Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 2013

Retraction of GM-Maize Rat Study Findings

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Dear ABCA Subscribers,

The journal Food and Chemical Toxicology today announced the retraction of the article Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize by Séralini et al first published online in September 2012.

Shortly after the article was originally published, the journal received many letters to the editor expressing concerns about the validity of the findings, the proper use of animals and even allegations of fraud.rat

The study alleged that biotech corn and herbicides caused tumours and organ damage, and led to premature death in laboratory rats.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), in agreement with food safety regulators globally, rejected the conclusions of the study, finding “On the basis of the many scientific deficiencies identified in the study, FSANZ does not accept the conclusions made by the authors and has therefore found no justification to reconsider the safety of NK603 corn.”

The journal Food and Chemical Toxicology’s retraction today states:

“The Editor-in-Chief found no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data. However, there is a legitimate cause for concern regarding both the number of animals in each study group and the particular strain selected. The low number of animals had been identified as a cause for concern during the initial review process, but the peer-review decision ultimately weighed that the work still had merit despite this limitation. A more in-depth look at the raw data revealed that no definitive conclusions can be reached with this small sample size regarding the role of either NK603 or glyphosate in regards to overall mortality or tumor incidence. Given the known high incidence of tumors in the Sprague-Dawley rat, normal variability cannot be excluded as the cause of the higher mortality and incidence observed in the treated groups.”

The journal’s letter to Séralini requesting he withdraw his article can be downloaded here. The responses of a number of Australian and international scientists given when the study was first published can be found here.

ABCA will be disseminating this information in the coming weeks and months to ensure that Australians are informed of the erroneous nature of the conclusions drawn from this study. We would encourage subscribers to do the same.

Jessica Lee
Chair, Public Affairs Working Group
Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia

Same Information: Different Opinion. Part 2, The Tragic versus Utopian Vision of Climate Science

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WE know that General Circulation Models underpin the theory of anthropomorphic global warming, rely on supercomputers, are expense to run and mostly output nonsense [1].

Earlier this year I sat in a seminar as a UK climate scientist acknowledged all the limitations of General Circulation Models, but then went on to claim that they had to be the future of weather forecasting because they were grand and incorporated all that was grand about science and that one day they would be better at predicting the weather and the climate.Steven Pinker

The Professor suggested that statistical models, including artificial neural networks, were just pattern analysis. He stated that even if statistical models could forecast rainfall in Australia, for example, better than the best General Circulation Models, these statistical models were so limited and so ordinary that this is not where science should be investing.

This professor perhaps sees grandeur, where I see waste and hubris. [Read more…] about Same Information: Different Opinion. Part 2, The Tragic versus Utopian Vision of Climate Science

Climate Change Rallies Held Around Australia

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THE Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s news online is running with the headline ‘Climate change rallies held around Australia, with calls for Coalition to keep carbon tax’. So many could-be inspiring photographs and could-be inspiring captions follow the headline that I could have been on Facebook. Climate Change Rally

Indeed the ABC “news item” would tick most of the boxes for pure propaganda.

I’m filing some quotes from the “news item” here for posterity:

“There is no sceptic at the end of a fire hose.”

“Emergency workers played a significant role in warning about the dangers of unchecked global warming.”

“The Climate Council’s Tim Flannery told 30,000 people in Melboure that Australian must make their voices heard.”

“Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt evoked the memory of the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires, while firefighters spoke of their fears of increasingly hotter days.”

“Mr McNulty says scientists were clear that global warming would make extreme weather events more frequent and severe.”

Meanwhile I stayed at home reading Friedrich Nietzche, and note that he wrote:
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

Open Thread

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I’ve been reading ‘The Lucky Culture and The Rise of an Australian Ruling Class’ by Nick Cater. Mr Cater has been a journalist with News Ltd and interestingly has a degree in sociology from Exeter University in the UK.

The book is very much a sociologist’s perspective on the contemporary Australian inner city pseudo-intellectual. Mr Cater is extraordinarily accurate in his description of their totems and their prejudices.

Nick Cater

Super Typhoon Haiyan Strongest in Recorded History?

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THE US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center, using satellite analysis to estimate wind speeds, has claimed that Typhoon Haiyan, that hit the east coast of Samar in the Phillipines on November 8, 2013 is one of the strongest storms in recorded history.

According to the New York Times [1]:

Before the typhoon made landfall, some international forecasters were estimating wind speeds at 195 m.p.h., which would have meant the storm would hit with winds among the strongest recorded. But local forecasters later disputed those estimates. “Some of the reports of wind speeds were exaggerated,” Mr. Paciente said.

The Philippine weather agency measured winds on the eastern edge of the country at about 150 m.p.h., he said, with some tracking stations recording speeds as low as 100 m.p.h.

The United States Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center used satellite analysis to estimate sustained winds at 195 m.p.h., with gusts up to 235 m.p.h., but that measured the center of the storm when it was over the ocean.

“As far as satellite imagery was concerned, it indicated that this was one of the strongest storms on record,” said Roger Edson, the science and operations officer at the United States National Weather Service in Guam.

He said 195 m.p.h. winds would put the storm “off the charts,” but he acknowledged that satellite estimates require further study on the ground to determine if they were accurate.

I can’t find information on the sea level pressure recorded for Typhoon Haiyan.

Guiuan, Samar

Typhoon Tip had been considered the largest and most intense tropical storm ever recorded with a worldwide record-low sea level pressure of 870 mbar and peak winds of 190 mph (305 km/h) on October 12, 1979. It was also the largest storm ever recorded with a wind diameter of 2,220 km (1,380 miles) [2]. US Air Force aircraft flew 60 weather reconnaissance missions into this typhoon.

The deadliest storm in recorded history is known as Great Boha hitting Bangladesh on November 12, 1970. This cyclone sustained a record high 40-foot storm surge and killed 300,000 to 500,000 people [3].

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1. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/powerful-typhoon-causes-mass-disruption-in-philippines.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip
3. http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=204

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Postgraduate Research Opportunity

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INFLUENTIAL, but seriously flawed research suggesting agricultural pesticides killed mature stands of mangroves at Mackay in Queensland was based on experiments with mangrove seedlings that were dosed with concentrations of Diuron orders of magnitude higher than anything found in waterways.

Seedling were used because it was claimed that it was impossible to grow mature mangrove plants under controlled conditions, and because of the urgency of proving a causal connection between agriculture and damage to the Great Barrier Reef high concentrations were applied.

In April 2011, with funding from the B. Macfie Family Foundation, and a permit from the Department of Fisheries, John Abbot and I oversaw the excavation (with a 10 tonne excavator) of 10 mature mangrove plants from the Koorana Crocodile Park on the Capricorn Coast. Eight of the 10 plants survived. In fact the eight have thrived under our cultivation system that includes an irrigation system that simulates diurnal tidal inundation of the large containers with the mangroves.

[Read more…] about Postgraduate Research Opportunity