4.6.03
I'm doing work experience.
Sucky, I know, but my university is insisting.
So, I'm working at Friends of the Earth. I guess it's okay. I mean, the boss insists on using the word, 'sexy,' as many times during the day as he possibly can without actually using it in its correct context, and I have to sit next to a man with funny glasses who is obsessed with transport systems. But I get to dress casually, wander in at ten o' clock, and drink ridiculous amounts of herbal tea for free.
Today, the boss pulled me from envelope-stuffing duty (there were over a thousand of them. I stuffed them ALL) and decided to actually tell me what they were all supposed to be doing. Give me the verbal guided tour.
It lasted forever. But I have to credit him with this - I was desperate to pee for his entire speech, and he still managed to get me interested.
Among the things I learned:
- Nationwide opinion poles about windmills are sexy.
- Small creatures that live in ditches are not sexy, although otters are.
- 0% waste is a sexy new political idea that all the sexy new politicians are really into.
I also learned about Chardon LL.
Now I'm going to tell you about it.
It's a form of genetically modified (GM) maize. They took a gene from some bacteria that lives in Cameroon, stuck it in the maize, and now it's immune to herbicide. You can spray your entire field with herbicide, and all the weeds will die, but your tough-as-nails maize will be fine.
There are numerous problems with Chardon LL.
1. It's meant to be used as feed for cows. Therefore, it would make sense that the company that produced it would, during their trials, feed the maize to some cows and see what it did. What they actually did was feed something slightly similar to Chardon LL to a bunch of rats.
2. It's possible that somewhere along the line someone mentioned that it might be a good idea to actually try feeding the real Chardon LL to some animals so they came up with test #2. Now, test #2 was eventually thrown out as unscientific, but for the sake of hilarity, I throw in the results. This time they fed the maize to chickens. The conclusion was that the chickens being fed the maize showed 'a suspicious tendency towards dying.'
How, may I ask, does one show a 'suspicious tendency towards dying'?
Did they throw each other conspiratorial glances before keeling over?
For that matter, how does one demonstrate a 'tendency' towards dying.
Oh, yes, yes, I tend to die, you know. Every Saturday, I can't seem to help it. I just keel over in the kitchen.
3. Next issue. Testing the maize on rats and chickens is fundamentally flawed anyway. Cows are large and have four stomachs. Chickens and rats are small and have one stomach.
4. Horizontal gene transfer. A parent passes on genes to his/her children - this is vertical gene transfer. Bacteria, fungus and plants have the ability to pass genes on to each other without reproducing. This is horizontal gene transfer. Since there has been no effort to make any study on this subject with regards to the bacteria found in North Wales (the area where Chardon LL was planted) and with regards to Chardon LL itself, there is a distinct possibility that the properties of herbicide resistance (antibiotic properties) will be transferred to the local bacteria. Since the area will be saturated with herbicide, anything with resistance to it will have a massive advantage over every other living thing in the area. What effects will this destabilization cause? No one knows! No one has a bloody clue.
5. The last problem is my own moral dilemma. Because as much as the eco-warrior deep inside me wants to praise the lovely National Assembly for banning the planting of this crop this year, there's a very large part of me that desperately wants to see bizarre, mutated, super-intelligent bacteria rising out of the earth and doing battle with 60 ft tall maize-monsters.
Then again, perhaps I've just been watching too many Godzilla movies lately.
Sucky, I know, but my university is insisting.
So, I'm working at Friends of the Earth. I guess it's okay. I mean, the boss insists on using the word, 'sexy,' as many times during the day as he possibly can without actually using it in its correct context, and I have to sit next to a man with funny glasses who is obsessed with transport systems. But I get to dress casually, wander in at ten o' clock, and drink ridiculous amounts of herbal tea for free.
Today, the boss pulled me from envelope-stuffing duty (there were over a thousand of them. I stuffed them ALL) and decided to actually tell me what they were all supposed to be doing. Give me the verbal guided tour.
It lasted forever. But I have to credit him with this - I was desperate to pee for his entire speech, and he still managed to get me interested.
Among the things I learned:
- Nationwide opinion poles about windmills are sexy.
- Small creatures that live in ditches are not sexy, although otters are.
- 0% waste is a sexy new political idea that all the sexy new politicians are really into.
I also learned about Chardon LL.
Now I'm going to tell you about it.
It's a form of genetically modified (GM) maize. They took a gene from some bacteria that lives in Cameroon, stuck it in the maize, and now it's immune to herbicide. You can spray your entire field with herbicide, and all the weeds will die, but your tough-as-nails maize will be fine.
There are numerous problems with Chardon LL.
1. It's meant to be used as feed for cows. Therefore, it would make sense that the company that produced it would, during their trials, feed the maize to some cows and see what it did. What they actually did was feed something slightly similar to Chardon LL to a bunch of rats.
2. It's possible that somewhere along the line someone mentioned that it might be a good idea to actually try feeding the real Chardon LL to some animals so they came up with test #2. Now, test #2 was eventually thrown out as unscientific, but for the sake of hilarity, I throw in the results. This time they fed the maize to chickens. The conclusion was that the chickens being fed the maize showed 'a suspicious tendency towards dying.'
How, may I ask, does one show a 'suspicious tendency towards dying'?
Did they throw each other conspiratorial glances before keeling over?
For that matter, how does one demonstrate a 'tendency' towards dying.
Oh, yes, yes, I tend to die, you know. Every Saturday, I can't seem to help it. I just keel over in the kitchen.
3. Next issue. Testing the maize on rats and chickens is fundamentally flawed anyway. Cows are large and have four stomachs. Chickens and rats are small and have one stomach.
4. Horizontal gene transfer. A parent passes on genes to his/her children - this is vertical gene transfer. Bacteria, fungus and plants have the ability to pass genes on to each other without reproducing. This is horizontal gene transfer. Since there has been no effort to make any study on this subject with regards to the bacteria found in North Wales (the area where Chardon LL was planted) and with regards to Chardon LL itself, there is a distinct possibility that the properties of herbicide resistance (antibiotic properties) will be transferred to the local bacteria. Since the area will be saturated with herbicide, anything with resistance to it will have a massive advantage over every other living thing in the area. What effects will this destabilization cause? No one knows! No one has a bloody clue.
5. The last problem is my own moral dilemma. Because as much as the eco-warrior deep inside me wants to praise the lovely National Assembly for banning the planting of this crop this year, there's a very large part of me that desperately wants to see bizarre, mutated, super-intelligent bacteria rising out of the earth and doing battle with 60 ft tall maize-monsters.
Then again, perhaps I've just been watching too many Godzilla movies lately.
