Hey guys, I too googled the info, and beware, I had a spyware attack from the glossy news site, or a popup from it.
I am a plant science major, and have learned about and used irradiation and GM technology extensively in many different classes.
Its pretty apparent the the author has very little scientific knowledge which with to base this article on, and is just incorporating common scare tactics for the normal ag supply into the article.
Irradiation is simply a lower nanometer wavelength of light. This wavelength causes a thiamine dimer to form (When two "T" DNA bases are adjacent the UV light can "kink" the dna band, stopping the ability for the dna to replicate, thus killing the bacteria/virus/fungi,etc.) It doesn't actually do anything to the food, but sterilize it, and is only strong enough to deeply penetrate cells of viral, bacterial, fungi. Overall a good procedure, helps keep longer shelf life, better shipping between producers and marketers, and overall better food safety and sterility.
GM plants are not bad IMO. If you understand the processes, you realizes it is a natural process that has been harnessed by man.
I don't feel like typing it all out, but those interested can google "agrobacterium mediated gene transfer", which has been and is currently still the primary method to insert foreign DNA into a plant.
Agrobacterium, in nature, will infect plants and cause giant galls/tumors at the base of the plant. This is due to the Agrobacterium inserting DNA it carries into host plant, which then becomes programmed to produce this tumor/gall which gives the agrobacterium a place to replicate. What scientists have done is change the genetics of the agrobacterium, so instead of inserting tumor inducing genes, it inserts genes from outside sources (agrobacterium can not only insert DNA into plants, it can also pick up DNA outside itself and incorporate that into plants) such as the BT resistance gene, or the rootworm resistence gene, etc....so its a natural process that has been harnessed by man, altered slightly by choosing which DNA the agrobacterium takes up, and increasing the frequency of the transformation events to find what they are looking for.
All these genes come from natural organisms, and since you cannot control where in the DNA the new genes are inserted, you have to make many thousands of inserts and then screen for the ones with the new characteristics you are looking for.
Anyhow, the yellow irradiated plants are BS, as I have irradiated plants with a little mildew here and there, as I have a UV generating bulb, to make them acceptable to smoke, and they didn't turn yellow :)
I also cannot find any real website for "subsidi-farm", purportedly a large ag firm, and they have no company website....this is doubtless a dumb joke.
A/I
