Chinese scientists discovered a gene, HMGB1, in the roots of upland rice that obstructs the development of deeper, thicker roots, crucial for drought resistance.
By removing this gene, irrigated rice developed longer roots and greater drought tolerance, enabling it to thrive in water-scarce environments, independent of environmental cues.
People have ate rice for thousands of years so it's safety has been tested
If the rice has different DNA then it will produce different chemicals and the safety of the rice with the different chemicals due to the different DNA has not been tested for thousands of years
@shortstories @yogthos the chemicals it produces are exactly the same
it's not even transgenic (where you take a natural gene from one organism and put it in another), if you read the post you'd see they just removed the bad gene, so it's actually producing fewer chemicals
There might be a beneficial purpose for that chemical to be there otherwise it might have been completely weeded out by natural selection or thousands of years of artificial selection by farmers if the chemical is completely harmful to rice's ability to survive long enough to reproduce
Food could potentially become unsafe because a chemical is removed
Some of the other chemicals might become harmful if there is not another chemical to prevent them from being harmful
@shortstories @yogthos you're an idiot