Biotechnology giant Monsanto is suing one of its largest rivals, DuPont, for what the company says are violations of a licensing agreement established between the two firms back in 2002. And at the very same time, DuPont is suing Monsanto for allegedly, illegally withholding important details from the federal patent office about its Roundup Ready trait, as well as for allegedly engaging in anticompetitive business practices that restrict competitive agriculture.
Many people are unaware of this, but DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred division, which produces seeds, several years ago tried to develop its own genetically-modified (GM) soybean product known as Optimum GAT that was intended to rival Monsanto's Roundup Ready GM soy product. When the original Optimum GAT product failed to perform as intended; however, DuPont decided to add Monsanto's Roundup Ready trait onto Optimum GAT's existing glyphosate-resistant trait, a fact that did not come to light until 2009.
Once DuPont's trait-blending activity became public knowledge, Monsanto initiated legal action against DuPont for allegedly using its own Roundup Ready trait in violation of the established licensing agreement between the two companies, which prohibited DuPont's creation of a GM soy product containing multiple GM traits. According to Monsanto, DuPont illegally used the Roundup Ready trait without a license in hundreds of seed lines back in 2008.
"For years, they told the world GAT was going to work," said George C. Lombardi, an attorney for Monsanto, during Monsanto's opening arguments before the jury. "When it failed, they relied on the Roundup Ready product."
But DuPont, in its own defense, says Monsanto's Roundup Ready patent is unenforceable because it was not properly obtained. According to the company, Monsanto failed to disclose pertinent details in its patent filing about how Roundup Ready seeds work, and how they are made. In fact, DuPont alleges Monsanto actually lied to the federal government in order to obtain the patent, which means it cannot legally be considered valid.
"(Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybean patent) is invalid and unenforceable because Monsanto intentionally deceived the United States Patent and Trademark Office on several occasions as it procured the patent," said Thomas L. Sager, DuPont Senior Vice President and General Counsel, in a recent statement.
The trial, which is expected to last several weeks, officially began on July 9, 2012. Some commentators believe the case will more than likely be settled rather than take its full course because neither Monsanto nor DuPont want to be hit with a surprise verdict. If the case does proceed; however, Monsanto's Roundup Ready patent could end up being declared null and void, which would be a significant victory for food freedom.
Source: Natural News
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Harvard Study Finds Fluoride Lowers IQ - Published in Federal Gov't Journal
NEW YORK, July 24, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Harvard University researchers' review of fluoride/brain studies concludes "our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children's neurodevelopment." It was published online July 20 in Environmental Health Perspectives, a US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' journal (1), reports the NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF)
"The children in high fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ than those who lived in low fluoride areas," write Choi et al.
Further, the EPA says fluoride is a chemical "with substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity."
Fluoride (fluosilicic acid) is added to US water supplies at approximately 1 part per million attempting to reduce tooth decay.
Water was the only fluoride source in the studies reviewed and was based on high water fluoride levels. However, they point out research by Ding (2011) suggested that low water fluoride levels had significant negative associations with children's intelligence.
Choi et al. write, "Although fluoride may cause neurotoxicity in animal models and acute fluoride poisoning causes neurotoxicity in adults, very little is known of its effects on children's neurodevelopment. They recommend more brain/fluoride research on children and at individual-level doses.
"It's senseless to keep subjecting our children to this ongoing fluoridation experiment to satisfy the political agenda of special-interest groups," says attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President. "Even if fluoridation reduced cavities, is tooth health more important than brain health? It's time to put politics aside and stop artificial fluoridation everywhere," says Beeber.
After reviewing fluoride toxicological data, the NRC reported in 2006, "It's apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain."
Choi's team writes, "Fluoride readily crosses the placenta. Fluoride exposure to the developing brain, which is much more susceptible to injury caused by toxicants than is the mature brain, may possibly lead to damage of a permanent nature."
Fluoride accumulates in the body. Even low doses are harmful to babies, the thyroid, kidney patients and heavy water-drinkers. There are even doubts about fluoridation's effectiveness (2). New York City Legislation is pending to stop fluoridation. Many communities have already stopped.
Infant formula when mixed with fluoridated water delivers 100-200 times more fluoride than breastmilk. (3)
Social Scientists Might Gain Access to Facebook's Data on User Behavior
Social scientists hungry for Facebook’s data may be about to get a taste of it. Nature has learned that the social-networking website is considering giving researchers limited access to the petabytes of data that it has amassed on the preferences and behaviour of its almost one billion users.
Outsiders will not get a free run of the data, but the move could quell criticism from social scientists who have complained that the company’s own research on its users cannot be verified. Facebook's in-house scientists have been involved in publishing more than 30 papers since 2009, covering topics from what drives the spread of information and ideas to the relationship between social-networking activity and loneliness. However, because the company fears breaching its users’ privacy, it does not release the underlying raw data.
Facebook is now exploring a plan that could allow external researchers to check its work in future by inspecting the data sets and methods used to produce a particular study. A paper currently submitted to a journal could prove to be a test case, after the journal said that allowing third-party academics the opportunity to verify the findings was a condition of publication.
“We want to participate in the scientific process and we believe that there should be a way to have other researchers validate [our studies] without infringing on the policies that we have set with our users,” says Cameron Marlow, head of Facebook's data-science team.
Restricted access
If the scheme were to go ahead, it would apply to papers after publication. Scholars would have to travel to the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, because Facebook would not risk sending the data electronically, and they would have access to aggregated data only, and no personally identifiable information. The company would also allow access for only a limited period — and contingent upon researchers signing a non-disclosure agreement. Marlow says, however, that these conditions should not keep researchers from being openly critical about matters related to the published paper such as technique or data processing.
External scholars would not be allowed to conduct their own studies on the data sets.
The alternative — publicly releasing anonymized raw data sets — is not likely to be an option, says Facebook. Internet company AOL, based in New York, and film rental and streaming firm Netflix, based in Los Gatos, California, have both done this in the past, only for researchers to show that individuals could be identified in the anonymized data. “It is hard to really guarantee that it is anonymous,” says Marlow.
Facebook's proposals are a step in the right direction, say researchers. “Their intentions are very good,” agrees Bernardo Huberman, director of the social-computing group at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California. Huberman has voiced concerns in Nature about the lack of researcher access to 'big data' at private companies. Facebook “wants to get closer to something that is the scientific method”, he says.
But Huberman and others have practical concerns. The requirement for on-site visits will hinder many researchers, with few likely to receive funding to travel to merely validate a completed study. Furthermore, it is unclear whether Facebook will allow researchers to validate research by running their own programs on the data. If scientists are restricted to repeating Facebook researchers’ own analyses, says Anatoliy Gruzd, director of the social-media lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, “they may be unknowingly repeating the same errors inherent in a technique”.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Genetically Modified Apples Newest GMO Creation to be Pushed on Consumers
After setting sights on creating a heavily modified apple that ‘never browns’ and doing their very best to hide the fact that they are indeed genetically altered, a biotech corporation known as Okanagan Specialty Fruits is now pushing for their new genetically modified apples to hit the market. The company recently submitted an application to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to launch their initiative to get the apples into your local grocery market and reap ‘improved industry sales’, but they made sure that the data was not available to the public.
Now, after providing virtually no information to the citizens of Canada and submitting only two pages of information on the product actually written by the company, Okanagan Specialty Fruits is now set on a United States release. On July 9th, the USDA posted the corporation’s request for approval on their website for the genetically modified ‘non-browning’ apples, giving the public 60 days to comment before ultimately making a decision.
The move has outraged many watchdog organizations, who have continued to highlight the fact that the initial submission to the Canadian government was ‘embarrassing’ in its utter lack of real information. Speaking on behalf of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, activist and biotech researcher Lucy Sharratt stated:
“The CFIA should be deeply embarrassed for wasting Canadian’s time on a false invitation to comment on the GM apple… the CFIA public comment period was always a sham because it was based on no data but this farce is now completely exposed.”
Genetically Modified Apples Opposed by 69% of Canadians
Unsurprisingly, Sharatt’s sentiments have been echoed by many Canadian citizens and activists. The crusade to bring genetically modified apples has been met with extreme activism from concerned citizens as documented by a number of new polls and surveys. Giving a powerful statistical concept of how citizens see the proposition of the modified apples, a consumer poll commissioned by apple grower associations based in British Columbia and Quebec revealed that 69% of Canadians simply do not want the genetically modified apple.
One reason that some citizens are concerned is the fact that biotechnology researchers have openly admitted that while only one gene is necessary to be altered to prevent browning in the apples, the change could likely affect a multitude of other genes in the process. And with unknown gene changes comes unknown consequences. In case you’re skeptical, even Monsanto’s top PhD researchers have openly stated to former Monsanto employee and whistleblower Kirk Azevedo that during the genetic modification process “other proteins that are being produced, not just the one we want, a byproduct of the genetic engineering process.”
Eventually leaving the company and coming out to expose their health-wrecking practices, Azevedo reports:
“I saw what was really the fraud associated with genetic engineering. My impression, and I think most people’s impression with genetically engineered foods and crops and other things, is that it’s just like putting one gene in there and that one gene is expressed….But in reality, the process of genetic engineering changes the cell in such a way that it’s unknown what the effects are going to be.”
There is still time to submit your comments to the USDA regarding the potential approval of genetically modified apples. The Alliance for Natural Health has established a simple form to do so.
"Dramatic" New Maya Temple Found, Covered With Giant Faces
Archaeological "gold mine" illuminates connection between king and sun god.
The Maya sun god as shark-man—one of his several guises on a newfound monument in Guatemala.
Photograph courtesy Edwin Román, Brown University
Some 1,600 years ago, the Temple of the Night Sun was a blood-red beacon visible for miles and adorned with giant masks of the Maya sun god as a shark, blood drinker, and jaguar.
Long since lost to the Guatemalan jungle, the temple is finally showing its faces to archaeologists, and revealing new clues about the rivalrous kingdoms of the Maya.
Unlike the relatively centralized Aztec and Inca empires, the Maya civilization—which spanned much of what are now Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico's Yucatán region (Maya map)—was a loose aggregation of city-states. (Read about the rise and fall of the Maya in National Geographic magazine.)
"This has been a growing awareness to us since the 1990s, when it became clear that a few kingdoms were more important than others," said Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who announced the discovery of the new temple Thursday.
El Zotz, in what's now Guatemala, was one of the smaller kingdoms, but one apparently bent on making a big impression.
By 2010 archaeologists working on a hilltop near the ancient city center had discovered 45-foot-tall (13-meter-tall) Diablo Pyramid. Atop it they found a royal palace and a tomb, believed to hold the city's first ruler, who lived around A.D. 350 to 400.
Around the same time, Houston and a colleague spotted the first hints of the Temple of the Night Sun, behind the royal tomb on Diablo Pyramid. Only recently, though, have excavations uncovered the unprecedented artworks under centuries of overgrowth.
Video: Archaeologist Stephen Houston on the Temple Find
Solar Power
The sides of the temple are decorated with 5-foot-tall (1.5-meter-tall) stucco masks showing the face of the sun god changing as he traverses the sky over the course of a day.
(Related: "Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 'Doomsday' Myth.")
One mask is sharklike, likely a reference to the sun rising from the Caribbean in the east, Houston said.
The noonday sun is depicted as an ancient being with crossed eyes who drank blood, and a final series of masks resemble the local jaguars, which awake from their jungle slumbers at dusk.
In Maya culture the sun is closely associated with new beginnings and the sun god with kingship, Houston explained. So the presence of solar visages on a temple next to a royal tomb may signify that the person buried inside was the founder of a dynasty—El Zotz's first king.
It's an example of "how the sun itself would have been grafted onto the identity of kings and the dynasties that would follow them," he said in a press statement.
Maya archaeologist David Freidel added, "Houston's hypothesis is likely correct that the building was dedicated to the sun as a deity closely linked to rulership. The Diablo Pyramid will certainly advance our knowledge of Early Classic Maya religion and ritual practice."
Houston's team also found hints that the Maya, who added new layers to the temple over generations, regarded the building as a living being. For example, the noses and mouths of the masks in older, deeper layers of the temple were systematically disfigured.
"This is actually quite common in Maya culture," Houston told National Geographic News. "It's very hard to find any Mayan depiction of the king that doesn't have its eyes mutilated or its nose hacked ... but 'mutilation' is not the appropriate term to describe it. I see it as more of a deactivation.
"It's as if they're turning the masks off in preparation for replicating them in subsequent layers ... It's not an act of disrespect. It's quite the opposite."
(Also See "End of World in 2012? Maya 'Doomsday' Calendar Explained.")
"Gold Mine of Information"
Maya scholar Simon Martin said the masks on the newfound El Zotz temple are "completely unique" and valuable, because they could help verify theories about Maya portrayals of the sun god.
"We have images of the sun god at different stages ... but we've never found anything that puts it all together," said Martin, of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, who was not involved in the project.
"We've had to assemble [the sequence] from bits and pieces of information and just trust that we got it right. This could be an opportunity to see the whole thing stage by stage."
The temple is also wonderfully well preserved, Martin added, making it a "real gold mine of information."
"We've seen a few places where whole buildings have been preserved," he said. "But normally what happens is [the Maya] smashed up a building and then built on top of it, so when you dig into a building you don't find very much of their decoration."
By contrast, Maya workers at El Zotz went to great pains to preserve the original temple structure, going so far as padding it with earth and small rocks before building on top of it.
Facing Out
Archaeologist Karl Taube points out the craftsmanship of the masks. "They're three-dimensional. The faces push out of the side of the facade. You don't really see that very often ... because if they project too much they fall off. But here they were able to pull it off.
"With the play of light on these things, the faces would have been extremely dramatic," said Taube, of the University of California, Riverside (UCR),who also was not involved in the project.
Project leader Houston added that the masks' color—crimson, according to paint traces—would have also helped them stand out. "With that bright red pigment, it would have had a particularly marked effect at dawn and at the setting of the sun," Houston said.
Blazing red and perched on high, the Temple of the Night Sun was meant "to see and to be seen," Houston said.
Importantly, it would have been noticeable from Tikal, a larger, older, and more powerful kingdom that El Zotz may or may not have been on friendly terms with.
"We tend to think of kings being completely autonomous, but for the Maya, a sacred king was often part of a hierarchy of kings," the Penn Museum's Martin said.
"So the people at El Zotz at times may have been heavily under the influence of Tikal, and when powers were weak at Tikal, they may have been completely independent or may have linked themselves with more powerful kings somewhere else."
"A Lot More Discoveries" to Come?
Despite the obvious care that was taken to construct and preserve the newfound temple, it wasn't used for long. Evidence at the site suggests the building was abandoned sometime in the fifth century, for reasons unknown.
"It's like they just dropped their tools and left" in the middle of once again expanding the temple, Houston said. "I think what you're looking at is the death of a dynasty."
The answer to this mystery and others could become evident as more of the Temple of the Night Sun is uncovered.
"Only 30 percent of this facade has been exposed," UCR's Taube said. "I think there're going to be a lot more discoveries and a broader understanding of what this building actually shows in the future."
The Truth About Sports Drinks
If you’ve ever looked at a fluorescent colored so-called “sports drink” (i.e. Gatorade, Powerade and all the wannabes in the category) and wondered if it could possibly quality as a natural, healthy beverage, we now know the answer: No, it’s not. Don’t take my word for it, here’s an exhaustive review of the relevant science by Deborah Cohen in the BMJ:
Prehydrate; drink ahead of thirst; train your gut to tolerate more fluid; your brain doesn’t know you’re thirsty—the public and athletes alike are bombarded with messages about what they should drink, and when, during exercise. But these drinking dogmas are relatively new. In the 1970s, marathon runners were discouraged from drinking fluids for fear that it would slow them down, says Professor Tim Noakes, Discovery health chair of exercise and sports science at Cape Town University. At the first New York marathon in 1970, there was little discussion about the role of hydration—it was thought to have little scientific value.
So how did the importance of hydration gain traction? An investigation by the BMJ has found that companies have sponsored scientists, who have gone on to develop a whole area of science dedicated to hydration. These same scientists advise influential sports medicine organisations, which have developed guidelines that have filtered down to everyday health advice. These guidelines have influenced the European Food Safety Authority, the EU agency that provides independent advice on the evidence underpinning health claims relating to food and drink. And they have spread fear about the dangers of dehydration.
Much of the focus on hydration can be traced back to the boom in road running, which began with the New York marathon. Manufacturers of sports shoes and the drink and nutritional supplement industries spotted a growing market.
One drink in particular was quick to capitalise on the burgeoning market. Robert Cade, a renal physician from the University of Florida, had produced a sports drink in the 1960s that contained water, sodium, sugar, and monopotassium phosphate with a dash of lemon flavouring.1 2
Gatorade—named after the American Football team, the Gators, that it was developed to help—could prevent and cure dehydration, heat stroke, and muscle cramps, and improve performance, it was claimed.2 …
[continues in the BMJ]
How Much is Your Gmail Account Worth?
While the really big bucks may be built into your big data, your trusty Gmail account just got a price tag slapped on it — and it may be worth more than you thought.
The cloud backup guys over at Backupify put together a calculator to help folks estimate the value of their cloud-based Google Gmail web mail accounts. So what’s the average account’s worth? $3,588.85, Backupify’s Jay Garmon writes in a blog post.
That’s the value of the time invested in the average Gmail account, given how many emails the average Gmail user has written (5,768), how long it takes to write the average email (one minute, 43 seconds), and the most recent U.S. Depart of Labor statistics on average annual salary ($45,230). In other words, if the average Gmail user were paid to recreate all the Gmail messages he or she’s ever written, it would cost $3,588.85.
Some highlights, per Backupify:
- Your Gmail is worth $3,588.85, and increases by about $1,196 per year
- You “spend” as much in Gmail every year as you do on your car
- Your Gmail is worth five times as much as your laptop
- Your Gmail represents over four weeks of wages
- You store one old-school floppy disk (1.44 MB) of Gmail data every day
And the full-monty, in infographic form:
Image and data courtesy of Backupify
Of course, Backupify has a white paper and is championing its service here, but with Gmail and other mail services as “the cloud” for most consumers — and increasingly for business — it is good to think about how much me have in our existing personal clouds already, before — well, Apple released OS X Mountain Lion today — the mainstreaming of the cloud in the next generations of Windows and Mac operating systems.
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