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A Chinese national claiming to conduct research as a “visiting scholar” at a prestigious Michigan university now finds herself facing a long prison term after pleading no contest this week to three smuggling charges and making false statements to federal officers. Chengxuan Han, also a Ph.D. candidate at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, pleaded no contest this week in a Detroit federal court to sending four packages from China containing concealed biological materials to colleagues working in a University of Michigan laboratory. The incident is the most recent criminal case involving Chinese students possessing potential hazardous...

An elusive fungus capable of generating quantities of a compound used to synthesize the hallucinogen LSD has finally been discovered on the morning glory vine after decades of searching. Almost a century ago, the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman hypothesized the whimsical plant might harbor a species that belongs to a family of ergot-generating fungi. As the man who discovered and was first to synthesize LSD ( lysergic acid diethylamide) from the ergot alkaloid, Hoffman had been keen to expand our understanding of the biology and chemistry of organisms that produced it. While biochemical data hinted that a commonly cultivated morning...

Claviceps spp. Members of the genus Claviceps infect more than 600 plant species, including sedges, rushes, and grasses. Important host plants for Claviceps purpurea include rye, triticale, barley, oats, wheat, millet, Kentucky bluegrass, and brome, orchard, timothy, and quack grasses. In terms of food safety, infection of grains with Claviceps purpurea is of greatest concern, although Claviceps africana found in sorghum and Claviceps fusiformis in pearl millet also need to be considered. Claviceps cyperi, found on the weed yellow nut sedge in South Africa, has caused ergot alkaloid toxicosis in dairy cattle. Claviceps paspali grows on grasses of the Paspalum...

13th October 1917 Fatima, Portugal Estimates of the number of people present range from 30,000 and 40,000, by Avelino de Almeida writing for the Portuguese newspaper O Século,[15] to 100,000, estimated by lawyer Dr. José Almeida Garrett, the son of a professor of natural sciences at the University of Coimbra.[16][17] Various claims have been made as to what actually happened during the event. According to many witnesses, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and the Sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, and to cast...

The Ancient Greeks and Romans used opium, marijuana, and other narcotics to relieve pain and induce sleep. They may have also enhanced rituals and enlivened banquets with hallucinogens.Drug Use in Ancient Greece and Rome | September 17, 2021 | toldinstone | 23:03

The Dark Haunted History of the Cursed Town of Black River Falls Brent Swancer August 4, 2019 Every once and a while a place will pop up that seems to draw to it an inordinate amount of strange phenomena and strangeness. It is not always clear why this should be, but looking at thier histories and records it can clearly be seen that they have been host to more oddness than most, as if weird forces are drawn to them. One such bizarre place is a small town in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, which for around a decade in...

LONDON (Reuters) – A 350-year-old notebook which documents the trials of women convicted of witchcraft in England during the 17th century has been published online. The notebook written by Nehemiah Wallington, an English Puritan, recounts the fate of women accused of having relationships with the devil at a time when England was embroiled in a bitter civil war. The document reveals the details of a witchcraft trial held in Chelmsford in July 1645, when more than a hundred suspected witches were serving time in Essex and Suffolk according to his account. "Divers (many) of them voluntarily and without any forcing...

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, October 31, 2002 - In the New England town of Salem, once considered the city of peace for the New World and the gateway to a glorious Christian commonwealth, the community prepares for the annual Halloween celebration, viewed by many as a triumph over the narrow-mindedness of Christianity. More than three hundred years after the now-infamous witch trials of 1692, Salem has become a Mecca for witches, as covens and practitioners of the occult arts gather from around the nation each October 31 to glory in paganism and identify with the city whose name has become synonymous with...