Pesticide Added to List of Harmful Chemicals in California

Source: Pixabay 
Source: PixabayThe state of California is tightening the already-strict guidelines governing a pesticide commonly used by famers to kill pests attacking crops such as cotton, grapes and almonds.
State officials are attempting to add the pesticide—called chlorpyrifos—to an existing list of chemicals harmful to humans. Chlorpyrifos is thought, according to researchers, to interfere with the brain development of unborn babies and young children.
"New information in the scientific community leads us to believe the level of risk it poses is greater than previously known," California EPA Secretary Matthew Rodriquez said in a statement. "The actions we are taking today reflect our commitment to the health and safety of all Californians, and the environment."

Already prohibited from use within 150 feet of schools and homes, state officials are also attempting to increase that distance to 450 feet.
After a public comment period, the drafted regulations, which were released last week, could be enforced by officials as soon as September. Additional regulations are expected in late 2018 possibly tackling chlorpyrifos application methods from airplanes and helicopters

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Experts call for international ban on autonomous weapons

Image
Over 100 roboticists and artificial intelligence experts have called for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System The call – made at the start of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2017) in Melbourne – has been endorsed in a letter signed by the founders of 116 robotics and AI companies who are concerned about their technologies being repurposed to into autonomous weapons . The letter, which includes Elon Musk founder of Tesla, SpaceX and OpenAI as a signatory, states: “Lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare. “Once developed, they will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend. “These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways. “We do not have long to act. Once t...
Read more

The Future of Transportation at its Dawn

Image
  German automotive giant Continental is furthering its push into the future of transportation after it got its check book out to acquire  Quantum Inventions , a Singapore-based company that specializes in mobility data services. The deal was announced in June with little fanfare and it is officially undisclosed, but a source told TechCrunch that it is around the SG$40 million mark — that works out to around $29 million. That’s a pretty significant exit — both in name of acquirer and deal size — for Southeast Asia’s nascent yet promising tech ecosystem. You’d be hard pressed to call Quantum Inventions a startup, although it certainly operating in startup style. The company was founded in 2006, over ten years ago, and it has 120 staff across offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. It is focused on ‘mobility solutions’ in the consumer, automotive and government/enterprise sectors. That’s a fairly broad term but...
Read more

Beyond Amazon and Alibaba: what’s next for e-commerce?

Image
How do you outsmart an 800 lb gorilla?  E-commerce retailers in the two biggest markets – China and the U.S. – grapple with this question every day. Many assume the e-commerce game is over given the immense success of Amazon and Alibaba (both have $400+B market caps).  Amazon has systematically commoditized product category after product category – books, houseware, electronics, clothing, grocery and more, while Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao platforms have captured market share and popular imagination with millions of SKUs, truly creating a global “everything store.” But declaring game-over in these markets is a mistake. A careful read of emerging trends reveals rich greenfield territory, where billion dollar start-ups can thrive by recognizing the opportunities of  global mass market  of millennials from day one. I’ve written more on millennial buying habits  here . Key to understanding these emerging trends is a redefinition of what we mea...
Read more