>> Money: Your best friend and favorite drug. New Scientist reports on some new interesting studies about why some people’s relationship to money’s so messed up: “Simply thinking about words associated with money seems to makes us more self-reliant and less inclined to help others. And it gets weirder: just handling cash can take the sting out of social rejection and even diminish physical pain.” (via kottke) Earlier: Get ready for higher taxes!

>> Food: Not safe and not getting safer either. That, basically, is the conclusion of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control according to the L.A. Times: “Food safety in the United States is no longer improving, highlighting the need to reevaluate the way an American meal makes its way from farm to table.” Since that article mentions tainted pistachios, I’d like to mention that you can get yummy pistachios at the Santa Monica farmers’ market — the booth’s v. generous with samples.

>> Ethanol troubles continue. According to the L.A. Times, a recent congressional report said “the increased use of ethanol could cost the government up to $900 million for food stamps and child nutrition programs.” And the rising price of corn’s hurting independent ethanol producers too, who could be squeezed out of the market by big oil companies.

>> Relatedly: Researchers are experimenting with duckweed which can apparently produce clean biofuels by eating up nutrients in animal waste. But whether or not these and other newfangled biofuels will leave the research labs and be successfully brought to market in an eco-friendly and commercially viable manner is still a huge point of debate. At the NRDC’s Swtchboard blog, Nathanael Greene outlines some of the latest critiques against cellulosic ethanol — and adds in his own more optimistic outlook on the fuel.

Earlier: Fuel: A primer on a clean energy future

Photo by Steve Wampler

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