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After President Biden claimed allegations of family payments from Hunter Biden’s business associate are "not true," one China expert and author has signaled an "admission of corruption" from the First Family. "The spokesperson for Hunter Biden's legal team said that, oh, this is okay because this was seed money, good faith seed money," Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang said on "Mornings with Maria" Monday. "Now, in these types of transactions, nobody pays millions of dollars without a contract." On Thursday, GOP lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee revealed that they had obtained bank documents showing that the president's son,...

Jilin Province in China has announced that efforts will continue to ensure that spring plowing continues despite a province-wide COVID-19 lockdown. However, online videos showed police interrupting farmers working in the fields throughout China. Fearing the delay in spring plowing could lead to a food shortage, analysts say the crisis is beyond fallow fields, viable seeds and fertilizers are the real crisis Chinese farmers are facing. Lockdown Threatens Food SupplyJilin, located in China’s corn belt, is an important processing and production region for the country’s cereals. The authorities locked down the entire province on March 14. The lockdown has affected...

Abstract Background: The lung cancer incidence in Chinese women is among the highest in the world, but tobacco smoking accounts for only a minority of the cancers. Epidemiologic investigations of lung cancer among Chinese women have implicated exposure to indoor air pollution from wok cooking, where the volatile emissions from unrefined cooking oils are mutagenic. Purpose: This study was conducted to identify and quantify the potentially mutagenic substances emitted from a variety of cooking oils heated to the temperatures typically used in wok cooking. Methods: Several cooking oils and fatty acids were heated in a wok to boiling, at temperatures...

Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn. Waiving fields of maize may one day save the world from overpopulation. The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm. By isolating the genes that regulate the manufacture of these antibodies, and by putting them in corn plants, the company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptives. 'We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies,' said Epicyte president Mitch Hein.

Stockton, Calif., is sending 'debit cards loaded with $500' to a select group of residents starting Friday as part of a closely watched experiment in universal basic income, the first led by a U.S. city. the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED, to provide insight on whether a long-term basic income program is a viable creative approach to lifting residents out of poverty. "The need has only been reiterated" in the last few weeks of preparation, SEED director Sukhi Samra said. "Folks are ready to use this money to pay bills, to save for the future, to pay off debt...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

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...

Seeds 200 years old breathe again By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website The unknown acacia species is now half a metre tall Seeds which have been stored away since the time of George III have been persuaded into new life. Scientists from the Millennium Seed Bank, operated by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, have induced seeds from three species to germinate. They had been brought to Britain from South Africa by a Dutch merchant in 1803, and were found in a notebook stored in the National Archives. Given this history, the team said it was surprised by...

Scientists have grown a tree from what may be the oldest seed ever germinated. The new sapling was sprouted from a 2,000-year-old date palm excavated in Masada, the site of a cliff-side fortress in Israel where ancient Jews are said to have killed themselves to avoid capture by Roman invaders. Dubbed the "Methuselah Tree" after the oldest person in the Bible, the new plant has been growing steadily, and after 26 months, the tree was nearly four feet (1.2 meters) tall.

et out the cigars—Methuselah, a Judean date palm tree that was grown from a 2,000 year old seed, has become a papa plant. Elaine Solowey, of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel, recently broke the good news to National Geographic: “He is over three meters [ten feet] tall, he's got a few offshoots, he has flowers, and his pollen is good," she says. "We pollinated a female with his pollen, a wild [modern] female, and yeah, he can make dates." Methuselah sprouted back in 2005, when agriculture expert Solowey germinated his antique seed. It had...

Following are excerpts from an address by Algerian cleric Chemseddine el Djazairi, which aired on Ennahar TV on February 8, 2015: Chemseddine el Djazairi: A viewer asks: What is your position about the prevalent belief that contemporary Jews are of the seed of those who were transformed into apes and pigs? This belief is not true. Contemporary Jews are of the seed of Adam, not of the apes and pigs, because the line of those transformed into apes and pigs was severed. […] A Jew who rebelled so much against God that he was thus transformed – how is this...

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.(Galatians 4:4-5)When the apostle Paul proclaimed the coming of Christ into this world, He spoke of the Messiah as being “Made of a woman”. What is the apostle referring to? In what way could we say that Saviour of the world, and God Incarnate, was “made of a woman”? The Apostle Paul, steeped in scripture, as was Jesus and all of the apostles,...

Unassuming from the road, this farmstead served as the headquarters for a ring of international thieves bent on embezzling U.S. seed. The FBI thwarts a ring of Chinese national thieves. Crouched on his hands and knees under an Iowa sky, Mo Hailong quickly dug in the rows of freshly planted seed corn. Just the day before, May 2, 2011, he and coworker Wang Lei, vice chairman of Kings Nower Seed of China, stopped at this same field near Tama, Iowa. The farmer told them he was planting seed corn. With each shovel, Hailong found pay dirt: DuPont Pioneer’s latest parent...

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.(Genesis 3:15)In the judgment pronounced by the LORD upon the serpent, a mysterious prophecy comes to light concerning the course of human history and its eventual outcome. The “seed” of the woman would ever be in conflict with the “seed” of the serpent. The conflict would culminate in an individual “seed of the woman” who would crush the head of the serpent, but would greatly suffer doing so. The identity of the seeds...

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the “lame duck” Congress, another law was passed that didn’t quite get the same media coverage as the Bush tax extension “package,” the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the new START treaty. The Food Safety Modernization Act was not steeped in the same level of popular controversy as these other pieces of legislation. Nevertheless, its passage may affect our daily lives even more than these, and in a rather stealth manner. Yes, the week before Christmas, the 111th Congress of the United States gave Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services...

“After my annual physical in late November, I was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer. After reviewing all the options with multiple physicians, I decided to take a proactive approach and have surgery, which will be performed December 20 at Johns Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Alan Partin. Thanks to routine screening, this was diagnosed very early and I expect a full and speedy recovery. I scheduled the surgery for the Monday before Christmas anticipating that the Senate would have recessed by that time and that there would be no disruption to my work in Oregon or Washington. However, it now...

There’s a feud brewing on the prairie between faith and farming. Another church has voted to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but this time it’s over a new stance the denomination’s leadership plans to take. Congregation members at Anselm Trinity Lutheran Church in rural Sheldon, N.D., don’t like the ELCA’s proposed position on genetics — specifically in relation to farmers’ use of genetically modified seeds, which are common in Red River Valley agricultural production. The congregation voted Sunday to leave the ELCA because it feels the group’s draft social statement on genetics is an attack on farmers. The...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-medvedev-russia-us-russia-business-summit Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 24, 2010 Remarks by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia at the U.S.-Russia Business Summit U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 3:08 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to be here with my friend and partner, President Medvedev, and I want to thank him again for his leadership, especially his vision for an innovative Russia that’s modernizing its economy, including deeper economic ties between our...

The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). And you have to learn how to operate in the kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God operates on the principle of sowing and reaping (Mark 4:26-28). When a seed is planted in ground and watered something will come forth. God supplied you with seed and water and you are the ground. God's word is seed (Luke 8:11). And seed is made to produce something. Not only is seed made to produce but it has the power to produce. And God's word has the power to produce what it says. But...