StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries: GMOs with Bill Nye (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 12, 2015

Guest host Bill Nye the Science Guy says he’s changed his mind about GMOs. Find out why when he and co-host Chuck Nice answer fan submitted questions about the controversial subject of Genetically Modified Organisms. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Greetings, greetings, Bill Nye here. Welcome to StarTalk Radio. It's Cosmic Queries. Taking your questions from the cosmos and providing insights, perspectives, nominally answers. And I'm here with my beloved colleague, Chuck Nice. Chuck, good to see you.

Hey, Bill. Always good to be seen. Good to see you, too. And so you have some queries from out there in the electric internet space. That is correct. From the ether known as the internet we have from all over, whether it's Twitter or Facebook or Google+, any of the many incarnations where you'll find StarTalk. This is what the kids use. This is what the kids use. With their electric computer machines.

Pretty soon we'll be on Snapchat, and that will actually destroy my daughter's life because dad is on snapchat oh that would be it would be no point well this is what happens my daughter she goes on to something finds a new app i'm like oh that's kind of cool and then the moment i get on it she's just like this app's totally not cool anymore and then she's like like, now I'm on this app. I'm like, oh, okay. So you don't have any inclination to get on her algebra app or her world history app? No, I would never do that because I don't want to give her the excuse to get off of it. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. Kids today.

All right, let's get to work. Hey, let's get to work. Genetically modified organisms. Yep, that is what we're talking about. Before we begin, we're doing a two-parter here, and I have a ton of questions from GMOs, and they are all, here's the weird thing, and I don't know, they are all addressed to you. They're saying, Bill, dear Mr. Nye, dearest Mr. Nye, why are all these people asking you about GMOs? Here's the thing.

Okay. all these people asking you about uh gmos here's here's the thing okay i wrote a book a new york times bestseller undeniable evolution in the science of creation yes and in that book i had by the way it's a great book i love you man uh by the way in that or the point is or the thing of it is in the book i have a chapter about genetically modified organisms right and at that time when i wrote it i said it's always good to be cautious it's uh you don't know what you're going to do to the ecosystem uh but this led to uh controversy because it turns out gmos in my opinion i spent some more time i met the the guy who won the world food prize okay uh rob fraley won it's like the uh nobel prize for farming for agriculture agriculture and he's in my opinion really not such a bad guy and uh he

believes that we can raise more food than ever on less land in other words we have 7.2 almost 7.3 billion people on earth today okay he. He believes, or his colleagues, believe they can raise food for 9 billion people on 2% less land. Which is great. That's a noble goal. That is a noble goal. And here's the thing that happened, in my opinion. Monsanto developed something called glyphosate.

Okay. Or rather, a salt of glyphosate okay or rather a salt of glyphosate this is a way to put this chemical onto soil and have it stay there pretty well okay anyway it kills everything that's green kills everything by inhibiting the shikimate acid pathway so you're literally salting the earth yes yes however uh what rob fraley and these several other guys who were working at Monsanto, the behated Monsanto, what they did is develop a gene that lets this shikimic acid pathway get completed in the green plant anyway. Gotcha.

And this is the so-called Roundup- ready soybean corn. Cotton was the first one. Right. And here's, there's two things. So now everybody is familiar with Roundup as a weed killer. It does kill weeds. It kills any green plant. Any green plant. With a couple exceptions, which are quite relevant. Anyway, he argues that glyphosate's really not such a bad thing compared to all the other herbicides. Glyphosate's really not such a bad thing. Compared to all the other herbicides, glyphosate's pretty benign, which I've done research now and I've decided that's true. I've changed my mind about genetically modified foods. That's the top line.

So it's the top line. You've changed your mind about GMOs. So I looked into it. There's no difference between allergies among GMO eaters and non-GMO eaters. There is a big difference in inputs from an agricultural standpoint. Organic farming takes a lot more water, takes a lot more tillage. Yes. Actually, you end up with less diversity of microbes in the soil with modern roundup ready

crops because you don't have to till, you don't have to turn the soil over to kill the weeds. Right. You don't have to till. You don't have to turn the soil over to kill the weeds. Right. However, there is a notorious weed called pigweed, which is every bit as friendly as it sounds. Oh, okay. But is it as delicious as bacon?

Actually, we people used to eat it, eat the leaves of oranthus plants. But now it's considered a weed because you have to go to a lot of trouble to get the food worth out of it. Gotcha. And it has a redundant gene now. In other words, it has evolved over the last couple of decades. Okay. So that it has, uh, it amplified the gene that makes the shikimic acid. And so Roundup doesn't kill it. It can't kill it.

Yeah. So now you have a Roundup resistant weed now. That's what you got. So right now they control what the adverb is mechanically. They tear it up. They dig it up. Yeah. And these guys.

The old fashioned way. That's right. The farmers at Monsanto and Pioneer and DuPont, they all tell stories. These are seed companies. They all tell stories. When they were kids, they were farmers. They dug up weeds. Right. and it was not really the good old days so I've changed my mind about genetically modified organisms and

that's why these things have come in I mean I but I would claim Chuck that I went about it in a scientific fashion let's take a query let's go to the queries this is Corey Garst coming to us from Google+. What kind of research has been done to show what effects GMOs do or do not have on humans? Well, this is exactly the point. Thank you, Corey. Is that his name? That is Corey Garst from Google+. Yes, from out there.

So what they, we, it has done is that is the one thing you can test is the effects of food. I mean, that's one straightforward thing you can test that's not that different from 20 years ago. You feed the food to your good friends, the lab rats. Okay. Yeah. And the mice. And you say, what do you think?

Right. So Steve, if that's his name. If that's the mouse's name, Steve. Henrietta. Right. As long as it's not mickey you're fine uh i think mickey's really hard that's a hard lab rat to have to well to kill would be really hard right yeah well for some so the thing is there's no the genetically modified food has no effect on us i mean that is to say there's no difference between it and organically raised food. This is scientifically provable.

It's certainly provable to my satisfaction. And that's like the most straightforward thing about it is to see if it still is nutritious and see if it has any allergic effect. And it absolutely does not. In fact, in general, all of these foods are more nutritious. They're corn kernels are bigger. That is the first time I've ever heard that assertion made. Well, just in general all of these foods are more nutritious they're well now that is the first time i've ever heard that assertion well just in general i mean you get more soybean per hectare per acre oh i got you you get more corn per acre per hectare you get bigger kernels of corn so from

a voluminous standpoint well not just that if you're gonna if the if the bushel of corn weighs so many kilos or pounds how much of that is nutritious corn and how much of that is Cobb unedible in edible okay that's a very good point yes yeah you get a lot more kernel than Cobb yeah that's in that one example the famous example so then the other thing that's happened with genetically modified foods and this may be in the in the future queries. The other thing that's happened is it's led to the success of this technology of allowing you to put glyphosate on fields and then plant things like crazy,

is people have raised enormous tracts of land in a single crop because it's easier. Gotcha. And this is so-called monoculture. And this has had two things. First of all, you, you lose diversity in your farming and which leads to, uh, a loss of diversity in the microbes that support plants and a loss of diversity. And this, the rate at which different pollinate double flowers appear. This is to say, okay, if all the soybean plants come to go to flower at the same time the bees have to work that whole deal right they can't go from this plant to that plant to this plant

you'll notice the cherry blossoms show up first right and then that's their trick right so the bees and everybody they show up and they're like hey you know we're doing cherry blossoms can we say do on this show yeah do what they're doing we're doing cherry come on you know birds do what bees do that's right we know what the junk cools show up then the daffodils and there's a sequence that has come to by the way clearly the whores of the plant world the daffodils but i'm just saying it's just on your mind it's just on your mind i mean nothing's anything wrong with that whatever you're into consentingenting adult, it's all good. Harvestable plants, fine. No, so this has led to monoculture, but I go along with the idea.

I mean, no, I claim that the success of genetic modification with respect to glyphosate herbicide does not necessarily mean you plant a monoculture and stress out bee colonies. Got you. You could, that's not the cause and effect. That's so funny when you say that. I just hear Jerry Seinfeld going, what are we going to do? There's so many flowers all at once. That was a terrible Jerry Seinfeld impersonation. Yeah. And it was also my understanding that was you doing Jerry Seinfeld being a bee. Being a bee, yes.

A female bee. Yes, exactly. So, by the way, all the bees you see are girls. They're all females. That's true. You very seldom see a man bee. Because they kick the drones out as soon as they're finished mating with the queen, and it's just like they go straight Beyonce to the left, to the left, all your stuff in a

box to the left. Get out. I'll keep that in mind should i become a drone uh b a drone b a drone b but normally the way you started that it sounds like good work if you can get it yeah it does in a way so there's no difference in allergic reaction and um and health concerns with respect to genetically modified foods compared with organic or non-genetically modified foods. And we know that because the research has been done on mice.

Oh, on mice and people. On people. It's been going on for almost 25 years. Fantastic. And nobody gets sick from it. In fact, people are, in general, they get more food from a given hectare acre of land and the strange thing that was pointed out to me and i did some research well over 90 percent of the world's farmers are small farmers right and they all use roundup ready crops or genetically

modified crops because they're just so much more productive okay so as i say about glyphosate and i'm not an expert on roundup, this isn't my thing, but I've done some research. There's two things that happened when Roundup was introduced. First of all, everybody was afraid of it because it does kill every green plant. Well, that's something to be afraid of. Then the second thing is everybody started using it because it works so well. But see, that's even more disturbing.

Well, so there you have it. This is the troubling bifurcated effect. Hey, this is scary as hell. I know what. We should all use it. Well, that's what happened. Okay. All right.

Hey, Corey, that was a great question and a great answer by Mr. Bill Nye. All right. I love you, Chuck. Let's move on to Gabe Sabo. Yes, Gabe. Gabe's last name. Yes, Gabe is coming to us from Facebook and says, need a straight answer here, Bill.

What equals a GMO and what equals selective breeding? Where is the line drawn? Well, that's a great question, Gabe. It really is a great question. Look at you, Gabe. You show off. Yeah, yeah. It's really a great question. Look at you, Gabe. You show off. Yeah, yeah. It's really good because this is the question.

When I wrote this chapter in the first version of my book about evolution, I had a pretty clear idea in my mind about the distinction. The distinction was whether or not humans were influencing it. That was my idea, influencing the genome. influencing it that was my uh idea influencing the genome so if you breed within the species you shake like george washington used to take tweezers and a magnifying glass and shake the pollen from one wheat uh plant onto the eggs the ova of another to get a hybrid a new type of wheat that was within the species introspecies right I thought to myself, taking a gene from another species, let's say the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium, and putting it in corn, B-T corn. Okay. That would be-

Did you say B-E-T corn? No, no, that's different. Yeah. That's a television outlet. Yeah, exactly. And I don't know what their relationship- I mean, they have bad jokes, but i don't know if that's the same as bet corn okay corny television right uh but we all have bad jokes that would be an example there right there so uh anyway i thought when i wrote the chapter i thought well that's not a that's a clear distinction rather that one's

genetically modified in an extraordinary way okay by bringing a gene from another genome and another species and putting it into species of interest uh compared with shaking the pollen in the ova which would be intra within the species however go ahead it has been pointed out to me that that happened that these species uh insert their genes into each other all the time in nature. And when I started the research, I know, I know, I want you to think that way. I want you to think that way. That makes for lively speculation, that's for sure.

Anyway, so if you ever see a gall on the side of a tree, the big bulge. Yeah, the bulge. That's where a virus has not only infected the tree, but gotten its genes into the tree's cells nice but then as i was finishing research and turning in the final uh the word final the last manuscript version of the manuscript this fabulous research came out about sweet potatoes and so it turns out the sweet potatoes that you and i know and love presuming that you know them and love them i do indeed uh though it's very difficult for a black person not to know and love sweet potatoes it's just part of our culture okay uh well i i'm i'm substantially banned to according to a genetic genetic assay that was done on me uh-huh uh and but i and i love sweet

potatoes there you go coincidence what i tell you coincidence what i say my fellow brother so uh that aside this these genes from outside the sweet potatoes clearly got in there naturally naturally so that humans accelerate it you can argue quite strongly and for mely, that this is what humans do. We hybridize plants either the old-fashioned way, George Washington's tweezers and magnifying glasses, or the modern way with biotechnology. So what has happened at companies like Pioneer Seeds, which is part of DuPont, ConAgra, and especially Monsanto, they have made the transition from being chemical manufacturers, industrial chemical manufacturers, fertilizer and pesticides, into biotech firms.

And so you go there, everybody, all the scientists are geneticists. That's who they hire. They're not chemists so much anymore. It is interesting. And I'm right there with you, everybody. Monsanto used to make Agent Orange. Yes. So did Dow Chemical.

And I heard that that's awesome stuff. Yeah, it's awesome for certain applications. But in general, it is part of a dark past. I don't think these companies are really – I mean, they were hired by the government to make this stuff, and they did, and they don't do it anymore. I don't know. What do you do? This is true. Okay.

I used to work at Boeing on commercial airplanes because I wanted to work on commercial stuff instead of military stuff. But Boeing makes a lot of weapons. Yes, they do. So, okay. People don't know this, but they are the real-life Tony Stark of the world. Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. That's the real life. They got absorbed.

Oh, they're the same. That's right. It's all of a piece now. And that absorption was permitted to happen to preserve the fabulous military-industrial complex. So look at that. But with that said. They're almost like the intraspecies of George Washington wheat experiment. So we're talking about genetically modified organisms and food here on StarTalk Radio,

and we'll be back with Bill Nye. That's me and Chuck Nice over there right after this. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your guest host, Bill Nye, sitting in for my beloved Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I'm here with my good friend, Chuck Nice, who is a thoughtful, insightful commentator on the human condition and science. And he has in his hand the secret sheaf of cosmic queries. These would be questions that came from you out there in the electronic ether space. That is correct.

And you have not seen them, which I'm highly impressed by the fact that both you and Neil are able to answer these questions off the top of your head. It's fantastic. Not that we're trying to stump. No. That's not the purpose. No, none of our listeners would Not that we're trying to stump. No. The purpose is not to try and stump you. None of our listeners would do that.

They're all happy. Especially when they, like on the Twitterverse, there's no negativity there at all. Ever. This comes from Patreon. And Patreon, you can go ahead and support the show. You can be a patron.

You can make a patron of StarTalk Radio Podcast. And we will definitely read your. Science comedy. We will definitely read your questions on Cosmic Queries when you are a patron through Patreon. All right, here we go. My name is Kelia Silvis. Sorry it's so hard. It really wasn't.

I'm currently working as a scientist in the Optogenics Corps at the University of Minnesota. I'm currently working as a scientist in the Optogenics Corps at the University of Minnesota. First of all, let me just say that I was really impressed with the fact that you changed your views on GMOs. You truly deserve your title, Science Guy. My actual question, I believe that GMOs are a powerful tool that could help humans fight climate change and better utilize our diminishing resources. What would be your dream GMO to take on this challenge? Mine would be carbon scrubbing trees to help clean the atmosphere. Yes, a tree is a column of carbon. A forest is a collection of columns of carbon.

And wouldn't it be nice to have fast-growing trees that would get big, be made of – what a tree is made of, Chuck, is air. Okay. It's quite troubling at first, but all that cellulose, the lignin, all that comes from carbon, which the tree gets right out of the air. I mean, there's a little bit that you get

if you're a tree plant from the soil. Soil, but most of it, you're sucking it right out of the air. And so this would be a wonderful thing. You know, people have proposed making artificial trees to take carbon out of the air, but how about real ones? And the thing I would say to her, to answer her question with a little more completeness, is you don't want to have just one species. You want to have a diversity of columns of carbon of trees. And so to have fast-growing trees that would take carbon would be a wonderful thing.

Furthermore, it'd be great if they were useful in some other enchanting ways. Yeah, like they made apples or something. Yes, or they could shade your house. Right, or paint your house even better. Yeah. Well, what if they produce,

but seriously, what if they produce some varnish or pitch that was of great use? Because produce, but seriously, what if they produce some varnish or pitch that was, you know, of great use? Because trees, you guys, I know we don't ever want to cut them down. It's very troubling. But they do die of old age. They have just like so many other plants. So why not cut them down in the prime of their life?

You're going to die anyway, old tree. Wow. Not exactly. But yeah, let's move on to the next question, Chuck. Cheerless. Wow. uh not exactly but yeah let's let's move on to the next question chuck cheerless wow all right let's move into our next question which comes from uh james cultus and which is so funny because his twitter handle is at james burdell i don't know man But that way he was incognito. Yep. You just made him more cognito. I did. So here we go.

He says, at Bill Nye, can we modify organisms to produce different or increased vitamins and minerals? Well, that's what we've done. I mean, historically. I'm talking about how long have humans been farming, Chuck? 10,000 years? Recorded time? Yeah. Something like that.

So we're talking about farming, not just hunting, scavenging, and gathering. So, that's been the goal. Literally taking a plot of land. You would not recognize an ancient corn plant, the Desente. You wouldn't even know it looks like a what does it look like?

A miniature holiday light bulb. Anyway, now these corn cobs are long. You wouldn't recognize soybean. You wouldn't recognize cotton. You wouldn't recognize any of that. Humans have cultivated it over years, centuries, millennia, not millennia,

tenths of millennia, hundreds of millennia, to get these things to be more nutritious, more useful, and produce more productive farming. And as we like to say, Chuck, there is really nothing natural about farming. Right, because you're manipulating the process the moment you till the soil and plant a seed. You start cutting down trees to plant stuff, you're modifying the ecosystem big time. Exactly. So I appreciate this desire to be in tune with nature and have everything work out. And I appreciate Thomas Jefferson's dream of an agrarian society where we all hung out on farms and thought deep thoughts.

There on the porch with your, I presume, some dandelion wine or whatever he was into. And now everybody lives in cities. That's where we do these amazing productive things, and a few of us embrace the idea of farming, and farming, we modify the land in an extraordinary way. So the same thing has been going on since the beginning of farming 10,000 years. Humans have been trying to improve that which we farm. Gotcha.

All right. Hey, James, that was a great question. All right. So we've been in the process of making superfoods forever. Yeah, and the word superfood is now used to mean some extraordinary nutritious thing. Right, like kale. Everybody says kale is a superfood.

I like kale. I do too. I grow kale at my place out in Los Angeles. It's a little bit, it's kind of a weed. Once you get it going. Once you get it going, you can't. I got a kale tree. You might be sorry that you're growing kale. No, no, no, no.

No? I love it. I love it. I put it in the salad directly after rinsing. Yes. Or I bake it in the oven and make these kale chips. You make your own kale chips? Kale chips are a big fun.

My God, Bill. You're effortless. You're like the science Martha Stewart. A little bit. That's amazing. I'm making my own kale chips. That's so cool. Alright, let's move on to, this is Gerard Ducharme.

And Gerard says, Bill, in your recent book, Undeniable, you give caution to the use of GMOs and foodstuff. Now you're advocating their use. Could you explain or describe the science specifically that changed your perspective? So you talked about what happened, but is there a specific scientific moment that you can look to that says, hey, man, this is cool now?

Yes. Okay. Should I talk about it? Yeah, so here's what happened. They, the man, I got Chuck nice to laugh. You totally got me on that one. Chuck me out. All right, go ahead.

Please explain. The man, many of whom are women, at the behated Monsanto, it's almost half of the scientists are women. Really? Yeah, it's very cool. The geneticists. These are the people being graduated. No wonder we hate them.

Chuck. I'm sorry. Chuck. Listen, I couldn't resist that, Bill. Wow. I don't really feel that way. No, no. It was the natural progression for a joke.

You've been happily married. Yes. How long have you been married? 17? It'll be 17 in August. And some of those years, I didn't write this joke, some of those years were happy. Some of've been happily married. Yes. Or married. How long have you been married? 17? It'll be 17 in August. And some of those years, I didn't write this joke. Some of those years were happy. So, okay.

Okay, so go ahead. So here's what happened. Half the scientists are women. No, that aside. What they're able to do now, they, we, it, is assay the gene. This is to say sequence the gene of an individual plant, let's say, at extraordinary speeds. So 20 years ago, it would take you a month to get the gene sequence of,

let's say, soybeans, a soybean plant. Now they can do that. They can get, I mean, I'm going to try to do these numbers. They can get 100,000 in 10 minutes. What? So that's approximately right. The final number is 10 million. They can do it 10 million times faster than they could 20 years ago.

10 million times faster. Yes, they can assay 10 million genes in a morning. Yeah, so they can assay 10 million genes in a morning. And so then they are able to select which ones are definitely not promising and eliminate those, which ones are clearly susceptible to certain diseases, but just by genetic analysis. Okay. So they're doing their own natural selection in the course of a morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's amazing. They didn't use to use people to do that. And the reason they're able to do it is they've developed these enzymes that stick to guanine, cytosine, adenine, and thymine, the C-A-G-T's of your genetic code. That's the letters in the line. Yes. And then there's four frequencies of laser light that figure out how many of this one and how many of that one and what order they are in a zip of a blink schmink. Holy moly.

And the machine is very cool. The machines are very cool looking. And this is what changed my mind, is being able to do it 10 million times faster than they used to be able to do it. And more importantly, be able to eliminate the ones that are no good. That's right.

Or clearly not suitable for farming and susceptible to diseases and so on. I don't want to judge, man. No, we're farmers and we want them to come out the way we want them. And so along this line, then they plant the promising ones in super controlled, sterile greenhouses.

And the ones that have suitable qualities, they propagate. And so it takes about five years of that. And then the FDA or the Department of Agriculture, I mean, does another three years typically, sometimes five years. And then they agree that it's worth planting. That it's worth planting. Okay. Now, two things as an addendum to Mr. Ducharme's question. Mr. Ducharme, this is an excellent question that you asked, by the way.

One, people would say you're playing God. That's the first thing. Well, we're farmers. Okay. We've been doing that. I mean, look, if you're, what's the guy's, you know the tumbling tumble? It's the, wait, he's a cow hand. Yippee-tayo-kaye.

You know, it's your misfortune and none of my own. He's talking to the cows. Right. In other words, I'm going to drive you, the cow, to Montana. You're going to eat grass all summer. Then we're going to kill you and eat you. It's your misfortune, not mine. Okay, that's why you're a vegetarian out there, I understand.

Right. But my point being in that song, this business of farming and raising livestock for human consumption is what we've been doing for a long time. For a long time. And that's just the way it is. And very few of us wander. There's our few tribes that wander through forests, subsistence living. Right. And they know just where to go in the forest to subside, to subsist rather. But you would not have seven billion people running around the world if everybody were trying that and plus that's a very dicey proposition well i mean there's

a lot there's far fewer of those tribes left than where are we new york yeah right exactly we couldn't have eight million people living on 13 whatever it's 28 square miles or whatever that english i think we almost do. Based on the subway. Based on the subway ride I took over here. No, but no, you wouldn't do that with farm if you were trying to farm on the same island. Boom. Okay.

Excellent. Excellent question. And thank you, Mr. Ducharme. And thank you, Bill, because the description of that machine is fantastic. It's cool. So they chip the corn kernel. That's the verb.

And so the kernel will still grow. But by taking this little piece of it out, they're able to assay the gene completely and still have the thing grow. They can compare what they expected to happen with what happens. That's amazing. I mean, that is just phenomenally amazing.

They've been messing with it. And it's a consequence of information technology. This is to say it's a consequence of our ability to run computers at such extraordinary speeds, let alone the chemistry of the thing with getting these enzymes to sort the cytosine, thymine, adenine, and guanine. It's amazing. It's amazing. Wow. All right, so now Michael Foley coming to us from Google Plus wants to know this.

Is GMO too broad a category for any single statement? Should organisms grown from individually edited sequences of DNA be treated the same as vat-grown meat, as golden rice, as hybrid grains, as heirloom tomatoes also we that grow mammoth now i don't know what the hell that means there's guys who want to take mammoth genes and oh yeah who want to make a woolly mammoth again because there's an uh indian elephant right now that actually is only one small bit away from uh chuck who are you you're all over this yeah yeah anyway i don't know how i remember all this crap uh so this is what he wants to know is it too broad of a category for any single statement i mean is it all the same or is there a difference or you know he's saying well i've said many times you got to go case by case but that's what we do that's what uh the

people who are growing genetically modified crops, especially, that's their deal. They absolutely do go case by case. But it comes to use of words. It's a really hard thing to control. Words are organic. That is to say, they're bottom up. Somebody coins a term that people like, it sticks. Is this a tomato or an heirloom tomato? Right. Is it yellow or red i mean so these words are hard to control that when you start trying to tell people no this is not genetically modified this is intra-species you're just going to get into a fistfight about semantics right so really it's not about semantics it's about going case by case and seeing what works and what doesn't. But in the big picture, in the broad stroke, I claim genetically modified crops are a good thing.

That they are to the benefit of humankind. So that's your baseline right there. Right there. And what happened was when the genetically modified cotton especially was introduced, and then the corn and soybeans, it was in the middle of 1990s it was kind of the same afternoon that the bovine spongiform encephalitis the bse the mad cow disease okay uh emerged especially in britain yes and the two things got conflated bse got mixed with gmo and people thought they were all the same. They thought it was industrial farming, the man controlling things and making everybody sick.

But those two really are separate, separate issues. Gotcha. Spongiform encephalitis, mad cow disease where your brain turns to a sponge, is separate from corn that the corn borer insect can't eat. Gotcha. But you can. You can. We're not susceptible to that protein.

Passes right through us, not to give you too much information. Oh, okay, good. Now I realize what happened to me last night. No, no, you wouldn't even notice. Sorry, you can't even notice. It goes right on through. Right on through, huh? Gotcha.

All right, well, that makes sense. Okay, so there you have it, Michael. There's your answer, man. But what about the mammoth? How do you feel about the mammoth? Do you want to make one? I absolutely do. I think it'd be the coolest.

I think it'd be the greatest thing in the world to actually see a woolly mammoth walking around. Oh, man, come on. It would be the only animal I would actually advocate being in a zoo because I don't believe in zoos but but but with that said where else would that technology lead like if you could successfully do that could you bring back the great auk could you bring back uh other useful species that would the frogs the frogs that are being so stressed by that fungus. Could we bring all those animals back in a way that we would have more diversity in the ecosystem based on this trial with the mammoth?

These are great questions. I have no problem with anything that you just said, as long as we're not bringing back predators. Something that would like to eat me. The movie where all the animals have had enough. Chuck, it's really hard to get eaten by a lion. I mean, you have to especially, just everybody, if you're listening, we're in New York City. We're not going to get attacked by a lion. The same with shark biting.

It happens, but not that much. All right. So my fears are unfounded. Well, I mean, just keep them in perspective. Struck by lightning is way more likely. Pete from Twitter wants to know, here in California, I'm very concerned about the drought. Apparently, Pete's the only one.

You should be, Pete, because this could be the future. It could be from now on, California's going to have that little water. Oh, my God. And what are we going to do about it? That is scary. Well, I'll tell you. Go ahead. When StarTalk returns with Chuck Nice and Bill Nye right after this.

Welcome back. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Bill Nye here, your guest host for my dear friend, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I'm here with my colleague and insightful science commentator Chuck Nice. First time that's ever been said. And Chuck Nice will read your cosmic queries. These are questions that have come to us from the cosmos. Yes.

That's you all out there. Absolutely. So before we went to the break, we had a cliffhanger that was given to us by Pete from Twitter. And Pete wanted to know, he says, here in California, I'm very concerned about the drought. Can GMOs make for less H2O consumption? Yeah, that's a big claim that I think is well substantiated by the genetically modified companies. by the genetically modified companies,

genetically modifying companies, companies that put genes from different species into farms and species that we want to farm, crops especially. Okay. And this seems, they claim, very reasonable that they can make crops that are drought tolerant. Drought tolerant. They can hold their water.

They don't let it evaporate through their leaves or stems the way extant native plants might. And they strongly believe that they can reduce the amount of water needed. Furthermore, it's very reasonable that we can put water-capturing gels in the soil, in farm soil. Oh, okay. And these would be, you know, you put the foam rubber thing in the glass and it becomes a dinosaur. Yeah, and it grows in. It would be like that in the farm soil. And you can say, well know, you put the foam rubber thing in the glass and it becomes a dinosaur. Yeah, and it grows. It would be like that in the farm soil.

And you can say, well, that's not natural. Well, farming's not natural. So using less water, doing more with less, Charlie. Right. That's the key to our future. More with less. Not to just do less. I grew up with Earth Day.

day and the hippies were all telling us, you know, don't drive, drive less, uh, breathe less, use less clean water. In fact, if you can't don't eat, if you can manage that, don't even eat. They certainly didn't bathe. Uh, so wear dirty clothes because it takes water to clean them. Yeah. So, uh, that turned out not the eating part, especially turned out not to be popular. So now the key is not to just do less. It's to do more with less.

And that is the claim of the genetically modified seed companies, that they are doing more with less. And I agree with them. Okay. I'm not in the business, but I agree with them. So there you go, Pete. The drought, what are they called now? Drought tolerant. Drought tolerant. Drought tolerant plants. you go pete uh the the drought uh what are they called now drought drought tolerant drought tolerant drought tolerant plants especially let's say it rains for a little while like a cactus

it holds on to its water yes and then it lives through a drought bastard that i'm not saying we're turning cotton plants into cacti i'm saying an example that you're all familiar everybody's familiar with okay all right so let's go to Iana who is at goddess memoirs on Twitter mmm sounds good yeah it does goddess memoirs all right wood soil on Mars forced us to genetically modify foods to be able to grow there because of less Sun in in other words leafless can we do netify genetify that if I feel genetic if I can we do can we genetify? Genetify. Genetify. I feel genetified. Can we genetify plants

to the point where they don't even need photosynthesis, but they can still be eaten? Well, we eat mushrooms. Oh, wow. Look at you, man. Look at that. Touché. All that aside. I do eat mushrooms. As a matter of fact fact i'm still having flashbacks

from the last batch i can't hear you so everybody i know it sounds so romantic to go live on mars to some of us among which i am not whom uh usage intended for comedic effect. Everybody, Mars is cold, crazy cold. And the sun is less than a quarter as bright. So it's dim. I mean, I know we take pictures there, but these are with cameras that are where the iris or the system is set up to capture a lot of light before the picture is sent home here to Earth.

So not a place to live if you have seasonal affective disorder. Yes. And you can't breathe. Gotcha. So everybody, it sounds so romantic. If you really want to colonize Mars, go to Antarctica for a couple years. Okay. And don't, no, not on the shore where the birds and the orcas grabbing the penguins out of midair.

No, no. None of this happy feet stuff. No, right. Yes. None of that. You go where it hasn't snowed in over a century and see the dry valleys and see what you think. Try it for a couple years. And by the way, don't even breathe.

Take all the scuba tanks you need just to simulate it. So I want to go to Mars. I want to look for signs of life on Mars. I'm the first guy to do that. But I don't want to go colonize it and then genetically modified crops so they modify crops

so they can survive in a greenhouse on Mars. That would be charming. Right. But it's not a big goal of mine. So what would be more, I know we're still on GMOs, but I just got to ask, what would be more desirable? Colonizing Mars or colonizing the moon? Oh, God.

Wow. The moon would be, here's the thing. In Antarctica, we have a science base. We have McMurdo Station, and people go there and they do scientific research. They make amazing discoveries. Earth used to be so warm, ancient dinosaurs wandered around on that continent back in the day. What? Yes. Alright.

But we make those discoveries. That's good. But you don't go there to live. You go there to work and hang out for a while. It's like LA. I got you. From your perspective. From my perspective. yeah. He's eschews, poo-poos, is disrespectful of our beloved Los Angeles.

Love Los Angeles, just couldn't live there. So anyway, the same is true of Mars. Now, genetically modifying plants to make it on Mars, a worthy undertaking, but not something I want to spend a lot of intellect and treasure on. All right. Okay. Let us move on. All right. Okay. Let us move on to another question. Another cosmic query. Another cosmic query because we're almost up against the lightning round, which is fast approaching.

Okay. So now this is from Inquiring Minds. Bill, you talk a lot about GMOs. You changed your mind. Is Monsanto paying you? No. In fact, we went out to dinner the other day. My editor, Corey.

Oh, I thought you meant you and Monsanto. And Rob Fraley. I was going to say, that may count, Bill. No, no. So there were four of us at dinner, two Monsantanians. And Rob Fraley shakes your hand. He says, hi, I'm Monsatan. Ah, that's funny.

Because he hears all that stuff. And no, each team bought its own dinner oh okay okay so however when i visited monsanto yes they offered me a sandwich and a cup of coffee and i enjoyed both but i flew myself there i mean in an airplane here's the real question did that sandwich have genetically modified vegetables on it? Sure, you can't avoid them. Absolutely. All right.

So, by the way, I went to an anti-Monsanto rally here in New York City. All right. And I was really impressed by how thoughtless and short-sighted the people there were. It was really something. I just didn't realize it. They got to the point, now Chuck, I don't know your political leanings, but it got to the point where they wanted you to believe that the President of the United States is controlled by Monsanto.

Well, isn't he? Come on. Yeah. I mean, please, he's a Kenyan Muslim, socialist. Yes. He might as well be controlled by the United States Monsanto people too. And as people point out, Monsanto is in the top 500, Fortune 500 companies. But it's not in the top five.

It's way down, like at 200 or so. So they're not even that big of a deal. I mean, they're big, but they're not as big as Apple or- Or Beyonce. Or yes, or Beyonce. All right, there you go, people. There you have it. as Apple or Beyonce. Or yes, or Beyonce. All right, there you go, people. There you have it.

We're coming right up, Chuck. I'm reluctant to say my favorite part of the show, but let me say a part of the show I very much look forward to, and that is, Chuck, the lightning round. Yes. There it is, buddy. So hit me the lightning round question, Chuck. Go for it. Okay, you know how it goes. Here it goes.

buddy so hit me the lightning round question chuck okay you know how it goes here it goes uh ben miller from facebook wants to know isn't crossbreeding genetic modification yes simple enough different style in a different style okay steven shefflo from twitter says where can gmos potentially take agriculture in 5 10 10, and 50 years? Man, that's not really a lightning round question. No, but the answer is we're in an arms race, us versus the pigweed, us versus the thing after the pigweed. And so, for example, what these genetic modified biotech companies want to do, seed companies, is keep up in the arms race. Stack the genes, as they say, so it's resistant to glyphosate, it's resistant to dicamba,

this other style of herbicide, and it's resistant to the certain insects that attack that certain plant. Bingo, there you have it. Samson Moses. Talk about a biblical name there. Samson Moses from Google Plus wants to know, why is it that everyone is afraid of new science? Is it just ignorance?

Seems to be. Plus, keep in mind that scientists in the last century have promised us stuff that, and I say they, we, it. And the example I give you is the nuclear industry. Built these astonishing bombs. I mean, just amazing-looking, world-ending bombs, and then, okay, maybe we can get some industrial power out of this, but it's pretty complicated, and we have a lot of waste, and trust us, and that's led to

mistrust of science. With that said, with a scientifically literate populace, we can make good decisions about this as voters and taxpayers. Lightning round. Let's go. Nice. Okay. Peter Gutierrez, junior. Or that would be junior. Junior. From Facebook, wants to know, can GMOs occur naturally? Well, this is the thing. Yes. This is the big

paper that came out recently was the sweet potatoes, where these genes from other organisms got in the sweet potatoes that you and i know and love and thank our stars and cosmic rays that they did because we enjoy them that much uh those potatoes that much more nicely done this is new kid diet danny new kid danny from facebook says uh number one, congratulations on light sail one. Thank you. Our test flight was a success. We got in orbit. We passed all the tests to qualify for the rocket.

We got in orbit. We deployed the sails. We took the pictures. Yes. All right. So here's his question. What will be the significance of GMOs in our future manned missions in the solar system? Well, they're already up there.

When you go to eat astronaut food, you're eating food that's produced from genetic modification, from interspecies modification, and it's a good thing because the food is that much more delicious and nutritious. Wow. Thomas Riley from Facebook wrote this, and he wants to know, Hey, Bill, what is your position on labeling of GMOs in the supermarket? I think it's fine. In fact, I've said to those guys at Pioneer and Dow and ConAgra and Monsanto, Monsatan, I've told them, why don't you say, put proudly GMO on there?

Let's see what happens. Nice. Makes sense. Makes Nice. Makes sense. Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. Let the market sort it out. If people don't want it, then we'll see what happens.

Okay. This is Matt Eli from Facebook. Clearly, Matt does not agree with you. Hey, Bill, since changing your views on GMOs, have you spent time with other respected scientists in the not-so-GMO crowd to give them a chance at a rebuttal and present new evidence to you. So, in other words, he doesn't agree. Do you spend time with any scientists that don't agree with your change?

Yes, yes. I'm a member of the advisory board of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Union of Concerned Scientists traditionally is very anti-GMO, so I argue with those people now and then. Argue. A connected series of statements to establish a proposition.

And I think GMOs are fine. There you go. And their meetings take place at the Hall of Justice. Okay. Whoa. 30 seconds, Chuck. There we go.

Okay, this is from Charles Leithorpe who wants to know, perhaps some of the fear around GMO crops is that we are opening up Pandora's box. Do you anticipate a future where we become GMOs ourselves? That is the fear. You are a GMO. Your parents chose each other.

Thank you very much, everybody, for the lightning round. We've had a wonderful time. Thanks for listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm here with Chuck Nice. Yes. And I am your guest host, Bill Nye, and we look very forward much to our next

StarTalk podcast, and I hope you will dare I say it. Turn it up loud!