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For many years, we’ve wondered why the major labels haven’t gotten in trouble for what appears to be clear price fixing — having all of the major labels band together to both demand identical wholesale pricing and attempt to dictate retail pricing by partners as well. There have been various investigations by both local and federal officials, along with a few lawsuits — but nothing has really gone very far. One lawsuit was tossed out by the district court back in 2008, but in a surprising move, the 2nd circuit appeals court has revived the lawsuit, claiming that the evidence is “sufficient to plausibly suggest” price fixing by the major labels with regards to digital music. So now it goes back to the lower court. I still doubt this will really have much of an impact, but it’s nice to see some recognition of what’s seemed pretty obvious for quite some time.

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Jan. 12, 2010 | Filed Under: KFT

By Geoff Gannon

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Tuesday, January 5^th, 2010 – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announces it will vote “no” on Kraft’s proposal to issue 370 million new shares.

Kraft’s CEO wanted to use the new shares as ammo in her hostile takeover of Cadbury. Buffett shot her down. Why?

Because Kraft’s stock is too cheap.

Here’s what Buffett wrote:

“What we know with certainty…is that Kraft stock, at its current price of $27, is a very expensive ‘currency’ to be used in an acquisition. In 2007, in fact, Kraft spent $3.6 billion to repurchase shares at about $33 per share, presumably because directors and management thought the shares to be worth more.”

Buffett also bought Kraft around $33 a share. Page 15 of last year’s annual letter to shareholders shows that Berkshire’s 130 million plus shares of Kraft cost $33.24 a piece.

What Does Buffett See in Kraft?

1. Brands that will never be duplicated.

· Kraft products are in more than 99% of American homes

· The company has 9 brands with more than $1 billion in sales

· And 40 brands started before 1910

2. A dominant competitive position.

· 80% of Kraft sales come from products with the #1 market share in their category.

· And 50% of sales come from categories where Kraft’s market share is more than twice that of their nearest competitor.

3. Good margins.

· On average, Kraft turns 7.7 cents of each sales dollar into free cash flow.

· Kraft’s U.S. Groceries – its salad dressings, barbecue sauces, Cool-Whip, Grey Poupon, and Jell-O – have the same profit margin as Google (GOOG).

· The company’s cheeses have margins equal to Heinz (HNZ).

4. Managers focused on the right things.

· Kraft sends most of its free cash flow straight to shareholders in the form of a $1.16 a share dividend – giving the stock a dividend yield of 4%

· In 2007, the company started buying back gobs of its own shares – giving each shareholder a bigger slice of the same pie

· They’re cutting costs

· And restructuring foreign businesses to look more like the American business

The 4 Questions Warren Buffett Asks Before Buying a Stock

Those are good reasons for any investor to buy Kraft. But Warren Buffett has four specific questions he asks before buying any stock:

1. Does he understand the business?

2. Does it have favorable long-term prospects?

3. Is it operated by honest and competent people?

4. And is it priced very attractively?

Does Kraft Pass Warren Buffett’s Test?

No.

It fails question number 4.

At least it would if Buffett’s four questions had stayed exactly the same as they were in 1977.

Question #4 – “Is it priced very attractively?” – is the reason Berkshire sometimes holds off buying any stocks at all. Buffett is always on the lookout for great businesses and he usually finds them. But he can’t always find them at the right price.

The Warren Buffett of 1977 wouldn’t buy Kraft, because that Warren Buffett only bought super cheap stocks. Today Buffett has to settle for slightly cheap stocks because there simply aren’t enough super cheap stocks to soak up all of Berkshire’s cash.

To solve this problem Buffett lowered his standards and changed question #4 to:

“Is it pricedvery attractively?”

Kraft passes this test. That’s why Buffett bought it.

Should you?

What is Kraft Worth?

Warren Buffett values companies according to something he calls owner earnings:

“…we consider the owner earnings figure, not the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principle) figure, to be the relevant item for valuation purposes – both for investors in buying stocks and for managers in buying entire businesses. We agree with Keynes’s observation: ‘I would rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.’”

So what’s the vaguely right earnings number for Kraft?

My guess is $1.85 a share.

It’s a somewhat arbitrary number. But only somewhat.

If you take Kraft’s free cash flow from 2000 through 2008 and adjust it for the number of shares out today you get $1.75 a year in free cash flow. If you take the last three years as a short-term average you get $1.73 a share.

Kraft’s sales are higher now than they were in those years. If you slap Kraft’s historical free cash flow margin of 7.7% on the today’s sales you get $2.07 a share in free cash flow.

(This assumes sales will be down 6% from last year but doesn’t adjust for the sale of the pizza business.)

Like I said: arbitrary.

But averaging the three figures and taking $1.85 a share as your owner earnings is the vaguely right approach.

Yes – you can substitute $1.75 or $1.73 or $2.07 or anything in between if you want. No one will smite you for it. The important thing is putting some numbers in and taking some emotion out.

This eternal stream of cash flow from Kraft stock needs to be compared to something if we want to put a dollar value on the shares.

I’m going to use the yield on investment grade corporate bonds – 4.89% – which means inverting the yield (1/0.0489 = 20.45) and multiplying Kraft’s owner earnings by that number.

Which is a fancy way of saying each share of Kraft is worth its owner earnings times the price people are willing to pay for each dollar of corporate promises.

Right now investors are willing to pay $20.45 per dollar of corporate promises they believe.

Kraft stock promises $1.85 in owner earnings.

That promise should be worth $37.84 a share.

Right?

Maybe vaguely.

It depends on a lot of things. The biggest is the quest for Cadbury – a subject I’ll take up tomorrow.

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	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $11.94 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Splinter Cell: Conviction has had a few delays under its belt. The original game (the one with the rougher-looking Sam Fisher) went through a couple, and the current incarnation was pushed back in mid-2009. It seems Sam

New evidence has emerged that underscores the global climate threat and the need for an effective climate bill. These are just the 10 most startling global warming facts we learned in 2009.

1. Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are higher today than at any time in measurable history.

A study published in the journal Science reports that the current level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere — about 390 parts per million — is higher today than at any time in measurable history — at least the last 2.1 million years. Previous peaks of CO2 were never more than 300 ppm over the past 800,000 years, and the concentration is rising by around 2 ppm each year.

2. 2000-2009 was the hottest decade.

The World Meterological Organization reported that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade on record, with 8 of the hottest 10 years having occurred since 2000.

3. 2009 will end up as one of the 5 hottest years.

2009 will end up as one of the 5 hottest years since 1850 and the U.K.’s Met Office predicts that, with a moderate El Niño, 2010 will likely break the record.

4. Arctic ice cover – already perilously thin – is vulnerable to further melting.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that while a bit more summer Arctic sea ice appeared in 2009 than the record breaking lows of the last two years, it was still well below normal levels. Given that the Arctic ice cover remains perilously thin, it is vulnerable to further melting, posing an ever-increasing threat to Arctic wildlife, including polar bears.

5. The Arctic summer could be ice-free by mid-century — sooner than scientists expected.

The Arctic summer could be ice-free by mid-century, not at the end of the century as previously expected, according to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

6. The East Antarctica ice sheet – thought to be colder and more stable that the West – is also shrinking.

Recent observations published in the highly respected Nature Geosciences indicate that the East Antarctica ice sheet has been shrinking. This surprised researchers, who expected that only the West Antarctic ice sheet would shrink in the near future because the East Antarctic ice sheet is colder and more stable.

7. Climate changes are already observed in the United States and are projected to grow.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program completed an assessment of what is known about climate change impacts in the U.S. and reported that, “Climate changes are already observed in the United States and…are projected to grow.” These changes include “increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows.”

8. Slight changes in the climate may trigger abrupt threats to ecosystems.

According to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey, slight changes in the climate may trigger abrupt threats to ecosystems that are not easily reversible or adaptable, such as insect outbreaks, wildfire, and forest dieback. “More vulnerable ecosystems, such as those that already face stressors other than climate change, will almost certainly reach their threshold for abrupt change sooner.” An example of such an abrupt threat is the outbreak of spruce bark beetles throughout the western U.S. caused by increased winter temperatures that allow more beetles to survive.

9. Coastal wetlands from New York to North Carolina could be lost.

The EPA, USGS and NOAA issued a joint report warning that most mid-Atlantic coastal wetlands from New York to North Carolina will be lost with a sea level rise of 1 meter or more.

10. U.S. production of corn, soybeans and cotton could decrease as much as 82%.

If we do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century, some of the main fruit and nut tree crops currently grown in California may no longer be economically viable, as there will be a lack of the winter chilling they require. And, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. production of corn, soybeans and cotton could decrease as much as 82%.

Take action to fight these effects of global warming and support the clean energy future »

Honda will recall up to 7600 Ridgeline Pickups manufactured between January 17 2005 and June 7 2006 over potential heating, ventilation and air conditioning(hvac) issues.

According to the recall notice released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a wiring harness connector above the front passenger footrest is vulnerable to kicking. A strong kick delivered by a passenger can cause the connector’s terminal to overheat and this can damage the wire insulation or the c… (read more)

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) will release 2009 fourth-quarter and year-end financial results at 6:30 a.m. Central Time on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010.

The release will be available on CAT.com/earnings at about 6:30 a.m. Central Time.

The news release will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) via a Current Report on Form 8-K (Form 8-K) on the date of the release or within four business days after the release, in compliance with applicable SEC rules.

Teleconference and webcast access:

A real-time, listen-only teleconference of the quarterly and year-end results call that Caterpillar conducts with security analysts and institutional investors will begin at 10 a.m. Central Time on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010.

The one-hour conference call can be accessed by telephone from both domestic and international locations, with a listen-only entry code provided below:

To access a telephone replay of this call shortly after the live event, please dial 800-332-6854 (for domestic callers) and 973-528-0005 (for international callers) and enter “5621″ as the conference ID.

This telephone replay will be available for 90 days. The call can also be accessed through CAT.com/IRwebcast.

Listeners should go to the Web site at least 15 minutes before the live event to download and install any necessary audio software.

The transcript from the conference call will be filed no later than Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, on a Form 8-K with the SEC and available through: CAT.com/SEC_Filings.

For those unable to participate in the live broadcast, the replay will be available through CAT.com/IRwebcast shortly after the live event.

There is no charge to access the webcast.  Those without access to the Internet may request a fax of Caterpillar’s transcript by calling 800-228-7717 (U.S. and Canada) or 858-244-2080 (for all other regions).

About Caterpillar

For more than 80 years, Caterpillar Inc. has been making progress possible and driving positive and sustainable change on every continent.

With 2008 sales and revenues of $51.324 billion, Caterpillar is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines.

The company also is a leading services provider through Caterpillar Financial Services, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Services, Caterpillar Logistics Services and Progress Rail Services.

More information is available at cat.com.

Celebrities are in the public eye 24/7, whether they like it or not, and that requires professional sylists, PR coaches, image-consultants, and touch-up artists, among other busy-bodies. All this help keep celebs looking good, but when a celeb shows up in print, that truly becomes their time to shine. With a team of Photoshopping professionals, a celebrity can go from drab to fab without even trying — that is, if someone doesn’t screw it up. We’ve all seen more than our fair share of overly airbrushed celebrities — most of the time without realizing it — and our perception of beauty is skewed because of it. Here are the 15 most ridiculous examples of celebrity Photoshop disasters we could find.

Nia Long

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Nia Long, best known for her roles in Big Momma’s House and Soul Food, is posing here for the PETA ad campaign supposedly banishing fur from her life. It’s an admirable cause for sure, but it seems like she’s missing some fur of her own. Or even a remnant of a crotch, or even a belly button. We understand that full frontal nudity wasn’t the goal here, but the art direction at PETA could have surely done a better job at making her bottom half look less like Barbie. That’s all on top of the fact that she’s obviously not really in a subway car.

Beyonce

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Poor Beyonce. She conquered the music industry as a solo act, which is hard enough as it is, much less coming from a huge group act like Destiny’s Child. That aside, her impact on the film industry is something we have yet to see, and apparently the same goes for her real skin color. We’ve seen everything in print ads from a light beige to a nice mocha, but with so many possibilities, how can we really know what’s real? This is just a glaring side-by-side example of the same shot of her on two different magazine covers.

Brad Pitt

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We understand why women, and even some men, tend to drool more than a little over Brad Pitt — whether it be for his movies or pectorals. Many liken his physique to a Greek god, but in this ad for Edwin Jeans, it isn’t the case.  Everything below his waist is shrunken down to schoolboy proportions — which we’re sure is a disappointment to Angelina.

Nia Vardalos

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Nia Vardalos shot onto the celeb B-list after her starring role in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Here is the Italian DVD cover for her follow-up flop My Life in Ruins, in which it looks like she has Elephantiasis. Her US DVD cover release looks normal, but this version, for some reason, renders her legs the size of logs. Which isn’t flattering on anyone, trust us.

Penelope Cruz

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Gorgeous international starlet Penelope Cruz is looking a bit off in this picture taken from the L’Oreal website. It looks like she’s the spawn of a human and a giraffe. Or maybe she got a hold of those tribal neck rings, attempting to stretch her neck beyond the natural limits. The creepy hand coming from nowhere to hold her head up certainly doesn’t help matters. Either way, L’Oreal noticed and has since taken the picture down, and replaced it with a shot of an average model. All is well.

Heidi Klum

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Heidi Klum looks amazing, despite giving birth to four children. We’re just going to chalk it up to to hard workouts, sound nutrition and the blessing of good genes. The March 2009 cover for GQ in Germany showed off her nude figure, but it just didn’t look like we’re used to. It seems that the art direction at GQ Germany opted to completely shave her butt off, along with making her look so smooth that it borders doughy. Just give us our old Heidi back!

Catherine Zeta-Jones

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Academy Award-winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones has captured audiences around the globe, and dazzled us in flicks like Chicago. She was named the face of the Di Modolo jewelery brand back in 2007, with ads appearing in Vogue, InStyle, W, and Town and Country. She’s a beauty, but we don’t understand why the jewelry she started fronting isn’t even on her. It looks like the pieces were just sloppily pasted onto her in post production.

Britney Spears

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Britney Spears has had her ups and downs over the years, and we’ve followed her wherever she goes — be it bald and crazy or a bubblegum teeny bopper. In late September 2008, Spears released her sixth studio album, Circus, with positive feedback. It seemed like she was on the right track, but when the art for her single Womanizer was released, it looked a bit ridiculous. Here you can see her legs airbrushed beyond all rational belief, to the point that it looks like she’s sporting twigs instead.

Jessica Alba

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We all know what starlet Jessica Alba’s body looks like. We’ve been given plenty of fuel to fire our imaginations, especially after Sin City. But after we saw this ad campaign for Campari, we knew something was very, very wrong. It seems like the art direction at Campari decided Alba’s body wasn’t good enough, and replaced it with some other model’s body. We noticed when we thought she looked like a bobble head doll. Not that the mystery model’s body isn’t hot, it’s just that we want Alba’s back.

Demi Lovato

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Spawn of Disney, Demi Lovato, is best known for her music and role in Camp Rock. She usually has a cute little dimple in her chin, but in this promotional poster for Camp Rock, it’s been abducted by evil Photoshop pirates. In it’s place is one of the worst airbrush jobs we’ve ever seen. We couldn’t believe it, so we checked every version of the original we could find — and this is it. We don’t know why it’s like this, but art direction at Disney should stop using MS Paint.

Michael Phelps

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Olympian Michael Phelps has been in the news quite a bit recently, after his run-in with drugs and partying. We still love him, but we don’t know what happened to this clip from TV Guide’s Olympic Stars to Watch gallery. It seems like the dreaded copy-paste monster attacked Phelp’s head, stole it, then placed it onto the body of a skin-covered steamboat. Or maybe it’s a flesh colored raft? Either way, this is terrible — but hilarious. We can’t stop laughing.

Christina Aguilera

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Songbird Christina Aguilera looks innocent and cleaned up, which is a far cry from her Dirty phase. We like it, but there must be something wrong with her finger. Her dog is adorable, but look closer — her ring finger is twisted beyond belief. It seems that someone was trying to touch up around the finger and dog fur, but something went terribly, terribly wrong. It looks painful.

Adam Lambert

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Singer Adam Lambert, who was the American Idol eighth-season runner-up, knows how to push the envelope. In November of this year, Lambert performed For Your Entertainment at the American Music Awards and shocked audiences with kissing, grabbing, and grinding on his male back-up dancers. We all know that this MySpace glamour-shot style album cover is appropriate for him, but it seems like someone cut off his shoulder. And that’s without even going into how ridiculous over-processed his face is.

Mandy Moore

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Mandy Moore is America’s girl-next-door actress and musician. Though her career has faded a bit since the start, she still pops up every once in a while. Here, Yahoo! Music featured her and included several shots of the musician. All was well… except for that chunk of head missing. It seemed like one of those unbelievable mistakes, but in checking the original — and sure enough, it’s no joke. We don’t know what was so terrifying that Yahoo! felt the need to scalp Mandy Moore, but it must have been pretty bad to leave her in such a state.

Brittany Murphy

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The late Brittany Murphy dazzled us with her natural beauty and talent, and her sudden death is a loss to the entire entertainment community. What we can’t understand is why anyone would want to airbrush all of her natural beauty into oblivion. Real people DO have pores, lower eyelids, and smile wrinkles. Brittany Murphy was flat out gorgeous because of her distinct looks. We hope for the day that art directors will realize that we want to see real beauty, and we all know how much it would help our younger generation. RIP Brittany.

UT Arlington genome biologist reports on surprising evolutionary discovery
News Release — 6 January 2010

A recent study on the 8 percent of human DNA that is derived from viruses may show a cause of cell mutation and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and mood disorders, according to an article by The University of Texas at Arlington biology professor Cédric Feschotte published in the Jan. 7, 2010, issue of Nature magazine.

The study — led by Professor Keizo Tomonaga at Osaka University in Japan — revealed that the genomes of humans and other mammals contain DNA derived from the insertion of bornaviruses, RNA viruses whose replication takes place in the nucleus of cells. It was the first to show sequences derived from a virus other than retroviruses. Researchers have known since 2001 that 8 percent of human genetic material is derived from retroviruses.

UTA News Center

Filed under: Convertible, Coupe, Performance, Jaguar, Luxury

1952 Jaguar C-Type – Click above for high-res image gallery

Lovers of Jaguar sports-coupes – of which there are more than a few here at Autoblog – have only had the XK to subsist on for quite some time now. And a silken cat it is, to be sure, but soon it’ll have company. According to a report from Inside Line, Coventry is proceeding with preparations to launch an oft-rumored and long-speculated new sportscar.

Tentatively dubbed “C-Type” and (unimaginatively) referred to internally as the “small sports car,” the new vehicle will reportedly be based on a new aluminum monocoque chassis. IL indicates that the engine bay will be big enough to accommodate the company’s 5.0-liter V8 (supercharged C-Type R, anyone?), but power is is initially expected to come from a turbocharged V6, developed in-house off the V8’s architecture. Both coupe and soft-top convertible bodystyles are expected to form part of the formula when the new sportscar arrives to take on the likes of the Mercedes SLK, BMW Z4 and Audi TT within the next two years.

While we eagerly anticipate the C-Type’s arrival, our compatriots at IL also report that the rumored XJ coupe – targeting the likes of the Bentley Continental GT and Mercedes CL-Class – is not currently in the running. But given the choice between a small, lightweight sportscar and an oversized coupe, we’ll gladly take the former.

[Source: Inside Line]

Report: Jaguar green-lights the C-Type sportscar, nixes the XJ coupe originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Lady Hawks traveled to Rock Valley and fell, 61-71.

Peggie Parhas led in scoring with 20 points, Noreen Davis added 17 points (including 4 of 7 in 3-point shooting, and Anna Kirchoff contributed 15 point (with 7 of 11 from the free throw line).

The team is now 11-6 overall and 11-5 in conference play.

Former Jon & Kate Plus 8 star Kate Gosselin will return to television in a new TLC reality show later this year, the network said Wednesday.

The still-untitled show will feature the newly-divorced mother of eight as she embarks on “different jobs and tasks and showing how she performs in the different environments,” an network executive told The Wrap.

Shooting on the project is already underway. In December, the blonde was photographed working the lunch counter in a Carolina greasy spoon. Kate’s latest tango with reality will not feature her children or former husband, Jon. In November, TLC pulled the plug on The Gosselin’s docu-series after five seasons and a tabloid-driven infidelity scandal. Jon and Kate divorced last month ending 10 years of marriage.

Here’s my CES travelogue to go along with Aaron’s, Adriana’s, and John’s thoughts on the show:

I had fun. I worked a lot. I ate a lot. I was tired and glad to get home. I always wear sneakers at these things to avoid blisters and foot issues that so many people get from three ten-plus hour days of walking. 3-D TV is awesome, though I don’t know if it’s actually any good.

Now for some photos:

Me with basketball legend Bill Walton at the Lenovo press conference (he’s the tall dude with hair).

Me with NYTimes tech writer David Pogue on the show floor (he’s the taller dude with hair).

Me with Iron Chef Mario Batali at the Sprint Overdrive event. He’s the dude on the platform with slightly more hair.

Me with Aaron (hair), John (hat), and Adriana (girl with hair) en route from somewhere to somewhere else at the show.

Currently only supported in around 30 cities in the US, Sprint’s WiMax service (as powered by Clear) isn’t exactly widespread. It’s a great service (in theory) and likely to pick up some fans as it rolls out to another 50+ markets by the end of this year – but for the time being, it’s probably a pretty hard thing to sell.

Looking to make it a little more enticing — or as a Sprint spokesperson put it, “a no brainer” — Sprint has just lopped $10 off the price tag, bringing it down to $60 a month. This marks the second time Sprint has dropped the price; back in August, they shaved it down from $79.99 to $69.99.

[Via FierceWireless]

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Kolelinia—a system that allows you to ride your bike above the traffic—looks like a crazy idea until you check out the engineering behind it. Then you will realize that it’s not only cool, but it can work too.

Here’s how it works.

Kolelinia has two elements, a half-pipe—this is where your bike’s wheels run—and a cable above that pipe. The cable is at the same height as your bike’s handles, and it provides stability and safety while you fly over the cars. The cable connects to the bike’s handle using a special hooking device. This divoce also has a hole for a carabiner, so you can use a harness and safety line for extra safety.

On first sight, it looks like the props for a circus act. But unlike in the circus, Kolelinia doesn’t involve any risk thanks to the safety cable system. It may seem convoluted, but it’s actually quite simple, and a much better and safer option than having to deal with the dangers of traffic, or flying with stranded extra-terrestrial beings. [Kolelinia via ArchDaily]

Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding

by Noel Kingsbury
Copyright © 2009 The University of Chicago Press
Published by The University of Chicago Press

Disheartened by the shrink-wrapped, Styrofoam-packed state of contemporary supermarket fruits and vegetables, many shoppers hark back to a more innocent time, to visions of succulent red tomatoes plucked straight from the vine, gleaming orange carrots pulled from loamy brown soil, swirling heads of green lettuce basking in the sun.
With Hybrid, Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural; rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritious—a story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs—and thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new; plant breeding has always had a political dimension.
A powerful reminder of the complicated and ever-evolving relationship between humans and the natural world, Hybrid will give readers a thoughtful new perspective on—and a renewed appreciation of—the cereal crops, vegetables, fruits, and flowers that are central to our way of life.

Noel Kingsbury is internationally known as a writer on gardening, both private and public – and has carved out a particular reputation for his promotion of an approach to planting design which is based on ecological science. At both home (in Britain) and in North America his magazine articles and books have done much to help shift garden fashion away from conventional notions of formality and ‘tidiness’ towards a more naturalistic aesthetic and sustainable management.  Recent completion of a research doctorate at the University of Sheffield with one of the world’s foremost department of landscape, indicates his belief that practice must be supported by research and evidence.

Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding is copyright © 2009 The University of Chicago Press
Published by The University of Chicago Press
All rights reserved

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