The Age of Genetics was created by remarkable advances in the use of biotechnology to manipulate plant and animal genomes. Given that the world population reached 7.5 billion people in 2017 and is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050, some scientists have proposed that only the worldwide introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods will increase crop yields enough to meet future nutritional demands. Pest resistance, herbicide, cold, drought, and salinity tolerance, along with increased nutrition, are seen as positive attributes of GM foods. However, others caution that unintended harm to other organisms, reduced effectiveness to pesticides, gene transfer to nontarget species, allergenicity, and as yet unknown effects on human health are potential concerns regarding GM foods. If you were in a position to control the introduction of a GM primary food product (rice, for example), what criteria would you establish before allowing such introduction?

Video transcript

Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Let's look at our next problem. According to the researchers, the first synthetic bacterial genome was produced at the J Craig Ventner Institute in 2010. The first ever synthetic life form was given the name Blink Well, we have a little clue here. The first part of our question tells us that the first synthetic bacterial genome. So that lets us know that the first synthetic life form was a bacteria or bacterium, I should say created synthetic, completely synthetically in the lab. Now, one thing to note is that this was created from naturally occurring genes and not from any unique human sort of invented genes. But the it was significant in that this bacterial life itself was synthesized by humans in a lab. So the name given to this life form was Choice B Cynthia open there. And even if we didn't uh know for sure, we could guess again, we're assuming it's a bacterium. So Glow Fish, Choice C and Choice D knockout mouse, um you would eliminate the fact that they're not bacteria and choice A is dolly. Um You may recall that Dolly was the first cloned sheep. So she was a sheep, not a bacteria. So she was not a synthetic life form, but she was significant in being the first cloned animal. So not our answer, but we'll eliminate choice. So eliminate choice a dolly. And again, uh let's just look at our other answer choices to see that. Obviously, they're incorrect as they are not bacteria, but just to go through what they were. So we have choice C glow fish and these are genetically engineered fluorescent fish. So not synthetic life naturally occurring fish, but in a gene introduced into them that causes them to have fluorescence that they don't naturally have. And then finally, choice D knockout mouse kind of the opposite of the Glow Fish. A knockout mouse is generated when an existing gene in the mouse is destroyed or altered, using the introduction of artificial DNA into the genome. So you design a synthetic piece of DNA that's targeted to a specific gene area and you design it so that it will incorporate in a way such that it alters or destroys the gene that's present this way, you can study the effect of the absence of that gene or the alteration of that gene on the mouse that's so created. So again, we have the first ever synthetic life form given the name choice B Cynthia. See you in the next video.