Gardeners keen to boost their crop of tomatoes may be surprised to learn they can turn to an unusual and free source of fertiliser.

Allotment growers can enrich the soil and therefore their plants using their own wee, according to a new study.

Scientists discovered the unusual addition made crops up to four times larger.

A team of Finnish researchers found that sprinkling tomatoes with human urine mixed with wood ash was the ultimate eco-friendly fertiliser.

It worked just as well with cucumber, corn, cabbage and other crops.

Although scientists have previously tested urine on plants, this is the first one to mix it with wood ash.

The mixture produced bumper harvests when compared to untreated plants.

It could one day be substituted for costly synthetic fertilisers.

The university study, published in this month's Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, found using nitrogen-rich urine does not carry any risk of disease.

When combined with wood ash is perfect to provide minerals and reduce the acidity of soil.

Report author Surenda Pradhen said the findings could lead to a new source of cheap fertiliser without the need to use potentially dangerous chemicals.

The plant is winter-flowering heather, and botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, many of them heather experts who have recognised the source of its active ingredient, now expect it to be the next must-have plant in British gardens. Demand is already high. Nurseries and garden centres in some areas are having trouble finding sufficient supplies as word spreads of the plant's unexpected properties.

A spokesman for Wyevale Garden Centres, which has 106 UK branches, said: "At first, it was just a trickle of inquiries, but now stores are virtually being besieged each weekend. We have had men buying dozens of the plants and, at one store in Croydon, there were men old enough to know better fighting over the last remaining trays."

The latest gardening craze was triggered by a discovery by a 55-year-old furniture restorer, Michael Ford, on his allotment. He was always experimenting with drinks made from different plants and one day he tried an infusion from his winter-flowering heather. He said: "The effect was almost immediate. I had to stay in my potting shed for an hour or so before I could decently walk down the street."

He then contacted the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, famous for their work with the heather family, to see if they could offer an explanation. They could. Botanist Alan Bennell said: "This first surfaced when East European chemists reported finding a Viagra-type chemical in the floral tissues of winter-flowering heaths. They were able to isolate measurable amounts of material that is an analogue of the active principle in Viagra."

Winter-flowering heather, he explained, belongs to the genus Erica, a close relative of our own native heather. He said: "As yet, the active ingredient has not been found in these British forms, but it is proving to be most concentrated in many of the widely available hybrids sold as winter-flowering heather in garden centres. Particularly potent are forms of Erica carnea, the Alpine heather, whose range extends into the Balkans.

"The work of these biochemists and physiologists - much of it disrupted and lost during the ravages of war - is now coming to light."

From the limited amount of information available, it is suggested the Viagra-analogue is best extracted by steeping the detached small flowers in neat alcohol. An infusion of about 20g of flowers in 100ml of fluid liberates the active principle. A quality full-strength vodka (at least 40 per cent) is also effective. Mr Bennell added: "There is some confusion whether oral consumption or topical application is more effective."

But not everyone is happy about this new discovery. One woman shopping at a Wyvales in Dorking yesterday said: "It's amazing. My husband has never shown any interest in gardening before, but now he's out there night and day fussing over his heathers. Frankly, I preferred it when he left the garden to me and wasn't so frisky."

---

Kid & Kite :

   [ Photo by Kevin Carter : Ayod, S. Sudan, 1993 ] 

Cracking Good News ! ! !

Thanks to Monsanto GM Seed Aid, the Kid [ "Ja-Man-Ra" ] is 28 years old ( he digs for blood diamonds )( and he has AIDS ). And the Kite starved to death ! ! !

   ! ! ! Coming soon to a Soylent Shop^{( TM )} near You : Monsanto^{( TM )} "Schmoo"^{( TM )} Brand GMeat ^{( TM )} ! ! !

   [ Our Darling : Miro Dajo ]

   [ Melvin Gibson in Apokalypso Now  ]

Extending the Life of Donated Organs

by

Pavelic K, , et al. -- Ruder Boskovic Institute, Division of Molecular Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia. pavelic@rudjer.irb.hr

Natural silicate materials, including zeolite clinoptilolite, have been shown to exhibit diverse biological activities and have been used successfully as a vaccine adjuvant and for the treatment of diarrhea. We report a novel use of finely ground clinoptilolite as a potential adjuvant in anticancer therapy. Clinoptilolite treatment of mice and dogs suffering from a variety of tumor types led to improvement in the overall health status, prolongation of life-span, and decrease in tumors size. Local application of clinoptilolite to skin cancers of dogs effectively reduced tumor formation and growth. In addition, toxicology studies on mice and rats demonstrated that the treatment does not have negative effects. In vitro tissue culture studies showed that finely ground clinoptilolite inhibits protein kinase B (c-Akt), induces expression of p21WAF1/CIP1 and p27KIP1 tumor suppressor proteins, and blocks cell growth in several cancer cell lines. These data indicate that clinoptilolite treatment might affect cancer growth by attenuating survival signals and inducing tumor suppressor genes in treated cells.

Friday, 26 October 2007
Discovery News

Scientists aren't sure how some clays kill bacteria. Metals in the clay may be the active ingredients. Or the highly charged molecular surfaces of the clay minerals may tear up bacterial cells.

Your doctor may one day prescribe dirt, if new research into a few potent antibacterial clays is successful.

Plenty of clays are already on the market, touted as cures for various ailments. But few have any clinical data to back them up.

That began to change five years ago when the late French humanitarian worker Line Brunet de Courssou reported that a French clay called Agricur was effective against the flesh-eating disease Buruli ulcer in Africa's Ivory Coast.

Now an interdisciplinary team of microbiologists and mineralogists is trying to figure out exactly how the clay cures.

"They would mix clay with water and make a paste and put it on the horrible wounds," says clay mineral researcher Associate Professor Lynda Williams of Arizona State University.

When daily applications of the clay caused too much pain and appeared not to help, another French clay was used.

"It was the second clay that killed [the bacteria], although the clays are mineralogically identical," Williams says.

That's where Williams and colleagues such as microbiologist Assistant Professor Shelley Haydel were able to begin research supported by the US National Institutes of Health into what makes one clay toxic to bacteria and the other harmless.

The first results of their work will be presented later this month at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.

"We're not just buying this healing stuff," says Williams of the popular and unproven use of all sorts of clays for questionable medical purposes. "We're trying to understand."

A range of clays

The researchers used several different clays, including sterile sand and the French clay used in the Ivory Coast, to see how well they killed a broad spectrum of bacteria.

Several different kinds of well-known, dangerous bacteria - Salmonella typhimurium, Streptococcus sp, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas stutzeri - were exposed to the clays.

"We found that bacterial cultures lost 90-99% of viability within 24 hours of exposure to the French Agricur clays," reports US Geological Survey researcher David Metge, who collaborated with Williams, Haydel and others.

"These results contrasted to only 10-40% of reduced viability caused by other clays or sterile sand."

The trick now, of course, is figuring out exactly how the clay is killing the microorganisms, says Williams.

One possibility is that metals in the clay are the active ingredients. Or it could be that the highly charged molecular surfaces of the clay minerals tear up bacterial cells.

Either way, clays would probably be a lot harder for bacteria to evolve defences against, as is happening with the accidental breeding of 'super bugs by the overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial products.

Unlike antibiotics, clay minerals almost certainly kill bacteria by a physical not biochemical process, says mineralogist Professor Ross Giese of the State University of New York in Buffalo, who is not directly involved in Williams' project.

Once researchers figure out the mechanism behind the killer clays, cheaper treatments for Buruli ulcer and other diseases may follow.

The World Health Organization (WHO), recently labeled Buruli ulcer an emerging public health threat. The disfiguring disease is increasingly common among children in central and western Africa.

If one of the Buruli's rural victims is fortunate enough to get medical help, the infected tissue is generally cut out, which sometimes means amputation. There is no other WHO-approved treatment.

But clay therapy is reported to have cured more than 50 cases of Buruli ulcer to date, the team reports.

"It not only stops the infection, but allows the body to regenerate tissues," says Giese.

"The Holy Grail in all this is if you could figure this out, it opens up a whole new world of fighting pathogenic bacteria."

A long history

Clays have long been used for stomach aches, paper processing, sealing wells and other applications.

But the long history of bogus clay cures and the fact that clay has such lowly origins has made clay research proposals a hard sell to funding agencies, Giese says.

"The previous uses have been low tech," he says, adding that clay particles are truly nature's own nanotechnology.

"I think that if clay was not synonymous with mud and dirt, we would be much further along."

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