- Representing two centuries of past and future climate for assessing risks to biodiversity in Europe. Temperature up 3-6°C throughout Europe by end of century, rainfall down in south, up in north. Sounds lovely.
- Gourmandizing Poverty Food: The Serpa Cheese Slow Food Presidium. Trying to bring back a lost Portuguese cheese is romantic and elitist. Wish they’d just say what they really mean.
- Genetic diversity of wild grapevine populations in Spain and their genetic relationships with cultivated grapevines. If there’s a genetic contribution of wild grapevines to cultivated in Spain, it’s not great.
- Revisiting the origin of the domestication of noni (Morinda citrifolia L.). Let’s just say Pacific islanders won’t be pleased.
- The desert and the sown: Nomad–farmer interactions in the Wadi Faynan, southern Jordan. Changes from sedentarism to pastoralism are mainly due to chance.
- Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni, source of a high-potency natural sweetener: A comprehensive review on the biochemical, nutritional and functional aspects. Not just sweetness, folic acid, vitamin C and all of the indispensable amino acids except tryptophan too.
- Gene flow among wild and domesticated almond species: insights from chloroplast and nuclear markers. The main insight being that it happens a lot, in both directions.
- Agricultural Technology, Crop Income, and Poverty Alleviation in Uganda. New peanut varieties increase incomes and reduce poverty, but aren’t enough on their own.
- Plant diversity improves protection against soil-borne pathogens by fostering antagonistic bacterial communities. It sure does, at least in a long-term grassland.
Nibbles: Sunflower breeding, Indian cows, New varieties and income, Climate change and extinction, Honeybee threat, Figs, Apple history, DIY Luffa, IRRI DDG blog
- The Russian sunflowers are coming! The Russian sunflowers are coming!
- Holy cow! Can’t do better than The Hindu’s headline. And more.
- CIMMYT says groundnut varieties good for income. ICRISAT unavailable for comment.
- But are they climate-proof?
- Because it could be worse than we thought for many species. And more. And what it means for in situ.
- The latest on what’s killing bees.
- The fig, in all its recondite glory.
- Apples of France, Part Deux.
- All you ever wanted to know about growing your own luffa.
- IRRI DDG tries his hand at growing a rice crop. And blogs about it to boot. A nice idea, which should be widely emulated in the CG.
Parmigiano Reggiano on the wheel
I’m not sure how widely known it is that the two recent earthquakes in northern Italy, apart from the tragic loss of life, destruction of homes and damage to historical buildings, are also likely to have a significant effect on livelihoods, and not least because of the impact on the production of the iconic cheese of the region, Parmigiano Reggiano. From the Facebook fan page of the consortium of producers, I see that 24 firms are affected, for a total of 300,000 40kg wheels damaged, or 10% of production. The advice of the Consorzio del Parmigiano Reggiano for those who would like to help is to keep buying the stuff. No need to ask me twice.
We’re still off, but …
Too much fun to save for the New Year.
Make of this what you will, hidden-message-wise. Just because I found it on Paul Krugman’s blog doesn’t signify anything.
Mexican dog brainfood
What’s that they say about a little knowledge? I knew the Aztecs ate dogs. I knew they kept a hairless breed of dog. So I naturally assumed they bred the hairless breed for food. So much more convenient not having to deal with all that hair in the kitchen.
Wrong. I’m sure there’s a name for this kind of logical fallacy. Be that as it may, a recent visit to the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum, in Xochimilco, Mexico City, where they keep a pack of that hairless breed, which is called Xoloitzcuintle by the way, quickly disabused me. A notice there points out that the name Xoloitzcuintle makes reference to Xolotl, a god associated with death (among other things). Dogs were supposed to accompany the dead on their way to the next world. Not the done thing to eat them, then, surely. It must have been other breeds that were eaten.
Well, maybe. The Wikipedia article on Xolotl says that “the meat of the Xoloitzcuintle was very much part of the diet of some of the ancient peoples of the region.” There’s no reference for that, though. What seems clear is that there were, indeed, other dog breeds. Many of the representations of dogs don’t really look like the Xoloitzcuintle at all. Squatter and fatter. Dare I say it? Jucier. There are many of them, mainly in pottery, at the museum, though I was not allowed to photograph the ones indoors.
Diego Rivera seems to have had a thing about Aztec dogs, by the way. He painted them a number of times. Here’s an example from the Palacio Nacional mural. Interestingly, though, they look a lot more like the pottery pieces than the actual Xoloitzcuintle specimens roaming around the gardens of his friend Dolores’ house.
