Archive for the 'Biotechnology' Category
Monsanto GM Wheat Not Approved by USDA Found on Oregon Farm
May 30th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: Genetically modified wheat created by Monsanto Co. (MON) that wasn’t approved for use turned up on an 80-acre farm in Oregon last month, threatening the outlook for U.S. exports of the grain that are the world’s largest. A farmer attempting to kill wheat with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide found several plants survived the weedkiller, […]
‘Devastating Consequences for the Ecosystem’ If GM Salmon Escape and Breed with Wild Species
May 30th, 2013Madness. Via: Independent: Genetically modified salmon could escape into the wild with devastating consequences for the ecosystem, a new study has warned. Researchers from Canada say that there is a risk of GM salmon mating with the closely-related brown trout species to produce a hybrid fish. GM salmon grow faster than normal salmon and scientists […]
Protesters Around the World March Against Monsanto
May 26th, 2013Via: USA Today: Protesters rallied in dozens of cities Saturday as part of a global protest against seed giant Monsanto and the genetically modified food it produces, organizers said. Organizers said “March Against Monsanto” protests were held in 52 countries and 436 cities, including Los Angeles where demonstrators waved signs that read “Real Food 4 […]
U.S. Government Lobbies Worldwide for Monsanto and Other GMO Firms
May 16th, 2013Via: Guardian: If you have a feeling that genetically modified (GM) foods are being forced upon the population by a handful of business interests and vociferously defended by the scientists that work in the agriculture industry or at the research institutions it funds, you might be onto something. The zeal with which GM proponents evangelize […]
One-Third of U.S. Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter, Threatening Food Supply
May 10th, 2013Via: Wired: Nearly one in three commercial honeybee colonies in the United States died or disappeared last winter, an unsustainable decline that threatens the nation’s food supply. Multiple factors — pesticides, fungicides, parasites, viruses and malnutrition — are believed to cause the losses, which were officially announced today by a consortium of academic researchers, beekeepers […]
Living in U.S. Raises Risk of Allergies
April 30th, 2013Via: AFP: Children born outside the United States have a lower risk of asthma, skin and food allergies, and living in the United States for a decade or more may raise the risk of some allergies, said a study Monday. The research in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that certain environmental exposures […]
Registry System Being Set Up to Track Your Vaccination Status
April 28th, 2013Via: Vactruth: The Centers for Disease Control has been quietly rolling out a nationwide program called the Immunization Information Systems (IIS), registering your vaccine information into a database. This effort has been run in parallel with state vaccine registry implementations. What is the intention of such programs? My colleague Leslie Manookian, writer and director of […]
Chinese Colonel Says Latest Bird Flu Virus Is U.S. Biological Weapon
April 10th, 2013Via: Washington Post: Colonel Dai Xu of the People’s Liberation Army wrote online that the new strain of bird flu hitting China, known as H7N9, is an American “bio-psychological weapon” meant to destabilize China. The rant, posted to Dai’s account on the Twitter-like service Weibo, had already been shared by more than 30,000 fellow users […]
Stanford Bioengineers Make Transistor from Genetic Materials
April 3rd, 2013Via: Extreme Tech: Bioengineers at Stanford University have created the first biological transistor made from genetic materials: DNA and RNA. Dubbed the “transcriptor,” this biological transistor is the final component required to build biological computers that operate inside living cells. We are now tantalizingly close to biological computers that can detect changes in a cell’s […]
The Monsanto Protection Act
April 2nd, 2013Via: Democracy Now: President Obama outraged food activists last week when he signed into law a spending bill with a controversial rider that critics have dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act.” The rider says the government must allow the planting of genetically modified crops even if courts rule they pose health risks.
