The Onion with breaking news in this report:

The sweeping new law prohibits all living beings within state borders from being born with random genetic mutations that could make them better suited to evade predators, secure a mate, or, adapt to a changing environment. In addition, it bars any sexual reproduction, battles for survival, or instances of pure happenstance that might lead, after several generations, to a more well-adapted species or subspecies.

Comprehensive approach. They’ve certainly done their homework.

To enforce the law, Kansas state police will be trained to investigate and apprehend organisms who exhibit suspected signs of evolutionary behavior, such as natural selection or speciation. Plans are underway to track and monitor DNA strands in every Kansan life form for even the slightest change in allele frequencies.

Your cell-phone may soon include DNA analysis capabilities. And surely things like used chewing gum will be treated as essential personal identity information.

Anti-evolutionists such as Hellenbaum have long accused microorganisms of popularizing “an otherwise obscure, agonizingly slow, and hard-to-understand” biological process. “These repeat offenders are at the root of the problem,” Hellenbaum said. “We have the fossil records to prove it.”

Oh, nice dig Onion!

“No species is exempt,” said Marcus Holloway, a state police spokesman. “Whether you’re a human being or a fruit fly—if we detect one homologous chromosome trying to cross over during the process of meiosis, you will be punished to the full extent of the law.”

Although the full impact of the new law will likely not be felt for approximately 10 million years, most Kansans say they are relieved that the ban went into effect this week, claiming that evolution may have gone too far already.

Hilarious stuff. When you read the whole article, note the sage point (pun not intended) about protests from Agribusiness leaders who depend on evolutionary science for genetic modification of crops.

Maybe I just haven’t spent enough time in Japan, but this part of a story about raising tuna caught (pun not intended) me by surprise:

This is clearly a labour of love, but how will he feel when the time comes to send his fish to the market to be slaughtered for the first time?

“It will be like sending my daughters off to get married,” he says with a grin. “Joy and sadness.” But will he be eating them? “Definitely!”

Eating your daughters after they are married? I think something must be missing in that translation. Although it does make me wonder why people are often so intent on eating things that are raised in far away places, often saying the further the better the taste, but they do not want their children marrying anyone from outside a small radius…strange analogy, I know, but the BBC started it.

This site has some useful information about how sulfur is regulated quite differently for different foods, although the risks may be the same:

Sulfites are not allowed on red meat. Sodium bisulfite does such a good job of color fixing, that sulfited ground beef can be rotten and you can’t tell by looking at it. For this reason, the FDA has an absolute prohibition against sulfites in meat. However, the rule doesn’t apply to other ingredients that may be mixed into the meat. For instance, sausage may legally contain corn syrup, molasses, or wine.

SharkFish is another story. Sulfites are a preservative for fish. Theoretically, sulfited fish must carry a warning somewhere near the fish display, but I’ve never seen one.

The author goes on to describe how he has tried to find sulfur in various foods but often suspected the wrong thing, or had a hard time tracing the source(s) of his allergic reactions.

Interesting case example by Patagonia on how they generated support for fishing regulations:

Swordfish, like many of our large predatory fish, have experienced a decline in their numbers. In 1998, SeaWeb and the Natural Resources Defense Council launched the “Give Swordfish a Break” campaign with the support of 27 high-profile chefs who signed a pledge to not serve swordfish in their restaurants. It grew to include more than 700 chefs and other food-industry professionals, and was among the first attempts to harness market forces in the name of ocean ecology.

The end of the campaign came as a result of new rules issued by U.S. regulators who halted or limited commercial long-line fishing in three areas off the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts, where too many young, undersized swordfish were being caught and discarded.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many of those 27 chefs had actually served a regular diet of swordfish before they pledged to never serve it.

Patagonia also takes some credit for strengthening the Magnuson-Stevens Act and its recent reauthorization.