What I find most disturbing (and correct) from your essay is the issue about natural selection. You are right about Monsanto making crops that will grow best under certain conditions and if those conditions change, then they would have to change the genes to grow better. Practically I don't believe that conditions will change too much, but Monsanto really likes to manipulate the genomes down to every gene. What I am most worried about is the lack of mutations which should happen naturally. If your crop is genetically modified and unable to reproduce naturally, then all of the plants have little genetic variation. As you said about certain conditions species have become extinct because a new condition arose and there were no mutations which allowed that species to survive.

The idea of turning over to GM foods is insulting. The use of the word "sustainable" in the second paragraph is offensive. How can a plant that requires you to buy seeds and that is unable to reproduce new plants naturally ever be considered sustainable? I did think it was interesting that the scientists made the claim that the EU will ultimately become dependent on outside food sources. That itself might lead one to believe that Europe cannot feed itself, but the science I think they are claiming is the math which pairs a population with its resources. You remember those graphs. The population keeps rising due to a high amount of resources (food perhaps) then when the resources become limited the population starts to drop until it finds a balance. Any statistician would claim that humans are not on a sustainable path if you go out far enough into the future. If there are 2-4 billion people in the EU then I could see food production being a problem. GM foods are not the answer here.

I don't believe in symbiosis. That's why I had all my mitochondria (and bacteria) removed.

If the insects find a way to incorporate some of the bacterial DNA into their own DNA then genetic evolution will have taken place. I think symbiotic evolution such as with mitochondria and chloroplasts is a lot rarer. Those are the only two examples that come to mind.

This isn't surprising to me. Just like dosing animals with antibodies and using sterilization products everywhere which creates resistance to said chemicals. As Ian Malcolm said "Life finds a way."

Wikipedia's information of the New Century Foundation and the Pioneer Fund lead me to doubt the validity of this website.

I too thought it said Physics. I was expecting a logical sequence of empirical data, but I got a post that shouldn't be on slashdot.

It is a general idea. I tried different zip codes (postal codes) from my state in the US. I know most of our power comes from hydro which was my vote, with all other options except solar. The metro areas do rely on coal and natural gas in large proportions also which reflects the EPA result. I just wish it would have shown more specific levels in a more focused area. I know some towns and cities in my state run entirely on hydroelectric. Anyways thanks for the resource. I guess there should have been a vote option for a combination of options.

If the world is going to keep up with this ridiculous process of patenting software then companies that sue other companies (sigh. . .all software companies) had better do some research to find out who supposedly has the first patent. Theoretically, you shouldn't be able to sue Google for a location based advertising patent if Apple was suing Google, because Apple claims it first. But of course it probably isn't that simple, there are probably dozens of companies around the world that can make the claim of having a such a patent. Continuing on this hypothetical rant, what if a company in the US actually has the first patent but never sued anyone because they were too small to feel they could win? Yet when they sell their patent to a legal firm, like Apple sold patents to Digitude who could then sue companies the shell company has the very real potential to win. Does this invalidate the other lawsuits from the other companies who filed over the same patent? Does this happen? I honestly don't know.

I read an article in which the judge had made a decent amount of comments regarding the past couple of weeks events. I'm guessing it was the three page article from the Associated Press. I could tell in his speech that he never learned to give up control. In my opinion his language was that of someone that is still controlling. I would have hoped he would have stopped his abusing lifestyle, but I don't believe he has.

Too bad this survey isn't indicative of a wider assortment of web browsing users. It would be nice if this many users of the world (27% at the time of this post) didn't use Windows. It would be even nicer if that 27% were Linux users, but if wishes were real we'd all be rulers of the world. Since I am here Slackware, Ubuntu

I know that many of the places named come from Austrailia, but some us of should laugh when we hear Botany Bay. I instantly thought of Chekov in Star Trek II. Interesting note that even in Austrailia, Botany Bay was a penal colony (what wasn't). It just makes the movie funnier.