A recent study at Columbia University shows that pesticides might cause ADHD in children.

The findings of the study did in fact indicate that children with higher levels of organophosphate metabolites were more likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD.

Carl Winter, a UC Davis food toxicologist who works with chemical contamination in the food supply, cautioned people not to get too concerned yet.

“From my perspective the first thing people need to do is realize that this study provides a weak correlation, not a cause and effect relationship,” Winter said. “A single study isn’t proof.”

The study tested urine samples from 1,139 children from ages eight to 15 who were representative of the U.S. population in order to determine if the levels of pesticide metabolites present in the samples were predictive of ADHD.

Winter said the study was just preliminary and that as a scientist, he’d like to see additional research done. However, he also explained that such follow up studies are likely to take a long time since it takes years to find federal or other sources of funding to analyze thousands of samples.

“I think that it’s important that consumers not get too worked up over this,” he said. “People might reduce consumption of fruits and vegetables which is one of the worst things they can do for their health.”

Beth Post, a psychology professor and a mother of an 11-year-old said that it was mainly because of problems resulting from the use of pesticides that she chooses to buy organic foods.

“The market didn’t allow it [earlier],” she said. “It was hard to find organic food but now the markets have responded so it’s more available.”

She stated that while she’d always preferred organic food, after having her child, she completely switched to organic products even when buying milk or frozen foods.

However, Samantha Mauro, a first-year math major and vegetarian of two years, said studies like these wouldn’t cause her to reduce her consumption of fruits and vegetables.

“I’d probably choose more [based] on price than that,” she said.

Winter also added that if people were extremely concerned about pesticides, they could purchase organic foods and wash fruits and vegetables before consuming them. He also stated another reason to wash fruits and vegetables was to prevent health problems due to microorganisms. He said that in a given year, 76 million people get food-borne illness due to microorganisms.

“For that reason alone, it’s a very good idea to wash before consuming them though it may also reduce residues of pesticides,” he said.

Winter emphasized again the importance of not basing decisions on unsubstantiated theoretical evidence that was a simple hypothesis based on correlation. He encouraged people to keep eating fruits and vegetables in order to stay healthy.

AKSHAYA RAMANUJAM can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Thanks to UC Davis and UC Berkeley scientists, visual search isn’t limited to Android users any longer. With the help of crowdsourcing, computer vision and ‘a bit of magic,’ iPhone application oMoby is the newest addition to visual search.

oMoby is used to recognize and label photos through crowdsourcing and computer vision. Businesses like IQ Engines, the creators of oMoby, tap into public knowledge to draw information so the company doesn’t have to do all the work, similar to how Wikipedia works.

Computer vision, a technology also used in surveillance and topographical modeling, serves as the eyes of the application.

A photo is first processed by object-recognizing computer vision modules, which can process an image in seconds.

“If those [modules] are not successful, the photo then goes to a human crowdsourcing network,” said IQ Engine co-founder Gerry Pesavento in an e-mail interview. “In this way, 100 percent of photos submitted get tagged.”

Currently, oMoby is best at identifying books, CDs and DVDs, and can do so without scanning barcodes. Once a picture is taken, the application is used as a shopping comparison tool to pull up product information, reviews and prices.

While out at dinner, someone could estimate if it’s worth buying a bottle of wine at the restaurant’s price by snapping a picture, identifying the bottle and comparing prices with oMoby.

Developed for the iPhone, oMoby provides visual intelligence as a service since anyone can use IQ Engines’ image recognition engine, whereas Google provides them as a mobile application, Pesavento said, distinguishing the two.

David Warland [cq], a research professor from UC Davis, co-founded IQ Engines and helped set the framework for their computer vision system.

Software infrastructure developer Huy Nguyen and software engineer Spencer Mathews, both graduate students at UC Davis, worked on the application with a team of computer neuroscientists and researchers from UC Berkeley. The researchers apply their expertise in biological and computer vision to develop applications like oMoby.

IQ Engines has also developed software to monetize pictures by matching labels to relevant retailers and advertisers.

By using their software, you connect a picture of yourself drinking from a Coca-Cola bottle to an advertising marketplace. Once it reaches the marketplace, Coca-Cola could pay to turn their logo in the photo into a clickable link or advertisement.

“There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to this type of technology,” said Jesse Drew, professor of technocultural studies. “Because it is electronic, it leaves it open for hacking and error. Reliance on this technology can weaken peoples’ ability to think for themselves.”

Objects with distinct patterns and logos are relatively easy for the application to identify, but applications like oMoby and Google Goggles have trouble identifying objects with abstract shapes or plain textures, like purses.

“The camera is the eye and we’re building the brain,” Pesavento said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

Initially, oMoby had difficulty recognizing products, identifying a picture frame from Target as a “wood thing,” wrote an oMoby reviewer on everythingiCafe.com.

Within an hour after first identifying the ‘wood thing’ however, the item was updated and identified as a picture frame.

GABRIELLE GROW can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Genetically engineered crops (GEC) are continuing to help the environment and society, according to the National Resource Council’s recently released report.

Their findings indicate that most farmers have been able to attain higher yields, lower production costs and reduce usage of pesticides on crops.

Pam Ronald, a plant pathologist at UC Davis, believes that GECs are a significant asset to farmers, but are not the only thing necessary for society and the environment.

“Genetically engineered seeds are just a tool, not a magical solution,” she said.

Ronald, who has been working with GECs for over 25 years, agreed with the report’s statements regarding GECs ability to produce higher yields, lower production costs, reduce insecticide usage, reduce soil erosion and improve worker safety.

She said that GECs are sustainable and that there have been reports released proving this to be the case.

“Seeds need to be combined with proper ecological farming practices in order to maximize sustainability,” Ronald said.

There are instances throughout the world where GECs have been responsible for positively contributing to sustainable practices.

“BT [Bacillus Thuriengiensis] cotton has been very effective in insect resistance,” Ronald said.

According to Ronald, BT cotton and papayas -instances where she claimed GECs helped revitalize crops – serve as two examples of the benefits and sustainability that GECs provide.

Genetic engineering can be used as a breeding tool, except that it is just a more advanced one. Roland believes that GECs can also be very useful to under-developed countries, emphasizing their need for something to depend upon.

“Countries need seed that they can save, and get to their national programs,” Roland said.

Martina McGloughlin, director of the UC Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program, supports the sustainability and benefits of GECs in many of her writings.

“The tools of biotechnology can contribute to the improvement of food and nutritional security, enhance production efficiency, promote sustainable agriculture, reduce environmental impact, empower the rural sector through income generation and reduce economic inequity,” she said. “They do so by increasing crop productivity, reducing crop damage and food loss, improving food safety and enhancing specialty crop production at an affordable cost.”

McGloughlin pointed to evidence gathered by several agencies that proves GECs to be unharmful.

“The consensus of scientific opinion and evidence is that biotechnology-derived foods and feeds present no new or unusual dangers to the environment or human health,” she said.

Continued learning about the possibilities of agriculture through technology will provide scientists with new ways of presenting benefits, McGloughlin hopes.

“The increase in our basic knowledge of plant metabolism during the coming decades will provide the tools necessary to more effectively modify the nutritional content of crops to have a positive effect on many aspects of human and animal health,” McGloughlin said.

UC Davis, one of the best agricultural research universities, remains committed to discovering new ways for GECs to benefit society and the environment.

For more information on genetically engineered crops, go to national-academies.org.

ERIC C. LIPSKY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org. 

On Feb. 25, residents of Lajamanu, Australia reported seeing “hundreds and hundreds” of live fish fall from the sky into their front yards. The next day, again in the late afternoon, another school of fish descended upon the small town. Scientists identified the fish as speckled perch, a species common in the sea about 500 miles from Lajamanu. They thought perhaps a tornado-like “waterspout” picked up fish from the ocean and dumped them in the outback, yet no tornado was reported in the area.

After years of falling-animal stories – from Exodus to Magnolia – the waterspout theory lives on. But are waterspouts strong enough to pick up animals? And how can we explain the occasions where non-ocean-dwelling creatures, like catfish and frogs, tumble from the sky?

“I really don’t know how to answer that,” said Dr. Robert Fovell, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA.

Fovell knows a lot about the mechanics of waterspouts, but clearly puts “falling fish” in the file with Bigfoot and Nessie. Still, he patiently explained how waterspouts work.

When two “air masses” of different densities (a.k.a. different temperatures) meet, they try to keep moving in the directions they were headed. Fovell said warm air and cold air interact “like oil and water.” The clash between two traveling air masses can create a push-pull effect that eventually turns into a rotating column of air.

“Low clouds with horizontal rotations spin up these funnel-type things,” Fovell said. “Those are the sort of things that form weak tornadoes over land and waterspouts over water.”

Though they can damage boats, waterspouts usually die out when they move above land.

Fascinating stuff, but I still wondered about the falling fish.

Dr. Shu-hua Chen, associate professor of meteorology at UC Davis, thought perhaps hurricane winds, not waterspouts, were responsible for reports of wayward perch.

“[Hurricane winds] would be potentially strong enough to pick up a fish,” Chen said.

She laid out a possible scenario: A wave throws a fish into the air and then a strong gust of wind picks up the fish and carries it to shore. While this image makes me think of a Monty Python-esque fish slapping, it doesn’t explain the “hundreds” of fish spotted in an area of Australia with no hurricanes.

There are, however, some freaky-falling-stuff incidents that we can explain.

In 2001, a shower of “blood” was reported in the Kerala region of India. While some hypothesized that the red hue came from an exploded meteor (or extraterrestrial cells), researchers determined that the color was caused by airborne spores from a species of algae.

In June of 1997, frogs were seen falling from the sky in Culiacan, Mexico. The cause was probably a tornado that whipped-up some pond water during a storm, but there are other causes of falling-frog reports.

Many cases of “raining” frogs are probably a result of massive frog migrations. People see swarms of frogs suddenly appear and assume (because they’ve heard previous stories) the frogs fell from above. Frogs are known to migrate in wet weather, but scientists in Italy have also documented the migration of frogs away from areas where earthquakes was about to strike. Their theory was that frogs could sense changes like seismic tremblings. I mentioned the frog/earthquake thing in this column before, but I just think it is so dang cool.

The earthquake/frog phenomenon was also observed in China before an earthquake hit in 2008. There are great photographs of confused bicyclists swerving around the herds of amphibians. This association between earthquakes and frogs could also explain why “falling” frogs are a feature of apocalypse-style stories like the “plague” of frogs in Moses’ Egypt.

And watch out if you hear about “falling” catfish – it’s probably just another case of a mistaken assumption. Catfish can actually use their pectoral fins to walk on land as long as they stay moist. On July 18, 2008, catfish were seen shuffling down a street in Florida after heavy rains flooded the sewer system and the fish crawled out.

Then there was the case on March 2, 1876 when flakes of animal flesh reportedly fell on a farm in Kentucky.

There are some mysteries I’d rather not investigate.

MADELINE McCURRY-SCHMIDT wonders if her readers are as nerdy as she hopes. If you are one of the dozens of people who saw the movie Magnolia, e-mail Madeline at memschmidt@ucdavis.edu.