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Genetic engineering has been around for a long time, such as selective breeding of animal stocks, but the purposeful tweaking of DNA has only been around since the 1970s. For animal breeding, breeders chose the features they most liked in the animal and bred those that exhibited these features.

For the more modern version, genetic engineering was started for various reasons. Genetic engineering found a way to produce artificial insulin, produced by bacteria, in order to meet the requirements of growing numbers of diabetics. Crops were engineered to withstand pesticides and herbicides so that farmers could spray the crops to kill the insects and weeds without damaging their plants.

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14y ago

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