Still going strong: Pensioner David Latimer from Cranleigh, Surrey, with his bottle garden that was first planted 53 years ago and has not been watered since 1972 - yet continues to thrive in its sealed environment. (Click Image To Enlarge)
David Latimer first planted his bottle garden in 1960 and last watered it in 1972 before tightly sealing it shut 'as an experiment'.
The hardy spiderworts plant inside has grown to fill the 10-gallon container by surviving entirely on recycled air, nutrients and water.
Gardeners' Question Time expert says it is 'a great example just how pioneering plants can be'.
To look at this flourishing mass of plant life you’d think David Latimer was a green-fingered genius.
Truth be told, however, his bottle garden – now almost in its 53rd year – hasn’t taken up much of his time.
In fact, on the last occasion he watered it Ted Heath was Prime Minister and Richard Nixon was in the White House.
Lush: Just like any other plant, Mr Latimers's bottled specimen has survived and thrived using the cycle of photosynthesis despite being cut off from the outside world. (Click Image To Enlarge)
COMMENTARY:
HOW THE BOTTLE GARDEN GROWS
Bottle gardens work because their sealed space creates an entirely self-sufficient ecosystem in which plants can survive by using photosynthesis to recycle nutrients.
The only external input needed to keep the plant going is light, since this provides it with the energy it needs to create its own food and continue to grow.
Light shining on the leaves of the plant is absorbed by proteins containing chlorophylls (a green pigment).
Some of that light energy is stored in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule that stores energy. The rest is used to remove electrons from the water being absorbed from the soil through the plant's roots.
These electrons then become 'free' - and are used in chemical reactions that convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, releasing oxygen.
This photosynthesis process is the opposite of the cellular respiration that occurs in other organisms, including humans, where carbohydrates containing energy react with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide, water, and release chemical energy.
But the eco-system also uses cellular respiration to break down decaying material shed by the plant. In this part of the process, bacteria inside the soil of the bottle garden absorbs the plant's waste oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide which the growing plant can reuse.
And, of course, at night, when there is no sunlight to drive photosynthesis, the plant will also use cellular respiration to keep itself alive by breaking down the stored nutrients.
Because the bottle garden is a closed environment, that means its water cycle is also a self-contained process.
The water in the bottle gets taken up by plants’ roots, is released into the air during transpiration, condenses down into the potting mixture, where the cycle begins again.
Courtesy of an article dated February 2, 2014 appearing in Alien UFO Sightings
This is Farm 432. It’s sorta like an ant farm. But the bugs aren’t doing the farming. You’re farming the bugs. (Click Image To Enlarge)
DON’T THINK OF IT AS EATING BUG BABIES. THINK OF IT AS PROTEIN GARDENING.
As the population grows, so, too, will its hunger for meat. By 2050, meat production will need to surge by 50% to quell demand. The only problem is, producing so much (red) meat is already an environmental nightmare. And we simply might not have the resources to scale.
It’s a house to raise black soldier flies so that you can eat their larvae. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Meanwhile, Katharina Unger is planning to invite her friends over to a barbecue. (Really.) The University of Applied Arts Vienna grad has built a pretty impressive domestic insect-breeding concept called Farm 432. Over the course of 432 hours, with just a few food scraps, she can coax 1 gram of black soldier fly eggs into 2.4 kilograms of larvae protein. And if you listen to Unger long enough, her arguments are pretty convincing as to why we should all be growing fly larvae at home.
Unger explains.
“Black soldier flies themselves do not eat, they just drink. And they do not transmit any disease to humans. Unlike normal house flies they usually do not sit on food and they do not sting or bite, either. They also fly very slowly, so in case one should escape it is easy to catch them.”
But the relatively gross idea has been packaged as a convenient consumer product. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Over their eight-day lifecycle, soldier flies need space to fly around, mate, and lay eggs. In response, Farm 432 has a bulbous sphere at the end, connected to the "fly fun park" nozzles. These nozzles were designed after insect-attracting plants like the Rafflesia, and serve several functions. They waft in food waste from another chamber, convincing the flies that this will be a safe place for their offspring to thrive. And they provide a spot to lay eggs. Eventually, when the larvae hatch inside, they’ll fall through a hole to the food source below.
The flies use the bubble area to live. They lay their eggs in the blue funnels. The eggs hatch into larvae, which fall into food scraps. And eventually, the larvae climb their way out… (Click Image To Enlarge)
Unger explains.
“There they feed on biowaste or whatever you feed them on and wriggle around for around 14 days. They then want to clean themselves and find a dry and secure place to pupate, that’s why they climb up the migration ramp. This is when they fall into the collection bucket for harvest.”
…to end up here. (Click Image To Enlarge)
From here, it’s bon appetit. The larvae have a nutty, almost meaty flavor, Unger says, and her favorite dish is a tomato larvae risotto. But as tasty as it may be, and as well as Farm 432 may work, Unger admits that the design challenge is only part of making such an idea a success.
She says.
“With my design I am proposing a new lifestyle. It’s about a potential new Western culture of insect eating and breeding. It’s about making people aware that there is a great variety of food on our planet that we rarely consider.”
It’s a convenient tray for cooking. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Through the process, 1 gram of black soldier fly eggs becomes 2.4 kilograms of larvae. (Click Image To Enlarge)
It’s an incredible ecological savings compared to beef. (Click Image To Enlarge)
COMMENTARY: This sure looks yucky to me, but if you are into eating insects for the nutrition, I could easily see where you could buy a dozen of these Farm 432 units and grow different bugs to suit your individual taste buds. Nothig like bugs as a garnish for your favorite rice dish. Yuck!!
While there’s no denying that consumers are increasingly using social media in just about every area of their lives, they still aren’t into shopping there. A new global study from PwC, the global consultancy, reports that last year, only 12% of consumers bought anything through social media.
Nor does social media buzz do much to drive sales: Only 18% of those consumers active in social media made a purchase as a result of information they got via their social-media connections.
The report says.
“Our survey data shows that social media will, for the near future, remain a backwater sales channel, if you can call it a sales channel at all. While about half of respondents say they’re checking out social media sites daily, only a tiny minority uses the sites frequently to shop. In fact, seven out of ten online shoppers who took our survey say they never shop this way. That should remain the status quo for the immediate future.”
But the survey, based on 11,000 people in 11 countries, did highlight a fast-growing willingness to interact with brands via social media, with 59% saying they follow brands through social channels, up from 49% last year. And 27% say they’ve discovered brands they didn’t know about this way, compared with 17% last year.
One big exception is China, where one in four shoppers has already made a purchase via social media.
PwC has classified them in three different groups:
Brand lovers - This segment offers the most potential for future shopping, and includes the 38% of consumers now following brands and retailers, up from 33% last year. And they are the fiercest shoppers, with 53% going into an actual store at least weekly (compared with 45% of the overall sample), and 45% making at least one online purchase per week.
Deal hunters - Nearly half of the survey fell into this category, and will click through to online stores if they think they’ve spotted an appealing offer.
Social addicts - While the smallest group, this minority uses social media “to talk about their experiences with brands, learn what their friends like and recommend, find customer service answers, and submit ideas and product feedback to companies,” the report notes. Failing to include these evangelists “carries significant reputational risk, as these very active online users tend to have huge social media networks and wield an outsized influence.”
Its slow start as a commerce channel notwithstanding, social media continues to be a critical component of brand building. The report says.
“Despite its inability to lead directly to a purchase, social media activity is a pretty strong indicator of how much some shoppers will buy, both online and in stores, so...the impact social media has on the brand needs to be part of every multichannel strategy discussion. It’s clearly a robust marketing and communications tool for retailers and consumer product companies.”
COMMENTARY: Although some brands over the years have been skeptical about how social media can bring in revenue, a new infographic reveals social commerce sales are expected to bring in $30 billion each year by 2015, with half of web sales to occur through social media.
Cloud marketing software provider Vocus has put together an infographic with stats from Gartner Research highlighting how brands are currently using social media and what trends are on the horizon.
According to the data, Facebook drives 26% of referral traffic to business websites and those numbers are only expected to increase. About 20% of shoppers already prefer buying products through a brand's Facebook page compared to its website.
Although Facebook users still use the platform largely for personal use, one in three businesses embrace it to reach out to consumers. Nearly 10 million registered small businesses have a Facebook presence, and 89% of agencies use the social network to advertise for their business clients.
Fans who follow brands on Facebook are also more likely to purchase items from the company than non-fans. With that in mind, about 89% of small businesses believe Facebook is a valuable marketing tool for their brand.
Click Image To Enlarge
In an article dated January 28, 2013 appearing in Social Commerce Today, it was announced that Payvment, the leading provider of Facebook enabled social commerce storefronts, announced that it will cease operations on February 28, 2013 and transfer all accounts to social commerce platform Ecwid.
Ecwid, an e-commerce provider with more than 250,000 customers, will be taking over Payvment's 200,000 customers, though terms of the deal are unknown at this time. An announcement released this morning states that Ecwid will be “acquiring sellers referred by Payvment.”
For those unfamiliar, Ecwid is no slouch when it comes to e-commerce. It built the first PHP-powered store builder, which eventually became known as X-Cart. Its current platform allows merchants to easily embed a shopping cart widget into their blogs or websites with no little or no technical knowledge required.
There’s also a mobile version of the platform and Ecwid also has its own Facebook shopping cart app, which I assume is what Payvment sellers will transition to.
Both Payvment’s and Ecwid’s customer base consists primarily of small businesses, so there is synergy there. In fact, if you ask me, based on my knowledge of both companies and their respective CEO’s, I think Ecwid is the perfect e-commerce provider to take over Payvment’s client base and would suggest to its sellers that they are in good hands.
These two companies commanded the lion's share of social commerce stores on Facebook. Facebook does not report revenues from ecommerce storefronts and neither do Ecwid and Payvment, but it is important to note that these customers are mostly small businesses conducting ecommerce sales on Facebook.
On the flip side of the coin, large retailers have not fared very well selling their goods on Facebook. In fact, in a blog post dated February 17, 2012, I reported that Penneys, Nordstroms and Gap had opened Facebook stores, but quickly closed them down only after a few months. The failure of large retailers to generate much traction on Facebook makes you wonder if it is even possible to generate significant ecommerce sales through Facebook. The above infographic forecasts taht social commerce sales could hit $30 billion by 2015. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, and the above PcW survey certainly casts doubts about social commerce or F-commerce (Facebook).
Courtesy of an article dated February 7, 2013 appearing in MediaPost Publications Marketing Dailyand an article dated January 28, 2013 appearing in Social Commerce Today
This blooming plant was regenerated by Russian scientists from 32,000 year-old seeds from the Ice Age that were discovered in a frozen squirrel burrow next in Siberia
Fruits in my fruit bowl tend to rot into a mulchy mess after a couple of weeks. Fruits that are chilled in permanent Siberian ice fare rather better. After more than 30,000 years, and some care from Russian scientists, some ancient fruits have produced this delicate white flower.
These regenerated plants, rising like wintry Phoenixes from the Russian ice, are still viable. They produce their own seeds and, after a 30,000-year hiatus, can continue their family line.
David A. Gilchinsky, Head of Soil Cryology Laboratory, Institute for Physiochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, Russian Academy of Sciences (Click Image To Enlarge)
The plant owes its miraculous resurrection to a team of scientists led by David Gilichinsky, and an enterprising ground squirrel. Back in the Upper Pleistocene, the squirrel buried the plant’s fruit in the banks of the Kolyma River. They froze.
The 30,000 year-old Silene stenophylla seeds that were regenerated into plants by Russian scientists were discovered in a fossilized squirrel burrow in permafrost along the banks of the Kolmya River in Russian Siberia
Over millennia, the squirrel’s burrow fossilised and was buried under increasing layers of ice. The plants within were kept at a nippy -7 degrees Celsius, surrounded by permanently frozen soil and the petrifying bones of mammoths and woolly rhinos. They never thawed. They weren’t disturbed. By the time they were found and defrosted by scientists, they had been buried to a depth of 38 metres, and frozen for around 31,800 years.
Regenerated Silene stenophylla plants were potted from seeds over 30,000 years old by Russian scientist Svetlana Yashina and two years later bloomed flowers (Click Image To Enlarge)
People have grown plants from ancient seeds before. In 2008, Israeli scientists resurrected an aptly named Phoenix palm from seeds that had been buried in the 1st century. But those seeds were a mere 2,000 years old. Those of the new Russian flower – Silene stenophylla – are older by an order of magnitude. They trump all past record-holders.
Russian researcher Svetlana Yashina extracted the placentas from the recovered fruit, she was able to coas the tissue into producing roots and shoots (Click Image To Enlarge)
Svetlana Yashina from the Russian Academy of Sciences grew the plants from immature fruits recovered from the burrow. She extracted their placentas – the structure that the seeds attach to – and bathed them in a brew of sugars, vitamins and growth factors. From these tissues, roots and shoots emerged.
Yashina potted the plants and two years later, they developed flowers. She fertilised the ancient flowers with each other’s pollen, and in a few months, they had produced their own seeds and fruits, all viable. The frozen plants, blooming again after millennia in the freezer, seeded a new generation.
S.stenophylla is still around, but Yashina found that the ancient plants are subtly different to their modern counterparts, even those taken from the same region. They’re slower to grow roots, they produce more buds, and their flower petals were wider.
This is the first time that anyone has grown plants form seeds deeply buried within permanently frozen burrows. But it’s not the first time that someone has tried. In 1967, Canadian scientists claimed that they had regenerated Arctic lupin from 10,000 year old seeds that had been buried by lemmings. But in 2009, another team dated those same seeds and found that they were actually modern ones, which had contaminated the ancient sample.
Mindful of this mistake, Yashina carefully checked that her plants were indeed ancient ones. She dated the seeds directly, and her results matched age estimates from other samples from the same burrow. The burrows have been buried well below the level that animals dig into, and the structure of the surrounding ice suggests that they have never thawed. Their sediments are firmly compacted and totally filled with ice. No water infiltrates these chambers, much less plant roots or modern rodents. There are a few pores, but they are many times narrower than the width of any of Yashina’s seeds.
This closed world provided shelter, a continuous chill, and an effectively dry environment, that allowed the fruits to persist. At subzero temperatures, their chemical reactions slowed to a crawl. Extreme age was no longer a problem. A fruit’s placenta is also chemically active, and is loaded with several chemicals that might have protected these specific tissues against the cold.
But the burrows weren’t completely benign environments. The underground rocks contain naturally radioactive elements, which would have bombarded the seeds with low but accumulating doses of radiation. The ones that Yashina regenerated would have amassed 70 Grays of radiation – that’s more than any other plant has absorbed while still producing viable seeds.
S.stenophylla’s resurrection shows how many treasures lie buried within the world’s permafrost. This soil, defined as that which stays below freezing for two years or more, covers a fifth of the planet’s land. It is home to bacteria, algae, fungi, plants and more. In the fossil burrows that Yashina has studied, scientists have found up to 600,000 to 800,000 seeds in individual chambers.
In Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault, scientists have frozen thousands of seeds in an underground cavern, as a back-up in case of agricultural crises. But nature has already produced similar frozen seed banks. Siberia, Alaska and the Yukon could act as one massive freezer, where ancient life has been stored, waiting to greet the world again.
COMMENTARY: This is an amazing scientific breakthrough if the regeneration of the 32,000 year-old seeds can be confirmed by other scientists.
UPDATE: Tragedy has now struck the Russian team that was involved in the discovery of the 32,000 year-old seeds and the successful regeneration of a living plant from those seeds. Dr. David Gilichinksy, its leader, was hospitalized with an asthma attack and unable to respond to questions, his daughter Yana said on Friday. On Saturday, Dr. Price reported that Dr. Gilichinsky had died of a heart attack.
According to The New York Times, this incredible scientific breakthrough in plant regeneration from seeds that were carbon dated to be 32,000 years-old, is by a team led by Svetlana Yashina and David Gilichinsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences research center at Pushchino, near Moscow, and appears in Tuesday’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Grant Zazula of the Yukon Paleontology Program at Whitehorse in Yukon Territory, Canada said.
“This is an amazing breakthrough. I have no doubt in my mind that this is a legitimate claim.”
It was Dr. Zazula who showed that the apparently ancient lupine seeds found by the Yukon gold miner were in fact modern.
But the Russians’ extraordinary report is likely to provoke calls for more proof. Alastair Murdoch, an expert on seed viability at the University of Reading in England said.
“It’s beyond the bounds of what we’d expect.”
When poppy seeds are kept at minus 7 degrees Celsius, the temperature the Russians reported for the campions, after only 160 years just 2 percent of the seeds will be able to germinate, Dr. Murdoch noted.
Some of the storage chambers in the squirrel burrows contain more than 600,000 seeds and fruits. Many are from a species that most closely resembles a plant found today, the narrow-leafed campion (Silene stenophylla).
Working with a burrow from the site called Duvanny Yar, the Russian researchers tried to germinate the campion seeds, but failed. They then took cells from the placenta, the organ in the fruit that produces the seeds. They thawed out the cells and grew them in culture dishes into whole plants.
Many plants can be propagated from a single adult cell, and this cloning procedure worked with three of the placentas, the Russian researchers report. They grew 36 ancient plants, which appeared identical to the present day narrow-leafed campion until they flowered, when they produced narrower and more splayed-out petals. Seeds from the ancient plants germinated with 100 percent success, compared with 90 percent for seeds from living campions.
The researchers suggest that special circumstances may have contributed to the remarkable longevity of the campion plant cells. Squirrels construct their larders next to permafrost to keep seeds cool during the arctic summers, so the fruits would have been chilled from the start. The fruit’s placenta contains high levels of sucrose and phenols, which are good antifreeze agents.
The Russians measured the ground radioactivity at the site, which can damage DNA, and say the amount of gamma radiation the campion fruit accumulated over 30,000 years is not much higher than that reported for a 1,300-year-old sacred lotus seed, from which a plant was successfully germinated.
The Russian article was edited by Buford Price of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Price, a physicist, chose two reviewers to help him. But neither he nor they are plant biologists. He said.
“I know nothing about plants.”
Ann Griswold, a spokeswoman for PNAS, as the journal is known, said the paper had been seen by an editorial board member who is a plant biologist.
Eske Willerslev, an expert on ancient DNA at the University of Copenhagen, said the finding was “plausible in principle,” given the conditions in permafrost. But the claim depends on the radiocarbon date being correct:
“It’s all resting on that — if there’s something wrong there it can all fall part.”
If the ancient campions are the ancestors of the living plants, this family relationship should be evident in their DNA. Dr. Willerslev said that the Russian researchers should analyze the DNA of their specimens and prove that this is the case. However, this is not easy to do with plants whose genetics are not well studied, Dr. Willerslev said.
If the claim is true, then scientists should be able to study evolution in real time by comparing the ancient and living campions. Possibly other ancient species can be resurrected from the permafrost, including plants that have long been extinct.
Courtesy of an article dated February 20, 2012 appearing in Discover Magazine blog, an article dated February 21, 2012 appearing in The New York Times, an article dated February 21, 2012 appearing in The Guardianand an article dated February 21, 2012 appearing in io9.com
Mother Earth as seen from outer space by the International Space Station crew.
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Om nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom. *Gulp.
A funny thing has happened in the way well-meaning greenies talk about the earth. Call it the Al Gore effect: Faced with so many climate skeptics who deny the reality that 99% of scientists back global warming, the greenies typically resort to more and more wonkish sorts of communication. As if proving the climate skeptics wrong were simply about showing more and more data.
The result, of course, is that the well-meaning message becomes harder and harder to comprehend. It seems to me that there’sno convincing people who’ve already made up their minds. Instead, you need to reach people who simply haven’t paid attention.
Something like this is going on in a rather nice little series of videos by the World Wildlife Fund. The first urges you to think about the connection between your plate, and the resources required to grow all that food:
How do we balance the needs of a growing population with a finite planet? By the year 2050, our planet will be home to another 2 billion people. How will we feed them all? Not only will there be more people, but everyone will have more money to spend on food. Where, on an increasingly crowded planet, will we grow all of it? Picture what would happen if we could freeze the footprint of food by doubling the productivity of farming.
We already use 1/3 of the earth’s surface to grow food. By 2050, we’ll need twice as much food.
And here’s another video, urging us to rethink our gadgets:
Do you know what goes into making your laptop? Raw materials for electronic goods are mined from tropical rainforests, but as resources dry up, recycling aluminum is key. If a laptop manufacturer only used recycled aluminum, it would take 90% less energy to make the same machine. Imagine what our world would like if more products recycled or reused existing materials.
COMMENTARY: After viewing the above videos, it becomes obvioius that we must create a sustainable planet. We should strive to recycle everything. We should strive to give back as much as we take from Mother Earth.
We obviouslhy need to grow food crops more efficiently with a whole lot less water. In a blog post dated November 12, 2011, I told you about Dyson Award winner "Airdrop" irrigation system, an ingenious device that draws water from the air.
In a blog post dated August 3, 2011, I told you about Pod Ponics, a small startup, uses hydroponic "growing pods" to produce fresh, locally-grown vegetables year-round. As fuel prices go up, the cost of shipping produce thousands of miles away rises accordingly. In the past few years, a number of companies have attempted to capitalize on the increasing hunger for locally produced food--we've seen rooftop farming startup BrightFarms and Brooklyn hydroponic farming startup Gotham Greens, just to a name a couple.
In a blog post dated June 10, 2011 I told you the history of U.S. oil imports, prices, production, consumption, world oil reserves and events affecting oil prices. In June 24, 2011, I told you where the world's oil is produced, how much of that oil the U.S. imports, and why America goes begging for oil. February 5, 2011, I warned you that the oil consuming world is at peak oil levels, a level of oil consumption where we are using more oil than is being pumped out of the ground by the world's oil producing countries.
In a blog post dated September 30, 2011, I commented on how for the first time in a quarter century, The Obama administration had successfully raised CAFE standards for light-duty vehicles, from 27.5 mpg in 2010 to 39 mpg in 2016. By 2025, cars will have to get 54.5 miles per gallon. Hybrids currently only make up about three percent of light-duty stock on the road, but sales of hybrids are growing. Consumers could save $1.7 trillion over the life of new CAFE standards by driving more fuel efficient vehicles, hybrid and all-electric automobiles.
Check all my blog posts on Renewable energy and green technology. Renewable energy and green technology from the sun, wind and oceans needs to be harnessed and we should strive to to get off our addiction to oil by gradually switching from fossil fuel driven automobiles to hybrids and all-electric vehicles.
The more advanced human kind becomes, as we develope better and more efficient technologies, from laptops to smartphones to tablets to apps, we seem to forget that there is a huge cost, to our environment and Mother Earth's resources. The aluminum in our laptops is a great example. We take too much for granted without taking account the consequences.
Courtesy of an article dated November 17, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design
What is one tip that you have for effectively delegating the job of social media marketing at your company? Answered offered by social media guru's.
No. 1: Never Delegate Social Media Externally - From Laura Roeder of LKR - Remember that social media is not just marketing but customer service -- people are interacting with, and asking questions about, your company and the person answering them must be knowledgeable. And it's especially important because a bad social media interaction can be spread virally in seconds. Choose someone who is able to answer any question and can speak in the voice of your brand.
No. 2: Use a Team Platform to Manage - From Logan Lenz of Endagon - Depending on the size of your company, there's often the need for more than one person to manage social media accounts and engage with customers. Whether it's through multiple profiles or inquiry delegation, social media management platforms like Hootsuite are extremely valuable when organizing the social media tasks throughout a large team.
No. 3: You Have to Know What You're Asking - From Thursday Bram of Hyper Modern Consulting - Just deciding your business needs a Facebook page or a Google+ presence and then finding someone to handle the workload isn't enough. Before you can delegate, you have to have a good picture of what your competitors are doing and what results you can get -- as well as what the work really entails. Otherwise, social media can turn into a black hole.
No. 4: Build a Social Media Strategy - From Andrew Saladino of Just Bath Vanities - Establish clear objectives and success metrics for your social media campaign. Identify the best channels and approach for your company and look for available opportunities that might be available on some of the less known social media Websites. Craft a unified concept and company message to be used throughout all communications.
No. 5: Why Your Company's Biggest Evangelist Should Run Social Media - From Matt Wilson of Under30CEO.com - If you want to delegate social media, you need to find someone who is absolutely obsessed with your company. Bring on a person whose passion oozes out every time they speak about your product or service. This is the only way to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Make sure that person is extremely outgoing, helpful and most of all, sincere.
No. 6: Set Time Standards - From Elizabeth Saunders of Real Life E® - You can always do more with social media, so it's important that you clearly explain how much time you would like someone to spend on different social media activities. Also, you should establish standards of average response times to new messages so that you provide a consistent customer experience.
No. 7: Master the Corporate Voice - From Doreen Bloch of Poshly Inc. - Before delegating social media marketing, choose and be able to describe your company's voice. Is your firm fun and chatty online? News-centric and authoritative? Witty? Then, ensure your social media team members master the tone. If all your social media marketers speak consistently, your social media implementation will be more successful.
No. 8: Delegate to Core Competency - From Lauren Maillian Bias of Luxury Market Branding - Recognize the social media strengths and interests of each person in your company. Delegate specific aspects of social media content to team members that are most competent in that space and let them crush it. If your team works on their core competencies they will always be excited and passionate about the content they create. And, most importantly, that content will be authentic.
No. 9: Make Sure They Understand Your Company - From Lucas Sommer of Audimated - You should be 100% on the same page with whomever you are delegating social media to. Social media is the public relations of the Internet community and whoever is responsible for managing your social media should have a firm understanding of the goals you have for social media and how you are going to portray your business.
No. 10: No Weak Links - From Arjun Arora of ReTargeter - Every member of your company has a public voice, so it's important to make sure that your entire team is involved with your brand socially. This means they should be sharing the great things that you do with their network. But everyone must be in line with your brand's mission. Make sure that your company defines its core value proposition, and make it a point for every employee to adhere to it.
COMMENTARY: All excellent advice.
Courtesy of an article dated January 9, 2012 appearing in Fox Business
For a weeklong workshop, Visiondivision began an architecture project that will take 60 years to grow.
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There’s no question that technology has eroded our patience. Can you imagine waiting a full minute for your dial-up modem to connect to the Internet today? In architecture terms, that’s like waiting 60 years for a project to be completed. Which is exactly what the Stockholm-based studio Visiondivision has planned for the Politecnico di Milano campus: a canopy of trees that will take six decades--and a ginormous green thumb--to build.
The architects write on their website.
“If we can be patient with the building time, we can reduce the need for transportation, waste of material and different manufacturing processes, simply by helping nature grow in a more architectonic and useful way.”
During a weeklong workshop, they taught students the techniques--such as bending, braiding, pruning, and grafting--required to construct a study retreat, aptly called "The Patient Gardener," from only plants and trees.
The main structure is a dome of 10 Japanese cherry trees, which are planted around a temporary tower that acts as a guide. Once the bent trees touch the tower, they will be redirected into an hourglass shape, the top of which will become a second level for reading and lounging and accessed by stairs of branches. The architects even devised furniture made from greenery, including a chair that seems to have organically sprung from the ground but is actually a cardboard form covered in soil and draped in grass.
Visiondivision left behind instructions for future generations of gardeners. The architects write.
“In about 80 years from now, the Politecnico di Milano campus will have a fully grown building and the students will hopefully have proud grandchildren that can tell the story of the project for their friends and family.”
That's a far cry from the instant gratification we've come to expect; rather, it's the long view we need to take when measuring our impact on the planet.
COMMENTARY: That's what I call a very cool idea. The students can pass on their tree growing heritage to the next class, and they can continue planting and growing the trees for "The Patient Garden". 60 years from now, the result will be one incredible tree dome. Just in time for their retirement years.
Courtesy of an article dated November 10, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design
An example of biomimicry, Edward Linnacre's Airdrop harvests moisture from "dry" air to water crops in arid regions.
This year’s James Dyson Award goes to a low-tech device for harvesting moisture from the air to irrigate crops in drought-stricken regions. The winning entry comes from Edward Linnacre, a student at Swinburne University, in Melbourne, who drew inspiration from the behavior of the Namib beetle, which collects droplets of water in the desert by outstretching its wings into the early-morning fog.
Linnacre’s self-powered Airdrop borrows the Namib’s insight that even the driest air contains water molecules that can be gathered by lowering the air temperature to the point of condensation.
How it works:
A turbine intake drives air underground through a network of piping that rapidly cools the air to the temperature of the soil, where it reaches 100% humidity and produces water. The water is then stored in an underground tank and pumped through to the roots of crops via underground drip-irrigation hosing.
The Airdrop system also includes an LCD screen that displays tank water levels, pressure strength, solar-battery life, and system health. Linnacre estimates that 11.5 milliliters of water can be extracted from every cubic meter of air. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s nothing to sneeze at in areas where yearly rainfall is only a couple of inches.
Edward Linnacre's Airdrop harvests moisture from "dry" air to water crops in arid regions
Linnacre plans to put his $14,000 prize earnings toward testing the system. (The James Dyson Foundation awarded an additional $14,000 was awarded to his university to encourage other young engineers to follow his lead.)
Airdrop was chosen from designs submitted by students in 18 countries. The two runners-up are:
KwickScreen, a retractable room divider from Michael Korn, of London’s Royal College of Art.
Blindspot, a navigational aide for the visually impaired from Se Lui Chew of University of Singapore.
Amo Arm, received a commendable mention for a full-arm prosthetic that obviates the need for invasive re-innervation surgery, from Michal Prywata at Ryerson University.
WASHINGTON -- The chemical at the heart of the planet’s most widely used herbicide -- Roundup weedkiller, used in farms and gardens across the U.S. -- is coming under more intense scrutiny following the release of a new report calling for a heightened regulatory response around its use.
Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, poses a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns.
A comprehensive review of existing data released this month by Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.
Founded in 2009, Earth Open Source is a non-profit organisation incorporated in the U.K. but international in scope. Its three directors, specializing in business, technology and genetic engineering, work pro-bono along with a handful of young volunteers. Partnering with half a dozen international scientists and researchers, the group drew its conclusions in part from studies conducted in a number of locations, including Argentina, Brazil, France and the United States.
Earth Open Source’s study is only the latest report to question the safety of glyphosate, which is the top-ranked herbicide used in the United States. Exact figures are hard to come by because the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped updating its pesticide use database in 2008. The EPA estimates that the agricultural market used 180 to 185 million pounds of glyphosate between 2006 and 2007, while the non-agricultural market used 8 to 11 million pounds between 2005 and 2007, according to its Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report for 2006-2007 published in February, 2011.
The Earth Open Source study also reports that by 1993 the herbicide industry, including Monsanto, knew that visceral anomalies such as dilation of the heart could occur in rabbits at low and medium-sized doses. The report further suggests that since 2002, regulators with the European Commission have known that glyphosate causes developmental malformations in lab animals.
Even so, the commission’s health and consumer division published a final review report of glyphosate in 2002 that approved its use in Europe for the next 10 years.
As recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BLV), a government agency conducting a review of glyphosate, told the European Commission that there was no evidence the compound causes birth defects, according to the report.
The agency reached that conclusion despite almost half a dozen industry studies that found glyphosate produced fetal malformations in lab animals, as well as an independent study from 2007 that found that Roundup induces adverse reproductive effects in the male offspring of a certain kind of rat.
German regulators declined to respond in detail for this story because they say they only learned of the Earth Open Source report last week. The regulators emphasized that their findings were based on public research and literature.
Although the European Commission originally planned to review glyphosate in 2012, it decided late last year not to do so until 2015. And it won’t review the chemical under more stringent, up-to-date standards until 2030, according to the report.
The European Commission told HuffPost that it wouldn’t comment on whether it was already aware of studies demonstrating the toxicity of glyphosate in 2002. But it said the commission was aware of the Earth Open Source study and had discussed it with member states.
A commission official told HuffPost in an email.
“Germany concluded that study does not change the current safety assessment of gylphosate. This view is shared by all other member states.”
John Fagan, a doctor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry and one of the founders of Earth Open Source, acknowledged his group’s report offers no new laboratory research. Rather, he said the objective was for scientists to compile and evaluate the existing evidence and critique the regulatory response.
Fagan said.
“We did not do the actual basic research ourselves. The purpose of this paper was to bring together and to critically evaluate all the evidence around the safety of glyphosate and we also considered how the regulators, particularly in Europe, have looked at that.”
For its part, Earth Open Source said that government approval of the ubiquitous herbicide has been rash and problematic. Wrote the report’s authors.
"Our examination of the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the current approval of glyphosate and Roundup is deeply flawed and unreliable. What is more, we have learned from experts familiar with pesticide assessments and approvals that the case of glyphosate is not unusual. They say that the approvals of numerous pesticides rest on data and risk assessments that are just as scientifically flawed, if not more so."
The authors added.
"This is all the more reason why the Commission must urgently review glyphosate and other pesticides according to the most rigorous and up-to-date standards."
Monsanto spokeswoman Janice Person said in a statement that the Earth Open Source report presents no new findings. Person said.
"Based on our initial review, the Earth Open Source report does not appear to contain any new health or toxicological evidence regarding glyphosate. Regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world agree that glyphosate does not cause adverse reproductive effects in adult animals or birth defects in offspring of these adults exposed to glyphosate, even at doses far higher than relevant environmental or occupational exposures.”
While Roundup has been associated with deformities in a host of laboratory animals, its impact on humans remains unclear. One laboratory study done in France in 2005 found that Roundup and glyphosate caused the death of human placental cells. Another study, conducted in 2009, found that Roundup caused total cell death in human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells within 24 hours. Yet researchers have conducted few follow-up studies.
Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which advocates against genetically modified food said.
“Obviously there’s a limit to what’s appropriate in terms of testing poison on humans. But if you look at the line of converging evidence, it points to a serious problem. And if you look at the animal feeding studies with genetically modified Roundup ready crops, there’s a consistent theme of reproductive disorders, which we don’t know the cause for because follow-up studies have not been done. More independent research is needed to evaluate the toxicity of Roundup and glyphosate, and the evidence that has already accumulated is sufficient to raise a red flag.”
Authorities have criticized Monsanto in the past for soft-pedaling Roundup. In 1996 New York State's Attorney General sued Monsanto for describing Roundup as "environmentally friendly" and "safe as table salt." Monsanto, while not admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to stop using the terms for promotional purposes and paid New York state $250,000 to settle the suit.
Regulators in the United States have said they are aware of the concerns surrounding glyphosate. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is required to reassess the safety and effectiveness all pesticides on a 15-year cycle through a process called registration review, is currently examining the compound.
The EPA told HuffPost in a written statement.
“EPA initiated registration review of glyphosate in July 2009. EPA will determine if our previous assessments of this chemical need to be revised based on the results of this review. EPA issued a notice to the company [Monsanto] to submit human health and ecotoxicity data in September 2010.”
The EPA said it will also review a “wide range of information and data from other independent researchers” including Earth Open Source.
The agency's Office of Pesticide Programs is in charge of the review and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if registration modifications need to be made or if the herbicide should continue to be sold at all.
Though skirmishes over the regulation of glyphosate are playing out at agencies across the U.S. and around the world, Argentina is at the forefront of the battle.
Farmers and others in Argentina use the weedkiller primarily on genetically modified Roundup Ready soy, which covers nearly 50 million acres, or half of the country's cultivated land area. In 2009 farmers sprayed that acreage with an estimated 200 million liters of glyphosate.
The Argentine government helped pull the country out of a recession in the 1990s in part by promoting genetically modified soy. Though it was something of a miracle for poor farmers, several years after the first big harvests residents near where the soy cop grew began reporting health problems, including high rates of birth defects and cancers, as well as the losses of crops and livestock as the herbicide spray drifted across the countryside.
The study, published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology in 2010, found that glyphosate causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at doses far lower than those used in agricultural spraying. It also found that malformations caused in frog and chicken embryos by Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate were similar to human birth defects found in genetically modified soy-producing regions.
Wrote Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires.
"The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy. I suspect the toxicity classification of glyphosate is too low. In some cases this can be a powerful poison."
Argentina has not made any federal reforms based on this research and has not discussed the research publicly, Carrasco told HuffPost, except to mount a "close defense of Monsanto and it partners."
The Ministry of Science and Technology has moved to distance the government from the study, telling media at the time the study was not commissioned by the government and had not been reviewed by scientific peers.
Ignacio Duelo, spokesman for the the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research [CONICET], told HuffPost in an statement that while Carrasco is one of its researchers, CONICET has not vouched for or assessed his work.
Duelo said that the Ministry of Science is examining Carrasco’s report as part of a study of the possible harmful effects of the glyphosate. Officials, he added, are as yet unable to “reach a definitive conclusion on the effects of glyphosate on human health, though more studies are recommended, as more data is necessary.”
Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE, Argentina's association of fertilizer companies, in a statement at the time said.
"A ban, if approved, would mean we couldn't do agriculture in Argentina."
In March 2010, a regional court in Argentina's Santa Fe province banned the spraying of glyphosate and other herbicides near populated areas. A month later, the provincial government of Chaco province issued a report on health statistics from La Leonesa. The report, which was carried in the leftist Argentinian newspaper Página 12, showed that from 2000 to 2009, following the expansion of genetically-modified soy and rice crops in the region, the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire province.
MORE QUESTIONS
Back in the United States, Don Huber, an emeritus professor of plant pathology at Purdue University, found that genetically-modified crops used in conjunction with Roundup contain a bacteria that may cause animal miscarriages.
After studying the bacteria, Huber wrote Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in February warning that the
"pathogen appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings."
The bacteria is particularly prevalent in corn and soybean crops stricken by disease, according to Huber, who asked Vilsack to stop deregulating Roundup Ready crops. Critics such as Huber are particularly wary of those crops because scientists have genetically altered them to be immune to Roundup -- and thus allow farmers to spray the herbicide liberally onto a field, killing weeds but allowing the crop itself to continue growing. [That's one scary finding]
Monsanto is not the only company making glyphosate. China sells glyphosate to Argentina at a very low price, Carrasco said, and there are more than one hundred commercial formulations in the market. But Monsanto’s Roundup has the longest list of critics, in part because it dominates the market.
The growth in adoption of genetically modified crops has exploded since their introduction in 1996. According to Monsanto, an estimated 89 percent of domestic soybean crops were Roundup Ready in 2010, and as of 2010, there were 77.4 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans planted, according to the Department of Agriculture.
In his letter to the Agriculture Department, Huber also commented on the herbicide, saying that the bacteria that he’s concerned about appears to be connected to use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup. He wrote.
"It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders."
Huber said the Agriculture Department wrote him in early May and that he has had several contacts with the agency since then. But there’s little evidence that government officials have any intention of conducting the “multi-agency investigation” Huber requested.
Part of the problem may be that the USDA oversees genetically modified crops while the EPA watches herbicides, creating a potential regulatory loophole for products like Roundup, which relies on both to complete the system. When queried, USDA officials emphasized that they do not regulate pesticides or herbicides and declined to comment publicly on Huber's letter.
A spokesman eventually conceded their scientists do study glyphosate. The USDA said in a statement.
"USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s research with glyphosate began shortly after the discovery of its herbicidal activity in the mid 1970's. All of our research has been made public and much has gone through the traditional peer review process.”
While Huber acknowledged his research is far from conclusive, he said regulatory agencies must seek answers now. Huber said.
“There is much research that needs to be done yet. But we can't afford to wait the three to five years for peer-reviewed papers.”
While Huber’s claims have roiled the agricultural world and the blogosphere alike, he has fueled skeptics by refusing to make his research public or identify his fellow researchers, who he claims could suffer substantial professional backlash from academic employers who received research funding from the biotechnology industry.
At Purdue University, six of Huber’s former colleagues pointedly distanced themselves from his findings, encouraging crop producers and agribusiness personnel “to speak with University Extension personnel before making changes in crop production practices that are based on sensationalist claims.”
Since it first introduced the chemical to the world in the 1970s, Monsanto has netted billions on its best-selling herbicide, though the company has faced stiffer competition since its patent expired in 2000 and it is reportedly working to revamp its strategy.
In a lengthy email, Person, the Monsanto spokeswoman, respondedto critics, suggesting that the economic and environmental benefits of Roundup were being overlooked:
The authors of the report create an account of glyphosate toxicity from a selected set of scientific studies, while they ignored much of the comprehensive data establishing the safety of the product. Regulatory agencies around the world have concluded that glyphosate is not a reproductive toxin or teratogen (cause of birth defects) based on in-depth review of the comprehensive data sets available.
Earth Open Source authors take issue with the decision by the European Commission to place higher priority on reviewing other pesticide ingredients first under the new EU regulations, citing again the flawed studies as the rationale. While glyphosate and all other pesticide ingredients will be reviewed, the Commission has decided that glyphosate appropriately falls in a category that doesn’t warrant immediate attention.
John Fagan of Earth Open Source said.
“The data was there but the regulators were glossing over it, and as a result it was accepted in ways that we consider really questionable.”
CORNERING THE INDUSTRY?
Although the EPA has said it wants to evaluate more evidence of glyphosate's human health risk as part of a registration review program, the agency is not doing any studies of its own and is instead relying on outside data -- much of which comes from the agricultural chemicals industry it seeks to regulate.
The EPA told HuffPost in a statement.
"EPA ensures that each registered pesticide continues to meet the highest standards of safety to protect human health and the environment. These standards have become stricter over the years as our ability to evaluate the potential effects of pesticides has increased. The Agency placed glyphosphate into registration review. Registration review makes sure that as the ability to assess risks and as new information becomes available, the Agency carefully considers the new information to ensure pesticides do not pose risks of concern to people or the environment."
Agribusiness giants, including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Syngenta and BASF, will, as part of a 19-member task force, generate much of the data the EPA is seeking. But the EPA has emphasized that the task force is only “one of numerous varied third-party sources that EPA will rely on for use in its registration review.”
The EPA is hardly the only industry regulator that relies heavily on data supplied by the agrochemical industry itself.
Jeffrey Smith, of the Institute for Responsible Technology said.
“The regulation of pesticides has been significantly skewed towards the manufacturers interests where state-of-the-art testing is not done and adverse findings are typically distorted or denied. The regulators tend to use the company data rather than independent sources, and the company data we have found to be inappropriately rigged to force the conclusion of safety. We have documented time and time again scientists who have been fired, stripped of responsibilities, denied funding, threatened, gagged and transferred as a result of the pressure put on them by the biotech industry.”
Such suppression has sometimes grown violent, Smith noted. Last August, when Carrasco and his team of researchers went to give a talk in La Leonesa they were intercepted by a mob of about a hundred people. The attack landed two people in the hospital and left Carrasco and a colleague cowering inside a locked car. Witnesses said the angry crowd had ties to powerful economic interests behind the local agro-industry and that police made little effort to interfere with the beating, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.
Fagan told HuffPost that among developmental biologists who are not beholden to the chemical industry or the biotechnology industry, there is strong recognition that Carrasco’s research is credible. He added.
"For me as a scientist, one of the reasons I made the effort to do this research into the literature was to really satisfy the question myself as to where the reality of the situation lies. Having thoroughly reviewed the literature on this, I feel very comfortable in standing behind the conclusions Professor Carrasco came to and the broader conclusions that we come to in our paper. We can’t figure out how regulators could have come to the conclusions that they did if they were taking a balanced look at the science, even the science that was done by the chemical industry itself.”
COMMENTARY: I just quickly reviewed the EPA's comprehensive review of Glyphosate (CASRN 1071-83-6), and here's what I found:
In section I.A.2. Principal and Supporting Studies (Oral RfD), the EPA says that the Monsanto Company. 1981a. MRID No. 0081674, 00105995, was used as a "principal and supporting study". Monsanto's conclusion from tests on rats were, "No treatment-related effects on fertility were noted, nor were any systemic effects in adult rats apparent." You didn't expect Monsanto to claim Glphosate is toxic to rats do you?
In section I.A.4. Additional Studies/Comments (Oral RfD), there are four test findings dated 1981b, 1985, 1980a and 1980b on Glyphosate. All of them were conducted by Monsanto.
Regarding the above Monsanto's Oral Rfd tests, the EPA said.
"The quality of the chosen study is good; therefore, it receives a high confidence rating. The quantity and quality of the available supporting studies warrant high confidence in the data base. High confidence in the RfD follows."
I next reviewed section II.A. Evidence for Human Carcinogenicity of the EPA's case file on Glyphosate for any mention that it might present a human carcinogen danger, and the EPA says in the Classification and Basis sections:
Classification — D; not classifiable as to human carcinogenicity.
Basis — Inadequate evidence for oncogenicity in animals. Glyphosate was originally classified as C, possible human carcinogen, on the basis of increased incidence of renal tumors in mice. Following independent review of the slides the classification was changed to D on the basis of a lack of statistical significance and uncertainty as to a treatment-related effect.
Just how in the hell can the EPA claim that Glyphosate does not present a carcinogenic danger to humans when the tests are conducted strictly on mice and all of the test data was provided by Monsanto?
What's really alarming are the comments and findings about Glyphosate by Earth Open Source, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and scientists from Argentina:
According to Monsanto, an estimated 89 percent of domestic soybean crops were Roundup Ready in 2010, and as of 2010, there were 77.4 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans planted, according to the Department of Agriculture.
According to Earth Open Source, industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.
The Earth Open Source study also reports that by 1993 the herbicide industry, including Monsanto, knew that visceral anomalies such as dilation of the heart could occur in rabbits at low and medium-sized doses. The report further suggests that since 2002, regulators with the European Commission have known that glyphosate causes developmental malformations in lab animals.
In 1996 New York State's Attorney General sued Monsanto for describing Roundup as "environmentally friendly" and "safe as table salt." Monsanto, while not admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to stop using the terms for promotional purposes and paid New York state $250,000 to settle the suit.
Farmers and others in Argentina use Roundup primarily on genetically modified Roundup Ready soy, which covers nearly 50 million acres, or half of the country's cultivated land area. In 2009 farmers sprayed that acreage with an estimated 200 million liters of glyphosate.
Monsanto spokesperson Janice Person said in a statement that the Earth Open Source report presents no new findings. Person said.
"Based on our initial review, the Earth Open Source report does not appear to contain any new health or toxicological evidence regarding glyphosate. Regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world agree that glyphosate does not cause adverse reproductive effects in adult animals or birth defects in offspring of these adults exposed to glyphosate, even at doses far higher than relevant environmental or occupational exposures.”
If what Ms Person says is true, then why doesn't Monsanto provide copies ofthe lab tests on Glyphosate by the "regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world".
At least the EPA is starting to take Glyphosate seriously and taking some action and reported to the Huffington Post:
“EPA initiated registration review of glyphosate in July 2009. EPA will determine if our previous assessments of this chemical need to be revised based on the results of this review. EPA issued a notice to the company [Monsanto] to submit human health and ecotoxicity data in September 2010.”
What is disappointing is that the EPA made no effort to suspend use of Glyphosate until further tests on the effects of Glyphosate on humans was completed. Again, the EPA is relying on Monsanto to do this additional research. What the EPA should've done is ordered Monsanto to have an independent third party test lab conduct the tests.
So far, there appears to be some evidence that Glyphosate could, on the basis of tests on lab mice, present a possible carcinogen danger to humans, but more thorough tests are needed, preferably by a reliable and independent third party.
Seeds and genomics represented $2.36 billion in sales for Monsanto, most of its business. The company continues its long-term transition from a seed and herbicide company to one in which the business is largely genetically altered seeds. There is resistance to such seeds, which are genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
On February 11, 2011, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved plantings of three genetically engineered (GE) crops in as many weeks, including Monsanto Co.’s Roundup Ready sugar beets and alfalfa that are engineered to tolerate Roundup Ready weed-killing herbicide.
The USDA on February 11 also legalized, without restriction, the world’s first GE corn crop meant for biofuel production. Biotech giant Syngenta’s Event 3272 seed corn will simplify ethanol production and is not meant to feed animals or humans.
The approvals flew in the face of legal and regulatory challenges posed by GE crop opponents and members of the agricultural industry. Opponents fear the GE crop varieties could contaminate conventional food crops and promote the overuse of herbicides like the glyphosate-based Roundup and more toxic chemicals used to kill glyphosate-resistant weeds.
Monsanto won a victory on February 4 when the USDA partially deregulated Roundup Ready sugar beets. A federal court in August 2010 temporarily banned the beets and ordered the USDA to re-review the environmental impacts of the Roundup Ready sugar beets as the result of a lawsuit filed by farmers and environmental groups.
Monsanto has been quietly and relentlessly expanding its control over and profit from our food supply. Along the way, contaminating the food supply and threatening public health worldwide with its genetically engineered “foods”and herbicides which have demonstratively deleterious effects on human health.
Monsanto gets to sell its products even though there is data that indicates they would have adverse impacts if mixed with naturally occurring food crops. With The Secretary Of Agriculture Vilsack’s long pro-biotech record, USDA rife with former Monsanto employees, FDA headed by Monsanto’s Chief Lobbyist Michael Taylor, the Frankenfood giant has completely captured and manipulated the very government agencies charged with ensuring the security of the food supply. They do Monsanto’s bidding. At the expense of your health and safety.
With the help from its friends in the Department of Agriculture, Monsanto's financial performance has rebounded from FY 2010 when its Glyphosate patent expired and other competitors entered the market and robbed about 40% of the profits from the sale of Roundup products.
Ahh, it's so nice and very profitable for Monsanto to have so many Monsanto-friendly and influential friends in high places. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention. Monsanto's stock has also increased in value from $46.05 in July 7, 2010 to $65.96 on June 24, 2011. Life is good at Monsanto headquarters.
Courtesy of an article dated June 24, 2011 appearing in The Huffington Postan article dated January 6, 2010 appearing in Seeking Alpha, an article dated July 6, 2010 appearing in Investopedia, and an article dated February 15, 2011 appearing in The Oldspeak Journal dd
Daisy Ginsberg worked with scientists engineering e.coli strains that secrete color-coded signals -- and that's just the beginning, as designers turn their talents to Mother Nature.
Synthetic biology is all about re-engineering living organisms to make them do stuff we would find useful -- like eating oil spills or excreting superfuels. It's a tall order, but we're well on our way already. Still, a slightly easier tactic would be to just tweak the design of organisms that already exist, rather than building synthetic genomes from scratch.
Designers Daisy Ginsberg and James King and their scientist colleagues at Cambridge University did exactly that with a project called E.Chromi, which turned e.colibacteria into living, color-coded sensors that can be "programmed" to secrete an array of bright hues in the presence of certain chemicals. In the future, E.Chromi-like bugs could live in your gut and give you an early-warning signal for an oncoming illness by turning your poop blue. (Yup, they're serious.)
The Cambridge team accomplished this feat by designing an array of standardized DNA building blocks called BioBricks. The name is no accident -- scientists and genetic engineers can "snap" these BioBricks together in simple patterns, insert them into simple microorganisms like e.coli, and turn them into tiny machines.In E.Chromi's case,
"Bacteria could be programmed to do useful things, such as indicate whether drinking water is safe by turning red if they sense a toxin."
"The colour generator bricks are being used in labs around the world, integrated into other systems and circuits."
E. chromi won the Grand Prize at the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition and was nominated for a 2011 Brit Insurance Design of the Year Award, but Ginsberg hasn't been sitting on her laurels. She currently working as a Design Fellow at Synthetic Aesthetics, a multidisciplinary research project by the University of Edinburgh and Stanford University that joins designers with scientists to explore answers to the question: How would you redesign nature?
But nature may not play by the rules that engineers are used to, and if synthetic biology is going to yield useful, mainstream technology and products, a broader design philosophy has to be implemented, explains Ginsberg,
"Traditional synthetic biology (if such a new discipline could even be said to have traditions), is focused on control -- about realising the work of design into a functional reality. Synthetic biologists talk about 'design', but the exact use and meaning of this word in the context is quite fuzzy here. Do we want a version of nature that is purely about function and control, or should other forms of creative, social and cultural thinking be at play when we are redefinining the world around us?"
In that regard, even relatively simple projects like E.Chromi have an almost user-focused aspect to them in addition to the formidable engineering challenges that must be solved in order for them to function at all. Instead of just demonstrating a proof of concept that an e.coli could be induced to emit pre-programmed colors, the E.Chromi team carefully selected actual, specificcolors for the bacteria's "output" that are optimized for visual interpretation by humans.
In Ginsberg's view, this is the kind of design thinking that must be applied to synthetic biology as a whole, if it's ever going to make a big dent in solving our problems. Geniuses like Craig Venter may invent the synthetic-biology version of a computer, but it'll take product designers like Jony Ive to get us to the iMac level. And innovators like Daisy Ginsberg are leading the way.
COMMENTARY: Synthetic biology is now being used by Amyris to produce synthetic biofuels from algae that has been engineered synthetically to produce ethanol or a fossil fuel-like by-product that can be refined into gasoline and jet fuels.
It's not too farfetched that synthetic biology could be used to detect pathogens and toxins in your body. Color-coded poop fits is a great example, but how about color-coded blood, or color-coded sweat. Using "helper organisms" that would change color to represent a certain pathogen or toxin, could definitely help in detecting bacterial and viral infections.
We are already using a form synthetic biology in AIDS, pregnancy, drug and alcoholic detection tests. It would be funny to hear, "Your poop or urine is blue, you've got the flu." This would could help doctor's to quickly diagnose pathogenic infections. And, depending on the deepness of the color, could decide whether to ask the patient to come in for treatment or go to the hospital.
The science of synthetic biology combines biology and biology. Synthetic biology is more than color-coded poop.Wikipedia does a great job of explaining what synthetic biology is.
Courtesy of an article dated April 17, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design
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