The Dilemma of GM Foods. Is it Hobson’s choice?

Disturbing news about GM foods is coming from UK. GM has already penetrated the food supply in UK. Of the 2.6m tonnes of soya imported into the UK last year, nearly two-thirds was genetically modified. GM soya oil finds a place in the catering industry. It has come to a position where if you buy food from the supermarket shelf, you would find traces of GM in it.

The argument touted by protagonists of GM food that GM food is very essential to feed the burgeoning population cuts no ice. A UN-sponsored review, involving more than 400 international scientists have already concluded that GM technologies are unlikely to have more than a limited role in tackling global food shortage.

According to activists the multinational seed corporations, Cargill, ADM and Bunge are behind spreading the myth of food shortage. In less than three decades, intellectual property rights have been sanctioned to 82% of the global seed market. Multinational firms control nearly half of the total global market in proprietary seeds, worth $22bn a year. The share is like this, Monsanto 23%, DuPont 15% and Syngenta 9%.

The multinational firms are working overtime in many countries to push their seeds and attain monopoly over seed supply. So watch out

Watch out- Drinking water from plastic bottles made with the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) could be dangerous

According to a new study by researchers from Harvard University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drinking water from plastic bottles made with the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA), increases urinary levels of the chemical by nearly 70 percent. The chemical is widely used in plastic drinking bottles, infant bottles. Resins that line cans of food and infant formula also contain this chemical. Babies are being exposed to the chemical unwittingly.

BPA, an industrial chemical that makes plastics hard and transparent has been shown to disrupt the hormonal system. This could in turn lead to reproductive defects, brain damage, cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

The study has been published in the latest issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Plants can Recognize Their Siblings

Researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered that plants can recognize their siblings. The study was led by Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware. The ID system of the plant is in the roots and the chemical cues they emanate. The discovery has implications for the future of agriculture and even home gardening.

In 2007 Susan Dudley, an evolutionary plant ecologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and her colleagues had observed that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they “play nice” and don't send out more roots to compete with one another. In the contrary the moment one of the plants is thrown in with strangers, it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil. Bais wanted to find the mechanism behind the sibling recognition and set up a study with wild populations of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Young seedlings were exposed to liquid media containing the root secretions or “exudates” from siblings, from strangers (non-siblings), or only their own exudates. The length of the longest lateral root and of the hypocotyl, the first leaf-like structure that forms on the plant, was measured. In one experiment, the root exudates were inhibited by sodium orthovanadate, which specifically blocks root secretions without imparting adverse growth effects on roots. The exposure of plants to the root exudates of strangers induced greater lateral root formation than exposure of plants to sibling exudates. Stranger recognition was abolished upon treatment with the secretion inhibitor.

Bais noted that Strangers planted next to each other are often shorter, as so much of their energy is directed at root growth. Siblings does not compete against each other and their roots are often much shallower. He also observed that sibling plants grow next to each other, their leaves often will touch and intertwine compared to strangers that grow rigidly upright and avoid touching.

Details of the research appear in the journal Communicative & Integrative Biology.

Serious Hikers and Backpackers tend to become Supporters of Environmental and Conservation Groups

Just read this interesting article about the relationship between Serious hikers and backpackers and support of environmental and conservation groups. I found it topical and very interesting.

Oliver Pergams, visiting research assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois and Patricia Zaradic, director of the Red Rock Institute in Pennsylvania along with Peter Kareiva, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy has come up with some interesting findings. They have found that only people who engage in vigorous outdoor sports, like hiking and backpacking, tend later to become supporters of mainline conservation groups. Those who only go sightseeing or fishing do not become hardcore conservationists.

The scientists say the key to conservation awareness and support is to spread the message of conservation to children early in life with appropriate educational programs that introduce them to vigorous outdoor recreation. If we don’t do this they are not going to care about nature when they get older.

The findings have important bearing for conservation. Environmental groups depend on a very narrow base of support. This base is shrinking with economic downturn. Pergams says the finding is a wake-up call to environmental groups that their base is shrinking.

Details of the research are reported in the journal PLoS ONE dated October 09.

The Plight of Romania’s Wildlife

Romania’s protected area system is under threat. It is on the verge of collapse. Dwindling resources and bureaucratic hurdles are contributing to the plight of Europe’s largest remaining natural forests. The Romanian forests also house more than half of Europe’s populations of bears, wolves, and other large carnivores. It also contains the globally important Carpathian Mountains and Danube Delta ecoregions.

Salaries of many park rangers and other staff have not been paid for months. Communication networks are in disarray. WWF says the situation is now critical and wants Romanian government to take immediate action to address the crisis faced by the country’s protected areas and their tremendous natural wealth.

Tahrcountry feels that the situation is not within the ambit of control of Romania alone. The financial position is indeed very bleak. We feel that European community should chip in with help to tide over the present difficult situation. The bureaucratic set up in Romania should come out of the present lethargy. Avenues are there to pursue which they are not doing. Wake up guys

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Blog Action Day 09

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

Blog Action Day was founded by Collis & Cyan Ta'eed in the summer of 2007. With the support of their team at Envato in Australia as well as numerous volunteers, they recruited over 20,000 bloggers to write about the issue of Environment on October 15, 2007 - making the first Blog Action Day an immediate and quite unexpected success.

Topic for Blog Action Day 2009 is Climate Change and the date is October 15. Do join the movement and make it a trailblazer.

Register at http://www.blogactionday.org/en/blogs/new