Author: pcronald

Stewart Brand and Peter Kareiva on “Environmentalism for THIS century”

Peter Kareiva, the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, recently gave a seminar at the Long Now Foundation. His talk was summarized by Stewart Brand: Kareiva began by recalling the environmental “golden decade” of 1965-75, set in motion by the scientist Rachel Carson. In quick succession Congress created the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water…

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How to feed a hungry world

This week, the G20 Agriculture Ministers gathered for their first-ever meeting to discuss potential measures to address price volatility and record high food prices. The key to any long-term solution is acknowledging that we need to empower the very people whose lives are most affected by food shortages. Three-quarters of the world’s poorest people get…

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Is Organic Food the Answer?

The journalist Marc Gunther recently posted a thoughtful article discussing public perceptions of the role of organic agriculture in a future sustainable food system. He found that many consumers believe that there are only two ways to produce food: “The first can be described, depending upon who’s talking, as big, fast, modern, conventional, industrial, intensive,…

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Malinee is awarded the John E. Kinsella Prize in recognition of her outstanding graduate research dissertation

No investigation without wonder, no observation without joy, no understanding without humility. Today Malinee Sriariyanum was awarded the John E. Kinsella Prize for her work on isolation and characterization of the Ax21 pathogen associated molecular pattern. The joyful awardee and her proud mentors: Associate Dean Jan Hopmans, Malinee Sriariyanun, and myself

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Proving Malthus Wrong: Sustainable Agriculture in 2050

Guest Post: Dr. Robert L. Thompson is a senior fellow for The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Over the past few months, we’ve watched as governments have been overthrown in Tunisia and Egypt, as governments across North Africa and the Middle East promised reforms, some…

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Congratulations to our student champions

Merry Mou won first place in the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship. 700 to 900 students participate with their research projects in a variety of categories, including physics, biology, and computer science. Winners are chosen to go on to state and national competitions. Merry Mou won 1st place in Botany in the 2010…

Science & Society

Spring in California

Today we took the children to Table Mountain, a volcanic mesa in northern California. It is a special place, preserved from development by the dense, rocky texture of the soil- no good for farming. We strolled through carpets of flowers Lasthenia californica (California goldfields). Blemnosperma nanum (yellow carpet), Lupinus nanus, Triteleia ixiodies (pretty face), Castilleja…

Forbidden Fruit: Genetically Engineered crops in New Zealand

I walked into the gleaming ‘Orchard in a box”, a closed greenhouse where no pollen can flow outside. The apple was red, red, red inside and out and I wanted it. But because I was in New Zealand, where experimenting with genetically engineered food is highly regulated, tasting was banned. How was this forbidden fruit…

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Can we coexist?

With religious wars around the world erupting almost constantly, you might be feeling grateful that you live in a country where there is separation of church and state. But dont rest too easy, another conflict is brewing- this time in agriculture.

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Why Parents Fear the Needle (and the gene)

DESPITE overwhelming evidence to the contrary, roughly one in five Americans believes that vaccines cause autism — a disturbing fact that will probably hold true even after the publication this month, in a British medical journal, of a report thoroughly debunking the 1998 paper that began the vaccine-autism scare. says Michael Willrich, a professor of…

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