[/caption]A recent article in Science Daily discusses the origins of rice and how this information was recently traced by researchers from New York University, Washington University, Stanford University, and Purdue University. Rice is one of the world's oldest crops and it's wide varieties resulted in many theories about it's origins and evolutionary patterns. Rice was determined to originate from China and was most likely brought in to India by traders. This information sheds some light on the disputes of origin between the two main subspecies of rice, japonica and indica.
What I find most interesting about this study is not so much the origins of rice but the techniques that researchers used to trace such information. The study included studying and gathering information on the evolutionary history of domesticated rice, sequencing hundreds of gene fragments, and comparing evolutionary data with historical data to formulate new ideas and theories.
This type of study makes me marvel at the fact that we as humans have to ability to solve (or get close to solving) "mysteries" concerning the history of the things that are present in our everyday lives.
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