in the US. Like many herbicides, it is sold under numerous trade names (see next page).

“Approximately 80 million pounds are applied annually in the United States alone, and atrazine is the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water,” the researchers wrote. It can be transported more than 621 miles from the point of application via rainfall and, as a result, contaminates otherwise pristine habitats, even in remote areas where it is not used.

Putting our trust in one single company

What could possibly go wrong?:

The ACLU has taken on a patent case for the first time in its nearly 90-year history. The government’s been allowing private companies to patent human genes. The ACLU thinks that violates the First Amendment and patent law. This is heady, complicated stuff. But when a patent creates a monopoly that restricts the free flow of information, a lot is at stake, and when we’re talking about something like genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer, real women are hurt. This video about the case features some of those women’s stories.

Thank you, ACLU!