tripsis

Food fuelled with fungi Ecologists are starting to appreciate the power of microbes to make crops hardier. Nicola Jones 10 December 2013 Maize could survive drought with the help of fungi. SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES With the planet’s population booming and climate change threatening traditional ‘bread-basket’ regions, researchers are seeking ways to squeeze more food from the land. Some are taking a sideways approach: instead of trying to produce hardier crops through breeding or genetic modification, they are manipulating the vast array of symbiotic microorganisms that live in plants. Next spring, Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies in Seattle, Washington, will bring to market the first commercial product that harnesses such microorganisms — known as endophytes — to improve crops. The company plans to sell a mixture of fungi for coating rice and maize (corn) seeds, which it says will produce crops with high yields and reduced water use even in harsh conditions. “It’s a real paradigm shift in plant ecology,” says company founder and plant biologist Rusty Rodriguez. “Up till now we have focused on plants as individuals, as we have with animals.” In the same way that biologists are now starting to understand the power and influence of the trillions of microbes living in and on the human body, ecologists are getting to grips with plant microbiomes. The result is powerful. Instead of having to find and introduce into a crop a single gene for a coveted trait such as salt tolerance, researchers can use a slew of interacting genes that comes pre-integrated in a living organism, such as a symbiotic fungus. Conventional breeding has helped to create varieties with increased tolerance to drought, but progress in introducing new genes through genetic manipulation has been slow. Despite decades of research, only one drought-tolerant genetically modified crop has been approved in the United States: Monsanto’s DroughtGard maize, which expresses a stress-response gene from bacteria. Although symbiotic plant–microbe relationships — such as those of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in the roots of legumes — have been known for many decades, applied research in this field is relatively recent. Only in the 1970s did researchers realize that a fungus living in symbiosis with tall fescue grass was responsible for making cattle grazing on infected pastures ill. Scientists in New Zealand later discovered that some endophyte-ridden grasses, although poisonous to livestock, were resistant to attack by weevils. This spawned a niche industry that develops and markets endophyte-hosting turf varieties that repel pest attacks without being toxic to animals. Now some researchers are applying similar philosophies to food crops. The approach bucks a trend of sterilizing and simplifying crops, says Rodriguez. “Agriculture has spent the past century wiping out the microbes living in our plants, through pesticides and fertilizers. Now we’re trying to reverse that.” Endophyte researcher James White at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, agrees. “A lot of companies don’t think this way — they go for chemical control. They think the microbes get in the way,” he says. “It’s not the paradigm that these microbes are significantly impacting plants. But they are.” There are thought to be millions of endophytic microbes in the world; only a fraction have been identified, and any given plant can host hundreds. Rodriguez’s work began by happy accident. In the early 2000s, while studying the dozen or so plant species that can survive at 50 °C in the hot soils near geothermal vents in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, he found that all of them carried a symbiotic fungus. Although neither the plants nor the fungi could tolerate soil temperatures of 40 °C by themselves, together they could (R. S. Redman et al. Science 298, 1581; 2002). Rodriguez and his colleagues later discovered that the fungi were easily transferable: they could grow in anything from watermelons to maize and confer heat- and drought-tolerance on those crops. “The endophytes somehow protect the plants from oxidation, so the plants don’t turn up all their stress defences,” says Rodriguez. Those findings led him to look for other endophytes optimized to tackle the problems likely to be caused to particular food crops by climate change (R. S. Redman et al. PLoS ONE 6, e14823; 2011). The result is a commercial mix of about half a dozen fungi that the team named BioEnsure. Field tests done or commissioned by the company show that, compared to untreated seeds, the product increased maize yields by 85% in Michigan during a 2012 drought, increased seed germination rates by two to five times during 5 °C cold snaps, and enabled maize to use one-third less water. In rice, the scientists saw yield increases of 3–6% in 2012 and 2013, despite drought and early-season planting when temperatures were cool. The crop also used 25–50% less water than normal. BioEnsure has been approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture, and independent tests have shown the mixture to be non-toxic. Rodriguez plans eventually to produce targeted endophyte mixes for more crops, including soya beans, wheat, barley and sugar cane. But the question of whether BioEnsure will work in commercial conditions is hard to answer: although Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies’ field-test results are public, they have not been peer reviewed. Richard Richards, who leads research to breed better wheat for the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s plant industry division in Canberra, is dubious. “Typically, there is a metabolic cost of hosting an endophyte, so that crops with endophytes are likely to grow less and be less productive,” he says. Rodriguez counters that “in all the field work we’ve done over 15 years we haven’t seen anything suggesting metabolic cost”. Others are cautiously optimistic. Mogens Nicolaisen, who works with plant pathogens at Aarhus University in Denmark, thinks that endophytes could be a good way to help introduce resistance to both drought and disease, including pathogens such as wheat rust, an area that Rodriguez says he is pursuing. But, Nicolaisen adds, getting the endophytes into seeds and regulating their growth in different environmental conditions will be tricky. “It will be very hard to control,” he says. Source.

I'll PM you that. There must be a way for me to get some seeds! Might need to attempt to contact BPTH Sumatera in Indonesia if I have no luck here, though with only a phone number to call, I foresee this being less than fruitful. Anyone have Rev's contact details?

I know this is a long shot, but I thought I would ask... Does anyone know where I may be able to obtain seeds of Octomeles sumatrana, also known as erima? Or if not, does anyone have any contacts in Indonesia or PNG who may be able to help out? Any help greatly appreciated!

See another article on the topic here. That claim is not without its evidence. Firstly, the forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) gene is implicated in language. This was discovered when in the 1990s, a family in London with an inherited language disability (slurring) was found to have a defect of the FOXP2 gene. The human variant of the FOXP2 gene was recently found in the Neanderthal genome. Additionally, morphological evidence supports the idea. Neanderthals have larger hypoglossal canals, tongue bones similar to that of humans' and an inner ear tuned to human speech wavelengths (2-4 kHz). Though this does not definitely tell us whether Neanderthals were able to speak or not, it does suggest that the genetic change for speech came about before our split from them.

Hominin DNA baffles experts Analysis of oldest sequence from a human ancestor suggests link to mystery population. Ewen Callaway 04 December 2013 A dig at the Sima de los Huesos cave in Spain, the site of ancient hominin fossils. Javier Trueba/Madrid Scientific Films Another ancient genome, another mystery. DNA gleaned from a 400,000-year-old femur from Spain has revealed an unexpected link between Europe’s hominin inhabitants of the time and a cryptic population, the Denisovans, who are known to have lived much more recently in southwestern Siberia. The DNA, which represents the oldest hominin sequence yet published, has left researchers baffled because most of them believed that the bones would be more closely linked to Neanderthals than to Denisovans. “That’s not what I would have expected; that’s not what anyone would have expected,” says Chris Stringer, a palaeoanthropologist at London’s Natural History Museum who was not involved in sequencing the femur DNA. The fossil was excavated in the 1990s from a deep cave in a well-studied site in northern Spain called Sima de los Huesos (‘pit of bones’). This femur and the remains of more than two dozen other hominins found at the site have previously been attributed either to early forms of Neanderthals, who lived in Europe until about 30,000 years ago, or to Homo heidelbergensis, a loosely defined hominin population that gave rise to Neanderthals in Europe and possibly humans in Africa. But a closer link to Neanderthals than to Denisovans was not what was discovered by the team led by Svante Pääbo, a molecular geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The team sequenced most of the femur’s mitochondrial genome, which is made up of DNA from the cell’s energy-producing structures and passed down the maternal line. The resulting phylogenetic analysis ­— which shows branches in evolutionary history — placed the DNA closer to that of Denisovans than to Neanderthals or modern humans. “This really raises more questions than it answers,” Pääbo says. The team’s finding, published online in Nature this week (M. Meyer et al. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12788; 2013), does not necessarily mean that the Sima de los Huesos hominins are more closely related to the Denisovans, a population that lived thousands of kilometres away and hundreds of thousands of years later, than to nearby Neanderthals. This is because the mitochondrial genome tells the history of just an individual’s mother, and her mother, and so on. Nuclear DNA, by contrast, contains material from both parents (and all of their ancestors) and typically provides a more accurate overview of a population’s history. But this was not available from the femur. With that caveat in mind, researchers interested in human evolution are scrambling to explain the surprising link, and everyone seems to have their own ideas. Pääbo notes that previously published full nuclear genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans suggest that the two had a common ancestor that lived up to 700,000 years ago. He suggests that the Sima de los Huesos hominins could represent a founder population that once lived all over Eurasia and gave rise to the two groups. Both may have then carried the mitochondrial sequence seen in the caves. But these mitochondrial lineages go extinct whenever a female does not give birth to a daughter, so the Neanderthals could have simply lost that sequence while it lived on in Denisovan women. “I’ve got my own twist on it,” says Stringer, who has previously argued that the Sima de los Huesos hominins are indeed early Neanderthals (C. Stringer Evol. Anthropol. 21, 101–107; 2012). He thinks that the newly decoded mitochondrial genome may have come from another distinct group of hominins. Not far from the caves, researchers have discovered hominin bones from about 800,000 years ago that have been attributed to an archaic hominin called Homo antecessor, thought to be a European descendant of Homo erectus. Stringer proposes that this species interbred with a population that was ancestral to both Denisovans and Sima de los Huesos hominins, introducing the newly decoded mitochondrial lineage to both populations (see ‘Family mystery’). This scenario, Stringer says, explains another oddity thrown up by the sequencing of ancient hominin DNA. As part of a widely discussed and soon-to-be-released analysis of high-quality Denisovan and Neanderthal nuclear genomes, Pääbo’s team suggests that Denisovans seem to have interbred with a mysterious hominin group (see Nature http://doi.org/p9t; 2013). The situation will become clearer if Pääbo’s team can eke nuclear DNA out of the bones from the Sima de los Huesos hominins, which his team hopes to achieve within a year or so. Obtaining such sequences will not be simple, because nuclear DNA is present in bone at much lower levels than mitochondrial DNA. And even obtaining the partial mitochondrial genome was not easy: the team had to grind up almost two grams of bone and relied on various technical and computational methods to sequence the contaminated and damaged DNA and to arrange it into a genome. To make sure that they had identified genuine ancient sequences, they analysed only very short DNA strands that contained chemical modifications characteristic of ancient DNA. Clive Finlayson, an archaeologist at the Gibraltar Museum, calls the latest paper “sobering and refreshing”, and says that too many ideas about human evolution have been derived from limited samples and preconceived ideas. “The genetics, to me, don’t lie,” he adds. Even Pääbo admits that he was befuddled by his team’s latest discovery. “My hope is, of course, eventually we will not bring turmoil but clarity to this world,” he says. Nature 504, 16–17 (05 December 2013 ) doi:10.1038/504016a Source.

Honeybees Can Recognise Individual Human Faces By Kate Wong Image: Sue Williams and Adrian Dyer The ability to tell individual faces apart was long thought to be exclusive to large-brained mammals. But in recent years a number of studies have shown that, in fact, some wasps can facially recognise one another. And honeybees can learn human faces, too. In their article in the December issue of Scientific American, biologists Elizabeth Tibbetts of the University of Michigan and Adrian Dyer of RMIT University in Melbourne describe these findings and what they reveal about the neural requirements for seemingly complex cognitive tasks. The image depicts how a honeybee sees the features of a human face. Researchers created the image with a mechano-optical array of 5,000 individual imaging tubes, each of which represents one of the facets of an insect’s compound eye.

Indigenous Knowledge Can Help Preserve Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services By Marianne de Nazareth 06 December, 2013 Countercurrents.org How many of us humans reading this piece realise that the planet is losing species 100 to 1,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate. International experts assembling for high-level global biodiversity meetings say knowledge co-production with indigenous peoples has growing importance to help stall this. The IPBES (UN Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) experts cite the importance of 'co-production' of information with indigenous people. In fact, they note, processes that merge multiple sources and types of knowledge already help manage challenges as diverse as wildfires and reversing the depletion of fresh water sources with rain water harvesting. Building synergies between science and traditional knowledge forms was one focus of the initial work program for the UN's new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the new IPBES is mandated to bridge the gulf between authoritative biodiversity-related information, knowledge, insights and effective policy-making. The organization has 115 member nations. There are interesting examples which have been around for decades and available from almost every world region. These lessons for ecosystem and natural resource management in indigenous and local knowledge include: South China: Rice-fish co-culture, a farming technique for over 1,200 years in south China, was recently designated a "globally-important agricultural heritage system," by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. A mutually-beneficial relationship has been documented: fish reduce rice pests; rice moderates the fishes' environment, a relationship that reduces by 68% the need for pesticides and by 24% the need for chemical fertilizer compared with monocultures. The findings suggest modern agricultural systems might be improved by exploiting other synergies between species. Australia, Japan, Indonesia: Indigenous fire management techniques developed thousands of years ago, and which today protect large landscapes in Australia, Indonesia, Japan and Venezuela. Early dry season controlled burns create patchy mosaics of burnt country, minimizing destructive late dry season wildfires and maximizing biodiversity protection. In Australia, such projects also create credits sold in carbon markets that support traditional livelihoods. Arctic: Animal herd management in the Arctic, where remote satellite sensing, meteorology and modelling are complemented with the indigenous knowledge of Sami and Nenets reindeer herders to co-produce datasets. The indigenous observers are able to make sense of complex changes in the environment through qualitative assessment of many factors, complementing scientists' quantitative assessment of variables. This holistic approach produces better monitoring and more effective decision-making. Kenya, China, Bolivia: An important source of resilience for indigenous peoples, who have long and successfully managed the risks and impacts of natural variability and extreme weather. With experience in observing closely and reporting the impacts of changing conditions, indigenous communities have always preferred growing a number of traditional crop varieties over a single high-yield and high-risk, mono-cropping system. Analyses of three agricultural systems, in China, Bolivia and Kenya, found that maintaining diverse traditional cropping strategies and access to seeds has been essential for adaptation and survival. Tanzania, Thailand: Rotational farming, as practiced in the highlands of Tanzania, illustrates a unique and ingenious farming system involving pits surrounded by four ridges on steep slopes to plant maize, beans and wheat on a rotational basis. During the rainy season, the pits act as reservoirs preventing the destructive effects of surface runoff from the steep cultivated slopes. An elaborate traditional rotational farming system in northern Thailand, meanwhile, features a complex land use mosaic including a sacred forest, a forest line serving as a firebreak and wildlife path, a transition zone protecting biodiversity habitat, livestock grazing on fallow land, home gardens, rice paddies on terraced slopes and lowland fields, and drought tolerant rice in cleared areas upland. Pacific Islands: Sustainable management of marine resources, as practiced by many Pacific island communities, traditionally involves the use of area and time-based restrictions to facilitate marine resource recovery. These traditional management systems involve a range of strategies, including tabu areas (sacred sites), species-specific prohibitions, seasonal and area closures to create networks of refuges, gear restrictions, behavioural prohibitions, totemic restrictions and food avoidance - all promoting a balanced approach to resource management. India: Rainwater harvesting, thought to have originated 6,500 years ago and revived in the 1970s when the Alwar district of India's Rajasthan state was declared a 'dark zone'- indicating severe drought and rapid depletion of groundwater. Many traditional rainwater harvesting structures that had fallen into disrepair were refurbished and new ones built, all of which helped replenish the aquifers. Need to build synergies between science and indigenous knowledge IPBES emphasizes that science must accommodate indigenous and local knowledge and world views in an appropriate, respectful manner. The expert group emphasizes that indigenous peoples' and communities' conceptualization of relationships between life's ecological, social and spiritual spheres is reflected throughout their management and knowledge systems. These should complement science-based representations and form an integral part of the IPBES conceptual framework through "a meaningful and active engagement . . . in all relevant aspects of its work and across all of its functions." Says the founding Chair of IPBES, Zakri Abdul Hamid: "Our task is complex but essential. We must identify gaps in knowledge and build capacity for the interface between policy and knowledge - in all its forms." "That means developing a process through which scientific and policy communities ecognize, consider and build synergies with indigenous and local knowledge in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem services." The rapid decline of biodiversity and ecosystem services has been called "the 6th great extinction episode" in Earth's history, he notes, and "the role of IPBES is to narrow the gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledge about biodiversity and the paucity of effective action to reverse damaging trends." * Identify and prioritize key scientific information for policymakers and catalyse generation of new knowledge by engaging with key scientific organizations, policymakers and funding organizations * Perform regular assessments of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services and their interlinkages * Support policy formulation and implementation by identifying and developing relevant tools and methodologies for decision makers; and * Prioritize capacity-building needs to improve the science-policy interface and then provide and call for financial and other support for the highest-priority needs. The draft work programme addresses the collapse of bee and other pollinator populations in many parts of the world with a proposed fast-track assessment of pollination and food production to be completed by next March. This assessment will address trends in pollinators and pollination dynamics, drivers of change, how pollination declines and deficits have affected human well-being and how effective the response has been to date. The work programme also calls for a global assessment of land degradation and restoration focusing on the effect of degradation on biodiversity values, ecosystem services and human well-being and the state of knowledge of ecosystem restoration. Also proposed is a global assessment of invasive alien species and the threats posed to biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods. The IPBES also plans to produce two guides by August 2015 based on fast-track assessments of policy and support tools and methodologies for: * Scenario analysis and modelling of biodiversity and ecosystem services that will help decision makers to identify and reject development pathways with adverse impacts on human well-being in favour of alternatives that conserve and use biodiversity sustainably; and * Valuation and accounting of biodiversity and ecosystem services that help decision makers in taking into account the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services and identify trade-offs between various development pathways. (Marianne de Nazareth is a Freelance science and environment journalist and adjunct faculty, St Joseph’s College of Media studies, Bangalore.)

Dan Murphy's sells 95% Polish liquor. Link.

How do you define "species"? If you use the BSC, then the very fact that we have both Neanderthal's and Denisovan's DNA in our genome means that they were not truly distinct species.

If someone wants to cover the petrol, I'll deliver them.

You bastard. Zelly did you sow the seeds from the TBM that flowered?

Wow, that is seriously fucked up. I truly hope this bullshit is not enacted. If protesting becomes a crime, we are all totally shafted. Australia just keeps getting worse...

I wish I could see that pumpkin in person.

Tool use in crocodylians: crocodiles and alligators use sticks as lures to attract waterbirds By Darren Naish | November 30, 2013 | Mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) at Madras Crocodile Bank, Tamil Nadu, India, with sticks on its head. What's going on here? Read on. Photo by Vladinir Dinets, from Dinets et al. (2013). Used with permission. In recent years it has – I really, really hope – become better known that non-bird reptiles (turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, alligators and so on) are not boring dullards, but behaviourally complex creatures that get up to all sorts of interesting things. Play behaviour, complex social interactions, gaze recognition, pair-bonding and monogamy, social hunting, speedy learning abilities and good memories have all been demonstrated across these groups. And another interesting and unexpected bit of complex behaviour has just been published. It’s so interesting that I feel compelled to write about it today. It concerns what seems to be tool use in crocodiles and alligators. As described by Dinets et al. (2013), Mugger crocodiles Crocodylus palustris in India and American alligators Alligator mississippiensis in the USA have both been observed to lie, partially submerged, beneath egret and heron colonies with sticks balanced across their snouts. Birds approach to collect the sticks for use in nest building and… well, let’s just say that it doesn’t end well for the birds. If the crocodylians really are using the sticks as bait to attract their bird prey, this is tool use, since the sticks are objects that are being employed for a specific function. American alligator successfully catches Snowy egret (Egretta thula) following stick-displaying behaviour. Photo by Don Specht, from Dinets et al. (2013). Used with permission. The occurrence of sticks on the crocodylians is not random: stick-displaying behaviour was most frequently observed both in those crocodylians living at rookeries and was exclusively observed during the egret and heron nesting season, being most frequent in late March and April (when the egrets and herons are working hard to find sticks) (Dinets et al. 2013). The possibility that stick-displaying behaviour results from a random association between rookery-frequenting crocodylians and floating sticks is unlikely since floating sticks are extremely rare in the pools concerned, especially at the time of year concerned (partly this is because the local trees – baldcypresses and water tupelos – don’t shed twigs, but also because the nesting birds rapidly remove floating sticks for nest-building). Therefore, deliberate collection and employment of sticks by the crocodylians seems most likely (Dinets et al. 2013): it seems that they are practising baiting behaviour, whereby predators use objects in order to get potential prey to closely approach and hence become easier to catch. Even better, they are seemingly only practicing this baiting behaviour during a specific part of the year. Green heron using bread as bait to attract fish. From Guido Trombetta's SeaWayBLOG. Baiting behaviour is already well known for archosaurs. It’s frequently practised by Green herons Butorides virescens: they use feathers, twigs and even berries and bits of bread to attract fish (Norris 1975, Boswall 1983, Walsh et al. 1985, Robinson 1994) [adjacent photo from this article at SeaWayBLOG]. Burrowing owls Athene cunicularia use mammal dung to attract dung beetles (Levey et al. 2004) and gulls of at least two species have been seen using bait to attract finches fish (Henry & Aznar 2006). And it should be noted that this is not the first mention of what seems to be baiting in crocodylians, since Shumaker et al. (2011) anecdotally reported cases in which Saltwater crocodiles C. porosus seemingly used fish fragments to attract birds. Crocodiles sometimes do strange things. This Orinoco croc (C. intermedius) is eating leaves. Photo by John Brueggen, from Brueggen (2002), taken at St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park. As Dinets et al. (2013) note, the discovery of this behaviour in two extant crocodilian species raises the possibility that it’s more widespread within the group, and even – given its presence in both crocodylians and birds – that tool use involving bait was practised by extinct archosaurs. A number of surprising and unusual bits of behaviour have been documented in extant crocodylians in recent years (several of which have been covered at Tet Zoo), including fruit eating, leaf eating, adoption of babies, the possible feeding of babies, climbing, co-operative hunting, pair-bonding and monogamy, plus it’s long been known that they have a complex, sophisticated repertoire of vocal and postural communicative signals. These all show that crocodiles, alligators and gharials are complex, adaptable beasts that do many things that we might not consider likely had they not been documented. What’s next? Stay tuned… Many thanks to Vladimir Dinets for his help. For previous Tet Zoo articles on behaviour in living crocodylians, see… Alligators eat fruit Do crocodilians (sometimes) feed their young? Alligators vs melons: the final battle Crocodiles attack elephants For for other Tet Zoo articles on crocodiles, see… Dissecting a crocodile Earth: Crocodile Empire homeworld (crocodiles part I) The once far and wide Siamese crocodile The Saltwater crocodile, and all that it implies (crocodiles part III) Crocodiles of New Guinea, crocodiles of the Philippines (crocodiles part IV) The Freshie: Australian crocodile, seemingly from the north (crocodiles part V) Crocodiles of Africa, crocodiles of the Mediterranean, crocodiles of the Atlantic (crocodiles part VI) Source (with references).

Study documents catastrophic collapse of Sahara's wildlife Published: Tuesday, December 3, 2013 - 14:04 in Biology & Nature This shows some of the world's 200 remaining wild addax in Termit and Tin Toumma National Nature Reserve in Niger. Copyright Thomas Rabeil and Sahara Conservation Fund A new study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Zoological Society or London warns that the world's largest tropical desert, the Sahara, has suffered a catastrophic collapse of its wildlife populations. The study by more than 40 authors representing 28 scientific organizations assessed 14 desert species and found that a shocking half of those are regionally extinct or confined to one percent or less of their historical range. A chronic lack of studies across the region due to past and ongoing insecurity makes it difficult to be certain of the causes of these declines, although overhunting is likely to have played a role. The study was published in the early online version of the journal Diversity and Distributions. The Bubal hartebeest is extinct; the scimitar horned oryx is extinct in the wild; and the African wild dog and African lion have vanished from the Sahara. Other species have only fared slightly better: the dama gazelle and addax are gone from 99 percent of their range; the leopard from 97 percent, and the Saharan cheetah from 90. Only the Nubian ibex still inhabits most of its historical range, but even this species is classified as vulnerable due to numerous threats including widespread hunting. The authors say that more conservation support and scientific attention needs to be paid to deserts noting that 2014 is the halfway point in the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification and the fourth year of the United Nations Decade for Biodiversity. "The Sahara serves as an example of a wider historical neglect of deserts and the human communities who depend on them," said the study's lead author Sarah Durant of WCS and ZSL. "The scientific community can make an important contribution to conservation in deserts by establishing baseline information on biodiversity and developing new approaches to sustainable management of desert species and ecosystems." The authors note that some governments have recently made large commitments to protecting the Sahara: Niger has just established the massive 97,000 square kilometer (37,451 square miles) Termit and Tin Toumma National Nature Reserve, which harbors most of the world's 200 or so remaining wild addax and one of a handful of surviving populations of dama gazelle and Saharan cheetah. There is also hope that the scimitar horned oryx may be reintroduced in the wild in the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Game Reserve, with the support of the Chadian government. Source: Wildlife Conservation SocietySource.

Yeah, fair enough, I'll keep that in mind. I'm not quite up for that sort of banter to the degree incog is, but enjoy it occasionally. I can understand how the crassness may offend those with more sensitive personalities, and though I often do enjoy being a bit of a twat, I don't want to put off regular members and stir shit in the community. Point taken, I'll try to moderate my behaviour a little (though perhaps not completely). Excellent, glad you're enjoying them. Everything I post I find acutely interesting, so hope that others do too.

So incog and I aren't allowed to joke around?

Hence why I said:

Very nice, Sabry.

I'm fully agree with the above suggestion, I have no problem explaining why I think someone deserves a neg. Exactly. If someone make a moronic comment or act like a dick and no one calls them out on it, they'll never learn better. I'm happy to receive critical feedback on what I say and do.

Forget Prozac, Psychobiotics Are the Future of Psychiatry Jason Tetro at 08:59 AM 21 Nov 2013 Psychobiotics IMAGE BY Source: Wikipedia; Modifications: Jason Tetro For millennia, the human race has sought to combat psychological disorders through the intervention of natural – and eventually synthetic – chemicals. Originally, the sources for these psychoactive substances were the various fruits and flowers, including the Areca tree (betel nut), the poppy (opium), and the coca plant (cocaine). But in the 20th Century, new actives were being created in the lab thanks in part to the discovery of lysergic acid, better known as LSD, in 1938. By the middle of the 1950s, the psychiatric community was fascinated by the idea that mental health could be restored through the direct use of drugs or in combination with traditional psychotherapy. The idea took off in the 1960s as research continued to elucidate the biology of psychiatry. It essentially created a new avenue for psychiatric treatment: psychopharmacology. This inevitably led to the synthesis of a new compound, 3-(p-trifluoromethylphenoxy)-N-methyl-3-phenylpropylamine, which eventually became known as fluoxetine, and then, as we have all come to know it, Prozac. By the late 1980s, it was known by another name: the wonder drug. Today, pharmacologic compounds for psychiatric treatment are numerous and up to 20% of all Americans are taking some type of psychotropic medication totalling some $34 billion dollars annually. While there have been calls for a reduction in use of these chemicals, primarily due to the fact that many are ineffective, there is a constant pressure from the public to have all their problems solved by a pill. There is a different – and less costly – course to deal with stress and other psychological problems although until recently, there has been little to no attention paid to this option. The treatment does not involve an individual chemical but rather a plethora of them which act to reduce inflammation, calm stress and bring about a more pleasant mood. With a new article out this week from the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in Cork, Ireland, there is even hope that severe and chronic mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may one day be a thing of the past. They are called quite simply, Psychobiotics. According to the authors, Timothy G. Dinan – whose name sounds as catchy as that of another psychiatric pioneer, Timothy F. Leary – Catherine Stanton and John F. Cryan, a psychobiotic is “a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness.” These live organisms are comprised not only of probiotics but also other bacteria known to produce psychotropic signals such as serotonin and dopamine. While this concept may raise some eyebrows, this postulate has credence. There have been several examples in humans where the introduction of a probiotic has led to improvement of mood, anxiety and even chronic fatigue syndrome. But there appears to be a disconnect between the idea of ingesting a bacterium that stays in the gut and psychiatric behavior, which is controlled by the brain. The answer lies in the fact that many psychiatric illnesses are immunological in nature through chronic low level inflammation. There is a plethora of evidence showing the link between gut microbiota and inflammation and studies on probiotic strains have revealed their ability to modulate inflammation and bring back a healthy immunological function. In this regard, by controlling inflammation through probiotic administration, there should be an effect of improved psychiatric disposition. The authors bring up another reason why psychobiotics are so unique in comparison to most probiotics. These strains have another incredible ability to modulate the function of the adrenal cortex, which is responsible for controlling anxiety and stress response. Probiotic strains, such as Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifdobacterium longum have shown to reduce levels of stress hormones and maintain a calmer, peaceful state. There may be a host of other probiotic bacteria with the same ability although testing has been scant at best. Finally, the last point in support of psychobiotics is the fact that certain strains of bacteria actually produce the chemicals necessary for a happy self. But as these chemicals cannot find their way into the brain, another route has been found to explain why they work so well. They stimulate cells in the gut that have the ability to signal the vagus nerve that good chemicals are in the body. The vagus nerve then submits this information to the brain, which then acts as if the chemicals were there. If these probiotics were used in combination with those that stimulate the production of opioid and cannabinoid receptors, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus, the result would be more than just a calming effect; there would be a natural high. There is little doubt that there needs to be more research into the role of psychobiotics in mental health. Even the authors suggest that clinical studies need to be performed along with more fundamental research. However, unlike drugs such as Prozac and LSD, which are highly regulated, probiotics are readily available on store shelves. This in effect could allow everyone to join in a citizen science movement similar to that of the Erowid culture, which focuses on the effect of natural psychoactives. All that would be needed is a hub and a name, say PSYCHOgerms, in order to identify the psychological wonders – and admittedly, duds – of the probiotic world. Should this happen, it may help one day to move past the era of pharmapscyhology and head straight into the more natural world or psychobiotics. Source. Fascinating area of research, looking forward to seeing this developed. So much potential.

Buy me a return ticket to Brisbane?

It's difficult to find the right words to express how I feel when I look at that ridiculously oversized pumpkin. "Impressive" just doesn't cut it.

No, it wasn't you. It was Responsible Choice's "Chill the fuck out yo" thread. Anyone that writes in bold (the equivalent of shouting in the real world) to "chill the fuck out yo" deserves a slap in the face, in my most humble of opinions of course.

Hope it does, myco.