Comment by mariodiana | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mariodiana | Hacker News Reader

> [I]t was just a twisted protein, capable of performing the microscopic equivalent of a Jedi mind trick, compelling normal proteins on the surface of nerve cells in the brain to contort just like them. The so-called "prions," or "proteinaceous infectious particles," would eventually misfold enough proteins to kill pockets of nerve cells in the brain […]

Disclaimer: Somebody stop me if I'm spreading misinformation, because I am way out of my wheelhouse. Honestly, I would like to be disabused of this suspicion if it's entirely fanciful. So, if someone knows something about what I'm about to discuss, please weigh in. The subject is genetically modified organisms.

My understanding is that at least some (if not all) GMO's are produced by bombarding an organism's genetic material with radiation and then separating out modified organisms that seem to be useful. This process, however, does result in misfolded proteins. Often, scientists judge that these misfolded proteins are of no harm, and so some GMO's (if not all) make it to market with misfolded proteins. That's my understanding.

I'm wondering two things. First, is my above account (over-simplified in any case) basically right or way off base? Second, if it's basically right, aren't we playing a very dangerous game with things we don't understand well enough?

GMO's are not produced by targeted radiation in the way you have described, at least not as common practice (i.e. the GMO food you buy isn't created this way). GMO crops are generated in two ways: targeted gene modification (with deliberate modifications being made in contrast to the randomness of the radiation method you described) and crossbreeding (which has a more randomized effect but does not involve radiation).

If you look at the [Wikipedia article on genetic engineering techniques](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_techniqu...) radiation doesn't appear once.

Creating new crop varieties using radiation is a thing, here are some wiki articles discussing it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding#New_mutagen_...

I also remember seeing a news article about using radiation to breed new rice variants that have more nutrients, but I can't find it anymore.

You're right, it is done. I worded my comment carefully to leave room for this because it's hard to prove a negative, but I stand by my statement, specificay in refuting the implication from the original comment: we aren't haphazardly blasting plant genome with radiation, at scalr, and guessing it's safe enough to feed to the world. I don't have numbers but GMO crops today are by and large the result of non-radiation genetic engineering.

Radiation methods for mutating species are 'traditional' methods that have been employed for decades and aren't considered GMO. A lot of the standard crops have been developed this way.

> My understanding is that at least some (if not all) GMO's are produced by bombarding an organism's genetic material with radiation and then separating out modified organisms that seem to be useful.

GMOs usually refer to a more targeted approach to gene introduction. In the US, a food can be labeled organic and GMO-free even if it was developed with chemical or radiation mutation breeding.

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