- Chocolate made from camel milk for the first time. And last?
- “Slow rusting” genes from Ethiopian wheat landraces.
- Brits (and Yanks, for that matter) look for ancient trees in woodlands becoming ever less distinctive.
- The world needs GM rice, but alas “the environment for accepting genetically modified crops is not as good as it should be.” Meanwhile, IRRI keeps hammering away at drought tolerance and resistance to other assorted stresses. It’s hard being rice.
- ICAR looks at the likely effects of climate change on crops and what can be done about it.
- Climate change making Soay sheep (and, incidentally, European fish too) not just smaller, also darker. Speaking of fish, there’s trouble in the Zambezi too, but not necessarily due to climate change. Although…
- A Greek seed bazaar.
- FAO turns to barn owls to stop Laotian rodent plague.
- US food policy destinations on Google Maps.
- Vermicomposting is good news for the Indian textile industry. Vermicomposting: I like saying that word.
Commensal’s parasite driving human diversity?
So let me get this right. The parasite Toxoplasma gondii changes the behaviour of the rats it infects when they eat cat faeces by making said rats less scared of cats, which makes them more liable to be eaten by said cats, which is good for said parasite as it helps it complete its life cycle. More than weird enough. But the little bugger also affects the behaviour of the humans it infects, and may contribute to cultural diversity? Get outta here!
Nibbles: Pigs, Spices, Climate change in Britain
- Great photos of swimming pigs.
- Great photos of Indian spice market.
- British agriculture to go Mediterranean.
Featured: Breeding perennial grains
The article on perennials was really good, particularly the summary of what has been done. I just wish it wasn’t in ISIS. If the Land Institute wants to accomplish anything in the greater scheme of things, they have to crawl out of the holier than thou organic only everyting else be dammed mindset or they’ll just keep being ignored by mainstream breeders. It’s sad, really. We all need to work together.
Well why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Anastasia?
Connecting through food
In Bittersweet, a new column on GlobalPost, Matt McAllester writes about how food connects us and the people who cook it to faraway lands.
Last month he went looking for wild boar meat in Baghdad. Obviously like to set himself ambitious targets, our Matt. Anyway, well worth a read. Unfortunately you can’t subscribe to his stuff alone, but GlobalPost is an excellent general news site.