Tracing Paper had a fun mosaic of food-themed maps yesterday. We’ve blogged about a couple of them before, and lots more actually, as it’s a bit of an obsession around these parts, but it’s fun to see them all together like that. And while we’re on the subject of geography, I got 8 out of 9 on the beer geography quiz that was also concidentally on Mental Floss this week. Can you beat that?
Nibbles: Phosphorus, Water lilies, Polish sheep cheese
- The looming P crisis. As is there’s not enough to worry about.
- Water pest makes itself useful in the Philippines.
- “To promote real Oscypek, Zakopane’s tourism bureau has created a special tour allowing visitors to find the mountain meadow huts of 25 baca cheesemakers.” Sign me up.
Semi-naked chicks go wild on Crete
“Eeyew. What’s wrong with that chicken?”
We were sitting on the shaded verandah of Nico, a lovely man who, after training as an architect in the US, chucked it all in to live off the grid and as sustainably as possible in a converted hovel in the west of Crete. No electricity, no running water, a wild garden and wilder chickens foraging through it.
Naturally I peered at the chicken, and there it was: naked-necked as I live and breathe.
“Golly, a naked-necked chicken, here on Crete.”
Nico, meanwhile, was answering my friend, and explaining that it was that way naturally and didn’t seem to be any different from the other chickens in his flock.
I waded in with information about the naked-necked chickens of Transylvania and elsewhere, citing the very latest thoughts on the subject, to-whit:
The use of single or combined dominant genes for feather restriction (Na) and feathering structure (F), as well as the sex-linked recessive gene for reduced body size (dw), has been found to be particularly relevant for the tropics (Horst, 1989; Haaren-Kiso et al., 1995). Research into the effects of these genes on economic factors has been undertaken in Malaysia (Khadijah, 1988; Mathur and Horst, 1989). For example, the feather restriction (Na) or Naked Neck gene results in 40 percent less feather coverage overall, with the lower neck appearing almost “nakedâ€. This considerably reduces the need for dietary nutrition to supply protein input for feather production, and protein is a limiting factor in many scavenger feed resource bases. Barua et al., (1998) has reviewed the available information on the performance of indigenous Naked Neck fowl in the hope that it will draw the attention of scientists worldwide to its interesting characteristics and facilitate future research.
I asked Nico whether the naked-necked birds were more efficient egg layers, or suffered less in the heat, but he didn’t know. I said I’d be happy to return to conduct a thorough investigation, but I haven’t had a reply yet.
The photo took some doing too, the birds treating me as an overlarge predator definitely up to no good. Which they should.
The last colonial museum of economic botany reopens
Thanks to Dirk Enneking for this great tip:
One of my favourite museums and, apparently one of its kind, has just re-opened in Adelaide, South Australia, the Museum of Economic Botany, a former promotion facility for underutilised crops.
Looks great. If anyone goes, let us know about it. Thanks, Dirk.
“Global human sensor net” to be cast for biodiversity
Another attempt to harness the “wisdom of crowds” is in the offing. The eBiosphere informatics challenge is asking people around the world to send in observations of “species of interest.” That basically means mainly invasives and threatened species, for now. You can contribute photographs to Flickr or use Twitter or send an email. You don’t have to be a taxonomist: you’re asked to do your best on the identification, and they’ll bring experts in for confirmation. All the observations coming in will be integrated it with other scientific knowledge (e.g. taxonomy, maps, conservation status) on the species.
Now, if you’re a regular reader you’ll know this kind of approach is one we’ve occasionally contemplated here for crop wild relatives, landraces and other agrobiodiversity, in particular to monitor threats and erosion. So I’ll be watching closely.