LAST ROUNDUP

The superweeds are coming! The superweeds are coming!

The so-called Roundup revolution appears to be coming to an end, which is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. As reported in The New York Times, widespread use of the popular pesticide, generically known as glyphosate, has spawned superweeds that are resistant to the product, which is threatening one of the major agricultural advances of recent years: minimal till farming.

If you're a farmer who now faces having to return to more labor-intensive practices such as plowing to get rid of weeds in your fields, this is a bad thing. For consumers it could result in higher food prices. It's also bad for the companies that sell crop seed genetically modified to be immune to glyphosate, since no one will want to buy those seeds if the pesticide won't kill the weeds either. On the upside, the reversal of the “;Roundup revolution”; could lead to more enlightened ways of controlling plants that are out of place — but whatever those methods might be, let's hope they are discovered and implemented soon.

CHANCES ARE

Profilers assess stay-at-home moms

Stay-at-home moms are more likely to lack a high school diploma, be under age 35, have preschool-age children, be Hispanic and be born outside the United States than are mothers in the labor force, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The number of stay-at-home moms is shrinking in the United States, despite the recession that has driven up overall unemployment rates. Census data shows there were 5.1 million stay-at-home moms in 2009, down from 5.3 million in 2008. In 2009, 22.6 percent of married-couple family groups with children under 15 had a stay-at-home mother, down from 23.7 percent in 2008.