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Super-tomato shows what plant scientists can do
- macpete 8y agoA complete rape of nature - to make a few people rich and potentially many people sick
- John_KZ 8y ago>Europe’s outdated approach to gene editing. Right, I can't wait to follow the latest trends on gene editing. Our approach is so old and boring, we should be trying the new fun and shiny stuff, like having some guy edit the genes of our staple foods while providing no guarantees whatsoever. For those who aren't aware what this is article is about, it's about US farming lobbies being unable to export their genetically modified food crops to the EU. While GMOs can be exported to Europe, they must pass through a careful set of tests by the EFSA (european food safety authority), including appropriate labeling, and the various EU countries can still choose to ban them under their authority. As Trump said recently, he will be pushing the EU to accept all of the untested GMO crops his sponsors grow, and he'll probably be pushing for a forced, EU-wide directive to just take everything and shut up.
- pawelmurias 8y ago> staple foods Loads of the commercial tomato variants are easy to transport and taste nothing like a proper tomato. It's travesty they share the name. It's a far stretch to even call them food. I'll take ones modified to be edible every day.
- cleansy 8y ago> As Trump said recently, he will be pushing the EU to accept all of the untested GMO crops his sponsors grow, and he'll probably be pushing for a forced, EU-wide directive to just take everything and shut up. The EU was so far very protective, even imperialistic about its own farming industry. The chances of that scenario happening, especially from a internationally laughed-at politician like Trump, are very low IMHO.
- evgen 8y agoPerhaps if you were not so blinded by ignorance and fear and took the simple steps to actually read the article and the paper abstracts described you would see that the edits are ether simple quieting of existing genes or additions from the known domesticated tomato genome and are completely within the possible range that can occur from natural mutation. Rather than the old and boring method of dropping seeds into nuclear reactors or soaking them in tetragenic chemicals these crazy researchers are actually making directed changes. What is even more ironic is that in the specific papers mentioned in the article the researchers were taking wild versions of the plant and introducing specific features from domesticated versions so the result is a step away from the monoculture that so many claim is undesirable. Quelle horreur! Glad to see Europe will once again achieve an own goal on another technology issue though.
- _Microft 8y ago[...] or soaking them in tetragenic chemicals [...] What does tetragenic mean?
- barry-cotter 8y agoIt’s a misspelling of teratogen(ic) an agent or factor which causes malformation of an embryo. Mutagens like radiation or various chemicals are utterly normal parts of conventional plant breeding. Most of the mutated plants are garbage because there’s are many more ways for things to go wrong than right but occasionally you get something promising.
- _Microft 8y agoThanks!
- evgen 8y agoiphone keyboard fail. As note, when properly spelled it means causing mutation or more specifically developmental abnormalities. From the greek meaning study of monsters.
- dang 8y ago
- craigsmansion 8y agoVery much so. Beneficial genetic modifications will unfortunately always be pushed to create more lax laws and legal backdoors for modifications that are profit oriented. As things are, the main modification of interest to the industries pushing for GM crops is herbicide and insecticide resistance (preferably of a particular patented brand). That is, just spray until everything but your tomatoes die. As far as the article goes: if you want tasty tomatoes, try small scale organic crops, maybe even locally grown. Yes, they are more expensive. That's because they require more work. Allowing for GM foods will not give you super tasty tomatoes at the price of cheap watery ones, even though that's the promise towards consumers. It's a racket for growing bad tomatoes even cheaper.
- maxerickson 8y agoGene suppression using CRISPR is less aggressive than some "traditional" techniques that aren't heavily regulated, like irradiating seeds and seeing what sorts of mutations that produces. So banning CRISPR and not going back and making sure you aren't using any fruit of irradiated seeds is sort of incoherent.
- tomp 8y agoHow would you allow CRISPR just for gene suppression? It's a slippery slope, that's a problem. Soon, you get Roundup.
- maxerickson 8y agoOne way would be to go by the statements of the people producing the plant strains, and to observe how the plant strains were advertised and used. So for example, you could pretty easily allow gene suppression and not transgenesis.
- yorwba 8y agoYeah, the problem with the EU regulations for GMOs isn't that they impose food safety requirements, but that they apply differently to targeted vs. untargeted genetic modifications. Part of that is inertia, since humans have been using selective breeding to accumulate beneficial mutations for millennia, and they only rarely mess up and turn plants that were safe to eat into unsafe ones [1]. Because of that, conventional breeders don't see the point in doing strict tests they haven't been doing before. But in the end, that different treatment just leads to attempts at making large genomic changes without having to report them as genetic modification (e.g. using radiation to induce mutations) that are probably less safe than relatively targeted methods like CRISPR. [1] the best-known example is probably the Lenape potato https://boingboing.net/2013/03/25/the-case-of-the-poison-potato.html https://boingboing.net/2013/03/25/the-case-of-the-poison-pot...
- milansm 8y agoNoob here. Doesn't targeted genetic mutation have an additional step of recognizing the exact gene (or combination of genes or gene properties, whatever the terminology is) that is needed to be changed in order for the desired outcome to take place? If so, isn't all that fuss about GMO exactly about that additional step with several open questions like: 1. we cannot be sure that the gene we're editing is the one that is responsible for the feature we want (or that it is responsible only for that feature) 2. What are the chances of editing the wrong gene and noticing it? 3. What happens is we edit the wrong gene without noticing it?
- acomjean 8y agoGenerally (I’m learning this stuff too). It’s gene to protein. You have to research what each protein does in the cell. Lots of research is about this. Crispr knock out is about turning off genes and seeing what happens. 2. Crispr has off target effects, they have some tools to help mininize those. It’s hard as some genes have paralogs that produce similar proteins in the same species.
- Gatsky 8y agoI don’t buy this. It is 100% guaranteed that these GMO tomatoes are safer than alcohol and tobacco. Yet the ‘old and boring’ approach has deemed these clearly poisonous substances safe, and allows billion dollar industries to exist selling them. This is totally illogical.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago> alcohol and tobacco. Yet the ‘old and boring’ approach has deemed these clearly poisonous substances safe It has not deemed them safe - They are "grandfathered" in. There is absolutely no way that you could introduce tobacco as a new product today.
- Gatsky 8y agoThis is the point - there is no scientific integrity with the current approach.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y agoSuddenly and totally banning tobacco products would have "scientific integrity" sure, but is practically impossible due to how human beings work. However, tobacco is actually being gradually phased out across Europe. Compare smoking prevalence in a city now vs 20 years ago. Extrapolate out another 20 years.
- Gatsky 8y agoThis is a separate issue. My point is that the current regulatory approach to GMO lacks scientific integrity, and is anachronistic and hypocritical. Alcohol can be justified as having some cultural merit, and there are many people who use it moderately. Tobacco is just making money from nicotine addicts while they kill themselves slowly. No need to ban it outright, just double the price every few years.
- tomp 8y agoWhat's the proof? The article says: > a cupboard full of genes with known effects, that can each be adjusted to turn an unruly wild plant into a valuable domesticated one which I don't believe at all - if we really knew exactly what genes do, we could construct new life-forms artificially. But we don't biology is far too complicated for us (for the time being). We don't even understand climate (even the best models consistently overstated the predicted temperature rise).
- tomp 8y agoI completely support GMOs. As long as they're labeled. Let the consumers decide (also, food labelling is terrible in general - in many countries, you can say "no trans fats" for food that actually has trans fats).
- evgen 8y agoTry to name a single food you consume that has not been genetically modified. _Everything_ has been modified for thousands of years. What is different now is that we do not need to rely on random chance and dumb luck to get a good mutation and that we can introduce sequences that were not originally in the original genome. Let's let consumers decide and be completely honest with them. Those 'organic' oranges and grapefruit you are buying? Genetically modified. That bread in your basket? Unless it is einkorn wheat then it is genetically modified.
- _Microft 8y agoYou might want to read up about genetically modified, the term is not used as you think it is used. You might wanna start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism
- evgen 8y agoI am aware of the common meaning of the term and also that using it in this narrow fashion disguises the fact that selective breeding is also a mechanism for modifying the genes of the plant or animal. There are a large range of techniques that can be used to perform genetic modification and in most cases the fear that most people have is simply due to their ignorance and susceptibility to clever propaganda.
- deialtrous 8y ago>disguises the fact that selective breeding is also a mechanism for modifying the genes of the plant or animal. It does not disguise that fact, as that is not a fact. Selecting genes is not modifying genes. >in most cases the fear that most people have is simply due to their ignorance and susceptibility to clever propaganda. How do you know? One could just as easily say the same ignorance and propaganda is behind people shilling for multinational agricorps by thinking it makes them "pro-science". The amount of falsehoods promoted by "pro-science" people is tremendous, and "GMOs would save the planet" is one of them.
- tomp 8y agoWhere I see really a lot potential for genetically-modified food, is in space. There, the constraints are completely different, so it can be extremely beneficial to be able to design your crops as you wish - control water usage, respiration, growth patterns, flowering patterns, number and size of fruits, etc. Another thing I was thinking about - not related to GMO, but I'll throw it out in case anyone from HN knows more about it - would it be possible to control plants using hormones? E.g. to manually "order" the plant to stop growing leaves and start growing fruits, or to grow in a particular direction (this could probably be done with light as well) or pattern, etc.
- niciliketo 8y agoI personally think that improvements to the nutritional value of the product would be of great interest. It is mentioned in the article but I didn't see any metrics.
- crististm 8y agoHow do you know there are only extreme benefits? To your second question I need to ask something: after you moved past the coolness factor, what do you think would be the _drawbacks_?
- tomp 8y agoI'm not saying there would be only benefits, I'm just saying that the tradeoffs are different... Earth-food works, so GMO can either marginally improve it, make it marginally worse, or make it really worse (i.e. it's the tail risk I'm worried about, same as with climate change). Space food is currently impossible, so almost anything we do will be neutral or an improvement. Also, as I mentioned, the constraints are completely different - up-front costs are mostly irrelevant, mass and speed of growth are the problem - so foods that are net negative on Earth (e.g. because they have to be produced in a lab and are hugely expensive) might be viable in space.
- crististm 8y agoI'm amazed by your comment: "I'm not saying there would be only benefits [in space]... ...Space food is currently impossible,so almost anything we do will be neutral or an improvement" So in the first comment I read that there will be only benefits in space, and in this one that there will be, practically speaking - only improvements?
- moltar 8y agoFinally. I think many people in the west have never tasted a real tomatoe. They’ll think it’s a completely new breed ))
- dsr_ 8y agoThere are lots of heirloom tomato cultivars -- but they don't travel well, and frequently look strange. They tend to be sold directly by farmers at slightly premium prices. In the last few years there has been commercial success with "new" varieties of cherry-sized tomatoes, which carry a lot of flavor, are pretty, and travel quite well.
- buboard 8y agothe European Court of Justice has way too much power over way too many things.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y agoYes, well, I'm extremely suspicious of the "better tasting" claim in the article- and the use of the over-the-top terminology is not doing much to reassure me ("super" tomatoes! Rrriiight). To begin with, there is no need to edit wild varieties to produce tasty tomatoes. The varities we have already are actually pretty damn good already. It's the production and distribution methods that suck out all the taste and purpose out of their miserable, sour existence. For example, when I'm back home in Greece for the summer, I eat tomatoes that taste of tomato and smell of tomato. They are usually grown by people, normally grocers, in their gardens, in small numbers (though not necessarily using organic means, if you were wondering). The grocers who grow them then sell them in their stores, so you can find maybe a kilo of home-grown fruit in a grocery store every other week or so, and often only in the summer (because the grocers seldom have greenhouses). Note that this is only true in the countryside- in the cities, like Athens, the quality is much more bland. Like in Athens, the tomatoes I eat in the UK, where I live and work, are boring, tasteless and miserable and they leave behind a lingering sensation of disappointment and nostalgia of a faraway sunny land. As I understand it, these commercial varieties are actually grown in Southern Europe (including Greece) in vast greenhouses, from where they are picked when they're still green and then allowed to "mature" (basically, slowly they rot) during transportation in fridge trucks. These tomatoes have been abused to the point of PTSD and it shows when you put them in your mouth: they are empty and devoid of all taste, fragrance and meaning and can drive a sane eater to depression. So forget about mass-producing and mass-distributing decent-tasting tomatoes. You can mass-produce tomatoes that satisfy the farmers, with characteristics that make them profitable to sell; and you can mass-produce tomatoes that the majority of consumers will accept, mournfully, but only because they seldom have the chance to buy and eat good ones, and have probably even forgotten what tomatoes actualy taste like. But you can't mass-produce good tomatoes.
- kwhitefoot 8y ago> Thousands of years of breeding have produced a fruit that often suits farmers and sellers more than consumers. Tomatoes were only brought to Europe a few hundred years ago. I very much doubt that there was much serious breeding before that. And there are loads that taste good, the supermarkets simply won't stock them because they make less money.
- jessriedel 8y agoI don't understand. Domestication is defined by the significant genetic changes induced by selective breeding. It's been practiced around the world, long before the industrial and scientific revolutions. For instance, pre-Colombian maize looks dramatically different than it's wild ancestor due to thousands of years of selective breeding.
- specializeded 8y agoYou’d be very much wrong about that, though development certainly seems to have accelerated once it was taken to Europe.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoThey don't stock them, because growers don't plant them, because they don't transport or store well. More sugar means rots faster. Also, there's an enzyme(?) that forms just as the fruit ripens and gets tasty, that lets the skin split. So they pick them green, before either of those things happen. There was a gene added that stopped the skin-split effect, so you could let them ripen and still transport them, but anti-GMO folk won't let us have them?
- crististm 8y agoI don't know anymore if Idiocracy is a movie or not. It's like I'm living a bad dream where common sense is at a premium.
- coldtea 8y agoTake for example the above content-less comment, which is all about signaling superiority (but doesn't even bother to explain why).
- crististm 8y agoOn one level I'm experimenting with different type of inflammatory comments to see how people respond. However, if you've seen the movie, you know that my comment is not void. On another level, I really think that subject at matter (genetically modifications) is such that its full implications are impossible to correctly predict on any scale you consider. Thus, it would be _wise_ for everyone to play it safe and consider the fact that we are ignorant and don't know everything. Unfortunately people act like they do know everything and they also know the future a million years from now. It's pointless to tell them that they are willfully blind to any opposition so one recourse is caricature and irony. Once in a while you'll stumble onto someone who asks you, how dare you tell me that I'm stupid? Well, if you say you know everything, you are. They might even get the point. At least I'm stupid enough to know that I don't know everything.
- coldtea 8y agoWell, that would be an argument if you have bothered made it. Taleb, for one, has. The reference is all wrong though. People in Idiocracy are just idiots -- the simple kind. That's the very base of the money. Whereas people doing "genetically modifications" while they might not know all the implications of are not idiots, just smart people who commit hubris. Different thing, different movie. Try "Jurassic Park" or "Frankenstein" for your kind of message.
- crististm 8y ago
- coldtea 8y ago>Thousands of years of breeding have produced a fruit that often suits farmers and sellers more than consumers Actually it's the opposite. Modern breeding and other technical alterations has reduced tomatoes to a BS fruit that suits farmers and sellers (longer lasting, more colorful, more resistant, bigger) than consumers. Tomatoes have lost a large percentage of their sugar content and flavor in the last 60 or so years for commercial reasons: (...) the researchers also wanted to determine why store-bought tomatoes are so tasteless — i.e., "water bombs." It turns out that modern tomato cultivars are selected for qualities such as size, because consumers prefer large fruit, and firmness, because that trait makes tomatoes easier to ship, the researchers said. Meanwhile, the quality of flavor has been overlooked, the investigators said. We found that modern commercial varieties contain significantly lower amounts of many of these important flavor chemicals than older varieties [do]," the researchers said in the study. https://www.livescience.com/57647-why-store-tomatoes-are-tasteless.html https://www.livescience.com/57647-why-store-tomatoes-are-tas...
- secure 8y ago> >Thousands of years of breeding have produced a fruit that often suits farmers and sellers more than consumers > Actually it's the opposite. > Modern breeding and other technical alterations has reduced tomatoes to a BS fruit that suits farmers and sellers (longer lasting, more colorful, more resistant, bigger) than consumers. You’re saying the same thing as the article. Did you misread? :)
- deialtrous 8y agoNo he isn't. Breeding for crappy tomatoes has only gone on since the 1940s, not for thousands of years. The thousands of years of breeding was for good tomatoes, and the last 70 years or so has been ruining that thousands of years of work.
- fuzzfactor 8y ago>the last 70 years or so has been ruining that thousands of years of work. Unfortunately this has happened to a lot more than just tomatoes or even plants themselves.
- acomjean 8y agoThere was a really good article awhile ago about gm potatoes that produced there own Pesticides. The author grows some (there is a end user agreement that software people should be familiar with) The trouble was figuring out who would regulate these new crops (in the US anyway). In the end McDonald’s wouldn’t buy them so I think that potatoe is gone. It’s a long read but it talks about how modern farming vs organic and a whole host of issues that are still relevant today . https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/25/magazine/playing-god-in-the-garden.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/25/magazine/playing-god-in-t...