Archaeology

Nibbles: Detecting diseases, Better bees, Millet milestone, Passenger pigeon, Land rights, Mongol mayhem, Jumping genes

Sensors for volatile organic compounds will detect crop diseases for ya. Then a drone comes in and zaps them?
Breeding better bees.
“So why not simply replace the traditional variety with Dhanshakti?” Answers on a postcard, please.
Bringing back the passenger pigeon.
The impact of land rights around the world. Including on conservation of agricultural biodiversity?
What the Mongols ate, and how we know it. Some millet. Maybe some passenger pigeons. Interesting concept of land rights.
Sorry we’re one day late celebrating Barbara McClintock’s birthday.

Move over Juan Valdez. Cacao farmers want to emulate a marketing icon.
Urban agriculture not all it’s cracked up to be. Living up to that urban ag icon, Cuba, is hard.
Bali’s iconic, traditional subaks are a complex adaptive system, and much better than modern rice farming alternatives. Makes you wonder why they need protecting, though.
GM bananas will save us. Not by themselves they wont. I don’t know why I keep linking to this stuff. Nothing at all iconic about it.
Iconic taxonomic revision tools online.
Something else that’s online is a bunch of tools for analyzing genebank data. Soon to be iconic, no doubt. As soon as people use them. So get cracking.
Huge BBC documentary on Kew coming up. I bet the iconic Millennium Seed Bank will feature.
Speaking of iconic genebank buildings, today’s one comes from Australia.
The history of an iconic Middle Easter tree?
The philosophy of an iconic Italian delicacy. Well, Neapolitan, really.
And in honour of the World Cup (I refuse to put FIFA in front, let them sue me), an iconic Brazilian dish. And don’t worry, those beans are safe. Somewhere iconic.

Neolithic farmers spread into Europe by sea.
And it looks like the ones who got to Crete eventually gave rise to the Minoans.
And ate food not unlike what Cretans ate up to a hundred years ago.
Well of course the olive is important to all that.
Ten thousand years later, we find that organic is an impossible dream.
And Fairtrade may or may not work.
But value chains will make you free. Although that’s easier said than done.
And you have to be climate-smart to boot. Really, who’d be a farmer, in the Neolithic or now.

“Productivism” skewered one last time. Until the next time.
The Malagasy Bean Renaissance. No, really.
The science of beer foam. Now there’s no excuse.
Cocktails can be biodiverse too. You bet they can.
CIAT’s new strategy makes a splash. Genebank front and centre.
New ICIPE director tells all. She used to work at CIAT, did you know?
First edition of The State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources is out. Now to do something about it.
Italy’s traditional rices preserved. Yes, Italy’s, you heard me.
Agriculture was invented in the current interglacial. Why then, and not in the Eemian?
Quinoa macronutrients exzzzzzzzamined.
Your what-to-do-now guide to the medieval farm. Progress? Not what it’s cracked up to be.
People of the Toluca valley! Expect researchers looking for wild potato genes resistant to late blight.

Conditions at the dawn of Fertile Crescent agriculture were wetter and more, well, fertile. Been downhill ever since.
Digitizing land data may not be good for women.
European agricultural policies bad for diets.
Africa will continue to face droughts. Looks like nobody can catch a break today.
Ah, ok, here’s something good. Italian rice a hit in China. Gotta get your victories where you can.
And some feel-good stuff on cowpea research in Mozambique.
And to conclude our return from the slough of despond, some encouraging news about forest restoration.