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David Tribe on 27 March 2010
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m an Australian. But us Ozzies get to meet a lot of Americans.
American author of Seeds of Deception and public speaker Jeffrey Smith’s of Fairfield Iowa, first came to the attention of Australians when he was rolled out by the anti-GM activists to try and prevent Australian farmers being given the freedom of choice on crop technology in late 2007. Fortunately this effort by the anti-technology lobby groups was unsuccessful.
At most meetings organized by these activists that I have attended since that time — and there have been quite a few — stacks of his more recent book Genetic Roulette book were available for purchase, and I snapped up one early on.
A brief perusal of the articles revealed the book was highly biased. Nowhere in the book was there a mention of any of the major good outcomes from GM technology—such as decreased risk of cancer from mycotoxins in moldy corm (see this link for Chassy and Tribe’s efforts on this important topic at Academics Review). On the topics that I was most familiar such as antibiotic resistance in bacteria, Genetic Roulette was deeply misleading and factually wrong.
I decided late 2007 to investigate its claims thoroughly, little knowing how huge the task would be because as it turned out every one of the 65 claims in it — better called myths– was distorted, misleading, plain wrong, or based on misrepresentation or misreading of the sources it quoted.
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Anastasia B on 10 February 2010
James, over at James and the Giant Corn, has written a post about the long lasting tomatoes from India: Scientists at India’s NIPGR Create a Longer-Lasting Tomato (Studying The Regulation of Fruit Ripening). He does a great job of explaining cell wall chemistry, which I neglected to cover in I say tomato… I appreciate that he pointed out something that I forgot to mention (emphasis added):
I shouldn’t have to say this, but there
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Anastasia B on 7 February 2010
Researchers at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research in India have found a surprisingly simple way to extend the shelf life of fresh tomatoes. Most tomatoes will last about 10-15 days before going unappealingly squishy. The enhanced tomatoes last 45 days or more and are firmer than unmodified tomatoes, which I imagine makes for great tomato sandwiches!
Before getting into the how, let’s talk about why this research is important. According to Enhancement of fruit shelf life by suppressing N-glycan processing enzymes in this week’s PNAS, post-harvest fruit and vegetable softening is a big problem, with losses accounting for almost 50% of all produce in developing countries. India, the country that funded the research, and the world’s 2nd largest fruit and vegetable producer, loses 35-40% of produce to softening.
We all know that post-consumer food waste is a big problem, and we can alleviate this somewhat in our homes and by choosing restaurants that try to reduce waste. But there isn’t much we can do about pre-consumer waste – from grain that rots in the silo due to fungus to tomatoes that rot in transit due to ripening. By reducing pre-consumer food waste, we can reduce the number of acres needed to produce the same amount of food. In India, preventing all fruit and vegetable softening would be like reducing the amount of land needed to grow fruits and vegetables by 35-40%!
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Karl Haro von Mogel on 2 February 2010
If you are familiar with my past science media projects, you may remember that I used to host a radio show / podcast in Davis, CA. I have been eager to get that going again in Madison, so last fall I went through the training at the local student station, WSUM 91.7 fm, and they accepted my show and gave me a time slot, Monday mornings from 8-9 am Central. The show is called
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Environmentalism gets its own Martin Luther.
“Cities are green. Nuclear energy is Green. Genetic engineering is Green” is unavoidable clarity from the new Martin Luther. So look out for them when they arrive in a Penguin paperback edition, due in March, my local bookstore tells me.
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