Whatever your feelings on GM, there is a danger in engineering a
super-plant, in that it will behave like a
super-plant, and so will
become a highly invasive and dominant species
causing significant
problems to indigenous plants.
Far better to concentrate on the highly varied,
and
in many cases
under-utilized, widely available resources we
already have.
OFF-TOPIC (I think most genetic codes that have
been published (i.e.
peer reviewed in respected jornals) are freely
available on the
internet, including that of a model plant.)End!
RG
>
> Richard FitzGibbon wrote:
>
> > OK group, here it is:
> >
> > In the 70's I read that a team of (New Mexico?) Ag
> > students discovered the ancient ansestor of modern
> > corn plant in the Sonoran Desert. It only grew 4
> > or 5 kernnels on a very small mis-shapen cob. But
> > it grew in the DESERT.
> >
> > In the 80's a (Florida?) Ag prof. was reported
> > to hawe said that the common pond cattail contained
> > more SUGAR per kilogram than any other plant.
> >
> > In the early 90's I read a report from a committee
> > of geneticists that a plant could be GENETICALLY
> > ALTERED to produce enough sugar to make
> > distillation of ethanol economically feasable.
> >
> > I have no idea where these atatements are true or
> > not. I was not interested it the stuff at the
> > time, so nothing remains but isolated memories.
> > These memories are in my head. I have no proof
> > they occured. Now I want to confirm them or discard
> > them. The tiny tread that connects these memories
> > is the basis of my book.
> >
> > Anyone ever read these statemnts? Know about them?
> >
> > So consider this, if a plant could be genetically
> > bio-engineered to have the following characteristics:
> > to grow in semiarid areas, to be easy to harvest, to
> > never need cultivation, to be extremely high in
> > sucrose and grow rapidly all year, then, the oil
> > cartel would collapse, the skies would clear, global
> > warming would stop and the cost of all
> > manufactured goods prices would decrease. Of
> > course, the geneticist(s) would face some withering
> > resistance from the oil cartel. And I suspect they
> > already have.
> >
> > I believe genecists are working on this precise
> > task, someplace on earth, probably not in an oil
> > producing nation or state (duh).
> >
> > My book is about the problems of a Sprint car
> > driving physician (Yea!!!) releasing genetic
> > research on the internet (the geeks plant genetic
> > code, Yea!!!) in the face of oppposition from oil
> > interests (Boo!!!).
> >
> > I think this is an important time in history.
> >
> > Don't give up.
> >
> > R.D. FitzGibbon
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
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