Month: June 2018

Acura

DETROIT, Mich.—You'd think IndyCar might give the teams a little downtime after the Indy 500. But just six days after its most important race of the year, the grid formed up again in the picturesque park of Belle Isle for the Detroit Grand Prix. For one weekend a year, a bumpy street circuit takes over the island's western tip, playing host to a veritable bounty of race cars.

There were the open-wheel IndyCars, but IMSA's Weathertech Sportscar Championship was also present and correct, supported by the gravity-defying Super Stadium Trucks and the flame-spitting Trans-Am brigade. When Acura invited Ars to come check it out up close and personal, it didn't take me long to book my flights to Motor City—particularly when the invitation came with a chance to interview the Captain himself, Roger Penske.

Enlarge / Some of our pesticides harm helpful species, like this bee. (credit: USDA)

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in RoundUp, made by Monsanto, and the most widely used herbicide in the world. People have have been squirting it for the past 40 years, and the amount sprayed on fields has gone up about 15-fold since the introduction of RoundUp Ready crops, also made by Monsanto, in 1996.

Glyphosate inhibits a metabolic pathway used only by plants, fungi, and bacteria. It is therefore not obviously dangerous for birds, insects, or other animals to consume—any risk of RoundUp use comes from off-target effects. Thus, our EPA and the European Commission have just reapproved the use of glyphosate for the next five years. (RoundUp Ready crops are not planted in Europe, but glyphosate is still used, as it's an effective herbicide.)

In last week's Science, two Dutch scientists—collectively, they have backgrounds in ecology, risk assessment, pharmaceuticals, and genetic modification—have questioned whether this reapproval is such a great decision. They suggest that social factors need to be seriously considered in determining how we use agricultural agents. Because glyphosate use has impacts for society that go beyond any physiological effects it may have on humans, and societal factors have not been considered thus far.