SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A story of heroism and the ultimate sacrifice during the the 900-day Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War. I think it is safe to say we all benefit from the sacrifice these men made.
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/08/the-scientists-who-starved-to-death.html
As the invading German army poured into the city looting and destroying anything of value, a group of Russian botanists holed up inside the vault of the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry with a precious collection of seeds and edible plants. This collection, containing seeds from nearly 200,000 varieties of plants of which about a quarter was edible, constituted one of the world's largest repositories of the genetic diversity of food crops. Among them were plenty of rice, wheat, corn, beans and potatoes, enough to sustain the botanists and see them through the worst days of the siege.
But the scientists hadn't barricaded themselves in the vault with food grains to save their lives, but rather to protect these seeds from the Nazis as well as from the starving people plundering through the streets in search for anything to eat.
The collection filled 16 rooms, in which no one was allowed to remain alone. Workers guarded the storage in shifts all round the clock, numb with cold and emaciated from hunger. As the siege dragged out, one by one these heroic men started dying of hunger, but not a single grain was eaten. In January 1942, Alexander Stchukin, a peanut specialist, died at his writing table. Botanist Dmitri Ivanov also died of starvation while surrounded by several thousand packs of rice that he was guarding. By the end of the siege in the Spring of 1944, nine of them had starved to death watching over all that food. Many of the crops that we eat today came from cross-breeding with varieties the scientists saved from destruction.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday August 21 2018, @02:56PM (4 children)
No, they aren't that stupid to kill insects with a herbicide.
They are using neonicotinoids for this purpose - and Bayer needs to expand the market in other places now that EU banned the three main ones for outdoor uses [theguardian.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tfried on Tuesday August 21 2018, @08:27PM (1 child)
Except, they do. Ok, granted. Killing insects is not the point of a herbicide, but wide-spread use of herbicides is still a major problem to insects by degrading their habitat. Few insects can survive in a monoculture (and those that can will typically cause problems, but hey, we have insecticides for that).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 21 2018, @10:28PM
Grandpa's Scourge: Boll Weevils in the Cotton!
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday August 21 2018, @11:45PM
Don't be too sure. This was the same company that believed it could research death codes and embed DRM directly into the crops. They did this research in crops with no biocontainment procedures whatsoever. It's pure hubris to believe we've come that far with genetic engineering, that we could risk such lines of research in the first place. Real bioweapon research is conducted with a bit more restraint and care than Monsanto demonstrates.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Goghit on Wednesday August 22 2018, @05:11AM
I'm not so sure. Glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide can bugger up the biochemical pathways found in micro-organisms. More and more research is telling us that micro-organisms have vital roles in keeping anything with a gut functioning properly.
The hot new thing is to use Roundup to "field dry" non-GMO crops - basically when it's ripe the farmer sprays the crop like it's a weed, lets it fall over and dessicate in the field, then harvests it and processes the bean or grain out of the stalks immediately - quicker, easy, and less barn space required.
Yes, they are that stupid, and yeah, we're fucked.