Toyota is building a ‘city of the future’ powered by robots and AI for 2,000 staff and families

MSN  26/02/2021

Toyota has started constructing a 175-acre smart city in Japan that will work on artificial intelligence and futuristic technologies and serve as a “living laboratory”, the company has announced.

Construction began this week on the project dubbed “Woven City”, at a site at the base of Japan’s Mount Fuji, about 62 miles from Tokyo.

The city is being designed as a testing ground for technologies that could be rolled out across urban environments, including robotics, interconnected smart homes and artificial intelligence.

The company’s president Akio Toyoda broke ground at the site on Tuesday in a ceremony involving local officials of Shizuoka Prefecture, where the new city is located.

Toyota, which first announced the project at CES 2020 in January last year, says the city will have three types of roads which are all linked to each other at the ground level – one thoroughfare for pedestrians, one for pedestrians using personal mobility vehicles like e-scooters, and one dedicated solely to self-driving vehicles. The company said there would be one conventional road running underneath the city to provide goods transportation.

Toyota launched its own self-driving vehicle, the e-Palette, in 2018, and it is expected that they will make up the bulk of the Woven City project’s transport infrastructure. The company has previously described them as “scalable and customisable” for a range of functions include ride-sharing, delivery services and even mobile offices and hotels.

Moderna’s top scientist: ‘We are actually hacking the software of life’

 Leohohmann

Dr. Tal Zaks, the chief medical officer at Moderna Inc., explained in a 2017 TED talk how the company’s mRNA vaccine was designed to work.

Over the last 30 years, he said, “we’ve been living this phenomenal digital scientific revolution, and I’m here today to tell you, that we are actually hacking the software of life, and that it’s changing the way we think about prevention and treatment of disease.”

He went on to explain [see video below] that the human body is made up of organs and organs are made up of cells.

“In every cell there’s this thing called messenger RNA or mRNA for short, that transmits the critical information from the DNA in our genes to the protein, which is really the stuff we’re all made out of. This is the critical information that determines what the cell will do. So we think about it as an operating system.

“So if you could change that, if you could introduce a line of code, or change a line of code, it turns out, that has profound implications for everything, from the flu to cancer.”

Old-guard scientists reveal their biases as new scientists suggest evidence for God

American Thinker  December 29, 2020

For many years now, the argument by atheist scientists has seemed reasonable. It goes something like this: we do not claim that there is no God. We simply claim that there is no scientific evidence for Him. If you have such evidence, we will examine it. If the evidence justifies a belief in God, we will accept it. Until then, only the physical can explain the physical. There is no need for God and no room for Him in science. If you say there is a God, then show us the evidence.

That was their argument because, until recent years, there was not, in the strictest sense, the kind of evidence science requires. To be sure, there were claims of such evidence, but however sincere those claims may have been, they were not persuasive enough to convince an honest skeptic. The gold standard of science, stated informally, is that a new paradigm is accepted when the evidence is solid enough to convince an objective, unbiased, and qualified person.

It turns out that scientists are as biased as anyone else. Their biases are being exposed by an increasing number of younger, more open-minded scientists. These newcomers are breaking free of the unscientific philosophy, the doctrine of physicalism, that presently dominates their disciplines. They are willing to challenge the notion that nothing exists except the physical. The old guard is resisting. The entrenched establishment is making ever less credible excuses for holding on to its resolute belief that only the physical exists.

Evolution or intelligent design? The story of the bacterial flagellar motor

ABC

Nature abounds with wonders — and the quest to explain them has driven some epic human advances.

But scientific discoveries are often resisted when they contradict powerful religious traditions.

Galileo famously argued in the early 17th century that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, and was instead moving at great speed around the Sun.

As a result, the Roman Catholic Inquisition banned Galileo's books and sentenced him to house arrest until his death.

In the 21st century, one natural wonder that has attracted controversy is the tiny rotating wheel that powers the swimming movement of bacteria.

Followers of a modern form of creationism known as "intelligent design" argue that this motor is too complex, too incredible, and too efficient to have possibly arisen naturally.

The bacterial flagellar motor moves bacteria to places where the environment suits them better.

It does this under the control of a sensory system in which receptors on the outside of the bacteria respond to changing nutrient concentrations in its environment. A chemical signalling system tells the flagellar motor to change direction.

It is a nanomachine a millionth the size of a grain of sand that can rotate five times faster than a Formula One engine and can change direction faster than a mosquito beats it wings.

And it's able to change its structure, dynamically, while it is rotating at up to 100,000 rpm — the equivalent of a Formula One car changing the number of pistons in the engine while driving around the track.

What's more, the flagellar motor quite literally builds itself, on demand, out of constituent protein parts, assembling them at the right time and in the right place.

DTP Vaccine Associated with Increased Rate of Total Mortality in Low-Income Countries

Biospace Aug 16, 2019

SHERIDAN, Wyo., Aug. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- DTP is one of the most common vaccines used in the world.  In 2012, SAGE requested that the WHO review the evidence concerning the possible effects of DTP vaccines on mortality¹. In a new expert report, Peter C. Gøtzsche, Professor, DrMedSci, MSc analyzed the WHO systematic review as well as any studies published after the WHO report that assessed the effect of DTP vaccine on total mortality. This new expert report concludes that the "evidence tells us that it is likely that the DTP vaccine increases total mortality in low-income countries." ²

This echoes the conclusion by Peter Aaby – a highly acclaimed scientist renowned for studying and promoting vaccines in Africa - that "all currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis. Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections." ³ Dr. Aaby's recent study, the first ever naturally randomized comparison of mortality between children receiving DTP and those that are unvaccinated, found that children vaccinated with DTP were 10 times more likely to die in the first 6 months of life than the unvaccinated.³ 

One of the five goals of the WHO's Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) is to exceed the UN Millennium Development Goal 4 target of reducing child mortality.⁴ A strategy for achieving this goal is to reach 90% national vaccination coverage on DTP containing vaccines worldwide.⁴ According to Gøtzsche's conclusions, this strategy would be counterproductive toward the goal of reducing child mortality.

Gøtzsche offers several suggestions for potential next steps. As stated by UNICEF, "the percentage of children receiving the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTP) is often used as an indicator of how well countries are providing routine immunization services" ⁵. Gøtzsche recommends that the indicator be changed to something that is "known to be positively associated with better child survival."² Gøtzsche then explains that "it is the duty of a manufacturer of a drug or vaccine to demonstrate in randomized trials that it works and has a positive benefit to harm balance. This has not been done for the DTP vaccine." ² As such, he advocates for the initiation of randomized trials and considers the need for them "an urgent ethical imperative."²

Gøtzsche concludes with a call for the re-evaluation of current DTP vaccination practices. "No one should be offered this vaccine without full informed consent that includes information that the vaccine is likely to increase total mortality. I also believe that the vaccine should not be recommended and that, if anyone wants to use it, it must be as part of a large randomized trial."²

References:
^1. https://www.who.int/immunization/sage/sage_wg_non_specific_effects_vaccines_march2013/en/
^2.  https://vaccinescience.org/expert-report-effect-of-dtp-vaccines-on-mortality-in-children-in-low-income-countries/
^3.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5360569/
^4.  https://www.who.int/immunization/global_vaccine_action_plan/GVAP_doc_2011_2020/en/
^5.  https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/immunization/

Where on earth were all the penguins?

Science Magazine Mar. 19, 2020

Where on Earth, wondered Henri Weimerskirch, were all the penguins? It was early 2017. Colleagues had sent the seabird ecologist aerial photos of Île aux Cochons, a barren volcanic island halfway between Madagascar and Antarctica that humans rarely visit. The images revealed vast areas of bare rock that, just a few decades before, had been crowded with some 500,000 pairs of nesting king penguins and their chicks. It appeared that the colony—the world’s largest king penguin aggregation and the second biggest colony of any of the 18 penguin species—had shrunk by 90%. Nearly 900,000 of the regal, meter-high, black, white, and orange birds had disappeared without a trace. “It was really incredible, completely unexpected,” recalls Weimerskirch, who works at the French national research agency CNRS.

Soon, he and other scientists were planning an expedition to the island—the first in 37 years, and only the third ever—to search for explanations. “We had to go see for ourselves,” says CNRS ecologist Charles Bost.

As the researchers prepared for the journey, they had to grapple with the logistical, political, and scientific challenges that have long bedeviled biologists trying to understand Antarctica’s remote ecosystems. The vast distances, rough weather, and rugged terrain make travel difficult and expensive. They needed a ship—and a helicopter, because frigid seas and rocky shores make for perilous boat landings on Antarctic islands. Complying with the tough permitting and biosecurity rules governing the French-controlled island—meant to prevent researchers from disturbing fragile ecosystems—required careful planning and paperwork that took months to complete. And once they arrived, they would have precious little time: just 5 days to investigate a multitude of suspects in the disappearance, including disease, predators, and a warming Southern Ocean.

“Born That Way” No More

John Peck   November, 2019

A new study adds to a growing body of evidence demonstrating that the dominant narrative about sexual orientation—that it is genetically determined—simply cannot be true. Instead, the science shows that a person’s sexual orientation and choice of partners depends heavily on the development and expression of personal autonomy regarding one’s own sexual possibilities. People with same-sex attractions should be legally and culturally free not to identify with or act on them.

Late last month, a team of MIT and Harvard scientists published a landmark study of the genetic basis for sexual orientation in the journal Science. The study, which was based on an examination of the genetic material of almost half a million individuals, definitively refutes the idea that being gay is an innate condition that is controlled or largely compelled by one’s genetic makeup.

The study contained two key findings. First, it found that the effect of the genes we inherit from our parents (known as “heritability”) on same-sex orientation was very weak, at only .32 on a scale from 0 (none) to 1 (total) heritability. This means that a person’s developmental environment—which includes diet, family, friends, neighborhood, religion, and a host of other life conditions—is twice as influential on the probability of developing same-sex behavior or orientation as a person’s genes are. More

Glyphosate is everywhere

Global Research    April 27, 2019

As new studies continue to point to a direct link between the widely-used glyphosate herbicide and various forms of cancer, the agribusiness lobby fights ferociously to ignore or discredit evidence of human and other damage. A second US court jury case just ruled that Monsanto, now a part of the German Bayer AG, must pay $ 81 million in damages to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman who contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. The ruling and a line-up of another 11,000 pending cases in US courts going after the effects of glyphosate, have hit Bayer AG hard with the company announcing several thousand layoffs as its stock price plunges.

In a trial in San Francisco the jury was unanimous in their verdict that Monsanto Roundup weed-killer, based on glyphosate, had been responsible for Hardeman’s cancer. His attorneys stated,

“It is clear from Monsanto’s actions that it does not care whether Roundup causes cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about Roundup.” 

It is the second defeat for the lawyers of Monsanto after another jury ruled in 2018 that Glyphosate-based Roundup was responsible for the cancer illness of a California school grounds-keeper who contracted the same form of cancer after daily spraying school grounds with Roundup over years, unprotected. There a jury found Monsanto guilty of “malice and oppression” in that company executives, based on internal email discovery, knew that their glyphosate products could cause cancer and suppressed this information from the public.

A new independent study shows that those with highest exposure to glyphosate have a 41% increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cancer. A meta-analysis of six studies containing nearly 65,000 participants looked at links between glyphosate-based herbicides and immune-suppression, endocrine disruption and genetic alterations. The authors found “the same key finding: exposure to GBHs (glyphosate-based herbicides) are associated with an increased risk of NHL (Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma).” Further, they stated that glyphosate “alters the gut microbiome,” and that that could “impact the immune system, promote chronic inflammation, and contribute to the susceptibility of invading pathogens.” Glyphosate also ”may act as an endocrine disrupting chemical because it has been found recently to alter sex hormone production” in both male and female rats.

In a long-term animal study by French scientists under Gilles Eric Seralini, Michael Antoniou and associates, it was demonstrated that even ultra-low levels of glyphosate herbicides cause non-alcoholic liver disease. The levels the rats were exposed to, per kg of body weight, were far lower than what is allowed in our food supply. According to the Mayo Clinic, today, after four decades or more pervasive use of glyphosate pesticides, 100 million, or 1 out of 3 Americans now have liver disease. These diagnoses are in some as young as 8 years old.

Zoologist expelled from University for stating polar bears are at no risk of extinction from climate change

Financial Post   Oct/2019

A world-renowned expert in animal bone identification has lost her position at the University of Victoria (UVic), she believes for telling school kids politically incorrect facts about polar bears.

Zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford is routinely hired by biologists and archeologists in Canada and abroad to identify the remains of mammals, birds and fish. She has helped catalog museum collections, and assisted police with forensic analyses. But UVic students will no longer benefit from her expertise, and her ability to apply for research grants has come to a screeching halt. In May, the Anthropology Department withdrew her Adjunct Professor status, depriving her of a university affiliation.

Crockford describes her expulsion as “an academic hanging without a trial, conducted behind closed doors.” After being renewed unanimously in 2016 for a three-year term, her adjunct status was not renewed the next time around.

Crockford is the author of a popular blog, polarbearscience.com, as well as five books about these animals. Polar Bear Facts and Myths has been translated into four languages. She says that, contrary to the claims of environmental activists, polar bears are currently thriving and are at no risk of extinction from climate change.

Research: humans and animals sprang from single pair

Dailymail   24 November 2018

All modern humans descended from a solitary pair who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, scientists say.

Scientists surveyed the genetic 'bar codes' of five million animals - including humans - from 100,000 different species and deduced that we sprang from a single pair of adults after a catastrophic event almost wiped out the human race. 

These bar codes, or snippets of DNA that reside outside the nuclei of living cells, suggest that it's not just people who came from a single pair of beings, but nine out of every 10 animal species, too.

The Origin of Nations

A new survey has found that a third of young millennials in the U.S. aren’t convinced the Earth is actually round

April 5, 2018  CBS

A new survey has found that a third of young millennials in the U.S. aren’t convinced the Earth is actually round. The national poll reveals that 18 to 24-year-olds are the largest group in the country who refuse to accept the scientific facts of the world’s shape.

YouGov, a British market research firm, polled 8,215 adults in the United States to find out if they ever believed in the “flat Earth” movement. Only 66 percent of young millennials answered that they “always believe the world is round.” Science teachers across the U.S. will be shaking their heads after learning that nine percent of young adults answered that they have “always believed” the planet was flat.

Another nine percent said of young adults said they thought the planet was spherical but had doubts about it. In a disturbing display of indecision, 16 percent of millennials said they weren’t sure what the shape of the planet was.

Overall, only two percent of the respondents said they always thought the Earth was flat without any doubt. YouGov found that age was directly connected to Americans’ views on the shape of the world. Seventy-six percent of adults age 25-34 say they’ve always believed the Earth is round, compared to 82 percent of ages 35-44, 85 percent of ages 45-54, and 94 percent of adults 55 and over.

Observatory detects extragalactic cosmic rays hitting the Earth

Scienmag  October 24, 2017

Fifty years ago, scientists discovered that the Earth is occasionally hit by cosmic rays of enormous energies. Since then, they have argued about the source of those ultra-high energy cosmic rays — whether they came from our galaxy or outside the Milky Way.

The answer is a galaxy or galaxies far, far away, according to a report published Sept. 22 in Science by the Pierre Auger Collaboration. The internationally run observatory in Argentina, co-founded by the late University of Chicago Nobel laureate James Cronin, has been collecting data on such cosmic rays for a more than a decade.

The collaboration found that the rate of such cosmic particles, whose energies are a million times greater than that of the protons accelerated in the Large Hadron Collider, is about six percent greater from one side of the sky than the other, in a direction where the distribution of galaxies is relatively high.

"We are now considerably closer to solving the mystery of where and how these extraordinary particles are created — a question of great interest to astrophysicists," said University of Wuppertal Prof. Karl-Heinz Kampert, spokesperson for the Auger Collaboration, which involves more than 400 scientists from 18 countries. "Our observation provides compelling evidence that the sites of acceleration are outside the Milky Way."

Disease, ageing and even death are all human realities that super intelligence seek to end.

By Alexander Thomas, July 31, 2017 

The rapid development of so-called NBIC technologies – nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science – are giving rise to possibilities that have long been the domain of science fiction. Disease, ageing and even death are all human realities that these technologies seek to end.

They may enable us to enjoy greater “morphological freedom” – we could take on new forms through prosthetics or genetic engineering. Or advance our cognitive capacities. We could use brain-computer interfaces to link us to advanced artificial intelligence (AI).

Nanobots could roam our bloodstream to monitor our health and enhance our emotional propensities for joy, love or other emotions. Advances in one area often raise new possibilities in others, and this “convergence” may bring about radical changes to our world in the near-future.

“Transhumanism” is the idea that humans should transcend their current natural state and limitations through the use of technology – that we should embrace self-directed human evolution. If the history of technological progress can be seen as humankind’s attempt to tame nature to better serve its needs, transhumanism is the logical continuation: the revision of humankind’s nature to better serve its fantasies.                  More

The likelihood of an asteroid smashing into Earth is increasing, according to new research

7 Jun, 2017

The likelihood of an asteroid smashing into Earth is increasing, according to new research from a team of Czech scientists which discovered new asteroids traveling around our planet.

The team studied 144 large meteors from the Taurids, a meteor stream which appears in our skies twice a year. The group discovered a new branch of the phenomenon containing at least two asteroids measuring a whopping 200-300 meters (220-330 yards) in diameter.

This branch likely includes even larger undiscovered asteroids, according to a statement from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

The Taurid meteoroid stream produces at least four meteor showers over Earth: two are active from the end of September until the beginning of December, and two from the end of May to the middle of July.

Earth encounters the newly discovered branch every few years for about three weeks. Scientists say that during this time the chance of an impact with a sizeable asteroid – measuring up to tens of meters – is significantly greater.

The meteors analyzed by the Czech astronomy team were from 2015 when the stream’s activity was enhanced. Details of the study are published in Astronomy & Astrophysics,

The new digital autonomous observatories of the European Fireball Network spotted the fireballs over Czech Republic (at 13 stations), Austria (1 station) and Slovakia (1 station).

The researchers say further study is vital to gain a better understanding “of this real source of potentially hazardous objects,” warning that the meteors could cause significant regional or even continental damage.     RT

Do We Need an International Body to Regulate Genetic Engineering?

Kristen V. Brown  1/18/17

Imagine a scenario, perhaps a few years from now, in which Canada decides to release thousands of mosquitoes genetically modified to fight the spread of a devastating mosquito-borne illness. While Canada has deemed these lab-made mosquitoes ethical, legal and safe for both humans and the environment, the US has not. Months later, by accident and circumstance, the engineered skeeters show up across the border. The laws of one land, suddenly, have become the rule of another.

If modern science can can defy the boundaries of borders, who exactly should be charged with deciding what science to unleash upon the world?

A version of this hypothetical scenario is already unfolding in the UK. Last year, the British government gave scientists the green light to genetically engineer human embryos. But in the US and most other nations, this possibility is still both illegal and morally fraught. Opponents to the practice argue that it risks opening up a Pandora’s Box of designer babies and genetically engineered super-humans. Even many more neutral voices argue that the technology demands further scrutiny.

And yet, the UK, at the vanguard of genetic engineering human beings, has already opened that box. In 2015, the British government approved the use of a controversial gene-editing technology to stop devastating mitochondrial diseases from being passed on from mothers to their future children. And last February, the UK granted the first license in the world to edit healthy human embryos for research. Recently, a Newsweek headline asked whether the scientists of this small island nation are in fact deciding the fate of all of humanity. It is a pretty good question.

If modern science can can defy the boundaries of borders, who should be charged with deciding which science to unleash upon the world?

This alarming ethical conundrum has not escaped the notice of global governments. A National Intelligence Council report released this month concluded that “genome editing and human enhancement” are “likely to pose some of the most contentious values questions in the coming decades.” Advancements in these arenas, the report said, “will affect relations between states.”    More

Scientists Have Created a Device That Sucks Water Out of Thin Air

FIONA MACDONALD 13 APR 2017 

When it comes to future challenges, one of the biggest will be water scarcity - on a warming planet we're going to have plenty of seawater, but not enough fresh, clean water in the right places for everybody to drink.

And while a lot of research has focussed on desalination, a team of scientists have now come up with another possible solution - a device that pulls fresh water out of thin air, even in places with humidity as low as 20 percent. All it needs is sunlight.

It might sound too good to be true, but so far the research is solid. Called the 'solar-powered harvester', the device was created by teams from MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, using a special type of material known as a metal-organic framework (MOF).

To be clear, it's only in the prototype phase right now and has been tested in pretty limited situations, but the results so far have just been published in Science.

"This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity," said one of the researchers, Omar Yaghi from UC Berkeley.

"There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy. Your electric dehumidifier at home 'produces' very expensive water."

Two-thirds of the world's population is currently experiencing a shortage of clean water, but it's estimated that there's about 13,000 trillion litres of water worldwide present in the air all around us.

So far the prototype device has been tested under conditions of 20 to 30 percent humidity, and was able to pull 2.8 litres (3 quarts) of water from the air over a 12- hour period, using 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF.

Successful tests have also been conducted on the rooftop at MIT, showing that it works in real-world conditions.

The team says that the device could easily be scaled up to provide a family with their freshwater needs for the day.        Read More

Scientists ‘on the brink’ of creating complex life form

Stephen Chen Friday, 10 March, 2017, 3:02am

Chinese scientists are taking part in an immense international project that is expected to create complex artificial life in the laboratory for the first time by the end of the year.

Researchers had previously produced simple life forms such as viruses and bacteria but this time the aim is to make an “eukaryotic organism”, one with cells containing a nucleus surrounded by a membrane and with DNA held together by proteins.

A research team with more than 200 scientists from countries including the United States and China will announce on Friday that Sc2.0, the world’s first artificially designed and built eukaryotic organism, is expected to “come alive” by the end of this year.

The new organism could lead to advances in genetic therapies that could help people live longer, the scientists said.

More than a third of the work was already complete, they said, with successful laboratory synthesis of six of the 16 chromosomes that held the organism’s DNA strands. Their methodology, research observations and technological developments were detailed in seven papers in the latest issue of Science.       SCMP

First step to ‘designer life’: Biologists breed bacteria with lab-made DNA, adding two extra, artificial letters

For billions of years, life has danced that same old DNA jig. At some point after Earth’s formation, but before bacterial slime formed the planet’s oldest fossils 3.7 billion years ago, DNA became the system by which virtually every organism stored and passed on its genetic information. No matter how many times mutations or natural selection remixed the tune, four nitrogenous base units always comprised DNA: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. This was as true for hairy apes as it was for brewer’s yeast, redwoods and Tyrannosaurus rex.

Now, scientists led by the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have added two extra, artificial letters to the ancient alphabet of A, C, G and T. And the E. coli living with this unusual six-letter, three-base-pair alphabet are, by the account published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, capable of surviving tough laboratory conditions.         Read more

The first genetically modified apple will hit US supermarkets

Peter Walker Wednesday 25 January 2017

The first genetically modified apple will hit US shops after decades of protest, back-and-forth regulation and laboratory development.

The Arctic Apple, which manufacturers claim never goes brown once sliced, could hit Midwestern grocery stores as early as 1 February.

Supporters of GM food are celebrating a landmark moment, while one critic has branded the apple “understudied, unlabelled and unnecessary”.

“We see this as less about genetic modification and more about convenience,” said Neal Carter, founder of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, which made the Arctic Apple.

“I think consumers are very ready for apples that don't go brown. Everyone can identify with that 'yuck' factor.”

GM technology dates back to the discovery of DNA and, more specifically, the use of genetically modified microbial enzymes in the 1980s.

The Flavr Savr tomato was the first commercially grown food product in 1994, which was followed with GM potatoes, canola, maize, cotton and golden rice.

Supporters of GM food hail it as the cure for worldwide hunger, an alternative to pesticides, improved flavour and increased health benefits.

Opponents point to cross-pollination and the subsequent decimation of animal and plant species, the dangers to allergy sufferers and the effect on small farmers.       Independent