NOVOZYMES, CLEANSTAR BOOST FOOD AND ENERGY IN MOZAMBIQUE

Novozymes has partnered up with environmental venture group CleanStar Ventures to give thousands of Mozambique farmers the opportunity to switch from charcoal production and slash-and- burn agriculture to using sustainable, environmentally-friendly farming practices, and cultivating a variety of new crops in the process. The company, called CleanStar Mozambique, will pur- chase any food that the families do not consume, and use it to produce a wide range of food products. It will also produce an ethanol-based cooking fuel to take the place of charcoal. “This business model can be replicated and scaled throughout the developing world,” says Novozymes Executive Vice President Thomas Nagy. “With CleanStar Mozambique, we hope to show how biotechnology can catalyze the development of agriculture, food, and ethanol industries in developing countries, and create new bio-based markets that benefit local communities and the environment.” Bank of America Merrill Lynch is currently in advanced talks to join the project. (www.cleanstarmozambique.com)

—J.B

Alberto, a Sofala, Mozambique, farmer working with CleanStar to plant trees that will help revitalize exhausted soils, teach “agroforestry” to his neighbors…and who looks forward to raising surplus cassava for sale to CleansStar food/energy processing facility nearby.

October 1, 1971

Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida. Walt Disney’s original plan for the park was for it to include a real city of 20,000 residents that would be a “com- munity of the future,” showcasing the latest advances in technology and urban plan- ning. However, the plan was abandoned after his death in 1966. The concept even- tually evolved into the Epcot theme park, which opened in 1982.

October 12, 1928

An iron lung is used for the first time at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. The subject, an eight-year-old girl undergoing respira- tory failure as a result of polio, recovered in under a minute, helping to popularize the device.

October 20, 1971

President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Acting Attorney General Robert Bork, in what the media would later refer to as the “Saturday Night Massacre.”

October 21, 1854

Florence Nightingale leads 38 nurses (all women, all volunteers, and all trained by her) as they depart England for the Black Sea, where she will win fame caring for soldiers wounded in the Crimean War.

October 22, 1976

Red Dye No. 4 is banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after it is found to cause tumors in the bladders of dogs. The dye is still used in Canada.

October 28, 1886

The first ticker tape parade erupts sponta- neously as New York office workers throw the streamers of financial-reporting strips into the street to celebrate the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.

—Jeremiah Budin

Ads