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The Mac Pro workstation features four interchangeable 500-gigabyte hard drives like the one seen above. The bottom slot has an interchangeable memory card that can take up to 16 gigabytes of RAM. For years, Macintosh computers have been praised for their cool looks and elegant simplicity while being knocked for often carrying a hefty price premium over Windows-based machines sold by Dell Inc. and others. It's time to think different. Again. The recently released Mac Pro maintains the Apple shine in design, usability and software but does something unexpected: It turns the old Mac vs. Windows PC price equation on...

GENETICALLY modified tomatoes containing edible vaccine are to be used to challenge two of the world's most lethal viruses. The aim is to create affordable vaccines for HIV and the hepatitis B virus (HBV) that could be easily grown and processed in the countries where they are most needed. So far, none of the 90 or so potential vaccines against HIV have proved successful and, though a vaccine already exists for HBV, it is too expensive to be used by poorer countries. ... The tomato plants then manufacture the proteins and, like the oral polio vaccine, when the tomatoes are...

NETZARIM, Gaza Strip -- The harvest is underway inside a row of greenhouses here on the grounds of a razed Israeli settlement. But most of the tomatoes and sweet peppers, usually shipped to European markets, will rot in a nearby ravine. "We keep getting it, but we don't know what to do with it," said Abdul Fatah al-Eilah, the greenhouse manager, as workers stacked boxes of vegetables in a storage shed while tractors towing flatbeds full of produce lined up to enter. The main trade passage between the Gaza Strip and Israel has been closed for much of the year,...

The state imposed a $140,000 penalty for what it called "willful, continuing, and egregious" violations of the price law... The Minnesota Commerce Department on Thursday announced plans to fine a gas station chain $140,000 for repeatedly selling gas below the state's legal minimum price. The fine against Midwest Oil of Minnesota is twice as large as any imposed on a company since 2001, when the state established a formula based on wholesale prices, fees and taxes to determine a daily floor for gas prices. Kevin Murphy, deputy commissioner of the department, called the violations "willful, continuing, and egregious and warrant...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Unilever will move work to its facility in Stockton The Unilever tomato processing plant on Ashby Road in Merced will close its doors next summer, leaving more than 100 employees without jobs. The plant, which has manufactured tomato paste and Ragu and Bertolli sauces since 1974, will stop production by June 30, 2006, according to the Netherlands-based corporation. The plant employs 124 full-time workers and 228 seasonal employees during the summer harvest season. "We will do everything we can to place them with other Unilever sites," Operations Manager Larry Pitts said. Unilever...

Trucker charged in drug arrest By DEBORAH BALL Sun staff writer Something about a California's man cargo of tomatoes made agriculture officers leery during their inspection of his tractor-trailer at an interdiction station on Interstate 10 in Suwannee County Friday. But it wasn't the tomatoes that raised the officers' suspicions. Faulty paperwork led to a search of the cargo and the discovery of 243 pounds of cocaine inside the trailer, Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson announced Monday. Gabriel Hernandez Ramos, 36, of Oceanside, Calif., was arrested on charges of cocaine trafficking after officers with the department's...

I've been seduced by a planting obsession, but I'm not alone. There is a select fraternity of gardeners infatuated with picking the earliest tomato of the season. They're driven by a passion for fresh garden tomatoes and an egocentric quest to harvest months before "normal" gardeners. At night, our basement windows glow from cool fluorescent lights. Lucky gardeners spend their days bathed with warm sunlight in tiny greenhouses tending their little seedlings with a mother's love. It's spring outside, but inside the confines of the clear walls, it's a steamy summer afternoon. The aroma of the deep green leaves is...

A woman with a severe allergy to tomatoes died after opening a tin of spaghetti bolognese, it emerged yesterday. Raya French, 37, a part-time receptionist from Tankerton in Kent, was preparing dinner for her four children two weeks ago when the tomato sauce in the can sent her into anaphylactic shock. She was taken to hospital, but never regained consciousness. She was allowed to die four days later after her family decided that she had no chance of survival. Mrs French developed an allergy to raw tomatoes three years ago, and would come out in hives and suffer asthma attacks....

Ordering a sandwich for lunch today? How about some lettuce and a slice of cardboard with that? Cardboard. That's how customers describe the taste of winter tomatoes to produce-man Joe Procacci. Looking to improve off-season flavor, Mr. Procacci developed a tomato called the UglyRipe. It's exactly what its name implies. Scarred by crevices, it's not much to look at, but its growers advertise it as "exceptional" in taste. Customers apparently agree. Procacci initially saw sales of his Florida-grown tomatoes triple - until the Florida Tomato Committee put the kibosh on the UglyRipe last year because it doesn't meet the committee's...

Study Indicates Tomatoes Likely Cause of Salmonella Outbreak That Sickened More Than 280 Associated Press July 23, 2004 PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pennsylvania health authorities released results of a study Friday indicating that Roma tomatoes were the likely cause of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 280 people in five states. No tests have pinpointed the cause, but food histories of those who ate at Sheetz convenience stores and got sick - and those who ate there and didn't get sick - indicate that the tomatoes were the likely source, said Richard McGarvey, a spokesman for the state Health...

Move to Ban Altered Crops Is Focused on California Published: January 11, 2004 UKIAH, Calif., Jan. 10 (AP) — The center of the nation's anti-biotechnology movement can be found these days here in Mendocino County, a quirky region with a strong streak of independence. Farmers and businesses in this Northern California county are trying to persuade voters to pass a measure on March 2 that would prohibit genetically modified plants and animals from being raised or kept in the county. "I believe that genetic engineering at this stage is the biggest uncontrolled biological experiment going on in the world today,"...

Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday attacked returning members of the Palestinian delegation to Geneva with stones and rotten tomatoes and eggs. Witnesses said a large group of children waited at the Rafah border crossing for the Palestinian officials who attended the ceremony to launch the Geneva Accord in Switzerland. The first to arrive was Hasan Asfour, a former Palestinian Authority cabinet minister and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The witnesses said that the children at first tried to talk to Asfour, but he ignored them and got into a jeep that had come to collect...

Wed Aug 27, 1:01 PM ET Revellers indulge in the annual 'Tomatina' battle in Bunyol on Wednesday. The biggest tomato fight in the world takes place when the town erupts into a fiery blaze of tomato-hurling on the last Wednesday of every August. REUTERS/Heino Kalis

Tomatoes don't agree with John. He is sick within an hour of eating them and becomes sweaty and panicky. But worse than this, they also make him irritable and aggressive and liable to commit violent crimes. Jason has a similar reaction to bread. He has always loved doorsteps smothered in butter for breakfast. But it gives him diarrhoea and a weird kind of depressed 'hangover'. This makes him crave the heroin that once put his life on the skids. It may sound implausible, but a controversial theory is gathering momentum: that one explanation for crime may be found on our...

NATO chief pelted with tomatoes From the International Desk Published 11/22/2002 9:02 AM View printer-friendly version PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- NATO Secretary-General George Robertson was pelted with tomatoes by Russian Communists Friday as he wrapped up a two-day summit of alliance leaders. "NATO is worse than the Gestapo," shouted two protesters posing as journalists. Copyright © 2002 United Press International

Everything is all right with the respect and love of President Putin by the Russian people. At least, there are countless pictures, posters, postcards, ect. depicting Vladimir Putin. The president has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction about the ways that people go about honoring his persona, but no one is likely to forbid inventive businessmen from gaining profits from the president's image.

SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS BROOKLYN TOBACCO PARTY by Herb Allen Issue of 2002-07-29Posted 2002-07-22 CLASH, which stands for Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, is the only organization dedicated exclusively to protecting the rights of New York City smokers. It was founded two years ago by Audrey Silk, a thirty-eight-year-old police officer in Brooklyn's Sixty-seventh Precinct, who smokes between one and two packs a day and was, she says, "sick and tired of the government telling me how to live my life." Under Silk's leadership, CLASH has opposed the ban on smoking in restaurants, fought proposals to raise the tax on cigarettes, and...