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Ethnobotanical Research 101- starting from scratch Torsten and I are running a workshop on Laboratory Experiment Design at EGA 2017 We want to share our love of citizen-science. To convince you all to partake in the formal, logical process that can answer so many of the phytochemical/ ethnotoanical questions you've asked over the years. Wonder no more! Act! Workshop's for beginners and wrinkly old lab-hands alike. Anyone, literally- anyone can design a simple, robust protocol which gives solid results and contributes to the sum of human knowledge. Those of you with extensive practical experience in experiment design are very welcome to share the ( sometimes bitter yet hilarious in hindsight ) fruit of your work with us huddled masses. It's not rocket surgery. Lab experiment design is a simple checklist, a bit of planning, some thorough checking and the resilience to simultaneously accept and critique the data as it falls. Carn, we all talk about experiments we'd like to see done. Or exceptions to established practices we've seen work. Shared variants or refinements of new teks. Wanted to know why. Or wondered why the hell something didn't work out after we ( mostly ) followed the instructions. Workshop's interactive. Which means we need your input. Some of which can start here on the forums- reply with some pointers about your experiences or plans. During the workshop we'll welcome your thoughts, interjections, inspirations. Keep 'em coming, keep it moving Workshop's practice-based. Inasmuch as we're pointing at issues around design of theoretical experiments involving the legendary ethnobotanical Dragibus curiosa. Not sure what kind of experiment yet. Help us decide. A simple germination experiment? Optimal fertiliser requirements? The virtues of rhizobial inoulation? A cost/benefit comparison of propagation practices? Testing storage parameters for volatile compounds in the dry product? Determining genetic markers for drought tolerance? We'll settle the best questions on the day It'll be lighthearted. There *will* be lollies. Like all good laboratory-grade successes, some of them may be thrown at you, randomly. Some you must earn. Fate favours the prepared, apparently. It's serious business, experiment design-but that's no excuse not to have fun Bring your questions, your experience, your weird attitudes and your sense of humour.

Hopefully the title of my post is self explanatory. I'm going to be hard pressed to just make the 7kg carry-on limit (I bought extra allowance just in case, never been able to 'pack light') let alone bringing food and such to EGA. I'd be really grateful to hear from anyone that is familiar with the area (EGA people I'm sure can help.) A fellow SAB buddie mentioned buses from the conference site into Eildon? That would be great! I know it's just a three (four) day conference but I have never managed the art of ''packing light'' - what if I wanted those shoes to match those jeans? Hahahaha, silly me dumbass girlie shit. Yes, I've had a 'few' glasses of wine, I was so tremendously overwhelmed earlier this afternoon I couldn't settle myself the fuck down. And I'll probably see this post tomorrow and cringe hard - hoping fellow SAB'ers can relate. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Friday night!

Happy and excited and super impressed by the EGA lecture and workshop lineup- final list is here: Entheogenesis 2017 lecture and workshop list Seriously good work from the EGA team, many thanks and congratulations. See you there!