- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Converting tobacco into cigarettes is a dwindling industry, so scientists are looking for an alternative use for the product grown by tobacco farmers, said an article in the New York Times Green Blog.
Peggy Lemaux, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley, shared the idea at the annual meeting of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, an agency founded to nurture interesting energy ideas that may or may not work.
Some bacteria and algae turn sunlight...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Food created through genetic engineering and conventional breeding are safe and they deserve equal treatment in the marketplace, a UC Berkeley biotechnology expert told reporter Lisa Krieger of the San Jose Mercury News.
Peggy G. Lemaux, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley, says fear of the unknown can stop genetic engineering from helping consumers. She genetically engineered wheat to produce grain that is less allergenic and might be better tolerated by people...
- 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
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...
