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Two people who were found Monday inside the lines of the Soberanes fire in Monterey County were tending to a marijuana crop, according to the Monterey County Sheriff's Office. In the early morning hours Monday, deputies responded to a call for assistance from Cal Fire in the Bouchers Gap area. The responding officers came upon two people who had been overtaken by the fire and walked out of the brush requesting help getting out. The pair had been looking after a 900-plant marijuana grow, sheriff's officials said. The grow was destroyed by the fire. It was not known whether the...

A Shetland pony went into a bar, did a bit of a minesweep, got drunk, and had to be coaxed out using pub snacks. A four-legged opportunist named Mocha, snuck inside The Ascot Arms in Gravesend, Kent for a triple before the pub opened for business on Monday. Pub owner, Mihaly Herczeg, had to use crisps, pork scratchings and carrots to coax the pony back into the garden after finding him guzzling a few pints. The 53-year-old said although the pony usually drinks water, it would probably develop a taste for beer and apple cider given the chance. He said:...

A new study finds that a commonly used insecticide kills much of the sperm created by male drone honey bees, one reason why the bees are dwindling. The class of insecticide called neonicotinoids didn’t kill the drones. But bees that ate treated pollen produced 39 percent less live sperm than those that didn’t, according to a controlled experiment by Swiss researchers published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It essentially acted as an accidental contraceptive on the drones, whose main job is to mate with the queen — but not one that prevented complete reproduction, just...

It's official! Sources from inside the Queen Hillary camp leaked today! After they were done relieving themselves, they also let a secret slip out. But then, isn't Queen Hillary known for letting secrets slip out? Queen Hillary has selected Joy Behar to be our King! Queen Hillary said, "I wanted a man who is a loud-mouthed idiot with a moustache and that narrowed it down to Joy Behar though I did look at Ruth Ginsburg, too." Queen Hillary also announced drug king Joaquin Guzman as her selection for Attorney General. "He understands my way of doing business", the Queen said....

FARMINGTON -- While the state has yet to officially cancel any events involving horses that might have been exposed to a local recent equine herpes outbreak, owners and arenas are taking precautions. Because of the outbreak, contestants at the Davis County Sheriff's Mounted Posse Junior Queen Contest had to cowgirl up Thursday night without their mares. Instead of competing on horses, as is typically the case, contestants were asked to trot around the arena with stick horses as their show ponies.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told attendees at an event on Hispanic-American entrepreneurship on Tuesday that if it were not for legal and illegal immigration into the United States “we would not eat.” Jewell said that the country is still trying to address the rights of farm workers, including the role immigration plays. “I’d say the challenges of immigration reform are a good example,” she said. “If we did not have immigration to this country we would not eat. Whether it’s documented or undocumented, we would not eat,” Jewell said at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. …

Colombia is the finest nation on Earth when it comes to eating fruit. The country boasts mountains, jungles, deserts, and coasts, providing an environment conducive to growing any fruit you can imagine and plenty more you can’t, from sweet to sour to savory, and everything in between. Adventurous travelers quickly find their diets full of diverse flavors and their stool full of fiber in this gastronomic and gastrointestinal paradise. Of course, the tropical standards like mango, papaya, banana, avocado, and pineapple are available in multitudes, for a fraction of the price that they cost imported. That alone would be enough...

Replacing modern wheat with ancient grain khorasan can benefit consumers with type 2 diabetes, according to a new study.

Clemson University scientist Brian Ward and his team harvested about 145 pounds of Purple Straw seed, which was grown from less than half a pound. Credit: Scott Miller / Clemson University ================================================================================================= The first step of an ongoing-process designed to bring a valuable heirloom wheat back from the brink of extinction has been completed with flying colors. Last month, Clemson University scientist Brian Ward and his team harvested about 145 pounds of Purple Straw seed, which was grown from less than half a pound. Purple Straw is the only heirloom wheat to have been cultivated continually in the South from...

Northeast dairy farmers who have been strapped for months by low milk prices say a voluntary insurance program that was supposed to be a safety net isn’t helping. The margin protection program provides financial assistance to enrolled farmers when the gap between the price of milk and national average feed costs falls below the coverage levels picked by individual farmers. […] Farmers say the margin protection program is not based on Northeast farmers’ feed costs but on the national average feed cost, which is less. The chairman of the National Milk Producers Federation testified in Washington last month that the...

The 2,000 year-old bog butter found in Emlagh Bog, County Meath on June 1 (Cavan County Museum/Copper Tree Photography). ============================================================================================ Would you eat ancient butter? A 2,000-year-old 20-pound chunk of butter has been unearthed from a peat bog in Ireland, which is said to still be edible. The large lump of butter was discovered by farmer Jack Conway while cutting turf for fuel in Emlagh Bog, County Meath on June 1. The strange rugby-ball shaped object was buried about 16 feet down in the bog. Conway quickly realized that he had found what is known as ‘bog butter’ and contacted...

New Jersey farmland law lets presidential candidate save tens of thousands property taxes on golf courses The Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., has goats that are continually moved around the property for the removal of invasive, non-native vegetation. The Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., has been the home for goats, under the care and supervision of the course-and-grounds department, that are continually moved around the property for the removal of invasive, non-native vegetation. Donald Trump has found a solution that cuts both his grass and his tax bill: Goats. The Republican presidential front-runner’s small goat herd,...

GARDINER, Mont. — I met the bison calf that took a ride in an SUV early one evening as I drove west in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley, past the pullout known as “Picnic.” The late afternoon sun on a stormy landscape provided the light that we photographers dream of for shooting gorgeous mountains in the distance and wild animals on the horizon. I spotted the calf near the road and all alone. It was crying out and seemed to be looking for its mother, but no other bison was anywhere close by. Instantly, I knew three things: The calf...

The researchers think it is likely that most flowering plants, or angiosperms, contain similar sucrose-susceptible genes, making their “sweetening technology” widely applicable. Credit: Cienpies Design ================================================================================================= Previous research has shown that the sugar sucrose plays a role in controlling key fruit genes involved in sugar metabolism. Efforts to control these genes succeeded in increasing the sugar content in fruit but also resulted in stunted growth. Researchers from Tohoku University in Japan used a bioinformatics search tool to find nucleotide sequences in the tomato genome similar to a known tobacco gene sequence that can be repressed by sucrose. When a special...

The Obama administration is pressuring the food industry to make foods from breads to sliced turkey less salty, proposing long-awaited sodium guidelines in an effort to prevent thousands of deaths each year from heart disease and stroke. The proposed guidelines released Wednesday are voluntary, so food companies won’t be required to comply. But the idea is to persuade companies and restaurants — many of which have already lowered sodium levels in their products — to take a more consistent approach. […] Some companies have worried that though the limits will be voluntary, the FDA is at heart a regulatory agency,...

Sheep on drugs have gone on a "psychotic rampage" after eating cannabis plants dumped in a quiet village, it is feared. The remains of an illegal cannabis factory was fly-tipped on a Welsh village road - and worried locals think the sheep have been chowing down on the psychotropic herbs. County councillor Ioan Richard said sheep have been "roaming the village" and causing havoc by breaking into homes and getting killed by cars as they stumble about in what appears to be a druggy haze.

Scientists conducted tests on ancient pottery jars and funnels found at the Mijiaya archaeological site in China’s Shaanxi province. The analyses revealed traces of oxalate — a beer-making byproduct that forms a scale called “beerstone” in brewing equipment — as well as residues from a variety of ancient grains and plants. These grains included broomcorn millets, an Asian wild grain known as “Job’s tears,” tubers from plant roots, and barley. Barley is used to make beer because it has high levels of amylase enzymes that promote the conversion of starches into sugars during the fermenting process. It was first cultivated...

German pharmaceuticals giant Bayer and the US group Monsanto said Thursday they are in talks on a possible merger to create a global player in pesticides, seeds and genetically modified crops, following weeks of speculation about a possible tie-up. Both sides have emphasized that the talks are still only exploratory at this stage and neither has mentioned how much any proposed deal would be worth. But with Monsanto’s market value estimated at around $42 billion (€37.5 billion), observers say it would be bigger than the recent acquisition of Switzerland’s Syngenta by China National Chemical Corp. […] The US group has...

<p>Rise in production comes just as exports are hit by strong dollar; can you eat three pounds more?</p> <p>America has built up a glut of cheese so big that every person in the country would need to eat an extra 3 pounds this year to work it off.</p>

A small victory for three 4-H clubs in Silver Bow County after a judge temporarily reinstates their council leaders. A temporary restraining order allows the Silver Bow 4-H council president, vice president, secretary and treasurer to retain their officer positions for now. They were all fired by the Montana university extension office which governs the 4-H program. (1/2 of story... not so for the kids in 4H)