Illumination 2.0

The story is real.    The names have been changed to protect the innocent from frivolous public records requests. I have a colleague that is one of the world’s experts in food safety.  He is an encyclopedia on foodborne disease.  He knows how to safely handle food.  He understands foodborne toxins. This guy knows about genetic engineering.  In short, if you want to understand food and food risk, you talk to this guy. We’ll call him “Steve”. It was Thanksgiving, 2015, and Steve and his wife joined the family at her mother’s house for a traditional dinner.  Among the family members in attendance was his brother-in-law, an accomplished concert pianist who is widely recognized for his expertise. We’ll call him “Richard”. As the family took their places at the table and began to pass the dishes, Richard took the opportunity to comment on the items on the table. “That turkey is oozing with antibiotics and hormones, you’re crazy if you eat it...

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.  -- Dr. Martin Luther King Dr. King would not be proud of me.  I'm not proud of me. My decision to disappear from an important discussion was made from misery and expediency, pragmatism and convenience. I experienced many pressures to seek silence, from evil people and friends alike. Much of it was being sick of fighting. Some of it was the threats and hate. Much of it was being tired of reading about myself on posts with thousands of likes and shares-- knowing that what I was reading was not true. The time off was valuable in that it taught me to refocus. Teaching the science of agricultural innovations is not going to happen in discussions with Vani Hari, Mike Adams, Nassim Taleb or Jeffery Smith.  These folks have empires built on misinformation, and accepting science harms their brands.  The changes will not come from rehashing tired fables spread by lazy or corrupt journal...

With a most heavy heart I have to report that the recent events have bled into this forum, and I have to suspend communication through this blog.  I'm very touched by all of your interest and support.  Thank you.

Professor Graeme Martin joins Talking Biotech Podcast to talk about the Future Farm 2050 Project. It is a series of innovative ideas to farm more sustainably, and a very interesting interview.

I've always been interested in science and communication, and as time went along always wondered how to meld the two in an interesting and entertaining way.  In fact, in my senior year in college I finished third in the nation in a forensics event-- something called After Dinner Speaking. Here you would convey a serious topic using humor as a vehicle.  I was pretty good at that.  During grad school I was paid to write for stand-up comedians and even wrote greeting cards.  I self-published funny books on pranks and pseudoscience, and wrote a lot of clever work for "fanzines", the pre-internet alternative media. My stuff flew off the racks at a local place called Quimby's Queer Book Store.  Yes, there once were stores that sold books.   As I moved through academic ranks from grad student to professor, my students' reviews always recognized how my use of humor was appropriate and helpful, and creative analogy and colorful tangents reinforced key scienti...

7/12/2019 EDIT --  This was a good idea and was executed well.  Unfortunately the other organizers took umbrag e to my repeated demands to complete the work and dismissed me from the project.  I did initiate drafts of the manuscript back in 2016. It is part of a much bigger falling out.  These folks also decided to use FOIA to obtain internal university documents about confidential professional witness work I was doing for a law firm on my vacation time. They broke my confidentiality, revealing information that was not supposed to be public. It jeopardized  my involvement in a private dispute between two parties, as well as the progression of the arbitration . They have certainly taken every opportunity to impugn my integrity and harm my career, in this and other ways.  Please understand that if I had any pull in this situation I would do everything I could to complete the work as promised. It pains me to not deliver, but I have been dismissed from th...

This week's Talking Biotech features interviews with Dr. Karl Haro von Mogel and our interest in finding 1250 participants to test the hypothesis that wild animals will not eat genetically engineered corn. You can contribute to the effort and/or participate here! The second part interviews Dr. Lee Panella about sugar beet breeding.  We don't think much about sugar beets, but they are important to sugar production and bring good value to farmers.