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Up until recently, a genetically modified organism was one that had its genetic materials engineered. Now, a new technology is completely blurring the line. It’s called gene editing, and it involves “turning off” or deleting genes from a plant’s genome, as opposed to moving genes from one species to another.
This technology exists in a gray area because of some recent, and relatively quiet decisions by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) not to regulate gene edited crops as it does genetically modified organisms (GMOs). And the GMO labeling bill that Congress just passed may further the ambiguity by omitting gene editing.
The soldiers in Bernie Sanders’ political revolution took to the streets of Philadelphia by the thousands on Monday as swaths of his 1,850 delegates inside the Democratic Convention hall also made their displeasure known on the first night of the party’s national convention.
Earlier in the day, Sanders was booed by his delegation in a downtown ballroom when he told them to vote for Clinton.
Most of us will, at some point, go through personal health challenges, and it would be wise to have a personal physician you can trust who is grounded in natural medicine. Dr. Lee Cowden, who is my personal physician, has developed an excellent teaching program for licensed health professionals and laypeople alike.
Cowden is a board-certified interventional cardiologist who, after experiencing the limitations of the conventional model firsthand as a patient, came to realize there's another approach.
According to news agencies, the EU Commission has allowed the import of genetically engineered soybeans produced by Bayer and Monsanto. The imported soybeans can be used in food and feed despite unresolved concerns about health risks.
These crops can be sprayed with a combination of glyphosate and other herbicides such as dicamba or isoxaflutole. Market authorization has been issued after massive pressure from industry, which already sold its patented seeds in the US for cultivation and now wants to import the harvest to the EU within the next months.
Humans’ appetite for gnawing away at the fabric of the Earth itself is growing prodigiously. According to a new UN report, the amount of the planet’s natural resources extracted for human use has tripled in 40 years.
A report produced by the International Resource Panel (IRP), part of the UN Environment Programme, says rising consumption driven by a growing middle class has seen resources extraction increase from 22 billion tonnes in 1970 to 70 billon tonnes in 2010.
In the featured video, journalist Abby Martin discusses Monsanto's rise to power and how the company has managed to saturate the global environment with its toxic chemicals, largely through immoral means.
In May, the University of San Francisco revealed the results from a testing project that began in 2015. The tests, commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), found that 93 percent of Americans have detectable levels of the chemical glyphosate in their urine.
GRAND RAPIDS – The University of Minnesota Extension Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP), along with the Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR) at the University of Minnesota College of Design will partner with Organic Consumers Association in Finland to test a prototype Deep Winter Greenhouse (DWG) that is designed to help farmers grow fresh produce throughout the winter months.
There's a growing divide in organic food and agriculture. Consumers hungry for nutritionally superior food that has been ethically produced are the target of giant factory farms that have muscled into organic agriculture. Their emergence and rapid growth is challenging family farm operators who have traditionally helped nurture and grow the popular organic sector.
Nowhere is this divide more apparent than in certified organic egg production. Some industrial-scale operations manage as many as two million hens on a single factory where they confine up to 200,000 birds in separate buildings. These corporate agribusinesses, mostly engaged in caged, conventional egg production, now dominate the organic egg market.
Solar is already the cheapest available power across large swathes of the tropics, writes Chris Goodall - its cost down 99.7% since the early 70s. Soon it will be the cheapest electricity everywhere, providing clean, secure, affordable energy for all.
Towards the end of last year, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden made a little-noticed remark. He said that solar would become the "dominant backbone" of the world's energy system.
He didn't give a date for his prediction, or indeed define what 'dominant' means, but he accepted that the sun will eventually provide the cheapest energy source across almost all of the world.
NEW DELHI, Jul 18 2016 (IPS) - A recent report from the National Academy of Science of The United States, titled Gene Drives on the Horizon : Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values”, warns:
“One possible goal of release of a gene-drive modified organism is to cause the extinction of the target species or a drastic reduction in its abundance.”
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