This is where we are headed...

Genetic modification has developed enough lab tools to blow open the field of experimentation. At the same time more genomes are being mapped and gene/trait connections are being teased out. The result is near-routine announcments like this about GM goat milk:

Human breast milk contains valuable antibacterial enzymes that milk from dairy animals did not--until now. Researchers report that transgenic goats can successfully produce milk containing the enzyme Lysozyme, and that this milk exhibits an antibacterial effect when fed to young goats and pigs. The researchers hope that in the future, enhanced nonhuman milk will give an immune boost to children in the developing world where diarrhea takes more than two million lives each year.

We have been nibbling at the edges of this technology, picking the low-hanging soybeans, so to speak. Throw in the fact that genetic research may be shifting overseas to places like Singapore due to our religious politics, and the simultaneous rise in science education in places like India and China, and we may soon be licensing powerful GM tools from Europe and Asia.

Like that will help our balance of payments.

Thank goodness for California - which seems to be moving toward independence.