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Scholars Requested To Defend Film Propaganda Claim

The documentary film Food Evolution provides a fresh, scientific look at the technology of crop...

Fighting The Yellow Dragon – The War To Save Florida Citrus

This is the first of a series of articles on Huanglongbing (Citrus Greening Disease) that is devastating...

The Hard Science Behind The Non-Browning Arctic Apple

With the availability of Arctic Apples around the corner, there are a lot of questions swirling...

The SciComm Challenge: Communicating Concepts In Climate Change

Last December I took on a new challenge.  I was asked to speak to a large Canadian audience...

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Kevin M. Folta RSS Feed of this column.

I'm proud to be a public scientist at a land-grant university with great interests in public education. I completed a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and have been a professor at the University of Florida... Read More »

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Sweet Irony: The Environmental Impacts Of GMO Sugar Science Denial

Sweet Irony: The Environmental Impacts Of GMO Sugar Science Denial

May 14 2016 | comment(s)

Several times a year I find myself exiting the Florida’s Turnpike at Yeehaw Junction and heading south.  When I get to the small town of Okeechobee I take a left and head down Route 98 through Florida’s extensive agricultural backyard.  Flanked by Lake Okeechobee on the west and the affluent cities of the Atlantic coast off to the east, the small towns nestled in this sliver of land support vibrant production of sweet corn, cattle, lettuce, and sugarcane. Cane-derived sugar ends up in many cupboards as table sugar, and also is found in many consumer products.  

Pseudoscience To Shine At Houston Science Museum

Pseudoscience To Shine At Houston Science Museum

Mar 27 2016 | comment(s)

Houston, we have a problem.  Well, you have a problem. 

The Houston Museum of Natural Science (Twitter: @HMNS) is sponsoring an event that slams science, denigrates technology, and gifts its credibility to a non-scientific movement.

Pseudoscience Creeping Into Your Conference? A Case In GMOs And Glyphosate

Pseudoscience Creeping Into Your Conference? A Case In GMOs And Glyphosate

Feb 13 2016 | comment(s)

Hijacking a Conference's Credibility

Testing The Internet's Food Claims With Citizen Science

Testing The Internet's Food Claims With Citizen Science

Oct 16 2015 | comment(s)

If you'd like to lose a few pounds, poke around the Internet and read about food and farming.

Within ten minutes you will likely find that all of your favorite fare is poised to kill you, contributing to dozens of maladies from allergies, to autism, to Morgellons's disease, to impotence, to cancer. Is it true? Probably not. Why would people put such things on the web?
Setting A New Standard For Science Transparency

Setting A New Standard For Science Transparency

Sep 22 2015 | comment(s)

Things have been a little intense lately and the little voice in my head keeps begging, "How did I get here?"  

In other times of quiet introspection the little voice in my head says, "What would you have done differently?"

What the heck happened? 
The FOIA Babe, and the New Abuse of Vanity Harassment

The FOIA Babe, and the New Abuse of Vanity Harassment

Sep 11 2015 | comment(s)

I’ve been a critic of the Food Babe for a long time. Actually, I’ve been the critic of anyone that attempts to manipulate the public perception of science, while presenting zero scientific evidence. Especially deplorable are those that use fear to force a message, and scare people about safe food while profiting in the process.
It’s an old story now, but when ‘Food Babe’ Vani Hari visited my university to sell her science-blind worldview I was not exactly thrilled. We professors are tasked to teach from evidence, with foundation in a scholarly literature. Why would we subject our students to the daft rants of a dim food activist that lines her pockets by frightening people away from safe food?