Potato Blight

Photo from the USDA

The Smithsonian's blog highlights research sequencing the organism that caused potato blight in Ireland in the mid 1800s. The blog post (and the comments) show how research like this is connected to modern politics, even when the events are 150 years old. It's also interesting to think that this research made use of botanical collections that were made at the time. Apparently, it could lead to more research using dried plant remains. That would open up the collections of museums and botanical gardens around the world. As far as the relationship between potato blight and the potato famine, I think that Glenn Stone's blog and Eric B. Ross' book about Malthus are worth reading.

Fieldquestions

My colleague Glenn Davis Stone has an excellent blog called Fieldquestions, where he discusses many different issues related to agriculture, population, resources, genetic engineering, and technology, in places all around the world. The blog is a library of interesting posts, including this one from 2011 about Paul Ehrlich and the question of 10 billion people in the world. Issues about the relationship between population and resources go back to the famous work of Malthus, but also much earlier than that. It seems to me that these questions remain important today, and it's worth the effort to stay informed both on current events, and new analyses of old ideas. Stone's blog is a good place to start.