PHOTOS ! (:
YEPS
GOOD LUCK TO ALL N STUDY HARD ALRIGHTY!

A Hanging by George Orwell

It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.

One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.

Eight o'clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. He was an army doctor, with a grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice. 'For God's sake hurry up, Francis,' he said irritably. 'The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren't you ready yet?'

Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. 'Yes sir, yes sir,' he bubbled. 'All iss satisfactorily prepared. The hangman iss waiting. We shall proceed.'

'Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can't get their breakfast till this job's over.'

We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the procession stopped short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened - a dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog.

'Who let that bloody brute in here?' said the superintendent angrily. 'Catch it, someone!'

A warder, detached from the escort, charged clumsily after the dog, but it danced and gambolled just out of his reach, taking everything as part of the game. A young Eurasian jailer picked up a handful of gravel and tried to stone the dog away, but it dodged the stones and came after us again. Its yaps echoed from the jail wails. The prisoner, in the grasp of the two warders, looked on incuriously, as though this was another formality of the hanging. It was several minutes before someone managed to catch the dog. Then we put my handkerchief through its collar and moved off once more, with the dog still straining and whimpering.

It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working - bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming - all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned - reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world less.

The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison, and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. It was a brick erection like three sides of a shed, with planking on top, and above that two beams and a crossbar with the rope dangling. The hangman, a grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope round the prisoner's neck.

We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of 'Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!', not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell. The dog answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still standing on the gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour bag and drew it down over the prisoner's face. But the sound, muffled by the cloth, still persisted, over and over again: 'Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!'

The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled crying from the prisoner went on and on, 'Ram! Ram! Ram!' never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number - fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were wavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man on the drop, and listened to his cries - each cry another second of life; the same thought was in all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!

Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he made a swift motion with his stick. 'Chalo!' he shouted almost fiercely.

There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner's body. He was dangling with his toes pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone.

The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare body; it oscillated, slightly. 'He's all right,' said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wrist-watch. 'Eight minutes past eight. Well, that's all for this morning, thank God.'

The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. The dog, sobered and conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after them. We walked out of the gallows yard, past the condemned cells with their waiting prisoners, into the big central yard of the prison. The convicts, under the command of warders armed with lathis, were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin, while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.

The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded towards the way we had come, with a knowing smile: 'Do you know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. - Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? From the boxwallah, two rupees eight annas. Classy European style.'

Several people laughed - at what, nobody seemed certain.

Francis was walking by the superintendent, talking garrulously. 'Well, sir, all hass passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It wass all finished - flick! like that. It iss not always so - oah, no! I have known cases where the doctor wass obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the prisoner's legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable!'

'Wriggling about, eh? That's bad,' said the superintendent.

'Ach, sir, it iss worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall, clung to the bars of hiss cage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three pulling at each leg. We reasoned with him. "My dear fellow," we said, "think of all the pain and trouble you are causing to us!" But no, he would not listen! Ach, he wass very troublesome!'

I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the superintendent grinned in a tolerant way. 'You'd better all come out and have a drink,' he said quite genially. 'I've got a bottle of whisky in the car. We could do with it.'

We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the road. 'Pulling at his legs!' exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment Francis's anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny. We all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away.

Another Thing

Modernity

Modernity is a term that refers to the modern era. It is distinct from modernism, which, in different contexts, refers to cultural and intellectual movements of the period c. 1630-1940. The term "modern" can refer to many different things. Colloquially, it can refer in a general manner to the 20th century.

Modernity" is a different term from modern times^{[citation needed]}; it is derived from Modernism,a movement in art based on the consciousness that through the mechanical age of industrialism, humankind has evolved into something very new - what that would be, would have to be explored by art, and all previous concepts questioned. Darwin's Origin of Species and Lyell's Principles of Geology revolutionized the perception of time and race, and that of "mankind" in particular.

One common use of the term is to describe the condition of Western History since the mid-1400s, or roughly the European development of moveable type and the printing press.

• Rise of capitalism
• Emergence of socialist countries
• Institution of representative democracy
• Individualism
• Increasing role of science and technology
• Spread of social movements
• Urbanization
• Mass literacy and proliferation of mass media
• Industrialization

Particular ways of periodizing modernity include:

• The Age of Discovery
• The Renaissance
• The Reformation and Counter Reformation
• The Age of Reason
• The Enlightenment
• the Romantic era
• the Victorian era (See also The Industrial Revolution)
• the Modern era
• the Postmodern era (See also Postmodernity and Digitality)

Important events in the development of modernity in this context include

• The Arrival of the Printing Press
• The English Civil War
• The American Revolution
• The French Revolution
• The Revolutions of 1848
• The Russian Revolution
• The First World War and the Second World War

It is usually suggested that some or most of these events led to the more complete realization of "modern" society in Europe.

Change to Modernity in different Fields

Sociological thought

At its simplest, modernity is a shorthand term for modern society or industrial civilization. Portrayed in more detail, it is associated with (1) a certain set of attitudes towards the world, the idea of the world as open to transformation by human intervention; (2) a complex of economic institutions, especially industrial production and a market economy; (3) a certain range of political institutions, including the nation-state and mass democracy. Largely as a result of these characteristics, modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social order. It is a society—more technically, a complex of institutions—which unlike any preceding culture lives in the future rather than the past. (Giddens 1998, 94)

Science and technology

One of the most important aspects of modernity is the encouragement of advance or progress in useful sciences and arts. Politically, this demanded an end to caution in allowing radical ideas to be made public, which radically changed religion and education in European society.

Revolutions in science and technology have been no less influential than political revolutions in changing the shape of the modern world. The Scientific revolution, beginning with the discoveries of Kepler and Galileo, and culminating with Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), changed the way in which educated people looked at the natural world.

Inventions

What is now called technology is the most obvious success of modernity. Mechanical and scientific invention has changed human health and all aspects of human society: economic, religious, social, and theoretical.

For example, modern machines in Britain sped up the manufacture of cloth and iron. The horse and ox were no longer needed as beasts of burden. The newly invented engine powered the car, train, ship, and eventually the plane, revolutionizing the way people travelled. Newly discovered energy sources such as petroleum and nuclear power could power the new machines. Raw goods could be transported in huge quantities over vast distances; products could be manufactured quickly and then marketed all over the world, a situation that Britain, and later the US, Europe and Japan all used to their advantage.

Progress continued as science saw many new scientific discoveries. The telephone, radio, X-rays, microscopes, electricity all contributed to rapid changes in life-styles and societies. Discoveries of antibiotics such as penicillin brought new ways of combating diseases. Surgery and various medications made further progress in medical care, hospitals, and nursing. New theories such as evolution and psychoanalysis changed humanity's "old fashioned" views of itself.

Industry

An Industrial Revolution initiated by mechanical automation of the manufacture of cotton cloth and the use of steam engines, commenced in the 18th century in Great Britain, followed in the 19th century by a later series of developments, which saw modern systems of communication and transportation introduced in the form of steamships, railroads and the telegraph. In the late 19th century, a Second Industrial Revolution, prompted by developments in the chemical, petroleum, steel and electrical industries, furthered transformed the modern world.

Warfare

Warfare was changed with the advent of new varieties of rifle, cannon, gun, machine gun, armor, tank, plane, jet, and missile. Weapons such as the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, known along with chemical weapons and biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction, actually made the devastation of the entire planet possible in minutes. All these are among the markings of the Modern World.

Culture

New attitudes towards religion, with the church diminished, and a desire for personal freedoms, induced desires for sexual freedoms, which were ultimately accepted by large sectors of the Western World. Theories of "free love" and uninhibited sexual freedom were advanced only later in the 1960s.

Equality of the sexes in politics and economics, women's liberation movement, gay rights (Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf) and the freedom afforded by contraception allowed for greater personal choices in these intimate areas of personal life.

The Arts

The Modern Age, when used in reference to the arts, reflects a tendency extant during the period from around the beginning of the 20th century up through the present day. Modern art may be typified by self-awareness, and by the manipulation of form or medium as an integral part of the work itself. It contrasts pre-modern Western art, which often sought only to represent a form of reality. Key movements in modern art include cubist painting, typified by Pablo Picasso, modernist literature such as that written by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein, and the 'new poetry' headed by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot.

Modern music saw the beginning of a fusion movement of different styles and cultures. John Coltrane for example fused jazz with Carnatic music to develop his album India. Elvis Presley popularized rock and roll, fusing country-western and blues.

See also Postmodern art

Defining characteristics of modernity

Modernity may be considered "marked and defined by an obsession with 'evidence'", visuality, and visibility (Leppert 2004, 19).

Modernity is often characterized by comparing modern societies to premodern or postmodern ones; To an extent, it is reasonable to doubt the very possibility of a descriptive concept that can adequately capture diverse realities of societies of various historical contexts, especially non-European ones, let alone a three-stage model of social evolution from premodernity to postmodernity.

However, in terms of social structure, many of the defining events and characteristics listed above stem from a transition from relatively isolated local communities to a more integrated large-scale society. Understood this way, modernization might be a general, abstract process which can be found in many different parts of histories, rather than a unique event in Europe.

In general, large-scale integration involves:

• Increased movement of goods, capital, people, and information among formerly separate areas, and increased influence that reaches beyond a local area.
• Increased formalization of those mobile elements, development of 'circuits' on which those elements and influences travel, and standardization of many aspects of the society in general that is conducive to the mobility.
• Increased specialization of different segments of society, such as the division of labor, and interdependency among areas.

The paradox of modernity

Modernization brought a series of seemingly indisputable benefits to people. Lower infant mortality rate, decreased death from starvation, eradication of some of the fatal diseases, more equal treatment of people with different backgrounds and incomes, and so on. To some, this is an indication of the potential of modernity, perhaps yet to be fully realized. In general, rational, scientific approach to problems and the pursuit of economic wealth seems still to many a reasonable way of understanding good social development.

At the same time, some sociologists^{[weasel words]} hold that modernity also has negative characteristics.

Technological development occurred not only in the medical and agricultural fields, but also in the military. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, and the following nuclear arms race in the post-war era, were considered by some^{[weasel words]} to be negative developments associated with modernity.

Some critics of modernity like Bauman and Arendt consider Stalin's Great Purges and the Holocaust (or Shoah) to be examples of outcomes naturally arrived at under modernity (mass killings with the purpose of "purifying" a nation as a homogenous mass society), and argue that a truly 'rational' organization of society might involve exclusion, or extermination, of non-standard elements, and thus criticize modernity on the grounds that these outcomes would generally be considered abhorrent.^{[citation needed]}

Some critics argue that modernity is not necessarily sustainable. Pollution is perhaps the least controversial of these, but one may include decreasing biodiversity and climate change as results of development. The development of biotechnology and genetic engineering are creating what some consider^{[weasel words]} to be unknown risks.

Other critics emphasize what they believe to be psychological and moral hazards of modern life - alienation, feeling of rootlessness, loss of strong bonds and common values, hedonism, etc. This is often accompanied by a re-evaluation of pre-modern communities.

After project stuff

SO ya, something i did..

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. It is done through observation of existing phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate phenomena under controlled conditions. Knowledge in science is gained through research

In general technology is the relationship that society has with its tools and crafts, and to what extent society can control its environment. The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers a definition of the term: "the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area" and "a capability given by the practical application of knowledge".^[1] Ursula Franklin, in her 1989 "Real World of Technology" lecture, gave another definition of the concept; it is "practice, the way we do things around here".^[2] The term is often used to imply a specific field of technology, or to refer to high technology, rather than technology as a whole.^[3] Bernard Stiegler, in Technics and Time, 1, defines technology in two ways: as "the pursuit of life by means other than life", and as "organized inorganic matter."^[4]

Technology can be most broadly defined as the entities, both material and immaterial, created by the application of mental and physical effort in order to achieve some value. In this usage, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It is a far-reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a crowbar or wooden spoon, or more complex machines, such as a space station or particle accelerator. Tools and machines need not be material; virtual technology, such as computer software and business methods, fall under this definition of technology.^[5]

The word "technology" can also be used to refer to a collection of techniques. In this context, it is the current state of humanity's knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants; it includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials. When combined with another term, such as "medical technology" or "space technology", it refers to the state of the respective field's knowledge and tools. "State-of-the-art technology" refers to the high technology available to humanity in any field.

Technology can be viewed as an activity that forms or changes culture.^[6] Additionally, technology is the application of math, science, and the arts for the benefit of life as it is known. A modern example is the rise of communication technology, which has lessened barriers to human interaction and, as a result, has helped spawn new subcultures; the rise of cyberculture has, at its basis, the development of the Internet and the computer.^[7] Not all technology enhances culture in a creative way; technology can also help facilitate political oppression and war via tools such as guns. As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering, each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor.

Science, engineering and technology

Science is the reasoned investigation or study of phenomena, aimed at discovering enduring principles among elements of the phenomenal world by employing formal techniques such as the scientific method.^[8] Technologies are not usually exclusively products of science, because they have to satisfy requirements such as utility, usability and safety.

Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often (but not always) using results and techniques from science. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result.

Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering — although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors, by using already-existing tools and knowledge. This new-found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference.^[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science

Environmental science is the interactions among physical, chemical, and biological components of the environment. Environmental Science provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems.^[1]

Environmental Scientists monitor the quality of the environment, interpret the impact of human actions on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and develop strategies for restoring ecosystems. In addition, environmental scientists help planners develop and construct buildings, transportation corridors, and utilities that protect water resources and reflect efficient and beneficial land use.

Environmental science encompasses issues such as climate change, conservation, biodiversity, water quality, groundwater contamination , soil contamination, use of natural resources, waste management, sustainable development, disaster reduction, air pollution, and noise pollution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_science

Genetically modified food

Kenyans examining insect-resistant transgenic Bt corn.

Genetically modified (GM) foods, more accurately called genetically engineered foods, are foods that have had their DNA altered through genetic engineering. Controversies surrounding GM foods and crops commonly focus on human and environmental safety, labeling and consumer choice, intellectual property rights, ethics, food security, poverty reduction, and environmental conservation.

The first commercially grown genetically modified whole food crop was the tomato, which was made more resistant to rotting by Californian company Calgene.^[3] Calgene was allowed to release the tomatoes into the market in 1994 without any special labeling.^[4] It was welcomed by consumers that purchased the fruit at two to five times the price of regular tomatoes. However, production problems^[3] and competition from a conventionally bred, longer shelf-life variety prevented the product from becoming profitable. A variant of the Flavr Savr was used by Zeneca to produce tomato paste which was sold in Europe during the summer of 1996.^[5] The labeling and pricing were designed as a marketing experiment, which proved, at the time, that European consumers would accept genetically engineered foods.

The attitude towards GM foods would be drastically changed after outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease weakened consumer trust in government regulators, and protesters rallied against the introduction of Monsanto's "Roundup-Ready" soybeans.^{[citation needed]} The next GM crops included insect-resistant cotton^[6][7] and herbicide-tolerant soybeans^[8] both of which were commercially released in 1996. GM crops have been widely adopted in the United States. They have also been extensively planted in several other countries (Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) where the agriculture is a major part of the total economy. Other GM crops include insect-resistant maize and herbicide-tolerant maize, cotton, and rapeseed varieties.

GM Foods currently

Currently, there are a of number of foods of which a genetically modified version exists.

Food	Properties of the genetically modified variety	Specific genetic modification
Soybeans	Resistant to herbicides	Herbicide resistant gene taken from bacteria inserted into soy bean
Corn	Resistance to certain pesticides (tolerating crop spray - this way a farmer can use amounts of pesticides which would normally kill the plant, without harming it)	New gene added/transferred into plant genome
Cotton	Pest-resistant cotton	New gene added/transferred into plant genome
Tomatoes	Variety that does not rot (degrade) as fast - the genetically modified tomatoes do not produce a substance that normally causes tomatoes to rot.	First genetically modified tomatoes contained genes that made them resistant to antibiotics. After concern from doctors and the medical community, tomatoes are now genetically modified in an alternative way
Potatoes
Rapeseed (Canola)	Resistance to certain pesticides (tolerating crop spray)	New gene added/transferred into plant genome
Sugar cane	Resistance to certain pesticides (tolerating crop spray)	New gene added/transferred into plant genome
Sweet corn	Produces its own insecticide (a toxin to insects, so insect attacks are less likely)	Insect-killing gene added to the plant. The gene comes from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis.
Rice	Genetically modified to contain high amounts of Vitamin A (beta-carotene)	Three new genes implanted: two from daffodils and the third from a bacterium

Debate around the world

Some argue that there is more than enough food in the world and that the hunger crisis is caused by problems in food distribution and politics, not production, so people should not be offered food that may carry some degree of risk.^[18][19]

Others oppose genetic engineering on the grounds that genetic modifications might have unforeseen consequences, both in the initially modified organisms and their environments. For example, certain strains of maize have been developed that are toxic to plant eating insects (see Bt corn). It has been alleged those strains cross-pollinated with other varieties of wild and domestic maize and passed on these genes with a putative impact on Maize biodiversity.^[20] Subsequent to the publication of these results, several scientists pointed out that the conclusions were based on experiments with design flaws. It is well known that the results from polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods of analysing DNA can often be confounded by sample contamination and experimental artifacts. Appropriate controls can be included in experiments to eliminate these as a possible explanation of the results - however these controls were not included in the methods used by Quist and Chapela.^[21] After this criticism Nature, the scientific journal where this data was originally published concluded that "the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper".^[22] More recent attempts to replicate the original studies have concluded that genetically modified corn is absent from southern Mexico in 2003 and 2004 ^[23]. Also in dispute is the impact on biodiversity of the introgression of transgenes into wild populations [6]. Unless a transgene offers a massive selective advantage in a wild population, a transgene that enters such a population will be maintained at a low gene frequency. In such situations it can be argued that such an introgression actually increases biodiversity rather than lowers it.

Activists opposed to genetic engineering say that with current recombinant technology there is no way to ensure that genetically modified organisms will remain under control, and the use of this technology outside secure laboratory environments carries potentially unacceptable risks to both farmed and wild ecosystems.

Potential impact on biodiversity may occur if herbicide-tolerant crops are sprayed with herbicide to the extent that no wild plants ('weeds') are able to survive. Plants toxic to insects may mean insect-free crops. This could result in declines in other wildlife (e.g. birds) which feed on weed seeds and/or insects for food resources. The recent (2003) farm scale studies in the UK found this to be the case with GM sugar beet and GM rapeseed, but not with GM maize (though in the last instance, the non-GM comparison maize crop had also been treated with environmentally-damaging pesticides subsequently (2004) withdrawn from use in the EU).

Although some scientists have claimed that selective breeding is a form of genetic engineering,^[24] (e.g., maize was modified from teosinte, dogs have evolved with human intervention over the course of tens of thousands of years from wolves), others assert that modern transgenesis-based genetic engineering is capable of delivering changes faster than, and sometimes of different types from, traditional breeding methods.^[25]

Proponents of current genetic techniques as applied to food plants cite the benefits that the technology can have, for example, in the harsh agricultural conditions of Africa. They say that with modifications, existing crops would be able to thrive under the relatively hostile conditions providing much needed food to their people. Proponents also cite golden rice and golden rice 2, genetically engineered rice varieties (still under development) that contain elevated vitamin A levels. There is hope that this rice may alleviate vitamin A deficiency that contributes to the death of millions and permanent blindness of 500,000 annually.^[26]

Proponents say that genetically-engineered crops are not significantly different from those modified by nature or humans in the past, and are as safe or even safer than such methods. There is gene transfer between unicellular eukaryotes and prokaryotes. There have been no known genetic catastrophes as a result of this. They argue that animal husbandry, Food Irradiation and crop breeding are also forms of genetic engineering that use artificial selection instead of modern genetic modification techniques. It is politics, they argue, not economics or science, that causes their work to be closely investigated, and for different standards to apply to it than those applied to other forms of agricultural technology.

Proponents also note that species or genetic barriers have been crossed in nature in the past. An oft-cited example is today's modern red wheat variety, which is the result of two natural crossings made long ago. It is made up of three groups of seven chromosomes. Each of those three groups came from a different wild wheat grass. First, a cross between two of the grasses occurred, creating the durum wheats, which were the commercial grains of the first civilizations up through the Roman Republic. Then a cross occurred between that 14-chromosome durum wheat and another wild grass to create what became modern red wheat at the time of the Roman Empire.

Economic and political effects

• Some opponents of current genetic engineering believe the increasing use of GM in major crops has caused a power shift in agriculture towards Biotechnology companies, which are gaining more control over the production chain of crops and food, and over the farmers that use their products, as well.^[

• Many proponents of some current genetic engineering techniques believe it will lower pesticide usage and has brought higher yields and profitability to many farmers, including those in developing nations [7]. A few genetic engineering licenses allow farmers in less economically developed countries to save seeds for next year's planting.^{[citation needed]}

• In August 2003, Zambia cut off the flow of Genetically Modified Food (mostly maize) from UN's World Food Programme. This left a famine-stricken population without food aid.
• In December 2005 the Zambian government changed its mind in the face of further famine and allowed the importation of GM maize. [8]. However, the Zambian Minister for Agriculture Mundia Sikatana has insisted that the ban on genetically modified maize remains, saying "We do not want GM (genetically modified) foods and our hope is that all of us can continue to produce non-GM foods." [9] [10]
• In April 2004 Hugo Chávez announced a total ban on genetically modified seeds in Venezuela. [11]
• In January 2005, the Hungarian government announced a ban on importing and planting of genetic modified maize seeds, although these were agreed authorized by the EU. [12]
• On August 18, 2006, American exports of rice to Europe were interrupted when much of the U.S. crop was confirmed to be contaminated with unapproved engineered genes, possibly due to accidental cross-pollination with conventional crops.^[27] The U.S. government has since declared the rice safe for human consumption, and exports to some countries have since resumed, but in the past years more crops have started to cross-pollinate which leaves a problem that is yet to be solved.^{[citation needed]}

Intellectual property

Enforcement of patents on genetically modified plants is often contentious, especially because of gene flow. In 1998, 95-98 percent of about 10 km² planted with canola by Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser were found to contain Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready gene although Schmeiser had never purchased seed from Monsanto.^[28] The initial source of the plants was undetermined, and could have been through either gene flow or intentional theft. However, the overwhelming predominance of the trait implied that Schmeiser must have intentionally selected for it. The court determined that Schmeiser had saved seed from areas on and adjacent to his property where Roundup had been sprayed, such as ditches and near power poles.^[29]

Although unable to prove direct theft, Monsanto sued Schmeiser for piracy since he knowingly grew Roundup Ready plants without paying royalties(Ibid). The case made it to the Canadian Supreme Court, which in 2004 ruled 5 to 4 in Monsanto’s favor.^[28][29] The dissenting judges focused primarily on the fact that Monsanto's patents covered only the gene itself and glyphosate resistant cells, and failed to cover transgenic plants in their entirety.

In response to criticism, Monsanto Canada's director of public affairs stated that "It is not, nor has it ever been Monsanto Canada's policy to enforce its patent on Roundup Ready crops when they are present on a farmer's field by accident...Only when there has been a knowing and deliberate violation of its patent rights will Monsanto act."^[30] Currently Percy Schmeiser spends a large amount of his time traveling and speaking about how Monsanto ruined his career as a farmer. He also talks about the possible harms of genetic modification and why others in addition to himself should be protesting it.

Future developments

Future envisaged applications of GMOs are diverse and include drugs in food, bananas that produce human vaccines against infectious diseases such as Hepatitis B^[31], metabolically engineered fish that mature more quickly, fruit and nut trees that yield years earlier, and plants that produce new plastics with unique properties^[32]. While their practicality or efficacy in commercial production has yet to be fully tested, the next decade may see exponential increases in GM product development as researchers gain increasing access to genomic resources that are applicable to organisms beyond the scope of individual projects. Safety testing of these products will also at the same time be necessary to ensure that the perceived benefits will indeed outweigh the perceived and hidden costs of development. Plant scientists, backed by results of modern comprehensive profiling of crop composition, point out that crops modified using GM techniques are less likely to have unintended changes than are conventionally bred crops.^[33][34]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food

Safety disputes

Potentially dangerous corn

Another controversy recently arose around biotech company Monsanto's data on a 90-Day Rat Feeding Study on the MON863 strain of GM corn.^[7] In May 2005, critics of GM foods pointed to differences in kidney size and blood composition found in this study, suggesting that the observed differences raises questions about the regulatory concept of substantial equivalence.^[8]

The raising of this issue prompted the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to reexamine the safety data on this strain of corn. The EFSA concluded that the observed small numerical decrease in rat kidney weights were not biologically meaningful, and the weights were well within the normal range of kidney weights for control animals. There were no corresponding microscopic findings in the relevant organ systems, and all blood chemistry and organ weight values fell within the "normal range of historical control values" for rats.^[9] In addition the EFSA review found that the statistical methods used by Séralini et al in the analysis of the data were incorrect.^[10][11] The European Committee has approved the ΜΟΝ863 corn for animal and human consumption.^[12]

Séralini et al have now completed a similar analysis of the NK603 strain of corn and have come to similar conclusions as they did in their previously discredited study.^[13]

Allergenicity

A gene for an allergenic trait has been transferred unintentionally from the Brazil nut into genetically engineered soybeans while intending to improve soybean nutritional quality for animal feed use. Brazil nuts were already known to produce food allergies in certain people prior to this study. In 1993 Pioneer Hi-Bred International developed a soybean variety with an added gene from the Brazil nut. This trait increased the levels in the GM soybean of the natural essential amino acid methionine, a protein building block commonly added to poultry feed to improve effective protein quality. Investigation of the GM soybeans revealed that they produced immunological reactions with people suffering from Brazil nut allergy, and the explanation for this is that the methionine rich protein chosen by Pioneer Hi-Bred is the major source of Brazil nut allergy.^[14] Pioneer Hi-Bred discontinued further development of the GM soybean and disposed of all material related to the modified soybeans.

This study indicates some of the possible risks of GM foods. In particular that there is no law or regulation in either the United States or Canada that required Pioneer Hi-Bred or any other company for testing for allergenicity or toxicity of GM foods prior to them being licensed to be grown and consumed in their respected countries.^[15]

Food allergy problems occur with many conventional foods, and Kiwi fruit, for instance, as a relatively new food in many communities, has become widely eaten despite provoking allergies in certain individuals.

Another allergy issue was published in November 2005, when a pest resistant field pea developed by the Australian CSIRO for use as a pasture crop was shown to cause an allergic reaction in mice.

Respected plant scientist Maarten J Chrispeels has made interesting comments about this example that illustrate how foods offer many different types of risks:

The recent Prescott et al paper in JFAC contains a very interesting study on the immunogenicity of amylase [starch digestion enzyme] inhibitor in its native form (isolated from beans) and expressed as a transgene in peas. First of all, amylase inhibitor is a food protein, but also a "toxic" protein because it inhibits our digestive amylases. (this actually does not make an amylase inhibitor - better known as an alpha-glucosidase inhibitor - toxic and does suggest that Mr. Chrispeels has no idea what hes talking about) This is one of the reasons you have to cook your beans! (The other toxic bean protein is phytohemagglutinin and it is much more toxic). This particular amylase inhibitor is found in the common bean (other species have other amylase inhibitors). Even though it is a food protein, it is unlikely ever to be used for genetic engineering of human foods because it inhibits our amylases. What the results show is that the protein, when synthesized in pea cotyledons has a different immunogenicity than when it is isolated from bean cotyledons (the native form). This is somewhat surprising but may be related to the presence of slightly different carbohydrate chains.^[16]

The immunologist who tested the pea noted that the episode illustrated the need for each new GM food to be very carefully evaluated for potential health effects.^[17]

Environmental and ecological impacts

There has been controversy over the results of a farm-scale trial in the United Kingdom comparing the impact of GM crops and conventional crops on farmland biodiversity. Some claimed that the results showed that GM crops had a significant negative impact on wildlife.^[18]

Others pointed out that the studies showed that using herbicide resistant GM crops allowed better weed control and that under such conditions there were fewer weeds and fewer weed seeds. This result was then extrapolated to suggest that GM crops would have significant impact on the wildlife that might rely on farm weeds. In July 2005 the same British scientists showed that transfer of a herbicide-resistance gene from GM oilseed rape to a wild cousin, charlock, and wild turnips was possible.^[19]

Many agricultural scientists and food policy specialists view GM crops as an important element in sustainable food security and environmental management.^[20] This point of view is summarized in the ABIC Manifesto:

On our planet, 18% of the land mass is used for agricultural production. This fraction cannot be increased substantially. It is absolutely essential that the yield per unit of land increases beyond current levels given that: The human population is still growing, and will reach about nine billion by 2040;70,000 km² of agricultural land (equivalent to 60% of the German agricultural area) are lost annually to growth of cities and other non-agricultural uses; Consumer diets in developing countries are increasingly changing from plant-based proteins to animal protein, a trend that requires a greater amount of crop-based feeds.^[21]

More skeptical scientists as Dr. Charles Benbrook point out that improvement of global food security is hardly being addressed by genetic research and that a lack of yield is often not caused by insufficient genetic resources.^[22] Regarding the issues of intellectual property and patent law, an international report from the year 2000 states:

If the rights to these tools are strongly and universally enforced - and not extensively licensed or provided pro bono in the developing world - then the potential applications of GM technologies described previously are unlikely to benefit the less developed nations of the world for a long time (ie until after the restrictions conveyed by these rights have expired).^[23]

Public perception

Research by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology has shown that in 2005 Americans' knowledge of genetically modified foods and animals continues to remain low, and their opinions reflect that they are particularly uncomfortable with animal cloning. The Pew survey also showed that despite continuing concerns about GM foods, American consumers do not support banning new uses of the technology, but rather seek an active role from regulators to ensure that new products are safe.^[24]

Only 2% of Britons are said to be "happy to eat GM foods", and more than half of Britons are against GM foods being available to the public, according to a 2003 study. [4]

Interestingly, about 550 Amish farmers in Pennsylvania have adopted GM crops, because they allow for less intensive farming (fewer pesticides, etc.), are more productive (under these specific conditions), and do not conflict with the Amish lifestyle.^[25]

Frankenfood

Opponents of genetically modified food often refer to it as "Frankenfood", after Mary Shelley's character Frankenstein and the monster he creates, in her novel of the same name. The term was coined in 1992 by Paul Lewis, an English professor at Boston College who used the word in a letter he wrote to the New York Times in response to the decision of the US Food and Drug Administration to allow companies to market genetically modified food. The term "Frankenfood" has become a battle cry of the European side in the US-EU agricultural trade war.^{[citation needed]}

The authors of The Frankenfood Myth provide some support for genetically modified food:

• Henry I. Miller of Stanford's Hoover Institution and Gregory Conko of the Competitive Enterprise Institute make the case that foods modified by recombinant DNA splicing present no new or special dangers, but in fact may improve the lives of countless millions worldwide. [5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_food_controversy

Genetically Engineered Foods Should Not Be Produced

The Myth of Safe Foods

Monsanto and other corporations repeatedly refer to their seeds and foods as having been tested for safety. But not only have no ecological or food-safety tests been conducted on genetically engineered crops and foods before commercialization; corporations have tried every means within their reach to steal the right to safe and nutritious food from citizens and consumers.

It is often claimed that there have been no adverse consequences from over 500 field releases in the United States. In 1993, for the first time, the data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field trials were evaluated to see whether they support these safety claims. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which conducted the evaluation, found that the data collected by the USDA on small-scale tests have little value for commercial risk-assessment. Many reports fail to even mention—much less measure—environmental risks. Of those reports that allude to environmental risk, most have only visually scanned field plots looking for stray plants or isolated test crops from relatives. The UCS concluded that the observations that "nothing happened" in those hundreds of tests do not say much. In many cases, adverse impacts are subtle and would never be registered by scanning a field. In other cases, failure to observe evidence of the risk is due to the contained conditions of the tests. Many test crops are routinely isolated from wild relatives, a situation that guarantees no out-crossing. The UCS cautioned that "care should be taken in citing the field test record as strong evidence for the safety of genetically engineered crops."

All genetically engineered crops use genes that are resistant to antibiotics to help identify whether the genes that have been introduced from other organisms have been successfully inserted into the engineered crop. These marker genes can exacerbate the spread of antibiotic resistance among humans. Based on this concern, Britain rejected Ciba-Geigy's transgenic maize, which contains the weaker gene for campicillin resistance.

Many transgenic plants are engineered for resistance to viral diseases by incorporating the gene for the virus's coat protein. These viral genes may cause new diseases. New broad-range recombinant viruses could arise, causing major epidemics.

Upon consumption, the genetically engineered DNA of these foods can break down and enter the blood stream. It has long been assumed that the human gut is full of enzymes that can rapidly digest DNA. But in a study designed to test the survival of viral DNA in the gut, mice were fed DNA from a bacterial virus, and large fragments were found to survive passage through the gut and to enter the bloodstream. Further studies indicate that the ingested DNA can end up in the spleen and liver cells as well as in white blood cells.

Within the gut, vectors carrying antibiotic-resistance markers may also be taken up by the gut bacteria, which would then serve as a mobile reservoir of antibiotic-resistance genes for pathogenic bacteria. Horizontal gene transfer between gut bacteria has already been demonstrated in mice and chickens and in human beings.

When L-tryptophan, a nutritional supplement, was genetically engineered and first marketed, 37 people died and 1,500 people were severely affected by a painful and debilitating circulatory disorder called eosinophilia myalgia. When a gene from the Brazil nut was inserted into soybeans to increase their protein levels, the transgenic soybeans also contained the nut's allergenic properties.

Greenpeace and other non-governmental organizations have revealed that soybean plants sprayed with Roundup are more estrogenic and could act as hormone or endocrine-system disrupters. Dairy cows that consume Roundup Ready soybeans produce milk with higher fat levels than cows that eat regular soybeans.

The Myth of Food Security

The Green Revolution narrowed the basis of food security by displacing diverse nutritious food grains and spreading monocultures of rice, wheat, and maize. However, the Green Revolution focused on staple foods and their yields. The genetic engineering revolution is undoing the narrow gains of the Green Revolution both by neglecting the diversity of staples and by focusing on herbicide resistance, not higher yields.

According to Clive James, transgenic crops are not engineered for higher yields. Fifty-four percent of the increase in transgenic crops is for those engineered for herbicide resistance, or, rather, the increased use of herbicides, not increased food. As an industry briefing paper states, "The herbicide tolerant gene has no effect on yield per se." Worldwide, 40 percent of the land under cultivation by genetically engineered crops is under soybean cultivation, 25 percent under corn, 13 percent under tobacco, 11 percent under cotton, 10 percent under canola, and 1 percent each under tomato and potato. Tobacco and cotton are non-food commercial crops, and crops such as soybeans have not been food staples for most cultures outside East Asia. Such crops will not feed the hungry. Soybeans will not provide food security for dal-eating Indians, and corn will not provide security in the sorghum belt of Africa.

The trend toward the cultivation of genetically engineered crops indicates a clear narrowing of the genetic basis of our food supply. Currently, there are only two commercialized staple-food crops. In place of hundreds of legumes and beans eaten around the world, there is soybean. In place of diverse varieties of millets, wheats, and rices, there is only corn. In place of the diversity of oil seeds, there is only canola.

These crops are based on expanding monocultures of the same variety engineered for a single function. In 1996, 1.9 million acres around the world were planted with only two varieties of transgenic cotton, and 1.3 million acres were planted with Roundup Ready soybeans. As the biotechnology industry globalizes, these monoculture tendencies will increase, thus further displacing agricultural biodiversity and creating ecological vulnerability.

Further, by forcing the expansion of non-food crops such as tobacco and cotton, transgenic crops result in fewer acres in food production, aggravating food insecurity.

The Destruction of Biodiversity

In Indian agriculture, women use up to 150 different species of plants (which the biotech industry would call weeds) as medicine, food, or fodder. For the poorest, this biodiversity is the most important resource for survival. In West Bengal, 124 "weed" species collected from rice fields have economic importance for local farmers. In a Tanzanian village, over 80 percent of the vegetable dishes are prepared from uncultivated plants. Herbicides such as Roundup and the transgenic crops engineered to withstand them therefore destroy the economies of the poorest, especially women. What is a weed for Monsanto is a medicinal plant or food for rural people.

Since biodiversity and polycultures are an important source of food for the rural poor, and since polycultures are the most effective means of soil conservation, water conservation, and ecological pest and weed control, the Roundup Ready technologies are in fact a direct assault on food security and ecological security.

The Risks of Genetic Pollution

Genetically engineered crops increase chemical use and add new risks of genetic pollution. Herbicide-resistant crops are designed for intensive use of herbicides in agriculture. But they also create the risks of weeds being transformed into " superweeds" by the transfer of herbicide-resistant traits from the genetically engineered crops to closely related plants.

Research in Denmark has shown that oilseed rape genetically engineered to be herbicide-tolerant could transmit its introduced gene to a weedy natural relative through hybridization. Weedy relatives of rape are now common in Denmark and throughout the world. Converting these "weeds" into "superweeds" that carry the gene for herbicide-resistance would provoke high crop losses and increasing use of herbicides. For these reasons, the European Union has imposed a de facto moratorium on the commercial planting of genetically engineered crops.

In many cases, the weeds that plague cultivated crops are relatives of the crops themselves. Wild beets have been a major problem in European sugar-beet cultivation since the 1970s. Given the gene exchange between weedy beets and cultivated beets, herbicide-resistant sugar beets could only be a temporary solution.

Superweeds could lead to "bioinvasions," displacing local diversity and taking over entire ecosystems. The problem of invasive species is being increasingly recognized as a major threat to biodiversity. Monsanto's claim that products such as Roundup Ready soybeans will reduce herbicide use is false because it does not take into account the introduction of such engineered plants in regions where herbicides are not used in agriculture and where native diversity of soybeans exists. China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea are regions where soybeans have evolved and where wild relatives of cultivated soybeans are found. In these regions, Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans would increase herbicide use and "pollute" the native biodiversity by transferring herbicide-resistant genes to wild plants. This could lead to new weed problems and loss of biodiversity. Moreover, since the Third World is the home to most of the world's biodiversity, the risks of genetic pollution in Third World countries are even more profound.

Herbicide-resistant transgenic crops can also become weeds when seeds from those crops germinate after harvest. More herbicides will have to be applied to eliminate these "volunteer plants."

Toxic Plants: A Recipe for Superpests

The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) was isolated from soil in 1911. Since 1930, it has been available as an organic form of pest control. Organic farmers have stepped up its use since the 1980s.

Monsanto and other "life sciences" corporations developed a technique of inserting the toxin-producing gene from the Bt bacteria into plants. This particular Bt gene produces a toxin that disables insects, and the genetically engineered Bt plants are thus able to produce their own pesticide. Genetically engineered Bt-crops have been cultivated commercially since 1996.

While Monsanto sells Bt-crops with the claim that they will reduce pesticide use, Bt-crops can actually create "superpests" and increase the need for pesticides. Bt-crops continuously express the Bt toxin throughout their growing season. Long-term exposure to the toxins promotes the development of resistance in insect populations. This kind of exposure could lead to selection for resistance in all stages of the insect pest on all parts of the plant for the entire season.

Due to these risks of encouraging pest resistance, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers only conditional and temporary registration for Bt-crops. The EPA requires a 4 percent refuge for Bt cotton—i.e., 4 percent of the cotton in a Bt-cotton field must be conventional and not express the Bt toxin. The conventional cotton acts as a refuge for insects to survive and breed in order to keep the overall level of resistance in the population low.

While the Monsanto propaganda states that farmers will not have to use pesticides, the reality is that the management of resistance requires continued use of non-Bt cotton and pesticide sprays. And even with a 4 percent refuge, insect resistance will evolve in as few as three to four years. Already eight species of insects have developed resistance to Bt toxins, including diamond black moth, Indian meal moth, tobacco bud-worm, colorado potato beetle, and two species of mosquitoes.

Even if Bt-crops do repel some pests, most crops have a diversity of insect pests. Insecticides will still have to be applied to control pests that are not susceptible to Bt's toxin. Beneficial species such as birds, bees, butterflies, and beetles, which are necessary for pollination and which through the prey-predator balance also control pests, may be threatened by Bt-crops. Soil-inhabiting organisms that degrade the toxin-contaminated organic matter can be harmed by the toxin. Nothing is known of the impact on human health when Bt-crops such as potato and corn are eaten, or on animal health when oilcake from Bt-cotton or fodder from Bt-corn is consumed as cattle feed....

Genetic Engineering and Food Security

Diversity and high productivity go hand in hand if diverse outputs are taken into account and the costs of external inputs are added to the cost of inputs. The monoculture paradigm focuses on yields of single commodities and externalizes the costs of chemicals and energy. Inefficient and wasteful industrial agriculture are hence presented as efficient and productive.

The myth of increasing yields is the most common justification for introducing genetically engineered crops in agriculture. However, genetic engineering is actually leading to a "yield drag." On the basis of 8,200 university-based soybean trials in 1998, it was found that the top Roundup Ready soybean varieties had 4.6 bushels per acre, or yields 6.7 percent lower than the top conventional varieties. As environmental consultant Dr. Charles Benbrook states,

In 1999, the Roundup Ready Soybean yield drag could result in perhaps a 2.0 to 2.5 percent reduction in national average soybean yields, compared to what they would have been if seed companies had not dramatically shifted breeding priorities to focus on herbicide tolerance. If not reversed by future breeding enhancements, this downward shift in soybean yield potential could emerge as the most significant decline in a major crop ever associated with a single genetic modification.

Research on trials with Bt cotton in India also showed a dramatic reduction in yields: in some cases as high as 75 percent.

As criticism of biotechnology's emphasis on herbicide-resistant crops and crops that produce toxins grows, the biotechnology industry has started to talk of engineering crops for nitrogen fixing, salinity tolerance, and high nutrition instead. However, all these traits already exist in farmers' varieties and farmers' fields. Legumes and pulses intercropped with cereals fix nitrogen. In coastal ecosystems, farmers have evolved a variety of salt-tolerant crops. We do not need genetic engineering to give us crops rich in nutrition. Amaranth has nine times more calcium than wheat and 40 times more calcium than rice. Its iron content is four times higher than that of rice, and it has twice as much protein. Ragi (finger millet) provides 35 times more calcium than rice, twice as much iron, and five times more minerals. Barnyard millet contains nine times more minerals than rice. Nutritious and resource-prudent crops such as millets and legumes are the best path of food security.

Biodiversity already holds the answers to many of the problems for which genetic engineering is being offered as a solution. Shifting from the monoculture mind to biodiversity, from the engineering paradigm to an ecological one, can help us conserve biodiversity, meet our needs for food and nutrition, and avoid the risks of genetic pollution.

http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Locale%252528en%25252C%25252C%252529%25253AFQE%25253D%252528su%25252CNone%25252C25%252529genetically%252Bmodified%252Bfood%252524%257E%25291&contentSet=GSRC&sort=Relevance&tabID=T010&sgCurrentPosition=0&subjectAction=SEE_REFERENCE&prodId=OVRC&searchId=R3&currentPosition=38&userGroupName=sgnjc&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sgHitCountType=None&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28SU%2CNone%2C30%29%22Genetically+Engineered+Foods%22%24&inPS=true&searchType=BasicSearchForm&displaySubject=&docId=EJ3010139238&docType=GSRC

Possible TYS questions

1993(nov)

4. In your opinion, what are the most interesting current developments in science?

1996(nov)

11. Should any limits be placed upon scientific developments?

7. How far can we satisfy the worldwide demand for food and still protect the environment?

12. Should human beings look forward to the next century more with optimism than pessimism? (note: not a very good question to put GM food concepts as a main point. Minor point would suffice)

1998(nov)

6. Is a world dominated by science a dream or a nightmare for the future generation?

1999(nov)

7. Is a sound knowledge of science and technology essential for a well-educated person in today’s world?

2000(nov)

6. “Science never provides solutions – it only poses more questions.” Is this a fair comment?

2003(nov)

11. Does the modern world place too much reliance on technology?

2004(nov)

4. How does inventions and discoveries are used is not the concern of the scientist? Do you agree?

2005(nov)

5. Is effective farming possible without science?

2006(nov)

6. Does modern technology always improve the quality of people’s lives?

-Brian-

Follow-up for Lesson (9/7)

This is just a follow-up of wednesday's lesson for the benefit of those absent, or those who want to make the effort to know more.

Prefixes covered:
Neo - new

"In the history of ideas "neo-" connotes a conscious revival of a lapsed original, invariably with new characteristics or new emphases, which distinguish the idea or movement from its original. It is understood as an intrinsic element of the reformulation, that an identity or continuity with the older form that is being revived is asserted as an essential part of the new one"

Anarcho - a reference to anarchy or "anarchism;"

"a political situation which is free in all respects, which is to say without rulers. The term anarchism refers to the philosophy, ideology, or belief that the State is unnecessary and should be abolished."

Opponents of technology movement (ripped off from wikipedia)

Neo-Luddism - modern movement of opposition to specific or general technological development.

"many technologies influence human nature in a way that degrades the overall quality of human existence. However, most commonly neo-Luddites oppose the rapid adoption of technology by society on the grounds that such development's negative effects on individuals, society or the planet outweigh its benefits."

"they argue that certain technologies have an inherent tendency to reinforce or undermine particular values. In particular, they argue that some technologies foster social/class alienation, environmental degradation, and spiritual dissipation, though they are always marketed as uniformly positive by the companies that make them."

"decay of social mores, dehumanization, a snowball effect towards a "Brave New World", the collapse of traditional ways of life, consumerism, or the decay of religion and atheistic nihilism."

"loss of personal privacy, environmental degradation (including human extinction), consumerism, authoritarianism, cruelty to animals, social decay, the collapse of tribal and nature-based ways of life, or the separation of the worker from the means of production"

Areas of concern include genetically modified organism (GMO), and stem-cell organism.

Anarcho-primitivism - critique of industrial capitalism, technology, and agriculture. Favors anarchist structures based around hunter gathering, permaculture, and non-industrial production.

" Primitivists argue that the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. They advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of technology."

Thats pretty much all the comments that i can remember from the lesson. I think the technology group will do a better group covering these topics than me. Reminder, the information might not be (and most likely isn't) error-free, considering the multitude of random websites that i ripped it from. Do feel free to comment/edit/add on/criticise.

P.S. Just wondering, it'll be nice if someone can reduce the tagboard area in the layout. It's taking up quite alot of space :( (Yes i'm a complete html idiot). After all, its the content that is king.

And oh, we're definitely not passive.

good name

haha.

i think it is already a good name. no need to change.

though we started quite badly, let us end it well!!!

first post, woohoo!

hello everyone from gpd02!

I'm sure many of you will think that this blog seems to have came a little too late. I'd like to ask all of you to forgive me for being pretty useless for the past 180 days or so. I've totally not bridged the gap between us and our teacher and she subsequently sacked me xDD. But let's hope that we'll leave that sad past behind us and be forward-looking!

The sole purpose of this blog is simply COMMUNICATION, since we hardly speak to anyone else other than those seating next to us in class, which is pretty pathetic in my opinion. SO! I would like to ask all of you to give in as much as possible to this blog, and hopefully i won't be the only one posting. I'm sure all of us here got lots of bright ideas to spice up our GP lessons. Also, please check this blog regularly(like everyday!), so that you can update yourself with the latest happenings in the class (provided that they exist). I'd try to update this place with our homework and what we need to bring for class so that we won't come to class in fear, hahaha.

Things that we need for the coming monday lesson:

• TYS
• Worksheet on human aggression
• Relevant materials for those making their presentations :)
  

Ok, lastly, I think we need a new name/url for our blog. The current one is as corny as my post. Any suggestions? PLEASE SUGGEST.

That's all, people. MAKE POSTS AND BE ACTIVE PLSPLSPLS! I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THIS MY PERSONAL BLOG WITH ME TALKING TO MYSELF =D

P.S. Please tag on the tagboard ( I finally found out how to put it there, yahoo!) whenever you pass by here. Even a 'HAHA' or 'HELLO' will do. This is so that I can make sure that everyone is informed.