Device Watch A scientist’s journey from devout GMO believer to skeptic | The Organic & Non-GMO Report By Ken Roseboro Published: February 28, 2014 Category: Food Health Risks Belinda Martineau, Ph.D. “There are many imprecise aspects of genetic engineering, many related to our very incomplete knowledge about genetics and genomics. That is why regulation of every product of this technology should be required and why they should be labeled.” To access all the articles in this month's issue of The Organic & Non-GMO Report, SUBSCRIBE NOW. GM tomato developer is now skeptical about the promises of GM foods Belinda Martineau, Ph.D. was a genetic engineer who helped develop the world’s first commercially available genetically engineered whole food, the Flavr Savr™ tomato. Belinda now works in academic research. Tell me about your involvement in developing the Flavr Savr genetically modified tomato. What led the Flavr Savr team to promote and label the tomato as GM? What caused the failure of the Flavr Savr tomato in the marketplace? What led you to become skeptical about GM foods?
Mental Health Watch Monsanto Declares a Sneaky Social Media War Against Protesters | The thing that was very strange about this is that, at the bottom, you can see, it only got 67 views nearly 14 hours after I posted it. The posts that I shared above and below it all had hundreds of views. I asked some friends to check their timelines, and this particular post did not show up. They had to actually go to the page and look for it to find it tucked in near the bottom. If I hadn’t heard from Tami Canal, the driving force behind the March Against Monsanto’s Facebook page , I would have thought it was merely a fluke. But mysterious things have been happening there as well. “Events are disappearing, posts are being put on city event pages that say events are cancelled. Monsanto has openly carried on an internet war with anti-GMO activists for years. “…’think of the Internet as a weapon on the table. Unfortunately, Facebook seems to have the back of the trolls. Keep calm and don’t allow yourself to be provoked on Saturday. Don’t expect Monsanto to play fair.
Debunkatron University of Michigan - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - John Vandermeer Fields of study Ecology, theoretical ecology, tropical ecology, agroecology Academic background Ph.D., University of Michigan; Post Doc, University of Chicago; Faculty member at U-M since 1971. Graduate students Omar Bonilla, Naim Edwards, Paul Glaum, Aaron Iverson, Beatriz Otero Jimeniz, Lizette Ramirez, Mariana Valencia-Mestre, Theresa Wei Ying Ong, Senay Yitbarek UM affiliations Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Center for the Study of Complex Systems Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics School of Natural Resources and Environment Latin American and Caribbean Studies American Studies Passing on the chair baton from Goldberg to Vandermeer After a successful 12 years as EEB chair, Professor Deborah Goldberg has officially passed the baton to Professor John Vandermeer for the 2013-2014 academic year. UROP Outstanding Poster Award to Hajian-Forooshani Zach Hajian-Forooshani won the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Outstanding Poster Award. Welcome ED-QUE2ST students!
Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia The Tomato That Ate Calgene From Chapter 10: The Tomato That Ate Calgene Calgene could have been a tidy little research operation, and it might even have made money. It had a fine scientific reputation, and partners with deep pockets, from Procter & Gamble to Rhone-Poulenc, the French chemical giant. Calgene sometimes seemed like a playground masquerading as a company. Driving things forward with restless energy, and scant attention to inconvenient details, was Roger Salquist, a charismatic former submarine commander in the US Navy. Salquist had a fine story to tell Wall Street. But those were not the stories that made investorsí mouths water, or convinced them to reach for their checkbooks.
Skeptical Raptor's Blog Metabunk Morgellons Watch Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research? Advances in agricultural technology—including, but not limited to, the genetic modification of food crops—have made fields more productive than ever. Farmers grow more crops and feed more people using less land. They are able to use fewer pesticides and to reduce the amount of tilling that leads to erosion. And within the next two years, agritech companies plan to introduce advanced crops that are designed to survive heat waves and droughts, resilient characteristics that will become increasingly important in a world marked by a changing climate. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers. To purchase genetically modified seeds, a customer must sign an agreement that limits what can be done with them. Research on genetically modified seeds is still published, of course.