tripsis

Those "hairy Mycena" look like they may be infected with a parasitic fungus such as Spinellus.

A. auricula-judae.

Leucocoprinus birnbaumii. They're fine, leave them be.

That's really strange. Mine starting showing signs of weirdness at around 3 - 4 weeks.

I love this thread. So much pumpkin epicness.

Well, I actually decided to keep them. They meant too much to me to go through with it and the money does not. Sorry to all and sundry for wasting anyone's time!

.......

Discovery of oldest human DNA in Spanish cave sheds light on evolution Scientists say DNA strands in thigh bone of 400,000-year-old early human can help build clearer picture of human family tree An artist's impression of the Sima de los Huesos early humans that are estimated to have lived 400,000 years ago. Photograph: Kennis & Kennis/AP Researchers have read strands of ancient DNA teased from the thigh bone of an early human who died 400,000 years ago in what is now northern Spain. The genetic material was pieced together from a clutch of cells found in bone fragments – the oldest human remains ever to yield their genetic code. The work deepens understanding of the genetics of human evolution by about 200,000 years, raising hopes that researchers can build a clearer picture of the earliest branches of the human family tree by studying the genetic make-up of fossilised remains dug up elsewhere. "This is proof of principle that it can be done," said Matthias Meyer at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. "We are now very eager to explore other sites of a similar age." The thigh bone was among the remains of at least 28 early human ancestors found at the bottom of a vertical shaft in a cave complex in the Atapuerca mountains in northern Spain. The Sima de los Huesos, or "pit of bones", lies 30 metres underground and half a kilometre from the cave system's nearest current entrance. Scientists managed to analyse DNA found in the thigh bone of this skeleton found in Spain. Photograph: Javier Trueba/AP The individuals at Sima de los Huesos looked a little like Neanderthals, and many anthropologists classified them as Homo heidelbergensis, a potential forerunner of modern humans. The corpses were probably washed into the pit rather than buried intentionally. Meyer's team sequenced DNA found in tiny sausage-shaped structures called mitochondria, which sit inside cells and provide them with power. Mitochondria are passed down the maternal line only, unlike DNA found in the cell nucleus, which carries genetic information from both parents and their ancestors. The age of the bone fragments meant the cells and their DNA were badly degraded. "This is the hardest sample I have ever worked on that yielded a result," said Meyer. Meyer's team dated the bone fragments to 400,000 years old, but further analysis left them baffled. The mitochondrial DNA did not match that of Neanderthals, but was closer to a sister group called the Denisovans that lived in Siberia. Details of the study appear in the journal Nature. Meyer says there are a number of explanations, but admits more work is needed. One possibility is that an older lineage of human ancestors, perhaps Homo erectus, bred with the ancestors of the Sima de la Huesos individuals, and passed on their mitochondria. But several other explanations are being explored by anthropologists."Either way, this new finding can help us start to disentangle the relationships of the various human groups known from the last 600,000 years," said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. "If more mitochondrial DNA can be recovered from the Sima population of fossils, it may demonstrate how these individuals were related to each other, and how varied their population was." Meyer said the Leipzig group now hopes to extract so-called nuclear DNA from the Sima fossils, which contains more information but will be much harder to extract because there is far less material. "We have taken a first glimpse now and what we find is unexpected and confusing," he said. "But I'm confident we'll get more data, and then it's very likely we'll be able to nail down some hard facts, about whether these Sima de la Heusos guys are the ancestors of Neanderthals, the ancestors of both Neanderthals and Denisovans, or even something completely different." Source.

Might join you guys this year.

You're a degenerate incog. And I have no interest in your seeds. But allow me to leave you with this parting poem. Incog dreams of bukkake from goats. “Especially those of Hillbilly’s”, he notes. To steal those goats he hatches a plan, Using ninjas shipped straight from Japan. “None of this is superfluous!”, he crows. Mad with desire until his load blows.

As much as you can spare, but if you only have a small amount, then that suffice to propagate with at least.

Anyone got any to trade? PM me. Cheers!

Awesome job, Stillman! Your daughter looks suitably delighted in her handiwork. The Pumpkin Princess!

Chowing Down On Meat, Dairy Alters Gut Bacteria A Lot, And Quickly by Michaeleen Doucleff December 11, 2013 1:34 PM To figure out how diet influences the microbiome, scientists put volunteers on two extreme diets: one that included only meat, egg and cheese and one that contained only grains, vegetables and legumes. Morgan Walker/NPR Looks like Harvard University scientists have given us another reason to walk past the cheese platter at holiday parties and reach for the carrot sticks instead: Your gut bacteria will thank you. Switching to a diet packed with meat and cheese — and very few carbohydrates — alters the trillions of microbes living in the gut, scientists Wednesday in the journal Nature. The change happens quickly. Within two days, the types of microbes thriving in the gut shuffle around. And there are signs that some of these shifts might not be so good for your gut: One type of bacterium that flourishes under the meat-rich diet has been linked to inflammation and intestinal diseases in mice. "I mean, I love meat," says microbiologist , who contributed to the study and is now at Duke University. "But I will say that I definitely feel a lot more guilty ordering a hamburger ... since doing this work," he says. Scientists are just beginning to learn about how our decisions at the dinner table — or the drive-through — tweak our microbiome, that is, the communities of bacteria living in our bodies. But one thing is becoming clear: The critters hanging out in our intestine influence many aspects of our health, including weight, immunity and perhaps even . And interest in studying the links between is growing. Previous research in this field had turned up tantalizing evidence that eating fiber can alter the composition of gut bacteria. But these studies had looked at diets over long periods of times — months and even years. David and his colleagues wanted to know whether fiber — or lack of it — could alter gut bacteria more rapidly. To figure that out, the researchers got nine volunteers to go on two extreme diets for five days each. The first diet was all about meat and cheese. "Breakfast was eggs and bacon," David says. "Lunch was ribs and briskets, and then for dinner, it was salami and prosciutto with an assortment of cheeses. The volunteers had pork rinds for snacks." Then, after a break, the nine volunteers began a second, fiber-rich diet at the other end of the spectrum: It all came from plants. "Breakfast was granola cereal," David says. "For lunch, it was jasmine rice, cooked onions, tomatoes, squash, garlic, peas and lentils." Dinner looked similar, and the volunteers could snack on bananas and mangoes. "The animal-based diet is admittedly a little extreme," he says. "But the plant-based diet is one you might find in a developing country." David and the team analyzed the volunteers' microbiomes before, during and after each diet. And the effects of all that meat and cheese were immediately apparent. "The relative abundance of various bacteria species looked like it shifted within a day after the food hit the gut," David says. After the volunteers had spent about three days on each diet, the bacteria in the gut even started to change their behavior. "The kind of genes turned on in the microbes changed in both diets," he says. In particular, microbes that "love bile" — the Bilophila — started to dominate the volunteers' guts during the animal-based diet. Bile helps the stomach digest fats. So people make more bile when their diet is rich in meat and dairy fats. A study last year that blooms of Bilophila cause inflammation and colitis in mice. "But we didn't measure levels of inflammation in our subjects," David says. "That's the next step." Instead, he says, his team's data support the overall animal model that Bilophila promotes inflammation, which could ultimately be controlled by diet. "Our study is a proof of concept that you can modify the microbiome through diet," David says. "But we're still a long ways off from being able to manipulate the community in any kind of way that an engineer would be pleased about." Even just classifying Bilophila as "bad bacteria" is a tricky matter, says Dr. , a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. "These bacteria are members of a community that have lived in harmony with us for thousands of years," says Kashyap, who wasn't involved in the study. "You can't just pick out one member of this whole team and say it's bad. Most bacteria in the gut are here for our benefit, but given the right environment, they can turn on us and cause disease." Nevertheless, Kashyap thinks the Nature study is exciting because the findings unlock a potentially new avenue for treating intestinal diseases. "We want to look at diet as a way of treating patients," Kashyap says. "This study shows that short-term dietary interventions can change microbial composition and function." Of course, figuring out exactly how to do that will take much more research. "The paper has made the next leap in the field," Kashyap says. "With discovery comes responsibility. Once you make this big finding, it needs to be tested appropriately." http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/10/250007042/chowing-down-on-meat-and-dairy-alters-gut-bacteria-a-lot-and-quickly'>Source. Edit: seems there's a problem copying the links within the article from NPR. Best to read the article at the source.

15 December 2013 Last updated at 00:29 GMT The return of the female condom?By William Kremer BBC World Service The female condom flopped when it was launched some 20 years ago, but it never disappeared entirely and now a number of companies are entering the fray with new products. Could its time have come? Its formal name was the FC1, though many of us knew it as the Femidom, or Reality, and jokers called it all sorts of names - plastic bag, windsock, hot air balloon... Two decades on, Mary Ann Leeper has yet to see the funny side of such quips. "I so believed in that product," she says. "I so believed that women would want to be able to take care of themselves. We were naive, or I certainly was naive." Mary Ann Leeper Female Health Company Leeper was the president of Chartex, the company that made the FC1. Before the launch, there was an atmosphere of curiosity and anticipation, but those involved underestimated just how unfamiliar the large, slippery device would look and feel to customers in Europe and the US. Leeper traces the backlash to a single negative article in an influential US women's glossy magazine. "That story was the pivotal story that became like a domino effect," she says. "It was a shock to me, to tell you the truth. Why would you make fun of a product that was going to help young women stay healthy, that was going to protect them from sexually transmitted infections as well as unintended pregnancy?" The FC2 is 17cm (6.5ins) long - the smaller ring is flexible for easy insertion To be fair, the FC1 had something of a design flaw. Made of polyurethane, it was a bit noisy during sex, and it was inevitable that comic stories of rustling under the bedclothes would be told and re-told. In the early years, Chartex's successor, the Female Health Company, considered folding, but instead it set about developing an education programme. Then one day in 1995, Leeper received a telephone call from a woman called Daisy, responsible for Zimbabwe's HIV and Aids programme. "She said, 'I have a petition here on my desk signed by 30,000 women demanding that we bring in the female condom,'" recalls Leeper. It was the start of a set of partnerships that took the female condom to women in large parts of the developing world. Projects in Nigeria, Cameroon and Mozambique distribute female condoms via women's hair salons, which sell them at a small mark-up, after explaining how they are used The FC1's successor, the FC2 - made of non-rustling synthetic latex - is far more successful than many in the West realise. It is available in 138 countries, sales have more than doubled since 2007, and the Female Health Company has been turning a profit for eight years. The vast majority of sales are to four customers - the US aid agency (USAID), the UN and the ministries of health in Brazil and South Africa. Donors and public health officials are keen on anything that gives women the upper hand in what they call "condom negotiation" with men. Footage of condom activists from Pathfinder International Female condoms have other advantages too. They can be inserted hours before sex, meaning that there is no distraction at the crucial moment, and they don't need to be removed immediately afterwards. For women, there is better protection from sexually transmitted infections, since the vulva is partially covered by an outer ring that keeps the device in place. User feedback is also pretty good. A 2011 survey found that 86% of women were interested in using the method again and 95% would recommend trying them to friends. "Many people report that female condoms heighten sexual pleasure," says Saskia Husken from the Universal Access to Female Condom Joint Program (UAFC). For men, they are less tight than male condoms. For women, the large ring of the condom - which remains outside the vagina - can also be stimulating. In Africa, the free availability of female condoms at clinics has led to an unexpected fashion trend. Women have taken to removing the flexible ring from the device and using it as a bangle. "If you are [romantically] available you have a new bangle on," says Marion Stevens from the female health campaigning body Wish Associates. "If you are in a long-term relationship your bangle is old and faded." A demonstration of the female condom in a marketplace in Nigeria Meyiwa Ede, from the Society of Family Health in Nigeria, says that while men are often excited by the prospect of sex without having to wear a regular condom, women are taken aback by their first glimpse of the device. "They look at it and say 'OK - are you saying I have to put that in myself?'" she says. Ede's team of demonstrators use a mannequin to show the condom is inserted and compare the task to using a new phone - bewildering at first, but second nature after a while. In most developed countries there is still that 20-year-old image problem to overcome. "I think the issue is when you open the package they're already open - they're not like male condoms that are in these neat little packages and then they're unrolled," says Mags Beksinska from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. "In fact, they're the same length as a male condom so if you hold the two together open, they're not that different." Clockwise from top, the Woman's Condom, Cupid and VA Wow Beksinska is the lead author of a clinical trial recently published in the journal Lancet Global Health of three new models of female condom: The Woman's Condom, already available in China and soon to be distributed in South Africa, is the fruit of a 17-year project by Path - an NGO that specialises in health innovation - which has tested more than 50 versions. Out of the packet, it's smaller than the FC2. It looks like a tampon, with most of the condom gathered into a rounded polyvinyl capsule, which dissolves inside the vagina. Once it has expanded, dots of foam help keep it in place. The Cupid is available in India, South Africa and Brazil. It is vanilla scented and comes in pink or natural colours. It is currently the only model besides the FC2 to have been qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) for public-sector purchase. A smaller version aimed at the Asian market is in trial. The VA Wow, like the Cupid, contains a sponge which helps users to insert the condom and prevents it slipping. The Lancet study, which showed that all were no less reliable than the FC2, improves their chances of gaining wide acceptance internationally. Other radically redesigned female condoms are either available now, or will be soon. Two female condoms from Innova Quality The Air Condom, on sale in Colombia, features a little pocket of air to aid insertion. The Panty Condom, made by the same Colombian manufacturer, Innova Quality, is packaged with a special pair of knickers, which keep the condom in place, though this product currently lacks a distributor. Meanwhile, a female condom known as the Origami is about a year away from market launch in the US. Its designer, Danny Resnic, who started to work in this area after contracting HIV because of a broken condom in 1993, paid close attention to the jokes about the FC1. "There's a reason it looks like a plastic bag - it is a plastic bag," he says. "It's putting a round peg into a different-shaped hole." His female condom is oval-shaped, which mirrors the female anatomy he says. It is packaged as a teat-shaped capsule (see image at the top of this story), and once inserted it expands like the bellows of a concertina. The outer ring of the condom is designed to sit flat against the labia, rather than dangling as some others do. "It's an intimate product and a shared experience, for two people," he says. "So our female condom is intended to be attractive for both men and women." Since the Origami condom is made from silicone, it has the added benefit of being reusable - it can be washed in a dishwasher. Saskia Husken of UAFC says it's important for couples to have a choice of products if the female condom is to achieve its potential. "There is a need for variety," says Husken. "Some women prefer one product and some prefer another, and men as well. We are not all the same." A 2010 study bears this out. Researchers asked 170 South African women to try out three different female condoms five times. After nine weeks, they could choose to stop the research or continue, using the female condom of their choice. Eighty-seven percent chose to continue, and by this time almost all of them had a definite preference (44% opted for the women's condom, while 37% went for the FC2 and 19% for the VA Wow). The fact that 20 years have passed and the female condom has not matched the success of the male condom - it still accounts for only 0.19% of global condom procurement, and costs about 10 times as much - does not dent the confidence of these entrepreneurs. Mary Ann Leeper explains how she came to realise that it could be a very long game. Several years after the disastrous launch of the FC1, a man from Tampax came to talk to her. He said it had taken not years but decades before doctors put their faith in tampons, and women stopped seeing them as weird and gross. "He showed me the learning curve," Leeper recalls. "I said 'Oh God, don't tell me! Have I got to wait all this time? I don't know if I can last that long!'" But the female condom evangelists may yet have the last laugh. Source. ------------------------------------- Curious as to what people's thought are on female condoms? Would any females here be willing to try them? What do the males here think? Discuss!

Abbott government strips environmental legal centres of federal funding December 17, 2013 - 6:42PM Tom Arup Environment editor, The Age The release of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook marks the start of Coalition and Labor selling competing economic narratives to the public. Australia’s environmental legal centres have lost their federal funding in a move that could see the closure of some of the nine offices around the country. The federal government has immediately cut an estimated $10 million boost over four years quietly given to Environmental Defender’s Offices in the dying days of the former Labor government. The government is also planning to end a long-standing annual payment – which for all but one office was around $90,000 – from July 1, meaning the legal centres will no longer receive any federal funding from mid-next year. The impact of the cuts will differ around the country with each office having a different reliance on federal funding, with some receiving state government contributions and private donations. But the move is expected to put real pressure on smaller offices in places such as Darwin, Cairns, Perth and Hobart to stay open. Environment Defender’s Offices provide legal advice and representation to individuals and groups on conservation issues, while also advocating law reform. In Victoria the Environmental Defender’s Office recently took the state government to court to force it to prepare recovery plans for four endangered species, which it was required to do under threatened species laws, but had failed to do so over many years. Defender’s Offices are also often used by community and environment groups fighting major developments. Brendan Sydes, chief executive of the Victorian office, said the cuts would mean about a 45 to 50 per cent reduction in his organisation’s funding. He said the office was set to receive its next payment under the former federal government’s boosted funding next week, but instead had received a call from the Attorney-General’s department on Tuesday afternoon saying the Coalition government was not honouring the commitment. ‘‘This decision by the federal government demonstrates the hostility that this government has for the many Australian communities using the law to stand up for the places they love,’’ Mr Sydes said. ‘‘We are extremely disappointed that they are terminating a four-year funding agreement only six months into the term.’’ A spokesman for the NSW Environmental Defender’s Office said the decision would mean a reduction of 20 to 30 per cent in its funding. In October the NSW Minerals Council publicly called for Attorney–General George Brandis to stop funding the NSW Defender’s Office, saying it had always been concerned about the way it had helped stall project approvals. Environmental Defender's Office NSW executive director Jeff Smith said: "Many Australians who care about protecting the environment will be alarmed about losing their EDOs." He pointed to the high profile case in which NSW office represented residents of Bulga in the Hunter Valley who won a court challenge against the expansion of a nearby coal mine. The cuts to environment legal services came as part of the government's mid-year budget update released in Tuesday. In the budget update there is an overall cut of $43.1 million over four years to ''Legal Policy Reform and Advocacy Funding''. That includes reductions of $6.5 million to Legal Aid Commissions, $13.3 million to National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, $3.66 million to Family Violence Prevention Legal Services, and $19.6 million to the Community Legal Service Program, out of the Environment Defender's Offices were funded. In the budget papers the government says the funding cuts would not affect the provision of frontline services. Fairfax Media has sought comment from Senator Brandis’ office. Senator Brandis told a senate committee last week federal government funding should be focused on frontline legal-aid services, not legal advocacy work. Source.

OPP, it's tomorrow!

Very interesting article, thanks for posting. Stable isotopes are incredibly useful and are revealing a great deal about the past.

Need I point out that whey comes from milk? If milk's only use is putting fat on baby cows, then you should be using a different type of protein powder.

Damn...those two plants I used to have were obtained pretty easily. Guess I lucked out.

Only cinnamon. Never seen it with seed, but then again, I've never even considered that it could have any. Muskrat heard of a guy in QLD with a private nutmeg orchard, so that may be an avenue worth investigating. If I were you, I would contact Rev and see if he can help.

He does. So he may be able to send over fresh seed if there is something in it for him. Cinnamon is available in Australia, it's just difficult to get and erratically available. Nutmeg is a different story. You may want to PM Muskrat and see if he ever ended up having luck sourcing it. You already know my story with my attempts to get it. It is also understandable why it is so difficult to get. Seeds are only viable for approximately 15 days, during which they can't dry out. Getting them into Australia, still viable and not covered with mould, is challenging.

Shameless plug for an awesome event (and a cross post from the rock climbing thread). For anyone in Sydney and interested in all things adventure related, you should come to Adventure Time on Thursday. The event is run by friends in their warehouse just up the road from the St Peters climbing gym and is free! Adventure Time! It's a great little event, has some really interesting people come to talk. Last month Mike Law gave a talk about Sydney seacliff climbing.

For anyone in Sydney and interested in all things adventure related, you should come to Adventure Time on Thursday. The event is run by friends in their warehouse just up the road from the St Peters climbing gym and is free! Adventure Time! It's a great little event, has some really interesting people come to talk. Last month Mike Law gave a talk about Sydney seacliff climbing.

Abbott is hell bent on damaging this country to the full extent of his ability. Very sad. Anyone that gives half a shit should be bombarding their local MPs with letters and/or emails about this.