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A bunch of stuff I wrote about biomass hits the Web
Earlier this year I wrote a lot of fact sheets about various aspects of biomass for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Those fact sheets are now online: you can drill down from the main page.The largest section of what I wrote dealt with agricultural residue. Here's what's on that page, with links leading to more detailed information: Agriculture ResidueCereal StrawCereal straw is the dry stalk of a cereal plant, left behind in the field after the grain or seed has been removed during combining. It is the most abundant of all agricultural residues in Canada for one simple reason: of the approximately 36.4 million hectares ...Just the flax, ma’am
Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast.Last week I wrote about converting agricultural residue such as wheat straw into bio-fuels. But there are other uses for some crop residue.Take flax straw, for example.For most flax growers that phrase immediately provokes the Henny Youngmanish riposte, “Please!”That’s because flax straw has traditionally been seen as a problem to be managed rather than of any value in its own right. Flax stems contain tough fibers which decay very slowly. That makes them hard to incorporate into the soil after harvest and means they’re still around to cause problems seeding equipment in the spring.Prairie flax farmers have ...Spinning straw into liquid gold
Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast.Rumplestiltskin, in the famous fairy-tale, has the knack of spinning straw into gold.We can’t do that--but we are learning to spin straw into something just about as valuable: biofuel.Sure, you can make ethanol out of corn or wheat, but in a hungry world, wouldn’t it be better to keep our food crops for food and find another source of plant material to use as a biofuel feedstock?That’s where straw comes in.It’s not like there’s any shortage of it: between 1994 and 2003, the three prairie provinces alone produced, on average, 37.347 million tonnes of straw annually....Tearless onions
Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast.I’m a sensitive kinda guy. I fact, I’m so sensitive I sometimes tear up just during the process of making dinner.It’s not that I’m overcome with emotion at the blessing of having at my disposal the wherewithal to stir-fry. (I’m not that sensitive.) No, it’s usually because I’m slicing onions.Onions have been a part of the human diet since prehistoric times. We don’t even know where they originated: some say central Asia, others Iran or West Pakistan. (So I learned from the interesting history of onions I found on the website of the U.S.’s National Onion Association, an organization whose very ...Rust never sleeps
From nuclear terrorism to Earth-killing asteroids, avian flu and global warming, these days you can choose to set aside every hour of the day for a specific worry and never repeat yourself.To insure it stays that way, I’d like to introduce you to Ug99.Ug99 is a strain of black stem rust that attacks wheat. It’s a fungus whose spores attach themselves to the plant. Once they germinate, the rust spreads inside the plant, sucking out nutrients, and eventually bursts out into the open, weakening the stem and shedding more spores. As the April 7 issue of New Scientist puts it (in a story subtly headlined “Billions at risk from wheat super-blight”), “It can reduce a field ...Restore the prairie…
...to something like its natural state, and reap a benefit: turns out the best feed material for creating ethanol isn't monoculture crops like wheat or corn, but mixtures of native prairie grasses and other flowering plants.Easier to grow, too, obviously.Organic chicken?
No, thanks.Turns out,...organic poultry is actually less nutritious, contains more fat and tastes worse than its mass-produced equivalent, research has shown.That's going to make some people squawk.Cotton: it’s what’s for dinner
Or, at least, it could be soon:"The exciting finding is that we have been able to reduce gossypol – which is a very toxic compound – from cottonseed to a level that is considered safe for consumption," said Dr. Keerti Rathore, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station plant biotechnologist. "In terms of human nutrition, it has a lot of potential." The cottonseed from these plants meet World Health Organization and U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards for food consumption, he said, potentially making the seed a new, high-protein food available to 500 million people a year.Advances in apples
If “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” it’s rather surprising there’s still a need for doctors, considering Canadians consume around 11 kg of apples per person per year. They can choose from a bewildering array of apple cultivars, too (more than 7,500 are known), from the crisp and tart (Macintosh) to the soft and sweet (Red Delicious). But the quest for a better apple, it seems, is never-ending. The domestic apple, Malus domestica, is a member of the family Rosaceae—the same family as roses, which may explain why apple blossoms are so appealing. Malus domestica’s wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, still grows wild in the mountains of Central Asia. The legend of Johnny Appleseed to the contrary, commercially apples are propagated by grafting, ...Cyberfarming
City dwellers tend to think of the high-tech revolution as primarily an urban phenomenon--hip office workers thumb-typing messages to each other on their pagers while standing in line for lattes, for example. But the countryside is well on its way to becoming as high-tech as the city, as new technologies relentlessly transform agriculture into something new: cyberfarming. Cyberfarmers use high-tech tools to: gather detailed data on every square metre of their land, select and plant their crops, monitor conditions throughout the growing process, apply precise amounts of water, fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides as needed, and harvest the results at precisely the right time. Take, for example, the King Family Farms, a 50-acre vineyard in the ...
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Magebane
“Spectacular” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evil wizards, multi-level conspiracies, hidden kingdoms…Lee Arthur Chane…has done a marvelous job…Magebane is a very entertaining book and well worth the time.” – A.M. Donovan, Night Owl Reviews
I happily recommend Magebane and I’ll certainly give Chane’s next novel a try based on this one.” —Bill Capossere, Fantasy Literature
“…an original and delightful tale of epic fantasy and magic, steampunk science, adventure, tragedy, and love…” – Errant Dreams Reviews
Eight centuries ago, the world changed. A devastating war swept the lands, and the MageLords, who had long ruled by virtue of their spell powers, were driven to a distant place, separated from those they had ruled by a magical Barrier. With magic banished from the rest of the world, the MageLords became mere legend and people turned to science to improve their lives. But if one man has his way, all that is about to change….
Written as Lee Arthur Chane (the middle names of my older brothers, Jimmy Lee and Dwight Arthur, and myself, Edward Chane Willett).
Marseguro
Winner of the 2009 Prix Aurora Award for Best Long-Form Work in English
Water world Marseguro is home to the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from human DNA. When an unmodified human seeks revenge on a Selkie by activating a distress beacon taken from the remains of the original colony ship, a strikeforce is sent from Earth to eradicate the genetic abomination. Yet Marseguro will not prove as easy to conquer as the Earth force anticipates…
Terra Insegura
Finalist for the 2010 Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel in English
Marseguro, a water world far from Earth, is home to a colony of humans and the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from modified human DNA. For seventy years the colony has lived in peace. Then Earth discovers Marseguro, and a strike force is sent to eradicate this “abomination.” But Marseguro has created a genetically tailored plague to use against Earth’s Holy Warriors. With the enemy defeated, the people of Marseguro feel they are safe. But Chris Keating, the traitor who signaled Marseguro’s location to the Holy Warriors, has fled to Earth, unknowingly carrying the deadly plague within him. The people of Marseguro feel they must send a ship to Earth with a life-saving vaccine. Only time will tell what awaits them when they reach their destination.
Lost in Translation
Kathryn was a human empath whose world and life had been destroyed when the alien S’sinn slaughtered her parents before her very eyes. Jarrikk was a young S’sinn, an unproven warrior who’d seen his flight mates slaughtered by the humans who’d sought to colonize his world.
As humans and S’sinn found themselves on the brink of war, these two Translators had to work together to find a common ground and avert catastrophe. But whether their Translators’ oath and training could overcome the enemies leagued against them was very much in doubt…
Archives
Song of the Sword
My new YA fantasy novel from Lobster Press
Before the Lady called her, Ariane’s life was a mess. Two years ago, her mother disappeared. She bounced around different foster homes until her aunt finally took her in. The meanest clique at her new high school has decided to make Ariane their prime target. And to top it all off, she is having frightening premonitions, and they are becoming more intense. The moment water touches her skin, she sees visions of a lake, a lady, and a sword. When a staircase opens up in the middle of Wascana Lake and the water begins singing to her, she has no choice but to answer the call….
Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw
Ten walks to points of historic and architectural interest in the cities of Regina and Moose Jaw (eight walks for Regina, two for Moose Jaw).
Johnny Cash: The Man in Black
When country music legend Johnny Cash took the stage at Folsom State Prison in 1968, he solidified the public’s perception of him as a rebel who followed his own path. Born in Arkansas during the Great Depression, Cash endured poverty, the death of his older brother, and a difficult relationship with his father. He turned to gospel and country music to express the pain, and after many years of struggling, his songs of hardship and hope would finally reach the ears of those waiting for an artist who represented them, ordinary people fighting to survive.
Andy Warhol: Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Minutes
“Paintings are too hard. Machines have less problems…” In the 1960s, Andy Warhol became the most famous creator of a new style of art called pop art, which transformed mass-produced items of popular culture into fine works of art. From Campbell’s Soup cans to photographs of Marilyn Monroe, Warhol’s willingness to use anything and everything from the mass media in his work expanded the range of subject matter available to artists. His avant-garde films, artistic usage of American icons, and unconventional social life made him a controversial figure, both greatly admired and deeply reviled. A trendsetter rather than a trend-follower, a dispassionate observer of both the seamy and celebrity sides of life, Warhol was a true American rebel.
Disease-Hunting Scientist
The true stories of six real disease hunters. Epidemiologists travel the world trying to keep us safe from deadly diseases—from high-tech labs in Canada to remote villages in Africa. Learn how these “disease detectives” are coming up with new ways to fight disease, and find out if you have what it takes to become an epidemiologist, too!
The Bounty Mutiny
The Bounty was a British ship visiting Tahiti in 1789 when some of the crew overthrew the captain, William Bligh, and set him adrift in a tiny boat with sailors loyal to him. The mutiny resulted in a number of trials–both of the men who mutinied and of Bligh for losing command of his ship. These fascinating events have been the source for numerous Hollywood movies, most recently The Bounty. The Bounty Mutiny: From the Court Case to the Movie explores the famous case and the movies it inspired.
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