mcnee...@cox.net wrote: > Exactly how are these stories "sensational." Is there > anything in them that is not factual? Tyrone Hayes > work with atrazine and frog development is given > substantial credence by knowledgeable folks in the field.
The UC Berkeley story said sensationally: "its [atrazine herbicide] effect on sexual development in male frogs could be one of many factors in the global decline of amphibians" Syngenta says: http://tinyurl.com/6fobfnk "Does atrazine affect frog sexual development? The facts are clear: atrazine does not. Government bodies reviewing the science have concluded that atrazine is safe to use. The EPA and independent researchers around the world have rejected claims made by Dr. Tyrone Hayes about atrazine, noting that his data do not support his conclusions and questioning why he refuses to make his raw data available for independent scientific review." The 1999 Cornell University story said sensationally: "Pollen from Bt-corn could represent a serious risk to populations of monarchs and other butterflies". But since 1999 Bt corn has been widely adopted by by American farmers. Worse, Roundup Ready corn and soybeans also were widely adopted and the resulting heavy use of Roundup herbicide eliminated most of the milkweed plants that used to grow within these crops What was the effect of this one-two punch on monarch abundance? These butterflies are still spectacularly abundant in the most intensive corn and soybean regions of the upper Midwest such as in southern Minnesota: Still photo: http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/bia.jpg Video of the same butterflies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4e3S2sm13g Still photo: http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/danub.jpg Still photo: http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/wintf.jpg Video of the same butterflies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJCnU7PB9to The Cal Poly State University story said sensationally: "Studies since the early 1990s indicate Western U.S. populations of the monarch butterfly are headed for extinction...under the direction of biology professor Francis Villablanca, Monarch Alert helps generate data needed to determine just how experts can bring about a monarch resurgence." But the serious decline of the western USA monarch parallels serious landscape scale declines in western milkweed abundance caused by greatly increased herbiciding of roadsides, vacant lots, crop margin, railway lines, etc. http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/herba.jpg http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/herbd.jpg in combination with urban sprawl: http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/sprawla.jpg http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/sprawlb.jpg Since Cal Poly does not know how this ongoing intensive weed control or sprawl can be stopped, there's no conceivable way Cal Poly could: "generate data needed to determine just how experts can bring about a monarch resurgence [in milkweed, hence monarch] abundance." Paul Cherubini
