Slashdot Mirror

Dr. Norman Borlaug, who helped create wheat strains in the 1960s that increased the production of farms throughout the world by ten fold, turned 90 last week. This "food hacker", and his fellow agricultural researchers, by launching the "Green Revolution", have done more to feed the world than anyone else before or since. He recently published an essay on the future of the world food supply entitled We can feed the world. Here's how.

revmuddswife writes: "I always suspected that some of the soapbox lunatics I was arguing with online weren't what they made themselves out to be, but now British columnist George Monbiot has raised the issue about how Internet discussions may be undermined by Invented PR People *cue scary organ music*. The article relates to a biotech paper written by two University of Calif., Berkeley scientists, Quist and Chapela, that was retracted in Nature last month, partially on the basis of allegations on a listserver and online discussion. Monbiot looks into the identities of some of the individuals leading the criticism, and finds out that what we all know is true: nobody could be what they seem online. In fact, they might even be slimier than we suspect."