Genetic engineering's fishy results.(Updates)(http://news.uns.purdue.edu)(Brief Article)

E, November, 2004 by Midler, Aaron

Public debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has largely focused around their benefits and drawbacks to human beings (see "Food Fight," cover story, July/August 2003), but a recent study conducted at Purdue University is likely to lead the discussion in a different direction: environmental safety.

Male Japanese medaka fish, genetically modified to grow 83 percent larger than normal, were introduced into a mixed population of unmodified medakas. Though the modified medakas mated more frequently, their offspring were less viable. In a laboratory setting, only 70 of the GMO offspring reached reproductive age for every 100 of the unmodified offspring, meaning that only fractions of the breeding population survive. "As the population becomes more and more...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.