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.
A genetically modified crop.


2. List 2 arguments FOR the growing of GM crops
     a. GM foods will have even greater benefits for the world's poor, supporters state. With genetically modified foods, simple foods like rice and such can give you all the nutrition you need. For developing countries, if rice is all they can afford, this "golden rice" can give them all the nutrition they need.
     b. Genetic modification couldn't be more natural. When mixing genes and putting them into another organism, you are not disrupting the circle of life because the basis of evolution is that they would have done it anyway. We are just speeding up the process.



3. List 2 arguments AGAINST the growing of GM crops.
     a. Even if farmers in developing countries don't grow GM crops, they could still be hurt by them. Although these farmers are not influenced directly, they are still effected because when people see the new improved foods with high nutrition, they will not buy from the smaller farmers and they will go out of business.
     b. One of their greatest worries is that GM crops could harm other wildlife. The GM plants may be hurting/killing other organisms because they cannot either adapt to the change in the other organism, or the organism is giving off a new substance that hurts/kills the other plant.


*Read some of the reader’s responses.



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 one time.


What’s for Dinner?

*Click on the foods on the table to see what research is being done to bioenginner the foods.

5. List two foods and desribe how they are being modified.

Sushi- Researchers are trying to genetically modify rice with altered starch levels, pest resistant, and "edible  nutrition". Salmon might also become the first GM fish.

Fries- Potatoes are engineered to absorb less of the oil they are fried in. Bioengineers are also trying to generate a better oil to fry the fries in the make them healthier with fwer saturated fats.



Viewpoints

*Read the article titled “Are GM Food Sufficiently Regulated in the US?”

Do you think food should be labeled if it has been genetically modified? Why or Why not?
Yes I do think that foods should be labeled if they are genetically modified or not because people need to know what they are eating. If the manufactures injected peanut oil into some foods because it made the food taste better, or for whatever reason, they need to know if they can eat that food. If the manufactures had put peanut oil into some random food such as apples because it made them juicier, then a person with peanut allergies needs to jnow before they wind up at the hospital.


Finished? Go to www.yahooligans.com and type "genetic engineering" in the search field. Browse some of the sites that pop up.
(Yahooligans is better than yahoo, the sites tend to be picked for education rather than for scientists and universities, you'll find more understandable and interesting sites on yahooligans than you will with Yahoo)
Write down any of the sites you visited below.


http://www.eurekascience.com/ICanDoThat/cloning_pt.htmhttp://www.eco-pros.com/geewhizfood.htm
http://www.eco-pros.com/genetic_engineering.htm

Epigenome

Identical twins
Identical twins become different over time because of environmental factors. This are the factors that shape the epigenome. From experiences and choices in their life, identical twins develop a different epigenome and therefore form a different phenotype.

A couple of factors that shape the epigenome are diet, stress, and different activities the twins choose throughout their life.

An imprinted gene is a gene that gives you traits from your parents epigenome. The epigenome tags on your genome are imprinted onto your epigenome from your parents.

Factors in my life that are shaping my genome are the decisions I make, the games I play, the people I meet, the people I follow, the people I learn from, everyone around me, and everything everyone does around me.

Lick your rats
High nurtured rats create more GR genes therefore giving the rat the ability the quickly get over stress because the cortisols attach to the GR genes and there not as many just floating around giving the highly nurtured rat the ability to get over stress easier.

The licking of the rat from a mother activates the GR genes.

The cortisols and the GR genes work together in order to give the organism the ability to either get rid of stress easily or difficultly from either high amount or low amount of GR genes.

Parents have a big impact on their children because they are the people they look up to. What the parent does or says, is effecting the child's actions. If a parent is loving and caring to that child, then he/she will most likely grow up to be a caring, loving parent. On the other hand, if the parent is abusive, then the child will grow up and most likely make the wrong decisions and become a mean, abusive parent.

Nutrition and The Epigenome
The food we eat can effect our epigenome because of the chemicals in the food. Those chemicals can effect the body in different ways. If one organism cannot withstand the effects of that chemical, then the body may act in a negative way. Whereas if the body can tolerate the chemical, then it may have a positive effect or not one at all.

Yes the diet of the mother can effect the offspring while the offspring is still in the fetus because whatever the mother eats, the nutrition goes through the umbilical cord and into the offspring. The nutrition of the food can effect the babies epigenome.

Epigenetics and the Human Brain
The methyl can influences the gene expression because the DNA methylation stabilizes the gene expression, which is important for storing information for a long time.

Drugs of abuse such as cocaine trigger epigenetic changes in certain brain regions, affecting hundreds of genes at a time. Some of these changes remain long after the drug has been cleared from the system. Research in this area suggests that some of the long-term effects of drug abuse and addiction may be written in epigenetic code.