The Black Seeds

Here at SuperForest we love seeds…a lot. And with the Millennium Seed Bank Coalition in full swing, I thought it would be an appropriate time to drop some crazy seed knowledge while at the same time sharing a family secret. Here it goes!!!

I proudly present to you, Black Caraway Seeds (or as we simply call them in my family…black seeds).



The seeds appear pretty normal but the reality behind their meager appearance is that they are actually very powerful. To commence our Black Seed Informative Tour we are going to go back in time. Here are a few facts...

1.Black seeds were discovered in Tutankhamen's tomb. This implies that it may have played an important role in ancient Egyptian practices or at the very least, was important enough for them to take with them to the afterlife.

2. Dioscoredes, a Greek physician of the 1st century, recorded that black seeds were taken to treat headaches, nasal congestion, toothache, and intestinal worms.

3. The many uses of black seed has earned for this medicinal herb the Arabic approbation habbatul barakah, meaning "the seed of blessing."

So history is trying to tell us that these little guys were important and that they can be used to treat wide variety of ailments. How amazing! Nature is so kind to provide us with such incredible gifts. A lot of scientific studies have been conducted and also validate the awesome power of the black caraway seed. Studies show that the black seeds help strengthen the immune system, inhibits histamine release, contains anti-tumor properties, fights bacteria, and works as an anti-inflammatory. Now I know what you’re thinking;this sounds too good to be true, does it work? I can only respond to this by saying I cannot remember the last time I had a cold (knock on wood).



So here comes the family secret: next time you are feeling a little under the weather, try this.

1. Go to your local market and buy a bag of these black seeds, if you know of a Mediterranean foods store try them, there is a much higher chance they carry these seeds.

2. Take a pinch of these seeds, just a pinch is all you will be eating (trust me, the seeds pack quite a punch, you won’t want to eat too much)

3. Place the seeds in your mouth and chew the seeds up really well. (This is the part where things get to get a little gross, you see, black caraway seeds are notoriously bitter. They don’t taste really good but hey, neither does medicine. You wanna get better don’t you?)

4. Swallow (probably the hardest part but trust me, it will all be worth it)

That’s it! Easy as that, take it a couple times a day and you’ll start to feel better straight away. The one thing that is important to keep in mind is that you must take the seeds right when you start to feel you’re coming down with something, if you take it when you are in the thick of symptoms, well, you might be a little too late.

And there you have it; a potential cure for the common cold. You read it here on SuperForest. In celebration, here is a lovely jam by a little band from New Zealand called…The Black Seeds (surely these lads knew the power of the black seeds when choosing their band name).

SuperForest wishes you all a very healthy 2009! Go on with your bad selves.

-C

(Here's some more info on the black caraway seed.)

Coalition of the Thrilling - The Seedling Sprouts!

Good Afternoon SuperForest!

This monday, three days ago, we put out a call to our readers and fellow bloggers to join us in a little uh... exercise? No, exercise isn't this fun... Thought game? No, this has real world results...

Adventure!

That's it, adventure!

We asked our fellow bloggers to join the Save-A-Seed Coalition, a group with two simple goals, talk about the Millennium Seed Bank and the Save-A-Seed Coalition, and link to both.

The goal is to get as many people as possible to learn about and link to the Millennium Seed Bank and each other.

Anyone can join, all you must do is post and link.

We figure that it will appeal to people to think: If you can't save the forest, you can save one seed.

And that is all we're hoping to do: save one seed.

Let us spread our net-roots wide, save one seed, and then see if we can't save two.

But just one for now.

Right?

So, we put out the word on Monday and now the Save-A-Seed Coalition is beginning to take form:

SuperForester Jesse was kind enough to mention the Millennium Seed Bank and the SASC on the Maroon 5 blog, which helped considerably.

SuperForester Cliff joined Save-A-Seed and mentioned the MSB on three of his blogs:



SuperForester Maaja joined and posted:



As did SuperForester Laurie:



And SuperForester Neal:



And SuperForester Sonja:



As did SuperForester Shawna:




Not even a week old and already the Save-A-Seed Coalition is twenty blogs strong, with more than thirty bloggers pitching in and more to come.

SuperForester Christine and myself will be working tomorrow night on a series of splashy logos for members to proudly display on their sites, should they choose.

Join the SASC!

All you've got to do is post about the Millennium Seed Bank:
http://www.superforest.org/2008/12/millenium-seed-bank-is-in-trouble-what.html

And the existence of the SASC:
http://www.superforest.org/2009/01/coalition-of-thrilling-save-seed.html

Thank you to all of those who have contributed their time and energy. We'll save that seed yet.

Love to All,

Jackson and Team SuperForest

The Save-A-Seed Coalition is Growing Like a Weed!

Good Morning SuperForest!!

Two very exciting things:

The first round of bloggers have answered the call and joined the Save-A-Seed Coalition!
The SASC now includes:

SuperForester Leigh from betweenthemoonandthesea!
SuperForester Maaja from eyelashkiss!
SuperForester Sonja over at SilverJewelry!
SuperForester Jenn over at Chucka Stone Designs!
SuperForester Lindsay from lindsayisobsessed!
SuperForester Mimi from Everyday is a Saturday!
SuperForester Cliff from Cliff's Riffs!

These seven bloggers plus Team SuperForest equals 17 bloggers and more than 20 blogs.

20 blogs joined, 30 to go.

Join the fun!

If you're a true "modern environmentalist," then you thrive on fun, and this is heaps of it.

And the second thing is that none other than SuperForester Christine (!) is going to give our little Save-A-Seed logo the once over. This is truly exciting news. Christine is the most amazingly talented artist. Check out Christine's site.

Hmmmmm. Maybe we can convince Christine to mention Save-A-Seed on spookoo.com? And, if she'd post on spookoo, would she also post on her two other sites?

We could already be at 23 blogs?.....

Ha ha ha! Fun!

Much love,

Team SuperForest

Coalition of the Thrilling!: The Save-A-Seed Coalition (Part One)

Good Morning SuperForest!

As you can see from our little "fund-o-meter" down on the right, we have now raised more than $1,100 toward preserving a single plant species via the Millennium Seed Bank.

This is wonderful news!

So, thinks we, how to best raise the remaining amount?
Better than that, how to spread the Save-A-Seed meme across the blogosphere and internet in the hopes of raising further awareness and funds?

Our question is this: Can the blogosphere save the world, one cause at a time?

Here is how we're gonna try to find out:

We are hereby setting out on an Attention Generation Excercise! One whose sole goal is to tell people about the Millennium Seed Bank.

Right now, there are 37 people who follow SuperForest. Of those 37, 30 are bloggers. Those 30 bloggers have 49 blogs among them.

If you add in the members of Team SuperForest, you've got over 40 bloggers with approximately 50 blogs between them. So what can you do with 50 blogs?

We're hoping to unite them!

Today, the thirty bloggers who follow SF received the following email or comment on their sites:

"Dear (fellow blogger),

We would like to invite you to join us in a little adventure.

As you may well know, we've started an awareness and fund-raising campaign for the Millennium Seed Bank. In our opinion, the MSB is performing an invaluable service by preserving plant species, all for the incredibly low price of approx. $3000.00 per species. Compared to trying to save a piece of land, or an animal species, 3000 smackers is an absolute bargain.

We think their work will benefit all of humanity and is as far as we can tell, controversy free.

We happily invite you to join us in forming the Save-A-Seed Coalition.

The SASC will be an informal organization of volunteer bloggers with two goals: Tell people about the Millennium Seed Bank. And, tell more people about the Millennium Seed Bank.

We figure that the best way to raise awareness, (and hopefully funds,) for the MSB is by telling as many folks as possible, generating as much interest as we can...

Here is our plan for how we accomplish that:

We here at SuperForest will write a post about the idea of creating the Save-A-Seed Coalition and our plan to reach out to you.
If you decide to join in the fun, you write a post about being asked to join the SASC and whether or not you'll join.

If you join, we write a post about who has joined and we link to you. You write a post about joining up, and you link to us!

(See where this is going?)

Between the 37 folks who follow SF and us, we have over 50 blogs.
With 50 blogs writing about and linking to the Millennium Seed Bank, the Save-A-Seed project and one anothers blogs, we've all of a sudden created a very powerful informational and communication entity.

A sympathetic coalition of bloggers, flexing the blogosphere's infant muscles to help a needy organization sounds like just the sort of elevating content that people are hungry for, and we can all share in the fun!

Our immediate goal is to save one seed, (i.e. raise $3,000 for the MSB.) We are one third of the way there. Our plan is to raise this amount, send them a check, and immediately set to work on saving a second seed.

Micro-donations, collected across the vastness of the internet, could provide the lifeblood for the Millennium Seed Bank, and we hope that this little action will help that come to pass.

And as an added bonus, we all get to "meet" one another and get to know each other and each others work as we work for a worthy cause.

What say you? Will you join us?

With love and respect,

Jackson, Niki, Andrew, Alex, Taylor,
Jaell, Julius, April, Jordan, Iman, Carla, & Spoon

a.k.a Team SuperForest"

Joining the Save-A-Seed Coalition doesn't mean you have to donate money, or raise money, or ever deal with money... To join, you merely have to mention that the SASC exists and link to it.

I repeat: No need to donate, only post and link.

Enough folks mention, enough folks link, and the Millennium Seed Bank is as good as covered. That's what we're hoping.

As of now, four of the 30 has replied back in the positive. Thank you to SuperForester Sonja over at SilverJewelry, SuperForester Jenn over at Chucka Stone Designs, SuperForester Lindsay from lindsayisobsessed, and SuperForester Mimi from Everyday is a Saturday!

When enough bloggers get on board, then we can all write posts about the MSB at once, link to each other AND work up a press release about the whole thing thus far. Fun, right?

Let's work together and see if we can improve our environment.
Here's to exploration!

Love to All,

Team SuperForest

If you would like to join the SASC, or Team SuperForest, click here.

Save-A-Seed Update: $877.15 USD!

Good Morning SuperForest!

I just checked the paypal account for the Millennium Seed Bank/Save-A-Seed project, and we've raised $877.15 USD!

This is phenomenal. Through small donations spread wide, we've in less than three weeks, raised approximately a third of our target.

Congratulations to us all!

Special thanks to SuperForesters Judy, Harry, and Tristan for their generosity and commitment to resource protection.

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy holidays.

Love,

Jackson

The Millennium Seed Bank is a Non-Profit

Oh boy!

The Millennium Seed Bank is indeed a non-profit, and as to how much $$$ they need to continue operating, well, sayeth Rob Yates:

"As for how much money we need, that depends on how ambitious we are to conserve plants. Our aim beyond 2010 it to collect and conserve 25% of the world's plants. It would be a remarkable achievement: to think that we can save such a wealth of plantlife for generations to come. To fund this work over a 10 year period would cost around £12m a year. This would enable us to scale up our seed conservation programme significantly, saving more plant species, restoring habitats, to include training elements and the work we do overseas to build capacity with our partner countries. We believe it would be a small price to pay to conserve something so vital as plants and would be a sound investment for the future of the planet."

So, the bigger their budget, the more plant species they can preserve.
Cool, let's help them save one for now, and then if that works, maybe we'll save another...

Got a dollar? Help Save-A-Seed.
You can write it off.

We Hear Back From The Millenium Seed Bank!

Hello SuperForest.

We have some very good news!
We've just received an email from Mr. Rob Yates at the Millennium Seed Bank.

"Dear Jackson,

We appreciate your interest and support. Your email has generated a great deal of enthusiasm here, it’s good to know that like minded people around the world share our concerns for global conservation!

The Millennium Seed Bank Project is funded and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. We are incorporated in the US as the American Society for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

You can mail a cheque to the following address:

Terri Seei: American Society for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 1530 South State St Unit 501 Chicago, IL 60605 USA

The Millennium Seed Bank Project is a global partnership working in more than 50 countries with more than 100 partners worldwide; our aim is to conserve 10% of the world’s wild plant species by 2010. Your support will help us achieve this.

Seed banking is a remarkably simple conservation tool. We collect seeds in the field and take no more than would be necessary for natural regeneration. We dry them to a moisture content that will allow them to survive at -20C. On average, this extends their lifespan for hundreds of years.

Like a Bank, we can withdraw the deposits and put them to good use: to conduct germination tests to make sure they are still viable, or to grow plants to restore habitats, or to put plants back into their native habitats.

In America, we are working directly with one main government partner the Bureau of Land Management and five NGO partners, but many other organisations are associated. Recent trips in the US have yielded some great collections, notably the attractive Trillium grandiflorum, and some valuable native grasses from Texas such as the annual muhly Muhlenbergia minutissima.

We know that wild plants play critical roles in the ecosystem, providing wildlife habitat, contributing to water quality, flood management and soil stability. They also provide people with their daily livelihoods. Our work focuses very much on wild plants that are endangered, endemic and of great economic use primarily to subsistence communities.

We have some great stories about how our work really benefits people; the Mongongo tree from Botswana is one example. The tree produces a highly nutritious fruit and a nut that is a part of the daily diet of subsistence communities. Our partners in Botswana were struggling to germinate seedlings. From 100 seeds, they would produce less than 15 trees. We shared our protocols with our partners and they saw a dramatic rise in the success of seedlings to germinate. From 100 seeds, they were able to produce 87 saplings.

Globally, we estimate 60,000 to 100,000 plant species are threatened with extinction. With climate change and habitat loss, it is vital that we conserve as many plants as possible before they go extinct. For future generations to meet the challenges of an uncertain future, they will need the greatest biological inheritance we can bequeath them. The Millennium Seed Bank delivers this.

On average, it costs £2000 ($3,062) to save a species. We believe it is a small price to pay for all that plants provide. For me the great thing about saving plants is that we do not yet know many of the secrets they possess. For example, does a particular plant hold the cure for cancer?

If you would like any further information, please do email. If you make it to the UK, I would be delighted to give you a tour of the Millennium Seed Bank.

Once again thank your for your support, it will help us make a real difference.

Rob Yates"

Well, that's very encouraging!
And with that, I'm delighted to give a huge thank you to SuperForesters Mary Ann and
Jon for donating to the Save-A-Seed project.

Good news all around.

-Jackson

Sponsor-A-Seed Progress!

Good Morning SuperForesters!

As we wrote on Monday, the Millennium Seed Bank is in a financial crunch, and we're trying to raise the not-astronomical sum of $2,995.00 to sponsor the survival of a single seed.

Well, the following SuperForesters have stepped up and put their $$$ where their <3's are. A massive SuperForest "Thank you!" to SuperForesters:

Sakae
Tina
Spencer
Erika
Emily
George
Barbara
April
Niki
Michelle
&
Spoon!

Y'all are an inspiration and your generosity is matched only by your attractiveness.

So, in one day, guess how much we've raised?...

$340.00!

We've raised nearly an eighth of our target!
Nice! We can totally do this.

Would you like to help Save a Seed?
Donate Here:

If you SuperForesters at home know of any other bloggers or writers who you think would be sympathetic to the plight of the Millennium Seed Bank or like the idea of sponsoring a single seed, please write to them, us, or both: superforestnyc(at)gmail(dot)com.

I'm really excited about this.

Love to All and thank you.

-Jackson

p.s. We have emailed the Seed Bank to inquire as to their non-profit status and will have an update as soon as they reply. Love.

SuperForest's Letter to the Millennium Seed Bank

Hey Y'all!

We just sent this email to: msbsci@kew.org

"Dear Millennium Seed Bank,

Having read about your recent cash struggles, we thought it best to add a donation button to our site and see if we couldn't raise some funds for you.
We hope to raise £2000, which we heard is approximately what it costs to ensure the survival of a single seed.

Maybe we could help further by putting forward the idea of "seed hosting," where more folks could also add donation buttons to sponsor single seeds?
This could help both financially and energetically as word gets out of the situation your wonderful and worthwhile project is facing.

In the meantime, we shall begin the process of raising the £2000 pounds and will spread the word to all that are interested.

Thank you very much for all that you do.

Yours truly,

SuperForest"

Cool.

I personally am going to forward these two posts to everyone on my various email chains, in the hopes of building further momentum.

Much love,

Jackson

The Millenium Seed Bank is in Trouble. What Can We Do to Help?

(via flickr user andyp uk.)

Dear SuperForest,

I read yesterday that the Millennium Seed Bank is in dire financial straights.

What is the Millennium Seed Bank?

From Wikipedia:

"The Millennium Seed Bank Project is an international conservation project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Launched in the year 2000... its purpose is to provide an "insurance policy" against the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for future use. The storage facilities consist of large underground frozen vaults preserving the world's largest collection of seeds.

In April 2007 it banked its billionth seed, the Oxytenanthera abyssinica, a type of African bamboo."

"But the cooling of the global economy is threatening to freeze the whole project. All it takes is 2,000 pounds to save one seed, and with at least four species of plants vanishing every year, conservationists believe this is an excellent value."

-via russiatoday.com.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Okay, one seed's continued survival cost £2000 pounds.
£2000 English pounds is currently valued at $2995.8 US dollars.

I propose to you, dear friends and readers, that we raise this sum, via a paypal donation bin, and that as a group we host the continued existence of one seed. The SuperForest seed!

We may not be able to support the entire project, but we can certainly support one seed.

Donate Here:

Hosting this as yet nameless seed can be our gift to the future. It can also show how beautifully technology can work to support and buttress worthwhile thoughts and movements from the forces of economic downturns and the like.

The Millenium Seed Bank needs us just as much as we need it.

Can we do it?

One seed for SuperForest! And SuperForest for one seed!

Let's do this thing.

Massive love to all!

-Jackson


P.S. Would you like to visit the Seed Bank? Click here for info on how.

Millennium Seed Bank site.
Millennium Seed Bank wiki.


UPDATE

To let you keep track of your own fabulous donations we created this counter.