160 Years Later, Scientists Grow a GM Potato That Could Have Prevented the Irish Potato Famine

Details

Alert sent:

No

Sites:

PH

Publish date:

Fri 2014-Jan-3

Author:

Follow @_ColinS_

Channel:

Pests/diseases

Text (summary):

From 1845 to 1852, the Great Hunger devastated Ireland and Scotland. A widespread outbreak of potato blight wiped out the potato crop, killing more than a million Irish people, and sending many Irish and Scots emigrating to new lands, largely Australia, Canada and the United States.

Digital History:

A few days after potatoes were dug from the ground, they began to turn into a slimy, decaying, blackish “mass of rottenness.” Expert panels convened to investigate the blight’s cause suggested that it was the result of “static electricity” or the smoke that billowed from railroad locomotives or the “mortiferous vapours” rising from underground volcanoes. In fact, the cause was a fungus that had traveled from Mexico to Ireland. “Famine fever”–cholera, dysentery, scurvy, typhus, and infestations of lice–soon spread through the Irish countryside. Observers reported seeing children crying with pain and looking “like skeletons, their features sharpened with hunger and their limbs wasted, so that there was little left but bones.” Masses of bodies were buried without coffins, a few inches below the soil.

Locations
Location Coordinates Zoom Relevance Show on map
Mexico 23°N 102°W 0.365
Ireland 53°N 8°W 0.742
Scotland, United Kingdom 56°N 4°W 0.389
United States 39.76°N 98.5°W 0.377
Australia 25°S 135°E 0.366
Canada 60.1087°N 113.643°W 0.351
Discovery

Discoveries:

Discovery method:

Robot discovered

URL:

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2014/01/160-years-later-scientists-grow-a-gm-potato-that-c…

Discovery method:

Robot discovered

URL:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/160-years-later-scientists-grow-a-gm-potato-that-could-have…

Original language:

English

Original title:

160 Years Later, Scientists Grow a GM Potato That Could Have Prevented the Irish Potato Famine | Smart News | Smithsonian

Original text (summary):

From 1845 to 1852, the Great Hunger devastated Ireland and Scotland. A widespread outbreak of potato blight wiped out the potato crop, killing more than a million Irish people, and sending many Irish and Scots emigrating to new lands, largely Australia, Canada and the United States.

Digital History:

A few days after potatoes were dug from the ground, they began to turn into a slimy, decaying, blackish “mass of rottenness.” Expert panels convened to investigate the blight’s cause suggested that it was the result of “static electricity” or the smoke that billowed from railroad locomotives or the “mortiferous vapours” rising from underground volcanoes. In fact, the cause was a fungus that had traveled from Mexico to Ireland. “Famine fever”–cholera, dysentery, scurvy, typhus, and infestations of lice–soon spread through the Irish countryside. Observers reported seeing children crying with pain and looking “like skeletons, their features sharpened with hunger and their limbs wasted, so that there was little left but bones.” Masses of bodies were buried without coffins, a few inches below the soil.