Interesting threads, several that i missed and they do show that others are asking questions about the flu:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/bioterrorism/index
http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext02/wldfl10.htm
WILD FLOWERS.
An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors
By Neltje Blanchan
PREFACE
Surely a foreword of explanation is called for from one who has
the temerity to offer a surfeited public still another book on
wild flowers. Inasmuch as science has proved that almost every
blossom in the world is everything it is because of its necessity
to attract insect friends or to repel its foes - its form,
mechanism, color, markings, odor, time of opening and closing,
and its season of blooming being the result of natural selection
by that special insect upon which each depends more or less
absolutely for help in perpetuating its species - it seems fully
time that the vitally important and interesting relationship
existing between our common wild flowers and their winged
benefactors should be presented in a popular book.
Is it enough to know merely the name of the flower you meet in
the meadow? The blossom has an inner meaning, hopes and fears
that inspire its brief existence, a scheme of salvation for its
species in the struggle for survival that it has been slowly
perfecting with some insect’s help through the ages. It is not a
passive thing to be admired by human eyes, nor does it waste its
sweetness on the desert air. It is a sentient being, impelled to
act intelligently through the same strong desires that animate
us, and endowed with certain powers differing only in degree, but
not in kind, from those of the animal creation. Desire ever
creates form.
Do you doubt it? Then study the mechanism of one of our common
orchids or milkweeds that are adjusted with such marvelous
delicacy to the length of a bee’s tongue or of a butterfly’s leg;
learn why so many flowers have sticky calices or protective
hairs; why the skunk cabbage, purple trillium, and carrion flower
emit a fetid odor while other flowers, especially the white or
pale yellow night bloomers, charm with their delicious breath;
see if you cannot discover why the immigrant daisy already
whitens our fields with descendants as numerous as the sands of
the seashore, whereas you may tramp a whole day without finding a
single native ladies’ slipper. What of the sundew that not only
catches insects, but secretes gastric juice to digest them? What
of the bladderwort, in whose inflated traps tiny crustaceans are
imprisoned, or the pitcher plant, that makes soup of its guests?
Why are gnats and flies seen about certain flowers, bees,
butterflies, moths or humming birds about others, each visitor
choosing the restaurant most to his liking? With what infinite
pains the wants of each guest are catered to! How relentlessly
are pilferers punished! The endless devices of the more ambitious
flowers to save their species from degeneracy by close inbreeding
through fertilization with their own pollen, alone prove the
operation of Mind through them. How plants travel, how they send
seeds abroad in the world to found new colonies, might be studied
with profit by Anglo-Saxon expansionists. Do vice and virtue
exist side by side in the vegetable world also? Yes, and every
sinner is branded as surely as was Cain. The dodder, Indian pipe,
broomrape and beech-drops wear the floral equivalent of the
striped suit and the shaved head. Although claiming most
respectable and exalted kinsfolk, they are degenerates not far
above the fungi. In short, this is a universe that we live in;
and all that share the One Life are one in essence, for natural
law is spiritual law. “Through Nature to God,” flowers show a way
to the scientist lacking faith.
Although it has been stated by evolutionists for many years that
in order to know the flowers, their insect relationships must
first be understood, it is believed that “Nature’s Garden” is the
first American work to explain them in any considerable number of
species. Dr. Asa Gray, William Hamilton Gibson, Clarence Moores
Weed, and Miss Maud Going in their delightful books or lectures
have shown the interdependence of a score or more of different
blossoms and their insect visitors. Hidden away in the
proceedings of scientific societies’ technical papers are the
invaluable observations of such men as Dr. William Trelease of
Wisconsin and Professor Charles Robertson of Illinois. To the
latter especially, I am glad to acknowledge my indebtedness.
Sprengel, Darwin, Muller, Delpino, and Lubbock, among others,
have given the world classical volumes on European flora only,
but showing a vast array of facts which the theory of adaptation
to insects alone correlates and explains. That the results of
illumining researches should be so slow in enlightening the
popular mind can be due only to the technical, scientific
language used in setting them forth, language as foreign to the
average reader as Chinese, and not to be deciphered by the
average student either, without the help of a glossary. These
writings, as well as the vast array of popular books - too many
for individual mention - have been freely consulted after studies
made afield.
[continues, full book on this page]
http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/2/3/6/12363/12363.htm
The Botanist’s Companion, Volume II / Salisbury, William, -1823
THE BOTANIST’S COMPANION,
OR AN INTRODUCTION TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF PRACTICAL BOTANY, AND THE USES OF
PLANTS. EITHER GROWING WILD IN GREAT BRITAIN, OR CULTIVATED FOR THE
PUROSES OF AGRICULTURE, MEDICINE, RURAL OECONOMY, OR THE ARTS.
By WILLIAM SALISBURY, OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN OF SLOANE-STREET.
“Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, and every tree
yielding fruit, and to you it shall be for meat.”
Russian wheat go home!
http://www.egyptiangazette.net.eg/gazette/home/detail_2_22.shtml
Shortly after the entry of a consignment of adultrated Russian wheat into the country has caused a heated discussion under the dome of the Egyptian Parliament, another shipment of Russian wheat of the same bad quality is on its way to Egypt’s ports.
On May 13, Egypt quarantined 52.5 tonnes of Russian wheat at the Red Sea Port of Safaga for quality control reasons, after the labs affiliated to the Agricultural Quarantine Department found dead bugs, seeds and other impurities above the permitted limit in the shipment.
Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza said that finding strange seeds and bugs in any consignment of wheat is quite normal. “But, if the impurities exceed the agreed percentage, the wheat needs to be purified and this is what actually happened to the consignment in question,” the Minister said. “It has been purified again, reducing the impurities to a safe level.
However, if live insects were found in the shipment, we would have immediately turned it away without any checks,” he added.“We can never release any consignment into the market unless we’ve first made sure that it’s fit for human consumption,” the Minister said. This problem is nothing new.
Last year, a consignment of 60,000 tonnes of wheat was rejected and the importer was obliged to return it to its country of origin. Last summer, tonnes of substandard Ukrainian wheat entered the country causing the production of low-quality bread. Officials in the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) were forced to mix the Ukrainian wheat with wheat produced locally in an attempt to improve its quality. Unlike the first-grade wheat imported from America, Canada, France and Australia, Russian and Ukrainian wheat is fourth or fifth grade.
Egypt, which is the biggest importer of wheat, has bought over five million tonnes of this cereal from overseas in the current fiscal year, most of it from Russia.
Why do we have to settle with wheat of poor quality, when we are one of the world’s top wheat importers, local experts ask.“We import a lot of Russian and Ukrainian wheat because it’s cheap. One tonne is $50 cheaper than one tonne of French wheat,” Nader Nour Eddin, a professor of agricultural crops in the Faculty of Agriculture at Ain Shams University, told the Arabic-language Akher Saa magazine.
Fun projects for the start of summer and the end of school!
~ Make an Armadillo from a Milk Carton
http://www.janbrett.com/armadillo_carton_project_page.htm
~ Take the Chicken Challenge
http://janbrett.com/games/chicken_challenge.htm
~ Learn How to Draw a Hedgehog
http://www.janbrett.com/how_to_draw_a_hedgehog.htm
~ Bake Hedgehog Cookies
http://www.janbrett.com/bake_hedgehog_cookies.htm
~ Hedgehog Coloring Costumes
http://www.janbrett.com/costumes_main_choice.htm
~ Learn How to Draw a Bear
http://www.janbrett.com/learn_to_draw_a_bear.htm
~ Play Mouse Concentration
http://www.janbrett.com/piggybacks/mouse_concentration.htm
~ Hedgie Loves his Classmates Coloring Page
http://janbrett.com/hedgie_loves_his_classmates.htm
~ Make a Creature of the Deep
http://www.janbrettvideos.com/how_to_draw_a_creature_of_the_deep_high_bandwidth.htm
http://www.janbrettvideos.com/how_to_draw_a_creature_of_the_deep_low_bandwidth.htm
It’s a pleasure to be in touch.
Sincerely,
Jan Brett
Download a Free Jan Brett How to Draw Video - http://janbrett.com/video/video_main_page.htm
Read all about Jan Brett’s books and get the best bookstore prices - http://www.janbrett.com/bookstores/hedgies_lets_go_shopping.htm
Vertical Farming - Video of experts in conversation - from the National Building
Museum
Presenter(s): Dickson Despommier, Robin Elmslie Osler, Carolyn Steel, and J. William
Thompson
Date Recorded: April 29, 2009
Duration: 01:29:59
Sponsored by: The Home Depot Foundation
Learn about the future of urban food production with Robin Osler, Elmslie Osler
Architects; Dickson Despommier, Professor of Public Health, Columbia University;
Carolyn Steel, Author of Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives; and J. William
Thompson, FASLA , editor, Landscape Architecture magazine.
Campbell’s - Help Grow Your Own Soup
“At Campbell, we believe quality ingredients are grown from the ground up - and
make truly delicious soup. That’s why, for over 70 years we’ve painstakingly cultivated
seeds for tomatoes that go into our delicious soup.
“Now you can get seeds we use for growing tomatoes. Your request will help Campbell
donate seeds to plants gardens in communities and schools across America. This is
all part of our commitment to the National FFA Organization, which is dedicated
to developing our future leaders through agricultural education.
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More about these stories here:
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102590095157&s=1304&e=0016pfHFg0tVPaXnqjJAW9aw838h09vb7j4XhK1jnAVpO_riKAgCdwN_XCcwgmfDZc2j2JaiZYLLEEfOcYn_7TZLmw3dk5u7JLlnjx-92kmu7-xMXjLr0ZA1Q==]
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Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture