Very sad to hear (belatedly) that Professor Emeritus Charles B. Heiser Jr. of Indiana University passed away on June 11, 2010. He was an extremely influential ethnobotanist, training many distinguished graduate students as well as having many wonderfully informative and entertaining popular books to his name.
Nibbles: Eggplant, Cactus domestication, Berries, Conservation, Drought, Conference, Chaffey, Rice relative, Cornus, Adansonia, Pavlovsk, Genebanks, Dams
- How can you do Eggplant’s Rich History and not wonder why this generally huge, generally purple thing is called an eggplant?
- Domestication of the Gray Ghost Organ Pipe cactus; exceedingly complex. Oh and there’s a cool photo here.
- How berries protect the brain from age-related malfunction. Are you listening, Dmitry?
- Protect medicinal plants, says letter-writer.
- The world doesn’t understand drought tolerance, says another letter-writer.
- Agrobiodiversity in Mesoamerica conference.
- Chaffey’s Plant Cuttings from Annals of Botany. Must-read stuff.
- A wild relative contributes trait for early morning flowering to rice, allowing it to escape sterility induced by high temperatures.
- The Cornelian Cherry and the Baobab explained.
- Voice of America devotes Special English report to Pavlovsk. If that ain’t viral, what is?
- Genebanks on a roll in China. In Australia, not so much.
- Dam dataset online. Let the mashups proliferate.
Nibbles: Agretti, Pavlovsk, Nutrition, Turkeys
- The Ethicurean digs into agretti (Salsola soda).
- Pavlovsk in the St Petersburg Times …
- … and in the Sydney Morning Herald.
- Conference in November: Nutrition Security in the Developing World ABD?.
- CIAT’s library showcases nutrition.
- More on turkey domestication.
Dog diversity decoded
Look at the extraordinary photos by Tim Flach in the slide gallery here. 1 Then read this account of a new paper that examines relatively simple genetic diversity that underlies the extraordinary morphological diversity of dogs. Or do it the other way. Then marvel.
Nibbles: GM canola, Maize, Conference, Chefs, Prices
- GM canola goes wild, Jeremy is not surprised
- More — much more — on maize cultivation in Chaco Canyon.
- Conference in London on Securing Future Food. Agrobiodiversity should be present.
- Chefs embrace agrobiodiversity — in Maine.
- Price spikes: climate change or knee-jerk policies? (Both?)