The techniques that he advocates for the reintroduction of have been proven to work over thousands of human agricultural years except, perhaps for the no-till method, which I’ve found works well with depleted soils. This would be more like a revolutionary renaissance of returning cows and biodiverse crops back to farms. Here’s the gist of Montgomery’s observation:
The secret to success? Giving up on plowing so as to minimize disturbance of the soil; planting cover crops to both protect the ground from erosion and build up soil organic matter; and adopting complex crop rotation pattern to thwart pests and pathogens. Some of the farmers I met also reintroduced livestock to graze cover crops and manure their fields. Combining these components into an integrated system amounts to a revolutionary departure from conventional practices that rely on heavy tillage and chemical use to grow one or two cash crops.
I’ve read that reintroducing wolves to forests helps to lessen overpopulated dear, while regenerating life for many other species. Have you seen the video entitled, “How Wolves Change Rivers?”
The USGS found the anti-bacterial triclosan in 58% of freshwater streams, despite attempts by water municipalities to filter it out. Article explains what triclosan is and what it does.
Triclosan is in antibacterial soaps, detergents, carpets, paints, toys, and toothpaste. These products can feel comforting to germ-wary consumers. However, these products are only slightly better at removing bacteria than regular soap and water. And in antibacterial soaps, triclosan may not add any benefit to removing bacteria compared to regular soap and water.
The problem with triclosan is that it kills both good and bad bacteria. Studies also show that it contributes to medically necessary antibiotics becoming less effective. Triclosan is also toxic to algae and disrupts hormones in animals. This can hamper normal animal development. The FDA is currently investigating its impact on humans.
Most U.S. homes are full of familiar household products with an ingredient that fights bacteria: triclosan. Most of the triclosan is removed in waste water treatment plants. However, a U.S. Geological Survey found the antibacterial in nearly 58% of freshwater streams. What does that mean for the food and soil irrigated with water from streams? As triclosan breaks down, it can turn into other harmful compounds. The breakdown of triclosan produces more effective hormone disruptors.
Nearly a third of antibiotics prescribed in doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and hospital-based clinics in the United States are not needed, according to the most in-depth study yet to examine the use and misuse of these life-saving drugs.
The finding, which has implications for antibiotics’ diminished efficacy, translates to about 47 million unnecessary prescriptions given out each year across the country to children and adults. Most of these are for conditions that don’t respond to antibiotics, such as colds, sore throats, bronchitis, flu and other viral illnesses.
Overdosing livestock with antibiotics might be causing problems too. From Science News report:
Dung beetles (Aphodius fossor) make their living on cattle dung pats, which are rich in nutritious microbes. To investigate the effects of cattle antibiotics on this smaller scale, Tobin Hammer of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues studied the tiny communities around tetracycline-dosed and undosed cows. Compared with untreated cows’ dung, microbes in dung produced by treated cows were less diverse and dominated by a genus with documented resistance, the researchers report May 25 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“The problem, scientists have been pointing out for years, is that people are taking antibiotics too frequently. More use means more opportunity for bacteria to develop resistance.”
Bacteria carry most of their genetic information in a tangle of DNA contained in chromosomes inside the cell. But tiny loops of DNA called plasmids hang around outside of the tangle. These loops carry extra information that bacteria can use, like how to protect themselves from antibiotics. Bacteria can swap plasmids like trading cards, effectively spreading instructions for antibiotic resistance.
Email inventor’s distillation of large body of published research shows GMO soy is NOT ‘substantially equivalent’ to soy of our ancestors.
There’s an interview called, “Smashing Technological Neo-Colonialism with Email inventor Shiva Ayyadurai and Jordan Flesher.” Interview is conducted by Sean Stone for a recent episode of his web-show, Enter the Buzzsaw.
Ayyadurai Shiva created the first ‘electronic mail system’ as a 14 year old with a vision to create electronic typing. “Email is the interconnection of these parts of the system,” he says. Creating an electronic means of typing messages and sending via computer required a synthesis of knowledge in electronic applications.
Here’s a screen shot of young Shiva Ayyadurai.
He has since helped to create a way to study molecules via a research aggregator. It’s ingenious because it uses a whole systems approach to increase understanding about how molecules and cells actually function. It’s called Cyto(meaning cell)Solve.
“CytoSolve was an electronic way to model molecular pathways, systems of systems of systems of pathways. So, If email is the electronic version of the mail communication system, CytoSolve is the electronic version of the molecular system.
Recently scientists have started using this because they know that their drug development model sucks, it doesn’t really work.. a lot of the functional food companies want to use it to find out the difference between snake oil and supplements and what works. And we’ve actually used CytoSolve to actually validate some traditional systems of medicine. So, it’s a revolution. If, email was a revolution, CytoSolve is even going to be a bigger one.”
That’s how Shiva became involved in the GMO debate. He wanted to find out whether genetically modified plants are really ‘substantially equivalent’ to the food that our ancestors ate and furthermore, whether GMOs are actually safe for continuous human consumption?
“If you look at genetically modified foods, like a very objective position.. I’m not pro or anti GMO. Let’s take this position that Monsanto and others have taken that if you do a teeny weeny, little change to soy, you know change one little gene, don’t worry, it’s not going to affect anything else. Right, so that’s the supposition. Based on this, they have a principle called ‘substantial equivalence’. And what happens is, you and I, right now we could start a GMO company. We could do a GMO blueberry. In order to get it allowed to go to market, all we have to show is that GMO blueberry is substantially equivalent to the non-GMO version.
So, how do we do that? Well, we can choose any criteria we want. I can choose fat content, water content, and we can just show, hey look, it’s about the same. In fact, plus or minus 20%. We send a letter to the FDA saying we did this analysis and the FDA will send a letter back to us, saying, “Sean and Shiva, thank you very much for doing that analysis.”
With that letter, we can go to market. The FDA (this is a big..) does not take a position on GMOs. They simply issue what’s called a ‘safety consultation’. It’s up to you and me, self-regulation, that we did this material difference analysis.”
FDA guidelines for GMO products are pretty lax, if Shiva’s description of the process to bring them to market is accurate. He further describes what he calls ‘pillars’, or theories that are prevalent about genetically modified foods.
“One is don’t worry. This GMO is no different than the non-GMO counterpart. That’s one pillar. And, by the way, if you consume this GMO, it’s not going to harm you. So, what we did as researchers is go after that first pillar. And, we used systems biology. We used CytoSolve. And what we did was, we said let’s take GMO soy and we went through 11,000 papers that had been written in the literature.
And from those 11,000 papers, we found 6,800 experiments have been done, across 184 institutions in 23 countries. So, this is a distillation of the scientific method. And, CytoSolve let’s us aggregate this. And what we found was a set of molecular pathways called ‘C1 Metabolism’. Without getting into the details, this molecular system is in every plant. It’s in every bacteria and it’s in every fungi.
So, in first paper, we just published that, very quietly. This is the C1 Metabolism pathway. Second paper, what we did was we modeled that mathematically. What we showed was, in the normal case, non-GMO case, plants create formaldehyde and they also get rid of formaldehyde, detoxify it. It’s a system that they have. At some level, all plants have a background level, but they have this capacity to detoxify it.
In the third and fourth papers, what we showed was, what happens when you do a genetic modification at a molecular level. And what we showed was, when you do that modification, particularly in soy, that it perturbs this entire system. That, in fact glutathione, which is a master antioxidant.., that glutothione is depleted and formaldehyde accumulates. Glutothione is an antioxidant. And, in fact what we found was, that genetic insertion, the plant goes into oxidative stress, it thinks it’s being stressed out, very similar to what a plant undergoes when it’s under drought or in different conditions.
What that resulted in was something very interesting, again from this academic community. This research helps dispels theories like plant-breeding is the same as genetic engineering. No big deal, this has been going on for 5,000 years. You know, conflating plant breeding with single genetic modification.
Over 90% of corn and soy available in America is now genetically modified, according to Shiva. I’ve read similar statistics elsewhere. If it is true that genetically modified plants contain elevated levels of formaldehyde, then what effect does consuming these plants have on the human body? Formaldahyde is a known carcinogen. It’s also what embalming fluid is made of, a great preservative.
“In 1987, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified formaldehyde as a probable human carcinogen under conditions of unusually high or prolonged exposure (1). Since that time, some studies of humans have suggested that formaldehyde exposure is associated with certain types of cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies formaldehyde as a human carcinogen (2). In 2011, the National Toxicology Program, an interagency program of the Department of Health and Human Services, named formaldehyde as a known human carcinogen in its 12th Report on Carcinogens (3).
Further and more objectively undertaken research should be conducted on the effects genetically modifying plants have. Shiva and his colleagues used the scientific method, gathering repeated studies, synthesizing results and showed that, genetically modified soy is a probable source of cancer causing carcinogens. In my opinion, non-biased research(not self-regulated by companies) should have been conducted before genetically modified ingredients were first allowed onto the market in 1996. Until non-biased research concludes that GMOs are safe for human consumption, I’d recommend eating only non-GMO soy and corn because there’s no way to guarantee that they are safe in the long term. But, the market is flooded with GMO ingredients in processed foods. And, there’s no telling how much livestock is raised on them.
This Buzzsaw interview covers a much broader range than could possibly be stated here. Interview-ee Jordan Flesher had pertinent and timely information to add. And, Stone chimed in at one point with Pontius Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” Good one.
For more about Shiva and his research, visit his website here. http://vashiva.com
“Comfrey has been cultivated, as a healing herb since at least 400BC. The Greeks and Romans commonly used comfrey to stop heavy bleeding, treat bronchial problems and heal wounds and broken bones. Poultices were made for external wounds and tea was consumed for internal ailments. Comfrey has been reported to promote healthy skin with its mucilage content that moisturizes and soothes and promotes cell proliferation.”
Author also cultivates a quarter of an acre of alfalfa(shown in photo above) for use as biomass and animal fodder.
Comfrey is a good plant to use to establish ‘pest-predator’ relationships in your garden and promotes biodiversity, in his experience.
“The bell shaped flowers provide nectar and pollen to many species of bees and other insects from late May until the first frosts in late autumn. Lacewings are said to lay eggs on comfrey and spiders overwinter on the plant. Parasitoid wasps and spiders will hunt on and around comfrey.”
He cautions against regular human consumption although comfrey has traditionally been used in nutrient rich, restorative teas. Comfrey grown in less polluted areas might provide just the borage remedy or fodder needed. It grows in climate zones 4-9, best in full sun where it will spread rapidly in well drained soil. For more about the benefits of comfrey, click above.
Natural News report by S.D. Wells sites a study using human volunteers that found sodium benzoate causes harm to human cells. Wells states:
A molecular biology expert at Sheffield University found that sodium benzoate damages mitochondrial DNA – cells associated with metabolism and aging. How much DNA damage is done by sodium benzoate? Nobody knows. Yet there is a whole array of diseases tied to this type of DNA (coding sequence) damage. Somatic mitochondrial mutations (mtDNA) have been increasingly observed in primary human cancers. In other words, mutant DNA eventually take over if fed the right carcinogenic “fuel,” namely sodium benzoate.
Wells reports that sodium benzoate may be responsible for a type of DNA mutation commonly seen in cancers. He explains how mutations can occur.
At the cellular level, sodium benzoate deprives mitochondria of oxygen, sometimes completely shutting down the “power station” of your cells. It’s programmed cell death, and when cells are deprived of oxygen, they cannot fight off infection, and that includes the infection known as cancer – the mutation and uncontrolled division of cells. Plus, when sodium benzoate is combined with vitamin C or E, benzene is formed, which is also a known carcinogen that causes leukemia.
The shocking part is just how common sodium benzoate’s use as a food preserving ingredient is. Anything packaged might be suspect. Wells lists a few:
Sodium benzoate is easily found in most conventional foods, especially the acidic ones, including pickles, peppers, soy sauce, ketchup, salad dressings, jams, most condiments, vinegar, fruit juices, salsa, dips, shredded cheese and diet or regular soda. You may also see it listed on your mouthwash, toothpaste, cough syrup, cream, lotion and hundreds of cosmetic products. Sodium benzoate is the cheapest mold inhibitor on the market, and is one of the main reasons many Americans do not have enough essential nutrients in their bodies to detoxify. This is occurring at the cellular level – think of Parkinson’s and other neuro-degenerative, premature aging diseases.
He describes 8 ways in which our world is changing, Here’s the list:
1- No one can stand the employment model any longer
2- The entrepreneurship model is also changing
3- The rise of collaboration
4- We are finally figuring out what the internet is
5- The fall of exaggerated consumerism
6- Healthy and organic eating
7 — The awakening of spirituality
8 — Unschooling trends
Tanaka writes about collaboration
Fortunately, things are changing. Sharing, collaborative economy concepts are being implemented, and it points towards a new direction. The direction of collaborating, of sharing, of helping, of togetherness.
The video was shown at the recent Paris Climate Conference.
NOE Conservation, a French organization focused on preserving biodiversity, wrote the script in partnership The Gorilla Foundation for Koko and allowed her to improvise.
“Tooth fillings from the future may incorporate bio-active glass,” reads headline from Science Daily.
Oregon State researches have found that bio-active glass could be used in dental fillings. Bio-active glass seems to repel bacteria in the mouth, unlike current composite fillings. Doctors have already incorporated bio-active glass for bone healing. I wanted to know what made this glass finer than tiny shards, yet stiff. Ingredients were included in report.
“Bioactive glass is made with compounds such as silicon oxide, calcium oxide and phosphorus oxide, and looks like powdered glass. It’s called “bioactive” because the body notices it is there and can react to it, as opposed to other biomedical products that are inert. Bioactive glass is very hard and stiff, and it can replace some of the inert glass fillers that are currently mixed with polymers to make modern composite tooth fillings.”
Barium, aluminum, strontium and so on are used to create man-made clouds, reports Rosalind Peters to the UN panel, and this geo-engineering is detrimental to our health and our environment. More particulates and sulphur will cause more trouble. This is no way to solve the problems we are facing. Peters suggests using naturally occurring microbes and current scientific understanding to our advantage, rather than continuing to pollute our skies, waterways and soil with sprayed particulates that cause harm to life on Earth.
Unlike the typical U.S. farm bill, the 50-Year Farm Bill attempts to address the real and ongoing problems of agriculture: erosion, toxicity, loss of genetic and species diversity, and the destruction of rural communities, or the destruction, where it still survives, of the culture of husbandry. It begins with the fact that at present, 80 percent of the land is planted annually in annual crops such as corn and beans, and 20 percent in perennials. It proposes a 50-year program for the gradual inversion of that ratio to 80 percent perennial cover and 20 percent annuals. It’s pretty clear that annual plants are nature’s emergency service. They’re the plants that come in after, say, a landslide, after the land has been exposed, and they give it a temporary cover while the perennials are getting started. So our predominantly annual agriculture keeps the land in a state of emergency.
It’s hard to make a permanent agriculture on the basis of an emergency strategy. By now the planted acreages have grown so large that most soybean and corn fields, for instance, are not seeded to cover crops, and so they lie exposed to the weather all winter. You can drive through Iowa in April before the new crops have been planted and started to grow, and you don’t see anything green mile after mile. It’s more deserted than a desert. And the soil erosion rates in Iowa are scandalous.
Berry has been an outspoken opponent of the devastating practice of mountain top removal coal extraction to ecosystems, animals and people. He describes it thus:
Mountaintop removal is as near total destruction as you can imagine, because it does away with the forest, it does away with the topsoil that sustained the forest, it does away with the very topography — even people’s family graveyards go. And it’s done in complete disregard not only of the land but of the people who live downhill, whose lives are threatened, whose water supplies are destroyed, whose homes are damaged. The people downhill, downstream, and ahead of us in time are totally disregarded.
Berry expresses that although he has hope, he is no optimist when it comes to the future of farming in the face of unsustainable, industrial agriculture. Yale 360 interviewer asks him whether in relation to his home state of Kentucky, “Sustainable agriculture is gaining ground in a significant way that could slow the growth of industrial agriculture, or is it more of a boutique type of thing?”
Berry replies:
Well, we are a young country. By the time settlement reached Kentucky it was 1775, and the industrial revolution was already underway. So we’ve been 238 years in Kentucky, we Old World people. And what we have done there in that time has not been sustainable. In fact, it has been the opposite. There’s less now of everything in the way of natural gifts, less of everything than what was there when we came. Sometimes we have radically reduced the original gift. And so for Americans to talk about sustainability is a bit of a joke, because we haven’t sustained anything very long — and a lot of things we haven’t sustained at all.
The acreage that is now under the influence of the local food effort or the sustainable agriculture effort is at present tiny, and industrial agriculture is blasting ahead at a great rate. For instance, in the last two years, the high price of corn and soybeans has driven that kind of agriculture into the highly vulnerable uplands of my home country. I can show you farms that in my lifetime have been mostly in grass that are now suddenly covered, line fence to line fence, with monocultures of corn or beans….
So we have these two things, a promising start on what we call, loosely, sustainable land use, and we have a still far larger industrial extractive agriculture operating, really, against the land.
To study the impact of everyday chemicals on fertility, federal researchers recently spent four years tracking 501 couples as they tried to have children. One of the findings stood out: while both men and women were exposed to known toxic chemicals, men seemed much more likely to suffer fertility problems as a result.
The gender gap was particularly wide when it came to phthalates, those ubiquitous compounds used to make plastics more flexible and cosmetic lotions slide on more smoothly. Women who wore cosmetics often had higher levels of phthalates in their bodies, as measured by urinalysis. But only in their male partners were phthalate levels correlated with infertility.
Included in the report are suggestions for limiting exposure to phthalates, because, “Unlike heavy metals like cadmium and lead that tend to accumulate in the body,” phthalates tend to pass through quickly.
Report continues with a quote from Dr. Tracey Woodruff, “Director of the program on reproductive health and the environment at the University of California, San Francisco.”
“The W.H.O. called them ‘pseudopersistent’ in one report,” Dr. Woodruff said, because continued exposure keeps phthalates in the body. But here’s the silver lining: the transient nature of these compounds also means that consumers can take fairly simple measures to reduce their phthalate levels.
One is to read the labels on cosmetics and other personal care products and to choose those without phthalates. Another is to be cautious with plastic food containers, and to avoid using them to heat food and drink, as the phthalates in them may get transferred to what you consume.
“These compounds leach from plastics,” Dr. Buck Louis said. “You can switch to glass for drinking. You can cook your frozen dinners on paper plates.”
Studies have shown that these kinds of actions do make a difference; experiments have found measurably lower levels within several days in people who make these changes.
44 year old 
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