Genetically Modified Tobacco Plants Turn Red Around Land Mines

Now, here’s a case where genetic modification is actually a good thing: scientists have developed a tobacco plant that turns red when it detects nitrogen oxide leaks from landmines. It takes about ten weeks for the plants to change color. The plants will also help researchers determine whether an area has been successfully cleared.

From Mail Online:

The tobacco plants has been chosen because it is hardy, easy to grow and has wider leaves.

UN and landmine clearance groups are watching the tests with interest.

Aresa chief executive Steen Thaarup said: ‘This could be an efficient and economic way of clearing mines.

‘There is irony in using tobacco for this - it could end up saving lives for once.’

Becky Maynard at the No More Landmines charity in London, which raises funds to clear mines, said the plants would be a useful tool but communities would still rely on engineers to physically remove them.

There an estimated 80million landmines buried worldwide, covering 120,000 square miles.

Awesome. Natural solutions for manmade problems FTW! This could keep tobacco farmers in business even if they wanted to stop fueling the cigarette death machine, which is another plus.

Link [Mail Online]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Vatican Declares that Polluting the Earth is Now a Sin

Pollute the Earth, Go to Hell.

The Vatican has deemed pollution and genetic manipulation sins. Reuters has it:

Asked what he believed were today’s “new sins,” he told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

“(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control,” he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning.

Girotti, in an interview headlined “New Forms of Social Sin,” also listed “ecological” offences as modern evils.

In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.

Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively “green”.

It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels.

Hey, here’s an idea for the Pope- how about telling your flock of billions to put on a fucking condom every now and then. Putting a few solar panels on your roof is a drop of a drop in the sea of impact the billions of breeding-like-rabbits Catholics have.

The upside to this is that Heaven will be free of oil executives, Republican Senators, and Madonna. Praise be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Link [Reuters]

Scientists Bending Nature to Build a Tear-Free Onion

As much as I dislike the feeling of sulphuric acid forming in my eyes whenever I chop up an onion, I’m much more comfortable with the stinging tears than the idea that we can and should genetically engineer away all the sharp points of life. Scientists are working on a tear free onion, Yahoo news has it:

WELLINGTON (AFP) - Scientists in New Zealand and Japan have created a “tear-free” onion using biotechnology to switch off the gene behind the enzyme that makes us cry, one of the leading researchers said Friday.

The discovery could signal an end to one of cooking’s eternal puzzles: why does cutting up a simple onion sting the eyes and trigger teardrops?

The research institute in New Zealand, Crop and Food, used gene-silencing technology to make the breakthrough which it hopes could lead to a prototype onion hitting the market in a decade’s time.

Colin Eady, the institute’s senior scientist, said the project started in 2002 after Japanese scientists located the gene responsible for producing the agent behind the tears.

“We previously thought the tearing agent was produced spontaneously by cutting onions, but they proved it was controlled by an enzyme,” he told AFP from his home outside Christchurch.

“Here in New Zealand we had the ability to insert DNA into onions, using gene-silencing technology developed by Australian scientists.

“The technology creates a sequence that switches off the tear-inducing gene in the onion so it doesn’t produce the enzyme. So when you slice the vegetable, it doesn’t produce tears.”

Link [Yahoo News] via Boing Boing via Fortean Times