Archive for the 'Biotechnology' Category
Robots Fight Weeds in Challenge to Agrochemical Giants
May 22nd, 2018Via: Reuters: In a field of sugar beet in Switzerland, a solar-powered robot that looks like a table on wheels scans the rows of crops with its camera, identifies weeds and zaps them with jets of blue liquid from its mechanical tentacles. Undergoing final tests before the liquid is replaced with weedkiller, the Swiss robot […]
Scientists to Grow ‘Mini-Brains’ Using Neanderthal DNA
May 14th, 2018Via: Guardian: Scientists are preparing to create “miniature brains” that have been genetically engineered to contain Neanderthal DNA, in an unprecedented attempt to understand how humans differ from our closest relatives. In the next few months the small blobs of tissue, known as brain organoids, will be grown from human stem cells that have been […]
Woman Behind Effort to Stop Release of Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Found Dead in Swimming Pool
April 12th, 2018Via: MemoryHole: On Tuesday, April 10 Washington DC authorities recovered the body of Key West-based environmental activist Milagro de Mier from the pool of a hotel close to the DC Convention Center . de Mier was in the nation’s capital to raise awareness and petition the US Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency […]
CRISPR’d Food, Coming Soon to a Supermarket Near You
April 8th, 2018Via: Wired: FOR YEARS NOW, the US Department of Agriculture has been flirting with the latest and greatest DNA manipulation technologies. Since 2016, it has given free passes to at least a dozen gene-edited crops, ruling that they fall outside its regulatory purview. But on Wednesday, March 28, the agency made its relationship status official; […]
YOUTUBE DELETES ENTIRE HEALTH RANGER VIDEO CHANNEL
March 4th, 2018The Health Ranger YouTube channel is currently returning: “This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” Well, I went through being added to Google’s shit list over a decade ago. So… I have no idea why people who deal with alternative information continue to rely on Google’s platforms, given the company’s long history […]
Men’s Sperm Counts Are Dropping, and Scientists Don’t Know Why
March 4th, 2018Via: Yahoo News: The topic of overpopulation has been much discussed over the past few decades, but what if the real issue is a severe decline in population? It sounds like something straight out of a dystopian nightmare, but new research shows sperm counts are drastically dropping across the Western world. Researchers from Hebrew University-Hadassah […]
Norway Will Spend $13 Million to Upgrade Its Doomsday Seed Vault
February 26th, 2018Via: The Verge: Norway will spend 100 million Norwegian Crowns ($12.7 million) to upgrade the doomsday seed vault it built 10 years ago. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was constructed in an abandoned Arctic coal mine to store and safeguard the world’s crops and plants from global natural or man-made disaster. If nuclear war or […]
Monkeys Cloned in World First
January 25th, 2018Via: Independent: Two monkeys are the first ever primates to be cloned using the technique that created Dolly the sheep. The technique brings the prospect of cloned human beings even more closer. But scientists caution that there may be no good reason to create such clones, and that ethical and legal questions need to be […]
Florida Monkeys Excreting Rare Disease that Can Kill Humans, Scientists Warn
January 10th, 2018Never Forget: Dr. Mary’s Monkey by Edward T. Haslam Via: Guardian: Wildlife managers in Florida say they want to remove roaming monkeys from the state in light of a new study published on Wednesday, which finds some of the animals are excreting a virus that can be dangerous to humans. Scientists studying a growing population […]
Californians Tainted by ‘Roundup’ Herbicide Chemical
November 2nd, 2017In other news, Pesticide-Covered Food May Be Linked to Infertility. Via: Health Day: Levels of the herbicide Roundup in human urine have increased dramatically among California residents in the past two decades, a new study reports. Roundup (glyphosate) is used to protect genetically modified corn and soy crops from weeds and also is used on […]
