One of the most iconic and misunderstood behaviors of honeybees is the "swarm." People fear the swarm - it conjures up thoughts of an unstoppable venomous aerial assault - and yet ironically it is the most friendly and tame way…
Tag: Food
For the love of bees
I love bees. For over a decade I have been a hobby beekeeper, tending to my hives, catching swarms, and following the news about my flying friends. There is a lot to like about bees, from their biology and behavior…
Live Tweeting Golden Rice – Storified
Hi everyone, Frank N. Foode™ here. I was hanging out, smelling some Tulips in Madison, WI, and none other than Dr. Michael Grusak stopped by from the Baylor College of Medicine to give a seminar on his nutritional research into…
Community Contest 6: Love your plants!
Happy May, everyone! Frank N. Foode™ here to announce the start of a new community contest here on the Biofortified Blog! Spring is an exciting time for a plant such as myself. Farmers and gardeners everywhere are planning and planting,…
How to pollinate Carrots and Beets
Ladies and gentlemen, here is the latest in my series of Pollination Methods videos that I make as part of my thesis project. While carrots and beets are not closely related, they share similar life cycles, pollination methods, and even…
Why did The Atlantic publish this piece trying to link miRNAs and GMOs?
Editor's note: republished with permission from The Biology Files. By Emily Willingham A study from a Chinese group led by Chen-Yu Zhang of Nanking University and published in Cell Research, has uncovered the fascinating result that when people eat rice, they…
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7 Billion – an Inconvenient Truth
On or about today, Halloween, the world is expected to surpass 7 Billion human inhabitants. That is, plus or minus 56 million. Based on estimates from the United Nations, October 31st lies in the middle of a 12-month margin of…
When Our Friends Lie
Written by Kevin Folta Last night I woke up in a fog, face down on the couch, fully dressed with my work clothes on. It was 3:44 AM and the artifacts around me described the scene. A partially eaten salad,…
Why plant breeding is incompatible with Organic Agriculture
This is part I of a three-part series on Orgenic* Backlash. How is the organic sector handling the argument in favor of integrating of genetically engineered crops into organic agricultural systems? When I read the news a few weeks ago…
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New strawberry making people sick? (April Fools)
The UK supermarket Waitrose announced that they are selling a brand new variety of strawberry, a pale white berry with red seeds dubbed the "Pineberry" so named because it tastes and smells like pineapple. The berries appear in the Daily…