High Fructose Corn Syrup and Cancer
Cynthia, a reader in Virginia, sent me a link to this article.
It’s one more reason why consuming HFCS is a really bad idea.
Vavilov Horticultural Research Institute in Pavlovsk
The Vavilov institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of the most important in Europe and it looks set to lose a vitally important research station housing more than 4000 fruit and berry species, many of which are extinct in their natural habitats. Since these are live plants, they cannot be preserved by storing seeds or other materials in a seedbank, they must be kept growing. This research station, consisting of 910,000 sq meters, is the largest field genebank in Europe.
Staff at the facility say a planned move would take at least 15 years to complete, and they are being given just 3 months. The loss to science and global biodiversity would be devastating if this forced move proceeds as planned.
The institute lost a case in court brought by property developers who want to use the site to build exclusive housing. An appeal to the ruling is pending, but this is expected to lose. Apparently in this case the law seems to be solidly on the side of the property developers.
The last remaining hope is intervention by either Russian President Medvedev or Prime Minister Putin, either one of which can set aside the court ruling. Via Twitter, President Medvedev announced he would look into the matter.
You can help by making a personal appeal to the Kremlin! You can sign an online petition here. You can also write the Kremlin a letter. Or tweet them at @KremlinRussia_E. Time is running out!
UK Veg Gardeners
Gillian Carson of My Tiny Plot just created a new gardening discussion forum!
In particular she’s networked with many of the top UK gardening blogs, meaning in one place you can now rub shoulders with lots of your favorite garden bloggers — including me!
Here at Bifurcated Carrots you can read what I write, and leave comments, but if you actually want to chat with me or other readers this wasn’t really possible until now. Now, if you go to UK Veg Gardeners, you can post your own material, and start your own discussions. I have wanted to set something up like this for a while now, but this takes a lot of time, so I’m really happy Gill has done it for me.
I host the Heritage Fruit and Veg group, and my picture looks like the one above at the top of the badge. When you join, be sure to say hi. Any reader of this blog interested in fruit and vegetable gardening in the UK is welcome!
Flattr Now Open Beta
I’ve written several times in the past weeks about Flattr, the micropayment system.
Yesterday, they announced they are going from closed beta testing to open beta. This means anyone who wants to can sign up without the need for an invitation. It also of course means they still consider themselves to be in the testing phase, but my experience with it so far has been very good and it all seems to work well.
To briefly summarize, with Flattr you can give small amounts of money to this and other websites which have signed up and have a Flattr button. You choose the amount of money you want to commit to giving away each month, with a minimum of €2, and this amount is spread among the people who’s Flattr buttons you click on. There are some costs, the fees for depositing and withdrawing money, and a 10% commission to Flattr themselves, which they promise to try to lower over time.
If you have a website yourself, you can also solicit donations through Flattr. There is also a service called imflattrd, where you can create an online profile and flattr button even if you don’t have a website. In particular this is useful with social networking tools.
For more detailed information, have a look at the Flattr website by following the link above.
I would really encourage all readers to become part of Flattr. As well as being able to donate small amounts of money to my efforts here, there are an increasing number of other sites accepting Flattr donations as well. The amount of money you have to commit is relatively small. After you have paid fees and the like, the minimum cost is around $30/yr, and if you have a website this will be partly or completely offset by donations others give to you.
Vacancy at the Seed Savers Exchange!
via Seed Snatcher
Aaron Whaley, Executive Director and President of Seed Savers Exchange, Inc., has resigned. Do you think you have what it takes to be the head of the Seed Savers Exchange? If you ask me, they need someone with good people management skills…
