- ICRAF are having their Science Week. Follow it on Twitter. And let us know if you’re there and want to write about anything agrobiodiversity related that comes up.
- Plant Genome Evolution 2013 has been and gone, alas, but Chris Pires has storified the whole thing, pretty much. Lots of crops in there. But it’s disappeared now, of course.
- Bioversity and FAO redesign their websites. Tell them what you think.
- Diane Ragone talks breadfruit. With video goodness.
- Aussie researcher talks about landing Gates grant to improve African livestock. Hopefully some conservation in there somewhere.
- Decentralizing data: to empower communities; and to empower geeks.
- Data, you said? Here’s data on why Kansas needs wheat breeders.
- The world’s chief agriculture scientists want to share genetic resources. Good of them.
- Europe used to have more melons.
- Enough with the Peruvian superfoods meme, please.
- I may have said this before, but it’s still valid: I need a drink.
Nibbles: Landscapes pod, Tartiness evolution, Diversity pix, Eve Crowley vid, Commons debate, Subsidies, Arabidopsis database, Beard beer, Kew herbarium vid, Minoan pests, FDish seeds, Extinction is forever
- CIFOR scientist talks about the much-vaunted landscape approach.
- The repeated evolution of lemony flavour.
- Nice infographic of breadfruit diversity in the Pacific.
- Better infographic of chili pepper diversity in Mexico. Both are on Facebook. Hope you guys can see them.
- FAO’s Eve Crowley is didactic and inspirational by turns about women, co-operatives and rural development.
- Hardin vs Ostrom. Walk-over.
- How much does production have to increase, really? Lobell deals the cards.
- What are the effects of input subsidies on maize prices in Malawi and Zambia? Small to none.
- Plant database to charge for access? Never a good idea.
- Ok, here’s a first, a beer I don’t altogether feel like tasting.
- Last days of the soybean homecoming show in Hong Kong. Anybody out there seen it?
- Video on the intricacies of Kew. Not as long as you’d think.
- Weevils in sweet pea jar pinpoint season of Santorini eruption. Has anyone tried to recover DNA from the seeds?
- Experts for ensuring quality fish seeds to enhance production. Say what?
- How should we mark the extinction of the passenger pigeon next year?
Ancient American agrobiodiversity podcasts galore, and more
No sooner had I digested (as it were) Jeremy’s latest offering, that I ran across two other recent podcasts also on subjects related to ancient American agriculture. Archaeologist Dr David Lentz discusses the Pompeii of Central America in the latest Academic Minute. And environmental journalist Sam Eaton talks about the resurgence of amaranth in Mexico. Never rains but it pours.
Well, since it’s raining so hard, let me throw in a couple of related tidbits. If you’ve got a paper on amaranth or any other similarly downtrodden crop, you have until 15 July to put in an abstract for the 3rd International Conference on Neglected and Underutilized Species, to be held in Accra, Ghana on 25-27 September 2013. And if you’re Brazilian, and you’re interested in studying agrobiodiversity in Latin America, including NUS no doubt, you have until June 30 to apply for a studentship. And finally there is the IX Simposio Internacional de Recursos Genéticos para América Latina y el Caribe in El Salvador in November.
LATER: Talk about zeitgeist. Here’s another little something for the weekend for all you NUS aficionados: there’s a special issue of Sustainability in the works on “Underutilized Plant Species: Leveraging Food and Nutritional Security, and Income Generation.” Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2013.
Nibbles: Mapping by phone, Samoan greens, Rice podcast, Juniper threat, Wild yams, Food book, Coconut conservation
- If you can map neglected diseases by phone, can you map neglected crops? I bet you can.
- It’s the turn of Samoans to be chided for not eating enough leafy greens.
- I had no idea AfricaRice had a podcast.
- Now we gotta worry about G&T too? Enough, already.
- Video on the wild yams of Sri Lanka. Not just yams, though, by the look of it.
- 100 recipes to understand the history of food? Count me in.
- More on the Polymotu Concept from our friends at SPC. Great gig if you can get it.
Tracing the Polynesian migrations through DNA, but not only
I know you probably don’t have an hour to spare to listen to a lecture on the evidence for pre-Columbian contacts between Polynesians and South American cultures, but Dr Lisa Matisoo-Smith does a really good job of galloping though the DNA and archaeological evidence from humans, commensals and livestock in a recent podcast from the Bishop Museum. She even mentions crops.
The bottom line? The human anatomical and artifact evidence is compelling, but the DNA is not cooperating yet. At least the human DNA. But listen to it. While you’re preparing dinner or something. I just wish the Bishop had thought to put the slides online too.