The archive
Every post on the blog, newest first. Use the date and category menus in the sidebar to narrow it down.
Cultivated meat: a reality check
Six years after the first approval, cultivated meat is legal in a few places, banned in others and sold almost nowhere. The biology explains most of why.
Agroecology on the farm: what changes, season by season
Agroecology is a practice before it is a policy. What changes on a working farm, the FAO's ten elements in plain words, and the trade-offs to admit.
Bring back technology assessment
Congress closed its technology office in 1995. AI and synthetic biology make the case for public, independent foresight stronger than ever.
Soil carbon: what the science can promise, and what it can't
Soils hold vast amounts of carbon, but gains are hard to measure and easy to lose. What 4 per 1000, carbon credits and farmers can realistically expect.
Geeks start the week: what synthetic biology's 2007 promises delivered
The first day of SB3.0 in 2007 was a rush of fast technical talks. Nearly nineteen years later, which of those tools and promises came true?
Ocean iron fertilisation revisited: from Planktos to the new marine carbon removal
Iron dumping promised cheap carbon storage and delivered scandals and a treaty fix. Now ocean carbon removal is back, with old governance questions.
Beware the biomass economy: pellets, jet fuel and the carbon-neutral claim
The bioeconomy swaps fossil carbon for plant carbon. The biomass demand that implies, who controls supply, and whether burning it is carbon-neutral.
A very dirty green: how business got a seat at the UN table
From the Global Compact to Davos and the climate COPs: how companies won a seat at the UN table, and what to ask when a summit unveils a coalition.
Mapping the 'Mexican genome': the questions a 2009 launch skipped
In 2009 Mexico unveiled a 'map of the Mexican genome'. What the study found, what genomic sovereignty covered, and who has benefited since.
Bitter honey: Bt rootworms, GM pollen and the Mayan beekeepers
From resistant rootworms in Iowa to a European court ruling and Mayan honey in Campeche: how GM crops ran into bees, and how Mexico answered.
Farm data: who owns what your tractor knows?
Yield monitors, telematics and farm apps collect huge amounts of data. Who can use it, what the repair fight is about, and what to ask before signing.
Canada's biofuels law on trial: Bill C-33 and the warnings of 2008
In June 2008, mid food crisis, Canada's Senate passed a law to require biofuel blending. How did the critics' warnings hold up?
