Marijuana from The Botany
of Desire by Michael Pollan * Most of the hybridizing needed to adapt
cannabis to indoor conditions was done in the early 1980s by amateurs working
in the Pacific Northwest. * With the right equipment, an indoor grower
could create a utopia for his plants, an artificial habitat more perfect than
any in nature, and his happy, happy weeds would respond. *
Cannabis was one of the earliest plants to be domesticated—probably for
fiber first, then later as a drug. * Hemp was one of humankind’s main sources of
paper and cloth—now hemp and cannabis are as different as night and day. * The
word assassin is a corruption of the
word hashish. * I
suspect many gardeners regard themselves as alchemists transforming the dross
of compost into substances of rare value, beauty and power. * Gardeners transformed the derisive term homegrown into the most prized and
expensive flower in the world. *
Greece is estimated to host 90,000 refugees
and migrants, and is struggling to
cope. The Turkish government’s recent
decision to open the border is likely to lead to another surge of
displaced people. The Echo library
was founded in 2016, at the height of the refugee crisis, and relies on a
15-strong volunteer team alongside donations to stock its shelves and pay for
the van’s fuel. Some stories are hard to forget. “There is one family who speak Urdu and the
mother had made her way through every single Urdu book we had,” librarian Keira Dignan says. “When I was back in London I looked all over
the place for another Urdu book and eventually I found one.” Dignan returned to Greece, only to discover that the Urdu-speaking family had been
evicted from the squat they were sheltering in.
“My heart just dropped to my toes,” she says. She was haunted by images of “the little ones
crying hysterically”. Eventually,
though, on a routine visit to a camp, Keira found them. “They came out and saw the bus and we were
hugging and shouting,” she says as she remembers the moment. “It was wonderful to see them again. And we said, ‘Come, come, we have Urdu
books.’” Julia
Rampen Read more and see pictures at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/10/echo-mobile-library-greece-refugee-camps
RESOURCES ON CORONAVIRUS ProPublica
Series on Coronavirus https://www.propublica.org/series/coronavirus STAT Helen Branswell https://www.statnews.com/staff/helen-branswell/ Barron's Market Watch Analysis of why coronavirus is worse than
common flu 1) Health professionals point
out important distinctions between the COVID-19 illness and other viral
sicknesses like the flu. For a start,
there is no vaccine
for COVID-19 and
it could take many months or years to get one to market. What’s worse,
doctors fear the virus will mutate. 2)
While both the flu and COVID-19 may be transmitted in similar ways, there is
also a possible difference: COVID-19 might be spread through airborne
transmission. See analysis of
similarities and differences at:
People who contract the
novel coronavirus emit high amounts of virus very early on in their infection,
according to a new study from Germany that helps to explain the virus' quick
spread. Those who are only mildly sick
are likely not still infectious by about 10 days after they start to experience
symptoms. People infected begin to
develop antibodies to the virus quickly, typically within six to 12 days. The rapid rise of antibodies may explain why
about 80% of people infected with the virus do not develop severe disease.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/09/people-shed-high-levels-of-coronavirus-study-finds-but-most-are-likely-not-infectious-after-recovery-begins/ STAT
Coronavirus spread could last into next year, but impact could be
blunted, CDC official says. Officials do
not expect most people to suffer severe cases of Covid-19, the illness caused
by the coronavirus. An official noted
that most communities in the United States are not experiencing community
spread of the virus and said that people need to make decisions based on where
they live and their own needs. She also
advised that people who are not at high risk for severe illness, particularly
those not living in places like communities in Washington state and California
where the virus is known to be spreading, to act prudently. Masks, for example, should really be saved
for health care workers. https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/09/coronavirus-spread-could-last-into-next-year-but-impact-could-be-blunted-cdc-official-says/ Here’s a current statistics site on the virus
you may find helpful: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Thank you, Muse reader!
The rugged and beautiful
Cederberg Mountains in South Africa's Western Cape are named after one of the rarest
trees on the planet. The Clanwilliam
cedar lives nowhere else in the world.
This species originated up to 225 million years ago and survived the
last ice age. But today it is critically
endangered and its future hangs in the balance.
For the past 17 years, conservation manager Rika du Plessis has been
committed to saving the Clanwilliam cedar.
Historically, these trees were harvested for their wood but now they are
facing another threat. "Due to
climate change . . . the whole world is experiencing higher temperatures, lower
rainfall," says du Plessis, who works for governmental conservation
organization CapeNature. Du Plessis says
this region was once lined with avenues of cedars, but today they are mostly
found high up in the mountains, sparsely spread out between rocks, where water
is scarce. She estimates there are some
13,500 Clanwilliam cedars left in the wild.
In an effort to save the species, CapeNature has developed a
tree-planting scheme. It's a delicate
process that begins with harvesting seeds. The seeds are then used to propagate the cedar
trees in nurseries before planting them on the rocky outcrops where they grow
naturally. Du Plesis has personally been
involved in planting more than 13,000 trees. But life isn't easy for a cedar seedling. Rodents love to eat the trees' young shoots,
and fire is a significant threat. Only
10% of trees planted in the wilderness will survive, so to boost their chances
Du Plesis is also creating cedar plantations.
Here, trees are planted in "waterboxxes"--plastic containers
that collect water when it rains and slowly release it through a cotton string
to the roots of the tree. "The
waterboxxes provide water for the trees throughout the year and we are finding
that we almost have a 100% survival rate on the trees that we plant with the
waterboxxes," she says. Jo Munnik March 13, 2020 https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/africa/clanwilliam-cedar-cederberg-c2e-intl-spc/index.html
March 14,
2020 Italians have been singing from
their balconies across the country, in an effort to boost morale during its
nationwide lockdown that began this week, due to Covid-19. A video shared by Twitter user @valemercurii, recorded harmonies echoing down narrow streets
residents in the Tuscan city of Sienna, joined together in song. Posts have also emerged from Naples, of people
singing pop artist Andrea Sannino’s song, Abbracciami. Residents in the port city of Salerno, in the
south of the country, were recorded singing the country’s national anthem from
their balconies. Christine Kearney https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/italians-sing-patriotic-songs-from-their-balconies-during-coronavirus-lockdown
James Madison (March 16, 1751–June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat and philosopher who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is widely considered to be one of the most important Founding Fathers of the United States, and historians have generally ranked him as an above-average president. Wikipedia
From: Carolina Hansell Query about quarantine May I ask you, why they are using the word
quarantine when the person is quarantined for 15 days. Doesn’t the word quarantine mean 40 days? Can you please explain this to me? From Anu
Garg: For the same reason that the word “decimate”
does not mean: to kill one out of ten,
even though that’s the origin. It’s an
etymological fallacy to insist that a word should mean the same as when it was
coined (quarantine, about 600 years ago; decimate about 400 years ago). AWAD mail issue 924
March 14, 2020 Follow these basic guidelines for social
distancing-approved activities from Crystal Watson with the Center for Health
Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Avoid going to places where 25 or more people
may gather; Go places where you can maintain at least six feet of distance from
other people; Keep in mind your personal risk: If you're 60
years old and up or have a compromised immune system, you
should stay home as much as possible. "It
may seem harsh to take these steps sometimes, but really what we're doing is
protecting [vulnerable] people from becoming seriously ill," she told CNN.
"We can affect how this outbreak
unfolds by taking these measures." Now is the time to binge all the culture you've
dreamed of having enough time to consume. Find ideas at https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/us/what-to-do-this-weekend-coronavirus-trnd/index.html
Staying in this St.
Patrick's Day? Celebrate by reading one
of these 5 Irish books: Angela’s Ashes,
Normal People, Maeve’s Times: In Her Own
Words, An Irish Country Doctor, and How the Irish Saved
Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of
Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. Mary
Cadden Find brief descriptions of each
book at https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/03/14/irish-books-read-st-patricks-day/5032350002/
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2240
March 16, 2020
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