Hmm. I went and saw the scientists who testified at the Crown inquiry (or whatever)into GM speak. People who had lost their jobs and been persecuted because their research - some of the very little research done into the effects of GM foods on living organisms and the ecosystem - showed some pretty alarming things that the massively wealthy biotech industry didn't want to know - said industry funds a lot of r&d at universities...bad scientists! Like, the internal organs of rats fed GM potatos vs rats fed normal potatos. If you had seen the pictures of that you wouldn't touch a GM potato. Like, if you create a tomato with built in pesticide to kill insects, you may want to check just how different our internal organ lining is from the insect's. To say nothing of terminator seeds etc. There is an economic underpinning to abandoning safety regulations, and a concerted propaganda campaign (see Sharon Beder's Global Spin if you want to know how the environmental propaganda war is going).

As to Bjorn Lomborg and his book skeptical environmentalist (what I presume you are referring to - I don't read the dom post). I've read the book and could shoot down big chunks based on my limited specialisation. A cursory web search will reveal him being critically handed his ass by many environmental/scientific bodies, including the WRI, the WWF, and Scientific American, etc. ACtually, the mainstream media love him, but we won't comment on how about the only book claiming everything is under control, written by a statistician commenting on many scientific disciplines he doesn't understand, makes big news all around the world, while say, the UN consistently freaking out more and more each year with their environmental pronouncements get more or less ignored, and the onslaught of frantic scientists producing well researched books about how fucked we are likewise get a gentle pat on the back before obscurity. Nothing to do with the convergence in ownership between say biotech and mass media.

Was that coherent? Oh well. I'll crawl back in my hole now.

what if we choose to eat GE food?

// refused radio play and mp3 hosting

who refused you mp3 hosting?

noisy boy - it was banned from mp3.com.au
also been difficult to get radio play - perhaps the stations don't want to get into legal things for airing the john campbell interview.

Well, i would have studied genetics or biology if i hadn't joined up with engineering, so i can't agree with you on the GE issue.

yeh- but your grandkids won't be

fuck man you don't know what you're on about!!!
go to commonsense organics near the warehouse in town
the increased prices represent the extra effort going into the product, the resulting produce is great
the corn is soooo good i eat it raw its sooooo juicy and fresh
and the nuts mmmmmmmmm i've never enjoyed brazil nuts till i had some organic ones

don't write off organic produce as expensive supermarket food, its not...

// it comes down to simple economics- the corporate giants that make billions distributing this stuff globally prefer not to deliver unless money is involved- it's the only feel good factor they're interested in

Hmm, even if they did it still comes down to simple economics. You supply a nation with food, they become reliant on the supplier. A nation needs to be self-reliant.

ok- a nation needs to be self reliant- so you supply them with seeds & teach them how to store a certain % to plant for the next year- ¿why the fuck is monsanto so hell bent on developing crops that DON'T reproduce- & distributing those throughout the 3rd world?- total wankmeisters

//how do we really know that by altering the food we're making it more nutrious

While it is certainly possible that GE could lead to less nutritious or outright poisonous strains of plants, this also happens with either planned breeding programs, or random mutations in nature. That's not neccessarily a pro-GE argument, but natural things can also be poisonous.

Whoa, hold up a second:

"basically if you were given two identical looking apples,
one was ge altered so it would last longer on the shelf, sprayed with untold pesticides and fungicides - then covered with a chemically reproduced wax.
the other - grown naturally/normally, without chemical interferance."

What? The whole reason biotech companies want to modify fruits and other produce is to remove the need for for such pesticides/fungicides/chemical interference etc. It is the "naturally grown" apple that is more likely, nay -garuanteed- to have been sprayed by god-knows-what to keep pests at bay.

In a real world situation your choice is going to look more like this:

a) an apple that has been geneticaly modified.
b) an apple that is a natural genetic copy of it's forebears, but which has been chemically treated.

Now the choice is getting a little bit harder to make. But, hark! enter the "organic food market"!

Now you can have yourself a third choice, c) an apple that is grown without any GM -or- chemical interferrence! Surely THIS is the apple for ME!!!!

Nup, wrong. Tests have shown that fruits left to their own devices will produce their own toxins, their own pesticides. This may sound like the fruits are just stupid seeing it's an apple's purpose to be eaten and the seeds to be spread in an animal's shit, but that only works when it's a large mammal doing the apple-eating, not when it's a plague of wasps or something. The level/intesity of these naturally produced toxins are pretty minimal, but the belief is that exposure over time is pretty much identical to that you'd get eating fruits that have been sprayed/treated with man-made pesticides. Aw Crap :(

So, let us look at our choice in apples:

a) genetical modified, no chemical treatments.
b) no GM, but sprayed with pesticides.
c) "organic", with higher levels of natural toxins.

conclusion: apples B and C can be proven to be harmful, apple A is safe in theory. "in theory" though, and this theory is yet to be properly tested in real world situations, so it's anyone's guess.

in closing; fuck apples.

but think about it!!! Genetic engineered apples that taste like oranges!!! :D

I'm with you grimmy. How cool would it be if we could eat a couple of apples that gave us that cool glow-in-the-dark type skin (just for the night, but) that you see the occasional lab-rat sporting? Be a total winner of a move for the weekend dance party.

And as for those bananas that vaccinate you against various diseases, bring 'em on.

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ooo, reminds of Vonnegut's sci-fi invention: Ice-9

Ice-9 is a form of water that freezes at room temperature. By its nature, if it gets loose from the test tube, it will spread -- to puddles, to ponds, to rivers and finally oceans, until all the water on the planet is locked up in crystalline form.

Same sorts of theories were espoused when they let off the first atomic bomb: would the chain reaction ever stop?

And your strawberries sound a bit like the infamous 'Terminator Seed'

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well i don't beleive in GE - i believe in nature. nature is God.

and i reckon that whenever any kind of technology is placed in the hands of humans:
1. someone richer buys it and uses it to exploit the rest of us.
2. it fucks our world/home up a bit more.
3. in the end we all die horifically.

this topic hasnt been moved to the bar cos it's about this MP3...

http://www.musicianmp3.com/artist/DARKTOWER

it has rocketed to the top of the alternative music chart on this site.
go see for yourself.

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trillion, the thing is, nature needs a helping hand sometimes.

and anyway, we are all going to die. thats nature.