corn
milhayser | December 10, 2014Modern science stands on the shoulders of giants, as well as average humans, dwarves and elves, ancient civilizations, and all the bones of the dead—forgotten and otherwise. But sometimes you have to start a new branch of science from scratch. On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel continues his count-up to Dec. 25, the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton. Orzel explores the origins of agriculture in the Americas, where nativized people made the best of their local flora, turning a humble, nearly inedible grass into one of the biggest food staples on Earth. Chad writes, "Our other staple crops are also…
oracknows | September 23, 2012Ideologically motivated bad science, pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies irritate me. In fact, arguably, they are the very reason I started this blog. True, over time my focus has narrowed. I used to write a lot more about creationism, more general skeptical topics, Holocaust denial, 9/11 Trutherism, and the like, but these days I rarely write about topics that don't have anything to do with medicine. Sometimes, it even seems that I've narrowed my focus to the point that all I write about is antivaccine nonsense. That doesn't mean that I've lost interest; rather it's that over time I've…
sastyk | January 26, 2010A couple of years ago, I wrote a post with the above title, about the way that biofuel and meat production in the US was pushing up world food prices. I observed, as has been documented in any number of studies, that when the world's poorest people and the world's richest people's vehicles (or their pets, to their appetite for grain fed meat) compete for food, the cars, pets and rich folk always eat first - the rich come to the table once for their share of staple grains, then three of or four more times for more grains in the form of meat. We then come to the table again for a share for…
grrlscientist | December 31, 2009tags: Corn: The Dynamic Genome, corn, agriculture, genomics, food science, technology, streaming video
This is a beautifully written and produced science video about corn: where it came from, what it originally looked like, the technology we are using to learn the functions of individual corn genes, and future directions for research into corn genetics.
Plant genome research is already revolutionizing the field of biology. Currently, scientists are unlocking the secrets of some of the most important plants in our lives, including corn, cotton and potatoes. Secrets of Plant Genomes: Revealed…
sporte | November 16, 2008Last spring, in a coffee shop in Berkeley, I saw an amazing thing. It was a cup made from corn. The information on the cup says that it is made from corn, is environmentally sustainable, and 100% compostable.
My fellow ScienceBloggers have written several articles lately about corn in fast food (here, here, and here), but I'm not sure they realized that corn is used for more than fast food. Corn is also used to make the packaging.
The company that made this cup is called Fabri-Kal. The cup is one of many compostable packaging items from Fabri-Kal's Greenware line. Interestingly, although…
grrlscientist | July 3, 2008tags: politics, pollution, hunger, global warming, environmental destruction, biofuels, overpopulation, birth control, soylent green
Image: Matt Groening (The Simpson's).
A friend sent a link to an interesting article that was published today in the Guardian. This article reveals that the increased reliance on biofuels by the US and the EU is driving a worldwide food crisis. The confidential World Bank report, researched and written by an unnamed but "internationally-respected economist," has not been published but was instead leaked to the Guardian. Among other things, this report claims…