Posted on 02/09/2009 12:36:11 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny
Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training
I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood
http://news.illinois.edu/news/09/0213nature.html
The science suggests access to nature is essential to human health
2/13/09
Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor
217-333-5802; diya@illinois.edu
Kuo
Click photo to enlarge
Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
Frances Kuo, a professor of natural resources and environmental science and psychology at Illinois, studies how environmental factors, such as access to nature, may influence social, psychological and physical health.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Elderly adults tend to live longer if their homes are near a park or other green space, regardless of their social or economic status. College students do better on cognitive tests when their dorm windows view natural settings. Children with ADHD have fewer symptoms after outdoor activities in lush environments. Residents of public housing complexes report better family interactions when they live near trees.
These are only a few of the findings from recent studies that support the idea that nature is essential to the physical, psychological and social well-being of the human animal, said Frances Kuo, a professor of natural resources and environmental science and psychology at the University of Illinois. Kuo will present her own and other findings on the subject at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago on Feb. 13.
“Humans are evolved organisms and the environment is our habitat,” Kuo said. “Now, as human societies become more urban, we as scientists are in a position to look at humans in much the same way that those who study animal behavior have looked at animals in the wild to see the effect of a changing habitat on this species.”
Humans living in landscapes that lack trees or other natural features undergo patterns of social, psychological and physical breakdown that are strikingly similar to those observed in other animals that have been deprived of their natural habitat, Kuo said.
“In animals what you see is increases in aggression, you see disrupted parenting patterns, their social hierarchies are disrupted,” she said.
Considerable research has found that violence and aggression are highest in urban settings devoid of trees and grass, for example.
Kuo has studied how access to nature influences crime and conflict resolution among residents of public housing facilities in Chicago. These facilities provide an ideal laboratory for studying the “green effect,” she said, because their occupants are randomly assigned to standard housing units, some of which have grass and trees nearby.
In a 2001 study of the Robert Taylor Homes (recently demolished), Kuo and her colleague, U. of I. landscape architecture professor William Sullivan, found that those who lived in housing units with no immediate view of or access to nature reported a greater number of aggressive – including violent – conflicts with partners or children than their peers who lived near trees and grass.
In another 2001 study, Kuo and Sullivan looked at two years of crime statistics in relation to specific addresses in the Ida B. Wells public housing facility in Chicago. After controlling for other factors, the researchers found that crime rates were highest for residences with little or no proximity to nature. Identical units with views of grass and trees were associated with significantly less crime.
“Roughly 7 percent of the variation in crime that can’t be accounted for by other factors can be accounted for by the amount of trees,” Kuo said.
Humans suffer a variety of negative social effects when living in barren landscapes. Kuo and her colleagues have shown that these effects include decreased civility, less supervision of children outdoors, more illegal activity, more aggression, more property crime, more loitering, more graffiti and more litter.
“We might call some of that ‘soiling the nest,’ which is not healthy,” she said. “No organisms do that when they’re in good shape.”
Certain psychological problems are also likely to appear more often in those lacking access to nature, she said.
“In our studies, people with less access to nature show relatively poor attention or cognitive function, poor management of major life issues, poor impulse control,” she said.
Other researchers have found that access to nature positively influences a person’s mood, life and work satisfaction, she said.
Kuo has seen such psychological effects in children with ADHD. In a 2001 study, she and her colleagues asked parents of children with ADHD which after-school activities worsened – and which soothed – their children’s symptoms. The parents consistently reported that outdoor activities in natural settings lessened their children’s ADHD symptoms more than activities conducted indoors, or in built environments outdoors.
In a 2008 study, Kuo and a colleague, Illinois postdoctoral researcher Andrea Faber Taylor, studied children with ADHD who went on field trips in green or manmade environments. After the trips, other researchers (who didn’t know where the kids had been) tested their concentration. Children with ADHD had significantly better concentration after a walk in a park than in an urban setting. The difference was comparable to what is achieved with standard ADHD medication, Kuo said, although “no one knows how long the green effect will last.”
More recent studies by various teams in Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the U.S., are showing that access to nature – or lack thereof – can also have significant physical effects. A large-scale study in the Netherlands found that general health is predicted by the amount of green space within a 1-mile or 3-mile radius, Kuo said. Another study found that elderly Japanese adults lived longer when their homes were within walking distance of a park or other green space. These effects were independent of their social or economic status.
While none of these studies proves conclusively that nature is essential to optimal functioning in humans, Kuo said, the body of evidence strongly points in that direction.
“So when people say: ‘As a scientist, would you say that we know this now? Do we know that people need nature?’ I say: ‘As a scientist I can’t tell you. I’m not ready to say that,’ ” Kuo said. “ ‘But as a mother who knows the scientific literature, I would say, yes.’ ”
Editor’s note: To reach Frances Kuo, call: 217-244-0393; e-mail: fekuo@illinois.edu.
http://news.illinois.edu/news/09/0212virus.html
NEWS INDEX Archives 2009 February
Research on viral origins suggests new definition of virus may be needed
2/12/09
Cotesia wasp
Click photo to enlarge
Rights-protected photo courtesy Alex Wild (myrmecos.net)
A parasitic Cotesia wasp preparing to oviposi onto a Manduca caterpillar.
Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor
217-333-5802; diya@illinois.edu
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The strange interaction of a parasitic wasp, the caterpillar in which it lays its eggs and a virus that helps it overcome the caterpillar’s immune defenses has some scientists rethinking the definition of a virus.
In an essay in the journal Science, Donald Stoltz, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and James Whitfield, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, report that a new study also appearing in Science shows how the diverse ways in which viruses operate within and among the organisms they encounter may not be fully appreciated. The study, from a team of researchers led by the Université François Rabelais, in Tours, France, found that the genes that encode a virus that helps wasps successfully parasitize caterpillars are actually integrated into the wasps’ own chromosomes. These genes, which they show to be related to those from another known group of viruses, are an indivisible part of the wasp’s genetic heritage; they are passed down from one generation to another of parasitoid wasps.
While it is not unusual for virus DNA to become embedded in the chromosomes of their hosts, in this case the wasp is not the only “host” of the virus. The viral genes do replicate (copy themselves) inside the wasp (the permanent host), but they actually target – and act upon – the immune system of the caterpillar (a more transient host).
Whitfield
Click photo to enlarge
Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
Entomologist James Whitfield suggests a new definition of viruses is needed, based on research on parasitic wasps.
“The unique thing about these viruses is that the organism into whose DNA their genes are embedded in is not the same one that their genes are actually targeted to operate on,” Whitfield said. “So it’s sort of like having two hosts, except that there’s not a complete life cycle in either host.”
The virus is beneficial to the wasp and depends on the wasp for its own survival, suggesting a kind of obligate mutualism that is not normally seen in viruses, Whitfield said.
Researchers have known for about 40 years that some species of parasitoid wasps inject these viruses, known as polydnaviruses, into the body cavities of caterpillars at the same time that they lay their eggs in the caterpillars. Because these “virus-like particles” have become an integral part of the wasp genome, some researchers have suggested they should no longer be considered viruses.
“It’s true that the wasp DNA and the viral DNA are now combined into the same genome, so maybe it’s not productive to think of them as separate entities,” Whitfield said. “But on the other hand, if you really want to understand them well, it does help to know where things come from.”
Whitfield and Stoltz have each spent decades studying the interplay of parasite and pathogens that makes up the life cycle of the parasitoid wasps. In their essay, they suggest that taxonomists of viruses take a new look at how viruses are defined.
“Many virology texts won’t even mention polydnaviruses,” Whitfield said. “The issue we bring up is: Do we want to call these viruses? And if not, why not? Because they certainly started out as viruses. And if so, then we have to change the definition of viruses to somehow specify what it is that a virus has to contain, and what it has to do, to be considered a virus.”
Editor’s note: To reach James Whitfield, call 217-778-9944; e-mail jwhitfie@illinois.edu.
To reach Don Stoltz, call 902-494-3587; email dstoltz@dal.ca.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/asfh-sta021709.php
Public release date: 17-Feb-2009
Contact: Michael W. Neff
mwneff@ashs.org
703-836-4606
American Society for Horticultural Science
Sweet potato takes a ride on space shuttle
Study shows roots can regenerate in microgravity
TUSKEGEE, AL—Because of the distinct lack of grocery stores in outer space, scientists are looking for ways to provide food for long-term space missions.
Desmond G. Mortley and colleagues from the Center for Food and Environmental Systems for Human Exploration of Space, G.W. Carver Agricultural Experiment Station, and the Kennedy Space Center undertook a study on microgravity’s effects on sweetpotato. The study findings were published in the Journal of American Society for Horticultural Science.
Seeds of several crops have been grown in microgravity, but this was the first test for plants grown from cuttings. Cuttings grow roots faster than do seeds, and sweetpotato cuttings regenerate very easily. This made them ideal for the study, half of which took place on a 5-day space mission on the shuttle Columbia.
The other half of the cuttings remained on earth as the ground-based control group at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Conditions were similar for both growing environments.
Both environments resulted in similar root growth development, though the microgravity roots tended to grow perpendicular to the cuttings. The number of roots was almost the same in both samples. However, the length of roots grown in microgravity was significantly greater. Microgravity cuttings contained significant accumulation of soluble sugars and higher starch concentration than ground cuttings; the starch grains appeared smaller in microgravity samples.
Despite these differences, the study was successful in showing that stem cuttings, at least those started in normal gravity conditions, can regenerate roots in microgravity. “This suggests that the space flight environment has no negative effect on the ability of vegetative cuttings to form roots and that use of cuttings should be an acceptable means for propagating sweetpotato for future space applications,” summarized the researchers.
The next step will be to experiment over longer space missions to test root cuttings’ ability to grow plants.
###
The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS J. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci. electronic journal web site: http://journal.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/133/3/327
Founded in 1903, the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) is the largest organization dedicated to advancing all facets of horticultural research, education, and application. More information at ashs.org
http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8731
Tiny “Lab-on-a-Chip” Can Detect Pollutants, Disease and Biological Weapons
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
TAU scientists develop highly accurate nano-scale biomonitoring solution
Photo: Prof. Yosi Shacham-Diamand, Tel Aviv University
Prof. Yosi Shacham-Diamand
For centuries, animals have been our first line of defense against toxins. A canary in a coalmine served as a living monitor for poisonous gases. Scientists used fish to test for contaminants in our water. Even with modern advances, though, it can take days to detect a fatal chemical or organism.
Until now. Working in the miniaturized world of nanotechnology, Tel Aviv University researchers have made an enormous — and humane — leap forward in the detection of pollutants.
A team led by Prof. Yosi Shacham-Diamand, vice-dean of TAU’s Faculty of Engineering, has developed a nano-sized laboratory, complete with a microscopic workbench, to measure water quality in real time. Their “lab on a chip” is a breakthrough in the effort to keep water safe from pollution and bioterrorist threats, pairing biology with the cutting-edge capabilities of nanotechnology.
“We’ve developed a platform — essentially a micro-sized, quarter-inch square ‘lab’ — employing genetically engineered bacteria that light up when presented with a stressor in water,” says Prof. Shacham-Diamand. Equipment on the little chip can work to help detect very tiny light levels produced by the bacteria.
Instead of using animals to help detect threats to a water supply, Prof. Shacham-Diamand says, “Our system is based on a plastic chip that is more humane, much faster, more sensitive and much cheaper.”
Tiny Lab-on-Chip Boosts Accuracy
“Basically, ours is an innovative advance in the ‘lab on a chip’ system,” says Prof. Shacham-Diamand. “It’s an ingenious nano-scale platform designed to get information out of biological events. Our solution can monitor water with never-before-achieved levels of accuracy. But as a platform, it can also be used for unlimited purposes, such as investigating stem cell therapies or treating cancer.”
According to published literature, Tel Aviv University is one of the top five universities in the world pioneering the “lab on a chip” concept. The nanolabs can be used to evaluate several biological processes with practical applications, such as microbes in water, stem cells, or breast cancer development. Prof. Shacham-Diamand’s active lab group publishes a major paper about once a month in this field, most recently in the journal Nano Letters.
Environmental, Medical and Defense Uses for “Mini-Labs”
Partnering with other Israeli scientists, Tel Aviv University is currently building and commercializing its water-testing mini-labs to measure and monitor how genetically engineered bacteria respond to pollution such as E. coli in water. Cities across Israel have expressed interest in the technology, as has the state of Hawaii.
But other uses are being explored as well. Funded by a $3 million grant from the United States Department of Defense Projects Agency (DARPA), the new lab-on-a-chip could become a defensive weapon that protects America from biological warfare. His system, Prof. Shacham-Diamand says, can be also modified to react to chemical threats and pollution. With some tweaking here and there, it can be updated as new threats are detected.
Prof. Shacham-Diamond’s research has also attracted the interest of cancer researchers around the world. He recently addressed 400 physicians at a World Cancer Conference who are seeking new devices to measure and monitor cancer and pharmaceuticals. “They need sensors like Tel Aviv University’s lab on a chip. It’s a hot topic now,” says Prof. Shacham-Diamond.
My mom and dad were down in the valley last week. brought me back a bunch of citrus. <<<
Yes, the should be highly prized!!!
Don’t forget to make candied orange peels, while you can.
Have you tried to candy the other types of peels???
Not just the fenugreek sprouts are useful, but the seeds are apparently quite powerful. I had 3 dwarf hamsters a few years ago and diabetes runs in that species.<<<
Then they should help people too.
It would be interesting to try them and should do no harm to the person or other animals.
There are many products on the market, but sometimes, it is the herbal world that solves the problem.
Joel the man who maintains my oxygen generator, was surprised to see me reach for a little brown bottle and start smelling it, when I couldn’t breathe, he knows that I take meds to keep breathing, didn’t expect herbs too.
He didn’t know that Lavender Essential oils worked for breathing, he uses them in his laundry.
I am glad that the herbs helped your pets.
I haven’t ever candied any peels. You’ll have to tell me how to do it.
Frankly, I am not a big sweet eater so you will find lots of sweet things I know nothing about making.
Pies and ice cream are the exception. I can live my life without cookies, cakes or candy but I NEED pie and ice cream! LOL
Lloyd might like the candied orange peel though, he likes sweets. And I expect they would be high in bioflavinoids so it wouldn’t be all bad for him either.
And I have found that couscous is a good substitute for mashed taters. Just put my gravy on that. Am trying to grow parsnips here this year to see if that will help my tater cravings too.
I substitute lots of things but you just can’t beat a good baked tater. I am a huge fan of sweet taters also though. Baked sweet tater can’t be beat with a stick and I am NOT allergic to those! (and so easy to grow here!)<<<
Sounds good to me, are you going to post the recipe for the twice baked rice?
I couldn’t grow sweet potatoes here.
>>>>Don’t forget to make candied orange peels, while you can.<<<<
We have gone through 2 batches of it in the last 2 weeks...
That stuff is addicting!!! BUT GOOD!
That could wipe out the citrus crops. I posted on the old thread that the Asian disease came up through Mexico and into California.<<<
And no one will ever say it came in a vial in someones pocket, or that a box of it was released in the wind.
Disgusting how the MSM will cover up the news. The real news.<<<
Mike Savage insists that the signing of the S. bill by Obama today is being used to cover up the order he also signed for 17,000 new troops to go to Afghanistan.
I haven’t heard it on the radio news.
Control the media and you control the citizens thoughts and by that the actions they might take.
No, I do not have the answer, only the questions.
LOL, have fun reading, that is what makes the hours of posting worthwhile.
I’ll try the pillow tonight, thanks.<<<
Hope you slept well and are in a good mood, for when you go to Yahoo mail, I will hear yooou yelling.
They may take me down but I will have given it every ounce I have. Lloyd is a pessimistic do-er. He expects the worst and works hard to prepare.<<<
One can’t ask for more than that.
Each of us reacts, in our own way to the news.
It all makes angry today, either I think I did not hear all the story or I think they are lying to me.
I don't have a recipe for much of anything Granny. I just cook some rice, grate some cheese, mix the rice with grated cheese, a little butter, a little sour cream, salt and pepper and put it in a small baking dish. Sometimes I top it with bacon bits if I remember or have them. Bake till it's gooey looking and the cheese melted. Pretty good stuff.... but it's not a baked tater still LOL.
It’s funny that just now we are getting back to using medicine in its natural form (herbs).
What is it in your “little brown bottle” that helps you breathe?
I think it is likely the latter. I have no faith in the news givers. All lies anymore. We have only methods like those we discuss here to know the truth and it is up to each individual to find these things out.
Thanks for posting the Texas gardening info. I am trying to catch up on this thread and was going to ask if anyone knew about Texas gardening. My daughter moved there from up here in IL last Feb. She never got into the gardening much while she was here, but is interested in it now that they have their own place with a yard and trying to save $. I will pass that along to her. Also, just found a Texas gardening book at our library book sale that I will send her. Guess I will plan a visit down there too, to check it out myself.
Don’t forget to make candied orange peels, while you can.<<<<
We have gone through 2 batches of it in the last 2 weeks...
That stuff is addicting!!! BUT GOOD!<<<
Dela, would you please post the instructions again, LOL, that will be faster, than trying to find where it was posted the last time.
Pies and ice cream are the exception. I can live my life without cookies, cakes or candy but I NEED pie and ice cream! LOL<<<
Now you are into torture.
Me to.
Or any sweet.
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