Questions:Find and explain a definition of “traditional plant breeding”.Find and explain a definition of “genetically modified organism”.How do these two types of offspring creation differ in relation to carried traits? **Frankenfoods? The Debate Over Genetically Modified Crops****by**Bill Rhodes, Department of Horticulture, Clemson UniversityMaha M. Alkhazindar, Biotechnology, Cairo UniversityNancy A. Schiller, University Libraries, University at Buffalo---The weather fit the mood of the day—overcast and gloomy. Sam, a work-study student in the plant genetics department at State University, glanced through the hole that had been cut in the side of the greenhouse and then went back to sweeping up the floor. The greenhouse had been broken into overnight. Outside the vandals had spray-painted “Stop Genetic Mutilation!” on the walls of the greenhouse. Inside it was chaos. It looked like they had gone after the sprinkler system with wrenches and hammers, and the test plots had been overturned and the plants trampled underfoot.Sam watched Professor Bob Milikin, who normally didn’t come to campus on Mondays, slowly enter the greenhouse, pale and tight-lipped, shaking his head as he stepped over the debris and surveyed the damage. There had been a recent rash of these attacks around the country, but mostly on the West Coast, and he had never imagined it might happen here. The irony was that in their case only fifteen percent of the uprooted plants were genetically engineered. The rest had been developed using traditional breeding techniques. The plants that had been genetically modified were part of an experiment testing potential genetic engineering techniques for reducing the use of pesticides. He couldn’t understand it. “This was research to benefit the environment,” he said out loud to no one in particular. “To find a way to develop a plentiful, safe, healthy crop without using so many chemicals.”It was no small problem. An estimated 100,000 chemicals—about 2.5 million tons—are in use worldwide. About 10 percent of the 70,000 chemicals used in the United States are carcinogenic. In 1992, the World Health Organization reported that three million pesticide poisonings occur each year, with 220,000 deaths. A study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture had shown that pesticide residues can persist on fruits and vegetables even after they have been washed, peeled, or cored. And there was strong evidence for associations between lymphomas and soft-tissue sarcomas and certain herbicides, and between lung cancer and exposure to organo-chlorine insecticides. Scientists believed that pesticides could result ### Genetically Modified Foods and Biotechnology: An Educational InsightMina thought of the other benefits of genetically modified foods. They could be engineered to deliver more nutrients, reduce spoilage, curtail chemical contamination, even provide immunization against disease. She thought of the research underway to genetically introduce vaccines against diarrhea-causing bacteria into crops such as bananas. Although great progress had been made in inoculating children in much of the world, in the poorest nations relatively little had been achieved. That meant that about 20 percent of the world’s infants were left vulnerable to horrible diseases according to the World Health Organization. Inoculating these children was almost impossible with the current technology. The vaccines available had to be injected, with the exception of the oral polio vaccine. Injections were expensive and problematic in much of the world. Vaccines need to be refrigerated from the point of manufacture to the point of use and their delivery by needle usually required skilled medical personnel. The needles themselves were potentially hazardous. Contaminated needles can often do more to spread a disease than contain it. But if children could be inoculated by simply eating a genetically modified banana, it would be possible for millions to be protected from life-threatening diseases like dysentery in a relatively inexpensive and easy manner.But Mina knew there was growing opposition in this country to biotechnology—opposition that seemed to take its cue and many of its tactics from environmental activists in Europe and Britain. She had a friend, Erik, studying at the London School of Economics, who was vehemently opposed to corporate biotechnology. He and Mina usually steered clear of the topic in the letters they wrote one another these days, but Mina knew what his views were. He had written to Mina of the dangers of corporate mergers that concentrated plant breeding and genetics in the hands of a few large multinational corporations. Erik was outraged that these companies plundered genes from developing countries, which they immediately patented and then held hostage, making the indigenous farmers of these countries buy back the rights to grow their own seeds.These companies, he had written Mina, weren’t interested in consumer safety or preserving the environment or biodiversity except in the narrowest sense of how these might affect their profits or be profitable to them. In Europe, not only did various consumer, environmental, and conservation groups oppose the growing of genetically modified crops on their soil but also their being imported from outside. Erik had appealed to Mina’s sense of history, telling her that she of all people, whose

Plant breeding is a scientific process that aims to develop new and improved plant varieties with…

Answered: Find and explain a definition of…

11th Edition

ISBN:9780134580999

Author:Elaine N. Marieb, Katja N. Hoehn

Publisher:Elaine N. Marieb, Katja N. Hoehn

Chapter1: The Human Body: An Orientation

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 1RQ: The correct sequence of levels forming the structural hierarchy is A. (a) organ, organ system,...