Oued el kebir near of Oued Berkou, El Milia

[leofrombrasil]

On 10 thousand years the Earth's population has doubled ten times, from less than 10 million to over 6 billion people, and will soon reach 10 billion. Most of the calories that made that increase can come from three plants: maize, rice and wheat. The oldest, most widespread and until recently biggest of the three crops is wheat. Wheat is the staple food of mankind, and its history is the history of mankind.

Today he is losing the crown. The volume of corn harvested in the world began consistently to exceed that of corn in 1998, the rice following the trend from 1999. Genetic modification that transformed maize, rice and soybeans wheat left behind. The Atkins diet and a "fashion" of allergies to gluten made it look less healthy. The fall accelerated rates of population growth, coupled with increased productivity, also threaten to reduce the first time since the Stone Age the acreage devoted to wheat.

It's time to pay tribute to this strange little grass that has done so much for the human race. Strange is the word, for wheat is a genetic monster. A typical wheat variety is hexaploid - contain six copies of each gene, where most species have two. Its 21 chromosomes contain a massive 16 billion base pairs of DNA, 40 times more than rice, six times more than maize and five times more people.

It is derived from three wild ancestral species from two separate mergers. The first occurred in the Levant, there are 10 thousand years, and the second near the Caspian Sea, 2 thousand years later. The result was a plant with extra-large seeds incapable of dispersal in the wild and planting which depends on the men.

But actually the story begins long before, there are 12 thousand years. At that time, after several warm millennia, a melting ice sheet collapsed in North America and a gigantic lake drained into the North Atlantic through the St. Lawrence Seaway. The flood of fresh water and cold altered the climate so that the ice age, then in full retreat, resumed for another 11 centuries. A Scandinavian ice sheet surged south. The Western Asia became not only cooler but also drier. The Black Sea almost dried up.

People in what is now Syria had been subsisting on a diet of acorns, gazelles and grass seeds. The centuries of drought have led to an increasing reliance on wild grass seeds. Suddenly, there are 11 thousand years ago, they began to cultivate rye and chick-peas, then "einkorn and emmer, two ancestors of wheat, and later barley. Once cultivated grains became the staple food. It happened first in the Karacadag Mountains in Turkey - only there the wild einkorn contains a genetic fingerprint identical to that of modern domesticated wheat.

Who first replanted the seeds and why? For starters, it was probably a she: women have primary responsibilities for plant gathering in hunter-gatherer societies. The time was ripe for agriculture: the ability to make tools and control fire was already well established. But was it an act of inspiration or desperation? Could it have happened by accident, as discarded grains germinated around human settlements?

The wheat plant evolved three new traits to suit its new servants: the seeds grew larger, the "backbones" that link the seeds became less brittle and glumes, which looked like leaves that covered each seed that was loose , thus making the grains "free-threshing". In the last two years, the very mutations that allowed these changes were located in the plant genome. Wheat's servants now became its slaves. Agriculture brought the work boring and stressful, subjugation and malnutrition, because unlike hunter-gatherers, farmers could earn a living when times were bad.

Population growth has now become inevitable. In a few generations, wheat farmers took their march, displacing and dominating the hunter-gatherers, bringing with them their distinct Indo-European language, descended from which Sanskrit and Irish. There are 5 thousand years, the wheat had reached Ireland, Spain, Ethiopia and India. A millennium later it reached China: paddy rice was still millennia in the future.

Wherever they went, the farmers brought their habits: not just sowing, harvesting and threshing, but baking, fermenting, owning, hoarding. There are 9 thousand years, had domesticated cattle fed corn to produce meat and milk. Farmers also could obtain fertilizer for the land. Only 6 thousand years ago came the first plow to turn the earth, burying weeds and breaking up the seedbed.

In wheat, the innovations came slowly. The horse collar arrived in the third century BC in China. By not pressing on the trachea of the animal, allowed him to drag greater weight - and faster than ox. In 1701, the farmer Jethro Tull, Berkshire, devised a simple seed drill based on organ pipes, which resulted in eight times as many grains harvested for every grain sown. Like most agricultural innovators since, he was vilified. A century later the threshing machine was greeted by riots.

Crisis predicted by Malthus was removed in the nineteenth century, when they were freed more land for the plow

In 1815, a massive volcanic eruption at Tambora in Indonesia led the famous "year without summer." Wheat prices reached a level never equaled in real terms, close to $ 3 a bushel. Thomas Robert Malthus was the height of fame and the harvest failure seemed to confirm his pessimism. In 1798 he had forecast a population crash, as it would be impossible to improve wheat yields in the rate at which people had babies.

Malthusian crisis was rejected in the nineteenth century, when it freed more land to the plow - especially in North America, Argentina and Australia. The productivity of wheat crops, however, deteriorated, coinciding with the depletion of soil nutrients. Thus, in 1898, in a speech before the British Association, a chemist, Sir William Crookes, argued again that world hunger would be inevitable within a generation. The population was growing rapidly. There was little new land to plow. Famines became worse each season, especially in Asia.

This time it was the tractor that averted Malthusian disaster. The first tractors had few advantages over the best horses, but did not eat hay or oats. The replacement of draft animals by machines released about 25% more land for growing food for human consumption.

The Malthusian limit, however, would be achieved one day. The only way to increase yield was to find a way to provide additional quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to the soil. Rotate vegetable crops nor manure was the answer, since both demanded precious acres to produce.

The search for a fertilizer took unexpected turns. British entrepreneurs scoured the old battlefields of Europe in search of bones rich in phosphorus. Around 1830 was found a magic ingredient: guano (accumulation of calcium phosphate resulting from the droppings of seabirds). In dry islands inhabited by sea birds off the coast of South America and South Africa, immense deposits of bird droppings, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, had accumulated over the centuries.

Guano mining became profitable and painful. In the southeast coast of Africa, the discovery in 1843, the tiny island Ichaboe, covered with 7.5 meters of excrement of penguins and divers, led to a guano rush followed by a mutiny and battles. Until 1850, Ichaboe, missing 800 thousand metric tons of guano, was deserted again.

Between 1840 and 1880, guano nitrogen made a vast difference to European agriculture. Quickly, however, the best deposits were exhausted. In the dry uplands of Chile, deposits rich in nitrate mineral were found, and gradually took the place of guano in the late nineteenth century. The nitrate mines fueled the economy of Chile and fertilized farms in Europe. On July 2, 1909, with the help of an engineer named Carl Bosch from the BASF company, Fritz Haber succeeded in combining nitrogen (from air) with hydrogen (from coal) to make ammonia. In a few years, BASF has raised the scale of the process to a commercial level and the sky could be mined for nitrogen.

Today, nearly half of the nitrogen atoms in the protein the body of an average human being originated at one time or another through an ammonia factory. In the short term, however, Haber merely saved the German war effort, since the country was about to be emptied of explosive nitrogen in 1914, without access to Chilean nitrates. He went on to make lethal gas for chemical warfare and genocide.

On farms, Haber nitrogen ran into the same violent reaction he had received the seed thresher. For many, the result of manure could not be reduced to a white powder. The fertilizer must be alive. Haber nitrogen was not used as fertilizer in large quantities until the mid-twentieth century, and for good reason.

If we add more nitrogen to wheat, it will grow, will be thinner than normal, tumble with the wind and rot. In the team of General Douglas MacArthur in Japan at the end of World War II, a wheat expert named Cecil Salmon collected 16 varieties of cereal, including the "Norin 10", which reached 61 centimeters in height, instead of 1.2 meters normal. Salmon sent it to the scientist named Orville Vogel in Oregon in 1949. Vogel began crossing Norin 10 with other wheats to obtain new varieties of stems shorter.

In 1952, the news of Vogel's wheat came to a remote research station in Mexico, where Norman Borlaug was creating a fungus-resistant wheat for a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Borlaug took seeds of Norin and hybrids of Norin-Brevor to Mexico and began to grow new crosses. In a few years he had produced wheat that yielded three times more than the previous. By 1963, 95% of Mexico's wheat was composed by the variety of Borlaug and the crop of the country was six times higher than that existing before.

[leofrombrasil]

For its complex genome, wheat went off the revolution promoted by GM products

In 1961, Borlaug was invited to visit India by M. S. Swaminathan, adviser to the Minister of Agriculture. India was on the verge of mass starvation. Huge loads of help in the form of supplies from America was all that separated the population inflated a terrible fate. Borlaug refused to be so pessimistic. He arrived in India in 1963 and began testing three new varieties of Mexican wheat. The results were four to five times better than those obtained with Indian varieties. In 1965, after overcoming much bureaucratic opposition, Swaminathan persuaded his government to order about 18 thousand tonnes of Borlaug's seed.

This loaded 35 trucks in Mexico and sent them north to Los Angeles. The convoy was stopped by the Mexican police, stopped at the border by United States authorities and then prevented from continuing by the National Guard (United States), when the Watts riots prevented them reaching the port. Then, when the loading eventually sailed, war broke out between India and Pakistan.

It turns out that the war proved a godsend, because the state grain monopolies lost their power to prevent the spread of Borlaug's wheat. Eager farmers took it up with impressive results. Until 1974, wheat production in India has tripled and the country became self-sufficient in food - and never faced a famine since then. In 1970, Norman Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize for firing the first shot in what came to be called "Green Revolution".

Norman Borlaug had used natural mutants; soon after, his successors on mutations artificially. In 1956, a sample of a barley variety called Maythorpe was irradiated at the Research Institute of Atomic Energy of the United Kingdom. The result was a class with stem firmer and shorter, but with the same qualities of culture and malt, which would eventually reach the market as "Golden Promise".

Today scientists use thermal neutrons, X-rays, or ethyl methane sulphonate, a harsh carcinogenic chemical - anything that will damage DNA - to generate mutant cereals. Virtually every variety of wheat and barley you see growing in the field was produced by this kind of "mutation breeding". There has been no kind of safety test. No one protests. The irony is that genetic modification was invented in 1983 as a gentler alternative, safer, more rational and more predictable for mutation breeding - an organic technology, in fact. Instead of random mutations, scientists could now add the traits they wanted.

In 2004, 200 million acres (or 80.9 million hectares) of crops genetically modified (GM) were grown worldwide with good effects on yield (up), pesticide use (down), biodiversity (up) and cost ( dropped). There was a single human health problem. Far from being hailed as a green revolution even greener, however, genetic modification soon faced fierce opposition by the movement defender of the environment. By 1998, a century after Crookes and two centuries after Malthus, green pressure groups began to attract the public disquiet about GM and pushed the issue to the top of their agendas, where he quickly brought them the attention and funds.

Wheat, because of its hexaploid genome unwieldy, largely passed off the GM revolution in a time when the maize and rice accelerate into world leadership. The first GM wheats have only recently been approved for use, and its main advantage for farmers is the so-called growing "no till" - planting the seed directly into untilled soil saves fuel and topsoil.

Soon after the departure of Norman Borlaug to India in 1963, something amazing began to happen. The growth rate of world population, in percentage terms, has been climbing steadily since the Second World War (except for a two-year drop in 1959-1960, caused by Mao Tse-tung). In the mid-1960s, she stopped growing. Already in 1974 the rate was falling considerably. The number of people added each year kept on rising for some time, but even that peaked in 1989, and then began falling steadily. The population continued to grow, but it was adding smaller numbers of humans each year.

Demographers who have followed the exponential rise with alarm, now forecast that the population will peak in less than 10 billion - ten gigapeople - shortly after 2050. Such a low forecast would have been unthinkable just two decades. In developing countries, the number of children born per woman has fallen from six to three in 50 years. It will have reached fertility at replacement level (where deaths equal births) by 2035.

This is an extraordinary development, unexpected, undeserved - and apparently unnatural. Humans may be the only creatures that have fewer babies when they are better fed. Populations with higher growth in the world over the next 50 years will be those of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Uganda and Yemen. All except in Yemen are in Africa. All are hungry. All remain untouched by the Green Revolution Norman Borlaug: all depend on primarily organic agriculture.

On 10 thousand years the population has doubled at least ten times. Suddenly, however, stalled replication, and never happen again. The end of the population explosion of humanity will occur during the lifetimes of people alive today. It is the moment when Malthus was wrong for the last time.

Of course, feed 10 billion will not be trivial. It will require at least 35% more calories compared to what farmers grow today. Probably much more if a growing proportion of those 10 billion eat meat more than once a month - requires 10 calories of grain to produce one calorie of meat. This will mean a better level of productivity or less tropical forests - which is why fertilizers, pesticides and GM are the best possible protectors of the planet. The story of wheat is not finished.

[leofrombrasil]

Last year, Brazil's exports to Algeria totaled U.S. $ 632.5 million,
an increase of 26.2% compared to 2007, when sales were U.S. $ 501
million. Imports of Algerian products in the same period grew 11.7% from
U.S. $ 2.24 billion to $ 2.5 billion. With these results, in 2008, the balance
trade surplus was to Algeria in nearly $ 1.9 billion, surpassing
Algerian trade surplus of U.S. $ 1.7 billion in 2007.
In 2008, Algeria took the 46th position among the target markets of products
Brazilians, two positions higher than in 2007 (48). The country was the 19th supplier
the Brazilian market in 2008, seven positions below the occupied one year earlier (12).
In the Brazilian exports to Algeria in 2008, the commodities
accounted for 35% and the industrialized world by 65%. In comparison with 2007, the
commodity exports rose 74.3%, while those of industrialized
rose 9.8%. In figures, the main Brazilian products exported to Algeria
were raw sugar, beef and soya oil.
Side of Brazilian imports of Algerian products last year, property
industrialized accounted for 31.8% of the total, while the basic totaled 68.2% of the
staff. For 2007, imports of primary products declined 1.5% and
industrialized increased 56.6%.
In 2008, the product mix of Algeria purchased by Brazilian companies presented
performance rather concentrated in the petrochemical sector, with crude oil,
naphtha for petrochemical and propane gas.
Trade Balance in 2008
Brazil - Algeria

[leofrombrasil]

Main products exported from Brazil to Algeria

Product Value (U.S. $) Share (%)
Sugar cane Gross 190,909,150 30.18%
Meats boneless 164,762,327 26.05%
Cane and beet 53,917,387 8.52%
Soybean oil 49,440,480 7.82%
Wheat 20,050,842 3.17%
Whole milk powder 18,968,206 3.00%
Trailers and semitrailers 16,860,080 2.67%
Glass insulators 15,333,766 2.42%
Grain maize 14,028,234 2.22%
Machinery mixing of
minerals 11,107,613 1.76%
Other 77,108,384 12.19%
Total 632,486,469 100.00%

Major products imported by Brazil in Algeria

Product Value (U.S. $) Share (%)
Crude oil 1,662,817,159 66.59%
Naphtha for petrochemical 521,804,209 20.89%
Propane gas 267,727,392 10.72%
Calcium phosphate ground 26,981,699 1.08%
Calcium phosphate is not
Ground 14,456,769 0.58%
Sheep skin 2,349,650 0.09%
Together Gasket Rubber 453,393 0.02%
Cowhide 348,000 0.01%
Other 335,135 0.01%
Total 2,497,273,406 100.00%
Source: Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade of Brazil

[leofrombrasil]

Humans are also elemental can be classified as externally with a chemical (physical appearance) and internally with 3 chemical elements (muscles, personality, essence of the person), the external element is the easiest: the element that the person seems to be?, looking just the exterior, and then to look at the inner aspect is due to list 3 items in order of importance, one first would represent the most abundant bone structure / muscle, a second slightly less abundant than would the metabolism and other internal aspects of the body, and finally a third element that would not abundant small details of the body, spots, fur, some difference in size between a particular finger and another actually has 3 more internal elements (a total of 7 internal and 1 external), but they already represent respectively the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh (least of all) dimensions, in order of importance, so they would be linked to the spiritual aspect of human being, then the classification is as follows, fourth dimension, the dimension of the spirit, the spirit that element would look like?, fifth dimension, the dimension of evolution, what is the purpose of the person?, sixth dimension, the dimension of the insulation, which is the person ", and finally seventh dimension, that of morality, faith element that represents morality, faith of the person ", as each element has less importance than the former, there is a greater chance of misclassification in the progress, the external element is the easiest, but with Over time the classification has to converge. Example: Eu (Lu, F, At), [Ce, V, H, Br] => classification of a person, I where.
Sum of 100.5, where 0.5 to 1.5 is the variation of hydrogen, 1.5 to 2.5 of helium, and between 0 and 0.5 the size of 4 to 7:
85.21372 dim1
13.52661 dim2
1.259673 dim3
0.4773761 dim 4
0.02163345 dim5
0.0009803723 dim6
0.00001012521 dim7

[leofrombrasil]

Have you ever encountered such as genetics does not explain the essence of being human, try to enter those programs that compare your face with celebrities, what sucks is low precision, I created a much better, much better, now you will compare humans with chemicals and not by race, you've seen those guys saying Etruscan + Italiotes + a little Greek = Roman, someone tell what is a genetically Etruscan?, I doubt that anyone can, because ?, you've seen the Moroccans, some look like Brazilian mulattoes?, there's that excuse, ah, but is mixed race, let's do another example: German, why have Germans not blonde?, will say it is a mixture, to reach far, can I differentiate a Native American from the other (the same tribe), I say they are equal, when in reality they are different, as I distinguish from each other?, therein lies the question, so far there is no method need at this point, but I have one, and it will be revolutionary, first you ask the question with which chemical element the individual look like?, look at the photo of all pure elements, the first 100, and compare with some of them, the temperament individual is a good indicator for this classification, examples: oxygen (temper, kinetic), fluorine (reactive temperament, exothermic, Teflon), lutetium (electrons have a very irregular orbit, catalyst), the properties of 100 elements is always possible fit the person in any of them, after fitting the external element that represents the whole person, you break down into 3 elements the first element, a primary, secondary and a tertiary one, I'll use the example I'm outside as europium : Europium oxidizes quickly, meaning that it has a touch of "explosive" with oxygen, resembles calcium in its reaction with water, is well suited to the environment liquid, reacts with water, burning the air between 150 and 180, sensitive to air, has a high ductility, and as hard as lead, flexibility, Have a person europium?, would it?, answer NO, because europium in my case, for example, breaks down in lutetium, fluorine and astatine, lutetium brings that side of strong catalyst, also used as Oxiortosilicato of scintillator lutetium to enable Cerium in camera range of the art in nuclear medicine, gamma ray detector, after fluoride, with its non-stick, its reactivity, and finally the astatine wich vapor its dark, volatility, have instability of the nucleus, alpha radioactivity and rarity, accumulating in the thyroid gland, it's agitation and emotional instability, hence adding europium externally to lutetium, fluorine and astatine internally, finding its isotopes accurate, you have just one human, only missed the remaining 1%, which refers to the connection of the soul body and soul to other instances less penetrable by our mind, it is easy to define ? is not, I know I set this, but in words is still a bit difficult, fluorine, europium have a reaction with water very strong, in fact, I am a long time at sea without feeling cold, taking into account that the water also have iodine, similar to astatine, see that the science does not explain the human being because it is part of all, you have to make the human being as whole and not the as a whole part, and saw how the method is precise and complicated when it classifies humans with chemicals taking into account their body shape, temperament, etc.., but the method does not stop to see the personality minimal characteristics or aesthetic minimal features, although is precisely the point where I say that my spots are many(and dark) by astatine, the method looks like the art table that the same time shows all the points of views of the same object, the only problem is that no machine may be able to do that, so far, this has not been searched.

[leofrombrasil]

Do you want a scientific theory I have one: watercress (collected in less than 50 days), beans (70 to 95 days), peanuts (110 days), avocado (3 years, each avocado produces between 200 and 800 fruits per year) area to be planted: Africa Central and Eastern Europe, goal: to help countries recover food and miserable, I also have my science.