Biodiversity

"A decline in the diversity of farmed plants and livestock breeds is gathering pace, threatening future food supplies for the world's growing population, the head of a new United Nations panel on biodiversity said on Monday."

"Organizers say 'March against Monsanto' protests held in 52 nations and 436 cities. Anti-Monsanto rallies sparked by a Facebook page in February."

"In the 1980s, manufactures began making cockroach baits that combined sweet glucose with deadly insecticides. By 1993, many cockroach populations somehow developed an aversion to the bait. Now, 20 years later, scientists finally understand how the roaches beat these traps."

"Frogs, toads and salamanders continue to vanish from the American landscape at an alarming pace, with seven species — including Colorado’s boreal toad and Nevada’s yellow-legged frog — facing 50 percent drops in their numbers within seven years if the current rate of decline continues, according to new government research."

"Scientists have used plant samples collected in the mid-19th Century to identify the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine."

"Frogs that were imported for pregnancy tests and set loose in California carry a deadly fungus responsible for wiping out vast numbers of amphibians worldwide, scientists have found."

"U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for overseas lobbying that promotes controversial biotech crops developed by U.S.-based Monsanto Co. and other seed makers, a report issued on Tuesday said."

"Genetically engineered crops that could sharply increase the use of two powerful herbicides are now unlikely to reach the market until at least 2015 because the Department of Agriculture has decided to subject the crops to more stringent environmental reviews than it had originally intended."

"The habitats of many common plants and animals will shrink dramatically this century unless governments act quickly to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said on Sunday after studying 50,000 species around the world."

"Farmers must pay Monsanto each time they plant the company’s genetically modified soybeans, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting an Indiana farmer’s argument that his un­or­tho­dox techniques did not violate the company’s patent."