It seems that capsaicin, the stuff that gives hot peppers their zing, prevents immature fat cells developing into the fully-fledged sort. At least in laboratory experiments – but at levels not unlike those found in the stomachs of people who’ve just eaten a Thai meal. So, rather than jogging today, I’m going for a curry.
Unchaining cassava in Africa
Via “Timbuktu Chronicles,” a fascinating blog by Emeka Okafor about African entrepreneurship and innovation, comes a link of a 2005 Common Fund for Commodities paper on the development of the market for cassava in Africa. The bottom line seems to be that the commodity chain needs to be strengthened and supported by appropriate and sustainable services. Given the cassava boom that has been sweeping Nigeria of late, that may in fact have happened since the paper was written. Other recent entries on Emeka’s blog look at honey and community genebanks. This RSS feed is going straight into my reader.
Non-wood forest products information
You may remember I blogged recently about a couple of FAO news resources, on plant breeding and on biotechnology. I just want to mention today a third: FAO’s Non-Wood Forest Products Digest, the focus of which is pretty self-explanatory. You can subscribe to it here((FAO’s link is broken.)) (there does not seem to be an RSS feed), thereby joining 1300 other people around the world. The website also has past issues. It comes around by email a couple of times a month, and it has the introductory text of articles, announcements etc., with links to the full pieces.
CABI blogs seed storage
“Hand picked…and carefully sorted” is where CABI’s content specialists go to blog. I came across it only when they linked to our water hyacinth story of a couple of weeks back, but it looks like it’s been going since November last year at least. Exploring the plant sciences stuff, I came across two pieces on seed conservation which make an interesting juxtaposition: this entry on indigenous methods of seed conservation in Bangladesh, which includes a CABI video, and this on the Svalbard International Seed Vault. Entries often have links to CABI publications and there is an RSS feed. Really great stuff.
Audible Darwin
It is easy to forget sometimes that The Origin of Species actually starts with a lengthy discussion of genetic diversity in crops, ornamentals, livestock and pets, although of course Darwin doesn’t call it that. He calls it “variation under domestication,” and you can now hear his seminal words, by downloading 24 hours’ worth of audio files from here. There’s a also a link to an e-text of the book.