Posts

May 15, 2013

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Breakfast on the run. A much hyped concern about biotech crops is that the effector proteins engineered in the plants could have unintended effects when consumed by people. For example, corn that is engineered to make the Bt protein requires much less pesticide since the Bt kills the larvae of certain insects, while remaining harmless to humans. This is so effective that the strategy is being explored to incorporate it in plants like eggplant (Bt Brinjal). Putting aside this […]

April 30, 2013

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1:38 AM | Explosive Agriculture and That Larger April Fireball

Two days after the Boston Marathon bombing, a humongous explosion rocked the Texas town of West when a fire broke out at an agriculture retail facility storing ammonium nitrate. 14 people were killed, more than 200 injured, but despite leaving a crater 93 feet wide and 10 feet deep, the incident played second fiddle in…

February 21, 2013

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8:45 PM | Has biofuels led to major land use changes in the US?

And is the land that is being converted from grassland to corn and soy the “marginal land” that people take about growing dedicated bioenergy crops? A new article in PNAS this week seems to answer “yes” to both these questions. … Continue reading →

Wright, C. & Wimberly, M. (2013). Recent land use change in the Western Corn Belt threatens grasslands and wetlands, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1215404110

Citation

October 31, 2012

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2:00 PM | Halloween Biodiversity: Myths & Legends

Happy Halloween from BHL!It's that time of year again, when the ghosts, ghouls, and goblins come out to play, the dead walk, and little children dress up as their favorite monsters and scurry from house to house cramming countless pieces of candy into bulging bags.BHL has been celebrating Halloween all week with tweets, Facebook posts and quizzes, and a Flickr collection dedicated to the holiday. While doing research for our festivities, we gathered countless myths and legends associated with […]

October 20, 2012

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3:34 AM | Six French Science Academies Dismiss Study Finding GM Corn Harmed Rats

France's science academies slam a much-touted, and contended, study finding GM corn harmed rats.

September 10, 2012

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3:18 PM | On the Horizon: Corn Engineered To Survive Drought

It has been a summer of withered crops and wildfires, the U.S.’s driest in the last fifty years, during which 55 percent of the U.S. has experienced a drought. And of the land dedicated to corn production, 87 percent has been dry. Over at Technology Review, Jessica Leber wrote about an engineering solution to the problem of parched corn: seeds bred or genetically enhanced to resist drought, some of which have been tested this summer and will be sold by three big seed companies next […]

August 24, 2012

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9:42 PM | Last of the Summer Sweet Corn

Sweet corn can add flavor to salads and salsas, and it can be used to make creamy but dairy-free soups and puddings, writes Martha Rose Shulman in this week's Recipes for Health

August 16, 2012

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11:45 PM | Preparing for a Future of Perpetual Drought

The drought that is plaguing much of the country has affected 80 percent of the nation’s agricultural land, making it the most extensive drought since the 1950s. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that comparable droughts will likely increase in central North America this century. How can we prepare for a future of perpetual drought?

August 13, 2012

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3:32 PM | August math linkdump

Algebraists eat corn row by row, analysts eat corn circle by circle. Yep, I eat down the rows like a typewriter. Why? Because it is the right way. This short paper by Johan de Jong and Wei Ho addresses an interesting question I’d never thought about; does a Brauer-Severi variety over a field K contain [...]

August 07, 2012

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1:57 AM | Corn and sweet potato chowder

Dinner tonight, cobbled together from various recipes found online: 4 cobs sweet corn 1 medium sweet potato 1 onion 2 cloves garlic 2 scallions 1 red pepper 1 jalapeno 1/4 c butter 1/4 c flour 4 c whole milk salt, pepper, cumin Recipe: Preheat oven to 450. Scrape corn kernels off the cobs. Melt butter [...]

July 23, 2012

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12:02 PM | On Our Radar: Rising Corn Prices

Soaring corn and soybean prices are likely to have global economic and political repercussions.

May 15, 2012

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5:57 PM | Come For the Beautiful “Gem Glass” Corn; Stay for a Dose of Genetics

No, this isn’t Photoshop or a gemstone-studded trinket—just an ear of corn. Seedsman Greg Schoen of the Seeds Trust got this “glass gem corn” from his “corn-teacher,” a part-Cherokee man in his 80s. He planted the seeds, had a gorgeous harvest last fall, and posted the posts on Seeds Trust’s Facebook page in October. Then last week, the photos of the gem-like corn got picked up on the internet and went viral. Good luck trying to get your hands on any […]

May 08, 2012

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4:34 PM | How to Feed the World While the Earth Cooks

A conference on feeding the world must also feed itself. Having attended more than my share of such conferences, I can say that the norm is keynotes that rally the troops in favor of organics while said troops munch on tortilla or potato chips. Or there is the earnest vegan route. (This is not a [...]

May 01, 2012

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12:00 PM | Maize seed ‘Feed me’ gene identified

Unlike ‘Audrey 2’ – the plant which ate members of the cast from ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’ (botanically suspect but with some good songs) – the maize seed grows on the cob by extracting goodies from the mother plant. YouTube has a great video of a production of Little Shop of Horrors: Feed me Seymour [...]Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

April 19, 2012

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5:37 PM | 10 Things We’ve Learned About the Earth Since Last Earth Day

We recap the most surprising, awe-inspiring and alarming things that we have learned about the Earth and the environment since last year's holiday

January 27, 2012

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4:52 PM | Ancient Popcorn Unearthed in Peru

New discoveries indicate people were eating our favorite movie snack far longer ago than we thought

January 06, 2012

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3:07 PM | Fungi, a Tool for Weed Control?

While I enjoy growing a variety of produce from tomatoes, basil and garlic to blueberries, one thing remains the bane of my existence: weeds. My least favorite: quackgrass. I even dug up an entire garden bed to rid myself of the weed and its long rhizomes. How well do you think that worked? I found [...]

October 24, 2011

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11:51 PM | The Politics, Public Health and Environmental Concerns of Genetically Engineered Salmon

The first genetically-engineered (GE) salmon meant for human consumption is one critical step closer to finding its way into farms and onto plates. However, there are a number of concerns with the AquAdvantage salmon. Related StoriesFDA Removing Over-the-counter Asthma Drug From Shelves for EnvironmentNew Supplement Results Easy to Sensationalize, Not Highly MeaningfulActivation of the Immune System and the Nobel Prize for Medicine

October 07, 2011

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12:00 PM | The U.S. Now Uses More Corn For Fuel Than For Feed

For every 10 ears of corn that are grown in the United States today, only 2 are consumed directly by humans as food. The remaining 8 are used in almost equal shares for animal feed and for ethanol. And, for the 12 months from August 2011 to 2012, the U.S. biofuels industry used more corn [...]

August 19, 2011

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4:15 PM | Benevolent Maize and Ogre-Fart Chilis: Food Origin Myths

According to the Peruvian Yanesha people, plants originally had human forms that went through either "sublime" or "grotesque" transformations

August 17, 2011

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3:14 PM | Five Ways to Eat Fresh Corn

Eating it only buttered and salted would be like limiting Ben Franklin to a single pursuit of inquiry. Why squelch such potential greatness?

August 02, 2011

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11:32 AM | Food waste in the land of ‘Man vs Food’

Here is some more food for thought about the modern global food economy. A study recently published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization found that about one-third of all food produced on the planet is wasted, to the tune of 1.3 billion tons per year. Put another way, planet Earth throws away over 300 [...]

July 13, 2011

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10:20 PM | Bioplastic Boom

Companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Heinz ketchup have determined that plastic made from plants -- not oil -- makes sense both for the environment and for business. The growing demand has meant a boom in the bioplastic industry. Could this mean the end of the plastic bottle as we know it?

June 17, 2011

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8:50 PM | Ethanol Industry Is Unruffled by Senate Vote Against Tax Breaks

The Senate's vote Thursday to repeal tax breaks on ethanol will have little practical impact on the industry, at least in the short term.

March 30, 2011

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3:58 PM | Obama's New Plan for Old Goal, Cutting Oil Imports

Obama tries, again, to break America's "shock to trance" approach to oil.

March 21, 2011

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3:47 PM | Ethanol’s Impacts on Our Water Resources

This year, global ethanol production will likely reach 23.4 billion gallons with the U.S., the world’s largest ethanol producer, expected to produce over 13.5 billion gallons. 95% of ethanol in the U.S. comes from corn, but corn-based ethanol is controversial because of the amount of land required to grow the crops, and because of its effect on food prices and water resources.

March 10, 2011

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5:07 PM | Ethanol Plant Is Switching to Butanol

When butanol goes into rubber and plastics, it not only replaces oil but also becomes a place where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, can be stored after it is pulled out of the atmosphere.

February 24, 2011

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9:41 PM | On Our Radar: Palin's Predator-Control Policies Persist

Controversial measures put in place in Alaska are causing broad concern.