Free Republic

Week of March 4, 2006; Vol. 169, No. 9 , p. 132 Ancient Andean Maize Makers: Finds push back farming, trade in highland Peru Bruce Bower Nearly 4,000 years ago, large societies emerged in the Andes Mountains of southern Peru that would culminate 1,500 years later in the rise of the Inca civilization. Now, scientists have the first evidence that these Inca predecessors cultivated maize and imported plant foods from lowland tropical forests located 180 miles to the east. HIGH TIMES. Researchers excavate Waynuna, a site in Peru's Andes Mountains that has yielded evidence of early agriculture and food...

HARLINGEN - Tortillas made with contaminated corn may have caused a rash of newborns with missing or rudimentary brains in the Rio Grande Valley in the 1990s, new data suggest. According to the February issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers now have human studies linking a toxin in corn mold called fumonisin with babies' neural tube defects. Scientists have been searching more than a decade for answers to the surge of anencephalic babies - babies born without brains or with underdeveloped brains - in the Rio Grande Valley from 1990-92. There were six such cases in six weeks...

Maize reveals traces of old breeding project Emma Marris Gene suggests ancient culture selected patterns in its corn. Teosinte grass (left) compared to "reconstructed" primitive maize, created by crossing teosinte with Argentine pop corn. © The Doebley Lab The people of Mesoamerica are largely responsible for the golden corn we grow today, having domesticated tough teosinte grass thousands of years ago and bred it into modern maize. Researchers have now located the gene responsible for some of the traits that the Mesoamericans were selecting. The discovery should help scientists understand how plants develop, and reveals just how strict the ancient...

A new report issued by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) under North American Free Trade Agreement points out that genes from genetically modified corn (maize) have been found in traditional varieties grown by Mexican farmers. The transgenes evidently came from corn genetically enhanced for insect resistance that has been imported from the United States. Instead of eating the corn, some Mexican farmers planted it and it crossbred with local varieties. So Chapela was right.  Now we turn to the question, does it matter?  Scientifically, the CEC report basically concludes that crossbreeding between transgenic, conventional and traditional varieties...

HARARE - President Robert Mugabe has ordered Z$10 billion worth of arms and anti-riot equipment from China, ZimOnline has learnt. Well-placed sources said Mugabe negotiated the arms supply deal when he met a joint delegation of government and private business representatives from Beijing in Harare two weeks ago. The Chinese delegation returned home last week. Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, who helped Mugabe negotiate the deal, last night confirmed that the government held defence and trade talks with the Chinese. But he would not be drawn to disclose the details of the negotiations. Sekeramayi said: "There were discussions which centred on...

Zimbabwe faces food riots after massive rise in price of maize By Angus Shaw in Harare 12 July 2003 Zimbabwe braced itself for an increase of at least a 500 per cent in the price of maize meal yesterday after the government appeared to abandon its price freeze. In 1998 a 25 per cent rise in maize meal - the staple diet for Zimbabweans - sparked food riots and led the government to impose price controls backed by subsidies. Milling company and food store executives said the price would rise from Z$100 (7p) a kilogram to Z$630. The state-run Grain...

QUESTION: Why does Gen. 42:25 refer to corn, when corn is a new world crop? Europeans did not know of its existence until the 16th Century. Surely that must be a mistranslation by the KJV translators, because the Jews would have not known about corn.