This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern Rose Schnabel.
A trip to Walt Disney World includes popcorn, fireworks, and…genetic engineering? As discussed in a previous ScIU post, Disney attractions are full of surprising science, like illusions in the Haunted Mansion and electron movement in firework shows, but perhaps the most interesting example is the biotechnology at work in the Living with the Land attraction at EPCOT.
![A magazine article that describes the Listen to the Land attraction as it stood in 1989 with photos of the boat ride and growing crops.](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2021/12/RS-Biotech-Post-Image-1.png)
In 1982, Disney debuted Listen to the Land, a slow-moving boat ride through agricultural vignettes that culminated in a visit to sprawling greenhouses that provided a peek at Disney’s biotechnology labs. Inside, scientists in white lab coats pipetted and plated dozens of samples. The September 1989 issue of Agricultural Research magazine put it plainly: “ten million people a year now get a close-up look at tissue culture and biotechnology in action.”
The lab, launched as a partnership between Walt Disney World, Kraft, and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), now operates as a branch of the Functional Genomics and Breeding Research Unit under the ARS. Since its conception, the lab has focused on improving the durability, yield, and disease resistance of crops, especially fruit trees. Researchers do so through tissue culture and cloning, two popular techniques in molecular biology that allow scientists to test different genetic modifications.
Tissue culture, also known as micropropagation, is a process that uses a cell or part of an organ to grow tissue in an artificial environment. For plants, tissue samples are cut or scraped from the parent plant and placed onto a solid or liquid growth medium. The medium contains vitamins, nitrogen, and plant growth hormones in various quantities according to the needs of the organism. Over a period of a few days or weeks, samples develop into tiny plantlets and can be transplanted into normal soil. This technique is especially useful for creating large numbers of plants or for propagating species that are difficult to grow from seed.