If you follow the public debate on genetically modified foods, you know it’s become unhinged from reality. This is because green groups and influential voices in the food movement have allowed the fringe to hijack the conversation. Now that those furies have been let loose, it’s going to be that much harder to have a civil dialogue…Continue Reading…
During any given week, most articles on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) follow a simplistic and/or sensationalistic storyline. For example, here’s last week’s cover story in The Village Voice: The Monsanto-Is-Evil theme is a media staple, as is the GMO-Foods-Are-Dangerous theme, of which magazines like Details and Elle are piggybacking on. (I recently discussed the latter example). Too often…Continue Reading…
As I have previously observed, “the belief that GMO foods are deadly or potentially harmful” has come to dominate the public discourse on agricultural biotechnology. I suppose we can thank the whacky fringe elements for this (and their influential enablers). At this point, scientists and science-based communicators who engage in the biotech realm should be…Continue Reading…
I have previously noted that the GMO labeling campaign in the United States is “couched as a consumer rights issue, but really it’s based on fear.” What are people afraid of? Let’s go to a recent op-ed by Linda Stender, a New Jersey politician who is sponsoring a state bill to label genetically modified foods….Continue Reading…
Best as I can tell, most of the internet has denounced ABC’s decision to hire Jenny McCarthy as a cohost of The View, a popular daytime talk show on American television. The uproar, in case you just returned from a week-long, off-the-grid monastic retreat, owes to McCarthy’s role as a prominent spokesperson for the anti-vaccine…Continue Reading…
Depending on whom you ask, Fiona Fox is either saving science journalism or destroying it. That’s the lead in a Nature story on the person who heads up Britain’s Science Media center, which believes that scientists can have a huge impact on the way the media cover scientific issues, by engaging more quickly and more effectively with…Continue Reading…
When protests against the Keystone XL pipeline were heating up several years ago, some highly respected environmentally-friendly commentators scoffed (ever so politely). Opposition to the pipeline was “shortsighted” and counterproductive, Michael Levi wrote in a 2011 New York Times op-ed. The singular focus on Keystone was misplaced, Jon Foley has argued. Climate change-concerned greens disagree. “Keystone…Continue Reading…
Oh, for the days: Remember when everyone used to be really, really worried about power lines? youtube.com/watch?feature=… — Ketan Joshi (@ArghJoshi) June 13, 2013 Those were worried Australians in the mid-2000s, so it wasn’t all that long ago. In the United States, people were really, really worried in the 1980s and 1990s about getting cancer from…Continue Reading…
Today is a good time to be alive when compared to any in human history, such as 100 years ago, when the average life span in industrial countries was about 50. As one recent science article noted, the key in driving up our collective age lies with the advent of medical technologies, improved nutrition, higher education, better housing…Continue Reading…
On the GMO front, I bring you the latest important news, articles and entertainment. First the serious stuff: An important study just published in PLOS One was summarized nicely by this Los Angeles Times headline: Genetically modified cotton helps farmers escape malnutrition Since when do people eat cotton, you ask?