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What is ironic is that these vines represented about the least scary GMO crop imaginable.  They were engineered to be resistant to a disease called Fan Leaf Virus that is spread by nematodes that live in the soil.  Back before people understood this disease it was unintentionally spread to many grape-growing areas.  Once a given vineyard is contaminated with the nematodes and virus, grapes will only survive for a few years on that site before declining and dying.  Some of the best wine production areas around the world are seriously compromised this way, and there has been no lasting cure.

at was being tested in Colmar was a “rootstock.”  All grapes are cuttings of the desired variety (Gewurtztraminer, Cabernet, Chardonnay…) grafted on to a root that is resistant to various pests.  The Colmar roots would have also been resistant to the virus.  The top of the vine (all that is above ground) would be exactly like all the neighboring vineyards.  In theory the grapes wouldn’t die in a few years (that is what the researchers were hoping to demonstrate).

but this same irrationality is hindering efforts to provide things like virus resistant Cassava to poor farmers in Africa or virus resistant Papayas to people in Thailand. 

In a typical day, Mr. Durgin tells me, 21 trains depart the mine, pulling 135 cars each. Each car bears 120 tons of coal. At this pace, he says, there is more than 20 years’ worth of coal ready to mine under my feet.

North Antelope Rochelle is among the biggest coal mines in the world. It produced 108 million tons last year — about 10 percent of all the coal burned by the nation’s power plants.

North Antelope Rochelle and the other vast strip mines cutting through the plains of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin — whose low-sulfur carbon met standards imposed by the Clean Air Act — were the result

Poland’s Eurozone Tests

As long as eurozone debts continue to rise and member economies diverge rather than converge, prospective members should also be stress-tested to see if they can withstand external shocks and sustain the membership criteria over the long term.

Rather, Poland simply combines low costs (including wages) and high-quality production.

Almost a year ago, as the euro crisis raged, Europe’s leaders boldly pledged a union to break the dangerous link between indebted governments and ailing banking systems, where the troubles of one threatened to pull down the other.

Almost everyone involved agrees that in theory a banking union ought to have three legs.

How to Get a Job at Google

noted that Google had determined that “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don’t predict anything.”

“Good grades certainly don’t hurt.” Many jobs at Google require math, computing and coding skills, so if your good grades truly reflect skills in those areas that you can apply, it would be an advantage.

Nato defence spending falls despite promises to reverse cuts

Europe's failure to pay its way in Nato is seriously worrying the US, which already provides 75% of all Nato defence expenditure (the US spends 3.8% of its GDP on defence).

Without any of its own maritime patrol aircraft, the UK recently had to request the help of Nato allies to search for suspected Russian submarines off the west coast of Scotland. In Germany there have been reports of serious malfunctions in military equipment.

You can think of Mr. Obama’s argument as falling into two categories (even if he didn’t say so): the reasons that overall economic growth may accelerate, and the reasons that middle- and low-income workers may benefit more from that growth than they have lately.

On the growth side of the ledger, both energy and education have been problems.

And the number of high-school and college graduates is rising. The financial crisis deserves some perverse credit, because it sent people fleeing back to school, much as the Great Depression did

Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

The Americans might have invented the world’s best methods for teaching math to children, but it was difficult to find anyone actually using them.

In fact, efforts to introduce a better way of teaching math stretch back to the 1800s. The story is the same every time: a big, excited push, followed by mass confusion and then a return to conventional practices.

The Greek Austerity Myth

Greece actually spends less on debt service than Italy or Ireland, both of which have much lower (gross) debt-to-GDP ratios. With payments on Greece's official foreign debt amounting to only 1.5% of GDP, debt service is not the country's problem.

The new Greek government's argument that this is an unreasonable target fails to withstand scrutiny. After all, when faced with excessively high debt, other European countries – including Belgium (from 1995), Ireland (from 1991), and Norway (from 1999) – maintained similar surpluses for at least ten years each, typically in the aftermath of a financial crisis.

Four rescue measures for stagnant eurozone

The EBA has a long record of stress tests that grotesquely underestimate the capital holes in EU banks.

Seeds of domesticated squash found by scientists on the western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru are almost 10,000 years old, about twice the age of previously discovered cultivated crops in the region, new, more precise dating techniques have revealed.

The excavations also yielded peanut hulls and cotton fibers — about 8,500 and 6,000 years old, respectively

Their research also turned up traces of other domesticated plants, including a grain, manioc and unidentified fruits, and stone hoes, furrowed garden plots and small-scale irrigation canals from approximately the same period of time.

“Mexicans discovered vulcanization 3,500 years before Goodyear,” said Dorothy Hosler, an M.I.T. professor of archaeology and ancient technology. “The Spanish had never seen anything that bounced like the rubber balls of Mexico.”

Dr. Ochsendorf, a specialist in early architecture and engineering, said the colonial government tried many times to erect European arch bridges across the canyons, and each attempt ended in fiasco until iron and steel were applied to bridge building.

The Inca suspension bridges achieved clear spans of at least 150 feet, probably much greater. This was a longer span than any European masonry bridges at the time. The longest Roman bridge in Spain had a maximum span between supports of 95 feet. And none of these European bridges had to stretch across deep canyons.

Across Eastern Europe, Military Spending Lags

After years in which a combination of fiscal pressures and a complacent trust in the alliance’s protection may have led them to drop their guard,

many countries are building from a very limited ability and remain years away from fielding anything resembling a formidable force against a military as large as Russia’s.