The American broadcast company National Public Radio and the global agri-chemical giant Monstanto made rumors of their courtship official in a lovely ceremony held earlier today. NPR reporter Daniel Zwerdling travelled to India to cover an apparent organic farming counter-revolution in that country. Monsanto came along for the ride. For sure, the so-called Green Revolution …
Author: Steve Bodio
Bio shorts
Komodo dragons (and their recently- extrict giant Australian relatives) may actually be venomous. Carl Zimmer directs us to not just one but two galleries of zombie- creating parasites.
Writers & Debt
An excellent Read- The- Whole- Thing piece by Megan McArdle in the Atlantic: Sample: “…writers are, as a class, extraordinarily at risk. They spend their twenties, and often their thirties, living paycheck to paycheck. They are extremely well educated, and all that education is not only expensive, but builds expensive habits. You end up with …
Hybrid review
A scathing but side- splitting car review from Jeremy Clarkson, the guy who brought us car shoots earlier: “It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more… “The Honda’s petrol …
Petition
Click here to sign a petition against PETA and HSUS.
Smart Corvids
And for pleasure: A BBC feature on the always- amazing abilities of Corvids, with videos. HT Jonathan Hanson.
Felony Duck Shooting
There is still ANOTHER House bill, HR 2188, which increase penalty for illegally taking a migratory bird (duck, dove etc.)to a felony with up to $50,000 and two years in prison. This seems draconian to say the least, and especially worrying to falconers who cannot always MAKE their hawk take the “correct” bird. (HT David …
Guns, Freedom, threats to…
According to David at Never Yet Melted the last elections had one mighty ironic effect: “Americans responded to the election of a democrat-dominated federal government by buying enough guns in 3 months to outfit the entire Chinese and Indian Armies. We also bought 1,529,635,000 rounds of ammunition in the month of December 2008 alone.” That’s …
New Carel Video
Carel Brest van Kempen has a new time lapse YouTube here,, of a painting of a brown anole. I love these things. You are supposed to vote but I can’t figure out how. If you can, please do– not everyone is as cybernetically inept as I am. Update: here is a link to vote.
New Rabies
I seem to be visible again. Dr Gail Goodman and Teddy Moritz sent this biologically fascinating but scary link to a National Geographic story about a mutated version of rabies in the Flagstaff, Arizona area. It apparently originated in bats, which is not unusual, and has manifested in skunks and foxes. What is frightening is …