If we will need climate-resistant corn and other food production plants sooner rather than later, applying a genetic-analysis method used to study and prioritize the genes in humans could improved the likelihood of finding critical genes in food production plants.

These genes control quantitate traits in plants, such as how the plants grow and when they flower. This method can be used to study how food production plants respond to drought, heat and other factors, giving scientists a greater chance at improving crops' resistances to harsh weather and environments.

In 1972, a term related to the parts of a genome sequence that don't have a known function was introduced. Like physicists with the 'God particle', a lot of biologists wish they could take back the term 'junk DNA' because it has been colloquialized to mean something different to the public than what it means biologically. Sometimes it just takes time to know what things do, if they do anything.  A 2004 Nature paper removed 'gene deserts' - 0.1% of the mouse genome - with no effect they could find.

Evolutionarily speaking, most of the harmful mutations that still exist in people are recent, which makes the case that nature is still out to get us, even in modern times.

A study dated the age of more than 1 million single-letter variations in the human DNA code and revealed that 86 percent of the harmful protein-coding mutations of this type arose in humans just during the past 5,000 to 10,000 years. These kinds of mutations change one nucleotide – an A, C, T or G – in the DNA sequence. 

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) accounts for 20% of the calories consumed by the entire world and is one of the Big Three globally important crops, along with rice and corn. 

Millions of years ago, tiny animal thieves going by the alias protozoa held algae captive and then exploited and stole their genes for energy production, thereby evolving into a new and more powerful species.

But the little protozoan outlaws couldn't completely hide all evidence of the captive algae and have been effectively frozen in time - and then caught in the act by genetic sequencing. 

The protozoa captured genes for photosynthesis, the process of harnessing light to produce energy which is used by all plants and algae on earth. Scientists assume that quantum leaps of evolution occurred by one organism cannibalizing another, but hard evidence is rare.

It used to be a stereotype that being fat meant you had a happy personality.  Then culture went out of its way to vilify fat people and make them miserable - when they weren't vilifying culture or food companies for making people fat.

Now researchers claim new genetic evidence about why some people are happier than others - and it involves a gene implicated in obesity. The gene FTO, which is correlated to obesity by the 'being fat is exculpatory' segment of science, has now been similarly associated with an eight percent reduction in the risk of depression. In other words, it's not just an obesity gene but a "happy gene" as well, if your correlation and causation errors roll that way.

In the shadow of Proposition 37's defeat maybe we can have a real conversation.  Angry, uninformed discussion based on fear mongering from both sides detracted from a real issue-- how do we provide complete information about food in a manner consistent with science?

Throughout the discussion scientists and some corporate officials stated repeatedly that labeling is not the problem-- Proposition 37 was the problem.  A potentially complex and expensive bureaucratic web would be created to police foodstuffs that have no inherent dangers.  That's just nuts.

At this time I think everyone in interested in this issue should coalesce around balancing two concepts in complete fairness-- information and science.

At the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2012, a study showed that genetically engineered tomato plants produced a peptide that mimics the actions of good cholesterol when eaten 

In the study, mice that ate the freeze-dried, ground tomatoes had less inflammation and reduced atherosclerosis, plaque build-up in the arteries.