Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity has come up with one of many definitions of biotechnology:[1]
This definition is at odds with common usage in the United States, where "biotechnology" generally refers to recombinant DNA based and/or tissue culture based processes that have only been commercialized since the 1970s. Thus, in common usage, modifying plants or animals by breeding, which has been practiced for thousands of years, would not be considered biotechnology. This distinction emphasizes that modern, recombinant DNA based biotechnology is not just a more powerful version of existing technology, but represents something new and different; for instance, theoretically, recombinant DNA biotechnology allows us to take virtually any gene and express it in any organism; we can take the genes that make crimson color in plants and put them into guinea pigs to make pink pets, or, we can take the genes that help arctic fish survive the freezing temperatures and put them into food to increase the amount of time it can grow before it freezes.. This sort of gene transfer was virtually impossible with historical processes.