More appreciation of the late Rosa Naipo Kambuou and her work on the diversity of the Pacific’s crops, especially banana.
Another use for taro leaves
This is a new one on me. Hanging out on Instagram, I came across this photo by Bea Misa Crisostomo, self-confessed “plant bore.”
Had never heard of fermented taro leaves made into a patty like this. Apparently “anishi” is a Nagaland delicacy, and can be made from yam leaves too. Incidentally, “gabi” seems to be the word for taro in the Philippines, rather than India, where the word “aravi” is more commonly used. But there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that anishi is an Indian dish.
Outstanding Papers in Plant Genetic Resources 2014
…early this month the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) has selected the paper ‘Improving Hierarchical Clustering of Genotypic Data via Principal Component Analysis’ for the 2014 award for ‘Outstanding Papers in Plant Genetic Resources’.
The paper is the result of a collaboration between Biometris and the Centre for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands (CGN): “The result of these two worlds meeting is influential science and efficiently managed germplasm.” Congratulations to Thomas Odong and his co-authors.
Lots of old book illustrations now online
A Yahoo research fellow at Georgetown University, Kalev Leetaru, extracted over 14 million images from 2 million Internet Archive public domain eBooks that span over 500 years of content. Because we have OCR’d the books, we have now been able to attach about 500 words before and after each image. This means you can now see, click and read about each image in the collection. Think full-text search of images!
Very cool. Interested in sheep breeds, say? Go crazy.
Nibbles: Prof Brian Cox is cool, GRAIN vs Gates, Fragaria law suit, Central Asian fruits, Ecoagriculture, Forage breeding risk, WPC 2014, Nutrition trifecta, MSB funding, European seedsters support IT
- Final Human Universe episode features Svalbard Global seed Vault.
- GRAIN objects to where Gates Foundation spends its money. Nobody much cares.
- Latest on that UC Davis strawberry breeding programme debacle.
- Yes, bears do shit (apple seeds) in the woods. And some context.
- A conference for the hippy in all of us.
- The dark side of pasture breeding. Super-weed, I am your father!
- World Parks Congress on soon too.
- No access to healthy food? Use your mobile! Watch a video! Grow traditional crops!
- Toyota funds the Millennium Seed Bank.
- ESA supports the ITPGRFA. Speak Up For Seed!