Answers for a New Age

According to the USDA, million-dollar farms—those with annual sales of at least $1 million—accounted for about half of U.S. farm sales in 2002, up from a fourth in 1982 (with sales measured in constant 2002 dollars).

By 2006, the USDA said million-dollar farms, accounting for 2 percent of all U.S. farms, dominated U.S. production of high-value crops, milk, hogs, poultry, and beef.

“The shift to million-dollar farms is likely to continue because they tend to be more profitable than smaller farms, giving them a competitive advantage,” according to the USDA. “Most million-dollar farms (84 percent) are family farms, that is, the farm operator and relatives of the operator own the business. The million-dollar farms organized as nonfamily corporations tend to have no more than 10 stockholders.”

The National Weather Service in Hastings is reporting that December 2008 brought Grand Island and Hastings their coldest average minimum temperatures for the month since 2000.

At Central Nebraska Regional Airport in Grand Island, NWS said the average low for the month was 11.3 degrees, or 4.6 degrees below the normal December average low of 15.9 degrees.

Eight days during the month, NWS said, lows dip to zero or colder. The last time a colder December average low occurred was in 2000, which registered 8.5 degrees, according to NWS. The all-time coldest December average low temperature was 0.9 degrees in  1983. Climate records for grand island date to 1895.

At Hastings Municipal Airport, the average low for the month was  12.5 degrees,or 4.7 degrees below the normal december average low of 17.2 degrees. eight days during the month saw lows dip to zero or
colder, the NWS said. The last time a colder December average low occurred was in 2000, which registered 8.5 degrees. the all-time coldest December average low temperature was 1.7 degrees in 1983.

Aquaculture production of seafood will probably remain the most rapidly increasing food production system worldwide through 2025, according to James S. Diana of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in an assessment published in the January 2009 issue of BioScience.

According to Diana,  despite well-publicized concerns about some harmful effects of aquaculture, the technique may, when practiced well, be no more damaging to biodiversity than other food production systems. Moreover, he said, it may be the only way to supply growing demand for seafood as the human population increases.

Total production from capture fisheries has remained approximately constant for the past 20 years and may decline, according to Diana. He said aquaculture, in contrast, has increased by 8.8 percent per year since 1985 and now accounts for about one-third of all aquatic harvest by weight.

Finfish, mollusks, and crustaceans dominate aquaculture production; seafood exports generate more money for developing countries than meat, coffee, tea, bananas, and rice combined, Diana said.

Among the most potentially harmful effects of aquaculture, according to Diana, are the escape of farmed species that then become invasive, pollution of local waters by effluent, especially from freshwater systems, and land-use change associated with shrimp aquaculture in particular. Increased demand for fish products for use in feed and transmission of disease from captive to wild stocks are also hazards.

Nonetheless, he said when carefully implemented, aquaculture can reduce pressure on overexploited wild stocks, enhance depleted stocks, and boost natural production of fishes as well as species diversity.

Some harmful effect, Diana said, have diminished as management techniques have improved, and aquaculture has the potential to provide much-needed employment in developing countries.

Diana points to the need for thorough life-cycle analyses to compare aquaculture with other food production systems. Such analyses are, however, only now being undertaken, and more comprehensive information is needed to guide the growth of this technique in sustainable ways, he said.

Tipping your elbow for New Year’s cheer may help you lower the risks of Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive losses, according to researchers at Loyola University. That’s moderate drinking, by the way. But, then again, alcohol can damage your brain. I’m still not convinced that you can have your beer and drink it too. RKP

MAYWOOD, Ill. — Moderate drinkers often have lower risks of Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive loss, according to researchers who reviewed 44 studies.

In more than half of the studies, published since the 1990s, moderate drinkers of wine, beer and liquor had lower dementia risks than nondrinkers. In only a few studies were there increased risks.

“Alcohol is a two-edged sword,” said Michael Collins, Ph.D., a professor and neuroscientist at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and lead author of the refereed report in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. “Too much is bad. But a little might actually be helpful.”

Moderate alcohol consumption generally is defined as 1 drink or less per day for women and 1-2 drinks or less per day for men.

“The pathological damage and vast social havoc from addiction to and abuse of alcohol are well known, and of necessity should continue to receive primary attention by doctors, scientific researchers and health professionals,” Collins and colleagues write. “However, light-to-moderate responsible alcohol consumption “appears to carry certain health benefits.”

Long-term alcohol abuse can cause memory loss and impair cognitive function. It’s unknown why moderate alcohol use appears to have the opposite effect. One theory is that the well-known cardiovascular benefits of moderate alcohol consumption also can reduce the risk of mini strokes that cause dementia.

Collins and another Loyola professor, neuroscientist Edward Neafsey, Ph.D., suggest a second possible explanation. Small amounts of alcohol might, in effect, make brain cells more fit. Alcohol in moderate levels stresses cells and thus toughens them up to cope with major stresses down the road that could cause dementia.

For most people who drink responsibly and in moderation, there’s probably no reason to quit. But because of the potential for alcohol to be abused, Collins and Neafsey do not recommend that abstainers begin drinking. The researchers note there are other things besides moderate drinking that can reduce the risk of dementia, including exercise, green tea, education and a Mediterranean diet high in fruits, vegetables, cereals, beans, nuts and seeds.

Moreover, there are times when people should never drink, including adolescence, pregnancy and before driving, Collins said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population is projected to be 305.5 Million on New Year’s Day.

That’s up 2.743 million people from New Year’s Day 2008 or 0.9 percent.

In January 2009, the Census Bureau estimates that  one birth is expected to occur every eight seconds in the United States and one death every 12 seconds.

Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, net international migration is expected to add one person every 36 seconds to the U.S. population in January 2009, resulting in an increase in the total U.S. population of one person every 14 seconds.

Now, that doesn’t count illegal immigrants. Any way you look at it, that means more people to feed despite the economic downturn.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food price inflation in is expected to fall to 4.5 percent in 2009. If energy prices continues to be low, this will be a real boom to the amount of disposable income available to people. But the question remains, has these high food prices created a fundamental change in people’s eating and food buying habits? That’s especially true in the protein industry, such as beef. Despite ethanol, cattle and calves are still the king of the roost in Nebraska. Cattle and calves was a $7.137 billion industry in Nebraska in 2007 accounting for 49 percent of total cash receipts. Continued decline in the beef industry in 2009, along with the continued slow down in the ethanol industry if gasoline prices continue to be low, will have economic consequences for Nebraska’s economy. RKP

USAgNet reports that the USDA is reporting food-price inflation in 2009 may fall to 4.5 percent as lower dairy costs give consumers relief from this year’s price gains, the highest in 28 years.

The forecast for inflation, estimated as high as 6 percent this year, is falling as commodity prices drop from records set this year, reports Bloomberg News.

The price of crude oil, a major cost in transportation, has plunged 73 percent from its July peak. Corn, wheat and soybeans are all at least 46 percent below their all-time highs in Chicago.

Prices for dairy products, which rose as much as 9 percent this year, may fall as much as 4 percent next year, the USDA said.

Costs for fats and cooking oils, which have climbed up to 14 percent in 2008, may only rise 3 to 4 percent in 2009.

The Independent listed it as its 5th biggest story of the year, but Grand Island’s smoking ban will probably have a more long-term impact on the community’s quality of life than anything else listed in the top ten. Here’s more evidence about the danger smoking has on all of our lives. RKP

Need another reason to add “Quit Smoking” to your New Year’s resolutions list? How about the fact that even if you choose to smoke outside of your home or only smoke in your home when your children are not there – thinking that you’re keeping them away from second-hand smoke – you’re still exposing them to toxins? In the January issue of Pediatrics, researchers at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and colleagues across the country describe how tobacco smoke contamination lingers even after a cigarette is extinguished – a phenomenon they define as “third-hand” smoke. Their study is the first to examine adult attitudes about the health risks to children of third-hand smoke and how those beliefs may relate to rules about smoking in their homes.

“When you smoke – anyplace – toxic particulate matter from tobacco smoke gets into your hair and clothing,” says lead study author, Jonathan Winickoff, MD, MPH, assistant director of the MGHfC Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy. “When you come into contact with your baby, even if you’re not smoking at the time, she comes in contact with those toxins. And if you breastfeed, the toxins will transfer to your baby in your breastmilk.” Winickoff notes that nursing a baby if you’re a smoker is still preferable to bottle-feeding, however.

Particulate matter from tobacco smoke has been proven toxic. According to the National Toxicology Program, these 250 poisonous gases, chemicals, and metals include hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, butane, ammonia, toluene (found in paint thinners), arsenic, lead, chromium (used to make steel), cadmium (used to make batteries), and polonium-210 (highly radioactive carcinogen). Eleven of the compounds are classified as Group 1 carcinogens, the most dangerous.

Small children are especially susceptible to third-hand smoke exposure because they can inhale near, crawl and play on, or touch and mouth contaminated surfaces. Third-hand smoke can remain indoors even long after the smoking has stopped. Similar to low-level lead exposure, low levels of tobacco particulates have been associated with cognitive deficits among children, and the higher the exposure level, the lower the reading score. These findings underscore the possibility that even extremely low levels of these compounds may be neurotoxic and, according to the researchers, justify restricting all smoking in indoor areas inhabited by children.

“The dangers of third-hand smoke are very real,” says Winickoff, who is a professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Richmond Center. “Our goal was to find out if people who were aware of these harmful effects were less likely to smoke inside of their home.”

Winickoff’s team found that this was the case. In a survey of more than 1,500 households, 95.4 percent of nonsmokers versus 84.1 percent of smokers agreed that second-hand smoke harms the health of children, and 65.2 percent of nonsmokers versus 43.3 percent of smokers believed that third-hand smoke harms children. Strict rules prohibiting smoke in the home were more prevalent among nonsmokers – 88.4 percent versus 26.7 percent – but among both smokers and non-smokers, participants who agreed that environmental smoke was harmful to children’s health were more likely to have restrictions on smoking in their homes.

Winickoff’s study shows that increasing awareness of how third-hand smoke harms the health of children may encourage home smoking bans. It also will be important to incorporate knowledge about third-hand smoke contamination into current tobacco control campaigns, programs, and routine clinical practice.

While everyone has heard of “Locks for Love” how about “Locks for Crops.”  “Locks of Love”, according to its Website, “…is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis.” “Locks for Crops” is a non-profit organization that provides hair to financially-strapped farmers who can’t afford the high price of fertilizer. RKP

Agricultural crop production relies on composted waste materials and byproducts, such as animal manure, municipal solid waste composts, and sewage sludge, as a necessary nutrient source. Studies have shown that human hair, a readily available waste generated from barbershops and hair salons, combined with additional compost, is an additional nutrient source for crops. Although human hair has become commercially available to crop producers in the past couple years, it has not been proven to be an exclusive source of nutrients in greenhouse container production.

Vlatcho D. Zheljazkov, Juan L. Silva, Mandar Patel, Jelena Stojanovic, Youkai. Lu, Taejo Kim, and Thomas Horgan of Mississippi State University recently published a research study in HortTechnology designed to determine whether commercially available noncomposted hair waste cubes would support plant growth in horticulture crops as a sole source of nutrients.

The study compared the productivity of four crops: lettuce, wormwood, yellow poppy, and feverfew, grown in commercial growth medium using untreated control, noncomposted hair cubes at differing weights, a controlled-release fertilizer and a water-soluble fertilizer. Results showed that, with the addition of hair waste cubes, yields increased relative to the untreated control but were lower than yields in the inorganic treatments, suggesting that hair waste should not be used as a single source for fast-growing plants such as lettuce.

Zheljazkov suggests that, “once the degradation and mineralization of hair waste starts, it can provide sufficient nutrients to container-grown plants and ensure similar yields to those obtained with the commonly used fertilizers in horticulture. However, it takes time for the hair to start degrading and releasing nutrients, as is reflected in lower yields in the hair treatments relative to the inorganic fertilizers for lettuce and wormwood.”

Because of possible health concerns, further research is necessary to determine whether human hair waste is a viable option as fertilizer for edible crops.

Researchers work hard to find out the most puzzling things. Seem like the brain of a honey bee is no different than a human when it comes to a line of cocaine. RKP

Sure is funky
Sure is funky
I ain’t no junkie
I ain’t no junkie

“No Thing on Me (Cocaine Song)

Curtis Mayfield

A new study challenges current ideas about the insect brain, researchers have found that honey bees on cocaine tend to exaggerate.

Normally, foraging honey bees alert their comrades to potential food sources only when they’ve found high quality nectar or pollen, and only when the hive is in need. They do this by performing a dance, called a “round” or “waggle” dance, on a specialized “dance floor” in the hive. The dance gives specific instructions that help the other bees find the food.

Foraging honey bees on cocaine are more likely to dance, regardless of the quality of the food they’ve found or the status of the hive, the authors of the study report.

The findings, detailed this month in the Journal of Experimental Biology, shed new light on the famous honey bee dance language, said University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson, who led the study. The research also supports the idea that in certain circumstances, honey bees, like humans, are motivated by feelings of reward.

“The honey bee dance is this incredibly complex set of activities,” Robinson said. “It’s a very integrated communication system, very elaborate and very elegant, one of the seven wonders of the animal behavior world.”

(To see a video of the waggle dance, please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-8QuBDkkw)

The dance is also an important tool for understanding social behavior in animals – in particular altruism, the “social glue” in all societies, including our own, he said.

Robinson’s interest in the waggle dance led him to study octopamine, a neurochemical known to be important to insect behavior – particularly in regard to movement and eating.

“A variety of solitary insects respond to treatment with octopamine by eating more,” he said. Honey bees don’t eat more when treated with octopamine, but accept a lower quality of food. This fact led Robinson to wonder whether octopamine also influenced the waggle dance, a behavior unique to foraging honey bees. In an earlier study, Robinson found that foragers have higher levels of octopamine in the brain than all other bees in the hive.

In a study published in 2007, Robinson and his colleagues reported that treatment with octopamine caused foraging honey bees to dance more often. This indicated that octopamine played a role in honey bee dance behavior. It also suggested a framework for understanding the evolution of altruistic behavior, Robinson said.

“The idea behind that study was that maybe this mechanism that structures selfish behavior – eating – was co-opted during social evolution to structure social behavior – that is, altruistic behavior,” he said. “So if you’re selfish and you’re jacked up on octopamine, you eat more, but if you’re altruistic you don’t eat more but you tell others about it so they can also eat.”

But it was not even known if insects have a bona fide reward system. That question led the researchers to study the effects of cocaine on honey bee behavior. Cocaine – a chemical used by the coca plant to defend itself from leaf-eating insects – interferes with octopamine transit in insect brains and has undeniable effects on reward systems in mammals, including humans. It does this by influencing the chemically related dopamine system.

Dopamine plays a role in the human ability to predict and respond to pleasure or reward. It is also important to motor function and modulates many other functions, including cognition, sleep, mood, attention and learning.

One aspect of reward in the human brain involves altruistic behavior, Robinson said. Thinking about or performing an altruistic act has been found to excite the pleasure centers of the human brain.

“There are various lines of thought that indicate that one way of structuring society is to have altruistic behavior be pleasurable,” he said.

Because cocaine causes honey bees to dance more – an altruistic behavior – the researchers believe their results support the idea that there is a reward system in the insect brain, something that has never before been shown.

To determine whether the cocaine was merely causing the bees to move more or to dance at inappropriate times or places, the researchers conducted a second set of experiments. These tests showed that non-foraging honey bees don’t dance, even when exposed to cocaine. They showed that foragers on cocaine do not move more than other bees (except when dancing), and that they do not dance at inappropriate times or in locations other than the dance floor.

The researchers also found that the bees on cocaine do not dance every time they go on a foraging excursion. And, most important, their dances are not distorted.

“It’s not like they’re gyrating wildly on the dance floor out of control,” Robinson said. “This is a patterned response. It gives distance information, location information. That information is intact.”

In a final experiment that also shows parallels to human behavior, the researchers found that honey bees on cocaine experience withdrawal symptoms when the drug is withheld.

“This study provides strong support for the idea that bees have a reward system, that it’s been co-opted and it’s now involved in a social behavior, which motivates them to tell their hive mates about the food that they’ve found,” Robinson said.

The findings also indicate that honey bees will make good subjects for substance-abuse research, he said.

challenges current ideas about the insect brain, researchers have found that honey bees on cocaine tend to exaggerate.

Normally, foraging honey bees alert their comrades to potential food sources only when they’ve found high quality nectar or pollen, and only when the hive is in need. They do this by performing a dance, called a “round” or “waggle” dance, on a specialized “dance floor” in the hive. The dance gives specific instructions that help the other bees find the food.

Foraging honey bees on cocaine are more likely to dance, regardless of the quality of the food they’ve found or the status of the hive, the authors of the study report.

The findings, detailed this month in the Journal of Experimental Biology, shed new light on the famous honey bee dance language, said University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson, who led the study. The research also supports the idea that in certain circumstances, honey bees, like humans, are motivated by feelings of reward.

“The honey bee dance is this incredibly complex set of activities,” Robinson said. “It’s a very integrated communication system, very elaborate and very elegant, one of the seven wonders of the animal behavior world.”

(To see a video of the waggle dance, please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-8QuBDkkw)

The dance is also an important tool for understanding social behavior in animals – in particular altruism, the “social glue” in all societies, including our own, he said.

Robinson’s interest in the waggle dance led him to study octopamine, a neurochemical known to be important to insect behavior – particularly in regard to movement and eating.

“A variety of solitary insects respond to treatment with octopamine by eating more,” he said. Honey bees don’t eat more when treated with octopamine, but accept a lower quality of food. This fact led Robinson to wonder whether octopamine also influenced the waggle dance, a behavior unique to foraging honey bees. In an earlier study, Robinson found that foragers have higher levels of octopamine in the brain than all other bees in the hive.

In a study published in 2007, Robinson and his colleagues reported that treatment with octopamine caused foraging honey bees to dance more often. This indicated that octopamine played a role in honey bee dance behavior. It also suggested a framework for understanding the evolution of altruistic behavior, Robinson said.

“The idea behind that study was that maybe this mechanism that structures selfish behavior – eating – was co-opted during social evolution to structure social behavior – that is, altruistic behavior,” he said. “So if you’re selfish and you’re jacked up on octopamine, you eat more, but if you’re altruistic you don’t eat more but you tell others about it so they can also eat.”

But it was not even known if insects have a bona fide reward system. That question led the researchers to study the effects of cocaine on honey bee behavior. Cocaine – a chemical used by the coca plant to defend itself from leaf-eating insects – interferes with octopamine transit in insect brains and has undeniable effects on reward systems in mammals, including humans. It does this by influencing the chemically related dopamine system.

Dopamine plays a role in the human ability to predict and respond to pleasure or reward. It is also important to motor function and modulates many other functions, including cognition, sleep, mood, attention and learning.

One aspect of reward in the human brain involves altruistic behavior, Robinson said. Thinking about or performing an altruistic act has been found to excite the pleasure centers of the human brain.

“There are various lines of thought that indicate that one way of structuring society is to have altruistic behavior be pleasurable,” he said.

Because cocaine causes honey bees to dance more – an altruistic behavior – the researchers believe their results support the idea that there is a reward system in the insect brain, something that has never before been shown.

To determine whether the cocaine was merely causing the bees to move more or to dance at inappropriate times or places, the researchers conducted a second set of experiments. These tests showed that non-foraging honey bees don’t dance, even when exposed to cocaine. They showed that foragers on cocaine do not move more than other bees (except when dancing), and that they do not dance at inappropriate times or in locations other than the dance floor.

The researchers also found that the bees on cocaine do not dance every time they go on a foraging excursion. And, most important, their dances are not distorted.

“It’s not like they’re gyrating wildly on the dance floor out of control,” Robinson said. “This is a patterned response. It gives distance information, location information. That information is intact.”

In a final experiment that also shows parallels to human behavior, the researchers found that honey bees on cocaine experience withdrawal symptoms when the drug is withheld.

“This study provides strong support for the idea that bees have a reward system, that it’s been co-opted and it’s now involved in a social behavior, which motivates them to tell their hive mates about the food that they’ve found,” Robinson said.

The findings also indicate that honey bees will make good subjects for substance-abuse research, he said.

There’s coffee, flavored coffee, organic coffee, fair trade coffee and now shade grown coffee. To some, coffee is coffee is coffee. But with the right frame of mind, “eco-friendly” taste better, better for you and better for the world. RKP

A new study published in the December 23rd issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveals another “eco-friendly” reason to select shade-grown coffee over beans that were grown in the sun: Shade coffee farms not only harbor a diverse array of birds and bats, but they also help to maintain the genetic diversity of native tree species.

“Shade coffee farms allow birds and bats to move and disperse seeds throughout the coffee landscape, promoting plant gene flow,” said Shalene Jha of the University of Michigan. “This is unlike most agricultural systems, which do not provide habitat for seed dispersers, and thus limit the distance plant seeds can move. By supporting important seed dispersal processes, shade coffee farms maintain plant population gene flow across fragmented habitats.”

Gene flow refers to the transfer of genes from one population to another by interbreeding. The maintenance of gene flow is an important conservation measure since fragmented populations are effectively smaller and therefore more susceptible to inbreeding and further declines or extinction.

Coffee is grown across millions of hectares of land within the world’s richest centers of biodiversity, the researchers said. In tropical America, that coffee is traditionally grown under a diverse canopy of shade trees, which supports a broad spectrum of pollinators that increases coffee yield. Unlike sun coffee grown in monoculture, shade coffee also provides habitat to a wide array of other animals, including bats and migratory birds that aid farmers by picking off insects. Earlier studies had suggested that birds and other animals within shade coffee farms might have additional ecological benefits.

Now, the researchers have confirmed that notion through genetic analyses revealing recent colonization and extensive gene flow of native understory tree species in shade coffee farms of Chiapas, Mexico. The findings show that traditional coffee farms can maintain genetic connectivity with adjacent forest and serve as a focal point for forest regeneration.

Jha said they hope the discovery calls attention to the value of maintaining biodiverse agricultural systems more generally.

“More than 60% of the earth’s surface is managed by humans as agriculture or pasture, and these landscapes provide us with a great opportunity to support native biodiversity,” Jha said. “Many studies have shown that conserving native biodiversity in agricultural systems can actually benefit crops—by preventing pest outbreaks and providing native pollinator services. Our study shows that agricultural crops can also benefit native trees living across the landscape.”

Buying shade-grown coffee is one way to support the conservation of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes at a global scale, she said. At the local level, Jha added, consumers can also support local farming practices that conserve native biodiversity, such as pesticide-free farming, polyculture farms, and urban gardening.