SpongeBob lends name to new mushroom species

A new species of mushroom has been named by its discoverers after the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

The fungus, named Spongiforma squarepantsii by the researchers at San Francisco State University (SFSU), was found during an expedition to the forests of Borneo.

S. squarepantsii is shaped like a sea sponge and, say its discoverers, has a fruity or musty smell.

Details are published in the scientific journal Mycologia.

SpongeBob is the star of an eponymous television cartoon series which began in 1999. The character, who wears a short pair of square, brown trousers, lives in the fictional locality of Bikini Bottom.

The new mushroom is only one of two species that belong in the genus Spongiforma. The other one is found in central Thailand, but differs in its colour and odour. …

via BBC News – SpongeBob lends name to new mushroom species.

J.K. Rowling Announces Pottermore

YouTube – J.K. Rowling Announces Pottermore.

Hmm. I can’t tell from what she said exactly what it will be, but check it out: http://www.pottermore.com/

Duped Dope Smoker Avoids Arrest When He Purchases Real Grass Instead Of Pot

A 58-year-old man in Sweden is feeling like a dope after getting busted trying to buy marijuana.

However, police in Gavle, Sweden, let the man go after discovering that the bag of grass he bought was literally a bag of real grass. Oh, and some bark, TheLocal.se reported.

Security guards tipped off officers who interrupted the deal as it was taken place, but, according to the Swedish news agency TT, the seller fled before he could be apprehended.

Initially, the 58-year-old thought he had negotiated a rock-bottom price for his purchase, having haggled the price of the grass from $62 down to a mere $15.

Of course, there was a good reason.

Peter Hultqvist, duty officer with the Gavleborg police, said a thorough investigation of the counterfeit cannabis revealed that it was perfectly legal garden-variety grass with a few bits of bark, according to UPI.

But while the baby boomer bonghead wasn’t charged with a crime, police spokesman Mikael Hedstrom said the man’s actions are still considered criminal under Swedish law.

“Imagine that you order 10 kilos of amphetamine but receive common flour. You still tried to purchase narcotics so you can still be charged with an attempted drug offense,” Hedstrom said. …

via Duped Dope Smoker Avoids Arrest When He Purchases Real Grass Instead Of Pot.

Smoking actual grass would be a very slow way to get rid of lawn clippings.

I Just Paid $500 to be Brain Damaged by Fluoride Releasing Dental Sealants

LATEST UPDATE: My dentist will replace the fillings at no cost, but I also asked how much was used. A gram? He said no, only about 1/20th of a gram of Vitrebond. That changes my concern.  I was concerned about getting several milligrams of fluoride which is more than in food and drinking water because I thought he used about a gram per tooth. With only 50 mg of Vitrebond, the fluoride dose drops to 0.35 mg over the course of three months. (Twice that for two fillings). No amount is considered safe, but .7 mg released over 90 days does not concern me. The body normally gets rid of 1/2 of the fluoride that gets into your system and you can get rid of more with  some supplements.

I’m going to cancel the appointment and keep the fillings, but in future fillings I won’t have any of these liners added. I’ll consider myself an experiment. If I let you know in 20 years that I have a brain tumor, then I may be making the wrong choice.

—- Original post:

I just had a nerve toxin put into my head without my consent.  Oh, and one study says it is generally toxic to cells… and it caused genetic mutations when tested with the CHO Mammalian Cell Gene Mutation Test (HPRT test).

After many years I had some cavities under old fillings which did not show up in x-rays, so I had two filled today and needed a crown (all from decay under old fillings).  My natural teeth without fillings heal, but you can’t heal a filling. I made it clear on my consultation that I want no fluoride but my dentist didn’t remember this and today used Vitrebond and Limelight two fluoride compounds in two different fillings. He insists they wouldn’t use it if it wasn’t safe and said it does not release fluoride. BS. The company that makes it says it does.

In this difficult to read chart from a PDF on the 3M web site, Vitrebond has a HIGH release of fluoride, and the release increases over the years.  I can’t read the units… is that micrograms per gram? As in 6 milligrams released over the next 800 days?

This “liner” (for which, incidentally, my insurance does not pay) was placed close to a nerve in one of my teeth… on purpose. It reduces sensitivity. Yes, by killing the nerve? He says no, that it prevents root canals in the future.

Years ago I used to have panic attacks (heart pain then adrenaline rush for no reason). I don’t anymore. It could be that my regular exercise fixed the problem. But perhaps fluoride release in past dental sealants was the cause and the poison in my old fillings finally wore out. Now, without wanting it, I have another dose of nerve toxin.

Here is what one person had to say about Vitrebond:

I am a young gal of 24 and have experienced significant dental decay and gum recession, which is horribly painful and uncomfortable. Part of this is due to infected root canals, but I have also recently inquired after the materials used in my older fillings. The sealant of most of my fillings is Vitrebond, a fluoride-releasing agent. I immediately freaked. My new holistic dentist tested biocompatibility of this material, and it is definitely not biocompatible with my make-up. egod!! I am also battling an itchy skin rash/infection around my mouth and nose, and we believe this may be related to the dental materials as well as the infected root canals. I hope to replace these fillings (which will be time consuming and expensive, but worth it to get the flouride out of my mouth). I have also suffered from hypothyroidism in the past, and even taken prozac for 2 weeks with horrible “hallucinatory” side-effects. My dentist said “it’s that fluoride suppressing your already suppressed thyroid.” What a nightmare.

What are other people’s experiences with toxic dental sealents/materials with fluoride? Did they witness benefits and relief of symptoms once the fluoride materials were removed from their mouth? I am eager to start this process.!

via Fluoride Release Dental Sealants — Vitrebond at Fluoride Debate Forum (MessageID: 342493).

They use fluoride in drugs to enhance their “effects” but often with deadly results, many of these drugs have been pulled from the shelves for heart toxicity – You must be aware because I’ve found that your doctor doesn’t even know! My daughter’s doctor was going to prescribe a “floxin” antibiotic to her and I requested a non-fluoridated drug… she had NO idea what I was talking about. She asked ME which drugs were not fluoridated!

I can’t believe that he said it does not release fluoride. The company that makes it brags about the fact that it does. Does he not know his own product? It causes a 100% reduction in protein synthesis. (For how long?)

The effects of several glass-ionomer cements (Baseline and Chem Fil of De Trey; Ketac Fil and Ketac Bond of ESPE; Vitrebond and Vitremer of 3 M) on the protein synthesis of cultured gingival fibroblasts were studied. The presence of cements in the culture medium inhibited protein synthesis, although the relative effectiveness varied significantly. The cements tested have been ranked in three groups, group A (Chem Fil and Ketac Fil), group B (Ketac Bond and Baseline) and group C (Vitrebond and Vitremer), showing 50, 75 and 100% reduction in protein synthesis, respectively. Incubation of cells with medium previously conditioned by Baseline and Ketac Fil caused only transient inhibition of protein synthesis followed by almost complete recovery. This recovery was not observed when the medium was conditioned with Vitrebond. A characterization of the factors determining the inhibitory effect of one cement in each group was attempted. The cements, irrespective of the type, produced small but reproducible decreases in the pH of the medium but released fluoride ions to a different extent. Both changes in the pH of the medium and in the fluoride concentration inhibited protein synthesis by cultured gingival fibroblasts. The different action of cements can be explained, at least in part, by a differing release of fluoride ions. – link

Effect of sample preparation on the in vitro genotoxicity of a light curable glass ionomer cement

The glass ionomer cement Vitrebond™ showed a clear genotoxic effect in the in vitro Mammalian Cell Gene Mutation Test (HPRT Test) with CHO cells as well as in the bacterial umu-test with Salmonella typhimurium TA1535/pSK1002. Both DMSO and Ham’s F12 cell culture medium extracts according to ISO 10993-12 (Biological evaluation of medical devices—Part 12: sample preparation and reference materials, Geneva, Switzerland) exhibit a clear genotoxic effect in the umu-test. The effect is independent of the extraction volume in a range from 0.5 to 4 ml Ham’s F12 cell culture medium. Subsequent extractions of Vitrebond™ showed no significant difference in the genotoxic response although weight loss and content of 2-hydroxyethyl-methacrylate dropped significantly. In vivo conditions of Vitrebond™ were simulated by extractions with artificial and collected human saliva. These extracts showed a clear genotoxic effect in the umu-test, even if only a few seconds of extraction time were applied. In conclusion, sample preparations for genotoxicity testing according to ISO 10993-12 reflect the in vivo conditions of Vitrebond™ applications. This seems to be mostly due to the hydrophilic nature of the genotoxic ingredients.

One major component of Vitrebond™ is 2-hydroxyethyl-methacrylate (HEMA), a known contact allergen and moderate cytotoxic compound [22, 23 and 24]. Although previously no genotoxic effect for HEMA was found [2, 4 and 25], it tested positive in our umu-tests. At final concentrations above 27 m a clear genotoxic effect without relevant interfering cytotoxicity was demonstrated (Table 4). Genotoxicity was detected with and without addition of a rat liver enzyme mixture (S9-fraction after Aroclor induction). Interestingly, 50 m HEMA induced only a two-fold increase in mutation frequency in the HPRT Test (Table 1). This would suggest that the HPRT test is less sensitive than the umu-test, which is underlined by the results for a Vitrebond™ extract (see above). We determined the content of HEMA in Ham’s F12 extracts of Vitrebond™ by HPLC at less than 10 m (Fig. 1, Table 6). Thus the genotoxic effect of the extracts cannot be attributed to HEMA alone. This conclusion was corroborated when we tested the powder and liquid components of Vitrebond™ separately. The powder alone proved strongly genotoxic ( Table 5). Therefore HEMA, which is not present in the solid component (Fig. 1), cannot be the prime genotoxic component of Vitrebond™. One or several additional genotoxic ingredients must be present in the light-sensitive fluoro-aluminosilicate glass powder. For the liquid component alone no dose-dependent genotoxic effect could be measured due to interfering cytotoxicity. – http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961202003757

Ironic that my last blog post before going to the dentist was about fluoride causing brain damage. Well, perhaps some brain damage and a lower IQ will be good for me. I think too much already.

Do I spend hundreds more to have this stuff removed? I’m considering it, yes, I probably will.  It depends on how much poison he put in. What a nightmare. Removing it, assuming that can be done, will probably result in more tooth damage.  I left a message asking him to call me to discuss my options.  I also want to avoid “eugenol”:

You guys that use eugenol need to have your collective heads examined. How many times I have opened into a tooth full of recurrent decay under a sealed amalgam, and found a necrotic pulp? Your cure is to put eugenol on the pulp so the pulp dies a painless death and is no problem until someone takes an x ray 20 years down the road, and finds a huge chronic abscess. You are delaying the inevitable. Eugenol is soft, amalgam is hard. Why would you put this soft paste as a base for an amalgam. The tooth will fracture or leak or both. You have probably ignored the recurrent decay on the bitewings every year that occurs because of this…. Come into the 21st century…. – link

These days nothing is safe, but we should all know the options and the various risks. I already have a headache a few hours later.