[extropy-chat] Let the arabadopsis bloom!

[Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.]

This plant is also a prime source of cruciferous  phase 2 enzymes.

Anders Sandberg wrote:

> >From my blog, preaching to the choir here:
>
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20040127/sc_nm/arms_denmark_landmines_dc
> Yahoo! News - Flower-Power Could Help Clear Land mines
>
> A very nice biotech application, a plant that changes color in the
> presence of nitrogen dioxide, marking where mines are buried in the soil.
> The plant, the beloved Arabidopsis thaliana, has been modified by Aresa
> Biodetection. Since the plant can be made male sterile or reproduction
> limited to in the presence of a growth hormone concerns about spreading
> can be ameliorated. But is that the right solution? Maybe we should allow
> it to spread wildly instead.
>
> The careful approach of first clearing the land, then sowing the plant,
> waiting, and then removing the mines and planting something else, might
> work where the mine density is fairly high and doing this kind of clearing
> has few other effects. But in many places clearing the land would cause
> severe erosion, and if the mine density is low it would be a very
> expensive way of finding them (although likely better than plenty of other
> high-tech solutions, and of course safer than having people poke with
> sticks). The method is not presented as a panacea, and it isn't.
>
> But what if modified Arabidopsis (that is also clearly visible as
> modified, e.g. by leaf shape) is simply spread and allowed to grow freely?
> That would be an extremely cost effective way of finding out the presence
> of those truly unexpected mines and marking them.
>
> The ecological risk of the change appears low. Most likely the normal
> strain has an advantage over the modified strain since it adapts to stress
> by changing color (an evolved response that presumably is an advantage)
> while the modified strain won't do it except near mines. And if other
> species were to pick up the mine detecting effect, it would actually
> extend the benefit. Anthocyanins are even antioxidants , so it might be a
> good thing if they get into food :-)
>
> Of course, the political climate in the West is likely mostly against
> this. But if the choice is between a potential, vague and likely very
> small ecological risk and the real and serious effect of land mines, the
> only thing the precautionary principle tells us is to add safeguards to
> the modified plant, not to avoid spreading it. Those holding the
> bioconservative view that nature should not be tampered with under any
> circumstances, they need to explain how the tampering done by slowly
> decaying landmines (not to mention their human cost) is less than the
> change in coloration behavior of a plant.
>
> There are many more likely practical showstoppers - can the seeds be
> produced cheaply, will the plant thrive in affected areas, can people
> reliably use it to find mines and so on. And in many situations other
> methods are still superior. But I think we should carefully consider one
> day releasing this kind of safeguard plants deliberately into the
> environment. If our environment could clearly signal pollution or danger
> it would be far easier to protect - and it would protect us better too.
>
> --
> Anders Sandberg
> http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
> http://www.aleph.se/andart/
>
> The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.
>
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