For the last decade or so, bacteria that are immune to the effects of antibiotics have been a persistent and growing threat in medicine. Ultimately, the problem goes back to the antibiotic not being administered long enough to kill off the entire colony. The few survivors that managed to make it through the increasing toxicity of their environment because they either had a gene which rendered them immune (and the toxins released when the other bacteria died weren't enough to poison them) or assembled one and survived long enough to breed and pass the gene along to other bacteria. This …

Lately, I've been noticing commercials on television (in particular The Food Network) claiming that high fructose corn syrup is actually good for you, and that you should buy products containing it to keep the corn farmers in business. A few of us speculate that this is in part a reaction to the growing community of organic farmers and consumers. On the Metro to DC on Tuesday, Lyssa and I saw this poster that subtly suggests that the use of fertilizers in agriculture are a good thing and that organic foods are somehow undesirable or inferior by implication. Using an image …