Illumination 2.0

The discussions around agricultural technologies, especially herbicides, are nuanced and complex.  So if someone gets the basic information completely wrong, why would you trust them?  Such is the case of a Minority Staff Report prepared for congressional members of the Committee for Science, Space and Technology.  That's right, these are the same folks that extol the realities of anthropogenic climate change, now "preparing" a document that has activist fingerprints all over it.  It is a lot of the same-old same-old conspiracy nonsense-- that herbicide science is a corporate scam where regulators are paid dupes and all of the scientists in the world are corporate liars.  The scientists that make D.O.A. claims that are not supported by ggood science are not described as inept or soft, instead they are heroes, slienced by a well-organized corporate machine.  The whole thing is embarassing, and a reason why I'll never write a check to the Democratic Par...

This week I had the honor of speaking at the Annual Postdoctoral Career Symposium at the Texas Medical Center.  I'm not sure if that's what it is actually called, but this place in Houston features medical schools associated with Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M Medical, Rice University, University of Texas Medical School, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston Methodist Research Hospital, and University of Houston.   Such concentrations of research also are anointed with a concentration of postdoctoral researchers.  Postdocs can easily become a lost class in any university.  They don't get the attention  of undergraduate and graduate students and don't enjoy the same access as faculty. Pay is typically awful, and postdocs are running out of time to start families before they transition into a career or old age-- whatever happens first! My mission was an extension of what I do at the University of Florida, give some love and guidance to this und...

The videos released by Stonyfield Organic are patently offensive.  They use children to produce false statements about well-understood scientific topics, which misleads the consumer, but also has potential to harm children.   This has drawn the ire of an increasingly large scientifically adept food and farming community, and many have taken to the Stonyfield Facebook page to voice their discontent.  Ten years ago you would have seen Rob Wager, Prakash, Anastasia, Karl, @mem_somerville and a few others weighing in.  The scientific comments would be buried in a sea of shill accusations from a series of facade accounts (and Ena Valikov). It makes my heart happy to see scientific traction catching on. The comments come from hundreds of people -- farmers, moms, students -- all presenting reasoned rebuttals to Stonyfield's bad science campaign.  And it is changing minds. How do we know? Because the soft, accurate and kind comments are being systematical...

Nick Saik set out to produce a full-length documentary about food and farming technology. Food Evolution did it first, and did it well.  So to avoid a redundant effort Nick is transforming those videos into short features.  Check out his work, and listen to him describe his efforts on this week's podcast. 

The language below is provided by the campaign to defend Britt Hermes. You may know that Britt Hermes, who is an international skeptical campaigner about naturopathy, is currently being sued for defamation. Britt used to be a naturopath herself, but she now spends a lot of time and effort exposing naturopathic practices, including on her blog “Naturopathic Diaries”. She’s been taken to court in Germany by US-based naturopath ‘Dr’ Colleen Huber, who is claiming that Britt has defamed her on her blog. Huber is a critic of chemotherapy and radiation therapy in cancer treatment. Instead, she uses ‘natural’ therapies that include intravenous infusions of vitamin C and baking soda. The international skeptical community is concerned that the case against Britt may have the effect of silencing a major campaigner against unproven and disproven ‘medical’ practices, through the imposition of considerable legal costs. For this reason, the Australian Skeptics have set up...

Do the attack articles really help a cause?  When a scientist is paid by the state and does their vast majority of research from State, Federal and small fruit industry funds, why foment hate against them?  Here's a love letter I got today, and my response.  Do you really hurt your causes by tarnishing the people that work for you, that are paid with your dollars and are working for the greater good? 

Aflatoxin is a potent carcinogen.  It is produced by a fungus that grows readily on corn and peanuts, known in the Developing World as 'groundnuts' (which makes more sense IMHO).  Billions of people suffer from chronic exposure. Dr. Dilip Shah was part of a team at the Danforth Center that created solutions to solve this problem.  On this week's podcast we talk about those solutions, and how they may lead to better health around the world.