Gene editing could create spicy tomatoes, say researchers
Spicy tomatoes could soon be on the menu thanks to the rise of genome-editing technology, say researchers. It is not the first time experts have claimed the techniques could help to precisely and rapidly develop fruits and vegetables with unusual traits: scientists have already been looking at changing the colour of kiwi fruits and tweaking the taste of strawberries.
But researchers in Brazil and Ireland say such methods also could offer practical advantages, with spicy tomatoes offering a way of harvesting capsaicinoids, the pungent chemicals found in chilli peppers.
[...] Tomatoes and chilli peppers developed from a common ancestor but diverged about 19m years ago. "All the genes to produce capsaicinoids exist in the tomato, they are just not active," Zsögön said.
Capsaicinoids: Pungency beyond Capsicum (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2018.11.001) (DX)
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:21PM (17 children)
Spicy tomatoes are a waste of good capsaicin.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:29PM (15 children)
The tomato is creating the capsaicin. Maybe you would prefer a tomacco?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:58PM (14 children)
I would prefer they develop an edible tomato.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:06PM (1 child)
The American finds immense pride in his diet of processed foods.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:29PM
The PR department tells the American, from birth, that what they have is the best that could be had, and nobody else has it as good.
It explains a lot of things.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:30PM (1 child)
https://www.npr.org/2011/08/26/139972669/the-unsavory-story-of-industrially-grown-tomatoes [npr.org]
If you dislike the tomatoes available to you, it probably has nothing to do with a tomato's genes, and everything to do with artificial ripening using ethylene gas.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:43PM
"Sun-ripened" is highly significant when it comes to the ultimate taste of tomatoes. We grow our own, and we experiment with different kinds every growing season; we have never found anything in a store that even comes close to tomatoes that were slow-sun-ripened. This goes for every size from cherry to "wants to be a pumpkin in its next life."
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But it's hard.
So hard.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:32PM (9 children)
I am terribly sorry to learn that you suffer from a mutant palette, or perhaps that your taste buds were shot off in [insert correct war here]. Either way, you should probably avoid Olive Garden.
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is too difficult to spell.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @04:15PM (8 children)
If your idea of Italian Cooking is Olive Garden then you have bigger problems than not being able to taste the difference between heritage tomatoes and the those sold in the stores.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @04:37PM (7 children)
The point you completely missed was that Olive Garden serves up lots of tomato-based dishes.
But more importantly: Found an AC Olive Garden snob! Olive Garden serves perfectly adequate Italian-American dishes. Trying to say they don't just tells normal people you're clueless and/or trying to be one of the Cool Kids (and failing.)
Also: Don't forget to lick out your can of Chef Boyardee at lunchtime, now. And watch those edges!
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Do you ever go out, and while you're out,
think "this is exactly why I don't go out"?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @04:51PM (3 children)
Hard mode: Fazoli's [wikipedia.org].
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:08PM
There was another middle-grade Italian-American restaurant, y'clept Johnny Carino's (and now defunct as far as I know), we used to go to that had some decent stuff. They made a pasta sauce that was quite good, and they had a salad dressing they made with Gorgonzola instead of Bleu Cheese that was also very tasty; smooth and rich. Then again, they did that awful continental thing where they served up (very good) bread with a nasty plate of olive oil if you didn't catch the server ahead of time and ask for butter instead.
This particular franchise instance was always packed when we went there, but apparently there were other issues, or stores elsewhere simply weren't doing as well.
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Old people at weddings always tell me "You're next!"
So I started doing it to them... at funerals.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:12PM
Fazoli's looks awful. Is it cheap? It must be cheap.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:39PM
Fazoli's is awful but I love it anyway (though have gone a grand total of one time this last entire year because hurr hurr low-carb diet). It's basically what happens if Olive Garden and McDonalds have mutant babies.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:36PM (1 child)
OK. But their food is only adequate in quality. I've had lots worse, but I've also had a lot better.
That said, these days I avoid both due to starches. And they could have either improved or deteriorated...but I doubt it, as they were pretty much at "commodity level".
OTOH, I can't really judge their tomatoes, as the only tomatoes I ate there were combined into a sauce.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:56PM
Same here. One of my family's close friends had a mom-n-pop Italian restaurant; were I of a mind to be snobbish, I could turn up my nose at most Italian eateries just based on the cooking I was privileged to enjoy there until I moved elsewhere and my career began to eat me up instead. But I just like good food... I'm perfectly okay with a fairly wide range of tastes and approaches. Some of it might be legitimately poor, but some of it is just a matter of taste. No point in going all nuts about it, I guess. And there's always the next meal.
For me at least, there's often a distinct difference in the taste of a sauce based on the quality of the tomatoes used to make that sauce. We make our own with our own tomatoes at home here in the summer and fall; in the winter, we make do with store-bought tomatoes. Not quite up for an indoor garden. If nothing else, it's a reason to look forward to our next pickable batch.
When we're out of town, the only practical option for us is a visit to a restaurant. And I'll try any restaurant once if someone I trust likes it and tells me so. For instance, that's how we found Johnny Carino's [carinos.com], and that was a definite win. Until the local franchise closed. Sigh.
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They said: "You weren't listening, were you?"
I thought: "Isn't that a weird way to start a conversation?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @12:10AM
You probably think McDonald's is a Scotish Resturant.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:53PM
Capsaicin is a natural pesticide humans can, and choose to eat freely. It would help yields and reduce artificial pesticide use.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:11PM (14 children)
Genetically engineer tomatoes to produce salsa.
Use genetic engineering to develop nice plants producing fully formed burritos?
Immigrants could pick the burritos from the trees and package the salsa.
I still want my taco truck on every street corner. Trump promised a taco truck on every street corner if Hillary were to win.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by drussell on Tuesday January 08 2019, @04:31PM (13 children)
... or the fruit salad tree from Futurama?
(although those are almost available already just by grafting... :) )
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:08PM (10 children)
Genetically edited tomatoes: okay. (but once was unthinkable)
Genetically edited animals: okay as long as there is profit to be had.
Genetically edited humans: everyone wants to pretend this is not okay, but corporations will do anything for profit, including manipulating laws and conditioning the population on what is acceptable.
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:21PM (9 children)
Nope. I think it's perfectly okay. In fact, I think it's needed, because it's the only way forward WRT fixing stupid. And when it gets to the point that we can, then if we don't, that's just abuse.
Plus serious genetic error repair, general longevity, vision and other sensory impairment, etc. Be nice if we could all have some in-built semblance of artistic / musical / etc. skills, too. Einstein played both the violin and the piano. Then again, he had problems with his socks and combing his hair... I guess everyone could use a little tune-up. 😊
Bring it on.
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I have neither the time or the crayons to explain.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:32PM (6 children)
I've already considered exactly what you say.
While I have a certain internal reaction that this tampering is scary, I also have a reaction that as long as it actually works and doesn't have some other dire consequences (either individually or as a species) then it would be an improvement.
I'm not sure if you can fix stupid with genetic engineering. In the short term we could more easily fix stupid by simply investing in education. Education is the key to prosperity, as a nation, but the effect is delayed and thus seemingly disconnected as a cause and effect. The west was won/lost because of a technology war with better equipped invading europeans, despite the interstellar distances traveled.
Music and movies both could be fixed by nuking the RIAA and MPAA.
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @06:18PM (3 children)
No, we really can't. Native intelligence is innate; we are born with (in)sufficient cognitive resources for X; it's a physical brain-related issue.
Education can only help those who can understand and integrate what they're being taught. There are hard limits here.
Intelligence/stupidity are hand-wavy terms for a very real range of capability that determines what people can learn, and furthermore, what they can do with it once they've learned it. Or not.
There are people out there who really can't — not don't want to, or avoided managing to — understand the world past [insert level here.] People like that will continue to be born, unless we find a way to stop it from happening. Genetic engineering will almost certainly be that very thing.
Compared to the average person, I'm reasonably gifted, and I'm both aware of it and appreciate it. I've been very successful in my life because of it, no question. But one of the things I am very aware of is that I have well-defined limits on my comprehension that aren't the result of a lack of either education or willingness to learn. Some stuff is way hard for me that is easy for people I know personally. I wish it were not so, but there it is. For instance, my mother spoke English, French, Spanish, Latin and Russian fluently. I speak English well, Spanish poorly, and both Korean and Mandarin very poorly, and not because I want to, haven't invested the effort, or don't keep trying, either. Learning these languages has been very difficult for me. Some areas of math defeat me in a similar fashion. These appear to be very hard ceilings for me.
Same for any other innate characteristic: you are what you get. Vision, height, musicality, etc. Right now, it's basically a roll of the dice. If we can do better than that, I think we should do better. I'd like to be better. I know perfectly well I'm not that good. I also suspect that the smarter you are, the clearer you can perceive your own limits and spot when someone else blows right by them.
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A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single schlep
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:19PM
When I say in the short term we can fix stupid by investing in education:
* We can't fix a biological mental defect
* We CAN fix a lot of the stupid which we currently have in our society
* We cannot turn everyone into gifted geniuses
That's all I meant.
I have a mild form of aspbergers. I can hyperfocus to a degree. Poor people skills. Good machine skills. There are probably others on SN who could relate to that.
People skills, to a degree CAN be learned. On my latest reviews I get comments like I could coach others in how to resolve conflicts . . . that's a surprise to me, but I've been doing what I do for decades. I proactively look to resolve conflicts. From personal experience, whenever there is a conflict, two people are not really seeing each other's perspective. Once everyone's concern it taken into consideration -- often in some kind of design decision -- the end result is even better than what either one person was proposing. The improved solution addresses the problems seen by both people. I also point out that we're on the same team, we have the same goal: to maximize our bonuses. Which at the end of the day means making the company profitable, successful, keeping customers happy, getting more customers, etc.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:43PM (1 child)
Well...there's the size of the bucket (native capacity for intelligence, "g-factor") and then there's the effort put into filling said bucket. I have no doubt that millions of geniuses have lived and died behind a ploughshare somewhere, and equally that plenty of people are holding positions and being showered with intellectual accolades far beyond their actual capacity due to just being in the right place at the right time.
Wouldn't it make the most sense to help everyone become the best human s/he can be, up to capacity? I'd rather work with a good-hearted janitor with an IQ of 80 than some entitled, sociopathic C-suite parasite with an IQ of 150. There is a reason INT and WIS are separate dice.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 09 2019, @12:44AM
I fall pretty far over towards the "we'd all be better off if people were smarter" side of these issues.
I certainly have no beef with "find a better way to educate them", and even have what I think is a reasonable list of things I would like to see changed in the educational and social systems to facilitate that. But the odds of them actually changing... not high. Too many entrenched hooks drawing blood cast by the religious, the morally constipated, the sports-afflicted, and the "OMG we can't let kids enter the work force" crowd. Just for starters.
OTOH, the odds of genetic engineering becoming able to provide more intellectual capacity without otherwise screwing us up... I think those are actually pretty high, as in, if we don't actually blow ourselves up, destroy the climate, or meet an interstellar object in an unfortunate manner, it'll happen. Fundamentally, it's a technical challenge, and most likely a simple implementation once perfected. Not saying that the NIMBYs and reincarnated Luddites won't try to get right in there and piss all over everything. Pretty sure they will. Pretty sure they'll fail, too. There's far too much to gain here. Longevity, same thing.
Well, it remains to be seen how much of what we see as a natural divide between wisdom and intelligence is just another genetically guided characteristic. That whole "nurture vs. nature" thing has taken so many arrows it seems like psychobabble's most prominent cactus to me. It seems it isn't all that much about nurture, as long as you're not way out on the extremes. Either that, or it's factors we simply have no understanding of. IMHO.
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If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @06:54PM (1 child)
I actually missed a great example I have personal experience with as far as innate capabilities go.
I have aphantasia [scientificamerican.com]. Most people can close their eyes, and if asked to visualize a beach, they'll actually perceive an image of a beach. You can ask them about details, and they'll tell you what they're seeing.
I can't do that. I've never been able to. I can't visualize anything at all when I'm conscious. No images of any kind. When I sleep, and dream, I do get some visualization, but it seems to be very vague, as I have never recalled any detail at all from a dream afterwards. For most of my life I thought when someone said something like "you can see this in your mind's eye", I thought that was just a metaphor for remembering a description in words-and-feelings. I didn't realize it was an actual image.
Since it turns out most people can do this (97% or more can visualize people, scenes and objects when they try), I feel like I lost a significant bit of the "innate human capabilities" lottery there. Would I take a genetic fix for this if I could? You bet. In a heartbeat. Maybe even faster.
Perhaps as an attempt at compensation, I am very into photography. Photos have always served me as a visual memory. If I don't have, or can't find elsewhere, a photo of something, or physically get back to the scene, person or object, I'll never see it again. So I shoot a lot of pictures. I've been doing that since I first managed to get my hands on a camera back in the 1960's.
Also, as a teenager, I indulged in using LSD; under the influence, I definitely imagined things visually — eyes closed and open. I was very fond of the drug specifically because of the awesome visuals, but it didn't even occur to me back then that this might be something along the lines of "normal" that I was missing when not high. I only found out when I accidentally ran into an article that described the condition. That was a very interesting day for me. In the Chinese sense of the imprecation "may you live in interesting times."
--
On the Canary Islands, there isn't even one canary.
On the Virgin Islands... still no canaries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:21PM
No virgins on either :)
And thanks for the story, it is interesting to hear from people who have some odd man out feature to them :)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:40PM (1 child)
The problem is that the error rate is currently too high. There's also the problem of ignorance and secondary effects, but mutations have that problem even worse.
Still...getting rid of, say, muscular dystrophy, would be highly defensible...and the normal form of the gene is known. So in that kind of case the only problem is the error rate.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @06:19PM
It will probably be impossible to reach a consistent zero write errors, but maybe synthetically created embryos will one day have less write errors than naturally created embryos. And then we'll have to ban impregnation by sexual intercourse. :-)
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:12PM (1 child)
Jesus likes to curse fruit trees. [wikipedia.org] He just didn't give a fig about them.
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"Faith": The possessive form of "Superstition."
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:50PM
That's a very interesting story to remember. I always remember that it happened in the early spring, and to blame a fruit tree for not carrying fruit in the early spring is rather foolish. (Perhaps the fig trees as far south as Israel have a different idea of the weather, however. A quick google yields:
though, so I don't think so. But perhaps there's a spring fig season. And also, Passover was in late April the year that's supposed to have happened...so maybe it's more reasonable that it seems based on local figs.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:00PM
It has always been too fucking difficult to add spices post plucking your tomatoes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:13PM
While I often agree with that mindset when it come to screwing around with genetics statements like that scare the Hells out of me. I know of too many cases where a genetically engineered life form almost caused a possible environmental catastrophe to feel comfortable with casually screwing around with the genes of living things.
I'm all for continuing the research in the lab, but this kind of "hey lets fuck with inherited characteristics and let it loose for fun and profit" attitude just rubs me the wrong way.
Just my $.02
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 08 2019, @08:45PM (3 children)
I'm all over this. Sriracha on the vine! Pre-packed natural salsa! Assuming this doesn't have other unforeseen deleterious effects of course.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:18PM (1 child)
I guess it will keep the fucking deer from eating it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 09 2019, @12:42AM
Might help with the insects too. I have seen a lot of tomato plants ruined by various bugs. Edit some capsaicinoids in there, maybe a little nicotine, and you're golden.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 09 2019, @12:40AM
Sriracha doesn't have tomatoes in it though.
I'm thinking of making some on my own (e.g. fermenting it on a counter, stirring occasionally).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @01:58AM
immigration is good! just consider the story of the baby paprika -aka- chilli and tomatoe plant.
they both were dragged into exile by invaders only to grow new roots oversea and become stable foods so ingraid that many people in their exile home country think that they are natives ... only to return to their home continent as heroes.
(the papaya is also a import from the americas).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @11:25AM (1 child)
What could possibly go wrong [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @11:42AM
Humanity has nothing to fear from plants [wikipedia.org]