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Wacky idea to fight UG99 available

We had a nice response to a recent post about UG99 from someone called Paul.

With reference to UG99 wheat mould – would anyone consider using far-out & whacky ideas to overcome this problem or are our scientists and universities more interested in getting funding for research from the large companies that make chemical sprays etc?

I suspect that the long-term solution to these resistant strains is not more chemicals or gene alteration (mutation) that can be patented and unable to be used by poor countries. We have too much of that already.

If you know anyone who is doing research into UG99, I would like to contribute my whacky idea that costs nothing!

To which we can only say, if it won’t cost anything, why not just broadcast it — we’ll give you a platform here if you need one — and let people see if they want to give it a try. Alternatively, if any readers are working on UG99 and want to get in touch with Paul, use the Contact Form and we’ll forward your message.

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UG99 in the internet mainstream

It was Lord Beaverbrook, I think, who said that if something had not been reported in his once-mighty Daily Express, then it hadn’t happened. 1 For netizens of the modern age, much the same could be said of MetaFilter; if it isn’t there, it’s nowhere. And so it came to pass that UG99, recently covered by Wired magazine and Nibbled here, is officially a threat; it says so on MetaFilter.

I’m not actually a member, nor do I care to be. 2 But if I were, I’d be responding to some of those comments, oh yes. And thanks to those comments, I’ve learned that the Wired piece’s author keeps a blog, which contains stuff that had to be left out. Cool.

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Junk food of the Gods

Ah, the intersection of medicine, nutrition, archaeology and other stuff. Recently published studies from a team at Manchester University have revealed that priests in ancient Egypt suffered heart disease as a result of scoffing the sacred food offered to the gods. But it’ll take more than a pinch of salt to persuade me. OK, so Egyptian toffs ate loads of fatty goose. Clearly they didn’t drink enough wine. Either that, or perhaps they weren’t susceptible to the Gascon Paradox. Probably they just didn’t get enough exercise.

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BBC Radio investigates the seed trade

BBC Radio 4 dedicated The Food Programme earlier in February to an investigation of seed exchanges and plant breeding. Here’s what the programme has to say:

Since the earliest times humans have selected particular seeds to resow next season, noticing mutations that they liked and in so doing have shaped the nature of food. This shaping has never been greater than today, when technology makes our ability to shape our future food enormous, but who is to control what qualities we want in our peas or tomatoes?

Sheila Dillon traces the history of plant breeding from neolithic times to today’s GM era with Noel Kingsbury, author of Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding. Early examples of tasteless strawberries well suited to the railroad, and fights between farmers and millers over which wheat variety to grow, inform today’s battles for control.

Much of it will be familiar to readers here, and experts will doubtless find nits to pick, but overall well worth spending 25 minutes to listen.