WEBVTT - How Could CRISPR Improve Agriculture?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren Bola bam Here. Back in September, we

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<v Speaker 1>did an episode about Crisper, the genetic engineering tool that's

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<v Speaker 1>based on how bacteria protect themselves from viruses. Often compared

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<v Speaker 1>to a pair of molecular scissors. Crisper uses specialized proteins

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<v Speaker 1>called casts a short for Crisper associated enzymes to cut

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<v Speaker 1>strands of DNA or RNA at a precise, preprogrammed location.

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<v Speaker 1>Then the system can insert or remove the desired gene

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<v Speaker 1>at that site, and while a gene edited organism. Today,

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<v Speaker 1>we wanted to talk about a few ways that the

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<v Speaker 1>technology is being experimented with, for example, growing spicy tomatoes

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<v Speaker 1>and decaf coffee beans. Imagine biting into a vine ripened tomato.

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<v Speaker 1>What flavors come to mind? Sweet? Bright? Maybe a little savory?

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<v Speaker 1>What about spice? See Thanks to an international team of geneticists,

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<v Speaker 1>that might be the future flavor profile of some tomatoes.

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<v Speaker 1>Researchers in Brazil and Ireland have proposed Crisper as a

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<v Speaker 1>means of activating dormant capsaiusnoid jeans in tomato plants. The

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<v Speaker 1>same genetic sequence that gives chilies their kick. In addition

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<v Speaker 1>to creating the perfect bloody Mary, the plants promise an

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<v Speaker 1>economical alternative to traditional peppers, which are notoriously tricky to grow.

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<v Speaker 1>Crisper can also offer a boost to your daily breakfast routine,

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<v Speaker 1>or rather take the boost away. A United Kingdom company

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<v Speaker 1>is currently developing a coffee bean engineered to grow caffeine free.

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<v Speaker 1>That's a big deal because today's coffee beans have to

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<v Speaker 1>be chemically decaffeinated, usually by soaking them an ethyl acetate

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<v Speaker 1>or methylene chloride. This harsh chemical bath strips out both

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<v Speaker 1>the beans caffeine and some of their flavor. Crisper Coffee

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<v Speaker 1>promises a jitter free cup of Joe with all the

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<v Speaker 1>roasty goodness of full cat. But what about no hangover wine.

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<v Speaker 1>If you've ever wished you could have a night out

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<v Speaker 1>on the town without suffering a head splitting hangover the

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<v Speaker 1>next morning, you might be in luck. A team of

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<v Speaker 1>scientists at the University of Illinois have used their genetic

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<v Speaker 1>scissors to boost the health benefits of a strain of

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<v Speaker 1>yeast that's used to ferment wine, and they've snipped out

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<v Speaker 1>the genes responsible for next day headaches. Zacora mices sarah

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<v Speaker 1>de si a. The yeast in question is a polyploid organism,

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<v Speaker 1>meaning that it has many copies of every gene, as

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<v Speaker 1>opposed to the sometimes usual too. This feature makes the

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<v Speaker 1>yeast both highly adaptable and extremely difficult to genetically engineer

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<v Speaker 1>using older methods, which could only target one copy of

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<v Speaker 1>a gene at a time, But Crisper allows genetic engineers

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<v Speaker 1>to cut across every single version of a gene in

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<v Speaker 1>one go. Using it, the Illinois team was able to

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<v Speaker 1>boost the amount of heart healthy resveratrol in their wine

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<v Speaker 1>while leaving the hangover on the cutting room floor. Of course,

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<v Speaker 1>altering plants is one thing. What about animals. Let's look

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<v Speaker 1>at the thorny case of horns and cattle. When it

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<v Speaker 1>comes to cattle farming, horns are usually a no go

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<v Speaker 1>on a fully grown bull. They pose danger to the farmer,

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<v Speaker 1>the other cattle, and occasionally to the animal itself. Traditionally,

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<v Speaker 1>farm raised cattle are d horned by annihilating the horn

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<v Speaker 1>producing cells on the animal's forehead, located on two bony

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<v Speaker 1>proturbances called horn buds. The buds are destroyed by one

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<v Speaker 1>of several different painful means by cutting them out with

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<v Speaker 1>knives or by applying hot irons, electricity, or caustic substances

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<v Speaker 1>like sodium hydroxide. These practices can sometimes lead to facial

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<v Speaker 1>disfigurement or eye damage, but crisper might just offer a

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<v Speaker 1>more ethical alternative. Using crisper, scientists of engineered a gene

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<v Speaker 1>for hornlessness in cattle, effectively eliminating the need for horn

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<v Speaker 1>removal process in those animals. Even more interestingly, some of

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<v Speaker 1>these gene edited bulls have been able to pass the

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<v Speaker 1>trade onto their offspring, which is crucial for keeping the

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<v Speaker 1>trade in population circulation in scientific circles. This has been

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<v Speaker 1>seen as a potentially huge success story. Historically, the general

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<v Speaker 1>public has had less enthusiasm for gene tweaked crops and livestock,

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<v Speaker 1>although recent research suggests that those attitudes may be changing.

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<v Speaker 1>But what if crisper were used for something a little

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<v Speaker 1>less Charlotte's Web and a little more Jurassic Park. Perhaps

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<v Speaker 1>the most far out used for crisper at the moment

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<v Speaker 1>is its potential to bring back entire species from the dead,

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<v Speaker 1>and right now there's serious talk about resurrecting one particular species,

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<v Speaker 1>the passenger pigeon. Passenger pigeons used to rove the forests

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<v Speaker 1>of North America in flocks hundreds of millions strong, darkening

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<v Speaker 1>the skies and thundering through woods and what conservationist although

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<v Speaker 1>Leopold described as a feathered tempest. However, that started to

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<v Speaker 1>change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as European colonists

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<v Speaker 1>radiated across the continent. In addition to being ubiquitous, passenger

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<v Speaker 1>pigeons had the unfortunate quality of being delicious. They were

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<v Speaker 1>hunted in mass by hungry euro Americans, both for food

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<v Speaker 1>and sport. This probably wouldn't have been as devastating to

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<v Speaker 1>the bird's total population, except the colonists simultaneously destroyed much

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<v Speaker 1>of their nesting grounds. This brutal combination drove the species

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<v Speaker 1>into steep decline by the early twenty century. The last

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<v Speaker 1>known passenger pigeon, a bird named Martha, died in captivity

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<v Speaker 1>in nineteen fourteen. Now scientists are looking to crisper as

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<v Speaker 1>a way to bring these iconic birds back. A California

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<v Speaker 1>based biotech organization called Revive and Restore has a dedicated

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<v Speaker 1>passenger pigeon project, which aims to re establish the species

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<v Speaker 1>by modifying the genome of the closely related band tailed pigeon.

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<v Speaker 1>If successful, the group says they could use this approach

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<v Speaker 1>to resurrect all kinds of extinct or critically endangered creatures,

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<v Speaker 1>from the black footed ferret to the wooly mammoth. Whether

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<v Speaker 1>or not they should is, of course, still a matter

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<v Speaker 1>of some debate, but there's no denying that Crisper has

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<v Speaker 1>brought stuff of science fiction into the realm of the

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<v Speaker 1>potentially possible. Today's episode is based on the article spicy

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<v Speaker 1>Tomatoes hangover proof Wine. Is there anything Crisper Can't do?

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<v Speaker 1>On how Stuff Works dot Com? Written by Joanna Thompson.

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<v Speaker 1>Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership

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<v Speaker 1>with how stuff Works dot Com, and it is produced

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<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Clay. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio

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