Friday, May 31, 2013

Ancient Agricultural Pre Rice Culture





 My own sense is that native agriculture began were possible about nine to ten thousand years ago. Some got jump started with an effective seed grain like wheat or cattle husbandry. However, it is reasonable to presume that everyone was trying to make something work. Rice culture was simply a late comer to the party and may also have simply operated in a particular locale until its case became compelling.

In this case, the obvious use of palms fed the people until a better way showed up. Many other plants would also have been used in season even if they were barely cultivated.

One needs to only recall that North American natives made extensive use of nuts by broadcasting seeds and grooming stands. I cannot believe that this was anything else than traditional practice on a global scale. It would have been squeezed out by the practice of land allocation supporting cropping.

Our present ways are merely the best ways drawn from centuries of growing. As we transition to modernism, a huge range of alternative plants now are available for management. I have pointed out a few of the obvious, but do recall that the forerunners of the corn were almost totally useless.

New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged


Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region. They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture -- before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.

Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that traditional archaeobotany techniques are not possible.


Now, thanks to a new method of analysis on ancient grinding stones, the archaeologists have uncovered evidence that agriculture could predate the advent of rice in the region.


The research was the result of a two-year collaboration between Dr Huw Barton, from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, and Dr Xiaoyan Yang, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.


Funded by a Royal Society UK-China NSFC International Joint Project, and other grants held by Yang in China, the research is published in PLOS ONE.


Dr Barton, Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of Leicester, described the find as 'hitting the jackpot': "Our discovery is totally unexpected and very exciting.


"We have used a relatively new method known as ancient starch analysis to analyse ancient human diet. This technique can tell us things about human diet in the past that no other method can.


"From a sample of grinding stones we extracted very small quantities of adhering sediment trapped in pits and cracks on the tool surface. From this material, preserved starch granules were extracted with our Chinese colleagues in the starch laboratory in Beijing. These samples were analysed in China and also here at Leicester in the Starch and Residue Laboratory, School of Archaeology and Ancient History.

"Our research shows us that there was something much more interesting going on in the subtropical south of China 5,000 years ago than we had first thought. The survival of organic material is really dependent on the particular chemical properties of the soil, so you never know what you will get until you sample. At Xincun we really hit the jackpot. Starch was well-preserved and there was plenty of it. While some of the starch granules we found were species we might expect to find on grinding and pounding stones, ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts, lotus root and the fern root, the addition of starch from palms was totally unexpected and very exciting."


Several types of tropical palms store prodigious quantities of starch. This starch can be literally bashed and washed out of the trunk pith, dried as flour, and of course eaten. It is non-toxic, not particularly tasty, but it is reliable and can be processed all year round. Many communities in the tropics today, particularly in Borneo and Indonesia, but also in eastern India, still rely on flour derived from palms.


Dr Barton said: "The presence of at least two, possibly three species of starch producing palms, bananas, and various roots, raises the intriguing possibility that these plants may have been planted nearby the settlement.


"Today groups that rely on palms growing in the wild are highly mobile, moving from one palm stand to another as they exhaust the clump. Sedentary groups that utilise palms for their starch today, plant suckers nearby the village, thus maintaining continuous supply. If they were planted at Xincun, this implies that 'agriculture' did not arrive here with the arrival of domesticated rice, as archaeologists currently think, but that an indigenous system of plant cultivation may have been in place by the mid Holocene.


"The adoption of domesticated rice was slow and gradual in this region; it was not a rapid transformation as in other places. Our findings may indicate why this was the case. People may have been busy with other types of cultivation, ignoring rice, which may have been in the landscape, but as a minor plant for a long time before it too became a food staple.


"Future work will focus on grinding stones from nearby sites to see if this pattern is repeated along the coast."

Wooly Mammoth Blood Recovered






 This makes the production of mammoth clones far more likely. We have preserved blood, although no comment yet on actual viability, but flesh also preserved extremely well. If it is possible to extract DNA, we could hardly ask for a better sample.

So a baby mammoth in our future went to a well maybe to very plausible. I thin we are looking at mama. It also tells us that when we get this happening, that we will also generate a decent number of unique individuals which will ensure a robust core population.

This will fuel the building excitement in this pending species resurrection which is still been largely ignored.

Once we master the mammoth, it will be possible to swiftly resurrect the whole Pleistocene biome itself. The Mammoth has been in our face, but considering how everything actually died, we can explore promising waterholes in particular to find additional species.





Wooly mammoth blood recovered from frozen carcass, Russian scientists say

Published May 29, 2013



The frozen body of a 10,000 to 15,000 year old mammoth found on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean has yielded a stunning find: blood so well preserved that it flowed freely from the ancient mammal, according to Russian scientists.

Scientists with the Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, North-Eastern Federal University, and the Russian Geographical Society announced on Wednesday the amazing news, following the study of the carcass of a female mammoth in good preservation on Lyakhovsky Islands of Novosibirsk archipelago.

'The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities below the belly and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick, the blood came running out.'

- Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the expedition and chairman of the Mammoth Museum.

The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities below the belly and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick, the blood came running out,” said Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the expedition and chairman of the Mammoth Museum.

Interestingly, the temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to – 10 degrees Celsius [19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit]. It may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties.”

The muscle tissue of the frozen carcass was also stunning -- the color of fresh meat, Grigoriev said, totally unlike meat that is centuries old.

The fragments of muscle tissues, which we’ve found out of the body, have a natural red color of fresh meat. The reason for such preservation is that the lower part of the body was underlying in pure ice, and the upper part was found in the middle of tundra.”

Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago, although scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on Russia's Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.

Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafrost. Some believe it's possible to recreate the prehistoric animal if they find living cells in the permafrost.

Those who succeed in recreating an extinct animal could claim a "Jurassic Park prize," the concept of which is being developed by the X Prize Foundation that awarded a 2004 prize for the first private spacecraft.

Self Directed Regeneration





 This is well worth pursuing and it is so counter intuitive to all we think that we know. Note that long term chronic pain will require a great deal of effort but this at least provides useful guidance.

Otherwise it is actually simple. Focus your mind through visualization on the injury and demand healing. Just playing with this approach is allowing myself to challenge a long time imbalance that has been annoying me for a long time. If this works for you tell us about your experience here and I will write it up.

I hope that this helps.

Speed healing of trauma injuries through self directed regeneration

Results are directly related to the time and effort employed.


It hurts? Take a deep breath and feel all that tension, fear and pain, on the exhale let all that tension and fear go. Do this several times please to active the relaxation response. If successful you have just mastered the first step in self directed healing. This step is important because tension, fear or being emotional upset hinders the healing systems ability to function.

If it does not hurt and you know it's damaged you can apply stress to make it hurt, standing up straight on a hard floor is the method which has the smallest chance of causing further damage. There is also the jigsaw method you use the parts you can feel to define the parts you cannot same as in putting together a puzzle.

I discovered how to deal with the "pain" the morning after my last bicycle crash when it hurt to breath and I could not stand up straight. Standing in the living room it came to me, this is not how I'm going to spent the rest of my life. I knew of two ways to obtain extraordinary healing, through prayer or force of will. Exactly how they worked was unknown so I sat down and explored one thing both methods have in common. They originate or are activated inside your head.

The first thing I found as I explored inside my head was a pain signal. Upon examining that signal closely I discovered there was more information than location and ouch in it. Pain or a distress signal is a holographic burst transmission generated by injured cells. The ouch or pain part is the feeling centers interpretation of the flag or priority indicator of a distress signal.

If you route a distress signal through your visual cortex you will see in 3D color exactly whats wrong.

Ripped cables(muscles), crushed pipes(veins/arteries), crimped wires(nerves), muscle imbalances or anything else you have damaged. This routing is done by focusing on the distress signal in a manner very similar to focusing your eyes on a tiny detail while insisting, demanding, commanding to see what the problem is. Eye hand coordination the ability to scratch your nose without poking your eye out would require the sense of feel and sight to communicate. So a "channel" exists It's up to you to determine the content being processed.

Once you know exactly what the problem is it can be fix directly, speedily.

Pain has a peak intensity of approximately 220 volts. I can make that comparison because I burnt a pair of side cutters on a live line at work one day.

Yes if you focus on the signal to the degree necessary you will experience pain at peak intensities. The alternative to short term discomfort/agony is a life time of disability and pain.

You have an automatic regeneration/healing system, but it does not work well over distance. For example if the ends of cut muscles are not lined up exactly they are reattached as is or not at all, causing a muscle imbalance. So using isometric exercises or self massage you will have to line the loose ends up exactly so the auto system can reconnect them in the correct position.

Fresh injuries as in minutes old can be healed extraordinarily fast. Old injuries due limitations of the auto system and complications are a major hassle. The best example of a complication is limping or compensating. Most people shift muscle use and tension when injured to avoid aggravating the injury.

This sets up muscle imbalances which over time become locked in, then they pull your joints and spine out of alignment. Those imbalances also increase the risk of further injury.

The process is tedious and painful but I can sprint across a street to beat traffic or put in a day at work where it use to hurt to breath.

I discovered this bit of human ability in Nov of 1986.

A very use full skill the relaxation response .


The placebo effect can increase the effectiveness of sugar pills against disease between 5-10%. think of it as software.


    BBC News - Negative experiences can stop painkillers working
    A patient's belief that a drug will not work can become a self fulfilling prophecy, according to researchers. To me the study indicates that the drugs do not work. If your expectations have that effect it's all a placebo effect.
    BBC News - Pain reduced by changing what you look at

    What you look at can strongly influence how much pain you feel, a study reveals. This clearly shows how much "science" really knows about how your brain works...JamesB

GPS Solution Provides Tsunami Solution




What this really means is that GPS stations can be set up in target areas and we really know most of them anyway, or at least to the level of resolution needed. With that it will become possible to determine what moved and better still immediately understand the available tsunami energy.

That leads directly to a predictive output map produced in real time minutes after the Earth moved. With that early warning equipment and first responders already are targeted and in possession of contingency orders. Better yet it will be possible to discount false negatives in which a quake takes place but fails to produce sufficient seabed energy.

Right now vulnerable areas need evacuation plans. Until now it has been mostly pointless because you did not know until you saw the wave unless it was a major event that woke everyone up. Recall Indonesia in which the quake effectively went unremarked. Much the same happened in Japan although an evacuation was underway in places but unconvincing because of prior false alarms.

When the siren howls and you can turn on your TV to discover you are in a must run zone, the system will be working.

GPS Solution Provides Three-Minute Tsunami Alerts

May 17, 2013 — Researchers have shown that, by using global positioning systems (GPS) to measure ground deformation caused by a large underwater earthquake, they can provide accurate warning of the resulting tsunami in just a few minutes after the earthquake onset. For the devastating Japan 2011 event, the team reveals that the analysis of the GPS data and issue of a detailed tsunami alert would have taken no more than three minutes.



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The results are published on 17 May inNatural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

Most tsunamis, including those in offshore Sumatra, Indonesia in 2004 and Japan in 2011, occur following underwater ground motion in subduction zones, locations where a tectonic plate slips under another causing a large earthquake. To a lesser extent, the resulting uplift of the sea floor also affects coastal regions. There, researchers can measure the small ground deformation along the coast with GPS and use this to determine tsunami information.

"High-precision real-time processing and inversion of these data enable reconstruction of the earthquake source, described as slip at the subduction interface. This can be used to calculate the uplift of the sea floor, which in turn is used as initial condition for a tsunami model to predict arrival times and maximum wave heights at the coast," says lead-author Andreas Hoechner from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).

In the new Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences paper, the researchers use the Japan 2011 tsunami, which hit the country's northeast coast in less than half an hour and caused significant damage, as a case study. They show that their method could have provided detailed tsunami alert as soon as three minutes after the beginning of the earthquake that generated it.

"Japan has a very dense network of GPS stations, but these were not being used for tsunami early warning as of 2011. Certainly this is going to change soon," states Hoechner.

The scientists used raw data from the Japanese GPS Earth Observation Network (GEONET) recorded a day before to a day after the 2011 earthquake. To shorten the time needed to provide a tsunami alert, they only used data from 50 GPS stations on the northeast coast of Japan, out of about 1200 GEONET stations available in the country.

At present, tsunami warning is based on seismological methods. However, within the time limit of 5 to 10 minutes, these traditional techniques tend to underestimate the earthquake magnitude of large events. Furthermore, they provide only limited information on the geometry of the tsunami source (see note). Both factors can lead to underprediction of wave heights and tsunami coastal impact. Hoechner and his team say their method does not suffer from the same problems and can provide fast, detailed and accurate tsunami alerts.

The next step is to see how the GPS solution works in practice in Japan or other areas prone to devastating tsunamis. As part of the GFZ-lead German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System project, several GPS stations were installed in Indonesia after the 2004 earthquake and tsunami near Sumatra, and are already providing valuable information for the warning system.

"The station density is not yet high enough for an independent tsunami early warning in Indonesia, since it is a requirement for this method that the stations be placed densely close to the area of possible earthquake sources, but more stations are being added," says Hoechner.

Note

Traditional tsunami early warning methods use hypocentre (the point directly beneath the epicentre where the seismic fault begins to rupture) and magnitude only, meaning the source of the earthquake and tsunami is regarded as a point source. However, especially in the case of subduction earthquakes, it can have a large extension: in Japan in 2011 the connection between the tectonic plates broke on a length of about 400km and the Sumatra event in 2004 had a length of some 1500km. To get a good tsunami prediction, it is important to consider this extension and the spatial slip distribution.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Cosmic Impact Theory For YDB Event Supported - Pleistocene Nonconformity





 This is slowly becoming huge. Of course, no one has understood yet that this was a comet that impacted directly at the then positioned North Pole thirty degrees North. The impact shock wave ripped through North America, while the incoming shock wave killed everything in Siberia.

These animals literally all died were they stood.

Yet this paper pretty clearly polices up my original conjecture that I published here under Pleistocene Nonconformity. Again we have the advantage of knowing roughly were it impacted in the first place.

Also no one really has understood that the crust itself actually shifted and that it was a precision impact and deliberate. Understanding that leads inexorably to the position that we have partners helping us. Regrettably, I now see no hope that I am wrong on this.

Comprehensive analysis of impact spherules supports theory of cosmic impact 12,800 years ago

by Staff Writers

Santa Barbara CA (SPX) May 27, 2013


About 12,800 years ago when the Earth was warming and emerging from the last ice age, a dramatic and anomalous event occurred that abruptly reversed climatic conditions back to near-glacial state. According to James Kennett, UC Santa Barbara emeritus professor in earth sciences, this climate switch fundamentally - and remarkably - occurred in only one year, heralding the onset of the Younger Dryas cool episode.

The cause of this cooling has been much debated, especially because it closely coincided with the abrupt extinction of the majority of the large animals then inhabiting the Americas, as well as the disappearance of the prehistoric Clovis culture, known for its big game hunting.

"What then did cause the extinction of most of these big animals, including mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, American camel and horse, and saber- toothed cats?" asked Kennett, pointing to Charles Darwin's 1845 assessment of the significance of climate change.

"Did these extinctions result from human overkill, climatic change or some catastrophic event?" The long debate that has followed, Kennett noted, has recently been stimulated by a growing body of evidence in support of a theory that a major cosmic impact event was involved, a theory proposed by the scientific team that includes Kennett himself.

Now, in one of the most comprehensive related investigations ever, the group has documented a wide distribution of microspherules widely distributed in a layer over 50 million square kilometers on four continents, including North America, including Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands.

This layer - the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) layer - also contains peak abundances of other exotic materials, including nanodiamonds and other unusual forms of carbon such as fullerenes, as well as melt-glass and iridium. This new evidence in support of the cosmic impact theory appeared recently in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.

This cosmic impact, said Kennett, caused major environmental degradation over wide areas through numerous processes that include continent-wide wildfires and a major increase in atmospheric dust load that blocked the sun long enough to cause starvation of larger animals.

Investigating 18 sites across North America, Europe and the Middle East, Kennett and 28 colleagues from 24 institutions analyzed the spherules, tiny spheres formed by the high temperature melting of rocks and soils that then cooled or quenched rapidly in the atmosphere. The process results from enormous heat and pressures in blasts generated by the cosmic impact, somewhat similar to those produced during atomic explosions, Kennett explained.

But spherules do not form from cosmic collisions alone. Volcanic activity, lightning strikes, and coal seam fires all can create the tiny spheres. So to differentiate between impact spherules and those formed by other processes, the research team utilized scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry on nearly 700 spherule samples collected from the YDB layer.

The YDB layer also corresponds with the end of the Clovis age, and is commonly associated with other features such as an overlying "black mat" - a thin, dark carbon-rich sedimentary layer - as well as the youngest known Clovis archeological material and megafaunal remains, and abundant charcoal that indicates massive biomass burning resulting from impact.

The results, according to Kennett, are compelling. Examinations of the YDB spherules revealed that while they are consistent with the type of sediment found on the surface of the earth in their areas at the time of impact, they are geochemically dissimilar from volcanic materials. Tests on their remanent magnetism - the remaining magnetism after the removal of an electric or magnetic influence - also demonstrated that the spherules could not have formed naturally during lightning strikes.

"Because requisite formation temperatures for the impact spherules are greater than 2,200 degrees Celsius, this finding precludes all but a high temperature cosmic impact event as a natural formation mechanism for melted silica and other minerals," Kennett explained. Experiments by the group have for the first time demonstrated that silica-rich spherules can also form through high temperature incineration of plants, such as oaks, pines, and reeds, because these are known to contain biologically formed silica.

Additionally, according to the study, the surface textures of these spherules are consistent with high temperatures and high-velocity impacts, and they are often fused to other spherules. An estimated 10 million metric tons of impact spherules were deposited across nine countries in the four continents studied. However, the true breadth of the YDB strewnfield is unknown, indicating an impact of major proportions.

"Based on geochemical measurements and morphological observations, this paper offers compelling evidence to reject alternate hypotheses that YDB spherules formed by volcanic or human activity; from the ongoing natural accumulation of space dust; lightning strikes; or by slow geochemical accumulation in sediments," said Kennett.

"This evidence continues to point to a major cosmic impact as the primary cause for the tragic loss of nearly all of the remarkable American large animals that had survived the stresses of many ice age periods only to be knocked out quite recently by this catastrophic event."

X-ray Reconstruction Tackles Old Scrolls





I think this should also work with that carbonized library they have in Italy. It is reacting with the non organics and that will work as well with those texts as well. Maybe we can recover the remainder of Livy's book on Roman history.

What will be recovered are a lot of texts that went out of favor, a long time ago before the intervention of the printing press. Once that happened, the capability to reproduce disappeared while the texts then demanded marketability. There no longer was a machinery in place to copy the obscure.

Thus treasured items simply became way too old to ever be copied. That changes now. Digital reconstruction combined with digital interpolation can generate the miracle of clean text.

New x-ray system to yield secrets of 'unopenable' scrolls




Pioneering X-ray technology is making it possible to read fragile rolled-up historical documents for the first time in centuries.

Old parchment is often extremely dry and liable to crack and crumble if any attempt is made to physically unroll or unfold it. The new technology, however, eliminates the need to do so by enabling parchment to be unrolled or unfolded 'virtually' and the contents displayed on a computer screen.


Developed at Cardiff University and Queen Mary, University of London with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the breakthrough means historians will be able to access previously unusable written sources and gain new insight into the past.


No other technique developed anywhere in the world has the capability to make text concealed in rolled or folded historical parchments genuinely legible. The system has now been tested successfully on a 19th century scroll provided by the Norfolk Record Office.


In a completely innovative approach to the problem, the technique works by scanning parchment with X-rays in order to detect the presence of iron contained in 'iron gall ink' -- the most commonly used ink in Europe between the 12th and 19th centuries.


Using a method called microtomography, a 3-dimensional 'map' showing the ink's exact location is built up by creating images made from a series of X-ray 'slices' taken through the parchment.


Advanced software specially developed by the Cardiff project team combines the data obtained with information about the way the parchment is rolled or folded up and calculates exactly where the ink sits on the parchment. An image of the document as it would appear unrolled or unfolded can then be produced.


The key difference between the new method and other techniques previously developed to read un-openable historical documents is the unprecedentedly high contrast resolution it provides to distinguish between ink and parchment. This means the ink shows up very well against the parchment and is genuinely readable.


The scanning takes place at the Institute of Dentistry at Queen Mary, University of London led by Dr Graham Davis: "Because no commercial or research X-ray tomography scanners were capable of providing the quality of image we needed, we've developed our own advanced scanner which is also being adapted for a diverse range of other scientific uses, including those within our own Institute of Dentistry where enhanced, high contrast images are enabling the detection and analysis of features in teeth that we haven't been able to see before."


Professor Tim Wess of Cardiff University says: "This is a milestone in historical information recovery. The conservation community is rightly very protective of old documents and isn't prepared to risk damaging them by opening them. Our breakthrough means they won't have to. Across the world, literally thousands of previously unusable documents up to around a thousand years old could now become available for historical research. It really will be possible to read the unreadable."

Potato Blight Genetic History Resolved





Solving the specifics of the potato blight is academically important but that we were able to recover intact DNA from samples 150 years old is extremely good news. From the late eighteenth century through recent times, biology was about amassing huge collections of plants and critters, all maintained and stored in museums and libraries to this day.

That is why I am optimistic that recovery of much of our extinct fauna and flora happens to be plausible. Most of it went extinct with contact, not so much us as our pests and particularly the rat.

Extinction recovery is still a massive enterprise but no longer unimaginable. We will have to master the rat before we get too far into it but you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I do expect to see the establishment of many unique island refugia packed with many unique and obscure species fully restored. It will not be Jurassic Park but no matter.

'Whodunnit' of Irish Potato Famine Solved

May 21, 2013 — An international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered the Irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century.


It is the first time scientists have decoded the genome of a plant pathogen and its plant host from dried herbarium samples. This opens up a new area of research to understand how pathogens evolve and how human activity impacts the spread of plant disease.

Phytophthora infestans changed the course of history. Even today, the Irish population has still not recovered to pre-famine levels. "We have finally discovered the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc," says Hernán Burbano from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.

For research to be published in eLife, a team of molecular biologists from Europe and the US reconstructed the spread of the potato blight pathogen from dried plants. Although these were 170 to 120 years old, they were found to have many intact pieces of DNA.

"Herbaria represent a rich and untapped source from which we can learn a tremendous amount about the historical distribution of plants and their pests -- and also about the history of the people who grew these plants," according to Kentaro Yoshida from The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich.

The researchers examined the historical spread of the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, known as the Irish potato famine pathogen. A strain called US-1 was long thought to have been the cause of the fatal outbreak. The current study concludes that a strain new to science was responsible. While more closely related to the US-1 strain than to other modern strains, it is unique. "Both strains seem to have separated from each other only years before the first major outbreak in Europe," says Burbano.

The researchers compared the historic samples with modern strains from Europe, Africa and the Americas as well as two closely related Phytophthora species. The scientists were able to estimate with confidence when the various Phytophthorastrains diverged from each other during evolutionary time. The HERB-1 strain of Phytophthora infestans likely emerged in the early 1800s and continued its global conquest throughout the 19th century. Only in the twentieth century, after new potato varieties were introduced, was HERB-1 replaced by anotherPhytophthora infestans strain, US-1.

The scientists found several connections with historic events. The first contact between Europeans and Americans in Mexico in the sixteenth century coincides with a remarkable increase in the genetic diversity of Phytophthora. The social upheaval during that time may have led to a spread of the pathogen from its center of origin in Toluca Valley, Mexico. This in turn would have accelerated its evolution.

The international team came to these conclusions after deciphering the entire genomes of 11 historical samples ofPhytophthora infestans from potato leaves collected over more than 50 years. These came from Ireland, the UK, Europe and North America and had been preserved in the herbaria of the Botanical State Collection Munich and the Kew Gardens in London.

"Both herbaria placed a great deal of confidence in our abilities and were very generous in providing the dried plants," said Marco Thines from the Senckenberg Museum and Goethe University in Frankfurt, one of the co-authors of this study. "The degree of DNA preservation in the herbarium samples really surprised us," adds Johannes Krause from the University of Tübingen, another co-author. Because of the remarkable DNA quality and quantity in the herbarium samples, the research team could evaluate the entire genome of Phytophthora infestans and its host, the potato, within just a few weeks.

Crop breeding methods may impact on the evolution of pathogens. This study directly documents the effect of plant breeding on the genetic makeup of a pathogen. "Perhaps this strain became extinct when the first resistant potato varieties were bred at the beginning of the twentieth century," speculates Yoshida. "What is for certain is that these findings will greatly help us to understand the dynamics of emerging pathogens. This type of work paves the way for the discovery of many more treasures of knowledge hidden in herbaria."

Chinese Plant Compound Wipes out Cancer in 40 Days


We have one more plant protocol to add to the cancer fighting arsenal that is part of the traditional Chinese medicine tool kit which means that it is even available.




We have now listed a number of successful anti cancer protocols on this blog and they all share common characteristics.

1          They are not amenable to any form of patent protection at all and do not receive the heavy investment in drug development or the related marketing budgets.  This makes them orphans that still attract low scale research support from the academic world.  After all, scientists still do want to cure disease.

2          The empirical data base is often quite local or even self selecting in much the same way we deal with cryptids.  Someone knows something somewhere and a handful of data trackers spot the information and draw some attention to it.  This blog is one such, but it is also clear that there are vast reams of useful data out there that are still poorly collected.

The good news is that the number of biological grad students keeps increasing and the need for projects keeps climbing.  We will get there yet.

One thing that I have noted in Chinese traditional medicine is that actual practice can mismatch protocols as if a lot of the original data was lost.  This one should not have been overlooked.



Chinese Plant Compound Wipes out Cancer in 40 Days, Says New Research

October 18th, 2012 

 

A little-known plant with a truly bizarre name is now making headlines as a cancer killer, with the compound of the plant vanishing tumors in mice with pancreatic cancer. Known as the ‘thunder god vine’ or lei gong teng, the Chinese plant is actually integrated into Chinese medicine and has been used for ages in remedying a number of conditions including rheumatoid arthritis.

According to the new research out of the University of Minnesota’s Masonic Cancer Center, the thunder god plant compound led to no signs of tumors after a 40 day period — even after discontinuing the treatment. Published in the journal Science Translational Medicine and funded by the National Institutes of Health, even the scientists working on the project were stunned by the anti-cancer properties of the compound. Known to contain something known as triptolide, which has been identified as a cancer fighter in previous research, it is thought to be the key component that may be responsible for the anti-tumor capabilities.

Study leader and vice chairman of research at the Cancer Center explained to Bloomberg how he was blown away by the effects of the simple plant:

“This drug is just unbelievably potent in killing tumor cells,” he said.

And just like with numerous other powerful substances like turmeric and ginger, mainstream science is still slowly confirming what many traditional practitioners have known for their entire lives. This is, of course, due to the fact that there is simply no money for major corporations in researching the healing powers of natural herbs and compounds such as the compound found in the thunder god vine. Turmeric and ginger, for example, have been found to be amazing anti-cancer substances that are virtually free compared to expensive and dangerous cancer drugs.

Nevertheless, the Big Pharma sponsored corporate scientists have managed to ignore these spices as much as possible. In fact, they have even been caught time and time again faking thousands of studies to fraudulently demonstrate the supposed value of pharmaceutical drugs pushed by major pharma juggernauts — many of which are later forced to pay millions in fines which only slightly stack up against their billions in profits.
Profits that are threatened by the many real studies that were performed by scientists examining the rejeuvenating power of cheap ingredients like turmeric, which has been found by peer-reviewed research available on PubMed to positively influence over 590 conditions.

While it is great news that this study is bringing the beneficial effects of inexpensive and near-free plant compounds to light, the bad news is that the individuals responsible for the research are actually looking to create a pharmaceutical drug from the essential component triptolide. A drug that will seek FDA approval and ultimately bepatented, nutritionally ruined, and sold for exorbitant amounts of cash. Instead, just get your hands on some thunder god vine for yourself.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Putin Warns Obama on Monsanto


 This report is circulating out in the alternative media. The mainstream press is giving it the cone of silence treatment. No rebuttals are forthcoming either.




If any of this just happens to be true, the push back against these pesticides is about to become huge and very public.

That Putin had to stoop to using confrontational tactics certainly informs us that he has research that he trusts. There is plenty of additional research coming out and none of it is good.

I seriously do not think that these three companies will be able to stand up against global outrage for a lot longer.

However, it is clearly going to take a major switch in media coverage to blow it out over the top. Russia could do this by the expedient of arresting everyone in sight and sending the American ambassador home while recalling their own and screaming loudly in the UN. The press could not avoid the uproar nor could the public tolerate the publicity on the root causes.

My present point though is that the heat is about to be turned up and it could lead all the way to the Whitehouse in terms of serious political damage

Russia Warns Obama: Monsanto

Posted: May 28th, 2013


The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war.

According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three hours to even meet with Kerry, who had traveled to Moscow on a scheduled diplomatic mission, but then relented so as to not cause an even greater rift between these two nations.

At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, are destroying our planets bee population, and which if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.

So grave has this situation become, the MNRE reports, the full European Commission (EC) this past week instituted a two-year precautionary ban (set to begin on 1 December 2013) on these“bee killing” pesticides following the lead of Switzerland, France, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine, all of whom had previously banned these most dangerous of genetically altered organisms from being used on the continent.

Two of the most feared neonicotinoids being banned are Actara and Cruiser made by the Swiss global bio-tech seed and pesticide giant Syngenta AG which employs over 26,000 people in over 90 countries and ranks third in total global sales in the commercial agricultural seeds market.

Important to note, this report says, is that Syngenta, along with bio-tech giants Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and DuPont, nowcontrol nearly 100% of the global market for genetically modified pesticides, plants and seeds.

Also to note about Syngenta, this report continues, is that in 2012 it was criminally charged in Germany for concealing the fact that its genetically modified corn killed cattle, and settled a class-action lawsuit in the US for $105 million after it was discovered they had contaminated the drinking supply of some 52 million Americans in more than 2,000 water districts with its “gender-bending” herbicide Atrazine.

To how staggeringly frightful this situation is, the MNRE says, can be seen in the report issued this past March by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) wherein they warned our whole planet is in danger, and as we can, in part, read:

As part of a study on impacts from the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, nicotine-like chemicals called neonicotinoids, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has called for a ban on their use as seed treatments and for the suspension of all applications pending an independent review of the products’ effects on birds, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife.

It is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates raise significant environmental concerns,” said Cynthia Palmer, co-author of the report and Pesticides Program Manager for ABC, one of the nation’s leading bird conservation organizations.

ABC commissioned world renowned environmental toxicologist Dr. Pierre Mineau to conduct the research. The 100-page report, “The Impact of the Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds,” reviews 200 studies on neonicotinoids including industry research obtained through the US Freedom of Information Act. The report evaluates the toxicological risk to birds and aquatic systems and includes extensive comparisons with the older pesticides that the neonicotinoids have replaced. The assessment concludes that the neonicotinoids are lethal to birds and to the aquatic systems on which they depend.

A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a songbird,” Palmer said. “Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola treated with the oldest neonicotinoid — called imidacloprid — can fatally poison a bird. And as little as 1/10th of a neonicotinoid-coated corn seed per day during egg-laying season is all that is needed to affect reproduction.”

The new report concludes that neonicotinoid contamination levels in both surface- and ground water in the United States and around the world are already beyond the threshold found to kill many aquatic invertebrates.”

Quickly following this damning report, the MRNE says, a large group of group of American beekeepers and environmentalists sued the Obama regime over the continued use of these neonicotinoids stating: “We are taking the EPA to court for its failure to protect bees from pesticides. Despite our best efforts to warn the agency about the problems posed by neonicotinoids, the EPA continued to ignore the clear warning signs of an agricultural system in trouble.”

And to how bad the world’s agricultural system has really become due to these genetically modified plants, pesticides and seeds, this report continues, can be seen by the EC’s proposal this past week, following their ban on neonicotinoids, in which they plan to criminalize nearly all seeds and plants not registered with the European Union, and as we can, in part, read:

Europe is rushing towards the good ol days circa 1939, 40… A new law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to “grow, reproduce or trade” any vegetable seeds that have not been “tested, approved and accepted” by a new EU bureaucracy named the “EU Plant Variety Agency.”

It’s called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.”

This MRNE report points out that even though this EC action may appear draconian, it is nevertheless necessary in order to purge the continent from continued contamination of these genetically bred “seed monstrosities.”

Most perplexing in all of this, the MRNE says, and which led to Putin’s anger at the US, has been the Obama regimes efforts to protect pesticide-producer profits over the catastrophic damaging being done to the environment, and as the Guardian News Service detailed in their 2 May article titled “US rejects EU claim of insecticide as prime reason for bee colony collapse” and which, in part, says:

The European Union voted this week for a two-year ban on a class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, that has been associated with the bees’ collapse. The US government report, in contrast, found multiple causes for the collapse of the honeybees.”

To the “truer” reason for the Obama regimes protection of these bio-tech giants destroying our world, the MRNE says, can be viewed in the report titled “How did Barack Obama become Monsanto’s man in Washington?” and which, in part, says:

After his victory in the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA: At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center. As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, the infamous Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.”

Even worse, after Russia suspended the import and use of an Monsanto genetically modified corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage this past September, the Russia Today News Service reported on the Obama regimes response:

The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week – including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.

The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.

The provision, also decried as a “biotech rider,” should have gone through the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.”

On 26 March, Obama quietly signed this “Monsanto Protection Act” into law thus ensuring the American people have no recourse against this bio-tech giant as they fall ill by the tens of millions, and many millions will surely end up dying in what this MRNE report calls the greatest agricultural apocalypse in human history as over 90% of feral (wild) bee population in the US has already died out, and up to 80% of domestic bees have died out too.

Thunderbird Up Close



In my efforts to gather conforming evidence for large unidentified flying creatures we have actually identified four completely different species, all nocturnal as are most carnivores.

They are:

1                    The thunderbird which may also be the European giant owl which bears a strong resemblance to the descriptions of the thunderbird.  This eyewitness is describing just such a bird.  Observe that it is able to lift of just like an owl.  It would be the natural hunter of the jack rabbit.
2                    The pterosaur has also given us a number of sightings in the north at least and the west.  This creature is able to easily enter a lake and hunt fish for its supper.
3                    Giant vampire bat likely by way of Honduras and the likely culprit in the Chupacabra story.  Certainly the model for the Medieval Gargoyle.  I suspect that it is also the best source for a natural explanation for cattle mutilations.
4                    We have also spotted examples of the South American Condor.
 

This report is certainly a thunderbird and the witness is an expert.  It has a twenty foot wingspan and was likely on the road to collect road kill.  Its take off is majestic and slow as has been reported elsewhere.  No ring collar is noted nor a large bill.  All conforms to the thunderbird.

This is one of our best by far and the witness is showing great presence of mind.


Huge Bird Sighting - New Kent Co., Virginia

MONDAY, MAY 27, 2013


I received the following witness account today (Monday):

On Weds the 22nd of May, this year (last week), I was driving west on New Kent Highway, just before rt 106, in Virginia, around 8:30AM, driving under the speed limit of 45 (yes, I'm one of THOSE people) and I came around a bend and slowed down more because about 30 yards ahead of the car a HUGE bird was in the center of the road, straddling the dotted line with it's back to me.


New Kent is basically a swamp with islands of high ground. Because of the terrain, housing properties are kind of jammed together on "high ground" with lots and lots of alternating hill/steep ravine wooded land of the swampy kind between. We have all kinds of big birds in our area: Bald Eagles, ospreys, herons, turkey vultures, all kinds of hawks, wild turkeys, several kinds of geese, etc. so SEEING a bird in the road~no real surprise.


What made me stop the car 12 ft away from it was the fact the dang thing's head was taller than my hood! I could feel myself starting to grin that grin we do when we just CAN NOT BELIEVE what we are seeing and suspect a joke~ when it opened it's wings. I won't tell you what I said, then (you just use yer imagination).


I was on a 2 lane country road with gravel shoulders. This thing's wingtips were TOUCHING gravel on both sides!!! With two slow motion swoops (my window was down, radio off, and I actually HEARD it's wings pushing the air~it DID make a slow "ssshhwooop" sound), it was up and blotting out EVERYTHING ELSE in my windshield, banked left on a wingtip (LITERALLY completely vertical with a full view with the whole back of it's body) and glided into the woods between the trees. I remember craning my head over the steering wheel and up to see all of it as it banked.


I have NO IDEA how long I sat there in the middle of the road with my mouth open, totally blank, mentally, feeling like I had been slapped silly. The only word that surfaced was "Thunderbird!" Now, like most American kids, I had HEARD of Thunderbirds, but honestly, I had never given a single thought as to what they would look like. But that was the word that surfaced. I supposed, if you had asked me before that day, I would have drawn a Micmac totem pole style thing. THIS was not THAT.


When I finally cruised past where it had cut through the woods, you can BELIEVE I was looking for it. No sign. I immediately called my Man, feeling silly and NOT mentioning what I thought it was, and asked what bird in VA had a 15 ft wingspan (I wasn't brave enough to tell him it was more like 20 ft). He said none. The CA condor, but none here. To his credit, he didn't try to tell me I hadn't seen what I was describing, merely suggested that it may have seemed bigger than it really was due to proximity.


But here's the thing....my Beloved Grandfather was a Mountain man, a lifelong hunter and naturalist. He would take us camping my whole childhood, teaching us about wildlife from up close. He taught me how to estimate an animal's size from surrounding markers. And you can't GET more specific than a road-span. So...what the HECK did I see????


It was dark colored, looked a dark charcoal color while on the road, but it's feathers were a rusty red-brown when it launched into the sunlight. It's tail was a long triangle (with a very slight point on the end/center), like a hawks, it's wings..............................it's wings. Let me just say, it's wings were just unbelievable. I had a hard time looking at both at the same time, I had to look from one to the other. They weren't shaped like a hawk's, more like a sea gulls, if you can picture it. It's body was torpedo shaped, no neck to speak of and a flat head. Due to the angle, I didn't see it's face or beak and when I could see it bank, I was honestly trying to take in the wings and couldn't tell you anything about the shape of the head in flight. Though, I think if it HAD a long neck and extended it in flight, I would've noticed. The impression I got of the legs were "short and stubby" I didn't see the feet.


It's been sitting there, in the back of my mind, bugging the Hell out of me. What was it?? I've been trying to talk myself out of having seen it. I didn't try to look it up, because that would make it "real"...does that make sense? Tonight, I finally decided to try a search on line. "Largest bird in VA", "Wing spans of VA birds"~kind of searches. Nothing to match. The Man, always direct and honest, finally said "Search Thunderbird". Feeling sheepish, I did. Every description of "modern" Thunderbird sightings sounds like what I saw. Go ahead. Laugh. I don't blame you. You weren't there. A week ago, I would have done the same.


Stacy





Family: Our Inherited Evolutionary Ladder





Here is a thought.  Inside the family, our ego is properly replaced by the family ego.  It is when that is not in balance that the family becomes dysfunctional.  Yet it is natural to join one’s ego to the family ego and share 


in its commonality.

We spend so much time thinking about what is wrong we often forget to recognize so much of what is right and make an effort to emulate just that.

More to the point this is a reminder that our social behavior is the built in software that comes with our genetic inheritance and that it is way more subtle than imagined or explained.


Family: Our Inherited Evolutionary Ladder

May 18, 2013 | 
Ida Lawrence, Contributor



Have you ever wondered why you were born into your particular physical family? Family: It’s a grouping of higher selves that start out and grow together, and then begin to track along different paths.

When I started looking for the truth in things beyond the system-sanctioned information, I knew it would strain my family. I suspect we all deal with that strain in some way, so how do we make it serve the highest good?

We all get the same conditioning but we take to it differently. Religious beliefs are the strongest force; second to and sometimes commingled with political beliefs. Mixed in there as well are the moral, social, racial, educational and economic beliefs: groupings within groupings within groupings… all of them rife with opinions and judgments.

For some family members, inherited beliefs provide comfort and security. For others, the beliefs are too restrictive – so the spirit must use them as a launching pad. There is always the random molecule, as I call it… the person who can’t fit inside the beliefs and has to make a move. Sometimes we know it from a very young age. It’s the ‘I won’t be staying here’ feeling that turns into exploring, wandering, seeking and yearning for knowledge.

This quest is the natural, spiritual desire to fulfill our lives – it’s our evolution and incredibly precious to us. A search begins for information, and it leads to books and people who nudge us along with the same spirit of yearning. We want something beyond the suffering of this world: an alternative way of being, inside the physical but outside of the inhumane matrix.

So there I was, wanting to know who I am, and displeasing some of my family. While it seemed painful at the time, I realize now that it was the friction of evolution. Living through the pressure of another’s displeasure takes strength of spirit, understanding of the other, introspection and honest self-examination, forgiveness, and some psychological sophistication.

Ultimately, the warmth of love has to be bigger than the ego’s opinion – quite a test for all.

No matter what the system of belief is; religion, politics, race, whatever… people want you to remain in place. It gives them comfort and it verifies the belief. The occasional zealot may even infringe on you to keep you in place. ‘Allowing is love’ is not in the family rulebook unless you put it there. So this will be challenge number one, for the entire group.

It’s good to keep in mind, if you are mature enough to do so, that each one of these individuals, including the zealot, are spirits in a physical body, having an evolutionary experience. They all have the divine spark and they are part of your growth as you are part of theirs.

You can cope with the friction by keeping your inner beliefs to yourself… that’s the safe way and it can work just fine. Sometimes it’s the most loving thing to do. But if that’s not working, and your spiritual journey does become an issue, you’ll have to go it alone, and be gracious as you do it.

To do any less, to fake who you are in order to avoid friction, creates an uncomfortable variance within you. The variance will be dispiriting and damaging to your growth. You do have to be yourself in life, so if it’s the fake you that goes there to visit, maybe you’re better off to exit the stage for a time.

In my younger years, I did exit the stage… not because of family dysfunction, but in order to protect my journey. The transition I was experiencing was so challenging, that I couldn’t have my family around. Their worry would weaken my resolve, and I needed my resolve. Since my evolution was spiritual, honorable and vital to me, I cut ties and went through a very great expansion. It was a life and love lesson for all, as it turns out, causing us to examine ties, judgments and opinions.

Speaking from experience, and knowing myself better now, the ties were attached to my own weakness. It took a bit of disentangling to realize that the ‘I am causing them pain’ guilt trip was indeed an ego trip – the inflated idea of my own importance. None of us is that important. On the liberation journey one must learn to place things where they belong: my discomfort is of my own making; the discomfort of others is of their own making. It takes some growing up to realize that fact.

Later on, much later, I would learn that the way to experience family and hold to your power is to get the ego out of the way and trust what you know. You have knowledge gained from your own conscious living as well as your inner connection to the divine. You are indeed here to evolve and serve. Every member of your family is here to do the same. Your evolution is a factor in their evolution and vice versa. Have respect for them, knowing that your higher selves have come together for interaction and growth.

It can be a kind of ‘eureka moment’ to realize that – comforting in the overall scheme of things.

There is great value in family; not as emotional ‘ties that bind’, but as our inherited evolutionary ladder. It promises a beautiful outcome… if we make it so.