yourphysicsiskarkatrocious:ischemgeek:fuckyeah-nerdery:pyronoid-d:escapedosmil:nizzlekicks
yourphysicsiskarkatrocious: ischemgeek: fuckyeah-nerdery: pyronoid-d: escapedosmil: nizzlekicks: When you broke but you woke Wait… Guys what? Is this what you guys think it means when GMO comes up in conversation? Do you know what else is a GMO? Dogs. Literally ALL dogs have had their genetics modified to make them more docile, loyal, trusting, energetic, obedient ect. Ears of corn used to be the size of your thumb. Through selective ‘breeding’ we chose the strains of corn that were the biggest, fastest growing, most resilient ect. Ect. THAT is a GMO. I don’t know where the idea that genetic modification meant they’re injecting your food stuffs with chemicals to change its DNA. That’s not how it works. However, they ARE spraying your veggies with pesticides and that is something you should be worried about. Companies like Monsanto are evil. But not because they are breeding crops to feed more people. But because they’re monopolizing the farming market, sueing farmers who share a geographic area and have some of the same strains of crops in their fields because of unavoidable cross pollination and lying about their business practices. This is Normal Borlaug. In 1942 he received his Ph. D in plant pathology and genetics. In Mexico, he developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease resistant varieties of wheat. A genetically modified food. He introduced these to Mexico, Pakistan and India, resulting in double the wheat yields in a 5 year span. In 1970, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for saving one billion lives from starvation, and contributing to world peace through increasing the world food supply. Genetically modified food is great. This, a thousand fucking times this. Privilege is spouting and spreading pseudo-science bullshit you saw on your Facebook feed or on Twitter because unlike people in drought and famine prone areas of the world, you have the option to do just that. Those other parts of the world that don’t have the benefit of a food surplus and can’t pick and choose what they eat depend on GMOs to not die of starvation or watch their children waste away.I despise Monsanto as much as the next person and if they ever go out of business, I’ll be the first to dance a jig, but condemning GMOs just because one megacorp is a pile of shitbags is beyond idiotic. If scientists can create new strains of seeds that can withstand disease, pests, all while yielding more foodstuff, then we should be throwing our support behind them. Also, “They are feeding us chemicals!” is a fundamentally ridiculous statement. Why? As a chemist, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Everything is chemicals. LET’S HAVE A VISUAL AID TO THIS. THIS IS A CHEMICAL. LOOK AT ALL THOSE CHEMICAL BITS HANGING OFF IT. ALL THOSE ATOMS. CAN’T GET MORE CHEMICAL THAN THIS. MOST OF THE CORNERS ARE CARBON ATOMS, EXCEPT THE ONE THAT’S CLEARLY MARKED AS AN OXYGEN. THE FORMULA IS C6H12O6. NOW, IF YOU’VE DONE ANY KIND OF CHEMISTRY, THE NAME OF THIS SPECIFIC CHEMICAL SHOULD BE FAMILIAR TO YOU. TO BE SPECIFIC, THIS IS A CHEMICAL CALLED “GLUCOSE”. WHILE IT CERTAINLY SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN IN EXCESSIVE LEVELS, IT IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD PROBABLY BEAR IN MIND, BECAUSE MOST CARBOHYDRATES YOU’LL EAT EITHER CONTAIN IT, OR CONTAIN A LONG STRING OF IT, A SUBSTANCE KNOWN AS STARCH - THIS CAN BE FOUND IN RICE, POTATOES AND SUCHLIKE. IN MANY WAYS, IT IS THE FUEL FOR THE ENGINE THAT KEEPS THE HUMANB BODY FROM DYING, BECAUSE ONE OF THE MAJOR REACTIONS THAT PRODUCES ENERGY IS RUN LARGELY ON GLUCOSE MOLECULES. MEANING THAT IF YOU ELIMINATE “CHEMICALS” FROM YOUR DIET, YOU WILL NOT SO MUCH DIET AS DIE. ELIMINATE PESTICIDES, ARTIFICIAL FERTILISERS AND SO ON? IF YOU WANT, GO AHEAD. BUT GET RID OF CHEMICALS FROM YOUR DIET AND YOU CANNOT EAT. YOU CANNOT EVEN BREATHE, BECAUSE OXYGEN IS A CHEMICAL. THIS HAS BEEN A PSA ON BEHALF OF THE INTERSPECIES FOUNDATION FOR CONDESCENDINGLY EXPLAINING BASIC SCIENCE TO PEOPLE WHO ARE THROWING AROUND TERMS WITH WELL-KNOWN AND DEFINED MEANINGS WITHOUT CARING WHAT THOSE MEANINGS ACTUALLY ARE. Actually, I’m gonna take a moment to object to eliminating artificial fertilizers, too. ‘Natural’ fertilizers generally means animal shit. As with 'non-natural’ fertilizers, the key nutrients offered to plants are Nitrogen and Phosphorous, but the balance of each that a given crop needs is not the balance that shit has in it. Using natural fertilizer generally ends up with way too much Phosphorus left over, which seeps into the land slowly poisoning it and runs off into the water causing algea blooms which can kill off aquatic life.Yes, you can limit this damage with crop rotations, or letting fields lie fallow, etc, but that all means growing less food on that land - fine for wealthy nations with surplus food, not so great elsewhere.'Artificial’ Fertilizer can give the same Nitrogen and Phosphorus, in amounts balanced to what your crops need, and avoid a lot of that mess and trade off.Of course, as with GMOs, it can be done in a shitty way, and some mega corps do it in a shitty way, and fuck Monsanto. But artificial fertilizers are just another potentially very powerful and helpful technological tool that shouldn’t just be thrown out because “chemicals”. -- source link