DNA sequencing of coffee's best use:
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Add genetic sequence for .... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Of course that wouldn't really work, since most, if not all, of the effect is based on the civets selecting the beans they eat (as a side note, if you buy cheap Kopi Luvak beans, you're buying unselected force-fed crap beans, both literally and figuratively, and if you buy expensive ones, then most likely you're still buying the same beans, just paying more for the fake label...).
So you'd actually need to genetically engineer the pickers, turn them into cat people. Then they would pick the good beans with t
Biofurs (Score:5, Funny)
So you'd actually need to genetically engineer the pickers, turn them into cat people
At which point the furry fandom says: mission accomplished.
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So you'd actually need to genetically engineer the pickers, turn them into cat people. Then they would pick the good beans with their mighty cat powers, which would be force fed to the caged civets,
HIghlighted portion is not cost-effective because of redundancy.
You already have civet-cat people. Have them eat the coffee cherries and crap the beans. You can encourage this by paying them not by the hour, but by production weight... same as you pay agricultural pickers now, but with the requirement of an ad
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Who was the first person to brew coffee beans picked out of the feces of a cat-like animal?
Obviously an addict whose last beans had been eaten by the civet - much like the way a junkie might retrieve an accidentally dropped hit from a toilet bowl.
Re:Add genetic sequence for .... (Score:4, Funny)
We're smoking labrador???
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+1 Beat me To It Award... :D
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I'm trying thi at home, but mys cat refuses to eat the beans.
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the civet isn't a cat, dude. It's a mustelid (or weasel, if you will).
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No it isn't.
It kinda looks like one, true, but the Asian Palm Civet is family Viverridae, suborder Feliformia. Mustelids are, well, Mustelidae, suborder Caniformia.
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Maybe he can get the cat to eat the weasel that ate the coffee beans...
Add milk (Score:2)
So that I don't have to explain to each new hire the difference between real milk (cow or goat) and that non-dairy creamer stuff the office has.
Next, add alcohol.
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Missing option (Score:4, Insightful)
None of the above
I *like* Robusta coffees! (Score:2)
Sure, it's not the only thing I drink, and there are lots of really great arabicas, and even some of the libericas are drinkable. The taste is different, and if you haven't had it, Vietnamese coffee is the easiest source to find. (There are some non-Vietnamese robustas, and some non-robusta coffee in Vietnam, but basically they dominate the market for good robusta, plus there's some from Africa as well.) Many of the varieties of coffee out there were developed by looking for mutations in existing coffee
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The fancy Nespresso coffee pods also use Robusto in blend with arabicas, and a few are pure Robusto. They certainly can be good. In Haiti, they have some Robustos that I would drink every day, If I could get a source in the states.
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If it's in the San Francisco Bay Area, which roastery is it?
Scientific curiosity (Score:5, Interesting)
Because it will be interesting to understand the genetics of the plant.
Re:Scientific curiosity (Score:4, Funny)
Because it will be interesting to understand the genetics of the plant.
Science for the sake of pure science alone, unmotivated by potential commercial exploitation?!
Why do you hate America?
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Uhmm... I *do* feel like I'm going to die if I don't get Coffee. And it does anti depress me, to a good measure.
Maybe I should line the coffee filter with tin foil....
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Among other lots of good reasons.
Other examples:
* make it more disease resistant
* make it grow in more convenient places (my back yard, for example)
* self-roasting beans?
I don't drink coffee. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you make it taste like something other than coffee? Something that isn't beer, because I don't drink beer either.
Can you make it taste like lime jello? I like lime jello.
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It'd be more impressive to make lime jello that tasted like coffee. Or at least has caffeine.
Come to think of it, there are a lot of foods that would be better if they had more caffeine. Like, say, all of them.
Sleep is for the weak.
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Yeah can''t stand the stuff either. I tried it 4 different times in life (16, 21, 25, 28) and each time tastes disgusting. Only way to make it drinkable is loading it with cream and sugar, but what's the point, it isn't even coffee anymore, and the no calorie drink all of a sudden turns into a high carb high fat drink.
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Or was one. Lots of drinks are not palatable if you don't get into the peer pressure as a kid/young adult. I was a Mormon as a kid so didn't drink coffee, tea, or alcohol (and didn't smoke of course). I'd even avoided caffeinated beverages like Coke and Mountain Dew. As an adult, I encountered coffee, etc while I was in the military and while I was dropping away from the church, none of it had any attraction to me. I tried coffee once when I was in the military and didn't like it (I only had a few drinks of
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You realize that alcohol is a toxin, right? And that more than the average -- i.e. 4 drinks a week [just-think-it.com] -- is not healthy? Then just say "no" to that second drink.
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No no, as in second drink of beer. Not second beer :)
[John]
Re:I don't drink coffee. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure I agree with you on this. From your descriptions your encounters with coffee and alcohol have been of pretty rough stuff. I believe that over time you develop a taste for particular types of food or drink. Over time certain less savoury aspects (bitterness etc.) get trained out and you detect other flavours.
I wasn't a coffee drinker until my early 20s and the primary reason for that was the crap my parents drank was AWFUL! If that was my only choice for coffee today I wouldn't drink it. Seriously International Roast Instant!!!!
Now though I can acknowledge I have a caffeine addiction (I will get head aches 3 days after my last coffee) but not only that I love the taste. In particular a well crafted Mocha based on a dark bean blend is fantastic. (1 shot coffee, 1 tbs cocoa & sugar mix, frothed milk)
When it comes to Alcohol I didn't drink at all till I was 18 (legal age in Australia) for no reason other than just because. Also I have never been a heavy drinker. But I am very partial to a nice Shiraz now which is a drink which is fairly inaccessible to people who haven't developed a taste for wine. It is much easier to drink a sweet white or a gentle merlot then a Shiraz with high tannin levels.
If you like Coronas you obviously prefer the lighter paler beers. And, assuming you are in the USA, I found their beers a little rough in general. Try finding a german pilsner or a uk pale ale. I would suggest you will find them a nice drink.
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You are obviously a Mormon.
Not all us Mormons like lime Jell-O, just the Utah variety. Mormons from other states generally make fun of the Utah Mormon culture, while few Mormons from other countries appreciate the difference. For what it's worth, slightly less than 50% of Utahns are Mormon, while more than 50% of Mormons live outside the US and Canada.
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I was wondering about your name for a while. PCC? Been there a couple times.
My wife is from Kaneohe. She's AJA.
And, no, I'm not Mormon, but that was a good line. :^)
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I was wondering about your name for a while. PCC? Been there a couple times.
My wife is from Kaneohe. She's AJA.
And, no, I'm not Mormon, but that was a good line. :^)
I'm a La`ie Boy; graduated from Kahuku High (go Red Raiders!). Relocated to the mainland for work. I assembled my first computer when I was nine, hence techie. Laie Techie was my very first handle, from way back in the 80s. Not too long ago someone on ./ asked if it was the German word for lay person. Small kine.
If you're not Mormon and not from Utah, why the love for lime Jell-O? I must admit I like lime Jell-O with bottled pears or crushed pineapple, but I can't stand lime Jell-O with shredded carrots (sh
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I'm a farm boy from Michigan. I just like lime jello, and thought it would be funny in the coffee modification thread. Didn't know it was a Utah or Mormon thing. :^)
As for myself, I was in Hawaii in the military, and as I said, my wife was born and raised in Kaneohe. We aren't there now, due to the bad economy, and she really misses it.
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I'm a farm boy from Michigan. I just like lime jello, and thought it would be funny in the coffee modification thread. Didn't know it was a Utah or Mormon thing. :^)
Utah is in the Jell-O Belt [wikipedia.org]. Utah eats more Jell-O per capita than any other state. I don't know how that started. And it's easy to assume that any aspect of Utah culture might be part of Mormon culture.
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I'm curious about what you think "good beer" is.
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One designed by a scientific genius for the purpose of revenge! Modern Lager was Pasteur's attempt to topple the dominance of the German beer industry after his son died in a war
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Not a Mormon here, but also don't do either.
I used to drink coffee, but nowadays it does terrible, terrible things to my digestive tract. Good beer tastes like piss, and bad beer tastes like the result of me drinking coffee, so I don't mind missing out on either. (I actually don't drink because I come from a long line of professional alcoholics, and it completely ruins them.)
I'm (7th generation) Mormon. While I was in Primary (Sunday School for kids), my teacher took us to the temple visitors center to watch Johnny Lingo and gave us coffee candy. I loved the flavor and am still addicted to the aroma, but after I graduated from Primary I even gave up on coffee candy. I wish they had a good quality coffee scented candle (most are worse than chocolate scented ones). I cook with alcohol, but don't drink.
Context (Score:3)
The previous headline about coffee was about sequencing robusta coffee [slashdot.org]. Therefore, it could result in improvements to robusta, or to use robusta's information to improve other types.
Part of the study was also comparison of the caffeine genes to other plants, which decided that caffeine in coffee evolved independently from caffeine in chocolate and tea. Since they specifically focused on caffeine, this means it should be easy to find a way to both decaffeinating and super-caffeinating the beans.
Personally, I would go for super-caffeinating, plus merging the flavor of arabica with the hardiness of robusta. They might also be able to identify and reduce any chemicals that add bad flavor to coffee, if any, especially any extraneous bitterness to make room for the bitterness of caffeine.
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My understanding is that most of that bitterness comes from over-roasting and burning the beans, which is why Charbux coffee tastes the way it does. (How they've managed to make so many people believe that's the way coffee is supposed to taste is something I'll never know.) On the rare occasions that I'm stuck with either that or nothing, I always make sure to have some salt with me. Just a few grains of salt neutraliz
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They crashed and burned in Australia due to the 1950s migration of a lot of Italians who cared about coffee and over decades made decent coffee available anywhere Starbucks would be capable of making a buck when they showed up a few years ago. Compared to the coffee places that had been there for years the stuff was expensive hot brown water with added syrups. They got some
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OMG!
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Some people have to stay up late at unexpected times, or get up early at unexpected times. Plus, antioxidants!
Genetically modified. (Score:2)
I cant be the only Evil Genius on Slashdot, surely?
None of the above: cobacco (Score:2)
It's like tomacco, but with coffee instead of tomatoes.
Think you're a coffee addict NOW? HA HA! HO HO!
Dirty water with a kick (Score:2)
I know, I know. . . Sacrilege! But to me, Coffee (like Tea) is just dirty water. People don't care that it's brown or purple or green, they care about the flavor and the caffeine. So bio-engineer multiple benefits: Remove the Color; keep the rest or Remove the Color and Flavor, and just keep the caffeine. Those are 2 examples of what I might like to see bio-engineered.
Really, nothing about coffee rust? (Score:2)
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Before you get all smug and smart-ass, you might want to familiarize yourself with what the term "hardiness" means in relation to plants.
In general, it means something along the lines of "resistance to stress/difficult conditions." In reference to plants, it means "resistance to cold".
I guess if your intention is to eradicate coffee rust by engineering the plants to grow in colder climates where coffee rust isn't as prevalent, then your point makes at least some sense, but the problem you're going to run
Decaf makes some sense (Score:3)
I imagine taste depends a lot on environmental factors, like soil nutrients, sun and stuff like that. Creating a genetically engineered plant is probably harder than simply improving culture conditions to get a good product. Although you could probably improve some aspects of the product by bio-engineering, in real life I don't think anyone will care to improve taste. Most probably they would sell you cheaper beans that resist infection or transportation or bad climate. I never heard Monsanto advertise their products as "great taste", but then again I wouldn't know.
Adding caffeine is also so simple that you shouldn't have to modify plants to get it. In fact, caffeine is dirt cheap (http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/caffeine.html). Even pharma-grade caffeine for the lab is like $0.50 for an almost toxic dose of 1000mg, if you want to "enrich" your coffee.
Decaf, if you enjoy it, would be an interesting bio-engineering project. I don't know if the plant really needs the caffeine for something else (it is somewhat related to DNA, being itself a purine), but simply deleting or attenuating the gene that catalyzes the conversion should be really simple. In fact, you don't need the whole genome sequence to do that, only the locus of the gene.
Anyway, bio-engineering something that tastes good and is healthy is probably at least as hard as all other aspects of the production, even if you have the DNA sequence. Being a fan of the KISS principle, I'd rather have my coffee prepared by people with some decent traditional know-how.
Not quite (Score:2)
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[quote]
Toxic levels of caffeine: 12,000 mg (for an 176 pound person) [just-think-it.com].
[/quote]
You are right with respect to the LD50, obviously referring to lethality. However, 1000mg of caffeine is certainly sufficient for caffeine intoxication as per the DSM-IV disorder (code 305.90). It all depends on how you interpret "toxic" in this context.
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This [behavenet.com] is the first hit I get on Google for "dsm iv caffeine intoxication". Immediately under the title text it says "These criteria are obsolete"
Indeed, you are right. The DSM-IV is still in use but, technically speaking, it has been replaced by the newer DSM V, which also includes a diagnosis of caffeine intoxication. I don't have a DSM V handbook within reach, but I'm sure you can find out the details.
Does the fact that people suffer from side effects before dying surprise you? Using the reference you provided above, people die (LD50) at about 490g of pure alcohol (ie >1lt of hard liquor), yet most would agree that toxicity is apparent way befo
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Not really, mainly because the two things we are talking about are consumed for their effect. Maybe I am not understanding your question?
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Not really, mainly because the two things we are talking about are consumed for their effect. Maybe I am not understanding your question?
Some of the effects are undesirable. Muscle tremor, anxiety are usually not reasons to drink coffee. Similarly, nausea and disequilibrium are not reasons to drink alcohol. With almost any pharmacologically active substance a spectrum of undesirable effects can become apparent before significant risk of lethality.
So, with reference to my initial post, I still believe that 1000mg of caffeine can induce toxic (not necessarily lethal, of course) effects that are, I suppose, undesirable for most people. I guess
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Both caffeine and alcohol have one or more positive effects at low dose, then undesirable symptoms at "medium" doses, and then fatal effects.
Regarding the 1000mg of caffeine level, this roughly corresponds to the recommended "no more than 6 cups of coffee in a day". I think the only thing I disagree with you on is the use of the word "toxic" to describe someone consuming 1000 mg of caffeine.
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For some of us, caffeine causes horrible gastro-intestinal distress. A naturally decaf bean that tastes more like the regular thing? Sign me up.
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"I don't know if the plant really needs the caffeine for something else"
I've been told that it's basically an insecticide. Arabica plants contain less caffeine than robusta plants, and are therefore more sensitive to pests. Naturally caffeine-free plants would be a pain to cultivate.
Caffeine free (Score:2)
There is already a natural-occurring caffeine-free coffee plant, discovered recently in Cameroon: Coffea charrieriana
Caffeinate other plants, dammit! (Score:2)
Seriously, I don't like coffee. I need coffee but I dislike it.
Why can't I have a glass of good caffeine-rich carrot juice?
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ASDA Blue Charge energy drink: contains caffeine, taurine, and CARROT JUICE. 0.4%BV taurine, it doesn't say how much caffeine by volume tho.
No option for... (Score:2)
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yeah i thought the same thing...maybe an option could've read "Catalogue the data & make it freely available"
Create built-in coffee flavour for other plants (Score:2)
decaf (Score:2)
this is a good poll topic...I chose bioengineer vitamins b/c it was the best option listed but realistically the best application will be to make decaf that tastes just as good as regular
like, actually as good as regular...
if you like coffee check out Stumptown Coffee from Portland...Hair Bender is my favorite
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IF you want good decaf, for to Public Domain on Broadway and Alder.
Beat the pants off Stumptown coffee. I'm not saying Stumptown isn't good, just that PD is far better.
I would challenge you to try and tell the difference between decaf and regular there. No oils, no after taste on the back of your tongue.
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challenge accepted! thanks for the suggestion!
i like coffee even at night and as sacreligious as it may be i would buy some decaf
portland is great for coffee lovers...so many local roasters doing cool stuff...it's like Portland owns indie breweries AND coffee roasters now!
Obvious missing option (Score:2)
To join El Seed and take over the WORLD!
Raise the pH (Score:2)
Lower the acidity.
In a perfect world... (Score:2)
or (Score:2)
More options! (Score:2)
Geeze, these options lack vision! How about...
Coffee plants that can grow in different climates--underwater might be good, since that may be where many of us will be living soon. :)
Self-brewing coffee plants that you can just drink directly from.
Giant coffee plants that can be used in construction, so your house smells like fresh-brewed coffee at all times.
Super-intelligent mobile coffee plants that can be used as soldiers in my plans to take over the world!
Only complaint about decaf (Score:3)
I just wish there was a way to pass all that wonderful caffeine that gets extracted from decaf to people like me who appreciate it.
Cheers,
Dave
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Kola nuts (Score:2)
Where do you think the caffeine in energy drinks comes from?
Kola nut extract perhaps? At least that's where Coca-Cola got its caffeine in the early days.
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Ah, but I like my caffeine to be naturally coffee flavored and I control any other ingredients (half and half first thing in the morning, straight up through the day and then maybe a little Bailey's or similar cream liquor in the evening). Never any sugar! So, none of artificial stuff in "energy drinks", thank you very much.
Cheers,
Dave
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back when I worked as a pharmacy tech, they had a rather large opened jar of pure caffeine citrate powder in the back. Apparently it was used to make a compound of some sort.
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Current decaffeinating processes also remove a good deal of the flavor and aroma of coffee. If it were removed genetically, the stuff might actually be drinkable.
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Coffee seems harmless, so EVERYONE uses it, EXPECTS you to use it.
We'll even eat it out of a cat's ass. That's true horror.
Actually, the coffee addicts will not do that. When they need a fix, they'll just drink from the bottom of the pot, whatever is left there from yesterday, no matter how it tastes.
I know I do.
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you're a rum one, I'd rather drink it out of a mustelid's ass.
(civets are weasels, not felines).
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I can never understand Americans' preoccupation with coffee.
Trying to accuse America of having a preoccupation with coffee is a slap in the face to the proud countries who use and abuse it like a religion.
Why don't you go do something less offensive, like accuse Germany of making horrible beer.
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The Scandinavians drink twice as much coffee as anyone else, why don't you go pick on them?
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what Americans call "coffee" is most certainly not coffee.
ANY amount of chicory in the blend immediately discounts the right to call it "coffee", it's a "chicory blend hot beverage". I guess the closest you could get is "dandelion tea" since chicory is very closely related to dandelion, and for the purpose of the discussion it's the root that's used, unlike coffee which pretty much exclusively uses the roasted pit of a specific variety of cherry.
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I can never understand Americans' preoccupation with coffee.
I can never understand Americans' preoccupation with coffee.
It started when England started raising taxes on tea, leading to the Boston Tea Party.
Joe job (Score:3)
Nice try, Monsanto.
I'm smelling joe job. If it were Monsanto, it'd be properly capitalized without a hyphen: "Roundup Ready beans".
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Every one voting on this never ever saw a coffee plant on his whole life!
I once worked on a coffee plantation, and we used Round-up to kill weed, and the coffee plants never noticed anything...
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GMO is fine with me, but it needs to be clearly labeled as GMO. Right now it is impossible for me to make an informed choice, as even if I decide I don't want to eat anything GMO, there is no labeling to allow me to choose an alternative. Even if they have nothing to hide, the fact that they are hiding rubs me the wrong way.
The GMO lobby keeps it this way, which pisses me off enough to make me oppose them on general principals, even if everything turns out to be completely safe and wholesome.
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It will just lead to a large amount of correlation and causation screaming from ignorant masses.
It isn't packaged food.
I am a big fan of labeling prepared food.
Do you think they should also list seed strain? farming techniques? equipment used to harvest?
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if you go back and actually read the original 'GMO gives rats cancer' paper, you find that the whole papers statistics rests on two female rats of a cancer-prone strain of rat getting cancer, when the control group did not.
Two rats is not significant.
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None of that is true at all.
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The fact is that GMO technology is not safe is a scientifically proven fact.
Wow, all we have here is an anti-GMO rant with no references at all.
Numerous rat studies have proven that they can cause cancer, lesions in the digestive tract, kidney and liver damage, among too many other diseases to count.
Citations please.
the same way that cigarrettes were sold as being good for you,
Our science has advanced since them. There is no parallel between tobacco and GMO.
Jeff Smith has documented how obesity levels of food caused illnesses have skyrocketed since the introduction of GMOs.
Other causes like sedentary living, high sugar diets, high fat diets, high fructose corn syrup, etc have noting to do with it?
Posts without references are rants.
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They turned me into a newt!
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Teeth turn yellow naturally.
Just so you know.
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I wonder how many packs of mj cigarettes do the most "addicted" smokers smoke.
'cause everyone knows everclear has much higher alcohol content than beer but if you drink one shot of everclear, you won't be more drunk than after seven beers.
'shroom coffee (Score:2)
maybe a psylocibin/coffee hybrid?