This essay, in two parts, argues for the centrality of historical thinking in coming to grips with capitalism’s planetary crises of the twenty-first century. Against the Anthropocene’s shallow hist...

The Capitalocene, Part I: on the nature and origins of our ecological crisis

Taxonomy and Evolution

An increasing number of plant scientists, including breeders, agronomists, physiologists and molecular biologists, are working towards the development of new and improved energy crops. Research is increasingly focused on how to design crops specifically for bioenergy production and increased biomass generation for biofuel purposes. The most important biofuel to date is bioethanol produced from sugars (sucrose and starch). Second generation bioethanol is also being targeted for studies to allow the use of the cell wall (lignocellulose) as a source of carbon. If a crop is to be used for bioenergy production, the crop should be high yielding, fast growing, low lignin content and requiring relatively small energy inputs for its growth and harvest. Obtaining high yields in nonprime agricultural land is a key for energy crop development to allow sustainability and avoid competition with food production. Sugarcane is the most efficient bioenergy crop of tropical and subtropical regions, and biotechnological tools for the improvement of this crop are advancing rapidly. We focus this review on the studies of sugarcane genes associated with sucrose content, biomass and cell wall metabolism and the preliminary physiological characterization of cultivars that contrast for sugar and biomass yield.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-7652.2009.00491.x

Sugarcane for bioenergy production: an assessment of yield and regulation of sucrose content

Proportions of marine vs. terrestrial resources in prehistoric human diets in the southern Mariana Islands (Guam, Rota, Saipan), Micronesia, have been estimated by analysis of stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in bone collagen and of carbon in apatite. The isotopic composition of marine and terrestrial food resources from the Marianas have also been determined. Experimental evidence shows that collagen carbon isotopes mainly reflect those of dietary protein sources and thus overestimate the contribution of marine animal foods. Marine protein consumption apparently ranges from approximately 20% to approximately 50% on these islands. Experiments also demonstrate the carbon isotope ratio of bone apatite carbonate accurately reflects that of the whole diet. Carbonate carbon isotope data suggest some individuals consumed significant amounts of 13C-enriched (C4) plants or seaweeds. Sugar cane is an indigenous C4 crop and seaweeds are eaten throughout the Pacific, but they have not been considered by archaeologists to have been prehistoric dietary staples. Apatite carbon isotope analysis has apparently identified previously unrecognized prehistoric dietary adaptations in the Mariana Islands, but this must be confirmed by archaeobotanical evidence.

Stable isotopic analysis of human diet in the Marianas Archipelago, Western Pacific

Plant evolution and the origin of crop species: Third edition

The Art of Not being Governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia [Book review]

We suggest that sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) was a major food for pigs (Sus scrofa) in the New Guinea Highlands prior to the introduction of the sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) about 250 years ago. Taro (Colocasia esculenta) has been favoured in the literature, but pigs do not like raw taro and will only eat most varieties when cooked. Pigs consume sugarcane avidly and it provides a high calorie diet combined with suitable fibre roughage. Evidence is provided to show that large fields of sugarcane were grown in monoculture in the highlands at the time of European contact. Humans consumed sugarcane as a major food in some areas in the early 20th century. S. officinarum is usually recorded as having evolved in New Guinea and Indonesia east of the Wallace line, from the wild cane Saccharum robustum Brandes & Jeswiet ex Grassi. An alternate theory that 5. officinarum was derived from the Chinese sugarcane, Saccharum sinense, transported east of the Huxley line by Austronesian speakers is mentioned as a serious possibility. Both hypotheses are compatible with sugarcane being available for human and pig food from about 6000 years ago.

Sugarcane in Prehistory

The Geographical, Historical, and Cultural Aspects of the Origin of Indian and Chinese Sugarcanes, S. barberi and S. sinense

Science and Civilisation in China Volume 6: Biology and Biological Technology, Part 3, Agro-Industries and Forestry

Invente par un Sicilien en 1449. Etudes sur la reelle origine du moulin a sucre et son developpement du moyen-âge a nos jours. Le moulin a sucre aurait ete introduit en Europe par les Arabes des le 8e siecle

Christian Daniels

Papers

The Art of Not being Governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia [Book review]

Sugarcane in Prehistory

The Geographical, Historical, and Cultural Aspects of the Origin of Indian and Chinese Sugarcanes, S. barberi and S. sinense

Science and Civilisation in China Volume 6: Biology and Biological Technology, Part 3, Agro-Industries and Forestry

The Origin of the Sugarcane Roller Mill