Word: cornes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...world's poorest people. At least 1 million children, weakened by vitamin-A deficiency, die every year and an additional 350,000 go blind. Potrykus saw his rice as the modest start of a new green revolution: bananas that wouldn't rot on the way to market; corn that could supply its own fertilizer; wheat that could thrive in drought-ridden soil...
...consumer-advocacy groups were the first to launch major protests that have since spread worldwide. Environmentalists in India have filed suit against Monsanto to prevent it from testing genetically modified cotton. In the Philippines, farmers have demonstrated against seed giants Monsanto and Dupont's field tests of Bt corn. And activists there point to Miracle Rice?a product of the Green Revolution in the '60s?as a cautionary lesson. Its wholesale adoption in Southeast Asia led to a rice monoculture, making crops more vulnerable to insect pests and disease, and more dependent on pesticides...
...potential sources of allergens. That's because the transferred genes contain instructions for making proteins and some proteins?those in peanuts, for example?cause allergic reactions. Then there is the problem of "genetic pollution," as opponents of biotechnology term it. Pollen grains from such wind-pollinated plants as corn, for instance, are carried far and wide. The continuing flap over Bt corn and cotton?the gene of a common soil bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis), a natural insecticide, is transferred to the plants?has provided more fodder for the debate. Ecologists are concerned that widespread planting of these crops will spur...
BRAINY BIRD Chirpy-Chi ($25) is Tiger Electronics' latest attempt to build the perfect robotic animal toy, and it's safe to say it's getting closer. When called to action, the toy sings (up to 40 songs) and begs for its ear-of-corn toy, which it "eats" with jabbing movements and excited warbles. Though a successor to Furby and Poo-Chi, this plastic, squawking, nonspecific bird doesn't exhibit the same annoyingly earnest cuteness. Even more important: Chirpy-Chi goes to sleep in a hurry and doesn't wake up at every little sound...
...Genetically Modified Foods Millions of bushels of genetically modified corn, approved for animal feed but not for human consumption, turned up in Taco Bell taco shells and other food products. Though most of the food was recalled before it was eaten, the high-tech mix-up increased public skepticism about so-called Frankenfoods. In the meantime, public-health experts still have high hopes for golden rice, a strain that's genetically enriched with a precursor of vitamin A and that could help prevent blindness in hundreds of thousands of children in impoverished countries each year...