Debunking Pseudoscientists: RNA From Food Can’t Change Your Genes

As science progresses, new methods are developed to accomplish tasks. Some help medical and agricultural science work faster, others allow completely news ways of doing things. In the business of promoting new crop traits, CRISPR is one example of a revolutionary new technology that opens up new avenues. But it isn’t the only one. In […]

Monsanto’s Bt Corn: Saving Africa One Seed at a Time

Corn has become one of the primary crops grown in Africa over the years, largely in subsistence farming to feed populations. Being a versatile crop that can grow in a variety of environments, especially warmer ones, it is no surprise that corn cultivation has thrived in Africa. Such as in South Africa that has been […]

Beating Back Viruses with CRISPR and Genetically Modified Rockcress

Agriculture is a constant battle against viruses and bacteria, while farmers try to protect their crops through the means available to them. The cost of yield losses and undesirable crops worldwide due to these invaders is an astronomical number every single year. Thus, any opportunity to provide protection against a wide swath of the attackers […]

Protein Render Cancer

Motor protein involvement in cancer formation in GMO mice

Sadly for all researchers in the field, the way cancer works is highly varied and dependent on the specific type. Because of that, each different type of cancer has to be investigated separately and all of the mechanisms involved deciphered one by one, meaning any proper treatment or cure for a single type of cancer […]

Banana Bunchy Top Virus: A Century Old Killer

Crop diseases have always been one of the main combatants in the war between farmers and nature. Regardless of the source, whether viral, bacterial, fungal, or other, diseases that affect plant health, growth, and production have devastated every type of crop ever grown. It has only been through strenuous effort that farmers have fought back […]

Book Review: Pandora’s Picnic Basket

First published in 2000 under the title A Consumer’s Guide to GM Food: From Green Genes to Red Herrings, this book was devised by scientist Alan McHughen to act as a fundamental guide to agricultural biotechnology, how it works, and what the science has achieved. It was retitled to Pandora’s Picnic Basket when released in […]

Biohydrogen, Biotech’s Green Fuel

Hydrogen has long been one of the dream energy sources of green and alternative energy programs. A clean fuel source with no negative byproducts and that has complete conversion to heat and energy. It has stood up on the pedestal along with the likes of fusion reactors and other high efficiency technologies. The main difference […]

Self-Cloning Eucalyptus

The paper industry, even with the modern trend of digitization of materials and online news and book sources, continues to make the wood pulp market a large commercial force in the world, dominated by the use of Eucalyptus as a backbone for paper production. The use of Eucalyptus as oil has also seen a dramatic […]

The Alpha-Amylase Pea and Weevils

All crops have to contend with parasites and pests, whether of the insect or bacterial variety, and farmers have to create multiple methods to protect their crops and farm yields. For legume farmers and the various types of beans they grow, it is the Bruchus family of beetles that continues to be one of the […]

The Antioxidant Purple Tomato

At the turn of the decade, a new “scientific” fad diet began to spread across the internet and the nutrition community with claims of tiny particles destroying your body from the inside out. Remarks about how only a diet rich in specific fruits and vegetables and their protective antioxidants would keep you healthy and make […]