Beats me. But mushrooms are apparently using melanin to grow on ionizing radiation like plants use chlorophyll to grow on sunlight.

at least that's the theory...

oh god! that reminds me, i have to do some ionizing tonight.
good job you mentioned it.

:)

Study hall -- it's not just for Mondays any more.

...It's made of stars..I mean nemotodes...
The prof I had for "Structure and Function of Organisms" in college once said that if you removed all the biomass on earth -- people, plants, and animals -- except for nemotodes (roundworms), you'd have a nemotode outline of absolutely everything. For some reason, that cheers me up sometimes.

Soda is Evil
In the ice cream thread, TIP posted a link to an article about how sodium benzoate, common in lots of things, but especially soda, does damage to some areas of your DNA that you might like to keep unblemished. Sodium benzoate and potassium benzoate also combine with citric acid in the bottles and cans to produce benzene, which is a known carcinogen. The phosphoric acid and caffeine in soda require calcium for excretion through the kidneys, so females who drink it regularly are at greatly increased risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures, even in adolescence. Also, if you drink a lot of soda, it's replacing better things like milk, OJ, and regular water, so it's associated with poorer nutritional health overall. It drives me nuts to see pregnant women and young children who drink it all the time. Around these parts, it's not uncommon to see a toddler with it in a bottle, so it's also not uncommon to see toddlers with capped teeth.

If you're really hung up on it, try to cut back gradually, and it's okay to have it sometimes. Reading the label may give you some motivation. Remember that when it says "artificial color/flavor," that's the shorthand for a compound with an average of 30 chemicals -- the FDA caved to the lobbyists on that one. If it's just the caffeine you need, switch to tea or coffee, which have both been shown to have beneficial health effects, although there are some trade-offs with coffee, and if you put milk in your tea the casein will block the good stuff. If you just like the fizz, try mixing half juice and half club soda...that works pretty well with kiddos, too.

End of brightpearl's soapbox.
:rolleyes:

not sure what soda is. isn't it something you mix in gin
when you run out of tonic?

:confused:

^^Are you in the UK? Not sure what they call it there -- carbonated beverages? Coke, Pepsi, and the like.

In the US, people usually say soda or pop, and down where I am, some of us use "coke" the way "kleenex" and "band-aids" are used. ("What kind of coke do you want?" "Pepsi." :D)

I should have noted that the benzoate preservatives are commonly in all types of bottled and canned beverages, including tea, coffee and alleged juice ones, so if you switch to one of those, make it yourself or read the label carefully. Plain club soda usually doesn't have it in there.

edit:
PS The elephant is the only 4-legged animal whose "knees" all bend in the same direction.

oh, you mean fizzy pop!

can i go home now miss pearly? i've finished my essay on socialism in scandewegia and i sort of know what photosynthesis is......kinda.

JOE: For the last time, I’m pretty sure what’s killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.
SECRETARY OF STATE: But Brawndo’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: So wait a minute. What you’re saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.
JOE: Yes.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Water. Like out the toilet??
Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn’t have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that’s the idea.
SECRETARY OF STATE: But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.”
ATTORNEY GENERAL: “It’s got electrolytes.
JOE: Okay, look. The plants aren’t growing, so I’m pretty sure that the Brawndo’s not working. Now, I’m no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.
SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Well, I’ve never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.
SECRETARY OF STATE: Hey, that’s good. You sure you ain’t the smartest guy in the world?
JOE: Okay, look. You wanna solve this problem. I wanna get my pardon. So why don’t we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Brawndo’s got what plants crave.
SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Yeah, it’s got electrolytes.
Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?
SECRETARY OF STATE: It’s what they use to make Brawndo.
JOE: Yeah, but why do they use them to make Brawndo?
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Cause Brawndo’s got electrolytes.

Myth: Thomas Crapper as a person never existed.

Fact: Though we do not know his actual date of birth, we can now say the man Thomas Crapper probably was born in September 1836, since he was baptized the 28th of that month. Crapper did have a successful career in the plumbing industry in England from 1861 to 1904.

The date of Crapper’s death has also been a source of confusion for many years. For example, "Chase's Annual Events," the authoritative book for listing special days and dates, has listed January 17 as Thomas Crapper Day and January 17, 1910 as the date of his death.

After all his research, Gibbons was certain that Chase's was 10 days off. The actual date of Thomas Crapper's death was January 27, 1910. The error probably resulted from an honest typo in "Flushed With Pride," by Wallace Reyburn, says Gibbons, "but I waged a 10-year battle with Chase's to get them to change the date." He finally won his battle this year after supplying them with a photo of Thomas Crapper's tombstone, notes from a living descendent and a copy of the man's official death certificate.

Myth: Thomas Crapper invented the toilet.

Fact: No one in the know about Thomas Crapper would ever make this statement. In his research, Grabowski has created a detailed history of Crapper's business life. The man holds nine patents: Four for improvements to drains, three for water closets, one for manhole covers and the last for pipe joints. Every patent application for plumbing related products filed by Crapper made it through the process, and actual patents were granted.

The most famous product attributed to Thomas Crapper wasn't invented by him at all. The "Silent Valveless Water Waste Preventer" (No. 814) was a siphonic discharge system that allowed a toilet to flush effectively when the cistern was only half full. British Patent 4990 for 1819 was issued to a Mr. Albert Giblin for this product.

There are a couple of theories on how Thomas Crapper came to be associated with this device. First, is that Giblin worked for Crapper as an employee and authorized his use of the product. The second, and more likely scenario, says Grabowski, is that Crapper bought the patent rights from Giblin and marketed the device himself.

Myth: Thomas Crapper never was a plumber.

Fact. Oh yes he was. He operated two of the three Crapper plumbing shops in his lifetime, but left the business three years before the final and most famous facility on Kings Road in London. When Crapper retired from active business in 1904, he sold his shop to two partners who, with help from others, operated the company under the Crapper name until its closing in 1966.

Several of London's current plumbing companies trace their trade roots to Thomas Crapper. One, Mr. Geoffrey Pidgeon of Original Bathrooms (Richmond upon Thames, Surrey, Great Britain), continues the trade of his great uncle and grandfather, both of whom apprenticed under Thomas Crapper.

Thomas Crapper did serve as the royal sanitary engineer for many members of England's royalty, but contrary to popular myth, he was never knighted, and thus isn't entitled to use the term "Sir" before his name.

Myth: The word "crap" is derived from Thomas Crapper's name.

Fact. The origin of crap is still being debated. Possible sources include the Dutch Krappe; Low German krape, meaning a vile and inedible fish; Middle English crappe, and Thomas Crapper. Where crap is derived from Crapper, it is by a process know as, pardon the pun, a back formation.

The World War I doughboys passing through England brought together Crapper's name and the toilet. They saw the words T. Crapper---Chelsea printed on the tanks and coined the slang "crapper" meaning toilet.

The legend of Thomas Crapper takes its flavor from the real man's life. While Crapper may not be the inventor of the product he is most often associated with, his contribution to England's plumbing history is significant. And the man's legend, well, it lives on despite all proof to contrary.

Yo, Craig! Green=good. Leaves=air=we live (You knew that, you silly!) and look below! :o

Look up ^^^^ ..... Logarithums=waste of time and brain storage :)

Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus are a rare species of amphibious octopus whose home is the temperate rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula in North America. Their population is at a critically low level due to land clearing and poaching for the fashion industry.
More information: Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

discuss the relevance of quantum microtubules in the works of
shakespeare.

I'm pretty sure that quantum microtubules has absolutely everything to do with Shakespeare. Who was actually Francis Bacon, by the way.

change management (ITIL)
 

A change is “an event that results in a new status of one or more configuration items (CI's)”
Manage approved, cost effective, business enhancing changes (fixes) - with minimum risk to IT infrastructure.
The goal of Change Management is to ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient handling of all Changes, in order to minimize the impact of Change-related incidents and to improve day-to-day operations.

The main aims of Change Management are :
- Minimal disruption of services
- Reduction in back-out activities
- Economic utilization of resources involved in the change

Change Management Terminology

Change: the addition, modification or removal of CIs


Request for Change (RFC): form used to record details of a request for a change and is sent as an input to Change Management by the Change Requestor


Forward Schedule of Changes (FSC): schedule that contains details of all the forthcoming Changes