mercurialblonde:

kentaro miura

(Source: hypermeganeko)

archiemcphee:

Last year as part of the Triennial Setouchi Art Festival on the Japanese island of Shodashima, students from Musashino Art University constructed this awesome straw mammoth using rice straw donated by local farmers. Collaborations on large-scale pieces between artists and local resdents are a popular part of the festival. One look at this amazing mammoth tells us why.

Photos by Michelle Kuen Suet Fung

[via Juxtapoz]

sisterspock:

Henrique Oliveira

You’re welcome

(via Baby Koala | The Luxury Spot)

Strawman: Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone’s argument, it’s much easier to present your own position as being reasonable or valid, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine rational debate. [click on this image to find a brief video and analysis of the trope known as the “straw feminist”]

(via Sugar Blisters (sugarblisters) on Pinterest)

Buttercup & Westley by Sarah Mensinga

(via Sarah’s Sketches: Buttercup and Westley)

ikenbot:

Trametes Versicolor: Turkey Tail Mushrooms Help Immune System Fight Cancer

A promising clinical study shows that the turkey tail mushroom (Trametes versicolor) improves the immune systems of breast cancer patients. The multiyear study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), tracked whether or not turkey tails could positively affect the immune system of patients rebound after they ended their radiation therapy.

Immunity — as measured by the number of lymphocyte cells and natural killer cell activity — usually declines dramatically after radiotherapy. Natural killer (NK) cells protect us from tumors and viruses. Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School and Bastyr University Research Institute hypothesized that breast cancer patients’ health can be improved after radiation treatment if NK cell counts increased quickly to attack remaining cancerous cells.

The study titled “Phase I Clinical Trial of Trametes versicolor in Women with Breast Cancer,” recently published in the ISRN Oncology Journal, shows that turkey tail mushrooms can augment conventional therapies for treating breast cancer by increasing NK and CD8+T cell activity. This study suggests that turkey tail mushrooms are an effective adjunct to conventional chemotherapeutic medicines and radiation therapy. The authors concluded:

… research by our center continues to indicate that Trametes versicolor represents a novel immune therapy with significant applications in cancer treatment … The CD8+ T cell counts over the 9-week dose escalation study were enhanced in the 9 gm Tv dose cohort compared to both the 3 g or 6 g group. One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the overall difference between dosage groups over the treatment period (2-4-6 weeks). It showed the statistically significant increase in the CD8+ cytotoxic T cells for the 9 g group compared to both the 3 g and 6 g group (F(2, 6) = 42.04, P = 0.0003).

Due to its long history of therapeutic use, however, turkey tail prepared and packaged as an immune therapy drug is unlikely to be patentable, deterring big pharmas from conducting costly clinical studies. Typically, the longer the historical use of natural medicines for treating an ailment, the less likely derivatized drugs from these natural products will be patentable. To fill this research gap, the NIH established The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (www.nccam.nih.gov), which funded and oversaw this study. NIH’s interest is not surprising — more than 70 percent of new drugs are estimated to originate from natural sources.

Turkey tail mushrooms have been used to treat various maladies for hundreds of years in Asia, Europe, and by indigenous peoples in North America. Records of turkey tail brewed as medicinal tea date from the early 15th century, during the Ming Dynasty in China. Our ancestors certainly encountered them and most likely explored their uses long before written history. Since the late 1960s, researchers in Japan have focused on how turkey tail benefits human health and how extracts of turkey tail can boost the immune system.

What are turkey tail mushrooms?

This super-abundant colorful mushroom grows on dead trees, logs, branches, and stumps. Turkey tail mushrooms are called bracket fungi, meaning that they form thin, leather-like and leaf-like structures in concentric circles. Rather than gills underneath, as in shiitake mushrooms, their undersides have tiny pores, which emit spores, placing them in the polypore family. These mushrooms grow throughout the world, practically wherever trees can be found. In fact, turkey tails are some of most common mushrooms found on wood on the planet.

They are commonly called “turkey tail” because their various colors: brown, orange, maroon, blue and green — reminiscent of the plume of feathers in turkeys. In China, their common name is yun zhi. In Japan, this mushroom is known as kawaritake or “cloud mushrooms,” invoking an image of swirling clouds overhead. In many Asian cultures, turkey tails’ incurving cloud forms symbolize longevity and health, spiritual attunement and infinity.

What are the medicinal properties and how is it used?

Traditionally, our ancestors boiled mushrooms in water to make a soothing tea. Boiling served several purposes: killing contaminants, softening the flesh, and extracting the rich soluble polysaccharides. The mushrooms — called fruiting bodies by mycologists — are made of densely-compacted cobwebby cells called mycelium. With modern laboratory methods of cell tissue culture, the large-scale production of mycelium brought to light a whole new array of medicinal preparations. Nowadays, the commercial production of mycelium enables a cleaner and more digestible product than traditional mushroom preparations. Surprisingly, novel compounds are continually being discovered, which are not available using traditional preparations of the fruiting bodies, but are detectable within, and excreted from the rapidly growing mycelium.

The natural killer cells promoted by ingesting turkey tails also target virally-infected cells. Moreover, turkey tail mycelium excretes strong antiviral compounds, specifically active against Human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer, and hepatitis C virus (HEP-C), which causes liver cancer. Viruses that induce cancer are called “oncoviruses.” The virus-to-cancer connection is where medicinal mushrooms offer unique opportunities for medical research. The current thinking amongst many researchers is that turkey tails and other medicinal mushrooms lessen the odds of getting cancer by reducing causal co-factors such as oncoviruses.

Full Article

lovelyandporcelain:

gothiccharmschool:

Why yes, I needed to see adorable fuzzy-wuzzy red pandas today. YES. 

artfave:

Cute red pandas

Give them to me.

spider web scarf $80 from Futrimare

(via Spider Web Scarf | Futrimare)

You are the universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while.

- Eckhart Tolle