Articles by Katharine Wroth

Little-known facts from a country on the edge of your consciousness

293,966 — population of Iceland3 4,117,827 — population of Kentucky2 10 — percentage of Icelanders who believe elves “definitely” exist4 0 — number of successful elf surveys conducted in Kentucky 11.5 — percentage of Iceland that is covered by glaciers1 3,240 — square miles covered by the largest glacier, Vatnajökull1 2 — tectonic plates visible […]

NBC gets wet and wild

Everyone's favorite perky morning show is preparing to run a May series on fifty things to do before you die, and they're asking web-surfing mortals to rank the choices, which range from "write a poem for someone you love" to "drive a NASCAR race car."

I'm not crazy about this panic-stricken approach to wringing every pre-approved, glorious moment out of life. But I was curious to see how many of the items would get people snout-to-snout with the outdoors. The answer is 15. And what does pop culture want us to want to do?

Beer giant shies away from GM crops

Does anyone like beer? I do. Does anyone like beer with human proteins in it? Uh...

A proposal in Missouri to plant 200 acres of rice enhanced with synthetic human genes -- a crop intended for medicinal uses -- has Anheuser-Busch up in arms. The company is threatening to boycott all rice produced and processed in Missouri if the state OKs this latest "biopharming" venture.

If the project is approved, it would be the largest such in the country. Ventria, the company behind it, is relocating from California, due in part to opposition there. Missouri's governor and Farm Bureau stand by the plan, despite a petition signed by 175 local farmers.

"Anheuser-Busch is a company that certainly uses technology for their product," a spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization told the Sacramento Bee (which painted Ventria as "tiny" and "hounded"). "It's very disappointing to see them turning away from another technology."

The logic of that argument aside ("hey! technology is technology!"), it raises an interesting point. God knows what they do to that beer -- yet they draw the line here. That's saying something.

Bush gives name to beetle

According to an AP report, two Cornell University scientists -- who, it must be pointed out, were apparently not snickering at the time -- paid tribute to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld by naming three new species of slime-mold beetle after them.

Slime-mold beetles.

We can't make this stuff up.