Clipmarks | Agriculture Clips

Torture of cows...WTF is wrong with people!?!?!?

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:42:59 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: Honestly, the human race really depresses the shit out of me sometimes. People actually torture cows in the name of making a buck. Makes me sick.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

The video shows Hallmark Meat Packing Co. workers administering repeated electric shocks to downed cows -- animals that are too sick, weak or otherwise unable to stand on their own. Workers are seen kicking cows, jabbing them near their eyes, ramming them with a forklift and shooting high-intensity water up their noses in an effort to force them to their feet for slaughter.

"This must serve as a five-alarm call to action for Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture," said Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society president. "Our government simply must act quickly both to guarantee the most basic level of humane treatment for farm animals and to protect America's most vulnerable people -- our children, needy families and the elderly -- from the potentially dangerous food."

Tags: cows, hallmark meat packing, wtf, sad

Howtopedia

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:55:20 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes

Clip Source: www.howtopedia.org

HOWTOPEDIA is a collaborative platform for practical knowledge and simple technologies, i.e. technologies that require no complex machine, that are easily explainable and usable by individuals or small communities for a sustainable and ecological future.
Click on red links to write a new article or on the edit button to complete an existing one.

Clip Source: www.howtopedia.org

All articles

Tags: howto, howtopedia, wiki, technology, ecology, future, diy, simple, knowledge, resource

Are GM Crops Killing the Bees?

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 08:28:48 GMT

clipped by: quickstar
clipper's remarks: This is quite scary... especially the prediction by Einstein! It makes sense, though... no bees = no food. Read the full article for more.

Clip Source: www.truthout.org

Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.

The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Tags: gm, gmo, genetics, food, health, science

Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:22:15 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: “Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we’ll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011,” says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide 'renewable petroleum'

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV

Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”.

Tags: renewable energy

Understanding Evolution

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:54:17 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: A great resource

Clip Source: evolution.berkeley.edu

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What is evolution and how does it work?
Detailed explanations of the mechanisms of evolution and the history of life on Earth

Includes: Examples of evolution, Genetics, History of life on Earth, Macroevolution, Microevolution, Natural selection, Speciation ...

How does evolution impact my life?
The relevance of evolutionary theory to our everyday lives

Includes: Agriculture, Conservation, Medicine ...

What is the evidence for evolution?
Multiple lines of scientific evidence relating to evolution

Includes: Homology and analogy ...

What is the history of evolutionary theory?
The history of ideas, research, and contributors in the study of evolution

Looking for information on controversies in the public arena relating to evolution? See our frequently-asked questions.

Where species come from - November 2006
Cries of "Save the rainforest! Save the coral reefs!" may rally the conservation movement — but what about the arctic tundra, or the semiarid desert? Are those ecosystems unthreatened? Far from it; ecosystems all around the world and at every latitude are endangered in some way by human activity. So why do rainforests and reefs get so much attention?

Read the whole story to see the evolution connection >>

Phylogenetic systematics, a.k.a. evolutionary trees
All life on Earth is united by evolutionary history; we are all evolutionary cousins — twigs on the tree of life. Phylogenetic systematics is the formal name for the field within biology that reconstructs evolutionary history and studies the patterns of relationships among organisms.

Evolution 101
This in-depth, multi-part course takes you through evolutionary theory and mechanisms, from definitions to details, natural selection to genetic drift, mutations to punctuated equilibrium.

Tags: evolution, science

Genetics Show How Prehistoric Cultures Migrated & Shared Knowledge

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:14:24 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: The researchers tracked genetic variation on the Y chromosome, the sex chromosome passed from father to son that encodes maleness, using a technique now widely used that was developed in the early 1990s by Underhill and colleagues in the lab of Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, professor emeritus of genetics. The method has given scientists a powerful window into ancient human migrations and prehistoric cultural shifts. The technique has also been adopted by some commercial genealogy services that offer Y-chromosome testing to the public.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Using a genetic technique pioneered at Stanford, a research team found that animal-herding methods arrived in southern Africa 2,000 years ago on a wave of human migration, rather than by movement of ideas between neighbors as previously believed.

Prior research suggested that prehistoric people in eastern and southern Africa had little contact, with only two known migrations between the regions about 30,000 and 1,500 years ago. After Bantu-language speakers migrated from eastern to southern Africa 1,500 years ago, agriculture took off in southern Africa. But the timing of the Bantu migration didn't quite match the 2,000-year-old anthropological evidence for the first sheep and cattle herds in southern Africa, so anthropologists were unsure whether the region's agricultural knowledge came from a wave of ideas that spread in front of the migrating Bantu, or whether a separate migration brought the first herders.

Tags: genetics

Where Is Human Evolution Heading?

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 11:21:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The race's DNA is changing faster than ever; what it means for our descendants

Clip Source: www.usnews.com

If you judge the progress of humanity by Homer Simpson, Paris Hilton, and Girls Gone Wild videos, you might conclude that our evolution has stalled—or even shifted into reverse. Not so, scientists say. Humans are evolving faster than ever before, picking up new genetic traits and talents that may help us survive a turbulent future.

Much remodeling has gone on since the dawn of agriculture about 10 millenniums ago. "People who lived 10,000 years ago were much more like Neanderthals than we are like those people," says John Hawks, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. "We've changed."

Hawks is among a growing number of scientists who are using whole-genome sequencing and other modern technologies to zero in on just how we've changed. Their research is helping illuminate not only how humans became what we are but also where we might be headed

Humans will continue to change to cope with new diseases, if history is any guide

Tags: dna, mutations, evolution

Is America Headed for a Food Shortage?

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 15:01:38 GMT

clipped by: dorine
clipper's remarks: This could get serious very shortly.

Clip Source: www.popsci.com

Ethanol is a renewable, homegrown fuel that can help lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But as more and more ethanol is made from corn, less and less corn is available for food production, and that’s causing some unforeseen problems.

Corn is a mainstay of American agriculture— it’s an important ingredient in cereals and baked goods, and corn syrup is used to make processed foods like candy, chips and soft drinks. But most importantly, corn is the major source of food for cattle, pigs, turkeys and chickens that are headed for the dinner table.

U.S. ethanol production could consume more than half of U.S. corn, wheat and coarse grains by 2012, driving up food prices and causing shortages

The study estimates that booming ethanol production has already raised U.S. food prices by $47 per person annually. In Mexico, protests have already erupted over the high price of corn tortillas, a staple food in the local diet.

Tags: food, america, corn, ethanol, research

Ancient Peruvians cultivated crops 10,000 years ago

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:06:35 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.stonepages.com

Archaeologists have long thought that people in the Old World were planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting for a good 5,000 years before anyone in the New World did such things. But fresh evidence, in the form of Peruvian squash seeds, indicates that farming in the New and Old Worlds was nearly concurrent.

In a paper the journal Science published last June, Tom Dillehay, an anthropological archaeologist at Vanderbilt University, revealed that the squash seeds he found in the ruins of what may have been ancient storage bins on the lower western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru are almost 10,000 years old. "I don't want to play the early button game," he said, "but the temporal gap between the Old and New World, in terms of a first pulse toward civilization, is beginning to close."

The seeds aren't the only things that support the argument. Dillehay also found evidence of cotton and peanut farming and what seem to be garden hoes; nearby are irrigation canals.

Tags: archaeology, peru, america, agriculture, neolithic

THEN & NOW: Africa Satellite Images Show Stark Changes

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:47:57 GMT

clipped by: Beholder

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Satellite images from 1972 (left) and 2007 (right) show water-level decline in Lake Chad, once the world's sixth largest.

At the junction of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, the lake is now one-tenth its former size, due to declining rainfall and diversion of water for human use.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Africa's most populous urban area, Cairo, Egypt, is shown in 1972 (left) and 2005 (right).

An exploding population has driven the city's expansion, encroaching on much of the precious arable land surrounding the Nile River, according to a UN atlas released June 11, 2008.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

1978 (left) and 2004 satellite images show the roughly 500-square-kilometer (190-square-mile) reservoir formed by the Manantali Dam in Mali.

Below the dam, loss of the annual flood cycles have reduced agriculture substantially

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

The depletion of Guinea's resource-rich coastal zone is illustrated in satellite images from 1975 (left) and 2007.

Tags: ecology, environment

Child Labour Then and Now

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:38:10 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.historyplace.com

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Clip Source: www.childlaborphotoproject.org

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Clip Source: www.un.org

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Clip Source: www.childlaborphotoproject.org

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Clip Source: www.unicef.org

An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour - one in six children in the world. Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations.

Man Retires Rather Than Honor Senator Helms

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:28:37 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Jesse Helms was the last unreconstructed segregationist in the United States Senate. He was a menace to the poor, to women, and to gays and lesbians. May his bigotry be buried with him.

Clip Source: www.charlotte.com

Man retires rather than honor Helms

RALEIGH --

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag this week to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or N.C. flags at half staff Monday as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms.

“Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week,” Eason wrote

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his “doctrine of negativity, hate and prejudice” and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Tags: i won't speak ill of the dead but i'm damn tempted

NYC Cloning Historical Trees for Future

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:52:13 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: physorg.com

Squat, homely, dwarfed by stately oaks and poplars, and unnoticed by the tourists passing in horse-drawn carriages, it's a tree that only birds and nut-hungry squirrels could love.

But the 100-year-old European beech on Central Park's Cherry Hill was the center of attention Thursday, chosen by city officials as the first of 25 "historical" trees to be cloned as part of a plan to add a million new trees to public spaces over the next decade.

Agriculture students from a Queens high school rode hydraulic-powered tree-trimmers' buckets to upper branches of the 60-foot tree and snipped off 6- to 12-inch sections of new growth, which will be sent to a scientific tree nursery in eastern Oregon. If all goes well, the genetic-match saplings will return in two years to be replanted as part of the "Million Trees NYC" project announced last year.

"We want to break the stereotype of New York as skyscrapers and sidewalks," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benape said. "New York abounds in historical trees."

Tags: cloning

Noah's Ark flood spurred European farming

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:34:28 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks:

"When the Black Sea flooded at end of last ice age some people have suggested it was the origins of the Noah's Ark myth [...] If you lived in that basin it would have seemed like the whole world had flooded."

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

LONDON (Reuters) - An ancient flood some say could be the origin of the story of Noah's Ark may have helped the spread of agriculture in Europe 8,300 years ago by scattering the continent's earliest farmers, researchers said on Sunday.

Using radiocarbon dating and archaeological evidence, a British team showed the collapse of the North American ice sheet, which raised global sea levels by as much as 1.4 meters, displaced tens of thousands of people in southeastern Europe who carried farming skills to their new homes.

The researchers said in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews their study provides direct evidence linking the flood that breached a ridge keeping the Mediterranean apart from the Black Sea to the rise of farming in Europe.

The researchers created reconstructions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea shoreline before and after the rise in sea levels. They estimated the flood covered some 73,000 square kilometers over a 34-year period, causing mass displacement of people.

Tags: noah, flood, deluge, agriculture, prehistory, europe, black sea, archaeology, science

World's Poor Pay Price

Sun, 18 May 2008 13:11:19 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

LOS BAÑOS, Philippines — The brown plant hopper, an insect no bigger than a gnat, is multiplying by the billions and chewing through rice paddies in East Asia, threatening the diets of many poor people.

The damage to rice crops, occurring at a time of scarcity and high prices, could have been prevented. Researchers at the International Rice Research Institute here say that they know how to create rice varieties resistant to the insects but that budget cuts have prevented them from doing so.

This is a stark example of the many problems that are coming to light in the world’s agricultural system. Experts say that during the food surpluses of recent decades, governments and development agencies lost focus on the importance of helping poor countries improve their agriculture.

“People felt that the world food crisis was solved, that food security was no longer an issue, and it really fell off the agenda,” said Robert S. Zeigler, the director general of the rice institute.

Tags: what, else, is, new