Agriculture
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Agriculture
How better weather models can save peanut farmers money
Better weather forecasts could help farmers avoid unnecessary pesticide spraying.
By Sid Perkins -
Chemistry
Pollutants: Up in flames
Forest fires have the potential to release toxic industrial and agricultural pollutants previously trapped on soil. After glomming onto smoke particles, these chemicals can hitch long-distance rides — sometimes across oceans — before they’re grounded and contaminate some new region, scientists report.
By Janet Raloff -
Humans
Beefy hormones: New routes of exposure
On any given day, some 750,000 U.S feedlots are beefing up between 11 million and 14 million head of cattle. The vast majority of these animals will receive muscle-building steroids — hormones they will eventually excrete into the environment. But traditional notions about where those biologically active pollutants end up may need substantial revising, several new studies find.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Nation by nation, evidence thin that boosting crop yields conserves land
Intensifying agriculture may not necessarily return farmland to nature without policy help.
By Susan Milius -
Health & Medicine
Vinegar: Label lead-tainting data
Under California’s Proposition 65 law, products containing chemicals that may cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive toxicity must carry a warning label at their point of sale. Among such products: pricy balsamic and red-wine vinegars that contain lead. At least some California groceries apparently have taken a conservative approach and post labels suggesting all such vinegars are dangerously tainted. Although they aren't.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Report tallies hidden energy costs
The average retail cost of U.S. coal-fired electricity was 9 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2007 (the most recent year for which data are available). But there are health and environmental costs of that power that consumers don’t pay, at least as part of their electric bill. According to a new report, accounting for those costs would double the true cost of shooting some electrons through the nation's power grid.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Update: U.S. swine infected with swine flu
Well, it's official. Over the weekend, Agriculture Department scientists found evidence that at least one pig exhibited at this year's Minnesota state fair was infected with the pandemic H1N1 strain of swine flu.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Of swine flu, pigs and a state fair
To date, federal monitoring has yet to turn up any U.S. pigs infected with the killer swine flu strain known as H1N1. But Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack announced yesterday that his agency’s veterinary labs would be reexamining whether any of the apparently healthy pigs exhibited last August 16 to Sept. 1 at the Minnesota state fair might have been infected with the virus. Why? “An outbreak of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza occurred in a group of children housed in a dormitory at the fair at the same time samples were collected from the pigs,” USDA notes
By Janet Raloff -
Ecosystems
Windy with a chance of weevils
Scientists have traced the reappearance of cotton pests in west-central Texas to a tropical storm.
By Sid Perkins -
Agriculture
Potato famine pathogen packs unusual, sneaky genome
DNA of infamous Phytophthora microbe reveals big, quick-changing zones, possibly the key to the pathogen’s vexing adaptability
By Susan Milius -
Chemistry
Nitrous oxide fingered as monster ozone slayer
Nitrous oxide has become the leading threat to the future integrity of stratospheric ozone, scientists report.
By Janet Raloff -
Agriculture
Pesticide potency can depend on bug’s clock
The daily rhythms in gene activity can affect the toxicity of some poisons.
By Janet Raloff