I’m reminded of a case study that describes an individual who had come to associate sexual arousal with being covered in insects. As a child, that individual had been locked into closets for unimaginable amounts of time, and during those times, bugs would frequently fill the space and crawl on him. The child, trying to seek some sort of escape from the reality of his experience, found comfort only in sexual release—even though he was too young to even know what sex was or meant. His body knew only that it felt good, and it provided the only possible escape available to him. In his mind, those associations became, quite literally, wired together.
--Roger Thompson | The Atlantic | December 19, 2014
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/times-up-for-timeout/383897/

*new tag: "kink"

In the field, some practitioners will pack an open wound with black soil to help it heal. You can get black peat that is used for this purpose and others. It is not pasteurized or sterilized in any way; it is full of living organisms. After the battle of Shiloh in the US civil war, soldiers whose wounds glowed in the dark had better survival. The organism (Photorhabdus luminescens) that was growing in their wounds came from the guts of nematodes living in the soil. Presumably this organism outcompeted the pathogenic ones. This kind of antibiotic mechanism cannot be ignored when antibiotic drugs are increasing ineffective.

( More about the biology, and the source, behind cut.Collapse )

The difference between the right word
and the almost right word
is like the difference between lightning
and the lightning bug.
--Mark Twain

Pesticides, etc.
( notesCollapse )

Sleeping sickness aka African trypanosomiasis
--parasitic disease in people and animals
--caused by protozoa of genus Trypanosoma
--transmitted by the tsetse fly
--endemic in certain regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (36 countries and 60 million people)
--estimated 50,000 to 70,000 current infx
--3 major epidemics: 1896–1906, 1920 and 1970.
--tse tse flies mainly found by rivers and lakes, in gallery-forests and in wooded savannah
--Sleeping sickness occurs only in sub-Saharan Africa in regions where there are tsetse flies that can transmit the disease.
--For reasons that are so far unexplained, there are many regions where tsetse flies are found, but sleeping sickness is not.
--Worldwide, 25,000 new cases of both East and West African trypanosomiasis are reported each year
--World Health Organization says it is vastly underreported.
--Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT)
--caused by flagellate protozoan, Trypanosoma brucei, which exists in 2 morphologically identical subspecies: Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense (East African or Rhodesian African trypanosomiasis) and Trypanosoma brucei gambiense (West African or Gambian African trypanosomiasis)
--Both parasites transmitted to human hosts by bites of infected tsetse flies (Glossina species)
--tse tse flies are found only in Africa
( moreCollapse )

not to be confused with African trypanosomiasis which is caused by T. brucei gambiense and T. brucei rhodesiense and transmitted by Tse Tse flise
( notesCollapse )

In the distance a metal machine is banging rhythmically and ringing with a medium tone. The radio is playing the BBC program World Have Your Say, on why nobody seems willing to criticize Obama. I am willing. He just doesn't tell me enough specifics for my criticisms to be anything more than not knowing his intentions or character, and being fairly certain that like the other republicrats he is unlikely to make the really big forward-thinking changes that we need to make in the way our nation is run. He's not talking about our national debt, bankruptcy and failing currency, our impending inability to fund medicare, medicaide and social security, our overextended and unpopular military presence in 130 nations. Did you know that we have 75,000 troops stationed in Germany? How long has it been since we have been at war there? What are we DOING?? ....Obama is not talking about the stuff that I care about, so I don't trust him. I don't think he has the guts to buck the system. I think he wants a long and glorious political career, and that means following the rules.
( random braindumpCollapse )

including: AMOEBAE, FLAGELLATED PROTOZOA and SPOROZOA
( these notes integrated June 2012Collapse )