Safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving
$50,000 firebreak successfully halts flames
Just a year after its completion, a 1.5-mile J-shaped swath of cleared land protected John Middlebrook's 428-acres of forested Yuba County from a raging wildfire, according to a story in the The Grass Valley Union.A $52,000 state grant paid for the firebreak. Compared to $1.5 million per-day cost of fighting a wildfire, it appears the firebreak was a sound investment.
“Even when you know the science, you doubt yourself,” UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor Glenn Nader told reporter Ben van der Meer. “You see this, and you know with the right kind of fire, the right kind of wind, this will work.”
Middlebrook said he nearly abandoned the idea of building a firebreak when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked that anyone working on it be trained to understand the life cycle of the red-legged frog, which could have habitat in the area. Nader responded to the issue diplomatically.
“I know every agency has the best of intentions, and I work for one,” he was quoted. “But I do not run from the fact (Fish and Wildlife staff) were a hindrance."
Californians have an unhealthy thirst for soda
A report released today said that Californians' thirst for soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages is one of the reasons too many of the state's residents are fat.The study, by UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, says 24 percent of California adults drink at least one sugary drink every day, according to news stories published by media outlets throughout the state.
Sacramento Bee reporter Anna Tong sought comment about the trend from Judith Stern of the UC Davis Department of Nutrition.
"When you eat food, it makes you full," she was quoted. "When you drink a soda, it doesn't make you feel full, so it's wasted calories."
According to the Fresno Bee, Central Valley residents drink more soda than people living in other parts of the state. In Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties 35 percent of adults drink soda every day. Rural Kings County adults led the state in daily soda consumption at 39 percent.
Imperial County had the highest rate of daily soda-drinking among children (60.7 percent) and Tulare County ranked first for teens (71 percent). The lowest rates of soda consumption for children, teens and adults were in Marin and Mendocino counties.
The study also found that soda drinking is linked to obesity. According to the Los Angeles Times story, 62 percent of adults who drink soda daily are overweight or obese, compared with 52 percent who don’t drink soda at all.
The stories reported that the new study may renew calls for imposing a soda tax. According to the Sacramento Bee article, a one cent per ounce soda tax would generate $1.8 billion per year in California. Currently, six states have soda taxes: Missouri, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
When soda is cut from the diet, UC Berkeley nutrition professor Patricia Crawford suggests parents give their children water to drink, not sports drinks or fruit juice.
“Nearly all fruit juices provide sugar that children don’t need,” Crawford said. “Sports drinks have fewer calories than sodas, but the calories add up. A student who drinks an extra 20-ounce sports drink every day for a year consumes enough calories to gain 13 pounds over the course of the year.”
For more from UC on healthful beverage choices, click here.
Drinking water
UC Riverside gets $1M to map barley genome
Barley suffers from an image problem. Who would guess that it is one of the world's most important crops? A quick review of a recent UC Riverside press release uncovers the reason: Besides being a healthful cereal, animal feed and potential bio-fuel crop, barley is the grain of choice for making beer. Barley beer was probably the first drink developed by Neolithic humans, according to Wikipedia.The release, written by Iqbal Pittalwala, says UC Riverside will receive a $1 million grant from USDA to map the barley genome, a necessary step in breeding new barley varieties that improve yield, disease resistance, and food and malt quality.
The release said barley is one of the first domesticated cereal grains and today No. 4 in terms of production. It is geographically adaptable and can withstand cold, drought, alkali and salinity. Pittalwala wrote that barley has been a favorite target of geneticists for decades. The genome – with 5.3 billion letters of genetic code – is one of the largest among cereal crops and nearly twice the size of the human genome.
The story was picked up by some technical publications - Genome Web News and Medical News Today, to name two. But ultimately, the research will benefit a wide swath of peoples the world over.
Barley.
LBAM eradication program not based on sound science, panel says
A panel of 10 scientists, economists and USDA employees released a report yesterday that said the USDA's characterization of light brown apple moth as an "invasive threat" was correct, but the federal agency didn't back up the assertion with sound science, according to an Associated Press story.The panel, convened by the National Academy of Sciences, includes UC Berkeley entomologist Nicholas Mills. He acknowledged in the article that assessing the potential threat of an invasive species is a very difficult thing to do, and expressed concern about USDA's information gathering efforts.
"We found that people in the agency were sometimes using their best guesses, relying sometimes on published literature or unpublished information, and sometimes on no information," Mills was quoted.
Opponents of the USDA's eradication plan feel the agency has overblown the threat and put people and animals at risk by spraying pheromones meant to prevent LBAM mating over coastal communities.
According to the article, officials currently are working on eradication by setting out sticky traps baited with moth pheromones and spraying only in inaccessible areas.
Light brown apple moth larva.
Fresno Bee story skips ANR nematologist's point of view
Fresno Bee reporter Robert Rodriguez spoke to UC nematologist Michael McKenry for his methyl iodide story, which appeared in today's paper. McKenry's thoughts weren't included in the article, so I'll share some here.
Methyl iodide is a federally approved fumigant that is currently under review by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Farmers see it as a potential alternative for methyl bromide, which is being phased out because it reacts with ozone in the stratosphere, diminishing the earth's protective ozone layer. McKenry said methyl bromide will be unavailable in 2012, but it is already very expensive, costing farmers about $2,500 per acre for treatment, compared to $600 per acre 10 years ago.
However, methyl iodide has its own disadvantages, and McKenry feels those will be tough to overcome in California.
The pesticide is a known carcinogen. McKenry believes the protective gear that workers would have to wear for safe application would be problematic. He also said the company plans to label the chemical for a treatment level that is insufficient for adequate pest control. Finally, he said, methyl iodide will be expensive, even more so than methyl bromide, though the company licensed to sell it, Arysta LifeScience Corp. of Japan, hasn't yet shared the cost.
"It is without a doubt an effective product at high enough application rates. If farmers can use 250 pounds per acre, we can replace methyl bromide," he said. "But it only comes mixed with chloropicrin, which doesn't have anywhere near the type of activity against nematodes that methyl iodide has."
The Bee story did include a quote from UC Berkeley chemist Robert Bergman, who is one of many scientists and environmentalists opposed to the use of methyl iodide in the United States.
"We know that even in small amounts it can be very toxic," Bergman was quoted. "And in agriculture, you are talking about hundreds of pounds being put into the ground and covered with a tarp."
A likeness of a methyl iodide molecule.