Chapter 256 Biosafety

Chapter 256 Biosafety

Chapter 256 Biosafety
Animal Observation Network.

The entire election of academicians was broadcast live, and several scholars were invited to comment.

Dong Gan Di, another host, and three scholars watched the live broadcast from the Great Hall.

Seeing Jiang Miao giving a speech on stage, Gan Di asked with a smile: "Mr. Jiang Miao deserves to be an academician of the Academy of Engineering, but why is he also an academician of the Academy of Sciences? I am a little confused about this."

Professor Zhao, one of the scholars standing by, raised his glasses and said, "I have read Mr. Jiang Miao's paper. He is indeed worthy of the title of academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, because the large-scale application results of the Senzu soybeans are definitely more in line with the selection criteria of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. However, the selection criteria of the Chinese Academy of Sciences are biased towards the theoretical field. I have indeed not seen relevant papers on this point online, but perhaps there are confidentiality requirements for the relevant papers!"

Professor He, who was not wearing sunglasses, also said, "It is true that it may involve confidential papers, but I am not very familiar with the biological field. Xiao Geng may know something about it."

Dr. Geng smiled and said: "From the relevant papers that Mr. Jiang Miao has published so far, his theory is quite unique, or it can be said that his theory is quite innovative. Sometimes when I browse these papers, I feel a sense of disconnection."

"Oh? Dr. Geng, can you clear up this confusion for us?" Dong Gan Di immediately led the topic.

"It would take a long time to explain this in detail, so I will just briefly mention a few points." Dr. Geng paused for a moment, then continued:

"Mr. Jiang Miao's related papers can be divided into three areas, namely agricultural breeding, gene targets, and biomaterials."

"In fact, these seem to be three areas, but they can actually be seen as one area, that is, agricultural breeding and biomaterials are derived from gene targets and gene editing technology."

Hearing this description from Dr. Geng.

Whether it was Emperor Dong, Professor He or Professor Zhao, they all seemed to be thinking about something, and many viewers who were watching the live video broadcast also understood a little.

Especially those scientific researchers who are engaged in biological research in domestic confidential institutions, the Nuwa system they are currently using comes from Hailufeng Company, or more precisely, from Jiang Miao.

Therefore, these people are very clear that Jiang Miao is not only very good in the application field, but his contributions in the theoretical field are even more valuable. It’s just that these theories are secrets that cannot be made public.

This is also why when reading many papers by Jiang Miao and his wife, although they are clearly written by the same author, many of the papers seem somewhat fragmented and span multiple fields.

Because the most critical biological theory is missing.

Dr. Geng expressed his guess: "However, we did not see any relevant biological theory in the public paper materials. Obviously, the core theory of this part should not be made public at present. I guess this part of the theory is the basis for Mr. Jiang Miao to obtain the academician of the Academy of Sciences."

"It's very likely, but this information should be very sensitive, right?" Dong Gan Di was also a little worried. After all, this was a live video broadcast.

"Don't worry, host." Dr. Geng half-joked, "In fact, even a mere probiotics doctor like me has guessed part of the situation. Scholars in the biological field all over the world have similar guesses."

"So that's how it is. Foreign scholars also have the same guess?" Dong Gan Di asked, raising his glasses.

"My supervisor and I attended several global biotechnology forums this year, during which many foreign scholars asked about this aspect. They asked Mr. Jiang Miao if he had discovered a new biological theory."

Although Professor He is a scholar of theoretical physics, he is still very interested in biological theories, so he asked, "Xiao Geng, why do you think foreign scholars make such a conjecture?"

"Haha, it's a very simple point, and that is the number of results." Dr. Geng did not hide anything.

Professor Zhao also reacted: "Well, what Xiao Geng said makes sense."

Dr. Geng explained: "Since 2024, Mr. Jiang Miao has completed a total of 26 achievements, including artificial propagation technology for eels, transgenic rootstock technology for pandan strawberries, fairy beans, Mike bananas, and durian. If we add the achievements of Academician Lin and confidential technologies that are not made public, even with the assistance of other researchers, the number of achievements is still very large."

There was also obvious surprise in Dong Gandi's eyes: "If you didn't say it, I wouldn't feel anything. As soon as you said it, I was shocked."

Another host also nodded and said, "Yes! These technological achievements are very successful, and many of them have extremely high strategic value. They appeared so intensively in such a short period of time. No wonder foreign scholars suspect that Mr. Jiang Miao has a special biological theory."

Professor He asked curiously, "Xiao Geng, you study biology. What do you think Mr. Jiang Miao's biological theory is? Can you guess?"

"Yes! I am also very curious, and I guess the audience are the same." Dong Gan Di followed.

At this time, a lot of comments appeared in the live broadcast room:

[Curious], [Curious baby], [Open the door to check the water meter], [Same] and other barrages.

Dr. Geng did not think that this kind of thing could not be talked about. After all, the biological academic circles at home and abroad have already had various speculations, and even secretly explored some situations.

After all, as more and more people use the Nuwa system, even if some people only access a small part of the content, information leakage is inevitable.

It is a core secret that the outside world does not know about, and there is no way to detect the scientific research base hidden inside the Taminchagan Farm.

He half-jokingly said: "It should be a theoretical model that can quickly screen gene targets, because this is also the direction that many scholars in the biological field are working on. This theoretical model can improve the efficiency of biological breeding and thus obtain a large number of breeding results in a short period of time."

Dong Gan Di asked in confusion: "Dr. Geng, I heard that the current gene editing technology can already edit any trait you need, right?"

"Gene editing technology can indeed do this now, but there is a prerequisite, that is, you must know the function of the gene, which is the difficulty of gene editing technology."

Dong Gan Di said based on his own understanding: "Can I understand it this way? Gene editing technology is like a gun, and how to make the bullet shot by this gun accurately hit the bull's eye becomes the key."

"That's pretty much it."

Another host started a new topic: "Dr. Geng, with the increasingly advanced genetic technology, do you think it is possible for gene-edited baby technology to be used on a large scale in the future?"

Many people are very interested in this topic.

Dr. Geng seems a little cautious and even worried about this: "At present, the technical conditions for making gene-edited babies are already in place, but this involves scientific ethics in the biological field. I think that even if gene-editing technology is to be used on humans in the future, it must be strictly controlled, otherwise it will easily lead to catastrophic consequences."

Professor He joked: "Maybe in our lifetime, we will see the battle between new humans and natural humans."

Professor Zhao, who understands the social operation mechanism better, shook his head and sighed: "Technology is developing. If we don't use it, others will. This situation is difficult to control!"

“This is indeed very difficult to deal with,” Dr. Geng agrees.

"This is a bit like the Dark Forest Theory in The Three-Body Problem." Dong Gan Di said slowly with a thoughtful look on his face, "Now among all the countries in the world, at least a dozen countries have related biotechnology, and biotechnology involves various fields such as medicine, food, ecology, and national defense. They will definitely not easily accept supervision, which has formed blind spots."

"In this blind spot, everyone will suspect whether others are secretly conducting gene editing experiments on humans. Faced with this situation, the only way is to conduct the same research. Unless the world is unified that day, this chain of suspicion will not be easily resolved."

The comments from Animal Observation Network are a bit harsh.

But it has indeed caused a lot of people to worry about biotechnology. After all, there has been an illegal case of human fetal gene editing in the country before. After the researcher served his sentence, he continued to conduct research related to human gene editing and is even preparing new genetic experiments.

Of course, don’t be fooled by the loud voices on the Internet.

In fact, the discussion in reality is not intense, mainly because many people do not care about such things.

The Internet sometimes amplifies this kind of discussion, but in fact the vast majority of people in the country belong to the silent majority.

Many people take a look at it and forget about it.

There are also many forces with bad intentions who are secretly fanning the flames.

For example, in a video by another famous science blogger, the possibilities of genetic modification, gene editing, and the weaponization of biotechnology were greatly exaggerated.

However, his intimidating propaganda has brought about another unexpected consequence, which is that the number of people supporting GMOs and gene editing is increasing rapidly.

Because a lot of people were really scared.

In addition, Western forces have always been far ahead in terms of being inhumane.

This makes many people worry that if Western powers master these technologies, will they use them to make weapons or target Serbia. Obviously, the answer is yes.

Because when domestic AI technology developed explosively in the past two years, many Western Internet companies quietly deleted the clause of "not applying AI technology to weapons development."

In other words, Western forces may now say verbally that biotechnology cannot be weaponized, but in a few years, they may show a different attitude.

This sense of crisis has triggered concerns among many people.

Concerns about enemies gaining access to biological weapons outweigh other negative impacts of biotechnology.

Obviously this was an unexpected result for many forces behind the scenes, but the words had already been spoken, and it was basically impossible to take them back.

People always have a preconceived inertia.

Sometimes, the most effective way to change a concept is not to keep promoting it, but to wait for those stubborn old people to die.

Just like the food safety rumors that are dispelled through popular science every year, many elderly people still believe in those rumors from more than ten years ago and they keep them instilled in young people during every festival.

For example, Hailufeng Company’s new technology durian.

Some elderly people think that these durians are full of technology and hard work, so they refuse to eat them and do not allow their family members to eat them.

In fact, the durian produced by Hailufeng Company is safer and fresher than the Siamese durian. After all, the concept of safe food is the corporate brand of Hailufeng Company.

Unfortunately, many people are suspicious.

However, those marketing accounts dare not spread rumors about Hailufeng Company’s durian and other products, unless they have real evidence, otherwise they will be sent to jail by Hailufeng Company’s legal department in minutes.

But in reality, there is no way to eliminate the rumors on the streets.

Many aunts and uncles like to hear this kind of words the most, and those who run fruit shops and vegetable stalls are the group that likes to spread rumors the most.

They are simply a perfect pair.

Why does this happen? The reason is that vegetable stalls and fruit stores tend to rely on regular customers, which creates fertile ground for rumors.

These individual operators spread rumors and discredit the products of other operators, creating the impression that their products are the best, that they are all grown by themselves, or that they are all good things, and that other people's products are all treated with pesticides, preservatives, and hormones.

The elderly people like to hear such remarks the most and then buy the high-priced products of the operators.

This is exactly the same as the routine used by a large number of live streaming hosts selling goods on the Internet.

The same rhetoric: other people’s stuff is not good, my stuff is good.

In fact, today's pesticides have become less toxic and many of them can be quickly degraded.

For example, the pesticide and fertilizer division recently established by Hailufeng Company.

More than a dozen low-toxic or even non-toxic pesticides have been launched. The mechanism of action of these pesticides is to use gene targets to formulate pheromones that insects hate and fear, thereby causing insects to actively leave the planting area.

Besides being low in toxicity and non-toxic, this pheromone repelling potion has two other benefits.

One is that drug resistance will not develop.

One is that it will not eliminate beneficial insects.

This is a huge difference from traditional chemical pesticides.

Of course, this pheromone-repelling pesticide is not without its disadvantages, including:

The formula is complicated, basically one insect and one medicine;
Environmental degradation is extremely rapid, and generally only lasts four or five days;

The production of raw materials is highly dependent on natural plants.

The core raw materials of Hailufeng Company's pheromone repellent are 33 kinds, including the more common ones such as mugwort, chrysanthemum, camellia seed cake, soybean meal, calla lily, highly toxic cassava, tung tree, rubber tree, ginkgo tree, eucommia tree, cactus, etc.

Judging from these plants, many of them are relatively common plants, and even economic crops.

In fact, it is not that the extracts of these plants have a special effect of repelling insects, but the formula specifically uses the extracts of these plants in order to reduce costs.

The same or similar ingredients exist in other plants, but why are they not used?

The reason lies in the need for cost control.

For example, there is an aromatic hydrocarbon substance extracted from agarwood leaves, combined with other natural extracts and some auxiliary materials, which can effectively expel red spider mites. In the absence of heavy rain, the maintenance time can reach about 18 days.

However, the content of this aromatic hydrocarbon in agarwood leaves is very low, and only 0.8 mg can be extracted from each ton of agarwood leaves. The production cost is too high and it is not economically viable.

Unless it can be synthesized chemically, this formula will have to be shelved.

Currently, Hailufeng Company's pheromone expulsion agriculture adopts a very efficient usage strategy, which is to use it first in the central area of ​​the farm, and then extend it in all directions in a circle to expel specific insects from the farm.

Then an isolation zone is built around the farm, and an automatic spray tower is used to regularly maintain the pheromone concentration in the isolation zone to prevent pests from entering the farm.

This method can reduce the use of a lot of pesticides.

The larger and more concentrated the farm area, the more cost-effective the pheromone isolation belt will be.

As for the small number of fish that have escaped the net, it is actually difficult for them to maintain their ecological niche inside the farm. After all, there are other insect-eating animals inside the farm. These insect-eating animals will make these small number of fish that have escaped the net face a large number of predators, and it will be difficult for the population size to expand.

Moreover, when Hailufeng Company uses information repellent agents, it does not drive away all pests at once, but instead formulates different plans according to different categories.

If it is an insect that already exists in the country, it cannot be expelled all at once, but a certain population density must be maintained to maintain the ecological balance.

If it is an invasive pest from abroad, a comprehensive expulsion approach will be adopted to force it out of the farm completely.

Of course, Hailufeng Company is not the kind of enterprise that harms its neighbors. This pheromone repellent drug itself cannot kill insects, so these insects will accumulate in the surrounding mountains and farmlands of the farm in a short period of time, which can easily cause these areas to be infested by pests.

This is another use of pheromone isolation belts.

Outside the pheromone isolation zone, there is another temporary pheromone isolation zone, which can lock these pests in the area, and then use highly toxic and easily degradable drugs to kill these pests at one time, preventing these pests from running out and harming the surrounding farmland and forests.

Therefore, Hailufeng Company, as well as the relevant growers and enterprises that cooperate with it, are gradually adopting this efficient and low-cost method to eliminate pests.

In the core area of ​​the farm, there is generally no need to spray pesticides for half a year, but bacteria and fungi need to be prevented and controlled.

There is no way to completely eliminate bacteria and fungi.

Even for indoor farms, the only way to reduce the living space of harmful microorganisms is through regular disinfection, replacement of nutrient soil, and cultivation of beneficial microorganisms.

Therefore, among the domestic agricultural products at this stage, Hailufeng’s agricultural products have the best safety status. Not only is the planting process very good, the management of this industrial chain is also very strict.

(End of this chapter)