aric
demi-admin
I drink your milkshake!
Posts: 989
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Post by aric on May 17, 2006 0:50:17 GMT -5
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Stouthorn
Junior Scholar
"POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!!"
Posts: 341
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Post by Stouthorn on May 17, 2006 12:25:06 GMT -5
::raises hand::
Ooh! Ooh! I know! I know!
Who gives a *chocolate* about the cavendish? Why can't we just clone the banana and regulate the fungus? What about all those other varieties of bananas that average Joe American doesn't eat, like the plantain for example? What about reverse engineering or genetic manipulation? Or antibiotics? Or cloning? Did I mention cloning?
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Post by Vorchia on May 18, 2006 2:06:11 GMT -5
The problem with cloning is the activists. The activists always protest and demand more testing of the safety of the procedures of cloning, genetic manipulation and the possible effects on the environment an public health. Time and time again scientists have proven that the techniques used are safe but there's always a new avalanche of critique and demand for 'more testing'. I don't know how much 'more testing' scientists can do really because this issue has been going on for a long time now (since the seventies) and every time 'more testing' is in progress activists come and destroy the fields the genetically manipulated plants are growing on and or don't want to listen when the tests prove its SAFE... Some people just want something to protest against without really wanting a solution to the problem I guess... There are even nitrogen binding bacteria like Agrobacterium tumefaciens that insert some bacterial DNA into cells of plant roots so the roots start forming little knobs for the bacteria to live in. Genetic manipulation isn't as unnatural as some people think.
Of course we can clone the banana and give it genes to make it resistant to those fungii. Nobody would EAT the bananas because its 'unnatural' and 'scary' and whatnot. People still aren't used to genetics being used in a more rapid way then the common crossbreeding, which essentially comes down to the same but then slower. Oh and antibiotics only work against bacteria, fungii sometimes PRODUCE antibiotics so the bacteria don't eat 'their' nutrients.
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Stouthorn
Junior Scholar
"POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!!"
Posts: 341
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Post by Stouthorn on May 18, 2006 12:44:30 GMT -5
Whoops...yeah, d'uh about the antibiotics. I guess I meant there are ways to fught fungus.
But yeah, genetic manipulation's got a bad rap, but I think if people knew the friggin' banana was on its way out, they'd capitulate. There's already enough genetically and medically altered food consumed by the general public, they just aren't particularly aware of it.
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RedFeather
Junior Scholar
*flap, flap, flap!*
Posts: 423
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Post by RedFeather on Jun 22, 2006 10:01:52 GMT -5
Man, that sucks. I don't ever want to not be able to eat banana pudding.
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