Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
It pays not to cultivate GM crops, survey findsBy Steve Connor, Science EditorFriday, 8 OctoberUK Independent The first economic analysis of growing genetically modified crops on a wide scale has found that the biggest winners were the farmers who decided not to grow them.
Written by Colby Vorland Nutrient-based claims on food labels are shown in some research to promote calorie underestimation. This is often called the health halo effect; certain buzz words associated with what people consider healthy cause them to overgeneralize other attributes of a food, downplay the number of calories, and not pay as much attention…
Read More “The organic halo alters food and exercise choices” »
Decoding the GM debateBy Emma YoungG Magazine 12 October 2010G weighs up the evidence behind the claims made for and against GM crops. If you’re looking for a topical issue that polarises opinion, you can’t go past genetic modification (GM). At one end of the spectrum, GM food is the answer to world hunger, at…
Fear is key to irresponsibilityFrank Furedi From: The Australian October 09, 2010 12:00AM In a world rife with conspiracy theories, there’s little scope for human agency WHO decides our individual fate? How much of our future is influenced by the exercise of free will? Humanity’s destiny has been a subject of controversy since the beginning…
Read More “Obsessive precaution leaves us with no choice but to defer to our fate.” »
Transgenic harvestEditorial. Published online 06 October 2010African nations are laying foundations to extend the use of GM technology on the continent. The use of genetically modified (GM) crops for food divides opinion, especially when it comes to Africa. Sharp views on the technology in the developed world, honed by more than a decade of arguments…
Genetically modified crop resistance to pests benefits non-modified crop, U of Minnesota study finds Areawide suppression dramatically reduced the estimated $1 billion in annual losses caused by European corn borer Transgenic corn’s resistance to pests has benefited even non-transgenic corn, a new study led by scientists from the University of Minnesota shows. The study, published in the…
Read More “Transgenic corn’s resistance to pests has benefited even non-transgenic corn” »
Cover of Frank Dikötter’s book Systematic genocide 25 September 2010 Jasper Becker’s review at The Spectator This book sheds light on many other aspects of the famine but its great importance is to remind us of why we need to revise our understanding of 20th-century history. If you add up the death tolls from the famines…
Written by Colby Vorland Recently I wrote about a study on organic vs synthetic pesticides on sustainability, which suggested that organic pesticides are not always more efficacious against pests nor as selective (not killing natural enemies of pests) than synthetic pesticides. Earlier this month a study was published on a related area: organic farming on natural enemy evenness. Different…
Read More “Organic agriculture pest control through enemy evenness” »
Written by Colby Vorland You may recall last year’s review by Dangour and colleagues that concluded, based on 162 studies, that “there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs.” This brought about much controversy on the web, as well as a rebuttal by Benbrook et al. Media…
Read More “Organic vs. conventional food on health: not enough data” »
Written by Matt DiLeo Indian smallholder farmers are adopting a new, improved rice variety at an “unprecedented” rate.