General

Hold the front page! Genetically modified canola (rapeseed to less sensitive souls) has been “found growing in North Dakota”. According to Nature not one but two types — one from Monsanto and one from Bayer — were found “at large distances from areas of agricultural production”. Better yet, researchers discovered some plants that carried both [...]

Odd things sometimes happen when the train is a little late and you get to hear two Ted talks back to back, in the order you downloaded them. You get to see Carl Safina identifying the real reasons for “accidental” oil spills: corporations that have bought government out from under us. And you get to [...]

Almost a month after I decapitated the magic frangipani, signs of life. Four or five of the axillary buds have swelled and given forth tiny little leaves. Is there enough time left for it to build up its reserves for another hard winter?

Colleen spotted this great flickr set of new logos for BP. Personally, I think the company will bounce back. After it all, it was only BP’s calamity that brought the Exxon Valdez back into the news, and all of us who swore we’d never buy Esso again slowly forgot our pledges. Kinda stupid putting all [...]

Long-time readers will doubtless be wondering what has become of my beloved magic frangipani. The news, alas, is not good. I noticed some time ago that it wasn’t flourishing. Some kind of soft rot seemed to be attacking the smaller shoots. I cut off the worst bits, and hoped that the rest would now sprout. [...]

Thanks to my friend Jacob, who, with a throwaway “No mention of Disney stickers“, pointed me to a press release about a fascinating study. Barbara J. Rolls and her graduate student Maureen Spill watched preschoolers at a daycare centre having lunch. On three days there was a first course of carrots; 30 grams, 60 grams [...]

Unable to decide, this fine Mayday morning, I give you both. However, let this not be a mere indulgence. Let it be an opportunity for self-improvement. Note, for example, that the pelf on which the weak and base fix their minds is “money or wealth, esp. when regarded with contempt or acquired by reprehensible means”. [...]

Annals of Important Research: An Economist blog post alerts me to a study that has apparently roiled the blogosphere, and that I slept through. Elmo can make broccoli attractive to children. Bottom line: [I]n the control group (no characters on either food) 78 percent of children participating in the study chose a chocolate bar over [...]

I would vote for a baboon if it showed any sign of taking “the environment” in general and farming in particular seriously. But no baboons are standing, and I can’t recall any of the party leaders mentioning either “the environment” or agriculture in the build-up to the forthcoming election. Colin Tudge throws away his vote. [...]

I loathe that lazy journalistic trope of using a dictionary definition — either real or, in the very worst cases , made-up — to set the tone for a story. So I’m going to embrace my loathing and argue that the Nestle kerfuffle, as documented so very brilliantly at Prezi, represents no more than “a [...]

Having decided seriously to jump the Quicken ship, I downloaded trial versions of four of my five original contenders (cutting out Money because it didn’t obviously do anything about split transactions, which are a must). First impressions: iBank is slick, possibly too slick for its own good. Even though it is more expensive than the [...]