Grass Created in Lab Is Found in the Wild

[Shakespeare]

An unapproved type of genetically engineered grass has been found growing in the wild in what scientists say could be the first instance in the United States in which a biotechnology plant has established itself outside a farm.

Ecologists at the Environmental Protection Agency said they had found a small number of the grass plants growing in central Oregon near the site of field tests that took place a few years ago.

The E.P.A. scientists and others said the grass would probably not pose an ecological threat. Still, it could provide fodder for critics who say that agricultural biotechnology cannot be adequately controlled.

The genetically engineered grass, called creeping bentgrass, is being developed by the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company and Monsanto for use on golf courses. It contains a bacterial gene that makes the grass resistant to the herbicide Roundup, known generically as glyphosate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/science/16grass.html?ex=1156392000&en=301e352adc0b30d9&ei=5059&partner=AOL

[hedgehog]

1. These people should be forced to sit through screenings of

Jurassic Park until they get it.

[rmgarrette64]

2. Are you serious?

We should propose a pop-fiction blockbuster as a science lesson? And then complain that they're not part of the "reality-based" community?

Let's hope no one takes this suggestion too seriously.

R. Garrett

[hedgehog]

9. Crichton's latest was a farce, but the movie of Jurassic Park

made some good points. Remember the comments that Jeff Goldblum's character made about trying to control Nature? Those are the ones that I tyhink need to be studied.

[Sequoia]

15. That's on AMC tonight.

[zbdent]

17. I just saw something last night ... science is genetically modifying

chickens to grow teeth ... since the fossilized remains of the first "bird" had teeth, birds still have the capacity to have teeth ...

This is in hopes of fighting baldness ... hey, how about something that cures cancer, or aids? No profit?

[William Seger]

18. I thought that "comments that Jeff Goldblum's character made"

... were trite and corny. Almost ruined the movie for me.

[Barrett808]

26. But "Life finds a way" -- Now, that's a delicious quote

I think of it often as we continue to destroy the biosphere apace.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

11. That's by Michael Crichton, right?

I'm sure he'd want you to read State of Fear until you "get it".

Because global warming is all a big liberal plot, don'tcha know? :sarcasm:

[hedgehog]

14. Like I said, State of Fear is a farce.

Even the plot isn't anything more than a very frail skeleton to hang a series of lectures on. Even a broken clock can be right twice a day though. Crichton did touch on some valid ideas in Jurassic Park.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

16. So, I presume you are also against stem cell research?

And any other form of scientific endeavor?

'Cause we'll all get eaten by T. Rex's, right?

[hedgehog]

19. Just pointing out that not all experiments lead to improvements.

I'm very dubious about stem cell research. The list of benefits we're being promised sound like they were lifted from a quack remedy. I could be proven wrong this afternoon, but why hasn't anyone overseas come up with a miracle cure based on stem cell research? I'm also more than a little convinced that the emphasis is on embryonic stem cells mainly because then the investors won't have to share any profits with whoever donated the original cells. Come up with a cure based on cells from a placenta or bone marrow and someone might put in a claim for a share.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

21. If scientists only conducted experiments that would definitely lead to

improvements, we'd still be living in the Dark Ages. From Archimedes all the way down to Hawking, none of our "famous" scientists would have ever accomplished anything if they held to your ridiculous standard. (That is, an experiment *must* lead to a definite improvement if it's worth undertaking.)

Science is all about trying to better our understanding of the world (and hopefully using said knowledge to improve the lives of all of us stuck on it.)

Knowledge is NEVER a bad thing.

[hedgehog]

22. I'm all for open ended research.

The better understanding of the immune system developed over the last twenty years has produced some wonderful results for those of us with auto-immune disorders such as lupus, arthritis and asthma. From what I've seen, the stem cell stampede is aimed as much at making a profit as it is in pure research. Inserting genes in grasses to make it easier to maintain a golf course doesn't strike me as pure research, either. Go back and study the history of science in a little more detail and you will find that a lot of experiments done in the past would be considered unethical today. Future generations may consider our manipulation of genes in food crops to be the height of hubris.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

27. Wow!

I had no idea Tom Cruise frequented this board!

Really, you should think about getting off your high horse and not condescending to people here. Some of us are educated.

I do, in fact, know a little something about the history of science. I, in fact, have a degree in Materials Science and Engineering from one of the top 3 MatSE universities in the country. But, you obviously know WAY more about science and its history than anyone else on this board.

I'm considering this conversation finished.

You have:

A) Been condescending

B) Recommended a fucking Michael Crichton movie as an educational tool.

and

C) Made it clear that you only support scientific research if a corporation can't use said research to generate profits.

Good day.

[hedgehog]

31. The reason for recommending a movie is that sometimes a story

can convey the message at a visceral level, offering a new view point that would not be otherwise considered. Jurassic Park is obviously fiction, but if it starts a discussion or even introduces a little doubt, why not use it?

I don't think I was condescending, just realistic. Why do you think we have cures for baldness and not certain tropical diseases? Clearly research designed to generate a profit exists. That doesn't make it bad. I pay out hundreds of dollars a year for prescription medicines that I am grateful for every day. But consider that the particular example under discussion is to come up with a grass designed so that a golf course can use Round-Up freely. That's hardly altruistic basic research. You compared the controversy over stem cell research to the controversy over transgenic crops. I was trying to point out that perhaps not all stem cell researchers are as "pure" as people would like to think. Certainly the scandal in Korea last winter showed that scientists can cook the data to make it appear that they have made a break-thru.

The history of science is full of examples of people who thought they were doing the right thing but who we now see as blinded by a profit motive or desire for fame or simply the culture they lived in. For example, the development of modern medicine in America at the turn of the Twentieth Century can be viewed as a heroic achievement or as an effort to eliminate competition from folk practitioners depending on who is telling the story. (I imagine both viewpoints are true to a certain extant. Life is complicated.) I was merely pointing out that not all research ends up benefiting us or the planet.

Finally - get a grip on yourself. I was top of my class as a Mechanical Engineer and I've been wrong more than once. Shockley got a Nobel for his work on the transistor, but he was dead wrong about race and IQ. I also know a very competent engineer who firmly believes in Intelligent Design. All a B.S. is is a license to keep learning. I t doesn't make anyone (including myself) an all knowing oracle on technology.

[AngryAmish]

34. Making better bent grass is a worthy aim

Less weeds on golf courses is good.

[many a good man]

37. No, its a horrible thing

Monsanto specializes in creating plants that are resistant to herbicide for the sole purpose of selling more toxic herbicide. Their objective is to grow fields or golf courses that you can just saturate with Roundup without having to worry about killing your money crop (or bent grass). This world doesn't need more toxic petrochemical poison running off into its streams and rivers and bays. It will only breed more super-resistant weeds that require even more Monsanto products to kill.

Please educate yourself.

[AngryAmish]

53. Of course, this is nonsense

Have you thought about the other herbicides and pesticides that are used without RoundUp ready plants. Less pesticides/herbicides are used with these crops than without. By any objective standard.

[Odin2005]

39. "Future generations may consider our manipulation of genes in food..."

LOL, luddite BS.

We biologists will genetically engineer anything we damn well please.

[druidity33]

32. Mengele ok then? nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

29. Life will find a way. nt

[KaptBunnyPants]

38. Jurassic Park was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

And the moral of the story is absolutely stupid. We shouldn't clone dinosaurs because they might escape and take over the world? Idiocy. We have guns; at best a few might escape and survive for a while, but like all other large animals on this planet, we eventually would drive them back to extinction. At least the movie taught me the valuable lesson that Jeff Goldblum is a douche bag. I swear, listening to actors who have no idea what science is about explain how chaos theory "proves" that nature will "find a way" using dialouge written by known anti-scientist Micheal Criton has got to be the worst example of self induced torture I've ever committed in a Cinima. The only decent part of the movie was seeing the dinosaurs, and Criton used them to convince all the idiots out there that we'd better not try to clone extinct species or it will lead to exiting car chases and velociraptors hunting down children.

In short, Jurassic Park = Mary Shelly's Frankenstien - compelling story - insight into human nature - literary value.

P.S.
It's not that I don't see the dangers of genetic enginneering, I see great dangers in creating new kinds of bacteria, viruses, insects, plants, even small animals - those have all shown the ability to adapt and maintain their numbers despite concerted attempts to eradicate them by humans. But way too many people came away from Jurassic Park thinking that it had demonstrated a slam dunk argument against cloning anything, when the threat of uncontrollable dinosaur outbreaks is simply not credible.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Fodder for critics

who say that agricultural biotechnology cannot be adequately controlled ?

I'd say it provided proof of same and this is only a small example. Best that can be said is that at least your EPA declared the finding.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. What to do?

"Jim King, a spokesman for Scotts, said the company had already admitted that some grass was growing outside the test plots and that the company was working to eradicate it."

Not using Roundup, I presume.

[Teaser]

5. awesome.

Man this is going to be one cool planet in a hundred years.

We'll have rampant mutants, cyborgs, virtual reality, genetically engineered monsters, superintelligent computers and nanobots.

cool.

[Tikki]

6. and this for the Lounge Crew....

I'm Bullish on Creeping Bentgrass....It's Going Places. :-)




Tikki

[ima_sinnic]

7. oh darn! I thought they meant Grass, as in, well, you know . . .

:smoke:

[sweetheart]

43. what a story indeed!

The new strain of cannabis has been found growing wild across a 3000 mile radius of the release point,
spread as far as the aelutian islands growing in clumps of thick bud in near arctic conditions.
The new hybrid cannabis can grow anywhere, is perrenial, spreads through roots like crabgrass, is
resistant to all pesticices, and flowers 2 kilogram buds in 4 weeks.

The new variety of cannabis is of large concern to drugs dealers and drugs gangs everywhere
as the weed makes inroads in to their ordered corruption of police gangs and prison presidents."

[SledDriver]

8. Hmmm... let's see....

Scientists plant the grass seeds in a plot on the facility.
A few birds come along and ingest some of the seeds.
The birds fly off, and some time later poop out some of those seeds.
The seeds germinate and take root in their new location.

whoa.... spooky... we're all doomed... :eyes:

[hedgehog]

12. The problem with genetically engineered plants is that they share.

It sounds like a Saturday night Sci-Fi movie, but there have already been cases of weeds picking up inserted genes from food crops. Unfortunately, the genes they pick up help the weeds to thrive rather than turning them into food crops.

[acmejack]

10. The key words in that report were " in the US"...

[havocmom]

13. Patented Monsanto grain blows around and ends up in fields

where it wasn't planted. Then farmers get sued and lose the farm.

Corporations are taking over. They are beyond law enforcement because they own the politicians making the laws. Then, they are beyond responsibility. They say something is secure and it isn't. They lie and then they sue anyone who finds proof of lies growing in their own fields.

Corporations controlling governments, controlling the making and enforcing of laws, is Fascism. This is one more example of why that is dangerous. The corporations think they have it all under control, but nature finds a way. The corporations need to be regulated and forced to take responsibility for their errors and 'spills'.

As far as this little incident goes: Look for Monsanto to come up with a new weed killer to combat the new weeds they introduced. Bet it will be pricey too. More burden for the independents trying to stay in business in the food industry. More independents forced to sell.

If you all hate multinational corporations having control of your gas tank, what ya gonna do when they control your belly?

Support your nearest farmers' market. And plant a garden.

[TomInTib]

25. Many points well made, havocmom..

"what ya gonna do when they control your belly?"

The time is coming and it won't be long.

As crazy as it sounds, I often think the BirdFlu flame was fanned to set up a universal poultry model.

[havocmom]

45. Wondered about the poultry issue myself

Not familiar with how it works in Asia. Am assuming most families keep birds, which means they are not consuming big corporate farmed birds. Shame on them, trying to live within their means and feed their families well. Only official corporate approved food stuffs allowed.

It's a brave new world indeed, Tom my friend. Am grateful for the fact that I am no spring chicken and won't have to deal with the end play. Pretty worried about my daughter's generation and a lot of my very young pals though.

Teach 'em to grow and preserve food. Teach 'em like their lives depend on it.

[raccoon]

54. You and me both! Hardly the day goes by that I don't think of that.

"Am grateful for the fact that I am no spring chicken and won't have to deal with the end play."

[alfredo]

41. This is the problem. You drive along any country road around harvest

time and you will find seed scattered all over the ditch. If your farm is down wind your crop will have genes from the crop up wind. You will get caught because the Monsanto boys creep around your fields taking samples. If you are poor and save some seed, you will get sued. You don't buy seed, you lease it.

[havocmom]

44. 'You don't buy seed, you lease it.' Excellent point!

Independent farmers become share croppers.

In third world nations, this has to be a killer, literally.

[alfredo]

46. Especially the suicide seeds.

They are a mistake way from mass starvation.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0126-07.htm


'Suicide Seeds' Could Spell Death of Peasant Agriculture, UN Meeting Told
by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS - Groups fighting for the rights of peasant communities are stepping up pressure on governments to ban the use of genetically modified ''suicide seeds'' at UN-sponsored talks on biodiversity in Spain this week.


...genetically modified crops...offer the promise of fat profits for their developers, marketers, and political supporters while threatening farmers with lean times and consumers with ill-health.

''This technology is an assault on the traditional knowledge, innovation, and practices of local and indigenous communities,'' said Debra Harry, executive director of the U.S.-based Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism.

The group is among organizations urging United Nations experts to recommend that governments adopt tough laws against field testing and selling Terminator technology, which refers to plants that have had their genes altered so that they render sterile seeds at harvest. Because of this trait, some activists call Terminator products ''suicide seeds.''



------

It's more like licensing their technology.

[Lisa]

42. and for a supposed "biotechnology" company to overlook ...

.... the fact that plants CAN and DO reproduce vegetatively -- or via windblown seeds and pollen ... suggests that either a) none of the people making decisions there made it past Grade 8 biology ... or b) they know darned well that this happens, and feel they can take advantage of it somehow.

[CatholicEdHead]

49. Monsanto could eventually sue anyone

with a green lawn that comes from them because of this accident. :puke:

[SnowGoose]

20. Science should be informed by history.

I say this as someone who is working on a PhD in toxicology ~ and who has admired the achievements of science his whole life.

History is replete with instances of products made by humankind that have wound up in places we didn't put them. This is unpleasant enough when it's just toxins in the water.

When the human contrivances, as brilliantly designed as they may be, are capable of reproducing? There's a whole new world of potential unintended consequences.

As careful as we need to be with radioactive or toxic goop, we need to orders of magnitude more careful with things that can exist in the open environment and reproduce on their own.

This should be self-evident.

[hedgehog]

23. You said it much better than I could.

The genetically altered plant may be perfectly safe in and of itself but have disastrous results if it gets loose in the environment.

Kudzu, anyone?

[Karenina]

24. Bingo!

:toast:

[damntexdem]

28. Well, after all, grass generally provides fodder.

;-)

But we certainly wouldn't want it going wild and laying down golf courses all across the nation.

[truthisfreedom]

30. here's the thing... it's called creeping bentgrass. what did they expect

it to do? just lie there?

[warrens]

33. I sense more hysteria coming on

The chances of a given plant surviving against wild plants are about zip.

[Javaman]

36. one would think..

check out the movie, "the future of food".

those monsanto idiots created a seed that is resistant to round up weed killer. So the corn it produces lives while the weeds around it dies. What they didn't bank on is nature adapting. As a result of over spraying everything in site, super weeds have sprung up and are now choking off the round up resistant corn.

land of the stupid.

[Odin2005]

40. Just more luddite goose to go with the anti-intellectual gander.

The luddites here non the left are just as stupid as the creationists on the right.

[susanna]

51. So what's your real opinion, then?

Just let genetic modification occur with no oversight? I guess your one-line anti-"Luddite" posts are starting to irritate me...how about some reasoning why you think so? That might be helpful.

What do you think is the proper amount of concern to be shown for the news contained in the OP? It seems you believe that you are much more well-versed in science than the rest of us silly peasants; please, enlighten us with your wisdom as to why it's okay that such experiments overrun their (obviously previously set) boundaries.

[Odin2005]

55. I'm all for GMOs being regulated. I am against banning them

This shit, as well as other crap Monsanto & Co. are doing is the result of a lack of regulation, it is NOT grounds for banning GM crops. Genetic engineering has the potential to do much good as long as it's kept from being abused. The problem is that people with a primitivist/luddite/technology-hating bent uses the abuses of GM crops to scare people into joining into thier anti-technology crusade.

[Solon]

52. My problem with these type of experiments have little to do with...

fear of science, but rather who controls the technology, and how much power it gives them. Look, I have no problem with scientists genetically engineering plants and animal, I do have a problem with them being about to patent those same plants and animals. Unlike anything else, life proliferates on its own, and hence, once its put in an enviroment where it can reproduce, it will, and it won't stop either. If this creeping bentgrass ends up in your yard, YOU CAN BE SUED, possibly losing your home, whatever, over PATENT infringement. That is the danger.

[Javaman]

35. How could something with the word "creeping" in it's name...

not be a problem?

spinning spinning spinning.

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

47. Disappointed....

When I read the headline, I was hoping for something different. :+

[Acadia Blue]

48. Monsanto has caused more harm than good through out the world.

[w4rma]

50. A grass created so that they can use *more* roundup on it.

So that they can dump copious amounts of pesticide on the grass without having to worry that it might kill the grass too.

I think I would avoid any golf courses that used this grass, because I'd know that they were going overboard on the chemicals.