Tourism

October 30, 2014November 1, 2014

Fibers on display in Boston

That’s from the “[s]plendid, viscerally engaging … groundbreaking exhibition” called Fiber: Sculpture 1960-Present, now on at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. And it was pretty cool. But would it have killed them to include some pictures, or even live examples, of the plant (and animal) sources of the raw materials for objects such as this? ((BTW, do you remember that 2009 was the International Year of Natural Fibres?))

Well, maybe not the animal sources…

October 28, 2014November 1, 2014

Remembering the Irish Potato Famine

Came across this monument in Boston last week. A stark reminder of what happens when crops are not diverse enough.

October 21, 2014October 20, 2014

Nibbles: Grassland diversity, Home on the range, Delicate hump, Mexican medicinals, ‘Shrums, Salty potatoes, Salty pigs, Afforestation, Craft beer guy

Diversity rules. In grasslands, settle down.
You want bison with that grassland?
Your hump, sir. Bison shbison.
Federales crack down on medicinal plants.
Including fungi?
Salt-tolerant potatoes in the news, for the wrong reason.
What is it about photos of pigs on a beach? You could grow the above potatoes on the beach and then the pigs could eat them. I’d pay money to see those pics.
Japanese methods used to plant Indian urban forests. Tree planting has a special name?
Peru deals with stunting.
Hero.

October 6, 2014September 26, 2014

Brainfood: Polyculture services, Apple resistance, Clover seed storage, Oil palm diversity, Alternative foods in Italy, Oregano chemicals, Pig diversity, IPR and indigenous people

Do polycultures promote win-wins or trade-offs in agricultural ecosystem services? A meta-analysis. Yes, at least if the services in question are per-plant yield and biocontrol.
Susceptibility of apple genotypes from European genetic resources to fire blight (Erwinia amylovora). 3 of 40 were resistant.
Effect of sulphuric acid scarification on seed accessions of cluster clover (Trifolium glomeratum) stored in a genebank. Potentially disastrous.
Genetic diversity of the world’s largest oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) field genebank accessions using microsatellite markers. 3 groups: extreme W Africa, rest of Africa, Madagascar. Choose parents based on genetic distance, though, not just genetic group.
Introducing territorial and historical contexts and critical thresholds in the analysis of conservation of agro-biodiversity by Alternative Food Networks, in Tuscany, Italy. Alternative Food Networks can contribute to conservation, but they need context.
Chemical diversity among different accessions of Origanum vulgare L. ssp. vulgare collected from Central Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, India. 2 chemotypes, the one with higher thymol mainly from higher altitudes.
Merging Molecular Data for Evaluating Cross Country Genetic Diversity of Pigs. Microsatellite datasets from USA, China and Brazil successfully combined and analyzed together. Should be more of this kind of thing.
How Are Indigenous and Local Communities’ Rights Over Their Traditional Knowledge and Genetic Resources Protected in Current Free Trade Negotiations? Highlighting the Draft Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TTPA). Indigenous people are generally not given stronger rights over their intellectual property in international instruments compared to non-indigenous people. Rights over IP are in general stronger than over genetic resources.

October 3, 2014

Nibbles: ILRI@40, CIAT cleanup, Breadfruit factsheets, Spice book, Senegalese e-goats, Natural history collections, Seed supplies, Bean breeding, Institution building, Eat This Podcast, Phenotyping, Indian eggplant, GMO Terminator

ILRI celebrates 40 years with a major conference.
Keeping the CIAT germplasm collection nice and clean.
New variety information sheets from the Breadfruit Institute.
Review of Gary Nabhan’s new book, Cumin, Camels, and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey.
Buying goats online.
What would you do with one billion historical biodiversity data points?
The tools of the seed-saver‘s trade.
How to stress your beans, and why.
A place for conservation organizations to hang out and share. You have to register, but this looks interesting.
Jeremy has a second Twitter home.
All 115 plant image analysis software solutions…
Hyderabad’s brinjal obsession.
A GMO terminator technology?