Harvest of Fear

Harvest of Fear
Should we Grow GM Crops?

Instructions: Read the page and click YES or NO, reach the next...click YES or NO...etc until you’ve read all the arguments -- You will need to do this 12 times in order for your votes to be tallied. Navigate the site, each of the bold headings below are links within the site


1. What is a GM Crop.
Genetically modified foods are derived form genetically modified organisms. Genetically modified organisms have had specific changes introduced into their DNA genetic engineering techniques. GM crop farming is expanded rapidly around around the world. Global acreage of GM crop has risen 25-fold in just four years, from approximately 4.3 million acres in 1996 to about 100 million acres in 1999. Industry, government, and many academic scientists tout the benefits of GM foods for agriculture, ecosystems, and human health and well-being, including feeding a world population bursting at the seams. Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genetic make material in a way that does not occur under natural conditions. GM crops have enhanced taste an quality than naturally grown crops, their maturing time is reduced, increased nutrients, yields, and stress tolerance, improved resistance to disease, pests, and herbicides, and new products and growing techniques.


2. List 2 arguments FOR the growing of GM crops
1. What if you knew that proponents assert that GM foods will promise many health benefits?
a. GM foods will be better for us, with some products that are already working and ones that benefit our waistlines and other bearing higher nutritional content.
2. What if you knew that advocates maintain that GM technology will help the environment?
a. In the U.S. alone, farmers spray, spread, and otherwise administer more than 970 million tons of insect- and plant-killers every year. These pose threats to the environment. Pesticide residues linger on crops and in soil, find their way into the guts of wildlife that eat contaminated foliage, and leach into groundwater and wash into streams. If a crop boasts its own ability to resist invertebrate predators, then farmers can use far fewer chemicals

3. List 2 arguments AGAINST the growing of GM crops.
1. What if you knew that detractors fear that GM food might pose health risks for certain people?
a. Some people, including children, are highly allergic to peanuts, wheat, dairy, and other foods, and some critics of GM foods think that GM foods have the possibility to cause and unintentionally introduce new allergies.
2. What if you knew that opponents fear that GM crop technology will hurt small farmers?
a. Critics of GM agriculture insist that patenting genetically altered crops, as agribusiness is rushing to do, will make small farmers indentured to big firms. Monsanto, one of the biggest players in the field, is currently suing dozens of North American farmers whom it claims have raised its patented GM crops without paying for the privilege.

Engineer a Crop

4. Practice this simulation until you get the largest ears of corn. How many times did it take you?
It took me 3 times to get the largest years of corn in 4 seasons.


What’s for Dinner?
5. List two foods and desribe how they are being modified.
Pizza: For each of the ingredients you might find in pizza, including cheese, wheat, green peppers, onions, and tomatoes, scientists are testing GM varieties. They are modifying rennet, a dried extract used to curdle milk for cheese, to speed the cheese-making process, wheat used in bleached flour to be more easily digestible and produce greater yields; and green peppers, onions, and tomatoes to stay fresh longer in supermarkets, resist pests, and survive droughts.

Fruit: Plant geneticists are testing almost any fruit you can think of for your GM variety approval. Strawberries, pears, melons, apples, grapefruit, and watermelons with altered sugar content, fruit ripening cycles, and pests resistance may be hitting your local produce aisle soon.



Viewpoints
Do you think food should be labeled if it has been genetically modified? Why or Why not?
Yes, I think that genetically modified food should be labeled. The FDA refused to require labeling of genetically modified foods, against the advice of its own scientists, and I find that very alarming. Also the FDA put out a political document, not a scientific one, that said that GM foods are no different than naturally grown foods without modifiers, and therefore they don't have to be labeled to even regulated differently. Genetically modified food should be labeled because some people might have allergies to that modifier, or that modifier might cause a disease or a virus and I think that the public deserves to know what they are consuming and what their families are putting in their bodies.
Posted by Una at 9:16 AM 0 comments Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Google Buzz

Epigenome

Epigenome

1. Often, the physical characteristics of genetically identical twins become increasingly

different as they age, even at the molecular level. Explain why this is so. (use the

terms "environment" and "epigenome")

As time goes on the twins are exposed to different environmental experience which can affect the way their body grows. Examples include smoking, dieting/eating unhealthy, or even watching to much tv instead of exercising

2. Name 3-4 environmental factors that influence the epigenome.

Smoking

Exercise

Dieting/Eating unhealthy

3. What is an imprinted gene?

YOUR ENVIRONMENT, YOUR EPIGENOME

1. Discuss factors in your daily life (ie. Diet, exercise, stress etc.) that could be affecting

your epigenome

Factors like diet and exercise could make you more fit and maybe turn on or off different genes which changes your epigenome in ways like making you more fit or more active.

LICK YOUR RATS

1. Explain how a high-nurturing mother rat shapes her pup's epigenome, and what that

pup's response to stress will be.

A high-nuturing mother rat shapes the pups epigenome in the way they treat their pups. The fact that they are more nurturing causes the pups to be less stressful in life later on. This isn't always a good thing, because it could cause the pup to be less careful with what it does and be more open to dangerous places.

2. In rats, does licking by the mother activate, or deactivate her pup's GR gene?

It activates the gene by blocking out methyl chemicals from the gene.

3. Explain how cortisol and the GR protein work together in the brain to relax a rat pup.

You may draw a diagram.

The combination of cortisol and the GR protein in the rats hippocampus cause the rats fight or flight reaction to be less stressful and easier to make descissions.

4. The rat nurturing example shows us how parental behavior can shape the behavior of

their offspring on a biochemical level. Relate this to humans and think about the personal

and social implications. Record your thoughts.

The nurturing rat can relate to a nurturing mother in ways such as if a mother were to nurture her offspring at a young age they might grow up being more relaxed and nicer but if a mother were to abuse their child it could have a bad affect on them and when they get older they could become more abusive and maybe commit suicide.

NUTRITION & THE EPIGENOME

1. Explain how the food we eat affects gene expression.

The food we eat affects gene expression by high methyl foods causing major alters in our gene expression as seen in the rats.

2. Can the diets of parents affect their offspring's epigenome?

Yes. They affect the genome of their offspring in ways such as producing enough, or the correct, amount of chemicals or nutrients needed to survive. If the parent is eating unhealthy they may have trouble with doing this and may hurt the development of the offspring.

Epigenome

EPIGENETICS & THE HUMAN BRAIN

1. How does Dietary methyl influence gene expression ?

More methyl means less rRNA production, which means fewer ribosomes, which means less protein production.

2. Why do Toxins affect gene methylation?

DNA methylation stabilize gene expression, which is important for long-term storage of information.

DNA Fingerprinting

Introduction:

1. DNA is unique for everyone. The only exception is if a person has what?
The only exception is identical twins.

2. What are DNA fingerprints used for?
DNA fingerprints can be used for anything from determining a biological mother or father to identifying the suspect of a crime.

Part 1 “It Takes a Lickin”

3. What “crime” was committed?
Some one entered Jimmy's room, opened his holographic lollipop and licked it.

4. What bodily fluid was removed from the “crime scene” to get DNA?
Saliva was removed from the lollipop and taken in for testing.

Part 2 “DNA Fingerprinting at the NOVA Lab”

5. What does a restriction enzyme do?
The restriction enzymes work like scissors and cut the DNA into portions according to the pattern.

6. What is agarose gel?
Agarose gel is a thick, porous, jelly-like substance.

7. What is electrophoresis?
Electrophoresis is the process of moving molecules by using electric currents.

8. Smaller fragments of DNA move ____________ than longer strands?
more easily through the gel

9. Why do you need to place a nylon membrane over the gel?
I placed the nylon membrane over the gel so that the DNA could be absorbed into it.

10. Probes attach themselves to __________
DNA fragments on the membrane.

11. Which chemical in your “virtual lab” is radioactive?
The probes are radioactive.

12. Sketch your DNA fingerprint.

file:///Users/sstahm/Desktop/Screen%20shot%202010-11-24%20at%208.50.20%20AM.png

13. Based on your DNA fingerprint, who licked the lollipop?
According to my DNA fingerprint, Honey licked the lollipop.

14. What kinds of things could you do at the DNA workshop?

You can be moved into a cell and be involved with replication and cell protein synthesis.

15. Read an article about genetics at this site that you might find interesting, or use the "Search" box in the upper right hand corner to search for DNA fingerprinting.

Title of Article

DNA Fingerprinting

Author and Date WebMD Medical Reference from Healthwise April 20, 2009

Summarize what the article was about. Write this in a paragraph format.

Mitosis

1.
A. Prophase
B. Metaphase
C. Interphase
D. Pro-metaphase
E. Cytokinesis
F. Telephase

2.
A. 8
B. 4
C. Chromosomes
D. The centriolies divide after the DNA replicates. pThis happens during interphase.