About 40 activist organizations that usually can be counted upon to rally with the organic industry against genetically engineered (GE) plants and animals did just that on Monday. They weighed in with a letter to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for the federal regulation of biotechnology products.

APHIS has been inviting such comments, even holding web-based hearings, since last March as it withdrew work to update its 1990s rule for regulating GE organisms and decided to start over with a blank slate.

WHIPPANY, N.J., June 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Pazoo, Inc. (OTC Pinks: PZOO) (German WKN#: A1J3DK), is pleased to report that on Wednesday, June 3, 2015,  Pazoo acquired the remaining 60% of MA & Associates, LLC in exchange for 900,000 shares of Pazoo's Series C. Preferred stock. This now makes MA & Associates, LLC a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary of Pazoo.

Surna, Inc. (OTCQB: SRNA), a technology company that engineers state-of-the art equipment for controlled environment agriculture ("CEA") with special expertise in cannabis cultivation, announced today the filing of two additional patent applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO").

The two applications describe critical components of the Company's innovative hybrid growing facility, which is currently in development. These are the first patent applications Surna has submitted to the USPTO that cover its turnkey hybrid facility concept.

PORTLAND, Ore., June 24, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sacred, an industry leading manufacturer of a revolutionary new line of cannabis-infused products that include bath salts, massage oils, and personal lubricants and PotLocator.com, the nation’s leading provider of access to services and products in the marijuana industry, are pleased to announce the release of Sacred’s products in Oregon, making the state the first in the nation to sell Sacred’s organic, cannabis-infused products.

“Medical marijuana patients in Oregon will now have another natural choice when it comes to the ways they relax or medicate themselves in the privacy of their own homes,” says Luc Nelson, Director of Business Development.

A lot of people use marijuana because it's fun. But it's also serious business, and last week entrepreneurs looking for a piece of the marijuana market convened at the Cannabis World Congress & Business Expo in New York City. (image credit: Karsten Strauss)

At regular intervals throughout the year, just about every industry takes time out to get its ranks together to network, entertain potential clients and show off new products. The burgeoning U.S. cannabis industry is no different, and the 2015 Cannabis World Congress and Business Exposition, held in New York from June 17-19, displayed more than a few crossover companies: those with know-how in other industries, hoping to show how their products can play a part in the weed world.

Consumers of legal marijuana will be confronted with more choices than were ever imagined back when Deadheads got their buzz from joints and pipes. 

Sour Diesel, Trainwreck and Blue Dream are some of the vivid names for marijuana strains that reportedly make you want to pucker up, duck for cover or float away to a South Pacific island.

For pot users who don’t want to inhale, there are edibles such as cookies and brownies, as well as tinctures that can be taken under the tongue or in tea.

Associate Professor and Dean, College of Health Sciences Dr Ellen Campbell-Grizzle, discuss the QunataCann2TM instant annabis analysis machine (pictured) recently donated to UTech by Steep Hill Labs Inc, USA. Looking on at left is Dr Donald Land, Chief Scientist, Steep Hill Labs Inc.

THE University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) has further advanced research efforts to examine the scientific and medicinal properties and potential of the cannabis (marijuana) plant with the acquisition of a cannabis testing machine known as QuantaCann2.

Chemist Markus Lüdi is Switzerland’s only producer of a natural tincture made from cannabis. In his laboratory in Burgdorf in canton Bern he demonstrates how a liquid drug can be produced from cannabis flowers. 

The cannabis contains around 5% THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychotropic substance of the plant with therapeutic properties.

As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors, according to David Mitlin, Ph.D.

Supercapacitors are energy storage devices that have huge potential to transform the way future electronics are powered. Unlike today’s rechargeable batteries, which sip up energy over several hours, supercapacitors can charge and discharge within seconds. But they normally can’t store nearly as much energy as batteries, an important property known as energy density.

With drug laws changing all the time, it’s hard for police sniffer dogs to keep up with what they’re supposed to find and what they aren’t. That’s why police forces are turning to insects to sniff out narcotics.

An odd scientific paper in PLoS One today details the very first attempts to get insects to become drug sniffers. The researchers tested three insects — the grapevine moth, the hissing cockroach, and the western honeybee — just to assess how well they could differentiate the smell of one substance from another. The bees won, because their antennae make great “biosensors,” the researchers report.