Word: bt
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Approved by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1996, so-called Bt corn has become enormously popular with farmers, and now accounts for up to 25% of the U.S. corn crop, or about 20 million acres. By splicing DNA from the common soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the corn's genes, scientists have created a plant that turns out the same toxin as the bug. While the toxin is deadly to the corn borer, which costs U.S. growers more than $1 billion annually, it is harmless to humans--as well as to such beneficial insects as ladybugs and honeybees. Indeed, organic...
...blown far enough to affect monarch habitats. But it was just such a discovery--of pollen-dusted milkweed 200 ft. from the edge of cornfields--that prompted Losey's study in the first place. Says he: "We asked ourselves, 'What would happen if the milkweed would be dusted with Bt [corn pollen]?'" His experiments quickly gave an answer: within four days, 44% of monarch larvae placed on the dusted leaves were dead, while controls survived unscathed...
...seems be an inevitable law of nature: For every action there is some reaction. The big question is always, how good or bad is the reaction? For some time, the reaction to a genetically engineered type of corn called Bt corn was thought to be very good, since it produced a natural toxin that killed corn borers, and allowed farmers to forgo the use of insecticides. On Thursday, however, a Cornell University laboratory study published in the journal Nature announced some bad news: The corn produces a wind-borne pollen that can kill monarch butterflies if they ingest...
...travel far enough to nearby fields of milkweed, the monarch?s food source, in significantly harmful quantities? Some other questions: Does the pollen travel during the same period that the monarchs feed on the milkweed? How much milkweed is near cornfields as opposed to other areas? And can Bt corn be modified further? Clearly the Cornell study has flashed an amber light, but before it turns to red, says Bjerklie, "more investigation is needed." For the moment, he reports, "most plant and insect ecologists believe this will turn out to be a solvable problem." The findings, though, are yet another...
Also, if you are going to any parties (which I don't do, because they reek...), bring along BT's "Believer," a song which puts the "rave" back in "techno." And of course, no hip soundtrack is allowed on the shelves without a fresh new number from Fatboy Slim, in this case not-even-the-best-on-his-album "Gangster Tripping." Other highlights include Natalie Imbruglia's somber "Troubled by the Way We Came Together" and Goldo's "To All the Lovely Ladies." The Go soundtrack don't impress me much, but is nonetheless fun stuff. Like the movie...