It probably does have a rocky core - which is estimated to be 10 to 18 times the mass of Earth; and, when the solar system very young, it may have looked much like a very large Earth at the time, both orbiting around the proto-sun in a cloud filled with gas and dust.
When the heat from the new sun's fusion process finally reached the surface, and began blowing solar wind, the lighter gases and dust would've been blown out to where proto-Jupiter orbited, and it began to collect the gas into what we see today.
So, in a way, you can think of Jupiter as a 'normal' planet with a very, very, very thick atmosphere....
At Earth distance the KE of the atmospheric gases is so high (energy received by Sunlight radiation heating) that only a thin, flimsy atmosphere of a hundred miles or so seep, is possible .
At Jupiter distance from the Sun, with ?27 ? ? of this energy & increased gravity (22.88 m/s² as against Earth's 9.78 m/s²) more gases are retained that make up the bulk of that planet.
Underneath those massive atmospheric layers the pressure gets so high that the gases even get liquefied (which we can neither see nor infer) or some might be solidified (we neither see nor infer) still below.
So, solid Jupiter is possible though hypothetical - but with a humongous overburden of mostly poisonous gases (as we step out of Earth environment everything is "poisonous" by definition , but that is perfectly "normal" as Life is an "abnormality").
Everyone who loves the sea will fall in love with the driftwood lying quietly on the beach.
They may not have the same colorful colors and complex patterns as shells and stones; however, after careful selection and transformation, driftwood can also transform into a natural wood art piece to help you decorate every day of life.
Mountain collapse, riparian erosion and man-made felling… may all be the cause of driftwood formation. When floating in the water, driftwood is where the birds rest, providing habitat and food for fish and other aquatic life.
If the time of soaking in the water is long enough, the driftwood may completely decompose, return into nutrients in the water, and re-add to the material circulation of the food chain. However, wood blocks that are not completely degraded are sometimes washed along the water to the shore. This is the driftwood we will see on the beach, on the river bank or on the lake.
The shape of driftwood is very colorful, and it also has different textures depending on the wood. Large driftwood is a good habitat for small animals living by the water.
They are very unique and beautiful in shape, but because they are too large, it is difficult for ordinary people to process and use them. Smaller driftwood is also very common.
If you can find some beautiful small wooden blocks when you go out to play, you can use them to make natural household items or artworks.
Between people and driftwood, there is a moving relationship – in the Norwegian legend, the earliest ancestors of humans, Ask and Embla, were transformed from two driftwoods.
Near the Arctic Circle, driftwood was once the main and even the only source of timber for the Inuit and other tribes – because they lived on the north side of the forest boundary and were unable to cut down trees for daily use.
This tradition was not changed until frequent trade activities between European merchants and Inuit were established. Traditional Inuit canoes are also made of driftwood and animal leather.
Where does driftwood come from?
1.The collapse of the mountain : After the earthquake, typhoon and heavy rain, when the mountain collapse occurred, the soil on the hillside land loosened and collapsed, causing the trees on the slope to fall. The fallen wood will drift to the lower reaches of the river with rain and soil and stones, forming driftwood.
2.Erosion of the riverbank: the erosion of the river bank is faster at the turn of river than the straight line, and the river is widened, causing the trees planted on the side to fall down due to the loss of soil, bare roots, and then the wood will follow the river.
Flows downstream to form driftwood. Riverbank erosion is the biggest cause of driftwood formation in Japan.
3.Demolition: Demolition is the most important human factor in the formation of driftwood. How do you judge that driftwood is cut by the stolen group?
We can observe the roots of the driftwood.
After the roots are cut by the saw, the cross section of the wood will be flat, and the annual rings can be seen, and the roots are not visible. Such driftwood is caused by artificial logging;
Driftwood is not rubbish! It can “turning decay into magic”
There are many uses for driftwood, and it is a pity if it is just disposed of as garbage.
If you make full use of driftwood, you can also reduce the deforestation of the forest, leaving the world a green.
Biomass fuel: The driftwood is concentrated and, after proper treatment, it can be used as a raw material fuel, as a raw material for thermal power generation, and the amount of ash and sulphur produced by burning wood will be higher than that of lignite or peat of the same grade.
It is also low, so it can reduce air pollution. The carbon dioxide produced by the burning of driftwood can be offset by the carbon dioxide absorbed by the photosynthesis of the wood during planting.
It should be noted that not all driftwood can be used to burn, driftwood that has been soaked in seawater, and may produce dioxins when burned.
Japan is classified according to the size of driftwood chips, 1.5cm, for different purposes: less than 1.5cm of scrapscan be used as an animal feed additive, and mixed with mud, plant seeds, sprayed on the hillside collapsed ground, transformed, it is an organic fertilizer that can be reconstructed and restored by collapse.
Scraps larger than 1.5 cm and not soaked in seawater can be used as fuel for biomass energy generation, while larger pieces of wood can be scattered on the park trails, making it more comfortable for people to walk on the trails.
Application in agriculture: After driftwood is processed into crumbs, it can be used as a medium supplement for growing mushrooms or strawberries.
Driftwood itself can be made into organic fertilizer, and burnt wood can be reused as fertilizer.
Artwork: The diversity of driftwood brings endless possibilities for artistic creation. it is possible to “make the wood into magic” and reuse the driftwood for a new life.
So, what kind of art can these drifting woods that seem to be “plain”? The answer can be said to be endless. Because of the long soaking in the water, the driftwood has a rounded and unique texture that fresh wood does not have.
A small driftwood alone may not be so special, but with a lot of pieces combined, with a little clever idea, you don’t need too much carving and polishing to creative woodcraft.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-driftwood-What-is-it-used-for
Most fruit trees will struggle or even die in soils that stay too wet for long periods of time. When soil has too much water in it, the open spaces that usually hold air or oxygen are obsolete. Because of this waterlogged soil, fruit tree roots are not able to take up the oxygen they need to survive and fruit trees can literally suffocate.
Some fruit trees are also more susceptible to crown or root rots than others. These plants may take on significant damage from just short periods of wet feet. Continue reading to learn more about fruit trees that grow in wet conditions.
Can You Grow Fruit Trees in Wet Soil? If you’ve found your way to this article, you probably have an area of the yard which retains too much water. You may have even been given the advice that you should just plant a tree in that wet area so the roots can soak up all the excess moisture.
While certain trees are excellent for wet soil and rainscaping, damp soil and fruit trees can be a bad mix. Stone fruit, such as cherry, plum, and peaches, are highly sensitive to wet conditions and can develop many problems with rot or fungal diseases.
Trees which have shallow roots, such as dwarf fruit trees, can also greatly suffer in damp soils. When sites are flooded with excessively damp soils, you have about two options for growing fruit trees in the area. The first option is to berm up the area before planting fruit trees.
This will allow you to plant any fruit tree in that site, while giving the fruit tree roots proper drainage. It is wise to berm the area up at least a foot high (30 cm.) to accommodate fruit tree roots.
The other option is to select fruit trees that grow in wet conditions. While there is not an abundance of fruit trees that will grow in wet soils, there are some. Damp Soil and Fruit Trees Below are some moisture loving fruit trees, as well as fruit trees which can tolerate limited periods of excessive water.
Fruit Trees for Wet Soil Asian pears Anna apples Beverly Hills apple Fuji apple Gala apple Guava Grafted citrus trees Sapodilla Mango Surinam cherry Caimito Persimmon Coconut Mulberry Camu Camu Jaboticaba Trees That Tolerate Short Periods of Wet Soil Banana Lime Canistel Longan Lychee Printer Friendly Version This article was last updated on 07/24/18 Read more about Gener
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/fegen/fruit-trees-in-wet-conditions.htm
Neurobiologists have uncovered a pathway that stores information from the brain's temporary memory onto its "hard disk." The findings, published in the April issue of Nature Neuroscience, might lead to new drugs to improve memory function in amnesia and neurodegenerative diseases.
Although memory is still in large part a mystery, scientists think it's a two-step process: Information first enters a temporary, short-term storage that works by selectively strengthening connections between some neurons.
To make impressions last, however, brain cells have to run a specific genetic program and synthesize new proteins. Experiments in mice suggested an important role in long-term memory for CREB, one of many so-called transcription factors, proteins that switch genes on and off.
Anatomical studies also suggest that the hippocampus, an arc-shaped structure buried deep inside the brain, is essential for learning and memory. So neuroscientists Mark Bear and Cristina Alberini at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, pulled those two lines of research together: They wondered what exactly the role of CREB in the hippocampus might be.
Their team trained rats to avoid a dark chamber by giving them a mild electroshock when they entered. Normal rats remembered their lesson for several days after undergoing the experiment a single time; rats in which the team had severed the fornix, a bundle of nerves that sends input to the hippocampus, also learned to stay away from the dark--but for a few hours only.
When the team compared brain slices from the two groups of rats, they discovered that in the intact animals, more CREB molecules carried a phosphate group--a crucial step for their activation. Signals coming in through the fornix are apparently required for the activation of CREB and for long-term memories, says Bear. "If we can identify these signals, we might be able to restore [them], suggesting a possible treatment to improve cognitive function."
Howard Eichenbaum, a cognitive neuroscientist at Boston University, hails the study as "a breakthrough. It associates the molecular machinery with the role of the hippocampus in memory formation.
That link hasn't been made previously," he says. But he is puzzled about the mechanism whereby nerve stimuli would attach phosphate groups to CREB. "It's unclear to me how a nerve impulse could activate gene expression in a general way," he says.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/1999/03/memory-molecules
Here at T-Nation, we don't interview pro-bodybuilders unless they're willing to cut the BS and dish the dirt. Since telling the truth about steroids and crazy lifestyles isn't good for business, most of them won't talk to us until they retire from competition.
Mike Quinn doesn't really fit that mold however. He was considered a black sheep and a "bad boy" even before he retired. Many even consider this former Mr. USA and NABBA Mr. Universe to be the original bad boy of bodybuilding.
Quinn got into fights and had a reputation for being hostile. He also spoke his mind and pissed off a lot of people. In short, he was fun to watch and the magazines loved him.
But by the mid-nineties, Quinn had all but disappeared from the sport. Since Mike had inspired me in the past in my bodybuilding efforts, I decided to track him down and get the whole, uncensored story.
Testosterone Nation: Mike, you had a reputation as a fighter when you were competing. Did you get into a lot of fights as a kid?
Mike Quinn: I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, home of Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler. It's known as a pretty rough city. I was picked on a lot and got the shit beaten out of me until I was thirteen or fourteen. Then, later, I beat the fuck out of anyone that had ever beaten me up.
People have this idea that I'm some kind of bully, but the truth is that I hate bullies. The only fights I've ever been involved in were always with guys who were assholes and picked on those smaller and weaker than they were.
T-Nation: What type of kid were you?
MQ: I was a weird kid; I had a nervous condition. Technically I was mentally ill. I was basically raised by my grandfather until he died when I was eleven. I really don't remember a whole lot from my childhood because it's all blocked out, but mental problems aren't unheard of in my family.
Just on one side, eight of my relatives have either committed suicide or attempted it. [Note: Mike's sister took her own life.] Plus I have ADHD. I wonder sometimes if all the vaccinations as a kid had anything to do with it, because back then all the vaccines had mercury in them.
T-Nation: How did you get into training?
MQ: My dad had a little gym in the cellar and one day when I was thirteen, he decided it was time for me to start lifting. That first day, just messing around, I benched 220 pounds.
T-Nation: Were you already muscular?
MQ: I was a husky kid, chubby, you know? Instead of pecs I had boobs. That's why it's always been tough for me to get ripped. I trained at home until I was fifteen, then football kicked in. I was a really good football player and regret not going pro. I thought I was too short at 5'8" for the NFL.
But my weight training was always my therapy–where I could get all my anger out and finally relax. I'd finish a two-hour football practice, then take the bus across town to the gym and train for an hour and a half to two hours.
T-Nation: When did you know you had a gift for bodybuilding?
MQ: I actually competed in powerlifting for a while as a teenager. When I was eighteen and getting ready for a meet, I was supposed to squat 550 for five that day. I only got four reps and all of a sudden I just said, "Fuck this! I'm gonna be a bodybuilder!" Six weeks later I entered the Teen Mr. Bay State and won.
A few months after that I won the Teen Mr. Massachusetts as well as my class in the Men's Open, and then capped it all off with the Teenage Mr. America title. Even as a teenager I was as good as most of the older guys competing in the sport.
A couple years later I took third in the Mr. America to Joe Meeko, a guy who never did anything else in the sport, but right after that I won the 1984 NABBA Universe in London, the same show that Arnold and Steve Reeves had won. Of course, when I wanted to become a professional in the IFBB they made me start all over again with state-level shows until I won the USA in '87.
T-Nation: How were you first introduced to steroids?
MQ: The first few years I trained in a gym, my dad trained there with me and kept all the steroid dealers away from me. It's probably the only good thing he ever did for me. But I was getting bigger and stronger all the time naturally anyway. Why would you think about steroids if everything was going so well?
Then when I was eighteen, I decided I'd try them. First I educated myself, then I went to a local doctor who would prescribe steroids to athletes in the area. My first cycle was a hundred milligrams a week each of Test and deca, three D-bols a day and four Anavar. I won my first show on that. I never used steroids to build muscle, only to hold on to muscle while I dieted.
T-Nation: Is it fair to say that there was more emphasis back then on hard training and less on the drugs you took?
MQ: To sum it up, bodybuilding in the eighties was awesome and the nineties were a huge disappointment. In the eighties, your training was the most important thing, then came diet, and the drugs were a distant third. That hierarchy seems to have reversed itself since then. Now kids will come up to me and their first question is usually how much I bench. Right after that they want to know what steroids I use. It's so pathetic.
T-Nation: Do you think too many kids jump into using steroids these days without taking the time to build a natural base of size and strength?
MQ: Definitely, and the thing that makes no sense to me is that with all the information they can get online now, almost none of these kids are educating themselves about drugs before they start using them. They're just going by hearsay and duplicating what they think the pro's are using. I think you have to be mentally ill these days to be a bodybuilder.
T-Nation: You were always known as a very intense trainer. Did people get frightened or intimidated by you in the gym?
MQ: All the time. In fact, it's still hard for me now to get personal training clients because people think I'm crazy. But I've never once turned down an autograph from a fan. You have to understand that the gym is my office; it's where I go to work.
I have ADHD, which gave me the ability to hyper-focus for short periods of time. When I was finally diagnosed, I studied the disease and how it manifests itself. Suddenly a lot of the bad decisions and impulsive behavior in my past made sense. ADHD is like a slide projector. You're always one slide ahead of the one on the screen.
T-Nation: You also had the reputation of being bodybuilding's "bad boy." How did that come about?
MQ: I never, ever proclaimed myself to be a "bad boy." I think it sounds stupid, really. I guess it was just the way I trained and the photos they ran of me looking so hostile. But those pictures sold. When I had my first Ironman cover, their sales doubled.
I would've been perfect for contact sports like football or hockey, but the funny thing is the myth of me being a brawler or a troublemaker became a reality. I'd go out and guys would want to start trouble with me just because of that image. I always had to be on the defensive. I was never afraid to speak my mind and I never could stand to see a bully push people around. If that makes me a bad boy, fine.
T-Nation: You struggled with a recreational drug problem for several years, correct?
MQ: It was an on and off thing. I wasn't a drug addict. I was actually self-medicating the anxiety from my ADHD with cocaine. When I used coke, I could read, I could think straight, and I was centered. I thought it made me normal. ADHD is the opposite of ADD. You aren't hyper-active, you're hyper-reactive to stimuli. It's why I had no control over my anger as a young man.
T-Nation: I assume you're on more traditional medications for it now, right?
MQ: I was on Wellbutrin for years and it was very effective, but I could never sleep. Now I'm on Paxil for my manic depression and Stratera. I still don't feel a hundred percent normal.
T-Nation: When was the last time you really lost your temper or had any type of physical altercation?
MQ: It was last November. This asshole – who turned out to be a little juiced-up bodybuilder – thought my wife stole his parking spot at Home Depot and started threatening her. She was scared so she called me. I was twenty-five minutes away so I told her to block his car in so he couldn't leave.
By the time I got there he'd gone into a GNC store that was next to Home Depot. I threw that piece of shit around like a rag doll. I put him through every display in there. But I'm 42 years old now. I tore a couple of ligaments in my shoulder tossing that dirtbag around.
T-Nation: How big do you stay these days anyway?
MQ: I'm trying to get smaller, but I'm still 240. The biggest I ever got was 290, but it was very, very uncomfortable. I don't know how these guys now can walk around like that. You take a few steps and you're out of breath. We stayed in better shape in the 80's and weren't so much into this extreme bulking up. We just knew it couldn't be healthy.
T-Nation: There was also an incident where you lost your gym over some dealings related to the mob, right?
MQ: Yeah, it was a pretty scary thing. I had two partners in my gym in Florida. One was a guy from England who owned a supplement company. The other was a chiropractor from Boca Raton. We each put a quarter million into it, and the chiropractor was supposed to get five grand a month.
I let my partner run the business, not knowing that he had a drug problem and wasn't managing the money properly. He missed a few payments to the chiropractor.
One day we got a visit from four "real" Italian men who let us know that it was really their money the chiropractor had given us, and they didn't appreciate us not making the payments on the loan. These guys were from one of the top crime families in the USA. I got scared and signed all my shares away.
T-Nation: So you never had anything to do with the Mafia?
MQ: I had friends who were involved, but I never had any part in that stuff and never asked about that. Thank God I knew them though, because there was an incident a few years ago where a club owner in Miami wanted me dead and put a hit out on me. I made a phone call and the hit was off. The guy had smashed a tequila bottle over my head and face.
T-Nation: Nice. Why did you stop competing?
MQ: I stopped because the sport became a cult. The winners started becoming the guys with the best chemists. The only true genetic freak in the pro's today is Ronnie Coleman. He actually turned pro when he was still clean. There's so much bullshit and politics in the sport now. It's all a bunch of crybabies who bitch and moan but never make a stand.
You want to get things changed? Boycott the Mr. Olympia! This is the only sport I know where the federation turns its back on athletes when they have health problems. In Europe, when a soccer player gets ill, they put on special charity matches to raise money for him.
T-Nation: Some people look at the pro's in the magazines and assume they're getting laid like NBA stars. Do the guys get a lot of different women?
MQ: Sure, there were some guys I knew who had their share of bodybuilding groupies and it's probably the same nowadays. I was always a one-woman type of guy, not a womanizer. Some of the guys who had a lot of different women were also swinging both ways and that still goes on too.
The Palos Verdes Blue is the rarest butterfly in the world. Male butterflies find females by sight, and use chemicals called pheromones at close range. If the female accepts the male, they couple end to end and may go on a short courtship flight. They may remain coupled for an hour or more, sometimes overnight.
T-Nation: That's the rumor for sure. Let's talk drugs. Can you explain, at least from your experience, what steroids do to your sex drive? And what happens to your mojo when the cycle is over?
MQ: I can say that the older you get, the worse of a "letdown" you experience when the cycle is over. But I never had much of a problem. I'm a Scorpio and we're known to be very virile. The only thing that's ever ruined an erection for me is stress.
Excess water in the surrounding soil inhibits the ability of a tree to take in oxygen through the roots. Most fruit trees will struggle or even die in soils that stay too wet for long periods of time. When soil has too much water in it, the open spaces that usually hold air or oxygen are obsolete. Because of this waterlogged soil, fruit tree roots are not able to take up the oxygen they need to survive and fruit trees can literally suffocate. Some fruit trees are also more susceptible to crown or root rots than others. These plants may take on significant damage from just short periods of wet feet. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/fegen/fruit-trees-in-wet-conditions.htm
I never had the wild highs and lows with the sex drive because I never abused Testosterone. A lot of guys love Test because it's cheap and you get all the fast strength and weight gains. I never liked the way Test made me feel.
I always used deca as my base and would stack that with a little Equipoise and D-bol, going six weeks on, two weeks off. The last six weeks before a contest would just be Primobolan, Winstrol-V, and a real androgenic oral like Halotestin toward the very end.
Rose apple
T-Nation: So you think Test is bad news for just about everybody?
MQ: It works well for some guys and not others. With me it always created a weird imbalance, probably because my body always produced plenty on its own. When you come off it, your joints stop producing synovial fluid. Another drug that's horrible on your joints is Winstrol. I could never stay on either one of those drugs for more than four weeks at a time.
Another thing is that I always made sure to have blood work done during the cycles, not after like most guys do. If my enzymes were too high, I'd back off on the dosage. Bodybuilders need to know that they have to stop exercising for two days before a blood test or else all the waste products from training will make the liver and kidney values too high.
T-Nation: Did steroids make your temper worse?
MQ: No. The only thing that ever pissed me off was dieting. I always had to really suffer to get ripped. Now these guys just use a ton of thyroid and DNP and still eat like pigs up until the day of the show.
T-Nation: How relevant to the average guy in the gym is a training article talking about what a top-ten Mr. Olympia competitor does?
MQ: It has no relevance whatsoever. These guys are on so many drugs they can get away with training almost every day for hours. If the average guy tries to do the same thing, he'll kill himself overtraining in a week or two.
T-Nation: In your experience, are most pro's experts on the subjects of training and nutrition?
MQ: Absolutely not. Bodybuilding at that level is pure narcissistic behavior. These guys go to very unhealthy extremes. Like this high-protein, high-fat diet so many of them are on. Number one, you get hypoglycemic from the lack of carbs. Two, your pancreas will be damaged, and three, with no fiber to help you eliminate waste, you're at a very high risk for colon cancer.
I read about all these guys now eating five hundred grams of protein a day and telling kids to do the same. How ridiculous! Nobody needs more than a gram per pound a day.
T-Nation: What else are these guys doing that's dangerous?
MQ: Insulin! Anyone who isn't diabetic and takes insulin just to get big is a moron. That's why the guys are so big now, the insulin and GH, but you can't put your organs out of balance like that and expect no long-term health problems.
These guys now eat way too much food, too. All that force-feeding ages your body really fast. They're burning out their digestive enzymes stuffing themselves every two hours. You should only eat when you're hungry. It's such a common sense thing, but there isn't much common sense in bodybuilding anymore.
T-Nation: Does it shock you to see how much the drug use has increased and become more complicated since the 80's? Would you consider it overkill?
MQ: It shocks me to see the lack of intelligence and the total disregard for health. There's no doubt in my mind these guys now are all using far more than they need to. Whenever anyone asks me about steroids, I usually tell them that I might have been insane, but I was never stupid!
T-Nation: In your day, I don't ever recall hearing about you guys needing gurus to get into shape. Why do you think the pro's today all seem to have them?
MQ: Well, we didn't have gurus, but you can't be a top bodybuilder without a great support system. I had a great training partner named Paul Fetters, my girlfriend back then, Dana Golden, helped me with my diet and Rick Valente worked with me on my posing. You need to have a few people who'll give you their honest opinions on what you look like.
I don't really know Chad Nicholls and have never heard anything bad about him, but I have heard of guys paying him up to ten grand to get them ready for a show. That's ridiculous. All you need to do is keep a good food log and a mirror. Just make notes as to how various types and quantities of foods affect your particular body.
T-Nation: It seems like you and the other guys from the 80's had a lot of fun competing. Were you all friendly with each other?
MQ: It was a fun time. We were like comrades because we saw each other so much. The only guy who was hard to get to know was Richie Gaspari. He was stressed out all the time.
T-Nation: What do you think about pro's trashing each other and threatening to kick each other's asses?
MQ: I say if you're really gonna kick someone's ass, you just do it. You don't talk about it for months and years. That's how you know these guys are all talk. They see each other a few times a year and have plenty of chances to fight if they really wanted to.
T-Nation: Out of all the men you competed with and met, who were the biggest gentlemen and who were the biggest jerks?
MQ: Almost all the guys were real gentlemen back then: Lee Haney, Lee Labrada, Berry DeMey, Mike Christian, Ron Love, and Bob Paris. Toward the end when I was competing, two European guys, both now dead, struck me as being the same way. That was Andreas Munzer and Momo Benaziza.
The only jerk I knew from my day was Shawn Ray. I was standing next to him once when this young kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, walks up with his mom to Shawn. The kid's mom says her son has Shawn's pictures up all over his bedroom wall and would love an autograph.
Shawn just blew him off and walked away. I felt so bad I gave him one of my photos and signed it. Later I got a letter from the mom saying her son had torn down all of Shawn's pictures and put mine up.
T-Nation: Are you still a fan of bodybuilding? If so, who are your favorite guys on the circuit today?
MQ: I am a fan, yes. I like Ronnie Coleman a lot. He reminds me a lot of Lee Haney with his natural, easy going spirituality. Plus he was a police officer all those years, so obviously he's the type of guy who likes to help people. I'm also a big fan of Darrem Charles. He's one guy who's really paid his dues. Most people don't know that for years, even as a pro, he was totally natural.
Sticky Willy is edible - When I was working in my yard this morning, I pulled up a clump of some kind of plant that was sticky, like velcro. I put that clump on my compost pile, but I thought it smelled something like celery, so I decided to try to find out if it is edible. Searching for sticky plant, brought it up right away. It is edible and can be used to make teas which are supposed to be beneficial to health, so I have pulled up some more to cook with. Galium aparine's leaves and stems of the plant can be cooked as a leaf vegetable if gathered before the fruits appear. However, the numerous small hooks which cover the plant and give it its clinging nature can make it less palatable if eaten raw. Geese thoroughly enjoy eating G. aparine, hence one of its other common names, "goosegrass". Cleavers are in the same family as coffee. The fruits of cleavers have often been dried and roasted, and then used as a coffee substitute which contains less caffeine. http://patriciashannon.blogspot.com/2014/04/sticky-willy-is-edible.html
T-Nation: What are you up to these days?
T-Nation: What are you up to these days?
MQ: I started a supplement line called Lifestyle Essentials. The target market is the mainstream. It's not a bodybuilding supplement line and my name and image will never appear in the marketing. I'm negotiating with GNC now to carry the line. You can find out about the products at www.healthyeffects.com.
T-Nation: The last time I spoke with you over a year ago, you were considering the Masters Olympia. Is that still a possibility or have you changed your mind about that?
MQ: Yeah, there's no way I'd do it now. If I were to use steroids and growth hormone now, I'd do it legally through a life extension clinic, so it would end up costing me thirty grand to get ready for a show with a first prize of ten thousand dollars. It just doesn't add up.
T-Nation: If you were starting out in bodybuilding nowadays, would you still want to be a pro?
MQ: No. I'd train for my own health and satisfaction, but the extremes the sport has gone to with the drugs and the diet are something I'd never want any part of.
T-Nation: Thanks for the candid talk, Mike.
MQ: Anytime, Ron!
https://www.t-nation.com/pharma/black-sheep-of-bodybuilding
In 1981, one Washington, DC, bar owner found a unique way to bring in customers. With his new Betamax recorder, he would videotape General Hospital each weekday afternoon.
That evening during happy hour he would play the episode on the TVs of the Pierce Street Annex, selling drinks to the after-work crowd eager to follow the events in the fictional Port Charles, New York.
Impressed by the turnout, the Annex even began playing back the week’s five episodes on Sundays, turning its “General Hospital marathon” into a daylong event, accompanied by food and, when the episodes ended, live music to keep the party going.
The customers were working women and men, unable to see the soap during the business day, and drawn to a continuing drama featuring adventure, romance, even science fiction, as Luke and Laura, the “supercouple” at the center of the story, sought to stop the bad guys from freezing the world.
The frenzy at the Annex typified the status of the US daytime soap in the early 1980s, with new technologies like VCRs, new social identities like “working women,” and new trends in soap storytelling, like the fantasy-filled exploits of young romantic pairs, helping daytime drama reach an unprecedented peak in profitability, popularity, and cultural legitimacy.
By 1984, the networks’ yearly daytime revenues would reach their all-time apex, just shy of $1.25 billion in ad sales. Soaps remained profitable across this decade, but the gradual decline in their earning power from 1984 on would be permanent. Never again would soaps be as lucrative for the networks, or as prominently placed in the American popular imagination.
In the early 1980s, soaps became common cultural currency. The 1981 wedding of Luke and Laura attracted the largest audience for a daytime soap episode in US television history.
A surfeit of media attention to the wedding was paired with a boom in the merchandising of ancillary products such as soap-inspired T-shirts and board games, celebrities declaring their soap fandom, and large groups of college students gathering in communal campus spaces to watch the daily installments.
That audiences beyond the housewife had become so invested in soap opera accorded it a new level of respect, but this respect assumed that 80s soaps were “better” than the daytime dramas of the past; the soaps’ greater cultural legitimacy was dependent on a distancing from their feminized history.
Many of the soaps of this period were different from soaps of earlier eras, although not necessarily in ways that inherently improved their worth. The shifts across the network era, magnified in the early 1980s, help us to see how variable the category of soap opera, and perhaps the ordering concept of genre itself, may be.
Multiple dimensions of the programs’ production and funding, their textual features, and their reception practices had changed by the early 80s. Attending to such shifts is more revealing of the programs’ institutional and cultural impact than is a perspective oriented around historical continuities.
This is noticeable across soap history but especially so by the 80s. The pleasures of the ’80s soaps spoke to real desires and needs shared by a wide cross section of the American public.
Daytime soap opera had been long invested in realist drama, but in the 80s many of daytime’s highest-rated serials took a fantastical turn. Not only did action adventure and science fiction plots infiltrate the narratives, but the styles and sensibilities of comedy, music video, and the fairy tale also made appearances.
The generic hybridization and broadened audiences of soaps across the 60s and 70s magnified and peaked in the early 80s. But instead of the social and political concerns that had defined so much of the network era soaps, the challenges faced by soap characters in the 80s tended to lack explicit connection to the issues of the day, promising instead a turn away from such matters.
The seeds of the soaps’ cultural and economic decline lay dormant within this moment of unprecedented success, as the network era began its gradual wane and the fantasies on-screen proved as precarious as the daytime profit margins.
Imaginings of young, heterosexual supercouples, nearly always white, falling in love against backdrops of pop music as they embarked on great adventures, made for compelling viewing.
But in the world outside the soaps, economic inequalities continued to grow. The women’s liberation movement was being displaced by a “postfeminist” mindset that revalued gender difference now that the imbalances of patriarchy purportedly had been resolved.
On-screen, the differences of class or gender between the couples were a source of celebration and fun, not of political protest or personal pain, offering a reassuring reprieve from the incomplete social changes initiated across the 60s and 70s.
However, the troubling realities that had yet to be addressed in American society—not only income inequality and imbalances of gendered power but also exclusions of race and sexual identity—would prove impossible to stave off.
The pleasures of the 80s soaps spoke to real desires and needs shared by a wide cross section of the American public. Their ultimately short-lived dominance reveals the tenuousness of the appealing fantasy they offered.
By the late 1970s, all three broadcast networks had become serious competitors in the daytime ratings and the advertising revenue they accrued. Especially notable was the rise of ABC to the position of highest rated in daytime, a steady climb initiated in 1978 and largely dependent on a soap lineup that had not even begun until 1963.
As of 1983, ABC Daytime was so lucrative as to be generating 50 percent of the full network’s profits. Even without sustaining its prime-time lead of the previous decade, ABC was the most profitable network in the early 1980s due to its daytime riches.
A 30-second spot on ABC’s GH (the top-rated soap) earned $27,800 while a similar ad on Guiding Light, GH’s time slot competitor on CBS , generated $16,500. ABC’s market value was not just one of overall numbers but of pull among younger demographics, for example, by attracting as many 18- to 49- year-old women as CBS and NBC combined in one quarter of 1983.
Yet the entire industry benefited from the success of ABC and of soaps. Thanks largely to soaps, in 1981 total daytime ad income was up 12 to 15 percent from the previous year, generating 25 percent of all network revenue.
The range of soap advertisers expanded as detergents and cooking oils were no longer the top sponsors; dental supplies, over-the-counter medications, makeup, and feminine hygiene products grew in prominence as soaps became a means to reach men, young people, and older adults alongside housewives.
An ad for the Rolling Stones’ latest concert film run during a 1983 episode of General Hospital epitomized this shift. Ad sales executives saw the period as opportune for luring new sponsors of all stripes: smaller companies looking to break into TV and the big game of car manufacturers, long resistant to day schedules.
Soap acting became a highly desired job, a trend that a number of casting directors and soap actors parlayed into the business of soap acting classes.
The influence and economic power of soaps was also visible in other realms. Just as daytime was booming, the tentative experiments with serialization in prime time begun in the 70s turned to fully serialized narratives. Dallas (CBS , 1978–91) embraced serialized storytelling in its third season, peaking in a cliff-hanging final episode in the spring of 1980.
By that point, its spin-off, Knots Landing (CBS , 1979–93), was underway and its chief competitor, Dynasty (ABC, 1981–89),was a pilot-in-the-making.
NBC’s Hill Street Blues (1981–87),the “quality” version of the prime-time serialization trend, was also in the works, debuting alongside Dynasty in January 1981.14 In the spring of 1980, Broadcasting declared, “Next season will shower screen with soaps,” referencing these prime-time developments.
The first-run syndication market was also heavily influenced by soaps. In 1982, syndicators marketed at least five soap-themed talk shows. These programs were envisioned as TV versions of the successful soap magazine market, which had grown throughout the 1970s and by the early 1980s touted its younger and more affluent readership.
A market for soap-themed merchandise also developed past its earlier burst around Dark Shadows, now licensing novelizations, board games, and clothing, becoming an additional revenue stream for soap producers, a “bonanza,” according to ABC.
The power of ABC’s soap lineup was made especially evident in the lead-up to the 1984 Summer Olympics, to which ABC had the broadcast rights.
While it was initially assumed that the network would preempt its soaps for the Los Angeles–based Games, as it was doing for its prime-time schedule, instead the network featured a two-hour interruption in the Olympics coverage each afternoon for shortened versions of its three top-rated dramas.
As ABC’s sports sales vice president grimly noted, “It was done for the good of the corporation”; the value of both the ad dollars and the audience loyalty of soaps trumped that of the prestigious, international athletic spectacle.
The profitability of soap opera also led to greater economic investment via production budgets, as well as in promotion and the value of creative workers. ABC was a strong investor in soap promotion, its “Love in the Afternoon” campaign dominating from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s.
The network also innovated a number of call-in services to keep fans involved with its shows. Meanwhile, GH‘s executive producer, Gloria Monty, earned prime-time development deals with ABC and Twentieth Century Fox, while many of that program’s on-screen talent leveraged contract renewals into salaries unprecedented for daytime.
Soap acting became a highly desired job, a trend that a number of casting directors and soap actors parlayed into the business of soap acting classes. Celebrities whose fame had been established in other spheres of media also sought out roles on daytime.
Although soap opera did not become a prestigious place to work, it did become lucrative for some and trendy for all during the 1980s peak.
https://lithub.com/how-the-1980s-soap-opera-craze-changed-television-forever/
It has been 30 years since EastEnders arrived on UK screens to begin chronicling the lives of the denizens of fictional Albert Square in east London. But the history of soap operas goes back a great deal further than that.
They first emerged on radio in the US of the early 1930s at the beginning of the Great Depression, arguably starting with Painted Dreams, which followed the lives of Irish-American widow Mother Moynihan and her friends and children.
Probably the most powerful advertising vehicle of their time, soaps were amusingly described in 1948 by James Thurber of the New Yorker as:
A kind of sandwich whose recipe is simple enough, although it took years to compound. Between thick slices of advertising spread 12 minutes of dialogue, add predicament, villainy and female suffering in equal measure, throw in a dash of nobility, sprinkle with tears, season with organ music, cover with a rich announcer sauce and serve five times a week.
Soap-time in the UK - It took the best part of 35 years for the form – having now moved over to television – to migrate to the UK. The pioneer was the BBC’s 1954 offering The Grove Family, a clear response to the imminent arrival of ITV.
Viewing episodes of the drama now is a rather strange experience because of the plummy Home Counties accents with which the lower-middle-class family spoke.
This even applies to the detective who turns up in the first episode, “Prevention and Cure”, which is available for viewing on the British Film Institute website. He provides, in classic Reithian BBC style, advice on how to make your home more burglar-proof.
When Coronation Street arrived six years later on ITV, we see soaps transformed into the mix we know today: characters speaking with strong regional accents who were stereotypically working-class, apart from the fact that most of them were self-employed.
Euro-suds - My own interest in soap operas began in the early 1990s when I became aware of their initially slow arrival in continental Europe. When Germany’s Lindenstraße (Lime Street, clearly modelled to some extent on Coronation Street), launched in 1985, it was the first European soap to appear outside the British isles (Ireland had come in with Tolka Row in 1964).
Yet Lindenstraße was to be the first of many. By the mid-1990s, with the deregulation of broadcasting and the resulting explosion of television channels everywhere, more than 50 domestic soaps were being produced around Europe, most of them leading the local viewer ratings.
The great decline - The scene is very different now. In the course of the past ten years, several of the great American daytime soaps have finally bitten the dust. Guiding Light came to an end in 2009.
With around 19,000 episodes, it is undoubtedly the longest-running story in the history of mankind, taking more than 70 years to narrate. It was followed in 2010 by As the World Turns, which had clocked up a mere 14,000 episodes.
Germany has gone from six daily soaps to two, Italy and the Netherlands from three to one, and the form has disappeared entirely from the Swedish television landscape. And the survivors are all suffering from declining viewing figures.
The 1986 Christmas Day episode of EastEnders where publican “Dirty” Den Watts served his wife Angie with divorce papers attracted an audience of 32.5m – half the total UK population. Now it is lucky to attract 10m viewers, peaking at a little more for special anniversary editions. Viewing figures for Coronation Street are broadly similar.
Having studied more than 60 European soaps, I concluded that the British soap in particular constitutes a cultural space where social-democratic values not only remained alive but continued to be seen as central to the characters’ lives. This was despite the fact that such values had ceased to be politically and above all economically dominant following the arrival of neo-liberalism in the 1980s.
Anyone old enough to have watched EastEnders during that decade will recall the fate of the double-barrelled James Willmott-Brown and his yuppie pub, the Dagmar. He was imprisoned for rape and the Dagmar was burned to the ground.
British soaps are about community, and the easiest way to move from being the good guy to being the bad guy is to put yourself first. Even the crims are expected to help out in a crisis – in this case, “Dirty” Den marshalled underworld friends to commit the arson after victim Kathy Beale told him about the rape.
There are many reasons for the declining number of soap viewers. The audience has been fragmented across many more TV channels (as it has for most programme genres).
We have also seen reality formats emerging since around the turn of the 2000s, such as Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity, which are much cheaper because they are unscripted – albeit these two shows are perhaps also now reaching the end of their shelf lives.
The technological possibility of “on demand” television has perhaps also taken its toll, particularly with younger audiences. Arguably soaps and their cliffhanger storylines made more sense in the era of “appointment” television, where the latest plot twist was the talking point the next day all over the country.
But there is of course more to it than that. New generations are arriving for whom the old post-war social democratic settlement is not even a distant memory. But soaps no longer appear to be where they look for the means to help them come to terms with it and imagine ways forward.
In a recent paper I argued that soaps were one of the great cultural phenomena of the 20th century. It seems unlikely that we will say the same thing when the time finally comes to look back on the 21st.
http://theconversation.com/why-the-soap-opera-is-in-terminal-decline-37669
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