Lab Rats : China

No dearth of speakers in the GM food debate

Seema Singh — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:58:00 GMT

We are a nation of debates, and delays. And when it comes to GM crops, we are also a nation of botched regulation, bad monitoring, slipshod field trials, partial/non-availability of data... I am not even counting the illegal manner in which Bt cotton (fake in many instances) entered the Indian market.

To complicate the issue further, Union health minister A. Ramadoss last week made a public statement in Kancheepuram on World Consumers' Day that GM food crops are a potential health hazard. Probably, he drew his inference from this memorandum submitted to him by some doctors earlier this month.

Already tossed between the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, Department of Biotechnology, ministries of agriculture and environment, the GM issue belongs to all and yet is in no-man's-land when it comes to speedy regulation and implementation.

It's not a question of whether it's a potential health hazard or not, in which case most modern research would be discarded (including the hugely popular stem cell research), it's a question of responsible public statements.

Shouldn't our ministers be rather talking about how best we can regulate the research, release and sale of such products? How best can we educate farmers to grow (or not grow depending upon their personal choice) these crops? How best can we ensure labeling of imported foods containing GM ingredient? Why don't politicians talk of scientific vigilance?

Health and consumer activists often quote noted molecular biologist PM Bhargava, who was appointed by the Supreme Court to observe the functioning of the GEAC, as an anti-GM expert. But he's not. In a recent conversation he said, "I am not against GM but we don't have enough environmental monitoring for such crops which is absolutely essential and this is what bothers me."

Dr Bhargava doesn't mince his words when it comes to seed companies and their aggressive lobbying. Earlier this month he wrote a letter to the prime minister about these lapses. He has also aired his concerns on the way the National Biotech Regulatory Authority is being set up.

Earlier this year a group of Chinese researchers reported in Science that BT cotton not only controls bollworm (which harms cotton) but also has beneficial impact on other host crops and may "decrease the need for insecticide sprays in general". Researchers' study area included 3 million hectares of cotton and 22 million hectares of other crops (corn, peanuts, soybeans, and vegetables) grown by 10 million farmers.

It'd be a pity if GM went the tobacco industry way. Lets not throw the baby with the bathwater. Science, and only rigorous science, can save us!

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Solving the oldest paleontology mystery

Seema Singh — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:46:00 GMT

Turtles not only have tough shells, but they have also posed tough problems to scientists when it comes to reptile evolution--how has the turtle's shell and body developed, which has remained almost the same over evolutionary time, since the age of dinosaurs. And this has also become the oldest paleontology mystery!

In today's issue of Nature, researchers from China and Canada report that they have discovered fossils of the oldest known turtle, estimated to be 220-million-years-old, in the marine deposits of the Late Triassic of southwestern China.

This half-shelled fossil, the first turtle ever to be found with incomplete shell, can, say scientists, give a better picture of how the turtle got its shell.

Life reconstruction of Odontochelys semitestacea, an ancestral turtle from the Triassic of China. Credit: Marlene Donnelly

Analyzing the fossil, scientists say the turtle shells are "bony extensions of their backbones and ribs that expanded and grew together to form a hard protective covering". The fossilized turtle ancestor, named Odontochelys semitestacea (which translates as: half-shelled turtle with teeth), likely lived in the water rather than on land.

Before this discovery, the oldest known turtle specimen was Proganochelys, which was found in Germany, but it has a fully-formed shell so it hardly provides any information about how its bony exterior was formed.

But a claim to solving the shell mystery was made last month as well from a paleontologist at Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven. Studying a 210 million-year-old turtle found in New Mexico, Walter Joyce said the shell evolved from the skin, not the ribs.

With such conflicting findings, the mystery seems to be far from being solved. But what is indeed intriguing is that turtles and mystery go hand in hand - whether it is the UK trying to solve the 'mystery' of stranded loggerhead turtles or Visakha SPCA investigating the 'mysterious' death of Olive Ridley turtles in the Indian Ocean or the global community at large, busy tracking the endangered species via satellite!

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!

Chinese premier with a ‘science' editor

Seema Singh — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:27:00 GMT

Imagine the head of a country meeting the editor of a science magazine for two hours! Unless it's truly a meeting of minds, it's difficult to pull it off, that too among much media glare.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao recently spent two hours with Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of the journal Science, talking about why and how he wants to ground China's economic and social development in sound science.

The interview appears in today's issue of Science; you can read it here. (If, for some reason, you can't access the original interview and are still keen on knowing what Jiabao thinks, here's a release).

From the alacrity with which he moved the administration during May earthquake in Wenchuan to how he handled the milk crisis (which the global community thinks is impressive) to using science for diplomacy -- Jiabao justifies why Chinese science is flourishing the way it is.

I'm tempted to bring the clichéd Indian contrast here, particularly with reference to state heads or even state science ministers, but I'll keep it for better times.

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!