According to AccuWeather.com, the worst of the flooding across Queensland may have past, but its impact will be far reaching.

AccuWeather.com reports that flood waters have started to recede across much of Queensland from its height earlier this month. At the height of the flooding, flood waters covered an area equal to the size of South Australia, according to Australian officials.

The massive flooding has threatened crops, livestock and some water supplies across much of the state, AccuWeather.com reports.

Australia is a major global exporter of beef and sugar with the majority of these commodities produced in Queensland.

Australia’s Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, estimates up to 150,000 cattle were killed in the floods and up to 20% of the sugarcane crop was lost in some areas.

According to AccuWeather.com, these losses will likely lead to lower exports and could eventually be felt by consumers later this year. However, an accurate accounting of the damage will take some time.

Australia is a major beef exporter to Asian markets. Also, JBS Swift is Australia’s largest beef packer.

There’s a lot of things for President Obama to fix that has gone to pot over the last eight years, including the safety of the food Americans eat. It’s not enough that our health care system is falling apart as more and more people can’t afford to get sick and go to the doctor,  that they probably have to go to the doctor any way because they are getting sick from the food they eat.

Fewer than one in four consumers now believe the U.S. food supply is safer than it was a year ago, according to new data from the University of Minnesota’s Food Industry Center.

The center said that after January’s national salmonella outbreak, just 22.5 percent of consumers in the study said they were confident the food supply is safer than a year ago, the lowest reading since the study began in May 2008. Eight people died and more than 500 have become ill in the most recent outbreak, which may have originated in a Georgia peanut plant and spread through peanut-butter products sold nationwide.

The drop in confidence mirrors a similar drop last June, when a salmonella outbreak later traced to jalapeno peppers sickened nearly 1,500 people. The study involves continuously tracking consumer confidence in food supply safety via a weekly online survey of about 175 consumers from across the nation. The consumers are selected each week by a national market research company.

The ongoing study is conducted jointly with the Louisiana State University AgCenter and is funded by the National Center for Food Protection and Defense.

Why, as we age, do we turn gray?

The answer: hydrogen peroxide.

Another mystery solved by scientists found that going gray is caused by a massive build up of hydrogen peroxide due to wear and tear of our hair follicles. The peroxide winds up blocking the normal synthesis of melanin, our hair’s natural pigment.

“Not only blondes change their hair color with hydrogen peroxide,” said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. “All of our hair cells make a tiny bit of hydrogen peroxide, but as we get older, this little bit becomes a lot. We bleach our hair pigment from within, and our hair turns gray and then white. This research, however, is an important first step to get at the root of the problem, so to speak.”

Man’s efficiency in killing each other is not only evident in his sophisticated weaponry, but also where he tends to slaughter others for most maximum destructive effect.

In a new study from the scientific journal Conservation Biology, more than 80 percent of the world’s major armed conflicts during the last half century have taken place in some of the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth.

The hotspots are home to a majority of the world’s poorest people who rely on natural resources for their daily survival. Forests and other healthy ecosystems help cleanse freshwater and provide sources of food, medicines and materials for building homes. They are often intertwined with centuries-old traditional lifestyles and unique indigenous cultures.