Word: proteins
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...grown by more than 20 million farmers in some 80 countries. But while cotton accounts for nearly 40% of the fiber used worldwide to make clothing, there's one thing the plant has never been able to do well: feed people. Cottonseeds are a rich source of protein--the current cotton crop produces enough seeds to meet the daily requirements of half a billion people a year. But the seeds can be consumed only after an extensive refining process removes the gossypol, a toxic chemical that helps protect the plant from insect and microbe infestation. "People, pigs, chickens--none...
Remove the gossypol, however, and you'd have a cheap and abundant form of protein for everyone. But get rid of all the gossypol, as plant breeders did in the 1950s, and insects will devour the defenseless cotton. Enter Keerti Rathore, a professor at Texas A&M University, who found a way around the problem through genetic engineering. In new field-trial data, Rathore's team demonstrated that it can turn off the genes that stimulate the production of gossypol in the cottonseeds while the rest of the plant keeps its natural defenses. "This research potentially opens the door...
Genetically modified cottonseeds will need government approval before they hit grocery shelves, and they're more likely to be used first to supplement fish or animal feed. But with the global population still on the rise and farmland limited, the planet can use free protein. And you might even like it. "It's not bad," says Rathore, who has popped a few seeds. "Tastes like chickpeas...
...were coming. He had heard about this cheese Nicaraguans used to make, which died with the Sandinista movement 30 years ago. It's a fresh cheese they hung in the jungle, and it would become infested with maggots, and then they would eat it - it was an increased protein source. So this chef did the same thing, and we show up and cut into it, and there's maggots crawling all over our forks...
...PICALM came as a bit of a surprise. That gene's activity affects the junction between nerve cells, where various neurochemicals work to relay signals from one nerve cell to another. While most of the research attention in Alzheimer's has been on the build up of amyloid protein and tau tangles that strangle nerve function, the identification of PICALM suggests that some part of the disease may have to do with a breakdown in nerve-cell communication at the junctures. "If you had given people a list of genes and said which ones were involved in late onset Alzheimer...