The trailer of the film The Happening, which you can watch here, is a pretty thrilling one. Although a very good watch for my brother and I last night (he had nightmares in bed, I don't recommend!), it also gives grounds for some scientific ethics. It's one of those films that is becoming more and more relevant as science's research into genetic engineering continues.
The film depicts an entire population being crudely infected by an unknown disease believed to have been created by plants, where the people seem to lose mental consciousness and in each case they attempt to kill themselves. This obviously makes for some very disturbing and admittedly fictitious scenes of the methods to kill oneself, however I couldn't help thinking to myself how real this situation could be.
Golden Rice is an example of a genetically modified plant that has been developed for 3rd world communities which lack sources of vitamin A. Genes from daffodils which express the production of beat-carotene were inserted into the rice and the result is that it now contains 23 times more vitamin A. [Wiki] This was one of the first successful GM plants. Is it dangerous?
Ever since the pioneering of genetically modified plants, scientists have always been wary of cross pollination between the transgenic transformed plants and wild species of plants which will inevitably grow around them. If cross pollination were to occur between, lets say, a modified car size potato and an adjacent venus fly trap growing nearby then you could end up with a car sized venus fly trap (yes, just like mario kart). Now, if we started making genetic plants in the masses, imagine the possibilities and increased probability of cross pollinations that could occur. Start with one field of super potatoes and a patch of venus fly traps and you get a bigger patch of mario fly traps. What happens with those mario fly traps? Who knows. Maybe there will be a series of unfortunate events and they will breed with the neighbouring field of dandelions so we get flying fluffy mario venus fly traps. Although unlikely, it is definitely possible. All you have to do is see the example of the belgian blue, seen here, to see the potential of what manipulating genetics can do. It is unlikely, very unlikely. But still there, which is worrying.
Resident Evil, another thriller film, is about an underground weapons corporation which design abominations and is another example of what genetic engineering can do at its worst, see here, but we can accept that this is even further fictitious, or at least hope that it is, because the horrors created within it have been genetically and dramatically engineered to be as dangerous as possible by the weapons corporation, whereas the cross pollination of genetically modified plants would not usually result in a crude characteristic such as crazy red mongrel-like leaves.
The thing is, it is not fictitious to genetically modify viruses (genetically modified viruses are the vector for destruction in resident evil). As productive research into super crops continues, it is inevitable that the scientific community will find out about how to manipulate genes furthermore and thus so will fuel the other areas of genetic modification, such as biological warfare.
It is in these situations that I hope human innate goodness prevails and I sincerely hope that underground organisations such as that in resident evil do not exist. Especially the evil dogs.
