GUARDIAN Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:56:15 GMT
Google replaces logo with animated flowers to mark Earth Day, observed since 1970 to raise environmental awareness
Google has replaced its logo with a time-lapse animation of blooming flowers to mark Earth Day, a worldwide series of events held annually to raise ecological awareness.
The latest in the search engine's so-called doodles sees purple, red and yellow flowers sprout from a series of shrubs laid out to spell Google.
Earth Day was first held on 1970 after Gaylord Nelson, a US senator, conceived it as a tool to promote an environmental agenda after witnessing a huge oil spill off the coast of California a year earlier.
Organisers claim the 1970 event rallied millions across the country as it tapped in to the rise of hippie culture and anti-Vietnam war protest movements. "Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly.....
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GUARDIAN Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:00:00 GMT
Beekeepers have long felt pesticides were to blame for colony collapse disorder, but culpability was difficult to prove – until now
In July 1994, French beekeepers reported that their honeybee population had displayed strange, agitated behaviour and had "melted away". "Mad bee disease," as it quickly became known, was thought to have caused the death of 40% of bee colonies and beekeepers looking for an explanation for the catastrophe began pointing the finger at a new type of pesticide.
Systemic pesticides are those that are transported in the sap of a plant from the seed up through the stem into the leaves and flowers. Here, they contaminate nectar and pollen and hence any insect that picks them up – including bees.
Since then, imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid systemic pesticides, such as thiamethoxam, have been implicated in the worldwide collapse of honeybee colonies.
As well as being systemic, they act as a neurotoxin attacking an insect's nervous system on contact or...
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ENGADGET Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:36:00 EDT
With the holiday season just around the corner, the Air Force has been busy compiling its yuletide wish list, and it's got some pretty strange requests. Included on its latest call for small business innovations is a curious proposal for a project called "Floral Disruptor - Directed Energy Weed Abatement and Prevention Tool." According to Air Force documents, this project calls for "a device that uses directed energy technology to prevent and abate unwanted plants (weeds) in areas that require control or defoliation." Translation: a ray gun to blast weeds. Turns out, the Air Force spends a handsome chunk of cash each year on weed control -- so much so, in fact, that it's willing to pay $150,000 in grant money to anyone whose device can "deter, disrupt, deny, or degrade the desired objective." Private companies have already begun testing devices that annihilate weeds with lasers, microwave radiation and even sound, which is why the Air Force feels confident that the approach can....
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GOOGLE Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:28:00 GMT
If you don't look at the labels on your food closely, you might not be getting what you think you are, reports Treehugger.
In a new report, "Cereal Crimes," from the Cornucopia Institute, there's a troubling trend of cereal producers attempting to play on the organic craze, misleading consumers into believing their products fit organic standards.
Many brands add "natural" labels -- very similar to the ones put on organic products -- to signify they meet government-set organic standards.
But in fact, the threshold for "natural" products is very low: they can contain the pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that organic farming specifically forbids. According to the report, 61% of people believe "natural" products to be GMO-free.
Additionally, brands that were once known for organic production are scaling back those efforts without really telling consumers. For example, Peace Cereal (which in 2007 had 100% organic content) now has none at all. Similarly,.....
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INDEPENDENT Thu, 06 Mar 2008
There is silence and blackness. Then, slowly, the words "Not long ago, in a supermarket not so far away" scroll across the screen, blue letters against the black background; a large shopping trolley moves across the screen, chasing a small basket filled with vegetables and firing red laser beams. Then two characters appear: Cuke Skywalker, a cucumber in a blond wig, and Obi Wan Granoly (who looks like a stick of Peperami, but that can't be intentional). The traditional ways of the "farm", explains Obi Wan Granoly, are under threat from "an empire of pollution and pesticides". Cuke must team up with Ham Solo and Chew Broccoli to rescue Princess Lettuce and defeat Darth Tater, who is "more chemical than vegetable".
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| Full List of Pesticides articles |
Hertfordshire town holds key to rich harvests, claim scientists. So why do activists target it?
Household chemicals' 'cocktail effect' raises cancer concerns for watchdog
Bee deaths linked to common pesticides
Bugs pick up pesticide resistance from pesticide-eating bacteria
Going organic hurts veggies, OK for legumes
Grave threat of pesticides to bees' billion-pound bonanza is now clear | Damian Carrington
Common pesticide may harm honeybees
Latest buzz on bee decline: Maybe it's pesticides
Bees harmed by low levels of common pesticides
More evidence links a family of insecticides to bee colony collapse
Study: Disorientation from pesticides a clue to bee disorder
GM wheat that wards off aphids trialled in UK
Scotts Miracle-Gro sold poisoned birdseed
Public concern over GM food has lessened, survey shows
Bill Gates pledges $200m to boost smallholder farmer productivity
London 2012: Jacques Rogge hails Dow role in Olympic movement
Monsanto found guilty of chemical poisoning
Ducks replace paddy-field pesticides
Die-offs nearing 'critical point'
Tories and Labour renew backing for GM food crops
Farming needs Adam Smith's invisible hand, not finance capitalism | Colin Tudge
French farmers will have to pay to use their own seeds
Why not all game is fair game
RSPB calls for ban on owning deadly poisons
Carol Ann Duffy: the newest of the bee poets
Pesticides fear for Barrier Reef
