darkstar

Oh my god, what a beast!

I suggest try University & aiming at a job researching Plant Natural Products, quite a bit of education, but there’s an industry out there with the $$$. Could support you’re real calling as a “hobby”.

It’s not me but, If whoever you were meant to send them too does not tern up…

If this hasn’t already been repeated elsewhere, I wouldn’t mind getting a lively discussions going on the pros and cons of GM technology. The strongest issues for abandoning this technology IMO: Multinational Company’s use of this technology to further there own benefit, regardless of implications. Multinational Company’s control of aquaculture Increased use of unsustainable farming practices, eg round up ready crops. “Unknown factor” we just don’t know what could happen, and related escape of transgenetic DNA into the wild. That it is so powerful that abuse could leads to devastating results. The strongest issues for furthering the development of this technology IMO: Its just a development of selective breeding and hybridisation technology. Could see development of environmentally friendly crops. The technology is more “natural” in a biological sense than many other current technologies. That GM organisms could survive a “technology collapse” and still help improve living conditions. (As in a car is no good if the petrochemical industry no longer exists, but a horse is) I would just love to hear what you have to say on the matter

Mate this guy just called it pawpaw, I'll take you'r word for it that he meant carica. The wrong name is my fault, I just searched under pawpaw and grabbed the first species name that popped up. Thanks for setting me strait on that one.

Also something about how the larvae proved that the alcohol came from fermenting the correct plant, not just sugar cane, as the grub ate the plant of question. And yes I have never seen a “worm” in Tequila only in Mescal. Wasn’t really being serious…but I bet the caterpillar would prefer to die happy than of bug poison (on no there I go again) .

The whole deal with security staff being proficient at hassling the harmless and letting others steal stuff under there noses really bugs me. Someone I know had a laptop knocked off at the x-ray machine! Now come on like that couldn’t have been stoped.

Thanks Auxin, Examples are the layman’s references, they distinguish hearsay from useable information and allow a more civil level of debate (IMHO). How many interspecific hybridization events occur in the environment I wounder? Could these Species be isolated by geographic distance or behaviourally isolated (as in different flowering times for plants? or is that reproductively isolated?) and not "need" to be reproductively isolated to avoid loss of its own identity as a pure species? (Now were is the smiley for a guy flogging a dead horse?) I recently read a book on the transfer of a signal gene from one species of fruit fly to Drosophila melanogaster casing a change in the behaviour (Mate attracting song frequency) of D. melanogaster to that of the fly sp. that the gene came from! I would never believe that a single gene could transfer such a specific behavioural trait from one animal species to another.

Get a pet rat :D

But is GM not safer than current technologies under the influence of those same flaws? What about bio-weapons? They only kill humans and are one of the most environmentally friendly weapons available. If you JUST have to kill ppl & go to war that is. Far shorter lived consequences than Atomic bombs or nerve agents, counter measures such as vaccine’s can be made, and a % of a population will naturally survive. (Just playing devils advocate )

The ability to interact with light ?

How about love (as in natural hormonally/ biochemically induced hallucenoginic experience) making you think that your partner in the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth? Best, and if unlucky the worst, emotional experiences I have ever had, bar none!

Oh and I almost forgot, natural selection leading to the idea of evolution kind of chucked a spanner in the works as species are no longer thought of as stable but constantly changing (the birth of modern biology), in a way this further supports / justifies the use of GM.

"It (B.S.C) was initiated by Plato and Aristotle. These populations are stable, e.g., horses remain horses over many generations. And they are distinct, a cat can produce fertile offsprings only with other cats, but not with dogs. This stability and distinction suggests to consider cats and dogs as clearly distinct entities." "For a long time, ornithologists almost universally used the biological species concept (BSC). This definition of "species" is based on species being reproductively isolated from each other." But yes in a way the idea of a species is something that we humans invented for our own convenience, biu IMO that line of thought is unproductive as most concepts only exist for our need to communicate, (as in its all good to debate species being a flawed concept till you need to tell a toxic species from a edible one then all of a sudden you need to accept it and use it) Give me Examples of reproductively viable hybrids!

Of the 12V LED's? Blue/White is the norm, but also Monochromatic tends to be cheaper, an the deep blue is a nice cool light, you can even get “blacklight” UV LEDs now. Fluorescents tubes tend to case problems due to the flickering, you can reduce this by using a better starter, try Jaycar an electronic shop for a start. Some LED lighting systems also strobe faster than you are supposed to notice (like florescent tubes) to produce light at a higher level that would normally case the diode to burn out, if not given a some time to dump heat.

Good point, But as long as what happened yesterday is still true today eg. Reproducible then everything I take for granted is still safe to rely on & life goes on.

In my humble and very limited experience (like one case study), Marijuana was far more detrimental than in other ethnic groups. Just like Europeans and opiates, Asians and alcohol….. List goes on. Genetically determined IMO, based on cultural exposure over extended periods. Europeans made foul water drinkable by sterilizing it with alcohol (brewing), selective presser selected for efficient alcohol-dehydrogenases to detoxify the ethanol. Asia was smart and just boiled water with a some herbs, eg. Tea. no selection presser.

"such selection genes usually confer for roundup or antibiotic resistance, so that non-transformed tissue will not grow on media containing antibiotics/ roundup/ whatever it is." "But why do we need them to be antibiotic resistant?" Darklight you Answered your own question! The need to select one transformed cell out of millions is the reason antibiotic resistance genes are used; once the transformed cell is selected there is nothing that can be done about removing the antibiotic resistance gene. Biota (I think) has used a enzyme that brakes down a disaccharide (sugar-sugar) that plants normally can’t use, so when Cell Culturing (heterotrophic growth) that sugar only is used the media as a carbon source, as a selectable marker, instead of a antibiotic resistance gene. And I bet you that they have patented it so other companies can’t do it! "For how long do the resistance selection genes prevail?" Theoretically forever, but in reality they’ll only hang around if the gene increases the fitness of the organism “ANY significant gene transfer occurring between species?” The small stuff is important as it is the only thing that can happen in the short time that we humans are alive for, I read somewhere there are eight distinct sites in the human genome that have been formed by viruses taking chunks of foreign DNA with them when they infected our hairy ancestors and now are now essential for survival, Viruses – Human’s are at opposite ends of the scope of life, and there is a lot of gene transfer going on! The definition of different species is that they cant produce fertile offspring, so sex is out of the question , just left with viral transfer witch can only take little bits of DNA with it (about the size of most GM modifications in fact)

IMHO Religion gave birth to Science, now its all grown up and has a lot of anger. Needless to say has given humanity more power than any thing ever before, it has freed the masses from dogma, if they wish to be. Science just modals the previously just accepted, and can also give some insight into the flawed nature of humanity; I think that both science religions can coexist because the illusion of self as one entity is just that, an illusion. Science has rased some BIG questions as well, like in the beginning (I’m talking Big Bang here) there had to be an observer (according one way of thinking about quantum theory) for the probability wave to collapse into the “real”, who was watching? God? Science could also be thought of as a religion in its own right, Just think about how matter (as in solid stuff) is just energy, now just b/c we’ve all heard of this so take it for granted doesn’t make it an less “spiritual” Energy never dies, it only changes form…

I know this is a bit off topic, but I think its valid if taken in the context of this discussion: The fear of some unknown evil that will be inflicted to the environment or to humans (really what it mostly boils down to) by the “escape” of an artificial gene construct, is negligible compared to the Known, well understood and dangers of “natural” (I use this term lightly) mutable antibiotic resistance that is right now being breed into pathogens by overuse of antibiotics. And that’s a direct result of human stupidity, “antibiotics in everything” attitude. Almost all (I would say all, but I don’t clam to know every example) antibiotic resistant genes are just borrowed from these organisms. But this issue receives none of the publicity of the evils of GM

Mmmm… Grab the offender and chuck it in some good tequila, fore the authentic experience.

Ooops…. Well I was misinformed

I think I have seen this sp. in Vic. as well as Qld. Can you “draw” on the underside of by pressing into the white tissue that instantly terns brown / black?

Oh man, this topic could get me in trouble… . If any of this thought 2b wrong or offensive I’ll remove it the instant I’m PM'd! Hard to generalise as Australia is it is large, so home to an incredible diversity of tribes with that are different from one another. Also the cultures living in the costal / jungles of OZ (increased plant diversity available for use) were the cultures that were displaced (killed, murdered, raped, eg. genocide) by westerners wanting the land for there own ends. So sadly, much knowledge about likely plant uses has been lost. Would say that “trances” induced by song and repercussive rhythms and dance is probably the only ones we’ll ever hear about. These things tend to be fiercely guarded. I have heard about a ritual possession of an individual, by a malevolence spirit, in order to carry out the murder of some one who committed some unforgivable crime, like telling secrets to westerners, while avoiding the need for payback, occurring in come central OZ cultures. Wether or not pharmaceuticals from plants are involved is a mater for speculation. The only thing I know about this with any confidence in a form of foot wear that did not live tracks. Duboisia hopwoodii and Pituri are the only plant drugs I know of being used for intoxication, but so do you. Right now alcohol and inhalant abuse (petrol sniffing) is casing no end of grief in some indigenous communities.

Pro GM examples I have heard about: The example of insulin producing E. coli replacing the harvesting of pig or bovine insulin is one of the good examples of a life saving application of GM that is safer for the consumer than conventional technology. The old method was inefficient and lead to a “dirty” product that was often harmful to the consumer. Golden rice a GM crop that produces has far more beta-carotene, and can fight malnutrition in borderline communities. And a whole bunch of crops able to grow / reclaim land wrecked by salination. Any one see a potential application of GM pets, the “glow fish” is the current example that I’ve heard about. Not likely to tern up is OZ any time soon, due to very tough laws that only multinational companies can cut through all that red tape to get a GM crop/animal approved. And there seems to be no need for such animals except in research or as a novelty.