Middle East know-how can help feed drier, hotter world

The Middle East's expertise in handling heat could be of benefit worldwide, writes Aly Abousabaa, director general of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and CGIAR's regional director ...

Demographic modeling plays back tape of wheat evolution

Wheat, which includes bread wheat and its relatives, is a staple food crop that feeds about 35% of the world's population. As one of the first ancient crops to appear in the Fertile Crescent, wheat has been cultivated for ...

Feline genetics help pinpoint first-ever domestication of cats

Nearly 10,000 years ago, humans settling in the Fertile Crescent, the areas of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made the first switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers. They developed close bonds ...

Figuring out how wild wheat protects itself from insects

Wheat is a staple crop that provides 20% of the world population's caloric and human protein intake. Although wheat is essential for human and livestock diets, these plants are continuously preyed upon by insect herbivores ...

Before horses, ass hybrids were bred for warfare

The 4,500-year-old iconography and texts from Mesopotamia show that the elite used equids for travel and warfare; however, the nature of these animals remained mysterious. In Science Advances (January 14, 2022), a team from ...

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