Archaeology

September 10, 2008September 11, 2008

Nibbles: Favas, Olives, Insects, Beer, Hallucinogen

UK breeders scour ICARDA’s fava beans for better genes. What next? Chianti?
Olive cultivation then and now. An archaeologist speaks.
Entomophagy.
Lager yeast origins.
Salvia divinorum: underutilized no longer.

September 9, 2008September 9, 2008

Nibbles: Yeast, Weeds, Bioprospecting, Iraq, Pine wilt, Vietnam, GM, GM, Insects, Bees, Sheep, Fowl

Boffins to brew Jurassic Park beer.
Boffins fingerprint weeds.
Boffins scour arctic for antifreeze proteins.
Boffins to reclaim Garden of Eden.
Boffins fight to save pines in Europe.
Boffins improve production of rice and fruits in Mekong Delta.
Boffins to spend $US3.5billion on GM in China.
Boffin “disgraces himself”.
Boffin says insects are agrobiodiversity too.
Boffin wants you to plant sunflowers and count bees. Other boffins dig up evidence of bliblical beekeeping.
Boffins find endogenous retroviruses in sheep different to ones in wild relatives. Via.
Boffins kill beautiful theory about pre-Columbian chickens with ugly fact.

August 29, 2008August 29, 2008

Nibbles: Amazon, Aquaculture, Bees, ICTs, Food prices, Dates, Cats, Taro

Not so pristine after all.
Farming the sturgeon.
Colony Collapse Disorder 101. And how floral scents affect pollinator behaviour.
Presentation on how mobile phones are changing rural livelihoods.
Urban food gardens to combat high food prices in South Africa. And a different approach in Madagascar.
Getting dates in Saudi Arabia is becoming difficult.
“Winged” cats.
The importance of taro in Hawaii. Thanks, Tevita.

August 20, 2008August 20, 2008

Nibbles: Ag origins, MSV origins, Land origins, Art,

Podcast on the origins, history and future of agriculture. “Three annual grasses explain history.” “Wheat domesticated humans.” Etc. Richard Manning gives good value.
The origin of Maize Streak Virus explored.
Changes in Dutch agricultural land. More diversity in land use over time.
More ag art. Via.

August 19, 2008August 20, 2008

Nibbles: Hemp, Galip, Fort Collins, Dwarf cows, Persephone, Atolls

No member of the plant kingdom has ever been so willfully and stubbornly misunderstood.
EU funds US$ 300 million to develop galip nut (Canarium indicum) in New Britain.
Happy Birthday, Fort Collins.
First, pocket pigs. Now, mini-cows. Watch our hits go through the roof.
The story of the mother who went to Hell to protect her daughter.
Kiribati to get atoll agriculture development centre. But where will they put it?

Fresh Nibbles

What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…

Published on April 4, 2025