- Neanderthals cooked and ate plants, but did not use toothbrushes.
- Andy Jarvis talks up a crop wild relatives storm.
- Towards an information infrastructure for the global genebank system. Maybe.
- Aussies send seeds to wrong Global Seed Vault.
- Oldest winery found in Armenia. Search still ongoing for oldest wino. Maybe in Lebanon?
- Oh, to be at the Bigleaf Maple Syrup Festival!
- The most important thing to happen in botany in, what, a couple of weeks? Ah, but the backlash is here.
- Colbert finally works out why his high school teacher put condoms on bananas. Here’s his informant.
Nibbles: Sudan, Quinoa, Book, Nutrition, Research
- Interesting take on Sudan’s vote; the South has the water, and yet, currently, the food insecurity. What next?
- Quinoa “isn’t lifting us out of poverty … But we are living better.”
- Agrobiodiversity Management for Food Security: A Critical Review. Book, due in April. h/t PAR.
- US seed industry concentration continues. Through an intellectual property lens.
- New IFPRI publication on agriculture, nutrition, health. “Agriculture is the only realistic way for most people to get the nutrition they need.” Can I get a “ramen”?
- USD32 million “to harness science to improve food security for millions of people in the developing world”. Get some while it lasts.
Nibbles: Squash etc, Potatoes, Economics, Pharaonic palm, goats, Chickpea
- Native American eating “best museum cafeteria in town”. “Makes up for the museum,” sniffs Jeremy
- Catalog of advanced clones and improved varieties going like hot potatoes.
- The Economic Impact of Bioversity is apparently “a seriously problem-rich, solution-craving topic”. Innovation Investment Journal says so.
- Pharaonic palm not immortal. Medemia argun “critically endangered”.
- Goat lineage diversity delineated. Paywalled.
- Chickpea diversity includes variability in resistance to salinity. Paywalled.
More on participatory breeding
Speaking of different approaches to breeding, one of the speakers at last year’s tri-societies meeting in Long Beach, California, sent me a link to the session on Participatory Plant Breeding for Food Security and Conservation of Agrobiodiversity. 1 This is very cool technology; given a reasonable internet connection you can hear the talks — and watch the slides, if you’re so minded — of six of the speakers. I listened to the first talk, by Cal Qualset, and the quality is excellent. I must try to find time for the others over the next few days.
Nibbles: Oranges, Pigs, Roundup, Agave
- The Human Flower Project uses Christmas oranges to teach about diversity and traditional knowledge.
- The New York Times discovered the hairy Hungarian Mangalitsa pig … so it must be real.
- SciDev.net’s highs and lows of 2010.
- “The genetic resources from landraces ignored by the tequila industry may be valuable for both ethanol production and conservation.” Uh-huh. h/t Jacob.