Prof. David Harris, one of the giants of the study of the origins of agriculture, died during the holiday period. He was Professor Emeritus of Human Environment at the Institute of Archaeology (UCL) and a former director of the institute (1989-1996). Dorian Fuller, a friend and colleague at the institute, has an informative and touching piece about Prof. Harris on his blog. The comments there, and on my re-posting of Dr Fuller’s piece (see below), are ample evidence of Prof. Harris’ impact and legacy.
Nibbles: Potato journeys, European collections, European bees, Wheat breeding, Mountains, Forest restoration, Tall trees, Symbioses, Guanaco reintroduction, Plant genomes, Improving GBIF, 2 sides of beef
- The European encounter with the potato. A Google Earth tour by Jorge L. Alonso, and really rather fun. In Spanish.
- The European encounter with virtual germplasm collections. AEGIS takes another step.
- The European encounter with the honeybee. Bad news for the latter.
- The European encounter with wheat. Its promiscuity will save us. Wheat’s, that is, not Europe’s. No, wait…
- Nope, mountains will save us. Including Europe’s?
- We should be doing reforestation in discrete patches, not huge swathes. Even on mountains, I suppose.
- But if you want those trees to grow really tall, your options are limited.
- No harm in adding a few fungi though. On the contrary…
- And maybe a few guanacos?
- Well we must have at least one genome piece in Nibbles, mustn’t we? Turns out plants are good models for everything else, including us.
- And one database hell piece too, natch. Some thoughts on improving GBIF. Could be applied to Genesys too, I fear.
- Meat: One side, and the other.
Nibbles: Pig evolution, Genomics field guide, Genome editing, Chilean agroecology training, Oxford Farming Conferences, Grape variety database, Food prices database, Amazonian history, Debunking tomatoes, INFOODS NUS list, Coptic gardens, Aid agencies map
The catching up continues:
- “Genomics is a powerful tool…”: Pigs speciate, admix, fly.
- But in the wrong hands…
- I wonder which types of hands these genome editors have.
- Ok, enough of that. Women, agroecology, capacity building, a fashionable country: what’s not to like?
- I wonder if any of the ladies are at the Oxford Real Farming Conference. Or were. They were probably NOT at the Oxford Farming Conference. Oh the wit of these alternative farming types. You could have followed both on Twitter, were you so minded, and less confused than I.
- Chile — for it is she — of course grows a lot of grapes. Want to know which varieties? Course you do.
- Damn, grapes not included in this World Bank crowd-sourced food price dataset. Which I think we may have linked to before, but what the hell.
- I know we’ve linked to ancient Amazonian civilization stuff before, but this is a predictive model, no less.
- Busted: The tomato.
- The INFOODS “List of underutilized species contributing to the Nutritional Indicators for Biodiversity” is out. Prices not included.
- I somehow thought there would be more underutilized species in this Ethiopian monastery.
- Who pays for (some of) this? Check out the Guardian’s interactive map of European development agencies.
Nibbles: Information, Domestication, Cats, Conference, Gunpowder gardening, Policy advice, Potatoes, Ancient vineyards, New UG99, Bovine emissions, Cacao ants, Palaeo-diet, Bloody quinoa, Tokyo’s honey, Urban biodiversity, Ilex, Conifers
- Wow! Just wow. Big Picture Agriculture has launched an incredibly useful website.
- Chromosomes, crops and superdomestication, a slideshare presentation by Pat Heslop-Harrison.
- Cats, domesticated? Not as far as I’m concerned. Still, Ancient Chinese cats ate rats, leading to their domestication.
- Independent plant breeders, a conference just for you.
- Great ammunition for the lazy gardener.
- IBPES told to “tap the wisdom of indigenous peoples”.
- Kenyan policymakers told to consider the potato.
- Basque vineyards of a millennium ago.
- A new strain of UG99 wheat rust? But this time, the world is ready.
- Variable diets linked to variable emissions shock.
- scidev.net reports that ants protect cacao trees from fungal diseases. (Yes, I’m taking short cuts here.)
- Palaeolithic people preferred nutrition-rich places.
- And quinoa remains as confusing as ever.
- Tokyo’s local honey.
- Although agriculture barely features in a paean to urban biodiversity. It should.
- The holly and the coffee: The Botanist in the Kitchen does Yerba Maté
- Ready for the inevitable ennui of next Christmas, a taxonomy of conifers.
Nibbles: Cranberry, Apple, Quail
Obviously it is going to take a while to get back up to cruisin’ speed, so we’ll start slow before we accelerate back to the future and attempt to catch up.
- Ready to amuse at the next Thanksgiving, a history of the cranberry.
- Ready for the next apple you eat (or, in my case, run from), a history of Granny Smith.
- Ready for bankruptcy? A recent history of quail farming in Kenya.