Eric Holt Gimenez: We Already Grow Enough Food For 10 Billion People -- and Still Can't End Hunger A new a study from McGill University and the University of Minnesota published in the journal Nature compared organic and conventional yields from 66 studies and over 300 trials. Researchers found that on average, conventional systems out-yielded organic farms by 25 percent — mostly for grains, and depending on conditions. Embracing the current conventional wisdom, the authors argue for a combination of conventional and organic farming to meet “the twin challenge of feeding a growing population, with rising demand for meat and high-calorie diets, while simultaneously minimizing its global environmental impacts.” Unfortunately, neither the study nor the conventional wisdom addresses the real cause of hunger. Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity. For the past two decades, the rate of global food production has increased faster than the rate of global population growth. But what about the contentious “yield gap” between conventional and organic farming?
Vanishing of the Bees | Documentary Film By Dr. Mercola Honey bees are the angels of agriculture, but they're disappearing at a startling rate in a mysterious phenomenon dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Since 2007, North American honey bees are literally disappearing without a trace. There are no massive dead bee bodies appearing in or around the hives—the bees are simply GONE, bewildering beekeepers and scientists alike.In fact, serious honey bee die-offs have been occurring around the world for the past decade. The U.S. and the U.K. both reported losing a third of their honey bees in 2010. "CCD is one of the signs--the unmistakable signs—that our food system is unsustainable… It's destroying the conditions upon which it depends. The documentary film "Vanishing of the Bees" takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honey bee. Busy as a Bee Honey bees represent one of the matriarchies of the insect kingdom. Why are We Losing Our Bees?
TROM : the reality of me human robot The player provides you with lots of helpful features;it remembers which video you watched and where you were in the video, it streams the videos from vimeo and the buttons to the left change the narrator's voice. You can choose from the following two options:HUMAN - three voices with different accents.ROBOT - text readerSome may prefer the robot voice since it sounds a bit like AI, and it may give you the impression of a distant voice, analyzing the human species from distance;or some may prefer the warm, calm and sentimental voices of the human narrators with different accents which provide some diversity for such a long documentary.The language button for the website (left menu) will change the subtitle of the documentary as well if it exists, for example: if the documentary has been translated to Romanian and you choose Romanian for the website language the Romanian subtitle will be to added to the player as well. infoon the webwebsitehelp usnoticebehind tromcontact
Amazing Video Shows All Roads, Air, and Shipping Routes on Earth Like Never Before! We're Crawling All Over This Thing 'Welcome to the Anthropocene' is a short film produced for the Planet Under Pressure conference (see below), and at the heart of it is a beautiful animation produced by Globaïa. It shows just how much humans are changing the Earth, and how our roads and shipping lanes basically cover the whole thing. We've all seen that composite picture of the planet at night showing all the lights from our cities, but this goes one step further and is, in my opinion, much more impressive. Above is the animation on its own (watch it in HD and full screen!), and below is the final product, with narration and some overlaid graphs (they distract a bit from the beauty of the animation, but they add a big educational factor -- I couldn't decide which was better, so I'm including both): They're not just making stuff up to make it look good. For more details, go to the very nice official website of the project: Anthropocene.info
10 Lesser Known Economic Issues Politics While not an economist in the traditional sense, I am very interested in the study of economics. While not everyone shares this level of interest, I believe people should have an understanding of economics as the field is so important to understanding the world that we live in. Though this list contains ideas that are controversial, it is not intended to promote anger or controversy. Rather, these entries were chosen to shed some light on lesser known, yet important economic issues facing our world, and give readers something to ponder. Also known as the Diamond-Water Paradox, the paradox of value is the contradiction that while water is more useful, in terms of survival, than diamonds, diamonds get a higher market price. This paradox can possibly be explained by the Subjective Theory of Value, which says that worth is based on the wants and needs of a society, as opposed to value being inherent to an object. Khazzoom–Brookes Postulate Economics has many categories for “goods”.
Learn 40 Languages for Free: Spanish, English, Chinese & More How to learn languages for free? This collection features lessons in 48 languages, including Spanish, French, English, Mandarin, Italian, Russian and more. Download audio lessons to your computer or mp3 player and you’re good to go. Amharic Foreign Service Institute Basic Amharic — Audio — TextbookLessons with dialogues, drills, exercises, and narratives will teach you the basics of this language spoken in Ethiopia. Ancient Greek Ancient Greek Introduction — Web SiteThe UT-Austin Linguistics Research Center provides an overview of Ancient Greek and 10 lessons based on famous Greek texts. Arabic Bookmark our free Arabic lessons section. American Sign Language Introductory American Sign Language Course — YouTubeBy the end of this course you should have a basic bank of ASL words that you are able to use to form simple sentences. Bambara Bambara in Mali — Web SiteLessons from the Peace Corps. Bulgarian Cambodian Catalan Chinese Czech Danish Lao
Ten myths about capitalism Capitalism in the neoliberal version has exhausted itself. Financial sharks do not want to lose profits, and shift the main burden of debt to the retirees and the poor. A ghost of the “European Spring” is haunting the Old World and the opponents of capitalism explain people how their lives are being destroyed. This is the topic of the article of a Portuguese economist Guilherme Alves Coelho. There is a well-known expression that every nation has the government it deserves. This is not entirely true. There are many ways to handle public opinion, in which the ideology of capitalism has been grounded and brought to the level of myths. Myth 1. The capitalist system will automatically provide wealth to hard-working individuals. Myth 2. Wealth, accumulated in the hands of a minority, sooner or later will be redistributed among all. Myth 3. Capitalist society has no classes, therefore the responsibility for the failures and crises also lies on all and everyone has to pay. Myth 4. Myth 5.
Confessions of a Frustrated Pharmacist by Stuart Lindsey, PharmD. (OMNS, Jan 30, 2012) When an insider breaks ranks with pharmaceutical orthodoxy, it is time to take notice. "Whistleblower" may be an overused term, but the article that follows might be well worth readers' consideration before standing in line for their next prescription refill. - Andrew W. Saul, OMNS Editor I'm a registered pharmacist. I am having a difficult time with my job. How It Started In 1993, I graduated with a BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of New Mexico. One would think that someone who is an active part of the emergency room staff might find that an interesting statistic. Pecking Order The traditional role of the pharmacist in mainstream medicine is subordinate to the doctor. The training that I received to become a PharmD motivated me to become more interested in these treatment outcomes. Wrong Drug; Wrong Disease These drugs are likely to cause magnesium deficiency, among other problems. Reliability or Bias? Flashy Pharma Ads 1. 6. 7.