bioengineering

Make Your Opinion Known About New Labeling For GMOs

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The USDA has released several options for what the labels might look like.
Department of Agriculture

If the questions and concerns surrounding GMOs are of interest to you, then in the next six weeks you have a unique window of opportunity. Until July 3 you are invited to share your opinion with the folks responsible for these label design options to the right. Thanks to our friends at the salt (National Public Radio, USA) for bringing this to our attention:

USDA Unveils Prototypes For GMO Food Labels, And They’re … Confusing

Foods that contains genetically modified ingredients will soon have a special label.

We recently got the first glimpse of what that label might look like, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its proposed guidelines.

This is the product of a decades-long fight between anti-GMO campaigners and Big Agriculture companies, which left neither side completely satisfied, as NPR has reported.

After Congress passed a bill in 2016 requiring labels on foods containing GMO ingredients, the USDA launched a long process to figure out the specifics. When it asked for feedback, it received 112,000 responses from consumers, farmers and manufacturers, among others.

The result? Continue reading →

Photosynthetic Solutions

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Wilerson S. Andrade/Flickr.com

Thanks to Anthropocene:

Could more efficient photosynthesis help feed the world?

by | Nov 28, 2016

When plant leaves absorb too much sunlight, a mechanism kicks in that releases the excess energy as heat, rather than photosynthesizing it. While it prevents leaf damage, sometimes it is too much of a good thing. That’s because once a cloud moves in or another leaf casts a shadow, there is a lag time before photosynthesis ramps up again. This lag time can rob crops of 20 percent of their full potential in terms of yield. Continue reading →

Who Will Regulate Lab-grown Meat and Milk?

/ Jocelyn Toll / Leave a comment

David Parry/PA Wire via Science Magazine

Like most people, we hold reservations about the idea of putting meat, milk, and egg whites made from laboratory cellular agriculture on the market. Will the proteins be safe for humans to consume? Might there be some unforeseen environmental impact even worse than that of raising cattle where rainforests once stood? Are there ethical considerations that outweigh the hope of freeing the chickens that are kept in cages their whole lives just to harvest their eggs?

We don’t have any answers, but are learning more about the whole process this week from Elizabeth Devitt at Science Magazine, where she writes about the fledgling industry and its potential regulators:

The first hamburger cooked with labmade meat didn’t get rave reviews for taste. But the test tube burger, rolled out to the press in 2013, has helped put a spotlight on the question of how the U.S. government will regulate the emerging field of cellular agriculture, which uses biotechnology instead of animals to make products such as meat, milk, and egg whites.

Continue reading →