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Synthetic in sentence

301 examples of Synthetic in a sentence

Cargill’s new product is an example of synthetic biology, a form of genetic engineering that uses modified organisms to manufacture compounds that would never be produced naturally.
Synthetic biology is high-tech, and it is also potentially high-risk.
In a recent opinion, European Union scientific committees concluded that while the risk assessment used for evaluating genetically modified organisms should be applicable to aspects of synthetic biology, in specific cases new approaches may be needed to evaluate the safety of the technology.
Early in 2015, Marian Bassey (representing the ETC Group) met stevia farmers in Kenya to understand what competition from synthetic biology might mean for them.
When we asked Paul Mwangi Kigaa, another small-scale farmer, what Cargill’s use of synthetic biology would mean for him and his neighbors, he answered that “growing stevia in their factories will affect our lives!”
In its annual survey of leading global risks, the World Economic Forum noted that, “the invention of cheap, synthetic alternatives to high-value agricultural exports … could suddenly destabilize vulnerable economies by removing a source of income on which farmers rely.”
Ingredients that are being replaced or are likely to be exchanged for products made through synthetic biology include vanilla, saffron, coconut oil, patchouli, olive squalene, and rose oil.
Indeed, the world’s largest cosmetics, flavor, and fragrance companies are hoping that synthetic biology will help them replace more than 200 natural botanical extracts.
Fortunately, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the risks posed by synthetic biology, and companies are responding.
Earlier this year, the iconic ice cream brand Ben and Jerry’s pledged not to use any ingredients produced through synthetic biology.
And, after the natural cleaning products brand Ecover was petitioned by tens of thousands of angry consumers, the company quickly rolled back an experiment in which it used algal oil produced through synthetic biology in a laundry detergent.
The Non-GMO Project, an increasingly influential labeling organization, has ruled that the 33,000 products carrying its seal must not use synthetic biology.
The dark clouds gathering around synthetic biology may not have been visible at Cargill’s sunny product launch.
But, by competing with poor farmers and misleading consumers about the origins of its ingredients, EverSweet and other examples of synthetic biology are generating bitterness at both ends of the product chain.
Today doctors give synthetic growth hormone to short boys, or Propecia to middle-aged men to remedy the shame of baldness.
To this end, China has been campaigning for years to have the renminbi added to the basket of currencies that determines the value of the Special Drawing Right (SDR), the International Monetary Fund’s synthetic reserve asset.
One of the primary goals of synthetic biology has been to create a platform, or chassis, to use as a foundation for building organisms designed for specific tasks.
Adding genomic parts to a synthetic organism in order to achieve a predictable result may be far more difficult than proponents of the chassis model have assumed.
It is impossible to know whether synthetic organisms like Venter’s JCVI-syn 3.0 or gene-editing techniques will prove to be commercially dominant in biotechnology – or indeed whether some other method will supplant both.
If the global business elite is serious about action on climate change, it should advocate for an international agreement to impose a carbon price on conventional jet fuel, whether via an explicit tax or through a green-fuel mandate requiring a gradually rising proportion of zero-carbon bio or synthetic fuel.
These two scenarios follow a familiar story line: technological progress, such as the development of nuclear power, genetically modified organisms, information technologies, and synthetic organic chemistry, first promises salvation, but then threatens doom as the consequences, often environmental, become apparent.
Given fear of contamination – and military interest in a more durable supply – research into synthetic alternatives has long been a medical priority.
(Non-hemoglobin synthetic blood substitutes, known as fluorocarbons, have proved to be less effective oxygen carriers.)
Instead, they have focused on strategies for preventing the kidneys from filtering the infused hemoglobin; the hemoglobin from leaking through the blood-vessel walls; and synthetic hemoglobin from destroying nitric oxide (a gas produced in blood vessels that helps them to dilate and increase blood flow).
But if scientists can develop better delivery systems or synthetic agents that are safer, cheaper, and easier to manufacture, enormous opportunities will be created for complex drugs that could be given without injections.
If you don’t think this work important, consider that half the nitrogen in your body is synthetic, a product of a Haber-Bosch factory.
Similarly, the rating agencies relied on information provided by the originators of synthetic products.
Another is the conversion of renewable energy into hydrogen (by splitting water molecules) or a synthetic liquid fuel made with carbon dioxide from the air.
The damaged part of the aorta was then replaced with a synthetic graft.
It will also be used to produce zero-carbon fuels such as hydrogen for ocean shipping and synthetic hydrocarbons for airplanes.
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