Vitamin A, problem solved: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=106
Building Better Bananas (2012)
51–60 of 64 posts
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#52I was under the impression that hunger is primarily a distribution issue, not an issue of production. Gates implicitly states that the vitamin A deficit is mainly a result of a one-sided diet. But isn't the one-sided diet itself a result of a lack of alternatives? So, if alternatives cannot currently be distributed to meet demand, how would a new breed of bananas solve that? Don't they also have to get distributed in…
> hunger is primarily a distribution issue, not an issue of production
Sure, that’s like the fundamental principle of ecology. Earth’s population is increasing every year, and those people have to be made out of something.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#53Considering the opposition to golden rice (sometimes violently [1]) to fulfill this role in other parts of the world, these bananas are probably DOA. So long as middle-class Westerners imagine someone somewhere might end up making a profit, they will prefer children in developing countries starve and go blind [2]. [1] http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/08/activists-des... [2] http://blogs.scientificamerican.…
Here is the deal, we simply haven't had the time to determine if this is safe. And anyone who says it is is lying, because that's simply impossible to tell at this point. We know that with our best intentions and cutting edge science, we created margarine, something to save the arteries of the world. Only to find out that we didn't understand the science well enough, and margarine was essentially the stuff causing th…
Figure out what is actually being done. What I found was that a single enzyme found in a closely related species was being imported into this species. It is a more efficient enzyme than a very similar enzyme that is already present. So having this new enzyme (a protein) in the modern cultivated banana pushes the equilibrium slightly towards the manufacture of Vitamin A over its precursor. This might subtly effect the equilibrium metabolism of the plant, but likely no more than a particularly hot or cold day would. Further, the enzyme is only expressed in the fleshy portion of the plant, and so has little bearing the 'plant', only its fruit.
As for the health of the consumer, there is more variation and deviation between two species of banana (of this same kind) than there is between the modified and cultivated varieties. And keep in mind too that the cultivated varieties as we currently eat them are so far removed from their genetic capacity to survive as to actually be sterile.
A single, more efficient protein from a similar species was imported from a non-cultivated species into the more common, sterile, cultivated species to shift the fruit's own biochemical equilibrium along a single metabolic axis towards a few-fold increase in the production of Vitamin A.
On the scale of risk, this one is very near the bottom.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
WOW. Nobody argued that rice wasn't good for you. A diet of all or mostly rice leads to nutrition deficiencies. >in non-white rice People eat white rice because it doesn't spoil as fast, especially in the tropics. Education, treating poverty, and encouraging biodiversity and a varied diet among the population. Teaching things like backyard farming, hygiene, breastfeeding. Also vaccines since infection drains vitamin…
I think people were reading "this is treating a symptom of larger problems" and thinking you meant "We should not be treating symptoms but should be focusing on the root cause." This makes sense when you have only a few minds working on the problem and the root cause can be tackled directly and simply. However, there are many minds with many different specialties and the root cause is complex enough that it makes sen…
We should be treating the symptoms and also be focusing on the root cause.
I believe a lot of people have a mindset that technology can/should solve all the world's problems. The mindset can be misguided. When we pump hundreds of millions of dollars in a technology that might not take into consideration the human elements of the problem it is trying to solve - or the unintended consequences of such technology - we should be looking objectively and asking questions. Even if those questions don't have immediate answers.
It seems like if someone brings up any rational doubt or even QUESTIONS about GMOs they are instinctively labeled an "anti-science loon" and dismissed. Dismissing doubt by saying "you want children to go blind and die" isn't productive.
Everything has a trade-off as there isn't finite resources or time. I believe golden rice was misguided and the time and resources spent on it could have been better spent elsewhere, even on cheaper and more proven supplementation programs. It was over engineering.
I read an article in a magazine about how problems might not be solved in a straightforward manner and there is a lack of testing for various interventions to see which one works best or even works. There is a movement to science based aid. The example given that there was a trial for the best way to increase a child's education. Many things were tested such as free textbooks, more teachers, teacher education, etc. Do you know what worked the best for increasing children's education? Anti-parasitic medications. Children lose significant school time due to parasites. Which is in NO WAY obvious.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is the deal, we simply haven't had the time to determine if this is safe. And anyone who says it is is lying, because that's simply impossible to tell at this point. We know that with our best intentions and cutting edge science, we created margarine, something to save the arteries of the world. Only to find out that we didn't understand the science well enough, and margarine was essentially the stuff causing th…
Margarine has a more interesting history than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#History It was mostly about making a fat spread that was cheaper than butter. Relatively recent marketing probably made lots of health claims. I suppose that makes the development a closer parallel with golden rice (or bananas), but I think you are underestimating the understanding that the developers of these organisms have.
The spreads you find in shops in most countries today bear little to no resemblance to margarine. Hence the "modern" health claims.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#56Considering the opposition to golden rice (sometimes violently [1]) to fulfill this role in other parts of the world, these bananas are probably DOA. So long as middle-class Westerners imagine someone somewhere might end up making a profit, they will prefer children in developing countries starve and go blind [2]. [1] http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/08/activists-des... [2] http://blogs.scientificamerican.…
> they will prefer children in developing countries starve and go blind Please don't use inflammatory language like this when arguing on HN. It's unsubstantive (because it overstates things for agitation effect) and tends to provoke low-quality subthreads. Here's something PG once wrote that clarifies this principle: [HN comments] should be written in the spirit of colleagues cooperating in good faith to figure out t…
Sorry, I don't see why you consider what I wrote "inflammatory". Children in developing countries starving and going blind is the status quo. Opposing an existential solution without bothering to provide an alternate existential solution is de facto preferring the status quo. This should not be a controversial statement.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, Sen has agreed with the majority of Piketty's conclusions, though.
It sounds like you're referring to a particular article I must have missed. Any chance you have a link? I've read enough vitriolic back-and-forth between these two that I'd greatly enjoy hearing them discuss what they actually agree about :)
Sure. I was referring to this, which seems to be a summary of another article that isn't loading. I imagine the original is much more informative.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they will prefer children in developing countries starve and go blind Please don't use inflammatory language like this when arguing on HN. It's unsubstantive (because it overstates things for agitation effect) and tends to provoke low-quality subthreads. Here's something PG once wrote that clarifies this principle: [HN comments] should be written in the spirit of colleagues cooperating in good faith to figure out t…
Sorry, I don't see why you consider what I wrote "inflammatory". Children in developing countries starving and going blind is the status quo . Opposing an existential solution without bothering to provide an alternate existential solution is de facto preferring the status quo . This should not be a controversial statement.
Well, it's inflammatory because it depicts opponents as monsters who prefer to see children suffer. That's plainly one meaning of such language, regardless of whether there's also an abstract factual interpretation. It's not as bad as if you had accused someone personally, but it's still bad. It provokes a downward spiral in the discourse. HN threads are sensitive to this.
There are places where inflammatory, provocative language does well: in the rough and tumble of political debate, for example, or battles of literary wit. The trouble is that if we have much of it here, it rides roughshod over everything else. It's a tradeoff. The values of HN are intellectual substance and personal civility, and those are fragile in a public anonymous forum, so we all should consciously protect them. This still leaves lots of room to make one's point (albeit at the cost of a certain blandness), so it shouldn't be a problem.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#59BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.
I have the same thoughts about tomatoes. Tomatoes today have no flavor compared to what I remembered. It could be the flavor notes of childhood-backyard-summertime nostalgia, New Jersey terrior, and simply explained by the genetic modification such that tomatoes could be mechanically harvested weeks before they're ripe in the field. I'm a tomato luddite.
"Tomatoland", by Barry Estabrook, is an engaging (if depressing) look at how the tomato biz got that way.
Re: Building Better Bananas (2012)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people were reading "this is treating a symptom of larger problems" and thinking you meant "We should not be treating symptoms but should be focusing on the root cause." This makes sense when you have only a few minds working on the problem and the root cause can be tackled directly and simply. However, there are many minds with many different specialties and the root cause is complex enough that it makes sen…
We should be treating the symptoms and also be focusing on the root cause. I believe a lot of people have a mindset that technology can/should solve all the world's problems. The mindset can be misguided. When we pump hundreds of millions of dollars in a technology that might not take into consideration the human elements of the problem it is trying to solve - or the unintended consequences of such technology - we sh…
Right. We share the opinion in your first paragraph. The second paragraph is because people who believe in science are still humans and therefore still have an in-group out-group instinct; You probably already know this. We also have a strong pattern-matching instinct: "You said $statement? You've probably from $ideological_group."
I'm totally willing to believe that golden rice was over-engineering and was imprudent allocation of resources, but I thought we didn't yet know enough because it was still in testing. Has it actually been deployed?
Science based aid is great if you can choose your metrics successfully.
I think we are in broad agreement.