Did you know FAO Library collections date back to the start of the 15th century? From historical texts on growing rice in China, to commercial guides on producing wine in [...]

Did you know? The Publications and Library branch and the FSN Forum are teaming up to provide Forum participants with additional references and resources to raise awareness on topics of their contributions.

Who does what 

The Global Forum on Food [...]

World Wetlands Day raises global awareness of the importance of wetlands for human prosperity and a healthy planet. The 2024 theme "Wetlands and Human Wellbeing" focuses on the interconnectedness between [...]

Salzburg – Austria, marked a significant milestone as it celebrated the formal recognition of Traditional Hay Milk Farming in the Austrian Alpine Arc as a FAO Globally Important Agricultural [...]

FAO produces a significant volume of publications across various languages and regions, reflecting the Organization's commitment to linguistic diversity and inclusivity. French publications account for a substantial portion of the Organization's [...]

Filmed by the famous photographer during the Spanish Civil War, this clip debuted at the 2010 Orphan Film Symposium

Behind the Scenes with Harry Rubenstein At the National Museum of American History (Beth Py-Lieberman, Ryan Reed and Molly Roberts). Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/life-of-lincoln.html

Travel to Oregon, Minnesota, North Dakota and Rhode Island to see beautiful autumn foliage and much more. --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer & Scriptwriter: Michelle Mehrtens Video Editor: Sierra Theobald

Sending a man to the moon required an overhaul of the entire space program, involving more powerful rockets and new spacecraft (Video: Lauren Hogan, Beth Py-Lieberman, Brian Wolly)

African cuisine has always been well represented in the United States, particularly in dishes characterized as “Southern” in origin, like gumbo or hoppin’ john. But even before chef Serigne Mbaye’s New Orleans eatery Dakar NOLA was named (https://www.eater.com/24175309/james-beard-awards-2024-winners-restaurant-and-chef-awards) the Best New Restaurant of 2024 at the James Beard Awards this week, the contributions of the African diaspora to the American diet had at last begun to enjoy a long-overdue reappraisal via reality television, Netflix docuseries and, most important, a number of widely praised dining establishments: If you want to book a table at Tatiana (https://www.tatiananyc.com/story/) in Manhattan, Dept of Culture (https://www.deptofculturebk.com/) in Brooklyn or Kann (https://kannrestaurant.com/) in Portland, you’d better plan ahead, because their tables are often booked up well in advance. In this episode, Smithsonian contributor Rosalind Cummings-Yeates explains how the ascendancy of pan-African cuisine from “auntie” restaurants into the rarefied fine dining sphere is part of a larger and more meaningful campaign of cultural reclamation. And Mbaye tells us why it was so important to him to make Dakar NOLA (https://www.dakarnola.com/) a showcase of the distinctive flavors of Senegal, where he spent his formative years. Read Rosalind's Smithsonian story about the rise of West African fine dining in the U.S. here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/these-chefs-are-elevating-african-and-caribbean-cuisines-from-carryouts-to-fine-dining-180984466/) . See the full list of 2024's James Beard Award winners here (https://www.jamesbeard.org/blog/the-2024-james-beard-award-winners) . Find prior episodes of our show here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast/) . There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Genevieve Sponsler, Rye Dorsey, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz / photography by Katherine Kimball, Joshua Brasted, and Jeremy Tauriac Music by APM Music.

In Bostwana's Makgadikgadi Pans, researcher James Bradley studies how the zebras travel across the great expanse of land

Mathew Brady is known for his Civil War photography and groundbreaking work in the field. Read more about the Civil War at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Civil-War-History.html.

Jeffersons respect for the enlightenment ideals of memory, reason and imagination shaped how he organized his library (Video: Molly Roberts). Read more at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/on-the-hunt-for-jeffersons-lost-books-38566672/

More on the unsuccessful plot to kill Lincoln: http://j.mp/VnSZ9g During his inauguration tour in 1861, the president's life was threatened in the city of Baltimore.

From charming streets to stunning scenery, consider Hawaii, Idaho, Massachusetts, or New York for your next summer adventure. --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer & Scriptwriter: Michelle Mehrtens Producer: Nicki Marko Producer: Sierra Theobald Editor: Michael Kneller

This spring, take a break and smell the flowers in New Mexico, Kansas, California and New Jersey. --- For more videos from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/ Digital Editorial Director: Brian Wolly Supervising Producer & Scriptwriter: Michelle Mehrtens Video Editor: Sierra Theobald

A new study identified the tiny pollutants in the olfactory bulbs of eight cadavers, suggesting microplastics can travel through the nose to the brain

A new exhibition in New York City uses more than 200 texts and artifacts to contemplate Lincoln's rise to the nation's highest office

The Kyoto museum will feature interactive exhibits, gaming artifacts, workshop spaces and oversized controllers inspired by iconic video games

The brain diagram, called a connectome, could revolutionize researchers' understanding of the human brain, which has many parallels with a fruit fly's

Scientists used EEG headsets, MRI machines and eye trackers to study volunteers' responses to five paintings housed at the Mauritshuis museum in the Netherlands

Across the country, revelers are dressing in costumes and gliding across bodies of water on stand-up paddleboards to ring in the spooky season

"Transforming Energy," the artist's first museum show in China, focuses on "artworks and objects that actively engage the audience"

A new exhibition in Paris demonstrates the influence that the Spanish artist had on the young American painter who would help usher in the Abstract Expressionist movement

History forgot about "Gibbet Hill" for more than a century—until a fan of the Gothic horror writer stumbled upon the haunting tale at the National Library of Ireland

The 237-million-year-old remains are among the oldest silesaurid fossils ever found, adding to paleontologists' understanding of this still-mysterious group of prehistoric reptiles

The 3,800-year-old site near the city of Luxor holds the remains of 11 individuals, who may have been members of the same family. Researchers think the tomb was used for several generations

From Setsubun in Japan to Fèt Gede in Haiti, these festivals relish in the macabre

These amazing images from the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest show the Arctic animals at their fierce but adorable best

It fell to Belle da Costa Greene, a Black woman whose racial identity was kept secret for decades, to catalog J.P. Morgan's immense collection of books and art

These images from the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest show how communities in Mexico and beyond mark Día de los Muertos.

Shallaway Youth Choir is bringing a program of music to the Basilica in downtown St. John’s on Remembrance Day. Artistic director Kellie Walsh says the choir will sing about such topics as the Unknown Soldier and schoolchildren who care for Newfoundland graves in London. Where Once They Stood will be performed at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Monday.

Large crowds came together at city hall in Corner Brook to lay wreaths and honour veterans on Monday. The ceremony portion was completed with a playing of the Last Post.

The A.C. Hunter Public Library wants people in St. John’s to know that it’s open and accessible, despite how the entrance looks. The main staircase is under repair but there’s plenty of signs directing folks to other entrances. Still, librarians say people are judging this book by its cover and assuming the library is closed.

Hundreds congregated in downtown St. John's Monday morning to pay tribute to Newfoundland and Labrador's fallen soldiers, and honoured the dead for the first time at the newly refurbished National War Memorial and tomb of the Unknown Solider. 

People using the library in the Arts and Culture Centre in St. John's are being forced to use alternate entrances due to an unsafe staircase in front of the building.

A Port Hawkesbury woman has long imagined a Remembrance Day with her great-uncle's war medals. It will happen this year for the first time thanks to some sleuthing and the kindness of her great-uncle's foster family.

About a thousand people stood solemnly in the rain at a cenotaph in downtown Halifax on Monday morning to pay tribute to veterans on Remembrance Day.

Genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) allow for the noninvasive evaluation of neuronal activity in vivo, and imaging GECIs in Drosophila has become commonplace for understanding neural functions and connectivity in this system. GECIs can also be used as read-outs for studying sleep in this model organism. Here, we describe a methodology for tracking the activity of neurons in the fly brain using a two-photon (2p) microscopy system. This method can be adapted to perform functional studies of neural activity in Drosophila under both spontaneous and evoked conditions, as well as during spontaneous or induced sleep. We first describe a tethering and surgical procedure that allows survival under the microscopy conditions required for long-term recordings. We then outline the steps and reagents required for optogenetic activation of sleep-promoting neurons while simultaneously recording neural activity from the fly brain. We also describe the procedure for recording from two different locations—namely, the top of the head (e.g., to record mushroom body calyx activity) or the back of the head (e.g., to record central complex activity). We also provide different strategies for recording from GECIs confined to the cell body versus the entire neuron. Finally, we describe the steps required for analyzing the multidimensional data that can be acquired. In all, this protocol shows how to perform calcium imaging experiments in tethered flies, with a focus on acquiring spontaneous and induced sleep data.

Sleep studies in Drosophila melanogaster rely mostly on behavioral read-outs to support molecular or circuit-level investigations in this model. Electrophysiology can provide an additional level of understanding in these studies to, for example, investigate changes in brain activity associated with sleep manipulations. In this protocol, we describe a procedure for performing multichannel local field potential (LFP) recordings in the fruit fly, with a flexible system that can be adapted to different experimental paradigms and situations. The approach uses electrodes containing multiple recording sites (16), allowing the acquisition of large amounts of neuronal activity data from a transect through the brain while flies are still able to sleep. The approach starts by tethering the fly, followed by positioning it on an air-supported ball. A multichannel silicon probe is then inserted laterally into the fly brain via one eye, allowing for recording of electrical signals from the retina through to the central brain. These recordings can be acquired under spontaneous conditions or in the presence of visual stimuli, and the minimal surgery promotes long-term recordings (e.g., overnight). Sleep and wake can be tracked using infrared cameras, which allow for the measurement of locomotive activity as well as microbehaviors such as proboscis extensions during sleep. The protocol has been optimized to promote subject survivability, which is an important factor when performing long-term (~16-h) recordings. The approach described here uses specific recording probes, data acquisition devices, and analysis tools. Although it is expected that some of these items might need to be adapted to the equipment available in different laboratories, the overall aim is to provide an overview on how to record electrical activity across the brain of behaving (and sleeping) flies using this kind of approach and technology.

Mosquitoes take blood meals from a diverse range of host animals and their host associations vary by species. Characterizing these associations is an important element of the transmission dynamics of mosquito-vectored pathogens. To characterize mosquito host associations, various molecular techniques have been developed, which are collectively referred to as blood meal analysis. DNA barcoding has diverse biological applications and is well-suited to mosquito blood meal analysis. The standard DNA barcoding marker for animals is a 5' fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene. A major advantage of this marker is its taxonomic coverage in DNA sequence reference databases, making it feasible to identify a wider range of mosquito host species than with any other gene. However, the COI gene contains high sequence variation at potential priming sites between vertebrate orders. Coupled with the need for primer sequences to be mismatched with mosquito priming sites so that annealing to mosquito DNA is inhibited, it can be difficult to design primers suitable for blood meal analysis applications. Several primers are available that perform well in mosquito blood meal analysis, annealing to priming sites for most vertebrate host taxa, but not to those of mosquitoes. Because priming site sequence variation among vertebrate taxa can cause amplification to fail, a hierarchical approach to DNA barcoding-based blood meal analysis can be applied. In such an approach, no single primer set is expected to be effective for 100% of potential host species. If amplification fails in the initial reaction, a subsequent reaction is attempted with primers that anneal to different priming sites, and so on, until amplification is successful.

Even as they fundraise for other community organizations, some legions across Canada are having trouble keeping their own lights on amid rising inflation and maintenance costs.

Since 1970, Lakehead Public Schools has operated Kingfisher Lake Outdoor Education Centre just outside of Thunder Bay, Ont. The CBC's Matt Fratpietro spent a morning with students from École Elsie MacGill Public School to learn more about the forests that surround the city.

In honour of Remembrance Day, Students from St. Paul School visited St Andrew's Catholic Cemetery to clean headstones of veterans, a partnership with the No Stone Left Behind project.

Jeff Monague has worked to incorporate Indigenous elements into Base Borden's Remembrance Day ceremonies — an acknowledgement he never had as a soldier.