Bamboo charcoal oolong tea? I wanna try it.
MegaFishes Project
National Geographic has project to save world’s biggest freshwater fishes.
How the cat became a pet
A DNA study of almost a thousand wild and domestic cats from around the world is helping to unravel the evolutionary history of this most numerous of household pets. There are five wild subspecies of nearest-relatives, including one in the Near East, from which all domesticated cats are derived, though there has been subsequent hybridization of house cats with local wild populations here and there. Modern cat breeds can trace their origin to at least five mothers domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around the same time as agriculture started, over 9,000 years ago. And, coincidentally, there’s news also today of archaeological evidence from nearby Cyprus backing up that date.
Pacific foods data tables
Hyperactive nutritionist and dear friend Lois Englberger in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia tells me that the Community Food Data Tables of their Pohnpei case study have now been posted on the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) website. Pohnpei was one of the twelve case studies in the global health and indigenous foods project led by CINE’s Prof. Harriet Kuhnlein. There’s background information and the main findings of the Pohnpei study based in Mand, a list of the research team members, as well as photos of Karat (banana), Meikole (seeded breadfruit variety), Simihden (well-liked giant swamp taro variety), pandanus and fish liver. Yummie.
Potato pest heads west
Globodera pallida cysts. Cysts are the egg-engorged bodies of dead female nematodes. Eventually, the cysts dislodge from a plant root and the eggs hatch. Image courtesy Zafar Handoo, ARS.
American agricultural scientists have confirmed the presence of the pale potato cyst nematode (Globera pallida) in soil in Idaho. This is the first time it has been reported in the US, although it has been in Canada for at least a year. The report from USDA makes much of the skilled science needed to distinguish G. pallida from a close relative, the tobacco cyst nematode, (G. tabacum), and we applaud that. What it doesn’t say is that economic losses amount to roughly 2 tonnes per hectare for every 20 eggs per gram of soil. Total losses can approach 80% in the case of heavy infestations. the main means of control is to grow resistant varieties. In the UK this resulted in the rise of Maris Piper, a potato that, in my opinion, is little better than wet blotting paper.