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US scientists have found that all modern varieties of potatoes can be traced back to a single source - a spud grown in Peru over 7,000 years ago. It had been believed potatoes had a much wider region of origin, stretching from Peru to northern Argentina. The team, led by Dr David Spooner of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, analysed the DNA of about 360 potatoes, both wild and cultivated. Some 300 million tonnes of potatoes are produced around the world every year. The study was sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture. Dr Spooner, a professor of horticulture, said archaeological...

ANCIENT ROMANS IN TEXAS? If one searches long enough and hard enough, one can discover hints that just about any ancient culture you care to name set foot in the New World well before the Vikings and Columbus. Old coins, inscriptions, language concordances, and the like are taken by many as proofs that Egyptians visited Oklahoma, the Chinese moored along the Pacific coast, the Celts toured New England, and so on. Now, according to Professor V. Belfiglio, the ancient Romans had Texas on their itineraries. Belfiglio's evidence is fourfold, and so are mainstream criticisms: Roman coins found in Texas....