Synthetic rubber is made largely from oil which, as you know, is getting more expensive by the minute. Also, apparently, the best rubber is still the kind that comes from the rubber tree (aeroplane tyres are almost all natural rubber) but the rubber tree grows very slowly and is subject to a range of pests.
It turns out that some clever scientist noted that one variety of the dandelion weed produces some of that natural rubber gum component in its roots, so they went to the lab and are now very close to figuring out how to increase that rubber component by altering a particular gene in the plant. This new plant, resistant to pests and growing faster because it’s a weed, would eventually replace the rubber tree as the main source for natural rubber.
All right, there’s just a miniscule bit of rubber in the existing dandelion, but the science boys in their white coats are working on increasing the yield, and they’re pretty confident it’s going to work. Can you picture it? B. F. Goodrich will become B. F. Dandelion. It’s an amazing story.
So here’s my thought: wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could use this alteration technique in plants in other ways? For example: I’m sure you’ve noticed when you eat stinking toe that it leaves a gummy kind of stuff on your teeth that’s hard to get off. Suppose we could modify the stinking toe tree to produce fruit that is even more gummy? On the down side, it would make stinking toe inedible, but apart from me and my Tradewinds drummer friend Clive, people are not big on stinking toe anyway, so no big loss there. On the up side, that improved gummy stuff would make a terrific glue, and it would smell bad so insects would stay away from it. Elmer’s would be behind us for the formula – export market, banna. You see where I’m going?
Or take jamoon. I’ve written before about how this thing stains, but the jamoon fruit is mostly seed. What if we could alter the jamoon so it has a much smaller seed and more fruit with that deadly stain? There is a huge market for industrial dyes for clothes and scores of other uses. Jamoon stain would be a natural. Okay, that purple might be too garish for the conservative white folks, but you know how Indians love bright colours – we would sweep the Indian market; ship barrels of jamoon stain over there. Also, it would be a good use for all those empty barrels we end up with from our families overseas; great example of value added – Robert Persaud would be doing cartwheels.
Think about it: a dunks tree without thorns, a pineapple you can peel like a mango, and ochroe minus all that slimy stuff. I can sense you’re starting to get excited.
And why confine it to plants? We could alter genes in other creatures to improve them as resources for mankind. We could, for instance, create a labba that doesn’t run very fast. You won’t need people like Rohan Jabour hunting them in the forest; you could just run them down like a fowl. Or, talking about fowl, imagine an altered chicken with four drumsticks instead of two; you know how people love drumsticks.
Here’s another one: pigtails. My cousin Anthony Vieira who used to run my aunts’ shop at Hague was digging out a pigtail from the barrel one day, and a customer said to him, “Vieira, with just one tail to a pig, how they get all these pig tails?” Anthony, who was a quick-witted character, told him, “There’s a kind of pig in Portugal that has tails all over its body.” (I should mention that the fellow swallowed the explanation whole.) Of course Anthony said it as a joke, but now, in 2010, his crazy idea could be a reality; imagine a pig with 45 tails. Considering how much pig tail we consume in the Caribbean, that’s an economic bonanza.
Or a cow with brains, so instead of watching traffic and walking straight into it, as cows now do, this altered cow will see your car coming and pull back to the parapet as human beings do. Wonderful, isn’t it?
Now I don’t want to get ridiculous, but it might even be possible to come up with a fish without all those fine bones. Many people love hassar, but are turned off by the small bones. There would be a huge market for boneless hassar, banna; the Guyanese in New York and Toronto would be in ecstasy. Of course, we will have to leave the backbone to hold things together, but all those fine bones that jook you when you’re not careful would be a thing of the past.
Listen, man; this thing could be fantastic. The possibilities are endless. Imagine, for instance, a pepper sauce that gives that zip to your food but doesn’t burn your behind. Just think of your own ideas for altering things, jot them down, collar the first scientist you can think of, and put him to work.
In time, we may even be able to alter the genes in mankind, so we can have people with no body odour (what a blessing for mini-bus passengers), politicians whose vocal cords have a 2-minute speech limit, television commentators who know the difference between “theme” and “team”, and GPL staff who don’t have the word “cut off” in their vocabulary.
Okay, the odds are that some of these experiments will flop. I will even grant you that most will flop. But if we come up with just two changes that work, and those two are “public servants who don’t take bribes” and “mini-bus drivers who don’t speed”, wouldn’t that alone be worth it?
I was saving those final two for the last; I knew that would win you over.
