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Entomologists: “Stop feeding corn syrup to honeybees.” Duh.

by rikkiqlyons Posted on May 7, 2013

Entomologists: “Stop feeding corn syrup to honeybees.” Duh.

By John Upton

Shutterstock

It’s time to share more honey with the honeybees that make it.

If you want to a kill a honeybee hive’s buzz, take all its honey away and feed the bees a steady diet of high-fructose corn syrup.

Believe it or not, apiarists have been doing just that since the 1970s — feeding HFCS to their colonies as a replacement source of nourishment for the honey that gets taken away from them to be sold.

And believe it or not, HFCS, which is bad for humans, is also bad for honeybees. It’s especially bad for those that are exposed to pesticides, which these days is a high proportion of them.

It’s not that HFCS contributes to honeybee diabetes, nor does it result in honeybee obesity. But it weakens their defenses. And right now, the bees need all the defenses they can get in order to survive.

When honeybees collect nectar from flowers, they also gather pollen and a substance called propolis, which they use to make waxy honeycombs. The pollen and propolis are loaded with three types of compounds that University of Illinois entomologists discovered can help the bees detoxify their cells and protect themselves from pesticides and microbes.

“The widespread apicultural use of honey substitutes, including high-fructose corn syrup, may thus compromise the ability of honey bees to cope with pesticides and pathogens and contribute to colony losses,” the scientists wrote in a paper reporting their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

From Phys.org:

The researchers aren’t suggesting that high-fructose corn syrup is itself toxic to bees, instead, they say their findings indicate that by eating the replacement food instead of honey, the bees are not being exposed to other chemicals that help the bees fight off toxins, such as those found in pesticides.

Cutting the crappy sweeteners from honeybees’ diets and allowing them to eat a bit more of their own honey won’t necessarily save them in a world doused in pesticides. But it might give bees back some of their natural defenses against the poisons they encounter every day.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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blogs about ecology

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You’re forking out $9,000 a year to own your car

by Myrna Posted on April 16, 2013

You’re forking out $9,000 a year to own your car

By Lisa Hymas

Forget, for a moment, the environmental costs of driving a car. The financial costs alone should be enough to shock you into walking, biking, busing, and sharing.

From USA Today:

The average owner of a sedan has to shell out nearly $10,000 a year to own and operate that car, according to auto club AAA.

A new AAA report shows, on average, the cost of driving 15,000 miles a year rose 1.17 cents to 60.8 cents per mile, or $9,122 per year. Overall, that’s a roughly 2% increase on the cost of operating a car last year.

And from CNN:

The costs vary a lot according to the type and size of vehicle, though. It costs about $7,000 a year to own a small car in the United States but about $11,600 to own a four-wheel-drive SUV, according to AAA.

The study factored in costs such as fuel, maintenance, insurance, tires and depreciation.

As we pointed out a couple of years ago, owning a car is basically like having a second mortgage. OK, a second mortgage on a small house in a cheap area. But still!

Transit pass, anyone?

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Even the Tea Party is pissed about the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’

by f45 Posted on April 2, 2013

Even the Tea Party is pissed about the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’

By Susie Cagle

Denis Giles

Everybody’s gotta pitch in to bring down Hulk, er, Monsanto.

Feeling angry about the “Monsanto Protection Act”? You know, the sneakily passed piece of legislation that allows GMO crops to be planted even in defiance of a court order? Well, you’re not alone! The law is so scary that it’s inspiring outrage from the far right.

It’s always a delight to see the left and right agree on anything, and when it comes to fighting genetically modified giant Monsanto, it may well take just that kind of a passionate coalition to get anything done.

But it’s not the GMO issue that’s turning Tea Party Patriot Dustin Siggins’ stomach — it’s the precedent this could set for other corporations that might want legal immunity. From Siggins’ blog:

This all can be boiled down into a single, common phrase: a special interest loophole, and a doozy at that. We are used to subsidies, which give your tax dollars to companies to give them advantages over competitors. We are used to special interest tax loopholes and tax credits, which provide competitive and financial benefits to those with friends in Congress. And we are familiar with regulatory burden increases, which often prevent smaller companies from competing against larger ones because of the cost of compliance.

However, this is a different kind of special interest giveaway altogether. This is a situation in which a company is given the ability to ignore court orders, in what boils down to a deregulation scheme for a particular set of industries.

Great, Siggins! Now let’s skip the Kumbaya and the flag-waving, and get right to creating a broad-based coalition with the potential of defeating Monsanto, k?

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Pesticide makers want you to save the bees

by AshleaMelina844 Posted on March 29, 2013

Pesticide makers want you to save the bees

By John Upton

BayerBee killer.

Not only do manufacturers of bee-killing pesticides still insist that their products should be sold — now they are saying that everybody else needs to be doing more to help save the bees.

Syngenta and Bayer say that their poisonous products do not kill bees, despite a bevy of evidence suggesting otherwise. (The complex problem of colony collapse disorder, in which the pesticides are heavily implicated, is getting worse, by the way — not better.) Their neonicotinoid-based pesticides may soon be outlawed soon by the European Commission, and beekeepers and activists are suing the EPA as they push for a similar ban here.

But the chemical companies want us to know that they care deeply about these pollinators. And they have kind-heartedly published a plan they think could help the rest of us boost bee populations.

After all, if neonicotinoids are banned, they say, then we may never truly understand how they affect bees. Imagine living without that kind of knowledge.

From Reuters:

Syngenta and Bayer, which say harmful effects of the pesticides on bees are unproven and that a ban would deal a blow to the EU economy, proposed a plan that includes the creation of more flowering field margins to provide habitats for bees.

They also proposed a field monitoring program to detect the neonicotinoids pesticides blamed for the decline of honeybees, measures to limit the exposure of bees to the products and more research into the impact of parasites and viruses.

“This comprehensive plan will bring valuable insights into the area of bee health, whereas a ban on neonicotinoids would simply close the door to understanding the problem,” Syngenta Chief Operating Officer John Atkin said in a statement.

All you organic gardeners and pollinator lovers, consider yourselves called out: Pesticide-producing corporations say you need to do more to help save the bees that they are killing. Consider volunteering for a bee monitoring program or something.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Climate change is killing the corn cob pipe

by Cynthia Perez Posted on March 26, 2013

Climate change is killing the corn cob pipe

By Susie Cagle

Add another item to the list of things climate change will kill! But this one makes me a little gleeful.

NPR reports that “corn cob pipes have made a comeback in recent years” (which, what?), but now higher temperatures and drought are severely cutting into the supply of this “natural product.”

ilmo joe

The country’s one last mass producer of the pipes, Missouri Meerschaum Company, is suffering from a serious lack of decent corn cobs to fashion into $10 cancer-depositing machines for your lungs.

It’s probably fitting that drought could kill the corn cob pipe, though — after all, it’s also taking out tobacco crops (with a little help from hurricanes). Uh, thanks, climate change?

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Green labels on candy bars are designed to trick you

by Burt Bollman Posted on March 26, 2013

Green labels on candy bars are designed to trick you

By John Upton

Snorkler17

“Ooh, green nutritional information — how healthy this Snickers must be!”

Here’s a question that should be easy to answer. Which is more healthful: A candy bar with a green nutritional information label or a candy bar with a white one?

(Ignore, for the moment, that the very notion of “nutritional” is a farce when it comes to diabetes- and obesity-inducing candy bars.)

The color of the label is obviously irrelevant. But green nutritional panels — which now adorn Snickers, M&M’s, and other candies made by Mars – appear to fool shoppers into thinking they’re buying something that’s more healthful, according to a research paper published last month in the journal Health Communication.

Cornell University professor Jonathon Schuldt conducted experiments that found not only that green labels increase the perceived healthfulness of foods, but that such misunderstandings were particularly prevalent among those who place high importance on healthy eating.

“The green calorie labels buffer relatively poor nutrition foods from appearing less healthful among those especially concerned with healthy eating,” said Schuldt, who thinks it’s high time that the government stepped in to bar such trickery. “As government organizations including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration consider developing a uniform front-of-package labeling system for the U.S. marketplace, these findings suggest that the design and color of the labels may deserve as much attention as the nutritional information they convey.”

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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blogs about ecology

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johnupton@gmail.com

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Melting ice is a boon for archaeology

by Gwenda Bischof Posted on March 26, 2013

Melting ice is a boon for archaeology

By John Upton

Shutterstock

As glaciers melt, they are revealing old tunics and bodies and stuff.

As glaciers melt and recede, they are revealing archaeological treasures from the civilizations that came before ours.

A humble tunic found at a site normally covered over with ice in south Norway is among the discoveries that wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of global warming.

From Reuters:

“It’s worrying that glaciers are melting but it’s exciting for us archaeologists,” Lars Piloe, a Danish archaeologist who works on Norway’s glaciers, said at the first public showing of the tunic, which has been studied since it was found in 2011. …

The 1991 discovery of Otzi, a prehistoric man who roamed the Alps 5,300 years ago between Austria and Italy, is the best known glacier find. In recent years, other finds have been made from Alaska to the Andes, many because glaciers are receding.

The shrinkage is blamed on climate change, stoked by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

The archaeologists said the tunic showed that Norway’s Lendbreen glacier, where it was found, had not been so small since 300 AD. When exposed to air, untreated ancient fabrics can disintegrate in weeks because of insect and bacteria attacks.

Well, old tunics are cool. Nobody is saying they’re not. But it’s too bad we can’t dig up some of the wisdom of past societies that treasured nature and valued lives lived in harmony with it. Alongside the smelly old clothes, of course.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Dozens get sick after dining at world’s best restaurant

by charlenedean Posted on March 11, 2013

Dozens get sick after dining at world’s best restaurant

By John Upton

Renée S

Fancy-pants restaurant made its fancy-pants customers sick.

A tasting menu at Danish restaurant Noma, consistently named among the world’s best, costs $250 a head — not including wine.

For at least 63 people who dined there last month, a generous helping of vomiting and diarrhea was on the house.

Danish food authorities faulted the famous restaurant for failing to protect its diners after one of its workers fell ill last month, apparently spreading gastroenteritis to dozens of its big-spending customers. The initial emailed report of the illness was ignored for four days by restaurant staff.

Noma is accustomed to basking in food industry glory. It has been crowned the world’s top restaurant on the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list three times, for example. Now it is wallowing in a new kind of spotlight. From The Guardian:

In a statement Peter Kreiner, Noma’s managing director, told Danish newspapers: “It is a matter that affects us all deeply, and which we are really sorry about.”

The restaurant recognised that internal procedures had not been good enough and said an email from the employee reporting the sickness had not been seen.

He also said the faulty [hot water] tap [identified by investigators] had been fixed by a plumber straight after the inspection and that the restaurant had changed its procedure around staff emails to avoid any future delays.

Kreiner said the restaurant was co-operating with health authorities and organising customer compensation.

The restaurant’s chefs are known for experimenting with such unusual ingredients as ants and fermented grasshoppers, Reuters tells us. Perhaps now its managers will experiment with promptly reading their emails.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Bacon is really bad for you

by DonnieaBlevins Posted on March 7, 2013

Bacon is really bad for you

By John Upton

Shutterstock

/ Slavica StajicProcessed meat: Delicious but deadly.

Hot on the heels of the horse-meat scandal, here’s more bummer meat news.

Eating more than 0.7 ounces a day of processed meat — salami, cured bacon, sausages, that kind of thing — will make you more likely to die prematurely, killed by a heart attack or cancer.

That’s the conclusion of a new study published in BMC Medicine. Scientists tracked almost a half million people in 10 European countries and concluded that 3 percent of premature deaths could be avoided if everybody ate less than three-quarters of an ounce of processed meat every day.

It’s not just the fat in the processed meat that kills: The researchers say it’s the chemicals and salt used to preserve it.

Meat eaters who down 5.5 ounces of processed meat every day — roughly two sausages and a piece of bacon — were 44 percent more likely to die during the 13-year study than those eating just 0.7 ounces, the BBC reported.

But meat eaters with otherwise healthy lifestyles shouldn’t panic too much about that 44 percent figure. BBC noted:

[P]eople who munched on a lot of processed meat were also more likely to smoke, be obese and have other behaviours which are known to damage health.

However, the researchers said that even after those risk factors were accounted for, processed meat still damaged health.

Say you decide to limit your processed meat intake to bacon. How much bacon could you eat to keep within the 0.7-ounce limit? One small rasher. That’s it! One small strip of bacon every day. No more ham, salami, or pastrami. Just one small rasher of bacon.

“I’d say it’s fine to eat bacon and sausages,” University of Zurich epidemiology professor Sabine Rohrmann, the study’s lead researcher, told NPR. “But not in high amounts and not every day.”

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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blogs about ecology

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Pesticides are killing our sperm

by pitery Posted on March 5, 2013

Pesticides are killing our sperm

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Killing bugs and sperm at the same time.

Pesticides, which are well known to have caused spectacular declines the world over in bees, birds, and other wildlife, are also taking a heavy toll on the virility of men.

A new study found that the agricultural poisons are reducing the quality and quantity of sperm in men all over the globe, with farm workers bearing the brunt of the sexual desecration. George Washington University researchers pored over 17 scientific studies that were published between 2007 and 2012 and reported in the journal Toxicology that 15 of them found “significant associations between exposure to pesticides and semen quality indicators.”

From Beyond Pesticides’ blog:

In addition to the U.S. findings, studies conducted on French, New Zealander, Indian, Tunisian, and Israeli men have all found decline in sperm count. Some studies record a drop by approximately 50 percent between 1940 and 1990, no small amount.

These results might not be surprising as sperm production is regulated by the endocrine system, a highly sensitive system of hormone regulators. A study on Mexican workers in the floral industry, where workers are routinely exposed to organophosphate, finds that workers not only have increased levels of testosterone, but also suppressed levels of follicle stimulating hormone and inhibin b, which are two sensitive markers for sperm production.

So go organic and save humankind’s ability to reproduce.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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