Modern Biotechnology
Panacea or new Pandora’s box?
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We found that the flowering time order of accessions in a genetic population considerably varied across environments, and homolog copies of essential flowering time genes played different roles in different lo...
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Microbial communities are more than the sum of their members, because of the complex microbial ecological interactions in the community. Understanding the types and mechanism of microbial interactions is essen...
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Solid-state fermentation is defined as the growth of microorganisms on moist solid substrates without free-flowing water [1–4] (Fig. 4.1). Solid-state fermentation was widely used for thousands of years in Asi...
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Although it is a spontaneous fermentation process of Chinese liquor (baijiu) making, the microbial succession keeps surprisingly consistent among batches of fermentation. Three categories of factors are important...
Article
Variable-rate fertilization is crucial in the implementation of precision agriculture and for ensuring reasonable and efficient fertilizer application and nutrient management that is tailored to local conditio...
Article
Flowering plants perceive photoperiodic signals in leaves to generate mobile stimuli required for the induction of flower formation at shoot apices. Although FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) has been identified as part ...
Book
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We have tried in this book to convince the reader of this proposition. Now that it is finished, we the authors are more convinced than ever. So we hope that, having read the book, you too can genuinely subscri...
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Developments in the area of modern biotechnology can no longer be stopped. Take, for example, the amazing pace at which our knowledge and understanding of the genetic material of humans (Textbox 1.1) is moving...
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This bold statement was issued by Esther Delnoij on 7 May 1994. At that time she was head R&D of a manufacturer of bread improvers. Like cheese, bread is one of the oldest traditional biotechnological products...
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It was Walpole who suggested that the word “serendipity” be included in our vocabulary after reading the Three Princes of Serendip. Serendip is the old Persian name for Sri Lanka. Nowadays serendipity is defin...
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Outside the European Union (EU), the area planted with genetically modified crops (GM crops) increases about 10% annually (see Figure 2.1 in preceding chapter). Within the EU there are still seemingly unbridge...
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In Judaism the word Torah is normally used to describe the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. These Five Books of Moses form the basis of the Jewish faith. Caring for animals is thus not only from this time as...
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This quote from the play Julius Caesar by Shakespeare sums up better than any other the history of penicillin, a substance excreted by the mould Penicillium notatum. Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by the Briti...
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An excerpt from the original Underground Steroid Handbook62; Daniel Duchaine wrote the book in 1988, just before he went to prison for a year on a steroid charge.
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The above statement was made by Guido Persijn, former Medical Director of the Eurotransplant Foundation, an international organisation that coordinates organ donation and transplantation. Xenotransplantation i...
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This is a quote from the foreword of a book called Stamcellen (Stem Cells), written by one of the world’s leading stem cell researchers, Christine Mummery, and two of her colleagues (Mummery, Van de Stolpe, & Roe...
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Advances in the field of modern biotechnology seem unstoppable now. This view is also expressed in Ernst & Young’s annual reports on the biotechnology sector. According to their Beyond borders: the global biotech...
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Wine is probably the oldest of all biotechnological products, and yet modern biotechnology offers a whole range of possibilities for its production. Every year approximately 27 billion litres of wine are made ...
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This is a quote from Donna Shalala, a professor of Political Sciences at the University of Miami, where she has also held the post of President since 2001. Donna Shalala is considered to be one of America’s best ...