Have some rice, with a side of homo sapiens

The Independent reports that the makers of genetically modified foods have begun inserting human genes into food crops:

In the first modification of its kind, Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. The gene makes an enzyme, code-named CPY2B6, which is particularly good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the body.



Present GM crops are modified with genes from bacteria to make them tolerate herbicides, so that they are not harmed when fields are sprayed to kill weeds. But most of them are only able to deal with a single herbicide, which means that it has to be used over and over again, allowing weeds to build up resistance to it.



But the researchers at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, have found that adding the human touch gave the rice immunity to 13 different herbicides. This would mean that weeds could be kept down by constantly changing the chemicals used.



Supporting scientists say that the gene could also help to beat pollution.



Professor Richard Meilan of Purdue University in Indiana, who has worked with a similar gene from rabbits, says that plants modified with it could "clean up toxins" from contaminated land. They might even destroy them so effectively that crops grown on the polluted soil could be fit to eat.



But he and other scientists caution that if the gene were to escape to wild relatives of the rice it could create particularly vicious superweeds that were resistant to a wide range of herbicides.

You know, there's another solution to the problem of all those nasty pesticides and chemicals: don't use them. Organic farmers have long since proven that their methods are better for both the land and the food, you stupid moronic *#@!. That's as polite as I can be about people who ignore the obvious and healthy so they can pursue the unnecessary and dangerous.