Genetic Mystery of Irish Potato Famine Solved.
I’m Currently in the middle of BBC’s fantastic documentary The Story of Ireland, narrated by Fergal Keane. Investigated in one of the episodes are the devastating consequences of the potato blight which caused the Irish Famine in the mid-19th century. Caused by the microorganism, Phytophthora infestans (Latin for ‘plant destroying infestation), the blight destroys the leaves of potato crops causing the potatoes to rot.
Today, phys.org published an article which grabbed my already-peaked interest in this dark time in Irish history. A team of molecular biologists from Europe and the US have reconstructed the spread of the potato blight pathogen from dried plants obtained during the height of the Irish Famine from Ireland, the UK, Europe and North America. These had been preserved in the herbaria of the Botanical State Collection Munich and the Kew Gardens in London.
Scientists used these samples to identify a previously-unrecorded strain of the pathogen HERB-1. It is the first time scientists have decoded the genome of a plant pathogen and its plant host from dried herbarium samples.
The Great Famine had an impact so devastating that Ireland’s population has still has not recovered to pre-famine levels.
It is thought that the selective breeding of blight-resistant crops caused this strain to become extinct.
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The episode of The Story of ireland about the famine can be viewed here.
Picture used courtesy of www.faminemuseum.com
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About the author: Conor Hughes works as a Marketing Executive at Life Science Recruitment
Revolutionary ‘Bladeless’ Wind Generator.
How does a “windmill” without mechanically moving parts work? This is the question currently being answered by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in Holland. The model-EWICON (Electrostatic WInd Energy CONvertor) was designed by Mecanoo architects and uses charged droplets of water to generate electricity.
How Can Google+ Authorship Benefit My Online Visibility? (Infographic)
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GlaxoSmithKline States its Commitment to Clinical Trial Transparency
A couple of months back I wrote an article about Ben Goldacre and his website AllTrials, an online movement dedicated to the registration of all clinical trials and the public availability of all trial results. This week, British pharma giant, GSK (esteemed purveyors of legendary beverages, Lucozade and Ribena) has furthered its commitment to clinical trial transparency since signing up to the AllTrials campaign in February 2013, committing to make its clinical study reports (CSRs) publicly available through its clinical trials register after approval, termination and publication.
