John's World
This is a big deal... Forget genes - we're working whole chromosomes now, baby. The world of biotech is just beginning to gather momentum, and we're one reason for it. It's been a brave new world for genetic crops for some time now but Chicago-based researchers say they have developed a method to take crop manipulation to a higher level: the chromosome.
Creating an artificial chromosome, into which several manipulated genes can be inserted, may speed efforts to produce fuels and medicines from plants as well as boosting crop nutrition and yield.
In a scientific paper set for publication Friday researchers from Chicago-based Chromatin Inc. and the Universities of Chicago and North Carolina reported success in creating an artificial chromosome for corn plants. Through four generations, the corn treated the man-made chromosomes as if they were natural and passed them along to offspring intact at a rate nearly as high as for chromosomes native to the plants.
"This appears to be the tool that agricultural scientists and farmers have long dreamed of," said Daphne Preuss, a University of Chicago professor of molecular genetics and Chromatin's president. [More] So, while you moan about seed costs, remember you are not stupid. If it didn't make you money, you wouldn't buy 'em. And because you buy them, more will come.Here is the real question: do you believe that biotech will reshape your yield curve? If so, what will you bet? Whle others are fixated on whether demand (read: ethanol) will falter, some producers are guessing biotech productivity gains can lower their cost per bushel to survive when competitors bleed red ink.
Those bets are being placed in cash rent and land prices as we speak.
Labels: biotech, production, technology
A machine that darn near misses...A college buddy of my son at UMR, wound up at Monsanto. He recently sent Jack a link to a story about what he was doing at work.Visitors to the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Ill,, last month who toured Monsanto's exhibit received an inkling of why Monsanto has a healthy number of mechanical engineers on staff. The company displayed state-of-the art machines used to screen for genes without damaging the seed.
Farm Progress editors touring Monsanto's labs last week got a firsthand look at those machines in action. One of them, a seed chipper, removes a minute piece, more or less dust, from a soybean without damaging the viability of the seed. Breeders could still plant the seed and grow it normally.
As a matter of fact, that's exactly what happens. The tiny pieces of soybean from hundreds of thousands of soybeans run through the machine are 'fingerprinted' for DNA in another process. If the breeder is looking for soybeans with a certain gene, he can discover which ones have it, and note what other traits that bean possesses. The bottom line is he can select promising single seeds to grow without having to grow them all out. Once he determines what he wants, he simply tells the employees in the lab, and they retrieve the exact seed that the sample came from. Then he can grow it out and move on with the breeding process from there.
The seed chipper machine was designed and invented 'in-house,' Monsanto officials say. It's just one of several machines invented there to help in their search for genes that could impart benefit to agronomic crops, particularly corn, soybeans, cotton and canola- the target crops for Monsanto's research. [More] Way to go, Andy!I have frequently remarked that monstrous industrial organizations are routinely despised by farmers until our sons/daughters need jobs after college.
We also conveniently forget huge businesses are made up of people just like us - only they know how to work in a group.
Labels: education, technology
Mind-boggling Fact of the Day...Buried in an article about a rumored new mobile phone from Google was a sentence that made my jaw drop.Google and advertisers drool over the growth potential in wireless. The more than 2 1/2 billion phones in use worldwide exceed the number of PCs and TVs combined. On Sept. 17, Google announced a Web program aimed at advertisers who have created sites for display on cell phones and other handheld devices. Like its online ad network, Google's AdSense for Mobile delivers ads relevant to the advertiser's mobile audience. "The sheer volume of users across the globe makes mobile the next channel for information," says Dilip Venkatachari, director of product management for Google's mobile team. [More] [My emphasis] Think how long we've been selling TV's, for the love of Mike! This is a clue about technology adoption and also the future of traditional "wireful" telephony, methinks.Labels: culture, technology
Do we have an ag news cycle now?...Just like political news, any announcement that could be misconstrued by ag audiences may be now slated for release on Friday - so the media will have to take a breath or two before opining. For your consideration, this announcement today.Dow AgroSciences LLC, and Monsanto today announced a cross- licensing agreement that breaks new ground in the commercialization of gene stack technology. The agreement is aimed at launching SmartStax(TM), featuring eight different Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto herbicide tolerance and insect-protection genes. This technology is expected to be available to corn growers by the end of the decade. [More] I'm still wrapping my mind around this. My knee-jerk reactions:- Traits will soon be standardized in one humongous package - try buying something without all 8 traits.
- Unless there is a battle for market share, pricing power will extract the maximum marginal revenue from seed corn buyers.
- Monsanto and Dow must be remarkably confident about US energy policy. With ethanol profits slipping and soybean prices climbing, what would an RFS expansion failure mean to corn prices and seed profits? Then again, owning the market means never having to say you're sorry.
- Is there no sense of panic at Pioneeer/DuPont? I realize they have been and are deeply invested in research, but can those products hit retail fast enough to make a difference? Where was management as Monsanto built the wall around them?
- Forget refuge. Given the current lackadaisical industry attitude to the supposedly serious problem of Bt resistance, I had guessed (wildly, I admit) that products were at hand that would make refuge unnecessary. This now seems to be the case. Consequently, I will be listening skeptically to bug scientists who tell me 2-3 years of "refugeless" corn growing will select for a rootworm beetle that will baffle SmartStax.
- How close to monopoly does the trait/seed market have to get before attracting government attention? Are two choices sufficient? Have we arrived at Microsoft (corn) and Apple (corn)?
Finally, if corn prices keep rising, will anybody care?Labels: biotech, production, technology
What will payments limits accomplish?...
As the Senate rouses itself to legislative action after a summer recess, one topic of huge debate is the idea of "payment limits". But in fact, there are two different types of restrictions under consideration. First, a limit on payments to any given person. In another news conference Thursday, Grassley explained his motives for reforming the farm programs. "The idea is that when we're subsidizing farmers to the point where 10 percent of the biggest farmers get 72 percent of the benefits out of the farm program, then it's tilted toward subsidizing big farmers to get bigger. And what my legislation also does is put a $250,000 cap (on farm program payments). Now I know to Iowans that still sounds like a lot of money, but this is a compromise that we can get through, getting farmers from all over the country to back it. And get senators to back it." [More] This type of limit is based, I think, in the egalitarian ideal: "one man - one pile of money". It has appeal to those in the middle, since it would immediately place them on the same level of government favor as the largest operator - something dear to their hearts.
Second, a limit on how much money you can make and still receive any payment. The current $2.5-million income cap on eligibility for farm program payments affects only a small number of farm program payment recipients each year. A reduction in the cap to $200,000 would affect a larger number of farm households but still only a small share of recipients. Based on IRS tax data for 2004, about 1.2 percent of all farm sole proprietors and about 2 percent of crop share landlords would be potentially subject to the proposed lower adjusted gross income (AGI) cap. ARMS survey data suggest a similar share of farm sole proprietors (1.1 percent) could be affected. When partnerships and farm corporations are included, about 1.5 percent of all farm operator households could be affected because a larger share of farm partnerships (2.5 percent) and farm corporations (9.7 percent) could be subject to the proposed cap. ARMS data indicate that $807 million in payments were received in 2004 by farm operators organized as proprietors, partnerships, and corporations with incomes exceeding $200,000. However, not all of these payments would be affected by a $200,000 income cap on eligibility for payments due to differences in IRS and ARMS data and changes by producers in how they manage their incomes and expenses. The study also found that farm income aver- aged $271,749 and net worth averaged over $1.86 million for farm households with AGI estimated to be over $200,000 based on the ARMS data. [More] This proposal is much more straightforward: stick it to the rich. It arises from the inherent fairness bias programmed deep within our old brains. As the distribution of income and assets is perceived to be shifting to the tiny number of uber-wealthy, even irrational retribution seems like a good idea.
A brain region that curbs our natural self interest has been identified. The studies could explain how we control fairness in our society, researchers say. Humans are the only animals to act spitefully or to mete out "justice", dishing out punishment to people seen to be behaving unfairly – even if it is not in the punisher's own best interests. This tendency has been hard to explain in evolutionary terms, because it has no obvious reproductive advantage and punishing unfairness can actually lead to the punisher being harmed. Now, using a tool called the “ultimatum game”, researchers have identified the part of the brain responsible for punishing unfairness. Subjects were put into anonymous pairs, and one person in each pair was given $20 and asked to share it with the other. They could choose to offer any amount – if the second partner accepted it, they both got to keep their share. In purely economic terms, the second partner should never reject an offer, even a really low one, such as $1, as they are still $1 better off than if they rejected it. Most people offered half of the money. But in cases where only a very small share was offered, the vast majority of "receivers" spitefully rejected the offer, ensuring that neither partner got paid. [More] If you are like most of us subsidy recipients, you have been analyzing these proposals in a very personal way: "OK, how can I get around this one if I need to."
Most of us won't have to yet, of course. But the obvious solution in both cases is to become more farmers. Make the wife an operator - and the kids. So one immediate outcome of payment limits of either sort will likely be: more farmers (on the books, anyway). And simple economics tells us the marginal cost to create and maintain these alleged operators will be slightly less than a DCP. Payment limits will be a huge boost to a) attorneys, b) accountants, and c) "financial advisers" (a vague occupation at best). Limits will have to be brilliantly constructed to survive the onslaught of fevered minds seeking a workaround on commission.
Farmers will, I believe, contort themselves to "protect the downside" and in the process make their operations more unwieldy with artificial entities and bizarre bookwork. They will also hand over most of the government proceeds to the experts who manufacture these constructs.
But a few - an obnoxious few - will accept the limits in the spirit they were enacted and rise above federal control. Once beyond reach of the FSA, they will learn to operate like other businesses do - insuring their own risks and enduring the consequences of nature and decision.
Those will be some scary dudes!
Which leads me to my grand conclusion: Neither limit will grant much relief since they are therapy for a symptom - namely the declining number of farmers and the intense competition to stay in the game. But that is not caused by prices or subsidies nearly so much as this:
 This $592,000 machine replaces lots of guys on the old farm. And it is typical of what technology is handing us to work with.
While that number might produce “sticker shock” for some growers, it can be argued — as Deere marketing managers did in Cincinnati — that the machine replaces at least two other pieces of harvesting equipment and one or two tractors (at $183,019 for one of Deere’s new 9230 tractors).
Currently, most producers operate a boll buggy ($70,000 or so), a module builder ($80,000 to $100,000) and at least two tractors with a conventional six-row picker ($300,000 to $325,000).
As Deere’s managers point out, the equipment savings represent only a part of the equation. Both Deere’s and Case-IH’s new module building pickers can reduce the employees needed to operate the equipment from three or four to one.
Deere is also expected to emphasize increased speed of harvesting — the company says operators won’t have to stop to unload the round module — and quality enhancements of the polyethylene-wrapped module when it begins selling the new picker next year.
The latter is expected to help keep more cotton in and moisture out of the module. Deere managers say wet cotton modules can cost growers up to a bale of lint when cotton wicks moisture from the ground. [More] The problem we are facing - the rapidly decreasing need for warm bodies on the farm - is lightly affected by farm programs and mightily affected by technology. Farming is not rocket science, and hence we are watching much of our work shift to clever machines.
Our problem is actually creating some value machines cannot create.
Labels: farm bill, farm program, policy, technology
The next step for autosteer?...Oh sure, we can simply plumb the GPS guidance into the steering hydraulics, but how much cooler would this be? Be sure to watch the slightly creepy video.[via Neatorama]Labels: fun, technology
A brief, but helpful explanation...I "Google" instead of actually thinking anymore, it seems. Here is how it works.[via 3 Quarks]
[Update: This link requires serious RAM. My bad. I forget I scrimp on cars and splurge on computers.]
Labels: computer, Internet, technology
Sign me up...Although I had essentially written off broadband-over-power-lines (BPL) technology, it will become reality in Dallas next year.DirecTV said it would bundle broadband-over-powerline high-speed Internet and VoIP with its digital TV services to about 1.8 million homes in the Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas region by early 2008. Benefits of broadband-over-powerline include faster upload and download speeds compared to many cable and DSL broadband services: up to 10Mb versus 8Mb, according to Current. The broadband service is symmetric, which means upload speeds are as fast as download speeds. Moreover, broadband-over-powerline works via a go-anywhere, installation-free modem that's about the size of a regular power adapter and plugs into any electrical outlet. It is Ethernet and WiFi enabled, which means it can fill in wireless coverage gaps created by cable or DSL, said Current VP of corporate development and strategy Brendan Herron. [More] Note the speeds mentioned above. Zoweee!! Also consider:- No satellite dishes
- VoIP (Internet phone service)
- No TV dish
- No meter reader
- More reliable electric service.
It's a dream, I know. But BPL would be a godsend to rural America.
[Updated: link is now activated]
Labels: Internet, rural life, technology
Still time for us...In an act of extraordinary courage, author David Shenk returns to a book he wrote all the way back in 1997 - almost the Dawn of Time - to critique his predictions about the Internet. Rereading the book 10 years later has been gratifying and humbling. A number of its ideas are, I think, more relevant than ever, while other passages come off as exaggerated or shortsighted. The premise still holds, and thankfully no longer requires much convincing: In our work, home, and social lives, we are saturated with data and stimulus. While our grandparents were limited by access to information and speed of communication, we are restricted largely by our ability to wade through it all. As with calories, we must work constantly to whittle down, prioritize, and pick out the choice nutritional bits. If we don't monitor our information diets carefully, our cerebral lives quickly become bloated. Attention gets diverted (sometimes dangerously so); conversations and trains-of-thought interrupted; skepticism short-circuited; stillness and silence all but eliminated. Probably the greatest overall threat is that so many potentially meaningful experiences can easily be supplanted by merely thrilling experiences. [More] Aside from being a thoughtful exception to the rare appearance of accountability, Shenk's words can be still be in time to be useful for many of us in agriculture.For technical, economic and social reasons, many trends and gadgets that take our culture by storm often require another few years (5-6 b my rough estimate) to become part of our rural lives. For example, think about when your family and friends were using cell phones, and when you finally slapped one on.Likewise, the constant connectivity Shenk describes is still relatively rare in the country. It will come soon, I believe. And if we choose to do so we can benefit from this adoption lag in several ways. First, the gadgets will be cheaper. We will have a wider choice. The bug will largely have been frustratingly worked out be the pioneers.But most of all, we can make better choices about how to allow the gadget to change our lives and values. By observing change effects in other lives, we can at least pause on the brink and jump with a little more aim and purpose.Labels: culture, technology
Whoa - never saw a dog like that!...What if biotech - like computers - became ubiquitous and accessible? These facts raise an interesting question. Will the domestication of high technology, which we have seen marching from triumph to triumph with the advent of personal computers and GPS receivers and digital cameras, soon be extended from physical technology to biotechnology? I believe that the answer to this question is yes. Here I am bold enough to make a definite prediction. I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years. What might this idea look like in practice?Domesticated biotechnology, once it gets into the hands of housewives and children, will give us an explosion of diversity of new living creatures, rather than the monoculture crops that the big corporations prefer. New lineages will proliferate to replace those that monoculture farming and deforestation have destroyed. Designing genomes will be a personal thing, a new art form as creative as painting or sculpture. [More of a very provocative essay] I think I have ignored this admittedly wild idea because I can grasp electronics, but struggled (like many Americans) with biology. While I have read science fiction stories about advanced cultures based on biotech vs. computers, they always seemed pretty far-fetched. Until now.Labels: biotech, future, technology
The excuse they have been waiting for...Since the OK by shareholders, real-world plans for merging the CBOT and CME are gathering momentum. Although it has seemed obvious to many besides me, this event offers the perfect opportunity to allow open-outcry to dwindle to a spectator curiosity. The Merc's purchase of the CBOT marks a transition from pit to electronic trading, said Caitlin Zaloom, an assistant professor at New York University and author of ``Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London'' (University of Chicago Press, 238 pages, $29).
Zaloom said moving the Merc's pits to the CBOT building preserves traditional face-to-face trading, which many traders still prefer. Eventually, though, she expects trading floors to become obsolete as electronic trading takes over. [More] Brokers who appear on the show have been remarking for months how floor traders spend much of their time watching the screens during side-by-side trade, and how volume is shifting to e-trade. The success of e-CBOT trading demonstrates that institutional investors especially like this method, and as they go, so goes the bulk of trades.Farmers have always had a love-hate relationship with traders, associating (unfairly, it turns out) the human element of open outcry with the possibility of human manipulation. Still, producers are equally suspicious of computer transactions too.Labels: marketing, technology
The Dawn of Cyber-time...There was a day, children, when we didn't have computers on our desks, and life was not easy.The ingredients were the basic four of any word-processing system. First was the computer itself, the Processor Technology SOL-20. Its detailed specifications—its 48K of random access memory, its Intel 8080 microprocessing chip—are now of antiquarian interest, since Processor Technology went out of business several months after I bought my computer.
The second element in my system was the monitor, a twelve-inch TV screen. Some monitors are like black-and-white TVs; mine—which, oddly enough, was produced by the same company, Ball Corporation, that makes home-canning supplies, displays light-green letters against a background of dark green and is supposed to be easier on the eyes. Third was the external storage device—the equipment that saves the documents you've written when the computer is turned off. The equipment I chose, two small tape recorders, was such a complete disaster that I must discuss it separately later on. Fourth was the printer, a ponderous machine, built like a battleship, which had been an IBM Selectric typewriter before it was converted to accept printing instructions from a computer.
These four machines, and the yards and yards of multi-strand cable that connected them, were the hardware of my system. The software consisted of a program called The Electric Pencil, with a manual explaining the mysteries of "block move," "home cursor," and "global search and replace."
I skip past the day during which I thought the computer didn't work at all (missing fuse) and the week or two it took me to understand all the moves The Electric Pencil could make. From that point on, I knew there was a heaven. [More] My experiences began much later, of course, but not much more cheaply. Kinda like childbirth for females, I think time softens the memories of earlier technology unpleasantness for us geeks. Still - only 25 years since this revolution began!What will it be like for my grandson?Labels: computer, technology
Another consequence of transparency...The world of espionage is becoming more mundane, thanks to ubiquitous technology like Google Earth. With enough time (and it seems there are people who have it in abundance - these lucky dogs!) you can sort through images and see amazing things. Photos of China's new second-generation nuclear submarine, believed to be equipped with 12 intercontinental ballistic missile launch tubes, have been published on Google Earth, according to reports. Nuclear weapons analyst Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists discovered the images of China's top secret submarine while searching photos of China's northeastern naval ports. One image clearly depicts China's next-generation Jin-class nuclear powered submarine, according to Kristensen, who has republished the image on his Strategic Security Blog at www.fas.org. The satellite image, believed to have been taken during late 2006 by the commercial Quickbird satellite, shows the submarine alongside a pier at the Xiaopingdao Submarine Base south of the city of Dalian. Kristensen said the images show a vessel about 35 feet (10 meters) longer than the earlier-generation Xia-class nuclear submarine. The U.S. reportedly believes China has been conducting sea tests on the Jin-class submarine since 2004 and then later carried out additional tests on its missile system. The U.S. reportedly believes the submarine and its missile system will be ready for deployment before 2010 [More] This photo of a super-secret next generation Chinese sub would likely have a Top Secret label on it had this been 20 years ago. Instead, I'm putting a link to it on a farmer blog.More examples to remind you somebody is watching, just about all the time. Note this information came from commercial satellites.Commercial satellite imagery shows Iran is building a new tunnel complex inside a mountain near a major nuclear site — a possible attempt to protect sensitive uranium enrichment activity from aerial attack, nuclear analysts said Monday.
The pictures taken on June 11 were obtained from DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite imagery firm, by the Institute for Science and International Security, whose president is David Albright, a physicist and former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. [More] Now add in the plummeting price of closed circuit TV (CCTV) cameras, digital storage (priced a 4GB flash drive lately?), recognition software, and maybe we should all invest in better curtains.Recent events in London have attracted more support for CCTV here in the US, despite growing reservations about both privacy (remember that?) and efficacy.Still, in the perennial tug of war between security and privacy, security appears to be winning. The next wave in CCTV, experts say, is to marry traditional surveillance with computer software to make cameras better at detecting suspicious behavior that can be the precursor to a crime.
The police are believed to have used a rudimentary form of such technology to make the first arrest in this plot — Mohammed Asha, a Palestinian of Jordanian descent, who was captured on a motorway after his license plate was recognized by roadside cameras. [More] I don't think it's much of a leap to assume this kind of technology is being deployed discreetly on our fields and the results being analyzed with improving accuracy. As we have seen in recent months grain markets are a constant source of surprise to farmers and traders alike, and technology-driven transparency is likely one reason. It's really hard to keep any kind of secret.The non-intuitive part for farmers is remembering that we are being watched from the sky - and it's not only God.Labels: technology
Another side of the debate... As the increasingly divisive debate over immigration continues, efforts are stepping up to manage the labor problem if immigrants are not available. Like robot fruit pickers. 
The more interesting aspect of the post for me was the tone of the comments. The immigration quarrel seems to bring out the worst in Americans.
It could also the THE issue for 2008.
[Thanks, Patrick]
Labels: immigration, politics, technology
Google has made me the man I am today...About 18 months ago I stopped trying to remember things. What a time saver! Instead of thinking - I just "google". The results were a greatly improved grasp of the trivial, and slightly higher electric bills.And an even sadder social life.Well, imagine my shock and awe when I discovered your choice of search engine really affects your search results.For instance, the study compared the first-page searches from major engines and found that on average:
* 69.6% of Google’s [first page results] were unique to Google.
* 79.4% of Yahoo’s were unique to Yahoo.
* 80.1% of Live’s were unique to Live.
* 75.0% Ask’s were unique to Ask.
All in all, according to the survey, only 1% of results appeared on the front page of all four search engines. [More] Are we being insidiously massaged into perfect clients of these on-line entities? Are our attitudes and beliefs at risk of being subtly shaped by which icon we click? Not according to my search results.[Bonus: James Fallows (the post source) also added a link to a post he did in 2004 about why Google was a bad investment. I have calculated how many acres $1000 invested in AOL or Microsoft or Google at the right moment could buy on several occasions. It seems so obvious now.]
Labels: computer, culture, technology
Those wacky foodies...Of all the burning issues to take a stand on, our (yes, you're responsible for it) government is pushing back against the the Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger. The background: We're in the midst of a merger mania, and the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division—the agencies tasked with assuring that mergers don't harm consumers by reducing competition—have approved almost every deal. If the nation's largest hog producer buys the second-largest hog producer? OK. Telecommunications giants SBC and AT&T want to merge? No problem. Giant supermarket company Albertson's and giant supermarket company SuperValu get together? You got it.
But when Whole Foods, the extremely successful, bobo-friendly, high-end, blue-state organic grocery chain and Wild Oats, the less successful, bobo-friendly, high-end, blue-state organic grocery chain, say they want to merge, the answer is no. This week, the FTC sued to stop this puny ($670 million) merger, saying the planned deal would "eliminate[e] the substantial competition between these two uniquely close competitors in numerous markets nationwide in the operation of premium natural and organic supermarkets" and result in higher prices and less consumer choice. [More] Color me surprised. I didn't think any merger would rouse this administration to anti-trust action. This is a pretty small beachhead to take a stand on and have any legal/historical impact, IMHO. Organic consumption is still a tiny fraction of food sales, regardless of the press it receives.Meanwhile, the organic soothsayers are parsing the morality of various forms of preservation for apples.Currently, organic apples that go into storage are refrigerated at 0 °C (32 °F) under low oxygen conditions. The reduced oxygen content is maintained by a constant flow of low-grade nitrogen, the researchers explained in the paper. (The use of nitrogen and the manipulation of oxygen levels are not considered violations of organic growing principles because the storage environment, rather than the produce itself, is affected.) The refrigeration process is so expensive to maintain that most organic orchards have their fruit turned into apple butter, juice, and sauce rather than put into cold storage. As a result, few organic apples are available past the harvest months, driving up the price of the fruit. [More] I don't know. Smells like science to me. This type of deep pondering over whether a specific technology is appropriate or not - similar to Amish rule making - is difficult for an engineer like me to embrace. The war against technology and science may never end. But in the meantime, we progress.Labels: food, organic, technology
Technology responds...Science is not the awe-inspiring tool many of us grew up believing in. Not that it has changed, but I suspect the march of progress has quickened into a steady trot - faster than many can match. So we fall behind and choose to base our decisions on intuition and emotion instead.Even then, the pursuit of knowledge recognizes our disenchantment and adjusts to find answers to our fears. Farmers have struggled with educating observers about our ready alliance with chemical tools to control pests of all kinds. Perhaps it's fair to be suspicious of both agriculture and agribusiness - Lord knows we have been known to spin the truth a teensy bit.Even so, those whose passion in life is verifiable scientific truth labor on and produce answers to these challenges. Understanding biodegradability and being able to predict it before the compounds are released would address a wide range of objections and save countless resources testing those products. Scientists are getting results, and they are promising. Perhaps not surprisingly, the press release associated with this work focused on those compounds, including herbicides, that are most resistant to biodegradation, but fails to mention the even larger group of compounds that are intrinsically biodegradable. The usual news write ups about toxic chemicals and the environment 9999 times out of 10000 will inevitably highlight those that are the nastiest.
The huge benefits of the thousands of organic compounds used in the pharma, biotech, plastics, and other industries as well as medicine and agriculture will simply be ignored whether or not those compounds accumulate in the environment or not. Biodegradation is only one route by which thousands of compounds are destroyed naturally in the environment (heat, light and interaction with other non-living materials, are others). The predictive system will be useful, certainly, but its wider applicability should consider these other routes and the risk factors and toxicity associated with any particular chemical, rather than tarnishing all entries in the database simply on the basis of whether or not a microbial enzyme exists to digest it. [More] News items like this renew my faith in our embrace of technology to improve our existence, and our ability to adjust course to confront legitimate concerns.Labels: future, science, technology
Paris Hilton's cell phone...May not work well in some rural areas - especially Downstate Illinois. And if landline companies have their way it may be some time before coverage gets better for the blond heiress.The Universal Service Tax (Fund) has benefited rural citizens by helping to establish rural telephone companies. Because telephones provide a vital link to emergency services, to government services and to surrounding communities, it has been our nation’s policy to promote telephone service to all households since this service began in the 1930s. The USF helps to make phone service affordable and available to all Americans, including consumers with low incomes, those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high, schools and libraries and rural health care providers. Congress has mandated that all telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to the USF. Although not required to do so by the government, many carriers choose to pass their contribution costs on to their customers in the form of a line item, often called the “Federal Universal Service Fee” or “Universal Connectivity Fee”. [More] But the fund has swollen to over $7B annually and is badly mismanaged. Sadly, this is a rural-on-rural problem. Most people familiar with the universal service fund, including members of the FCC, agree that it has grown out of tune with the times. But reforming it has proven difficult because small wireline telephone companies have grown accustomed to collecting subsidies and lobbying their political representatives to keep the money flowing, said U.S. Cellular's Rooney. [More] Those small wireline companies are typically rural phone coops whose business plans have always been financially distorted because a significant portion of their budget came from the USF - a permanent subsidy.
The basic problem is that the High-Cost Fund subsidizes small rural local exchange carriers (RLECs) on the basis of their reported costs of providing service. This cost-plus system provides no incentive to reduce costs or to provide service using the most efficient technology. On the contrary, it rewards inefficiency. As a result, according to a recent study by George Mason University economist Thomas Hazlett, subsidies can be as much as $13,000 per year per line. Hazlett estimates that yearly savings of $1 billion are easily achievable using standard mobile and satellite phone subscriptions to provide service to people in sparsely populated areas. [More] Meanwhile, because IL cell phone companies have not been applying for USF funds to build towers downstate, the proposed cap means they won't be getting any in the future if they did try.
Bottom line, the pattern of some rural/farm constituents optimizing subsidies more shrewdly than others continues.
Recently, the USF has gained new attention as several Iowa-based companies have used USF subsidies to provide free, international calling.[1] This practice, which began in late 2006, represents an unintended consequence of the USF. [More] The secret seems to be to live in a state with 1 Senator for about every 1000 citizens, not Illinois.
One solution Paris and I favor is reverse auctions:
Another recommendation is the use of "reverse auctions" to assign universal service obligations, a plan endorsed by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. Phone carriers would compete to become the "provider of last resort" in areas where regulators deem local services insufficient, bidding a price, to be paid by the government, to supply such services. The lowest-cost bidder wins. [More] The political clout of rural telcos - the beneficiaries of these billions - will likely prevent this, unless the addition of wireless carriers changes the dynamics of the debate. Their argument of degraded communication consequences reminds me of predictions referring to commodity subsidy reform. Still cost-plus calculation to determine government support has seldom proven to be economically efficient. The process of learning competitive business practices would be difficult, but not impossible.Paris and I will be following this closely. (She has a little time on her hands right now.)Labels: communications, rural life, technology
Any minute now...A breathless announcement of a cellulosic ethanol breakthrough.At a Brazilian ethanol conference June 4-5, Brazilian government-funded researchers said they have perfected a method of producing cellulosic ethanol that drastically reduces the cost of processing. At this point, the assertion -- and many other similarly optimistic claims made at the conference -- is unconfirmed. But should it prove true, the world could well be peeking over the horizon at a massive geopolitical, not to mention economic, shift. [More] As many of you know, I consider cellulosic ethanol the cold fusion of agriculture - mostly because the energy density of the feedstock is so low, and transporting that much stuff negates the energy yield.More tricky is the problem of the ethanol production itself. Cellulosic biomass is bulky and materially complex, unfit for the same methods of ethanol extraction used with corn. In order to even get the stuff into manageable form, processors must soak it in a pre-treatment bath, followed by an acidic or enzymatic digestion that splits it into simple sugars. [More] Perhaps cellulosic ethanol will become a major part of energy plans. But think about the ramifications if we can sell crop residue. The ethanol boom will look like a cheap date.[via Andrew Sullivan]Labels: biofuel, energy, ethanol, technology
Happy Birthday toooo yooooouuu....The Apple II computer was born 30 years ago. Looking back, I would have to say no other invention has changed my life as much. The Apple II remains one of the most successful personal computers ever built and, in fact, remained in production until October 1993, when the Macintosh finally put it out to pasture. In all its iterations, around 6 million of these puppies rolled off the assembly line. [More] Here's the most astonishing part. In 1980, I paid $5400 for an Apple II, 2 disk drives, color monitor and printer. It remains the most expensive computer I have ever bought - and I think I am on #14 right now.Faster, more powerful, cheaper. Pretty impressive legacy.Labels: technology
I could see this happening in corn... A fallacious report of delays in production of the iPhone and Leopard operating system was enough to plunge Apple stock briefly and cost some people some serious electronic money.
 Apple fell more than 4.47 points -- wiping just over 4 billion off the company's capitalization, according to Techcrunch -- in the space of six minutes after Ryan Block, a reporter for Engadget, posted a report that Apple's iPhone would be delayed by four months and its new Leopard operating system by three. [More]
With so much of the trading in commodities - like stocks - controlled by algorithmic computer programs, selling short and then posting some credible, but shocking tidbit on an not-too-obscure blog/website could reap some real change.
Not that it had ever crossed my mind, of course...
The guys I would suspect first are our old friends in Russia. They seem to be big into computer attacks. Maybe the next Great Grain Robbery will be by remote control.
Labels: technology, trade
Strange and yet not unthinkable...A brilliant look at some future possibilities we are building right now:Today, I can pick up about 1Gb of FLASH memory in a postage stamp sized card for that much money. fast-forward a decade and that'll be 100Gb. Two decades and we'll be up to 10Tb.
10Tb is an interesting number. That's a megabit for every second in a year — there are roughly 10 million seconds per year. That's enough to store a live DivX video stream — compressed a lot relative to a DVD, but the same overall resolution — of everything I look at for a year, including time I spend sleeping, or in the bathroom. Realistically, with multiplexing, it puts three or four video channels and a sound channel and other telemetry — a heart monitor, say, a running GPS/Galileo location signal, everything I type and every mouse event I send — onto that chip, while I'm awake. All the time. It's a life log; replay it and you've got a journal file for my life. Ten euros a year in 2027, or maybe a thousand euros a year in 2017. (Cheaper if we use those pesky rotating hard disks — it's actually about five thousand euros if we want to do this right now.)
Why would anyone want to do this?
I can think of several reasons. Initially, it'll be edge cases. Police officers on duty: it'd be great to record everything they see, as evidence. Folks with early stage neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimers: with voice tagging and some sophisticated searching, it's a memory prosthesis.
Add optical character recognition on the fly for any text you look at, speech-to-text for anything you say, and it's all indexed and searchable. "What was the title of the book I looked at and wanted to remember last Thursday at 3pm?"
Think of it as google for real life.
We may even end up being required to do this, by our employers or insurers — in many towns in the UK, it is impossible for shops to get insurance, a condition of doing business, without demonstrating that they have CCTV cameras in place. Having such a lifelog would certainly make things easier for teachers and social workers at risk of being maliciously accused by a student or client.
(There are also a whole bunch of very nasty drawbacks to this technology — I'll talk about some of them later, but right now I'd just like to note that it would fundamentally change our understanding of privacy, redefine the boundary between memory and public record, and be subject to new and excitingly unpleasant forms of abuse — but I suspect it's inevitable, and rather than asking whether this technology is avoidable, I think we need to be thinking about how we're going to live with it.) [More of a great read] The idea of the "lifelog" is already being presaged by e-mail - for many of us it is our log of communications, thoughts, and events done automatically and relatively easy to find stuff in.
The idea of a permanent record of all we say and do is unnerving to say the least. That it would be searchable by authorities is chilling. That it is happening is undeniable.
This provocative essay also led me to consider how the mundane decisions of our lives are the concrete building blocks of the future. Our choices of transportation, communication, entertainment, and so forth give economic life to the options that will be available in the future.
While many will think agriculture will be shielded or left behind by such changes, the important note in this piece was how location matters so little anymore.The influx of dollars into agriculture vis biofuels will only speed this process. While this does not have to be alarming news - we can still choose and forego many changes. But we will have to respect the rights of others to choose differently.[via Grasping Reality]Labels: culture, future, technology
NH3 effects...Applying anhydrous ammonia is a job few farmers relish, and most would gladly drop like hot rock if an alternative were available. The reasons are simple: it's dangerous, hard to handle, requires special equipment, and involves constant timing with your supplier to be efficient. Unfortunately, NH3 is a superior source of nitrogen - the stuff of life (or at least, yields) for corn.But there is a subtler side to NH3, I think. Because it is such a pain for humans to handle, we often drift into thinking it must be equally hard on the soil. This correlation is exploited by organic or other detractors via anthropomorphizing the soil. It is a common and seemingly natural tendency for humans to perceive inanimate objects as having human characteristics, although few believe this to be of significance. Common examples of this tendency include naming cars or begging machines to work. In 1953, the U.S. government began assigning hurricanes names; initially the names were feminine, and shortly thereafter masculine names were introduced. The fact that that dirt contains living organisms is not news, of course. Extending this liveliness to the particles of soil is easily done in our minds. The result is when ammonia stings our noses, we sympathize with the field we are fertilizing. After all, there is no worse label than a "harsh chemical". Not much objective evidence to support this lovely picture, however. Indeed after using NH3 and other fertilizers for decades, yields are trending up, not down.Due to the chemistry of anhydrous ammonia, the injection band initially is toxic to plant growth because of high pH. In a relatively short period of time after injection into the soil the ammonia is converted to nitrate and the pH of the injection band decreases. Nitrate is the primary form of nitrogen used by corn from the soil. At this point the corn plant can use the fertilizer and provide higher yields. [More] Much of the allure of agrarian agriculture is the elevation of clay particles to some kind of life-form. Because life (plants) spring from it, it is an easy step to take. In the process, however, we attach limitations and rules that may or may not apply.The soil is "exhausted", we say, as if dirt feels weariness. We talk of soil "health". Qualities we find pleasing, like sponginess or rich odors are designated as signs of soil "health". Moreover, as we develop more and more abstruse technologies, the idea of soil as simple and uncomplicated is a relief. But I'm convinced we are fooling ourselves.I don't think we have any idea what the "carrying capacity" for good farmland is, for example. All we know is how much yield we have been able to achieve to date. I think we will look back on 200-bushel corn with the amusement we now use for pre-hybrid corn yields. And people then will mutter about exhausting the soil, I expect. But soil is not human, and not even alive. And the effort to make this fantasy true is our generation's form of idol-worship, maybe.Labels: farm program, farmland, technology
Another reason I still do the turning...Our now-beloved GPS systems are affected by weather - space weather."Our increasingly technologically dependent society is becoming increasingly vulnerable to space weather," David L. Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, said at a briefing.
GPS receivers have become widely used in recent years, using satellite signals in navigating airplanes, ships and automobiles, and in using cell phones, mining, surveying and many other commercial uses. [More]
As we grope our way to fully-automated farm guidance systems, we may need cosmic weather forecasters. That's right - even spacier weatherpersons. And radar maps from Venus.
On the upside, we can now blame crooked rows on solar flares.
Labels: technology, weather
Time to go long corn?...
Suppose we did get a serious environmental kickback from all the Bt corn we're planting. And suppose it showed up in honeybees?
The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations." But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.
According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."
Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period. [More]
Our corn industry and more than a few corporate careers are built on the efficacy and safety of using Bt expression to defend plant from insects. Lord knows we've covered all the bases we could in checking this technology out. To begin with, bees don't feed on corn pollen. But still, the problem is real.
As an example of what honeybees face, Hayes says to make a fist and place it next to your body.
“That’s how large a Varroa mite is to a honeybee. And these mites suck a bee’s blood. Obviously, that debilitates and weakens their immune systems. The mites also vector viruses that affect honeybee health.”
Normally, honeybees forage within a 2.5-mile radius of their colony. They visit flowers to collect pollen and nectar to make honey to feed themselves and their young. That means they’re exposed to whatever is in the environment.
“Of course, honeybees are exposed to agricultural chemicals sprayed on crops or used systemically to control pests,” says Hayes. “Those pests are mostly insects, but so are honeybees. Even at sub-lethal levels, some of the chemicals can find their way through plant nectar and pollen to the bees.”
Researchers are also looking into any possibility that GMO crops could be playing a role in the bees’ behavior. “There are some concerns about GMO crops that can produce a toxin used to battle harmful insects. Those traits are also in nectar and pollen.” [More]
But if no other answer for the Colony Collapse Syndrome arises soon, the scrutiny on GM plants will intensify. While I do not consider the "precautionary principle" a reasonable approach, if something like this honeybee link gets proven - and it looks very unlikely - we're headed straight back to 1990 on our farms. This would put a stake in the heart of GM seeds.
This honeybee thing is getting freaky, and it's worth following.
Labels: GM, production, science, technology
The better mosquito...Since the banning of DDT, malaria has gained ground as a major cause of death and despair in poor tropical countries. The DDT outcry was triggered by Rachel Carson's epic environmental tome, Silent Spring. It was as politically powerful as it was wrong.To be fair, we didn't know then, but her assertion that pesticides are killing us has had a long, long half-life. Even now, writers blithely toss off statements that our water is fouled with pesticides and pesticides cause all sorts of health problems - all without much evidence.You'd think in this setting, GM solutions - which greatly reduce the need for pesticides - would be hailed as wonderful solutions. You'd be wrong.Nonetheless, the march of GM progress continues to offer potent weapons to attack many of humankind's oldest scourges. One of these is the malaria-carrying mosquito. After mosquitoes bite a host with malaria, the parasite that causes the disease proliferates in the insect, readying itself to infect the next human victim. It's no fun being infected, and one might think that mosquitoes would have developed a resistance to the malaria parasite over time. But several studies have suggested that mosquitoes engineered to build defenses against malaria are less fit than insects that chose to live with the parasites.
Now there's reason to take heart. Several years ago, a group of medical entomologists at Johns Hopkins University created a strain of Anopheles stephensi (a mosquito that bites rodents) equipped with a gene called SM1 that makes the mosquitoes resistant to infection with Plasmodium berghei, a rodent malaria parasite. In the new study, published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group carried out a series of experiments in which 250 of these insects were put in a cage together with 250 wild-type counterparts and allowed to feed on malaria-infected mice. The resistant insects lived longer and produced more eggs than did those not resistant to the parasite, and after nine generations, some 70% of the population was resistant. The researchers speculate that carrying SM1 is a less costly strategy than whatever defenses malaria-resistant mosquitoes develop in the wild. [More]
I didn't realize it was a parasite and not the mosquito who was the culprit. What I do know is conquering malaria would be close to a miracle for Sub-Saharan Africa.GM mosquitoes that interfered with development of the malaria parasite would make it more difficult for the organism to become re-established after it had been eradicated from a target area, they said.
Malaria, spread by the single-celled parasite Plasmodium, is endemic in parts of Asia, Africa, and central and south America.
The organism is passed to humans through the bite of the Anopheles mosquito. Each year it makes 300 million people ill and causes a million deaths worldwide.
Some 90% of cases are in sub-Saharan Africa, where a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. [More] My point is not to excoriate early environmentalists like Carson, who certainly acted in good faith, and had significant beneficial impact on how we use the tools of technology. But technology does not stand still, and if we cannot revise our decisions in the light of new knowledge, we shall not advance the cause of bettering the human condition.This it the way, I believe, genetic modification will slowly become a technology we feel comfortable using. Just like steam engines terrified pre-industrialists with their power, GM technology will have a acclimatization period. We should take the time. Launching polemics or trading attacks will not advance this cause.Good science will. Labels: GM, health, science, technology
And what if your brain can't wave?...Driven by the hideous amounts of money sloshing around the computer gaming industry, brain researchers are developing controllers that read brain waves:Controlling things by mere thought is a staple of science fiction. That fiction, though, is often based on a real technique known as electroencephalography (EEG). This works by deploying an array of electrodes over a person's scalp and recording surface manifestations of the electrical activity going on under his skull. [More]
The idea of replacing joysticks with a plastic helmet is one thing. Ponder what it might be like if we climb into our combines and slap a beanie on and take off.What happens when you start daydreaming about playing golf? Or eating cheeseburgers? Or Betty Crocker in a cheerleader outfit?What??Labels: fun, technology
A distant battlefield...Those wacky Russians had a rocket problem about a year ago. A missile and satellite ended up in a bad orbit and a couple of days ago, suddenly decided to blow itself up. (We think).This made for some spectacular photos for Aussie astronomers and a reminder that there are more than few things whizzing over our heads today. Also reminder for the world to duck as some 1000+ fragments start arriving. All the satellites/junk in orbit today.Meanwhile last month the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon with apparently successful results. Although to be fair, from some photos it looks like it would be hard to miss everything especially when debris keeps zooming out more or less for ever.But China's Jan. 11 test of a primitive anti-satellite weapon against an aging weather satellite boosted the population of trackable debris by more than 900 objects--an instantaneous 10% increase in the 50-year figure--that threaten all spacecraft flying below about 2,000 km. (1,243 mi.). Still as we mutter about our GPS signal when we are planting, we need to remember it was spending ridiculous amounts on the space program that got us here. And defending and advancing that technology might become just as important as defending dirt.There are worse investments for public dollars, I believe.
Such as: me.
Labels: technology
Let "Otto" do it...I am not a car person. No thrill attends their purchase or use. In fact, my current ride - a Pontiac Vibe - pretty well describes the driver, I think. Utilitarian, mildly efficient, totally not "hot".I appreciate the engineering and design of vehicles which make driving a less challenging task, such as the automatic transmission. In fact, after buying one IH 1800 Tandem grain truck with an Allison, I refit my next grain truck with one. I know my mileage is less (albeit hard to tell in a grain truck), and braking must be done more thoughtfully without the ability to downshift, but the clutch doesn't wear out, anybody can learn to drive it in a day, and the transmissions have been bulletproof.Driving manual transmissions is reliable humor premise here in the US - and a point of mild derision overseas. Still there are many whose X [correction I mean "Y"] -chromosome contains a gene for stick shifts.It is unclear, at this point, which if any of these alternative technologies will gain more than a foothold in the market, and what their overall effect will be on the way Americans drive. One can imagine technologies such as the continuously variable transmission accelerating the eclipse of the stick shift, by maximizing driver ease while allowing greater efficiency than traditional automatics. Or, perhaps technologies like the dual-clutch transmission will spark new awareness of the benefits of active driver involvement in the subtleties of the car's performance. While I personally hope for the latter, I recognize that no one-size-fits-all solution is appropriate for the diverse situations and skill sets of American drivers. Moreover, there is a broader question that the evolution of automobile transmissions raises about technology. Much science fiction and social commentary has evoked the idea that technology will make people passive and dependent, for example in a Star Trek episode where aliens have ceased to control or understand the machines their ancestors built. But the real history of technology shows a countervailing trend; people often prefer a hands-on approach, in areas ranging from blogging to amateur astronomy to home improvement. For some people, control and performance will remain priorities in choosing their cars, and for this reason I suspect the stick shift is not going to disappear anytime soon. [More] It may be that the type of skill represented by the eye-hand-foot coordination required to drive a stick shift with panache is fading from our world to be replaced with eye-brain-finger coordination needed to build websites effortlessly, or program an RTK guidance machine, or set an insulin pump.
Different ages demand different skills. Few need to be able to drive a four-in-hand hitch anymore, for example. Which skills become the most admired and associated with coolness has always been a mystery, but one thing does seem clear.
The ability to find people as fascinated as you in some narrow field of expertise, to build a community, and to propagate the skill or art involved has never been as available as it is right now.
Who knows what stupendous things people will accomplish as more of us have a chance to find and exploit our intrinsic talents? Even if it's simply driving a stick.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can be freed from tasks we find awkward to pursue those arcane activities or studies. This is the gift of technology: time.
For cryin' out loud, don't give it away to the TV.
Labels: culture, technology
Personally, I think it is witches...There is a major problem in the hives of America.A mysterious disease is killing off U.S. honeybees, threatening to disrupt pollination of a range of crops and costing beekeepers hundreds of thousands of dollars, industry experts said on Monday. Beekeepers in 22 states have reported losses of up to 80 percent of their colonies in recent weeks, leaving many unable to rent the bees to farmers of crops such as almonds and, later in the year, apples and blueberries. [More] This situation is bad news for beekeepers, of course, but in the absence of a defined cause, speculation runs rampant. It can be discouraging to read serious suggestions that one cause is "chemtrails". [see comments attached to this post]Maybe I have been oblivious to current conspiracy theories, but this one was new to me. It seems the condensation vapors behind high flying jets have spooked some observers.The chemtrail theory is a group of conspiracy theories regarding allegedly unnatural vapor trails purporting to hold 'chemicals.' They are said to be found behind certain aircraft (in certain places and at certain times), leaving behind the distinct trails thought to be laden with so-called 'chemicals.' Conversely, contrails are formed by condensation of water vapor in the aircraft's exhausts. Proponents of the theories maintain that some trails have an appearance and quality different from those of normal water-based contrails, i.e. that chemtrails are not consistent with the known properties of contrails. The general unifying factor is the generally conspiratorial belief that some kind of chemical or biological agent is being secretly released. The term "chemtrail" should not be confused with other forms of aerial dumping (e.g. crop dusting, cloud seeding or aerial firefighting). It specifically refers to systematic, high-altitude dumping of unknown substances for some undisclosed purpose resulting in the appearance of these supposed chemtrails. [More]
A significant portion of our populace is alienated by the very technology that makes our lives relatively indolent by historical standards. This is their right -albeit a singularly ungrateful response, IMHO.Still, our deployment of scientific knowledge has been less than inspiring. I'm not sure it could be otherwise. Knowledge tends to outrun our judgment. The older I get, the more latitude I allow to those for whom comprehension of modern technology is both taxing and unrewarding.Still, it is sobering to be reminded how far we have not traveled from superstition.Labels: culture, technology
Rising above our diet...Good authors can persuade beyond the power of their ideas. Michael Pollan is one of them. In his previous books, notably The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma, he attracts readers with simplicity and a slathering of good old common sense. He is especially suspicious of anything that hints at "science".His latest polemic against what passes for nutritional science advances his earlier misgivings to full-blown food-Darwinism:Note that these ecological relationships are between eaters and whole foods, not nutrients. Even though the foods in question eventually get broken down in our bodies into simple nutrients, as corn is reduced to simple sugars, the qualities of the whole food are not unimportant — they govern such things as the speed at which the sugars will be released and absorbed, which we’re coming to see as critical to insulin metabolism. Put another way, our bodies have a longstanding and sustainable relationship to corn that we do not have to high-fructose corn syrup. Such a relationship with corn syrup might develop someday (as people evolve superhuman insulin systems to cope with regular floods of fructose and glucose), but for now the relationship leads to ill health because our bodies don’t know how to handle these biological novelties. In much the same way, human bodies that can cope with chewing coca leaves — a longstanding relationship between native people and the coca plant in South America — cannot cope with cocaine or crack, even though the same “active ingredients” are present in all three. Reductionism as a way of understanding food or drugs may be harmless, even necessary, but reductionism in practice can lead to problems. [More] Pollan is a leading voice in the "we used to eat better" school of nutrition. Over the years he has graduated from mere wariness of the food industry to sincere opposition. It all seems so logical in his witty prose.Not all of us are buying his extrapolated conclusions.But Pollan's nutritional Darwinism only makes sense if the selection pressures of the distant past were in perfect alignment with the health concerns of today. In other words, our food culture would have evolved to protect us from cancer, heart disease, and obesity only if those maladies had been a primary threat to reproduction in the ancient world. It's hard to imagine that the risks posed by these so-called "diseases of affluence"—which often strike late in life, after we've had babies—would have been as significant to our fast-living, sickly forebears as the dangers of, say, bacterial infections or the occasional drought. Indeed, for much of human history, natural selection might well have traded off the dangers of morbid obesity to mitigate the risk of starvation. There's just no way to know how the ancient culinary traditions will fare in the modern world until we try them. [More] It astounds me that with every leap of technological empowerment, the effort to redraw the past springs up anew. "Our food was better when we killed the chickens in our own backyards." old-foodies wail. That subjective judgment is hard to counter, but we do know it was more dangerous. That small problem food science did handle well.I do not argue our food and nutrition are as good as they can be. In fact, thanks to critics like Pollan, pressure is mounting for our food industry (of which agriculture is a small part, not the other way round, incidentally) to turn its efforts to applying the results pouring out of research institutions. Our foods must address what we now know to be true about both our bodies and our diet.There is room in America especially to allow wide experimentation to find the answer to this question. But my money is on technology.Labels: food, technology
Relentless technology...This is why I think the best bet is on technology, not apocalyptic cataclysm. Britain was the epicenter of the BSE (mad cow) threat. The problem was real and people of science took it seriously and guess what? They a) discovered the cause and worked to minimize the risks and 2) they found a great solution: GM cattle.As new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of the condition, can be contracted by consuming beef or beef products infected with rogue prions, the work could pave the way for breeding cattle that cannot infect people with prion disease. This could be exploited by the meat industry, which could raise guaranteed BSE-free beef cattle, though the disease has become a much less significant problem since the practice of feeding cows on meat and bone meal from dead animals was banned. Such beef would also have to overcome public resistance to the idea of eating meat from GM livestock. [More]
The human ability to adapt to challenges is undiminished. From global warming to bird-flu, smart money will follow dogged disciples of truth, who sift tirelessly through data to tease out solutions. This is how genetic-modification will win wide acceptance - the absence of harmful outcomes (despite hysterical predictions) and the methodical elimination of problems. It may take more time than the Internet generation can tolerate easily, but in the end, what works, works.We may be a problem-creating species, but we are also a problem-solving species.Labels: GM, technology
And all the ships at sea...
OK, you're probably too young to know about that phrase, but if you have marveled at the maps showing where all the airplanes in the world are at any time, take a peek at this one for cargo ships. Stop and think about it. After we locate all the trains, the next step is pinpoint all the cars. And then, all the people.
The NSA is probably working on it now.
Labels: technology
Brace yourself for more biotech backlash...Micheal Crichton has just released a new book - Next - that does for biotechnology what State of Fear did for global warming. And to hype the book (which this post lamely aids), he has a "pseudo-website". See it here.The guy can write, although his recent books are obvious screenplays - not novels. But he plays fast and loose with facts. It will be interesting to see those who hailed him as a hero in the global warming debate but who will be horrified to see him send up biotech now.
Reviews here, here, and here. I may read it soon, if I get it for Christmas.
Labels: technology
US Farm Report host John Phipps surfs the Web so you don't have to...
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