Question: what idoes GMO mean?

Ricardo Ramirez answered on 23 Jun 2014:

In short, Genetically Modified Organism. Which probably doesn’t tell you much, so let me elaborate.

All the living organisms have DNA, which contain its building instructions. Each building block is called a gene. For sake of simplicity, lets say that each one of your features is given by a single gene, lets say a gene tells if you have freckles or not, another one the colour of your eyes, and so on (in reality, it is a mix of several genes, not all of them understood).

Some bacteria are able to send genes between them, so a bacteria may be resistant to an antibiotic and another will die on its presence. The bacteria that is resistant can give the gene to the one that otherwise would die. When researchers figured out what was happening, they tried to do the same. For example, there are some modified bacteria that produce insulin, which helps to control diabetes.
Humans, being humans, are curious and like to see if we can do other useful things. It is still a hard work to do, but now some genes that are understood can be exchanged between species, like in Vietnam, where a rice to help to combat malnutrition was developed by inserting the gene that produces Vitamin A to it.
Some people argue that it is not natural, but none of the food we eat is really “natural”. All the cereals we eat had been already domesticated and in some cases crossed with different species, for example, wheat is really the mix of 3 grasses, none of them particularly good for food. In the case of GMO, since the gene being inserted is already understood, it is more secure than just crossing random species that may or may not work. And faster.