Women in the Near East pray and prepare Bible stories to share with local friends through creative opportunities.

OM Bosnia and a local church distribute Bibles in town this Easter season.

The decision was taken after the state agriculture department approached the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR), Nagpur, seeking advice against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the country.

Philippines-based cloud kitchen startup CloudEats has secured $1.4 million in a seed funding round led by an undisclosed local family office.

The post SEA Digest: CloudEats bags seed funding; LinkAja launches sharia service appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

BukuKas has raised a seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital India through its startup programme Surge.

The post Indonesia Digest: East Ventures raises $609k for COVID-19 test kits; BukuKas bags seed funding appeared first on DealStreetAsia.

And they’re off! The baby peas and beans are out on their own. But will they survive?

Sleep restless, anxiety dreams, and if there wasn’t enough to be concerned about I am worrying about our baby beans and peas.

It is often like this in spring. The responsibility, it comes with the shorter nights and longer light, maybe I have more time on my hands. I have saved two hours a day on travelling and I only work a few miles’ walk from home. This extra time has now become a trip to the plot, or perhaps pottering on the terrace. A more intimate gardening relationship cemented in the spring mornings. Deepened, more dependent.

This paper highlights the growth in support for financial instruments for seed and early-stage firms across OECD countries. These instruments include grants, loans and guarantee schemes, tax incentives and equity funds. This increased support is linked to the recent financial crisis and the growing concern about young firms’ access to finance.

This Biosafety document aims to serve as an aid to risk assessors and regulators; providing guidance on handling the aspects of an environmental safety assessment, accessing and using information in situations of low-level presence (LLP) of transgenic plants in seed and grain commodities.

The National Seeds Bill was recently studied by a parliamentary standing committee after being introduced in the Rajya Sabha late last year. The bill has provoked controversy because it is seen as seeking to shift control of seeds from farmers to seed firms. Kavitha Kuruganti provides a critique.

Labour contractors and large landowners continue to employ children, often exposing them to vulnerable situations. Extreme poverty in Rajasthan's tribal districts fuels the practice. Pradeep Baisakh reports.

Minister for Agriculture Kurasala Kannababu on Saturday said that distribution of seeds would be done in villages from this year and farmers need not

Two commonly encountered bottlenecks in the structure determination of a protein by X-ray crystallography are screening for conditions that give high-quality crystals and, in the case of novel structures, finding derivatization conditions for experimental phasing. In this study, the phasing molecule 5-amino-2,4,6-triiodoisophthalic acid (I3C) was added to a random microseed matrix screen to generate high-quality crystals derivatized with I3C in a single optimization experiment. I3C, often referred to as the magic triangle, contains an aromatic ring scaffold with three bound I atoms. This approach was applied to efficiently phase the structures of hen egg-white lysozyme and the N-terminal domain of the Orf11 protein from Staphylococcus phage P68 (Orf11 NTD) using SAD phasing. The structure of Orf11 NTD suggests that it may play a role as a virion-associated lysin or endolysin.

This paper reports an Fe-added Y2O3 crucible which is capable of balancing the solution spontaneously and is employed to effectively enhance the homogeneity of YBa2(Cu1−xFex)3O7−δ single crystals.

By attaching tiny radio transmitters to more than 400 seeds, Patrick Jansen, scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Wageningen University, and his colleagues found that 85 percent of the seeds were buried in caches by agoutis, common, house cat-sized rodents in tropical lowlands.

The post Thieving rodents hiding seeds drives continual rejuvination of tropical forests appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

We only have one example of a planet with life: Earth. But within the next generation, it should become possible to detect signs of life […]

The post Interstellar Seeds Could Create Oases of Life appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

W. Atlee Burpee & Company Seed Co., 1898 The seed trade catalogs document the history of the seed and agricultural business in the United States; […]

The post W. Atlee Burpee & Company Seed Co., 1898 appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Nutmeg-loving toucans wearing GPS transmitters recently helped a team of scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama address an age-old problem in plant ecology: accurately estimating seed dispersal.

The post Toucans wearing GPS backpacks help Smithsonian scientists study seed dispersal appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

It is one of the rarest shrubs in the southeastern United States but for scientists trying to save it, the critically endangered Michaux’s sumac (Rhus michauxii) is not cooperating.

The post Super tough seed coat keeps Michaux’s sumac on critically endangered list appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

How specific fungi interact with seeds in tropical forest soils may be the ultimate arbiter in the struggle for survival among tropical trees. “Depending on […]

The post Study reveals soil fungi has final say in survival of seeds from tropical trees appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Using commercial seed mixtures to replant European grasslands tends to produce a smaller range of species than originally grew on the land. New research has identified several methods that successfully reproduce the original range of species, such as transferring of fresh hay or soil that contains seeds.

Researchers have recommended new, improved ways of increasing the ecological value of European grasslands. Plant diversity ??? or species richness ??? can be increased by a factor of three through sowing grass and wildflower seed mixtures, together with a carefully controlled plan for animal grazing.

A new European study has assessed whether seed banks are successfully conserving European plant species threatened by extinction. The findings indicate that threatened species are only partly conserved by seed banks, and that these facilities need to focus their future efforts on filling gaps in their collections.

A recent study has found one means of complementing agricultural production with biodiversity protection by growing seeded ryegrass for silage. The seeds effectively feed many birds, such as the yellowhammer and reed bunting, throughout the winter, and the grass can still be cost-effectively used for silage if it is harvested at the right time.

A study on the effects of noise pollution from natural gas wells in the US reveals that it may have reduced the number of young trees growing locally by changing the types of animals that visit the area. However, in the same woodland environment, flowering plants pollinated by hummingbirds seem to benefit from the noise.

Temporary ponds and their varying water levels provide the conditions for valuable wildlife habitat. A study in Crete, conducted under the LIFE-Nature project Actions for the Conservation of Mediterranean Temporary Ponds in Crete, has demonstrated these ponds contain varied collections of seeds and that these ???seed banks??? could play an important role in vegetation recovery after droughts.

Farmers could help to maintain populations of bees and other pollinators by sowing inexpensive seed mixes on their land, a new study suggests. Researchers surveyed pollinators visiting study plots in Berkshire, UK, and explored how sowing different seed mixes and using different management techniques affected the flowers produced and the pollinators visiting them.

This study is one of few to assess the genetic diversity of crops in an agroecosystem over several years. Researchers analysed the genetic makeup of oilseed rape plants within and outside crop fields over four years. They found similarity between cultivars of field plants in one year and those of feral plants (unplanted) in the following year. They also found persistence of the cultivars within the feral plants, which suggests that feral populations with genetically modified (GM) traits might result from persistent GM traits within field seed banks. The researchers say their findings could aid impact assessments of GM crops.

A common anti-parasitic drug used to control gastrointestinal worms in livestock has been shown to inhibit seed germination of three common grassland species. This recent study is the first to show that anthelmintics may negatively affect plant regeneration. The researchers say that treatments should be carefully timed in order to avoid the strongest impact of the drugs on germination and the consequential negative affect on grassland regeneration.

New research suggests that feral oilseed rape poses little risk of contaminating crops, but if the oilseed is genetically modified (GM), it could be a minor source of GM traits in weeds. Throughout Europe, feral oilseed rape is now widespread on waysides and wasteland, making it potentially more problematic than some other crops, such as maize, which do not easily establish feral populations.

A new study from Poland has confirmed the potential of fungal Trichoderma species to control diseases of oilseed rape crops. The use of Trichoderma can reduce the growth of disease-causing oilseed rape pathogens, which may allow a decrease in the use of harmful pesticides.

Award-winning gin and vodka created with attention to sustainable detail at every step of the way.

British loo roll company Nouvelle erects an outdoor advertisement that doubles as a massive roadside bird feeder.

Black cumin seeds may be the best kept secret of the medicinal healing world, yet black cumin oil has been used for centuries to treat all kinds of ailments.

From boosting immunity to helping your mood, pumpkin seeds offer many potential perks.

Chia seeds are touted for their fantastic health benefits. And thankfully there's a way to get them into just about every meal.

Researchers say the collision of a planetary body with Earth, some 4.4 billion years ago, seeded the elements of life and also led to the creation of our moon.

Seeds found during an archaeological dig on First Nations land revive a long-lost varietal.

Unanimous decision rules in favor of Monsanto regarding the replanting of seeds from genetically modified soybeans.

You know what a “farm-to-fork” restaurant is, but what’s a “seed-to-stove” restaurant?

A natural method for battling bacteria like E.coli and salmonella may be on its way.

New think tank aims to be one-stop resource for addressing hunger, obesity, food waste and a broken agricultural system.

Officials in Australia quarantine imported versions of the pop singer Katy Perry's latest album due to its seed-paper packaging.

Bring the great outdoors into your home with Three Bad Seeds' line of wilderness-inspired pillows handcrafted from repurposed scrap fabrics.

We may not pay much heed to seeds, but we couldn't have fruit without them. In homage to the mighty angiosperm, test your seed smarts.

At Global Seed Network's peer-to-peer online network, people can share rare and heirloom seeds for free.

Jump start your spring garden by growing your seedlings in eggshells before planting them in the ground.

Enhance your neighborhood's flora with a little guerrilla gardening.

The folk hero planted many an apple tree, but not for the reasons you might think.

Just because it’s cold outside doesn’t mean your passion for gardening needs to hibernate.