by Jason on July 27, 2005
Here’s some fun news from PR Watch: there are actually parts of the USA where raising GMO crops and animals are banned! Three California counties have outright bans, and close to 100 New England towns have some kind of resolution in place. The industry response? Lobby for statewide laws that remove local control of food production, thus nullifying the existing bans. In November, the battle’s coming to California, where there’s a ballot in the works for a 10 year moratorium on GMOs in Sonoma County that will be hotly debated – the opposition already has a $200,000 war chest to fight the proposed legislation. I’m kind of torn with all these tricks – I mean, if a county decided to allow cockfighting when the state banned it, I’d be pissed, but having the state overrule a community’s right to choose its crops bugs the hell out of me too. Of course, state law’s a ruling of compassion, and the other’s driven by corporate greed, so it’s a bit easier to sleep at night with this apparent hypocrisy hanging over my head.
by Jason on June 10, 2005
According to new research painstakingly found on the internet by Dave Noisy, a new book is out that aims to debunk the “early man as mighty hunter” theory. According to “Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators and Human Evolution,” early man was prey, not predator. The authors use the fossil record and a bunch of anthropological knowledge to make the case that a few million years back, we were hiding in the trees and relying on our wits to get enough fruits and nuts to survive. As the authors point out, we didn’t have teeth that could cut meat back then, so we had no reason to hunt, and a lot of today’s traits like cooperation and socialization came from that era, which might make for interesting factoids the next time you argue with a hunter.
Flux reports that they’ve found a new species of dinosaur that helps fill in the gaps between the carnivorous and herbivorous species. If I’m reading this right, and it’s a challenge, because the only people who really know anything about dinosaurs are scientists and eight year olds, what we’ve got here is a carnivorous creature that evolved into a herbivore. I suppose the extinction of the entire species makes it a weaker argument, but hey, we never said a vegan diet would protect you from a meteor impact. Veganism: good enough for Falcarius utahensis, good enough for me.
by Jason on April 27, 2005
OK, the world is generally in agreement that putting a human finger in chilli is pretty gross, but what’s going to happen when they start selling rice with human genes? That’s the scenario that’s playing out right now – Japanese researchers have implanted a human gene into a rice plant and found it to be resistant to several herbicides. Acceptance rates for this crop will be interesting – if “regular folks” refuse to buy the stuff, it’ll help get our point across that putting a fish gene in a tomato really sucks for vegetarians. (Thanks, Knight0440!)
by Jason on April 14, 2005
According to an article sent in by an anonymous reader, cloned meat and milk is “probably” safe, or at least as safe as the stuff omnivores are already consuming. No kidding, that’s pretty much the caveat with these findings: the meat and milk from cloned animals is pretty much up to industry standards. We’ve long argued that the animal food industry doesn’t have standards, so this is a ringing endorsement for cloned animal food, to be sure. The sad part of the cloned food debate is that it’s still much harder on the animals than “conventional” meat. Animals die in both cases, but most cloned animals still don’t make it to term, and many that do aren’t healthy enough to survive long enough to get to be slaughtered. We last looked at the safety issue here, and things haven’t changed much since then. It’s like the state of the research since 2002 is identical…
by Jason on December 10, 2004
Dave Noisy sent in a vegan horror story for y’all to read to your kids at night. No, they haven’t discontinued vegan marshmallows, but there is a veggie wiener maker who recently got into trouble for advertising products as GMO-free when they weren’t. In this case, it wasn’t an out-and-out lie (your opinions may vary), since the products contained less than 1% GMO product, but that’s more than enough to piss off consumers who go out of their way to avoid genetically modified foods. The confusion here appears to stem from the fact that Australia requires product labelling when the GMO level exceeds 1%, but in the eyes of consumers, GMO-free still means “free as in none.” I don’t know if there was a deliberate deception involved, but stories like this are enough to make you want to live entirely off of your own garden (which, in my case, would mean an awful lot of sprouts from the apartment, so that’s not exactly feasible.)
by Jason on November 12, 2004
Hey, you know how the United States “brought democracy” to Iraq? Wanna guess what else they’ve introduced? Do you really wanna guess? You’re gonna love it… Iraq now recognizes and promotes patents on life forms. According to a link from an anonymous lurker, Iraqi farmers will no longer be able to save their seeds, and to ensure that this happens, they’ll be using genetically modified “terminator” style seeds that can’t be re-used, effectively handing control of their plant-based food supplies to multinational corporations. Doesn’t democracy rock?
by Jason on November 11, 2004
newsjunkie sends word from the cloning industry: while the FDA has yet to approve the addition of cloned animals to the food supply, that isn’t stopping companies from working away at new developments. One company can reportedly grow a cloned bull or cow from a skin biopsy in less than a year for “just” $19,000. Officially, the cows can’t be “used,” but it looks like we can expect cloning in the food supply soon, if it hasn’t started already, and we’re moving closer to a time where all cows are not only of the same breed, but they all have the same parents.
by Jason on October 27, 2004
Dave Noisy has found the latest great reason to genetically modify animals: hypoallergenic cats. That’s right, Allerca is working on creating the first cats that won’t irritate humans, which is weird, because the news alone is irritating me. They’re planning on success in 2007, which means there’ll be an awful lot of generations of “whoops” as they try to zero in on their target, assuming they ever do. According to one Slashdot user, this company’s one of several with dubious potential for success in the field. Continuing our “research by Joe Slashdot” theme, there’s some indication that the term “hypoallergenic” doesn’t mean anything. Sadly, I didn’t see anything in the comments about the ethical concerns regarding animal experimentation for something so life-saving as cats that won’t cause congestion.
by Jason on October 8, 2004
Completely and utterly stolen from PR Watch, who hopefully doesn’t mind, because they do damned fine work: “‘U.S. companies like Monsanto, which invested heavily in [genetically modified crops], suffered huge losses when Europe balked. As part of a public relations effort, the U.S. State Department enlisted a Vatican academy last month as a co-sponsor of a conference in Rome, ‘Feeding a Hungry World: The Moral Imperative of Biotechnology.’” (This although a United Nations report found “clear evidence that the problems of the poor are being neglected” by the biotech industry.) “In response to such pressure, the European Union has relaxed legal restrictions on genetically modified foods.” A Syngenta spokesperson said European consumers’ rejection of GMOs is “not based on facts” but “is a political, cultural and media-driven decision.” Source: International Herald Tribune, October 6, 2004“
