
The transgenic petunia carnage of 2017 - vilhelm_s
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/how-transgenic-petunia-carnage-2017-began
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rabboRubble
This may be the most click-baity article title ever and I absolutely love it.
The actual article lived up to the hyped up title. So completely fascinating.
I've sent the article to everybody in the family to see if they have orange
petunias growing in their yards!

The one thing the article didn't cover is the patent violation implications of
the GM plants growing (and probably being breed for seed-for-sale crops). I'd
bet that these particular flowers have patents underlying GM modifications. I
found a newer flower color patent with a single google search. [0] Somebody
likely may be paying through the nose for this whoopsie under Monsanto vs.
Bowman! [1]

[0]
[https://www.google.com/patents/CA2930494A1?cl=en](https://www.google.com/patents/CA2930494A1?cl=en)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co).

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pavement
If we react like this about transgenic flowers, imagine the reaction to
transhumanism, when cybernetic implants, CRISPR genome editing and human
cloning all converge.

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AstralStorm
Human genes don't spread by pollination. However, some might get introduced
into retroviruses and spread that way.

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Sunset
>Human genes don't spread by pollination

Are you sure :D

~~~
funnyfacts365
It's called spermination, vulgo fucking.

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eukaryote
Oh no, not again

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nunb
aha!

I recant my: did nobody think of Agrajag[1] and the petunias[2] ?

[1]
[http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Agrajag](http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Agrajag)
[2] [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124539-curiously-enough-
the...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124539-curiously-enough-the-only-
thing-that-went-through-the-mind)

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gwern
Original paper:
[http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/26/142810.f...](http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/26/142810.full.pdf)

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DarkKomunalec
So what would be the effect on the ecosystem if a species with built-in
insecticides got out?

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Baeocystin
Well, consider that plants as a group already produce endogenous insecticides
by the boatload. Adding a strain that produces another one is just adding one
more example to a pile that is already huge.

Which is not to say that there aren't any risks at all. But plants and insects
are already locked in a millions of years long battle/cooperation. And look
how quickly insects have developed resistances to our modern pesticides.
Adaption to something new appears to take years to decades, not centuries or
longer.

~~~
DarkKomunalec
'insects have developed resistances'

 _Some_ insects. And you're very correct that the insect-insecticide battle
has been going on for a while - that doesn't mean giving one side a huge leg-
up won't have consequences. Genetic engineering can accomplish millennia of
evolution in a single generation - the two are not the same.

~~~
funnyfacts365
Some insects? What about nicotine? That insecticid kills them all, humans
included

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undersuit
>In 1997, the last year for which global data was available, over 5.5 million
pounds of the pesticide fumigant methyl bromide were applied to tobacco fields
worldwide.

A few tobacco plants in isolation are going to be protected from insects
easily developing a resistance to their natural defenses. We've been growing
tobacco plants in massively concentrated fields for 400 years in this country.
Nicotine is still a useful insecticide, just as Penicillin is still useful
antibiotic.

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mirimir
From Echopraxia by Peter Watts:

> Even DNA computers, custom-built for a specific task and then tramped
> carelessly into wild genotypes like muddy footprints on a pristine floor.
> Nowadays it seemed like half the technical data on the planet were being
> stored genetically. Try sequencing a lung fluke and it was even money
> whether the base pairs you read would code for protein or the technical
> specs on the Denver sewer system.

