U.S. Senate Votes Yes on National GMO Labeling Bill, but Food Activists Call It Flawed

[GaYellowDawg]

25. Okay, a few corrections need to be made here.

"Natural mutations" are not the only way that plants, or any other species evolve. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but there are four general mechanisms that drive evolution: natural selection, sexual selection, mutation, and migration.

Migration involves organisms either leaving or entering a population, thereby changing the genetic variation of a population. Mutation adds to genetic variation. Sexual selection means exactly what it sounds like: females choosing which males to mate with. If you're strong, fast, smart, and courageous, but you are so ugly that no one finds you attractive, your genes don't make it to the next generation. Natural selection is often characterized as survival of the fittest, but I prefer to characterize it as non-survival of the least fit. Essentially, the genetic variation of a particular population means that some organisms have the ability to survive a particular environment and pass on their genes, and some don't.

Darwin elucidated the mechanism of natural selection, and the reason why he called it natural selection was to differentiate it from artificial selection, in which humans select specific individuals to breed, based on traits that they find desirable.

What I'm saying is that artificial selection is not considered to be evolution. A chihuahua is not the result of evolution. Nor are cultivars. They are the result of artificial selection.

Genetically modified organisms are also the result of artificial selection. The difference is that the changes are more precise, faster, and can involve genes from other species. Transcription and translation occur in the same fashion in all eukaryotes (basically all organisms other than bacteria and archaebacteria). If you put a gene sequence from one organism into another, the second organism will produce the same amino acid sequence, and the protein will fold in the same fashion - thereby carrying out the same function. This is how you can take, for instance, a protein called green fluorescent protein from a jellyfish and if you insert it into a kitten embryo's genome early enough, the resulting kitten's cells will produce GFP and glow green under UV light, like so:



GFP is a good example demonstrating that exogenous proteins are quite faithfully reproduced, with correct folding. If the GFP in the kitten folded improperly it would most likely lose the ability to fluoresce. You can do the same thing transferring GFP to plants:



That plant is accurately producing a jellyfish protein. So basically, if a particular gene product in one plant is transferred to another, then the second plant will faithfully reproduce the protein with exactly the same structure as the first plant. For example, if you transfer the gene for beta-carotene (the precursor to vitamin A) into rice, which does not produce beta-carotene, then the beta-carotene that the GMO rice produces will have a structure identical to the beta-carotene produced naturally in carrots, will be just as good for you, and will not be one bit more toxic. It's also the reason why blanket condemnation of GMO's is ignorant and stupid.