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tonymmorley OP t1_ivj50rf wrote

Hey team, r/Futurology, can we get an agriculture flair?

>"Using the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR, researchers are altering crops and animals to add desirable traits and remove undesirable ones." From "Boosted Tomatoes" to "Super Grains", and from "Climate-resistant cattle" to "Fast-growing beef", genetic engineering (GE) foodstuffs is the future of human agriculture; to paraphrase Mark Watney from The Martian, civilization is "going to have to science the shit out of this.”
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"Some cattle in subtropical and tropical areas have a rare, but naturally occurring genetic variant that causes them to develop a “slick” haircoat. Because this coat is shorter and lighter than the standard coat, those cattle are less prone to heat stress, which can be both deadly for cattle and costly for farmers. 🐄

Instead of trying to produce beef cattle with this trait this old-fashioned way, through imprecise selective breeding, Reombinetics used CRISPR to give beef cattle an inheritable form of the variant, leading to a line of slick-coated beef cattle. At the time of the FDA’s ruling, it said it expected to have meat from its heat-resistant animals ready for consumers within two years."

Hey team, I'm a progress studies writer and communicator; if you enjoy my work, you can follow along on the blue bird platform. 🐤

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