- Academics say conservation of biodiversity does not benefit the poor. Maybe they’re talking about the wrong kind of biodiversity?
- Innovation of the Week: Feeding Communities by Focusing on Women. I think my irony detector may be on the fritz.
- All you ever wanted to know about farm subsidies in the US. h/t Food Politics.
- The Bittersweet Dreams of Uruguay’s Beekeepers. Sad.
- State microbes! Really fun, and informative. Any better ideas?
- More microbes: The evolution of nitrogen fixation. Absolutely fascinating.
- Slideshow on genebanks in southern Africa.
- Pre-Columbian, Polynesian chickens in Chile not Polynesian and probably not pre-Columbian. Blast! Why must fun theories always run up against the brick wall of facts?
- NordGen’s annual report: crops, forests, livestock.
Nibbles: Figs, strawberries, seed bombs, micronutrients^2, conservation, saffron
- Lloyd Kreizter gives a fig. And then some.
- Strawberries for spacepeople?
- Calling all garden guerillas. You can now buy seed bombs.
- Nicola at Edible Geography takes orange-fleshed people to a whole new level.
- BMGF takes photo story of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes to a whole new level.
- How to preserve biodiversity: take a cutting of it.
- Kashmiri saffron is beset on all sides … but help is at hand.
Nibbles: Law, Cuba, Trout
- Two radio programmes to read and/or listen to:
- GE alfalfa in the dock — literally.
- And an interview with Humberto Rios, Goldman Prize winner (and musician who sings the praises of mango diversity!)
- Nicola at Edible Geography does an amazing number on rainbow trout, and much else besides.
Carnival of Evolution
There’s a new edition of the Carnival of Evolution up at Evolution: Education and Outreach, the “official blog” of the journal of that name, and it contains three items of direct interest to agrobiodiversity fans (four if you count our submission, but you’ve already read that, right?).
- Christie Wilcox reminds us that domesticated animals have smaller brains, relative to their body size, than their wild counterparts. Are they actually not as intelligent though?
- Sticking with domestication, Jason Goldman reckons dogs have evolved to take advantage of the existing mechanisms that bond parents to their children. I can vouch for that.
- And the author of Byte Size Biology takes on the gene transfer that sees pea-aphids making for themselves the carotenoids that colour some morphs orange. That’s a first for animal synthesis of carotenoids, essential compounds for healthy human life. Where did the pea aphids get their genes? From a fungus, by means of horizontal gene transfer. which is interesting in itself and also suggests a much simpler and perhaps more acceptable alternative to making transgenic staple crops rich in carotenoids: let’s just stick the gene into people!
Nibbles: Trees, More trees, Crops and trade, Pollination info, Anthocyanins
- Another day, another tree disease threatens the British landscape.
- Some Swedish trees are not doing too well either.
- Seeds of Trade. A virtual book at the NHM. Lots of info on the history of crops.
- What are the pollination needs of a particular crop? FAO will tell you if you ask nicely.
- Purple tea in Kenya. Luigi’s mother-in-law not impressed.