There’s a hole in the wall keeping genetically modified organisms out of New Zealand and it’s shaped like an impossible burger. As Chris Schulz wrote for The Spinoff, the lab-designed meat is the biggest name in the plant-based craze. However, the impossible burger would be impossible without genetic engineering.

There hasn’t been a review of New Zealand’s laws covering GMOs in over two decades. RNZ reports that the Productivity Commission now warns that current regulations don’t reflect 20 years of breakneck technological advances. The commission has recommended that regulations should accomodate new technology and not “stifle” innovation.

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It’s possible that you’ll be reading a newsletter in another 20 years that also covers the country’s largely GMO-free status. But it’s unlikely. While there’s been tremendous technological change in the 20 years since the country’s last GMO review, the next two decades promise to be even more transformative. “Biology is the most important technology of this century,” Wired argues in a recent review of what’s to come. In ways that already seem unthinkable, technology is being used right now to edit and rewrite life. The future, for better or worse, will be increasingly synthetic.

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