Temperatures above 100 degrees and drought-like conditions have taken a toll on corn and soybeans in the upper Midwest for weeks but it has brought a benefit to peppers and other crops: Their flavors have become unusually concentrated, producing some of the most potent-tasting produce in years."Peppers really like hot weather," said Irwin Goldman, a horticulture professor at the University of...
read moreSometimes natural is not good. Actually, a lot of the time natural is bad but we live in in era where anti-science types have a 'natural' fetish, believing anything natural is good.But not always. Weeds are natural yet if you leave them alone your vegetables will die. And that goes for plenty of other invasive species. Even wild salmon.There's long been precautionary principle...
read moreCould the big split among anti-science hippies occur over a cute little cat?PETA loves animals. Greenpeace hates genetic modification and science in general because changes are only 'natural' if high-energy cosmic rays mutate things at random. What about when scientists use unnatural science to help save an endangered species?An African Black-footed Cat was born February 6, 2012, at...
read moreA previously unnamed species of horse fly has been named in honor of American pop singer Beyoncé Knowles. Beyoncé just had a baby but this horse fly business is probably the best gift of all. Well, maybe not, the baby might be more important to her, since she and husband Jay-Z had bulletproof glass and bodyguards put in place at the Upper East Side Lenox Hill hospital where the delivery...
read moreI have always liked dolphins but I can't pinpoint why - maybe it was "Flipper" when I was a kid, it can't be "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" because a whale was saving the Earth in that one. It could certainly be Manfred Mann's Earth Band. If you aren't familiar with Manfred Mann, he was a keyboard player from South Africa who made it big in England in the 1960s and then quit...
read morePesky animal rights activists may complain if you eat veal but they can't complain if you eat larvae, right? Those are bugs and people sitting in trees have to eat something while they keep the forest commission from clearing brush or removing dead trees to prevent wildfires.The California State Fair is coming up in a few weeks. It is earlier the last few years, because the...
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