Genetically Modified Organisms

Genetically modified plants and animals are becoming more and more common in our lives. Some are purely designed to help scientists more easily study some aspect of biology while others are important for their medicinal or food value. The image here is a picture of grains of golden rice - the rice strain that has been genetically engineered to produce beta-carotene presumably to make it more nutritious, though others argue that it is nothing more than a marketing scheme. There are a lot of concerns around Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and like just about anything there are pros and cons that need to be considered when deciding whether we should proceed in a certain direction with GMOs. To help you learn more about GMOs and the science behind them here are a few links:

WikiPedia article on genetic engineering - a good general article


New Scientist - this section of this website is dedicated to all things concerning GMOs. Scroll down to see an list of about a billion news articles on GMOs (well, maybe only a million).