Page 4, Section 2: Transgenic Plants and Crops

SITE No.2 - http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/TransgenicPlants.html

This site, while having little-to-no design, is actually incredibly factual.

The scientific content on transgenic plants – a still up-and-coming field of genetics – is rated pretty highly in my eyes. The page uses many scientific words, but most of them have links to a page which explains the meaning to you. Before, I had no idea what recombinant DNA was, but now I do. It goes into many areas of transgenic plants, such as what the common genes implanted are, and explains transgenic engineering well.

The detail this site delves into is pretty handy. It uses a lot of scientific words, such as somatic and germline cells, plasmids, vectors and recombinant DNA, but it is easy to read if you take your time through it and click on the links explaining the words which are scientific that you do not quite understand. The website discusses transgenic plants in high detail, like I explain, but it also has a nice level of accessibility to it. You can click on links to explain words you don’t know, you can look up a certain section of what you want to know about transgenic plants (for example, if you wanted to know about the increased nutritional value), or you can – quite easily – just read the whole article on transgenic plants without too much trouble.

The credibility of the site is supposedly incredibly high. Most of the information has been adapted from “Biology published in 1994 by Wm. C. Brown,” but has been slightly adapted to opportunities provided by an online text. This book was/is apparently used at a university level, which must mean the text is accurate, precise and highly informative.

This website is seemingly quite unbiased. It merely provides the pure, hard facts so you are able to read them. The information is accurate, doesn’t seem to sway one way or another in terms of the implications of transgenic plants and is a nice, easy, afternoon read available online.

Scientific Content: 8/10

Detail of Content: 9/10

Accessibility: 7/10

Bias: 9/10 (Higher is better.)

Total: 8/10 (average, rounded down.)

Page 2, Section 1: Trade and Research of Genetically modified foods.

Site used: Many, all found via googling "Trade/Research of Genetically Modified Foods"

The US and EU disagree on the EU’s regulation of GM food. The USA claims these violate free-trade agreements, the EU counters this argument with the statement that free trade isn’t actually free without informed consent. This seemingly only applies to the florae, however, as the trading of biotechnology doesn’t seem to occur between nations – most research is operated by a few private organizations.

-In 1989, “Showa Denko”, a leading Japanese chemical company engineered a diet supplement to produce tryptophan at high levels which inadvertently produced at toxic by-product, killing 37 unlucky people and disabling 1500 more. Several hundred more since then have supposedly died.

-In 1998, a scientist who worked on plant lectins, discovered that rats which were fed potatoes genetically modified to contain lectin developed immune system damage and other serious health problems. The lectin itself caused no adverse effects, but the GM had process had somehow made his potatoes less nutritious.

-A 2004/5 study concluded that there was no difference among animals eating GM plants and normal plants. However, a 2009 review found that studies suggested GM foods may be incredibly toxic.

-Research also shows that in the year 2005, Americans’ knowledge of GM foods other genetically modified products continue to remain low. Their opinions seem to also reflect that they are particularly un-fond and uncomfortable about cloning in all aspects.

-Interestingly about 600 Amish in Pennsylvania, U.S.A have adopted the use of GM crops because they require less-intensive farming (fewer pesticides, etc.), are much more productive and do not conflict with their lifestyle.

-People who oppose genetically modified foods often refer to them as “Frakenfood”, obviously named after Frankenstein. The term was coined by an English Professor at Boston College who used it in response to the decision of the US Food and Drug Administration to allow companies to market genetically modified foods.

Genetically modified foods are still a research-in-progress; it is an art that is still being developed, no matter how far along we progress.