Free Republic

A federal judge has frozen plans to require all products containing the widely popular herbicide glyphosate to display a Proposition 65 warning in a landmark ruling that could signal the turning of the tide for California's nanny-state regulations. The decision by Federal District Judge William Shubb represents a significant blow to both to the much maligned Proposition 65 and the organization that accounts for so many of its listings, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Shubb's ruling is a major victory for states' rights – due to the size of California's economy, its overregulation spills over into other...

Scientists in Poland and the US have reformulated the herbicide dicamba to reduce its environmental impact.© Shutterstock The use of chemicals in agriculture is widespread, however, there are increasing concerns about their other environmental effects. Dicamba, used to control broadleaf weeds in grain fields and grasslands, is known to enter the environment via water runoff and evaporation following its application.In an attempt to reduce its volatility, a team led by Robin Rogers, from the University of Alabama, and Juliusz Pernak, from Poznan University of Technology, has formulated dicamba as an ionic liquid. Ionic liquids are liquid salts, consisting of a...