At 06:42 AM 9/1/00 -0400, Steven Furlong wrote:
>Why, that was indeed done. I printed the news article (CNN or some
>such) but can't find either the printout or the reference, so what
>follows is short on details. I read about it maybe a year ago.
>
>A scientist in California let his son borrow his new mini-van. One of
>the son's friends left some seeds or butts or something in the van,
>which led to the van being confiscated. The scientist was pissed at
>the authorities for this theft, so he spliced THC genes into orange
>seeds. He sent out packets of seeds to anyone who asked. He didn't keep
>records, but thinks he sent out fifty or a hundred packets of ten. The
>new orange trees would be identical to normal orange trees, and in
>particular indistinguishable from the air, but the oranges contained
>THC. One orange would be equivalent to one joint.
I think this is a net.legend, the plant's synthesis of that complex
molecule would require porting a number of enzymes and getting
them to work together. Assuming the precursor chemistry is there, and I
doubt it is in oranges. I believe the current record is for something
like two or three genes (one may have been a reporter?) moved
cross-species. (To add vitamin A precursor to rice??)
Maybe it was a plot by the Orange Grower's Association.
