Last week, the European Commission voted to place a two-year moratorium [4] on most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides, on the suspicion that they’re contributing to the global crisis in honeybee health (a topic I’ve touched on here [5], here [6], here [7], and here [8]). Since then, several people have asked me whether Europe’s move might inspire the US Environmental Protection Agency to make a similar move-currently, neonics are widely used in several of our most prevalent crops [5], including corn, soy, cotton, and wheat.

The answer is no. As I reported [4] recently, an agency press officer told me the EU move will have no bearing on the EPA’s own reviews of the pesticides, which aren’t scheduled for release until 2016 at the earliest.

All of which got me thinking about other food-related substances and practices that are banned in Europe but green-lighted here. Turns out there are lots. Aren’t you glad you don’t live under the Old World regulatory jackboot, where the authorities deny people’s freedom to quaff atrazine-laced drinking water, etc., etc.? Let me know in comments if I’m missing any.

1. Atrazine
Why it’s a problem: A ‘potent endocrine disruptor [9],’ Syngenta’s popular corn herbicide has been linked […]

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Kerry Emanuel registered as a Republican as soon he turned 18, in 1973. The aspiring scientist was turned off by what he saw as the Left’s blind ideology. ‘I had friends who denied Pol Pot was killing people in Cambodia,

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New research says smoking pot may be less likely to cause bladder cancer than smoking cigarettes.

The finding is potentially valuable, the study authors said, given the ongoing debate over legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.

But one urologist not involved with the study was skeptical of the finding, and noted that nonsmokers weren’t among the men included in the study.

For the study, the researchers compared the risk of bladder cancer in more than 83,000 men who smoked cigarettes only, marijuana (cannabis) only, or both substances. The investigators found that men who only smoked pot were the least likely to develop bladder cancer over the course of 11 years.

‘Cannabis use only was associated with a 45 percent reduction in bladder cancer incidence, and tobacco use only was associated with a 52 percent increase in bladder cancer,’ said study author Dr. Anil A. Thomas, a fellow in urology at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Smoking both tobacco and marijuana raised the risk of bladder cancer, but less so than for those who only smoked tobacco, Thomas found. He presented the findings Monday at the American Urological Association annual meeting in San Diego.

Dr. Karim Chamie, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen […]

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An ancient astronomical alignment in southern Peru has been discovered by researchers between a pyramid, two stone lines and the setting sun during the winter solstice. During the solstice, hundreds of years ago, the three would have lined up to frame the pyramid in light.

The two stone lines, called geoglyphs, are located about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) east-southeast from the pyramid. They run for about 1,640 feet (500 meters), and researchers say the lines were ‘positioned in such a way as to frame the pyramid as one descended down the valley from the highlands.’

Using astronomical software and 3D modeling, the researchers determined that a remarkable event would have occurred during the time of the winter solstice. [See Images of the Pyramid and Solstice Alignment]

‘When viewed in 3D models, these lines appear to converge at a point beyond the horizon and frame not only the site of Cerro del Gentil [where the pyramid is], but also the setting sun during the time of the winter solstice,’ the research team wrote in a poster presentation given recently at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Honolulu.

The flat-topped pyramid at Cerro del Gentil stands 16 feet (5 meters) tall and is made […]

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It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had reached a level of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Massive movements of people are likely to occur over the rest of the century because global temperatures are likely to rise to by up to 5C because carbon dioxide levels have risen unabated for 50 years, said Stern, who is head of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.

‘When temperatures rise to that level, we will have disrupted weather patterns and spreading deserts,’ he said. ‘Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to leave their homelands because their crops and animals will have died. The trouble will come when they try to migrate into new lands, however. That will bring them into armed conflict with people already living there. Nor will it be an occasional occurrence. It could become a permanent feature of life on Earth.’

The news that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached 400ppm has been seized […]

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