- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Not surprisingly, a story in yesterday's Sacramento Bee about goats that have been genetically modified with human genes is generating comments on the newspaper's Web site.
The story was prompted by a UC Davis news service press release by Pat...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
An article in yesterday's Sacramento Bee proves the jokes on chia haven't yet been exhausted. Sam McManis wrote about health claims for chia seeds, the Aztec food made popular by the "as seen on TV" chia pot. The San Jose Mercury News ran a similar story on the health fad last February, as noted in this blog entry.
In both cases, the reporters sought UC Davis Cooperative Extension specialist Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr's measured...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
California dairies are being squeezed between increasing costs for feeds and decreasing return for milk, according to a story in the Marin Independent Journal over the weekend. The story reports that 55 percent of Marin's agricultural income - more than $27 million in 2006 - comes from the county's 28 dairies.
Reporter Rob Rogers spoke to UC Davis CE specialist Bees Butler about dairy economic trends.
"The dairy industries in China and India will start to expand because of the incredible growth in those areas," Butler is quoted....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Davis plant pathologist Pamela Ronald has an idea that might make collaborators out of Californians who have commonly been at cross purposes. Ronald suggested that combining genetic engineering with organic farming may be the best way to grow food for a growing world population facing climate change and environmental degradation.
In a story with a Hong Kong dateline, Ronald told Reuters the world needed to use every technology available to secure food supplies for the 9.2 billion people expected by 2050, up from the current 6.7...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A new episode of the periodic PBS series "Strange Days on Planet Earth" tonight focuses on the global implications of overfishing. It features the work of UC Berkeley assistant professor of ecosystem sciences Justin Brashares.
Says host Edward Norton in the program's online preview, "Follow a fish, and you can end up in unexpected places." Check your local listings for the show's broadcast time in your area. In the Bay Area, it will air at 9 p.m. on KQED; in the Central Valley, it will air at 9 p.m. on KVPT.
Speaking of strange days on...
