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Nibbles: Cotton, Citrus, Fig, Permaculture, Turtles, Wine, Cacao, Fish
- Wild cotton use lands prize for boffin trio.
- Unesco to protect wild Citrus in India. And read the discussion.
- IV International Symposium on Fig.
- Permaculture: The Podcast.
- The NY Times thinks Americans should eat fewer turtles. And drink more South African wine.
- Meanwile, the WSJ gets into single-source chocolate.
- Nice map of freshwater fish diversity. But will it last? WWF has a plan.
Surfing for seaweed
I’ve been sick at home for the past few days with what the wife is pleased to refer to as a man-cold but I think is a middling form of bubonic plague: bad enough to keep me from getting out of bed, not bad enough to prevent me surfing the tubes. Anyway, it’s amazing what you can learn when you have the time to follow links to your heart’s content. I won’t go into the details of how I got there, although it was actually rather fun, but anyway, for example, this evening I landed totally serendipitously, after quite a meander from something totally unrelated, on a website of genuine agrobiodiversity interest. It’s about Porphyra. This is a genus of red algae which is very important as food in Japan, where it is know as nori. The Japanese are big eaters of different sorts of seaweed. But Porphyra is the most widely consumed seaweed in the world, and is even farmed. I just had no idea that the stuff you wrap around sushi comes from one (ok, maybe two) particular species, and one so complicated to grow to boot. I wonder if it will all now go for biofuel.
Nibbles: Peanut butter, Slow Food, Pacific, School, Carnations
- “The legume that giveth can also taketh away.”
- Content Coordinator at Slow Food Nation asks: “Am I a coniglio?“
- Tracing Pacific migrations through stomach bugs.
- Rethinking school lunch.
- “There is still a stigma to the flower.†Er, yes, and your point is?
Fowl play
The Rai3 TV programme Geo&Geo had a great little piece last night on AIRPA, which stands for Allevatrici Italiane Razze Pregiate Avicole. That translates as Italian Rearers of Esteemed Breeds of Fowl. But the word for “rearers” is in the feminine form, which means the society is open to women only. The rationale for this is as follows, according to the website: “le donne cercano di vedere le cose dal punto di vista dell’animale, applicano un allevamento compassionevole, solidarietà , maggiore delicatezza.” That is, women try to see things more from the point of view of the animal, and are more compassionate and delicate towards them. That was certainly obvious from the interviews in the programme. Anyway, if you’re interested in a list of fowl breeds in Italy, here it is.