Inner Nature: Mad Honey

By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times In his book, Anabasis, Xenophon wrote in 401 B.C.E. that his Army of Ten Thousand – Greek soldiers retreating from a failed mission on behalf of Cyrus to dethrone his brother, Artaxerxes – had crossed into a Turkish town called Trabzon, near the Black Sea. Tired but exultant after having arrived at the sea and imminent succor, they rested. They found...

Inner Nature: Plant poisons

By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times Plants can be just as deadly to animals as animals are to animals, and this is not hyperbole. In order not to be eaten, plants abound with an alphabet soup of chemicals designed to make the predator so uncomfortable as to leave them alone, or to really make a point by killing them stone cold dead. Here, I want to spend a little time looking at plant toxins and review...