The Role of Synthetic Nitrogen

I haven't posted in quite a while - nearly a year - but lately my mind has been going back to the subject of GMOs quite frequently. It seems that writing this blog has been the beginning of a long term interest in the subject.

I have been reading Michael Pollan's books, In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemna, and both of these works have inspired quite a few daydreams about starting a garden and even keeping a milk cow. What really compelled to write a new post on this blog, however, is Pollan's explanation of synthetic nitrogen's heavy role in how we eat and how synthetic nitrogen came to fill that role. I will admit that my understanding up until I read his ingeniously simple explanation in The Omnivore's Dilemna was slight. Perhaps enviropigs deserve a second look in new light.

Section 4, There goes the sun, of Chapter 2, The Farm, Pollan explains that the widespread use of synthetic nitrogen in agriculture began after World War II when the United States was left with immense amount of ammonium nitrate, used during the war in making explosives. An excellent fertilizer, nitrogen was a resource that had not been harnessed until the early 20th century. Nitrogen is everywhere, it makes up 80 percent of the air, but there was no way to use that nitrogen because it existed in nonreactive, happy atom couples. Our supply of usable nitrogen was limited to what little was created by bacteria and lightning which could split the atom pairs and bond the single nitrogen atoms with hydrogen atoms. In 1909 Fritz Haber, a German scientist, figured out how to mimic lightning and bacteria and "fix" nitrogen. Because of this discovery, usable nitrogen went from being rare to being available in copious amounts.

Once farmers saw how their crops responded to chemical fertilizer the possibilities for raising yield might have seemed endless. Perhaps with an endless supply of nitrogen, we could succeed in making an endless supply of food. The results of that mindset is probably what the development of the Enviropig. I think this little piggy might just be treating the symptoms and not the cause.

Pollan's explanation, of course, is solidly set in context and for more interesting details and greater understanding I would recommend picking up his books.

Jump for the Money

The clone of your favorite pet may fill that void in your heart, but cloning companies are now producing clones that can fill a void in your wallet.

I recently spotted this ad in an issue of Practical Horseman.



ViaGen first made news in 2002 when the company successfully cloned a cow using tissue taken from a carcass. There is no way of knowing the quality of meat without tasting it and with this technology, meat producers can taste a steak and then clone it.

Since then the company has taken on a new kind of cloning. In 2006, the first horse was cloned not for its meat, but for its athletic performance. Commercial cloning entered the picture with the birth of Royal Blue Boon Too, a champion cutting horse.

According to an article by National Geographic News, owner Elaine Hall paid $150,000 to clone her prize broodmare, Royal Blue Boon, whose offspring made more than 2 million dollars altogether.

While many horse registries refuse to registered cloned horses, the monetary benefits of doing so may change the way champions are made in the future. If you don't clone your pet for sentimental reasons, consider financial potential of having Sparky around again.

Steak Garden

It's not an outdoor steak fest. It's the new frontier of meat production: steak in vitro. With the technology available, future homes could see steak sized test tubes alongside window boxes of herbs. The pre-assembled packages would include a small tissue sample of the desired meat (synthetic or natural), a biodegradable frame onto which tissue cells can latch on and grow, and enough nutritious serum to feed the tissues.

The steak might not take on the distinct shape of a dead animal, but perhaps the biodegradable frame could come in a variety of forms. Would you prefer porterhouse or flank steak?

Serum traditionally comes from fetal cows but a chemical serum is now used pretty commonly as well. Since the whole point of growing steaks in a test tube would be to cut back on the impact the current meat industry has on the environment and to save a few happy cows, I'm pretty sure the Trader Joe's version of a "grow your own steak dinner" package would include chemical serum as opposed to all natural.

The result is a formless mass of muscle tissue.

Among the first to grow in vitro meat was the artist group SymbioticA. Their project, "Disembodied Cuisine," went on display in France in 2003. Wired recently published an article on cultured meat production possibly reaching industrial levels. I suppose no one would really like to go through the grossities of growing their own meat in a vat, but talk about supporting local, sustainable food.

What the future will NOT look like

The creative minds that Photoshopped these pictures will not be realizing their visions anytime soon but the pictures are still amazing.

None of the pictures depict animals that would have even the most remote chance of usefulness much less genetic viability. The feelings that the slide show sparks do, however, indicate just how entrenched we are in "the way things are."

Platypus are just as weird as any of the animals in the video as they fit comfortably in no category. The furry, billed, webbed footed and venous mammal is as strange as can be, but we accept them just because they have been around. Who knows? Perhaps playpi are the result of years of evolution that we can now speed up ourselves to create the animals depicted here.

Cocktail, Denatured

My inner geek was sparked when I witnessed DNA being extracted from a strawberry at a recent DIYbio meeting in New York. The whole process was carried out in a shotglass and resulted in what looked like it could a pretty pink drink served up at a bar.

The experiment was done with strawberries, dish detergent, water, and rubbing alchohol. Once the strawberry was reduced to a juicy pulp in a glass, a drop or two of dish detergent was mixed in to help break down cell walls. A little water was mixed in, and then alcohol carefully poured down the side of the glass so that it floated above the strawberry pulp. The strawberry DNA released by the mashing and the detergent slowly rose out of the pulp and susepnded between the pink mush and the alcohol.



The little glass looks pretty cool with a little cloud of DNA floating in the middle and since the rubbing alcohol can be replaced with high grade vodka, the party potential of strawberry DNA extraction is pretty high.

The only problem is the dish detergent. Since there is only a tiny drop, it shouldn't cause major discomfort, but the taste of Dawn might not enhance the party experience. Until we find a substitute for dish detergent stick to layered drinks like this one found in Gourmet magazine.

Biophone

Our cells - not the tiny biological systems but portable phones - have become man's best friend. Or at least his most constant companion. They accompany us everywhere and provide us with everything we need. Music, email, viral videos literally at our fingertips.

Biotechnology has become sophisticated enough for designer biological systems to be a hazy possibility for the future.

Introducing the bioPhone - an idea developed in conversation with William Heath, 36, of Palo Alto, a member of the organization DIYbio, which has recently brought genetic monkeying around to the home kitchen a public spaces.

"Cells are nanomachines - they are the most efficient robost nano-devices," says Heath. He envisions a future full of biological machines and when asked what he thought a biological iPhone would look like, Heath proposed a biological system with a smorgasbord of parts. For example, the bioPhone would be able to photosynthesize, like a plant, and have a nervous system like an animal.

In his view, biotechnology's progress towards genetic design is not something to be feared. "You see how it's inevitable, it's green technology, it's biological," says Heath.

Human Lab Rats and Living Screen

It is the last day to watch a movie projected onto a screen made of living tissue in New York City. Corpus Extremis (Life+), located at Exit Art in Chelsea, is the city’s latest transgenic art exhibit. It opened on February 28 and ends today. The exhibit is dominated by the works hosted by SymbioticA, a program at the University of Western Australia that interweaves the two fields of art and science. Guy Ben Ary and Tanya Visosevic, who form the artist group Biokinetic, display a screen made out of various types of tissue onto which short films are projected. Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, the directors of the Living Culture and Art Project, brought us “Victimless Leather” (a tiny jacket grown out of living tissue) in 2004. Their more recent work “Noark II” explores the creative potential of transgenic science and is a “unified collection of unclassifiable sub-organisms.” Kathy High’s “Petition for Lab Rat Shelter” is a less cryptic exhibit. She has adopted lab rats injected with human DNA and taken care of their physical needs as well as, perhaps, their emotional.

Admission is free and lectures by Rich Pell, founder of the Center for Postnatural History, and Oleg Mavromatti, and co-founder of ULTRAFUTURO will be giving lectures beginning at 6pm.

Exit Art
475 Tenth Ave (on the corner of 36th Street)
Tuesday – Thursday 10am–6pm
Friday 10am – 8pm
Saturday 12-8pm
Closed Sunday and Monday