- The latest on the Pristine Myth of the Amazon. And how to protect it.
- Rice going nuclear in Bangladesh.
- NYC gets a chocolate museum.
- What is biodiversity? Answers on a postcard, please…
- Maybe robots can help with that.
- Crops for the Future gets the Virginia Gewin treatment.
- Sheep domestication in half a page.
Sweet day
On this fine day, meet Dr Janaki Ammal…
By manipulating polyploid cells through cross-breeding of hybrids in the laboratory, Janaki was able to create a high yielding strain of the sugarcane that would thrive in Indian conditions. Her research also helped analyse the geographical distribution of sugarcane across India, and to establish that the S. Spontaneum variety of sugarcane had originated in India.
…India’s first woman PhD in botany, and a pioneer in the use of wild relatives in sugarcane breeding.
An incredible woman who spent her life in the pursuit of science, Janaki Ammal believed that it was through her work that she should be remembered. So, the next time you use a spoonful of sugar grown by an Indian sugarcane farmer, remember that you are it was Dr Janaki Ammal who added that extra bit of sweetness!
CIAT blogging roundup
I paid tribute to the late great Hans Rosling in my recent post over at the work blog, but CIAT did it better. See also their very enjoyable pean to a bean explorer who is thankfully very much alive, though nearing retirement. And think about joining them.
Brainfood: ABS data, Spanish chestnuts, Norwegian CWR, Bambara genome, AnGR, Jakar sheep decline, Ashanti pig, Bactris biopiracy, Avocado core, Brassicacea phylogeny
- Access and Benefit Sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity and Its Protocol: What Can Some Numbers Tell Us about the Effectiveness of the Regulatory Regime? That not much has happened. Between 1996 and 2015, out of the 14 countries with ABS legislation in force, 2 agreements for commercial researches per year.
- Genetic monitoring of traditional chestnut orchards reveals a complex genetic structure. The diversity in Spain is in the rootstocks.
- Climate change and national crop wild relative conservation planning. Well, for Norway anyway.
- Integrating genetic maps in bambara groundnut [Vigna subterranea (L) Verdc.] and their syntenic relationships among closely related legumes. Synteny to the rescue.
- Stakeholder involvement and the management of animal genetic resources across the world. Breeders’ associations and cooperatives are the key.
- Decline of Jakar sheep population in pastoral communities of Bhutan: A consequence of diminishing utility, alternate income opportunities and increasing challenges. It’s the fault of the caterpillar fungus.
- Origin and phylogenetic status of the local Ashanti Dwarf pig (ADP) of Ghana based on genetic analysis. It’s a bit of a mongrel.
- Genetic analysis identifies the region of origin of smuggled peach palm seeds. Genebank confirms biopiracy.
- Genetic Structure and Selection of a Core Collection for Long Term Conservation of Avocado in Mexico. 36 of 318 accessions recover 80% of total alleles, which seems a bit low.
- Genome sequencing supports a multi-vertex model for Brassiceae species. More than just “triangle of U”.
Featured: Pea hell
Dirk has the answer to Pea Genebank Database Hell:
A simple solution would be to agree on a set of prefixes that unequivocally identify each collection preserving those already widely accepted and then to clean up the passport data to link up potential duplicates. The 53674 Pisum accessions in Genesys could possibly be compacted to 1/10
Which is hopefully what DOI will do, though whether it will be possible to apply them retroactively, so to speak, is another question.