Scientists in the US and Israel have discovered a gene that can boost the protein, iron and zinc levels of modern wheats. It is present in wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides) but somewhere along the way to modern bread and pasta wheats became non-functional. Inserting the gene into modern wheat -- by normal breeding, they hasten to say, not genetic engineering -- raises the protein and minerals by about 10 to 15 per cent. Modern wheat does have genes that are similar to the “wild” gene, which has been called Gpc-B1 for its effect on grain protein content. Blocking the activity of those genes in modern wheats causes the plants to live longer, but depresses the amounts of protein, iron and zinc even further.

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... that you're not a turkey.

Before this morning I might have read today’s BBC piece about Aids in Africa and given a world-weary sigh for those poor people. But this morning, via the Freakonomics blog, I read Emily Oster's piece in the December Esquire magazine: Three Things You Don't Know About Aids In Africa.

And now...

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A post over on Freakonomics let me discover Science Hobbyist on Traffic Jams -- much of which I already knew, but the experiments he describes are just wonderful. I often try the “evaporate jam” thing myself, by idling along as slowly as I can in traffic; the problem is that Italians, like natur...

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Start: 95.4 Last week: 87.7 This week: 87.9
Tuesday 21 November: Oh, the exquisite irony of it, part II; to be on a plateau and to have discovered Jim Lahey’s recipe for no-knead bread. Ah well, the novelty will wear off soon, I hope. Except that I have a second sourdough loaf bubbling away now,...

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