Seit Jahrzehnten gilt das Ziel der Industrieländer, 0,7 Prozent der Wirtschaftsleistung in die Entwicklungshilfe zu stecken. Nun steht Deutschlands Zusage vor dem Aus.
Join Scoop.it for Free
Share ideas that matter on the social web and experience
the benefits of curating the world's best content.
I don't have a Facebook, a Twitter or a LinkedIn account
Already have an account: Login
|
Scooped by Norman Warthmann onto my universe |
Scoop.it!
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
 Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
Nature 497, 412–413 (23 May 2013) doi:10.1038/497412d
Ancient DNA from remains found in caves on the Greek island of Crete suggests that the Minoan civilization emerged from farmers who settled on Crete thousands of years beforehand. This challenges an early theory, which held that the Minoans — recognized as being one of Europe's first 'high cultures' from their pottery and colourful frescoes — originated from Egyptian refugees. A team led by George Stamatoyannopoulos at the University of Washington in Seattle analysed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from teeth and bone samples of 37 individuals who lived on Crete between 4,400 and 3,700 years ago. The authors found 6 mtDNA haplotypes unique to Minoans and 15 that are common in modern and ancient European populations, but none characteristic of present-day African populations. The North African influence on Minoans probably occurred through cultural exchange, the authors say. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
With the rapidly growing demand for rice in East Africa, Tanzanian farmers can now boost rice production two to three times by combining good agricultural practices with the adoption of two new high-yielding rice varieties, IR05N 221 and IR03A 262. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Why is cassava important? Cassava (Manihot esculenta), a major staple crop, is the main source of calories for 500 million people across the globe. No other continent depends on cassava to feed as many people as does Africa. Cassava is indispensable to food security in Africa. It is a widely preferred and consumed staple, as well as a hardy crop that can be stored in the ground as a fall-back source of food that can save lives in times of famine. Despite the importance of cassava for food security on the African continent, it has received relatively little research and development attention compared to other staples such as wheat, rice and maize. The key to unlocking the full potential of cassava lies largely in bringing cassava breeding into the 21st century. Why genomic selection? Genomic Selection is a new plant breeding method that uses statistical modeling to predict how a plant will perform, before it is field-tested. Novel statistical models and bioinformatics tools, combined with increasingly abundant genomic information, have enabled the deployment of prediction-based breeding methods such as Genomic Selection in crop breeding programs. Giving breeders the ability to select based on predictions rather than observations will result in much improved genetic gains and efficiency.
CassavaBase Access to data and tools for breeders and researchers, including genomic selection algorithms and analysis capacity, a cassava genome browser, cassava ontology tools, phenotyping tools, and social networking. Via Plant Breeding and Genomics on eXtension.org Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
500 Jahre lang hat der Westen mit seinen Institutionen und Ideen die Welt beherrscht. Jetzt kopieren die anderen, was unseren Aufstieg begründet hat. Von Niall Ferguson Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Bacteria that live in the gut have been used to reverse obesity and Type-2 diabetes, animal studies show.
Norman Warthmann's insight:
my prediction is we will see a lot of this in the near future. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Smithsonian scientists are gathering wildlife tissue samples from around the world to build the largest museum-based repository of such specimens Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Mit ihren wirtschaftlichen Erfolgen stellen Ostafrikas autoritäre Herrscher das Entwicklungsmodell des Westens infrage. Soll Afrika gar von China lernen? Von P.-C. Frank Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
PubMed comprises more than 22 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
Norman Warthmann's insight:
miRNAs and pathogen resistance in rice Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
|
|
|
Rescooped by Norman Warthmann from Food issues |
Scoop.it!
Wenonah Hauter's book examines the history and political machine behind agribusiness consolidation, the pharmaceutical industry, factory farming, food safety and even the co-opting of "organic."
Via Cathryn Wellner
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Rescooped by Norman Warthmann from Plants and Microbes |
Scoop.it!
Stem rust caused by Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici is a potentially devastating fungal disease that can kill wheat plants and small grain cereals but more typically reduces foliage, root growth, and grain yields [e.g., (1, 2)]. After years of success in keeping the disease at bay, new virulent races (collectively referred to as “Ug99”) have emerged, with the potential to infect much of the world's wheat (3). Despite, or because of, the success of past research, these programs saw an eventual rundown in support (4). We estimate global wheat losses over the past 50 years absent investments in research to limit impacts of stem rust and discuss how this can inform decisions about “right-sizing” research investments.
Potential annual stem-rust losses have been previously estimated by extrapolating reported losses from limited time periods and locations to broader spatial and temporal scales: $1.4 billion for developing countries (5); up to $3 billion for North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia (6); and from $7.6 to $53.7 billion globally [derived from (7), see (8) and supplementary material (SM)]. However, global estimates derived from such “point-based” methods are misconceived and overstated, failing to account for the intrinsic variability of disease-induced crop losses over space and time.
Via Kamoun Lab @ TSL
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Scooped by Norman Warthmann |
Scoop.it!
Objectives:
To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom.
Design:
Longitudinal cohort study.
Setting:
Research institute employing about 140 people.
Subjects:
70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute and observed weekly over five months.
Main outcome measures:
Incidence of teaspoon loss per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life.
Results:
56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons' value. The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years. At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.
Conclusions:
The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.
Norman Warthmann's insight:
hilarious!
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Rescooped by Norman Warthmann from Rice origins and cultural history |
Scoop.it!
Tandem and segmental duplications significantly contribute to gene family expansion and genome evolution. Genome-wide identification of tandem and segmental genes has been analyzed before in several plant genomes. However, comparative studies in functional bias, expression divergence and their roles in species domestication are still lacking. We have carried out a genome-wide identification and comparative analysis of tandem and segmental genes in the rice genome. A total of 3,646 and 3,633 pairs of tandem and segmental genes, respectively, were identified in the genome. They made up around 30% of total annotated rice genes (excluding transposon-coding genes). Both tandem and segmental duplicates showed different physical locations and exhibited a biased subset of functions. These two types of duplicated genes were also under different functional constrains as shown by nonsynonymous substitutions per site (Ka) and synonymous substitutions per site (Ks) analysis. They are also differently regulated depending on the tissues and abiotic and biotic stresses based on transcriptomics data. The expression divergence might be related to promoter differentiation and DNA methylation status after tandem or segmental duplications. Both tandem and segmental duplications differ in their contribution to genetic novelty but evidence suggests that they play their role in species domestication and genome evolution
Via Dorian Q Fuller
Dorian Q Fuller's curator insight,
May 19, 3:25 PM
Shows there are quite alot of duplicated genes in the rice genome. Unfortunately, the number that were involved in the domestication process remains speculative-- and needs to be investigated!
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Scooped by Norman Warthmann |
Scoop.it!
Simpson may refer to:
Norman Warthmann's insight:
watch out with your statistics and try to not get bitten by this.
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Scooped by Norman Warthmann |
Scoop.it!
Norman Warthmann's insight:
alright. so. To everybody interested in our seed system and why it is flawed, please read this text. I warn you, it will require concentrated reading to get your head around all this mess, but it just isn't any easier.
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Rescooped by Norman Warthmann from Ethnobotany: plants and people |
Scoop.it!
Today's commercial coffee production is based on only a tiny slice of the genetic varieties that have grown since prehistoric times.
...
In fact, there's a lot more genetic variety in this one little field at CATIE than there is in all the coffee plantations of Central America and South America — and that's a problem.
Via Eve Emshwiller
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Scooped by Norman Warthmann |
Scoop.it!
Norman Warthmann's insight:
Abstract:
Human use of land has transformed ecosystem pattern and process across most of the terrestrial biosphere, a global change often described as historically recent and potentially catastrophic for both humanity and the biosphere. Interdisciplinary paleoecological, archaeological, and historical studies challenge this view, indicating that land use has been extensive and sustained for millennia in some regions and that recent trends may represent as much a recovery as an acceleration. Here we synthesize recent scientific evidence and theory on the emergence, history, and future of land use as a process transforming the Earth System and use this to explain why relatively small human populations likely caused widespread and profound ecological changes more than 3,000 y ago, whereas the largest and wealthiest human populations in history are using less arable land per person every decade. Contrasting two spatially explicit global reconstructions of land-use history shows that reconstructions incorporating adaptive changes in land-use systems over time, including land-use intensification, offer a more spatially detailed and plausible assessment of our planet's history, with a biosphere and perhaps even climate long ago affected by humans. Although land-use processes are now shifting rapidly from historical patterns in both type and scale, integrative global land-use models that incorporate dynamic adaptations in human–environment relationships help to advance our understanding of both past and future land-use changes, including their sustainability and potential global effects.
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Rescooped by Norman Warthmann from Plant Breeding and Genomics News |
Scoop.it!
Colorado State University will offer a one-credit online course in Plant Breeding for Drought Tolerance August 26 to December 13, 2013. Course instructor is Dr. Patrick Byrne, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences.
TARGET AUDIENCE
This distance course is targeted to graduate students in the plant sciences, as well as to professionals in the public and private sectors who want to increase their knowledge in this area. It will provide one transferable graduate-level credit.
CONTENT
The course will focus on plant breeding strategies and practices directed toward improving plant performance under drought stress. Concepts for this intensive, one-credit graduate level course include:
• Analyzing the target environment
• Understanding plant response to drought stress and plant adaptation strategies
• Using wild species and landraces as sources of drought tolerance
• Determining which phenotypic traits to use in selection practices
• Detecting marker-trait associations for relevant traits
• Understanding transgenic approaches to drought tolerance
• Learning from successful examples of improving drought tolerance in a variety of crops
The 15-week curriculum is divided into 15 lessons. Each lesson's content will be delivered via a voice-over PowerPoint presentation, a video, a reading assignment, or combinations of these media. Some lessons will require student participation in an online discussion, completion of an online quiz, or submission of a homework assignment. The compiled homework assignments will comprise a portfolio of documents describing an analysis and breeding strategy for a specific crop and environment. There will be a comprehensive final exam administered during the week of December 16.
PREREQUISITES
Participants should have a basic understanding of genetics, plant breeding, and plant physiology. Prior to the beginning of the course, students will review online material on these topics to provide a common background in breeding and physiology concepts.
PROGRAM COSTS AND REQUIREMENTS
The cost of student tuition is US $549 plus a $20 technology fee. Word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software (e.g., Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) is required, as is Adobe Reader. Students are required to have access to a computer and Internet access that meet the general CSU recommendations.
Via Plant Breeding and Genomics on eXtension.org
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Scooped by Norman Warthmann |
Scoop.it!
British scientists at a research centre in Cambridge say they have developed a new type of wheat which could increase productivity by 30%.
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Rescooped by Norman Warthmann from Ag Biotech News |
Scoop.it!
Slightly edited machine translation:
Scientists of the agency are seeking permission to cultivate a GM wheat suitable for coeliacs on a plot of Córdoba. The harvest, half a ton of grain serve to develop and carry out a clinical trial with patients. Researchers believe that the cereal could reach the market within five years...
CSIC scientists have requested permission to plant there, on a plot of 1,000 square meters, wheat whose genes have been modified so that it can be consumed by people with celiac disease, a currently incurable disease of unknown origin that affects about 1% of the world population.
When people with celiac disease consume gluten - a protein found in wheat, barley and rye - their body's defenses react and damage the intestine. As a result, there are diarrhea, vomiting and unexplained weight loss until it is given to the cause. Their only option now is to eat gluten-free foods that are more expensive. Celiacs spent each year 1,600 euros more on food than the other people. In the U.S. alone, the market for gluten-free foods moved 4,200 billion in 2012.
To remedy this, a team from the Institute of Sustainable Agriculture Cordoba, led by biologist Francisco Barro, has since 2004 investigating transgenic wheat varieties without gluten. In 2011, researchers announced that they had obtained varieties capable of producing in celiacs "a reaction up to 95% less toxic than natural wheat", according to laboratory results.
Now, Barro has asked the National Biosafety Commission for a permit to grow wheat for the first time outdoors. His goal is to harvest half a ton of grain to make crackers that will be used to conduct a clinical trial with celiacs. The test, if all goes as planned, will be held for three months with between 30 and 60 patients, who will be able to taste wheat again, until now forbidden to them, in a trial coordinated by medical Queen Sofía Hospital. The biologist believes his cereal could reach the market within five years.
Barro is aware that its GM wheat "has no chance in Europe", the continent most reluctant to genetically modified organisms. Five countries - USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and India - grabbing global GM production, with 152 million hectares.
Europe only allows the cultivation of two GM crops: modified corn by the U.S. company Monsanto to be resistant to insect infestation and a starch potato from German chemicals company BASF for paper and textile industries. However, following a hypocritical policy, Brussels does support importing about 40 GM products from other countries.
The CSIC has sold the license to exploit the patent for its GM wheat, to a British company, Plant Bioscience Limited, based in Norwich. "Possibly, their strategy will be to cultivate our wheat in the U.S., Argentina and China, and they will sell the flour to Spain for the price of gold", speculates Barro.
According to preliminary studies, "in the worst case, a celiac can [at least] eat every day three slices of bread made from the modified wheat". Barro team has organized a blind tasting with 11 tasters, who were unable to distinguish the normal wheat bread from the one baked with transgenic cereals.
To prevent the escape of genetically modified wheat from the plot... CSIC scientists impose a safety distance of 200 meters to any other plot with cereal. Barro considered very unlikely that there is a leak, because "wheat pollen is heavy" and cannot travel long distances on the wind.
Wheat suitable for coeliacs has its genes modified to suppress the proteins responsible for the allergic response of celiacs, gliadins. "It would be surprising that this feature gave the GM wheat a competitive advantage over the normal wheat [if it escapes]," says Barro... "There are anti-GMO environmentalists, who are celiacs, who called me to try our wheat," says Barro...
Original article in Spanish:
http://esmateria.com/2013/05/09/el-csic-pide-cultivar-trigo-transgenico-para-celiacos/
Via Alexander J. Stein
AckerbauHalle's curator insight,
May 12, 12:50 PM
In Spanien gibt es einen Versuch mit Weizen, der auch für Menschen mit Zöliaki geeignet sein soll.
sonia ramos's curator insight,
May 13, 2:20 AM
Hay mucho trabajo que hacer sobre los trangénicos, unos debemos acercarlos más a la población explicando los controles y la legislación, las pruebas y el tiempo de experimientación sobre su efectos y, otros, abriendo perspectivas e informándose.
Este tema lleva mucha desinformación detrás y se están perdidendo oportunidades de mejora de calidad de vida y salud en el mundo por quedarse sólo en la superficie de este campo de investigación.
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Rescooped by Norman Warthmann from The Great Transition |
Scoop.it!
A common refrain, from skeptics to allies alike, is that renewable energy is a great idea, but not feasible because oil, gas, and coal will always be cheaper.
Via Willy De Backer
Willy De Backer's curator insight,
May 12, 6:37 AM
The price of renewable energy has always been the false debate. If political and economic elites would have understood the real challenge of finite energy, the price tag would be the least of their worries. The REAL problem with renewables is the non-renewable scarce resources you need to produce, manufacture and deploy them.
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
|
Scooped by Norman Warthmann |
Scoop.it!
Norman Warthmann's insight:
A few months ago, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) updated their analysis of the cost of sequencing and, for the first time since records began, it got more expensive ....
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
