Free Republic

FAIRBANKS—Adult Arctic lampreys have fallen from the sky four times this week in Fairbanks, including at the Value Village parking lot, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That's unusual for a fish that's seldom seen in the water up here. The Arctic lamprey is a roughly foot-long eel-like fish with a no jaw and a nightmarish looking set of teeth. This week, a live one was spotted at the Value Village on Airport Way and saved in a bucket, according to a post on the department's Facebook page (on.fb.me/1G7su0B). There have been three additional reports of lampreys...

Do you love the snap that chili peppers give to your food? Are you a fan of the heat they impart to a variety of dishes? Even if you’re not, you may want to take another look at the humble chili pepper. From migraine relief to weight control, researchers are verifying what some cultures have known for centuries: the chili pepper and its key constituents, like capsaicin, deliver a host of health benefits. Here are just some of the ways chili peppers are helping to fight some of the country’s most common health conditions: Migraine relief The World Health Organization...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating a monkey breeding facility in southwest Florida after an animal welfare group said an undercover worker found sick and injured monkeys living in inhumane and unsanitary conditions. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released a video Monday purporting to show conditions at Primate Products Inc. in Hendry County. PETA spokesman Dan Paden said the video was taken by a PETA employee who was hired to work undercover at the facility. PETA first gave the video exclusively to The Associated Press. After meeting with PETA, inspectors from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

U.S. Secret Service officers make preparations to install spikes atop the White House fence after a series of high-profile security lapses.

There's something in the trees of Betty Steflik Memorial Preserve in Flagler Beach. It is not the elusive Florida Skunk Ape though. It's something much more real and dangerous: pepper pickers -- a group of volunteers trying to remove invasive Brazilian pepper trees from the park. Mike Lagasse is the Flagler County Land Management Coordinator. “Even if we knock it out of this park, you know, it's in people's yards," He said. "And birds don't know boundaries, you know.” That's because birds like the bright red berries the trees produce in the winter and have helped spread the plant. The...

The teeming plant world could become a virtual mystery in the coming decades as college students increasingly shy away from studying botany and universities across the U.S. shutter their long-standing herbaria. Since 1988, the number of research universities offering botany degrees has dropped by half, according to National Science Foundation research funding statistics. And the National Center for Education Statistics reports that fewer than 400 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral botany degrees were awarded in 2012. Educators say that’s because students are being pushed into more modern, technology-related majors. Current botanists fear that will lead to a dearth of people able...

Long stretches of densely packed tenement buildings still line the concrete streets of the Lower East Side, standing as living artefacts of its 19th- and 20th-century immigrant past. Bathtubs sit in renovated kitchens and floor-to-ceiling windows look out on to brick walls in elegant attempts to mask the neighbourhood’s cramped topography. This tension courses down Clinton Street, where some of the city’s best restaurants now occupy narrow storefronts that once sold pickled herring from barrels. “There’s so much cultural resonance there, but it’s a part of the city that’s bereft of public space, landmarks or any civic attention,” the architect...

There are several ways to make a patriotic garden. My mother-in-law arranged hers as floral tribute around her community's flag. Use this option if you have a flag pole. Or place a flag in the center. Make sure that it is in a solid holder, does not touch the ground and is either lit at night or taken down at dusk. You can create a patriotic garden around a lamp post. Place small flags in and around the perimeter and leave the light on at night.

My Dad's been experimenting with ways to prevent squirrels from accessing his bird feeder. Mounting it in another place would be too easy. Any other ideas?

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

Recently, scientists from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) have jointly demonstrated cream separation from natural whole milk at liter-scales for the first time using ultrasonic standing waves—a novel, fast and nondestructive separation technique typically used only in small-scale settings. At the 169th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), being held May 18-22 2015 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the researchers will report the key design and effective operating parameters for milk fat separation in batch and continuous systems. The project, co-funded by the Geoffrey-Gardiner Dairy Foundation and the Australian Research...

I put in(pots) 5 varieties of Tomato from this outfit(got them all at Bamgaars)(http://chefjeffsgarden.com/about.html) and one Pepper Plant(also in a pot).

The most luscious watermelon the Deep South has ever produced was once so coveted, 19th-century growers used poison or electrocuting wires to thwart potential thieves, or simply stood guard with guns in the thick of night. The legendary Bradford was delectable — but the melon didn't ship well, and it all but disappeared by the 1920s. Now, eight generations later, a great-great-great-grandson of its creator is bringing it back. The story of the Bradford begins on a prison ship during the American Revolutionary War. It was 1783, and the British had captured an American soldier named John Franklin Lawson and...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

The California almond is getting a bad reputation. At least that’s what the numbers show. According to an April report released by the Pacific Institute, a non-profit research firm based in Oakland, almonds are not the most water intensive crop grown in the Golden State. In fact, almonds tie with pistachios for fourth place in the ranking of California’s water intensive crops and require on average four acre-feet of water per acre. One acre-foot is approximately 326,000 gallons of water. Alfalfa and rice are the top two water users, averaging five acre-feet of water per acre a piece, though alfalfa...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no...

A team of researchers working in Italy has found that simply spraying a spider with a carbon nanotube solution can cause the spider to spin stronger webs. In their paper they have uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, the team describes their experiments with both graphene and nanotube solutions and what happened when they sprayed it on ordinary spiders. As the researchers note, while silk production using silkworms has been quite successful, doing the same to harvest silk from spiders has not, (because of their territorial traits, the complex nature of the silk they make and their cannibalistic tendencies) which...

"Gas or Charcoal?" The most frequently asked question since "Chicken or Egg?" The flame war between charcoal purists and gas hotheads burns brighter than the debate between Mac and PC users. You should read some of the slop slung on the barbecue message boards. On second thought, don't. Let me try to sort it out for you with a few inflammatory thoughts.

Good afternoon Gardeners! We have the most beautiful day so far this week. Temps in 60s and beautiful sun shine and blue sky. Truly a gift from God. I just wanted to mention to those who may have missed JRandomFreeper's post yesterday, that he has started his Chemo Therapy today, and needs your prayers. Thank you all in advance for helping with this request. Not much has changed here. I have been taking the tomatoes in and out. Yesterday, I forgot and left them outside, but they seem to be ok. Hubby plans to plant corn this weekend. I'll wait...