Imagine the situation: in the evening, after a bath, open a jar of cream, a finger trying to scoop up a fraction and the cream ... ka-a-ak tsapnet chance for the best finger! Or tank apple: "Do not eat me, girl, do not eat me red. I'm not just an apple, I - apple genetically modified, foreign genes in me - a large percentage, so I can talk, and catch mice, and embroider, and to type ... Also, this is the most I can. "

Already scared? And for good reason. Mankind has ventured very unsafe game - Tetris genes. Play some people have already started, but the rules have not yet been invented. In the post-Soviet space, few people think about the fact that four out of five tomatoes that we eat - genetically modified. 95% soybean, 70% sunflower, corn 60%, more than half of potatoes - too. And the list goes on. And the laws that regulate the turnover of these products, we have not. And, if there is still no.

The mechanism of creation of genetically modified foods is simple enough with current technology. Everyone knows that the "image" of the future of the plant (and not only plants) encoded in the DNA. Here here and built a foreign genetic material (in other words, a piece of foreign DNA). And by the way, the process of integration does not look particularly pseudoscientific. In the laboratory, the cells simply bombard DNA fragments, and then choose from thousands of those in which the process has begun, so to speak, in the right direction.

From a less suitable cells grown gotovenkoe plant, which, in theory, should have some new properties. Here on these properties and I would like to talk more.

Do you think that by changing the plant? To improve their taste characteristics? For the "education" of resistance to different natural whims?

No. All these problems can be solved with the help of selection, ie crossing of different varieties of the same culture. So you can get a particularly sweet fruit, vegetables resistant to frost, unpretentious and yield of wheat (or such small dogs, you know, they are still chihuahua called?). The process of selection is more durable, but is much cheaper, always predictable and under control.

But what about genetic experiments? Why do they need? Naturally, genetically acrobatics, you can create a whole new flavor combinations (for example, cucumbers with strawberry flavor), but twenty years of genetic mayhem is something new in the vegetable rows ideek not increased .   You can teach the delicate pear to survive in the snow, and rice - growing in the Sahara .   It is theoretically possible and is not .  Moreover, overactive agitators for universal genetic revolution is talking about it .  They say that Africa is starving, overpopulated India, all the Bushmen rolls is missing .   The problem, according to them, is not that hungry Africa for many decades at war, not that the increase of the population of India has long trampled on common sense, not in the fact that the Bushmen - hunter-gatherers and spawn wheat did not grow .   The main difficulty is in the fact that our planet is too small .  She can not feed its population .  That means we need to learn and grow undeveloped dates on pole .  And how is that? And, significantly, unhappy Africa (and beyond it, and India) banned the import and grow on its territory genetically modified organisms (GMOs) .  For whom we tried?

If you dig deeper, you can dig up some interesting facts. Genetic engineering - an expensive hobby. Not every country can afford such experiments. But multinational companies - even very can. And, without naming names, but peering into the faces of those we see in the forefront of gene providers? Huge PRODUCERS. Those who produce agricultural chemicals (what a coincidence, the new, modified, plants resistant to these poisons, and weeds - no). Agricultural fertilizers (a miracle, but a new culture so amazing react on these fertilizers!). There are manufacturers of medicines, food, infant formula, which uncontrollably reveal the box of Pandora ... But this is ethics and politics. What is dangerous production and use of genetically modified products to us, ordinary consumers?

First, the interaction of GMOs and the human body is not known. At all. There are a lot of guesswork, and many of them are very bad. Laboratory tests provide mixed results, experts differ in their assessment. Too little time has passed, and things like that usually respond in a couple of generations. For example, I am not sure that I want to have my great-great-great-grandchildren grow up ... or tail feathers. Although small proved that GMOs may cause the most severe allergies.

The second: "clean" production of GMOs is only possible in a sterile surroundings somewhere under the dome. And, preferably, on Mars. Why is that? Historically, the insects on our planet are illiterate and can not be training. Roughly speaking, a bee can not explain why sit on the transgenic corn - dangerous for mankind. But the practice has already shown that the 'new' and 'old' plants crossed perfectly with the other sisters. So in the weeds brought stability to poisons, there are so-called "superweeds" for which you want to invent superyady. Not to mention how may change these same transgenic plants in the environment, adapting to the realities of the surrounding ...

There is another aspect - with the help of gene technology can be put on the flow of production of rare and expensive drugs. For example, to grow a protein that inhibits the development of cancer, right in the ordinary egg laying hens on farms. Or insulin - in the fields of homeland. But imagine for a moment - this gene is broke loose. And people who do not need insulin arrives, get him to eat. The consequences difficult to imagine.

And finally - a very joyful. Terrorists do not doze. But biotechnology is not protected by the same nerve, as the energy of the atom ...

Natalia Rudenko