Things done RIGHT with America’s food in 2007

The Organic Consumers Association sent out a special year-end edition of their newsletter, Organic Bytes, noting one positive development each month of 2007.  Click each link for an article detailing the accomplishments:

January:  Dozens of “Certified Organic” candidates sworn into office

February:  Field trials of experimental biotech grass halted

March:  Monsanto’s genetically engineered alfalfa banned

April:  USDA bans cloned foods from organics

May:  Consumers successfully pressure congress on country of origin labels

June:  Factory farm has organic certification yanked

July:  Congress preserves local food and crop safety laws

August:  Beer giant goes organic

September:  OCA declares victory in its “Frankenbucks” campaign

Ocbtober:  Class action lawsuit in 27 States launched against factory farms

November:  rBGH being driven off the market:  “rBGH-Free” labeling protected

December:  Massive NAIS threat to family farmers held off

50% of people on Earth are now connected via mobile

From Treo Today:

What’s the difference between yesterday and today? Nothing much, if you consider it on a day by day basis. Just 26 years after the first cellular (mobile) network was launched, we have reached 3.3 billion mobile subscriptions. That’s half the population of the world, many of whom never had any form of telecommunications just ten years ago. Today there are mobile networks in 224 countries.

The first mobile network was launched way back in August 1981 in Sweden and Norway. The network was based on the NMT-450 (Nordic Mobile Telephony) standard, and the first mobile phone was the Mobira Senator 450 by Nokia. The Mobira Senator 450 weighed 10 kilos! Think about that the next time you say a Nokia phone is “heavy”.

Termites aren’t ants after all – they’re roaches

Weird, weird and strange. That’s what I say to this.

Insect experts at the [London] Natural History Museum reveal that termites, the creatures famous for building enormous mounds and eating houses, are in fact cockroaches.

Termites have long baffled scientists as to their place in the natural world and their relationship with other insects. Although they are part of a large ’superorder’ that includes cockroaches, they were classified separately in a group called Isoptera .

This new research puts termites into the same group as cockroaches, (Blattodea). Termites are now classed as a new family of cockroaches called Termitidae . Isoptera is no longer valid.

Social insects

Termite diet, social behaviour and ecology are very different from their kitchen infesting cockroach counterparts. Confusingly also known as ‘white ants’, termites show many behavioural similarities with ants, wasps and bees as they are ’social’ insects. They produce offspring to carry out specialised tasks such as foraging, mound building, defence or reproduction.

DNA analysis

Dr Paul Eggleton, Daegan Inward and George Beccaloni carried out the most comprehensive DNA study to date . They studied 107 different species of termites, cockroaches and mantids, another group of animals thought to be closely related.

‘The key change in the termites’ evolution from their cockroach ancestors seems to be when they developed the ability to eat wood ,’ said Paul, Museum termite expert, ‘they gradually lost their characteristic egg case, and some of their offspring became sterile workers and soldiers’.

Changing appearance and behaviour

‘It may seem surprising that termites are actually social cockroaches since they look so different, but it is not unusual for animals to change in appearance as their behaviour evolves over time. Perhaps the most famous social insects, ants, evolved from solitary predatory wasps.’

Dr George Beccaloni, the Museum’s cockroach expert adds, ‘It is very rare that such a major change is proposed to how a group of animals is classified by biologists. If our findings are correct the textbooks will need to be rewritten.’

The paper Death of an order: a comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study confirms that termites are eusocial cockroaches is published online in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

John Buckman (BookMooch founder) joins EFF Board of Directors

[This was announced in the EFF newsletter back in September.]

Source: http://www.eff.org/press/releases/2007/09#005443

* Two Leading Technologists Join EFF Board of Directors

Free Culture Leader John Buckman and Privacy and Security Expert Lorrie Faith Cranor Sign on to Distinguished Team

San Francisco - The Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has elected two leading technologists to join its executive board: free culture leader John Buckman and privacy and security expert Lorrie Faith Cranor.

John Buckman is a programmer, an entrepreneur, and the founder of Magnatune.com — an online record label that strives to be fair to both recording artists and consumers alike. The Magnatune site provides web-based distribution to over 250 recording artists and features an innovative tool for online music licensing for film, television, and new media. This Creative Commons-backed business model has helped establish Buckman as a leader in the free culture movement. Buckman is also the founder Bookmooch.com, an online community for the exchanging of used books. His past accomplishments include having founded email software company Lyris in 1994, which he sold to JL Halsey in 2005. He also created Tile.net, an early web site directory that was purchased by Internet.com in 2001.

“EFF fights to protect the rights of artists and fans who use technology to make and enjoy creative works,” said Buckman. “I’m happy to join them in taking on these cutting-edge issues.”

Lorrie Faith Cranor is an Associate Research Professor in the School of Computer Science and the department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. She has played a key role in building the usable privacy and security research community, having co-edited the seminal book “Security and Usability” and founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). Cranor has authored over 80 research papers on online privacy, phishing and semantic attacks, spam, electronic voting, anonymous publishing, usable access control, and other topics. She has also testified as an expert in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Internet “harmful to minors” laws. In 2003, Cranor was named one of the top 100 innovators 35 or younger by Technology Review magazine. She was previously a researcher at AT&T Labs Research and taught in the Stern School of Business at New York University.

“The privacy and security policy decisions made now will have far-reaching implications in the years to come,” said Cranor. “I’m pleased to work with EFF as they champion the public interest in these important debates.”

Other members of EFF’s executive board include John Perry Barlow, David Farber, Edward W. Felten, John Gilmore, Brewster Kahle, Joe Kraus, Lawrence Lessig, Pamela Samuelson, Shari Steele, and Brad Templeton.

“EFF is so fortunate to have such a distinguished Board of Directors, comprised of leaders in technology, policy, and law,” said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. “John and Lorrie bring a wonderful wealth of experience to EFF and will help us continue to think about our role in relation to emerging technologies.”

Toxic furniture getting some standards

What’s in furniture? It’s enough to make you sick.
Susan Fornoff, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Laura Ingram rarely buys anything new, but last spring the 58-year-old Oakland landlord sprang for 16 feet of new oak bookcases to line the walls of her backyard studio-office.

“There was no problem in the showroom, when I was standing there with huge stacks of shelves,” she said. “But when the shelves arrived, they provoked such a violent allergic reaction in me after delivery that the vendor had to come and get them the next day and put them on a loading dock for three weeks to off-gas.”

The bookcases came back, and Ingram paid a carpenter to install them and a helper to move 35 boxes of books. Still, her chest would hurt, her lips would swell, she’d get confused and feel as if she had the flu.

So the furniture sat in her yard for three more months while she waited for the chemical odor to dissipate. It didn’t. The vendor finally returned Ingram’s money and took the bookcases away.

“This was my attempt to spiff up my environment,” Ingram said. “Now, I’d be extremely wary and want every certificate in the world.”

The problem for Ingram and others who are growing increasingly sensitized to indoor air pollutants is that the certificate doesn’t exist, and the furniture industry resists the notion of labeling its wares. Consumers can read a list of the ingredients in their cornflakes and a summary of what nutrients they contain, but good luck trying to find out what’s in the new set of bedroom furniture we spend eight hours with every night.

The store owner concluded that it was some chemical in the lacquer that made Ingram sick. Lacquers can contain high levels of solvents that release volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, that the American Lung Association reports can irritate eyes, skin and lungs and cause headaches, nausea and even liver and kidney damage.

Kirk Saunders, a finish specialist at EcoHome Improvement, guesses it was formaldehyde off-gassing from pressed wood. Emissions from urea formaldehyde - “which is really, really bad for you, and is so ubiquitous in an urban environment,” Saunders said - can cause cancer “and other adverse health effects,” according to the California Air Resources Board.