Canndo will answer any question that is stated as such in this thread

[cannabineer]

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/hydrogen-fuel/

the absence of efficient process to extreact that energy is not any indication of it not being valid as a renewable green energy source

resistors used to be the size of a car

Canndo is on point when he refers to it as a carrier. One must have electrical energy to make the hydrogen. Its biggest gripes are safety (amazingly inflammable and has a real tendency to form gas mixtures that detonate) and energy density (liquid hydrogen is very hard to store and has 1/12th the density of water: one pound needs 1 1/2 gallons of insulated space).
Imo using methane as a fuel for transport e.g. trucking has a better future. It's superior in both regards, fire safety and storable energy density. Neither fuel can touch Diesel for safety, density, storability and sheer convenience however. cn

 

[OGEvilgenius]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244824/Fears-grow-study-shows-genetically-modified-crops-cause-liver-kidney-damage.html

[h=1]Fears grow as study shows genetically modified crops 'can cause liver and kidney damage'[/h] By David Derbyshire
UPDATED: 09:43 GMT, 21 January 2010

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An environmental campaigner protesting against GM crops. A study said it can cause organ damage.


Fresh fears were raised over GM crops yesterday after a study showed they can cause liver and kidney damage.


According to the research, animals fed on three strains of genetically modified maize created by the U.S. biotech firm Monsanto suffered signs of organ damage after just three months.


The findings only came to light after Monsanto was forced to publish its raw data on safety tests by anti-GM campaigners.


They add to the evidence that GM crops may damage health as well as be harmful to the environment.


The figures released by Monsanto were examined by French researcher Dr Gilles-Eric Seralini, from the University of Caen.

Yesterday he called for more studies to check for long-term organ damage.


'What we've shown is clearly not proof of toxicity, but signs of toxicity,' he told New Scientist magazine. 'I'm sure there's no acute toxicity but who's to say there are no chronic effects?'


The experiments were carried out by Monsanto researchers on three strains of GM maize. Two of the varieties contained genes for the Bt protein which protects the plant against the corn borer pest, while a third was genetically modified to be resistant to the weedkiller glyphosate. All three strains are widely grown in America, while one is the only GM crop grown in Europe, mostly in Spain.



Monsanto only released the raw data after a legal challenge from Greenpeace, the Swedish Board of Agriculture and French anti- GM campaigners.


Dr Seralini concluded that rats which ate the GM maize had ' statistically significant' signs of liver and kidney damage. Each strain was linked to unusual concentrations of hormones in the blood and urine of rats fed the maize for three months, compared to rats given a non-GM diet.


The higher hormone levels suggest that animals' livers and kidneys are not working properly.

Female rats fed one of the strains also had higher blood sugar levels and raised levels of fatty substances caused triglycerides, Dr Seralini reported in the International Journal of Microbiology.

The analysis concluded: 'These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.'


Monsanto claimed the analysis of its data was 'based on faulty analytical methods and reasoning, and does not call into question the safety findings for these products'.

And allow to follow up Monsanto's claim of faulty analysis with the observation that they tried to block the release of this data, because obviously they have nothing to hide and all is well.

"This study was just routine," said Russian biologist Alexey V. Surov, in what could end up as the understatement of this century. Surov and his colleagues set out to discover if Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) soy, grown on 91% of US soybean fields, leads to problems in growth or reproduction. What he discovered may uproot a multi-billion dollar industry.

After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.


And if this isn't shocking enough, some in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths--a phenomenon rarely seen, but apparently more prevalent among hamsters eating GM soy.


The study, jointly conducted by Surov's Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Association for Gene Security, is expected to be published in three months (July 2010)--so the technical details will have to wait. But Surov sketched out the basic set up for me in an email.


He used Campbell hamsters, with a fast reproduction rate, divided into 4 groups. All were fed a normal diet, but one was without any soy, another had non-GM soy, a third used GM soy, and a fourth contained higher amounts of GM soy. They used 5 pairs of hamsters per group, each of which produced 7-8 litters, totally 140 animals.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/genetically-modified-soy_b_544575.html

Aren’t critics of genetically engineered food anti-science? Isn’t the debate over GMOs (genetically modified organisms) a spat between emotional but ignorant activists on one hand and rational GM-supporting scientists on the other?
A new report released today, “GMO Myths and Truths”,[1] challenges these claims. The report presents a large body of peer-reviewed scientific and other authoritative evidence of the hazards to health and the environment posed by genetically engineered crops and organisms (GMOs).


Unusually, the initiative for the report came not from campaigners but from two genetic engineers who believe there are good scientific reasons to be wary of GM foods and crops.

One of the genetic engineers involved in the report is Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London School of Medicine in the U.K., which uses genetic engineering for medical applications but warns against its use in developing crops for human food and animal feed. Dr Antoniou said: “GM crops are promoted on the basis of ambitious claims – that they are safe to eat, environmentally beneficial, increase yields, reduce reliance on pesticides, and can help solve world hunger."

“I felt what was needed was a collation of the evidence that addresses the technology from a scientific point of view."

“Research studies show that genetically modified crops have harmful effects on laboratory animals in feeding trials and on the environment during cultivation. They have increased the use of pesticides and have failed to increase yields. Our report concludes that there are safer and more effective alternatives to meeting the world’s food needs.”

The second author of the report is Dr John Fagan, a former genetic engineer, who in 1994 returned $614,000 in grant money to the National Institutes of Health, due to concerns about the safety and ethics of the technology. Dr Fagan then founded a GMO testing company.

He says, “Crop genetic engineering as practiced today is a crude, imprecise, and outmoded technology. It can create unexpected toxins or allergens in foods and affect their nutritional value. Recent advances point to better ways of using our knowledge of genomics to improve food crops, that do not involve GM." “Over 75% of all GM crops are engineered to tolerate being sprayed with herbicide. This has led to the spread of herbicide-resistant superweeds and has resulted in massively increased exposure of farmers and communities to these toxic chemicals. Epidemiological studies suggest a link between herbicide use and birth defects and cancer."

“These findings fundamentally challenge the utility and safety of GM crops, but the biotech industry uses its influence to block research by independent scientists and uses its powerful PR machine to discredit independent scientists whose findings challenge this approach.”

http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/GMO_Myths_and_Truths/GMO_Myths_and_Truths_1.3.pdf

Link to the report.

http://earthopensource.org/index.php/news/60-why-genetically-engineered-food-is-dangerous-new-report-by-genetic-engineers

Article.

I'd read the report, it's fairly eye opening.

 

[UncleBuck]

They said there were no notable differences despite the animals being fed GMO corn (one example) having serious kidney and liver problems after prolonged exposure.

that would happen without GMO food as well though.

cows are not supposed to be stuffed full of corn, that's not how they evolved. they evolved eating grasses.

 

[canndo]

I have not heard of this. Please provide links. My info was that GMO foods are non-toxic to humans. I understand that there is a lot of antipathy to GMOs right now, but I've always dismissed it as a religious-type response, "unnatural = bad".

I googled and found this:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/is-genetically-modified-corn-toxic.html

However I would like to propose that the problem here isn't GMO, but high carbs. If you're interested, i recommend the book "Good Calories, Bad calories" by Gary Taubes ... it's essentially a meta-analysis of nutritional scientific publications about the effects of high-carb diets, and the scientific bias those effects must overcome to be acknowledged, which they are not by a majority. cn

It is possible for GMO foods to be detrimental to human life. It is possible that alergies, and other problems might arise from GMO foods depending upon the gene implanted - but it isn't (as Doc Keynes points out) very likely. Although GMOS may well be safe, I don't want to eat them and it will be terribly difficult to research the possible effects from each GMO product, whereas it is pretty simple to figure out the problems with simple chemicals placed in our food.

GMO foods are Generaly recognized as safe but we know that big ag and the genetics companies are heavily insinuated in the FDA so who can tell? We do know several things:

GMOs are very likely detrimental to the environment
GMOs are the obvious portion of a world wide effort to patent food and food seeds
GMOs were never designed with the end consumer in mind and most often are no better in any respect save profit for the orignator than any other plant.

 

[desert dude]

It is possible for GMO foods to be detrimental to human life. It is possible that alergies, and other problems might arise from GMO foods depending upon the gene implanted - but it isn't (as Doc Keynes points out) very likely. Although GMOS may well be safe, I don't want to eat them and it will be terribly difficult to research the possible effects from each GMO product, whereas it is pretty simple to figure out the problems with simple chemicals placed in our food.

GMO foods are Generaly recognized as safe but we know that big ag and the genetics companies are heavily insinuated in the FDA so who can tell? We do know several things:

GMOs are very likely detrimental to the environment
GMOs are the obvious portion of a world wide effort to patent food and food seeds
GMOs were never designed with the end consumer in mind and most often are no better in any respect save profit for the orignator than any other plant.

Food crops engineered to be drought tolerant aren't a benefit to the consumer? Food crops engineered to increase yield aren't a benefit to the consumer?

Who is the "originator" you speak of?

 

[cannabineer]

It is possible for GMO foods to be detrimental to human life. It is possible that alergies, and other problems might arise from GMO foods depending upon the gene implanted - but it isn't (as Doc Keynes points out) very likely. Although GMOS may well be safe, I don't want to eat them and it will be terribly difficult to research the possible effects from each GMO product, whereas it is pretty simple to figure out the problems with simple chemicals placed in our food.

GMO foods are Generaly recognized as safe but we know that big ag and the genetics companies are heavily insinuated in the FDA so who can tell? We do know several things:

GMOs are very likely detrimental to the environment

So far the only arguments I've heard in this vein were pre-emptive what-ifs, a celebration of Slippery Slope. I'll read a link from a mature source claiming otherwise, however.

GMOs are the obvious portion of a world wide effort to patent food and food seeds

This is sociopolitically interesting, but not biologically.

GMOs were never designed with the end consumer in mind and most often are no better in any respect save profit for the orignator than any other plant.

Most GMOs aren't things like Terminator, which is the controversial one related to monopolistic ambition. What remains are enhancements, like disease/drought tolerance. These add objective value. cn

 

[canndo]

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/hydrogen-fuel/

the absence of efficient process to extreact that energy is not any indication of it not being valid as a renewable green energy source

resistors used to be the size of a car

The fundamentals of physics comes down to one inescapable fact - There Is No Free Lunch. We are currently discovering that the most powerful portable and collectable source of energy for consumer ... consumption is gasoline. It is wonderful stuff, it is absurdly powerful and comes in a real neat package. But even this comes with a long term hazard.

I know I have written about a few of my business ventures but I was in a unique position of being able to insitute computer controls and computer networks in a vast variety of different industries and was popular because I took an interest in how these industries operated. I was in the alternative fuels business for a long long time. I still have many contacts there.

Two of the comapnies worked on two sides of the alternative gaseous fuels problem - one did carberators and injectors, the other storage. ANother, a friend recently sold was an engineering firm that designed and installed refuling stations.

The storage folks came up with an ultra light weight carbon fiber tank. When I left the company they were perfecting a 15,000 lb per square inch container for hydrogen which would make the density about the same as that of gasoline (a bit higher actually). At these pressures all sorts of bad things began to happen. Metal embritlement, unaviodable leaks (hydrogen is the smallest atom and it finds ways to escape) and of course what they called the "hindenburg effect" - in my view they had that one solved until a series of tests in Germany sadly sent them back to the beginning.

Nevertheless - 15,000 lbs of pressure is scary scary scary. But I digress, the point is that there will always be a problem liberating hydrogen - the most common source now is hydrocarbons - kinda defeating the purpose.

Hydrogen will never be as energetic as gasoline and the net energy collected will be dwarfed even by other hydrocarbon gasesous fuels. I am damn sorry but there really is no free lunch.

 

[canndo]

Food crops engineered to be drought tolerant aren't a benefit to the consumer? Food crops engineered to increase yield aren't a benefit to the consumer?

Who is the "originator" you speak of?

In many cases the originator is Monsanto. I have yet to see a GMO plant that was designed in order to withstand drought or substancialy increase yeild. BT and round up ready are mostly a ruse from what I have been able to gather.

 

[canndo]

So far the only arguments I've heard in this vein were pre-emptive what-ifs, a celebration of Slippery Slope. I'll read a link from a mature source claiming otherwise, however.
This is sociopolitically interesting, but not biologically.
Most GMOs aren't things like Terminator, which is the controversial one related to monopolistic ambition. What remains are enhancements, like disease/drought tolerance. These add objective value. cn

The short answer is a question - is it wise to go completely outside of all evolutionary mechaisms in plants or animals that have direct contact with nature unless we have total understanding of these mechanisms?

 

[cannabineer]

The short answer is a question - is it wise to go completely outside of all evolutionary mechanisms in plants or animals that have direct contact with nature unless we have total understanding of these mechanisms?

Total control over anything can never be realized. Since your condition is impossible, I am constrained to answer Yes. The alternative is stasis.

I'm not sure if the spoiler was deliberate on your part. Allowing that it wasn't: We humans have a grand tradition of fearing apocalypse from the unknown. In the early 19th century, doctors soberly warned that were a human to exceed a speed of 45 mph, he would die. Other doctors were sincerely worried that the extreme speed would kill the first orbital space traveler. I see a loose parallel here: there's something indefinitely scary about picking up the fine tools of the Fates and altering the stitchery of the thread of life. However, from a position slightly farther inside the biochemical sciences than most here, I see no credible danger. I see your phrase "go completely outside of all evolutionary mechanisms" as a modern way of capturing an old, God-fearing sort of sentiment: "offend against Nature" as if Nature were conscious and capable of taking offense. I hope I'm wrong. cn

 

[canndo]

Total control over anything can never be realized. Since your condition is impossible, I am constrained to answer Yes. The alternative is stasis.

I'm not sure if the spoiler was deliberate on your part. Allowing that it wasn't: We humans have a grand tradition of fearing apocalypse from the unknown. In the early 19th century, doctors soberly warned that were a human to exceed a speed of 45 mph, he would die. Other doctors were sincerely worried that the extreme speed would kill the first orbital space traveler. I see a loose parallel here: there's something indefinitely scary about picking up the fine tools of the Fates and altering the stitchery of the thread of life. However, from a position slightly farther inside the biochemical sciences than most here, I see no credible danger. I see your phrase "go completely outside of all evolutionary mechanisms" as a modern way of capturing an old, God-fearing sort of sentiment: "offend against Nature" as if Nature were conscious and capable of taking offense. I hope I'm wrong. cn

That's nice Canna, but you compare our dicking with the results of evolution with our screwing with the plans. There is no going back, any short fall in our understanding and tinkering with nature itself - nature in the broadist sense is not reverseable. This sort of fiddling is not contained within the individual nor even within the species and is not comparable with having a person go faster than 45 miles per hour, nor did the nervious mount a scientific defense of their aprehension at the speed.

Nature has a tendancy to correct or erase our inept tampering. I don't doubt that given a long enough time, nature will right itself even in the face of our messing with its plans but when we do something as drastic as implanting a part of a bacteria or a frog or a mouse in a plant, it is highly unlikely that long term good can result. A cavaleir attitude such as "well we've screwed with stuff before" is simply a demand that we experiment with that which we do not fully understand.

So far, all of the disasters we have brought upon ourselves have been correctable in terms of decades or centuries. A mistake here will not be so easily corrected or endured. Imagine something as simple as . . . a plant being imparted accidentaly with some quality that kills bees. Imagine further that all bees die. Knowing that we now have found GMO corn in remote Mexican villiages where none was ever knowingly planted, it isn't that hard to see very widespread occurances of a single modified species of plant.

No bees Canna, no bees at all.

 

[canndo]

"go completely outside of all evolutionary mechanisms" - is exactly what we are doing when we tamper with plant and animal genetics from the inside. When we engineer them. Nature works in a certain way and it is completely depenedent on gentics in order for it to do so. I am not ever saying that such a thing should not be done - there are plenty of reasons for us to not only know about how genetics work but for us to be able to manipulate them in ways we think are good for us as a scientificly driven society. What I am saying is that to do so with our food and to place that food back into the natural world at large is extrremely unwise unless and until we comprehend the entire web of life - something that we are not even close to comprehending yet.

There are a thousand things that could go wrong that we know of, likely thousands more that we don't, and only one or two that could go right.

don't experiment with the genetics of your food, don't shit where you eat.

 

[cannabineer]

I recognize that messing with genomes could potentially be disastrous. At the same time, I think our survival and ultimate betterment as a species will depend on genetic engineering. It is our one hope to transcend some of our worst inherited features.
That said, I'd like to see us colonize space first. I see a planetary surface as a cradle, not our destiny. Our destiny is more likely to be in the interplanetary and circumstellar "flatlands" of gravitational potential.
Then we'll be able to pursue the full implications of playing with our substrate without having all our eggs in one basket, all the while restoring Earth's surface to pristine wilderness.

But it is to me a certainty of our human natures that once we have the tools for our own transformation, we'll use them ... kicking off a wildly competitive era among the spectacular radiation of posthuman forms. Darwin's ghost would simultaneously smile and shudder. Jmdsv*. cn

* "just my drug-soaked vision"

 

[canndo]

I recognize that messing with genomes could potentially be disastrous. At the same time, I think our survival and ultimate betterment as a species will depend on genetic engineering. It is our one hope to transcend some of our worst inherited features.
That said, I'd like to see us colonize space first. I see a planetary surface as a cradle, not our destiny. Our destiny is more likely to be in the interplanetary and circumstellar "flatlands" of gravitational potential.
Then we'll be able to pursue the full implications of playing with our substrate without having all our eggs in one basket, all the while restoring Earth's surface to pristine wilderness.

But it is to me a certainty of our human natures that once we have the tools for our own transformation, we'll use them ... kicking off a wildly competitive era among the spectacular radiation of posthuman forms. Darwin's ghost would simultaneously smile and shudder. Jmdsv*. cn

* "just my drug-soaked vision"

What we weigh is the chance of disaster and the extent of the disaster. A one in 10 chance of a disaster where the disaster is a burnt roast isn't so bad.

A one in one million chance of disaster where the disaster is a widespread and permanent disruption of the world's food supply is considerably worse.

What about the bees canna?


If you havn't seen it, scout around the web for "food inc", you can get it free in a number of places - It might enlighten you.

 

[cannabineer]

What about the bees, canndo? I have this from you:

Imagine something as simple as . . . a plant being imparted accidentaly with some quality that kills bees. Imagine further that all bees die.

Yes, that double-imagine paints a disaster.

This isn't the same(however) as saying there is a real threat. I Googled GMOs and bees earlier but could only find items like this:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035511_insecticide_bees_collapse.html
It's worth noting that the poison implicated in bee deaths has absolutely nothing to do with GMOs but is a small-molecule pesticide discovered and manufactured in the classical manner.
Apparently the neonicotinoid class of insecticides is a serious part of a problem with multiple and additive causes. But i have found no evidence in my searches that GMOs are killing bees. If I've missed something obvious, I'd welcome a link (of course, not from an activist website). cn

 

[canndo]

What about the bees, canndo? I have this from you:

Yes, that double-imagine paints a disaster.

This isn't the same(however) as saying there is a real threat. I Googled GMOs and bees earlier but could only find items like this:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035511_insecticide_bees_collapse.html
It's worth noting that the poison implicated in bee deaths has absolutely nothing to do with GMOs but is a small-molecule pesticide discovered and manufactured in the classical manner.
Apparently the neonicotinoid class of insecticides is a serious part of a problem with multiple and additive causes. But i have found no evidence in my searches that GMOs are killing bees. If I've missed something obvious, I'd welcome a link (of course, not from an activist website). cn

Yes, two big ifs, but that is my point. Something like this is not (probably) now happening but what other mechanism beyond tampering with the gentics of our food could possible have such widespread consequences? Even the most powerful chemicals cannot kill all the bees, there would be some, somewhere and we could reintroduce them. Not so if each bit of pollen in a given plant is affected and those affects are carried in every new plant and every new issuance of pollen. I am not willing to gamble even if the odds are heavily in favor of nothing untoward happening if the consequences are as great as ... say... our actions causing the destruction of all bees. I am using the example of bees because it is easily apparent that the loss of bees would mean the loss of a huge percentage of all of our food crops.

http://www.enveurope.com/content/23/1/10

Now we are not talking about drugs, the taking of which is selective in society and drugs that can be realivily easy to take off the market and out of circulation. Once a GMO plant (or even animal) has been released into the environment it is likely to stay there and affect our food, food that we must eat regardless of the projected consequences.




Not long now before every crop on that chart has completely filled their niche and has edged out non-GMO plants. We have almost totaly replaced naturaly evolved plants with unnatural ones.

 

[Grandpapy]

What about the bees, canndo? I have this from you:

Yes, that double-imagine paints a disaster.

This isn't the same(however) as saying there is a real threat. I Googled GMOs and bees earlier but could only find items like this:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035511_insecticide_bees_collapse.html
It's worth noting that the poison implicated in bee deaths has absolutely nothing to do with GMOs but is a small-molecule pesticide discovered and manufactured in the classical manner.
Apparently the neonicotinoid class of insecticides is a serious part of a problem with multiple and additive causes. But i have found no evidence in my searches that GMOs are killing bees. If I've missed something obvious, I'd welcome a link (of course, not from an activist website). cn

It's not scientific but there is a time line that shows that the FDA should of known of the dangers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid_effects_on_bees

 

[cannabineer]

It's not scientific but there is a time line that shows that the FDA should of known of the dangers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imidacloprid_effects_on_bees

I must not be seeing it ... at what point should the FDA have known? Afaik the "sublethal/chronic toxicity" finding is new and not yet confirmed, although it does look like it has a lot to do with the colony collapse situation imo. If I made policy, i would certainly seek to more tightly regulate how the neonicotinoids are being used, pending more informative studies. A human parallel might be dioxin, a compound whose serious toxicity at remarkably low levels took some time to figure out. cn

 

[atidd11]

guys the FDA def releases some bullshit. come on now..

 

[atidd11]

the fake sugar shit they made thats in all kinds of shit causes cancer i cuda swore they proved it?! anyone?