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Genetically Modified Foods

preserving those characteristics over time. A common example is corn: around 10,000 years ago, farmers in Mexico began saving and replanting the larger kernels of the wild grass teosinte. Over time, the cobs and kernels of the plant became larger and more plentiful, resulting in what we now know as corn or maize. In fact, because of our experiments with artificial selection, much of the food we eat today looks nothing like what our distant ancestors ate. Humans have also selectively bred animals to create stronger, more productive offspring. Hybridization is the breeding of two genetically distinct individuals to create a new organism. It may involve breeding organisms from within the same species or between two different species. Technically, selective breeding is a kind of genetic modification, in that humans are deliberately altering species to arrive at desired outcomes. The difference is that, in selective breeding, all the genetic material of the parent—both desirable and undesirable traits—is passed onto the offspring. With modern genetic modification, scientists can isolate individual pieces of genetic material for removal and replacement. They can also incorporate genetic material from one species into another, totally unrelated species, such

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Jellyfish Pigs

One of the more outlandish genetic modifications in recent years was the glow-in-the-dark pigs Chinese scientists created by injecting

embryos with jellyfish genes in 2013. Some people saw these luminescent pigs as a dangerous (and even frightening) manipulation of an innocent species, but supporters pointed to the fact that the experiment was designed to research cheaper cures for human genetic disorders like hemophilia . The glow was used as visual proof that the genetic material injected into the embryo had been assimilated into the animal. In the future, scientists hope to use similar methods to produce beneficial enzymes (substances that start reactions) in animals that can be used as inexpensive medicines for humans. ▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲▲

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