Plant Sciences Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is the first GM crop to be grown?
Tobacco
What are the main factors that plant science brings us?
- Food security and nutrition
- Water security
- Energy security
- Medicine and pharmacology
- Environmental sustainability
- Wealth redistribution
Briefly explain who norman borlaug is and how he is father of the ‘green revolution’
Developed semi-dwarf, high yield varieties of wheat
What percentage of the planets land is highly degraded?
25%
How is climate change affecting our food security?
Temperatures are exceding survival thresholds of crop, tree and fish species
What percentage of total primary energy is fossil fuel based and how does energy affect our food security?
85%
Modern food systems are heavily dependant on fossil fuels
Roughly how many people in the world suffer from chronic hunger?
1 billion
What percentage of the world have crop losses due to pests and pathogens?
40%
How many global deaths are from cancer or cancer related inless annually?
8 000 000
There are many benefits that GM can bring to us. What are some negatives?
- Commercial interests
- Loss of ecological diversity (herbicide/pesticide/fungicide resistant crops
- Gene transfer to wild relatives
What is the causative agent of the irish potato famine?
Phytopthora infection
Describe the N2 fertiliser
- Accounts for 5% of global energy (and is increasing)
- Allows for 3-4x increased crop yield
- Its expensive
- 2/3 of applied N2 is lost to the environment
Plants have high metabolic diversity. What does this mean?
Naturally produce anti-microbial and anti-herbivory compounds
In drug discovery, why would you start with natural products?
- Pre-screened in folk medicine (ethnopharmacology)
- Active in the cell
- Higher chance of biological activity
- Combinatorial effects
- Community benefit
In the bio-industry, why are plants used as medical bioreactors?
- Many post-translational modifications are maintained, can also be ‘humanised’
- Maintain stereochemistry
- Cheap to grow
- Store as seed when needed
- Edibility
- Interleukin, Interferon
In energy security, with the use of algae (dirty water) and waste CO2, what can be produced?
Oil
Capture waste NPK from agricultural run off and remove heavy metal pollutants
What is meant by phytoremediation?
Using plants natural abiltiy to take up toxins in their cells
Can be used to clear up waste/contaminated grounds on farmlands, sewage etc.
Why would industrial ‘pink’ houses be used?
-Increase output per unit area
-High value/nutritious crops
-High yield
-Low carbon footprint
10% of water use of ‘normal’ farming
What is the use of urban greening?
- Improve air quality
- Insulation
- Water run off migration
- Air cooling
- Improve mental health
- Potential for city farming
Are plants aware? Conscious? Intelligent?
- Perceive light from UV to infra-red
- Detect and differentiate touch
- Smell/taste more than any animal
- Conduct electrical impulses and have glutamate receptors
- Long and short term memory
