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POPSThe Aral Sea - A Tear Drop on Mother Earth "The Aral Sea is not an isolated case almost all the lakes in the world are under threat of faulty development agenda of the short sighted governments and in various stages of degradation. If the Aral Sea model opens anybody’s eye it would be of immense good for the generations to come."
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POPSDisappearance of Bees Finally Solved ? I really hope that this will start to clear up the mystery of the disappearing honeybees. They are an integral part of our harvest cycle and its really important we find out why the colonies are collapsing.
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POPSAre The Chinese Trying To Tell Us Something? This is scary. My family does not live and can not yet afford to move to a property where we can produce our own food; particularly, vegetables and fruits. We don't live near a farmer's market. So, we rely, like many Americans, on our local commissary or supermarket. The way I read this article, it's telling us there is very little we can do about this problem of tainted food and other necessities because by squashing China's imports we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. So it seems as if China is sending us poison--because they can. And there is nothing we can do about it. Even a vegan diet is not immune to potential poisoning unless you totally go homegrown.
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POPSPesticides Blamed for Killing Bees “Other countries have already introduced bans to prevent neonicotinoids from harming bees," he said. “This is the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence yet and it has revealed the disturbing amount damage these poisons can cause."
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POPSBuzzzzzzz Kill "Something is killing the bees, though. Some scientists suspect a virus; others mites, even cellphones. (Bees are not known to use phones, though, having their own communications system -- a dance called the "waggle.")
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POPSGermany bans chemicals linked to honeybee devastation The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air. Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC's Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. "It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe," he said. Clothianidin, like the other neonicotinoid pesticides that have been temporarily suspended in Germany, is a systemic chemical that works its way through a plant and attacks the nervous system of any insect it comes into contact with. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency it is "highly toxic" to honeybees.
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POPSIs Your Lawn Killing You? Vinegar, an old standby for a variety of household chores, is also said to be a potent herbicide. Then there’s corn gluten. I’m not sure what corn gluten is exactly, but it’s supposed to be a weed killer extraordinaire.
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POPSOrganic food, better and tastier? "Produce from the organically and conventionally grown crops were then fed to animals over a two year period and intake and excretion of various minerals and trace elements were measured. Once again, the results showed there was no difference in retention of the elements" it still is tastier.. :)
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POPSAre Men becoming Extinct? "... Women in communities heavily polluted with such chemicals in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys. This may help explain a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who statistically would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the U.S. and Japan alone. Sperm counts are dropping quickly. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per milliliter of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years."
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POPSGM crops are killing the bees The article makes a good case for GM crops being bad for bees. I didn't know the disappearance of bees was heavier in Texas and California. I just noticed there weren't as many where I live.
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POPSSuper Rats are here continues: Prof Smith of the university's applied sciences department warned that "super rats" may be thriving in communities across Britain. The Government no longer provides funding to track resistance, meaning the scale of the problem is unclear. "Natural selection means that when you have a rat population in your town, poison will kill the ones that aren't resistant, the ones that survive may have the gene, they then have babies who can receive the gene themselves," he said. "There are mutations and changes in their DNA that alter the ability of rats to deal with these poisons. It appears to be moving west and has now been located in Swindon and Bristol. It is a warning of things to come."
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POPSNew film seeks answer to mystery of vanishing bees Other factors could also contribute, it added, including the fact that bees are being transported long distances to pollinate single crops, or monocultures, rather than producing honey. "They are one of our most ancient allies," Henein said in an interview in London. "We actually depend on honey bees to eat. May be out of selfishness it raises a red flag." Langworthy added: "It's a broader issue about the system of agriculture. People are going to have to rethink it and maybe they don't want to. It really will have to be driven by the general public's call for change."
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POPS A Cure For Honey Bee Colony Collapse? The loss of honey bees could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. Honeybees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem. Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites. For most of these diseases, the molecular pathogenesis is poorly understood, hampering the development of new ways to prevent and combat honeybee diseases. So, any progress made in identifying causes and subsequent treatments of honey bee colony collapse is invaluable. "Now that we know one strain of parasite that could be responsible, we can look for signs of infection and treat any infected colonies before the infection spreads" said Dr Higes, principle researcher.
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POPSGulf War syndrome is real "I've had vets go to the VA and be turned away and told that this is something that doesn't exist," said John Schwertfager, vice president of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans advocacy group.
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POPSFlower turns animal waste into fuel continues: Duckweed, they discovered, has an appetite for animal waste, quickly converting it to leafy starch that can then be converted into ethanol. The current source for most U.S. ethanol is industrial-scale corn farming, which requires large amounts of toxic pesticides and dead zone-feeding, fuel-intensive fertilizers. When the costs are added up, corn-based ethanol may prove little cleaner than gasoline. Duckweed could help solve both problems at once. "We did small-scale tests in the laboratory to convert duckweed starch to ethanol using the same technologies as the fuel industry currently uses in corn," said Cheng. "With the same technology, we can easily convert it."
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POPSHow dangerous is that jar of honey? Quick summary : Most U.S. and Canadian honey is of high quality and safe; , the large majority of honey consumed in the U.S. is imported; millions of pounds of Chinese honey destined for the U.S. is transshipped and frequently mislabeled as coming from a different foreign country; some importers and honey packers are in on the con; federal investigators and some large honey importers say they still find Chinese honey tainted with illegal medications; FDA, USDA, and customs agents have far too much on their plates to pay much attention to honey; and only a smallest fraction of honey seeping through our borders is ever tested.
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POPSWar on Drugs contributed to Parkinson cases To explore a potential connection to pesticides, epidemiologist Beate Ritz of UCLA and her graduate student Sadie Costello, now at the University of California, Berkeley, studied public records of pesticide applications in California's Central Valley from 1974 to 1999. Every application of pesticides to crops must be registered with the state. Working with Myles Cockburn of the University of Southern California, they developed a tool to estimate pesticide exposure in areas immediately adjacent to the fields. They then identified 368 longtime residents who lived within 500 yards of fields where the chemicals had been sprayed and compared them with 341 carefully matched controls who did not live near the fields. All so a politician can luck tough.
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