Hi Everybody, after three years of begging for this to be completed, I now have been eliminated from the project. This is shameful, disappointing, and speaks volumes about the ethics of Karl and Anastasia.
I'm sorry for any delays I caused in this process, but rest assured that I did significant writing towards this work well over a year ago. This should have been done in early 2016, and there is no excuse.
http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2018/08/revising-history-removed-from-gmo-corn.html?m=1
David, all points were considered. Experiments are blind to the participants, everything barcoded, and analysis will be yes/no in terms of if the corn was consumed from the cob. Quantitative data will not likely be possible, but the stats folks associated with this should be able to image cobs from photos and convert to amounts consumed. I don't think that will be the issue. I'm expecting 100% of treatment and control to be consumed. But we'll do the test and see.
It is not organic corn. It is the corresponding isoline relative to the stacked traits. Monsanto's involvement is perfect. If we didn't use their products, people would criticize that too. Keep to the hypothesis. Many claim it is the transgenes that deter the feeding. That is testable and falsifiable using this approach.
Skye, I'll leave it to Karl and Anastasia to chime in on such things. Karl is doing the heavy lifting on this project and he's the one to interview, along with Anastasia. I'll jump in if they think it is useful.
Karl runs a clean experiment and believe me, I want this to be clear and above board. We talked this out extensively to make sure all bases were covered.
.... and it is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. If we didn't use Monsanto corn then critics would say, "well it is the Monsanto stuff that's full of formaldehyde."
Wolfgang, the images will be posted as they come in, and everything will be public. It will be open and more participation will be encouraged. I wish we could do an international test.
I'll be happy to include an application for college too. Get him started early! I always have materials for science fairs, so as he moves along keep me in mind. We'll take good care of you.
Karl has done all of the heavy lifting, so he's the one to thank! We've kicked around the idea for a long time and now we can do the proper experiment in massive replicates. It should show us if the phenomenon reported on the internet is real or not! Thanks Mary.