- Natural history collections important in monitoring biodiversity and engaging public interest. Well I never.
Nibbles: Indian potatoes, IUCN report, Climate change and disease
- The history of the potato at Shimla.
- Lots of Mediterranean mammals in trouble, including wild relatives of domesticated species.
- SciDev rounds up the science on climate change and diseases. Human diseases, that is, but much also applies to those of crops and livestock.
Norman Borlaug R.I.P.
Agriculture pioneer Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, dies at 95.
War of the roses
The oldest written testimony of the use of roses by humans originates from Mesopotamia. In the royal graves of Uruk, the cultural centre of the Sumerians (now ruins called Warka, in southern Iraq), Sir Leonard Wolley found cuneiform-script texts reporting on warfare by Sargon of Akkad (24th century BC) whose empire reached from western Persia to Asia Minor. Akkad crossed the Taurus mountains and brought back grapevines, figs, and roses…
Nibbles: Chicory symbolism, Watermelon disease, Olive documentation, Camassia quamash, Pig maps
- Chicory averts evil. Gotta get me some.
- Genebank watermelon material reveals sources of resistance to WVD caused by SqVYV. What?
- Israelis, Palestinians and Germans collaborate on DNA fingerprinting and quality evaluation of olive trees. Wait, what? Scroll down.
- Genetic structure of Native American food plant not really affected by Native Americans. This is the bulb that kept Lewis & Clark alive, apparently.
- Tracing Paper compares hog distribution in 1922 and now, finds little difference.