A blogger goes under the knife

Simon Waldman, director of digital publishing for Guardian Newspapers and the man who started the whole Hitler flap that the New York Times and Wired News picked up on, has a terrific blog. Today he reports that he had Lasik surgery on his eyes this morning.

I also had Lasik surgery done in February 2000, and my world changed markedly for the better. Went from 20-600 vision to 20-20 and 20-25. Went from severe astigmatism to none. Went from being entirely dependent on eyeglasses to wearing them for reading on occasion. It's not for everyone, but if you're a good candidate, take the plunge.

Later: Simon, do give us updates on how you're coming along. Everyone heals at different rates. The strangest part for me was wearing a blindfold for a full day after the procedure. But when I took it off -- what a sight to behold! I could see images clearly that were hundreds of feet away. It took between two and three months for my vision to stabilize (meantime, I had to resort to $5 drugstore glasses to focus on my computer screen). But things gradually calmed down, and I even went back for a followup zap.

Will genetic crops rescue Mother Earth?

I'm not a big fan of those (mostly on the left) who want to ban all genetically modified foods, as this previous post (Biotech is not the enemy) attests.

Now comes this item in today's NY Times:

Frankenfoods to the Rescue Of Mother Earth

Here's something for the Greens of the world to ponder: "genetic engineering may be the most environmentally beneficial technology to have emerged in decades, or possibly centuries," Jonathan Rauch writes in The Atlantic Monthly. So-called "transgenic crops" ó soybeans crossbred with genes that tolerate herbicides, for example ó have enabled farmers to vastly increase yields while eliminating the need for ploughing, which leaches the soil of nutrients and promotes erosion and runoff. Ploughless farming, because it requires no fuel, also saves money and reduces pollution.

While citing the substantial risks involved in creating transgenic plants, the article notes other benefits of bioengineered crops: transgenic cotton, for instance, which makes its own pesticide courtesy of a toxin-producing gene, and engineered rootworm-resistant corn have enormous potential to reduce pesticide use. And other crops are being developed to tolerate soil contaminants like aluminum, a big problem in the tropics.

Noting that "world food output will need to at least double and possibly triple over the next several decades," the author argues that "the great challenge" is "not to feed an additional three billion people (and their pets) but to do so without converting much of the world's prime habitat into second- or third-rate farmland."

As a result, "if properly developed, disseminated and used, genetically modified crops may be the best hope the planet has got."

Here's Rauch's full piece in the October Atlantic Monthly: Will Frankenfood Save the Planet? Over the next half century genetic engineering could feed humanity and solve a raft of environmental illsóif only environmentalists would let it.

By the way, with all this talk about Frankenfood, think Al Franken has a legal claim here?

The cord blood controversy

My niece had a baby today, little Elizabeth Thomas. One interesting side note: They saved the umbilical cord blood (I believe it cost over $1,000, with another $100 per year for storage). As it happens, this week's Newsweek carries a report questioning the practice, except in rare cases.

Biotech is not the enemy

My old employer, the Sacramento Bee, is all over the massive protests in Sacramento today at the international Ministerial Conference and Expo on Agricultural Science and Technology, a conference hosted by the US to showcase farm technology and scientific know-how. The Bee's coverage includes a story on the massive protest roiling downtown, the protest march, an overview of the conference, and a look at biotech's role in addressing world hunger.

While I know some well-intentioned individuals who participate in these protests, I think they're wildly offbase. I have friends who are biotech scientists, and they're always befuddled and a little sad at the enormous amount of misinformation being spread about genetically modified crops -- a scary phrase unless one looks under the surface at what's really going on.

Science (yes, including researchers at Monsanto and other multinational corporations) has begun producing scores of fruits and vegetables that are more plentiful, nutritious, disease-free, insect-resistant, drought-tolerant, better-tasting, longer-lasting. Science has begun breeding a variety of cassava that produces its own natural insecticide by borrowing traits that other plants have evolved naturally to ward off pests, thus greatly reducing the use of toxic chemical pesticides.

Science has modified foods in the laboratory to stand up against the withering heat and drought of sub-Sahara Africa. Science has endowed strains of alfalfa and yams with genetically endowed antigens that provide immunity to cholera, which kills 10 million children a year. Edible vaccines promise to be the safest, most affordable way to immunize children in the developing world against disease. Biotech has begun to enhance the nutritional values of fruits and vegetables as well as genetically fortifying new strains of millet and rice with high amounts of iron and lysine, a move that could prevent hundreds of millions of people from contracting anemia, goiter and impaired sight due to inadequate diets.

Iíve eaten genetically modified tomatoes and other foods ñ and, you know what? You probably have too. Watchdog groups and government perform a valuable function in making sure agricultural biotech does not endanger the public health or the food chain. But the protesters today aren't interested in science but only in their half-formed belief systems.

Science and politics are almost always a bad mix, whether itís the Bush administrationís skewing the scientific research for its own political ends on global warming or the leftís embarrassing antics in Sacramento today.

Debunking pseudoscience

Archaeology magazine takes a look at how a group of fed-up archaeology buffs launched a Web site to help debunk ìalternative histories,î such as ancient space travel and the existence of Atlantis. The article also features a list of the top five pseudoarchaeological sites and the top five sites that refute them. Good stuff.