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Codebreaker

A real apple story

Marc Sanchez May 25, 2012

I love a good apple, who doesn’t? (Don’t raise your hand, because I WILL FIGHT YOU.) But we’ve all had the brown apple blues – you know when the meat of that delicious Granny Smith starts to turn all bruisey looking. It kind of sneaks up on you too, one minute you’re crunching away, gabbing to a buddy, then in the space of a knock-knock joke that sucker has turned brown. Party over.

Scientists at Okanagan Specialty Fruits, a Canadian biotech company, want to keep the party going. The solution: a genetically modified apple that “silences” the gene responsible for the discoloration. Gizmodo talked with Okanagan honcho Neal Carter (not to be confused with 80’s sitcom star, Nell Carter – I mean, Gimme a break!), who “hopes to be granted approval to begin selling his apples in Canada and the US within the year; with planting and harvesting factored in, we could be buying these apples as soon as 2014.”

Here’s a Gene that will never be silenced. NEVER.

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