ÿþ<html> <head> <title> Weird Science </title> <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Toronto, autopoiesis, autopoesis, botany, paranormal, dowsing, pwdre ser, angel hair, crop circle, fairy ring, UFO"> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="D. Andrew White, a promotion professional for : artists, horticulturalists, silviculturalists, landscapers, architects, designers, programmers, consultants and other professionals"> </head> <body leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" rightmargin="0" background="back.jpg" > <table width="100%" border="0" > <tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="center" valign="top" background="back.jpg" > <h1 align="center">WEIRD SCIENCE</h1> <p align="center"> D. Andrew White M.Sc. - 16/12/2012 <br> <img src="slime.jpg" width="200" alt="Metarichia slime mould" > </p> </td> <td align="center" valign="center" valign="top" background="back.jpg" > <a href="weird4.htm" ><img src="fort.jpg" alt="weird science" border="0" ></a> <br> </td></tr> <td align="center" valign="center" valign="top" background="back.jpg" > <h2 align="center">PseudoScience</h2> <a href="#ring" > Crop Circle Mythology </a> <br> <a href="#dw" > Dowsing a Critique </a> <br> <a href="weird2.htm#herb" > Herbalism a Critique </a><br> <a href="#ps" > Outer Space Blobs </a> </td> <td align="center" valign="center" valign="top" background="back.jpg" > <h2 align="center">Gee-Whiz Science</h2> <a href="water.htm" > Biogeography & Soils </a><br> <a href="#ah" > Cobweb Rains & Angel Hair</a> <br> <a href="#storm" >Electric Meteors & Storm Lights</a><br> <a href="fungi.htm" > Moulds & Toadstools </a> <br> </td> </tr> </table> <table align="center" width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="12" > <tr> <td align="left" valign="middle" width="80%" > <p align="justify" > There are a number of so-called <i>paranormal</i> phenomena have long been associated with botany and natural history. Sometimes I have heard these topics discussed in various contexts.Some of these claims are widely considered <i>pseudosciences</i>. After researching such topics I have discovered that many of them are based on poor scientific reasoning, buffered by a strong desire to believe in a comforting world-view. In short, I have become a sceptic. Though, there are some pretty weird phenomena that are quite real. It is important to separate the wheat from the chaff! <br> </p> <br> <br> <a name="ps" > <H1 align="center" >Pwdre Ser - Space Blobs</h1> <p align="center" > <tt> As he whose quicker eye both trace<br> A false star shot to a mark't place<br> Do's run apace<br> And, thinking it to catch,<br> A jelly up do snatch.<br> <b>- Sir I. Suckling</b>,<br> </tt> Poems Farewell to Love - 1541. </p> <p align="justify" > According to old legends and poetry, luminous bodies that fall from the sky can leave behind a fetid jelly lying upon the ground. These 'jellies' have come to be known by the Welsh term <b><i>pwdre ser</i></b>, which is to say 'rot of the stars' (Hughes 1910). Reports of 'blobs', which were sometimes attributed to extraterrestrial sources, continued to occur throughout the twentieth century. Newspaper articles referred to them as 'blobs', and did not always offer rational explanations. </p> <p align="justify" > Several different types of organism can produce visible blobs on the ground. Bacterial, plasmodial, and cellular <b>slime moulds</b> can all produce distinct gelatinous blobs on grass, leaf duff or organic soil. Slime moulds are peculiar in that separate cells migrate together to form a <i>plasmodium</i>, this jelly-like mass transforms into a spore bearing body. The largest <a href="arbor.htm#s">slime-moulds</a> are those in the <a href="arbor.htm#s"><i>Myxomycota</i></a> 'Kingdom'. One <i>Myxomycota</i> fungoid, <i> Fuligo septica</i>, can form an aethalium (spongy plasmodium) up to 20 cm wide and 3 cm thick. At first the plasmodium is somewhat translucent, eventually it turns opaque the as spores develop. These can occur on lawns, in meadows or on forest duff (Scagel <i>et al</i> 1982). </p> <p align="center" > <img src="myxo.jpg" alt="life cycle of Fuligo" > <br> Swarm cells fuse into a plasmodial phase, and then mature into an aethalial sporocarp. </p> <p align="justify" > It is widely suspected that the association between <i>pwdre ser</i> and outer space was caused by the following type of scenario: A person sees a bright meteor at night. In the morning that person looks for the meteorite in the field or forest where it appeared to land. Instead, they find a weird blob of fetid jelly. The 'jelly' having already been there (Corliss 1983). People are notoriously poor at judging how far away meteors are. Almost invariably a meteorite that appears to have landed nearby was actually much further away. Professional meteorite hunters have long learned to take this factor into account when interviewing witnesses of a meteorite fall. </p> <!-- slime mold (American spelling) --> <p align="justify" > There are actually several mundane explanations for <i>pwdre ser</i>, these include: <br><br> <b>(1)</b> Myxomycete slime moulds are the largest most colourful of the  blob makers. Some, like <i> Fuligo </i> can be yellow, or even reddish. Some species of <i> Physarium</i> slimes can have a brilliant yellow plasmodium. Other physaria are pale blue, like the classic  star jelly of legend. <br> <b>(2)</b> <i> Nostoc</i>, a cyanobacterium, can form pale green jelly masses near the roots of grass. The species <i>Nostoc commune</i> can produce walnut sized globules in pastures and ditches. Conditions must be very moist for these bacterial blobs to form in open air. <br> <b>(3)</b> <i>Tremella concrescens</i> is a  jelly fungus that often forms in the axes of grass tufts. It forms irregular pale translucent globs, just as star jelly does. <br> <b>(4)</b> Female frogs excrete a gelatinous substance which they use to encase their eggs. This is the  frog-jelly which surrounds frog's eggs. This jelly swells-up greatly in volume by absorbing water. If a heron, or other bird, swallows a gravid frog, it must vomit up this frog-jelly. The jelly must be expelled, otherwise it would overflow the bird s stomach! This vomit is a clear gelatine, it seldom contains frog's eggs or other items. </p> <br> <br> <a name="stuff" > <h1 align="center"><font color="purple" > Star Slough</font></h1> <p align="justify" > There are many local words for pwdre ser. A review of these helps to place the term pwdre ser into a larger context. It seems that the starry appellations came first, and that the presumed link to meteors came much afterwards. </p> <p align="justify" > In 1678 John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee wrote in their translation and adaptation of Oedipus, Act II, that: </p> <p align="center" > <tt> The sun and moon, run down like waxen globes;<br> The shooting stars end all in purple jellies. </tt> </p> <p align="justify" > John Dryden, in 1679, mentioned this again, in <i>The Spanish Friar</i>: </p> <p align="center" ><tt> When I had taken up what I supposed a fallen star <br> I found I had been cozened with a jelly. </tt></p> <p align="justify" > William Somervile said, in his 1740 poem <i> In Rural Games, Canto III</i>, that: </p> <p align="center" ><tt> And like that falling Meteor, there she lyes <br> A jelly cold on earth. </tt></p> <p align="justify" > Even Sir Walter Scott in the <i>Talisman</i>, 1825, wrote that: </p> <p align="center" ><tt> "Seek a fallen star," said the hermit, <br>"and thou shalt only light on some foul jelly,- </tt></p> One metaphor in running through all these quotations was the idea of hopes raised and followed by hopes dashed. It was as if mere  fetid jelly was to issue from a glorious falling star. </p> <p align="justify" > In England the name for jelly-like organisms found in the pastures has long been  star slough . Sometimes the same substance was called  star shot or  star shoot . The word  slough originally meant waste or sloughed-off stuff. Similarly  shot meant something discharged, thrown away or worn out. Similar phases and word associations occur in other European languages. In French <i>crachat de la lune</i> means  spit of the moon . Similarly <i>Sternschnuppen</i> means  star snuff in German. The Scandinavian word <i>skyfallsalgen</i> means  sky fallen algae . These terms referred primarily to <i>Nostoc</i> globules. Though, doubtless similar jelly like things would likewise be given the same appellations (Whitten & Potts 2000, White & Nieves-Rivera 2010). </p> <p align="justify" > <i>Nostoc</i> is a genus of cyanobacterium, a photosynthetic bacterium. Colonies of these bacteria can excrete a gelatinous matrix. This gelatinous mass can grow up to the size of a walnut. Often these masses are globular, purple or purple-green and translucent. Very seldom they are pale grey or light olive green. The vast majority of <i>Nostoc</i> species are exclusively aquatic in their habitat. Nostoc globules sometimes grow in transient puddles, and thereby are exposed after the water drains away. A few species, such as <i>Nostoc commune</i>, can actually grow in open air  if the humidity is very high. They even have the ability to dehydrate, and then re-hydrate. Hence, they may appear and seemingly disappear. Globules of <i>Nostoc commune</i> can sometimes be found in open pastures, after persistent bouts of rainy weather (Whitton & Potts 2000). It is probably one cause of <i>pwdre ser</i>. But that stuff is commonly said to be very pale - unlike most nostocs (Hughes 1910). </p> <br> <br> <a name="ah"> <h1 align="center" >Angel Hair - Cobweb Rains</h1> <p align="justify" > The English naturalist Gilbert White, described a 'fall' of cobwebs on September 21, 1741. He remarked that the tangled webs formed "perfect flakes or rags" and were "twinkling like stars" as they fell in the sunlight (White 1789). Cobwebs from the sky? </p> <p align="justify" > Angel hair is said to be an ephemeral silky substance that falls from the sky. Others have observed that angel hair issues from trees, not from the sky. Angel hair 'rains' occur mostly during the autumn. Angel hair has been attributed to 'psychic' or supernatural causes. It has even been considered a type of 'ectoplasm', an allenged manifestation of the spirit world! </p> <p align="justify" > For a time, after 1948, angel hair became associated with UFOs. Only in about half of these reports was a UFO reported on the same day as the angel hair rain. In the remaining reports, UFOs were implicated without any real justification. The first mention of angel hair and UFOs together occurred in Ontario on September 26, 1948. Strangely, this first witness suspected that the material was spider web. He also suspected that the 'flying saucers' were actually glittering globs of spider web carried aloft by the wind (Corliss, 1983). </p> <p align="justify" > As odd as it may seem, many species of <b>spiders</b> disperse by <b>ballooning</b>. These spiders use single filaments of thin web as parachutes. The web-lines can be several metres long, the spiders are tiny, hence the slightest breeze can lift the spiders aloft. In temperate climes this ballooning usually occurs during the autumn. Normally launches involve only a few spiders at a time. On rare occasions large numbers of spiders, often siblings from related egg clutches, balloon en masse from trees. Strong updrafts can cause these spiders to be carried away in unison. If this happens the webs can become entangled in the air. The effect can be quite dramatic (Corliss 1983). </p> <h3 align="center" >References</h3> <p align="justify" > Corliss, William R. 1983. Hand Book of Unusual Natural Phenomena. Anchor Press. Garden City New York. 248-250, 253-259 </p> <p align="justify" > Darwin, C. 1860. The Voyage of the Beagle. Natural History Library Edition: 1962. Doubleday & Company, Inc.U.S.A. 160. </p> <p align="justify" > Duval, B., Shetty, K. and W.H. Thomas. 2000. Phenolic Compounds and Antioxidant Properties in the Snow Alga <i> Chlamydomonas nivalis </i>After Exposure to UV Light. Journal of Aplied Phycology 11: 559-566. </p> <p align="justify" > Hughes, T. McKenny. 1910. Pwdre ser. Nature. Vol. 83, June 23: 492-494. </p> <p align="justify" > Nieves-Rivera, Ángel M. 2003. The Fellowship of the Rings - UFO rings versus fairy rings. Skeptical Inquirer. 27, 6: 50-54. </p> <p align="justify" > Nieves-Rivera, Ángel M. 2004. Ethnomycological Notes: I. Lightning Bolts and Fungus Lore. Moeszia - Erdélyi Gombász, mikológiai folyóirat. 2: 84-89. </p> <p align="justify" > Nieves-Rivera, Á. M. and D. A. White. 2005. Ethnomycological notes. II. Meteorites and fungus lore. Mycologist 20, 1: 22-25. </p> <p align="justify" > Scagel, R.F. , Bandoni, R.J. , Maze, J.R. , Rouse, G.E. , Schonfield, W.B. and Stein, J.R. 1982. Nonvascular Plants - an evolutionary survey. Wadsworth Publishing Co. Belmont. 90-123. </p> <p align="justify" > White, David Andrew and Nieves-Rivera, Angel M. 2010. Star Slough and Pwdre Ser. Meteorite. 16(1): 40-42. </p> <p align="justify" > White, Gilbert. 1977 (1789). The Natural History of Shelborne. Penguin Books. Harmondsworth. 175-177. </p> <p align="justify" > Whitton, Brian A. and Potts, Malcolm. 2000. The Ecology of Cyanobacteria. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Boston. 497. </p> <br> <br> <a NAME="ring" > <h1 align="center">Fairy Rings to Crop Circles </h1> <h3 align="center"> -- a little lession in folkore -- </h3> <p align="justify" > Round circles on the ground have mystified people for centuries. Perfect rings of disturbed grass have long been associated, in various traditions, with elves, fairies and sprites. In Breton folklore, such rings are the dancing places of devious elves called <i>corrigans</i> (Hills & Dondo 1927). A Chippeway myth maintained that such rings were stamped-out by dancing star-maidens. The star-maidens fly about in baskets of woven osier (Spence 1994). </P> <p align="justify" > <b>Fairy rings </b> are places in fields, meadows or lawns where the growth of vegetation is disturbed in a ring-like pattern. In 1686 the English naturalist Dr. Robert Plott proposed the hypothesis that fairy rings were due to the "circular explosion of lightning". Thus it was that mysterious round circles on the ground were first explained in supernatural terms, and then later by the natural, but still mysterious, power of lightning (Reynolds 1990, Nieves-Rivera 2004). In the 1950s and '60s fairy rings became associated with UFOs. People would sometimes report that they had found circular impressions on the ground after a UFO was sighted in the area (Klass 1974, Peebles 1995). </p> <p align="justify" > Nowadays, we know that fairy rings are caused by soil fungi. In certain seasons the fruiting bodies of these fungi, the mushrooms, are visible on the edges of the fairy rings. <i> Marasmium oreades </i>, and other fungi of the <i>Marasmium</i> genus, are the most common cause of fairy rings. When the fungi are less active the rings may be practically invisible. This is why fairy rings may 'appear' as if overnight. Fairy rings can vary in diameter from a few centimetres to tens of metres. The roundness of these marks is due to the fact that the soil fungi grow outward from a centre of origin over a number of years. </p> <p align="justify" > An analysis of early examples of "<b>flying saucer nests</B>" has indicated that most non-hoax circles were simply mushroom rings. Other weird things are blamed on UFOs. Several of the more scientific UFOlogists have noticed other organisms contributing to UFO lore. Slime moulds have been reported as being  some weird stuff deposited by UFOs. Most early flying saucer nests had natural explanations. However, there were soon to be exceptions to this rule. During the 1970s a number of swirled impressions in started appearing in Australian marshes, UFOs were reported in association with these circles. These swirled impressions <b>were not</b> fairy rings. Since pranksters had long caught on to the idea of flying saucer nests, it is possible that some of these original <b> crop circles </b> were hoaxes, although we may never know for sure. In a few years similar impressions appeared in British cereal fields. By the 1980s crop circles were appearing all over Britain, Continental Europe, the Americas and even in Japan (Nickell 1995). </p> <p align="justify" > There was an hypothesis that crop circles might be produced by the <a href="phyto.htm#damp" > damping-off</a> disease. Damping-off is a condition caused by <i> Pythium </i> and <i> Rhizoctonia </i> fungoids. These fungoids cause a weakening, or death, of plant stems near ground level. Usually the disease causes the slump-over of seedlings in small round patches. The disease occurs mostly in damp conditions, and generally infects seedlings, not mature plants. Theoretically, damping-off could weaken the stems of a large cluster of cereal plants as seedlings. The weakened stems allowing the plants to collapse en masse later in the season. In theory also, the cereal stocks would tend to fall in a spiral, as most plants have a spiralled vasculature. </p> <p align="justify" > Unfortunately for nice neat theorising, on-site investigations did not support the damping-off theory. Other natural theories, such as whirlwinds and microbursts, did not fair well either (Meaden 1993). One theory all agreed on, at least some of the crop circles were artificial. An odd twist in the crop circle affaire was the use of dowsing to authenticate crop circles. Dowsers claimed they could tell the difference between a hoaxed circle, and a real one. <a href="#dw" > Dowsing </a> itself is a very doubtful practice. Furthermore, it is an historical fact that these dowsers were often wrong. Some allegedly <i> dowser authenticated circles </i> were later shown to be hoaxes, or rather the hoaxers admitted their role! </p> <p align="justify" > <b>The whole crop circle edifice collapsed in 1992</b>. In that year, the pranksters responsible for making many of the British crop circles confessed. Presumably the other crop circles could have been made by human beings also (Nickell 1995, Peebles 1995). Since that time, it has become difficult for scientists to take crop circles seriously. Nevertheless, crop circles should still be of interest to <b>folklorists</b>, as the development of the crop circle idea shows how different events conspire in the development of a mythology. In the case of crop circles: misidentifications, hoaxes, belief systems and popular culture all contributed to the growth of the <b>crop circle myth</b>. </p> <p align="center" > <font color="green" > To learn about crop circle artists: <a href="http://www.circlemakers.org" >CircleMakers.org</a>. </font></p> <h3 align="center" >References</h3> <p align="justify" >Buszacki, Stefan and Harris, Keith. 1998. Pest, Diseases & Disorders of Garden Plants. Harper Collins Publishers. London. 547-588. </p> <p align="justify" > Hills, E.C. and Dondo, M. 1927. Contes Dramatiques. D.C. Heath and Company. Boston. 19-24. </p> <p align="justify" > Klass, Philip J. 1974. UFOs-Explained. Random House. New York. </p> <p align="justify" > Nieves-Rivera, Ángel M. 2001. About the So-Called 'UFO Rings' and Fungi. Inoculum. 52, 2: 3-6. </p> <p align="justify" > Nieves-Rivera, Angel M. 2003. The Fellowship of the Rings - UFO rings versus fairy rings. Skeptical Inquirer. 27, 6: 50-54. </p> <p align="justify" > Nieves-Rivera, Ángel M. 2004. Ethnomycological Notes: I. Lightning Bolts and Fungus Lore. Moeszia - Erdélyi Gombász, mikológiai folyóirat. 2: 84-89. </p> <p align="justify" > Nieves-Rivera, Á. M. and White, D.A. 2005. Ethnomycological notes. II. Meteorites and fungus lore. Mycologist 20, 1: 22-25. </p> <p align="justify" > Meaden, G.T. 1993. The present status of research into vortices and vortex-ciricles and a report on the Blue Hill Project. Journal of Meteorology, U.K. 18, 179: 171-177. </p> <p align="justify" > Nickell, Joe. 1994. Crop circle mania wanes - an investigative update. Skeptical Inquirer. 19, 3: 41-43. </p> <p align="justify" > Peebles, Curtis. 1995. Watch the Skys - A chronicle of the flying saucer myth. Berkley Books, New York. </p> <p align="justify" > Reynolds, David J. 1990. Possibility of crop circle from 1590. J. of Meteorology, U.K. 15, 153: 347-351. </p> <p align="justify" > Spence, Lewis. 1994. Myths of the North American Indians. Gramercy Books. New York. 152-156. </p> <br> <br> <a name="dw" > <h1 align="center" >Dowsing - Radiesthesia</h1> <p align="justify" > Perhaps you have heard about such things as: <i>geomancy, ley lines, telluric energy grids, healthy and unhealthy geopathic zones, geodetic currents </i> and <i>earth dragons</i>. Perhaps you have seen someone dangling a pendulum as they walk through a garden. Tradition holds that oak trees give a 'positive' <i>pendulum response</i>, and holly a 'negative' response. Have you wondered why people believe in these alleged telluric forces? Where do they find justification for declaring one plant 'positive', and another 'negative'? Many of these insights, it is claimed, were determined by <b>dowsers</b> - people who practice <b>dowsing</b>. </p> <p align="justify" > Dowsing, also called <b>radiesthesia</b>, is the art of detecting hidden items, or hidden information, by paranormal means. Traditionally water was the substance dowsers sought. Although, other materials were also dowsed for, such as minerals and oil. Some dowsers even claim they can tell authentic crop circles from hoaxes. Some professional dowsers chart out the 'geodetic currents' around people's homes. Others have offered their services to the police. Many have claimed success in solving crimes. </P> <p align="justify"> Dowsing is very ancient form of divination that goes back at least to Roman times. Similar forms of divination have long been part of the Chinese art of <i>feng shui</i>. Feng shui is the arrangement of items in living space so as to maximise health, luck and prosperity. Feng shui is more extensive in scope than Western dowsing tradition. (Practical advice and aesthetic considerations also have a role in feng shui.) Nevertheless, many aspects of the two traditions do overlap. </p> <p align="justify" > Traditionally dowsers use devices such as a y-shaped rod, angle rod, wand or pendulum. These devices are precarious balances that move at the slightest twitch of the human hand. The old belief that some force actually 'pulls' on the dowsing devices is now considered passé. It is claimed that the mind influences the muscles of the hand that moves the rod or pendulum. A dowsing device is merely a tool to amplify the mind's intuition about the target material. The dowsing effect, it is claimed, is a manifestation of <i>psychic</i> (psi) ability (Webster 2001). </P> <h3 align="center" >Scepticism</h3> <p align="justify" > Dowsing apologists commonly write of success stories of such and such a person whom found water, oil or a lost person. A few studies seem to suggest that dowsers score better than chance guessing (Webster 2001). Sceptics maintain that the dowsing response is due involuntary muscle movements invoked by un-conscious mental processes, ie. the <i>ideomotor effect</i>. Dowser's respond to what they <i> believe</i>, not to what they actually know. In other words, the dowsers are responding to subconscious cues. However, sceptics maintain, these cues do not lead to correct insights any more than would educated guesses. Perhaps an experienced dowser can learn were suitable well sites are likely to be by visible non-paranormal clues. This recognition might be sub-conscious, hence it is not so much a fraud as self-deception (Randi 1998, Webster 2001). </p> <p align="justify" > The question remains, can dowsing be demonstrated in controlled experiments? Unfortunately, controlled tests of dowsing have not been very reassuring. In 1986 a test by researchers at the University of Munich conducted a controlled study of over 843 trials. In this study, dowsers were tested on their ability to locate hidden water pipes. Even though the researchers were predisposed toward dowsing, the results were <b>very weak</b>. They were so weak that if the dowsing effect existed, it was so faint as to be practically useless. Other, more sceptical reviewers, analysed the same data and concluded than the dowsers fared no better that chance (Enright 1999). Likewise, most published controlled studies have had negative, or at best weak, results. The magician James Randi has tested many dowsers. He has yet to meet a dowser who could actually find hidden items at a rate greater than chance (Randi 1998). <p> <p align="justify" > There were no particular reasons why dowsing should not have passed these controlled tests, if the effect really exists. Therefore, <b> the onus is currently on dowsers </b> to supply convincing evidence that the dowsing ability is not an illusion. </p> <h2 align="center" >References</h2> <p align="justify" > Enright, J.T. 1999. Testing Dowsing - the failure of the Munich experiments. Skeptical Inquirer. 23, 1: 39-46. </p> <p align="justify" > Randi, James. 1998. The Matter of Dowsing ... Skeptical Inquirer. 6, 4: 6-7. </p> <p align="justify" > Webster, Richard. 2001. The Art of Dowsing. Castle Books. Edison NJ. xi-198. </p> <br> <br> <a name="eat" > <h1 align="center" >Poisonous Toadstools</h1> <p align="center"> <img src="psilo.jpg" width="50" alt="Psilocybe - hallucinogenic " > <img src="amanit.jpg" width="100" alt="fly agaric - mildly toxic" > <img src="omphal.jpg" width="80" alt="Jack-o-lantern - fairly toxic" > <img src="armil.jpg" width="90" alt="honey mushroom edible if cooked" > <img src="morel.jpg" width="60" alt="morel edible if cooked" > </p> <p align="justify" > Most toadstools must be identified to know if they are edible or not. There are very few  rules-of-thumb for spotting a poison toadstool. Bright colours are not always  warning colours. Nor are all poisonous fungi toxic in the same way. Many  edible mushrooms are often slightly poisonous - if eaten raw. Even the <a href="fungi.htm#mor" >morels</a> are not perfectly harmless. Morel mushrooms are said to be all edible. The proviso being that they must be cooked first. Raw morels can cause gastric upset. Many toadstools become far more toxic when consumed with alcohol. Inkcaps, for example, should not be eaten along with alcohol. The most common problem is look-alike species. For example, the St. George's mushroom looks much like a livid entoloma. However, eating the livid entoloma can make one quite ill. It makes a big difference which one you cook and eat! Some knowledge of mushroom identification is a necessity if one wants to consume wild fungi. </p> <a name="eath" > <h3 align="center" > <i> Shrooms </i> </h3> <p align="justify" > Some fungi are hallucinogenic, or are otherwise psychoactive. Probably this is simply due to the fact that the neurotoxins in these fungi are  aimed at insect or nematode nervous systems, and not  aimed at mammalian nerves. Our nervous systems are a little bit different from these animals. The end result is that some myco-neurotoxins are psychedelics rather than simple poisons, when ingested by mammals. A further problem with some fungi is that they can contain other kinds of toxins as well. Certain compounds hinder protein synthesis. Sometimes these are called <i> hepatotoxins</i>, because the liver can be injured by these compounds. These toxins can take more than two days to damage a mammal s vital functions. Probably these toxins function to kill small fungivores before they cause much damage to the fungus. Some hallucinogenic fungi contain these deadly poisons along with the less deadly neurotoxins. </p> <h3 align="center" > Fly Agaric </h3> <p align="center"> <img src="amanit.jpg" width="100" > </p> <p align="justify" > Fly agaric (<i>Amanita muscaria</i>) is an hallucinogenic toadstool with a long history. The fungus grows mostly in boreal and alpine coniferous forests. Hence, it is mostly a northern species. In Eurasia the toadstool tends to be bright red, and very hallucinogenic. In the Americas the fly agaric tends to be orange or yellow, and less hallucinogenic. The fly agaric is therefore a very variable species. It is known that many Uralic, Altaic and Siberian peoples used fly agaric for ritual purposes. For example, the Chukchee used the fly agaric to converse with spirits. The use of the toadstool by Amerindian peoples varied widely. In the west, and in the Great Lakes area, some First Nations cultures used the toadstool as a narcotic. The actual first known use of the fungus in religion and ritual is rather obscure. The fly agaric was probably not used by Western Europeans in historic times. Some claims of such use in ancient Europe have been subject to heavy scepticism. </p> <p align="justify" > Claims that the fly agaric was the <i>soma</i> of the ancient Aryans is less established than is often claimed. Soma is mentioned in Sanskrit literature (<i>Rig-Veda</i>). A similar drug was the <i>haoma</i> of the Persians. This haoma was the used by the early Zoroastrians. Haoma is widely believed to be the same thing as  soma . But it is not perfectly clear if either drug was fly agaric. Over the centuries different plants have been used in place of the original soma - whatever it was. </p> <p align="justify" > In the late 1950s, the banker turned scholar, R. Gordon Wasson presented the idea that soma was originally the fly agaric. Wasson is now considered the pioneer of  ethnomycology - the study of the cultural uses of fungi. It is possible that the soma and haoma were somehow derived from an ergot fungus. Some of the <i>Claviceps</i> fungi, that grow on cereal corns, are capable of causing hallucinations. </p> <p align="justify" > Amanitas contain: <i> muscazon, ibotenic acid, muscimol </i> and <i> bufotenine</i>. Each compound exists on a scale between psychoactive and poisonous. The concentrations of the safe and dangerous ingredients vary widely with genetic variations, growing conditions, altitude and other factors. The main danger is misidentifying one amanita species for another. Fly agaric has close taxonomic relatives which are deadly look-alikes. </p> <h3 align="center" > Psilocybe Toadstools </h3> <p align="center" > <img src="psilo.jpg" width="50" > </p> <p align="justify" > The famous <i> magic mushrooms </i> of the Aztecs are <i>Psilocybe</i> species, not amanitas. These toadstools commonly grow on dung, although there are many saprobic habitats specific to each species. Psilocybe toadstools can contain psilocybin, a potent hallucinogen. It is often not realised that there are many psilocybe species. As a whole the <i>magic mushrooms</i> are probably more common than the amanitas. However, because they are small and non-descript, the psilocybe species are not so easily identified. They are similar in appearance to the slender types of <i>Mycena</i> or <i>Pholiota</i> toadstools which occur on lawns. In other words, one should beware of small toadstools which grow on dung. </p> <p align="justify" > Magic mushrooms were officially identified in an 1939 article by a Harvard botanist Richard Evens Schultes. This publication tentatively identified the <i> teonanacatl</i>, the magic mushroom, of the Aztecs. Schultes found that the identification of the toadstool was preserved in Mexican folk traditions. Various psilocybes are still used by diverse native peoples throughout Mexico. Probably <i> teonanacatl</i> was a psilocybe as well. </p> <h3 align="center" > Summary </h3> <p align="justify" > It is important to note that much of the pro-narcotic literature is essentially based on a series of religious beliefs. In the <i> alternative culture </i> there is a widespread belief that all  natural <a href="weird2.htm#herb" >herbs</a> must have a purpose - for human beings. That is, there is the assumption that Providence has made each natural drug for our use. However, narcotic drugs are not panaceas. They all have deleterious effects as well as benefits. </p> <h3 align="center" > References</h3> <p align="justify" > Davis, Wade. 1996. One River - explorations and discoveries in the Amazon rainforest. Touchstone. New York. </p> <p align="justify" > Dumont, Michèle. 1992. Une fausse Amanite tue-mouche, un véritable arbre-champignon. Informations Mycologiques. Société Mycologique de France. 108 ,2 : 38-48. </p> <p align="justify" > Kaye, Quetta. 2004. Uso de drogas alucinógenas en rituales del Nuevo Mondo: revisión de evidencias de la etnohistoria, la antropología y la arqueología. El Caribe Arqueológico. 8: 74-86. </p> <p align="justify" > Michelot, D. and Melendez-Howell, M. 2003. Amanita muscaria: chemistry, biology, toxicology, and ethnomycology. Mycol. Res. 107: 131-146. </p> <p align="justify" > Wasson, Valentina Pavlovna and Wasson, R. Gordon. 1957. Mushrooms Russia and History. Volume 1 & 2. Pantheon Books. New York. </p> <p align="justify" > Whelan, Christal. 1994. Amanita muscaria The Gorgeous Mushroom. Asian Folklore. 53: 163-167. </p> <p align="justify" > Young, L.A., Young, L.G., Klein, M.M., Klein, D.M. and Beyer, D. 1977. Recreational Drugs. Berkley Publishing Corporation. New York. 9-11, 194-197. </p> <br> <br> <a NAME="storm" > <h1 align="center" > <font color="red" > Storm Lights </font> </h1> <p align="justify" > Since ancient times there have been reports of aurora-like  storm lights or  weather lights . These pulses of light that were said to presage the coming of thunderstorms. They were certainly weird and  Fortean . The glows were once dismissed as mere  heat lightning , i.e. lightning flashes reflected off clouds. Cloud-to-sky  rocket lightning was also confused with these storm lights. Or, they were thought of as some sort of auroral glows. No doubt some were in fact aurorae. </p> <p align="justify" > On the evening of February 4, 1893, J. Ewen Davidson was watching a distant thunderstorm in Queensland Australia. Twenty to twenty-five times he saw "a patch of rosy light" mount upward from the stormclouds and vanish. In addition to these patches he also saw a few pale streamers beam upward from the clouds (Davidson 1893). </p> <p align="justify" > In the nineteenth century the polar aurorae were thought to be some kind of atmospheric phenomenon. So naturally the assumption was made that auroral glows over thunderclouds were proof of this conjecture. Eventually aurorae were found to originate from solar flares. Hence storm lights were dismissed as aurorae by chance in line-of-sight with distant thunderstorms. In fact, for most of the twentieth century meteorologists, for the most part, simply ignored storm light anecdotes. </p> <p align="justify" > In 1990 John R. Winckler, of the University of Minnesota, recorded bizarre aurora-like flashes above a distant thunderstorm using a video camera. It was presumed that they must be related to thunderstorm generated electric fields. By 1992 meteorologists had fully documented the existence of these 'high-altitude flashes'. These glows may extend sky-ward tens of kilometres. Near the storm cloud summit these glows are blue and beam-like, they are now called  jets . Jets are the slowest and most visible manifestation of these discharges. They may take up to a quarter second to mount up from the cloud into the sky. In the ionosphere high-altitude flashes are pink-orange and globular, they are now called  sprites . Sprites are extremely brief, rather dim and seldom visible to the human eye. By 1996 the basic physical mechanism of these electrical discharges had been worked out (Fishman et al 1994). </p> <h3 align="center" >References</h3> <p align="justify" > Davidson, J. Ewen. 1893. Thunderstorm and auroral phenomena. Nature. 47, April 20: 582. </p> <p align="justify" > Fishman, G.L., Bhat, P.N., Mallozzi, R., Horack, J.M., Koshut, T., Kouveliotou, C., Pendleton, G.N., Meegan, C.A., Wilson, R.B., Paciesas, W.S., Goodman, S.J. and Christian, H.J. 1994. Discovery of intense gamma-ray flashes of atmospheric origin. Science. 264, 27 May: 1313-1316. </p> <p align="justify" > White, D. Andrew. 1997. High-altitude flashes, an anecdote from 1893. Journal of Meteorology, U.K.. 22, 221: 257-258. </p> <a NAME="met" > <h1 align="center" > <font color="red" > Electric Meteors </font></h1> <p align="justify" > There is a rarely reported form of lightning that looks like a shooting star or fiery dart. These fireballs are called  electric meteors . Electric meteors travel far too fast to be discrete balls of air or plasma. Being close to air in density a plasma ball should lose its momentum to the ambient air almost immediately. Such a ball thrust through the air would certainly be torn apart by air resistance. This would not be an issue if the electric meteor was an electric discharge front. Such discharge fronts, like lightning leaders, would not actually consist of the same hot air from moment to moment. </p> <ul> <li> On the night of March 21-22, 1877, M. Ed. Blanc saw several fire balls dart out of a cloud near Vence France. These yellow and reddish balls of fire dashed out of the thundercloud in all directions at a little less than two degrees per second. After travelling six to eight degrees these balls turned white and "broke" silently with "effulgent" brightness. Every two or three minutes a new batch of three, or so, fire balls would issue from the cloud and explode. The thunderstorm was at least "eleven miles" away (Nature 1877). </li> <li> There have been reports of balls of fire transforming into lightning bolts, and vice versa. A British Doctor., J.W. Tripe, in 1874 witnessed several upward moving fire balls that accelerated from "cricket ball" velocity to into lightning, including the zig-zag channel (Nature 1887). </li> </ul> <p align="justify" > Electric meteors are a fairly well documented phenomenon. In Sarpy County Nebraska, on August 21, 1996, D. Morss and P. McCrone video taped a fire ball that popped out of the top of a thundercloud. The ball was only 1/10th of a second in view, but the high-speed video managed to capture six frames of the rapid fire ball. The fire ball's estimated speed was "1,800 miles per second". Some investigators doubted this velocity estimate. On May 25, 1997, near Loco Oklahoma, L. Lamphere video taped an "object" flying into a tornado storm cloud and out the other side. It "dipped and bobbled" as it travelled under a ceiling of cloud. Its estimated speed was in the range of 4 to 10 kilometres per second - much slower than a normal lightning leader. In both cases the "objects" were only noticeable on the video replay (Sourcebook Project 1997). </p> <p align="justify" > Since these fiery darts move under cloudy ceilings it is doubtful that they were ordinary meteors. However, the fire balls' velocities were within the known parameters of lightning leaders. Ordinary lightning leaders are actually short darts, which are manifest as such when viewed in freeze frame photography. This shows up even better on video cameras. It is mostly cloud-to-ground discharges that are close to light speed. Lower amperage cloud-to-cloud leaders are much slower,  merely a few hundred kilometres per second. Probably the racing fire balls were in fact lightning leaders on the slower end of the velocity scale. A lightning path that may in reality be tens of kilometres long may appear to be short, if the trajectory is roughly aligned with the viewer's line-of-sight. Such lightning leaders can appear to be much slower than they really are. </p> <h3 align="center" >References</h3> <p align="justify" > Abrahamson, John and Dinniss, James. 2000. Ball lightning caused by oxidation of nanoparticle networks from normal lightning strikes on soil. Nature. 403. 3 February: 519-521. </p> <p align="justify" > Barry, James Dale. 1980. Ball lightning and bead lightning: extreme forms of atmospheric electricity. Plenum Press. New York. </p> <p align="justify" > Nature, Editors. 1877. Ball lightning. Nature. 15, April 19: 539. </p> <p align="justify" > Nature, Editors. 1887. Notes: Royal Meteorological Society. Nature. 36, June 30: 214-215. </p> <p align="justify" > Sourcebook Project. 1997. Ball of light clocked at 1,800 miles / second! Science Frontiers. 113, September-October. 3. </p> <p align="justify" > White, D. Andrew. 1994a. Ball lightning anecdotes. Journal of Meteorology, U.K. 19, 187: 96. </p> <p align="justify" > White, D. Andrew. 1994b. Ball lightning and rocket lightning. Journal of Meteorology, U.K. 19, 185: 15-16. </p> </td> </tr> </table> <hr> <p align="center" ><font size="2" color="purple" > Web page designed by D. Andrew White M.Sc.© <br> MM anno domini </font></p></p> </body> </html>