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In The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov, acclaimed journalist and author Peter Pringle recreates the extraordinary life and tragic end of one of the great scientists of the twentieth century. In a drama of love, revolution, and war that rivals Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, Pringle tells the story of a young Russian scientist, Nikolai Vavilov, who had a dream of ending hunger and famine in the world. Vavilov's plan would use the emerging science of genetics to breed super plants that could grow anywhere, in any climate, in sandy deserts and freezing tundra, in drought and flood. He would launch botanical expeditions to find these vanishing genes, overlooked by early farmers ignorant of Mendel's laws of h...
A collection of all of Vavgilov's works on the origin and geography of cultivated plant species.
The future of our food depends on tiny seeds in orchards and fields the world over. In 1943, one of the first to recognize this fact, the great botanist Nikolay Vavilov, lay dying of starvation in a Soviet prison. But in the years before Stalin jailed him as a scapegoat for the country’s famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collecting hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity and guard against widespread hunger. Now, another remarkable scientist—and vivid storyteller—has retraced his footsteps. In Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov’s extraordinary story with his own expeditions ...
Darwin's Harvest addresses concerns that we are losing the diversity of crop plants that provide food for most of the world. With contributions from evolutionary biologists, geneticists, agronomists, molecular biologists, and anthropologists, this collection discusses how economic development, loss of heirloom varieties and wild ancestors, and modern agricultural techniques have endangered the genetic diversity needed to keep agricultural crops vital and capable of adaptation. Drawing on the most up-to-date data, the contributors review the utilization of molecular techniques to understand crop evolution. They explore current research on various crop plants of both temperate and tropical origin, including maize, sunflower, avocado, sugarcane, and wheat. The chapters in Darwin's Harvest also provide solid background for understanding many recent discoveries concerning the origins of crops and the influence of human migration and farming practices on the genetics of our modern foods.
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His knowledge, tenacity and eloquence still resound in the corridors of the Saint Petersburg institute that bears his name, and his spirit continues to inspire the hundreds of researchers pursuing his work. Nikolai Vavilov anticipated the disappearance of plant diversity and within the space of a few decades through study and travel all over the world he found the means of saving it. For political and ideological reasons, Vavilov was condemned to death and left to starve in the dungeon of a Soviet prison. Gradually, on both sides of the iron curtain, his memory began to fade. One hundred years after Vavilov's first expedition, the photographer Mario Del Curto retraced his footsteps. For four years he met with those who, despite overwhelming obstacles, perpetuate Vavilov's seed prospecting, selection and conservation work in order to save the planet's staple food crops. This book is the unprecedented story of his journey to the heart of the Vavilov Institute and its twelve research stations. International specialists bring light the huge scope of the work undertaken by Vavilov and his successors.
“One of the finest, most gripping surveys of the history of Russian science in the twentieth century.” —Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy Stalin and the Scientists tells the story of the many gifted scientists who worked in Russia from the years leading up to the revolution through the death of the “Great Scientist” himself, Joseph Stalin. It weaves together the stories of scientists, politicians, and ideologues into an intimate and sometimes horrifying portrait of a state determined to remake the world. They often wreaked great harm. Stalin was himself an amateur botanist, and by falling under the sway of dangerous charlatans like Tr...
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Migration of humans and animals, plants and even microbes is a ubiquitous global phenomenon. This book covers all forms of migration - plant, microbial, animal or human - and their mutual impact in detail. The contributions in this book are the result of an innovative International Conference and OECD Workshop aimed at triggering off the interdisciplinary dialogue between natural scientists and socioeconomists.