Eric Holt Gimenez: We Already Grow Enough Food For 10 Billion People -- and Still Can't End Hunger A new a study from McGill University and the University of Minnesota published in the journal Nature compared organic and conventional yields from 66 studies and over 300 trials. Researchers found that on average, conventional systems out-yielded organic farms by 25 percent — mostly for grains, and depending on conditions. Embracing the current conventional wisdom, the authors argue for a combination of conventional and organic farming to meet “the twin challenge of feeding a growing population, with rising demand for meat and high-calorie diets, while simultaneously minimizing its global environmental impacts.” Unfortunately, neither the study nor the conventional wisdom addresses the real cause of hunger. Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity. For the past two decades, the rate of global food production has increased faster than the rate of global population growth. But what about the contentious “yield gap” between conventional and organic farming?
Does Pot Cause Mental Decline? A new study casts doubt on previous research linking early marijuana use to drops in IQ. WIKIMEDIA, BOGDAN GIUSCAA study claiming that pot use in youth has long-term cognitive effects is being challenged. The original study, published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that smoking marijuana as a teenager may be associated with IQ declines by middle age. The new study, published in the same journal on Monday (January 14), said that IQ declines were likely a product of socioeconomic status, Nature reported. “Although it would be too strong to say that the results have been discredited, the methodology is flawed and the causal inference drawn from the results premature,” Ole Røgeberg, the sole author of the new study and an economist at The Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo, wrote in the paper. Other research has shown that in the short-term, marijuana use is related to reversible problems with memory and focus.
Vanishing of the Bees | Documentary Film By Dr. Mercola Honey bees are the angels of agriculture, but they're disappearing at a startling rate in a mysterious phenomenon dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Since 2007, North American honey bees are literally disappearing without a trace. There are no massive dead bee bodies appearing in or around the hives—the bees are simply GONE, bewildering beekeepers and scientists alike.In fact, serious honey bee die-offs have been occurring around the world for the past decade. The U.S. and the U.K. both reported losing a third of their honey bees in 2010. "CCD is one of the signs--the unmistakable signs—that our food system is unsustainable… It's destroying the conditions upon which it depends. The documentary film "Vanishing of the Bees" takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honey bee. Busy as a Bee Honey bees represent one of the matriarchies of the insect kingdom. Why are We Losing Our Bees?
Farmers hope to plow the way for sustainable U.S. hemp A couple months ago, I asked if industrial hemp would make a resurgence thanks to new legalization and cultural acceptance of cannabis. A real hemp industry could be as much as 10 times bigger than legal marijuana, which is already a potentially $1 billion industry in Washington and $200 million in Colorado. But back in November, farmers were a little skittish. “Yes yes, the U.S. is the biggest consumer of hemp which is pretty damn sustainable compared to other fibers and grows relatively easily without a bunch of pesticides, but the federal government is crazy and they’re giving us so much money for all this corn!” Still, some farmers, like Michael Bowman in Colorado, are determined to cultivate the evil plant. Efforts to plant this seed aren’t just relegated to Washington and Colorado, with their newly legal marijuana. In Kentucky, the hemp-growing capital of the post-prohibition era, legislators are backing an initiative that would put cannabis back in the ground.
TROM : the reality of me human robot The player provides you with lots of helpful features;it remembers which video you watched and where you were in the video, it streams the videos from vimeo and the buttons to the left change the narrator's voice. You can choose from the following two options:HUMAN - three voices with different accents.ROBOT - text readerSome may prefer the robot voice since it sounds a bit like AI, and it may give you the impression of a distant voice, analyzing the human species from distance;or some may prefer the warm, calm and sentimental voices of the human narrators with different accents which provide some diversity for such a long documentary.The language button for the website (left menu) will change the subtitle of the documentary as well if it exists, for example: if the documentary has been translated to Romanian and you choose Romanian for the website language the Romanian subtitle will be to added to the player as well. infoon the webwebsitehelp usnoticebehind tromcontact
Hemp Gets The Green Light In New Colorado Pot Measure hide captionHemp products for sale in Washington, D.C., in 2010. The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of hemp products, although growing hemp is illegal under federal law. Colorado recently passed a measure that legalizes growing hemp. Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images Hemp products for sale in Washington, D.C., in 2010. With recreational marijuana now legal in Colorado, small-scale pot shops will open up soon in places like Denver and Boulder. Why? As plants, marijuana and hemp look related, and they are. That might be news to farmer Michael Bowman's neighbors. Bowman is from Wray, a small town on the eastern Colorado plains. A Wonder Crop? Bowman will plant 100 acres of hemp this spring on his 3,000-acre farm, where the winter wind now whips across barren wheat and corn fields. hide captionDEA Special Agent Paul Roach says federal law does not distinguish between hemp and marijuana. Courtesy Michael Bowman "We think 100 acres is a good number," he says. A Growing Trend
Amazing Video Shows All Roads, Air, and Shipping Routes on Earth Like Never Before! We're Crawling All Over This Thing 'Welcome to the Anthropocene' is a short film produced for the Planet Under Pressure conference (see below), and at the heart of it is a beautiful animation produced by Globaïa. It shows just how much humans are changing the Earth, and how our roads and shipping lanes basically cover the whole thing. We've all seen that composite picture of the planet at night showing all the lights from our cities, but this goes one step further and is, in my opinion, much more impressive. Above is the animation on its own (watch it in HD and full screen!), and below is the final product, with narration and some overlaid graphs (they distract a bit from the beauty of the animation, but they add a big educational factor -- I couldn't decide which was better, so I'm including both): They're not just making stuff up to make it look good. For more details, go to the very nice official website of the project: Anthropocene.info
School of Public Health » HSPH News » Impact of fluoride on neurological development in children July 25, 2012 — For years health experts have been unable to agree on whether fluoride in the drinking water may be toxic to the developing human brain. Extremely high levels of fluoride are known to cause neurotoxicity in adults, and negative impacts on memory and learning have been reported in rodent studies, but little is known about the substance’s impact on children’s neurodevelopment. In a meta-analysis, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and China Medical University in Shenyang for the first time combined 27 studies and found strong indications that fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children. Based on the findings, the authors say that this risk should not be ignored, and that more research on fluoride’s impact on the developing brain is warranted. The study was published online in Environmental Health Perspectives on July 20, 2012. * This sentence was updated on September 5, 2012. Read a September 2012 statement by the authors.