Normally I’d be bummed that it’s Monday, but I had the foresight to take today off (which is nice, ‘cuz it’s, like, 4° out there at the moment and it’s only supposed to get up to twenty, which is some twenty degrees below normal). I actually didn’t remember taking today off until last Thursday, when I was going through the calendar looking for days to take off in the coming year (I think I mentioned, I have to burn 19 vacation days and 4 comp days just to avoid losing anything), so that was a pleasant surprise.
As if the news that Donald Trump won’t be running for NY Guv wasn’t sad enough, now comes word that Fred Phelps is on the verge of death. Lucky for him hell is just some made up bullshit meant to scare children (and the intellectually infantile) into submission, or Satan would be whomping up a special place for him right now (an eternity of anal penetration with a hot poker no doubt in store for him).
Much as some part of me would love to protest his funeral carrying a “God Hates Phelps” sign, in the end he really isn’t worth it. May he rot in the ground, just like the rest of us. The sooner the better.
If you need to fly somewhere, well, good luck with that. First there’s that whole missing Malaysia flight (personally, I think it went to some island chop shop, and is currently being sold for parts – though I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually out there flying over the 1939 World’s Fair trying to find Idlewild), then in yet another scene straight out of the Twilight Zone, a gremlin ripped off part of the wing of a Delta 757 headed for Atlanta.
I think I’ll take the train (or better yet, just stay home).
So, it’s St. Patrick’s Day. A day that’s not really a big deal in Ireland, and where they don’t eat corned beef (cabbage, maybe). That’s ‘cuz the goddamn English exported all the beef and the other decent food, leaving nothing but turnips and potatoes. And as we know, when the potatoes turned to shit, a million Irish starved to death and another million emigrated. In fact, by the turn of the century, the population of Ireland was damn near cut in half.
So, anyway, today we celebrate St. Patrick, an Englishman whose great claim to fame was driving the snakes out of Ireland in the fifth century (which sounds like a neat trick, until you realize there weren’t actually any snakes in Ireland to begin with – not for thousands of years, anyway).
Still, Patrick was considered a great man and the Patron Saint of Ireland. Besides the snake thing, he was kidnapped as a kid and forced into slavery in Ireland, then escaped and went back to England and became a priest or whatever they called themselves back in the 400s and then actually came back to Ireland again – which kind of shows a certain lack of common sense in my book, but, hey, who am I to argue?
So, anyway, to all the Irish and Irish at heart, have a happy day. Everybody else, go Phelps yourself.
Seo sláinte an tséitéara, an ghadaí, an trodaí, agus an óltóra!
Má dhéanann tu séitéireacht, go ndéana tú séitéireacht ar an mbás,
Má ghoideann tú, go ngoide tú croí mná;
Má throideann tú, go dtroide tú i leith do bhráthar,
Agus má ólann tú, go n-óla tú liom féin.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Perhaps we’ll have green snowflakes today. It would be a lot better than more of that white stuff. Even better would be some green grass and trees.
It isn’t snowing yet but there’s a line at the birdfeeder so I know something is coming.
http://philly.happeningmag.com/centercity/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/4-leaf-clover.jpg
Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It
One of agricultural biotechnology’s great success stories may become a cautionary tale of how short-sighted mismanagement can squander the benefits of genetic modification.
After years of predicting it would happen — and after years of having their suggestions largely ignored by companies, farmers and regulators — scientists have documented the rapid evolution of corn rootworms that are resistant to Bt corn.
Until Bt corn was genetically altered to be poisonous to the pests, rootworms used to cause billions of dollars in damage to U.S. crops. Named for the pesticidal toxin-producing Bacillus thuringiensis gene it contains, Bt corn now accounts for three-quarters of the U.S. corn crop. The vulnerability of this corn could be disastrous for farmers and the environment.
“Unless management practices change, it’s only going to get worse,” said Aaron Gassmann, an Iowa State University entomologist and co-author of a March 17 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study describing rootworm resistance. “There needs to be a fundamental change in how the technology is used.”
First planted in 1996, Bt corn quickly became hugely popular among U.S. farmers. Within a few years, populations of rootworms and corn borers, another common corn pest, had plummeted across the midwest. Yields rose and farmers reduced their use of conventional insecticides that cause more ecological damage than the Bt toxin.
By the turn of the millennium, however, scientists who study the evolution of insecticide resistance were warning of imminent problems. Any rootworm that could survive Bt exposures would have a wide-open field in which to reproduce; unless the crop was carefully managed, resistance would quickly emerge.
Key to effective management, said the scientists, were refuges set aside and planted with non-Bt corn. Within these fields, rootworms would remain susceptible to the Bt toxin. By mating with any Bt-resistant worms that chanced to evolve in neighboring fields, they’d prevent resistance from building up in the gene pool.
But the scientists’ own recommendations — an advisory panel convened in 2002 by the EPA suggested that a full 50 percent of each corn farmer’s fields be devoted to these non-Bt refuges — were resisted by seed companies and eventually the EPA itself, which set voluntary refuge guidelines at between 5 and 20 percent. Many farmers didn’t even follow those recommendations.
Fast forward to 2009, when Gassmann responded to reports of extensive rootworm damage in Bt cornfields in northeast Iowa. Populations there had become resistant to one of the three Bt corn varieties. (Each variety produces a different type of Bt toxin.) He described that resistance in a 2011 study; around the same time, reports of rootworm-damaged Bt corn came in from parts of Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota. These didn’t represent a single outbreak, but rather the emergence, again and again, of resistance.
In the new paper, Gassmann describes further incidents of Bt resistance in other parts of Iowa. He also found rootworms resistant to a second variety of Bt corn. Moreover, being resistant to one variety heightened the chances of resistance to another. That means corn engineered to produce multiple Bt toxins — so-called stacked varieties — won’t do much to slow the evolution of rootworm resistance, as was originally hoped.
Farmers likely won’t stop using Bt corn, as it’s still effective against other pests — but as rootworms become more resistant, said Gassmann, farmers will turn to insecticides, thus increasing their costs and losing the ecological benefits originally gained by using Bt corn. As entomologists concerned by rootworm resistance wrote to the EPA in 2012, “When insecticides overlay transgenic technology, the economic and environmental advantages of rootworm-protected corn quickly disappear.”
Entomologist Bruce Tabashnik of the University of Arizona called Bt resistance “an increasingly serious problem,” and said that refuge sizes need to be increased dramatically and immediately. He and other scientists have pushed the EPA to double current refuge requirements, but so far without success.
“Biotech companies have successfully lobbied EPA for major reductions in refuge requirements,” said Tabashnik.
Entomologist Elson Shields of Cornell University agrees. “Resistance was caused because the farmers did not plant the required refuges and the companies did not enforce the planting of refuges,” said Shields, who has written that “a widespread increase in trait failure may be just around the corner.”
In addition to increasing refuge sizes, farmers also need to vary the crops planted on their fields, rather than planting corn season after season, said Gassmann. Breaks in the corn cycle naturally disrupt rootworm populations, but the approach fell from favor as the high price of corn made continuous planting appealing. “Continuous corn is the perfect habitat for rootworm,” said Gassmann.
Shields also lamented the difficulty he and other academic scientists long experienced when trying to study Bt corn. Until 2010, after organized objections by entomologists at major agricultural universities forced seed companies to allow outside researchers to study Bt corn, the crop was largely off-limits. Had that not been the case, said Shields, resistance could have been detected even earlier, and perhaps stalled before it threatened to become such a problem.
“Once we had legal access, resistance was documented in a year,” Shields said. “We were seeing failures earlier but were not allowed to test for resistance.”
There’s a lesson to be learned for future crop traits, Shields said. Rootworm resistance was expected from the outset, but the Bt seed industry, seeking to maximize short-term profits, ignored outside scientists. The next pest-fighting trait “will fall under the same pressure,” said Shields, “and the insect will win. Always bet on the insect if there is not a smart deployment of the trait.”
Wow! Are we resistant to Bt corn?
Farewell to Joe Lala.
http://youtu.be/ROU13fY1QHs
:blues: 🙁 :gate:
Here’s a good 35 minute ride.
http://youtu.be/OuphMxyPWeA