Single origin for rice, according to articles in ScienceDaily 2 May 2010 and BBC News 3 May 2010. Although there are thousands of varieties of the Asian rice plant Oryza sativa, they are grouped into two subspecies: indica and japonica. Scientists had believed these were domesticated separately from wild rice plants in India and China, […]
Tag: grains
Cooking Plants in a Green Sahara
Cooking plants in a green Sahara, reported in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 19 December 2016, BBC News 20 December 2016, and Nature Plants doi:10.1038/nplants.2016.194, published online 19 December 2016. A group of researchers from the UK and Italy have studied 110 broken pieces of pottery from archaeological sites at Takarkori and Uan Afuda in […]
Ancient Farmers Grew Modern Maize
Ancient farmers grew modern maize, according to reports in New Scientist, 22 Nov 2003, p21 and Science vol 302, p1206, 14 Nov 2003. Cultivated maize (corn on the cob) is believed to be derived from a wild plant named teosinte. Teosinte is a branched plant with small kernels that are not very nutritious to humans. […]