Good Virus' & New Forest Management

Good Virus’ & New Forest Management plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service have shown that enzymes from bacteria-infecting viruses known as phages could have beneficial applications for human and animal health. Phage enzymes called endolysins attack bacteria by breaking down their cell walls. Unlike antibiotics, which tend to have a broad range, endolysins are comparatively specific, targeting unique bonds in the cell walls of their hosts. This is significant because it means non-target bacteria could be less likely to develop resistance to endolysins.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced a new direction and vision for America’s forests. He made a number of announcements in a speech from Seattle on Friday.

VILSACK: Climate change, catastrophic fires, diseases and pests have all led to declining forest health. We’re losing our privately owned working forest lands to develop and fragmentation at an alarming pace. All of these changes had enormous impacts on drinking water, greenhouse gas emissions, the climate, local economies and wildlife and recreational opportunities.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

I’m going to step out on a limb, and some of you may want to cut it off.  Be that as it may, I have to ask the question, why do we feel the need to be so completely P.C. as to rewrite history? I’ve been struggling with this ever since reading the story on how the new Acropolis Museum in Greece removed references to early Christians vandalizing ancient sculptures to avoid offending anyone; they’ve since restored history to the way history really happened. It’s long been known that the only way we seem to learn is through our mistakes. If we feel the need to erase all mistakes from history so as not to offend anyone what will we be teaching future generations? The dust bowl happened due to severe drought and decades of extensive farming without cover crops and other techniques to prevent erosion. We learned a valuable lesson from those mistakes; we learned to take care of the land. With proper soil conservation and farming techniques future generations will hopefully never see another dust bowl. Yes, history is often times uncomfortable, but we need to know all of history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our future depends on it.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.