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You give me the resources of UC Davis while I'm working on my truffles project (actually not a bad idea when I pitch it to my Rep.) and why not?  What's to lose?

In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 08:55:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
go for it Twank! truck the fuffles.

or we'll have this

Why Haven't Fruit & Vegetable Eaters Been Told About This Toxic Waste Overload?

Why Haven't Fruit & Vegetable Eaters Been Told About This Toxic Waste Overload? Posted by: Dr. Mercola
January 16 2010 | 42,844 views

The U.S. government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil.

The material is produced by power plant "scrubbers" that remove acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions.  The substance is a synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, and it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.

The Environmental Protection Agency says those toxic metals occur in only tiny amounts. But some environmentalists say too little is known about how the material affects crops, and ultimately human health.

...

    As you may know, coal-fired plants produce about 50 percent of the power in the US, and are a major source of environmental pollution. One of its byproducts is FGD gypsum (flue gas desulfurization gypsum). Not surprisingly, the standard solution is to develop a scheme to sweep the problem under the rug and make money doing it.

    In this case, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has begun promoting what they call "wastes beneficial uses," in order to deal with industrial byproducts.

    This is history repeating itself ad nauseum.

    The plot to use of FGD gypsum on agricultural soils is virtually identical to the story of how the toxic byproduct fluoride was deemed beneficial to human health, once it became too costly for the aluminum industry to clean it up.

    If you're not yet aware of how the "beneficial waste uses" of fluoride came about, you may want to take a look at it now, because these two stories are hauntingly familiar.

    Ironically, while the EPA and USDA are recommending the use of this toxic byproduct on fields, the Obama administration is also in the process of drafting the first federal standards for storage and disposal of coal wastes. The White House and the EPA are currently at odds over how to handle the more than 125 million tons of coal ash and sludge waste generated each year, reports the Wall Street Journal.

    According to the Associated Press, this action was prompted by a spill from a coal ash pond near Knoxville, TN, just over a year ago. Ash and water flooded 300 acres, damaging homes and killing fish. The cleanup will cost an estimated $1 billion.

    It's logically challenging to accept that while an accidental coal waste spill is environmentally devastating, the willful spreading coal waste on farm lands, year after year, would be environmentally sound.

    Granted, the combined contents of the spill was likely far more toxic than FGD gypsum alone, but we're still talking about adding toxins to our farm lands, and no matter how minute these toxins are, they will eventually accumulate.

    Why would we want to do this to ourselves, and to our future generations?

so assholes can make a buck, duh.

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 12:19:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]
or we could figure out something along these lines perhaps:

Adept Alchemy. Part II. Chapter 8. Biological Transmutations

The study of biological transmutation can be said to have begun in the 17th century with the famous experiment by von Helmont, who grew a willow tree in a clay vase with 200 pounds of soil. After 5 years, he dried the soil and found that its weight had decreased by only 2 ounces: "Water alone had, therefore, been sufficient to produce 160 pounds of wood, bark and roots" (plus fallen leaves which he did not weigh). Presumably, there were some minerals in the water he fed to the tree. Nowadays we know that plants form carbohydrates from atmospheric carbon dioxide, but their mineral content is derived from soil, not air. It may be possible, however, that the ORMEs (Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements), discovered by David Hudson in the 1980s, exist in the atmosphere and are utilized by plants.

In 1799, the French chemist Vauquelin became intrigued by the quantity of lime which hens excrete every day. He isolated a hen and fed it a pound of oats which were analyzed for lime (CaO). Vauquelin analyzed the eggs and feces and found five times more Ca was excreted than was consumed. He concluded that lime had been created, but could not figure out how it happened.

In 1822, the English physiologist Prout studied the increase of calcium carbonate inside incubating chicken eggs, and was able to show that it was not contributed by the shell.

In 1831, Choubard germinated watercress seeds in clean glass vessels and showed that the sprouts contained minerals which did not previously exist in the seeds.



~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:03:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Spoken like a true Fortean ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:21:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
well forte-ified, lol

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:23:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That reminds me, I came downstairs for a glass of 10 year old Taylors Port and got sidetracked into posting ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:26:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
careful with that axe, eugene!

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 05:57:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
you'll probably get the Nobel if you suss this!

it gets better:

Adept Alchemy. Part II. Chapter 8. Biological Transmutations

Circa 1850, Lauwes and Gilbert observed an inexplicable variation in the amount of magnesium in the ashes of plants.

From 1875-1883, von Herzeele conducted 500 analyses which verified an increase in weight in the ashes of plants grown without soil in a controlled medium. He concluded that, "Plants are capable of effecting the transmutation of elements". His publications so outraged the scientific community of the time, they were removed from libraries. His writings were lost for more than 50 years until a collection was found in Berlin by Dr. Hauscka, who subsequently published von Herzeele's findings.

M. Baranger (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris) became intrigued with Von Herzeele's experiments, but he thought that the number of trials had been too limited and the precautions against error were insufficient. Baranger decided to repeat the experiments with all possible precautions and a very large number of cases which would allow a statistical study. His research project lasted four years and involved thousands of analyses. Baranger verified the content of P, K, and Ca of vetch seeds before and after germination in twice-distilled water to which pure calcium chloride was/was not added. Hundreds of lots of 7-10 grams each were selected, weighed to 1/100th milligram, and graded, then germinated in a controlled environment. The plants were tested by the methods described by A. Brunel-Tourcoin in his Practical Treatise of Plant Chemistry (1948). Baranger found a significant decrease in P in the Ca-series of tests. Non-germinated seeds and seeds germinated in the distilled water showed no significant change in their levels of K. Those seeds treated with CaCl2 showed a 10% increase in their K content.

None of the specialists who examined Baranger's work were able to find any experimental errors. Baranger concluded:

These results, obtained by taking all possible precautions, confirm the general conclusions proposed by V. Herzeele and lead one to think that under certain conditions the plants are capable of forming elements which did not exist before in the external environment.

[The practical consequences] cannot be underestimated... Certain plants would bring to the soil some elements useful for the growth of other plants; this would lead us especially to define and revise the current notions on fallows, rotations, mixed crop, fertilizers and the manuring of infertile soils. Nothing prevents us from thinking that certain plants are capable of producing rare elements of industrial importance....

In the sub-atomic field, the plant supplies us with an example of transformation which we are not capable of performing in the laboratory without bringing into action particles of high-energy... It seems that the theoretical consequences in the field of sub-atomic physics are not negligible.

In 1946, Henri Spindler, (Director of the Laboratoire Maritime de Dinard) investigated the origin of iodine in seaweed, and found that the algae Laminaria manufactured iodine out of water which contained none of the element. (15)

Prof. Perrault (Paris University) found that the hormone aldosterone provoked a transmutation of Na to K, which could be fatal to a patient; heart failure occurs when blood plasma K reaches approximately 350 mg/liter.

In 1959, Dr. Julien (Univ. of Besancon) proved that if tenches are put in water containing 14% NaCl, their production of KCl increases 36% within 4 hours. (5)

Louis Kervran (Univ. of Paris) was the most ardent researcher of biological transmutation, and his work in the field earned him a nomination for the Nobel Prize. Kervran elucidated several of these nuclear reactions and verified them:

The vital phenomenon is not of a chemical order... The nucleus of the atom in light elements is quite different from what nuclear physics regards as the average type, the latter having value only for the heavy elements... Nature moves particles from one nucleus to another ¾ particles such as hydrogen and oxygen nuclei and, in some cases, the nuclei of carbon and lithium. There is thus a transmutation... Biological transmutation is a phenomenon completely different from the atomic fissions or fusions of physics... it reveals a property of matter not seen prior to this work. (4, 7-13)

Kervran found that in nuclido-biological reactions, oxygen is always in the form of O, never O2; reactions with nitrogen occur only with N2, insofar as is known. The following reactions (shown in simplistic form) have been observed:

Na23 + H1 ® Mg24         Na23 + O16 ® K39         Na23 - O16 ® Li7

Na23 ® Li7 + O16         K39 + H1 ® Ca40         Mg24 + Li7 ® P31

Mg24 + O16 ® Ca40         F19 + O16 ® Cl35         C12 + Li7 ® F19

Cl35 ® C12 + Na23         Fe56 - H1 ® Mn55         2 O16 - H1 ® P31

O16 + O16 ® S32         2 N14 ® C12 + O16         N14 + Mg12 ® K19

Si28 + C12 ® Ca40         Si28 + C12 ® Ca40         P31 + H1 « S32



~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:09:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'll stick to truffle domestication.  I pull that off and look out.  The doors will open wide.

In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:26:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
"Nobody knows the truffle I've seen...."

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:28:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I can think of no appropriate response.

In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 01:56:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
None was required. I think it's called a rhetorical comment...

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 02:00:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The vital phenomenon is not of a chemical order... The nucleus of the atom in light elements is quite different from what nuclear physics regards as the average type, the latter having value only for the heavy elements... Nature moves particles from one nucleus to another ¾ particles such as hydrogen and oxygen nuclei and, in some cases, the nuclei of carbon and lithium. There is thus a transmutation... Biological transmutation is a phenomenon completely different from the atomic fissions or fusions of physics... it reveals a property of matter not seen prior to this work.
Can I call bullshit on this?

I'm not questioning the merit or Kervran's work, but truly to claim that nuclear physics has nothing to do with this...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 02:46:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
wha?

Migeru:

that nuclear physics has nothing to do with this...

i though nuclear physics had to do with like, everything...

seriously, (for me anyway lol).

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 06:02:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Anyway, the Wikipedia page on Louis Kervran makes interesting reading...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 06:08:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
<don't encourage him> ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Jan 16th, 2010 at 06:26:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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