genetically modified (Page 6)

Roses come in a wide variety of colors, but that’s not enough for some folks?they’re determined to create a blue rose. There are plenty of blue flowers in the world, but no one has yet been able to persuade a rose bush to produce blue flowers. But now, using an enzyme found in the human liver, they may be able to genetically engineer one. Flowers which are naturally blue have a pigment called delphinidin. Exactly the right balance of acidity is needed inside the cells of the plant to create the right shade of blue. “The rose is not easy to work with,” says rose geneticist David Byrne. “It has no blue pigments and it can’t seem to go through the transformation process.”
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Monsanto has decided to stop trying to sell genetically-modified wheat?at least for now. This is good for those of us who like variety, because GM corn has been shown to quickly contaminate nearby fields, ending crop diversity. While most corn is fed to cattle, wheat is consumed by people and GM wheat could put an end to organic bread products.

Alex Kirby writes in bbcnews that they haven’t given up completely. Monsanto’s Carl Casale says, “We will continue to monitor the wheat industry’s desire for crop improvements… to determine if and when it might be practical to move forward with a biotech wheat product.”
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U.S. scientists say there could be a “serious risk to human health,” after they’ve discovered that major food crops are being widely contaminated by DNA from GM crops that are engineered to produce chemicals and drugs. Microbiologist Margaret Mellon, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, says, “If genes find their way from pharm crops to ordinary corn, they or their products could wind up in drug-laced corn flakes.”
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Is GM food good or bad? Rather than just debating the question, Britain decided to conduct a large, three-year study. Now they’ve announced that two of the three GM crops grown experimentally, oil seed rape and sugar beet, are more harmful to the environment than conventional crops. Growing these GM crops damages plant and insect life.

The third crop, GM corn, allows the survival of more weeds and insects and therefore may be approved. This was the largest study of GM crops in the world and the results have been a closely guarded secret until now. Paul Brown writes in The Guardian that this will be a major setback to biotech companies that are trying to convince the U.K. and Europe to grow GM crops.
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