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(Scientific American) Ironic In addition to cancer and birth defects, it turns out Roundup may also kill crops. Address all complaints to the Monsanto corporation   (scientificamerican.com) divider line 63
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2863 clicks; posted to Geek » on 15 Aug 2011 at 12:58 PM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»   |    Get this fabulous T-Shirt and impress the methane out of your friends! shirt it!



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2011-08-15 11:49:49 AM
This is why I make my own herbicide out of water, salt, vinegar, and dish detergent.

/saves money, too
 
2011-08-15 12:18:13 PM
What's the over-under on this article being an actionable offense according to Monsanto's trademarks? And that the writer loses his house?
 
2011-08-15 01:00:34 PM
Water, like out da toilet? I ain't never seen no plants grow in no toilet.
 
2011-08-15 01:06:52 PM
Whoa, whoa. Cancer and birth defects? Citation please.

Mrs. Credo might be right after all in forbidding me from spraying roundup all over the patio, sidewalk, and driveway.
 
2011-08-15 01:08:50 PM
Debeo Summa Credo: Whoa, whoa. Cancer and birth defects? Citation please.

Mrs. Credo might be right after all in forbidding me from spraying roundup all over the patio, sidewalk, and driveway.


It's ok, I put in on my fries.
 
2011-08-15 01:10:06 PM
Roundup kills cancer and birth defects? Sweet!
 
2011-08-15 01:11:53 PM
Corporations are people! By law.

/psychotics, but people nonetheless
 
2011-08-15 01:18:55 PM
No shiat?

I can't imagine that dumping gallons of this stuff continually would have a negative effect on the soil.

It's still better than other herbicides we could be using ( and if it increases the profit margin, a farmer will use it).

Just wait until the soil turns into a lovely salt filled basin that nothing will grow on.

//Grow our soil as well as our food.
 
2011-08-15 01:20:28 PM
Debeo Summa Credo: Whoa, whoa. Cancer and birth defects? Citation please.

Mrs. Credo might be right after all in forbidding me from spraying roundup all over the patio, sidewalk, and driveway.


In the study I am thinking of, they injected roundup directly into developing frog embryos, exposing them in ways and to levels you would not see in nature.

It was some pretty shiatty "science".
 
2011-08-15 01:21:01 PM
The Monsanto group of companies is living proof in real time that the Devil exists and evil is not just an abstract concept. Monsanto and everything they stand for is a vile corruption of human knowledge and science. Monsanto eats babies, pisses poison, and tells us it's progress and orange juice.

I feel very confident that there is not one good thing that has ever come out of the Monsanto collective, ever. If something is in any way connected to Monsanto, it's a safe bet that if it isn't blatant evil, some day it will come out as being so.

Monsanto needs to be erased from existence like the disease that it is. They are a pox upon this earth, and no pity should be felt or shown as they are eviscerated and destroyed.

fark Monsanto and all that they do and stand for. Science will be better off without them.
 
2011-08-15 01:25:11 PM
thespindrifter: The Monsanto group of companies is living proof in real time that the Devil exists and evil is not just an abstract concept. Monsanto and everything they stand for is a vile corruption of human knowledge and science. Monsanto eats babies, pisses poison, and tells us it's progress and orange juice.

I feel very confident that there is not one good thing that has ever come out of the Monsanto collective, ever. If something is in any way connected to Monsanto, it's a safe bet that if it isn't blatant evil, some day it will come out as being so.

Monsanto needs to be erased from existence like the disease that it is. They are a pox upon this earth, and no pity should be felt or shown as they are eviscerated and destroyed.

fark Monsanto and all that they do and stand for. Science will be better off without them.


The difficulty is that people reacting to Monsanto by increasing regulations on their evil escapades keeps start-ups who have talent from going anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that both the anti-GMO people and Monsanto are both for increased regulation, both for the fact that the luddites can sleep better knowing that Johnny doesn't have none of that frankenfood in his body, and that Monsanto can laugh all the way to the farking bank as the piss on their competitors by shutting regulations closed in front of them.
 
2011-08-15 01:25:20 PM
Saturating the soil with herbicide may be effecting plants? Preposterous!
 
2011-08-15 01:25:28 PM
In other news: something that kills stuff may also kill other stuff.
 
2011-08-15 01:29:23 PM
meat0918: It was some pretty shiatty "science".

Was it shiatty science, or did you or some "science" writer just not understand the point of the study? Because doing "bad science" and "badly reporting" science are two very different things.
 
2011-08-15 01:30:27 PM
Splinshints: meat0918: It was some pretty shiatty "science".

Was it shiatty science, or did you or some "science" writer just not understand the point of the study? Because doing "bad science" and "badly reporting" science are two very different things.


Let me dig up the source. Give me a few minutes, k?
 
2011-08-15 01:31:20 PM
Debeo Summa Credo: Whoa, whoa. Cancer and birth defects? Citation please.

Mrs. Credo might be right after all in forbidding me from spraying roundup all over the patio, sidewalk, and driveway.


Boiling water or one of those flame thingies both work well on patios, sidewalks, driveways.

I have to admit I still have a minor Roundup addiction. Triclopyr, too, for all that damned Buckthorn... and my yard still looks like shiat.

/I can quit any time I want, honest
 
2011-08-15 01:33:50 PM
Fark Monsanto. (new window)
 
2011-08-15 01:35:37 PM
My best friend from middle and high school had this dad and I was scared to death of him. He was weird but brilliant and he worked for Monsanto. That's all I knew about him, even through high school and up till about 10 years ago, when she finally told me that he invented and still holds the patent for RoundUp. So I wonder if she's getting a kick out of these replies.

I had no farking idea, blew me away. I wouldn't turn down the money if it was my dad though, so I guess I'm two faced about the whole thing.
 
2011-08-15 01:41:09 PM
Kinek: thespindrifter: The Monsanto group of companies is living proof in real time that the Devil exists and evil is not just an abstract concept. Monsanto and everything they stand for is a vile corruption of human knowledge and science. Monsanto eats babies, pisses poison, and tells us it's progress and orange juice.

I feel very confident that there is not one good thing that has ever come out of the Monsanto collective, ever. If something is in any way connected to Monsanto, it's a safe bet that if it isn't blatant evil, some day it will come out as being so.

Monsanto needs to be erased from existence like the disease that it is. They are a pox upon this earth, and no pity should be felt or shown as they are eviscerated and destroyed.

fark Monsanto and all that they do and stand for. Science will be better off without them.

The difficulty is that people reacting to Monsanto by increasing regulations on their evil escapades keeps start-ups who have talent from going anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that both the anti-GMO people and Monsanto are both for increased regulation, both for the fact that the luddites can sleep better knowing that Johnny doesn't have none of that frankenfood in his body, and that Monsanto can laugh all the way to the farking bank as the piss on their competitors by shutting regulations closed in front of them.


see this is we need a series of anarcho-communes instead of a nation state. when they try to ban brown bagging or some other insidious shiat instead of ringing a rep whos in their pocket anyway or waving a sign we just march down to the monsanto office and crucify everyone inside.
 
2011-08-15 01:42:42 PM
Kinek: The difficulty is that people reacting to Monsanto by increasing regulations on their evil escapades keeps start-ups who have talent from going anywhere.

No. Yeesh where'd you hear that? You will find some more useful business models proposed in books by Vandana Shiva. Also, you have to remember that a lot of the trouble caused by Monsanto is in developing nations, where the Western concept of start-ups really makes no sense.
 
2011-08-15 01:42:44 PM
Here's the study as published in Earth Open Source journal http://www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5

Little from column A: Bad Science. Printed in a no name "journal" and as someone pointed out when the study was released, non-standard experimental methods.

A little from Column B: Bad science reporting. From Pg 26 of the report "None of these cases provides unequivocal evidence that glyphosate is the culprit in causing the harm, since other agrochemicals are used in the areas concerned. This is especially so since the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds accompanying the spread of GM Roundup Ready crops has forced farmers to use other agrochemicals, such as 2,4-D,in addition to glyphosate"
 
2011-08-15 01:43:05 PM
phaseolus: Debeo Summa Credo: Whoa, whoa. Cancer and birth defects? Citation please.

Mrs. Credo might be right after all in forbidding me from spraying roundup all over the patio, sidewalk, and driveway.

Boiling water or one of those flame thingies both work well on patios, sidewalks, driveways.

I have to admit I still have a minor Roundup addiction. Triclopyr, too, for all that damned Buckthorn... and my yard still looks like shiat.

/I can quit any time I want, honest


Hmmm. Boiling water. That might be worth a shot but I've got a lot of cracks on the driveway to treat.
 
2011-08-15 01:46:00 PM
And by the way, I am excited about what can be done with GMO technology for addressing food concerns.

I make a strong distinction between Monsanto/Bayer modifying plants so they can sell more chemicals and the golden rice/biocassava style of improving plants so people don't go blind or die of malnutrition (and cyanide poisoning in the case of improperly processed cassava).
 
2011-08-15 01:56:35 PM
Everyone should see Food, Inc. Even if you disregard the hippie farmer and the grieving mother you won't look at your dinner plate the same way.
 
2011-08-15 01:58:41 PM
Who would have thought an evil corporation like Monsanto would put out products that are potentially harmful... I am shocked
 
2011-08-15 02:02:37 PM
meat0918: And by the way, I am excited about what can be done with GMO technology for addressing food concerns.

I make a strong distinction between Monsanto/Bayer modifying plants so they can sell more chemicals and the golden rice/biocassava style of improving plants so people don't go blind or die of malnutrition (and cyanide poisoning in the case of improperly processed cassava).


Yeah, it was obviously a bad idea when everyone knows how bad farmland runoff already was before Roundup Ready came along, it was bound to make things a whole lots worse by allowing much higher levels of pesticide to be used. Conversely GM of plants has a huge potential for good and essential improvements - as well as the more cosmetic ones, for example I imagine you could much more easily engineer a good tasting tomato that can be mechanically harvested without damaging it, whereas with the experimental non-GM techniques for genetic engineering we have used for the last few thousand years you tend to get so few successes and they take so much time that you have to take the good with the bad.

Of course the other bad idea is the terminator system - you really want to have your new improved strains crossbreed and avoid monocultures that are vulnerable and ideal factories for novel new diseases and pest species, which could lead to massive problems in the future. There is a reason that almost every animal and plant pays the (often heavy) costs of sexual reproduction, and heading back to cloning/asexual methods is an invitation to learn the lesson of why that is the case.
 
2011-08-15 02:03:24 PM
meat0918: And by the way, I am excited about what can be done with GMO technology for addressing food concerns.

I make a strong distinction between Monsanto/Bayer modifying plants so they can sell more chemicals and the golden rice/biocassava style of improving plants so people don't go blind or die of malnutrition (and cyanide poisoning in the case of improperly processed cassava).


This.

/Monsanto is evil and should be set on fire.
//Many, many fires
 
2011-08-15 02:05:26 PM
roundup kills cancer and birth defects?

cool..but umm.. how do you kill birth defects?
 
2011-08-15 02:21:39 PM
cmunic8r99: This is why I make my own herbicide out of water, salt, vinegar, and dish detergent.

/saves money, too


Except that doesn't make herbicide. Insect/animal repellent, maybe, but not herbicide.
 
2011-08-15 02:22:15 PM
Bennie Crabtree: Kinek: The difficulty is that people reacting to Monsanto by increasing regulations on their evil escapades keeps start-ups who have talent from going anywhere.

No. Yeesh where'd you hear that? You will find some more useful business models proposed in books by Vandana Shiva. Also, you have to remember that a lot of the trouble caused by Monsanto is in developing nations, where the Western concept of start-ups really makes no sense.


come and see the violence inherent in the system?
 
2011-08-15 02:27:22 PM
Bennie Crabtree: Kinek: The difficulty is that people reacting to Monsanto by increasing regulations on their evil escapades keeps start-ups who have talent from going anywhere.

No. Yeesh where'd you hear that? You will find some more useful business models proposed in books by Vandana Shiva. Also, you have to remember that a lot of the trouble caused by Monsanto is in developing nations, where the Western concept of start-ups really makes no sense.


Because I've seen it you twit. Two GMO companies were spun out of research done by my department. They both promptly failed within a few years, not because the science was unsound, but because the regulatory environment was ludicrously expensive. Expensive enough that only the large companies could afford it.

It also doesn't help when Monsanto turns an entire market environment (See Europe or Peru) Hostile to anything GMO by being shiatty.

So with two of the best places to do Research, USA being too expensive, and Europe having been salted, competitors don't stand much of a chance.
 
2011-08-15 02:41:03 PM
xria: Of course the other bad idea is the terminator system

Of course it's a bad idea. Since you know about the terminator seeds, you also know that Monsanto isn't developing it. Right?
 
2011-08-15 02:42:13 PM
gameshowhost: Corporations are people! By law.

/psychotics, but people nonetheless


Yes I wonder about how the law deals with this. If you want to consider a corporation as a single entity then be default you have to consider how it'll behave itself when faced with all the laws surrounding companies.

You basically end up with a psychopath be default. Legally it's a person, it also legally has to further it's own goals even if that means killing off another company (and thus murdering another person).

So murder is legal if you can prove you an incorporated gestalt?
 
2011-08-15 02:44:52 PM

FTFA:

Roundup Ready corn, soybeans and other crops are beloved by farmers
I'm sure the organic seed-saving farmers who Monsanto has sued after the genes they engineered escaped into the wild and contaminated their crops disagree. Also those farmers who Monsanto dropped herbicide bombs on from helicopters, looking for crops that were not vulnerable to the poison they market.

Seldom has such a beloved company been sued so much by those who love them.
 
2011-08-15 02:54:23 PM
sarah_t_s: gameshowhost: Corporations are people! By law.

/psychotics, but people nonetheless

Yes I wonder about how the law deals with this. If you want to consider a corporation as a single entity then be default you have to consider how it'll behave itself when faced with all the laws surrounding companies.

You basically end up with a psychopath be default. Legally it's a person, it also legally has to further it's own goals even if that means killing off another company (and thus murdering another person).

So murder is legal if you can prove you an incorporated gestalt?


It doesn't. Pay-for-play.
 
2011-08-15 03:07:09 PM
AndreMA: Also those farmers who Monsanto dropped herbicide bombs on from helicopters, looking for crops that were not vulnerable to the poison they market.

notsureifserious.jpg

With all the conspiracy theories and Big Ag hate, I get a kick out of this stuff.

From a logical standpoint, Monsanto's customers are farmers. Why would a company that sells product to farmers alienate them?

And don't say it's because they're evil. That is not an argument.
 
2011-08-15 03:10:14 PM
In the World of killing stuff..... What I always find fascinating is how people(politicians) will not know the difference between Herbicide(roundup) and pesticide(bug killer). Even though the names hint at what they are for. So towns ban that evil herbicide, but still allow that very nasty(and deadly) pesticide to be sprayed in the thousands of gallons, to kill that one bug that was eating one of the lawns grass blades.


/people who have a green, perfect, weed free lawn in the drought of August, need to be mentally treated, until there brain disease of green lawns is extinguished.
 
2011-08-15 03:16:33 PM
darkhorse23: invented and still holds the patent for RoundUp

The patent on glyphosate expired in 2000.
 
2011-08-15 03:20:40 PM
MoronLessOff: AndreMA: Also those farmers who Monsanto dropped herbicide bombs on from helicopters, looking for crops that were not vulnerable to the poison they market.

notsureifserious.jpg

With all the conspiracy theories and Big Ag hate, I get a kick out of this stuff.

From a logical standpoint, Monsanto's customers are farmers. Why would a company that sells product to farmers alienate them?

And don't say it's because they're evil. That is not an argument.


No, they're overzealous in enforcing their patents. There are numerous reports of them dropping small bombs of glyphosate on the crops of farmers with whom they had no particular business involvement, then coming back later. If there wasn't a dead spot where they'd dropped the herbicide, they presumed a patent violation.
 
2011-08-15 03:22:08 PM
AndreMA: darkhorse23: invented and still holds the patent for RoundUp

The patent on glyphosate expired in 2000.


Monsanto's particular formulation with diethylamine might still be under patent protection, but that's pretty much irrelevant.
 
2011-08-15 03:36:18 PM
AndreMA: MoronLessOff: AndreMA: Also those farmers who Monsanto dropped herbicide bombs on from helicopters, looking for crops that were not vulnerable to the poison they market.

notsureifserious.jpg

With all the conspiracy theories and Big Ag hate, I get a kick out of this stuff.

From a logical standpoint, Monsanto's customers are farmers. Why would a company that sells product to farmers alienate them?

And don't say it's because they're evil. That is not an argument.

No, they're overzealous in enforcing their patents. There are numerous reports of them dropping small bombs of glyphosate on the crops of farmers with whom they had no particular business involvement, then coming back later. If there wasn't a dead spot where they'd dropped the herbicide, they presumed a patent violation.


Citation needed.
 
2011-08-15 03:39:25 PM
I just hope Roundup or something like it is still available when I get off my butt and decide to tackle that neighbor's pepper tree that's popping up all over my yard.
 
zez
2011-08-15 03:39:55 PM
thespindrifter: The Monsanto group of companies is living proof in real time that the Devil exists and evil is not just an abstract concept. Monsanto and everything they stand for is a vile corruption of human knowledge and science. Monsanto eats babies, pisses poison, and tells us it's progress and orange juice.

I feel very confident that there is not one good thing that has ever come out of the Monsanto collective, ever. If something is in any way connected to Monsanto, it's a safe bet that if it isn't blatant evil, some day it will come out as being so.

Monsanto needs to be erased from existence like the disease that it is. They are a pox upon this earth, and no pity should be felt or shown as they are eviscerated and destroyed.

fark Monsanto and all that they do and stand for. Science will be better off without them.


Monsanto Electronic Materials Company (MEMC) was established on August 6, 1959 as part of the US-based multinational corporation Monsanto. In the same year MEMC starts the production of 19-mm-silicon-Wafers in St. Charles County, Missouri. As one of the first corporations to produce semiconductor wafers, MEMC is considered a pioneer in this field, its innovations becoming industry standard for years. MEMC uses the Czochralski process, develops Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) and starts production of 1,5-inch-wafers. In 1966 MEMC installs the first reactors for production of EPI-wafers and develops zero-dislocation-crystal-growing.
 
2011-08-15 03:50:19 PM
MoronLessOff: AndreMA: MoronLessOff: AndreMA: Also those farmers who Monsanto dropped herbicide bombs on from helicopters, looking for crops that were not vulnerable to the poison they market.

notsureifserious.jpg

With all the conspiracy theories and Big Ag hate, I get a kick out of this stuff.

From a logical standpoint, Monsanto's customers are farmers. Why would a company that sells product to farmers alienate them?

And don't say it's because they're evil. That is not an argument.

No, they're overzealous in enforcing their patents. There are numerous reports of them dropping small bombs of glyphosate on the crops of farmers with whom they had no particular business involvement, then coming back later. If there wasn't a dead spot where they'd dropped the herbicide, they presumed a patent violation.

Citation needed.


Never mind, I found it. (new window)

Let me offer you this. (new window)

And "of course Monsanto would say that" is not an argument. Just as much as "of course someone who violated a patent would say that" is not an argument.
 
2011-08-15 03:51:01 PM
MoronLessOff: From a logical standpoint, Monsanto's customers are farmers. Why would a company that sells product to farmers alienate them?

Because fark you, that's why.

A slightly less glib answer would be that they might be quite friendly to the mega-corporation farmers, less so to the smaller family operations.

Anyway, I'm doing my part. I own a small number of Monsanto shares and that means that every year they mail me a bunch of glossy reports and a form to vote at the annual general meeting. I make sure to withhold all nominations for the board of directors, and to vote against the directors' recommendations for all other motions. If I could just get a few million people to join me we'd be able to shut the company down.
 
2011-08-15 03:54:19 PM
it's nice to see that the Fark Farmers™ and Agribusiness GEDs are in full force today.

/Monsanto is teh bad
//starving the world and bankrupting farmers
///derp
 
2011-08-15 03:59:02 PM
monsatano: it's nice to see that the Fark Farmers™ and Agribusiness GEDs are in full force today.

/Monsanto is teh bad
//starving the world and bankrupting farmers
///derp


What you did there, I sees it.
 
2011-08-15 04:04:47 PM
Ivo Shandor: MoronLessOff: From a logical standpoint, Monsanto's customers are farmers. Why would a company that sells product to farmers alienate them?

Because fark you, that's why.

A slightly less glib answer would be that they might be quite friendly to the mega-corporation farmers, less so to the smaller family operations.

Anyway, I'm doing my part. I own a small number of Monsanto shares and that means that every year they mail me a bunch of glossy reports and a form to vote at the annual general meeting. I make sure to withhold all nominations for the board of directors, and to vote against the directors' recommendations for all other motions. If I could just get a few million people to join me we'd be able to shut the company down.


starve the beast?

/heh
 
2011-08-15 04:18:30 PM
Nina_Hartley's_Ass: Everyone should see Food, Inc. Even if you disregard the hippie farmer and the grieving mother you won't look at your dinner plate the same way.

"Food, Inc" is to agriculture what "Waiting for Superman" is to public schools
 
2011-08-15 04:38:19 PM
Kinek: The difficulty is that people reacting to Monsanto by increasing regulations on their evil escapades keeps start-ups who have talent from going anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that both the anti-GMO people and Monsanto are both for increased regulation, both for the fact that the luddites can sleep better knowing that Johnny doesn't have none of that frankenfood in his body, and that Monsanto can laugh all the way to the farking bank as the piss on their competitors by shutting regulations closed in front of them.

I will say one thing, Monsanto sounds like the big bad from a saturday morning cartoon. The name just drips malevolence, and that's before you even find out what they're doing....
 
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