Root Simple: Our Rocket Stove

Root Simple: Our Rocket Stove: Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Our Rocket Stove Video: http://www.aprovecho.org/web-content/media/rocket/rocket.htm

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Staring at the bricks we had scavenged to build the base of cob oven, we realized that we could re-purpose them for a permanent backyard rocket stove that we would actually use. Furthermore we realized that our rocket stove could burn some of the palm fronds that regularly tumble down from the iconic palm trees that line our old L.A. street.

Here's the materials we used:

36 bricks
4-inch aluminum stove pipe elbow
4-inch stove pipe
ash (scavenged from park BBQs)
1 tin can
50 pound bag of premixed concrete for the base
mortar mix
grill (scavenged)

The first step was to make a small foundation for the rocket stove. We fashioned a 18 by 18-inch by 4-inch slab with 2 x 4 lumber and a bag of premixed cement. Folks in cold places will need to make a deeper foundation to avoid frost heave.

Next we built a brick cube, leaving a small hole for the bottom of the stovepipe. For advice on how to build with brick we recommend taking a look at this. As you can see our masonry could use some more practice, but the results are not too bad--we like to think of our stove as being a bit "rustic". You can avoid the hassle of brickwork by making a simpler rocket stove--check out these two instructional videos, one for a metal model, and another version using bricks. We chose brick largely for aesthetic reasons and we're satisfied with the results.

Drawing from Capturing Heat

The next step is to put the pipe together fitting the elbow up into the longer pipe, and sized so that the top of the pipe is just below the bottom of the grill. Check out our earlier post for a video that can help with this part of the assembly. Serendipitously, on a bike ride, we found a grill in the middle of Sunset Boulevard that fit the opening in our brick rocket stove exactly.

You pour the ash into the completed brick cube to fill the space between the pipe and the inside wall. The ash acts as insulation to increase the efficiency of the stove. You could also use vermiculite but note that sand or soil will not work. Insulation works because of small pockets of air between particles, hence the need for ash or vermiculite, which are also non-combustible. We used a piece of scrap sheet metal with a 4-inch circular hole cut in it to keep the ash from spilling out the gap between the pipe and the squarish opening at the bottom.

Lastly you use a tin can sliced down the side and flattened out to form a shelf which you insert into the elbow at the bottom of the stove. Note the drawing above for the shape of the shelf. You put your twigs and kindling on this shelf and start the stove up with newspaper underneath the shelf. As the twigs burn you push them in over the edge to keep the fire going.

Our first test run of the stove was very successful--we boiled a pot of water and cooked some eggs in a a pan. The fire burned cleanly with little smoke except during start up. For more info on rocket stoves check out the Aprovecho Research Center.

Question about raising chickens

Re: Question about raising chickens
Posted by: "Heather Capps" heather.capps@yahoo.com heather.capps
Fri May 13, 2011 11:49 am (PDT)

Wow...this turned out to be really long...
In the beginning it was expensive because they were not laying yet. 12 chickens
should give you 8 to 10 eggs per day (once in a while...you' ll get 12 in one
day). Some lay almost every day and others every other day. Some will lay 3 to 4

days in a row and then skip a day. They have a 25 hour cycle. That would give
you roughly 23 dozen per month to sell (depending on how many you consume). We
sell our eggs for $5 per dozen. In our area, that is average. I noticed fresh
eggs in the store from a local place and they were selling for $7. Not organic
and not soy-free. It cost more for soy-free feed. Soy is a very cheap protein.
We make approx. $120 per month on the eggs. It pays for the chicken feed and
some of the llama feed. We have 16 grown hens. They are organic, pastured and
soy-free.
I buy all of their feed from the following:
azurestandard. com
They are based in Oregon. We have a local place that sells organic feed, but not

soy-free. Also, they are getting some of their 'organic soy beans' from China.
No thank you...
You need to sign in to see the prices. They deliver once per month, no tax and
no shipping. I buy food, etc. in bulk for us too. They have a lot of organic for

costco/trader joe prices.
Organic soy/corn free feed $28.35 - 50 lbs.
I buy 2 bags per month. They go through approx. 1.5 bags per month.
I also mix cayenne in their feed to keep the squirrels out. Birds cannot taste
hot and it's good for their circulation. I've heard that it also increases the
quantity of eggs.
Organic dried whole corn $11.40 - 25 lbs.
Organic chicken wheat $14.20 - 50 lbs.
I mix the corn and wheat together and throw that out as a treat later in the
day. I want them to get the layer feed first. I buy the corn and wheat about
every 3 to 4 months.
Organic raw apple cider vinegar $8.80 - 1 gallon
I put 2 tablespoons per gallon of water along with some crushed garlic.
Raw sunflower seeds $39.25 - 25 lbs.
I don't give them too much. We use it for nut butter and I give some to the
chickens for extra protein. I buy one bag every 3 to 4 months.
Crushed oyster shell for added calcium. I don't remember how much it was...but
it was very cheap. You want to start giving the extra calcium when they start
laying eggs. Giving calcium to chicks could cause kidney problems later.
I also make kefir for them and us with raw goat milk and mix it with kitchen
scraps along with some herbs and spices and garlic. I buy goat milk for $8 per
gallon. They end up with about 1 gallon per month....maybe 1.5 gallons.
Worming every fall when pumpkins are available: Pumpkin, dandelion greens,
carrots, onion, garlic.
http://www.moonligh tmileherbs. com/reg0507falla lterative. pdf
They get a lot of extras from our garden. They love plantain leaf and we have
tons. Dandelion greens, weeds from the garden (I attach to the fence by the
roots with a clothespin).
We make more on the eggs than what we spend on feed. Mike sells the eggs at work

and there's a demand for them.
Time spent on them. I clean the coops 2 times per year (spring and fall).
Pressure wash, scrub, sanitize with vinegar and peroxide (do not mix
together...spray one and then the other one). In-between the cleaning, we do the

deep litter method. We add more rice straw to the coop floors. In the AM, let
them out, feed them, refresh the water. Collect eggs later in the day and spoil
them with treats. At night, they will put themselves away and I go out and lock
them up after counting them to make sure everyone is there. Dust bath - 1/2 wine

barrel with dirt, sand and wood ash. I sprinkle herbs on top periodically to
keep mites/lice off of them. I sprinkle herbs in the nest boxes along with
crushed lay leaf, lavender flowers and wood ash. We have bay trees and lavender
on the property. I spoil them...so I spend more time with them than necessary.
The herbal and homeopathic stuff I have on hand for them and us: Pricey at
first, but can be used for all of our animals and us if needed. We have other
stuff on hand for us too.
Tinctures, slaves, etc.
Echinacea
Plague formula for respiratory infections (apple cider vinegar, horseradish,
onion, garlic, hot pepper, ginger)...Doc has this recipe in the files.
Rescue Remedy (for stress or introducing new chickens to the flock...can put
some in the water and spray around them)
MMS (have not used this yet, but read that it can cure mereks disease which is a

type of herpes in chickens)
Colloidal Silver (anti-bacterial. ..can put in water or spray on wounds and can
spray in the eyes for infection)
Salve for wounds (Ingr. colloidal Silver, comfrey, calendula, yellow dock,
plantain, E, olive oil, cocoa butter, bee's wax, rescue remedy, lavender and
rose oil)
Skin & Would Spray (Ingr. deionized water, grapefruit seed extract, alcohol,
essential oils of tea tree and lemon)
Body Balance + (apple cider vinegar, molasses, black walnut hull tincture...Doc
has the recipe in the files). I made it for us, but we had a chicken with
impacted crop due to eating the orchard grass that the llamas dropped on the
ground. The strands were long and they got caught in her crop. She also had sour

crop from it. I massaged in a downward motion a few times per day until it
passed. I read that walnut hull tincture is good for candida. Added Body Balance

+ to the water and she improved.
Homeopathic:
Arnica - shock and bruising
Ledum - pain
Hypericum - puncture wounds
You'll never make your money back for the cost of the coop, feeders, fencing,
etc. We also added the llamas for guarding and housing for them. We have bobcats

and coyotes here. But once you're set-up, then you can have animals for a long
time:)
They will molt (lose their feathers) in the winter and not lay eggs while
molting. If you get chicks and they start laying before fall, they will lay
throughout the winter and molt the next year. If you have room for more
chickens, order some every year so you have some layers in the winter while the
other ones are molting. Our adults will molt this winter and our new chickens
will lay. We will be spending $ on feed and 1/2 of the chickens will not produce

for 3 to 4 months.
-Heather (Forestville, CA)

The Bad Daddy Factor | Smart Journalism. Real Solutions. Miller-McCune.: "The Bad Daddy Factor

Drinking, smoking, taking prescription meds or failing to eat a balanced diet can influence the health of men’s future children.

The Bad Daddy Factor

Drinking, smoking, taking prescription meds or failing to eat a balanced diet can influence the health of men’s future children.

Share and Enjoy:

By Emily Anthes

(Illustration by Mark Fredrickson)

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The fathers weren’t supposed to matter. But in the mid-1960s, pharmacologist Gladys Friedler was making all sorts of strange findings. She discovered that when she gave morphine to female rats, it altered the development of their future offspring — rat pups that hadn’t even been conceived yet. What’s more, even these rats’ grandchildren seemed to have problems. In an effort to understand the unexpected result, she made a fateful decision: She would see what happened when she put male rodents on the opiate. So she shot up the rat daddies with morphine, waited a few days, and then mated them with healthy, drug-free females. Their pups, to Friedler’s utter shock, were profoundly abnormal. They were underweight and chronic late bloomers, missing all their developmental landmarks. “It made no sense,” she recalls today. “I didn’t understand it.”

For the next several decades, Friedler tried to understand this finding, ultimately assembling a strong case that morphine, alcohol and other substances could prompt male rodents to father defective offspring. There was only one problem: No one believed her. Colleagues questioned her results — her former adviser urged her to abandon the research — and she struggled to find funding and get her results published. “It didn’t occur to me that you’re not supposed to look at fathers’ roles in birth defects,” Friedler says. “I initially was not aware of the resistance. I was one of the people who was actually naïve enough to work in this field.”

Over the last half-century, as scientists learned more and more about how women could safeguard their developing fetuses — skip the vodka, take your folate — few researchers even considered the possibility that men played a role in prenatal health. It would turn out to be a scientific oversight of significant proportions. A critical mass of research now demonstrates that environmental exposures — from paints to pesticides — can cause men to father children with all sorts of abnormalities. Drinking booze, smoking cigarettes, taking prescription medications and even just not eating a balanced diet can influence the health of men’s future kids. In the several decades since Friedler started her work, the idea that chemicals in a man’s environment can influence the health of his future children has, she says, “moved from lunatic fringe to cutting edge.”

So why don’t we ever hear about it?

As an andrologist, Bernard Robaire has spent his career studying the functions and dysfunctions of the male reproductive system. In the early 1980s, he was giving grand rounds at the McGill University Health Center in Montreal when an oncologist approached him with a question. The oncologist had been treating men with testicular cancer; chemotherapy and radiation were generally expected to render the patients infertile. But lo and behold, tests were showing that, even after the cancer had been licked, some of the men still had viable sperm. The patients had concerns, however: Were the sperm defective? Was it safe for them to have kids? The oncologist, surprised that reproduction was even an option for his patients, had no idea. He put the question to Robaire.

Robaire was equally stumped. He combed through the scientific literature but couldn’t find a clear answer. So he decided to research the question himself. He paired up with a specialist on birth defects, and together they put together an application for a grant to study whether cancer drugs might damage sperm in ways that put men’s future children at risk. They submitted their application to the Medical Research Council, Canada’s equivalent of the National Institutes of Health. “And I had the absolute worst ranking on a grant I’ve ever had in my life,” Robaire recalls today. The scientists reviewing the application rejected it outright. “This makes no sense,” they had written. “How can you expect drugs given to the male to affect the progeny?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable question. There was no obvious physiological mechanism that could explain the connection. It’s the woman who makes her body home to a developing fetus, and damaged sperm were widely thought to be too weak to successfully fertilize an egg. The conventional wisdom, among oncologists, was that anti-cancer drugs would kill sperm, but after stopping treatment, sperm production would begin again — and the germ cells would be normal.

But that’s not what Robaire found. In his early rodent studies, he discovered that chemotherapy agents could degrade the quality of sperm. These sperm were still capable of fertilizing eggs, but the embryos would often spontaneously abort themselves. Among those that actually survived to term, the rodent pups had abnormally slow development. Since then, Robaire has continued to study the effects of chemotherapy drugs on sperm in rodents and humans; some of his most recent work reveals that some men continue to manufacture damaged sperm — with abnormal numbers of chromosomes and breaks in DNA — for as long as two years after their last dose of chemo. “The chemo causes really dramatic damage,” Robaire says.

While Robaire was slogging away, other scientists were quietly accumulating similar evidence. Some of the early work showed that women had more miscarriages when their male partners worked in manufacturing jobs where they were exposed to heavy metals, such as lead and mercury. Men exposed to pesticides were more likely to have children who developed leukemia. (For years, studies have linked Agent Orange, an herbicide used during the Vietnam War, to birth defects in the offspring of veterans, but a causal link has not been definitively established.) Other research suggested that men who worked with solvents, cleaning solutions, dyes and textiles, paints and other chemicals were all more likely to father kids with birth defects or childhood cancers.

Scientists also showed that it didn’t require industrial-strength chemicals to wreak havoc on men’s sperm. Smokers seemed to produce sperm with the wrong number of chromosomes, a DNA error that could lead to miscarriages or Down syndrome. (A stunning 2008 paper revealed that men with deficiencies in folate, that superstar maternal vitamin, had the same problem.) Paternal smoking has also been linked to childhood cancer, and even alcohol and caffeine can cause sperm abnormalities that derail child development.

We now know that what started as an inconceivable mystery — how could men’s environments and lifestyles possibly affect the children they would later father? — has not just one but several answers. Certain substances interfere with the earliest phase of sperm production in the testes, prompting errors in cell division that lead to genetic mutations in immature sperm cells. Chemicals can also cause what are known as epigenetic mutations, which don’t change the DNA sequence itself but alter how the body reads these genetic instructions. Essentially, an epigenetic change involves turning certain genes on or off, telling the body to pay more or less attention to the code they contain. (If genetic changes are akin to changing the lyrics of a song, epigenetic changes are like fiddling with the volume.)

Drugs can also interfere with sperm transport. A 2009 study revealed that a standard dose of paroxetine — the active drug in the antidepressant marketed as Paxil — causes a fivefold increase in the number of men who show evidence of “sperm fragmentation,” which can increase the chances of miscarriage. Researchers have known that certain antidepressants can influence ejaculatory response; it turns out that they seem to slow the transportation of sperm through the male reproductive system, causing the cells to age prematurely. “Sperm are being damaged because they’re not traveling properly through the body,” says Peter Schlegel, who led the study and is a urologist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College.

And these findings are just the beginning. Consider, for instance, that there are some 84,000 chemicals used in American workplaces, says Barbara Grajewski, a senior epidemiologist at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Only 4,000 of these have even been evaluated for reproductive effects in men or women, and males are particularly understudied. “There’s a whole range of effects in men that really are not being given attention or are well understood,” Grajewski says. “The whole area of men’s reproductive health is way behind women’s health.”

The implications of this research deficit are huge. Some 60 percent of all birth defects today are of unknown origin; tracing even a small fraction of these back to men’s environmental exposures would constitute a major public health advance.

Despite the accumulating findings, the idea that fathers can somehow contribute to birth defects has gained little traction in the public sphere. Cigarette packs have no warnings about the association between male smokers and birth defects. A woman who drinks while she’s pregnant can be prosecuted, but most men have no idea that drinking in the months before conception is risky.

“Why would we not look at the paternal side of the equation? To me that’s really a social and political puzzle,” says Cynthia R. Daniels, a political scientist at Rutgers who studies gender and reproductive politics. “We seem to politically be in a place where we overprotect and over-warn women, but where men and fathers remain almost completely invisible. You’re not likely anytime soon to see signs in bars that say, ‘Men who drink should not reproduce.’”

We still assume that men are secondary partners in reproduction, that their biological contribution to a child is fleeting and ultimately less important than women’s, Daniels says. What’s more, both men and women can find the research threatening. After Friedler organized a scientific symposium on the paternal-fetal connection, she found herself in the elevator with two male colleagues. They turned to her and said, “Why are you picking on men?” On the other hand, when Friedler later had a fellowship at an institute for female scholars, some of the women there challenged her, demanding to know why she was spending so much time researching men. She couldn’t win.

Even when the science is unambiguous, policy seems to lag. For decades, only women were banned from the lead trade, though the evidence suggested the metal could cause stillbirths and fetal problems regardless of which parent had been exposed. Today, federal occupational and health standards protect men from lead, but there are lots of regulations missing for other dangerous compounds.

Consider the well-documented hazard presented by anesthetic gases. The female partners of men who work as dentists, operating room technicians or anesthesiologists are more likely to experience miscarriages. On its website, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a lengthy document devoted to the hazards presented by anesthetic gases and how companies can protect their workers. But, in a prominent message at the top of the page, the agency comes straight out and says, “These guidelines are not a new standard or regulation, and they create no new legal obligations. The guidelines are advisory in nature. …”

By law, employers are required to provide what are known as “material safety data sheets” that outline the hazards involved in any chemicals their workers might encounter. A team of researchers discovered that these sheets were 18 times more likely to mention risks to female reproduction than male reproduction. To be fair, it’s harder to figure out what to do to protect men. With women, it’s obvious — keep them away from these chemicals during pregnancy. But what do you do with men who are constantly making sperm and could contribute to a pregnancy at any point?

Well, we should start with a thorough review of the evidence, Daniels says, and then establish a commission to develop appropriate policy. It’s also clear more research is needed — particularly research that asks the right questions. The FDA requires that new drugs be tested in rodent models for any potential effects on sperm production. But while these sorts of analyses will reveal whether a drug drastically affects sperm count, they may not show more subtle changes, says Schlegel, who conducted the study on antidepressants. Unless a chemical has “a huge and dramatic effect on sperm numbers, it often can be missed,” he says.

An obvious step toward better fetal health would have obstetricians and gynecologists consider fathers’ chemical exposures when trying to ensure healthy pregnancies and children. Ideally, men would be engaged even earlier, with the government issuing guidelines for young men that deal with environmental toxins and lifestyle choices that might jeopardize the health of future children. The time may be right for more engagement; many occupational health and safety guidelines, for men and women, were loosened by the Bush administration. “I think there’s a great opportunity now to rebuild standards to include risks to male reproductive health,” Daniels says.

There’s a generational opening, too, she says. In recent years, she’s noticed a change in the reaction male college students have to learning about the risks they face. “I’ve found, especially among young men, a sense of outrage and alarm,” Daniels reports. “They say, ‘How could this be? How could it be that no one has ever suggested to me that alcohol might have an impact on my ability to have healthy children?’ They’re angry that they don’t know about this.”

HowStuffWorks "Will there be farms in New York City's skyscrapers?"

HowStuffWorks "Will there be farms in New York City's skyscrapers?": "The key to vertical farming is space. The Vertical Farm Project, led by Dr. Despommier, claims that one indoor acre of farming is equal to 4 to 6 outdoor acres [Source: The Vertical Farm Project]. They cite a farm in Florida that was converted into an indoor hydroponic farm where strawberries grow in stacks. That farm now grows the equivalent of 30 acres of strawberries in a one-acre greenhouse.

By converting from 'horizontal farming' to vertical farming, humanity would never have to worry about running out of arable land. By operating indoors, crops could be grown all year, free of concerns about bad weather, drought or natural disasters. If the building is sealed and carefully monitored, there would be no need for pesticides to eliminate invasive insects or parasites, a particularly devastating problem in the developing world. All food would be organically grown without fertilizer and free of disease. Vertical farmers wouldn't have to worry about conflicts over land, water and other natural resources or contend with genetically modified foods, unwanted strains of plants or wandering animals."

More Great Links

• The Vertical Farm Essay
• Vertical Farm Designs
• Planet Green
• TreeHugger.com

Sources

• Chamberlain, Lisa. "Skyfarming." New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/features/30020/
• Cooke, Jeremy. "Vertical farming in the big Apple." BBC News. June 19, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6752795.stm
• "Professor sees vertical farms on horizon." Knight Ridder Newspapers. Columbia Daily Tribune. Aug. 30, 2005. http://www.columbiatribune.com/2005/Aug/20050830Busi010.asp
• "The Vertical Farm Project." http://www.verticalfarm.com/
• "Farm of the Future?" U.S. News & World Report. May 28, 2007. http://www.verticalfarm.com/images/news/usnews-article.jpg

Ion Channels and the Electrical Properties of Membranes

WOW, looks like I found my test case... MS often starts with kids 8-13 years old... Emily and Chris started at about this age... PERFECT!!! lol... wow, so cool, thanks Jared!!

Ion Channels and the Electrical Properties of Membranes: "Myelination Increases the Speed and Efficiency of Action Potential Propagation in Nerve Cells

The axons of many vertebrate neurons are insulated by a myelin sheath, which greatly increases the rate at which an axon can conduct an action potential. The importance of myelination is dramatically demonstrated by the demyelinating disease multiple sclerosis, in which myelin sheaths in some regions of the central nervous system are destroyed; where this happens, the propagation of nerve impulses is greatly slowed, often with devastating neurological consequences.

Myelin is formed by specialized supporting cells called glial cells. Schwann cells myelinate axons in peripheral nerves and oligodendrocytes do so in the central nervous system. These glial cells wrap layer upon layer of their own plasma membrane in a tight spiral around the axon (Figure 11-30), thereby insulating the axonal membrane so that little current can leak across it. The myelin sheath is interrupted at regularly spaced nodes of Ranvier, where almost all the Na+ channels in the axon are concentrated. Because the ensheathed portions of the axonal membrane have excellent cable properties (in other words, they behave electrically much like well-designed underwater telegraph cables), a depolarization of the membrane at one node almost immediately spreads passively to the next node. Thus, an action potential propagates along a myelinated axon by jumping from node to node, a process called saltatory conduction. This type of conduction has two main advantages: action potentials travel faster, and metabolic energy is conserved because the active excitation is confined to the small regio"