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[Realmfighter]

Book club do it.

[Qloos]

Sure, I do prefer everyone stays on the same track.  But who am I to stop someone who wants to branch off?

Astronomy in relation to Navigation, Labs.

[Labs]

Astronomy in relation to Navigation, Labs.

Cool. By the end of the week, I'll be able to sail across the Atlantic without newfangled computer thingies.

[ungulateman]

Best thread idea ever.

I suggest you learn why psuedoscience is bunk at some future point.

[MaximumZero]

The history, basic form, and 1st Kata of Niten Ichi Ryu sword style. Go.

[Aklyon]

This sounds brilliant.  Watching.

[Miggy]

Apparently, it's not as hard as you'd think to do simple forms of genetic engineering.  There's a sortof group of them doing it in makeshift home labs.

Farmers have been doing genetic engineering through plant splicing for centuries. The basis for the idea of the gene was invented by an austrian priest who spliced pea plants.

Selective breeding is also evolution's way of doing genetic engineering. Big pigs banging big pigs give more big pigs. It's just much slower to try and single out the genes through generations and generations of careful breeding than it is to spot the good gene and just hammer it into every pig.

If I recall correctly, a huge controversy over geneticly modified food has nothing to really do with the safety of geneticly modifying it at all.  But the fact that a geneticly modified product can be made sterile and then sold to poorer countries so that they are reliant on the product.

I never understood the argument over people fearing genetically engineered food. Genetically engineered foods will have proteins of different shapes and sizes than unengineered foods, but they're still proteins. All of which are broken down into amino acids then transformed into whichever shape the DNA orders. It's like saying building lego castles out of lego-guns instead of lego-trees builds a more hostile and dangerous castle: No it doesn't, you're going to split both the guns and trees apart in order to build the castle, and when split apart the blocks are completely identical.

[Vector]

I believe the fear is that the genetically modified strains will outcompete the original strains, thus cutting down on genetic diversity.

Diversity is a good thing.

[Miggy]

I believe the fear is that the genetically modified strains will outcompete the original strains, thus cutting down on genetic diversity.

Diversity is a good thing.

Diversity is overrated.

Diversity is not good on the basis that diversity is always good. Diversity is good because it's always nice to have a fall-back plan, and diversity will end up with you having something to fall back on. Simply having the genomes mapped and stored provides as good diversity as diversity itself, and that's what geneticists are doing storing crop samples from all over the world in a bunker somewhere up north where it's cold.

I remember hearing about that project, and my first thought was about how wrong of a signal it sends. It makes it seem as if the biologists are bracing themselves for a "dooms-day scenario" where they can then come in and save the world. In reality, they're storing away all of the plants so that they can safely enter the "dooms-day scenario" and have as little plant diversity in crops as possible. Then if feces hits the blower they have a backup.

[GlyphGryph]

This is a great idea, honestly. I also support the book club idea.

Anyways, Miggy, the biggest thing that genetic engineering does is
a)contaminates wild strains, occasionally not even of the same plant. Unlike animals, plants can be a bit... looser with their genetic info from what I understand. For certain types, but not all, of genetic engineering, this poses problems as you can do a LOT of ecological damage.
b)The business practices the genetics companies, especially Monsanto (sp?) tend to get up to are often pretty terrible in a lot of ways.

[Armok]

Unlike animals, plants can be a bit... looser with their genetic info from what I understand.

Yea, plants be slutty whores.

[Shinziril]

There's definitely a few legitimate concerns about genetically engineered crops, but they're mostly based on the new genes "escaping" rather than any directly adverse effects on humans (so the people who don't want to eat stuff because it's genetically modified are silly).

A good example of a real concern would be Roundup Ready corn, which has been modified to be immune to the highly effective pesticide Roundup.  This allows you to just spray it all over the field without worrying about the corn itself, making it much easier to keep the fields weed-free. 

Now, imagine what would happen if this gene managed to hop into some of the weed species.  Fun, no?

The rest of the stuff is mostly just variations on that sort of theme. 

[Vector]

There's definitely a few legitimate concerns about genetically engineered crops, but they're mostly based on the new genes "escaping" rather than any directly adverse effects on humans (so the people who don't want to eat stuff because it's genetically modified are silly).

Except for those who are extremely allergic to [x organism] and aren't so sure about genes spliced in from [x organism].  For example, the FlavrSavr tomato uses fish genes.

It may still be silly, but it makes a little bit more sense.

[atomicwinter]

You mind if I join? Someone suggest a topic for me for the week. I would also like to expand my mind.

I think the idea is that everyone takes the same topic and learns about it =)

In a similar vein, it might be kind of cool to start a book club.  Hrm.

Only if we read cool stuff like...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Il Palazzo]

You people, you so crazy.

_{...watching...}