Category: Featured

Jacob tackles tipping points:

I think that an explosion of local varieties, for instance, could count as variance amplification. An increase in variety names could be due to a fragmented knowledge system with lots of redundancies (the same variety having different names in different places) as farmers fail to trace each variety. At a given moment, the names become meaningless. This can then lead to genetic erosion, as farmers fail to find certain varieties due to the name confusion. Less common varieties that survive by going from hand to hand will be the first to go extinct. Has anyone observed this?

Well, has anyone observed this? Read the full comment, there’s also stuff in there about why a locally-based “genetic erosion monitoring portal” wouldn’t be much use.

Cary explains realpolitik:

[S]oybean is not included in Annex I of the Treaty. In the negotiations, the Chinese objected to its inclusion and thus blocked consensus, and without consensus it dropped off the list.

Is it important that soybean is not on the list? We await enlightenment.

Ravi, an engineer from India, stands ready to offer training in value-added coconut products:

Instead of begging to government, farmers should concentrate on other value added products (except toddy) from coconut, but where [is] know how available, proper training for commercial production,marketting tie up & finance? [T]hese are few questions standing before coconut growers of India. I am ready to do this job by establishing a training centre for coconut products manufacturing. Please provide the know how on coconut sugar and assistance/gran[t] to establish the centre.

Can anyone help?

A major row breaks out over the Church of the Bio-Geek.

tai haku gets in an early jab:

I’ll be honest and admit I found the glass flowers slightly underwhelming.

Mary parries:

That’s funny, that’s pretty much how I felt about the mammal room. It smelled of formaldehyde, and was the sort of standard and underwhelming collection of roadkill under glass that I did expect.

tai haku comes back for more:

The mammal room was “interesting”. … I suspect the place is probably quite tight for funds – I’d love to have access to that collection and a huge dollop of cash to make the place over, it has the makings of a fabulous facility.

And there we leave them. What’s your view?

Not a comment, a reminder.

Jeremy says: If you want to influence the layout of our home page, you need to vote on the poll below the picture before it closes later today. At the moment it looks like we’ll be increasing the number of full posts slightly.