- US to spend $2.25 million to find out whether preserving biodiversity could reduce disease. We say “what, no ag? Again?”
- Fancy a fig?
- Mud pot formulation brings unbelievable benefits.
- More small is beautiful: artisanal weed. Via.
- Meet the Tom-Anto.
Deciding what to grow
It seems that high food prices have reached Bolivia, but not Saratoga, CA.
Frankincense and disharmonic energy fields
One of the more amazing travel experiences I had when I was working in the Middle East was to drive from Muscat through most of Oman to Salalah, the capital of the province of Dhofar, in the south of the country. You drive on and on for ten and more hours through desert, mile after mile of barren sand and rock. Then you go over a slight rise, and suddenly drop down an escarpment into a lush landscape of thickly forested slopes: the crescent-shaped mountains of Dhofar block the rain-laden clouds of the monsoon for months.
The leaward lip of that escarpment is the home of the frankincense tree, Boswellia sacra, the start of famous trade routes to the Mediterranean and India. And such pleasant recollections were prompted by an article in the NY Times on how frankincense “has the ability to generate this really powerful force field that has been shown to be able to neutralize and transmute what we call disharmonic energy fields.” Right. Let’s hope that New Yorkers’ demand for such force fields doesn’t lead to overexploitation.
Catfish blues
Interesting ichthyological juxtaposition today in the old feed reader. While kids scour the few, small remaining pools of water for catfish in a parched Botswana, over in a specially stocked lake in Thailand, sports anglers catch a giant dog-eating catfish. ((And these things can get pretty big.)) I really like the idea of Lake Monster, where anglers can come and pit their wits, and strength, against those of some of the biggest — and rarest — of freshwater fish. Nice way to take pressure off the natural populations, while assembling an artificial fish diversity hotspot for study purposes. I guess a botanical equivalent would be the gardens of medicinal herbs established by and for traditional healers.
Nibbles: Mongolia, Fruit & veg, Lima bean, Biofuels, Peyote, Permaculture, Extension
- Isgelen tarag. You heard me.
- Eat up all your vegetables, Timmy.
- Breeding a better Lima bean.
- Kenya will regret its failure to protect the environment. Wangari Maathai against (specific) biofuels.
- Lophophora williamsii showing classic signs of overexploitation.
- “I have been trying to be very friendly to soil worms…They are our friends.”
- Using radio soap operas in extension.