By Almuth Ernsting Biofuels consumed today are usually ethanol made from the sugar in sugar cane (or sugar beet) or they may be made from starch in grains. In the US this is mostly corn starch. Alternatively, biodiesel may be made from plant oils such as soybean or canola oil. ...
by John J. Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C. A French man died last month and five others in the same clinical trial were hospitalized after they took an experimental drug. The drug had been deemed safe for humans after having been tested on chimpanzees in preclinical trials. The National Institutes of Health’s recent ...
by Salvatore Ceccarelli, PhD Five of the global issues most frequently debated today are the decline of biodiversity in general and of agrobiodiversity in particular, climate change, hunger and malnutrition, poverty and water. Seed is central to all five issues. The way in which seed is produced has been arguably ...
by Steven M. Druker An ardent attempt is afoot on Capitol Hill to prevent states from requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods – made especially urgent by the fact that Vermont’s labeling bill is set to take effect July 1st. Although proponents of these foods scored a major victory ...
By Rachel Smolker, PhD When the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) published their most recent fifth assessment report, something surprising and deeply disturbing was lurking in the small print in chapter three on “mitigation”. The IPCC revealed that to achieve even a recognizably normal future climate the models they ...
(UC STUDENTS’ OPEN LETTER TO THE EXTERNAL ADVISORY BOARD OF THE AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTE (ASI) & SAREP) As the students of the University of California, we come to you today to share our often silenced voices, our vision, and concerns we have about our common future. Our intention here is ...
By Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman Scientists are trained to express themselves rationally. They avoid personal attacks when they disagree. But some scientific arguments become so polarized that tempers fray. There may even be shouting. Such is the current state of affairs between two camps of scientists: health effects researchers ...
By Tracy Frisch As in other parts of North America, beekeepers in New York have been experiencing unsustainable losses of honeybee colonies. In 2014-15, annual colony losses in New York reached 54 per cent, according to the Bee Informed Partnership survey. And though losses were lower in preceding years, they ...
By T. Colin Campbell (Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus, Cornell University) A recent publication, which received sustained media attention, claimed that most cancers are just “bad luck” (Tomasetti and Vogelstein 2015). Its authors stated that only about one-third of cancer mutations are caused by known lifestyle or environmental factors (smoking, alcohol ...
by Jonathan Latham, PhD “Reading the emails make(s) me want to throw up” tweeted the Food Babe after reading a lengthy series of them posted online by the NY Times on Sept 5th. The emails in question result from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and are posted in ...
