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Politics : foreign affairs, unchaperoned -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (6)	12/30/2001 6:27:51 AM
From: marcos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 261

Kerry, howdy ... i was just listening to the news read in latin ... by finns ... how is that for foreign affairs -g- ... also reading this on Hernando de Soto, a very bright guy imho - nytimes.com One of the plants from which maize ['corn' in the US] was probably domesticated is called teosinte ... lots on the net regarding it from academics and old-seed aficionados or suppliers ... considered a zacate, a grass, don't know if that's the case scientifically but teosinte is grown for feeding to animals in some places, and there are several [many?] varieties of it ... maize was developed a long long time ago, basic to the culture in most of both Américas and responsible for the rise and fall of civilizations - rise because it made possible the storing of food which made possible the concentration of population, and fall because in some places people seem to have desertified large areas in growing it, then had to move on ... or that is the theory of some to explain olmec and northern maya city decline anyway ..... but i don't think anyone really knows exactly from which plants were developed maize, looks like someone discussing the question here - agron.missouri.edu That whole genetically modified food thing is scarey ... there was a guy in Alberta or Saskatchewan trying to sue Monsanto [? i think] for infecting his canola crop that he had contracted to grow to specifications which were violated when pollen from GM canola miles away landed on his fields ... some of the GM strains are powerfully dominating, take right over, for sure they would wipe out any related species .... it would be a shame to lose all those varieties, and how absurd that mexicanos should be forced to pay for such destruction ... maybe those farmers should compare notes on the 'Commerce Department' a little with BC loggers -g-

To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (6)	5/9/2003 4:19:39 AM
From: marcos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 261

That Saskatchewan farmer into whose field blew the frankenfood company's seed had his case approved for appeal by the supreme court here today .... the lower court said he had to pay 15,000 which was a lot less than the company wanted, but still a long ways short of justice, which would be them compensating him for contaminating his land .... here's a general link on it, not today's news - members.aye.net He always saved his own seed - law.anu.edu.au If farmers can no longer save seed once their crop is infected, they're in bondage to the company, or they have to quit farming .... something very wrong with this How are you Kerry .... i was catching up on BBR earlier, caught a few of your posts, still a good thread over there, don't know how i lost touch with it .... cheers

To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (6)	5/9/2003 12:55:03 PM
From: Alastair McIntosh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 261

Re: Mexicans Angered by Spread of Corn You may not be aware that Nature subsequently admitted that the available evidence did not justify publication of the study. whybiotech.com The editors of Nature yesterday admitted having made a mistake in publishing a controversial study that claimed wayward genes from genetically modified corn contaminated maize in remote regions of Mexico. But they could not quite bring them to say 'we were wrong.' The study, which was published in November and made headlines around the world, said the Mexican maize carried transgenes that could only have come from genetically engineered crops. Now, Nature editor Philip Campbell says the evidence was "not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper." But since the scientists wish to stand by their conclusions, Campbell says "we feel it best simply" to make the circumstances clear, "and allow our readers to judge the science for themselves." "They're copping out," says Matthew Metz, a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was horrified when he read the study by David Quist and Ignacio Chapela of the University of California Berkeley in November. It was riddled with errors and came to "outrageous conclusions" not backed by the data, Metz says. Metz, and several others, sent detailed rebuttals to Nature, two of which the journal published online yesterday, along with Campbell's statement. Metz says the Quist and Chapela study was "a testament to technical incompetence" and says he was amazed it ever got past Nature peer reviewers, who vet studies before publication. Quist and Chapela misinterpreted and misread the genetic "artefacts" they saw in the Mexican maize, Metz and others say. "They failed to carefully scrutinize their own data, and it would seem that an ideological conflict encouraged this lapse in scientific integrity," says Metz, who describes Quist and Chapela as "fervent anti-genetic engineering activists." Metz, who has been called pro-GM, collaborates with a biotechnology company devising new plants in Seattle. Six geneticists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of California support Metz' view. In their rebuttal in Nature, they say most of the transgenes Quist and Chapela claimed to have found in native maize in Oaxaca, Mexico, came from their own experiments and a misreading of their data. "Transgenic corn may be being grown illegally in Mexico, but Quist and Chapela's claim that these transgenes have pervaded the entire native maize genome is unfounded," the geneticists say. Quist and Chapela are not about to back down. They admit to making mistakes. The criticism they misidentified some gene fragments in their experiments "is valid," they say. But they say new data "confirms our original detection of transgenic DNA integrated into the genomes of local landraces [of maize] in Oaxaca." The new evidence is not, however, enough to convince Nature. "The authors have now obtained some additional data, but there is disagreement between them and a referee as to whether these results significantly bolster their argument," says Campbell. "In light of these discussions and the diverse advice received, Nature has concluded the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper."