Bell Pepper lies

This one makes the Internet occasionally.

I didn't know this either - particularly because it isn't true.

Not sure the purveyors of these silly stories are altogether clear on basic biology.  The fact is, bell peppers are a common fruit.  In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering. This seed-bearing part of the plant is invariably regarded by biologists as "female".  There is no such thing as a "male" bell pepper, although feeling bumps on the bottom may gratify the voyeuristic sense, in some titillating manner.

I really have no idea if there is any substantive difference in the eating quality of 4-bump or 3-bump.  It may well be true that one is better for cooking.  I have never tested this hypothesis, and cannot speculate.  

But I am absolutely certain that the basis for this popular meme is totally false.  This is a trivial example of the kind of phony "fact" commonly found around the Internet.

Fake news at its finest!

Anti-GMO Pseudo-science

In the midst of raging GMO debate, I keep wondering, why should I believe that it represents corporate interests to poison their customers?

Does anyone really suppose that Monsanto has a secret conspiratorial agenda and a host of mad scientists laboring to invent plants that kill people, and honestly thought they could keep it all a secret?

There seem to be few who can even conduct a rational discussion of relevant facts.  One admirable and interesting effort to bring the two sides together is being staged at a UCB class, reviewed in this article.

Of course, that nefarious and frightening mad scientist by the name of Norman Borlaug is behind the whole conspiracy.  Without him and his successors, most of the world would be literally starving today.

You never heard of him, you say?  How wonderfully successful the secret conspiracy has been!

In April 2014, the State of Vermont legislated requirements for GMO product labelling, after California voters rejected the Prop 37 initiative in 2012.  Now if those Vermonters can just settle on what constitutes "GMO"...