Bio Tech

Biotechnology can be equal parts frustrating and enthralling.

Bio Tech Blitz aims to keep the frustrating bits to a minimum, with the enthralling meter turned way up.

Here’s a basic definition – biotechnology is that particular field of biology that uses living things in engineering, medicine, technology, etc. Genetic engineering falls under this category. So does animal domestication, plant cultivation, and any “improvements” made in these fields through breeding programs that use artificial selection and / or hybridization. As a field, biotechnology draws on biological sciences, such as microbiology, genetics and cell biology, as well as other sciences like chemical engineering and information technology.

So, inquiring minds want to know – what is the origin of biotechnology?

In a word – corn.

Kinda. Maybe not in the specific sense, but in a the general sense, agriculture and the cultivation of plants fits the broadest definition of using a biotechnological system to make products. From as far back as the neolithic era (Middle East, around 10,000 BC), farmers used specific methods to select the best crops in order to produce enough food to support a growing population. Certain crops and fields are harder to maintain, so specific organisms and their by-products were used to fertilize and restore nitrogen. Via agriculture, farmers unknowingly altered the genetics of their crops due to their introduction into new environments and through cross-pollination with other plants.

The process of brewing beer were developed in cultures in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India, using malted grains which contain enzymes that convert starch from grains into sugar. Then, by adding specific yeasts, that Heineken in your hand is born. During the beer brewing process, carbs found in the grains are broken down into alcohols like ethanol. So you see, the brewing of beer could be considered a biotechnological wonder. Other early biotechnological processes were employed, such as the Ancient Indians who used the juices from the Ephedra vulgaris plant to make Soma, or other cultures that produced lactic acid fermentation which was used to preserve other forms of food.

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