If you are among the millions who avoid ‘nuking’ food with microwave radiation in your own home, you may soon have yet another reason to avoid most conventional food items. Using the ‘recent emergence’ of salmonella and E.coli in food as a scapegoat, the corporation known as MicroZap is seeking to make its way into the food supply with its new ‘microwave zap’ technique. The technique effectively hits food with a super high level of microwave radiation, killing all living bacteria (including good bacteria that is necessary for digestion and proper overall function).

The company says that by using ‘MicroZap’ technology, food can be ‘sterilized’ and mold-free for 60 days. Food that is zapped will not rot, as the food is completely ‘wiped clean’. Zapped for a set period of time, such as the example of 40 seconds for jalapeño peppers, the company is also seeking to hook up with the United States Pentagon for a contracting bid. The super microwave zap could be used to sterilize food like bread and therefore make it incapable of rotting for more than 60 days.

‘If it Rots, It’s Good for You’

Numerous health practitioners have been known to utter a saying along the lines of ‘if it rots, it is likely good for you’. I don’t necessarily agree with this saying when considering that conventional food rots and is loaded with pesticides, GMOs, and other problematic substances, but the root of the saying holds very true. The reason that rotting food is good for you is that these foods contain beneficial bacteria that is absolutely essential for your overall health. Fermented foods are often the quickest to go bad, and it is no coincidence these items contain the ...

The machines in the warehouse cost about $14 million total, or roughly $150,000 each.

The TSA began rolling out body scanners after the failed underwear bombing on Christmas Day 2009, one that uses X-rays and one that uses millimeter waves similar to those used for cell phones. The X-ray scanner has faced an outcry over passenger privacy and the risk that radiation could cause cancer.

ProPublica reported last month that the TSA was removing the X-ray body scanners from major airports — including Los Angeles, Chicago O'Hare and John F. Kennedy in New York — and replacing them with millimeter-wave machines.

The millimeter-wave machines made by L-3 Communications do not emit X-rays, which have been linked to cancer, and already feature privacy software that produces a generic cartoon image of passengers' bodies.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two types of body scanners.

Rapiscan has been testing its privacy software with the TSA for detection capability and false alarms for about two years. But for now, its backscatter machines still produce filtered images of passengers' naked bodies. To protect passenger privacy, the TSA requires screeners to review the images in a separate room. That slows down lines, which was the reason the agency wanted to move them to smaller airports serving fewer passengers.

But there was one problem: Many smaller airports lack the space to accommodate a separate image-viewing room ...

As I waited inside for Mr. Holmstead to step on stage, members of Greenpeace’s Climate Crime Unit stood outside handing out WANTED posters of both Holmstead and chief oil lobbyist Jack Gerard of the American Petroleum Institute, who was also present.

Jeff Holmstead, who is often quoted in newspapers as a former Air and Radiation Administrator for the George W. Bush Environmental Protection Agency or a “partner” (read: lobbyist) at Bracewell & Giuliani’s corporate law firm here in DC, is rarely credited as an influence peddler for some of the most notorious polluters in the country.

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Fracking for gas not only uses toxic chemicals that can contaminate drinking and groundwater -- it also releases substantial quantities of radioactive poison from the ground that will remain hot and deadly for thousands of years.

Issuing a report yesterday exposing major radioactive impacts of hydraulic fracturing­known as fracking -- was Grassroots Environmental Education, an organization in New York, where extensive fracking is proposed.

The Marcellus Shale region which covers much of upstate New York is seen as loaded with gas that can be released through the fracking process. It involves injecting fluid and chemicals under high pressure to fracture shale formations and release the gas captured in them.

But also released, notes the report, is radioactive material in the shale­including Radium-226 with a half-life of 1,600 years. A half-life is how long it takes for a radioactive substance to lose half its radiation. It is multiplied by between 10 and 20 to determine the “hazardous lifetime” of a radioactive material, how long it takes for it to lose its radioactivity. Thus Radium-226 remains radioactive for between 16,000 and 32,000 years.

“Horizontal hydrofracking for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region of New York State has the potential to result in the production of large amounts of waste materials containing Radium-226 and Radium-228 in both solid and liquid mediums,” states the report by E. Ivan White.  For 30 years he was a staff scientist for the Congressionally-chartered National Council on Radiation Protection.

“Importantly, the type of radioactive material found in the Marcellus Shale and brought to the surface by horizontal hydrofracking is the type that is particularly long-lived, and could ...

A new report issued by Grassroots Environmental Education, a New York-based non-profit organization and authored by a former staff scientist for the National Council on Radiation Protection says that horizontal hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale region of New York State is likely to produce significantly higher amounts of radioactive waste than previously believed, putting New Yorkers in danger, and that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has not demonstrated the ability to properly analyze the potential impact of radiation exposure or take adequate steps to protect the public.

“Once radioactive material comes up out of the ground along with the gas, the problem is what to do with it,” says Doug Wood, associate director of Grassroots Environmental Education, who edited the report. “The radioactivity lasts for thousands of years, and it is virtually impossible to eliminate or mitigate. Sooner or later, it’s going to end up in our environment and eventually our food chain. It’s a problem with no good solution—and the DEC is unequipped to handle it.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), exposure to radium increases the risk of cancer. Radium also decays into radon, which is the second leading cause of lung cancer.

The report, Consideration of Radiation in Hazardous Waste Produced from Horizontal Hydrofracking, was authored by Ivan White, a career scientist with the congressionally-chartered National Council on Radiation Protection. There he helped develop computer programs for radiation risk assessment and assisted in the formulation of national policies on radiation protection for civilian and military personnel.

“Radioactive materials and chemical wastes do not just go away when they are released into the environment. They remain active and potentially lethal and can show up ...

As if most consumers weren’t confused enough already about making the “right” food choices, the pseudo-scientific Stanford study released early last month had many of those on the fence thinking it was okay to once-again blindly trust what they found on their supermarket shelves. But, let’s lay this argument to rest (again) and talk about why organics really do matter.

What does organic really mean? Well, the USDA certifies foods that are organic when the growers, handlers, and producers use practices that adhere to their standards. These standards vary by food product and the USDA certifier must inspect the farm before a food can be labeled as organic. Generally, however, organic produce in particular is that which is produced “without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation.” This immediately excludes genetically modified foods (GMOs).

So, what’s wrong with a few pesticides, a few lab-created organisms in our foods? Plenty.

A recent analysis (and not the only one) demonstrated that U.S. children have lost a combined total of 16 million I.Q. points due to pesticides in their food. While “pesticides make you stupid,” sounds like a silly argument for organics—it’s a legitimate one. Pesticides truly do lower the intelligence of children. These pesticides are absorbed when the child is in utero, through the mother. So, whether you are pregnant or hope one day to have children, cutting out pesticides now could save your child’s mind down the road.

One of the most prominently used herbicides, Monsanto’s Roundup, has been tied to numerous health problems including ...

The $36 million No on 37 campaign, bankrolled by $20 million from the world's six largest pesticide companies, has been caught in yet another lie, this time possibly criminal.

These companies and their allies in the junk food industry know that their profit margins may suffer if consumers have a choice whether to purchase genetically engineered foods or not.  And that's why opponents are spending nearly a million dollars per day trying to make Prop 37 complicated. But really it's simple - we have the right to know what's in our food.

To date, the No on 37 campaign has been able to repeat one lie after another with near impunity. But has this pattern of deceit finally caught up to it?

Yesterday, the Yes on 37 campaign sent letters to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting a criminal investigation of the No on 37 campaign for possible fraudulent misuse of the official seal of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  

The No on 37 campaign affixed the FDA's seal to one of the campaign's mailers.Section 506 of the U.S. Criminal Code states: "Whoever...knowingly uses, affixes, or impresses any such fraudulently made, forged, counterfeited, mutilated, or altered seal or facsimile thereof to or upon any certificate, instrument, commission, document, or paper of any description...shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both."

The letter also provides evidence that the No on 37 campaign falsely attributed a direct quote to the FDA in the campaign mailer. Alongside the FDA seal, the ...

Eighteen years ago, a year after my mother's death from lymphoma and heart disease—almost to the day—I was diagnosed with cancer: Hodgkin's disease.  Five years prior to my diagnosis, my dad also died after a long battle with melanoma.  It metastasized to his brain.

All that cancer so close to home was my wakeup call.  I knew something was wrong, and I knew it couldn't just be genetics.  Maybe the lymphoma was connected to Hodgkin's, but what did melanoma have to do with my cancer or with my mother's?  And what about my maternal aunt, who had breast cancer?  

Suddenly, everyone else I knew seemed to be getting cancer, too: neighbors, children, friends.

Maybe, I thought, it all had to do with the poisoning of our environment, with toxics and radiation. This concern nagged at me as I went through the grueling "healing" process of a cancer patient.

A few years later, I became pregnant. I was overjoyed—I had waited so long to become a mother. It was all I wanted.

At the same time, I felt guilty in trying to become pregnant.  What, I wondered, might I pass on to my little one, and how could I protect her from all the environmental hazards in our polluted world? What dangers coursed through my own veins?

I knew that my ability to protect my baby daughter was limited.  Sure, I did some substantial post chemo cleanses, ate as well as I could, and used non toxic products on my body and in my home. But no matter how much I did as an individual, the unbounded nature of pollution meant that my blood would carry toxins right through the placenta and into her growing fetal body, and my breast milk would transmit pollutants after the birth. And after birth, well, we live in a polluted world: with mountaintop coal removal and fracking; sacrifice zones; radioactive waste, leaks, and accidents; genetically modified food; pesticides, PCBs, and ...

A Japanese parliamentary inquiry has concluded last year’s nuclear meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was "a profoundly man-made disaster — that could and should have been foreseen and prevented." We speak to former nuclear industry executive Arnie Gundersen about the report and what it means for U.S. nuclear facilities, in particular the 23 with a similar design to the Fukushima plant. "There’s actually some curious information on Fukushima Unit 1. That was the first one to fail," Gundersen says. "That was built by an American company, General Electric, and an American architect/engineer. So it’s hard for the Japanese to blame themselves, when this was an all-American design. ... I am concerned that the industry, the nuclear industry in the United States, will say it’s a Japanese problem. And it’s not."

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