Origin of Irish potato famine discovered

UPI ^ | 03/05/07

[nypokerface]

RALEIGH, N.C., March 5 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have determined the fungus-like pathogen that caused the 1840s Irish potato famine originated in the South American Andes.

Professor Jean Beagle Ristaino and colleagues at North Carolina State University compared the sequences of the nuclear and the cellular mitochondria of nearly 100 pathogen samples from South America, Central America, North America and Europe.

The researchers say they created "gene genealogies" that point the finger at an Andean point of origin for the pathogen, which is known as Phytophthora infestans.

The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright Scholarship program, is detailed online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[Red Badger]

They had no alcohol to wash the potatoes in.............

[Holicheese]

Thank god now we can send all the Irish back!
(Sarcasm lamp is lit)

[massgopguy]

Great, now I have the theme from The Quiet Man playing in my head. De de, de de, de de, deedle eedle.

[PeteB570]

So this means the Irish can get reparations from South America? How about Hugo? He has plenty of cash?

[Bosco]

My ancestor left Ireland in 1850, his wife and daughter in 1855. Brits still pulled lots of other grains out of Ireland during the Famine. There was food available, it just wasn't for the Irish.

All in all, I'm glad that my ancestor emigrated. Tremendous opportunities for his descendants.

[elc]

How long until the "genocide" crowd shows up to this thread?

[elc]

How long until the "genocide" crowd shows up to this thread?

[elc]

DOH!

[flashbunny]

One of the big problems was that ireland went to one potato variant, the lumper, which was the easiest to grow. When the blight hit, they no longer had a genetically diverse potato crop. If they did, they probably could have made it through much easier.

[NRA1995]

Dang, I thought it was caused by global warming or that it was Bush's fault.

[ishabibble]

"U.S. scientists" could have read the National Geographic article that surmises the EXACT same thing...15 yrs. ago.

Or, they could have talked to my long-dead Nan who told me about the "blight" in 1960. There were actual eye witnesses who could have saved the American taxpayer alot of money on this nonsense.

[Turbopilot]

On behalf of my many Irish immigrant ancestors, I'll be demanding reparations from the Chilean authorities shortly. I'm sure Jesse Jackson will be happy to lead the charge to fight for equality for the millions of my impoverished, oppressed ancestors. Now the healing can finally begin.

</sarc>

[Irish_Thatcherite]

How long until the "genocide" crowd shows up to this thread?

The Mod-protected IRA shills have been conspicuously quiet of late, SFIRA must have their reasons for their payed agent provocateurs to lie low at present.

Ireland Ping!

[wallcrawlr]

so it was some bad mexican 'eh?

[Vicomte13]

Bush's fault, obviously.

[Billthedrill]

Yep. Another was that the blight wasn't restricted to Ireland but was throughout Europe, which meant that importing potatoes to offset the famine wasn't possible either. That's what the grain ships that were infamously taking grain from Ireland during the famine were trying to accomplish - the idea was that expensive grain could have bought much more inexpensive potatoes and fed more people than the grain would have. It would have worked, too, had potato prices on the Continent not also gone up in the meantime. As it was the ships kicked around port to port and really didn't accomplish very much. The grain would have been better off baked into bread.

[Dante3]

I liked that film.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Yep. Another was that the blight wasn't restricted to Ireland but was throughout Europe, which meant that importing potatoes to offset the famine wasn't possible either.

A convenient fact ignored by IRA-apologists here, and elsewhere!

[martin_fierro]

IMPETUOUS! HOMERIC!