ayjay101
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Posts posted by ayjay101
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*Bump*
I'm paid up and locked in for the weekend of 26th/27th May @Creswick, any takers (final call!)??
Zen - I live in a small town in the hills named after a popular bird, nestled in between a place named after a jewel and another place named after a jewel in a creek...
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outstanding
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"..I sure could use a vacation from this
bull shit
3 ring
circus
side show..."
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This is a very good point, and not something to be ignored. There are some basic principles that need to be adhered to when fermenting in sealed vessels. I am available for consultation if further details is required, and I can also provide some formulas & techniques for one-off projects.(please post here - no PM's please). Alternatively, for ease of use & peace of mind, check out the Oztops kit. This is by far the safest way for an occasional winemaker to avoid dangerous situations (ie explosions). They are basically a set of custom-made bottle-tops that allow for controlled C02 release, while still keeping enough in solution for carbonation.
Thanks for the info Psylo. Oztops looks great - gonna order me one of these kits and get fermenting!!
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I rememebr Ed posting his mum's (Eileen's) in the past:
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Ok, at this stage I'm aiming for the Creswick ones on Sat 26th May and Sun 27th May, and will make a weekend of it.
Anyone else from here keen for those dates?
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Hahaha - looks like disturbed body clocks are soon to be treatable anyway:
Scientists learn how to reset disrupted body clocks
- AAP
- May 03, 2012 11:26AM
Good news for shift workers and travellers ... Scientists are working on a way to rejuvenate disrupted body clocks. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen
SHIFT workers and international travellers could in future receive treatment to reset their disrupted body clocks to improve their health.
Scientists are working towards developing drugs that target two genes that have recently been found to play a crucial role in regulating the body's circadian rhythms.
Chris Liddle, an Australian scientist involved in the international study, says the discovery highlights the importance of the genes in the liver to regulate digestion at appropriate times.
Professor Liddle, from the University of Sydney's Westmead Millennium Institute, said people with circadian disturbances, such as shift workers, tend to have higher incidences of obesity and diabetes.
He said these conditions were not necessarily caused just by poor diets, but also by the disruption of the body clock and sleep cycle.
When the two are thrown out of sync, the body may not be ready to absorb nutrition.
"You might come home from work and have your dinner at a time when the body clock has not set your liver up to process that nutrition,'' Prof Liddle told AAP.
He said a disrupted body clock could take days or weeks to reset.
The study found that when particular receptors in the liver were removed, the body clock does not function properly.
"Clearly these receptors are very important in setting the liver up in the right part of the clock cycle to accept and process nutrition and to regulate digestion,'' Prof Liddle said.
He said the discovery of the gene functions meant that drugs could now be developed to target those receptors and provide relief for people affected by disrupted circadian rhythms.
"We're potentially coming up not only with something that helps you when you travel or when you change shifts on shift work, but may be relevant to people with diabetes, obesity and related metabolic problems,'' he said.
The study, published in the journal Nature on Thursday, was led by a California-based research centre, the Salk Institute.
- AAP
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Zombie-ant parasitic fungus kept in check by hyperparasitic fungus
Ant colonies are protected against brain-manipulating parasitic fungi by another fungus
A dead zombie ant infested with the parasitic fungus Cordyceps.
Photograph: David Hughes/Penn State University
The modus operandi of the Cordyceps fungi is the stuff of nightmares. These parasites grow inside their insect hosts by feeding off the non-vital organs, and manipulate the hosts' behaviour so that they can reproduce. When it is ready to produce spores, the fungus grows into the brain and releases chemicals that make the host climb a plant then attach itself near the top. It then kills its host by devouring its brain, before sprouting a mushroom from the top of its head, which disperses its spores as widely as possible.
Cordyceps fungi can decimate entire ant colonies, but some colonies can keep an infestation at bay and survive for long periods of time. A new study now reveals how they do so. It turns out that the zombie-ant fungus is itself parasitized by another fungus, which limits its ability to reproduce and prevents it from overwhelming the colony. This microbial defence system allows the two species to stably co-exist and ensures the long-term survival of the colony despite a high rate of infection.
The Cordyceps fungi manipulate worker ants to leave their nest and march off to a nearby site where they will eventually meet their fate. These sites are mass graves littered with the bodies of nest-mates that have succumbed to the fungus. They can persist in the same location for years, growing steadily as ants arrive one by one to die.
Sandra Andersen of the University of Copenhagen and her colleagues took advantage of this. They analysed the growth rate of five graveyards containing ant corpses infected with Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis, all located within a 400 hectare nature reserve in the Brazilian rain forest.
They identified a total of 432 infected ants in the five sites, and characterized each one according to the developmental stage of the fungus. This showed that 1/8 of the ants had been freshly killed, and a similar number were somehow damaged and showed no obvious signs of fungal growth. Another 1/8 had an immature mushroom growing from their heads, but only 1/16 had mature mushrooms that produced spores. They also found that more than half of the dead ants in each graveyard harboured a second parasitic fungus.
Photograph: David Hughes/Penn State University
The researchers then collected 31 dead parasitized ants carrying mature spore-producing mushrooms, along with the leaves to which they were attached, and took them back to the lab to measure the reproduction of the Cordyceps fungus. They attached the ants to the lid of a Petri dish with Vaseline and monitored the amount of spores deposited by each over a period of 4 -6 days. This revealed that only 13 out of the 31 mushrooms were actually shooting spores.
Andersen and her colleagues combined their field data with other results obtained previously in Thailand, and used all of the results to generate a model of the interactions between Cordyceps fungi and infected ant colonies and estimate the length of each stage of the Cordyceps life cycle.
According to their estimates, the mushroom begins to sprout about one week after the ant has been killed, and then matures over the next month, during which time it releases its spores. It is, however, highly vulnerable to infection by the hyperparasitic fungus during this maturation period, so a large proportion of the mushrooms become infected and prevented from sporulating. Mature mushrooms, by contrast, likely have efficient immune defences that protect them against infection.
The findings reveal highly complex interactions between ant colonies, the parasitic brain-manipulating fungi that infect them, and the other fungi that help to defend the colony against infection. They suggest a delicate trade-off between the growth of the Cordyceps fungus and its lifespan. The slow development of the fungus increases the chances that ants will come into contact with the spores, but this comes with the cost of a high mortality rate among immature fungi.
Consequently, each mature parasite produces an average of about one new mature parasite. So although large numbers of individual ants become infected, the likelihood that the fungus it contains will produce spores that survive and infect others is very low. The graveyards therefore grow steadily but slowly, and the colony as a whole can be sustained. Occasionally, an ant might stray further than its colony's resident graveyard, leading to transmission of the parasite to another colony.
"Our research indicates that the danger to the ant colony is much smaller than the high density of zombie-ant cadavers in the graveyard might suggest," says senior author David Hughes, an entomologist at Penn State. "The hyperparasitic fungus effectively castrates the zombie-ant fungus so it cannot spread its spores. Because the hyperparasitic fungi prevents the infected zombie-ant fungus from spreading spores, fewer of the ants will become zombies."
Reference: Andersen, S. B., et al. (2012). Disease Dynamics in a Specialized Parasite of Ant Societies. PLoS ONE 7(5): e36352. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036352
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/neurophilosophy/2012/may/03/zombie-ant-parasitic-fungus
Groovy huh
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FWIW in a previous life I studied statistics at uni and we briefly analysed moon cycles in relation to criminal behaviour satistics. There was indeed a slight stastical increase in criminal behaviour on full moons. BUT there was a marked, significant correllation between 'blue moons' and criminal behaviour.
Just went outside to take a peek, but alas, obscured by clouds (not a bad album by the floyd that one
)
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In particular, study participants reported loud snoring and leg twitching by their ecstasy-using partners and roommates.These are evidence of sleep disturbance that an ecstasy user themselves may not be aware of, says Ogeil.
And were these subjects compared with a control group? How about comparisons of the same subject's leg-twitching and loud snoring habits *before* ecstacy consumption? What about other co-factors, other habits, drugs in the mix?
He says while the body clock is constantly being reset by our exposure to light, the new findings suggest that if you take ecstasy you are going to push that reset button at the wrong time.So it's something akin to staying up all night under lights, or travelling across the international date line and getting jetlag?
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Thanks for positng - I had a nice late night last night and enjoyed a few of these.
Quality fiction. The drama is manifest in the writing itself and NOT merely implied through the typical channels of emotional/character attachments, effects or other plot devices.
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Dandenongs would be good (closer for me).
Me too - it could be held in my backyard ;)
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Wow, this looks too good to pass up. I'm going to try and make it to all 3 different workshops.
Just need to work out which particular locations - there'll be a bit of travel and juggling for me to do...
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One of the reasons that spachianus is considered trichocereus instead of echinopsis is that it does NOT clump like this. Its not a spachianus.
Cheers EG
Apologies for the bum-steer Belching
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The cactus looks like echinopsis (Trichocereus) spachianus to me. Crazy pupping there, especially from such a young one!
I have NFI about the other, but it looks very cool indeed.
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The report I heard specifically stated "pornographic images of males"
Nudity is definitely NOT pornography - however society at large and the general media treat the 2 as interchangable.
It's a shame and evidnece of our pathetic sexual complex, for sure.
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This was reported in the TripleJ news yesterday morning, where the story was that he immediately fled the room when the images appeared...
EDIT: they also reported that the images were pornographic images of males...
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This was menitoned on TripleJ news this morning as well
While I take heart from such news articles, I can't help it think such proposals will be laughed out of the room by mainstream, current lawmakers and the uninitiated general public
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Hi friends,
I'm looking to cook up some tasty treats this winter. Can you help?
Was thinking possibly Oysters, Shitaki, Enoki, Shimeji, Porcini.. whatever's around or recommended really.
I can trade:
- trich seeds (a little long in the tooth now - a cpls of years old but well stored)
- a small number of loph seed
- large range of Diggers club vege seeds
- small number of acacia seed
- pach cuts - tip/mid
- computer music & sample CDs
- copies of conspiracy docos, esoteric teaching docos, psychedelic docos, etc
- whatever else I can find of a similar nature
Thanks and
Hooroo for now
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Hahahaha
If you're considering buying it at that price. Do it. Do it now.
If you're considering selling it at the price, you should start the auction at that price, it should (and will) go for more than that... I would think it would go for over $500, closer to $700. People are willing to pay high prices for older Lophs.
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This was brilliant, thanks. One to spread far and wide for sure.
His depiction of the psychedelic experience is poetic and his expression in general is clearly inspired.
I particularly like the way he expresses the notion of Genetic Evolution being Natural Intelligence's form of self-learning expression and his beautiful reminders of the immense and incredible intelligence we are continuously immersed in but are often de-sensitised to, due to It's omnipresence. This is something that I obviously know, but hadn't languaged to myself for a while
Has anyone read his book that he sprukes at the start, 'The Psilocybin Solution'? (SAB Search Engine said no) Will have to track it down.
Gotta love late Friday nights.
Peace Out
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Great stuff! You should be proud. You clearly have good ideas, motivation and talent.
Comparing the mixing/audio quality of your homegrown tunes vs professional stuff is unfair. There are probably things you can do to get a cleaner and more alive mix even with your current DAW/setup as has been said here, but if you want the professional polish - why not work towards it? That said, there's so much professionally produced stuff around today that is plain BORING. But you're stuff is not boring, and a professional polish on it could only help.
Only you can answer the question of whether you should continue. I'm sure you know the answer, and what the next step is.
In my opionion - Rock on! Keep going.
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Totally normal - you are no more retarded than most of us (in this instance anyway
I nearly always get the high, especially from a well-made espresso-based cup. Pretty much no come down too. However, too much makes me clammy and smelly and too little gives painful headaches!
I've become a total addict in 2 yrs, going from none at all to a minimum of 2-3 each day.
Sub burbing
in Mycology
Posted
Found subs, lactarius, amanitas, boletes, parasols, saffys, milk tops, galerinas and many others in the hills Eastern Melb hills over the weekend. The amanitas in particular were in glorious abundance. Subs were around in small quantities in my usual haunts, but this is already up on last year which was very poor comapared to the few years prior.