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Housekeeping help needed

A couple of people have reported problems with the comment system here. As it happens, both had Hotmail accounts, and messages from Hotmail were being bounced. I have no way of knowing whether this is a problem with the blog software or with Hotmail itself (and I am not about to sign up for Hotmail just to see). So, if you have a Hotmail account — or any insight into the problem — could you please try and share that information by leaving a comment to this post?

If that doesn’t work for you, please use to Contact Us link about to tell us what happened.

Thanks

The Management

p.s. Later … I wonder if it is anything to do with this hacker attack yesterday?

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Wild food plants of Zimbabwe

According to this article in the Harare Herald, the Kellogg Foundation will be supporting research by University of Zimbabwe scientists into “wild and famine plant foods, their preparation and preservation (and) nutrient analysis … to enhance livelihood security.”

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Core blimey!

I spent the last few days in Portesham, Dorset (thanks, Lorna and Geoff!), which made it all the more weird to come across this article reprinted in a newspaper in Dubai, where I had to transit for a few hours on the way out there. But it does show that you can still discover (or re-discover) new things even in such a well-researched crop as apples in the UK. Of course, for every upbeat story, there’s a depressing one.

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Brazil and US work on exchange of genetic resources

Brazilian and US scientists are working together on basic research into germplasm storage, according to an article from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The research is part of a scientific collaboration between Brazil’s EMBRAPA and the US Agricultural Research Service which has been in place since 1998. Genebank management is a relatively recent topic for the collaboration, which is extending to animal genetic resources. A Brazilian programmer is working with ARS to develop the animal genetic resources component of GRIN.

The two groups of scientists are also working on the physical exchange of material between their two countries. Let’s hope they’ve got their access and benefit sharing details all worked out.

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Heirlooms are better for you

3036 Web Tomatoes come in many more colours than red and one of them — the tangerine tomato — has proved to be a much better source of important nutrients than its red cousins. Tangerine tomatoes are richer in the cis form of the chemical lycopene, while red tomatoes contain the trans form of the chemical. Researchers fed human volunteers tomato sauce for breakfast. Those who ate tangerine tomatoes absorbed almost three times more lycopene than those fed red tomatoes, even though those red varieties were known to be especially high in lycopene.

Lycopene is rapidly finding favour as an antioxidant that can help to protect against various forms of disease. While researchers scramble to produce high-lycopene fruits and vegetables, Tangerine is an heirloom tomato that has been around for decades. I’m sure nobody grew it for its cis-lycopene; they just liked the look and taste. But that’s the thing about agricultural biodiversity; you never know what you’ll find when you go looking.

Article: Carotenoid Absorption in Humans Consuming Tomato Sauces Obtained from Tangerine or High-beta Carotene Varieties of Tomatoes

Photo from the W. Atlee Burpee & Co.