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Some pears contain ~28mg/kg quercetin according to this Love your work, thank you. It was always Buerre Bosc pears too, not sure if that was cos they were the only type which would survive the trip home over gravel roads on the bike, or whether it was pure instinct Flavonoids as a class are considered neuroprotective [1] They may also demonstrate prooxidant effects which could be therapeutically relevant in some cases Damn, of course they are, that being the point of your original post. Sry, am really scattered today, broken sleep cycle for a few days because I've had to reschedule work around avoiding having stuff plugged in while lightning and storms are round. I'm cancelling all my rocket surgery appointments. Geez I've gotten soft in me old age

Mmm, Is it found in some types of pear as well? They're related species. I totally used to get pear cravings after anorexigenic dopamine analogues benders back in the day. I assumed it was a gut thing of some kind, but maybe quercetin is neuroprotective? No use me googling the chem, it'd just confuse me :D Words of one syllable or less please.

Was discussing polyploidy and mutation breeding with a colleague the other day and he came out with some experiential statements I've been unable to confirm. He's on leave now so I can't have a longer discussion til he returns. I thought I'd throw the following of his statements out there and see if anyone knows more 1. Polyploidy is cool, and pretty standard stuff in plants. However it's not an increase in secondary metabolites that is the biggest outcome for plants, polyploidy generally first confers an increased immunity to cold temps. Anyone know more? And can polyploidy change the actual phytochemical products of a species? 2. No point looking for gross floral morphology changes in a mutant population, flowers are the last things to mutate as the plant has a vested interest in passing on it's genetics using its current methods. So they protect the flowers, and work to make ornamental variatiations of floral morphology is much harder This one is relevant to me because I was hoping to find floral variations in a mutant population. Haven't seen them. If this line of work is pretty low yielding in terms of results I'll put it on the backburner

OK. That's sexy. Thank you! Damn I wish I understood chemistry. Aside question- are the flavinoids from Turnera diffusa likely to be interesting?

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tisscult/Chimeras/chimeralec/chimeras.html ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND PROPAGATION OF CHIMERAS

When is it ever not? Even when I don't understand half of it right now it's usually fun later on. So many ramifications

There are many cases where transformed/ mutated cells do not constitute all of the cells in an organism, and are held to be chimeric. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28genetics%29#Plants It's why GM teks use reporter or selection genes along with the GOI ( gene of interest ) to ensure that only transformed cells survive the process IME in polyploidy under TC conditions, you would clone from the smallest identified clean structure that is checked and confirmed for ploidy, to try to avoid chimerism. The NOS tek is cool, but do remember you'd still need to run control/ kill curves. NOS may take away some of the hassle, but not all of it. But hey, NOS :D Anodyne ta for the stomata basement scope tek, I've been meaning to look it up and check my mutants, but I've been lazy.

Gold :D

Ah OK, I was hoping to find someone who had a few correctly stored/ cheap supplier for/ cases of the Securatec Drugwipe 2S, I think that's what the NSW coppers are using?

Who's the manufacturer of the current NSW detection strips? Pat, Phaemon's Dog, Donkey Wang and the rest of Clan Uri, I love your work.

No to shoes. Yes to motorcycle parts and shiny bio-lab toys. What sorts of extravagance makes her happy? Outstanding expressions of traditional romance? Skydiving? Old books? Handmade things? Exquisite food or drink? If you're out to express your love and impress her and make that moment special we can narrow it down if you tell us what she likes

Pat I adore you unquestioningly and would love you to be the mother of my unborn child One day I hope we shall meet and smoke fragrant tobacco together. You get to pick the brand/ cut/whatchacallit. A mate bought me back a pack of Drum after an OS stint on the rigs about 20 years ago, can't remember what country it was from. Then was the only time I ever understood why tobacco was called fragrant in the old Edwardian books And now you tell me there is a world of tobacco out there, and much to know, and people who know it. Damn you eternally for describing temptations I am unlikely to ever be able to slake. Nice one, actually :D Love yer work.

Love it, love it, love it. Congratulations! I lost both mine late into winter at +5 years. They were doing so well, then started the usual top-down dying thing. Fought back a bit with branches coming up from the lower stem but these too succumbed If they're in cultivation anywhere else I'm just as happy as if they were mine :D

You bugger, I'll miss you here. Love your irreverance and fire, and your honesty when you apologise after a stoush Still, a good reason to go. Best one I've heard. Makes sense even. I'd rather see you happy :D

Yeah but but. I was only told this. Haven't seen anything to back it up, and the bloke who told me ( who is a wellspring of amazing and obscure botanical facts ) is out of range for a few more weeks So I was wondering whether anyone knew more than Google about those claims, or had enough experience with polyploid mutation to be able to describe trends they've noticed

Yep the last point is the one I'm interested in for the purposes of the discussion, but I don't want to hijack the thread Theoretically, successful human clinical trials are supposed to be thorough, having been tried on actual human beings, the margin for error should be theoretically smaller, capacity to replicate greater etc. And for human clinical trials of pharma products, the consequences of poor or corrupt reportage are potentially fatal. Much more so than, say, Glowkitty theoretical project described above, or a paper on hamster gut cell receptor genetics. And yet... and yet... that hasn't stopped the apparent falsification of data in some instances You're prolly right Sally, it's the same issue

Yep. In practice, the peer review process is broken these days. It's not a reason to dump it tho. Main reasons IMO are as Anodyne says above. And I think it was mentioned earlier here that much research these days is so highly specialised there aren't many people who are qualified to rebut any dubious statements in public fora. Are we distinguishing here between successful pharmacological clinical trials here and general academic publication or are we drawing parallels between them? I'd rather keep the two discussions separate for the purposes of this thread. Forging or forcing clinical documentation is one thing and has potentially greater repercussions but perhaps mending the process could be a model with wider application. Personally I am drawn to the Alltrials ethos. If your work diverts from a previously published process or endpoint, a working group could replicate that branching point as a part of the regulation process and then continue in it's own direction through the rest of the trial Yes, that could mean an expensive duplication of a particular clinical trial phase, but would confirm ( or not ) the work done by the previous group at that point. I have no idea how pie-in-the-sky this is, but the Alltrials campaign has gained some ground. And in the process re-opened the discussion about the publication of negative results being just as valid and a part of the necessary scientific process as positive results.

We need research police. It would solve the problem. GAHAHAAAAAAAAARK AAAARGHHHHHH SPEW No. No. NO. Do not feed the stupid. More police isn't even the beginning of an answer For all research taking place, a research officer could be consulted, and validity could be standardised. No. What on earth makes you think that is a good idea. I do not have words for what an absolutely sincerely fucked up idea that is How in hell did you get the idea that adding a layer of potential corruption favouring larger companies and richer and more vested interests would give an incentive for people employed thus to just take the money and tick the boxes? What makes you think adding an extra layer of bullshit for smaller non-profit groups, community groups, individuals or even perfectly legally run corporations is going to do anything other than stifle research and promote corruption and poor reporting At the moment it's just a bunch of kids with cash running around trying to look important and feel respected. Like that doesn't happen in any other field. Never stop asking questions. Here's my question- do you sincerely believe your proposal is a good idea? I'll keep asking it. I'll keep adding swear words tho One part of a workable solution would be to ensure that all pharma approvals require the publication of all clinical trials data- not just the successful outcomes- as proposed by the Alltrials mob at www.alltrials.net. More comprehensive and honest clinical reporting could show up anomalous patterns in studies. Or at least make forged data harder to achieve without a statistical tell ( Other main advantage of Alltrials is, I believe, allowing the extension of data from clinical trials to discover new uses for pharma compounds- saving time and money developing new clinical compounds ) I want to eat your liver for even thinking such a half arsed idea has any kind of merit

I think you need to post a picture of you in that kimono. Ed surely would have wanted it that way Nice try. I'd look like a frilly toilet roll doll. With bad hair. Not gunna happen lookin forward to hitting the "sippers" bar in the hopefully distant future. I can feel the genesis of a very strange religion coming on

That's so Ed hey :D It took a long time to find out he was gone because he hated fuss. We had this out years ago a few times, I was seriously cross and accused him of going into a corner to die like a dog and he said he could do what he fucken liked he hated fuss that much and hated people seeing him sick. Fair enough, losing him was always going to suck anyhow My mobile was out the entire time around EGA, I got it back on a month later, all messages SMS gone etc. And every time I called his landline I'd leave a message- his voicemail thingy sounded different and he sounded so fucken healthy. Prolly an old message. Or a good day. Hope it was the latter He was always hopeful, always seeking a cure for the thing that ate him medicine couldn't name. And suddenly it was August and almost a year since we last spoke. Too much space. The house here is full of presents he'd send randomly. Thoughtful. Weird little things would arrive from Alibaba or Amazon. Those neomagnets. A jewellery box. Some whisky tumblers you make out of ice cubes. CD Data dumps of docs he thought would be useful. Sparkly things for the godkids. We got into this huge present war for a bit, he reckons I started it and he hated to lose. Got quite competitive and heated. I demanded he stop because I would rather him call me than send me stuff. He said " Most days all I can do is press "Send" cos I have all my mates' details saved in the store pages. It's my end of the convo love". I never did put that beautiful kimono on he sent, because I'd never be able to tie it according to tradition and if he saw a poor effort he would have been most disappointed. He did like the whisky tho, we had a bit of a blue about it too. Very much the traditionalist. All proper construction, loved things made to last, loved the old things. Straight razors, peerless metalwork, proper spelling and grammar flawless between every fucken word, every second one that wasn't fucken Don't often take off the earrings he sent me. Wasn't that a right barney. We'd have these great two minute arguments of slashing at each other and then resolve it and get over it right away. We always took the other's answer as gospel. If something changed our minds we'd bring it up next chat "Yeah I was thinking about that thing you said last time... " Fuck we had some great convos tho. I keep trying to put stories together and the bare bones don't do justice to the delight of talking to him, hanging out. You never knew where a simple sentence would take you. I can still hear his voice inflecting, always on a rise when something struck him " Hey what's this about...I thought... " and off we'd go. One minute you're on the West Coast of Tas hunting with your dog and negotiating fish and chips in some godawful inbred town, next we're 20th century composers and political trends, personal takes on gender politics, phytochemical analysis, gossip, alcohol quality, the care and feeding of lab equipment, how much pig you can fit into the freezer in the back of his landy, which generator is better for camping, the nature of love and loss, bizarre things that happened to us or people we knew Loved a yarn, did Ed, and he was grouse at it Drove the troopy like a madman, good at it too. Fucken thing looked like something the four horsemen of the apocalypse would paddock bash on a rooshoot. Tyres and wires everywhere. Half the dash ripped out, mostly by his dog, the rest jury rigged to some no-name tablet he'd modified a map system for which was a vast improvement, he claimed, on the ones out of the box. The voice navigation was Darth Vader. Sliding backwards down some high country hill in the near dark, eyeballs parallel to the valley floor hundreds of feet below, maxed out on painkillers and sick, hands me the beer so he can get both hands on the wheel for a minute " fuck, this isn't dangerous, it was a little bit dangerous when we rolled it a bit further up the hill that time. Come out alright tho, walked out " Wherever you are mate, may there be whisky, and whiskey, and may it be the finest ever

Ah Phaemon's dog, what a lovely story you bring, please pass the good doctor my regards Your information is invaluable Do you think tho, that there is even the slightest chance that the doctor's description of the elaborate process of tobacco curing is coloured due to his access to all the toys with teh blinkenlights? And extensive knowledge of the processes as they currently operate? After all, tobacco was being grown, sold and used prior to teh blinkenlights A colleague of mine's mum grew and cured tobacco as a farm crop in Europe in the 50s. Unfortunately the family went off the farm to the big city when he was very young, and the lady is since deceased. He's trying to find the original document referencing the curing process she used so I can scan and translate it, but not sure about my chances ie- is there some advantage to all this new fangled stuff? Or is it, overall and historically, really that complex? ( Also, there is the chance that my colleague's family left their farm because his mum was shit at growing/ curing tobacco and lost money on the venture. I doubt it tho. The farm had been in the family for a few generations and tobacco had been one of it's crops for that time )

Let us know how it goes incog? Don't worry abt premature announcement, that's practically compulsory in so many industries these days ;) Spiv science announcements making extravagant claims to promote grant application/ company or establishment profile/ investor hype well before data is anything like conclusive or using a small sample size to make 'groundbreaking' announcements At least you outlined the possible error before hitting up all SAB members for investment $

It happens mate, it happens. Which doesn't make it suck any less :/ Have had similar happen here. Least you caught it before it got silly Hope today improves for you

Don't sign anything or agree to any stuff til you've spoken with yr solicitor. You prolly know that already, but don't get caught in the heat of the moment And keep an eye out for their competitors, the first offer mightn't be the best one And ping me if you need any cultivars cloned ;) Take care mate and best of luck with it

Thanks everyone for your input We're now looking at air drying, and we have been discussing the sampling protocol with the analytical lab for clarity I'm unable to say much about this for IP reasons, so I'll close the discussion off until results come in and I've clarified an NDA with everyone involved Chem is not my special subject and I may have stuffed the original question here up due to my woeful understanding of several processes Wish me luck.