Question on Genetic Modification, specifically on plants...

[Meldread]

A recent local news report stated that a certain type of genetically modified grape could possibly lead to HIV Prevention for up to a week after digesting it. This got me to thinking about some things and how genetic modified plants and lower life organisms could be useful to us.

For example, let us say there is a space flight and one of the number one problems we have with space travel is the lack of access to water. Would it be possible, at least in theory, to genetically modify a gourd like plant (such as a watermelon) to produce water instead of it's typical fruit? (Basically modify it so that it'd just be a hollow gourd, and instead of the "melon" inside there would be water.) Would it be possible to modify plants and lower level life forms to accomplish certain tasks that would be otherwise difficult for Humans (or tedious) to achieve? Would it be possible to produce a genetically modified plant that would take in various forms of air pollution? Or a plant that liked to feed off water pollution?

[400Years]

1. it wouldn't contain any more water than what you used to grow it

why not just store the water?

[Meldread]

2. Why?

Well, stored water is always finite. If you could produce more then it would make things so much easier than having to worry about every single drop.

I was thinking that, you know, if you modified how photosynthesis worked, where a plant converts carbon dioxide into oxygen that you could, at least in theory, cause the plant to add hydrogen to the mix in order to produce water (H2O). Then again, I'm not a chemist nor do I know enough about photosynthesis to actually say it could or would even be possible.

Anyway, it was a thought. However, even if that isn't possible what about the other possibilities? I don't see why we can't use genetically modified plants to do other things other than simply for us to eat.

[htuttle]

8. Plants could more likely be used as part of a resource recycling system

The Biosphere projects sort of poked at this idea, but with more effort and time I wouldn't be surprised if self-contained biospheres of a fairly compact size (ship sized) could be developed.

[dusmcj]

3. GM sequences are already polluting seedstocks

The problem is that GM crops are being run as a multibillion dollar for-profit industry. Which directly implies that controls and environmental safeguards are nowhere to be found.

The Coalition Provisional Authority wrote into the 100 Rules for the New Iraqi Order that agriculture in the cradle of civilization, the point of origin for the grainstocks that have been feeding a good part of human civilization for a few tens of thousands of years, shall be opened to private suppliers and respect "intellectual property". Which in this case means patented genotypes, i.e. GM seeds. This is made tangible by requiring farmers not to retain part of their crop as seedstock as they have for the last few millenia, but rather to buy new seedstock every year. Further, any biotype containing patented gene sequences becomes the property of the owner of the patented sequence. I.e. no homegrown crossbreeding.

That was dissemination. Now for pollution: GM sequences have already been found in non-GM corn crops, among other fundamental feedstocks. The same for a variety of other testtube creations. We do not have the breadth of vision, nor the concrete knowledge, to predict what perturbations these alterations in genetic sequences optimized by hundreds of millions of years of evolution will have both on the viability of the affected species and on its macroscale interactions with its environment, including but not limited to us (e.g. will it poison us in the long term ? poison other consumer species ? will it encourage the growth of parasite species ?). Hence we cannot responsibly allow the uncontrolled entry of GM sequences into uncontrolled biospheres.

The problem as always is controls and accountability. Giving priority to a free market intrinsically militates against controls and accountability, because the fastest path to profit is to minimize cost, and controls create cost. You want genetic modification for beneficial ends, fine; add a lobbying component which is required to succeed to your agenda, the required success is that environmental safety is prioritized ahead of private profit. Not made to fit in with, prioritized ahead.

[Meldread]

4. That's well and nice...

...but really has nothing to do with the questions that I've asked. It really has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with possibilities. Yes, politics are involved (as they are in everything), yes there needs to be some safeguards in place... but that isn't the point of this thread and does not pertain to the questions that I have asked.

[dusmcj]

5. you need to consider the politics of scientific advances

given the presence of the concurrently greedy and irresponsible in our midst. We can create marvelous tools; contemplating them in a vacuum without reference to what humanity is likely to do or is doing with them leads to death camps, Thalidomide babies, mercury poisoning, bird extinctions from eggshells weakened by DDT, and nuclear warfighting plans.

All great science places its discoveries into the context of human reality and concerns itself with the ethical implications of the newfound knowledge. I can point to Einstein as a readily accessible example of great science who knew that in his bones, and stated it very publicly.

[Meldread]

6. There is nothing that can be done.

Unless you wish to halt all scientific advancement until bad people stop using science for bad things there is little that can be done. There will always be those who are greedy and irresponsible, and more often than not it has little to do with whether it is a privately owned corporation or the government. There will always be bad people who will abuse the knowledge they've been given.

But again, that has little to do with this thread which is not about the political implications of such things, but rather about their possibilities.

[dusmcj]

7. it's not either-or, it's best effort instead of no effort. nt

[phantom power]

9. Yes, in fact plants are already being tested for..

their ability to concentrate various pollutants, like toxic metals, into their tissues, for use in cleaning up toxic sites.

One thing that worries me a bit about GM plants, is that plants are demonstrating the ability to exchange genes, to a greater extent than originally thought. Designer genes for crops are showing up in wild plants.

I think GM plants are an important technology, but it's clear that we need to get a better understanding of how to keep our engineered genes where we want them.

[Meldread]

10. Agreed.

It seems to me that if we can modify what a plant can do, we should also have the ability to make them infertile - lacking the ability to reproduce. It would also seem that we should have the ability to modify them enough where breeding between plants, even plants of the same "species" would be impossible. (Akin to trying to breed a human with a chimp... Bush being the only known success story to date.)

I certainly think the field of genetic modification needs more funding - it needs to be heavily funded in fact. It could possibly yield solutions to global warming, if not aiding in combating it's effects, then at least helping us cope with it's devastation.