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Monarch butterflies appear to use medicinal plants to treat their offspring for disease, research by biologists at Emory University shows. Their findings were published online Oct. 6 in the journal Ecology Letters.

“We have shown that some species of milkweed, the larva’s food plants, can reduce parasite infection in the monarchs,” says Jaap de Roode, the evolutionary biologist who led the study. “And we have also found that infected female butterflies prefer to lay their eggs on plants that will make their offspring less sick, suggesting that monarchs have evolved the ability to medicate their offspring.”

Few studies have been done on self-medication by animals, but some scientists have theorized that the practice may be more widespread than we realize. “We believe that our experiments provide the best evidence to date that animals use medication,” de Roode says.

via Monarch butterflies use medicinal plants to treat offspring for disease.

Astronauts are apparently scoring dope while in orbit, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times:

A shuttle worker employed by United Space Alliance found a plastic bag with a white powder residue — later confirmed to be cocaine — in a shuttle processing hangar at Kennedy Space Center last week.

This raises an important question: from whom are the astronauts scoring? And, is the drug war being extended into near-Earth orbit? More, is the cocaine being scored in space and brought back to Earth in any way connected to the U.S.’s secret moon base so recently exposed? Additionally, why are the U.S. and Russia spatting over an “asteroid hit“? Just what is meant by the term “hit” in this content? Could the asteroid, in parallel with the moon being made of green cheese, be made of pure cocaine?

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs 50th Anniversary Edition

You enter the moment of the “naked lunch” when you realize just what that is quivering at the end of your fork. We’ve been staring at that living, gelatinous mass for 50 years now – and we still don’t know what it is.

It’s a novel. It’s a poem. It’s (as one shrill Amazon reviewer has it) the ranting of a LIBERAL ATHEIST JUNKY. It’s (drug-induced or not, take your pick) stream-of-consciousness. It’s the first prose cut-up. It’s pornography. It’s the end (or beginning) of (post-)modernism. It’s The Bomb, it’s a how-to-be-a-writer manual. Here’s the definitive answer to all that: Yes, it is. Naked Lunch is all that and more.

Naked Lunch is one of the most written-about books of the twentieth century. It’s up there with Ulysses and The Wasteland for the title of “book most likely to generate a graduate thesis.” That’s because, like those other two, it’s an open text: you’re quite likely to find there precisely what you go looking for.

Everything, that is (as a different Amazon reviewer complained) except stuff about lunch and nudity: “doesn’t anybody like to eat in the nude?” Read the rest of this entry »

Washington state House lawmakers will hear testimony at 1:30pm [Jan. 13] in favor of a pair of bills seeking to significantly reduce state marijuana penalties. Members of the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness will debate two pending proposals, House Bill 1177 and House Bill 2401. House Bill 1177 seeks to reclassify the possession of forty grams or less of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a class 2 civil infraction punishable by a $100 fine. House Bill 2401 seeks to “remove all existing civil and criminal penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana.” This will be the first time state lawmakers have ever debated regulating marijuana production, distribution, and use by adults.

NORML representatives will be testifying in Olympia on Wednesday (Read testimony here.), and NORML Advisory Board member Rick Steves will also be hosting a public forum on the topic at Olympia’s Capitol Theater on Tuesday evening. If you live in Washington, you can urge the Committee to vote ‘yes’ on one or both of these measures by going here and here.

via Coming To A State House Near You: Legal Cannabis? | NORML Blog.

NORML reports this in this week’s legislative update for Washington:

Legislators have pre-filed House Bill 2401, which seeks to “remove all existing civil and criminal penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana.” You can read the full text of the proposal here, and you can show your support for the measure by going to NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here. (FYI: Separate decriminalization legislation also remains pending, and may be supported by going here.)

Have I mentioned recently that I think prohibition is just plain stupid? Not to mention immoral and expensive….

The American Medical Association (AMA) voted today to reverse its long-held position that marijuana be retained as a Schedule I substance with no medical value. The AMA adopted a report drafted by the AMA Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) entitled, “Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes,” which affirmed the therapeutic benefits of marijuana and called for further research. The CSAPH report concluded that, “short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.” Furthermore, the report urges that “the Schedule I status of marijuana be reviewed with the goal of facilitating clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.”

via Opposing Views: OPINION:AMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits.

The Colorado ski town of Breckenridge has voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana.

Early returns Tuesday night showed the proposal winning with 72 percent of the vote. The measure would allow adults over 21 to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana.

The measure is largely symbolic because pot possession remains a state crime for people without medical clearance. But supporters said they wanted to send a message to local law enforcement to stop busting small-time pot smokers.

The vote comes as communities nationwide are struggling with how to enforce pot laws at a time when medical marijuana has surged in popularity.

via Colorado ski town legalizes pot.

From this week’s Harper’s Weekly:

Chicago rats fed a diet of sausage, pound cake, bacon, cheesecake, and Ho Hos began to behave like rats addicted to heroin, consuming increasing amounts of food to feel satisfied and continuing to eat even when to do so meant that electric shocks were delivered to their tiny paws. When switched to healthful food (“the salad option”) the rats, which had become obese, their brains numbed by junk, simply refused to eat. A man in Iowa punched another man, who was ordering Mexican food, for being a zombie. Researchers from Oregon determined that ancient beavers did not eat trees, and a firm in New Jersey was distributing vaginal mints.

Subscribe to said Weekly by visiting this link.

The study on junk food addition in rats was reported recently in ScienceNews: “This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neurobiological underpinnings,” says study coauthor Paul Johnson of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla.

KJ and I are on the return leg of a week exploring the wilds of Washington and British Columbia. On the first day out, driving west along the back roads of eastern Washington, we stumbled upon this field. The truck here really is bogged down in dried mud. I’ve no idea what the story is, but the image was irresistible.

Don't get bogged down with meth. Photo by Brian Charles Clark somewhere in eastern Washington, summer 2009

It’s official! The DNA evidence is in, and so is Histiophryne psychedelica.

“Psychedelica” seems the perfect name for a species of fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and behaves in ways contrary to its brethren. So says University of Washington’s Ted Pietsch, who is the first to describe the new species in the scientific literature and thus the one to select the name.

Read more in Science News Daily…