Permaculture Blog

Everything is connected.

Source: Large-Scale Study Reveals Strange Link Between Antibiotics And Cognitive Decline

Have fun and learn about Sustainability.

Ramona California.

PuraVida Aquatic will have a small booth with information. And while the Sustainable Ramona Facebook page does not say anything about it, I would highly recommend bringing the seating of your choice blankets or chairs and plenty of water. It is at a community garden and thus there will be plenty of water spigots but if you don’t want to drink tap water there will be bottled water for sale too. Plus there will be…

Live Bands All Day.

Saturday, April 23, 2022, Noon to 6:00 p.m.
Co-hosted by
Sustainable Ramona and
Ramona Community Garden.

Event Site: 11th St & San Vicente Rd Ramona. https://maps.app.goo.gl/QxG8Gc13fvVtDihT6

Multiple bands
Western Swing, Bluegrass, Oldies (50’s, 60’s, 70’s), Latin Jazz & Soul, Acoustic Duet and Environmental Songs.

Suggested donation: $10 adults, $5 for those 16 and younger.
Checks accepted: made payable to Ramona Community Garden with memo line Earth Day Festival.

Or buy tickets in advance Mail to: Earth Day Festival Committee, PO Box 491 Ramona, CA 92065.
For more information, go to: SustainableRamona.com.

First Annual
Ramona Earth Day Festival
Saturday, April 23, 2022, Noon to 6:00 p.m.
Co-hosted by
Sustainable Ramona and
Ramona Community Garden

https://maps.app.goo.gl/QxG8Gc13fvVtDihT6

Ahead of World Water Day, Metropolitan Water District officials Monday called on Southern Californians to significantly reduce their water use and warned of the possibility of mandated water conservation measures.

Source: Water officials call for increased conservation, warn of mandatory restrictions in SoCal

Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California [said] “That means the only water we get is for drinking and firefighting – so no watering of lawns.”

The EPA has approved Oxitec’s modified skeeters for release into the wild, as part of a strategy to reduce mosquito-borne diseases.

Source: 2 Billion Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Cleared for Release in California and Florida

Well in some ways this is better than pesticides and in some ways worse. But I have to wonder why I have to learn this from Gizmodo rather than NBCs, ABCs, or CBSs local news affiliates. When you take an oath taking the stand in a court of law you promise to tell the truth, _the whole truth_ , and …. There are a lot of people that believe that lying by omission is a lie. Sigh. It is all good!

Sources
https://bigthink.com/thinking/the-voltage-effect/
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-asch-conformity-experiments-2794996

Everyone in the room was shown a picture with three lines of varying lengths, in which one line was very obviously longer than others. Each person in the room was asked to state out loud which was the longest line. After the early confederates all identified the wrong line, more than a third of the participants, on average, went along with the clearly incorrect answer; over the course of twelve trials a whopping 75 percent went along with the obviously wrong answer in at least one instance. In contrast, when no confederates were present to tempt them to hop on their bandwagon, virtually all subjects chose the correct answer—demonstrating just how easily our independent judgment can be subsumed by our desire to “fit in” or be “one of the pack.”

This isn’t really confirmational bias but it is a bias. And it’s particularly relevant to our view of News.

Another

Given the sequence 2, 4, 6, for example, they typically formed a hypothesis that the rule was even numbers. Then the participants would present other sequences of even numbers, and researchers would tell them whether or not those numbers conformed to the rule. Through this process, participants were tasked with determining whether their hypothesis was correct. After several correct tries the participants believed that they had discovered the rule. But in fact they hadn’t, because the rule was much simpler: increasing numbers.

The most interesting aspect of this study (and the many others like it) is that almost all subjects only tested number sequences that conformed to their personal hypothesis, and very few tried a number sequence that might disprove their hypothesis. Wason’s experiment demonstrated that most people, regardless of intelligence, fail to examine their hypotheses critically. Instead, they try only to confirm them by “fast thinking,” using quick heuristics, or mental shortcuts.

This is definitely confirmational bias and Ooooops. They would have gotten me … 10, 16, 26 (see the pattern?) I would not have tried decreasing or negative numbers :-). And I’m better than some. Do you read Al Jazeera? Or Tass? Maybe the South China Morning Post? or do you only read American or Western news.

BTW American Democratic news versus Republican news is still only Western news.
Best to you all.

A pig kidney was successfully tested on a dead patient last month for the first time without being immediately rejected.

Source: Pig kidney transplant successfully tested on deceased woman

Since they say it wasn’t rejected she _had_ to have been brain dead but her body was still “living.”

This is an important step forward in realizing the promise of xenotransplantation, which will save thousands of lives each year in the not-too-distant future,” said United Therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt in a statement. Revivicor is a subsidiary.

Honestly if you’re worried about covid you should be horrified and terrified at this. Xenografts or xenotransplantation is really not a good idea

Oh my! Another reason to be vegan.

Following a safety review, U.S. food regulators said short-haired cattle produced through gene editing can be raised for meat production.

Source: FDA clears CRISPR cattle for meat production

And remember that term “precision breeding.”. Oh my.

Acceligen, a “precision breeding” company based in the Minneapolis suburbs, used the CRISPR gene-editing technique to produce cattle with the short-hair trait, known as a slick coat. Some scientists say cattle with an extremely short coat may be better able to tolerate hot weather.

A “slick coat” would also make them easier to butcher and process. Can’t imagine that it would increase skin cancer rates.

Be well my friends!

Scientists with the USF Genomics program and Center for Global Health and Infectious Disease Research have taken a significant step in providing the people of Rwanda the scientific tools they need to help address mental health issues that stemmed from the 1994 genocides of the Tutsi ethnic group.

Source: Rwandan Genocide Chemically Modified the DNA of Victims and Victims’ Offspring

Epigenetics is the study of systems that modify DNA. Not changing the actual coding- just the expression of it. This is usually done by methylation systems. Regular stress, fear, anxiety, frustration, etc seems to turn on these DNA modification systems that can affect the expression of a fetuses genes. The Rwandan genocide may be just a mild example of what our politicians have done with the fear-mongering over covid. I hope that most of you reading this can set aside some of the fear and anxiety that seems to be encouraged these days. Be well my friends.

The bill, signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, follows a law from earlier in October that expanded liability protections for food donations.

Source: UPDATE: California governor signs new date label bill to reduce food waste

5.5 million tons of food are going to just California landfills each year! Oh my. So if we eat about 3 lb of food a day that’s about half a ton in a year per person. You could feed all of Los Angeles free on what we just throw out.

If you believe in permaculture you do not believe in throwing out lots of food. Now granted a fair amount of this waste is from restaurants and they actually have a monetary interest in not throwing out good food. So probably the majority of the waste that can be reduced comes from residential refrigerators.

My ex-significant other used to throw out more food than I bought. Partially because I was eating a lot of stuff from my garden. Much of which actually never made it inside.:-) But she would buy lots of lettuce and celery and stuff that she thought she would use for cooking and not get around to it; it would get pushed to the back and go bad and then she’d buy some more. Of course I got lots of stuff for my red worms and composting :-)

There’s also information available that suggests that going to the grocery store if you’re hungry is not a good idea. Everything looks good. You buy fruits and vegetables that will just sit in your refrigerator and rot. the problem is a lot of people go to the grocery store on their way home from work and they have not had any food since lunch. Have some granola bars or an apple or something before you go into the grocery store. Just an idea.
Be well my friends.

More than 100,000 tons of pesticides are being sprayed each year onto feed crops for factory farms in the US, animal welfare and conservation groups have revealed.

Source: US meat industry using 235m pounds of pesticides a year, study finds

100,000 _tons_ – just thought you might want to know that there’s another reason for being an organic vegetarian :-) Of course there are three pages of _approved_ pesticides by the USDA that you can spray and still call it organic so growing some veggies in your own backyard works too. Get a plot in a community garden!
Best to you all.