MrPotato

I saw the actual Xochipilli statue recently on display at the Getty museum in Los Angeles. It was awesome. I ried to take a picture but a guard told me not to so I put the camera away. Back in the day, if you mixed 1:1:1 Hemia:Calea:Salvia something quite marvelous happened. Weaker in some ways than the 3rd one alone, but much more interesting than many things known....

2410

Anybody ever try Honokiol for anxiety? What's it like? Any info on dosage? Thanks.

And I wanted to mention, Miracle Fruit is cool. I got hold of some freeze dried miracle fruit extract and had fun eating the extract and then eating lemons that tasted sweet with no hint of sourness and all that. Lots of fun. I have a miracle fruit plant growing out back, but it's not doing too good. Over winter it dropped all of it's leaves except the top 2 and it hasn't started growing back yet even though it is summer here in the US. The top 2 leaves are discolored reddish with just some green left on them.

Maltol, extracted from Larch trees, isn't really a sweetener, but when you mix it with other sweeteners (both natural and artificial) it makes them sweeter and tends to lessen their aftertastes and make them taste more like sucrose. Here is the wikipedia link to maltol in case anybody wants to know more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltol

One company is selling a Citrus aurantium extract that is very similar, although a bit stronger, to stevia extract. They call it Oh So Sweet, here is a link to their raw material data sheet http://www.arnhemgroup.com/attachments/011...Info-OSS600.pdf It is OK, but has a licorice aftertaste like Stevia

Giant Hogweed, Heracleum mantegazziani, would probably make an effective barrier. I wouldn't recommend actuually growing it though. Would work though. NOTE - Please don't actually grow this one. The cow eating tree and the other posts just reminded me of that old Genesis song so I thought I would add this. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Hogweed Giant Hogweed is a phototoxic plant. Its sap can cause phytophotodermatitis (severe skin inflammations) when the skin is exposed to sunlight or to UV-rays. Initially the skin colours red and starts itching. Then blisters form as in burns within 48 hours. They form black or purplish scars, which can last several years. Hospitalisation may become necessary.[1] Presence of minute amounts of sap in the eyes can lead to temporary or even permanent blindness. These reactions are caused by the presence of linear derivatives of furocoumarin in its leaves, roots, stems, flowers, and seeds. These chemicals can get into the nucleus of the epithelial cells, forming a bond with the DNA, causing the cells to die. The brown colour is caused by the production of melanin by furocoumarins. In Germany, where this plant has become a real nuisance, there were about 16,000 victims in 2003 [reference needed]. Children should be kept away from Giant Hogweed, and protective clothing (including eye protection) should be worn when handling it or digging it. If skin is exposed, the affected area should be washed thoroughly with soap and water and the exposed skin protected from the sun for several And, of course, from Genesis The Return of The Giant Hogweed Turn and run! Nothing can stop them, Around every river and canal their power is growing. Stamp them out! We must destroy them, They infiltrate each city with their thick dark warning odour. They are invincible, They seem immune to all our herbicidal battering. Long ago in the russian hills, A victorian explorer found the regal hogweed by a marsh, He captured it and brought it home. Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge. Royal beast did not forget. He came home to london, And made a present of the hogweed to the royal gardens at kew. Waste no time! They are approaching. Hurry now, we must protect ourselves and find some shelter Strike by night! They are defenceless. They all need the sun to photosensitize their venom. Still theyre invincible, Still theyre immune to all our herbicidal battering. Fashionable country gentlemen had some cultivated wild gardens, In which they innocently planted the giant hogweed throughout the land. Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge. Royal beast did not forget. Soon they escaped, spreading their seed, Preparing for an onslaught, threatening the human race. The dance of the giant hogweed Mighty hogweed is avenged. Human bodies soon will know our anger. Kill them with your hogweed hairs Heracleum mantegazziani Giant hogweed lives

Does Ipomoea hederacea grow in Australia too? It looks identical to Ipomoea indica. See link below for a picture of hederacea Ipomoea hederacea

That's cool, fine by me

I once had an actual dream/nightmare where I ingested a certain potion and accidently traveled into the future. There in the future the sun had changed in a way that the entire planet had warmed a bit and the earth had gone through a great ecological disaster which had wiped out most animals and many plants. The remaining humans were clustered into a few large cities. I fell in with a group of freedom fighters who were in the process of trying to identify the truth of what was going on in the cities and were trying to make other people aware. The cities were very repressive. The people had chips implanted in their heads. The chips were implanted in infants through a soft spot in their skulls so that it would be under their skulls and practically impossible to remove or tamper with. The chips were inserted into the infants frontal fontanelle Click here for details. The chips were tracking and monitoring devices. I'll skip a bit now (it was a long and very detailed dream) and get to the point. The freedom fighters had found out that the meat factories in the cities were harvesting humans for food. Humans who differed in political ideology from the people in charge were deemed not human and were therefor fit for consumption. The Earth's climate had restabilized somewhat by this time, but the people in charge wanted to remain in control and wanted to keep things just as they were. All plants and seeds in particular were banned by the people in charge because of the legends of their downfall by people with knowledge of certain plants. Possesion of any plants or seeds by any citizen was not tolerated. The freedom fighters were led by a small group of Shamans who had found a way to go back (and forth) in time to ancient mesoamerica (It involved a complex ritual and ingestion of a potion and you "landed" in a pyramid). Once they made it back to ancient mesoamerica, the Shamans would remove the chips from new freedom fighters by performing trepanning operations which opened up a hole in their skulls so the chips could be removed Click here for details . The freedom fighters had chosen Precolumbian Mesoamerica because they had to go back in time far enough so that the transmissions from the chips of the new recruits would have travelled too far into space for their signals to be detected by the future leaders of the cities. This was necessary so that their locations and works couldn't ever be detected. A few of their "works" had been found and were the source of the legends of the future leaders downfall. The recruits would be shown everything and would undergo training in several Shamanic techniques and disciplines. They would then go back into the future to rescue cartain people (more freedom fighter recruits) and bring them back to the Shamans. The Shamans had mastered time travel and were in the process of setting up an "Ark" that would survive undetected into the future that preserved a wide diversity of genetic materials of plants and animals. The "Ark" was based in an area in the Bermuda triangle which, because of an electromagnetic anomoly, couldn't be detected by satelites or any detection device. The Shamans planned on repopulating the world anew using the genetic material stored at the "Ark" once enough key people had been removed from the cities and enough freedom fighters were present that could topple the current regime. Then I woke up

Ok, here's a couple of tips. #2, Location, Position: When transplanting a potted plant into the ground, harden it off to the sun by taking a fresh tree branch still covered with leaves and sticking the tree branch into the ground next to the plant so the leaves shade the plant. The leaves on the tree branch will shrivel and dry over a week or two and slowly expose the plant to more sun each day allowing the plant to adapt to the sun gradually. This is especially good for plants that may have been started indoors that would get shocked if exposed to direct sunlight immediately. #1, Mulch, Compost, Soil: Put down a layer of finished compost as a mulch in your garden, keeping a mulch free area in about a 6 inch circle around each plants stem to avoid causing stem rot. Then put down a layer of either cardboard or paper (avoid using stuff with chemical inks on them though) on top of the compost. Then put down a layer of 1/2 finished compost on top of the cardboard/paper so you can't see the cardboard/paper. The mulches will both continually feed the garden with nutrients and will also trap moisture keeping you from having to water too much. The cardboard/paper will prevent weed seeds from sprouting making it so you almost never have to pull weeds from the garden. The 1/2 finished compost layer will turn the rest of the way into finished compost about halfway through the growing season, at which time you can put down another layer of cardboard/paper and a new layer of 1/2 finished compost.

I stumbled across this yesterday at http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/clabs/black.html when looking up Echinacea. Not sure if it is all hype or what though. "Non-Psychoactive Cannabinomimetic Alkylamides Complex: Everyone knows that marijuana makes you hungry. So how does an athlete or bodybuilder increase their appetite naturally without having to deal with an illegal drug? Well, if there were a chemical that was physically similar to the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, then it could potentially activate the same receptors and elicit the increased hunger response. There just so happens to be a group of alkylamides that act as cannabinomimetics and mimic cannabinoids in structure and bind to their receptors, the CB1 and CB2, which are part of the G-protein-coupled-receptor group. These receptors are located in the brain and around the body. They are in charge of many different functions. The next step was to look for herbs that contained these alkylamides that mimic the structure of cannabinoids. The two herbs that showed the greatest promise were Echinacea Purpurea and Spilanthes Acmella. Both of these herbs contain many different alkylamides, but recent clinical information has shown that there are 3 in particular that have a high affinity for binding to both the CB1 and CB2 receptors. Dodeca-2E,4E,8Z,10Z/E-tetraenoic acid isobutylamide and dodeca-2E,4E-dienoic acid isobutylamide from the Echinacea herb and undeca-2E,7Z,9E-trienoic acid isobutylamide from the Spilanthes herb, found in a precise blend in Black Hole, could be used to mimic the herbal cannabinoids found in marijuana, and more importantly, the endogenous cannabinoids found in the human body, including anandamide. Not only does the clinical information show that they can mimic them, but they can even bind to the receptors for a longer period of time than can the other two types. This means that Black Hole will help produce hunger stimulating effects potentially greater than anything you have experienced before. The oral bioavailability of these alkylamides has also been shown to be extremely high in human studies, so they will make it to the receptors without getting degraded by the gastric juices and/or the liver. Now that you are hungry and have begun stuffing your mouth with tons of protein and good carbohydrates, what is your body going to do with all of those calories…."

Sorry about going off the original topic of the thread

I was curious about the alkylamides being cannabinoids so I dug a bit further. The research I was involved with in Echinacea was in the mid 1990s, and I haven't kept up on new Echinacea research since then, but in 2004 or so some scientists in Switzerland started studying the alkylamides and found them to be cannabinoids. Here's some of what I found at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stori...008/2400515.htm "Echinacea has been around since...North American Indians used to use it for toothache to chew on it, and of course it's been used as a popular herbal medicine, and some people use it as an immune stimulant. And we know it is an immune stimulant because it is in fact contraindicated. People who are taking certain drugs, like HIV drugs, shouldn't take it. So it's been a mystery why it works or what it does and what are the active chemical ingredients. In just the last few years a group in Switzerland have isolated some compounds from Echinacea which looked very similar in their chemical structure to some of the body's own internal cannabinoids. These drugs, it turns out, are very selective in their activation of the CB2 receptors. So you can't get high on Echinacea because it doesn't stimulate the CB1 receptor, but it may have these therapeutic effects that CB2 activation does, and it's already been shown in some pain trials that it does have analgesic effects, and now we're trying to see whether Echinacea compounds will help with neuropathic pain. The excitement whenever you get a natural compound or a natural product extract like this is it's more straightforward to get through into the clinical development process than a completely new synthetic compound because it has been tried in people in various ways for a long time, so the toxicology safety profile of it is somewhat established and the ethics behind pushing it forward is a little bit easier. So we're quite excited about where that's going." The only thing is, the research abstract at http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/M601074200v1 states "that A1 and A2 specifically bind to CB2 and CB1" and that A! and A2 refer to "the alkylamides dodeca-2E,4E,8Z,10Z-tetraenoic acid isobutylamide (A1) and dodeca-2E,4E-dienoic acid isobutylamide (A2)" Does this mean that some of the alkylamides could stimulate the CB1 receptors????? I vaguely remember attending an Echinacea conference in about 1998 or so in the state of Washington here in the US where a native american healer mentioned that some people used to smoke Echinacea preparations for varous reasons, but I can't remember the details.

I was just editing to correct my post above for typos and looked up alkylamides and found the following at http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/M601074200v1 "Alkylamides from Echinacea are a new class of cannabinomimetics - CB2-receptor dependent and independent immunomodulatory effects" Hmmm.............