This article was published as a part of the Data Science Blogathon.   Source: Link Hey Folks!! In the last article, we have talked about Building Search Engines using NLP concepts if you haven’t read it, refer to this link. In this article, we are going to talk about an application of Image Classing /Classification and that […]

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Mushrooms are becoming the next big thing, and that means more questions being asked. Like how to grow them? And if they mix well with weed. And whether or not you can smoke magic mushrooms. So, let’s take a look at that question today, and go over the different ways that magic mushrooms can be […]

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The NMPA released the Medical Devices Standards Annual Report on February 18, 2022. In the year of 2021, 35 national standards and 146 industry standards for medical devices were published. […]

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Chicago, February 17, 2022 - Accursed Share announces the auction of the Master Series, the first NFT collection by photographer-to-the-stars Frederic Auerbach, starting on February 17. To participate, you must be in possession of a Process Series NFT from the Auerbach collection. Mint here.

“For me, NFTs are about capturing motion and emotion,” says Swiss-American photographer Frederic Auerbach. “The dynamic NFTs in my collection for Accursed Share are a kind of living art, they tell the story –in pictures– of how I found my way towards each Master photo of five very different stars: Natalie Portman, Sharon Stone, Mike Tyson, Zendaya, and Benedict Cumberbatch.”

Auerbach was on a train to Paris the very day he graduated from art school in his native Switzerland. “I knew I wanted to be a fashion photographer. I was always fascinated by the exchange between the unique character of individuals and fashion as a measure of time.” It's a tension Auerbach has always sought to capture in his portraits. 

In Auerbach's view, NFTs are especially suited to show the constructive craft of the photographer, which is why this project is structured through five sets of Process photos culminating in respective Masters, each of which includes its own set of unique editions.

For the Master Series, each celebrity — Zendaya for Flaunt; Cumberbatch for GQ; Tyson for Haute Living; Stone for Madame Figaro and Portman for Dior — will have their own NFT set, including: 

i) the high-res digital photo NFT of the Master (one per star); 

ii) a dynamic NFT highlighting different aspects of the Master photo by displaying various edits of the image; 

iii) a high-res and autographed print of the Master photo (one per star), and 

iv) a 1/1 video NFT of the behind-the-scenes interview detailing Auerbach's creative approach to each shoot (one per star), from Process to Master.

Most remarkable is the dynamic NFT, powered by Accursed Share's proprietary smart contract, which highlights different aspects of the Master photo every few hours. It is but one way in which the ambitious NFT production studio and accelerator is pushing the boundaries of cryptoart. In referring to Accursed Share's platform, currently in development, CEO John Connor says: “Our purpose is to unlock the creative potential of smart contracts for millions of digital artists by allowing them to make dynamic NFTs without the need for a developer.”

Access to HeadlessDAO

Owning an NFT from Auerbach's Process Series, currently minting until the auction of the Master Series starts on February 17, imparts access and voting rights to HeadlessDAO, an art innovation engine supporting projects that explore the NFT as a new art medium. 

The Master Series Auction

Between February 17-21, Accursed Share will be hosting the Master Series Auction. Bidding will start at 0.5 ETH on the Accursed Share webpage. Five Master NFT suites, one per star, will be auctioned in parallel. 

The top buyer among the five will also win a photo session with Frederic Auerbach in Los Angeles. The Master photo of that session will also be made into an NFT. 

Award-winning mycologist and writer Merlin Sheldrake is an expert on the social networks of fungi. He is the author of “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures”, a universally acclaimed bestseller that explores how fungi sustain life on earth via symbiotic relationships established through an underground communication network known as of the Wood Wide Web. 

“There is a fundamental affinity between fungal organisms and the emergent properties of web3,” says John Connor, CEO of Accursed Share. “Plants and fungi engage in sophisticated trading strategies, striking compromises and resolving dizzyingly complex trade-offs. This astonishing cooperation inspired this unique collection of scientifically and blockchain inspired NFT artwork showing symbiotic rootscapes as they've never been seen before”. Sheldrake used a proprietary scanning technique to obtain the unprecedented images for it.

Sheldrake's NFT project is a fourway collaboration between himself, Accursed Share, and Algorand – the carbon-negative blockchain on which the collection will be minted — and the Wilmore Academy, an NFT marketplace furthering research-based initiatives. Part of the project's proceeds will go to support Sheldrake's research into the decentralized problem-solving ability of fungal networks.

Minting

The NFT drop launching Sheldrake's unique collection will begin at 5pm CST on February 22, on Accursed Share's webpage. 

Ars Vitae

Frederic Auerbach is a Swiss-American fashion and portrait photographer based in LA. His work has been published internationally in magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Elle, InStyle, Numéro and GQ; working for leading fashion houses like Dior, Hermès, Cacharel, Sonja Rykiel, and Lacoste. Auerbach has specialised in producing intimate, spontaneous portraits of some of the world's most recognisable faces, including those featured in his first NFT collection. 

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and a writer with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in the tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He is a research associate at the Vrije University Amsterdam, works with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. He is fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and other-than-human organisms. 

John Connor is a cofounder and CEO of Accursed Share, a cryptoart innovation studio. He has worked at several high growth tech startups including leading product at Upland, one of the top blockchain games in the world. 

About Accursed Share:

Accursed Share is an artist-led production studio and accelerator pushing the boundaries of cryptoart. In addition to producing narrative-driven pieces and installations, Accursed Share is developing a no-code platform for the creation of dynamic NFTs. Instagram / Twitter / Facebook

Media contact: accursedshare@transformgroup.com

Visuals

Cannabis consumption has yet to cause a single death. A licensed cannabis producer in Canada, Organigram (OGI), did indirectly lead to the unfortunate death of Jumpin’ Jack Proud, though. Back in August of 2019, CBC reported internal emails from the cannabis producer regarding cooling towers clogged with bacteria. In December of 2020, Organigram admitted that […]

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With new headlines out about how cannabis might be a weapon against covid-19, it seems our pharma loving world has managed to forget what has already been learned. When it comes to plant medicine and coronaviruses, we already know a good bit from previous research. The better question isn’t whether something like cannabis can help, […]

The post Plant Medicine & Coronaviruses – What We Already Know appeared first on CBD Testers.

Zide Door pushes progress forward in America's new relationship with entheogens.

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First 10 of a total 100 virtual land parcels on a photorealistic volcanic island have already been sold by ZOAN on FUNGI NFT platform; next land drop dates to be revealed soon. HELSINKI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ZOAN, a leading global VR studio, today announced that its first 10 land parcels for photorealistic metaverse Cornerstone.land have been sold out […]

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– Accursed Share (https://accursedshare.art/), a production studio leveraging smart contract technology to push the boundaries of cryptoart, has announced a creative partnership with Wilmore Crossing Academy and New York Times best-selling author, Merlin Sheldrake. Together they will launch an NFT collection based on his award-winning book, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. The NFTs are digitally curated from Sheldrake's personal studies of three-dimensional scans of thousands of sliced and rendered samples of plants and fungi exploring their codependent intimacy. The NFT collection, featuring his book and studies, will consist of 9,950 NFTs created with the help of screening technology and powered by Algorand's carbon-negative blockchain. The NFT drop starts February 10, 2022 at 6PM UTC. The first 1,000 unique ALGO addresses will receive a free animated NFT from the Entangled Life collection, while the top 100 referrers will receive a more exclusive NFT with dynamic features and surprises. 

The NFTs in the Entangled Life collection showcase the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants, highlighting how essential fungi are to life. More than 90 percent of plants depend on this relationship, making it a more fundamental part of planthood than flowers, fruit, leaves, wood or roots. Sheldrake explores how fungi form decentralized underground networks with plants, sometimes known as the ‘Wood Wide Web.' The NFT collection reveals an intimate view at these subterranean roots that make up the base of the food chain and sustain the future of all life on earth.

Sheldrake explains that all organisms have a method to map and preserve their history. That is among one of the similarities that may be inferred between fungi and the blockchain as both act as decentralized entities with the ability to permanently store information. Blockchain has a similarly fashioned, immutable ledger, which helps record a timescape of inalienable history. Much like humans in the real world and in the Metaverse, fungi are able to navigate their environment, make decisions between alternative causes of action, form complicated and elaborate relationships within their intricate environments—all while achieving and sustaining their form as a decentralized entity. 

Since Accursed Share is an artist-led production studio and art accelerator focused on furthering the limits of NFT art, this collection truly breaks boundaries by bringing together art, education and science. Through its narrative-driven cryptoart pieces and installations, Accursed Share unlocks the creative realm of possibility through smart contracts and multifaceted and dynamic NFT creation. This collection fully embodies this mission, with a portion of proceeds going toward Merlin's study of decentralization in fungal networks and another in support of the Fungi Foundation. 

For more information, please visit https://accursedshare.art/ and sign up for the whitelist here. 

About Accursed Share:

Accursed Share is an artist-led production studio and art accelerator focused on pushing the limits of NFT art. In addition to producing narrative-driven cryptoart pieces and installations, Accursed Share is developing a no-code platform to unlock dynamic NFT creation for everyone, including artists who are not blockchain or smart contract developers.

About Merlin Sheldrake: 

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures (2020). He received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Entangled Life, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, has been translated into twenty-two languages and has met with widespread critical acclaim. It was described by The Wall Street Journal as ‘food for the soul'; by The Guardian as ‘brilliant' and ‘entrancing'; by The Observer as ‘wondrous'; by The Mail on Sunday as ‘dazzling'; by The Spectator as ‘truly astounding'; by The Telegraph as ‘mind-boggling. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021 and the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2021. It has been nominated for a host of other accolades, including the British Book Awards Book of the Year 2021 and the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021, and been selected as a Book of the Year by The Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, New Statesman and Time, among others.

Merlin's work has been endorsed by numerous scientific, literary, and public figures, including: Margaret Atwood, Russell Brand, David Byrne, Tyler Cowen, Elizabeth Kolbert, Jaron Lanier, Helen Macdonald, Robert Macfarlane, Michael Pollan, Paul Stamets and Ed Yong. His writing has inspired a couture collection by Iris van Herpen (‘Roots of Rebirth', 2021).

Merlin is a research associate at the Vrije University, Amsterdam, and works with the Fungi Foundation and the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks.

About Wilmore Academy

Wilmore Academy is an NFT marketplace committed to freeing the spirit of enquiry by supporting academic and educational research through the sale of NFTs to individual sponsors. It enables academics, foundations and brands to launch NFTs to support research, typically through donations to universities and foundations. Sponsors of each project join research-focused communities through exclusive discussion channels, progress updates and participation in real-life experiences.

Media contact: accursedshare@transformgroup.com

You’ve seen the headlines at this point, everyone has. It’s the new rage in covid-related discussions, and the talk at every party. That’s right, it finally broke that cannabis might be able to be used against covid-19, the pandemic that’s got everyone riled up. But shouldn’t we already know this? Why is this even news? […]

The post Cannabis & Covid: Why Eastern Medicine Should Never Be Ignored appeared first on CBD Testers.

Just like all the fine things in life: wine, cigars, and diamonds: cannabis can also be measured in terms of quality. The sight, touch, taste, size, aroma, and sensation of a marijuana bud is all determined by the cleanliness of the air in which the plant grew, the composition of the soil, and the temperature shifts that it endured.

Knowing Quality Bud from Shwag

It's important to know the good quality stuff from the shwag. Whether you're a connoisseur or simply a novice; knowing how to assess the quality of a cannabis bud is necessary to have the best experience. If you want to know the telltale signs of top-shelf bud then read on.

Visually Inspect the Bud

Sometimes the only way to get an idea of the quality of a bud is by the way it looks. It is important to know the clues that will tell you how awesome the weed you're assessing is. One of the best visual ways to assess cannabis is by the trichome content. If the bud has loads of trichomes then you are sure to get a good buzz. Trichomes are the small crystal-looking resin glands that make the bud look frosty. These trichomes contain cannabinoids like THC and CBD.

Another visual way to assess a cannabis bud is by its color. Healthy buds are usually nice and green, purple, or may even look orange depending on the pistils on the bud and the strain. When you smoke the bud, the ashes should burn white-grey ash.

Look For a Tight Trim

The trim of the flower should be done well. Look for a tight trim; extra leaf matter should have been removed so that the bud is fully revealed. Excess stems should also be removed and the only part of the stem that should be left is at the base of the flower where it was cut from the plant. Over-trimmed flowers should be avoided as this usually results in a lower trichome content.

How to Spot Mildew or Mold

When assessing a bud be sure to check for red flags. Powdery mildew can look like trichomes if you don't look closely. A bud should glisten in the light, but if it has mildew on it will not. If you see something like baby powder on it or a cottony appearance it's probably powdery mildew.

Another red flag and type of mold is botrytis (also known as bud rot). This mold is more difficult to see as it is inside the flower. It may not be until after you purchase the bud, go home, and start breaking it up that you notice that the bud has brown or grey mold inside. You mustn't smoke it.

Gently Squeeze the Bud

Touching the bud is another good way to assess its quality. When you gently squeeze the bud, it should bounce back to its original form. Squeezing the bud can also tell you if it has properly been cured. It should have a bit of a stickiness to it, but if it hasn't been cured correctly then it will feel too wet. The stem is another indicator of how well the bud has been cured. A properly cured stem will have a definite snap when you bend it.

Smell the Bud for Quality

One of my favorite ways to check the quality of a bud is by smelling it. It's an instinctive thing we all seem to do when you open a new bag of buds: you hold it up to your nose and inhale the sweet aroma. This can also tell you if a bud has mold on it, or if it smells wet then it hasn't been cured properly. Good quality marijuana will often smell skunky, pine, fruity, cheese, or earthy.

Taste the Bud

Lastly, you can taste if a bud is of high quality. Oftentimes, the aroma of bud will match the flavor. Just like a good liquor, the taste should be smooth. When you inhale the smoke, it shouldn't burn your throat; neither should it leave a harsh taste in the back of your throat.

In Conclusion

After reading this article you can easily be on your way to becoming a cannabis connoisseur. Next time you find yourself buying marijuana don't just settle for anything. Take the time to study the bud instead of choosing one based on whatever name sounds good to you. You will be impressed by the difference that quality bud makes.