832 research outputs found
Mushrooms and the wine of Maron
Although the excavators of the sanctuary of the Great Gods on the island of Samothrace recognize that drinking to the point of intoxication was practiced at the Mystery, naively this has not been seen as an element in the initiation scenario. Numerous drinking cups have been found, inscribed as the property of the gods, and the ancient village of Keramidaria (‘Ceramics’) was devoted to the manufacture of amphorae, officially stamped as genuine provenance of Samothrace for the export of the wine distinctive of the Mystery, probably a version of Homer’s potent Maronian wine of the Cyclops. That wine still existed in the Roman Period, and on the testimony of the proconsul assigned to the province, it even required dilution with eight parts water to be drunk safely. At the time of Odysseus, the rate of dilution was twentyfold. Such potent wines achieved their high intoxicating potential from the substances added to the ferment, a fact that has now been confirmed by the discovery of an intact wine cellar from Canaan, dated to the beginning of the second millennium BCE. The myth of the establishment of the Mystery, dated to the generations before the Trojan War, narrates the tale of its founder sailing like a drunken loon upon a wineskin, and similar establishments of the Mystery of the Great Gods depict a Kabeiric dwarfish Odysseus sailing upon an amphora filled with the special potion of the great sorceress Circe. This wine was fortified with a sacred psychoactive mushroom, whose antiquity can be traced back to the wolf sacrament of the Achaemenid Persians, and documented as well in Celtic lore and among the Nordic berserkers, recorded as early as the Emperor Trajan as a rite of the Dacians of Thrace, who are named as the ‘People of the Wolf’ and who carried the banner of Draco into battle, a serpent with the head of a wolf. The serpent is an indication of the wolf’s toxicity, and the fondness of wolves for eating the mushrooms was the basis for the rituals of lycanthropy and the initiated fraternal packs of warriors. In Athens of the Classical Age, the fungal identity of this initiatory sacrament was common knowledge, obscenely parodied on the comic stage. The Etruscans carried this sacrament to the Italian peninsula and it was incorporated into the mythologized history of Rome’s founding by the Trojan Aeneas as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the edible tables that would signal the site for the future city. The cult of the Great Gods involved the widespread phenomenon of the little people that materialized from the sacramental fungus as fairy creatures, using the mushroom as their tables set with dainty morsels that inspired visionary experience and of which it was taboo for the uninitiated to partake
Structural trends from a consistent set of single-crystal data of REFeAsO (RE = La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, and Tb)
A new crystal growth technique for single-crystals of REFeAsO (RE = La, Ce,
Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, and Tb) using NaI/KI as flux is presented. Crystals with a size
up to 300 m were isolated for single-crystal X-ray diffraction
measurements. Lattice parameters were determined by LeBail fits of X-ray powder
data against LaB6 standard. A consistent set of structural data is obtained and
interpreted in a hard-sphere model. Effective radii for the rare-earth metal
atoms for REFeAsO are deduced. The relation of the intra- and inter-plane
distances of the arsenic atoms is identified as limiter of the phase formation,
and its influence on Tc is discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, fig. 6 changed to numerical plot,
minor changes to the text, accepted for publication in PR
Anisotropic electrical resistivity of LaFeAsO: evidence for electronic nematicity
Single crystals of LaFeAsO were successfully grown out of KI flux.
Temperature dependent electrical resistivity was measured with current flow
along the basal plane, \rho_perpend(T), as well as with current flow along the
crystallographic c-axis, \rho_parallel(T), the latter one utilizing electron
beam lithography and argon ion beam milling. The anisotropy ratio was found to
lie between \rho_parallel/\rho_perpend = 20 - 200. The measurement of
\rho_perpend(T) was performed with current flow along the tetragonal [1 0 0]
direction and along the [1 1 0] direction and revealed a clear in-plane
anisotropy already at T \leq 175 K. This is significantly above the
orthorhombic distortion at T_0 = 147 K and indicates the formation of an
electron nematic phase. Magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity give
evidence for a change of the magnetic structure of the iron atoms from
antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic arrangement along the c-axis at T^\ast = 11
K.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, minor change
Induced Bradycardia Effects on Angiogenesis, Growth and Development in Early Development in Chicken Embryos, Gallus domesticus
Ruck, Sylvia A. Induced Bradycardia Effects on Angiogenesis, Growth and Development in Early Development in Chicken Embryos, Gallus domesticus. Master of Science (Biology), December 2010, 42 pp., 9 illustrations, references, 44 titles. Cardiac performance, angiogenesis and growth was investigated during early chicken development. Heart rate, and thus arterial pulse pressure and cardiac output, were altered with the bradycardic drug ZD7288. Heart rates at 72 h of development of control embryos and those dosed with chicken Ringer were not different at 171 bpm. Acute and chronic application of ZD7288 caused significant bradycardia. Chronic dosing of Ringer and ZD7288 changed neither eye diameter nor development rate. Chronic dosing of ZD7288 did not significantly alter CAM vessel density close to the embryo (2, 3 and 4 mm) but at farther distances (5 and 6 mm) chronic dosing with both Ringer and ZD7288 decreased vessel density by 13 -16%. Chronic dosing with ZD7288 also reduced body mass by 20%. Thus, lowered heart rate and cardiac output had little effect on vessel density or developmental stage, but did reduce embryo growth. i
Applications of a High-Altitude Powered Platform (HAPP)
A list of potential uses for the (HAPP) and conceptual system designs for a small subset of the most promising applications were investigated. The method was to postulate a scenario for each application specifying a user, a set of system requirements and the most likely competitor among conventional aircraft and satellite systems. As part of the study of remote sensing applications, a parametric cost comparison was done between aircraft and HAPPS. For most remote sensing applications, aircraft can supply the same data as HAPPs at substantially lower cost. The critical parameters in determining the relative costs of the two systems are the sensor field of view and the required frequency of the observations being made. The HAPP is only competitive with an airplane when sensors having a very wide field of view are appropriate and when the phenomenon being observed must be viewed at least once per day. This eliminates the majority of remote sensing applications from any further consideration
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Induced Bradycardia Effects on Angiogenesis, Growth and Development in Early Development in Chicken Embryos, Gallus Domesticus
Cardiac performance, angiogenesis and growth was investigated during early chicken development. Heart rate, and thus arterial pulse pressure and cardiac output, were altered with the bradycardic drug ZD7288. Heart rates at 72 h of development of control embryos and those dosed with chicken Ringer were not different at 171 bpm. Acute and chronic application of ZD7288 caused significant bradycardia. Chronic dosing of Ringer and ZD7288 changed neither eye diameter nor development rate. Chronic dosing of ZD7288 did not significantly alter CAM vessel density close to the embryo (2, 3 and 4 mm) but at farther distances (5 and 6 mm) chronic dosing with both Ringer and ZD7288 decreased vessel density by 13 - 16%. Chronic dosing with ZD7288 also reduced body mass by 20%. Thus, lowered heart rate and cardiac output had little effect on vessel density or developmental stage, but did reduce embryo growth
Planning considerations for site selection of low income settlement projects
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1983.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Bibliography: leaves 114-117.by Harold A. Ruck.M.C.P
Spin/orbit moment imbalance in the near-zero moment ferromagnetic semiconductor SmN
SmN is ferromagnetic below 27 K, and its net magnetic moment of 0.03 Bohr
magnetons per formula unit is one of the smallest magnetisations found in any
ferromagnetic material. The near-zero moment is a result of the nearly equal
and opposing spin and orbital moments in the 6H5/2 ground state of the Sm3+
ion, which leads finally to a nearly complete cancellation for an ion in the
SmN ferromagnetic state. Here we explore the spin alignment in this compound
with X-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the Sm L2,3 edges. The spectral
shapes are in qualitative agreement with computed spectra based on an LSDA+U
(local spin density approximation with Hubbard-U corrections) band structure,
though there remain differences in detail which we associate with the anomalous
branching ratio in rare-earth L edges. The sign of the spectra determine that
in a magnetic field the Sm 4f spin moment aligns antiparallel to the field; the
very small residual moment in ferromagnetic SmN aligns with the 4f orbital
moment and antiparallel to the spin moment. Further measurements on very thin
(1.5 nm) SmN layers embedded in GdN show the opposite alignment due to a strong
Gd-Sm exchange, suggesting that the SmN moment might be further reduced by
about 0.5 % Gd substitution
Quantitative study of molecular N_2 trapped in disordered GaN:O films
The structure of disordered GaN:O films grown by ion-assisted deposition is
investigated using x-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy and Raman
spectroscopy. It is found that between 4 and 21 % of the nitrogen in the films
is in the form of molecular N_2 that interacts only weakly with the surrounding
matrix. The anion to cation ratio in the GaN:O host remains close to unity, and
there is a close correlation between the N_2 fraction, the level of oxygen
impurities, and the absence of short-range order in the GaN:O matrix.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
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