0:03 Meet Paul, a potato farmer. Every year
0:05 he watches as half his average dies
0:08 because of one tiny pest, the Colorado
0:10 potato beetle. These beads will severely
0:12 damage the leaf, preventing the plants
0:14 from photosynthesizing, causing them to
0:17 wither and die. Paul has tried
0:18 everything, but his farm is being
0:21 overrun. Doesn't have to be so because
0:23 Nobel Prize on discovery has opened the
0:25 door to revolutionary solution.
0:28 Scientists found a way to protect pulse
0:30 crops using a naturally occurring
0:33 molecule called doublestranded RNA.
0:35 These are encoded with a sequence
0:38 identical to that of an mRNA sequence in
0:40 the body of the beetle. After the potato
0:41 has been engineered to produce this
0:44 dsna, the beetle eats it. Inside the
0:47 beetle's body, a natural protein called
0:50 dicer fragments the long dsrna strand
0:53 into small pieces called sirna. These
0:56 doublestranded sRNA are then attached to
0:58 a group of molecules called the RAC
1:00 complex. Inside this complex are
1:04 specific molecules that separate the SNA
1:05 strand into the guide strand and the
1:07 passenger strand. The guide strand is
1:09 used for a sequence to copy and hunt
1:12 down the beetle's own matching mRNA
1:13 sequences. The blueprints for the
1:16 central proteins. The complex then binds
1:18 the guide strand to the complimentary
1:20 sequence and makes a single cut in the
1:23 binding mRNA section. This deactivates
1:26 the mRNA which signals the cell to
1:28 rapidly destroy the entire strand. This
1:31 occurs on a massive scale throughout the
1:33 beetle's body. In its vital geostance,
1:35 the beta can no longer create the
1:37 proteins it needs to survive. This leads
1:39 to a gradual failure of its systems. If
1:41 you think about it, it kind of sounds
1:43 like a Trojan horse. The potato holds a
1:44 special surprise inside it. And when the
1:46 beetle accept this gift, the potato, it
1:48 accept a surprise with it which comes
1:49 back and destroys it. This technique is
1:52 called RNA interference and is still an
1:54 active area of research. This beats
1:56 traditional pesticides that could pose
1:58 chemical risk to everyone involved. What
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