Word: wildness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Humanity already benefits greatly from the genetic heritage of little-known species. Some 25% of the pharmaceuticals in use in the U.S. today contain ingredients originally derived from wild plants. Hidden anonymously in clumps of vegetation about to be bulldozed or burned might be plants with cures for still unconquered diseases. "I know of three plants with the potential to , treat AIDS," said Janzen. "One grows in an Australian rain forest, one in Panama and one in Costa Rica...
Nature's diversity offers many opportunities for agriculture, especially now that genetic mapping and engineering have given biotechnology firms the potential power to improve crops by transferring genes from wild strains. According to Wilson, biotechnology can transform a plant into a "loose-leaf notebook" from which scientists can select a particular page. Among the possible results: drought- and frost-resistant crops, and natural fertilizers and pesticides...
...saved. To prevent the genetic legacy of those areas from being extinguished, as many species as possible should be preserved in zoos, botanical gardens and other "gene banks." There, scientists can study a small percentage of threatened organisms and have the options of later returning them to the wild or transplanting some of their genes into other species...
They are the last of their ship to be hired, by the casually sadistic foreman of Stone Farm, which is both ironically and aptly named. Its holdings, bordering a wild, beautiful seacoast, are large and fertile; there is nothing stony about them. But its walled farmyard is like a prison; its heavy gates are locked each night, and workers are treated like convicts...
South African Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha dips into his private stock of witblits (white lightning), a fiery homemade liqueur distilled from the berries of the wild marula tree, only on special occasions. So it was a sign of the heady mood in Brazzaville, the capital of Congo, that Botha broke out the good stuff last week. Botha and his fellow negotiators, who included U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker, Angolan Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Antonio dos Santos Franca and Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, were celebrating the signing of a historic protocol calling...