Some recent excerpts from the enjoyable Bad Things blog: http://badthings.blogspot.com/

EXCERPT FROM THE EXCERPTS: 'Harry Cline, an ag. columnist whose brain exploded when confronted with the idea that biotech wasn't necessarily the best thing ever, gets excited -- six-pack of Viagra excited -- when the OCA calls him a "biotech bully." His only response is to call them socialists. And "out-of-staters." Agribusiness: it's the new red-baiting! [Western Farm Press]'
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Monday, August 02, 2004

The external review of the Berkeley-Syngenta/Novartis agreement concludes that it was a bad idea... Also, acccording to the Daily Cal, Ignacio Chapela's tenure review was "highly irregular." No kidding.
http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=15730

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

NEWSFLASH: gene expression is complicated
Carlborg and Haley, "Epistasis: Too often Neglected in Complex Trait Studies?" Nature Reviews Genetics 5 (2004), 618-625. Abstract:

...Epistasis is a fancy way of saying that multiple genes affect individual traits. I would argue that it is in part an intuitive grasp of this fact that makes people uncomfortable with the currently rather crude techniques of genetic engineering. There's more going on in the genome than 1 gene = 1 trait, and throwing foreign DNA at it and hoping something sticks (the fancy word for that is "microprojectile bombardment") seems like a good way to fuck up something more complicated than you understand. I'm just saying.
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/Dynapage.taf?file=/nrg/journal/v5/n8/abs/nrg1407_fs.html

the farming news

Alan Guebert takes John Cassidy's New Yorker article on free trade and applies the factor-price equalization theorem to the WTO ag. subsidy negotiations:

This is important, because--all things being equal--in a world of conflicting trade, "trade between them (in this case, Brazil and the US) will reduce wages in the high-paying country and increase wages in the low-paying country until, eventually, workers in both places end up making the same amount."

By the way, the going rate for a skilled Brazilian farm laborer is $6 a day. In China, it�s $1.75 a day. In India, it�s $1 a day.
[By the way, the average U.S. farmworker wage is currently $8.58/hr., so I guess we don't have much to fear from Brazil.]

Then he talks to a friend with Roundup-Ready corn volunteers in his soybean field. The only problem is he never planted Roundup-Ready corn. Guebert consistently produces the most interesting thing you can can read about farming in America.

On the other hand, there's poor Harry Cline, a columnist for Western Farm Press, who freaks out when confronted with a (slightly wacky, stupidly ad hom.) e-mailer who doubts the march of corporate biotech progress. Watch the carnage as worlds collide!

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

towel thrown

Sorry everyone, I kind of shot my wad on the wheat genome this morning: still, I would like to point out: the death of Roxanne's and impending doom in Bordeaux.

I also wanted to point out this news item [Honolulu Advertiser]:

After weighing the arguments, U.S. District Judge David Ezra ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify where four companies have received permits for open-field testing of pharmaceutical crops in Hawai'i and to reveal the locations to the environmental watchdog group Earthjustice and the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit that challenges food production technologies.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Aug/05/ln/ln07a.html

Plus, more Chapela tenure-battle details from Nature:

As the senate continues its inquiry, Chapela is hoping for a second tenure review. He has also filed two claims that may precede a lawsuit. In April, he accused the university of discrimination, saying that he was denied tenure because he is Hispanic. Early last month, he claimed he was victimized by the university for speaking out against the Syngenta deal.
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v430/n7000/full/430598a_fs.html

Monday, August 30, 2004

in the news

Birth of the Chez Panisse curriculum [Chron]; more competition for Monsanto [St. L. P.-D.];
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/Business/story/84AE92C6C7D4562586256EFD0038D79E?OpenDocument&Headline=Monsanto's+rivals+want+a+bigger+piece+of+biotech+crop+pie&highlight=2%2CRACHEL%2CMELCER

Harry Cline, an ag. columnist whose brain exploded when confronted with the idea that biotech wasn't necessarily the best thing ever, gets excited -- six-pack of Viagra excited -- when the OCA calls him a "biotech bully." His only response is to call them socialists. And "out-of-staters." Agribusiness: it's the new red-baiting! [Western Farm Press]
http://westernfarmpress.com/news/8-27-04-column-new-bully/