(courtesy photo/used under Creative Commons license)

*Troubling information as Michigan charges into gardening season: “Heavy use of the world’s most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson’s, infertility and cancers, according to a new study.”

*An analysis of financial results found that people who choose to earn two-year degrees at for-profit colleges (think University of Phoenix) aren’t doing any better than those who stopped their education after high school:

“‘Those who graduated with associate degrees from for-profit colleges earned, on average, $425 per week, which was statistically indistinguishable from the $388 earned weekly by those who held only high-school diplomas.’”

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*Gov. Rick Snyder’s been connected to the idea of creating public schools that can handle students for as little as $5,000 per year. OK, everyone likes efficiency and if there’s value to be had, then go get it.

Snyder has a bit of credibility problem on this front, though. His family uses a private school that, via a promotional video, is telling potential contributors that $20,000 per student is not enough for a quality education.

*Just in time for the release of the latest “Star Trek” film, a scientist thinks a new take on an old equation could eventually lead to a practical “warp drive” – a technology to side-step the barrier of the speed of light and open the galaxy for exploration.

“‘Remember, nothing locally exceeds the speed of light, but space can expand and contract at any speed,’ White told io9. ‘However, space-time is really stiff, so to create the expansion and contraction effect in a useful manner in order for us to reach interstellar destinations in reasonable time periods would require a lot of energy.’”

*Led by a Michigan man, a group is trying to use branches off of redwood trees to create new colonies across the globe.

David Milarch of Copemish told the Associated Press: “This is a first step toward mass production. We need to reforest the planet; it’s imperative. To do that, it just makes sense to use the largest, oldest, most iconic trees that ever lived.”

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