IF you find plastic/metal/code Artificial Intelligence somewhat daunting (think of the AI inside your cellular phone that translates what you say into text), then fasten your seatbelt before reading this report: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/americas/xenobots-self-replicating-robots-scn/index.html. Scientists “at at the University of Vermont, Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering said they have discovered an entirely new form of bi...

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THERE seems to me to be four big factors suddenly at interplay with regard to food these days. First, however, it’s important to place this post within context: People all over the world are suddenly experiencing pre-war instability and uncertainness. Those who lived through WWII (and they are a rapidly dwindling minority) often say our contemporary world “feels” just like pre-World War II but “on steroids.” In the meantime, the world’s population continues a 45-degree growth curv...

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I don’t usually post about topics that might simply though mention raise people’s hackles and guards. Still, it’s an interesting exercise, I believe, to wonder if domesticated animals and even possibly plants, raised to be killed (okay, “harvested” if that protects the sensibilities) and eaten know that they are being raised for such? Silly idea, or a very unpleasant thought to think about? I might have thought so, too, until I read about Hanabiko “Koko” the sign-language “tal...

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I have to admit that people, especially children, have a fascination with dragons, be they more or less dinosaurian, bird-like or unicornian. I’ve always wondered from where this seemingly genetic-based “belief” in them comes. Until recently. For over 50 years now investigation has been ongoing into the nature of Quetzalcoatlus, a late Cretaceous winged behemoth with a likely 40-foot wingspan. With its wings “folded,” should humans have been present and not eaten trying to mount the...

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WHEN was the last time you picked a tomato, cucumber, carrot or peach right off the plant and thanked the plant for sharing its bounty? During my last trip to Japan, just before COVID set in, I visited the apple orchards of Iida, Nagano Prefecture, and walking a field with the farmer, heard him thank the tree after picking an apple for me to sample. And what an apple it was. Large, ripe, succulent and sweet. When I asked him his secret to success, he said it was because he always thanked the ...

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FOOD (and cooking) is something everyone, including me, can appreciate. Where do I go for the latest and best food and cooking suggestions? Three places: (1) my 1950’s Betty Crocker Cookbook (yes, I still have my mother’s original); (2) The Moosewood Cookbook (a “must” if you’re an interested, partial or wholly vegetarian); and (3) The Nine Books of William Maltese’s “The Traveling Gourmand.” Yep, that last one is a standard reference by Mr. Erotica himself, soon to be a film ...

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THERE’S really only two issues at the heart of human existence: plants and, I’m guessing you already guessed it, water. Without these humans can not exist. The heck with petroleum, nuclear energy, money and power. The first two represent limitations of contemporary knowledge, the latter two, human illusions. But plants, which regenerate air, potable water and provide basic food for all things animal, and their principal product, namely, organically enhanced potable water, are and will rem...

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BEING a “mostly” vegetarian by choice and not obligation, I’ve always been one to favor fruit, something I’ve never regretted, being also a hedonist, epicurean and succulent fruit lover. However, every year for the past ten or so, the fruit in the grocery stores has continued to improve visually indirectly proportional to smell and taste as well as ripeness and sugar content. Today I bought a package of apricots, one of my personal, seasonal favorites. Grown in the good ol’ USA, und...

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OKAY, so this may sound a but surprising, given the title of today’s post, but “I’m Raymond Gaynor and I’m a plant lover” (if you haven’t already guess that). I live in a high-rise condo and have a small two-foot wide outdoor porch upon which I exercise my secret love, openly, yes, in public. Right now I have three pots of Japanese cucumbers, one of Charentais Cantaloupe, one of Japanese onions, one of hybrid bush tomatoes and one of tiny, mildly spicy Oriental green peppers. One ...

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YESTERDAY I offered a rather unique post entitled, “Do Plants Like Vegetarians?” Today, I’d like to follow it with a bit of an ode to those stalwart lifeforms upon whom our lives solely depend and much more. Yes, they provide oxygen, clean drinking water and food simultaneously, and, yes, we thank them by systematically harvesting them for that biggest illusion of humankind: lucre. And by applying a worldwide pogrom consisting of purposeful, selective genocide. Go figure.

And while it�...

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I recently had the pleasure of joining Dr. Molly Fantasia on her HealthWatch radio program on WWDB-AM Philadelphia where we talked about the state of Integrative Medicine and the American Association of Integrative Medicine (AAIM) of which we are both members. You can listen to it as a streaming podcast at

http://wwdbam.com/2014/10/16/hw101614_mono/

AAIM is the pioneer organization supporting integrative medicine and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). What is CAM? The National Instit...
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