This appeared in Science's summary of the month's contents in Science. We have humans acting as the environment for artificial selection -- directed evolution -- to make a new design in plants that we cannot make ourselves.
Another "proof" of natural selection and evolution. Also, notice that "creation" doesn't yield anything new. These new plants for agriculture are only possible if evolution is true.
"Directed Herbicide Resistance
Crops genetically engineered to tolerate glycophosate -- a potent yet cheap and environmentally friendly herbicide trademarked as Roundup -- have been widely successful, allowing farmers to control weeds without damaging cash crops. Glycophosate inhibits a key enzyme that plants use to make amino acids, and resistance to it has been achieved by adding a gene for a similar microbial enzyme that isn't affected by the chemical - thereby creating "Roundup Ready" plants tolerant of the herbicide. Nonetheless, glycophosate still accumulates in these plants and can interfere with other developmental processes. In a report in the 21 May 2004 Science Castle et al. ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/304/5674/1151 ) described their use of an alternative technique -- directed evolution -- to develop a different sort of glycophosate-tolerant plant that eliminates this problem by detoxifying glycophosate as it is taken up. The team screened several hundred common microbes and isolated one strain with three genes encoding enzymes that could detoxify glycophosate, though their activities were too low to be commercially effective. In an attempt to create a higher-efficiency enzyme, the researchers fragmented the genes, shuffled the pieces, added them back to bacteria, and then selected those more effective at detoxification. After 11 rounds of selection, they isolated an enzyme that was nearly 10,000 times more efficient. And corn plants outfitted with the gene tolerated six times the glycophosate concentration typically used by farmers, with no apparent affect on health or reproduction. As noted in an accompanying News story by E. Stokstad ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/304/5674/1089 ), the commercial potential of the discovery remains to be seen. Still, the study elegantly demonstrates that enzymes with useful yet insufficient activities can be subsequently improved by applying directed evolution."
Another "proof" of natural selection and evolution. Also, notice that "creation" doesn't yield anything new. These new plants for agriculture are only possible if evolution is true.
"Directed Herbicide Resistance
Crops genetically engineered to tolerate glycophosate -- a potent yet cheap and environmentally friendly herbicide trademarked as Roundup -- have been widely successful, allowing farmers to control weeds without damaging cash crops. Glycophosate inhibits a key enzyme that plants use to make amino acids, and resistance to it has been achieved by adding a gene for a similar microbial enzyme that isn't affected by the chemical - thereby creating "Roundup Ready" plants tolerant of the herbicide. Nonetheless, glycophosate still accumulates in these plants and can interfere with other developmental processes. In a report in the 21 May 2004 Science Castle et al. ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/304/5674/1151 ) described their use of an alternative technique -- directed evolution -- to develop a different sort of glycophosate-tolerant plant that eliminates this problem by detoxifying glycophosate as it is taken up. The team screened several hundred common microbes and isolated one strain with three genes encoding enzymes that could detoxify glycophosate, though their activities were too low to be commercially effective. In an attempt to create a higher-efficiency enzyme, the researchers fragmented the genes, shuffled the pieces, added them back to bacteria, and then selected those more effective at detoxification. After 11 rounds of selection, they isolated an enzyme that was nearly 10,000 times more efficient. And corn plants outfitted with the gene tolerated six times the glycophosate concentration typically used by farmers, with no apparent affect on health or reproduction. As noted in an accompanying News story by E. Stokstad ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/304/5674/1089 ), the commercial potential of the discovery remains to be seen. Still, the study elegantly demonstrates that enzymes with useful yet insufficient activities can be subsequently improved by applying directed evolution."
