Microbes

January 13, 2009January 12, 2009

Fungi sorted

As part of a new conservation strategy, the UK is to merge two large fungal collections.

There are already 800,000 specimens of mushrooms, puffball, toadstools and micro-fungi kept in the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew, including the specimens collected by Charles Darwin. Some 400,000 collection from the CABI research institute will be added, including a specimen of Sir Alexander Fleming’s penicillin producing culture, 138 specimens of the potato blight organism and the key reference sample of the Dutch elm disease that changed the face of the English landscape in the 1970s.

I guess that must include both preserved and living material, but I could be wrong. What about doing the same rationalization for plant genetic resources collections? Well, one bit of agrobiodiversity at the time, eh?

January 6, 2009January 6, 2009

Nibbles: Journal, Biofuel source, Old seeds, Bees, Aquaculture, Millennium Seed Bank, Pests, Earthworms, Jellyfish, Cuba, Japan, Kerala, Queensland, Goats, Cacao, Savanna, Global maps, Nepal

New Gene Conservation is out. Put out more flags.
Biofuel from coffee grounds? Right. Hope the stuff was shade-grown, anyway.
Is a lupin or date palm seed the oldest ever found? Let the controversy rage.
Bees scare caterpillars as well as pollinating plants. Thankfully, Europe is on the job, colony-collapse-wise.
Trouble for Scottish farmed salmon. And the wild ones may have their problems too. But aquaculture in general is booming, they say.
Google Earth discovers forest. Not agrobiodiversity, but fun nonetheless.
“It doesn’t just take in seeds – it sends them out.”
Maize pest will love climate change. Well, some of them anyway.
The latest review of earthworms discussed.
Jellyfish and chips?
Eating local pretty much unavoidable in Cuba. Yes, everyone wants to be a locavore these days.
Japanese amateur botanists get into genebanking.
“108 dishes based on jackfruit and seed varieties that are facing extinction were also exhibited at the festival.” 108?
Queensland markets its tropical produce via a new website. No reason why others shouldn’t do the same, is there?
“People shouldn’t underestimate how important a goat can be for a family in Africa.” Having had to assist in slaughtering one over Christmas, I certainly don’t.
A rapid run-through the history of chocolate.
Long-fallow agriculture in Mali leads to more, more diverse and taller trees.
Global accessibility map published. Also one of fires, and intact forests. Let a thousand agrobiodiversity mash-ups bloom. Thanks, Andy.
Nepal has lots of medicinal plants. Funny they don’t seem to feature in the Western Terai Landscape Complex Project.

December 11, 2008December 11, 2008

Nibbles: Health, Fungi, Health, Pollan, Organic

Nobellist praises biodiversity, ignores food.
TED video on world-saving mushrooms.
God: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yieleling seed; to you, it shall be for meat.“
Pollan: “Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the farmer’s market. Get out of the supermarket… Plant a garden… Declare your independence from the culture of fast food.”
Rodale Institute: “Yield data just by itself makes the case for a focused and persistent move to organic farming systems.”

December 4, 2008December 4, 2009

Nibbles: Wikiforéts, Super-rape, Gut microbiome, Soybeans, Golf courses, Chestnuts, Rice, Yeast

Wiki for African forest information. Go, make it multilingual, fill in the gaps, use it.
Canola (rape) desalinates, gives fuel and enriched fodder. Jeremy comments: “I’m a tad skeptical.”
Diversity of intestinal flora good for your figure. Or the other way around.
Edamame bean comes to Britain. Why, one wonders.
Golf courses good for salamanders. I wonder if anyone’s looked at how many CWRs they support.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
Rice domestication unpacked.
More extreme beer. Oh, and the phylogeny of yeast.

November 21, 2008November 21, 2008

Nibbles: Radishes, Fungi, Genomics, Bagel, Eels, Barack Hussein, Pomegranate

Vavilov does radishes.
“How would you describe the smell and taste of a fresh white truffle?“
“The gene … is in an identity crisis.”
“The basic roll-with-a-hole concept is centuries old.”
“He slid her gently into a nylon sack and hung her from a scale on which she clocked two kilograms, then slid her out and into the V of a varnished plywood measuring board, where she lay quietly, like a metre-long slab of tenderloin.”
“Activists” buttonhole Obama.
The Afghan pomegranate to hit supermarket shelves.