- Man’s best friend helps out again.
- Intellectual Property Watch looks at the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. And they found that it was good. Well, kinda.
- More on predicting the results of climate change on species distributions.
- A nice summary of what agriculture has meant for human genetics. I vote we go back to hunting and gathering.
- New insectarium allows you to eat exhibits. Pass the mopane worms.
- New DNA chip picks out best cows. Daisy unavailable for comment.
- The world’s greatest soybean farmer speaks. Did they serve tofu snacks?
- Had milk?
Nibbles: Sunflowers, Cherries, Red jungle fowl, Sheep, Russia, Kenya, GFU on NUS
- USDA boffins tour Aussie garbage dumps.
- Today’s “Save the British X” (where X=a fruit of your choice) story comes to you from The Times.
- And today’s multiple independent domestications story comes from India.
- And today’s how to boost urban biodiversity? From Brighton, UK.
- Mapping Russian crops and their pests.
- Kenyan government messing with prices to clear wheat market, boost neglected species.
- Our friends at the Global Facilitation Unit (for Neglected and Underutilised Species) have published a book.
Grey horses understood
An easy way to mark yourself as a novice is to call a white horse white. They’re greys. I don’t know why, but there it is. ((Probably specifically to enable horsey types to act superior.)) Today, thanks to a paper in Nature Genetics, I do know why they’re grey. ((Gerli Rosengren Pielberg, Anna Golovko, Elisabeth Sundström, Ino Curik, Johan Lennartsson, Monika H Seltenhammer, Thomas Druml, Matthew Binns, Carolyn Fitzsimmons, Gabriella Lindgren, Kaj Sandberg, Roswitha Baumung, Monika Vetterlein, Sara Strömberg, Manfred Grabherr, Claire Wade, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Fredrik Pontén, Carl-Henrik Heldin, Johann Sölkner, Leif Andersson (2008). A cis-acting regulatory mutation causes premature hair graying and susceptibility to melanoma in the horse Nature Genetics, (), – DOI: 10.1038/ng.185)) Turns out they are over-expressing two genes on horse chromosome 25, thanks to a duplicated bit of DNA 4600 base pairs long. And that’s true in more than 800 greys from 8 different breeds. the duplication has not been found in any non-grey horses.
Greys generally start off with dark hair, but gradually lose the dark pigment, leaving them with white hair and, usually, black-skin. Alas, greys also often develop melanomas that reduce their lifespan, and also show depigmentation of the skin like viteligo in humans. So what’s going on? Leif Andersson and his colleagues suggest that maybe the two genes, called STX17 and NR4A3, may be speeding up the rate of division of pigment cells in the skin and the hair follicles. In the skin, this leads to melanomas. In the hair follicles it depletes the stem cells.
Nibbles: Maize squared, Urban Ag, Traditional farming, Rice, Extension, Training, Pine nuts, Beer, Markets
- More on ancient maize. Old popcorn contains interesting DNA diversity.
- How teosinte became maize.
- Urban Harvest has a new web site. Via.
- Khadin cultivation system contributes to sustainability in Rajasthan.
- Vietnamese farmers helping their African brethren grow rice.
- Agricultural development officer delivers training on village-level seed management, then hands out improved seed.
- Former student waxes lyrical about UP Los Baños.
- Pine nuts.
- Brewing medieval and modern juxtaposed.
- Working out fair trade.
Nibbles: Maize, Climate change, Erosion (not), Bees squared, Cordyceps, Apples, City gardens
- Maize origins investigated.
- Plants climb mountains.
- Rice endures, too.
- “How would our federal government respond if 1 out of every 3 cows was dying?“
- Bees in trouble in India too, but maybe not for same reason.
- We’ve blogged about 冬虫å¤è‰ before, but I personally can never get enough of the stuff.
- Apple breeding bears fruit in India.
- Videos of urban agriculture in Washington DC. Via.