Named: 25 environmental threats of the future
by Catherine Brahic, New Scientist
"..the great environmental concerns of the future should be nanomaterials, manmade viruses and biomimetic robots.
So say researchers, policymakers and environmental campaigners, who have identified 25 potential future threats to the environment in the UK, which they say researchers should focus on".
read the article here
February 28, 2009
Israeli snipers targeting Palestinian farmers
"The plan is transparent enough, and what I’ve seen in my nearly 4 months here is the policy of terrorizing the farmers and residents living near the Green Line into abandoning their homes, their land.
There are a number who defy this institutionalized terrorizing, who will work the land until they die, naturally or at the hands of the well-equipped Israeli army".
Sniping at the elders in Khoza'a ingaza.wordpress.com
There are a number who defy this institutionalized terrorizing, who will work the land until they die, naturally or at the hands of the well-equipped Israeli army".
Sniping at the elders in Khoza'a ingaza.wordpress.com
February 27, 2009
more on nanoginger
A few weeks ago I wrote about the ginger that didn't seem right and I called President's Choice to inquire about its origin, and if it was "milled" to nanoparticle scale. They hummed and hawed and put me off until today.
They called today to say the company (an Indian manufacturer) has a new processing regime and will not divulge the scale of the particle.
?
My suspicion is that President's Choice ginger is nanoginger! If you follow the links in my previous post, you'll see it exists. I don't worry so much about the molecules involved with ginger being nanoscale, rather, I'd be concerned about the residues of chemicals associated with the ginger (herbicides). These nanomaterials behave VERY peculiarly on a nanoscale.
Just another interesting example of how the world of our food is transforming before our very eyes...and not too many people saying...
hey! leave our ginger (etc) alone!
They called today to say the company (an Indian manufacturer) has a new processing regime and will not divulge the scale of the particle.
?
My suspicion is that President's Choice ginger is nanoginger! If you follow the links in my previous post, you'll see it exists. I don't worry so much about the molecules involved with ginger being nanoscale, rather, I'd be concerned about the residues of chemicals associated with the ginger (herbicides). These nanomaterials behave VERY peculiarly on a nanoscale.
Just another interesting example of how the world of our food is transforming before our very eyes...and not too many people saying...
hey! leave our ginger (etc) alone!
nanosilver mutant
"Silver nanoparticles can bind with double-stranded DNA and, possibly in this way, result in compromised DNA replication fidelity both in vitro and in vivo.
Reporting their findings in the February 2, 2009 online edition of Nanotechnology (Food storage material silver nanoparticles interfere with DNA replication fidelity and bind with DNA), Zhang, a professor at the Teda Bio-X Center for Systems Biotechnology at Tianjin University of Science and Technology, and his collaborators from Tianjin University and Shanghai Jiaotong University found that silver nanomaterials can directly interact with genomes".
Read more here
Nanosilver is currently being used as an antibacterial in food packaging, clothing and other consumer items.
Read more about consumer products containing unregulated nanoparticles (with list of products).
Reporting their findings in the February 2, 2009 online edition of Nanotechnology (Food storage material silver nanoparticles interfere with DNA replication fidelity and bind with DNA), Zhang, a professor at the Teda Bio-X Center for Systems Biotechnology at Tianjin University of Science and Technology, and his collaborators from Tianjin University and Shanghai Jiaotong University found that silver nanomaterials can directly interact with genomes".
Read more here
Nanosilver is currently being used as an antibacterial in food packaging, clothing and other consumer items.
Read more about consumer products containing unregulated nanoparticles (with list of products).
February 26, 2009
30-Day Healthier Eating Non-GMO Challenge
"The Institute for Responsible Technology’s (IRT) 30-Day Healthier Eating Challenge helps consumers eliminate genetically modified foods (GMOs) to achieve a healthier body in 2009. Their free Non-GMO Shopping Guide, available now, makes selecting healthier groceries quick and easy".
Read more about this and download the guide at responsibletechnology.org
Read more about this and download the guide at responsibletechnology.org
Hidden Dangers
It is not just independent researchers and scientists who recognize the dangers of genetically engineered foods but the FDA's own scientists whose views were silenced; their consensus was that GMOs were inherently hazardous, different from conventional breeding and required rigorous testing because they would contain new poisons and allergens.
Nextgen Omega 3: cell factories
On my way home from Halifax on Saturday, I stopped at a cafe in Kentville and a headline in the business section of Saturday paper a caught my eye "Biotech firm eyes algae as growth area"
The company, Ocean Nutrition Canada (ONC) is the largest omega 3 fish oil producer in the world with 50 research scientists in its Halifax facility. Meg 3 can be found as a supplement in numerous foods form orange juice to bread. Its revolutionary "microencapsulaion" technology keep the fish from the tastebuds. The omega is sourced from anchovies harvested off the Peruvean coast - but the company is planning to source the omega 3 and other nutrients directly from microorganisms using the cell as a factory microfermentation. They have a patent on a marine fungoid which they intend to use as "cell-factories for the production of co-enzyme Q10, via the genetic manipulation of involved metabolic pathways for optimized commercial production". See the statement from Principal Research Scientist Metabolic Engineering & Fermentations at ONC.
Interesting that the same scientist is also the cofounder of biohydrogen, whose goal is to use cell factories to synthesize hydrogen.
The extensive list of food products containing meg 3 from ONC can be found in this PDF: The Truth about Omega 3.
To read more on the future of extreme genetic engineering (Synthetic Biology), see The ETC Group's excellent report on Synthetic Biology
The company, Ocean Nutrition Canada (ONC) is the largest omega 3 fish oil producer in the world with 50 research scientists in its Halifax facility. Meg 3 can be found as a supplement in numerous foods form orange juice to bread. Its revolutionary "microencapsulaion" technology keep the fish from the tastebuds. The omega is sourced from anchovies harvested off the Peruvean coast - but the company is planning to source the omega 3 and other nutrients directly from microorganisms using the cell as a factory microfermentation. They have a patent on a marine fungoid which they intend to use as "cell-factories for the production of co-enzyme Q10, via the genetic manipulation of involved metabolic pathways for optimized commercial production". See the statement from Principal Research Scientist Metabolic Engineering & Fermentations at ONC.
Interesting that the same scientist is also the cofounder of biohydrogen, whose goal is to use cell factories to synthesize hydrogen.
The extensive list of food products containing meg 3 from ONC can be found in this PDF: The Truth about Omega 3.
To read more on the future of extreme genetic engineering (Synthetic Biology), see The ETC Group's excellent report on Synthetic Biology
February 25, 2009
transition
The sun is out for the first time in a long while. The new dump of snow we had this past few days is soft and wet over the ice. The depths vary with the location and where the wind threw it. My calves and their Moms were out in the paddock this morning. Pojangles is the lead pushing out, huge back legged to the furthest reaches, the herd running behind him.
I caught him chewing the electric line. So I lured them back into the barn, tightened up the connections to the energizer and used the wet hay strand trick to find out what was wrong. Thankfully, the old "fencelines are fun to chew" imprint didn't quite settle, because he got a good zap on his pink nose when I let them back out.
I worked nearby, shovelling the snow off from around the base of the hoophouse so I can get the plastic up on her. I'll be able to move my onions in a week or 2, so I can plant the next batch of things under the lights in the potting house.
There are so many things to do and yet the snow is still very ample, the river frozen solid. Yet the sun and the big drips off the buildings today and the presence of my garden under the white stirred some motivation.
I can't imagine having the capacity to write 2 and 3 posts daily, as I had been doing this winter and expect there will be a seasonal rhythm to the blogging. There are too many things to do on the farm and the topics I want/need to write about (apart from my farming) appear to take the kind of time and attention that I don't have if I am to devote myself fully to the farm. It is almost time.
Its a bit scary, a little daunting:those 60-75 hr weeks. The uncertainty of a new garden in a new community.
So in this small window before the full warm bustling of the season, I want to think about how I can be a blogger through the spring and summer and if it is even possible. I do know that I can't be writing about just the ripening of peas and the escaping of cows (farm stuff); I need to write too about the social/political context that I find myself farming within.
I caught him chewing the electric line. So I lured them back into the barn, tightened up the connections to the energizer and used the wet hay strand trick to find out what was wrong. Thankfully, the old "fencelines are fun to chew" imprint didn't quite settle, because he got a good zap on his pink nose when I let them back out.
I worked nearby, shovelling the snow off from around the base of the hoophouse so I can get the plastic up on her. I'll be able to move my onions in a week or 2, so I can plant the next batch of things under the lights in the potting house.
There are so many things to do and yet the snow is still very ample, the river frozen solid. Yet the sun and the big drips off the buildings today and the presence of my garden under the white stirred some motivation.
I can't imagine having the capacity to write 2 and 3 posts daily, as I had been doing this winter and expect there will be a seasonal rhythm to the blogging. There are too many things to do on the farm and the topics I want/need to write about (apart from my farming) appear to take the kind of time and attention that I don't have if I am to devote myself fully to the farm. It is almost time.
Its a bit scary, a little daunting:those 60-75 hr weeks. The uncertainty of a new garden in a new community.
So in this small window before the full warm bustling of the season, I want to think about how I can be a blogger through the spring and summer and if it is even possible. I do know that I can't be writing about just the ripening of peas and the escaping of cows (farm stuff); I need to write too about the social/political context that I find myself farming within.
February 23, 2009
new arrivals
We had a big dump of wet snow last night and now the wind is furious it was warm and the snow soggy and soft this morning, but it the wind has a frozen bite to it now and everything is back to ice.
I put a lower line on the electric fence for the calves yesterday and let them out for a stroll this morning before the gale came up.
And the leeks are just up, pushing up into the world of my potting house just ahead of the onions, whose white elbows are just appearing. Welcome!
...and one week later before the haircuts
February 21, 2009
Mr whomypopa jangles
I took up courage and drove into Halifax in my old 76 dodge pickup today (first time since the fall) and picked up plastic for my greenhouse, row cover and my favorite type of hoe (hoop).
Made it home without a truck event, and good thing because in the barn there was a family gathering!
skipping already. meet Bojangles
big calf for a little first calving heifer.
Made it home without a truck event, and good thing because in the barn there was a family gathering!
skipping already. meet Bojangles
big calf for a little first calving heifer.
February 20, 2009
Research Scientist are gagged and bound
From a statement submitted by 26 Government research scientists
"Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically
modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public
scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless
the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly
independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions
regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and
its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA
Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited."
Read about here:
Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research
By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: February 19, 2009
"Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically
modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public
scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless
the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly
independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions
regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and
its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA
Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited."
Read about here:
Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research
By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: February 19, 2009
round 2 of the fair wheat fight
"63 years ago, American plant breeder Norman Borlaug developed the high-yielding, stem rust-resistant wheat that led to the Green Revolution, and for which he was awarded the Nobel prize".
The variety, fabulously resistant to the fungal problem of the day, sped the practise of monocropping with promiscuous fertilizer and chemical assistance.
Diversity plummeted with the genetic makeup of cultivated wheat around the world severely diminished.
Enter a new fungal disease Ug99 and there is a desperately urgent situation and an alliance of corportist and philanthropists busy on the reapings.
"A WHEAT disease that could destroy most of the world's main wheat crops could strike south Asia's vast wheat fields ... leaving millions to starve.. has spread from Africa to Iran, and may already be in Pakistan...(which is)the gateway to the Asian breadbasket, including the vital Punjab region".
Frantic plans include enforced fungicide spraying and outlawing planting of wheat in corridors between infected regions but "the only real remedy will be new wheat varieties that resist Ug99, and they may not be ready for five years. The fungus has just pulled ahead in the race".
If you think this is good opportunity for Monsanto to enter and control the wheat market, you'd be astute. It was forced to abandon transgenic (gmo) wheat in 2004 because of a double out cry from farmers fearful of losing markets in Europe and Japan and active consumer's repugnance. It worked.
But Monsanto is persistent; Borlaug is still at it joined by all the usual suspects working to pave the way for GMO wheat.
In a healthy culture of farming, many diverse and dispersed (everywhere) wheat fields check this type of holocaust. The minute, manageable entry of a new pathogen is buffered in the symbiotic, collaborative processes of nature on the farm. Multi-gene resistance is built up and spreads, and passes through exchanged seeds to other farmers in nearby bioregions. Monocropped, monopol-seed in vast tracks of dependent (chemicals fertilizer) is a sitting duck for foreign invaders.
The absurdity of losing the corridors (the bioregions in between) that would be a natural local for building resistance.
Monsanto may have the wheatpill for the latest crop catastrophe (they need them). And if so, draconian rules to speed its conquest will be enforced.
We have to be in the way, in the corridors with old wheat that already have genes coded for resistance (20 % do) and horizontal breeding for resistance, in farms that resemble gardens for their action and biodiversity. We have to have local food security as primary goals of regional food production and regional governance in these matters. We need to get at this fast. In other words, we need to stop GMO wheat by/and having alternatives in place.
Read more about UG99 in New Scientist and here.
Given vulnerable captive agriregions, Ug99 can be seen as akin to a bioweapon. Some have.
Raul Robinson's excellent book Return to Resistance is online.
The variety, fabulously resistant to the fungal problem of the day, sped the practise of monocropping with promiscuous fertilizer and chemical assistance.
Diversity plummeted with the genetic makeup of cultivated wheat around the world severely diminished.
Enter a new fungal disease Ug99 and there is a desperately urgent situation and an alliance of corportist and philanthropists busy on the reapings.
"A WHEAT disease that could destroy most of the world's main wheat crops could strike south Asia's vast wheat fields ... leaving millions to starve.. has spread from Africa to Iran, and may already be in Pakistan...(which is)the gateway to the Asian breadbasket, including the vital Punjab region".
Frantic plans include enforced fungicide spraying and outlawing planting of wheat in corridors between infected regions but "the only real remedy will be new wheat varieties that resist Ug99, and they may not be ready for five years. The fungus has just pulled ahead in the race".
If you think this is good opportunity for Monsanto to enter and control the wheat market, you'd be astute. It was forced to abandon transgenic (gmo) wheat in 2004 because of a double out cry from farmers fearful of losing markets in Europe and Japan and active consumer's repugnance. It worked.
But Monsanto is persistent; Borlaug is still at it joined by all the usual suspects working to pave the way for GMO wheat.
In a healthy culture of farming, many diverse and dispersed (everywhere) wheat fields check this type of holocaust. The minute, manageable entry of a new pathogen is buffered in the symbiotic, collaborative processes of nature on the farm. Multi-gene resistance is built up and spreads, and passes through exchanged seeds to other farmers in nearby bioregions. Monocropped, monopol-seed in vast tracks of dependent (chemicals fertilizer) is a sitting duck for foreign invaders.
The absurdity of losing the corridors (the bioregions in between) that would be a natural local for building resistance.
Monsanto may have the wheatpill for the latest crop catastrophe (they need them). And if so, draconian rules to speed its conquest will be enforced.
We have to be in the way, in the corridors with old wheat that already have genes coded for resistance (20 % do) and horizontal breeding for resistance, in farms that resemble gardens for their action and biodiversity. We have to have local food security as primary goals of regional food production and regional governance in these matters. We need to get at this fast. In other words, we need to stop GMO wheat by/and having alternatives in place.
Read more about UG99 in New Scientist and here.
Given vulnerable captive agriregions, Ug99 can be seen as akin to a bioweapon. Some have.
Raul Robinson's excellent book Return to Resistance is online.
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