> Original very long and difficult to 'digest' post snipped.
This stuff about Agrobacterium is just about the most disturbing stuff I've ever read in my life. And I've read some disturbing things. >From the abstract: http://www.pnas.org/content/98/4/1871.abstract (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) Genetic transformation of HeLa cells by Agrobacterium "Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a soil phytopathogen that elicits neoplastic growths on the host plant species. In nature, however, Agrobacterium also may encounter organisms belonging to other kingdoms such as insects and animals that feed on the infected plants. Can Agrobacterium, then, also infect animal cells? Here, we report that Agrobacterium attaches to and genetically transforms several types of human cells. In stably transformed HeLa cells, the integration event occurred at the right border of the tumor-inducing plasmid's transferred-DNA (T-DNA), suggesting bona fide T-DNA transfer and lending support to the notion that Agrobacterium transforms human cells by a mechanism similar to that which it uses for transformation of plants cells. Collectively, our results suggest that Agrobacterium can transport its T-DNA to human cells and integrate it into their genome. " So, all that messing about with gmo crops in pursuit of dogged dedication to 'owning' the worlds food supply, they have engineered a bacterium that can move plant and animal dna back and forth. This is just brilliant. At what point do folks realize what an incredibly and i mean INCREDIBLY bad idea this is? -- Chip Mefford -------------------- Before Enlightenment; chop wood carry water After Enlightenment; chop wood carry water --------------------- Public Key http://www.well.com/user/cpm _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
