Corrigan: "It is not true, however, that the polio vaccine or any other vaccine was ever tested on millions of people before it was approved." The clinical study for Salk's vaccine alone had 440,000 children given the vaccine, 210,000 given a placebo, and 1.2 million in the control group. Koprowski's large-scale field trials involved over 7 million children in poland. If you count the Soviet Union's immunization campaign, whose results they studied and which helped confirm the validity of it to the rest of the world, Sabin's vaccine's "trials" involved tens of millions. http://www.polio.info/polio-eradication/front/templates/index.jsp?siteCode=POLIO&codeRubrique=34&lang=EN Yet, Salk's was but one vaccine. What I said was indeed accurate. There were millions involved in the clinical trials of polio vaccines. You're right that vaccines *usually* don't have such a large test size, but polio was an exception. "As far as the viral cause of polio, well, yes, but what triggers the paralysis? Polio was endemic before the introduction of the vaccine. Everyone was infected by early childhood. And yet poliomyelitis was rare before the modern age." That's because the virus is transmitted through the fecal-oral route -- with a twist. Like how chicken pox is less virulent the younger you are infected, the same is true with polio. The oldest clear reference to poliomyelitis is in a 3,000 year old Egyptian stele. Historically, due to poor sanitation (which led to outbreaks of many diseases, like cholera), almost every infant would be exposed with poliovirus. If it was symptomatic, they simply died, without the cause ever being revealed. If it wasn't symptomatic, they were immune for the rest of their life. However when, to combat various other plagues, modern sanitation began to be used (so fecal waste wasn't dumped into the same water that people would drink), people weren't exposed to polio as infants. When they were exposed at older ages, then the problems arose. Those with the best health situations tended to be struck the worst; it became a disease of the affluent. Which is probably why so much money was poured into curing it, unlike, say, malaria (which still kills millions). :P There's absolutely no evidence that the rate of poliomyelitis compared to the rate of poliovirus infection in adults has ever changed significantly. As for the pesticide hypothesis, that particularly doesn't stand up to scrutiny. DDT wasn't even invented until '39, but the US had huge polio outbreaks before then. Remember FDR? :) H.L. Menken wrote about polio outbreaks happening virtually every summer in Baltimore in the late 1800s. It's illogical, too. Poliovirus progressing into poliomyelitis involves how readily the virus passes the brain-blood barrier. While chemicals that pass the brain-blood barrier are few, even fewer are the chemicals which alter how well *other* things pass through the barrier.

They said they were seeing a few 90's in Texas a few posts above.....well Oklahoma has now also seen their first 90's this last weekend as well. So the warming trend is moving north. I have some trees stuck up north waiting on a truck and I expressed my concewrns to the grower that I was getting past my comfort zone on planting time for conifers. Like most folks in the north he told me not to worry because the trees were still dormant due to the cold weather they were still in. What I try to get most northerners to realize is it's the shock factor that worries us.......not just the fact this tree will have to endure so much more heat that it has been used to throughout the summer, but nothing turns a tree into a crispy critter faster than for it to come from nice cool cloudy growing conditions and drop it right in the middle of a heat wave of 90 - 100 degree temps and full sun. mark

@puglvr1 Look forward to your chlorantha blooms, I've had mine for only 6 months. It started out as 3 cuttings about 20cm (8in) long and has put out tons and tons of growth very quickly. Each of the vines is now at least 3 feet long and there are at least 2 peduncles getting ready to bloom on each vine. @lightning96 Thanks. As stated before, don't worry much about the humidity. Although the plants will probably enjoy it, it's not necessity for growing Hoyas. If you have any questions about artificial lighting then feel free to ask, I've been experimenting with it for about 2 years. @greedyghost My chlorantha was shipped from Thailand as 3x 8 inch cuttings. It spent about 2 weeks rooting and then about 2 months doing absolutely nothing. Not to worry though, once it gets started it never really stops growing. I notice that at best, the vines grow several inches a day, and in October (5 months old) it started putting out several peduncles on each vine. The first round of flower buds all aborted except the two flowers you see above, probably because of uneven moisture (I was away for about a week). The second round looks much more successful (2nd picture), and I'm expecting lots and lots of flowers. H. chlorantha seems to be a quick growing and easy blooming variety, at least under the conditions I provide for it. If yours is growing fast, then I's sure you'll see blooms soon enough.

The cold hard truth is that peaches are going to be almost impossible for most of us in Minnesota unless - you live in the metro area surrounded by asphalt and buildings (heat sinks), you are close to a really large lake in the southern portion of the state, you live really close to Iowa, or you keep them inside a greenhouse. Having said all that - peaches are so fabulous that I would love someone to prove me wrong (we are in zone 4a) Until then - consider apricots and some of the american plum hybrids like waneta and underwood. These are hardy to our climate, do not require staking and wrapping and greenhouses and make sweet little fruit. The plum varieties mentioned taste like apricot and make amazing jams and sauces. Apricots are fully hardy but flower very early so crops are unpredictable and may only occur every few years.