Rice diversity measured and photographed

I did a quick nibble a few days ago about the OryzaSNP project, in which “[a]n international team of investigators used microarray-based resequencing to look for SNPs in 100 million bases of non-repetitive DNA in the genomes of 20 different rice varieties and landraces.”

They’ve come up with 159,879 single nucleotide polymorphisms, a “gold-standard set of curated polymorphisms” for rice.

As for the 20 varieties used…

“[t]hese varieties, the OryzaSNPset collection, are genetically diverse and actively used in international breeding programs because of their wide range of agronomic attributes,” the authors explained.

But what do they look like? Well, I just found this photograph of their seeds on IRRI’s Flickr page. A nice idea.

rice

Making changes

Changemakers is a community of action where we all collaborate on solutions. We know we have the power to solve the world’s most pressing social problems. We’re already doing it, one project, one idea at a time.

How do we do it? We talk about the issues, share stories and mentor, advise, and encourage each other in group forums, even engage in friendly competition. We form surprising connections and unexpected partnerships across the globe that turn the old ways of problem solving upside down. We try things that have never been tried before.

With regard to the competitions, the winners of the one entitled “Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities,” which “aims to find innovative solutions toward improving the quality of life in rural and farming communities,” were announced a few days ago. Alas, none of the three winners, worthy as they undoubtedly are, has an explicit agrobiodiversity focus. But I may be wrong, the descriptions of the projects are rather brief. The entry from the Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme, for example, mentions seed saving.

The latest competition is all about GMOs: “How can we help consumers make better, more informed choices?” You can join the debate, or submit an entry, here. The winner will get a chance to chat with the best-selling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan. There are six weeks left to enter. If you have a new, innovative way to “help consumers become more aware of what they are eating, and discover how their choices will affect health, the environment and society,” have a go!

A Svalbard for animals in the making?

I had somehow missed news earlier this year of a failed (just) attempt to clone the Pyrenean ibex. That’s an extinct subspecies of the Spanish ibex, Capra pyrenaica. I was belatedly alerted to it by a piece in LiveScience about “a new project to store tiny samples of tissue from endangered animals at New York’s natural history museum.”

With room for up to 1 million specimens, the AMNH’s frozen tissue lab currently stores frozen butterflies, frog toes, whale skin and alligator hides, among many other samples, in nitrogen-cooled vats. The collection is used today for conservation research — the genetic information gives clues to the breadth of the animals’ hunting grounds and breeding behaviors. In an agreement signed this month with the National Park Service, the museum will begin storing tissue samples of endangered animals living in the nation’s parks. The first samples — blood from a Channel Islands fox — should be delivered in August, museum officials said.

Maybe they should also include the caribou, “a species historically considered so numerous — and so distant from human activity — that most assumed it was beyond human ability to affect it.” But is perhaps in trouble now. Room for 1 million specimens might not be enough.

Nibbles: Camel sweets, UG99, British woods, Rice, India and climate change, Soay sheep, Fish, Seed fair, Barn owls, Food maps, Earthworms