Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
Following up on my last post on the lack of evidence that rice shortages are caused by biofuels, I’d like to call your attention to Food Crisis Depicted as ‘Silent Tsunami’ by Kevin Sullivan of the Washington Post. Beginning with some sobering statistics, such as “25,000 people a day are dying of conditions linked to…
Author Robert Paarlberg reported that the Gates Foundation would be contributing to the development of drought tolerant maize varieties for Africa. Details can be found in a press release from AATF (African Agricultural Technology Foundation), via ISAAA‘s March 28 Crop Biotech Update. I’ve posted the release below the cut for your convenience. One of the…
In a recent post, I discussed how Amflora potatoes are harmless, and could help industry produce starch using less energy and water. Unfortunately, approval for the potatoes was denied on March 12 by the European Commission, even though all applicable regulatory agencies have declared it to be safe. According to GMO Compass: The Amflora potato…
A mid-January press release tells of rice from China rejected by Europe because it was “contaminated” with rice modified to express a version of the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin: Bt63. The offending rice had been made into such products as noodles and distributed across Europe before the Bt63 was noticed. To me, there is one important…
Reason‘s science correspondent Ronald Bailey has written an amusing retort to the Friends of the Earth report “Who benefits from biotech crops?” As expected, the FoE twist the facts and call scientists liars, in their attempts to sweep the ISAAA report under the rug. They may be friends of the earth, but they certainly aren’t…
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The AP story “Developing Countries Grew More Biotech Crops in ’07” appeared in various outlets, including the NY Times. The study was conducted by International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a non-profit that is working to get biotech to the people who need it most. All farmers, especially the poor, can use…
In a sentence: Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital are inducing fluorescent cancer in transparent zebrafish in order to study the spread of the cancer cells. Now for a little background info to help that sentence make sense! Zebrafish are one of the so-called “model organisms” because they fit a list of criteria that make them…
As if in answer to my recent post “Doomsday seed vault to open soon“, USDA’s ARS just sent their first shipment of seeds to Norway. From the press release (via ISU’s Agronomy News): Seeds from more than 11,000 plant varieties are being shipped by the USDA Agricultural Research Service to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault…
In the NY Times article “A Dying Breed,” some people fear that African Ankole cattle will disappear, to be replaced by Holsteins. The hardy Ankole can endure heat and drought, have tasty lean meat, but produce little milk. Holsteins can be rather fragile, but are milk factories. Who can blame some African farmers for trying…
As explained in the press release “Gene guards grain-producing grasses so people and animals can eat“, USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers at Purdue (pictured at left) have isolated the gene that confers fungus resistance to grasses. The gene produces an “enzyme that disarmed the fungus’ disease-causing toxin. The detoxification isolated the infection at the…