Recently, a group of researchers announced their findings ahead of their report on the nutrition of organically produced food to be published in the British Journal of Nutrition. The study is titled “Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops: a systematic literature review and meta-analyses,” and,Continue reading “Latest Organic Study: More confirmation bias. Less filling.”
Category Archives: Technology
Can the poor eat now?
More noise from Michael Pollan found here (and I have written on here). He suggests that the poor could get a more varied diet and avoid the effects of a vitamin poor diet (such as vitamin A deficiency) by planting “greens in pots around their houses…” That way, we would not need to employ GoldenContinue reading “Can the poor eat now?”
Golden rice now, everything else is noise.
Please spare me the anti-biotech crowd’s Argumentum ad Monsantum (the “Appeal to Monsanto” argument) over Genetically Engineered (GE) foods. I’m speaking, of course, of the push back in the Lake County Record-Bee to my “Golden rice, golden opportunity” column. Golden Rice is a genetically engineered crop created by borrowing the carotene-making gene from corn andContinue reading “Golden rice now, everything else is noise.”
Golden Rice. Golden Opportunity.
You people in the developed world are certainly free to debate the merits of genetically modified foods, but can we please eat first?” – Dr. Florence Wambugu The blind girl lurched toward me across the parking lot at Tirta Empul temple, mewling. I guessed she was ten to thirteen years of age, and shorter thanContinue reading “Golden Rice. Golden Opportunity.”
Beer and Civilization—Who Knew?
This will be in tomorrow’s today’s Record-Bee in the Green Chain column. It is also cross-posted on my Batch-22 blog. I hope you had a happy Earth Day. It happened, thanks to beer. Fermentation First Evidence mounts almost daily that beer started humans on the path to civilization even before the invention of agricultureContinue reading “Beer and Civilization—Who Knew?”
What happens when we can find traces of everything everywhere?
It is easy to get worked up about toxic substances (especially, it seems, synthetic ones) being in our bodies, yet as Brian Dunning at Skeptoid notes, it is natural to have toxic substances there. He points out that plutonium is “one of the most dangerous substances known.” But because we live on a planet withContinue reading “What happens when we can find traces of everything everywhere?”
Taking the Romance out of Environmentalism
My latest Green Chain column for the Record-Bee. Just after 7 p.m. on Sept 5, 2001, Mark Lynas, a writer and a member of the Green Party in Britain stepped into the Borders Bookshop in Oxford and “pied” former Greenpeace member Bjorn Lomborg with a sponge cake topped with whipped cream. Lomborg was at theContinue reading “Taking the Romance out of Environmentalism”
The True Cost of Lumber Substitutes
Lumber and building material can be replaced with look-alikes made from non-renewable materials but it may not be wise. One example, a U.S. National Science Foundation panel analyzed the amount of energy necessary to extract, transport, and convert various raw materials into finished products found that substituting other materials for wood products comes at aContinue reading “The True Cost of Lumber Substitutes”
Prop 37 – It’s déjà vu all over again
In 1986 Californians wanted labels warning them of the toxics polluting their environment. Now with Proposition 37 Californians want labels to warn them of the “pollution” of their foods by biotechnology. Proposition 37, if passed by the voters, will 1) require that most GE (genetically engineered) foods sold in California be labeled as such, 2)Continue reading “Prop 37 – It’s déjà vu all over again”
Can a $40 Washing Machine Really Bring Families Out of Poverty?
Yes, yes it can. GiraDora is a blue bucket that conceals a spinning mechanism that washes clothes and then partially dries them. It’s operated by a foot pedal, while the user sits on the lid to stabilize the rapidly churning contents. Sitting alleviates lower-back pain associated with hand-washing clothes, and frees up the washer toContinue reading “Can a $40 Washing Machine Really Bring Families Out of Poverty?”
Nullius in Verba 