Rachel Laudan

He was just a little boy.  He lived in the country.  So why were brown spots spreading on his skin, why were his joints swollen and aching, why were his gums bleeding? No one knew.  Nobody had a cure. His mother ignored the nutritional advice of the day, advice that suggested that all that a [...]

Sorry, folks.  I hit the publish on this before I meant to.  In any case an interesting story in Slate.  I’d actually put the beginnings of the Japanese move to wheat at the beginning of the twentieth century.  That established the idea that wheat was good and strengthening, laying the foundations for the  big increase [...]

This morning’s post is for those obessionistas like me who can’t resist digging into the strange and multiple paths along which people have taken plants, in this case the black-eyed pea (aka the cow pea or Vigna unguiculata). It was first domesticated in West Africa, botanists tell us. A couple of years ago I posted [...]