Not afraid to enter a specialty that kills careers, Mr. Rossi says, ‘To work in this field you have to be absolutely non-reactive towards controversy.
Parents in Norcross, Georgia blasted school officials at Beaver Ridge Elementary School after teachers gave third graders a math worksheet that used examples of slavery in word problems. Following the uproar, district officials said the school’s principal will work with teachers to come up with more appropriate lessons, but that didn’t go far enough for parents who called for an apology and diversity training for teachers at Beaver Ridge, where a majority of the students are minorities.
Examples on the worksheet included ‘Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?
The United States is threatening nations who oppose Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) crops with military-style trade wars, according to information obtained and released by the organization WikiLeaks. Nations like France, which have moved to ban one of Monsanto’s GM corn varieties, were requested to be ‘penalized’ by the United States for opposing Monsanto and genetically modified foods. The information reveals just how deep Monsanto’s roots have penetrated key positions within the United States government, with the cables reporting that many U.S. diplomats work directly for Monsanto.
The WikiLeaks cable reveals that in late 2007, the United States ambassador to France and business partner to George W. Bush, Craig Stapleton, requested that the European Union along with particular nations that did not support GMO crops be penalized. Stapleton, who co-owned the Dallas/Fort Worth-based Texas Rangers baseball team with Bush in the 1990s, stated:
‘Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an […]
WASHINGTON — The more astronomers look for other worlds, the more they find that it is a crowded and crazy cosmos. They think planets easily outnumber stars in our galaxy and they are even finding them in the strangest of places.
And they have only begun to count.
Three studies released Wednesday, in the journal Nature and at the American Astronomical Society’s conference in Austin, Texas, demonstrate an extrasolar real estate boom. One study shows that in our Milky Way, most stars have planets. And since there are a lot of stars in our galaxy – about 100 billion – that means a lot of planets.
‘We’re finding an exciting potpourri of things we didn’t even think could exist,’ said Harvard University astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger, including planets that mirror ‘Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker’s home planet with twin suns and a mini-star system with a dwarf sun and shrunken planets.
‘We’re awash in planets where 17 years ago we weren’t even sure there were planets’ outside our solar system, said Kaltenegger, who wasn’t involved in the new research.
Astronomers are finding other worlds using three different techniques and peering through telescopes in space and on the ground.
Confirmed planets outside our solar system – called exoplanets – […]
WASHINGTON — Monsanto Co. spent $2 million in the third quarter to lobby the federal government on issues including regulations for genetically engineered crops and patent reforms, according to a recent disclosure report.
That’s slightly more than the $1.9 million Monsanto spent a year earlier and up almost 18 percent from the $1.7 million it spent during previous quarter.
The world’s largest seed company lobbied Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture over regulations that would affect the distribution of genetically engineered crops like the company’s Roundup Ready sugar beets and alfalfa, according to the disclosure the company filed Oct. 18 with the House clerk’s office.
The company also lobbied Congress on patent protection reforms. Monsanto spends years, or sometimes more than a decade, developing patented strains of genetically engineered crops. Maintaining those patent rights is key to the company’s profit model.
The company lobbied the Congress and the Department of Justice on issues surrounding agricultural consolidation and antitrust enforcement.
