Current Events

1
Current Events

• October 6, 2011

2
Cookies Bad for the Environment?

• Palm oil found in baked goods, shortening,
  cooking oils, candy bars, margarine, and candy
• Oil palm is grown as an industrial plantation
  crop, often (especially in Indonesia) on newly
  cleared rainforest or peat-swamp forests.

3
Ecological Problems

• The Sumatran tiger, Sumatran and Bornean
  orangutans, Asian elephant, and Sumatran
  rhinoceros.

4
Role of US Consumers

• Because of the impending trans-fat labeling
  regulation, many food manufacturers are seeking
  alternatives to partially hydrogenated vegetable
  oil.
• If companies replaced the 2.5 billion pounds of
  partially hydrogenated oil used annually in foods
  needing a solid fat with palm oil, U.S. palm oil
  imports would triple.
• Such an increase would require about 1,240 square
  miles of new oil palm
• Source Center for Science in the Public Interest

5
Growing Deer Population Threatens Forests

• The white-tailed deer was almost hunted to
  extinction 100 years ago on the East Coast.
• Today there are an estimated 20 million
  white-tailed deer.
• In 1990, Smithsonians Conservation Biology
  Institute in Front Royal, Virginia began study on
  impacts of deer on biodiversity

6
Deer and Biodiversity

• The Smithsonian closed off about 10 acres behind
  an eight-foot tall wire fence - its a world
  without deer.

7
Deer and Biodiversity

• Inside it is practically a jungle. Greater age
  structure. Many of them are young trees.
• Source NPR

8
Genetically Modified Forests

• Planned replacement in the southeastern U.S. of
  native pine plantations with genetically
  engineered eucalyptus
• Rapidly growing Australian tree

Eucalyptus plantation, Uruguay
Southeastern US pine plantation
9
Genetically Modified Forests

• Controversial gene splice that restricts trees'
  ability to reproduce
• If such a fertility control technology is proven
  effective, it could open the door to many
  varieties of wild plants to be genetically
  engineered
• ArborGen has been seeking government deregulation
  of its eucalyptus, which is primarily engineered
  to resist freezing temperatures, since 2008.
• Source Scientific American

10
Example of Bizarre Genetic Engineering

• In 2007, South Korean scientists altered a cats
  DNA to make it glow in the dark and then took
  that DNA and cloned other cats from it creating
  a set of fluffy, fluorescent felines. 
• Whats the point of creating a pet that doubles
  as a nightlight? Scientists say the ability to
  engineer animals with fluorescent proteins will
  enable them to artificially create animals with
  human genetic diseases.

11
Example of Bizarre Genetic Engineering

• The Enviropig, or Frankenswine, as critics call
  it, is a pig thats been genetically altered to
  better digest and process phosphorus.  
• So scientists added an E. Coli bacteria and mouse
  DNA to a pig embryo.
• This modification decreases a pigs phosphorous
  output by as much as 70 percent making the pig
  more environmentally friendly.

12
Example of Bizarre Genetic Engineering

• Pollution-fighting plants
• Scientists at the University of Washington are
  engineering poplar trees that can clean up
  contamination sites by absorbing groundwater
  pollutants through their roots.
• The plants then break the pollutants down into
  harmless byproducts that are incorporated into
  their roots, stems and leaves or released into
  the air.

13
Example of Bizarre Genetic Engineering

• Venomous cabbage
• Scientists have recently taken the gene that
  programs poison in scorpion tails and looked for
  ways to combine it with cabbage.
• Why would they want to create venomous cabbage?

14
Example of Bizarre Genetic Engineering

• AquaBountys genetically modified salmon grows
  twice as fast as the conventional variety the
  photo shows two same-age salmon with the
  genetically altered one in the rear.  
• If the FDA approves the sale of the salmon, it
  will be the first time the government has allowed
  modified animals to be marketed for human
  consumption.

15
Example of Bizarre Genetic Engineering

• People may soon be getting vaccinated for
  diseases like hepatitis B and cholera by simply
  taking a bite of banana.
• Researchers have successfully engineered bananas,
  potatoes, lettuce, carrots and tobacco to produce
  vaccines, but they say bananas are the ideal
  production and delivery vehicle.

16
Example of Bizarre Genetic Engineering

• British scientists have created a breed of
  genetically modified hens that produce
  cancer-fighting medicines in their eggs.
• The animals have had human genes added to their
  DNA so that human proteins are secreted into the
  whites of their eggs, along with complex
  medicinal proteins similar to drugs used to treat
  skin cancer and other diseases.
• Source Mother Earth News