Genetically Modified Grass Could Make Superweed Problem Worse

Written by Brandon Keim, July 11th, 2011 (www.wired.com)


A genetically engineered grass expected to hit U.S. markets without government review could speed the evolution of hard-to-control weeds, and perhaps require a return to toxic herbicides scrapped decades ago. 

On July 1 — a Friday afternoon, a time usually reserved for potentially controversial news — the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that Scotts Miracle-Gro’s herbicide-resistant Kentucky bluegrass would be exempt from tests typically required of transgenic crops.
Scotts Miracle-Gro is the largest U.S. retailer of grass seed, and the modified grass could be widely used in residential lawns. It’s resistant to glyphosate, a front-line herbicide known commercially as Roundup.
The grass will survive extra doses of Roundup, allowing more than usual to be applied. That’s the problem, said agricultural biotechnology expert Douglas Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The more a chemical is used consistently, the more likely that somebody’s weeds will become resistant. That’s standard, agreed-upon science,” said Gurian-Sherman. “The way that Roundup is used because of transgenic crops exacerbates that problem.”

Herbicide resistance evolves in much the same way as antibiotic resistance: When a weed- or bug-killing compound is applied, any weeds or bugs lucky enough to be genetically resistant will have the best chance to survive and reproduce.
Many crop plants are already engineered to be Roundup-resistant, and heavy use of the herbicide appears to have fueled the evolution of dozens of Roundup-resistant weed strains. They’re a major threat to agriculture in parts of the United States, virtually uncontrollable except by hand-pulling or a return to toxic, decades-old herbicides that the relatively benign Roundup had replaced.

“The industry hasn’t developed a new herbicide in a long time. When resistance develops to something like glyphosate, it’s not like we can move to some new chemical,” said Gurian-Sherman.
Compared to pigweed that can grow three inches each day in soybean fields, Roundup-resistant lawn weeds would be a nuisance rather than an economic threat. But just as superweeds have pushed farmers to bring back toxic herbicides, so might they push homeowners and landscapers.
“We’re burning out Roundup and going back into the past,” said Gurian-Sherman. “The same kind of thing could happen in residential use.”
Another potential problem is the spread of Roundup resistance into related strains of bluegrass, said plant geneticist Norman Ellstrand of the University of California, Riverside.
“I don’t know what other bluegrass species it’s cross-compatible with, but I can say with 98 percent certainty that it’s cross-compatible with some,” said Ellstrand. “If this plant grows and flowers at the same time as other bluegrass, they’ll flourish. You’ll have a new incidence of herbicide resistance getting into the wild.”
Whereas Kentucky bluegrass is popular for lawns, it’s not always welcome. Other members of its 500 species-strong genus are considered weeds.
A lesson can be taken from the unintentional escape of genes from rice bred for resistance to the Clearfield herbicide, said Ellstrand. “Now you have a very bad, weedy rice in Costa Rica that’s resistant to the herbicide,” he said. “It doesn’t happen easily with rice. If it happens with rice, it will happen with bluegrasses.”
Another species of Roundup-resistant grass developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro for golf courses was nixed by the USDA because of fear that resistance would spread to related pest species, noted Ellstrand. “The U.S. Forest Service waded in and said, ‘We don’t want it,’” he said.
Had the the Department of Agriculture decided to treat Roundup-ready bluegrass as a genetically modified plant, extra assurance of its environmental safety would have been demanded. But they decided not to because it fit through a loophole.
Genetically engineered plants are technically designated for regulation according to methods used to insert and activate new genes. Earlier methods used bacteria, which triggered pest-related clauses of the USDA’s Plant Protection Act. But the Roundup-ready bluegrass was made with a so-called gene gun. No bacteria were involved, and the law’s fine print was satisfied.
“By all definitions of genetic engineering, that’s genetic engineering. But it totally escapes the U.S. regulatory framework,” Ellstrand said.

According to Scotts Miracle-Gro spokesman Lance Latham, the USDA’s decision “allows us to move forward with field tests. It’s a first step. It’s our hope that testing will continue our advancement to develop grass seed that is even more sustainable.”

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Cold fusion devices produce far more energy than they use; quickly approaching commercial viability

(NaturalNews.com) "Cold fusion is real, but mass American news sources are not covering it. Experiments are currently being duplicated across the world, to add further verification to the body of scientific proof. It is now possible to create energy with commonplace resources at no cost to the environment. Power plants using cold fusion will be constructed before 2012.


Natural News has been covering the developments of cold fusion for quite some time, as controlled experiments in Russia, California, Italy, and Japan have consistently proven that cold fusion is real. (Read one of the original articles here (http://www.naturalnews.com/013281.html).)

One of these successful experiments was conducted by Professor emeritus of Osaka University, Japan - Yoshiaki Arata. Dr. Arata performed a demonstration of cold fusion at Osaka. A colleague of his wrote, afterward: "Arata's demonstration was successfully done it demonstrated live data looked just similar to the data they reported in [the] papers. This showed the method highly reproducible." Read the original article for more details at (http://www.sott.net/articles/show/1...).

In addition, Andrea Rossi's Fusion Energy Catalyzer was tested in a number of different scenarios this year, resulting in a stronger belief that cold fusion may be ready for public use by the end of 2011. On January 14, Focardi and Rossi held a press conference, discussing their 10-kW generator. Another experiment, which took place roughly a month later at the University of Bologna, reported the model generated 15 kW for 18 hours. There are currently plans to hook up roughly 200 of these smaller units, in order to construct two 1 megawatt-producing power plants before the end of the year. If these plants perform up to their potential, then we can hope for the construction of industrial-sized power plants within another year or two.

But how does it work?

Cold fusion is not really magical, even though it could very well have a miraculous effect on our future. It is a relatively simple chemical reaction that produces excess heat, meaning that if the reaction occurs in water, it will increase the temperature of the water. Powdered nickel fuels the reaction. You put in nickel (one of the most plentiful metals on the planet), and you get heated water.

After that point, almost every mechanic in the world would be able to take it from there. Steam engines heat water with coal, then using the expansive properties of the steam to power turbines. A cold fusion device would use the same basic mechanical devices, but it would heat the water through the consumption of nickel rather than combustion.

But why has news of cold fusion not yet reached mass media in the United States? Why is there no story in the New York Times that showcases all of this excitement and buzz?

The media has been burnt by the dream of cold fusion before. In 1989, Fleishman and Pons first conducted a series of experiments on cold fusion and produced some truly exciting results. In their excitement, they let their findings slip a little too early, before they had been able to thoroughly study the discovery, or realize consistently positive results. They released their miraculous findings, with claims of having discovered the dream machine of the millennium, and they caused a lot of excitement in the scientific community, at least at first.

But they had fallen prey to their own unbridled enthusiasm. Confronted with the potential of what they had discovered - a future resplendent with clean, free energy - they jumped the gun a little prematurely. Their method was reproduced across the globe, but many experiments fell flat. In fact, their method was shown to be effective only 30% of the time. And in the world of empirical fact, 30% is an error, not a discovery. It was supposed that the 30% of experiments that did corroborate Fleishman and Pons' findings were more likely the result of bribes or 'friendships,' not cold fusion.

Consequently, it was presumed that Fleishman and Pons were frauds, just a couple of jingoists desperately attempting to gain fame and attention. Cold fusion was thought to have been revealed as a hoax, and the scientists became notorious. All but excommunicated, Fleishman and Pons went underground, where they continued to hone their method and make the process easily replicable and consistent. They checked and double-checked their findings, and they spread their idea to other scientists willing to conduct more thorough investigations, such as Andrea Rossi, whose device has, so far, produced the consistency that Fleishman and Pons' lacked.

This discovery could not come at a better time for the world, when oil resources are quickly becoming scarce, and greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to spike, despite the damage they are causing.

So, given the reason for optimism in this period in which energy is particularly expensive, why is the mass media refraining from mentioning cold fusion. Why is it not on the front pages of every newspaper?

There are a number of possible explanations. First, the scientific community's pause could very well be a consequence of the unbridled enthusiasm given by the initial experiments conducted in 1989. After such a humiliation, it is easy to see why scientists would remain skeptical, at least on the surface. Meanwhile, Rossi's Energy Catalyzer is being slated for reproduction in large-scale, cold fusion reactors later this year. If you compare the pace of Rossi's tests to the scientific norm, then it is clear that scientists are, indeed, excited.

As for the press, there are more insidious explanations to be considered. For one, it is a distinct possibility that a number of enormous businesses, such as oil and coal companies are leaning on mass media sources to keep quiet. Cold fusion power plants would drop the price of energy, thereby putting energy companies out of commission. It is in their best interest to slow down the process of integrating cold fusion.

But whatever the reason for mass media silence, you can expect to start hearing about cold fusion by the end of the year. By then, it will be impossible to keep quiet a discovery of this magnitude."

Original article: http://www.naturalnews.com/032898_cold_fusion_renewable_energy.html#ixzz1RKvnwmjh

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It's amazing how many problems could be fixed with this technology!

GMO Planting To Begin in More Than 50 Wildlife Refuges

Written by Jill Ettinger, June 24th, 2011 - OrganicAuthority.com

The Obama administration has approved the strategic planting of genetically engineered seeds on more than 50 National Wildlife Refuges in the Midwest as part of region-wide habitat restoration efforts.

The multi-platform plan is designed to restore and manage habitat, supplement food for wildlife and attract wildlife for visitor viewing and photography. Slated to last no more than five years, the main crops would include GMO corn and soy. After the five-year period, farming could continue as a management tool, but it would be limited to non-GMO crops, according to the official government release.

Planting row crops in refuge lands has been used as a tool for many years by The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in restoring native habitats, controlling invasive weeds and providing food for both migratory birds and resident wildlife. Nearly three dozen of the area wildlife and wetland districts already use row crop farming to manage and improve habitats. The widespread use of GMOs in the U.S. has led to the decision to pursue planting these crops in the wildlife areas.

Anti-GMO groups condemn this decision, citing the risks connected to GM seeds and the already delicate nature of America’s protected  wildlife refuges and park lands being affected by climate change, loss of species and pollutants that are contaminating water and soil. In January, the Widener Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic on behalf of Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Food Safety filed a lawsuit in a similar case. The plaintiffs alleged that the Fish & Wildlife Service had illegally entered into Cooperative Farming Agreements with private parties, allowing the planting of GE crops at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service settled the case promising to revoke any further access to GMOs in the area.

Original post: http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/organic/gmo-planting-to-begin-in-more-than-50-wildlife-refuges/

Super-efficient, low-cost inkjet system to revolutionize solar energy technology

(NaturalNews.com) The same technology used in your home or office printer to deliver ink to paper is now being used in a revolutionary new solar technology that eliminates 90 percent of raw material waste, and drastically cuts the costs associated with producing solar cells.

Engineers from Oregon State University (OSU) are well on their way to producing the first ever super-efficient, extremely low-cost solar film made from inkjet technology, which could make solar energy production a whole lot more efficient and cheaper for consumers

Published in the journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, the findings explain how CIGS solar devices -- CIGS being short for the copper, indium, gallium and selenium elements that compose them -- drastically reduce waste, significantly improve efficiency, and summarily revolutionize the way solar cells are produced, as well as how they perform.

...The technology is different from typical solar cell production in that it precisely prints the relatively inexpensive chalcopyrite compound, or CIGS, directly on film as thin as one or two microns -- and it does this without losing much energy, or wasting much of the element compound. Traditional solar technology, on the other hand, involves the use of more expensive compounds that are deposited using processes such as vapor phase deposition, which is very inefficient and ends up wasting most of the element compound.

"Some of the materials we want to work with for the most advanced solar cells, such as indium, are relatively expensive," noted Chang. "If that's what you're using, you can't really afford to waste it, and the inkjet approach almost eliminates the waste."

Besides being highly efficient and easy to produce, inkjet technology opens the door for the greatly expanded use of solar systems in building materials like roofing shingles, windows, and other surfaces exposed to regular sunlight -- the possibilities are endless.....

For the full article vist: http://www.naturalnews.com/032856_solar_cells_inkjet_printing.html#ixzz1QtR277II

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This in combination possibly with non-rare-earth metal solar technology and you have dirt cheap solar!