In 2024 Argentina’s GMO-loving government approved 25 new GMOs — seeds and microorganisms — the highest number ever. This included GMO soy and corn varieties linked to glyphosate, 2,4-D and glufosinate, and containing Bt toxins. The developer companies were Corteva, Monsanto and BASF. The Ministry of Agriculture in Argentina released so many GMOs last year that they constitute almost 25% of the total approved in the country in over a quarter of a century. @GMWatch on X, quoting journalist Patricio Eleisegui and Bichos de Campo

 

 

One practice contributing to forest fires is the widespread use of glyphosate, a herbicide sprayed to kill undergrowth, writes horticulturist Monika Rekola. The logic seems sound: clearing out the underbrush reduces the amount of fuel on the forest floor. But here’s the kicker—glyphosate also kills native plants that help retain moisture in the soil. What’s left is a dry, barren landscape, practically begging for a spark. When native species like birch, aspen, and fireweed start regrowing in a clear-cut forest, they’re treated as competition for the conifers prized by the timber industry. Glyphosate clears them out, creating a tree-farm monoculture. While this might make sense financially, it’s a disaster for ecosystems. These monocultures are less hospitable to wildlife, insects, and fungi. They’re also more flammable. Midland Today

 

 

In June 2024 the Senate committee on the Origin of COVID-19 made its first and so far only investigative foray into the origin of the Ebola outbreak that ravaged West Africa in 2014. In its June hearing, committee members questioned virologist Prof Bob Garry of Tulane University about his authorship of the infamous Proximal Origins paper on COVID-19 (which denied a lab leak); but afterwards they also submitted written questions. Most of these latter concern the Ebola 2014 outbreak which has attracted concern since it occurred far from the normal endemic range of Ebola virus, which is Central Africa. Bob Garry is intimately connected to that outbreak through his presidency of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium (VHFC), a US non-profit with a research facility in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Research at Kenema is the primary suspect for being the ultimate source of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and now Garry's answers have been released as part of the conclusions of the committee. What those answers do is to suggest how the spillover might have happened. He points the finger at another organisation that worked at Kenema in 2013 and 2014. It is the company Metabiota, whose employees were sampling for human pathogenic viruses in Central Africa shortly before the outbreak. Dr Jonathan Latham reports. Independent Science News

 

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