Word: bt
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...artists are women, and from Dido's fabulous "Here With Me" to "Need to Be Next to You" by Leigh Nash from Sixpence None the Richer, the music is mostly suitable for the pop section of Lilith Fair. The only track that deviates far enough from the norm is BT's "Never Gonna Come Back Down," which was also featured on the Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack. This fast-paced Crystal Method-esque track stands in stark contrast to the languorous vocals of the other songs. Nevertheless, a few stand out: the aforementioned Dido, Beth Orton's "Central Reservation" and Morcheeba...
...continuing flap over Bt corn and cotton--now grown not only in the U.S. but also in Argentina and China--has provided more fodder for debate. Bt stands for a common soil bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis, different strains of which produce toxins that target specific insects. By transferring to corn and cotton the bacterial gene responsible for making this toxin, Monsanto and other companies have produced crops that are resistant to the European corn borer and the cotton bollworm. An immediate concern, raised by a number of ecologists, is whether or not widespread planting of these crops will spur the development...
Even more worrisome are ecological concerns. In 1999 Cornell University entomologist John Losey performed a provocative, "seat-of-the-pants" laboratory experiment. He dusted Bt corn pollen on plants populated by monarch-butterfly caterpillars. Many of the caterpillars died. Could what happened in Losey's laboratory happen in cornfields across the Midwest? Were these lovely butterflies, already under pressure owing to human encroachment on their Mexican wintering grounds, about to face a new threat from high-tech farmers in the north...
...upshot: despite studies pro and con--and countless save-the-monarch protests acted out by children dressed in butterfly costumes--a conclusive answer to this question has yet to come. Losey himself is not yet convinced that Bt corn poses a grave danger to North America's monarch-butterfly population, but he does think the issue deserves attention. And others agree. "I'm not anti biotechnology per se," says biologist Rebecca Goldberg, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, "but I would like to have a tougher regulatory regime. These crops should be subject to more careful screening before...
...that is beginning to happen, although--contrary to expectations--the reports coming in are not necessarily that scary. For three years now, University of Arizona entomologist Bruce Tabashnik has been monitoring fields of Bt cotton that farmers have planted in his state. And in this instance at least, he says, "the environmental risks seem minimal, and the benefits seem great." First of all, cotton is self-pollinated rather than wind-pollinated, so that the spread of the Bt gene is of less concern. And because the Bt gene is so effective, he notes, Arizona farmers have reduced their...