Author Archives: Chris MacDonald

I blogged last week about GM wheat: Biotech’s Real Customer: Will GM Wheat Producers Repeat Monsanto’s Error? Now this week comes this press release, from Monsanto: Monsanto Company Invests in Developing New Technologies for Wheat With Acquisition of WestBred Business … Continue reading →

The popular assumption is that business hates regulation. That’s not quite true. Like individual people, business likes laws and regulations — within reason, laws and regs protect us, and provide a degree of regularity to life. But of course, we’d … Continue reading →

From Maui Weekly: Council Reviews Taro Bill For those who arrived at the Maui County Council Chambers on Thursday, June 25, anticipating a consensus on a proposed ordinance to ban genetically engineered (GE) kalo, or taro, in Maui County, it … Continue reading →

Here’s an interesting article about the history and future of GM wheat in the U.S. From the High Plains Midwest AG Journal: Future of biotech wheat lies with growers, providers As the wheat industry continues its long progress toward the … Continue reading →

Not all agricultural biotech involves genetic modification. Check out this press release from Genome British Columbia, about a research project based at my alma mater, the University of British Columbia, that will use biotech tools to attempt to develop a … Continue reading →

One key complaint about GM foods is that, so far, none of them has been engineered to have any properties that consumers much care about. Mostly they’ve been engineered to be herbicide-resistant, drought-resistant, and so on — all of which … Continue reading →

I wonder sometimes: is biotech is just too sexy for governments to turn down? I mean, setting aside the qualms some people have about some kinds of stem cell research, biotech is just cooler than cool. It’s new. It’s hip. … Continue reading →

I don’t know much about biofuels, but I’m usually skeptical when I hear it proposed as a really significant source of energy. Could biofuel be produced on a scale similar to the production of petroleum-based fuels? I usually picture a … Continue reading →

Last Friday, I did a 45-minute live interview on CJSR’s Skeptically Speaking, (“the world’s only skeptical talk show” — FM88.5 in Edmonton, Alberta). The topic was ethical issues in biotech. The conversation covered ethical issues personal genomics and gene patenting, … Continue reading →

Barriers to access to your own genetic info is a big issue right now, and likely to get bigger. From Genomeweb’s Pharmacogenomics Reporter: Illumina’s New DTC Sequencing Service Addresses Ethical Quandary by Requiring Prescription In launching its consumer whole genome … Continue reading →