Knotty DNA

July 2018

When you think of 'DNA', the odds are you picture the famous double helix: a neat ladder-like structure made of two strings of nucleic acid (NA) molecules each holding hands with its partner on the opposite string, and elegantly twisted like a corkscrew. Extending this ladder with an extra section, chopping out a bit, changing rung or two, or even adding in a whole extra ladder, is proving increasingly easy to engineer.

At the same time, it's becoming increasingly clear that DNA doesn't always sit in the form of a pretty helix.

Living DNA is a highly responsive and dynamic structure [1,2]. The ladder is stable, but to transition to an active form, the two halves come apart. The strings of nucleic acids can then hold hands in all different ways to form hair-pins or even three- or four-stranded pleats, with bulges and loops.

Too much trade is bad for you

July 2018

Once upon a time, trade was a mutual give-and-take which promised lasting prosperity for both partners; and with prosperity would come well-being.

The modern way redefines 'prosperity' in terms of ever-expanding trade whose boundaries are global. Now, 'trade' has winners and losers, and the 'well-being' part is nowhere.

Let there BE labels on genetically modified food

July 2018

'Genetically engineered food' has never sounded like something anyone would rush to eat, and frankly "If you put a label on (it) you might as well put a skull-and-crossbones on it" (Asgrow Seed Company President 1994).

So, how do you sell genetically engineered food to the public?

What glyphosate has achieved in Argentina

June 2018

While the agrichemical and biotech industries insist their products are SAFE when used as directed, and regulators can't seem to figure out whose interests (the people's or industry's) to prioritise, what's happening in the real world where people have to live with the chemicals and the GMOs?

Befuddled bees

June 2018

The two most widely used pesticides in agriculture, especially on GM crops, are neonicotinoid insecticides and glyphosate-based herbicides. These have become the preferred choice due to their effectiveness as they spread systemically through the plant, and to their low toxicity in mammals.

Inevitably, traces of both are likely to be found together in the same plant where our pollinators will be exposed to them.

Indeed, analyses have shown neonicotinoid and glyphosate contamination not only in the nectar and pollen collected by honey bees but in their honey stores inside the hive. This means all bees, at all stages in their life will be exposed to both toxins.

Although neither pesticide causes instant bee death, increasing concerns are focusing on the possibility of more subtle, long-term and indirect effects on bee behaviour which will ultimately lead to the collapse of the colony [1].

Re-thinking the yield obsession

June 2018

"For the last 60 years we have been on a pesticide merry-go-round, where successive generations of pesticides are released, and a decade or two later they are banned when the environmental harm they do emerges. Each time they are replaced by something new, and each new group of chemicals brings new and unanticipated problems. Considering our intelligence, it is remarkable that we humans can keep making the same mistake over and over again" signed by 12 scientists who have spent decades studying the fragile web of insects, the environment, and the crops on which we all depend for survival. 

This merry-go-round is harming both ourselves and our environment: why can't we get off it?

Mega-pest moths

June 2018

A great deal of technical and commercial effort has been devoted to GM crops with soak themselves with their very own, self-generated 'Bt' insecticides.

Particular biotech industry targets for Bt have been cotton bollworm, a widespread pest in Africa and India, and corn earworm, a widespread pest in the Americas.

These 'worms' are actually the larvae of two related species of moth which cause billions of dollars of crop damage every year feasting on monoculture banquets.

Cotton bollworm is a particularly notorious pest, with a fast generation time, an extreme mobility, and an unusually diverse gene pool to draw on. It attacks over 100 crop types and has developed resistance to all pesticides used to try to control it. All in all, a top-class super-pest.