Potatoes derived from ancient crossbreeding, researchers say
Modern potatoes, encompassing over 4,000 species, originated approximately nine million years ago in South America.
Their genesis involved the crossbreeding of wild tomato plants and potato -like species known as Etuberosum.
This evolutionary event led to the formation of the tuber, the edible underground root, which provided potatoes with a significant advantage in challenging environments.
Genetic analysis revealed that essential tuber-forming genes were inherited from both tomatoes (SP6A) and Etuberosum (IT1), with both being crucial for potato production.
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Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Evangelists once used guns to convert the Amazon. Their new tool is deadly too
Five hundred years ago it was the horse, the plough and the gun that helped convert millions of indigenous people in South America to Christianity. Now evidence has emerged that 21st-century missionaries are, like their predecessors, using modern technology to proselytise. Last week, a joint investigation by the Brazilian newspaper O Globo and The Guardian revealed that solar-powered devices reciting biblical messages had been found by members of the Korubo people in the Javari valley, near the Brazil-Peru border. The discovery was troubling because of where it was made. The exceptionally remote valley is home to an estimated 6,000 people, including several thousand members of 11 'uncontacted' tribes living their lives in stone-age conditions. All are acutely vulnerable to diseases such as measles, which affects other societies less having gained partial immunity over hundreds of years of exposure. Since 1987, the Brazilian government has stipulated that no non-indigenous people can enter the area at all. Interaction with the uncontacted tribes is permitted only if they initiate the process. The situation is precarious, with loggers, miners, poachers, drug traffickers and missionaries all known to be active on the fringes of the region. The yellow and grey device found by the Korubo was, O Globo reported, the size of a mobile phone. It broadcast passages — apparently in Spanish and Portuguese — from the Bible, along with lectures by the late American Baptist evangelical Charles Stanley. It does not run out of power thanks to an built-in solar panel. 'This is very serious,' Ivaneide Bandeira of the Kanindé Association told The Sunday Times. The association lobbies for the rights of the people of the Amazon basin. The fact that a man-made device had been left so close to otherwise isolated people raised the risk of spreading diseases to them, she said. 'That radio has already passed through many hands and can itself lead to contamination.' Unfortunately, Bandeira said that deploying such gadgets was a highly effective way of attracting the uncontacted. 'They arouse curiosity — all human beings are curious.' • Amazon's last uncontacted tribes 'withdraw for their own survival' Any object that makes 'musical sounds' holds a particular allure to indigenous people, she added. The 16th-century missionaries used musical instruments when they first made contact, a practice fictionalised in the 1986 film The Mission when the Jesuit Father Gabriel, portrayed by Jeremy Irons, plays the oboe to a Guarani community. What can appear innocent or well intentioned is often a prelude to something far darker, she warned. 'It opens the door to people who will destroy the culture of indigenous people, their spirituality and eventually their lives. All contact, however well done, kills a lot of people.' She said that across the Amazon indigenous rituals were already being edged out by western culture, often introduced by missionaries. 'They learn the indigenous language and then the whole, powerful evangelisation process begins.' She described how the missionaries — in recent decades most often Protestants rather than Catholics — would bring clothes as gifts, which the local people would then be persuaded to wear 'to cover their shame'. She said they were also encouraged to marry, like good Christians. Weddings were often conducted 'in the white man's tradition' complete with veils and wreaths. Bandeira added that modern technology could give outsiders the appearance of possessing supernatural powers. 'They usually arrive in the villages and forests with a lot of antibiotics,' she said. 'They hand out medicines that cure illnesses faster than the ones the shamans give. This can convince people that the medicine comes from God.' The device reportedly found by the Korubo is one of a type distributed by a Baptist group, In Touch Ministries, based in Atlanta, Georgia. On its website the organisation describes its mission as being 'to lead people worldwide into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and to strengthen the local church'. The family of gadgets, known as Messengers, are distributed around the world. Some are specifically designed to bring the Gospel to places without reliable electricity or an internet connection. Seth Grey, chief operating officer at In Touch Ministries, told O Globo that his group used Messengers because they were effective. 'It's built for functionality, solar-powered, with a flashlight,' he said. 'Then they discover the content.' Grey said he personally delivered 48 of the devices to the Wai-wai people in the Amazon, four years ago. The Wai-wai are understood to have collaborated with American missionaries to convert other tribes since they were converted to Christianity in the 1950s. But Grey said Messengers should not be present in the Javari region. 'We don't go anywhere we are not allowed,' he insisted. Evangelism has been rising steadily in Brazil in recent decades. According to the country's latest census, released in June, those identifying as evangelical Christians now account for more than a quarter of all Brazilians. The country's historically dominant Catholic population saw its numbers fall in the same survey, from 65 per cent in 2010 to 57 per cent. Evangelicals have been especially successful in making inroads in the Amazon region. The former president, Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing ex-soldier who was in office from 2019-23, actively courted the evangelical vote and was backed by several prominent pastors. In one of his most controversial moves as president, Bolsonaro sought to appoint a former evangelical missionary, Ricardo Lopes Dias, as the head of the government department tasked with protecting isolated and recently contacted indigenous tribes. Lopes Dias was linked to a missionary group whose explicit purpose was to convert 'unreached people' to Christianity. Appointing such a controversial figure purportedly to protect indigenous people was described by activists at the times as equivalent to 'putting a fox in charge of the hen house'. Eventually the appointment was blocked by the courts. By 2030 it is forecast that there will be more Brazilian evangelicals than Catholics. Pastors talk of the development as a 'revival' that should be duplicated around the world. But Bandeira questions whether this really is something to celebrate, especially if those numbers are being swelled by indigenous converts. She said her experience was that contact with evangelical missionaries eventually led to 'envy, and then division' inside the communities.
Medical News Today
13 hours ago
- Medical News Today
3 diet types may help reduce chronic disease risk in older adults
Researchers from Karolinska Institutet studied how dietary patterns influence the development of chronic diseases such as heart disease, dementia, and diabetes in older adults who regularly ate healthier diets that included vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and healthy fats experienced a slower buildup of chronic who consumed more red meat, processed foods, and sugary beverages were more likely to develop multiple chronic conditions over often brings new health challenges, including an increased risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, arthritis, COPD, and dementia.A new study from researchers in Sweden offers hope for older adults concerned about their studying what effect diet has on chronic disease, the researchers found that people who consumed healthier diets tended to see a slower progression of chronic health issues and fewer chronic diseases overall. In contrast, participants who consumed a pro-inflammatory diet were more likely to develop multiple chronic study appears in Nature the link between food choices and agingAging may bring about new health problems such as hearing loss, mobility issues, and a weakened immune system. While some decline is expected, being proactive about one's health, including dietary choices, can help reduce the risk associated with chronic authors of the current study focused on chronic disease in older adults. Some of the health problems they considered included cardiovascular disease, neuropsychiatric diseases, and musculoskeletal diseases. To do this, they analyzed data from the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K), a long-term registry that tracks health metrics, medical histories, and cognitive testing among aging researchers included a group of more than 2,400 older adults from SNAC-K who were an average age of 71.5 years at the baseline. The researchers divided the participants into four groups based on the answers they provided on food questionnaires: MIND (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay), which focuses on consuming fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy (Alternative Healthy Eating Index), which evaluates diet quality based on foods linked to a lower risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, such as fish, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. AMED (Alternative Mediterranean diet), which focuses on plant-based foods and healthy fats, but adjusts recommendations for some food items such as red (Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Index), which is a pro-inflammatory diet pattern high in red meat, processed foods, and sugary researchers considered the first three diets healthy, while the EDII represented an unhealthy, inflammation-promoting diet. The scientists used 15 years of data to examine how the diets impacted the accumulation of chronic adults who ate well developed fewer chronic illnesses The results of this study demonstrated yet another way maintaining a healthy diet is important to health. Over a 15-year period, participants who followed one of the healthy diets experienced a slower progression of chronic diseases. Additionally, these participants had up to two fewer diseases compared to people with the least adherence to healthy eating. Healthy eaters also experienced a slower rate of heart disease and neuropsychiatric diseases such as dementia. The only area where researchers did not find a negative association between a pro-inflammatory diet and health outcome was regarding musculoskeletal disease. The protective effects of the MIND and AHEI diets on neuropsychiatric health were strongest among the oldest participants. This suggests that even later in life, adopting a healthy diet can make a warn that shifting eating patterns may pose challengesDavid Cutler, MD, board certified family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center, shared his thoughts about the study with Medical News Today. 'These results suggest that diet quality is a modifiable risk factor in slowing the rate of chronic disease accumulation among older adults,' said emphasized that the study made it clear that a pro-inflammatory diet can be harmful to one's the study demonstrated the importance of healthy eating habits, Cutler noted that 'changing eating behaviors is challenging.''This is especially true of [older adults] whose patterns have been ingrained longer, and they may see a shorter period of time to appreciate the benefits of a healthier diet,' Cutler continued. Mir Ali, MD, board certified general surgeon, bariatric surgeon, and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center, also spoke with MNT.'I thought this was a good study linking a healthier diet to slower disease progression,' said Ali. 'Though it is difficult to separate all factors, I think it is reasonable to conclude that diet plays a major role in chronic inflammation and disease.'Ali also shared concerns about the difficulty in changing eating patterns for older adults.'The older someone is, the harder it is to make long-term changes; furthermore, disease and inflammation can progress more as we age, so it becomes more difficult to reverse these changes,' explained Ali. 'In general, we recommend to all our patients, including older adults, to reduce carbohydrate and sugar intake and emphasize protein and vegetables. This helps direct the body towards breaking down fats, reducing diabetes and inflammation overall.'— Mir Ali, MD
BBC News
20 hours ago
- BBC News
Cambridge study says healthy diets could reduce risk of diabetes
Several healthy diets can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, regardless of a person's ethnicity, a new study has foundResearchers from the University of Cambridge looked at 33 studies on three different diets featuring 826,000 analysis suggested the eating habits, all of which place a focus on consuming more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, "can be promoted across all populations".They said the findings "suggest that major ethnic groups benefit equally from higher adherence to these dietary patterns", although more research is needed for specific populations. Researchers said the Mediterranean diet, the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (Dash) were trialled. The study found that the top 10% who adhered to the diets had a significantly lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes happens when the hormone insulin does not work properly, causing high blood sugar. Treatment for the condition could include lifestyle changes such as healthier eating and exercise to help lower review suggested that the Dash diet reduced the risk of developing the condition by 23%, the Mediterranean by 17% and AHEI linked to a 21% lower benefits of following each diet also did not appear to vary across African, Asian, European, and Hispanic ethnic groups, according to added: "This study strengthens the evidence that the Mediterranean, AHEI, and Dash dietary patterns may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes across diverse ethnic groups, and that they can be promoted across all populations."The findings will be presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna in September. Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
