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Reengineering Life

Scientists Used Gene Editing to Make Super Corn

The resulting crop could be more sustainable than current varieties

Emily Mullin
Future Human
Published in
4 min readMar 23, 2021

Photo illustration source: EyeEm/Getty Images

Reengineering Life is a column from Future Human about the ways humans are using biology to reprogram our bodies and the world around us.

Thanks to selective breeding over the course of some 9,000 years, humans were able to transform an ancient wild grass with dinky cobs and a handful of kernels into the sweet, juicy corn we know today.

More recently, scientists have used genetic engineering to further transform the crop, resulting in pest-resistant corn. Now, researchers think gene editing — which is far more precise than traditional genetic engineering — could improve corn even more. In a recent study published in Nature Plants, researchers used gene editing to increase the number of kernels on ears of corn.

The researchers think the strategy could lead to more sustainable crops, which would be a boon for the United States, where more than 90 million acres

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Future Human
Future Human

Published in Future Human

Future Human was science publication from Medium about the survival of our species. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Emily Mullin
Emily Mullin

Written by Emily Mullin

Former staff writer at Medium, where I covered biotech, genetics, and Covid-19 for OneZero, Future Human, Elemental, and the Coronavirus Blog.

Responses (4)

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"a third of all the corn produced is used for livestock feed"
This is remarkable. Eat your dead animals all you want, as this is not some vegan activism rant, but when will we awake to the damage that raising animals for slaughter does to the planet?
"…

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The only long-term solution to sustainability is controlling population growth

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fantasitic work Emily! Innovation like this will surely solve world hunger!!

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