Rice

No. of Genes

Rice        – 40-60,000

Man        – 20-25,000

"We all like to believe we, as humans, are better than anything else, and that we have more of everything. But if we pride ourselves on the number of genes in our genome, then we lose to a lowly rice plant." Professor Gane Ka-Shu Wong, Canadian scientist who worked on the DNA sequence of the rice subspecies indica

‘Puncturing the ego gene - How big is yours - your genome that is? The human species has had its ego bruised by the news that rice probably has more genes. According to the research just published, each rice cell contains somewhere in the region of 40,000 to 60,000 genes, while each human cell has only about 30,000 to 40,000 genes. But, hey, let's move the goalposts. We no longer judge the complexity of an organism by gene count alone. It's now about how an organism uses those genes…Eventually, science might get around to sequencing the wheat genome. That has about 16 billion base pairs of DNA compared with the three billion found in humans. Size isn't everything.’  BBC News

Rice

A bowl of rice -

more ingredients for life

than a whole world

of people.

‘By simply comparing genomes, for example, those of Arabidopsis or rice with those of wheat and other cereals, researchers gain clues as to what many individual genes do in crop species. Information from rice, for example is being used to analyse a chromosome in wheat that carries many agronomically important genes, such as those for frost tolerance, plant form and yield. Such comparisons are aided by a UK initiative on plant genome databases (UKCropNet) established in 1996 that encompasses cereals, grasses, the cabbage family (includes oil seed rape),and model organisms. In order to make agriculture sustainable, farming practices will increasingly have to be tailored to meet particular market needs, and environmental and other constraints. In part, at least, this means making crops more suitable for particular end uses, for example, in food, or as renewable feedstock for industrial manufacturing. Genomics can help greatly here, both through traditional plant breeding technology and genetic modification.’ MRC, UK, 2000

Rice is enshrined

Already rice is enshrined in the belly of the world;

cultivated, bred - white, shining grains on the altar

of the planet; groaning table that keeps flipping scales.

Just rice keeping its balance - ungrasped by the West -

except in takeaways, hippy stuff, delectable risottos -

not diet-dependent, like the Irish people left to starve.

The writing of rice is spoken by the bellies of half

the world’s hungry; it has become white like snow

or rose - ethereal lilies who took the job of beauty,

not feeding the poor, up to its green neck in water;

multiplying, secreting genes to be so tough,

survive to protect these children engorged

with hunger - wicked phantom-food swelling,

leaving flies in gigantic eyes, reaching hands.

May this taking down, written transcript of rice,

make safe the heart of Nature’s heavenly recipe;

may the white word of rice be kept sacred -

for any alteration to this food will be judged

by death, diminution of life;

and unnecessary starvation

of just one child will offend the Godly