[quote=Undertoad I have no clue what that exactly entails [/QUOTE]
jerking hand in the air and practically falling out of chair: OOH OOH, I know this one!!
i do this on a regular basis, the recombinant DNA stuff...except in animal cells not plants.
the generic version is taking a gene of interest from one organism, and putting it in the cells of another. in this example they took the dna that codes for making the blue pigment (the gene) out of flower A and put it in flower B's cells, so that flower B now makes it like it would have it's own pigment.
it's sort of like word processing where you just cut a sentance out of one book and paste it in another, but on a different scale. the language is the same, so the reader (the cells protein making machinery) just goes on translating the new stuff with the old (as if you were reading a paragraph with the new sentance inserted). because dna is dna is dna, the second organism doesn't 'know' that this new gene isn't one of it's own and just goes about tranlating it like all the rest if it's own genes. like a book though, you have to have the new word (or gene) be in context with the rest of the story or it won't make any sense (or, the new protein won't be made or expressed properly in the new organism).
this is what takes so long, trying to get the new word (gene) to make sense (be properly translated into a good protein) with the rest of the story (the rest of the proteins in the organism).
there will be a quiz later, i hope you took notes
