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POPSWill giant vegetables help solve world food shortage? Scientists have yet to offer a definitive explanation of why space causes the seeds to mutate but they believe that cosmic radiation, micro-gravity and magnetic fields may play a part. Mr Lo said: "After space travel the genetic sequence may change from 1,2,3,4 to 1,2,4,3 or a gene may even disappear so 1,2,3,4 becomes 1, 2, and 4. "We don't think there is any threat to human health because the genes themselves do not mutate, just their sequence changes. "With genetically-modified crops you have seen environmental problems because they have added genes that can damage other organisms. "But with space seeds they don't gain genes, they can only lose them."