In March 1998, patent number 5,723,765, describing a novel method for the “control of plant gene expression,” was granted jointly to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a cottonseed company called Delta & Pine Land. The bland language of the patent obscures a radical new genetic technology: introduced into any plant, the gene in question causes the seeds that plant makes to become sterile—to no longer do what seeds have always done. With the “Terminator,” as the new technique quickly became known, genetic engineers have discovered how to stop on command the most elemental of nature’s
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