- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Rachel Carson, the author of "Silent Spring," a book credited for advancing the environmental movement in the U.S., would have supported the use of genetic engineering in agriculture, says Pamela Ronald, professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis. Ronald considered the possibility in an op-ed article published in Forbes.
Carson envisioned harnessing the knowledge of biological diversity — entomology, pathology, genetics, physiology, biochemistry and ecology — to shape a new science of biotic controls that would help...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Davis plant pathologist Pamela Ronald appeared on the Dr. Oz television show, in which the medical personality promised to tell his audience what they need to know about GMOs.
Ronald was one of three guests, and the only one to support the production and consumption of genetically modified food.
"It was a tough go," Ronald wrote in a Tomorrow's Table blog post about her television appearance. "I did my best to refute the worst 'woo woo pseudoscience,' but it was...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Technology developed by UC Davis animal scientist James Murray that could significantly reduce human suffering and death from diarrhea has found a home in Brazil.
Goats genetically altered to produce milk that prevents diarrhea have been in development in Murray's Davis lab for decades, according to an article in Technology Review. However, sensitivity to the idea of bioengineered animals in the United States has severely limited research funding. Currently the project is supported with a three-year, $400,000 USDA grant to assess the risks of transgenic animals.
"The only money...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Even though critics of biotech crops point to the situation as "gene pollution," Pollack said the finding may not be a problem at all. And if it is a problem, he wrote, "It’s because a canola plant growing outside of a canola field – on a road or in a field of wheat, for example – could be considered a weed."
The study, presented at a recent meeting of the Ecological Society of America, is based on a sampling of 604 canola plants collected by a University of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
"I don't think there's been another case where I've seen him so really ticked off," said insect pathologist Brian Federici of his colleague plant biotechnologist Alan McHughen.
Federici said he was also annoyed by the article, which he called "bad science."
The scientists' frustration led to the creation of a rebuttal letter that was eventually signed by the duo and 10 other scientists and published in the January 2008 edition of PNAS. This letter and other dissent from scientists...
