5 ms·

I get the rather cynical impression that Monsanto may need to rethink the nature of the problem. Unless I'm mistaken this strategy is still going toe-to-toe wit

I get the rather cynical impression that Monsanto may need to rethink the nature of the problem. Unless I'm mistaken this strategy is still going toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology and ends up causing individuals who are not succeptible to this target to flourish. I also don't like the idea of spraying stuff around that is built to silence genes--I'd like to have some mention on how specific the targeting is i.e. are you knocking out specific codons, frame rewrite or transposons, and if it's that general how is it contained/delivered? It's the vast crop monoculture that is the problem, not the "pest" who evolves and then takes advantage of it.

mjt0229 13y ago
I presume the RNAi described here targets regions of DNA of about ~20 nucleotides. Off-target effects are par for the course, but if you pick your 20 nucleotides carefully, you can get pretty precise. Common off-target effects also come from an orthogonal RNAi pathway that would would affect particular endogenous RNAs sharing the first ~7 nucleotides in that sequence. Your argument about "toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology" is a little misguided. Everything about agriculture and pest control is going toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology. You either let evolution run all over you, or you try to keep up. Monoculture is a problem, but crop diversity wouldn't eliminate the evolutionary challenge - it's just another mitigating strategy.
- mjt0229 13y ago
  Far be it from me to defend Monsanto, though. They're a horrible, horrible corporation.
  - lublublub 13y ago
    I'm sure there are some people in Monsanto who mean well, however, I'll agree.
- lublublub 13y ago
  Informative! thanks! Though I never ment to suggest that the evolutionary challenge would be eliminated--it just changes the approach to the problem, rather than looking at specific pests and targeting them individually, (which is actually an endless fight--but may provide continued revenue for Monsanto) look at the systemic relationships and the patterns they create as they persist. If you eliminate one pest, you still have broad homogenous crop, which is a natural draw for all sorts of similar 'pest' problems. In any case I see it as being symptomatic of our highly optimized food system--which has problems in all sorts of places (input/output and stderr), as I think we are optimizing for the wrong thing in the long term. Slightly circular, and OT--sorry.
  - mjt0229 13y ago
    You're absolutely right about that.
zzzeek 13y ago
> I get the rather cynical impression that Monsanto may need to rethink the nature of the problem. Unless I'm mistaken this strategy is still going toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology and ends up causing individuals who are not succeptible to this target to flourish. the "problem" is, Monsanto needs more profits. And they are doing a terrific job of solving the crap out of that problem, getting farmers hooked on ever more complicated and unproven techniques as each one fails, each one modifying nature further so that Monsanto's newest approaches are even more critical. Monsanto has no ethical or environmental incentives beyond those which might damage their profit model. And so far, with secret treaties like TPP at their back, it looks like they can go super far before anything like that happens.
jerf 13y ago
Evolution is not infinitely powerful. As we continue to develop our technology we will eventually reach a point where conventional (un-technology-assisted) evolution will be unable to compete with our directed attacks. This really starts getting close to that; this mechanism for gene silencing is not something that the organisms can afford to just "turn back off", for instance. This is extremely potent and going to be very difficult to evolve around. Not impossible, but very difficult; as soon as we identify something that has managed, we can probably find another sequence to throw at it. Since the organism is not unconstrained in what DNA sequences it can choose, since it is also the actual code the organism is running, it faces a lot more constraints than we do, which is a true reversal of the current situation. Evolution qua evolution won't care, and will swiftly and smoothly move into the technology arena as much as ever, but it will be a different game at that point. Intelligences may spar at each other, but brute biology won't have a seat at the table anymore. And intelligences at least have a chance to compromise at something less that all out war, which is all brute biology has ever known and all it can ever know.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  This seems just a little too faith-in-technology for me. I think that you are right about the tipping point between intelligence and natural selection. But given that we manage to share 20% or so of our genes with bananas, I would want to be very very sure of ourselves. I think the science needs to catch up with the commerce. The general response most of us have to things like nuclear technology, bio-engineering is usually characterised by "gosh, that's an awfully big downside". To me that is a very rational response and a good understanding of the nature of risk. Edit: bit less didactic
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    Well, I disagree here. This does not have an awfully big downside. It has a much smaller downside than Monsanto style genetic engineering, or just trying some new random poison. For something in biology, genes are very well understood. Targeting them has much less harmfull potential than targeting proteins, untargeted attacks, or spaying things that nobody understand the working. Anyway, I agree that it's the wrong direction to go. But it's the one that's profitable for the research center.
elipsey 13y ago
Maybe creating and selling temporary solutions is the problem that Monsanto chooses to solve. As stated in TFA, BT corn deterred pests for a while, and now it apparently doesn't, but it seems to have been profitable in the interim. What is the ROI for this new thing?

mjt0229 13y ago

I presume the RNAi described here targets regions of DNA of about ~20 nucleotides. Off-target effects are par for the course, but if you pick your 20 nucleotides carefully, you can get pretty precise. Common off-target effects also come from an orthogonal RNAi pathway that would would affect particular endogenous RNAs sharing the first ~7 nucleotides in that sequence. Your argument about "toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology" is a little misguided. Everything about agriculture and pest control is going toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology. You either let evolution run all over you, or you try to keep up. Monoculture is a problem, but crop diversity wouldn't eliminate the evolutionary challenge - it's just another mitigating strategy.

mjt0229 13y ago
Far be it from me to defend Monsanto, though. They're a horrible, horrible corporation.
- lublublub 13y ago
  I'm sure there are some people in Monsanto who mean well, however, I'll agree.
lublublub 13y ago
Informative! thanks! Though I never ment to suggest that the evolutionary challenge would be eliminated--it just changes the approach to the problem, rather than looking at specific pests and targeting them individually, (which is actually an endless fight--but may provide continued revenue for Monsanto) look at the systemic relationships and the patterns they create as they persist. If you eliminate one pest, you still have broad homogenous crop, which is a natural draw for all sorts of similar 'pest' problems. In any case I see it as being symptomatic of our highly optimized food system--which has problems in all sorts of places (input/output and stderr), as I think we are optimizing for the wrong thing in the long term. Slightly circular, and OT--sorry.
- mjt0229 13y ago
  You're absolutely right about that.

zzzeek 13y ago

> I get the rather cynical impression that Monsanto may need to rethink the nature of the problem. Unless I'm mistaken this strategy is still going toe-to-toe with evolutionary biology and ends up causing individuals who are not succeptible to this target to flourish. the "problem" is, Monsanto needs more profits. And they are doing a terrific job of solving the crap out of that problem, getting farmers hooked on ever more complicated and unproven techniques as each one fails, each one modifying nature further so that Monsanto's newest approaches are even more critical. Monsanto has no ethical or environmental incentives beyond those which might damage their profit model. And so far, with secret treaties like TPP at their back, it looks like they can go super far before anything like that happens.

jerf 13y ago

Evolution is not infinitely powerful. As we continue to develop our technology we will eventually reach a point where conventional (un-technology-assisted) evolution will be unable to compete with our directed attacks. This really starts getting close to that; this mechanism for gene silencing is not something that the organisms can afford to just "turn back off", for instance. This is extremely potent and going to be very difficult to evolve around. Not impossible, but very difficult; as soon as we identify something that has managed, we can probably find another sequence to throw at it. Since the organism is not unconstrained in what DNA sequences it can choose, since it is also the actual code the organism is running, it faces a lot more constraints than we do, which is a true reversal of the current situation. Evolution qua evolution won't care, and will swiftly and smoothly move into the technology arena as much as ever, but it will be a different game at that point. Intelligences may spar at each other, but brute biology won't have a seat at the table anymore. And intelligences at least have a chance to compromise at something less that all out war, which is all brute biology has ever known and all it can ever know.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
This seems just a little too faith-in-technology for me. I think that you are right about the tipping point between intelligence and natural selection. But given that we manage to share 20% or so of our genes with bananas, I would want to be very very sure of ourselves. I think the science needs to catch up with the commerce. The general response most of us have to things like nuclear technology, bio-engineering is usually characterised by "gosh, that's an awfully big downside". To me that is a very rational response and a good understanding of the nature of risk. Edit: bit less didactic
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  Well, I disagree here. This does not have an awfully big downside. It has a much smaller downside than Monsanto style genetic engineering, or just trying some new random poison. For something in biology, genes are very well understood. Targeting them has much less harmfull potential than targeting proteins, untargeted attacks, or spaying things that nobody understand the working. Anyway, I agree that it's the wrong direction to go. But it's the one that's profitable for the research center.

elipsey 13y ago

Maybe creating and selling temporary solutions is the problem that Monsanto chooses to solve. As stated in TFA, BT corn deterred pests for a while, and now it apparently doesn't, but it seems to have been profitable in the interim. What is the ROI for this new thing?