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Charred grains of barley, millet and wheat deposited nearly 5,000 years ago at campsites in the high plains of Kazakhstan show that nomadic sheepherders played a surprisingly important role in the early spread of domesticated crops throughout a mountainous east-west corridor along the historic Silk Road... "Ancient wheat and broomcorn millet, recovered in nomadic campsites in Kazakhstan, show that prehistoric herders in Central Eurasia had incorporated both regional crops into their economy and rituals nearly 5,000 years ago, pushing back the chronology of interaction along the territory of the 'Silk Road' more than 2,000 years," Frachetti said... ...several strains of...

Organizers at Northern Europe’s largest music festival, Roskilde and the Danish Agriculture & Food Council partnered last weekend to collect 25,000 liters of urine from more than 100,000 festivalgoers. In a program they’re calling “From piss to pilsner.” The collected goods will be sent to local farmers to fertilize barley crops used to grow beer. The program will be used to create 425 kegs of beer that will be sold at the festival in 2017.

A research team successfully identified ancient barley and wheat residues in grave goods and on teeth from two Neolithic cemeteries in Central Sudan and Nubia, showing that humans in Africa were already exploited domestic cereals 7,000 years ago and thus five hundred years earlier than previously known. Dr. Welmoed Out from Kiel University said, “With our results we can verify that people along the Nile did not only exploit gathered wild plants and animals but had crops of barley and wheat.” These types of crops were first cultivated in the Middle East about 10,500 years ago and spread out from...

Problems with the 2014 malt barley crop in the western United States resulted in the worst year for malting production in the nation. This year, farmers and maltsters scrambled to salvage a large portion of the crop hit by heavy rains in August, especially in Montana and Idaho, the top two barley-growing states in the U.S. Growers in North Dakota and Alberta, Canada, faced similar issues. Scott Heisel, vice president at the American Malting Barley Association, said "the industry has never had to deal with this issue on this scale before." Fields with half of Montana's crop and 85 percent...

Phrygians were brewing with barley before it was cool. Resurrecting ancient beers and wines is a subtle alchemy, but Patrick McGovern knows all the tricks. He directs the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Many of his ancient brews are sold by Dogfish Head brewery in Delaware. How did you start making ancient drinks? One of the first we made was the Midas beverage, based on residues in bronze vessels recovered from the Midas tomb in Turkey, which dates from 700 B.C. These pointed to an unusual drink combining wine, barley...

DES MOINES, Iowa – Joni Ernst has been elected as the next U.S. Senator from Iowa. The Republican, a state Senator from Red Oak, defeated Democrat U.S. Representative Bruce Braley in one of the nation’s closest watched elections. Ernst will fill the seat currently occupied by Senator Tom Harkin. Harkin, who has served in the U.S. Senate since 1985, announced in January 2013 that he would retire at the end of his term in January 2015....

As Iowans headed to the polls Tuesday, the Huffington Post made a last-second bid to sway them by suggesting Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst's pro-Second Amendment convictions could be "designed to appeal" to "extremists." Perhaps not surprisingly, this suggestion came at that same time that Ernst and the rest of America awoke to see that her lead over pro-gun control candidate Bruce Braley (D) growing. According to HuffPo, Enrst said, "I believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family--whether it's from an intruder, or whether it's from the government, should...

Over the weekend Senator Harkin, while campaigning for Bruce Braley, suggested that people may vote for Joni Ernst because she’s really attractive and sounds nice, but they shouldn’t be fooled by that. MSNBC this morning called the comments stupid and said it’s likely they could backfire on Braley:(VIDEO-AT-LINK)This morning Joni Ernst went on Fox and Friends and called the Senator’s words offensive:(VIDEO-AT-LINK)As we know already Ernst has jumped to a nice 7-point lead over Braley and while Harkin’s comment’s may not backfire, it certainly won’t help Braley either.

Republican once considered an obscure one-term state senator has the momentum in Iowa despite suffering the ridicule of her rivals. Joni Ernst became famous by gazing into a camera and boasting of castrating hogs on the Iowa farm where she grew up. “So when I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork,” she said. The campaign ad Squeal showed images of pigs, then came her punchline. “Washington is full of big spenders. Let’s make ‘em squeal.” Even Democrats laughed. Late-night comedians spoofed it. Few, initially, took it seriously. This was back in March. Ernst was an obscure, one-term...

By this point in an election year, when polls are coming in by the bucketload late in the evening, you can get a sense for which pollsters are taking fresh samples of public opinion and which are herding toward the conventional wisdom. J. Ann Selzer, whose firm Selzer & Company conducts the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, is in the former group: She’s always been one to trust what her data is telling her. On Dec. 31, 2007, Selzer’s poll was among the first to show a large lead for Barack Obama in the Iowa Democratic caucuses — most other...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) -- Hillary Clinton swiped at Republican Senate hopeful Joni Ernst on Wednesday for canceling a meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board last week, telling a labor audience that not answering "tough questions" is "disqualifying" in the state. "I have concluded that Iowans take politics really seriously," Clinton said. "You test your candidates, you actually force them to be the best they can be and they have to be willing to answer the tough questions." Democrat Bruce Braley "has been willing to do this, and his opponent has not," she said. ---snip--- Clinton also knocked...

(AUDIO-AT-LINK)There's a woman running in the tight race for the Senate in Iowa — one of the contests that will decide who controls the Senate next year. In the 21st century, a female candidate for Senate may not sound historic. But in Iowa, it is. The state shares a rare distinction with Mississippi: It has never elected a woman to the Senate, to the House, or to be governor. Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst is trying to change that in her race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley — a race in which the role of female voters is central....

Not long ago, it would have been unusual for a Democratic senatorial candidate in Iowa to run a powerful abortion-rights television ad like the one recently broadcast by Representative Bruce Braley. The ad lists in detail the anti-abortion positions taken by Mr. Braley’s Republican opponent, Joni Ernst. In the State Senate, the ad says, she sponsored a “personhood” amendment (declaring a fertilized egg to be a person) that would have the effect of outlawing abortion even in cases of rape or incest, and would also ban many common forms of birth control. Ms. Ernst is even shown saying at a...

Dems freaking out. Remember Joni Ernst? She’s the pig-castrating, conservative candidate for Senate out of Iowa who took the internet by storm earlier this year with her campaign video claiming she’ll “make big spenders squeal” when she gets to Washington. Since she kicked off her campaign, Ernst has been seen as a long-shot to take the seat that had been held for 30 years by Democrat Tom Harkin, but a recent poll shows that her Dem opponent Bruce Braley is now running defense. Via the Des Moines Register: Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)TRANSCRIPT JUDY WOODRUFF: A quick look at the calendar reminds us that today is just seven weeks away from this year’s midterm elections, when voters across the country will be deciding ballot issues and choosing state and local officeholders and members of Congress. With control of the U.S. Senate up for grabs, I headed to Iowa this past weekend, the site of one of the closest contests in the nation. If you love college football, the place to be in Iowa this past weekend was Iowa City, the home of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, as they hosted the Iowa...

Generally speaking, the Israelites of Christ’s time were frugal eaters. Frankly until about 100 years ago, frugality in eating was more imposed than chosen. The food was more scarce and less convenient than today. It’s availability was seasonable, and all the elements needed to be made from scratch, including hauling in the water from wells etc.Bread was the essential, basic food. So basic was it that in Hebrew “to eat bread” and “to have a meal” in the same thing. Bread was treated with great respect and many rules existed to preserve that reverence. Any crumbs of over the size...

Just days after becoming Iowa's Republican Senate nominee, Joni Ernst has taken the lead over Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) in two polls in a race that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. A poll by Loras College's Public Opinion Survey Center found Ernst leading with 48% to Braley's 41.7%. A Rasmussen Reports poll also has Ernst leading Braley by one percentage point (45%-44%). Ernst navigated the GOP civil war, getting the endorsements of everyone from Sarah Palin to Mitt Romney. Republicans, who need to gain six seats to take back the Senate, coalesced around her because, as...

We recently published a forecast that described the GOP as more likely than not to win the U.S. Senate in November. But our analysis was less bullish on Republicans’ prospects of flipping the seat in Iowa currently held by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, who is retiring. There, Democrats appeared to have a strong candidate in Rep. Bruce Braley, who has cleared his primary field. Republicans, meanwhile, face a contentious primary with a number of candidates who have never won races for statewide or federal office. After we published our forecast, the Republican PAC America Rising released a video of Braley,...

<p>Beer brewers are objecting to a proposed federal rule that would make it harder for breweries to sell leftover grains as animal feed instead of throwing them away.</p> <p>The Food and Drug Administration rule change would mean brewers would have to meet the same standards as livestock and pet-food manufacturers, imposing new sanitary handling procedures, record keeping and other food safety processes on brewers.</p>

The Vikings are both famous and notorious for their liking of beer and mead and archaeologists have discussed for years whether Eric the Red (ca 950-1010) and his followers had to make do without the golden drink when they settled in Greenland around the year 1,000: The climate was mild when they landed, but was it warm enough for growing barley? Researchers from the National Museum in Copenhagen say the answer to the question is 'yes'. In a unique find, they uncovered tiny fragments of charred barley grains in a Viking midden on Greenland. The find is final proof that...