Word: mosaicism
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Viruses often cause massive failure in staple crops in developing countries. Two years ago, Africa lost more than half its cassava crop--a key source of calories--to the mosaic virus. Genetically modified, virus-resistant crops can reduce that damage, as can drought-tolerant seeds in regions where water shortages limit the amount of land under cultivation. Biotech can also help solve the problem of soil that contains excess aluminum, which can damage roots and cause many staple-crop failures. A gene that helps neutralize aluminum toxicity in rice has been identified...
...month Return Fund Name Since Inception 2nd-year return Mosaic Focus 44.25% -8.08% Rydex Ret. Inv. 35.4% -1.51% Papp Focus 29.76% -0.54% DLB Growth...
...violence. The safety and lockdown measures being taken in public schools are absurd and infringe on a student's already limited privacy. As for the "warning signs," isn't it a clear indication of danger when someone states that he has plans to kill another student? The profiling system, Mosaic, could forever cast an eight-year-old as a troublemaker, even if his crime were only drawing an armed stick figure. Friends would stay away from him, crippling any social life he might have. What a system. DAVID SEAMAN, age 14 Crownsville...
Many civil libertarians have a more pressing concern. They fear the program will single out or profile students who are simply maladjusted but not menacing. And because schools use Mosaic to study kids without their knowledge, they may never know they are under suspicion. De Becker says Mosaic is not used for what he calls "the p word"--profiling--but rather for "threat assessment." Students, he says, are not examined unless they single themselves out by making a threat. But in today's anxious classrooms, threats are often defined broadly. Phyllis Hodges, an assistant principal at Chicago's Von Steuben...
Tales like that have begun to sway some policymakers. Last week the office of California Governor Gray Davis issued a report urging schools to proceed with caution on Mosaic, and other such programs. The U.S. Education Department is backing away from the checklist of warning signs it sent to every school in the nation in 1998. In a mass mailing this week, the department declares that relying on such lists can "harm children and waste resources." Instead, it counsels teachers and parents to use the much lower-tech and more labor-intensive approach of keeping their eyes and ears alert...