StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries: GMOs with Bill Nye (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 19, 2015

Just in case Part 1 wasn’t controversial enough, Bill Nye and Chuck Nice are back to answer new fan questions about Genetically Modified Organisms, unintended consequences, pollinator problems and more. 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, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, kids of all ages. Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I am your guest host, Bill Nye. And with me is my beloved colleague and insightful science commentator, Chuck Nice. Hey, Bill. And today is some more cosmic queries.

Yes. Where we attempt to comment and answer your queries from the cosmos. I was going for some alliteration there. I think you got it. I think you nailed it. Well, let's take our first query. All right. So let's just jump right into this.

You know what? Before we go any further, since we're right at the top. We hardly started, Chuck. Yeah, exactly. Since we're right at the top of the show show why don't we take a question from our patreon patron so a patreon patron so if you're a patron of star talk right through patreon through patreon you have a question of wait it's not working a question a query no and we're definitely going to read it because you have proven

yourself and your loyalty ah by giving of your substance to this show yes so if you support the show we'll get your question on amen you get kind of sounds a little slow to me but who am I right who am I I don't judge you know it pro quo is an excellent way to tie in with cosmic query questions nicely done hit me the ball chuck we gotta keep moving here i was impressed with that i gotta say this is from yawa and she says a queen's new york native asking isn't there a fundamental difference between genetically modified foods and the cultivation of foods. Is there a fundamental difference?

So I think by cultivation, I think she means traditional hybridizing, where you would take the pollen from one plant, shake it onto the eggs, the ova of another plant. And see what happens. And get a hybrid, yeah. So George Washington is said to have done this. Sounds sexy. It is, literally. That sounds sexy, baby. No, No, this is what happened in nature. We have two sexes

males and females, okay, but but in Fungi it is believed certain species have hundreds of Sex types aha, and that's a whole nother deal out there in the land of fungus So what happens clearly in the land of fungus. So what happens is- Clearly in the land of fungus. So humans have been hybridizing within species, shaking pollen from one plant onto the eggs of another for centuries. Shake it, baby.

But we found out that not only do humans now, biotechnologists have the ability to take genes from one species and insert them into another. For example, the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium gene into the corn or the soybean, making BT soybeans, BT corn, which the corn borer eats. The protein from the Bacillus thuringiensis crystallizes in the corn borer's gut, and the corn borer dies. What? So that's the deal. So that's why the corn borer is not a problem anymore.

Instead of fighting these pests. So you let the plant do the fighting for you. Instead of fighting the pests with chemicals of death. We're empowering the plant to do it on its own. That's right. And so you do it on its own that's right and so you do it as carefully as you can to be sure but the other thing that was discovered recently as i mentioned in our recent show is that uh sweet potatoes in this way of example yeah this happened it naturally a virus got its genes in sweet potatoes the ones that we know and love

and we supported that as cultivators of sweet potatoes and encouraged that in nature. So it happens in nature, and now we're doing it scientifically or biotechnologically. And the difference really becomes blurry, whether it's natural or humans are doing it. Right, because all we're kind of doing is mimicking what nature has already done. Well, that's the plan. Yeah. So the whole thing, though, your concern is if you're doing it so fast that you're going to do something in the ecosystem that nobody anticipated. And you don't want the so-called knock-on or unintended consequences. Like lizard babies or something like, you know. Yes.

Yeah. Like the Jurassic Park. That's what I'm like, you know. Yes. Yeah. Like the Jurassic Park. That's what I'm saying. Lizard babies or an intelligent dinosaur. Yes. Named Charlie, who leads us all sorts of trouble with that. Right. And the unintended consequence that really did happen in nature through humans, we developed

this, we, people developed this herbicide called glyphosate kills all the weeds kills all of everything everything except the plants that have this cool gene in them that allows them to grow right through it uh we also killed the milkweed and the milkweed which i now prefer to call milk flower oh is what yes is what the monarch butterflies rely on. Oh, really? Yeah, so we accidentally have decimated the monarch butterfly population, reduced it over the last two decades by 90%. Which is probably a good thing because when they flap their wings over here,

it causes a pretty bad storm in Japan. Oh, this is the butterfly effect. Seriously. Go ahead. It's brilliant, Chuck brilliant chuck really really good really brilliant and so the thing is you don't want that where you're accidentally wiping out a pollinator potential pollinator species right so i went to the meeting in minneapolis the monarch venture where they got the crazy bleeding heart liberal hippies okay like me uh and the corporate pigs like

con agro monsanto doubt pioneer boo anyway they all got together they all want to bring monarchs back and they believe that they can by creating this so-called hopscotch highway of milk flowers. Gotcha. Growing these milk weeds on purpose. Right. In certain tracts of land on the flyways that the monarchs exploit getting north and south. So along their migration path, you purposely put this milk flower. They have a monarch filling station from north to south. That's it and along the way they're doing a little butterfly horizontal mambo and we get more and more monarchs that's right so they're the prediction

of the venture this group that met in minneapolis diverse group people that you would not think getting along are all in this i gotta say as an observer they're all in this getting along they believe that this year the monarch population will go back up. Wow. One test is worth a thousand expert opinions. So stay tuned and let's see if the monarchs come back. Let's take a look. All right, people. There you have it. That was a great question. Let's move on to Dave Ross from Facebook who says, dearest Mr. Nye. My God, it sounds like the beginning of a Civil War letter. Dearest Mr. Nye, the days here have been brutal. Wow, Chuck.

Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, come back. Here we go. Sorry. All right. Okay, here we go. Okay. Dearest Mr. Nye, what do you find to be the best way to explain to people that GMOs are harmless and can actually be beneficial to humanity? This is a guy who's already on your side here, Bill.

Are there any dangers to local ecosystems if GMOs manage to find their way, ooh, outside of farmers' fields? This is a great question because- No, they do. I mean, they do find their way outside of farmers' fields. You get a little windblown, right? They get windblown, yeah. Yeah.

So can that happen? Can we actually decimate unintentionally neighboring crops because you're using GMOs, they get caught up in the wind, and now somebody's growing them even though they don't want to? Oh, this is a concern of certain organic farmers that the seeds end end up in their soil they get contaminated and they work very hard to sort them out with that said i would ask you how often do soybeans grow in your yard you're not that much but in the nothing grows in my yard bill but in i have salted the earth in agricultural areas if you people have to be very diligent, but most plants that grow as crops are planted on purpose. I guess that's where the word plant is tied in.

So if you're not planting them on purpose, there's just not that much contamination. when people claim they got canola growing that flew into their fields accidentally and started growing. But there is substantial evidence that those cultivars were carefully cultivated. This is to say, one guy claimed that these seeds blew into his field, but they really didn't. He really planted them. And so this is where it's notorious. So basically, he's trying to skirt paying for seeds.

So by the way, if you watch that movie, Food Incorporated, and the guy's in tears about the seeds, it turns out he was reported by his neighbors. Aha. Who were resentful of him not paying the licensing fee for these extraordinary or these claimed to be improved seeds. So I get it i mean he's a seed hacker he was a seed hacker which is understandable but his neighbor his neighbors were angry about it snitches yeah okay cool uh by the way dave brought that was a great great answer bill uh you don't have to sound so surprised jock so dave, I want to read this because he says, as an aside, I'm proud to say I'm a relatively new member of the Planetary Society's Discovery Team.

I love you, Dave. The Discovery Team's a level of participation we encourage you all to consider. So we just had a big success, you know. We launched our light sail spacecraft. Yes, you did. We qualified the thing, which takes vibration and thermal vacuum testing and all this stuff. And then we got it on a rocket. Then we got it into space.

We deployed the sails. We took a picture. Mission success. Nice. Congratulations. And next year will be bigger and cooler. I mean, the orbit will be bigger and much more, to me, much more exciting. All right.

Except we pulled it off which was pretty exciting that is exciting and you should be proud i am excellent let's move on to juan diego lopez juan lopez i have to say it like that juan diego lopez you can say it with a hispanic juan lopez no okay okay you kill my father never mind are you confusing that trauma with a kung fu movie? Because they have a lot of the same issues. They do. That would be you killed my master. Those are evolutionary ties there where if you're family and you mess with somebody, a family member, it's like the mafia.

There's trouble. There's You know, there's trouble. Always. Always. That's right. You have the right to avenge my death. That's right, yeah. Okay. This is, hey, Juan says, hi from Bogota, Colombia.

Okay. Let me see if I can get this right now. Why is it that the protection of genetic patrimony, literal translation from the Spanish term, I don't know if it's right, is way more strict for GMOs than for actual endemic plants and animals? Both are profitable, but endemic plants often have new chemicals that we can use for medicine. For example, you can take samples of endemic life in Colombia to the U.S. relatively easy. But if you dare to try to bring seeds of alfalfa from the U.S., it's impossible or even illegal. So I think what Juan is really wanting to know is, why do we stop people from bringing

flora and fauna from different countries to other countries well shooting from the hip you don't want to contaminate ecosystems okay but he's asking a sounds like an agricultural policy question i think he is because he's talking about endemic plants so i don't i don't work for pioneer seeds or monsanto seeds but I imagine that there's something in Colombia where they don't want the man to bring these farm products to their farms so that they can have their own farms. It's like a tariff. It's what it sounds like. Yeah.

So I'm not an expert on the farm policy in Colombia, but I'll tell you this, in India, where there's a lot of subsistence or near subsistence farming, in Africa, where there's a lot of subsistence or near subsistence farming. In Africa, where there's a lot of close to the bone farming. Everybody embraces genetically modified seeds because they get much higher yield and they are not subject to these pests and these plant diseases that are troublesome for farmers. for farmers so that's got to be part of the thinking uh for those of you who are voting and tax paying with respect to the uh commerce associated with agricultural products take it chuck all right um with that being said here let me ask you a question from chuck nice uh chuck nice comes to us from the argo studios Star Talk radio. From right across this table. Chuck Nice comes to us from right across the table.

What's the capital of right across the table? That would be... Right across the table city. Yes. Right across the table Annapolis. And Cupville, which is located right here. It's right, the Cupville is right across the table. Right where that cut is.

Cup is. So here's the thing. As we talk about this, I believe that a lot of this is due to the fact that there seems to be a great deal of secrecy around GMOs when it comes to these large companies, these multinational agricultural companies. seem to be so proprietary, somewhat secretive, and also they go out of their way to stop labeling from happening, which elicits suspicion from the general public. You got me on the labeling thing. I told those people at Monsanto and when I was at the Monarch Butterfly meeting, I guess it was Pioneer Dow, Dow Pioneer Seeds. I told them, why don't you just put

on there proudly gmo go for it that would help well would it or would it have this huge backlash against the people who uh protest these things and the guy was singing a song about monsanto must burn and uh i don't know what or would it have a backlash? Well, no, it would have a backlash initially. In the short term. In the short term. And then people will actually start looking at it. So Chuck Nice is preaching it, everybody. Bring it on.

Well, no, I'm just saying the natural progression would be you deal with the backlash, which causes people to take note, which causes them to do some research, and then they find out the truth. And if the truth is innocuous, then it's not a big deal anymore. So I say let the market sort it out i say this all the time if if they think if people think they can grow organic food that's more appealing and cheaper and better and so on then people will buy that stuff instead of the traditional farm foods so we'll see i mean i say you got me why don't they try it why don't they try it? Why don't they try it?

All right, here we go. This is Joshua White from Facebook. He wants to know, hey, Bill, when do you think GMOs will be used to bioremediate contaminated areas, like plants that are specifically designed to draw up heavy metals out of soil, or bacteria that can clean up underground aquifers contaminated with solvents? That's a great idea. And so the place to start with that, making, let's say in this case, bacteria that could metabolize oil in an oil spill. Okay. Now we're talking some serious money here. I love the way you're thinking. So that would be a really cool application. However-

Can we do that? Because I'd need some money because that would be great. So are you in the oil spill cleanup business? No, but I will be. Not yet. Not yet. So this is a good example of a place where maybe you could take the organic chemicals and organic chemicals are chemicals that come from organisms, which nominally have carbon. That's what organic chemistry is. And you could have some bacteria that could metabolize that and then leave behind all the other stuff that comes out of oil wells, sulfur and so on, and let it sink to the bottom

of the ocean. Or metabolize that too and make it into some amazing plastic or have it all stick together in a big oil tar sheet that is much easier to lap up with your oil tar sheets, lapping up ship. Yeah, your oil tar bounty. Yeah. So this would be an example of something that, I mean, a place to start. As far as taking heavy metals out of the soil, that's okay. Then you got to process those plants.

That might be a fine thing. Like a landfill. Some place where you want to build a condominium or whatever. Well, wouldn't you just pull the stuff out of the soil and then uproot the trees and then use them for something else? That's what I'm saying. Oh, okay. And then build your condos right there without having the children at risk of being around all these heavy metals. Gotcha.

That's a great, I mean, it's a fine idea. I'm not in that business. And I got a feeling, though, there's somebody who is. Man, those guys at Monsanto, I'm not saying it's all about Monsatan, okay, everybody? Please. But they spend $2 million a day. On R&D? On research.

A day. They spend almost $100 million a year on research. Not on shipping their products, just on research. Okay. And I think they're a victim of their own success. And I know the feeling. Look at you and me, Chuck. Right.

We're victims of our own success because we've been so fascinating in this first segment of StarTalk Radio. That it's over? We're out of time. Get out of here. So stay tuned. We'll be right back. It's Chuck Nice and Bill Nye.

You're listening to Star Talk. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, kids of all ages. Bill Nye here, your host, your guest host of Star Talk Radio. I'm here with my beloved fellow science commentator, Chuck Nice. Hey. fellow science commentator chuck nice hey and today is the next segment of your cosmic queries where we uh work hard to answer your questions that have come into us from the electric internet out there in the cyber ether space that all the all the kids are using now the kids are doing it we're going to do it too so hit me the first question okay nice all right here we go coming from Facebook this is Sylvain boutique me oh yes okay Facebook wants to know I would be interested in having your insights about genetically

modified animals and how important they may be for basic research as well as the pharmaceutical industry. Now you are opening up a whole nother can of worms here, buddy, because we're talking about animals. Plants are incention. Animals have feelings. So where do you stand, Bill? Plants are incentient.

Bring it on, Chuck. They don't think. They don't think they don't think far as we know that's right well as far as we know that's right I never see the original movie the thing oh it's good I did imagine no heart no feelings the perfect creature and it's because the thing is like this vegetable deal all right so we do genetically modify animals, and we're talking about lab rats that glow in the dark, the little mice.

Or the mouse with the ear on its forehead, the human ear. Yeah, so these are very important to our research. These are very important to the way humans know our genes. And on balance, I'm in favor of it. And I'm not a vegetarian. Maybe one day soon I will become one. No, no you won't.

Well, maybe. You love bacon too much. I mean, maybe. But I understand we raise animals to kill them and eat them routinely. So by analogy, we raise especially mice for laboratory studies that enable wonderful things. With that said, I'm very sympathetic to the idea that there's a line that you draw. And a rhesus monkey is very similar to me, in many ways superior to my old boss. So I can understand where you don't want to do experiments on that guy or gal.

That. Well, you met him. So you know who I'm talking about. So I kid because I love. Oh, that's hilarious. If you're one of my old bosses out there, just notice that, consider yourself an amalgam.

You are the old, for Bill Nye, the old boss is a is a mixture of many characteristics of people for whom i worked and i remind you all composite man yes as a manager myself nowadays people don't quit jobs they quit bosses so with that said i think it's still very important for humankind to have access to these so-called laboratory models that's the noun they use to describe these rats and mice okay that we have whose genes we have modified to understand our own genes so now uh with that being said okay so you do you're you're saying that it is important. Should there be a push?

That sounded like a very specific kind of push for a second there. Should there be a push to find a different way or, now here's my follow-up, to genetically modify these animals so that as you work on them, they feel no pain. Do you understand me? I do. Suppose you could genetically modify a mouse so that the pain receptors, a mouse is born with no pain receptors. Therefore, it never knows any type of physical suffering because it can never feel that. Should that be the way that we handle it?

That's a hard question, Chuck, because I don't know that you can prove that a mouse would never do that. Plus, would it really be a mouse and would it be a good model for a human after you changed it? And so the example I give you is I know a guy, not too well, but I know a guy who's in his 30s who wants to have his head frozen so that in centuries hence, they can unfreeze his head and connect it to some future unfrozen head machine, and he will then be able to conduct his life and experience life three centuries from now.

With that said, after you do that, can you really replicate the brain combined with the central nervous system? Now, we're talking about mice in a laboratory. Right. And so I believe that, like, try to talk without moving your hands, even when we're on the radio. There's something going on between, there's feedback between your distant nerve endings and your brain. And so I think if you were to modify a mouse so that it felt no pain, I'm not sure it would still be a good model for a person. There's people I'm sure who think deep thoughts about this. Right.

But I don't know the answer. Yes. And those people are heads in a jar. That's what we're looking at. All right. Well, that was a really thought-provoking question, Sylvain, and we appreciate you for that. Let's move on to Brandon. Wow. God. You guys, you can't see Chuck's face, but he's a back he has taken.

A back he has been taken. Okay. Brandon. Brandon, this better be good. I got a feeling it is. Ag- Ag- Cameron.

Brandon Ag- Ag- Cameron. Ag- Cameron-Kameron. Brandon Ag-Kameron. Ag-Kameron. Ag-Kameron. Okay. The Brandster. I think I got it. Brandon says, Hey, Bill, considering you've been on both sides of the argument on GMOs, can you, in your opinion, I don't know whose else opinion you would do it in.

I'm very good at mine. Yeah. List the most beneficial and non-beneficial reasons for GMOs. Ooh, nice one, Mr. Oh, he spelled it out phonetically here. Ag Kamran. Ag Kamran. So, Mr. Ag Kamran, here's the deal.

He wants you to play your own devil's advocate. Yeah, good and bad. Yeah. So, as they say, the good thing is. Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Nye, pro and con. The good side is we get more yield per hectare or acre. Okay, one. So in other words, we have less impactful farming. In other words, we affect the ecosystem less because we'll produce more food on less land.

That's the upside of genetically modified. That's one four. We're using biology to fight pests and diseases rather than chemistry that's two four so that's good the unintended consequence the classic one is either the things you don't know to not to go all uh misguided military principle uh policy on you but the unknowns the known unknowns the known unknown like well you don't know what you're going to do but the unknowns, the known unknowns. The known unknowns. Like we don't know what you're going to do. But the one that everybody has observed is the monarch butterflies, where we have reduced

their population 90%, not as a consequence exactly of raising genetically modified food, but by using this extraordinarily effective herbicide that has killed the milk flowers or milk weeds, which nourish the monarchs. So an unintended consequence there. And so are there ones that you don't know? Are there other insects and pollinators that you affected accidentally by messing up their food source? And the other unintended consequence, and not a necessary one, is by monoculture farming.

and not a necessary one, is by monoculture farming. Enormous tracts of a single type of plant make it very hard for bees, as pollinators, to get the job done. They've got to go out there, do that one crop, then there's nothing to do and somebody puts them back in a box and puts them on a truck and takes them to a different crop and they just get beaten up. They can't handle it. But this is not necessarily –

Then you get bees coming home stressed out. They do. They are. Babe, God, what a day, I gotta tell you. You should have seen it. It's stressed on and on forever. It's a girl voice. Oh, that's correct, because all the bees are female. All the ones that pollinate. Go ahead. Do it again. Honey, I just can't

believe the day I had. I'm telling you, this is just awful. Chuck Nice is high monopter of espionage. Chuck Nice believe the day i had i'm telling you this is just awful those fields just seem to stretch yes all right chuck nice is a four-winged fly all right so uh right uh the unintended consequences are things like the monarch butterflies and this monocultural farming which affects the pollinators and our whole agriculture system so these are things that are avoidable. Gotcha. So it's good and bad, but it's manageable.

And I think it's just a necessary consequence. When you're going to have 7.2 billion people become 9.2 billion people, you're going to have to do something to feed them. And indeed, we all prefer the texture, taste, and nutrients from nominally hybridized crops over the last 10,000 years. And this modern biotechnological way of modifying is just the next thing humans are doing. Gotcha. So, all right, that was great to see you argue both sides there. And basically, the biggest problem is the unknowns.

Well, that's it. That's what you want to avoid. But you can't do it until you do it. You can't know until you do it. But humans have been doing this for centuries. We try this plant, it doesn't work, so we try that plant. And so the claim is...

Believe me, I've been there. The claim is that you do it very carefully. And so for those of you tuned into our previous episode, I talked about these guys are able to ask, these people are able to assay or sequence genes literally 10 million times faster than they could even a decade ago. Fantastic. It's amazing. Amazing. 10 million times.

And the reason is people have invested in the – engineers who have developed the technology worked really hard on it because there's so much gain to be had. And everybody prefers delicious corn to not delicious corn. Everybody prefers delicious apples or good-tasting apples, not to single out a particular flavor. I do like the Red Delicious. I'm a Honeycrisp man myself. I'm down with Honeycrisp. Yeah.

But I will remind everybody there's two things about Red Delicious that I really like. Which are? They're red. Okay. And they're- Delicious? Yes. I like my Galas.

Galas are okay. Yeah, I like the Braeburn. Yeah, the Braeburn's all right too. I'm not a big Granny Smith guy, but I'll choke it down. So anyway, with that said, when it comes to genetically modified food or crops, we just have to be diligent. Okay. So here's the deal. And that requires regulation.

What? See, now you lost me, man. I'm a Republican. I'm all against the regulation of any kind. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. So I'll watch for you when the light's red.

Exactly. Here we go. Dietrich. Diet go. Dietrich. Dietrich. Jesus. Dietrich. Dietrich. Thank you.

Dietrich Inswig wants to know this. Oh, Kaya. Dietrich Inswig Kaya. That's the name, right? Okay. D-I-Kaya. D-I-Kaya. Says.

Do it yourself, Kaya. There you go. No, that's D-Y. I'm sorry. Carry on. There we go. Hello, Mr. Kaya. D.I. Kaya says. Do it yourself, Kaya. There you go. No, that's D.Y. I'm sorry. Carry on. There we go. Hello, Mr. Nye. Do you foresee that GMOs will be the sole food source at the grocery stores anytime soon?

Meaning, will food be so difficult to come by as the population grows exponentially that all food will have to be modified in some way so that it can be grown and harvested in widespread locations? In other words, are we headed towards soylent green, but it's not people? The answer is we're already there. Ooh. Not to get too weird on you, but everything that you eat, with very few exceptions. I mean, you might wander through the occasional forest and eat a nut, or I remember there were some wild blackberries that I encountered often as a kid. You'll eat those, but generally everything you eat is from a farm where people over the

last 10,000 years have hybridized, modified, selected artificially or induced choosing of the offspring so that we got the foods that we all enjoy today. So the answer is we're already there. Not to be dismissive, just that taking genes from one organism and putting them in another for farming is what we're doing now, which happens in nature from time to time. These viruses work their way into the genes of the classic as the sweet potatoes. This is happening naturally, so we're just doing it carefully and diligently and fast. And that's how we're able to feed so many people.

All right. Now, here's an addendum to that question. Please. I'm going to speak on behalf of – Chuck Niceko. Yes. So is there a possibility or a danger of centralizing our food source in such a concentrated fashion

where we harm ourselves by giving too much power to the people that feed the world? I think psychologically, there's a real fear amongst people of that being the case. So is it, I think I know what you mean. Is it a corporation that you're afraid of?

That's my point, man. But you're not exactly afraid of a farmer. No, I'm not afraid of a farmer because if I don't like my little upstate farmer guy, I'm like, all right, well, screw you, upstate farmer guy. I'm going to go to downstate farmer guy. But if the upstate farmer guy and the downstate farmer guy are all one guy, well, maybe I'm in a little bit of trouble now. All right. I get you. So bear in mind, farmers make choices. Now, look, I sound like farmers make choices. They can buy seeds from this guy or that guy. And like everything else,

do you remember gateway computers? Like everything else, things have gotten consolidated because of international commerce has made it more efficient. And I understand our fear of corporations, but nevertheless, that is manageable through, dare I say it, regulation. Where you would make it so that the marketplace is generally fair. So this seems like a very solvable problem. fair. So this seems like a very solvable problem. But I am not worried about the man taking over the world because farmers make choices. And producing seeds with certain characteristics is very competitive business. And the seed being one example, this will be the way it is. Roundup is a famous brand. Yes brand yes it is i have some in my basement i hate to say no but there are dozens of country companies several of them are in asia that

manufacture a very similar glyphosate salt that is well suited as an herbicide gotcha so it's a competitive business all right just that the glyphosate thing was so successful that everybody embraced it, home gardener and industrial farmer alike. Gotcha. All right. Good stuff, man. Good question. All right.

Biff Handy from Biff Handy. Now, Biff Handy's only got 30 seconds. You want to make this a cliffhanger? Let's make it a cliffhanger. Oh, man. Here we go. I'm going to read it like this. Hey, Bill, because I'm Bill.

Why is it that we only hear- From Back to the Future, is that who you were there? So why is it that we only hear about Monsanto when it comes to GMOs? Are there other companies anywhere else competing with them that do anything differently that might make it better? Well, they're always trying to do it better. And the big one that Monsanto competes with is Dow. And the seed sign you'll see along the road is Pioneer.

They compete with Monsanto head to head. So that's the Holy Trinity? Are they better? We'll be back after this on StarTalk Radio with Chuck Nice and Bill Nye. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your guest host, Bill Nye, sitting in for my beloved colleague, Mildegras Tyson. And I'm here with another beloved colleague. Of course, I mean, Chuck Nice. Hilarious science commentator.

When we left the last segment. Yes. There was questions as to whether a company like Monsanto has a competitor. Yeah, yes. The big one is Dow, and their seed company is Pioneer. But there are several others, ConAgra and so on. And there's Syngento, which Monsanto is trying to acquire. And these are seed companies that compete very hard to make better plants, better crops.

Not one of those names made me feel better about GMOs. Well, I mean, not one of them. You went from Monsanto to Dow. Well, this is— Oh, that got better. There are people that are in the business. And then ConAgra. What do you want it to be called?

Farmhouse Seed? Yeah, see? Now that's a company I can get behind. So Farmhouse Se seeds are really nice. They're friendly. Yeah, and throw a name in there like Wilford. Like Wilford's Farmhouse Seeds. Okay, well, they market all that stuff.

But I remind you, these farmers, look, I'm not in the farming business myself, except I have a nice garden. Farmers choose what seeds to plant based on the ones that perform the best, not based on gunpoint from a corporation. Kind of makes sense. What you're saying, there is a market.

It is in competition. And it's huge. It may not be perfect competition, but it's in competition. So think how many car companies there are. I'm thinking. Are there thousands? No. Yeah, there's a handful.

There's a handful. And even they talk about incestuous. And even those handfuls are owned by just a few. Because it's a hard thing to make a complicated thing like a car. Okay. And it's a hard thing to make a complicated thing like a seed that's resistant to a specific insect. It's a complicated business. That's it.

People invest a lot of money. So you're not going to have a bunch of people in this business. It's basically just the. That's it. People invest a lot of money. So you're not going to have a bunch of people in this business, is basically. Just the nature of the business itself. Well, when you say a bunch, there's a handful. Right. And it's very competitive among the handfuls. Okay.

The thing where the idea that there's a conspiracy to take over the world, I'm very skeptical of because they really are out to get each other. All right. Okay. Listen, that was actually a very thoughtful answer. You don't have to sound so surprised, Mr. Nice. You're right. I shouldn't.

You know, that was a thoughtful answer, and I'm not surprised at all, Bill. Thank you, Chuck. Okay, here we go. So let's move on to Joe Gassiore. So he's coming from Facebook, and he says, he goes, hey, Bill, don't forget the dioxins. Better address this one, Bill. Yeah, so dioxin was another. I put that tone in there myself, by the way.

Thank you, yeah. But I think you're in the spirit of his inquiry, his query. The dioxins were another chemical used, I guess, as a pesticide that turned out to have really troubling consequences. Okay. And so they've been curtailed, stopped. But I've met people in the biotech industry, in the seed business, who think DDT was a great thing because it— Because it did the job. Well, suppressed mosquitoes and that suppressed malaria.

But I'm not sure DDT is what we all want to be drinking and so dioxin was even more uh aggressive as a medical problem and so it's been curtailed just that these companies used to make uh deadly uh herbicides used in warfare agent orange well they're they were hired to do that and they're not doing it anymore. I don't know how responsible we should hold them. However, we should learn from the past. Like, don't just make stuff that's amazingly deadly and spread it all over the place on another country and take no responsibility for it. You know, that sounds like a good policy.

But this, once again, Chuck, demands that evil word that is troubling to so many people nowadays. Regulation. Regulation. Where we'd all get together and decide what's fair and make people stick to it. Regulators, mount up. Okay. Well, in moderation. There you go.

In general, this is a solvable problem. The seed companies are in business to sell seeds to farmers and farmers want to buy seeds that they want to buy and so the market takes care of it however having companies make pesticides or herbicides which have bad consequences you can regulate that i think what happens is in the mind of the, is you have a company like Monsanto who makes the seeds. They genetically modify the seeds. They modify the plants that create the seeds. They modify the plants that create the seeds.

And then they plant those seeds. Then they make the food. And they also put the food on the shelf. And I think this is where a great deal of suspicion stems from. It's vertically integrated. It's vertically integrated, and that makes you scary. You know, that's... Scared.

Yeah, it's... Scared. Well, yes, thank you. You are frightened. I'm frightened. Sitting here is very troubling. I know what you meant, though. Okay.

It's another adjective related to the same root. I got you. But root, pun intended, when it comes to agriculture. I know what you meant, though. Okay. It's another adjective related to the same root. I got you. But root, pun intended, when it comes to agriculture. So the deal is farmers make choices. They can do business with Pioneer or Monsanto or whatever, and you can buy food from this guy or that guy. But I know what you mean. It's troubling when you feel like you're out of control.

Because the whole process from stem to stern seems to be that. This is why the non-GMO movement has a place. We'll see if that's economically competitive. And you can say corporations are squashing them. I don't think so. I think you'll find that organic farming takes more input than farming with genetically modified crops. And so we'll let the marketplace sort that out.

I mean, people make jokes about a certain business, and they call it whole paycheck because the food is so expensive. That's right. Because it's grown in such small quantities with high input. So we'll see what happens in the marketplace. All right. Okay, so let's move on to Tristan Cooper. Tristan Cooper wants to know,

is it possible to genetically modify an animal to receive part of its daily energy requirement from photosynthesis? Now, this guy has gone sci-fi, baby. Well, there is an animal that makes a living that way. A zoa xanthellae, the coral. You're absolutely. Oh my God, I never thought of it.

Because coral is a living animal. Yeah. And it also gets its food from the sun. So it has a deal with some photosynthesizing organisms inside it. A deal, a symbiotic relationship. So whether we're going to have green cows, I'm open-minded, but I'm not sure, because you think how much land,

how much grass a cow has to consume to make its living. In other words, in order to get that much energy, the cow would have to be as big as a field. And so I get it. There could be a compromise of a giant solar panel cow that gets some of its energy from the sun and some of it from the grass. But what has happened through evolution is we have cows eating grass. Gotcha.

Right. That's an example. So it could happen. It's just not going to. It doesn't seem that likely. However, on a much smaller scale at sea, it does happen with the zooxanthellae. Which is the coral. Fantastic.

Man, that was actually – I thought it was going to be a silly question, but it's actually a very good question. Well, of course, our cosmic querers, querists, inquirers, our cosmic inquirers. There we go. Our cosmic inquirers are thoughtfully thoughtful. And of course, they're wonderful questions, Chuck. Let's take another. All right. Okay.

Hey, Bill, are there any true non-GMO foods? In other words, vegetables that just grow wild somewhere, no input from us whatsoever, and they have existed for years and years that way, and we just pluck them up from the side of the road and eat them or whatever. So, yeah, I, as a Boy Scout, spent some time eating wild carrots. Wild carrots?

Which are also called, they go by the name Queen Anne's Lace because the flower is quite lovely. Oh, okay. And you pull them up and they're tiny. Baby carrots. Yes, they're the cutest little Tonka truck style carrots. And they're barely a centimeter and a half. They're barely an inch long.

And you pick them up and they really smell like carrots and you cut them, trim them. They're a root vegetable and you boil them and you have Queen Anne's Lay soup. It's a thing to do. Right. And as far as I know, there's no genetic modification of those organisms. There you go. That's by way of one example. And people wander through the woods.

They eat the nuts. There are some subsistence tribes that harvest certain places in the woods. Truffles. Truffles. Truffles, right. But even truffles, my understanding, are cultivated. They're like you leave this area alone, let the truffles happen. Okay, I didn't realize that.

Well, I mean, I'm asking. And so then even if you're a subsistence tribe in a rainforest, you move from area to area and let those areas replenish. and let those areas replenish. So it is not a huge step from that style of life, from sanctuary to sanctuary, getting the food that comes ripe at the right time, to planning the stuff on purpose and managing it. Okay. And P.S., Michael actually says,

I'm writing you in for president. Oh, that's good. Good to know. So now it is time. Who would want that job? Man, oh man. Is it time for the lightning round? It's time! We love the lightning round. Hit me the ball. Alright, so

our lightning round we're going to do as a potpourri. Okay? Just some miscellaneous questions from everywhere. Alright? Here we go. This is Joss Squatch Stringer. Serious, that's the name. Joss Squatch Stringer. When can we get a new Bill Nye the Science Guy show?

Even a web show. Anything. Bill, please. I'm working on it. I'm starting with StarTalk Radio. Bang. Let's talk about the space station. This comes from Brian. Let's talk about the space station. This comes from Brian. Let's talk about the space station. Do they get blinded by the sun every few minutes if continuously stargazing?

I think the windows are tinted. Okay. I'm sorry. Chuck, it wasn't that funny. No, it's just. You have the option as an astronaut of not staring at the sun. And the thing is not aimed right at the sun. In fact, the couple where everybody hangs out there as an astronaut looks at the earth because it's so beautiful and fascinating.

Jennifer Holford from Facebook wants to know, when are you two going to discuss nuclear energy? I can suggest several dozen experts who would love to help you out. Why don't we talk more about nuclear energy, Bill? Bill Nye Nuclear energy has great promise, but the nuclear industry in the U.S. has kind of been, how to say, not the most reliable. I used to live in Washington State. Every week there was a problem at Hanford, some leak, some solvent, some something. But look at the country of France. 40 years, they've been running 80% of their electricity with nuclear power plants. If we could get them figured out, maybe it's an alternative.

However, I as a taxpayer and voter would like a little better track record from the nuclear industry. You have 430 commercial nuclear power plants, and three of them have catastrophic failures. That's not good. Okay. All right. This is Jolene Williamson from Facebook who wants to know, Bill, are GMOs affecting the honeybees? Indirectly, yes.

Indirectly, yes, because monocultures, that is to say our ability to grow enormous tracts of land into one style of plant, has made the pollination of those plants troublesome for bees. They've got to show up, they've got to work this enormous field or sets of fields, and then they've got to go back to their hive and get on a truck and go somewhere else. fields, and then they got to go back to their hive and get on a truck and go somewhere else. It wears them out, but it's an unintended consequence and something we could definitely address with careful farming practice. All right, Jeff Norbury wants to know, a little time travel here. What do you think the most profound scientific discovery of the 21st century will be? We're in the 21st century right now. What do you think? Where are we headed? the 21st century will be. We're in the 21st century right now. What do you think? Where are we headed? Where are we headed? Got no idea. However, I predict that in 100 years, people will know whether or not there is life on Mars, whether or not there is life on the moon of Jupiter, Europa. Let's get it done right now. Nice. Okay. This is Dave Harrison. What's to say?

He says, in your opinion, sir, is the difference between a bad GMO and perhaps a good GMO? Is there such a difference? Is there good and bad GMOs? Well, sure. Some of those tomatoes that were produced were not very enjoyable to consumers, and they don't make much of them anymore. Wow. There you go. So when they taste like crap, then that's a bad GMO.

Or they're bland. Or they're bland. Gotcha. Wouldn't every strain of GMO need to be medically tested to be sure it's safe for human consumption? And do we do that? Yeah, we do. The Department of Agriculture does that. That's their gig.

All right. The Department of Agriculture does that. That's their gig. All right. And they are a government agency that works for the good of all, for you anti-regulation people out there. You've got to have some regulation. The Department of Agriculture is a classic.

Boom. Now, Chuck, this has been perhaps the most enjoyable Cosmic Query of my life. And I'm very happy that you are here. Thank you all for listening to StarTalk Radio. I've been your host, Bill Nye, and I'm here with my guest science commentator, Chuck Nice. Tune in to StarTalk and turn it up loud.