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The Corroboree

Darklight

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Posts posted by Darklight

  1. Posted

    Sounds like a reasonable start to me, MG isn't making any claims beyond those he's outlined and the experiment seems consistent enough without being in a fully controlled chamber

    At least he's admitting to variables which weren't covered by the experiment. Most scientific papers don't list the things they left out ( and sometimes those things are important ) and you don't find that out until you try to replicate the experiment. That's why the submission includes their contact details- so you can ask

    • Like 2

  3. Posted

    I enquired about this a fair while ago, not sure if the technology has changed in the last 12 months, here's a mashup of what I got back then

    You can split your sequencing into 3 stages.

    • You'll need a wet lab to extract the DNA. It's not hard, tho some ppl do it better than others :)

    Cheap and local is available for most people, obtainable for beer in some instances. The sequencing mob will want about 5ug of high quality DNA per species, which is a lot. A crude prep won't pass the sequencing company's QC either.

    • Find a company to do the sequencing

    DNA can be shipped anywhere in the world ( AFAIK, no restrictions exist on import or export )- find the cheapest and most reliable sequencing place

    Cheapest a few years ago were the BGI Beijing Genome Institute, AGRF and The Ramaciotti Centre, UNSW.

    If you are linked in with geneticists who have the relevant toys, sometimes there will be a run done with a spare 'lane' free- ie they aren't running a fully stocked session and have space for your species, in which case it will cost fuckall in comparison to BGI etc above

    Whoever you choose will want to know

    How big is the genome?
    Is there a closely related species that could be used as a reference genome?
    How much coverage do you want? Eg how many times is each base represented by a read. For example, wheat and barley are appox 5.5Gb and about 8x coverage. .
    What kind of library preparation? I would suggest (on an Illumina instrument) 75 or100bp paired end reads, AND a 3-5kb mate pair library. Paired end reads are cheap and will give you lots of coverage. A mate pair library is critical to putting a genome together if there is no reference genome.

    They may ask more technical questions relevant to the sequencing

    • You will also need bioinformatics support to make sense of your data

    I'm under the impression it takes a lot of computing power and storage space, and that human expertise is important in interpreting the data.

    I got pretty lost after the bits requesting info on coverage. Roundabout then I gave up and decided to delegate the job to someone else when it came up

    Not sure if this is what you are after, good luck. It's all very do-able, but it's not as simple as it looks on CSI unless you are willing to throw $$$ at it, or have genetically obsessed mates

  5. Posted

    Oh....... and do ensure your neighbour ain't connected in any way before waging war, condition of ones backyard can sometimes not be a viable indicator that a neighbour 'doesn't care' or does not have the financial clout or contacts to seriously fuck you up.

    I kinda agree with that. I've had the neighbours from hell, and I've been the neighbour from hell. Context is everything.

    Previously I've viewed neighbours who have obsessively mown lawns to be weirdly focussed preachy types whose idea of territory extends well beyond their fenceline and into my perceived lifestyle. Some of the obsessive mowing yardwork types have been physically dangerous, fucked up and more slovenly than I once you see the kitchen. But hey, their lawns are mown so they must be reputable citizens ( no )

    My place is a shitful mess when things are busy and the lawn doesn't get mowed. Large furry family members drop in on loud motorcycles from time to time. Sometimes there are parties, with music and drinking and shit. Swearing, laughing and talking crap til 3am. Maybe 3-4 times a year even

    When the yuppies next door moved in it was a nightmare. They spent the whole time on guard getting weird about shit that wasn't happening, making stuff up and attributing all sorts of superpowers to us, confronting us every couple of weeks. Frankly they were scary. If you live next door to people who don't have visitors, are always quiet, have really overactive paranoid imaginations and never have parties you start to question whether they are storing the bodies in the freezer or a bath of ice. You start to wonder when they are going to pop their heads over the fence and get shrill about things they are imagining again. You start to avoid the fenceline, because they have no boundaries, but you do, and if they come in your yard and act like that again you are probably going to face court

    Then one day we all got over it, and accepted that on some things we have different priorities. They like a mowed lawn, I don't care. We both like honest people around us, and we both like our privacy. If I have a party and it's too loud they are perfectly entitled to ask me to turn it down within reason. If something comes up, we will ask, not assume, and not wait until we're super pissed off to talk about it

    They are now officially best neighbours ever

    It's a vine FFS. It takes what, 20 min to trim it back every week? How long have you wasted getting pissed off about it? Give it a think, weigh it up against the full time neuroses and potentially escalating petty spites which come bundled with neighbourhood disputes

    • Like 3

  8. Posted

    The more you believe in the power of the moon the better it works, thats a fact

    Its also helpful if you can turn a blind eye to all the germination success you experience outside of the set moon germination times

    Additionally if the moon knows you dont believe in its power it can sends spirits down into the atmosphere to mess with your germination rates.

    The moon is a power spiritual force not to be messed with, underestimating this fact could results in low germination rates or even a heart attack

    Gold. You left out chemtrails tho.

    Am as cynical as you, and haven't seen the data on the TC experiments, but my mate is a good scientist who does quality lab work. He would have allowed for all the variables and was working the data over a 2 year period. So I'm fence sitting on this one :)

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    I've tried to do this, and the biggest variable I found is if your not saving your own fresh seed then your germination will be way to sketchy to know anyways... Some seed packs are just duds, others you'll get 100% germination...

    This.

    I've been finding this especially true of a readily available, once-loved brand of open-pollinated non-hybrid veggie seeds. The ones in the yellow-brown paper envelopes with no pictures on them. Should I name the brand?

    Their germination rates have plummeted over the last decade. How on earth it is possible to get nil germinations for 3/5 seed packets when the other two work fine... can't explain it. Especially capsicum. They've been a constant fail

    I've given up buying them after the last fiasco. Planting my own parsley seed next to them in the seed bed and I got thousands of plants from my stock

    Fortunately we now have a very local seed exchange. So if I miss a crop save I can go and buy from local backup stock

    PS if you save seed from commercial hybrid parents, you are potentially not going to get stable characteristic expression from them, they may well be different from the parent stock. Go non-hybrid wherever possible

    • Like 1

  10. Posted · Edited by Darklight

    A mate has made an outdoor edibles patch, and I gave him a spawn bag to fill it

    Now either I've mismarked the spawn bag ( possible ) and not recorded it on the spreadsheet, or he has Golden Oyster mushrooms growing wild up his way

    Golden oyster is about the only thing it could be hey, especially if they are fruiting directly off the spawn from the bag. He couldn't get a spore print as the mushrooms were too wet

    Is too early for Chanterelles isn't it? They're more a cooler season mushroom and his microclimate is quite warm

    Normally I'm 1) way more careful in the lab and 2) way less paranoid about ID, but my mate has a family and I'd hate to recommend feeding him something I wasn't 110% sure of the ID on.

    I have too many species in the culture library these days as I'm isolating local fruits, *sigh*, it's a wake up call for sure

    gallery_12_4_106183.jpg

    gallery_12_4_10782.jpg

    gallery_12_4_45583.jpg

  11. Posted

    I have unbelievable amounts of fungal gnat larvae in my garden soil. Have had for years. But it's now getting in the way of me establishing outdoor Stropharia beds in my yard and I'm over it.

    Anyone have experience with predatory mites for knocking fungus gnat larvae on the head- specifically in garden soil ( not potted plant/ greenhouse ) environments?

    http://www.bioworksonline.com.au/index.php

    Other possibilities for dealing with the ongoing infestation have been rejected, but have included letting the neighbours chooks in the yard for two or three gnat breeding cycles, dernching the whole place in neem on a regular basis, and totally razing the surrounding vegetation so that the soil is more exposed and doesn't provide habitat

    Even more relevant would be tips and hacks from NNSW and surrounds

  13. Posted

    Anyone have this one lying round? Specifically interested in Passifloraceae this week :)
    No, I won't be using the colchicine. Too toxic for safe use even here
    Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC)

    December 2011, Volume 107, Issue 3, pp 451-459

    Date: 01 Jul 2011

    In vitro induction of autotetraploids from diploid yellow passion fruit mediated by colchicine and oryzalin
    • M. M. Rêgo,
    • E. R. Rêgo,
    • C. H. Bruckner,
    • F. L. Finger,
    • W. C. Otoni

  16. Posted

    mu! i am not sure if they count as mid shelf bourbon, but i will say jack daniels, makers mark and wild turkey.

    All of the above are only remotely tolerable when you are on your second bottle and mixing them with something to hide the taste.

    Either I'm getting old or Makers and Turkey have been getting progressively sweeter over the years to the point of nausea

    Or both. Certainly I'm grumpy enough to be both, sorry :(

    Was introduced to some gorgeous rye whiskies a few years back, I think it's made me a bit spoiled

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    Found this beautiful one on leaf litter last week in NNSW. There isn't a scale in the pic, it was approx 100mm across at the cap and about 150mm long overall

    gallery_12_4_66680.jpg

    The cap colour was closer to black than brown, and definitely became black after picking. So ignore the colour in the pic below, flash washed it out. Cap texture was mildly velvety

    gallery_12_4_270961.jpg

    At some point I took spore prints and notes on the staining, which was initially red, but I can't remember how fast the rxn was, nor if the colour deepened to black. The notes and spore slides are in the kitchen, so it's quicker and safer for me to ask you here than it is to go find them, if they still exist

    Am thinking Tyopilus sp, possibly Tylopilus alboater, because staining, and cap/ pore contrast. Any other ideas?

    Right into the boletes atm, mostly because I didn't think we had any here. Would be nice to find a safe, tasty one, I hear rumours of them out closer to the coast

  18. Posted

    apt-get -y install gimp-plugin-registry

    Worked a treat, I checked it with Package Manager to see what was in it, is a bunch of useful plugins

    Geez it stripped 10kb of EXIF data off a simple 300kb Wikipedia image, that's a fair whack... wonder what was in there? I'm gunna default to using it all the time

    Thank you so much- that's fantastic help

  19. Posted

     

    For forums either:-

     

    GIMP -> Save for web... -> JPEG -> Strip Exiv (apt-get -y install gimp gimp-plugin-registry gimp-data-extras)

    Nup. updated OS and up to GIMP 2.8.10 and it doesn't have that for Mint/Ubuntu. I'll check 2.8.14, what version are you running?

    Way off topic, normal transmission resumes. I got some lovely bolete shots locally last week and I need to ID

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    Sounds like blossom end rot, usually caused by calcium deficiency (but also excess nutrients, excess watering, etc.).

    I'm with The Explorer on nute deficiency being the main reason. Seeing the problem on capsicums here this year too, some years are worse than others for it

    Also seeing a lot of sunburn on the sides, which also presents as rot after it sets in

    I need to get back to foliar fertilising as it's stopped the problem previously: 10ml/L molasses, 2ml/L Charlie Carp and 2ml/L Seasol in a sprayer, top up to volume with water and apply early morning or late evening. Cheap and effective

  23. Posted

    EGA ppl- I can't find the ACTINOS links from Dr David Caldicott's EGA presentation. Anyone have them?

    The WEDINOS pages are here: http://wedinos.org/

    From WEDINOS:

    New Psychoactive Substances

    "substances of abuse, either in a pure form or a preparation, that are not controlled by the 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs or the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, but which may pose a public health threat”

    Information from a range of sources in the UK and Europe indicate that some users of new psychoactive substances (NPS) are at risk of a number of serious adverse effects. Principally these include the direct or acute physical, psychological and behavioural effects following use, as well as the potential for increased engagement with criminal justice services. Longer term, or chronic effects are, in the main, poorly evidenced. This project is designed to inform both.

    Both are great projects. The ACTINOS one is the Australian version. Can't remember where it is at right now

    My google-fu is failing, and the obvious .org/ .com links don't get me anywhere. Can't find either via FB.

  24. Posted

    Finally back from a tumultuous EGA road trip but seriously need to say how epic both days were

    The EGA team really turned this one into a coup, thank you so much you all, love your work

    My favourites were Dr David Caldicott ( really, we could pretty much make a bobble-headed David Caldicott EGA doll and sell him as a fundraiser ), Genevieve Sinclair's presentation on solvent use and abuse, and T's presentation.

    But really, much of the day was spent in pleasant contemplation- whether to attend the next talk I really really wanted to see, decide which talk I wanted to see more, stand round outside and catch up with old friends, or keep the conversation going with people I just met

    Great venue and location, really well suited

    One thing grabbed my attention- how timely all the presentation topics were. Watching the topics and speakers morph and grow over the years has been really interesting. My instinctive preference is for academic plant discussion and this year's EGA seemed heavily weighted on policy, health and synthetics discussions. This did not disappoint me in the slightest- the mix of topics was exceptionally relevant to current events and trends, and it gave a professional emphasis to the field I really enjoyed

    Beatuiful you guys, just beautiful. Love catching up with you all. Thank you :worship:

    • Like 3

  25. Posted · Edited by Darklight

    Love the QLD mycological society link, I didn't have that one. Nice writeup in there in the Ganoderma key section, the local ones have been fascinating me for a few years

    If you got a pic of spore colour or spore print for the OP sp, could you please post it up here to assist with other's searches in future?

    Lazy question for bonus points: what software do you use to strip out yr exif data? I tried a few, they were clunky. Want something for Mint which strips exif data only. And mebbe something similarly streamlined to check/ confirm

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