Word: pollens
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Most people don't think of winter as an allergy season. But if you're allergic to dust--or more accurately the mold, pollen, mites and insect parts that linger in dust--winter can be the worst time of year. When the furnace kicks on, all the dust that has settled into your carpet, atop the bookshelves and under the couch gets stirred up and wreaks havoc with your eyes, nose, sinuses and throat...
...science take hold, opponents warn darkly, and farmers could find themselves coming to Monsanto, seed cup in hand, paying whatever the company demands before they can plant that season's crop. Worse still, some doomsday scenarios suggest, pollen from Terminator plants could drift with the wind like a toxic cloud, cross with ordinary crops or wild plants, and spread from species to species until flora all around the world had been suddenly and irreversibly sterilized...
Despite the doomsday alarms being sounded by environmentalists, genetic engineers at Monsanto argue that there is no real risk of pollen from Terminator plants causing widespread sterilization in other plants--and they're probably right. Gene drift does occur, but nature doesn't make it easy. Many crops, like rice, are mostly self-pollinated. As for crops that are pollinated by wind or insects, precautions like planting border fields to keep crops isolated help confine genes. What's more, crops tend to mature at the same time--sending out a great puff of pollen all at once--while wild plants...
Passing Quincy, Prescott and Felton Streets while walking eastbound, much of the old Cambridge splendor surfaces. Victorian houses protrude to the edge of the street, and torrents of tree pollen and flowers cascade from the Dogwood trees...
Relief will come, eventually. If this really is, as they say, the worst El Nino in 100 years, chances are that when the next one arrives, the pollen--and the sneezing--won't be nearly...