GM pollution by invasion

April 2016

America is just beginning out to find out the hard way that growing GM crops with no wild relatives to share their genes with doesn't actually mean they'll stay in the field and under control.  Even after very few years' cultivation, GM alfalfa is now flourishing on US road verges and spreading its genes far and wide [1].

Europe has an interestingly different version of the same problem.

Real-life GM alfalfa contamination

April 2016

The GM alfalfa grass saga continues ... [1]

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has long maintained that GM crops can co-exist with conventional and organic agriculture.  To keep GMOs in the field where they've been planted, all that's needed is for neighbouring farmers to sort things out between themselves, follow "best management practice", and sue each other if things go wrong. 

But, GM alfalfa, is blowing that narrative apart.

Zika and super-zika

April 2016

One of the big health issues to emerge in 2016 is the Brazilian epidemic of babies tragically born with 'microcephaly' (undeveloped brain) and other deformities.  Between October 2015 and January 2016, some 4,000 cases of malformation were reported, with 49 deaths.  Health officials were quick to blame Zika virus which had been first identified in Brazil in April/May 2015.

Gene driven insects

April 2016

Not content with Nature's measured pace for adjusting the genome to suit the ecosystem, the environment and the future, genetic engineers have devised a way to force GMOs to add an extra copy of artificial DNA into their offspring.  This creates a mutagenic chain reaction which drives the artificial DNA progressively into subsequent generations.

The 'gene-drive' is based on a bacterial genome-editing technique described by GM-free Scotland before - CRISPR-Cas9 [1].  'Cas9' is an enzyme which cuts DNA, while the 'CRISPR' part is a homing device to anchor the Cas9 to the desired bit of the genome.  In a gene-drive, the CRISPR-Cas9 stays where it is in the genome and carries on mutating the genome of the wild-type mate during reproduction to produce nothing but mutated offspring.

This means that what genetic engineers can do now is population engineering, and if applied to wild populations this is ecological engineering.

Glyphosate global perspective

March 2016

A paper which puts the whole world-wide glyphosate situation into perspective has been published.  This summarises and graphically illustrates the trends in use of the herbicide since it was first commercialised in 1974 to the latest figures available, 2014.

Glyphosate - a developmental neurotoxin?

March 2016

Glyphosate protest: CC photo credit Corporate Europe Observatory on Flickr

Even before Nancy Swanson's investigations revealed a close parallel between glyphosate weedkiller usage and deaths from Parkinson's disease in the US [1], the herbicide had been found to trigger the cellular processes leading to natural death in rat nerve cells [2].  Swanson also noted the eerily close trajectories of rising glyphosate use with spiraling nervous-system problems such as autism, senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease.  After that, a study on bees concluded glyphosate impairs memory and associated learning [3].

Another ominous facet of glyphosate nuerotoxicity has been revealed by Argentinian scientists. Their study examined the effect of the herbicide on the development of rat embryonic nerve cells.

CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing

March 2016

GM is changing.  Forget shooting the genome to bits with a micro-blunderbuss in the hope that the novel DNA-bullets lodge somewhere useful.  Now genetic engineers have a simple, inexpensive and remarkably effective method for making specific DNA modifications. 

The latest from biotech is 'CRISPR/Cas9', a technique which needs little training and nothing too fancy or expensive in the way of laboratory equipment, and is rapidly eclipsing all other GM methods.