To spray, or not to spray…Or to spray a little

Pesticide sign in front of a home in Lansing, MI

Spring is here and the tangible proof for many is a green lawn. This can mean pulling out the chemicals, but common-sense pest management and technology can reduce the amount of pesticides being used.

Pesticides pose risks to health and environment, but their benefits to the food industry and lawn care make them a hard habit to break. Scarlet, unbroken apple skin and a bright, monoculture lawn are atheistically valued, but to do this we need pesticides. The use of smart practices and technological advancements can lead to the least amount of pesticide applied while still meeting expectations of American society.

The suffix -cides translates “to cause death.” And pesticides do to insects, microbes, fungi, weeds, or nuisance animals like rodents.

The United States laid down 1.1 billion pounds of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and other -cides in 2007, accounting for 22 percent of the world market, according to a report on pesticide sales and usage issued by the EPA.

But the product that has been designed to kill has some citizens concerned.

“Pesticides are the only ones that were created with the intent to kill,” said Tina Reynolds, health policy director at the Michigan Environmental Council. “We’d be fooling ourselves to believe that these hazardous substances would not affect the environment and health.”

Pesticide exposure resulted in 92,240 human exposures cases in 2009, 3.2 percent of total exposures, according to the American Association of Poison Control Center.

Health and environment risks associated with pesticides cause some groups, such as Beyond Pesticides, to call for their immediate abolishment. But going cold turkey off pesticides isn’t so easy.

“Philosophically, could we have another [food] system that was not dependent on pesticides?” asked John Wise, entomologist from Michigan State University. Yes, he concludes, “if we had not discovered synthetic pesticides, would we have found another way to feed the population.”

But if we were to end pesticide use tomorrow, the effects would be catastrophic. Wise predicts all of civilization would collapse, because pesticides are so interconnected into the food supply systems.

Reynolds agrees that integration of a zero pesticide system will take time.

“It’s just like with solar energy, could we shut down everything tomorrow and run on wind-energy and solar power? No, it’d take time,” she said. “It’s definitely a staggered process.”

One transitionary technique is Integrated Pest Management plans, or IPM. The “effective and environmentally sensitive” method is encouraged by the EPA because, when practiced properly, results in the least amount of pesticide use. The plan requires common-sense practices, such assessing the life-cycle of the target nuisance and their interaction with environment, like where does it live, and why is it living there?

John Stone, who teaches turf grass and landscape pesticide application at Michigan State University, says he stresses IPM heavily with his students.

“In 1977, when I started in the field (of pesticide application), we just sprayed down everything on the property. Clients expected that … they paid the bill, and everything was right with the world,” said Stone.

Now, Stone said, IPM is always a part of his operation. He said he believed the majority of the turfgrass pesticide industry also implements the strategy, but cautions he may be too idealistic.

IPM plans involve:

• Inspecting and assessing the area
• Identifying and monitoring pest populations
• Implementing prevention methods
• Implementing alternative control methods
• Application of pesticide control

Pesticides may still be applied, but control techniques that assess the root of the pest invasion are assessed and eliminated before action is taken.

IPM is not only an action plan, it is a philosophy. Wise explained that the farmers he works with may not implement a specific IPM plan for every pest, but a majority of them understand the philosophy for the technique. The IPM philosophy is then integrated into the farm management.

The fruit farmers understand that not all pests are pesky: some may be beneficial, should only be controlled when it puts a crop at risk. Wise said they also understand there are multiple different tactics used before or in lieu of a pesticide spray.

The benefits for farmers include reduced pesticide costs, government monetary incentives, and a pride in using IPM, according to Wise.

But scouting and assessing pests can be costly in terms of time and money. Luckily, technology is helping make IPM more cost effective.

One example is the Soy Pod iPhone application, designed for soybean farmers with a soy aphid problem. The web-based, scouting tool was developed by entomologist Brian P. McCornack from Kansas State University.

McCornack said he wanted to facilitate the counting process to assist both farmers and scientists in making pest management decisions.

“[A smartphone] is a tool that you take with you all the time, and the tool’s gettin’ more sophisticated,” McCornack said, in a recent lecture at Michigan State University.

Soy Pod turns a complex soybean aphid count into a paperless smartphone application. Soybean aphids are an invasive species that can kill the soybean plant if left untreated. The application makes scouting for aphids easy for any farmer to do. After determining the population of the pest, the farmer can use IPM to determine when to spray to control the pest, instead of unnecessary, just-in-case spraying.

Farmers spent 2.8 percent of their budget on pesticides in 2007, about $7.9 million, according to a report released from the EPA.

Michigan State University created a tool for IPM planning for landscape and agricultural pesticide application. The online database streams updates on wind speed and direction, leaf wetness, humidity, and precipitation in various locations around Michigan. Stone said the technology, Enviro-weather, was helpful in determining when application was necessary.

Despite improvements in integrated pest management and technology, the overall pesticide amount has not significantly decreased in the past 20 years, according to the EPA’s latest report detailing pesticide sales and usage. Annual pesticide amount has decreased from 1.2 billion pounds in 1988 to 1.1 billion in 2007.

Before we can continue a serious pesticide decrease, society’s attitudes need to change. Stone noted his top challenge in implementing IPM in turf grass and landscape pesticide application was meeting the clients expectations. When action was not necessary on a property, clients would balk when no treatment was applied.

Reynolds agrees, saying we’d have to get conditioned to seasonal, local eating. Strawberries don’t normally grow everywhere, year-round, she said. In order to go pesticide free, we have to plant the proper crops in the proper environments at the proper times of year.

For more information:

IPM at MSU

EPA Pesticides/IPM resources

National Pesticide Information Center

Pesticide Database

Model Reformation

This is an article I wrote about a non-profit group in Montana that purchased a ranch to show others how clean-up could proceed!

Disease Cluster Mix-Up

This is an article I wrote for Great Lakes Echo about a small controversy surrounding the identification of disease clusters in White Lake, MI!

Toxic chemicals reformation in the works

Graphic courtesy of Safer Chemicals, Healthier Families

Having successfully escaped from his stroller, Tucker, age 3, gleefully pushed his toy car across the marble floor of the Capital Building rotunda, breathing a muted “vroooommm,” as the car toured the matrix of feet.

One pair of feet belonged to Tucker’s mother, listening tentatively to Michigan state Senator Roger Kahn announce his intention to sponsor a bill this spring that would inform parents of hazardous chemicals present in toys.

One-third of toys contain a hazardous chemical, Rebecca Meuninck, environmental health campaign director of the Ecology Center, informed the crowd. Looking down at Tucker, I wondered which third he was playing with.

Senator Kahn’s proposal is not unique; in January, 30 states announced their intention to produce legislation this year to protect their children and families from toxic chemicals. Eighteen state legislatures have already passed 71 bills concerning chemical safety, according to Safer Chemicals, Healthier Families, a coalition advocating for improved chemical regulation.

Currently, chemical safety is regulated on a federal level by the Toxic Substance Control Act. Enacted in 1976, the act empowers the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to test, restrict and keep an inventory of toxic chemicals.

But some say the law is no longer keeping Americans safe.

Roughly 62,000 existing chemicals were grandfathered into the list of chemicals kept by the EPA without any testing or research. More than 20,000 chemicals have been added to the market since the 1970s, but the agency has only thoroughly tested 200.

Moreover, it has only banned five. In 1989, the agency lost the battle to ban asbestos, a known human carcinogen. A court struck down the ban, citing the agency’s lack of authority.

Regulatory limitations and concern for chemical safety are among reasons lawmakers, scientists and citizens are pushing to update the act for the first time in 35 years.

“When it comes to protecting the public from toxic industrial chemicals, the Toxic Substances Control Act has been so ineffective for so long that many people forgot it was even on the books,”  Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, told Congress in July 2010. “… it’s amazing what the EPA can’t do.”

THE REFORM

Lawmakers are  pushing to shift the burden of proving a chemical is hazardous from the federal government to the chemical industry.

Currently, the agency must demonstrate that a chemical presents an unreasonable risk to the safety of the public and pay for its regulation. This is a heavy responsibility, Wendy Cleland-Hamnet, EPA director of pollution prevention and toxics, said at a panel discussion about the reform at the University of Montana-Missoula.

Other parts of the reform could include:

• Increasing the agency’s authority to regulate chemicals
• Outlining safety standards for children
• Requiring all new and existing chemicals be tested for safety
• Increasing the information available to the public on chemicals contained in products

“[The law] was passed 35 years ago and hasn’t been revised since then,” said Margie Kelly, the communications director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.  “Think about how much has changed in that time: lead has been removed from gasoline, cars are now required to have seatbelts, tobacco has been shown to cause cancer; yet the law governing toxic chemicals remains frozen in time. The law doesn’t work.”

Lisa Jackson, the new EPA administrator who took office in 2009, was a catalyst for the reform, Cleland-Hamnet said. A former chemical engineer and a mother of two boys, Jackson made updating the act a priority, particularly emphasizing putting children first.

A study from the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization working to protect human health and the environment, added to the momentum. It found 232 chemicals in the blood of 10 umbilical chords. Cook told Congress they had been  “pre-polluted.”  Babies are being born already exposed to toxics from the environment. There is very little data on the exposure of these effects and no data on the effects of the combination of these chemicals, according to Cook.

Lawmakers will reintroduce the reform bill to Congress in late spring of 2011, said Tracey Easthope, Environmental Health Director of the Ecology Center, a group actively involved in advocating for chemical safety reform.

Sen. Frank Lutenberg of New Jersey sponsored the proposal’s introduction last summer, but it never made it past the committee. The stagnation was due partially to undrafted legislation.

At a panel discussion on the reform, Cook speculated another reason for the halted momentum; Congress may have been waiting for more Republicans to get on board with their industry friends. Mike Walls, vice president of regulatory and managing affairs at the American Chemistry Council, disagreed. The industry didn’t walk away, they just didn’t have the time to work out discrepancies, he said.

The chemical industry supports changing the act, but various groups do not always see eye to eye on the specifics. Aside from safety, protecting innovation and job creation are also two reasons why the law needs to be updated, Walls said.

The chemical industry is highly competitive on a global scale, as evidenced by the number of patents issued in the United States; about one-eighth of patents are related to the chemical industry. Because of the profitable nature of the business, the chemical industry is concerned some changes may restrict innovation, Walls said.

Not everyone agrees on how to regulate the chemicals. Chemicals affect people differently according to their personal characteristics, such as age or weight, and the time of exposure must also be considered. Another tricky aspect of chemical regulation stems from different effects of various routes; has it been swallowed, inhaled, or touched? These highly variable conditions make determining the cumulative risk of a chemical difficult to assess, Cleland-Hamnet said

Further complicating the issue, advocates for the reform also disagree on which chemicals to regulate. The EPA advocates safety testing on all chemicals in the market, while the chemical industry would prefer only high profile chemicals to undergo it, according to Easthope.

Easthope stated she was unsure of whether or not the bill would pass.

When various states create legislation for chemical regulation, such as Senator Kahn’s proposal in Michigan, this creates complications for the chemical industry in regulating their products. The threat of these complications, combined with federal level legislation being generally weaker than state level, acts as an incentive for the chemical industry to support the reform, according to Easthope.

A cliche for you: sink or swim, darling.

He floats in a nice place.

I have been treading water for so long now, I think I may have forgotten how to swim.

I continue in my stagnant position because I can’t decide which direction to go.

If I don’t make a decision soon, I’m bound to succumb.

My first option is to abandon my sciences, and take the lede of journalism. Communication. Ugh, the word written makes me want to spit with self-disgust. A communication major? Have I sunk that low? Am I any good at it? Will I fail? Can I really master this stallion beast, the written word?

But I love to write. I love to conceptualize. I want to organize thoughts and information into buckets so that everyone can understand. I want to urge people to do their part. I want to trick people into loving the environment.

My second option is quit this silly attempt to break into a new field, and go back to what I know. Oh, how I miss the integrity of science. Those lovely rules, the scientific method, everything in black and white. I miss terribly the bionic-like, it is or it isn’t nature of that beautiful world of science.

But I hate the coldness of the laboratory. My fingers grow icy as I endlessly pipette, with thoughts dancing in my head of worlds outside of this sterile environment. The jargon is spouted at me, crushing me down into a two-inch version of myself. She must know more than me, she just uttered the words, “ lipase substrate specificity.”

If I stayed in communication, I could wear flip-flops to work. This weighs more points than anyone can probably imagine.

If I went back to science, I could be confident again in my laboratory skills. I miss you, confidence.

This conflict is the running script in my head on a daily basis. My indecision is making me desperate for some absolution. But where to seek it…?

Crosswalks: Why I hate them and why they should be banned

Although, we wouldn't have this picture without crosswalks. Decidedly a con.

I don’t believe in this junk technology that we call crosswalks. The fact that we are legally obliged to obey them chafes my skin. I am advocating for their abolishment in the name of the environment.

(A caveat: I am not saying all crosswalks are bad. The ones at the stoplights are obviously quite crucial to pedestrian health. It is the random crosswalks less than 50 yards from these stoplight crosswalks that really bug me.)

Crosswalks make no sense when you think logically about them. Let us weigh the options: we can have the pedestrian, burning their metabolized pickle sandwich as an energy source, come to a complete halt, or we can have the fossil-fuel burning, six-cylinder combustion vehicle come to a complete stop. Which of these options makes the most sense? Clearly, it requires much less energy to stop a 110 lbs. human than a 1 ton car. The energy source should be taken into account too; cars burn gasoline, humans burn food. One of these energy sources is more sustainable.

Which leads us to our next pro. Collectively, as a country, we are obese. We are a fat nation and something needs to be done. The proverbial “they” says that being fat costs us millions of dollars in health care costs. Too boot, I think it may suggest a bit of hedonism and self-indulgence in our American-culture. Surely the over-weight country is not the image we would like to present to the rest of the world as we try to inculcate them with the message that we are better than them. It makes us look a bit silly. So let’s make our pedestrians walk the thirty feet to the next cross-walk to cross the street instead of providing them with the instant gratification of crossing the street wherever they damn please.

Of course, my critics will argue for the preservation of the pedestrian’s vigor and I accede that this needs to be pondered. Undoubtedly, there is a portion of our population that legitimately needs crosswalks for their safety.  But let us not forget that we used to be hunters in past age, relying on our senses to protect us from harm’s way. I would venture to argue that the average human could use their eyes and ears adequately to perceive the danger of an oncoming car.

A note: I’m just kidding. Although I do think much of our transportation technology and management should be redesigned to reduce environmental impact, random cross walks are just a peeve of mine and this is just a stupid example.

Underwater Museo

This is by far the coolest picture I have seen today. It is an underwater museum, a casting of an artificial reef, made from 400 sculptures of people from a nearby community. The sculptures are environmentally friendly, made of material that promotes coral reef growth. The museum is located in Mexico, near Cancun.

Working at the Writing Center

I got a job in the writing center at Michigan State University in September. I had no idea if I could counsel people on their writing, but I was desperate for some income. I have no good reason to think I am that great of writer myself, so the idea of tutoring people on their own writing made me a bit nauseous.

My experiences thus far at my job have really surprised me. I genuinely enjoy working with people and their writing. Sometimes  I am so impressed with the structure and organization of my fellow students that I feel inadequate. At times, is a bit stressful because my advice may ultimately improve or decrease their grade, and I often feel rude picking apart people’s essays.

I have found that it is much easier to assess other’s work than your own. However, I sometimes feel baffled on the advice to give. Recently I had a student who wrote eloquent, clear sentences. She asked me to read her introduction of a twenty page paper she was working on. She was almost done but she wanted to be sure her introduction was clear. Well… it wasn’t. She seemed like a good writer; her sentences were quite nice, just a bit run on. But after reading her introduction, I had no idea what she planned to address in her paper. I knew it had something to do with feminism in Mexico, pertaining to a certain tribe, and it all sounded very interesting, but it had no structure. I felt myself getting lost in her eloquent writing, wondering how to structure this paper out. I am not sure if I helped her at all. I asked her questions to bring out the main ideas of the paper, but I am not sure if she understood why I was asking them. At the end of the session, I hoped I helped, though I am not sure I did.

I just had a really great session with a novice freshman writer. He wrote redundant and weak sentences, so it was easy for me to point out his errors. It felt so nice. I am helping him! I think? I hope? I gave him my favorite advice, advice that I struggle to follow from Strunk’s style guide, “omit needless words.” I give this advice to anyone who will listen, but who knows if he will listen. I hope, one day, he will hear my child-like voice as he’s writing an essay and will think, “I don’t need that sentence, it’s redundant. Do I really need those clarifying words? Probably not.” Agh, I will never know.

I hope I am helping these kids work out their writing bumps, but either way I really enjoy the work. I love it, in fact. I feel like I am doing a small bit of good in the world. I am so happy I had the opportunity to experience working at a writing center.

This Post is About Sperm

Wolbachia, the spermy bacteria

Ok, so that is a lie. It is actually about a bacteria that uses sperm as a host. But its a great story, I promise! And there is sex involved.

Last Tuesday I attended a lecture by a man who has spent a large chunk of his life studying sperm. If you expect a man that has voluntarily surrounded himself with the nectar of life to have a well-developed sense of humor, Dr. Timothy Karr would not leave you disappointed.

Karr studies Wolbachia, a bacteria that might change scientist’s entire perception of sexual reproduction. The ubiquitous bacteria infects over 50% of insects. It is found inside the host’s reproductive tissue where it alters the reproductive processes, particularly during early development stages. When a Wolbachia infected male breeds with an infected female, the eggs survive and are infected with Wolbachia. When an infected male breeds with an uninfected female, the eggs die. This strategy creates a subtraction process that allows the bacteria to thrive by inhibiting uninfected females to reproduce with infected males.

Embryonic lethality occurs only after the sperm fertilize the egg, but the mechanism by which it happens is unknown. Karr wants to get to the bottom of this mysterious puzzle of how the lethality occurs, believing that insights into the bacteria’s life cycle could lead to some interesting conclusions about the evolution of sex, and thus the evolution of life in general.

During the reproductive cycle, the Wolbachia get pushed out of the sperm, creating a big waste bag of bacteria, but the embryonic lethality still occurs. The Wolbachia is hitching a ride with the sperm, which means that the sperm is delivering more goods to the egg than just DNA, which goes against scientist’s prior understanding of the egg-sperm interaction. It doesn’t help that the sperm are a highly divergent set of cells, with their origin unknown, and sperm-egg interactions vary immensely between species.

Sperm are tricky in that they have a highly conserved function, but extreme morphological diversity throughout species. Imagine you replace sperm with an eyeball: organisms across have the conserved function of sensory perception through light, but if this perception were as varied morphologically as sperm, we would be seeing some pretty funky appendages in the place of eyes.

So how is Wolbachia finding its way to the egg? The answer to this question began to unfold in 2004 when researchers discovered the Wolbachia genome contains DNA that codes for phages. Karr looked into the content of highly concentrated sperm from an infected male, and found there appeared to be particles in the sperm. After analyzing the sperm closely, the particles found were believed to be phages. Karr confirmed this independently through a variety of means.

Wolbachia is an obligate intercellular microbe, translation: it cannot survive outside of its host. If the bacteria could be cultured outside of a host, this could have implications for the development of population bio-control, particularly a mechanism to control human and mammal diseases. The key to this exploitation is in the mechanism the bacteria uses to infect the eggs. Prior to Karr’s recent discoveries, this sneaky bacterium left scientists clueless. “Subtle is the Lord, subtle is the Wolbachia,” says Karr. If this method of sterility is indeed caused by phages, these phages sequences could be manipulated to trick males in sterility, ending their propagation.

Jeff Burnside at MSU

Jeff Burnside!

Ok, so clearly I need to work on my titles. But anyway, I met Jeff Burnside on Monday! Jeff Burnside is a reporter in Miami for an NBC affiliate news station, as well as a board member for the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Jeff was great. He was a very humble, relatable man with a lot of great advice.

One piece of advice that I will share for all you journalist hopefuls is, according to Jeff Burnside, you have to have the passion, the fire in your belly. This is the driving force behind any great journalist. You need to want to make the world a better place.

Uh, hello, pick me Jeff! I want to make the world a better place!

In fact, it is all that I want. It is the only specific goal I have ever picked in my life. That is why I went into biology and it is why I find myself in an environmental journalism program. All I need now is to find the perfect conduit for my mission?

Burnside spoke about the need for journalists to make the necessity of their vocation known in society. Journalists make democracy possible! But, we do a poor job of letting the public know. This is imperative in order to revitalize society?s trust in the media.

It is vital to remember that as journalists, we are arbiters of the truth. The moment when you are sitting alone at your desk, editing or trying to recite a quote, it is imperative that you get it right. It is not our job to shape the story as we see fit. Here is the part where I should probably apologize for paraphrasing Jeff Burnsides quotes. I don’t have a recording device. It’s a problem, I know.

The message I heard again in this speech, as I have with all talks related to climate change, is that it is a difficult topic to report. The question of how much time to be given to the skeptics is always raised. Burnside introduced climate change into his segments as a fact, not a variable, which I really admired. He said it was intentional, but he did have concerns that it would alienate viewers. In my opinion, if you haven’t received any hate mail yet, just keep going with it. It an important message to send, without the skepticism.

The last piece of advice given by Burnside that is of the utmost importance was on how to wrap your environmental stories to present them to your editors. Most editors or producers don’t want an environmental story every day, or even every week. Burnside advises to wrap your environmental pill in a tasty treat (sort of like a roofy?) in order to slip it by the man in charge. Have a story about Dengue Fever spreading North due to climate change? Make it a story about mosquitoes!

Burnside offered some great advice. I felt lucky, once again, to be in the company of such an accomplished and inspiriting reporter. Thanks, Jeff.

Cheers to Halloween! I’m being global warming.