Illumination 2.0

Over the last few days the emails have been coming in.  Notes of thanks and congratulations have arrived from all over the state, the nation and the world for publicly exposing Don Huber and his magic organism as fiction.  To recap, I saw him speak live, asked him to share the organism so we could sequence it, and then watched him pirouette through painfully awkward nonsense.  When I get some time I'll post the live audio here. I'm quite uncomfortable here.  Not for throwing someone under the bus for spreading misinformation, rather, that this was just the most recent salvo in an ongoing call-out of Dr. Huber and his mystery pathogen.  The story really starts long ago with efforts over on Biofortified. The criticism against Huber has been rich at Biofortified.org.  My recent foray is simply an extension of previous efforts.  Anastasia Bodnar blogged about this almost three years ago .  Karl Haro Von Mogel spoke with Huber for two hours by phone, two years ago.  When

This is the beginning of the end of this particular sad tale of fear mongering and misinformation. Anti-GMO darling Dr. Don M Huber is on a tour of the Sunshine State, giving two talks in Tallahassee and one in Gainesville.  In Tallahassee he got a rock-star's welcome with coverage on the news describing how dangerous GMO food is, and a meeting with politicians.  On my calendar November 12 had a big red circle on it for some time. Huber was in town tonight to tell his story of poison food and deadly new organisms.  I went with one of my favorite organic & sustainable extension/research faculty and had a GREAT time. I never saw Huber's whole shtick.  It starts out about the failures of biotech and the crisis and danger from glyphosate.  A lot more on the details of his talk later.  Seriously, it was a science abortion. A significant portion of the presentation addressed his mystery organism.  He allegedly has identified this novel not-quite-a-virus, not-quite-a-fungus

It's late at the end of a four-day weekend here in Florida and I need a little pity-party.  If accusations could be believed I would be heading home from my Monsanto-funded weekend in Fiji, a little payback for my defense of biotechnology.  Hardly. It is a holiday and I just want to go home from my stupid desk. Frankly, I've had the crap kicked out of me by the anti-GM movement.  I have no ambition to fight anti-science at the moment.  I had the same garbage-gasm after Prop37 died.  What a waste of time and energy. It's 9 pm on Veteran's Day.  I could eat a baby's butt through a park bench.  UF has not been "open" since Thursday at 5 pm because of homecoming, yet over the last four days I went downstate and met with citrus packers, fixed an autoclave and a centrifuge (all parts paid out of pocket), and spent time with the scientists and students that came to lab all weekend. Personally, 12 hours ago I left home when the wife went out on a bike ride w

The anti-GMO movement is corrupt in that it does not change minds with hard evidence, it changes them with fear.  It uses the most powerfully motivating emotion to drive an intellectually bankrupt agenda. In the West, what are our biggest fears? We don't worry about where our next meal is coming from, the well being of our farming industries, or if everyone has enough to eat.  We worry about our personal health, about obesity, degenerative disease, or cancer.  We worry about increasing prevalence of disorders like autism, allergies, asthma, Alzheimer's disease. These are the fears in the industrialized world.  Knowing this, opponents of biotechnology will play off of those fears.  Look at their rhetoric.  Transgenic technologies cause every problem known to man.  As you can see, we never had any of these problems before the use of GM foods. Stay hot Jeff!   from Genetic Roulette China is home to 1.2 billion people and growing. They grow plenty of GM cotton,

*** NOTE- I prepared this blog entry a month ago after returning from Kauai, the day after I posted the angry messages I received, but neglected to post it.  I really regret that because this was meant to be the contrast to the anger.  This one is about the kind side and a common goal.*** As I watched the island of Kauai disappear in the airplane window I was a little sad at what I left behind.  It is a beautiful place with wonderful people for and against biotech-- for and against Ordinance 2491.  The companies brought me out there because I reach out and try to talk about the science.  When you reach out softly, you can't be surprised when someone kindly reaches back. This picture from the day of the public hearing speaks volumes. You can't tell if the Rivera bothers are arm wrestling or shaking hands from both sides of the issue. Do any of us know?  In reality, we just don't want either one to lose.  photo credit: Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island (Hi Fern!)

I would not believe it if it did not happen to me.  I get an email, out of the blue, that makes zero sense. Even though I have no idea about what this is, I don't hesitate to invite myself for lunch and talk about trees... So Sue writes me back, looks like lunch time!! She then calls me and it turns out that she's at a conference down the street and there's an opportunity to network with a palm breeder.  He's bred new types of palms high in healthful oils, but they can't grow them in Florida because it is too cold.  These are equatorial trees with no cold tolerance. Still, maybe there's some cool tricks we could do to make it work here. Unfortunately I had to decline because lunch was scheduled for 12:30, but was delayed because the conference was running late. I had an errand to run and then be at a graduate student orientation meeting at 1 pm. I was driving on my way to the errand when my phone rings.  It was Sue, and it turns out that t

Beware.  The underhanded elements of the anti-GM world are now impersonating scientists and companies in the electronic media. A few weeks ago I received a frantic email from a plant scientist I know needing advice.  I'll give details soon. In general, he was the organizer for a plant biology conference where transgenic (GMO) plants were part of the discussion.  Activists bought a URL similar to the conference URL, then sent emails using a corresponding email account, using his name in an attempt to defame him. They wrote fraudulent emails with harmful content.  The idea was to cause harm to his reputation and the conference. Several emails were sent that may impact his career, and certainly they have caused him substantial grief.  Poor guy.  He's a good guy with a great family and wonderful students.  Yet there are those out there that want to hurt him and damage his career. Today a website showed up on the internet at www.monsantoglobal.com .  This site is a direct mo