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viernes, 23 de octubre de 2015

DEVELOPED AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF THE FRENCH LENTILS

Lentils (Lens culinaris). Source: Wikipedia.



By Gundhramns Hammer & Salvatore Scimino
October 23, 2015

In Europe, and just about any country that follows the elite´s Industrial Age rules and methods, agriculture has been elevated to such heights that what humans now eat is contaminated food.

Today, despite the mumbo jumbo that “it has been improved”, what we eat is fucking shit.

Even though eating this food might not kill you instantly or immediately, in the long run it will.

Forget about hormesis whose proponents or supporters are one way or another nothing but mere tentacles belonging to the same economic interests from the global chemical industry which controls the pesticide factories worldwide.

It does not matter how you look at it. The allowed standards of levels of contaminants (MRLs= maximun residue levels or legal levels) in the food mean nothing, for in the end what we are really dealing with is toxic food.

It is edible toxic shit, packaged and sold as processed “food”. Since we are not writing for the world´s science priesthood but the public why beat about the bush.

Despite the abracadabra from the experts, who are people usually paid or supported with research funds by the powerful chemical industry directly or indirectly, toxic food is now an ever-present part of our so-called “quality of life”.

Thus, it is not surprising that people whose daily life depend on medications to look “healthy” and “gorgeous” and lead a “normal” life are quite common in Europe or anywhere else where people have adopted the Western habits and can afford them.

These people – i.e. walking zombies - are so fucked up that without their daily ration of medicines they would not be able to function at all to lead a “productive life” and be vampirised by the system!

In spite of the charming packaging at the suppermarkets or the sophisticated arrangements and fancy adornments when served at any expensive normal restaurant or a narco-restaurant when you eat out, European foodstuffs are contaminated with residues of numerous chemicals. This is a scientific fact (Table 1). Please read the European Food Safety Authority (2015)´s report on pesticide residues in food in the EU.


Table 1. Pesticides detected in plants products in the European Union. Source: European Union Safety Authority (2015). Click on image to enlarge.



European foodstuffs are so contaminated that sometimes not even decomposer animals such as slugs and snails in the garden will eat them. Only fungi and bacteria will get to them. And only after some time, not immediately.

Mon dieu, mon Capitaine, this is what is now called “developed agriculture” or “industrial agriculture”.

Oui, mon ami!

So, here we report what happened to the authors upon eating some of this normal “developed” food: Lentils (Lens culinaris) bought in France.


The case of the French lentils

In May 2014, we bought a pound of supposedly “organic” lentils (Lens culinaris) at a supermarket in Oloron, France.

We must admit that the lentils were neatly packaged, contained in a extremely attractive cardboard box, with a small and transparent plastic window on the top on both sides, so the consumer could see the grains inside.

We put the box of lentils aside on a shelf for a while.

After more than a year of being on the shelf at home, the boxed lentils still had no signs of any worms and fungi getting to them.

But then, on August 15, 2015, we decided to cook them. And violà! They were ready to eat in less than in an hour!

They smelled good and were very tasty! So we decided to eat some of them. We ate a dish of these lentils at noon. The only different food we had during that day.

But these lentils were so “developed” that they made us quite ill upon eating them!

We experienced skin rushes on the chest and neck, mild stomachache, scalp and butt itch and mild, short-lived bronchitis, mild headaches and other medical symptoms due to the lentils since they had been the only different food we had during that day.

The following day the medical troubles continued. We had mild headaches and other medical symptoms.

Based on our personal observations, the effects of consumption of these “developed” lentils from France are summarised on Table 2:


Table 2. Medical effects of consuming contaminated cooked lentils (Lens culinaris) bought in France. Data based on personal observations (4 persons; average age, 46 years). Time has been summarised and rounded off. Table constructed by the authors (Gundhramns Hammer & Salvatore Scimino).
Medical symptom
Lapse of time after consumption [hours (h) or minutes (min)]
Level of effect
Duration of symptom
[hours (h) or minutes (min)]
Scalp itchiness
15 min
Severe
8 h
Cutaneous chest itchiness
1 h
Severe
12 h
Facial allergy (redness, itchiness)
58 min
Mild
23 h
Eye irritation (redness, itchiness)
18 min
Severe
5 h
Itchiness behind ears
1 h
Severe
7 h
Neck rush (below the chin)
1 h
Severe
9 h
Cutanous back itchiness
1 h
Moderate
6 h
Perianal itchiness
2 h
Mild
2 h
Headache
12 h
mild
3 h
Stomachache
2 h
Mild
5 h
Crotch itchiness
2 h
Mild
2 h
Articulation pain (fingers, knee)
3 h
Mild
4 h
Dizziness
12 min
Mild
5 h
Bronchitis
15 min
Mild
1 h
Sneezing
5 min
Moderate
20 min
Irritated colon
12 h
Severe
10 h
Leg cramps
10 h
Moderate
4 h



We are vegetarian, frugal and thus are not into crowding and piling our eating dish. We only consume two or three different food items at a time with each meal which usually are 2/day.

Besides, we had neither breakfast nor dinner that day.

We watch carefully what we eat and keep a record of all the reactions different foods produce on us. We are our own guinea pigs every time we eat.

We are people who eat to live and not live to eat.

Naturally, we cannot discount the age-related factor and age vulnerability to environmental chemicals in our case. Weiss (2013) discusses this aspect in great detail.

Although children and young people might react differently, for their body tissues can compensate any wear and tear faster, nonetheless the consumption of contaminated food can affect anyone from any age group.

Nowadays, children and even adults suffer from numerous types of allergies; many of such ailments are directly related to food. Unfortunately, most physicians tend still do not make the connection food-disease.

Based on the symptoms we experienced, we have concluded that these French lentils were not “organic” and were contaminated with residues of pesticides and perhaps even mycotoxins.

Further analysis will throw more evidence on this case.

But to call these French lentils “organic” is beyond the limits stipulated by the law.

Thus, this would fall in the category of fooling consumers, especially those concerned about their health and who want to eat only real organic in a world that has been overtaken to a great deal of extent by large chemical corporations.


What is behind the lentils?

Obviously after what had happened to us we had no more of these lentils and left them in the pot without boiling them at all overnight. We wanted to see what would happen to them with the passage of time.

After three days of staying in the pot, the lentils were still fine, still edible! They presented no fermentation or any other signs of decomposition.

Then, we asked ourselves: What the fuck do these “organic” lentils contain that will not rot?

We have not analysed them chemically to see exactly what they kind of pesticide residues they contained. We are working on it.

But we do know for sure that lentils are attacked by numerous pests (insects, fungi, etc.) in the field (pre-harvest) and when stored (post-harvest; e.g., seed beetles) as well.

So, the intensive production of this crop is difficult. It requires the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and the input of other chemicals such as “desiccants”, which are applied to “dry down” and create uniformity of plant material at harvest time. These chemical products also assist in pre-harvest weed control (Saskatchewan Pulse Growers News, 2013, 2015).

For example, according to the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers News (2013), these products include diquat (Reglone), glyphosate (Roundup), saflufenacil (HEAT), and glufosinate in Canada.

But these pesticides are not the only ones used on lentil farming. There are more. For example, dimethoate, bifenthrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, imidacloprid, cyfluthrin are used for insect control.

The lentil´s weed control treatment includes herbicides such as imazethapyr, triallate, metribuzin, sethoxydim, pendimethalin, quizalofop-P-ethyl, amongst others.

Lentil crops are attacked by various types of fungi (Rhizoctonia, Fusarium, Sclerotium, Pythium, etc.) The choice treatment for these pests is another pesticide: thiabenzadole.

On the other hand, growing pulses the “organic” or “ecological” way has its own difficulties as well.

This is something experienced and “certified organic farmers” know about quite well. For example, in Saskatchewan, Canada, where pulse farming is done “organically” on a large scale.

However, whether organic or not, no farmer can ever escape from the problem of weeds.

Lentils are poor competitors with weeds. So the “organic” farmer must depend on adequate seed density and precise harrowing in between the rows of the crop.

Next, the farmer must count on an integral pest control. This may involved planting genetically modified (transgenic or point mutated) seeds resistant to herbicides (e.g, Clearfield), inoculaing seeds wih Rhizobium bacteria for nitrogen fixation, using organic or inorganic pesticides and other techiques allowed by the certifying company or the government.

Thus, in the end, industrial “organic” farming usually means input of man-made chemicals including herbicides - for example imazamox, imazethapyr, sethoxydim on lentil crops - applied according to “recommended” or “agreed upon” quantities and methods by the farmer.

So, if it comes from industrial agriculture, the label “organic” on the product often means nothing at all to the consumer because it is far from it.

The term “organic” may simply be a convenient marketing tool.

And as far as the “organic certification” is concerned, the system may be a scam and the "organic" regulations only a mere tentacle of the prevailing economic interests which are in control of the global food industry.

This system may lend itself to the powerful global corporate interests.

In our case, these French lentils may have been organically-produced as labelled on the package.

But as to whether they were wholly organic all the way up to the consumer is another matter.

To begin with, after harvesting a crop, the farmer must store the grains. This post-harvest storage means that chemical treatment must be applied to the plant product.

There are other methods (irradiation, heat, modified atmosphere, etc.), called “integrated pest management” (IPM) programmes (Subramanyam & Hagstrum, 2000), to avoid any contamination (chemical or pests) but they are more expensive because it involves investing in adapting the storage facilities.

In other words, and talking in fancy language, the storage plant will require expensive retroffiting towards “sustainability”, if possible, to meet today´s tendencies.

Thus, most farmers use synthetic chemicals during the post-harvest. It is the quickest and cheapest method.

Here lies the problem of organically or ecologically-produced. It breaks down at this stage.

Why?

Because of various reasons.

First. Because crops which are produced on such a massive industrial scale, once harvested they have to be selected, dried and stored in huge metallic cylindrical containers (silos) where farmers will apply pesticides (triflumuron, cypermethrin) and fungicides (thiabendazole) to the grains or cereals, whose humidity content must be 14% or less, otherwise they would lose the harvested product; thereby losing a lot of money. Something any farmer will not take a chance on or risk.

Big farmers are in this business to make money. Big money, that is.

And in a globalised economy, in some cases, we are really dealing with farmers who are into this business not because they enjoy farming but to do some money laundering. This is another dimension. This is called narco-agriculture. And those that are in this can be then called narco-farmers. But this is another matter we will delve into on another occasion.

But the lentil farmer worries have not finished yet. For instance, he must keep crop spoilage at bay. To begin with, he has to worry about the water content of the harvested crop at storage time.

Moreover, since lentils are miniature universes in themselves, made up of living cells, their respiration process must be taken into account when stored as well.

For example, too much water content in the seeds will lead to high temperatures in the farm bin or silo, which in turn will activate the bacteria and fungi spores on the seed coats and as a result the farmer may lose the entire crop to spoilage or end up with tonnes of discoloured or spotted seeds which have no value in the market whatsoever.

Excesive drying at the storage facility or if the harvested seeds were too dried when stored, the result may be the opposite: cracked seed coats or seeds, making the product unappealing to the buyers.

These are just a few of the things that can give farmers nightmares.

Obviously, seed storage is a science in itself. And big farmers must know how to deal with the end of their lines.

Second. There is the plastic wrapping used in the food industry. Such plastics contain phthalates esters which are highly toxic organic substances.

Third. We have to remember that tractors used in agriculture fart toxic fumes as they go along on the field at harvesting time; thereby spreading their crap on the picked crop.

What was once mule or horse farts when tilling the land has now become a river of toxic gases from a combustion machine, the tractor!

Four. We have air pollution such as contrails and chemtrails, the particulate matter (barium, aluminum, etc.) from the global elite´s geoengineering experiment which is brought down on the crop by the rain or the wind.

And five. Do not forget the ground pollution from vehicular transportation to the distributing depot and from here to the supermarket or grocery stores. This means more gasoline or diesel farts from the trucks and the cigarette smoke if the driver smokes. To this we must add the smoke coming from the other thousands of circulating vehicles on the highway.

But the problem does not end here.

How about the problem of the mycotoxins and insects during storage, the smoke from the thousands of industry smokestacks and the radioactive fallout from the nuclear disasters (e.g., Chernobyl, Fukushima)?

Is this “progress”?

So, by the time the consumer gets the food at the supermarket, even if it has been produced using organic or ecological methods, there is always the risk of contamination one way or another along the way.

So much for industrial “organic” or “ecologic” food in Europe, mon ami.

Even when you grow it in your own backyard or garden and do not apply any synthetic chemicals to control “pests”, you will still get a lot of crap falling on your crop, for example the pollution coming from the circulating cars, cigarette smokers passing-by, contrails and chemtrails from airplanes, etc.

But let us get back to our story of the French lentils.

What happened to them?

Unfortunately, we had to throw them away.

But before we did we put some outside in the garden in a small tray a friend gave us. An experiment based on the assumption that many nonhuman vertebrate animals (e.g., mice) have a different set of hepatic enzymes to deal with substances that would be otherwise toxic to us, humans.

And as we have said before, slugs [e.g., Limax maximus (Limacidae); Arion ater (Arionidae)] and snails [e.g., Helix aspersa (Helicidae)] came to the dish that contained the lentils but did not eat them. Neither did feral cats, mice, birds and a few other animals that visit our garden (personal observations).

After a few minutes of crawling on the lentils and tasting them, the mollusks in particular lost interest and left.

According to Dr. Paul Bartsch´s experiments, slugs such as Limax maximus are “extraordinarily sensitive to gases”, capable of detecting one molecule in 10.000.000!, including those “which emanate from its food” (Buller, 1922).

In other words, the slugs were smarter than us!

The daring cats (3) that did try these lentils got mildly sick, vomiting twice after ingesting the lentils (personal observations).

After a whole week of being outside and drained whenever it rained, looking almost exactly the same way we put them out, here is what these lentils look like (Fig. 1). Look at them carefully and you will see bare traces of tough fungi on them after seven weeks of being cooked (Fig. 2).


Figure 1. The French "organic" lentils (Lens culinaris) after a week of cooking and left outside in the garden. 


Figure 2. The French "organic" lentils (Lens culinaris) after 7 weeks of cooking. 


And today (October 23, 2015), this is what they look like (Fig. 3):


Figure 3. The French "organic" lentils (Lens culinaris) as of today (October 23, 2015). 



So far, these lentils  have turned out to be indestructible!

We did see a housefly (Musca domestica) laid eggs on the lentils but only two larvae hatched on September 25, 2015.

But the larvae died the following day.

It could be that the plastic tray is giving off residues of phthalate which get into the lentils making them unpalatable or more toxic.

We will go ahead and change the recipient. They will be put on a porcelain dish to see what happens to them. We will let you know the results later on.


Conclusion

These particular so-called “organic” (black) lentils from France were toxic.

This is definitely toxic food! This is alien food! Here is food ready for a trip to planet Mars! Here food to last a thousand years!

And we are glad no animal died from eating bits of it!!

Folks, this is developed agriculture in Europe.

And since during this century Europe has set the industrial pace in agriculture, by now almost everyone has fallen into this trap.

The experts called it the Green Revolution when in reality was, and still is, a Petro-derived Revolution.

This Green Revolution has lead, amongst other things, to a  large alteration of the global nitrogen biogeochemistry.

According to Vitousek (1994), human activiy has changed the planetary nitrogen cycle to such an extent that more  nitrogen is fixed annually by humanity – chiefly due to nitrogen fertilizer use, plantations of legume crops and as a by-product of fossil fuel combustion – than by all natural pathways combined. This added nitrogen upsets the chemical balance in the atmosphere and the aquatic ecosystems, contributes to eutrophication of the biosphere and affects the biodiversity in the most affected areas.

And this will get worse as the human population increases. Since people will need or demand more food (to eat or waste), growing more food on a resource-limited planet will mean only one thing, amongst others: further alteration on the nitrogen cycle on the planet.

What a catch-22 trap!

As far as food is concerned, we have no doubts that, despite the rough life they had, Pleistocene humans probably ate better than we do today in many aspects, when they had the chance, of course. At least they ate wholesome, totally natural food and not this sophisticated packaged crap we now call “food”.

So, it is not surprising that today there are so many people full of cancer, with an undermined intestinal microbiota, suffering from immune or hormone problems, overweight or terribly obese, getting fucked by a heart attack and dropping dead like flies on the streets, and plenty of folks of all ages going around with all sorts of ailments and diseases, many of which are directly linked to food, even when a lot of medical doctors do not have the guts or knowledge to admit it, for if they did so they would be immediately fired from their greasy job at the human repair shop, the hospital.

We all know that one of the rules of slaving away for the dark lords who own and control the global system is to obey. And naturally, consume!

Only the brave and/or old physicians, those approaching the kicking-bucket dateline, dare to speak up.

Furthemore, remember, today´s food industry is controlled by a bunch of giant multinationals around the world (Fig. 4; Video 1). And these are extremely powerful.



Figure 4. Chart showing how 10 corporations control what we buy at the stores. Source: Zero Hedge. Click on image to enlarge.



Video 1. 10 corporations control the world´s food supply. Uploaded by Elite NWO Agenda.




These corporations can make or break any scientist in this business. They also can and will do the same to any rival business that dares to challenge their power on the same turf by that matter, if they see it convenient. Money is the name of their game.

This is why we seldom get clear information on this matter, food. We too often get a lot of diluted information, contradictory data or data that cancel out one another the more you dig into this world.

Internet is full of this kind of information. There already is more than enough to keep you searching forever, adding up, substracting, cancelling out and, of course, in doubt for a long time, especially if you are not an expert or have no expertise whatsoever.

And this is the idea: To keep you dancing under the global elite´s anti-biospherical umbrella and eating its crap we have been brainwashed to crave for.

This means that when you get sick you have to go to the hospital, usually controlled by the same elite, to push further your meeting with the Parcae, where you will get drugged galore to survive and come out like a zombie, a full-fledged cyborg or missing half your intestine or whatever the experts saw it necessary or unnecessary to cut, hoping to get a good economic slice of the big med-pharma cake.

And back to square one.

How did we get in this mess?

Obviously, this is a long story and we are not here to get involved in this. We would never finish.

Anyway, what do you think?

Have you had a similar experience in Europe or somewhere else in the world after eating some “developed” food?

Unfortunately, as we said before, most physicians do not relate an ailment or disease to the type of food consumed.

So, keep track of what you eat and get informed before you go to see the human repairman, the physician. This way you will not be tricked, for these experts are basically trained to cut and stitch, wih only around 5% having taken a nutrition course in their fucking student lives.

Keep in mind, in what we eat, there lies our health.

And there also lies the gist of our present problem.

When it comes to food growing, like in the story of “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp”, we have exchanged our old but good lamp for a new but lousy lamp.

It is too late to get it back.

Because of our love affair to live in fucking crowded megalopolies where there are more chances to work to make a living, to fuck or get fucked, we humans - naked apes (Homo insapiens) that basically function on the least effort gear - have allowed mega-corporations to grow and control our food.

And as you all well know, these bastards can get away with murder.

Thus, it is not surprising we have ended up where we are today, with piles of different kinds of attractive toxic food to choose from and buy if we have the money in the pocket at the supermarkets and, when we go to the bathroom, we may be so constipated that shitting has become a painful battle because our colons are extremely overloaded or decayed by cancer.

When our bodies cannot handle this toxic cycle any longer, we hit the hospital to get fixed or become a heavy piece of meat for the funeral folks to be shipped to the burning kiln or thrown underground to become fodder for the worms and bacteria.

End of the line.

Folks, it is true, something the constant brainwashing from the media or the mumbo jumbo from corporation-supported experts keep telling us all the time with fancy talk such as that “today´s food is more wholesome than ever before”, that “developed” food can be beautiful, appealing to our chemtrailled or chemically altered psyches, delicious to eat over and over and highly addictive but let us face it, we are now eating our own crap.

What a blooming pity! Or shall we say what a blooming “puta”!

NB. On another occasion, if we have another occasion, we will relate to you the story of how we got well again after eating the French "organic" lentils. 

We will also continue with our series: Developed Agriculture II.

Till then!



References

Anonymous (2003). Pest Management Strategic Plan for Pulse Crops (Chickpeas,Lentils, and Dry Peas) in the United States and Canada. Summary of a workshop held on June 26-27, 2002, Saskatoon, Canada. 66 p.

Bhatnagar A. (Ed.) (2011). Environmental Cardiology: Pollution and Heart Disease. Issues in Toxicology Nº 8. RSC Publishing, Thomas Graham House, Cambridge, UK. 390 p.

Buller A.H.R. (1922). Slugs as Mycophagists. Chapter VIII. Researches on Fungi 2: 212-235.

D´Mello J.O.F. (Ed.) (2003). Food Safety: Contaminants and Toxins. CABI Publishing, CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon, UK. 452 p.

Erskine W., Muehlbauer F., Sarker A. & Sharma B. (Eds.) (2009). Lentil: Botany, Production and Uses. CABI, CAB International, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK. 457 p.

European Food Safety Authority (2015). The 2013 European Union report on pesticide residues in food. EFSA J., 13 (3): 4038, 169 p. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2015.4038

Fernandez-Cornejo J., Nehring R., Osteen C., Wechsler S., Martin A. & Vialou A. (2014). Pesticide Use in U.S. Agriculture: 21 Selected Crops, 1960-2008. EIB-124, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Economic Information Bulletin Number 124: 1-80.

GRDC (Grains Research & Development Corporation) (2011). Stored Grain Pests Identification. Queensland, Australia. 20 p.

Hill D.S. (2003). Pests of Stored Foodstuffs and Their Control. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. 476 p.

Knight R. (Ed.) (2000). Linking Research and Marketing Opportunities for Pulses in the 21st Century. Proceedings of the Third International Food Legumes Research Conference. Current Plant Science and Biotecnhology in Agriculture Volume 34. Springer Science+Business Media, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. 705 p.

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viernes, 18 de septiembre de 2015

URANIUM CONTAMINATION IN TWO MAJOR AQUIFERS IN THE UNITED STATES

Groundwater uranium (red) and nitrate (blue) contamination levels in two major aquifers and other sites in the United States. Source: Noland & Weber (2015).

By Gundhramns Hammer
September 18, 2015


In a recent geochemical study, Noland & Weber (2015) have found that two U.S. major aquifers - the High Plains (also called the Ogallala) and Central Valley - are contaminated with naturally occurring groundwater uranium. 

The University of Nebraska at Lincoln scientists took about 275.000 samples from the aquifers. The data from their chemical analysis showed that uranium (U) in the groundwater exceeded the EPA maximum contaminant level (MCL = 30 μg/L) across an area of 22375 km2 where 1.9 million live.

According to these University of Nebraska at Lincoln scientists, "approximately 78% of areas where U concentrations were interpolated above the MCL were correlated to the presence of nitrate".

The study suggests that this groundwater contamination is linked to intensive animal exploitations and agriculture activitities in the region.

But nuclear testing in the United States cannot be discounted as a source of uranium contamination. 

In the end, mon Capitaine, this is the price people have to pay for what is called "economic development" or "progress": Drinking polluted water.

Precisely, mon ami.

What a blooming pity!

References

Noland J. & Weber K.A. (2015). Natural Uranium Contamination in Major U.S. Aquifers Linked to Nitrate. Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett., 2: 215-220.

jueves, 20 de agosto de 2015

GENETIC MUTATIONS: THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER

Mutated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Source: Fukushima Mutations.


By Gundhramns Hammer
August 20, 2015


If you are one of the those people who were born without any expressed biological defects, with a wholesome set of five fingers and five toes, for example, consider yourself lucky.

Lucky because the developmental cascade that lead to you in your mother´s uterus was genetically well-balanced, so much so that this unique biological event - one in the history of the Multiverse - did not take any routes which could have lead to a monster popping out into this world to scare the heck out of your parents or anyone who might have happened to be there upon your arrival to planet Earth/Oceana.

Yes, well-balanced, for when we talk about inherinting DNA here, we are talking of inheriting a well-balanced physico-chemical system

So, you were lucky to have inherited a well-balanced physico-chemical system to become you otherwise you might have ended up as a Halloween alien or be dead before you even took off.

But the children of your children and the children of these children might not be so lucky like you were. 

They could very well be homegrown aliens in the future, if there is such a thing, for the way Man is going, he may soon join the labyrinthodonts.

Why?

Because our DNA is being subjected not only to all kinds of man-made xenobiotics in our daily lives but also to global radioactive fallout coming from nukes or nuclear reactor accidents.

Let us face it, we humans have nuked the planet.

And it is well known that radioactivity can damage the genetic material in living cells. It causes genetic mutations.

Biological data gathered after the Fukushima disaster in Japan support this fact. 

A scientific team lead by Dr. Atsuki Hikaya (2012), from the University of Ryukyus in Okinawa, has shown evidence that "the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan".

This is just an example.

Should you be interested in knowing more on this matter, you should go to a library. There are truckloads of scientific literature attesting this problem: The danger that radioactivity from nukes or radioactive fallout from nuclear catastrophes has upon living creatures.

Our references below can be used as a starting point too.

What follows is a radio special with Leuren Moret, discussing the biological impact of nuclear accidents (Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island) (Videos 1-4):




Video 1. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (1/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick.


Video 2. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (2/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick


Video 3. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (3/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick.


Video 4. Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima with Leuren Moret (4/4). Uploaded by Rad Chick.




So, mon Capitaine, is it Homo sapiens or Homo insapiens?

Mon ami, so far the way we have fucked up this planet, it is Homo insapiens.

That business of Homo sapiens remains to be seen!

Quite!


References


Caldicott H. (Ed.) (2014). Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe. The New Press, New York, USA. 243 p.

Hiyama A., Nohara C., Kinjo S., Taira W., Gima S., Tanahara A. & Otaki J.M. (2012). The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly. Nature, Scientific Reports 2 (570). 1-10.

Lelieveld J., Kunkel J. & Lawrence M.G. (2012). Global risk of radioactive fallout after major nuclear reactor accidents. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12: 4245-4258.

Williams A. (2013). Revenge of the mutant vegetables? Pictures of crops 'deformed by fall-out of Fukushima nuclear disaster' sweep Asia. . . but is it all just a hoax? MailOnline, 17 July 2013. 9 p.

World Technology Senate (2013a). Fukushima Mutations. World Technology Senate Info Portals Documents: 1-21.

World Technology Senate (2013b). Future-Scope Project: Planet Earth at the Tipping Point: Emergency Funding RequestWorld Technology Senate Info Portals Documents: 1-92.

World Technology Senate (2015). FutureScope Project: Fukushima ReviewWorld Technology Senate Info Portals Documents: 1-46.

miércoles, 12 de agosto de 2015

PLANET OCEAN: IT IS YOU TOO!

Source: Planet Ocean.

By Gundhramns Hammer
August 12, 2015

In many parts of the world, Europe for example, it is beach season. August is the month when masses of people invade the sands by the sea, the Mediterranean.

Continue reading here.

lunes, 3 de agosto de 2015

THE SLOTH´S MEDICAL BANK: THE SEARCH FOR A WONDER DRUG IN PANAMA

Three-toed sloth (Bradipus variagatus). Source: YouTube.


By Gundhramns Hammer, PhD
August 3, 2015

The extensive use and overuse of antibiotics, sometimes abuse, in the medical and veterinary industries have created new breeds of bacteria that are resistant to drugs. This is why these pathogens are sometimes referred to as "super-bacteria" or "super-germs".

This situation has pushed the major pharmaceutical companies on a world-wide search for a wonder drug that will kill the drug resistant disease-causing microorganisms.

This search for new drugs has become sort of a drug war to see who catches the wonder early drugged worm!

Thus, no place on Earth is left alone without undergoing some kind of bio-prospecting, not even the hot jungles.

Everything is poked around, tested around, dissected around to the unhappiness of many a living creatures in the field and laboratories. 

This is how some scientists have stumbled upon the sloths´ epimicro- and macrobiome whilst doing bio-prospecting for new bioactive substances in Panama.

Sloths, arboreal mammals famous for their slow-moving habits and for looking like cozy bears, carry around an entire universe made up of millions of minute organisms attached to their coarse hairy coat, from fungi to algae.

And they are also hosts to an array of commensal and parasitic arthropods, carriers of various arthropod-borne viruses. Sloths are known to be reservoirs of the flagellate protozoan which causes leishmaniasis in humans, and may also carry trypanosomes and the protozoan Pneumocystis carinii (Gilmore et al., 2001).

So, what happened when sloths were bio-prospected for wonder drugs by scientists?

Eureka! Some fungi taken from the three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) in the jungles of Panama have been found to have anti-parasitic, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial activity, according the findings from a team of scientists led by Dr. Sarah Higginbotham (2014) who works for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. 

Which goes to show you that Biodiversity is big money!

Now, has anyone ask how the sloths feel when they are bothered, dislodged from the top of the trees and hit the ground upon falling to steal them wads of their hair by humans?

We doubt it. 

Besides, how could we when we do not even understand one another and are perpetually engaged in endless bickering about what is whose and warmongering!

Do the sloths see these poking humans as bio-pirates, for in a sense this is what they are.

Only God knows.


From the humans´ perspective, it is all there for the taking.

And from the eye of ecological economics, it is a matter of "ecological services"

Ecological services for the benefit of man in this case, of course.

Anyway, no matter what, obviously, we can see that saving Biodiversity makes sense. 

And from the big-pharma´s perspective, even more sense when these corporations want to make sense from things that have been put under the scope of economic sense in a world that is being more and more being subjected to the grip of their economic sense.

So much so that ecosystems have now a dollar value.

But these folks, like most humans, are still lacking a true sense of connection to Nature´s sense.

To wrap it up, let us now take a look at this sloth bio-prospecting and poking around in Panama (Video 1):


Source: Vice News

VICE News host Thomas Morton swings from the trees with an international team of scientists in Panama that's found a promising treatment for malaria, Chagas disease and breast cancer in the most unlikely place: The mossy fur of tree sloths. It's yet another reason to not cut down rainforests. About half of all drugs brought to market from 1997-2006 came from plants, fungi and bacteria discovered by "bio-prospectors" in nature. And we see that sloths are just one of many new and unusual frontiers for this research. [Video 1]

English/Español (subtítulos)
Video 1. Bio-prospecting on Panama. Uploaded by Vice News.



References

Gilmore D.P., Da Costa C.P.  &  Duarte D.P.F. (2001). Sloth biology: An update on their physiological ecology, behavior and role as vectors of arthropods and arboviruses. Braz. J. Med. Biol. Res. 34 (1): 9-25.

Higginbotham S., Wong W.R., Linington R.G., Spadadora C., Iturrado L. & Arnold A.E. (2014). Sloth hair as a novel source of fungi with potent anti-parasitic, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial bioactivity. PLoS ONE 9 (1): e84549. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084549.