UC Davis is organizing a follow-up to the international symposium held in Aleppo, Syria in 1997 under the name of “The Origins of Agriculture and the Domestication of Crop Plants in the Near East.” Also dedicated to Jack R. Harlan (1917–1998), celebrated agricultural botanist and plant explorer, the 2008 conference is entitled “Biodiversity in Agriculture: Domestication, Evolution, & Sustainability.” If you’re planning to go, how about reporting on the conference for our readers at Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog?
New Tangled Bank
From the latest Tangled Bank blog carnival, a couple of relevant pieces. Felicia gives a personal account of her fascination with honeybees and there’s an account of the domestication of the dog (which I can’t seem to access). Lots more that is interesting, but not relevant to agricultural biodiversity.
Another blogger in China
Looks like Jeremy is not the only foreigner with an interest in agriculture blogging his way around China. Jim Harkness, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy 1 “is blogging from China as he meets with experts on China’s food and farm system.” I wonder if he and Jeremy will meet up somewhere? If they do, I bet it will be at a market or banquet.
Food politics links
There are links to a whole bunch of interesting stuff on “Why our food choices matter” on bookforum.com today.
DNA barcoding takes off
DNA barcoding is based on a gamble (or maybe a shrewd guess), and perhaps a smidgin of circular thinking: that there is a chunk of genome short enough to sequence quickly and cheaply, and which shows just enough variability for the entire sequence to be the same for all members of a species, but different for different species. Well, the gamble seems to have paid off. A suitable bit of a gene has duly been identified for both animals and plants, data are being ammassed, and there’s talk of a portable gadget being available in a few years which will read off the relevant sequence from a bit of leaf or skin or something and compare it with a database to give you the species name right there in the field.