Illumination 2.0

Is your orange juice full of weed killer? No. Who is making that claim, and should you be concerned? Five years ago we all were treated to data claiming that corn was not corn. More precisely, genetically engineered corn was actually a concoction of chemistry that it could not be remotely biological. According to the source, it was lacking carbon, but was packed full of glyphosate and formaldehyde (which are carbon based). It also had a substantially lower “cation exchange capacity” than its non-GMO equivalent, which is odd, because that’s a soil test, and not one done on corn. But it sure had it. Whatever it was. The data seemed weird because they were. They were fake. Manufactured. Pure bullshit. From the people that make up data or don’t publish in real journals, more chemophobia. The table was a soil test template festooned with made-up values by Moms Across America, a twisted group of food fearmongers that used the falsified data to stoke alarm among consumers....

Huber's Mystery Organism In January of 2011 Dr. Don M. Huber, formerly of Purdue University, wrote a warning letter to US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.  He wrote of a dangerous organism, new to science, that had invaded U.S. agriculture.  It destroyed crops, killed livestock, and caused tremendous harm to human health. It was directly linked to genetically engineered crops and the herbicide Roundup. In November of 2013 I watched him speak to an audience of concerned people that audibly gasped when he showed pictures of the organism's devastating effects. People shook their heads in disgust.  At the same meeting I offered to sequence the DNA of the new organism he had isolated, only to have him say that it was already being done by collaborators in China and that it would be published shortly.  Then he said that it had no genetic material.  He was not counting on someone to be in the audience that could call him on his bullshit.  Almost ...

Misuse of scheduling tools leads to profound inefficiencies The first time I told a female co-worker that I needed her to respond to my Doodle Poll I was reported for harassment. Time would reveal that this hazardous homophone was simply an attempt at efficient time management. If I had a dollar for every Doodle Poll that I receive I’d probably get about six bucks a week. The email arrives inquiring about my availability, and then I click the link and hold my breath — will it be an efficient way of synchronizing a group meeting, or will I spend the next 30 minutes gazing at calendars and clicking on boxes? For those of us that want to do our jobs, meetings can be a chore. Don’t use scheduling tools to make it a chore to schedule a chore. The following are my tips for constructing an efficient Doodle Poll: Provide Just a Few Options.  It is a nightmare to have to stare at a jillion poll options, scrolling from day to day, cross referencing against my calendar, ...

After sending a complaint to Bertolli after putting their Non-GMO Olive Oil (all olive oil is non-GMO) back on the shelf, my friends at Bertolli kindly returned a message.  It is all a marketing decision.  It is pandering to the lowest common intellectual denominator and driving sales with fear-based advertising.   I won't be playing along.  Selling out honesty and ethics to take advantage of the chronically misinformed is not something I support, and not a company I will support with my dollars. 

I ran out of olive oil.  I buy the stuff by the gallon usually, but my local grocery store had some 500 ml bottles on sale for $9.89, but buy-one-get-one-free, so 1 liter of olive oil for about ten bucks. Not too bad. It was Bertolli brand.  I put it in my cart and then I saw it-- the Non-GMO Project label, the label that certified that no GMO olives were used in the preparation of the oil.  They are telling the truth because there are no genetically engineered olives, so all olive oil is "non-GMO" .  So I put back the Bertolli product and instead got a liter of Colavita olive oil for about forty cents more. Neither features the butterfly of credulity.  Instead of a product that sports fear-based marketing to science-hostile interests, I bought a liter of general purpose olive oil for cooking and a liter of a higher quality oil for special applications. It gets much worse.  The Bertolli website features six products under "olive oils". ...

In a campaign that The Food Babe would be proud of, a group of attorneys have filed a class action lawsuit against LaCroix.  The claim is that the ingredients are not natural and that they are components of roach killer.  It is the 2018 equivalent to Vani Hari's misrepresentation that Subway's bread was made up of yoga mat chemicals. Remember that one?  Ah, simpler times.  The ever-credulous media was quick to amplify the story.  Without any critical analysis, the internet amplifies the sensational report.   The attorneys claim that LaCroix contains linalool and limonene, two components of "cockroach insecticide".   It does, and it is.  But was is linalool?    It sounds like a medical tool on the Three Stooges, but it really is the characteristic flavor of Froot Loops cereal.  It is a naturally-occurring volatile compound in fruits that imparts a fruity, floral note in fruit aroma.   What is Li...

How thalidomide created birth defects was a 60-year mystery.  Until now. New insight into its use in cancer therapies also. This week's podcast  is a great interview with Dr. Kathleen Donovan from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.