http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6122000229.html
`Soldiers trying to seize control of one Mexico’s top drug-producing regions found the countryside teeming with a new hybrid marijuana plant that can be cultivated year-round and cannot be killed with herbicides.
Soldiers fanned out across some of the new fields Tuesday, pulling up plants by the root and burning them, as helicopter gunships clattered overhead to give them cover from a raging drug war in the western state of Michoacan. The plants’ roots survive if they are doused with herbicide, said army Gen. Manuel Garcia.
“These plants have been genetically improved,” he told a handful of journalists allowed to accompany soldiers on a daylong raid of some 70 marijuana fields. “Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it’s taken out by the roots.”‘
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/864548.html
`It’s the generation that came of age in the permissive 1960s and ’70s, part of the counterculture revolution that embraced the mantra “turn on, tune in, drop out.”
Now they are graying — but some are still having a hard time breaking away from or resisting marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs.
A national drug survey by the federal government, for example, has found that between 2002 and 2005, use of illegal drugs fell 15 percent among teenagers, but increased 63 percent among people in their 50s.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6210694.stm
`It had been years since Jeremy (not his real name) had touched a basketball.
Living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Jeremy feared contamination from dirt and germs which prevented any part of his body from touching the ground, save for the soles of his shoes.
But whilst taking part in a small clinical study to investigate the effects of psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in ‘magic’ mushrooms, on people with OCD, Jeremy’s bare feet lay on the floor and he expressed a willingness to engage in an activity, playing with a ball, that just hours before he would have been considered abhorrent.’
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/study-say-m...drug-12116.html
`Marijuana is not a “gateway” drug that predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse, suggests a 12-year University of Pittsburgh study. Moreover, the study’s findings call into question the long-held belief that has shaped prevention efforts and governmental policy for six decades and caused many a parent to panic upon discovering a bag of pot in their child’s bedroom.
The Pitt researchers tracked 214 boys beginning at ages 10-12, all of whom eventually used either legal or illegal drugs. When the boys reached age 22, they were categorized into three groups: those who used only alcohol or tobacco, those who started with alcohol and tobacco and then used marijuana (gateway sequence) and those who used marijuana prior to alcohol or tobacco (reverse sequence).
Nearly a quarter of the study population who used both legal and illegal drugs at some point – 28 boys – exhibited the reverse pattern of using marijuana prior to alcohol or tobacco, and those individuals were no more likely to develop a substance use disorder than those who followed the traditional succession of alcohol and tobacco before illegal drugs, according to the study, which appears in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.’
http://www.chrisbrunner.com/2006/09/21/ban...ry-experiments/
Back in the late 60's this book, written for Children, was pulled from all public libraries and store shelves by the government. It was said that the experiments and information contained herein were too dangerous for the general public. A big fuss was made of a 1995 incident near Detroit in which child chemist, David Hahn, attempted to build a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard shed. A book by Ken Silverstein called 'The Radioactive Boyscout' tells the whole story, but you can get a summary on Wikipedia. This book is thoroughly interesting and is full of ideas and inspiration, it is the bible for any young chemist-in-training. Used copies on Amazon are rare and are currently priced between $237 and $690 for very used copies. However, because it was published in 1960, before the US copyright laws were rewritten, and because its original copyright was never renewed (yes, I checked myself), it's legal for me to share with you online.
(comes with link to free PDF ~28.5meg, 114page)
The Pereskiopsis grafting competition is being held over at Ethnobotany Australia and anyone is welcome to enter. I figured this feature would be a great way of keeping track of how the grafts are doing so enjoy.....
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....=rss&rpc=22
U.S. Coast Guards have seized a submarine carrying 3.5 tons of cocaine in the Pacific Ocean off Costa Rica and arrested three Colombians on board, the Costa Rican Coast Guard said on Sunday.
The submarine appeared to be a makeshift vessel unlike military submarines or those used by oceanographers. It could only submerge 6 feet under water, Costa Rican Coast Guard spokesman Jose Antonio Fallas told Reuters.
The 45-foot-long vessel was found last Wednesday near the remote Coco Island, southwest of the Central American mainland, and had traveled hundreds of miles from Colombia on its way to the United States.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/16045729.htm
`The Drug Enforcement Administration agents were near the Philip Burton Federal Building at 1:15 p.m. when a man passed them on the 400 block of Turk Street carrying a cardboard box. The box, emblazoned with the logo of a common brand of hydroponics equipment, reeked of marijuana. [..]
The narcotics agents stopped the man and asked what was in the box. He showed them about 1.5 pounds of marijuana, 12 ounces of hashish and an electronic scale.
Then, in a move that apparently stunned the 20-year-old Eureka resident, the agents took his pot away. While his crime was too minor to prosecute under federal law, the federal government does consider marijuana to be contraband, McEnry said. [..]
Realizing the DEA did not intend to return his stash, the man then called 911 on his cell phone to report the incident to San Francisco police.’
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/061125_marijuana.htm
For scientists, as for society at large, marijuana has been among the most bedeviling of drugs.
Some studies have found that the illicit substance damages the memory. Others suggest that it doesn’t, or even that it’s beneficial for some conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease. Through it all, the public clamors for answers—desperately needed to resolve a decades-long, raucous debate over whether pot is safe enough to be legal.
Leaves of the marijuana or Cannabis sativa plant (courtesy Iowa Dept. of Public Safety)
A theory now emerging from a research group proposes that the truth may be more complex than either side in that debate would have us believe. Marijuana may have played a trick on us all, they suggest, by playing the roles of both health villain and hero...
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....xml&src=rss
A plan to roll and smoke the world's largest joint was cancelled at short notice in Amsterdam when the organizers realized they could be breaking the law.
"We have now read the small print and realize there could be problems," Thijs Verheij, one of the organizers, was quoted as saying by ANP news agency after consulting Dutch drugs laws.
The group had wanted to roll a five-foot-long pure-weed joint, stuffed with more than a pound of marijuana and containing no tobacco, and smoke it in a bar...
These are the narrow-leaved khat (Catha edulis) plants growing on my land. They spent most of their life inside container until May 2006 when I transplanted them to the ground. They have survived dry season from May to November without receiving supplementary watering. As a result they have dropped off most of their leaves, yet still look okay so far. Now as the rainy season is coming I hope they'll flourish again.
Some pics of my Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) plant. It's climbing up a neem tree which provides some shade (vanilla is a shade lover). It's starting to flower now, after being planted from cutting for about 2 years. In its native habitat, pollination is done by particular type of insect which is not present here in my area, thus pollination must be done manually.
Heres my jiaogulan plants as of 22 November 2006. I received the seeds from Horizon Herbs and they germinated easily after soaking overnight. They are planted on the ground and currently receiving full sun. I think I'll add some shade cloth to reduce the light intensity.
I collected some betelnut fruits from the nearby trees and dehusked them just to show the inner appearance of a betelnut. The seeds or the nuts are very hard to slice, so you should better make use of a mortar and pestle made of stone, or a grinder.
Elaeocarpus is a genus of tropical and subtropical evergreen trees and shrubs. The approximately 350 species are distributed from Madagascar in the west through India, Southern China, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Australia and Pacific Islands (Fiji, Solomon). Around 70% of the Ganitri trees are found in Indonesia. However, 15%-20% of the commercially grown plants are found growing in Nepal and Uttar Pradesh, India."
Elaeocarpus ganitrus is commonly called Rudraksha Tree in India, also called Ganitri Tree or Jenitri Tree in Indonesia. Its English name is Utrasum Bead Tree. This plant produces seeds known as Rudraksha, Ganitri or Jenitri. The seeds have been traditionally considered sacred in Hinduism as they are believed to be the tears of the shiva. In Sanskrit, rudra means shiva and aksh means eye. The dried seeds are used used as rosary beads and necklaces for meditation purposes.
The above picture shows the fruits of Elaeocarpus ganitrus. They were harvested from scattered trees in my town. In Indonesia, Ganitri tree flowers between August to September and fruits between September to November. Inside each fruit there is one seed that look like this:
Rudraksha beads have been used for thousands of years as an aid to self empowerment and the self enlightment. Hindus believe that rudraksha beads have healing properties and that they affect the human body when worn. Other sources also mention that Rudraksha beads are dielectrical as they store electrical energy and also possess electromagnetic properties changing with the variation in the number of faces on the beads. These faces are called "mukhis", ie clefts on the surface of the beads. The number of mukhis on the surface of a rudraksha bead helps in determining its quality. According to the number of mukhis the rudrakasha bead ranges from single face to a several faced bead. Asian yogis and monks found that merely wearing the rudraksha beads gave them astonishingly tremendous amount of tranquility, concentration that helped them meditate for a long period of time with spectacular control over their mind.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6376594
`A dog may be man’s best friend. But one dog, Lady, decided she needed more friends — and she found plenty in the knot of toads living at the local pond. A suburban family’s secret struggle with an uncommon addiction comes to light in this personal essay by NPR’s Laura Mirsch. [..]
“We couldn’t keep our dog’s addiction a secret any longer,” Laura Mirsch says. “The neighbors all knew that Lady was a drug addict, and soon the other dogs weren’t allowed to play with her.”‘
