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Newly Discovered Fungus Threatens World Wheat Crop
RickRussellTX writes "The UN reports that a variety of the rust fungus originally detected in Uganda in 1999 has already spread as far north as Iran, threatening wheat production across its range. The fungus infects wheat stems and affects 80% of wheat varieties, putting crops at risk and threatening the food sources for billions of people across central Asia. Although scientists believe they can develop resistant hybrids, the fungus is moving much faster than anticipated and resistant hybrids may still be years away. Meanwhile, national governments in the path of the fungus are telling folks that there is nothing to worry about."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066154/
Think about it. Right now, one of the major breadbaskets of the Unites States, the Palouse region, is in perfect shape weather-wise for a bumper crop of wheat this year. We do not exactly have a shortage. But overseas they might... AND the dollar is low...
Sound to me like U.S. wheat farmers are going to clean up this year.
Just send everything one way, okay, guys? We don't want that fungus over here!
But since the apocalyptic scenario has been brought up: what a great illustration of the fact that we have WAY too much of our food crops being grown as huge tracts of monoculture, often all the same crop and all the same species. What a great target for famine-causing organisms.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
According to the NPR interview I heard with some science-type person on this, the monoculture we've bred was resistant to rust, so you would expect to see numbers going down... until a version of the fungus able to overcome that resistance comes along. Which is what has happened here.
I just finished a book on phylloxera, and I find it interesting to see some of the parallels. Apparently 100 years is not enough time to learn from mistakes....
Even if AIDS itself were 100% lethal, there's still difference between being HIV positive and developing AIDS. There definitely is evolutionary pressure for supressing AIDS as long as possibe in HIV positive humans. The longer am HIV positive person stays "just infected", the more they can breed, and also the more they can spread the virus. So actually there is a two-way pressure both on humans and on HI virus to develop so that actual AIDS never starts. So there is an evolutionary pressure for evolving AIDS resistance and immunity.
And then of course there is pressure for being immune to HIV itself. Wether it has developed in any human yet or not, that's unknown I guess, but if it does (by random mutation) happend, then definitely it's an evolutionary advantage and is likely to spread over generations.
The latest information I had, was that there were some connection between the bubonic plague (Black Death) and AIDS resistance:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/01/66198 :
An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected.
I lost my sig.
You get my point, though, don't you? The overwhelming majority of those touting hemp *virtually never* tout any other great fibers. Their sole reason they are concerned with hemp is made obvious by the sites where you see the advocacy, everywhere from "stopthedrugwar.org" to "nirvana-shop.co.uk" to "drugwarfacts.org" to "druglibrary.org" and so on. These people aren't into hemp because they've long had some sort of affection for quality fibers. Their sole interest is to try and show that the government went overboard with the drug war as part of a move to try and get the drug war repealed.
Hemp is not some magical crop. It has many uses, but they're often way overstated, and other crops, like kenaf, are superior in most respects. It's just another crop, one that could be useful, but has unfortunately gotten caught up in politics. Yet every time the topic comes up, you get these druggies who treat it like it's the Second Coming of Christ, and then act all taken aback when you point out that it's not exactly the best choice in most applications. Even some very common products today are superior than their hemp equivalents -- for example, plain 'old manila rope, made from a type of banana leaf. Just as strong, but doesn't rot nearly as easily as hemp rope does (hemp rope is particularly insidious when it comes to rot, as it tends to rot from the inside out and wick water along so that the whole rope can rot). Or take the other "miracle" thing often mentioned, hemp oil. Yes, it also has many uses. It's also not a very thermally stable oil, and is somewhat prone to going rancid.
Can you see how one can get sick of the politics-driven promotion of hemp as a cure-all?
That was either the start of something bad or the end of something stupid.