Agricultural Digest
A new study from researchers at Penn State has shown that there actually is a viable alternative to antibiotics in your chicken: probiotics! Researchers followed the growth and intestinal microbiota of 320 baby chicks on diets that separately included antibiotics, essential oils, probiotics, or none of the above for 21 days. While essential oils had no impact — which surprised the researchers — the group fed probiotics actually did better across the board than the group given a standard antibiotic.
As the reality of antibiotic resistance becomes a greater and greater threat, antibiotic-free interventions, say the researchers, are more and more essential. And, get this, the reason why some (albeit far fewer these days) chicken farms feed their chicks antibiotics is not related to disease… it’s because the use of antibiotics has been shown to expedite growth! So, yeah, if probiotics work just as well, or …
Official State Cartoon and Comic Book Characters
Alabama — Fred Flintstone
Alaska — Rocky the Flying Squirrel
Arizona — Dora the Explorer
Arkansas — Bugs Bunny
California — Mr. Natural
Colorado — Lucy Van Pelt
Connecticut — Richie Rich
Delaware — Scrooge Duck
Florida — Snow White
Georgia — Porky Pig
Hawaii — Moana
Idaho — Woody Woodpecker
Illinois — Roger Rabbit
Indiana — Dilbert
Iowa — Cow and Chicken
Kansas — …
The Art of Darkness
Talking the stupid talk behind the deli counter and listening to ‘Bitches Brew’
My boss talked his way into more women’s pants than anyone I ever met.
I chose beauty over death
A sense of speed and darkness loomed that summer and its wings extended and snapped to full spread and we were all in its shadow careening though we did not know it. That summer I drank more than I ever have and I was doing it with people who were doing the same and whatever it was that was going on with them I was figuring something else out on my own in the only way I have ever been able — by going forward, not knowing where, just going. I was learning how to write not by writing but rather by wandering half-blind down the dark halls of myself, by following some peculiar internal sense of things which in the end is how you should write. I was working with some white kids at the small general store in my small hometown on the reservation where I grew up and we listened to music all day while we worked and when I was alone I was reading or watching films and wondering if I would ever get laid that summer which I …
