A derivative of the naturally occurring plant-derived metabolite resveratrol (RSV) has potential as a safe, anti-allergy active ingredient in cosmetic products, say researchers.
The team of researchers have published a new paper in the journal
Scientific Reports which explains that besides being a provider of opium and opiates, “poppy seeds can be ground up and used to make cooking oil and porridge.” However, the answer to the question “where was the poppy plant domesticated” has been a botanical mystery until now. The team of scientists have concluded that the poppy plant is “unlike all other previously domesticated crops, like grains, legumes and flax, which were domesticated in south-west Asia.” On the contrary, the opium poppy was domesticated in the western Mediterranean, where
Papaver somniferum subsp. setigerum (DC.) Arcang, its assumed genetic descendant, still thrives in the wild today.
Thursday, May 20, 2021
BASEL, SWITZERLAND According to a statement released by the University of Basel, researchers led by Ferran Antolín and archaeologist Ana Jesus of the University of Basel have developed a method to distinguish domesticated seeds of the opium poppy from those produced by wild plants. Poppies had been thought to have been initially domesticated in the western Mediterranean, where their presumed ancestor still grows in the wild. The researchers first noted the size and shape of 270 poppy seeds from nine poppy species in the collections of the University of Basel and the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. They also counted the number of cells in the seeds. Using these criteria, the scientists were able to determine with 87 percent accuracy if a seed belonged to a wild or domestic species of poppy. The scientists then evaluated poppy seeds recovered from a 5,000-year-old pile dwelling site in Zurich, and determined that half of the seeds came from wild pl