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Great Zimbabwe is a medieval city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwe and the town of Masvingo. It is thought to have been the capital of a great kingdom, although which kingdom is not certain, during the country's Late Iron Age. Construction on the city began in the 9th century and continued until it was abandoned in the 15th century. The edifices are believed to have been erected by the ancestral Shona. The stone city spans an area of 7.22 square kilometres which could have housed up to 18,000 people at its peak, giving it a population density of approximately 2,500 per square kilometre. It is recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) is a public university in Harare, Zimbabwe. It opened in 1952 as the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and was initially affiliated with the University of London. It was later renamed the University of Rhodesia, and adopted its present name upon Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. UZ is the oldest and best ranked university in Zimbabwe.
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Genetically modified crops are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering methods. Plant genomes can be engineered by physical methods or by use of Agrobacterium for the delivery of sequences hosted in T-DNA binary vectors. In most cases, the aim is to introduce a new trait to the plant which does not occur naturally in the species. Examples in food crops include resistance to certain pests, diseases, environmental conditions, reduction of spoilage, resistance to chemical treatments, or improving the nutrient profile of the crop. Examples in non-food crops include production of pharmaceutical agents, biofuels, and other industrially useful goods, as well as for bioremediation.
Sorghum bicolor, commonly called sorghum and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a grass species cultivated for its grain, which is used for food for humans, animal feed, and ethanol production. Sorghum originated in Africa, and is now cultivated widely in tropical and subtropical regions. Sorghum is the world's fifth-most important cereal crop after rice, wheat, maize, and barley, with 59.34 million metric tons of annual global production in 2018. S. bicolor is typically an annual, but some cultivars are perennial. It grows in clumps that may reach over 4 m high. The grain is small, ranging from 2 to 4 mm in diameter. Sweet sorghums are sorghum cultivars that are primarily grown for forage, syrup production, and ethanol; they are taller than those grown for grain.
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Ronald L. Phillips is an American biologist and a Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota. In 1985 he was elected a fellow and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 1991 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Gerald Mayer Rubin is an American biologist, notable for pioneering the use of transposable P elements in genetics, and for leading the public project to sequence the Drosophila melanogaster genome. Related to his genomics work, Rubin's lab is notable for development of genetic and genomics tools and studies of signal transduction and gene regulation. Rubin also serves as a Vice President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Executive Director of the Janelia Research Campus.
Maize, also known as corn, is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The leafy stalk of the plant produces pollen inflorescences and separate ovuliferous inflorescences called ears that when fertilized yield kernels or seeds, which are fruits.
The Japanese badger is a species of carnivoran of the family Mustelidae, the weasels and their kin. Endemic to Japan, it is found on Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Shōdoshima. It shares the genus Meles with its close relatives, the European and Asian badgers. In Japan it is called by the name anaguma (穴熊) meaning "hole-bear", or mujina.
The Séralini affair was the controversy surrounding the publication, retraction, and republication of a journal article by French molecular biologist Gilles-Éric Séralini. First published by Food and Chemical Toxicology in September 2012, the article presented a two-year feeding study in rats, and reported an increase in tumors among rats fed genetically modified corn and the herbicide RoundUp. Scientists and regulatory agencies subsequently concluded that the study's design was flawed and its findings unsubstantiated. A chief criticism was that each part of the study had too few rats to obtain statistically useful data, particularly because the strain of rat used, Sprague Dawley, develops tumors at a high rate over its lifetime.
Idah Sithole-Niang is a Zimbabwean biochemist and educator. Her main area of research has been viruses which attack the cowpea, one of the major food crops of Zimbabwe.
Edward S. Buckler is a plant geneticist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and holds an adjunct appointment at Cornell University. His work focuses on both quantitative and statistical genetics in maize as well as other crops such as cassava. He originated the concept of Nested association mapping and created the first population designed for this type of quantitative genetic analysis. Buckler was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in 2012. In 2014, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2017, he received the NAS prize in Food and Agricultural Science for his work using natural genetic diversity to develop varieties of maize with fifteen times more vitamin A than existing varieties.
Stephen Kresovich is a plant geneticist and the Coker Endowed Chair of Genetics in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Clemson University and professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. Since 2019 he has served as director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement.
Belgravia is a mixed use residential suburb in the north of Harare, Zimbabwe. It is named for the eponymous commercial area of Belgravia in London. It is bounded by the larger neighbourhoods of Milton Park, Avondale and Kensington, to the south and northwest respectively, as well as Alexandra Park to the east. The suburb is can be considered a transitionary area between inner city districts like Milton Park and the leafier suburbs to the north.
The Cambridge is a modern British breed of domestic sheep. It was bred at the University of Cambridge by John Owen and Alun Davies between about 1964 and 1979, with the aim of increasing prolificacy. It is among the most prolific of all sheep breeds, but is critically endangered.
References
- ↑ 1:250,0000 Series: Harare (Map) (1998 ed.). Surveyor General, Zimbabwe.
- ↑ Kyetere, D.T.; Ming, R.; McMullen, M.D.; Pratt, R.C.; Brewbaker, J.; Musket, T. (1999). "Genetic analysis of tolerance to maize streak virus in maize" (PDF). Genome. Canada: NRC. 42: 20–26. doi:10.1139/gen-42-1-20 . Retrieved 5 January 2009.
- ↑ Chimonyo, M.; Dzama, K.; Bhebhe, E. (2006). "Genetic determination of individual birth weight, litter weight and litter size in Mukota pigs". Livestock Science. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 105 (1–3): 69–97. doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2006.04.034.
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