Free Republic

“Biochemists have been curious for decades about how plants have evolved to become one of the richest sources of chemical diversity on Earth,” said co-lead author Professor Ian Graham, from the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, Department of Biology at the University of York.“Using high quality genome assembly, our study has deciphered how this has happened in the opium poppy.”“At the same time this research will provide the foundation for the development of molecular plant breeding tools that can be used to ensure there is a reliable and cheap supply of the most effective painkillers available for pain relief and...

The team compiled a database of plant remains extracted from Bronze and Iron Ages sites in the southern Levant, both Philistine and non-Philistine... The species they brought are all cultivars that had not been seen in Israel previously... edible parts of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) which originates in western Europe; the sycamore tree (Ficus sycomorus), whose fruits are known to be cultivated in the eastern Mediterranean, especially Egypt, and whose presence in Israel as a locally grown tree is first attested to in the Iron Age by the presence of its fruit; and finally, cumin (Cuminum cyminum), a spice...