Word: cottoning
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Driving into Kutch, I'm unnerved by the devastation on both sides of the highway: the TV images and newspaper pictures didn't prepare me for this mutilated landscape. The epicenter of the earthquake lies in Gujarat's western-most region, where the cotton fields of Saurashtra give way to the dusty plains of the rann, an 18,000-sq-km expanse that once was a marshland on the shores of the Arabian Sea but is now practically desert. The sparse vegetation is more brown than green. This inhospitable terrain is home to the Kutchi people, former nomads renowned...
Memo to Hollywood's leading men: Just because it's a Grisham book doesn't mean there's a part for you. The hero is a seven-year-old boy learning life lessons from his Pappy during a 1952 cotton harvest. This semiautobiographical tale has some class struggle and a pinch of sex, but here the author known for his movie-ready legal thrillers takes time to chill. Too much time, in fact, at 388 pages. But his compassion for his characters is infectious, and the book is finally rewarding--a Sunday sermon from a Friday-night storyteller...
...Listening to Feldstein is akin to listening to Cotton Mather," he quipped...
...proteins and some proteins?those in peanuts, for example?cause allergic reactions. Then there is the problem of "genetic pollution," as opponents of biotechnology term it. Pollen grains from such wind-pollinated plants as corn, for instance, are carried far and wide. The continuing flap over Bt corn and cotton?the gene of a common soil bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis), a natural insecticide, is transferred to the plants?has provided more fodder for the debate. Ecologists are concerned that widespread planting of these crops will spur Bt resistance among crop pests, and Bt is popular with organic farmers...
...That is beginning to happen, although?contrary to expectations?the reports coming in are not that scary. For three years now, University of Arizona entomologist Bruce Tabashnik has been monitoring fields of Bt cotton that farmers have planted in his state. And in this instance at least, he says, "the environmental risks seem minimal, and the benefits seem great." First of all, cotton is self-pollinated rather than wind-pollinated, so that the spread of the Bt gene is of less concern. And because the Bt gene is so effective, he notes, Arizona farmers have reduced their use of chemical...