Did you ever look at a woman with long, shiny, luscious hair and wish yours was such? Although we all envy the owners of long hair, only few of us really try to grow it. Short hair is much simpler to handle, style and take care of.
But, once you start thinking about it, you’ll find [...]

This article is continuing: “Normalizing Biotechnology”
In the 1940’s, when grain yields per acre started to increase dramatically in the United States and continued to rise for decades, observers labeled the phenomenon the “Green Revolution.” The increased productivity of the Green Revolution was based on the breeding efforts of scientists who scoured the world for plant [...]

This article is continuing: “Propping up the Biotech Market”
In addition to the financial advantages the agricultural sector offers the pharmaceutical conglomerates, there are ethical advantages to transforming the farm into biotechnology’s frontier. The commercialization of genetically engineered corn, cotton, and soybeans introduces the world to biotechnology, yet these products insinuate themselves into our lives largely [...]

This article is continuing: “Biotechnology’s Promise”
Food has become a casualty of biotechnology’s promise because the agricultural sector offers pharmaceutical conglomerates unique opportunities to pursue the development and
monopolization of proprietary biotechnology platforms while reducing their financial risks. The enormous public resources invested in agriculture have benefited these companies by promoting the sale of GE seeds over [...]

This article is continuing: “How Food Became a Casualty of Biotechnology’s Promise”
Biotechnology’s promise began to pay out in 1978, a landmark year for the industry. Genentech announced that it had, for the first time in history, manufactured a human protein outside of the human body. The company had successfully managed to coax insulin from an [...]

“There was something deeply mystifying about the rush of big biotech and chemical companies into theseed business, Monsanto’s headfirst dive in particular . .. It is not, in the lingo of Wall Street, a high margin business.”
-Daniel Charles, Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food.
The first genetically engineered [...]

Growth hormone (GH or somatotropin) is a 191-amino acid, single chain polypeptide hormone which is synthesised, stored and secreted by the somatotroph cells within the lateral wings of the anterior pituitary gland, which stimulates growth and cell reproduction in humans and other animals.
Terminology
Growth hormone (GH) is also called “somatropin” and “somatotropin” (British: “somatotrophin”).
“hGH” refers to [...]

Food provides the energy people need to survive and do work. The globalisation of the food industry and concentration of the food supply chains are the major causes of increase in food transport across the globe, wasting a lot of energy and spewing extra tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is estimated that [...]

Wastes may be the most important source of sustainable renewable energy in a post fossil fuel economy. Treating wastes to recover energy prevents them from polluting the environment, and harvesting energy from organic wastes saves carbon emissions twice over, by preventing carbon emissions that would otherwise have gone into the atmosphere, and by substituting for [...]

Solar cells even at a low 10 percent energy conversion efficiency could satisfy the world’s energy needs with just over 0.1 percent of the earth’s surface. Solar power is poised to enter the mainstream market. Worldwide, photovoltaic installations jumped by 61.5 percent to 927 MW in 2004, up from 574 MW installed in 2003. A [...]