Free Republic

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

Scientists discover the birds have developed two mutations in just 50 years Genes of White Plymouth Rock chickens mutated twice in 50 years Scientists previously thought rate of change in mitochondrial genomes was never faster than about two per cent per million years Mutations suggest rate of evolution in the chickens is 15 times faster Study goes against theory evolution can only be seen over long periods

The remains of hazelnuts eaten by some of Skye's earliest inhabitants were found at a dig on the island, archaeologists have revealed. Hazelnuts were a favourite snack of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, according to archaeologists at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). The shells found at an excavation above Staffin Bay could be 8,000-years-old. UHI carried out the dig along with Staffin Community Trust, school children and volunteers. Dan Lee, lifelong learning and outreach archaeologist at UHI, said: "We have found lots of fragments of charred hazelnut shells in the lower soil samples. "They are the ideal thing to date...

In modern society dogs are often referred to as "man's best friend" but according to an archaeological review early Aboriginal society sported a similar relationship between women and dingoes (Canis lupus dingo). The study by UWA and ANU suggests people formed close bonds with dingoes soon after the dogs' arrival on the mainland roughly 4000 years ago, with the dogs enabling women to contribute more hunted food. UWA archaeologist Jane Balme, who led the research, says it is thought the first dingoes arrived on watercraft with people from South East Asia. "What they're doing on the boat is not clear...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

An international team led by National Taiwan University forestry professor Chung Kuo-fang... analyzed the chloroplast DNA sequences of 604 paper mulberry samples collected from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Pacific islands, and found that a specific haplotype, cp-17, which originated in Taiwan, is predominant across the region. It is assumed that paper mulberry, a common East Asian tree used for making paper, was transported across the Pacific by Austronesian people, who used the tree to make bark cloth, Chung said... Paper mulberry is a dioecious species, meaning that the male and female reproductive organs are found on separate plants. Most...

Special rangers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association are on the hunt for cattle rustlers up in Woods County. Authorities say they’ve hit several ranches over the past several months and even got away with 41 head of steer from one operation. All of the cattle were reported missing somewhere between May and August when they were set out to pasture. Bouziden Brothers and Sons reported 41 head of yearling steers missing from their property, located in the Waynoka area of Woods County. The steers are all branded with “U” on their right hip. They also had purple...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

Japanese beef imports to drop further than thought Japan, the world's largest importer of US beef, will see imports shrink further than previously expected, as exportable supplies of the meat tighten. The US Department of Agriculture bureau in Tokyo forecast Japanese beef imports falling to a five-year low of 727,000 tonnes this year, 13,000 tonnes below the department's official forecast. The forecast came despite an increased forecast for consumption, of 1.24m tonnes, narrowly higher year on year. However, the extra consumption will be met from stocks rather than imports, which will drop for a second successive year, as exportable supplies...

The study also uncovers a more accurate timescale for when humans and Neanderthals interbred, and finds evidence for an early contact between the European hunter-gatherers and those in the Middle East – who would later develop agriculture and disperse into Europe about 8,000 years ago, transforming the European gene pool. Scientists now believe Eurasians separated into at least three populations earlier than 36,000 years ago: Western Eurasians, East Asians and a mystery third lineage, all of whose descendants would develop the unique features of most non-African peoples - but not before some interbreeding with Neanderthals took place. Led by the...

Mesopotamian climate change Geoscientists are increasingly exploring an interesting trend: Climate change has been affecting human society for thousands of years. At the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in December, one archaeologist presented research that suggests that climate change affected the way cultures developed and collapsed in the cradle of civilization — ancient Mesopotamia — more than 8,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found evidence for a mass migration from the more temperate northern Mesopotamia to the arid southern region around 6400 B.C. For the previous 1,000 years, people had been cultivating the arable land in northern Mesopotamia, using natural rainwater...

Excavation of an ancient Vietnamese site has thrown up the earliest evidence of rice cultivation, while shedding new light on how the death of young children was viewed by community members. The excavation, led by professor Peter Bellwood and Marc Oxenham from the Australian National University (ANU) School of Archaeology and Anthropology, studied the site, some 3,000-4,000 years old, named An Son. The findings suggest that death in young children was so common that community members were unlikely to revere the death of their offspring until they had survived for more than five years. "The burial of a new born...

Start of banana farming in Africa pushed back 2000 years According to recent evidence from Uganda, the banana may have arrived on the African continent more than 4000 years ago, some 2000 years before the accepted introduction of the fruit on the continent. The finding was published in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science (Vol. 33(1):102-113). The authors base their claim on banana phytoliths - distinctive microscopic silica bodies that accumulate in plant cells - which they found in sedimentary layers estimated to be 4000-4500 years old. Earlier findings in Cameroon of 2500 year-old banana phytoliths...

Archaeologists interested in the genetics of ancient organisms have a new molecular tool at hand — RNA. Two teams of scientists have decoded RNA from ancient crops in the hope of understanding the subtle evolutionary changes that accompanied the process of plant domestication. Unlike DNA, which remains largely unchanged throughout the life of an organism, RNA molecules offer a snapshot of the activity of a cell, indicating which genes are turned on and off, and to what extent. "With ancient DNA you can see what an ancient organism might have looked like. With ancient RNA we can see what it...

Humans may have undergone a gradual rather than an abrupt transition from fishing, hunting and gathering to farming, according to a new study of ancient pottery. Researchers at the University of York and the University of Bradford analysed cooking residues preserved in 133 ceramic vessels from the Western Baltic regions of Northern Europe to establish whether these residues were from terrestrial, marine or freshwater organisms. The research led by Oliver Craig (York) and Carl Heron (Bradford) included an international team of archaeologists from The Heritage Agency of Denmark, The National Museum of Denmark, Moesgård Museum (Denmark), Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel (Germany) and...

Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered evidence of early cereal cultivation at a 23,000-year-old site in Galilee, effectively doubling the timespan humans are believed to have practiced farming.

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...