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Michigan is expected to bring in a record-setting apple crop this year. So how do you sort and package 2,000 Galas in a minute? Farmers have turned to the Rolls Royce of fruit processing: a robot that uses computer vision to weed out the bad apples.

Michigan Rep. John Dingell has spent a record-setting 57 years, five months and 26 days in Congress. What hasn't lasted that long? The moon program and two U.S. states (sort of), to name a few.

Inspecting seafood for safety hazards is currently the job of the Food and Drug Administration. But U.S. catfish producers want the Department of Agriculture involved, too. Critics say it's just a crackdown on foreign producers who are taking over the U.S. market.

When Twinkies hit the stores again on July 15, their shelf life will be nearly twice as long as it used to be: 45 days. (We were surprised it wasn't longer.) There's a whole lot of food science employed to help the creme-filled cake defy the laws of baked-good longevity.

A bountiful blueberry crop this summer means lower prices. That's welcome news for consumers, but might spell trouble for blueberry farmers.

By the standard of normal golfing mortals, Tiger Woods has had an incredible summer. He's won multiple tournaments and millions of dollars in prize money. What he didn't do was win any of golf's four major championships. And those major wins are his measure of success.

When the swirling, howling winds of the 1930s Dust Bowl gobbled up farmland from Texas to the Dakotas, the federal government planted 100 million trees to act like a giant windbreak. It worked. But now, after years of drought, those old trees are dying.

China runs the largest censorship machine in human history, researchers say. But Harvard studies of Internet postings in China suggest that even vitriolic criticisms of leaders and state policies are not what officials want to censor.

The website Groklaw, which for 10 years demystified complex issues involving technology and the law, is shutting down. Editor Pamela Jones writes that she can't run the site without email, and that since emails' privacy can't be guaranteed, she can no longer do the site's work.

There are many ways to look at civil war: ethnic factions, economic divides and religions differences. But increasingly, some say we should also look at climate change as a factor as well, as it is often what forces internal migrations in nations already simmering with ethnic and sectarian tensions.