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Ignoring his aching back, Todd Lininger squatted down on his knees and inched his way around the vegetable field.

The yields were up on three arugula plants. A snail crawled in the row of lettuce. And it looked like the onions might be ready for that night’s dinner.

All in all, not a bad harvest — considering that these crops were growing in a Lilliputian backyard plot in a Claremont cul-de-sac.

Lininger calls himself a farmer, though he doesn’t ride a John Deere and never sees a sun set over the fields. Instead, he tends a succession of peewee suburban plots as if they were the sprawling ranches of the Central Valley.

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“The sign of success used to be who had the best lawn,” said Lininger, 41, as he pinched the dead leaves off the plot’s lone beet. “Now, it’s all about how much food you can grow.”

Homeowners who want fresh cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes but don’t have time to grow their own hire Lininger’s company, Farmscape, to do the work for them. But don’t call him a gardener: It’s more like farming by the foot. And the 6-foot-4 ex-Marine, skinny as a snap bean, says he can barely keep up with demand.

There’s a mini-boom in such mini farms. Scores of businesses like Farmscape are sprouting up nationwide, from My Backyard Farm in San Clemente to Your Backyard Farmer in Portland, Ore., and Freelance Farmers in New Haven, Conn.

People have experimented with cloud seeding for decades in the hope of boosting rainfall, usually by sprinkling silver iodide crystals into clouds high in the atmosphere.

These crystals encourage large water droplets to form around them, and the droplets then fall as rain – in theory, at least. “The efficiency of this technique is controversial,” says Jérôme Kasparian at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, one member of a research team that think lasers may be a better way to trigger rain on demand.

Kasparian and colleagues have just reported the first successful use of this technique to summon clouds from air both in the lab and in the skies over Berlin, Germany.

In the lab the team fired extremely short pulses of infrared laser light into a chamber of water-saturated air at -24 °C. Linear clouds could be seen to form in the laser’s wake, like a miniature airplane contrail.

The decline of the country’s estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Potential causes range from parasites, such as the bloodsucking varroa mite, to viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods. The disappearance of so many colonies has also been dubbed “Mary Celeste syndrome” due to the absence of dead bees in many of the empty hives.

US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. “We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies,” said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS’s bee research laboratory.

A global review of honeybee deaths by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported last week that there was no one single cause, but pointed the finger at the “irresponsible use” of pesticides that may damage bee health and make them more susceptible to diseases. Bernard Vallat, the OIE’s director-general, warned: “Bees contribute to global food security, and their extinction would represent a terrible biological disaster.”

Dave Hackenberg of Hackenberg Apiaries, the Pennsylvania-based commercial beekeeper who first raised the alarm about CCD, said that last year had been the worst yet for bee losses, with 62% of his 2,600 hives dying between May 2009 and April 2010. “It’s getting worse,” he said. “The AIA survey doesn’t give you the full picture because it is only measuring losses through the winter. In the summer the bees are exposed to lots of pesticides. Farmers mix them together and no one has any idea what the effects might be.”

More than a quarter of young Americans are now too fat to fight, they said.

Writing in the Washington Post, the ex-commanders said the fat crisis ruled out more potential military service recruits than any other medical factor.

They want Congress to introduce laws to give US children better nutrition in schools, with less sugar, salt and fat.

John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, both former chairmen of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote: “Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military.”

“We consider this problem so serious from a national security perspective that we have joined more than 130 other retired generals, admirals and senior military leaders in calling on Congress to pass new child nutrition legislation,” the commanders added.

The warning comes amid mounting fears that childhood obesity has turned into an “epidemic” affecting an astonishing one in three young American people.

Mr Shalikashvili and Mr Shelton pointed to post-school lunch laws from 1946, which recognised that poor nutrition reduced the pool of military recruits.

Governor Deval Patrick said residents in Boston and 29 other communities east of Weston should boil water for at least a minute before drinking it to avoid getting sick. He also asked bottled water companies and the National Guard to help make clean water available to residents in the affected communities.

The crisis began around 10 a.m. yesterday when a 10-foot-wide pipe in Weston ruptured, cutting off Greater Boston from the Quabbin Reservoir, where most of its water supply is stored.

The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority said it could continue supplying water by activating a backup system that draws water from the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and Spot Pond Reservoir, as well as an alternate aqueduct, the Sudbury Aqueduct, but the water from those reservoirs is not treated. The water, which one official compared to “untreated pond water,’’ can be used for bathing and flushing toilets, but not for drinking or cooking.

Authorities said they are attempting to set up mobile units to chlorinate the backup water supply, but they cautioned that even so, the water from the backup system would not meet federal drinking water standards.

“This is everyone’s worst nightmare in the water industry,’’ said Frederick A. Laskey, executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

Local officials across the region were scrambling to warn residents about the potential for contamination. In Boston and other communities, police were driving up and down streets in cruisers, using bullhorns to blare boil-water warnings. At Massachusetts General Hospital, staff put up signs declaring: “Don’t drink the water.’’

“I ask everyone to check in on elderly or vulnerable neighbors,’’ the governor said at a press conference with Laskey at the headquarters of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency in Framingham. He asked people to avoid “unnecessary use of water, such as washing cars and lawn-watering,’’ and warned that drinking unboiled water could make people sick.

City officials in Boston were distributing fliers to 14,000 public housing units. City inspectors were also trying to get the word out to restaurant owners, and the Boston Public Health Commission held an emergency conference call with local hospitals, which city officials said would not experience any disruptions in medical care.

The “good news,’’ Laskey said, is that “we continue to maintain the flow for firefighting’’ and for toilets and other nondrinking purposes.

Not every Greater Boston community was affected. Cambridge, for example, has its own water supply. And MWRA spokeswoman Ria Convery said that the authority, working with the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, was able to reconfigure the water pipe lines in the Longwood Medical Area, which straddles the Boston line with Brookline.

That temporary fix has allowed four major medical centers in the area — Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital — to go about business as usual without having to resort to bottled water, she said.

Many questions remained unanswered. Officials said they did not know how many days it would take to restore clean drinking water to the region, or what caused the relatively new, 7-year-old steel pipe, which was buried 20 feet underground, to break. The break occurred in Weston, underneath Recreation Road.

Laskey said if officials could not repair the pipe with a temporary patch, a custom-made piece of pipe might have to be built. Officials had been building a backup system for the affected pipe, but it is three or four years from completion.

At the location of the break yesterday, brown water was roaring from a massive crater in the ground, sending more than 8 million gallons an hour rushing down a hill by Interstate 95 into the nearby Charles River.

The state Department of Conservation and Recreation said the millions of gallons pouring into the river would not be a problem, even as the river’s elevation rose by 8 inches in some locations and its flow nearly doubled in a matter of hours.

“Our dams can handle this,’’ said Wendy Fox, a spokeswoman for the agency.

Nigel Pickering, senior engineer and watershed modeler for the Charles River Watershed Association, warned that the water entering the river from the break could stir up sediment and carry contaminants.

Officials said the water roaring from the pipe was also making it impossible for repair crews to investigate the location of the leak. Authorities said that contractors and engineers will have to wait until the tunnel drains, hopefully by today, to determine what went wrong.

Instead of ammonium nitrate, the kind of fertilizer used by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the person who abandoned the van on the crowded New York City street had a metal gun locker full of a harmless fertilizer, New York City Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.

While it is unknown who the potential bomber is, or the bomber’s motive, officials told ABC, that if that person were not aware of the characteristics of the fertilizer it could point to the fact that the bomber did not know what he was doing.

Sources also told ABC News that the valves on the propane tanks were not open, which would have made it less likely that the gas inside would have ignited.

Police are looking for white male in his 40s who was seen leaving the area near the SUV and shedding a dark shirt, revealing a red shirt underneath, about a half block from where survellance cameras saw the vehicle entering Times Square at about 6:28 p.m. Saturday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

“This appears to be a car bomb that the bomb squad is in the process of dismantling,” New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. “We do not know the motive.”

Browne said an mounted policeman spotted a box smoking in the back of the Nissan Pathfinder sport utility vehicle shortly before 7 p.m. (2300 GMT) and that Times Square, the popular tourist destination in Manhattan’s Midtown, was evacuated soon after.

He said there appeared to be a timing device attached to a box in the vehicle, which had license plates from the neighboring state of Connecticut. A bomb squad robot was working to dismantle the device.

Police and fire department sources, who asked not to be named, said the device was being treated as a “failed device” and included explosives, burned wires, three tanks of propane and two canisters of gasoline. Police would not say whether the incident was being treated as an act of terrorism.

New York has remained on high alert for another attack since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in which hijacked airliners toppled the World Trade Center’s twin towers.

Last year police said they thwarted a plot to bomb the New York subway system. Two men have pleaded guilty in the case.

U.S. President Barack Obama commended the “quick action” by New York police in dealing with the incident and said the New York Police Department had done “excellent work” in responding.

A New York police officer, who did not give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said a man was seen fleeing the car and that Times Square was evacuated in case there were other devices.

In Washington, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the Joint Terrorism Task Force has responded along with the NYPD.

A U.S. official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was aware of the situation and was monitoring developments, but declined to comment further. The official said the New York Police Department was in charge of the investigation.

Times Square was eerily empty for several blocks on Saturday night, the busiest night of the week on the Great White Way as tourists and theater-goers watched from behind barricades as anti-terrorism units swarmed the scene.

‘MEMORIES OF 9/11’

Don Slovin, watching the police through the window of a souvenir shop a block from the SUV, said, “Of course it conjures up memories of 9/11.”

The SUV was parked very close to a production of the show “The Lion King” on 45th Street. Women in evening gowns were among the crowd on one of the warmest nights of the year and the busiest night of the week for Broadway theaters.

“It’s New York. If you’re from New York you just get used to it,” said Creswell Rudolph, 37, a bank security guard stationed a block from the SUV. “It could have been a lot worse.”

“With this, it’s just lucky they found it in time. Thank God for that,” he said.

Vehicle and pedestrian traffic was very heavy on streets outside the evacuation zone, including Sixth and Eighth Avenues. All intersections in the area were blocked by police and fire department vehicles, lights flashing.

Another New York City firefighter who said he arrived early on the scene described the vehicle as a dark-colored SUV, and said it was parked at the corner of 45th Street and Seventh Avenue. He confirmed the vehicle was smoking and also said he saw “a flash” from the back of the SUV.

“The SUV was smoking. There was a flash and we put two and two together” and an evacuation was ordered, he said.

The bomb squad was still on the scene working to dismantle the device in the early hours of Sunday morning.

An NYPD community affairs officer said small explosions heard by bystanders were the sound of water cannons aimed at the vehicle in an attempt to break through the glass.

Police allowed some people to enter theaters to view Broadway shows in the vicinity but later blocked other theatergoers from entering. Some hotel guests were allowed back to their rooms. Some Broadway shows were allowed to go on.

Police shut down Times Square from 43rd street to 48th street between Sixth and Eight avenues.

Tourists in the area expressed annoyance and amusement. Nam Vu, 24, said he had arrived by bus in New York at 8 a.m. from Canada and was prevented from meeting a friend at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square.

New York City police say a mounted police officer noticed smoke coming from the SUV at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that bomb investigators found propane tanks, powder and an apparent timing device inside the vehicle. The official wasn’t authorized to release the information and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A New York Police Department public information officer told CBS News the car was initially thought to be on fire. Firefighters later found out that the car was smoking, not on fire, but a suspicious package was found in the car’s back seat.

The car was first reported to police at 6:33 p.m. Eastern time, the officer said.

Officials told CBS News Station WCBS-TV in New York that there were no injuries at the scene. As a precaution, the bomb squad has been brought to the scene and is using a robot to inspect the package.

Times Square has been shut down during the investigation. Traffic is being diverted from the area and pedestrians have been pushed back from the scene.

Two CBS producers report their Broadway shows were cancelled because police evacuated the area.

Vehicle and foot traffic has been blocked off from Broadway to Seventh Avenue between 44th and 46th streets.

In December, a van without license plates parked in Times Square led police to block off part of the area for about two hours. A police robot examined the vehicle.

A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.

“The following is not public,” reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Emergency Response document dated April 28. “Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought.”

Asked Friday to comment on the document, NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen said that the additional leaks described were reported to the public late Wednesday night. Regarding the possibility of the spill becoming an order of magnitude larger, Smullen said, “I’m letting the document you have speak for itself.”

In scientific circles, an order of magnitude means something is 10 times larger. In this case, an order of magnitude higher would mean the volume of oil coming from the well could be 10 times higher than the 5,000 barrels a day coming out now. That would mean 50,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 million gallons a day. It appears the new leaks mentioned in the Wednesday release are the leaks reported to the public late Wednesday night.

“There is no official change in the volume released but the USCG is no longer stating that the release rate is 1,000 barrels a day,” continues the document, referred to as report No. 12. “Instead they are saying that they are preparing for a worst-case release and bringing all assets to bear.”

The emergency document also states that the spill has grown in size so quickly that only 1 to 2 percent of it has been sprayed with dispersants.

The Press-Register obtained the emergency report from a government official. The White House, NOAA, the Coast Guard and BP Plc did not immediately return calls for comment made early this morning.

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead and kinked piping currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels — or 210,000 gallons — per day.

If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate.

“Typically, a very good well in the Gulf can produce 30,000 barrels a day, but that’s under control. I have no idea what an uncontrolled release could be,” said Stephen Sears, chairman of the petroleum engineering department at Louisiana State University.

On Thursday, federal officials said they were preparing for the worst-case scenario but didn’t elaborate.

Kinks in the piping created as the rig sank to the seafloor may be all that is preventing the Deepwater Horizon well from releasing its maximum flow. BP is now drilling a relief well as the ultimate fix. The company said Thursday that process would take up to 3 months.

“I’m not sure what’s happening down there right now. I have heard there is a kink in what’s called the riser. The riser is a long pipe that connects the wellhead to the rig. I really don’t know if that kink is a big restriction. Is that really a big restriction? There could be another restriction further down,” said LSU’s Sears.

“An analogy would be if you have a kink in a garden hose. You suspect that kink is restricting the flow, but there could be another restriction or kink somewhere else closer to the faucet.

BP Plc executive Doug Suttles said Thursday the company was worried about “erosion” of the pipe at the wellhead.

Sand is an integral part of the formations that hold oil under the Gulf. That sand, carried in the oil as it shoots through the piping, is blamed for the ongoing erosion described by BP.

“The pipe could disintegrate. You’ve got sand getting into the pipe, it’s eroding the pipe all the time, like a sandblaster,” said Ron Gouget, a former oil spill response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“When the oil is removed normally, it comes out at a controlled rate. You can still have abrasive particles in that. Well, now, at this well, its coming out at fairly high velocity,” Gouget continued. “Any erosive grains are abrading the inside of the pipe and all the steel that comes in contact with the liquid. It’s essentially sanding away the pipe.”

Gouget said the loss of a wellhead is totally unprecedented.

“How bad it could get from that, you will have a tremendous volume of oil that is going to be offgassing on the coast. Depending on how much wind is there, and how those gases build up, that’s a significant health concern,” he said.

The formation that was being drilled by Deepwater Horizon when it exploded and sank last week is reported to have tens of millions of barrels of oil. A barrel contains 42 gallons.