Today's Boston Herald posted an article today in its Science section saying that research has identified the organism that caused the Irish Potato Famine. Cambridge's Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard worked with the United Kingdom's Sainsbury Laboratory and other groups to unlock the organism's genetic code. According to the article:
"The genome structure of the organism is an "unusual mechanism that enables the pathogen to outsmart its plant hosts" and kill off crops at a rapid pace,"
This is believed to be the same organism that has attacked tomato plants and potato crops this summer. My cherry tomatoes did fine, but my regular tomatoes were attacked by tomato blight this summer. We have the luxury of going to the supermarket to buy tomatoes when ours do not do well; the Irish in the 19th century had no such option. However, a significant part of the greatness of America is due to those Irish immigrants who braved crossing the Atlantic Ocean rather than starve to death. Although they were treated horribly at first, they persevered and many became leading citizens of this country.
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