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In almost all cases?from corn to salmon?genetically modifiedversions are stronger than natural ones and tend to takeover, eradicating the original species. Now it’s been shownthat the pollen from a variety of GM grass being used ongolf courses has blown over ten miles away from where it wasoriginally sown. It may be turning up in your yard soon.

In New Scientist, Fred Pearce quotes researcher David Quistas saying, “To my knowledge, this is the longest distancereported for GM pollen dispersal.” Quist is the scientistwho discovered that GM corn had invaded natural varieties inMexico in 2002.
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A computer program that predicts regional climate changereveals that that global warming won?t be as severe in thecentral United States as in other parts of the country. Thisarea includes Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Atmospheric scientist Zaitao Pan says, “The modeling showedthat warming in the United States will be stronger in winterthan summer and stronger at night than during the day, butwe found what looked to us like a ‘hole’ in the daytimewarming in summer, which was a surprise. We found that, infact, this hole already has started to develop.
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As usual, astronomers are reassuring us that the asteroidToutatis, which will be heading our way in September, won?timpact the Earth. And also as usual, warnings about animpending impact are flying across the internet. Who’stelling the truth?

Alan M. MacRobert writes in Sky & Telescope that whileastronomers insist it will be a flyby, 4179 Toutatis, whichwas first discovered in 1989 in France, will make itsclosest pass to Earth yet. On September 29, it will be theequivalent of four distances from the Earth to the Moon awayfrom our planet. This is a lot of space, but it’s also theclosest it’s been to us since 1353 and closest it will beuntil 2562.
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As China modernizes, it uses more oil, while an unstableMiddle East means there’s less oil available. Oil wells arecurrently drilled 3 to 5 miles into the Earth’s crust. If wedig deeper, will we discover more oil?

Geophysicist Russel Hemley says, “?Experiments point to thepossibility of an inorganic source of hydrocarbons at greatdepth in the Earth?that is, hydrocarbons that come fromsimple reactions between water and rock and not just fromthe decomposition of living organisms.” Hembey holds thecontroversial theory that oil is formed naturally fromchemicals already beneath the Earth, and does notnecessarily come from decaying fossils.
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