LSD and CIA

today i was planning to post about Astral travel but felt an urge to write about the LSD.

many of you would have heard about it, because it is one of the hottest topic on the net.LSD stands for lysergic acid diethylamide, this is a hallucinogen, a psychedelic drug... the term psychedelik was termed after creating this drug, so this drug can be coinsidered the mother of all psychedelic drugs. i think this is the only drug in the human history which has pulled so much attention towards it...so wats odd about this drug...actually speaking there is nothing normal about this drug....this drug was created by Albert Hoffman at the sandoz lab... he accidentally tasted it and was on the Acid trip...

this drug mainly creates a profound distortions in a person’s perception of reality.LSD cause their effects by disrupting the interaction of nerve cells and the neurotransmitter serotonin.well the CIA was the most interested in this drug during the cold war. the reason is this drug was believed to change the personality of a person and a lot tests were conducted in this regard. CIA even got a sanctioned project name for this tests...MKULTRA....

MK-ULTRA was a CIA "mind-control" project backed up by the usual Cold War rationale. Because the Soviets were supposedly on the track of a "truth serum," the CIA set out to beat them to the punch with heavily- funded research into hypnosis, electroshock, mind-bending drugs, and other techniques of behavioral control. According to Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, MK-ULTRA's resident Dr. Strangelove, the CIA's grail was discovering how "to modify an individual's behavior by covert means." But Gottlieb's gray language disguises what this quest meant in practice: e.g., dosing unwitting subjects with LSD, and then standing back to watch them lose it. MK-ULTRA compromised scientists, and left behind both scrambled psyches and a full- blown counterculture -- all without adding to our real knowledge of the human mind.

CIA also tried to covertly add some LSD in the cocktail of Fidel Castro to kill him, for that he said" if there was an Olympics for escaping assassinations, i would win the gold medal"

Conceived by Richard Helms of the Clandestine Services Department (yes, the CIA actually gives its departments silly names like that), it went beyond the construction of mere truth serums and ventured into disinformation, induction of temporary insanity, and other chemically-aided states. The director of MK-ULTRA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, figured LSD's potential as an interrogative agent paled in comparison to its capacity to publicly humiliate. the CIA imagined a tripping public figure might be amusing, producing a memo that says giving acid "to high officials would be a relatively simple matter and could have a significant effect at key meetings, speeches, etc." But they knew that giving LSD to people in the lab was a lot different than just passing it out, and felt the department did not have an adequate grasp on its effects.
The target never knew when his turn would come, but as soon as the drug was ingested a ... colleague would tell him so he could make the necessary preparations (which usually meant taking the rest of the day off). Initially the leaders of MK-ULTRA restricted the surprise acid tests to [their own] members, but when this phase had run its course they started dosing other Agency personnel who had never tripped before. Nearly everyone was fair game, and surprise acid trips became something of an occupational hazard among CIA operatives.... The Office of Security felt that [MK-ULTRA] should have exercised better judgment in dealing with such a powerful and dangerous chemical. The straw that broke the camel's back came when a Security informant got wind of a plan by a few [MK-ULTRA] jokers to put LSD in the punch served at the annual CIA Christmas office party ... a Security memo writer... concluded indignantly and unequivocally that he did 'not recommend testing in the Christmas punch bowls usually present at the Christmas office parties.'

The in-house testing phase now over, MK-ULTRA decided to use the drug surreptitiously in the street to gauge its effects. They contract-hired a narcotics officer, to set up Operation Midnight Climax, "in which drug-addicted prostitutes were hired to pick up men from local bars and bring them back to a CIA-financed bordello. Unknowing customers were treated to drinks laced with LSD while White sat on a portable toilet behind two-way mirrors, sipping martinis and watching every stoned and kinky moment."

but there were people who felt that LSD can be used for good of the people, they thought that LSD gave a spiritual experience they never had, according to them the drug gave a different understanding of the working of the human mind and a different perspective of the world.a number of cults were started after these drugs and many future gurus and priests were born of tis drug. this started a cult in America, the revolution in 1960's... the youth came to road to protest against the government, they felt that there was something fundamentally wrong wioth the world, the famous hindi song "hare krishna hare rama" depicts zeenath aman as one of these psychedelic drug adict, but the portrayal was not so good.these had great passion for love for unity, they protested against the Vietnam war. they believed in flower power, they were called the hippies, they had a different spiritual perception of the world.

even today these drugs are available, and are used in some spiritual celebrations of certain cults to attain the required state of mind.

LSD can be considered a boon as well as a bane, in good hands it could have been used in a proper way to bring the common public close to the spiritual experience but in bad hands can be used to erase a person's Mind and create a new personality or perform some covert operation in hypnotic state.

If u want to get them, these are the few names of these drugs used in streets in America...
acid,boomers,yellow sunshine,Back breaker,Battery acid,Doses,Dots,Elvis,Loony toons,Lucy in the sky with diamonds,Pane,Superman,Window pane,Zen. they can be used to have a spiritual experience.... they are odourless, tasteless, colorless.....but high doses are lethal....

suggestions and corrections are welcome.
take care...
blessed be...
may the flower power come again...

Extremophile... the ETs

Long back I read about these strangecreatures. They are called Extremophiles…

There has been a lot of speculation on whether there are any Extra Terrestrials…
Many skeptics say that the chance of existence of any living being in other planets are slimmest, because of the temperature and pressure and most important the lack of water on these planets…

To solve this problem lets take this analogy…
Just because mr. x is vegetarian he should not assume that his neighbor must also be a vegetarian…..
We have been evolved to suite the conditions on earth, if we were born on some other planet we would have evolved with different need and molecular structure….
May be our extremophile may answer our quest on ET…

The wikipedia classifies extremophiles in the following order.

Acidophile:
These are organism which live in high acidic conditions, as high as pH of 2…
To remind you that pH 7 is neutral and it is varies in a logarithmic scale. It means pH 2 is 1000 times more acidic than pH 3.
The acidity of the Ph 2 solution is equal to the acidity of gastric acid or a very strong lemonade… the pH of your cola is 2.5. That I believe is really extreme condition.

Alkaliphile:
They are just opposite to acidophile. These organisms are found in alkalinity of pH 9 to 11. Your soap has alkalinity of 9 and the house hold ammonia has a pH of 11.5.

Barophile:
Barophiles are bacteria which live in high pressure environments. They are generally found on ocean floors, where pressure generally exceeds 380 atm (38 MPa). Some have been found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where the maximum pressure is roughly 117 MPa. Now 117 Mpa is equivalent to 11700000 kg of weight distributed equally on one metre squared area or 1170 kg of weight acting on a square area whose sides are 1cm long.
Obligate barophiles cannot survive outside of such environments. For example, the Halomonas species Halomonas salaria requires a pressure of 1000 atm (100 MPa) and a temperature of 3 degrees Celsius. Barotolerant bacteria are able to survive at high pressures, but can exist in less extreme environments as well.
Barophiles grow in darkness, and so are very uv sensitive, they lack many mechanisms of DNA repair.

Endolith:
An endolith or cryptoendolith is an organism (archaea, bacterium, or fungus) that lives inside rock, coral, animal shells, or in the pores between mineral grains. Many are extremophiles; living in places previously thought inhospitable to life. They are of particular interest to astrobiologists, who theorize that endolithic environments on Mars and other planets constitute potential refugia for extraterrestrial microbial communities.

Halophiles:
Halophiles are extremophiles that thrive in environments with very high concentrations of salt (at least 2 M, approximately ten times the salt level of ocean water). The name comes from Greek for "salt-loving". Some well-known species give off a red color due to the carotenoid compounds. These species contain the photosynthetic pigment bacteriorhodopsin. Organisms are categorized either slight, moderate or extreme, by the extent of their halotolerance.

Hyperthermophiles:
A hyperthermophile is an organism that thrives in extremely hot environments — that is, hotter than around 60 °C, with an optimal temperature above 80 °C. The most heat-tolerant hyperthermophile is the recently-discovered Strain 121 which has been able to double its population during 24 hours in an autoclave at 121 °C (hence its name). Many hyperthermophiles are also able to withstand other environmental extremes such as high acidity or radiation levels.
Although no hyperthermophile has yet been discovered living at temperatures above 121 °C, their existence is very possible (Strain 121 survived being heated to 130 °C for 2 hours, but was not able to reproduce until it had been transferred into a fresh growth medium, at a relatively-cooler 103°C). However, it is thought unlikely that microbes could survive at temperatures above 150° C, as the cohesion of DNA and other vital molecules begins to break down at this point.

Hypolith:
In Arctic and Antarctic ecology, a hypolith is a photosynthetic organism that lives underneath rocks in climatically extreme deserts such as Cornwallis Island and Devon Island in the Canadian high Arctic. The community itself is the hypolithon.
Hypolithons are protected from harsh ultraviolet radiation and wind scouring by their rock, which can also trap moisture. The rocks are generally translucent to allow for the penetration of light.

Lithoautotroph:
A lithoautotroph is a microbe which derives energy from reduced compounds of mineral origin. They may also be referred to as chemolithoautotrophs, a type of lithotrophs, reflecting their autotrophic metabolic pathways. Lithoautotrophs are exclusively microbes; macrofauna do not possess the capability to utilize mineral sources of energy.

Oligotroph:
An oligotroph is an organism that can live in a very low carbon concentration, less than one part per million. They may be contrasted with copiotrophs, which prefer environments rich in carbon. Most oligotrophs are bacteria, though archaean oligotrophs also exist. Oligotrophs are characterized by slow growth, low rates of metabolism, and generally low population density. Low-carbon environments are ubiquitous; oligotrophs may be found a wide range of environments including in deep oceanic sediments, caves, glacial and polar ice, deep subsurface soil, aquifers, and ocean water.

Osmophile:
Osmophillic organisms are extremophiles that are able to grow in environments with a high sugar concentration. Osmophiles are similar to halophillic (salt-loving) organisms because a critical aspect of both types of environment is their low water activity.

Piezophile:
A piezophile is an organism which thrives at high pressures, such as deep sea bacteria or archaea.
The high pressures experienced by organisms in deep-sea trenches, for example, can cause the normally fluid cell membrane of these organisms to become waxy and relatively impermeable to nutrients. Evolution has forced these organisms to adapt in novel ways to become tolerant of these pressures in order to colonize deep sea habitats.

Polyextremophile:
A polyextremophile (to like several extremes in more-or-less Greek) is an organism which combines several extremophilic features. For example, a polyextremophile living at the summit of a mountain in the Atacama Desert might be a radioresistant xerophiler, a psychrophile, and an oligotroph.

Psychrophiles:
Psychrophiles or Cryophiles (adj. cryophilic) are extremophilic organisms that are capable of growth and reproduction in cold temperatures. They can be contrasted with thermophiles, which thrive at unusually hot temperatures. The environments they inhabit are ubiquitous on Earth, as a large fraction of our planetary surface experiences temperatures lower than 15°C. They are present in alpine and arctic soils, high-latitude and deep ocean waters, arctic ice, glaciers, and snowfields. They are of particular interest to astrobiology, the field dedicated to the formulation of theory about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Radioresistance:
Radioresistance is the property of organisms which are capable of living in environments with very high levels of ionizing radiation.
Radioresistance is surprisingly high in many organisms, in contrast to previously held views. For example, the study of environment, animals and plants around the Chernobyl accident area has revealed an unexpected survival of many species, despite the high radiation levels. A Brazilian study in a hill in the state of Minas Gerais which has high natural radiation levels from uranium deposits, has also shown many radioresistant insects, worms and plants. To have a comparison, if a human can survive 5 units of radiation, these extremophiles can survive 15000 units of radiation.
Radiation can also help some plants to become more adapted to their environment by increasing the growth rate of the seeds. This helps them germinate faster.

Thermophile:
A thermophile is an organism – a type of extremophile – which thrives at relatively high temperatures, above 45 °C. Many thermophiles are archaea.

Xerophile:
Xerophiles are extremophilic organisms that can grow and reproduce in conditions with a low availability of water, also known as water activity. Water activity (aw) is a measure of the amount of water within a substrate that an organism can use to support growth. Xerophiles are often said to be "xerotolerant", meaning tolerant of dry conditions. They can survive in environments with water activity below 0.8. Endoliths and halophiles are often xerotolerant.

So the next time you boil water, think again if the water is sterilised or there are still some strain121 there reproducing….

I know this post is really long but, you have to put with rain to see the rainbow…

Take care
Blessed be.