Scientists have used CRISPR to edit the genome of sweet oranges, and a team of California researchers is now attempting to apply the technology to save the U.S. citrus industry from a bacterial plant disease called huanglongbing—a Chinese name that translates as “yellow dragon disease”—that has devastated parts of Asia and now threatens orchards in Florida, Texas, and California. In South Korea, scientist Jin-Soo Kim and his colleagues hope gene editing in bananas can help save the prized Cavendish variety from extinction, an outcome threatened by the spread of a devastating soil fungus. And
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