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Effect of Temperature on Solar Panels
Effect Of Temperature On Solar Panels
Experiment to show the effect of temperature on PV solar panel power outputhome > solar | education
All PV Solar Panels are affected by heat. The hotter the solar panel, the lower the power output - but how significant is the effect. We decided to test one of our small 6V 250mA Solar Panels to find out.
Reproducing the kind of temperatures solar panels experience in hot climates is not easy on a cloudy May day in the UK, so a 150 Watt halogen office lamp was used at a distance of 55mm from the solar panel as a sun substitute (see image above). This guaranteed a constant level of light would be incident upon the solar panel ensuring the quality of the results collected.
Measuring Voltage and Current Under LoadTo measure the voltage and current under load, a power resistor was used across the positive and negative outputs of the solar panel. Previous experiments had shown us that the peak power output of these panels is obtained with a load resistance of around 56 Ohms.
Not having a 56 Ohm power resistor, a 33, 18, and 4.7 Ohm 5 Watt power resistor were connected in series to provide a measured resistance of exactly 55.8 Ohms (see above). The maximum power output of these panels under the halogen light was previously measured at around 750mW, so our 5W power resistors barely got warm.
Measuring Temperature Effect on Solar PanelTaking voltage, current, and temperature readings manually at one second intervals would be impossible. We were expecting the temperature of the solar panel to increase very rapidly and we wanted the change in power output to be accuarately tracked. Therefore we used the Power Analyzer PRO from Medusa Products.
This device (pictured above) will measure the voltage and current flowing through the load to 0.005V and 0.01A accuracy, and also temperature to 0.1 degree Celcius accuracy with its probe. Readings are taken of all three values approximately four times every second. By connecting the Power Analyzer to a PC via the included USB cable, the results can be displayed and graphed in real time as well as being stored for later analysis.
Solar panels are very dark and so absorb a lot of light (and heat). Therefore the shiny silver coloured temperature probe was wrapped in a single layer of black insulation tape to increase its heat absorption. The temperature of the probe will not exactly match that across the whole surface of the solar panel, however it should be close enough for the purposes of this experiment.
Running The ExperimentEverything was set up and the Power Analyzer initialised with the lamp turned off. When the lamp was turned on it took almost one minute to come to full brightness. Over the next 40 minutes the temperature measured by the probe (and therefore the solar panel) rose to a peak of 75 degrees Celcius. This is similar to the sorts of temperatures the solar panels at the Dubai Energy Tower will reach when that project is completed.
Experiment Results - How Does Temperature Affect Solar Panel Power Output
The graph above shows the relationship between temperature in degrees Celcius (horizontal axis) and the solar panel power output measured in milliwatts (vertical axis). Because of the way the halogen lamp took one minute to reach full brightness the results from 25-30 degrees Celcius should be ignored.
Between 30 and 42 degrees there was only a small drop in power output from a peak of 749 mW down to 730 mW. After that there was a consistent drop in power output of around 8.3mW (1.1% of peak output) per degree rise in temperature. Voltage under load went from a peak of 6.21V at 0.12 Amps down to just below 5V at 0.09 Amps.
The total power loss due to the increase in temperature was from around 750 mW down to just 458 mW - a fall of almost 40%! Had the solar panel been pre-cooled in the fridge before the experiment was started the peak power output would certainly have been even higher.
Article Last Modified: 22:21, 24th Sep 2014
Comment on this ArticleIf you have any comments on this article, please email them to firstname.lastname@example.org.
|Did an interesting experiment yesterday concerning the loss of conversion efficiency of PVs as the surface temperature rises.|
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Effect-of-Temperature-on-Solar-Panels.htm put me onto the idea after I'd been watching my charge current over the past week wondering why the output was not as high as last month. Or the month before.
My array comprises five panels: two 120 watt, one 80 watt, two odd balls, for a total of about 400 watts. Mostly they lie flat on the roof of my bus.
During the Winter, even with the sun quite a few degrees lower than optimum at mid day the panels were doing better than 20A at their best. This past fortnight I've noted that as the sun comes up the output would climb as usual but never get to 20A. Leveled off at 16A or so.
What all sugars off is that at mid-day the surface temperature of the panels exceeds 130 degrees Farenheit (measured with a remote reading infrared thermometer) and the max output is about 16A. So what I did was to hose down the panels; the water cooled them to 100F and the output current went up to the usual better than 20A. (The meters only go that high and then they are against the peg.) As the panels rewarmed the current dropped. Repeated the cycle twice to confirm results. That's about a 20% loss.
3rd June 2010
Related Articles and ProductsMore from the REUK.co.uk website:
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|The Effect of Air Mass on Solar Panels|
Find out how passing through the atmosphere affects the Sun's rays and solar generation
|Effects of Shading on Solar Panels|
Understand the importance of avoiding any shading on PV solar panels
|Measuring the Power of A Solar Panel|
Find out how to measure the power output of a PV solar panel
A measure of the amount of solar radiation hitting the earth
What is solar declination, how to calculate it, and a table of solar declination data
|Solar Panel Mounting Angle|
Find out how to position a solar panel to maximise power output
|Solar Hot Water Heat Exchanger|
Find out about a heat exchange coil which can be retro-fitted to standard hot water tanks for solar water heating
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Cornwall Council’s Health Promotion Service is helping to raise awareness of depression as part of this year’s National Depression Awareness Week, which runs from April 28 to May 23.
Depression is a medical condition which people often struggle with in silence, and is frequently undiagnosed, due to people’s reluctance to seek help. It is estimated that there are 90,000 people in Cornwall suffering from a common mental disorder, usually anxiety, depression or both. It is difficult to give accurate figures, though national research suggests that around 16 per cent of adults are affected.
It is normal to experience a low mood at difficult times in our lives, but a low mood that doesn’t go away after a couple of weeks can be a sign of depression. If you think that you, or someone you know, may be depressed, then you should visit your GP, and they will discuss the available treatment options with you, including medication and talking therapies.
Five Ways to Wellbeing If your GP has diagnosed depression it is important that you continue with your prescribed treatment, but there are also ways by which we can help to improve our own mood. Research by the New Economics Foundation has shown that regular activity in five key areas can enhance an individual’s personal wellbeing.
The “Five Ways to Wellbeing” are: Connect, Be active, Take notice, Learn and Give. Under each of those broad headings people can find actions that appeal to their personal interests.
• Connect – enhance your social relationships, develop friendships, speak to someone new.
• Be active – regular physical activity is associated with lower rates of depression and anxiety across all age groups. Activity might include sports but could also mean going for a gentle walk or doing some gardening.
• Take notice – enjoy the moment, enjoy and take care of your local environment, notice the changing seasons, try a different place to eat out.
• Learn – sign up for a class, read a book, do crosswords or Sudoku.
• Give – participate in your community, commit ‘random acts of kindness’.
All of these are shown to improve mental wellbeing, or the perception of happiness in people, and can help people to feel better about themselves and their circumstances.
Sara Roberts, consultant in public health at Cornwall Council, said: "Depression is a problem that affects many people – probably someone you know struggles with it. If you recognise these symptoms in yourself, you are not alone – and you don’t have to struggle on your own.
"There are many sources of help available to you and the place to start, if you think you are depressed, is to talk to your GP. But you can also find a range of information about mental health, including self-help advice, from the Cornwall Mental Health, Mind and Depression Alliance websites.
“I have used the ‘five ways to wellbeing’ myself and I’ve found it a helpful reminder to get a balance of interests and activities in my life’.
NHS Kernow’s joint programme lead for mental health Sandra Miles, said, ‘Mental illness, including depression, is nothing to feel ashamed about. Mental health problems affect one in four people, yet many people still find it difficult to talk to someone about how they’re feeling. It’s really important that anyone who is concerned about their mental health, or that of someone they know, should talk to their GP.
‘NHS Kernow commissions a range of support for anyone who is struggling to cope, from third sector voluntary services and talking therapies to a range of specialist support. The sooner you seek help, the quicker you can receive support and treatment.’ Depression Alliance, the UK’s leading charity for people affected by depression, explains more about depression on their website www.depressionalliance.org. Their website says “If you are affected by depression, you are not 'just' sad or upset. You have an illness which means that intense feeling of persistent sadness, helplessness and hopelessness are accompanied by physical effects such as sleeplessness, a loss of energy, or physical aches and pains.”
Common symptoms of depression As a general rule, if you have experienced four or more of these symptoms, for most of the day, nearly every day, for over two weeks, then you should seek help.
• Tiredness and loss of energy
• Persistent sadness
• Loss of self-confidence and self-esteem
• Difficulty concentrating
• Not being able to enjoy things that are usually pleasurable or interesting
• Undue feelings of guilt or worthlessness
• Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness
• Sleeping problems - difficulties in getting off to sleep or waking up much earlier than usual
• Avoiding other people, sometimes even your close friends
• Finding it hard to function at work/college/school
• Loss of appetite
• Loss of sex drive and/ or sexual problems
• Physical aches and pains
• Thinking about suicide and death
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Legumes of the World Online
The Leguminosae is one of the largest and most economically important plant families. The Legume team at Kew is proud to have published Legumes of the World (LOW) in July 2005. This book provides an encyclopaedic overview of current knowledge of the family and is the first fully illustrated manual of all 727 genera (this number now stands at 740 in 2011). The publication synthesizes the massive advances in legume systematics over the last ten years or more and charts the molecular phylogenetic revolution that has taken place between 1994 and 2005. The text represents an enormous information resource including the number of species, global distribution and ecology, habit and uses of each genus, as well as reliable references for further information and useful notes about taxonomy including the etymology of the scientific names. The book also includes detailed hierarchical classifications from traditional and most current viewpoints of relationships in the family.
Kew has a commitment to disseminating its information more widely and Legumes of the World Online (LOWO) is a new, innovative, project whose end point will be 1) the Web-based publication of Legumes of the World; 2) an information management system facilitating maintenance of the content of this publication by the Legume team at Kew including contributions from collaborators around the world; 3) a documented understanding of the nature of the information content of this publication, the needs of the target audience for such a publication and the processes involved in generating and maintaining such a global systematic synthesis.
The latter objective is of significance beyond the Legume team’s work. This is a collaborative four year project involving Herbarium and ISD staff starting in 2006 to be divided into several distinct phases.
The objectives of Phase 1 (2006-2007) were to 1) document and define the types of information in the book and to describe how they are linked to and depend on one another; 2) specify the requirements for a system to manage and edit this information resource; 3) document ways those outside of Kew might use such a web publication; 4) mark up text to test its import into a prototype information content manager; and 5) produce and test pilot trials using 1 or more tribes. Phase 1 has been successfully completed.
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History | Latino Immigrants-U.S. Society
A300 | 27024 | de la Cova
COURSE OBJECTIVES: An analysis of Latino immigration to the United
States with a special emphasis on the diversity of the immigration
experience by national origin, region of settlement, and gender. In
order to understand this experience, we will pay particular
attention to the histories of Latino immigration to the United
States in order to identify similarities between the receptions of
Latino immigrant groups and other immigrants in history. We will
also discuss predominant theories of international immigration,
relationships between the historical and contemporary context,
immigration policy, and the adaptation of Latino immigrants in the
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: In order to maximize student learning, there
will be Power-Point lectures, video analysis, and readings that
require taking notes. Students are expected to use logical arguments
sustained with evidence in class discussions and to improve their
reading, writing, analytical, and speaking skills.
READINGS: You are expected to read the assigned text and OTHER
READINGS assigned weekly through E-Reserves. Questions regarding the
text and articles will appear on the exams. Students are expected to
come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. The
required text is:
Ann Millard, Jorge Chapa, et al. Apple Pie & Enchiladas: Latino
Newcomers in the Rural Midwest.
Class Participation and Attendance - (10% of final grade): This is
a crucial element in this course. We will spend much of our time
discussing the ideas raised in the readings. The key criteria for
assessing class participation are the amount and regularity of
contributions and the degree to which contributions are thoughtful,
informed, constructive and relevant. Additionally, supplemental
information will be presented and discussed in class. These
materials will be included on the midterm and final exams.
Attendance also figures into this portion of the grade.
Essay papers - You will be expected to write three (500 word) papers
over the course of the term. Each paper is worth 15% of final grade.
These papers will be focused on a specific question and are designed
to measure your ability to both comprehend basic course concepts and
apply those concepts in unique and challenging ways.
Midterm Exam - (20% of final grade): This will be an exam that will
test your mastery of course material and your ability to apply
Final Exam - (25% of final grade): The final will be comprehensive.
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The New Structured Wiring
New? Yes, I would say new. With the evolving technologies it is time to rethink structured wiring.
Structured Wiring Defined
Structured wiring is basically where a bundle of cables is brought back to a central enclosure from each location for a TV, telephone or data port. In the case of a TV location this usually will involve RG6 coax as well as cat5e cables for data/telephone use. In addition to the TV locations there will be also other telephone/data port locations scattered about the home. They also will run from the wall plate back to the structured wiring central enclosure, so that with every wall plate you know where the other end of the cables will be. This is opposed to the older technique of wiring from wall plate to wall plate in a daisy chained configuration. While daisy chaining may work fine for telephone cable, with RG6 for TV use it becomes very limiting to OTA or cable use. Satellite receivers need isolated coax between the receivers and the dish or multiswitch. Multiswitches are located in the central wiring enclosure. Even with OTA and cable TV use the daisy chaining can cause the end devices to be starved for signal as each splitter will cause additional signal loss. Also splitters tend to be hidden inside of walls and forgotten and that will make the coax useless for satellite TV use. With structured wiring everything originates from a common wiring enclosure with no taps or splices as the cables run to the wall plates, so you know exactly how every run is wired.
Currently when we talk about structured wiring we usually think of a bundle (or separate cables) of 2 RG6 coax and 2 cat5e cables. There are specialized bundles with this complement of cables for structured wiring applications. The reason for the two coax could be for cable and a over the air (OTA) antenna. If satellite is used then the two would be used for satellite and a OTA antenna. Both cases would require 2 coax cables. The two cat5e cables would be for telephone (required for satellite receivers) and a data port that could be used for a Home Theater PC (HTPC) that is becoming more and more prevalent these days with the multimedia PCs. Each cat5e cable will have 4 pairs of twisted wires and since telephone only takes 1 pair per line and a data port takes 2 pair, there will be several pairs left over. This may seem like overkill, but the extra pairs is actually very inexpensive, so the industry has pretty well standardized on the 2 cat5e.
The new thinking is to start off with the addition of 2 fiber optic cables to the structured wiring bundle. Currently there is not much need for fiber inside the house, but in the near future it will be required for a new technology called Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) that will allow TV on demand, even High Definition TV. Many neighborhoods are currently being cabled with fiber all the way to the houses, called Fiber To The House (FTTH), in preparation for IPTV. When this is rolled out for the masses, you will be able to request your regularly scheduled shows that you may have missed over a 48 hour period, or so. It will be like having a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) on every channel that will save every show for 48 hours! Fiber will be needed to allow for this and other future capabilities.
But recent changes in viewing habits has caused some of us to rethink what is required for structured wiring. With the increasing popularity of the DVRs, like the TiVo, on satellite services, the quantity of RG6 cables has become inadequate. Each satellite DVR requires 2 coax feeds from the dish or multiswitch, one for each tuner in the DVR. DVRs are equipped with two tuners so that you can watch one channel while recording another. Now you don’t have to supply both tuners for the DVR to operate, but most people will want the full function out of their DVR. As it can be seen, the two tuners have used up the two coax cables in our structured wiring bundle. This means we would have to diplex the OTA signal off of one of the satellite coax feeds, which is not as desirable as a separate OTA cable. This brings up the possibility of needing another RG6. My preference is to run a second structured wiring bundle of 2 RG6 and 2 cat5e cables to each location that may have a HDTV installed later. This very well may be every TV location in the home, but remember wiring is much less expensive before the walls are closed in.
Other considerations that I have run into is the need for a third satellite feed to run a second receiver for the use of PIP. In order to show a second channel in the PIP window, a separate source is required, hence the second receiver. Some people use the SD receiver the had when they upgraded to HD and pay the extra $5 per month for service, just to have the PIP operational. Other installations have involved a separate surveillance CATV system that allows the selection of various cameras through the NTSC (analog) tuners. This can be done through the 4th coax with the modulators located back in the structured wiring enclosure, or adjacent equipment rack or cabinet.
The bottom line for TV locations to future proof your house would be to run a 2 coax+2 cat5e+2 fiber structured bundle plus a 2 coax+2 cat5e structured bundle.
Now there is another issue in providing wiring for satellite dish service to the structured wiring enclosure. With the old SD satellite wiring there was only 2 RG6 coax cables required between the dish and the wiring enclosure. A third coax was usually added for the OTA antenna. These days with the HDTV dish a probability, 2 more RG6 coax cables need to be furnished for a total of 5 coax cables between the dish/OTA antenna location and the structured wiring cabinet.
Finally, the new AT9 dish system will not allow for diplexing the OTA antenna signal on the satellite cable, so there is a need for a sepatate coax to deliver OTA. With four coax cables this will allow for 2 to service a DVR, 1 for the OTA antenna and 1 for cable or another satellite receiver for PIP or an international satellite receiver. Extra cat5e cables allow for remote IR wiring as well as telephone and internet. Fiber cables will future proof your installation.
Edit: Directv has started using their SWM (Single Wire Multiswitch) systems that allow both tuners and the OTA signals over a single coax. That could moderate the thinking a bit, but due to the low cost of a cable or two, for future proofing I don’t think it should moderate it much.
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By Lynda Cortés-Avellaneda, NAMI Multicultural Action Center Program Manager
The New Year is moving quickly and February is already nearly half way through. Aside from the arctic weather conditions, the heart-shaped balloons and the Sochi Olympics, this month is a very unique time to recognize and celebrate the significant role of African Americans and their outstanding contributions to the United States throughout history.
In 1926, African American historian and author Carter G. Woodson initiated the celebration of Black History Week, which, unsurprisingly, coincided with the birthdays of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Civil War President Abraham Lincoln. In 1976, the year of the nation’s bicentennial, the week grew to encompass the entire month. Since then, every U.S. president has officially declared February as Black History Month.
The Significance of February
Many key events in African American history took place in February. Here are just a few:
- W. E. B. Du Bois, civil rights leader and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was born on Feb. 23, 1868.
- The 15th Amendment was passed on Feb. 3, 1870.
- The first African American senator, Hiram R. Revels took his oath of office on February 25, 1870.
- The NAACP was founded on Feb. 12, 1909.
- After being refused service, a group of African American college students remained in their seats at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., on Feb. 1, 1960.
- Malcolm X, a prominent Black Nationalism leader, was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965.
While six points in history are far from capturing the African American struggle for freedom and justice, they are a snapshot of events and people, both known and anonymous, that helped transformed this nation. The process they established continues to challenge our nation’s perception of equality and social progress. Hence, the significance of Black History Month lies in looking back and understanding how far we have come to draw the strength and wisdom necessary to move forward.
The Case of Mental Illness
Mental illness, without any further distinction, affects one in four Americans. However, experiences of mental illness vary across cultures and there is a need for improved cultural awareness and corresponding competence in the health care and mental health workforce.
- Social circumstances often serve as an indicator for the likelihood of developing a mental illness. African Americans are disproportionately more likely to experience these social circumstances.
- African Americans are often at a socioeconomic disadvantage in terms of accessing both medical and mental health care.
- Culture biases against mental health professionals and health care professionals in general prevent many African Americans from accessing care, due to prior experiences with historical misdiagnoses, inadequate treatment and a lack of cultural understanding.
- African Americans tend to rely on family, religious and social communities for emotional support rather than turning to health care professionals, even though the latter may at times be necessary. Furthermore, the health care providers they seek may not be aware of this important aspect of African American culture.
- Mental illness is frequently stigmatized and misunderstood in the African American community. African Americans are much more likely to seek help though their primary care doctors as opposed to accessing specialty care.
Sensitivity to African American cultural differences, their unique views of mental illness and propensity towards developing certain mental illnesses, can improve African Americans’ treatment experiences and increase their utilization of mental health care services. To learn more, please visit NAMI’s African American Resources page.
How You Can Become the Change Starting Today
Observe African American History Month proactively.
- Refresh your history. Learn more about the African American legacy.
- Discover what cultural competence in mental health is and why is important.
- Stay informed. Sign-up for NAMI’s community specific email updates and news.
- Speak up for minority mental health through social media: #minoritymentalhealth/ Fb.com/minoritymentalhealth.
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Finch, Thomas Jefferson
1 Dec. 1861–20 July 1929
Thomas Jefferson Finch, pioneer furniture manufacturer, banker, and farmer, was descended from English settlers who came first to Virginia and then to Person County, N.C. Succeeding generations moved to Randolph County. He was born in the Pleasant Hill section of Tabernacle Township in Randolph County, about ten miles south of Thomasville, the son of Alfred Benjamin (son of Pettis and Frances Ranchor Pope Finch), and Lucy Andrews Finch who also had six other children. Thomas Jefferson was the oldest of three sons to reach maturity; all were successful farmers and together owned a general store. Thomas Jefferson, who worked in the store and on the farm in early life, learned the value of industry and thrift.
Young Finch received his education in the country school near his home and later at Trinity College, then in Randolph County. Between Trinity and Thomasville his uncle and aunt, Thomas Austin and Rebecca Dorsett Finch, a childless couple, resided on a large farm. At their insistence nineteen-year-old Thomas Jefferson went to live with them and look after their affairs. When they died he inherited their estate, including the farm, Wheatmore, which became his home for the remainder of his life. A few months after their death, he married Hannah Louise Brown, daughter of Dempsey and Eliza Ann Laughlin Brown and granddaughter of John and Jane Clark Brown. In 1837–38 John Brown and his kinsmen had built on his plantation in Randolph County Brown's Schoolhouse for the schooling of their own and neighbor's children. This school was the beginning of Trinity College (later Duke University). Hannah's father, Dempsey Brown, in later years donated land for Hopewell Methodist Church and its cemeteries for Negroes and whites. Hannah Brown Finch was an 1885 graduate of Greensboro College.
Thomas J. and Hannah Brown Finch were the parents of six sons: Thomas Austin; Brown, who was killed in a railroad wreck in 1925; Gray and Charles, who died in their youth; Doak; and George Davis. When the younger sons reached school age, Finch built and opened a schoolhouse at Wheatmore for his own, the farm employees', and a few of his neighbors' children; the schoolteacher lived at the "Big House." Wheatmore also had a post office, which was operated by Mrs. Finch in the absence of her husband.
After Finch had added four hundred acres to his original tract and had developed the farm until it was a model for the county, he turned his attention to politics. A lifelong Democrat, he was elected county commissioner in 1892, and remained in office for several years. Later, he served two terms as sheriff of Randolph, a county normally Republican. He was for some time a county school board member and took much interest in public issues of the day. During World War I President Woodrow Wilson appointed him to the state exemption board, which consisted of three members from across the state. For a time he served on the state agricultural board and in his later years was a director of the North Carolina Railroad. In 1924 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in New York.
Finch first became interested in Thomasville in 1897, when he and his nephew, C. L. Harris, opened a general store there. Two years later he joined Jesse F. Hayden in organizing a telephone company and in purchasing the High Point Telephone Company. The same year he was one of the incorporators of the Bank of Thomasville, and in 1907 he became a director and vice-president of the First National Bank. In 1917 he was named president of the First National Bank, a position he held through the war years and the recession immediately thereafter. He was one of the first directors of the Peoples Building and Loan Association (1909), an organizer and first president of the Carolina Bank & Trust Company of Denton (1924), president of the Thomasville Realty & Trust Company, and a director of the High Point, Thomasville & Denton Railroad.
His greatest contribution to Thomasville and the Piedmont area, however, was his pioneering in furniture manufacturing. About the turn of the century he and his brother, Charles F., went into the lumbering business, buying timber and sawing it into lumber, which they sold for building material and furniture making. This led to their purchase in 1907 of the Thomasville Chair Company, then consisting of only one small factory. They bought another factory in 1909 and two more a few years later. Thomas Austin, the oldest son of Thomas Jefferson Finch, joined the business in 1909 and another son, Brown, in 1914. By purchasing the interest of Charles F. Finch in 1925, Thomas Jefferson Finch and members of his family became the owners of the company and incorporated it; the same year his sons Doak and George also joined in its operation. Thomas Jefferson Finch remained at the head of this large family enterprise for the remainder of his life. In twenty-two years the company grew from one small factory to one of the largest plants in the Piedmont area with capital stock of $1.5 million and close to a thousand employees. Along with a few other leaders, he had recognized the potential of furniture manufacturing in the South and had begun developing Piedmont North Carolina into an industrial region.
Finch was a member of the Masonic Lodge, of the local Rotary Club, and of many other civic organizations. His interest in the building of Memorial Hospital in Thomasville led him to contribute a large sum—matching the Duke Foundation grant—to ensure its construction. He was a member of Hopewell Methodist Church, where he was a steward for many years. He was interred in the family mausoleum in Hopewell Cemetery.
Nora Campbell Chaffin, Trinity College, 1839–1892: The Beginnings of Duke University (1950).
Mary G. Matthews and M. Jewell Sink, Pathfinders, Past and Present: A History of Davidson County, North Carolina (1972), and Wheels of Faith and Courage, A History of Thomasville, North Carolina (1952).
Jessie Owen Shaw, The Johnsons and Their Kin of Randolph (1955).
Thomasville News and Times, 25 July 1929.
Whatley, Lowell McKay. "TRT*: Thomas Jefferson Finch House." The Architectural History of Randolph County North Carolina. City of Asheboro, the County of Randolph and the N.C. Division of Archives and History. 1985. 53. http://archive.org/stream/architecturalhis00what#page/n61/mode/2up/ (accessed February 28, 2014).
Cutter, William Richard. American Biography: A New Cyclopedia vol. 46. Pub. under the direction of the American historical society, 1931. 148-149. http://books.google.com/books?id=hJYMAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Thomas+Jefferson+Finch%22&dq=%22Thomas+Jefferson+Finch%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jacQU-JUiKyQB5u0gcgH&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBw
[advertisement]. Miller's Thomasville, North Carolina city directory [serial]. Asheville, N.C.: Commercial Service Co. 1928. Fly Y. http://archive.org/stream/millersthomasvil00mill#page/n187/mode/2up/ (accessed February 28, 2014).
1 January 1986 | Sink, M. Jewell
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Georgia Wild E-Newsletter
Conserving the robust redhorse
Discovered by the naturalist Edward Cope in 1869, the robust redhorse (Moxostoma robustum) was generally thought extinct and had been lost to science for more than 100 years until a population was found in the Oconee River in 1991. Nicknamed the "mystery fish" by researchers, this rare member of the sucker family has been the focus of ongoing research projects to determine the status of existing populations and initiate recovery efforts across the fish's three-state range Georgia and the Carolinas.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) along with other state and federal resource agencies, the University of Georgia's Institute of Ecology and Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, the Georgia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, major power companies, and conservation community members are working together to implement a recovery plan for the imperiled species. The recovery team has formed the Robust Redhorse Conservation Committee to coordinate efforts.
An adult robust redhorse can grow to 30 inches and weigh 17 pounds. Adults feed only on mussels and clams (bi-valves) and may be an important host fish for some freshwater mussels. With a life span of nearly 30 years, the robust redhorse is considered an indicator species for determining the health of Georgia's aquatic ecosystems primarily within the Savannah and Altamaha river basins.
The ultimate goal is to achieve six self-sustaining populations within Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Currently there are believed to be three wild populations in Georgia: on the Savannah River, the Oconee River and possibly a small remnant group on the Ocmulgee River south of Macon. There are three stocked populations, on the upper Ocmulgee between lakes Juliette and Jackson, on the Ogeechee River and on the Broad River. There is also a wild population in the Pee Dee River in North and South Carolina, and two stocked populations in South Carolina.
The robust redhorse spawns over gravel substrate in swift, shallow water, returning to the same sites each year to spawn and occasionally traveling as far as 70 miles during migration.
Two projects being conducted and funded by Nongame Conservation funds include:
Although there is still plenty to do, the recovery team working through the Robust Redhorse Committee has made significant progress in improving the status of this unique species throughout its historic range. The project also demonstrates that diverse groups can establish effective partnerships to conserve Georgia's natural resources.
Jimmy Evans, a fisheries biologist with the DNRs Wildlife Resources Division, said its almost unprecedented to find a fish that has been lost to science for over a hundred years.
"We think there are things we know and then this happens. It just goes to show that there is still so much out there we don't know. Mysteries."
The Georgia Aquarium has a display dedicated to the robust redhorse. Go online to http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/animal-guide/georgia-aquarium/home/galleries/river-scout/gallery-animals/robust-redhorse-sucker for details.
Georgia Wild E-Newsletter
Report poaching and wildlife violations. You can receive a cash reward if your tip leads to an arrest—even if you wish to remain anonymous.
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Data Encoding Techniques
In order to transport digital bits of data across carrier waves, encoding techniques have been developed each with
their own pros and cons. This document briefly describes some of the more common techniques.
Character Coding Techniques
Jean-Maurice-Emile Baudot developed a character set in 1874 that used series of bits to represent characters that could be sent
over a telegraph wire or radio signal. A 5-key keyboard was developed to implement this Baudot code that was modified by
Donald Murray in 1901 and it became the International Telegraph Alphabet 1 (ITA1) and then developed into ITA2.
ITA2 was the coding that was actually implemented on equipment. Characters such as Line Feed (LF) were given a 5 bit
code such as 00010.
The problem with using 5 bits for each character is that there is a limitation on the number of characters that can
be generated from them, 25 gives 32 different combinations. This may be fine for 26 letters of the English
alphabet but it is not enough to cover punctuation or control characters. Other coding techniques were needed.
Binary Coded Decimal (BCD)
BCD uses a series of 4 bits called a nibble to represent a decimal number, as the following table demonstrates:
So for example, the number 1456 would be represented by 0001 0100 0101 0110. This makes it easier
to convert numbers and for displays, however the electronics required in calculations is quite complex.
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)
Originally published in 1963, ASCII is based on 7 bits to represent English characters and
after a number of revisions ASCII now supports 95 printable characters and 33 control
characters (a total of 2 7 = 128). ASCII is the americanised vsersion of that defined by CCITT in ISO 646 and is
known as the International Alphabet 5 (IA5).
The first 32 characters are control characters and are represented by the 7-bit codes 000 0000 (null character)
through to 001 1111 (unit separator). The 128th control character is 'delete' represented by 111 1111.
The rest of the characters are printable and the coding caters for both lower and uppercase english letters e.g.
the letter 'd' is represented by 110 0100 whereas its upper case equivalent is represented by 100 0100.
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC)
Around the same time that ASCII was developed, in 1964 IBM produced EBCDIC which is an 8-bit coding system
designed to replace BCD within its computer systems. An EBCDIC byte is divided in two nibbles. The first four bits
is called the zone and this represents the category of the character, the last four bits is called the digit
and this identifies the specific character.
Different countries adapted EBCDIC for their own alphabets. The Chinese had a double byte extension that allowed them
to display Chinese characters. IBM numbered the different character sets with Coded Character Set Identifier (CCSID)
of which there are many around the world.
Originally published in 1991 by the Unicode Consortium as Unicode 1.0 (in 2006 Unicode 5.0 was released),
Unicode aims to provide a means for the traditional
character sets around the world to take part in multilingual computer processing amongst themselves rather than have to translate
into a Roman character set first.
The bit patterns of the 95 printable ASCII characters are sufficient to exchange information in modern English, however
many languages that use the Latin alphabet need additional symbols not covered by ASCII. ISO/IEC 8859 attempts to address
this by utilising the eighth bit in an 8-bit byte in order to allow positions for another 128 characters.
This bit was previously used for data transmission protocol information, or was left unused. Even more characters
were needed than could fit in a single 8-bit character encoding, so several mappings were developed.
ISO/IEC 8859 comes in parts and these are given a number e.g. ISO 8859-15.
Unicode creates codes for the characters or basic graphical representation of the character (called a 'grapheme').
The first 256 code points have been reserved for ISO 5589-1 in order to make it straightforward to convert the
Roman text. There are two Unicode mapping methods; Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) and
Unicode Character Set (UCS). An encoding maps the range of Unicode code points to sequences of values
in a fixed-size range of code values. The numbers in the names of the encodings indicate the number of bits
in one code value (for UTF encodings) or the number of bytes per code value (for UCS) encodings.
UCS assigns a code per character. UCS-2 uses two bytes per character, UCS-4
uses 4 bytes per character.
Some Unicode examples:
- UTF-7 — a 7-bit encoding, often considered obsolete (not part of Unicode but rather an RFC)
- UTF-8 — an 8-bit, variable-width encoding, which maximizes compatibility with ASCII. In common use
and is in fact a superset of ASCII. The IMC and IETF use UTF-8 when determining standards for supporting
email and Internet traffic.
- UTF-EBCDIC — an 8-bit variable-width encoding, which maximizes compatibility with EBCDIC. (not
part of Unicode)
- UTF-16 — a 16-bit, variable-width encoding. In common use.
- UTF-32 — a 32-bit, fixed-width encoding
Manchester Phase Encoding (MPE)
802.3 Ethernet uses Manchester Phase Encoding (MPE). A data bit '1'
from the level-encoded signal (i.e. that from the digital circuitry in the host machine
sending data) is represented by a full cycle of the inverted signal from the master clock which matches with the '0' to '1' rise
of the phase-encoded signal (linked to the phase of the carrier signal which goes out on the wire).
i.e. -V in the first half of the signal and +V in the second half.
The data bit '0' from the level-encoded signal is represented by a full normal cycle of
the master clock which gives the '1' to '0' fall of the phase-encoded signal.
i.e. +V in the first half of the signal and -V in the second half.
The above diagram shows graphically how MPE operates. The example at the bottom of the diagram indicates how the digital
bit stream 10110 is encoded.
A transition in the middle of each bit makes it possible to synchronize the sender and receiver.
At any instant the ether can be in one of three states: transmitting a 0 bit (-0.85v),
transmitting a 1 bit (0.85v) or idle (0 volts). Having a normal clock signal as well as an inverted clock signal
leads to regular transitions which means that synchronisation of clocks is easily achieved even if there are a series of
'0's or '1's. This results in highly reliable data transmission.
The master clock speed for Manchester encoding always matches the data speed
and this determines the carrier signal frequency, so for 10Mbps Ethernet the carrier is 10MHz.
Differential Manchester Encoding (DME)
A '1' bit is indicated by making the first half of the signal, equal to the last half of the previous bit's
signal i.e. no transition at the start of the bit-time.
A '0' bit is indicated by making the first half of the signal opposite to the last half of the previous
bit's signal i.e. a zero bit is indicated by a transition at the beginning of the bit-time.
In the middle of the bit-time there is always a transition, whether from high to low, or low to high.
Each bit transmitted means a voltage change always occurs in the middle of the bit-time to ensure clock synchronisation.
Token Ring uses DME and
this is why a preamble is not required in Token Ring, compared to Ethernet which uses Manchester encoding.
Non Return to Zero (NRZ)
NRZ encoding uses 0 volts for a data bit of '0' and a +V volts for a data bit of '1'.
The problem with this is that it is difficult to distinguish a series of '1's or '0's due to
clock synchronisation issues. Also, the average DC voltage is 1/2V so there is high power output.
In addition, the bandwidth is large i.e. from 0Hz to half the data rate because for every full signal wave,
two bits of data can be transmitted (remember that with MPE the data rate equals the bit rate which is even
more inefficient!) i.e. two bits of information are transmitted for every cycle (or hertz).
After 50m of cable attenuation the signal amplitude may have been reduced to
100mV giving an induced noise tolerance of 100mV.
Return to Zero (RZ)
With RZ a '0' bit is represented by 0 volts whereas a '1' data bit is represented by +V volts for half the cycle and
0 volts for the second half of the cycle. This means that the average DC voltage is reduced to 1/4V plus there is the
added benefit of there always being a voltage change even if there are a series of '1's. Unfortunately, the efficiency
of bandwidth usage decreases if there are a series of '1's since now a '1' uses a whole cycle.
Non Return to Zero Invertive (NRZ-I)
With NRZ-I a '1' bit is represented by 0 volts or +V volts depending
on the previous level. If the previous voltage was 0 volts then the '1' bit will be represented by +V volts, however
if the previous voltage was +V volts then the '1' bit will be represented by 0 volts. A '0' bit is represented by
whatever voltage level was used previously. This means that only a '1' bit can 'invert' the voltage, a '0' bit
has no effect on the voltage, it remains the same as the previous bit whatever that voltage was.
This can be demonstrated in the following examples for the binary patterns 10110 and 11111:
Note how that a '1' inverts the voltage whilst a '0' leaves it where it is. This means that the encoding is different
for the same binary pattern depending on the voltage starting point.
The bandwidth usage is minimised with NRZ-I, plus there are frequent voltage changes required for clock synchronisation.
With fibre there are no issues with power output so a higher clock frequency is fine whereas with copper NRZ-I would not
4B/5B encoding is sometimes called 'Block coding'.
To get around this problem, an intermediate encoding takes place before the MLT-3 encoding. Each 4-bit 'nibble' of
received data has an extra 5th bit added. If input data is dealt with in 4-bit nibbles there are 24 = 16
different bit patterns. With 5-bit 'packets' there are 25 = 32 different bit patterns. As a result, the 5-bit
patterns can always have two '1's in them even if the data is all '0's a translation occurs to another of the bit patterns.
This enables clock synchronisations required for reliable data transfer.
Notice that the clock frequency is 125MHz. The reason for this is due to the 4B/5B encoding. A 100MHz signal would not have
been enough to give us 100Mbps, we need a 125MHz clock.
Same idea as 4B/5B
but you can have DC balance (3 zero bits and 3 one bits in each group of 6) to prevent
polarisation. 5B/6B Encoding is the process of encoding the scrambled 5-bit data patterns into
predetermined 6-bit symbols.
This creates a balanced data pattern, containing equal numbers of 0's and 1's, to provide guaranteed
clock transitions synchronization for receiver circuitry, as well as an even power value on the line.
5B6B encoding also provides an added error-checking capability. Invalid symbols and invalid data patterns, such
as more than three 0's or three 1's in a row, are easily detected
For 100VG-AnyLAN for instance, the clock rate on each wire is 30MHz, therefore 30Mbits per second are
transmitted on each pair giving a total data rate of 120Mbits/sec. Since each 6-bits of data on the line
represents 5 bits of real data due to the 5B/6B encoding, the rate of real data being transmitted is 25Mbits/sec
on each pair, giving a total rate of real data of 100Mbits/sec. For 2-pair STP and fiber, the data rate is
120Mbits/sec on the transmitting pair, for a real data transmission rate of 100Mbits/sec.
8B/6T means send 8 data bits as six ternary (one of three voltage levels) signals. 3/4 (6/8) wave transitions transitions per bit
i.e. the carrier just needs to be running at 3/4 of the speed of the data rate.
The incoming data stream is split into 8-bit patterns.
Each 8-bit data pattern with two voltage levels 0 volts and V volts is examined. This 8-bit pattern is then
converted into a 6-bit pattern but using three voltage levels -V, 0 and V volts, so each 8-bit pattern has
a unique 6T code. For example the bit pattern 0000 0000 (0x00) uses the code +-00+-
and 0000 1110 (0x)E) uses the code -+0-0+. There are 36 = 729
possible patterns (symbols). The rules for the symbols are that there must be at least two voltage transitions
(to maintain clock synchronisation) and the average DC voltage must be zero (this is called 'DC balance' that is the overall
DC voltage is summed up to 0v, the +V and -V transitions are evenly balanced either side of 0V)
which stops any polarisation on the cable.
The maximum frequency that the 6T codes could generate on one carrier is 37.5MHz. FCC rules do not allow anything above
30MHz on cables and Category 3 cable does not allow anything above 16MHz (which is what 100BaseT4 was designed for).
The 100BaseT4 standard uses 8B/6T encoding on three pairs in a round robin fashion such that the maximum carrier frequency
on any single pair is 37.5/3 = 12.5MHz.
Each octet of data is examined and assigned a 10 bit code group. The data octet is split up into the 3 most
significant bits and the 5 least significant bits. This is then represented as two decimal numbers with
the least significant bits first e.g. for the octet 101 00110 we get the decimal 6.5. 10 bits are
used to create this code group and the naming convention follows the format /D6.5/.
There are also 12 special code groups which follow the naming convention /Kx.y/.
The 10 bit code groups must either contain five ones and five zeros, or four ones and six zeros, or six ones
and four zeros. This ensures that not too many consecutive ones and zeros occurs between code groups thereby maintaining
clock synchronisation. Two 'commas' are used to aid in bit synchronisation, these 'commas' are the 7 bit patterns
0011111 (+comma)and 1100000 (-comma).
In order to maintain a DC balance, a calculation called the Running Disparity calculation is used to try to
keep the number of '0's transmitted the same as the number of '1's transmitted.
This uses 10 bits for each 8 bits of data and therefore drops the data rate speed relative to the line speed,
for instance in order to gain a data rate of 1Gbps the line peed has to be 10/8 x 1 = 1.25Gbps .
This scheme was specified by ANSI X3T9.5 committee. It is used by FDDI and TP-PMD to obtain
100MB/s out of a 31.25MHz signal.
UTP is low pass in nature, meaning that it hinders high frequency signal (like a low-pass filter). So it is not
feasible to merely increase the clock frequency by 10 to 100MHz and use Manchester encoding to give us 100Mbps.
In addition, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) have severely curtailed the power that is allowed to be
emitted above 30MHz. We have to use another encoding technique in order to transmit high data rates across UTP.
If you take an averaging spectrum analyser and look at the output signal of the 10Mbps Ethernet phase-encoded signal,
you will see a power peak at 10MHz where there is a stream of '1's or '0's, you will see a smaller harmonic at 30MHz and if
there is a stream of '1's and '0's, you will see a peak at 5MHz. Now 100BaseT uses a master clock running at 125MHz instead of 10MHz.
The equivalent peaks would then be at 125MHz, 375MHz and 62.5MHz. Transmission electronics designed to work within the
FCC rules will block the frequencies higher than 30MHz.
To get around this issue we need to concentrate the signal power below 30MHz if possible. To do this the
encoding method Multi-Level Transition 3 (MLT-3) is used. This involves using the pattern 1, 0, -1, 0.
If the next data signal is a '1' then the output 'transitions' to the next bit in the pattern e.g. if the last output bit
was a '-1', and the input bit is a '1', then the next output bit is a '0'. If the next data signal is a '0' then there is no
transition which means that the next output bit is the same as last time, in our case a '0'.
The cycle length of the output signal is therefore going to be 1/4 that of the MPE method so that instead of the main signal peak
being at 125MHz as measured by the averaging spectrum analyser, it will be at 31.25MHz which is near enough to be OK as far
as FCC are concerned. 5 bits are transmitted for every 4 bits of data so that the data bit rate is actually 125Mb/s for
100Mb/s data throughput.
There is an issue with this in that you can end up with a series of '0's or '1's which force the local circuitry to count
the bits using its own free running clock rather than have the check of the clock synchronisation from the transmit
This employs multi-level amplitude signalling.
To encode 8 bits, 28 = 256 codes or symbols, are required since there are 256 possible pattern combinations.
A five level signal (e.g. -2v, -1v, 0v, 1v and 2v) called
Pulse Amplitude Modulation 5 is used (This works in a similar manner to MLT-3).
Bearing in mind that there are 4 separate pairs being used for
transmission and reception of data, this gives us a possibility of 54 = 625 codes to choose from
when using all four pairs. Actually only four levels are used for data, the fifth level (0v) is used for the 4-dimensional
8-state Trellis Forward Error Correction used to recover the transmitted signal from the high noise.
If you plot time (nanoseconds) against voltage you will see an 'eye pattern' effect showing the different signal
levels. Comparing a plot for MLT-3 against PAM-5 will demonstrate how that the separate levels for PAM-5 are
less discreet. This is why extra convolution coding is used called Trellis coding, which uses Viterbi decoding for
error detection and correction.
2 bits are represented per symbol and
the symbol rate is 125Mbps in each direction on a pair because the clock rate is set at 125MHz.
This gives 250Mbps data per pair and therefore 1000Mbps for the whole cable.
This type of encoding is used by Gigabit Ethernet. The data signals have distinct and measurable
amplitude and phases relative to a 'marker signal'. Using this two way matrix allows more
data bits per cycle, in the case of Gigabit Ethernet 1000Mbps is squeezed into 125MHz signals.
The electronics are more complex and the technology is more susceptible to noise.
Feedback Shift Register (FSR)
There is an issue with some encoding schemes of the power of the higher frequency harmonics. To minimise these there is another small
step before wave shaping such as MLT-3 encoding. This step uses a Feedback Shift Register (FSR) to produce a 'pseudo-random' bit pattern
which is Exclusive-ORed with the data stream. This pseudo random stream is a known quantity and is reversed at the other
end by another Excusive-OR operation using the same known pseudo-random bit pattern. The purpose of the randomness
is to reduce the regularity of the signal frequency and consequently the harmonics. The FSR used in 100BaseT
is an 11-bit register that shifts one bit at a time from bit 0 to bit 10 on each clock cycle.
- A resource for all VPN technologies including tutorials, articles, products and free downloads.
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It was 250 million years ago, and the world had just been through hell. Something -- perhaps an asteroid impact, perhaps a spate of volcanic eruptions darkening the skies worldwide -- had wiped out 70 percent of the life on earth.
But scientists now report they have found the footprints of small dinosaurs, preserved in fossilized soil, made less than 2 million years later -- a blink of an eye in geological terms. They are the oldest evidence of dinosaurs ever found.
"This would have been a post-apocalyptic world," said Stephen Brusatte, a young palentologist from Columbia University and New York's American Museum of Natural History, who made the find along with two colleagues. "The landscape would have been mostly barren, so there was a great opportunity for new species to emerge."
Brusatte and his fellow scientists, Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki and Richard Butler, say they found the footprints a year ago in what is now a limestone quarry in central Poland. There are no fossilized bones to go with them, but they can tell from their size and shape that the animal was about the size of a modern house cat -- fleet of foot, with larger legs in back than in front, foraging for food on a vast, muddy flood plain.
The scientists have named it Prorotodactylus, and they published their description of it in a British scientific journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"The neat thing is that the site is just after the extinction," Brusatte said, "raising the tantalizing possibility that the dinosaurs arose as a direct response to the opening created after this greatest mass extinction of all time. Ten years ago, we thought that the rise of the dinosaurs was completely unconnected."
Prorotodactylus would have been a rare creature on that flood plain, the remains of which are pockmarked with hundreds of footprints of other, larger species -- ancestors of crocodiles and various amphibians. "They still were not the dominant species you think of when you picture T-rex and later dinosaurs like that," said Brusatte in an interview with ABC News.
Oldest Dinosaur Footprints Ever Found
But 4 million years later, the researchers say they see footprints of much larger dinosaurs, 6 or 7 feet long, standing on their hind legs. The dinosaurs gradually became the world's dominant animals, surviving two more extinctions before finally being wiped out 65 million years ago, perhaps by another asteroid hit.
Scientists have learned to extrapolate about the dinosaurs from limited evidence -- the size of a footprint, the length of the animal's stride, the distance between the left and right feet, how much the feet sank into the soil.
Brusatte said they can tell Prorotodactylus was a dinosaur because "it had three parallel toes, not splayed out like a crocodile's or a lizard's, and its ankle joint is a simple hinge, not a ball joint like we have."
They can tell its date by layering in the ground; deeper fossils are older fossils. The mass extiction of 252 million years ago, known as the Permian-Triassic Boundary, left a dark, distinctive layer of soil.
"You're always learning new things," said Brusatte. "We're right on the leading edge of dinosaur lineage."
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In which Scrabble dictionary does SEXTANTS exist?
Definitions of SEXTANTS in dictionaries:
- noun -
a unit of angular distance equal to 60 degrees
- noun -
a measuring instrument for measuring the angular distance between celestial objects
noun - an instrument for measuring angular distances
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Feminists have long known that part of the struggle for equality involves not just changing the behaviour of men, but also challenging women to reject misogyny. The current SlutWalk campaign with events set for cities including Melbourne, Sydney and Toronto provides an example of the success that male-dominated society has had in convincing women it is in their own best interests to perpetuate woman-hatred among themselves. In these events, women are taking to the streets to publicly embrace the language of their oppressors.
The SlutWalks were organised as a response to a Toronto police officer's comments that women should avoid dressing like "sluts" in order to maintain their safety from sexual assault. Opposing victim-blaming attitudes and claims like this is of course fundamental to feminism, but the method of protest chosen by SlutWalk organisers is far from feminist. Rather than drawing attention to the fact that "slut" is a construct created by men to demean women, SlutWalk organisers claim that they want to "reclaim" the word as a positive identity for women.
For example, Lauren Clair, who is one of the organisers of the Melbourne SlutWalk, stated: "Some people tell us they're resistant to participating under that name [Slut walk]. I ended up saying it was about the right to not be called a slut. But I do think that the more we use it, the more we empty it of its connotations."
The connotations to which Clair refers date back to the 1600s when "slut" was used as an insult to women who were considered to be promiscuous or drunken. "Slut" seems to have been first used in the early 1400s to refer to "slovenly" or untidy women, with the first recorded usage in 1402 being a reference to "The foulest slutte of al a tovne." Indeed, through to the present, the word "slut" is almost always preceded by "foul" or "dirty" or "nasty".
Oppressed groups do often try to reclaim words that have something to offer their cause. For black activists, reclaiming the word "black" from oppressors who used inflammatory words for "black", enabled those activists to turn prejudice upside-down. It was a matter of pride and self-acceptance. But this does not work in the case of women attempting to "reclaim" slut – because women are not sluts in the same way that black people are black..
US Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies Gail Dines has responded to the slut walks by highlighting the "irredeemable" nature of the word. In her recent book Pornland, Dines argues that the multi-million dollar pornography industry has hijacked our sexuality. The phenomenon of women wanting to embrace the misogynist construct of "slut" indicates that pornography has hijacked more than our sexuality. Even the language women use to relate to one another in contemporary Western society is often misogynist.
The words "bitch", "whore", and "hooker" have entered the everyday vocabularies and conversations of many women; derogatory words that are even used as terms of endearment between women who consider one another to be close friends. Once upon a time such words could only be found in pornography or within abusive relationships between men and women.
Women using these words to create a false sense of sisterhood (or rather, camaraderie) might, like Lauren Clair, believe that the common use of misogynistic words for "woman" will empty the words of their connotations. It won’t. All they are doing is accepting porn culture as cultural norm.
Another word that exemplifies the acceptance of porn culture, but for men, is "pimp". Before the pornification of our culture, "pimp" was understood to refer to the very abusive role of a man who solicits other men to use the bodies of women in prostitution, and makes money from doing so. Through its use in popular culture, "pimp" has come to mean "new and improved" to the extent that Offbeat Mama, a parenting website and blog, includes a tag for "pimp my kid's room". Through language, children are recruited very early to porn culture; I have heard very young boys referred to as "players", for example.
However, "pimp" is different from "slut". Its wide usage does not remove the abusive history of the word and role of pimp, but it does hide it to some extent. Women in prostitution continue to be exploited, raped and murdered by pimps, but the realities of the abuse they survive are trivialised and ignored, as parents go about exchanging nursery room renovation photos. The wide usage of "slut" however does nothing to cover its deep-rooted meaning as derogatory.
Women calling one another "bitch", "slut" or "hooker" makes light of woman-hatred. These words have been, and continue to be, used to keep women in their place as less-than-human in male-dominated society. Women are thereby put on the level of dogs, characterised as slovenly and untidy, and as sex objects for the casual use by men. These are the same messages that pornography communicates about women, and now those messages underlie conversations between women who should respect one another.
A far more fruitful project than embracing misogynist insults would be to reclaim the word "woman". In a culture where women are more comfortable referring to each other other as "girls", "ladies" or "whores", embracing the word "woman" with pride is a radical act. Reclaiming "woman" will teach our children about true empowerment and respect.
Sarah Langford is a radical feminist writer and activist.
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Food and Drink -- Coffee, tea, soda and red wine can cause tooth stains when consumed over a long period of time. Berries, curries and soy sauce are just a few of the foods that stain teeth. Foods and drinks of extreme temperatures can also affect tooth color -- the heat and cold open and close the pores in your teeth, allowing staining agents to attack them with greater force.
Smoking -- Smoking can greatly discolor teeth. But chewing tobacco isn't much safer -- any tobacco product will have devastating effects on teeth.
Oral Hygiene -- Generally speaking, bad oral habits will negatively affect your teeth's health. Discoloration is just a minor side effect of inefficient dental care.
Drugs -- Antibiotics such as tetracycline can cause discoloration in children whose teeth are still forming. Other drugs, including antihistamines, antipsychotic and antihypertensive medications may also cause staining. Some mouthwashes may also leave behind teeth discoloration.
Dental Fluorosis -- Fluoride is incredibly important in preventing tooth decay. But too much fluoride can lead to dental fluorosis, a condition that causes white spots or lines on the teeth. Dental fluorosis only affects children whose permanent teeth are still forming beneath the gum line. But don't start limiting fluoride quite yet -- see a dentist to determine how much fluoride your child should be consuming.
Trauma -- Chipped teeth or broken teeth can darken due to enamel damage or a dead nerve. This teeth discoloration is also possible if a tooth is not capped following major dental surgery, such as a root canal. If you have a single dark tooth, see a dentist to fix any underlying dental problems.
Dental Fillings -- Tooth decay is often evident in brown or black spots on teeth. On that note, a large amalgam tooth filling can also cause outlying enamel to appear gray.
Genetics and Aging -- This falls under both categories. Some people are just born with tooth discoloration, and unfortunately most people's teeth will not age gracefully. Everyday wear and tear will contribute to tooth discoloration over time.
Prevention and Treatment
Although some tooth discoloration is inevitable, there are ways to prevent it. Avoid consuming foods and drinks that contribute to teeth discoloration on a regular basis. Don't smoke or chew tobacco, and practice excellent oral hygiene. Ask your doctor or pharmacist if any medications you're taking result in tooth staining as a side effect. And have dental X-rays taken during your exams to check for any signs of trauma.
If you already have tooth discoloration and brushing doesn't seem to work, there are ways to help you get rid of it. Thanks to cosmetic dentistry, there are several options for removing or covering tooth stains:
Ultrasonic Cleaning -- Now a standard form of professional dental cleaning, ultrasonic vibrations are used to remove some extrinsic stains caused by a buildup of calculus. Although it won't change the color of your teeth, an ultrasonic dental cleaning can be performed during regular dental visits to limit tooth stains.
Teeth Whitening -- To completely lighten your teeth, you can try teeth whitening. Your dentist can provide you with teeth whitening trays to wear at home. These trays are formed from a mold of your teeth, and hold a gel containing the active agent peroxide. Worn daily, at-home bleaching trays can whiten teeth in 1-2 weeks.
Laser Teeth Whitening -- Like teeth whitening, laser teeth whitening uses a peroxide gel to lighten teeth. But laser teeth whitening is done in the dental office in about an hour. After the gel is applied to teeth, a laser uses heat to activate the teeth whitening agents, with excellent results in a shorter amount of time.
Dental Veneers -- In the cases where whitening just won't work, veneers can completely cover tooth discoloration. Dental veneers are wafer-like tooth coverings often made of porcelain that are cemented onto teeth. Porcelain dental veneers are also perfect for broken teeth or slightly crooked teeth.
Despite some reported sensitivity, all of these procedures are safe and effective in treating teeth discoloration when administered by a dental professional. Over-the-counter bleaching agents are also available, with varied results. Some whitening toothpastes may help, but they will not be able to remove intrinsic stains. Regardless, you don't want to spend all that money fixing your teeth just to go back to bad habits -- proper oral hygiene is needed to maintain the results of your cosmetic dental procedure.
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Douglas A-1E Skyraider
Published May 15, 2015
The Douglas A-1 Skyraider played an important part in the Southeast Asia War. Its ability to carry an immense amount of weapons and stay over the battlefield for extended periods of time made it a powerful weapon. This aircraft provided close air support to ground forces, attacked enemy supply lines, and protected helicopters rescuing airmen downed in enemy territory.
Designed during World War II for the U.S. Navy, the Skyraiders almost disappeared before they had the opportunity to excel over Southeast Asia. In the high-speed, jet-age world of the late 1950s, the Skyraider seemed to be a relic of an earlier time. It had performed well during the Korean War, but the Navy had decided to replace it with jet aircraft. However, Skyraiders proved well suited for fighting against the guerrilla-style war waged by communists in Southeast Asia.
The "Spad" Arrives
In the early 1960s, the United States provided South Vietnam with increased military assistance and training to resist communist forces, and the U.S. gave Skyraiders to the South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF). In 1961, U.S. Air Force instructors started training VNAF pilots at Bien Hoa Air Base with Skyraiders in VNAF markings and their tail hooks removed. Gradually, the USAF instructors started flying combat missions with the VNAF pilots over South Vietnam. Redesignated the A-1 in 1962, the old Skyraider soon got the nickname "Spad" -- referring to the French fighter used in World War I.
U.S. Air Force Skyraiders
The first U.S. Air Force Skyraiders, two-seat A-1Es, arrived at Bien Hoa Air Base in May 1964. They were assigned to the 1st Air Commando Squadron (later the 1st Special Operations Squadron), which operated under the call sign Hobo. Other USAF squadrons flew Skyraiders from bases in South Vietnam and Thailand under the call signs Spad, Firefly and Zorro. Wherever they went, the Skyraiders provided critical close air support to ground forces and other operations, such as defoliant spraying or supporting the insertion and extraction of special operations teams inside enemy held territory along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Sandy to the Rescue
Air Force Skyraiders in Southeast Asia are probably best remembered for their support of search and air rescue missions. Operating under the call sign Sandy, the A-1's ability to fly over a downed Airman for an extended period complemented its massive firepower. Whereas jet aircraft often had to leave an area for refueling or rearming, the Sandies provided nearly continuous suppressing fire until helicopters could extract downed Airmen.
The A-1E on display (S/N 52-132649) is the airplane flown by Maj. Bernard Fisher on March 10, 1966, when he rescued a fellow pilot shot down over South Vietnam. For this deed, Fisher received the Medal of Honor. The airplane, severely damaged in further combat in South Vietnam, came to the museum in 1968 for preservation.
Armament: Four 20mm cannons and a wide assortment of bombs, rockets, mines, grenades, flares and gun pods
Maximum speed: 325 mph
Range: 1,500 miles
Weight: 24,872 lbs. maximum
Click here to return to the Southeast Asia War Gallery
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The history of the Church in Italy begins in New Testament times, when the capital of the Roman Empire was home to a group of faithful Christians. The Bible doesn’t record who originally took the gospel to Rome, but a branch of the Church had been there for “many years” (Romans 15:23) when the Apostle Paul sent a letter to the Romans in about a.d. 57.
Paul described the Christians in Rome as “full of goodness” (15:14). He was acquainted with some of them, and his epistle contained a long list of beloved Saints to whom he sent greetings (see 16:1–15).
Paul extolled the faith of those Christians and told them that he prayed fervently for them. He longed to see them and hoped God would grant that he might visit them soon (see 1:8–15).
When he did at last go to Rome, it was as a prisoner, but the Church members’ anticipation of his arrival was such that some of the brethren traveled 43 miles (69 km) to meet him at the Appii forum. Seeing them, “he thanked God, and took courage” (Acts 28:15).
Later, Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome, where Christians were severely persecuted by Nero and other emperors. Eventually the Church fell into apostasy, but the early Roman Saints left a legacy of faith at the center of the empire, setting the stage for Christianity to spread throughout the world.
A People Hidden Up by the Lord
In 1849, Elder Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was called to establish a mission in Italy. As he was contemplating where to commence, he learned about the Waldensians, a religious community in the Piedmont mountains of northwestern Italy.
The Waldensians had endured extreme persecutions over seven centuries because of their beliefs. Predating the Protestant Reformation by several hundred years, they preached that Christ’s early Church had fallen into apostasy. They separated themselves from the Roman Catholic Church and were declared heretics, driven from cities, tortured, and slaughtered. Rather than renounce their faith, they fled to the upper mountains.1
“A flood of light seemed to burst upon my mind when I thought upon [the Waldensians],” recorded Elder Snow. In a letter home he wrote, “I believe that the Lord has there hidden up a people amid the Alpine mountains.”2
In other regions of Italy, laws were not favorable for missionary activity. But two years before Elder Snow arrived, the Waldensians in the Piedmont region had been granted religious freedom after centuries of persecution.3 Not only that, but several among them had received remarkable dreams and visions preparing them to receive the missionaries’ message.4
Elder Snow, accompanied by two missionary companions, dedicated Italy for the preaching of the gospel on September 19, 1850. Elder Snow recorded, “From that day opportunities began to occur for proclaiming our message.”5
Over the next four years, the missionaries’ efforts met with both success and opposition. They published two missionary tracts and an Italian translation of the Book of Mormon. They baptized a number of converts. But by 1854, the work had dwindled—the missionaries were called away to other areas, the staunchest converts were immigrating to Utah, and persecution was growing. In 1862 all active proselyting was discontinued, and the mission was closed in 1867.
The Italian Mission was active only 12 years, but during that time, 12 families and seven individuals were converted and immigrated to Utah. The Waldensians who embraced the gospel infused the Church in Utah with strength, and today tens of thousands of members trace their heritage back to the 72 faithful Waldensians who left the home of their forefathers to join the Latter-day Saints in the Rocky Mountains.6
Hastening the Work
After the Italian Mission closed, no official missionary work was done in Italy for almost a hundred years. When the light of the gospel began to shine again in Italy, it was amid World War II, when Latter-day Saint military personnel from the United States were stationed in cities throughout Italy. These members formed groups that met for Sunday meetings, and the groups continued after the war as the members were assigned to military bases in Italy.
Over the next 20 years, the Lord hastened His work. Native Italians began to join the Church after encountering missionaries in nearby countries. Military members’ groups in Naples and Verona were organized into branches under the direction of the Swiss Mission. The mission had the Book of Mormon retranslated into Italian and published. The time for missionaries to be sent to Italy was drawing near.
In 1964, Italy was organized as a district of the Swiss Mission, and soon Italian-speaking missionaries were sent to several cities. In 1966, the Italian Mission was organized, 99 years after the original Italian Mission had closed. Elder Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) of the Quorum of the Twelve offered a prayer rededicating Italy for the preaching of the gospel.
Ten years from the time the mission opened, the number of members in Italy had increased from about 300 to 5,000. That number had doubled by 1982. In recent years, growth has been dramatic. From 2005 to 2010, four new stakes were created, taking the total number of stakes to seven. Today there are nearly 25,000 Latter-day Saints in Italy.
Establishing the Church
Elder Craig A. Cardon of the Seventy is one of thousands of Latter-day Saints who trace their ancestry back to Phillipe Cardon, a Waldensian convert who immigrated to Utah in 1854. Elder Cardon has witnessed the Lord’s work unfolding in the land of his ancestors, first as a missionary in the newly opened Italian Mission in the 1960s and then as president of the Italy Rome Mission in the 1980s.
When Elder Cardon was called to be a mission president in 1983, all but one of the chapels in Rome were rented buildings. In those days new Church buildings were paid for partly by donations from members in the area. Because funds were needed to construct several buildings, it looked impossible on paper for the members to be able to contribute so much. After the matter was given prayerful consideration, the Italian members were invited to take the money they would have spent on Christmas that year and donate it to the building fund. Instead of gifts, families would place a brick under their Christmas trees to represent their sacrifice.
“What happened on that occasion was miraculous,” says Elder Cardon. “The contributions exceeded the need. Because of this and the Saints’ continued tithing faithfulness, the Lord poured out a rich spiritual blessing upon the mission and upon the Saints throughout the area as they willingly responded to do all they could to establish the Church. I am convinced that their commitment was a central part of what allowed the Church to continue to grow to the point for a stake to be organized and now a temple constructed in Rome.”7
Prior to being called as a General Authority, Elder Cardon returned to Italy in 2005 to be present when the Rome Italy Stake was created. It was a sweet experience. “Here was priesthood strength,” he says, “the keys of the priesthood, the scriptural definition of a place of refuge—a stake—now established in Rome.”
A Temple in Rome
In the October 2008 general conference, when President Thomas S. Monson announced that a temple would be built in Rome, an audible gasp and whispers of excitement swept across the Conference Center. In Italy, congregations of Saints watching by satellite let out shouts of joy. One sister remembers, “We went to our homes as if on wings, with joy in our hearts.”
Why is the idea of a temple in Rome so meaningful? Besides being aware of the temple’s profound spiritual significance, members have a sense of the city’s historical significance, says Elder Cardon: “Its governance and power during its particular season; its explorers, artists, scientists, and inventors who have contributed so much to the world; and the blessing that the religious power of Rome has been in helping to introduce Christianity throughout the world are all a part of Rome’s history, now graced by a temple of the Lord.” At the 2010 groundbreaking ceremony, President Monson said, “With regard to the temple which will be built upon this site, it means everything to Latter-day Saints.”8
For over 40 years, Italian members have traveled to the Bern Switzerland Temple, some journeying two days to get there. Massimo De Feo, former president of the Rome stake and now an Area Seventy, believes the Rome Temple is a sign that the Lord has seen the years of service and sacrifice from the Latter-day Saints and recognizes their great desire for a temple.
When the announcement about the temple was made, Elder De Feo says the excitement was like that felt in a stadium when a team wins at the last second; the joy was similar to what he imagines we felt in the premortal life when the plan of salvation was announced. The Saints were hugging, smiling, and crying. It was true happiness.
“It is marvelous to serve the Lord in these days,” says Elder De Feo, “so special for Italy, for Rome.” He testifies, “I know that the Lord is greatly blessing this part of His kingdom.”9
* 63 b.c.: Roman military leader Pompeius conquers Jerusalem, which becomes part of the Roman Empire
a.d. 45: The Apostle Paul, a Roman citizen, begins first missionary journey throughout Roman Empire
64: Christians blamed for the great fire of Rome and begin to be persecuted by Roman government
313: Constantine becomes the first Christian Roman emperor and legalizes Christian worship
380: Emperor Theodosius I makes Christianity the official state religion of Roman Empire and paves the way for Christianity to spread throughout the world
1173: Waldo of Lyons, France, starts a movement to return to the original gospel taught by Christ and His Apostles
1215: Waldo and his followers, the Waldensians—some of whom live in Italy—are declared heretics and are persecuted
1843: Giuseppe (Joseph) Toronto baptized in Massachusetts, USA—the first Italian to join the Church
1848: King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont-Sardinia grants religious liberty to the Waldensians
1850: Elders Lorenzo Snow, Joseph Toronto, and B. H. Stenhouse begin missionary efforts in Italy
1852: An Italian translation of the Book of Mormon published
1854: Missionary work dwindles as persecution grows and missionaries shift their focus to Switzerland; Waldensian converts begin immigration to Salt Lake City, Utah
1862: All active proselyting in Italy stops
1944: LDS military members’ groups are established in Italy
1964: The Church publishes a new Italian translation of the Book of Mormon; the Swiss Mission organizes an Italian district
1966: The Italian Mission organized; Elder Ezra Taft Benson rededicates Italy for the preaching of the gospel
1972: President Harold B. Lee visits members in Italy, the first Church President to visit in latter days
1981: The Milan Italy Stake organized, the first stake in Italy
1993: The Church given legal recognition to formally own property and perform government-recognized marriages
2008: The Rome Italy Temple announced by President Thomas S. Monson
2012: The Church given the highest legal status granted to religions in Italy
All early dates are approximate.
Members in Italy
The Church in Italy Today*
Temples: 1 (under construction)
Family history centers: 49
As of December 2013
Meet the Italian Saints
If you ever visit Italy, you may have the chance to attend a sacrament meeting with the Italian Saints. The country has about a hundred wards and branches. In Genoa, your walk to church might take you through the maze of streets in the city center, past the Piazza De Ferrari, to the second floor of an office building. You’ll have no trouble finding a meeting in Rome, where the Church has chapels in three different parts of the city. If you find yourself near L’Aquila, you’ll go to a beautiful new chapel on Via Avezzano, since the old chapel was destroyed by an earthquake in 2009.
Whichever branch or ward you visit, when you sit down in the chapel and sing the opening hymn with the Italian Saints, you’ll feel their faith. These members live in an area where Mormons are almost unheard of, a country steeped in the traditions of another religion. Of the 25,000 members in Italy today, more than half were baptized since 1986—so the person sitting next to you is likely a convert. If you ask that person what brought him or her into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you may hear a story like one of the following. These are the experiences and testimonies of three faithful Italian members.
Paola Fava of Genoa
Paola Fava has been a member of the Church for 10 years. Her home is in Genoa, a beautiful port city on the northwestern shore of Italy that is famous for being the birthplace of Christopher Columbus and of a traditional Italian food called pesto. Her husband passed away in 2009. She has a little dog, Bak, and she stays busy serving in the Church and doing family history. Here is her conversion story.
A number of years ago, I knew a girl who worked at the London branch of the same company I worked for. She was brilliant in her job and delightful as a friend. I didn’t know she was a Mormon. For many years we kept in touch by letter, and every time she said that she had a lot of work to do for her church, I never understood what sort of work it might be. Then one day she wrote that she was doing “baptisms for the dead,” and this made me curious.
Some years passed, and I went to see her in England. One day during my visit, we sat on the grass and she asked me if we could talk a little bit about God. “How strange,” I thought, but I told her yes. She said to me, “Did you know that a boy in America found plates of gold that told the story of ancient Americans to whom Jesus Christ appeared?” She told me that the boy was also given the message to restore on the earth the ancient Church of Jesus Christ, and he did this despite many difficulties.
This message struck me profoundly. I felt it was indeed true, and that night at her house, I found a copy of the Book of Mormon on the nightstand. But I didn’t want to involve myself with a different church at that time, even though I didn’t feel spiritually well.
One day in another letter she told me that her husband had become a member of her church and things had never been better. “OK, I really must get to know this church!” I said to myself. I called the mission office and arranged to meet with the sister missionaries.
After I received the lessons, I entered the waters of baptism. I shed many tears and felt immense joy, and I experienced innumerable blessings, which continue to this day. My conversion was the fruit of the patience and perseverance of a special friend. She had conviction that her message would deeply impress my heart. I experienced a great change in my life, and I am finally happy in the faith, truly knowing who I am, where I come from, and especially where I want to go.
Valentina Aranda of Rome
Valentina Aranda, 33 years old, feels blessed to have lived all her life in the same neighborhood in Rome, a city loved throughout the world for its history and art. Her family comes from many different parts of Italy, which enriches her life with varied traditions. She had a promising career in marketing that she set aside to be a full-time mother to her two daughters. Below she shares the story of her conversion at age 21.
It all started with the Book of Mormon, which I saw in my friend’s library. The book made me very curious, and I felt drawn to it. One day I picked it up and began reading it—but it didn’t make sense to me. I told this to my friend’s mother, who said that I should pray before I read it.
The next evening, I prayed and started reading at the beginning of the book. It seemed to be a different book from what I had read the day previous, and I felt something I had never felt before. I talked about it with my friend and told her I would like to go with her family to church the next Sunday.
When I arrived at the church, I immediately felt at home. It was fast and testimony Sunday, and a very strong spirit descended upon me. I’ll never forget that Sunday. That morning I met the missionaries, who began helping me to know the truth. Those two angels were a great gift, and they are still dear friends today.
But my belief in Joseph Smith as a prophet was the greatest, strongest, and firmest testimony I had. I knew right away that he was a prophet of God and that a great mission was entrusted to him, and after the lesson with the missionaries where I learned about the Restoration, I decided to be baptized. Five weeks after my first time attending church, I entered the waters of baptism. How exciting it was!
The Church gave me a new life. I am happy and secure in my decision; I am sealed to my husband and daughters; I have new friends, the truth, the scriptures, the temple, and knees that now know how to kneel to pray.
I await with anticipation the temple here in Rome. I know that it will be a great blessing for me and for many, many brothers and sisters who are waiting for it.
Angelo Melone of L’Aquila
Angelo Melone lives with his family in L’Aquila, a small city founded in medieval times near the center of Italy. He works as the anti-fraud director of the customs office in L’Aquila, a job that he enjoys very much. The most precious thing in his life, he says, is his family. His wife, Elizabete, is from Brazil, and they have two daughters—Naomi, 11, and Michela Alessandra, 19. He was baptized when he was 18 years old.
Every time I remember my conversion, I thank the Lord for helping me meet the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I was born and grew up at Ortona dei Marsi, a tiny village near the National Park of Abruzzo, in the province of L’Aquila. When I was 18, the missionaries contacted my sister. At that time she was studying medicine at the University of Chieti and living in Pescara, where there was a branch of the Church. She received the missionary lessons and decided to be baptized.
I came to know the missionaries as I occasionally went to visit my sister. I was an obstinate person, and I tried to use the Bible to prove that the Church’s doctrine was in error. I read almost all the publications of the Church—but I didn’t succeed in detecting any contradictions. Instead I learned the story of the Restoration and the marvelous experience of the First Vision. I learned about the concept of a testimony and felt a desire to have one.
One Sunday, I said to the branch president in Pescara that I would never be baptized into the Church; but inside me I knew something was changing. That week, I opened my copy of the Book of Mormon and a list of questions glued to the inside front cover caught my eye. I stopped on this question: “How can I develop faith?” The list said I could find the answer in Alma 32, where the word of God is compared to a seed.
As I studied the passage, I realized that if I wanted to receive a testimony, I had to change my attitude. My heart was a plot of ground that had to be weeded. I needed to abandon all my prejudices and misconceptions about the Church, and then I could try the experiment. I sought to plant the seed in my heart—I knelt down and prayed to know if the Church had been restored and if the Book of Mormon really was the result of this Restoration. The Spirit I felt helped me to know that the Church of Jesus Christ was on the earth again. I was baptized August 10, 1978.
The following years were exciting. I had to travel—10 kilometers (6.2 miles) on foot and about three hours by train—to get to church. But it was well worth the effort! Those little sacrifices brought much joy and many blessings in my life: my marriage with Elizabete in the São Paulo Temple in 1990, and the birth of two marvelous daughters, Michela and Naomi.
See Ronald A. Malan, “Waldensian History: A Brief Sketch,” Waldensian Families Research, www.waldensian.info/History.htm.
Lorenzo Snow, The Italian Mission (1851), 10–11.
Lorenzo Snow, The Italian Mission, 10–11.
Diane Stokoe, “The Mormon Waldensians” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1985), 26–27. For an example of one such dream, see Elizabeth Maki, “‘Suddenly the Thought Came to Me’: Child’s Vision Prepares Her Family for the Gospel,” June 3, 2013, history.lds.org/article/marie-cardon-italy-conversion.
Lorenzo Snow, The Italian Mission, 15, 17.
Stokoe, “The Mormon Waldensians,” 1–5, 71‑–84.
Craig A. Cardon, from an interview with the author in June 2013.
Thomas S. Monson, in Jason Swenson, “Rome Italy Temple Groundbreaking,” Church News, Oct. 23, 2010, ldschurchnews.com.
“Interview with President Massimo De Feo—Italy—Episode 1,” Into All the World (archived radio program); mormonchannel.org.
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23. The craft of agriculture.106
The fruit of this craft is the obtainment of foodstuffs and grains. People must undertake to stir the earth, sow, cultivate the plants, see to it that they are watered and that they grow until they reach their full growth, then, harvest the ears, and get the grain out of the husks. They also must understand all the related activities, and procure all the things required in this connection.
Agriculture is the oldest of all crafts, in as much as it provides the food that is the main factor in perfecting human life, since man can exist without anything else but not without food. Therefore, this craft has existed especially in the desert, since, as we have stated before, it is prior to and older than sedentary life.107 Thus, it became a Bedouin craft which is not practiced or known by sedentary people, because all their conditions are secondary to those of desert life and their crafts, thus, secondary and subsequent to (Bedouin) crafts.
God is "the Creator, the Knowing One." 108
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Presents the findings of Canada's Youth in Transition Survey, which complements OECD's PISA survey and offers significant new policy insights in understanding students’ choices at different ages and the impact of these decisions on consequent education and labour market outcomes. YITS is a longitudinal study that tracks 30 000 Canadian students who took part in the PISA 2000 assessment and, with interviews every two years, follows their progress from secondary school into higher education and the labour market.Click to Access:
- 01 Mar 2010
PISA 2000 and the Canadian Context
Click to Access:
This chapter provides the context in which to interpret the analyses presented in the chapters that follow. It describes the objectives and designs of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) and discusses a rationale for linking cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys. It uses Canada as an example to identify the benefits of synergies between cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in education. The chapter concludes with an overview of the systems of education in Canada in order to facilitate and enhance the interpretation of the evidence discussed in subsequent chapters.
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African-American Founding Fathers! A suppressed history -Fox news
Glenn Beck has been looking at the founders of American on “Founders Friday.” This week, he and some historians looked at black Americans who were present at the founding of America and had important roles in our country’s independence.
One of those was Peter Salem, who can be found in a painting of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
In the painting of the Battle of Lexington, the people assembled here are members of Rev. Jonas Clark’s congregation. They were a congregation of both black and white Americans. One of those men was Prince Estabrook, a black American.
Remember the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware? Near the front of the boat you will see Prince Whipple helping row the boat, as well as a woman. All Americans were involved in winning our independence.
There is another painting of Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman who so greatly helped George Washington with our troops, and James Armistead. Armistead was an American double-spy who helped get information from the British and feed them bad information about us. His service was pivotal to our success at the Battle of Yorktown…which effectively won the American Revolution for us.
One of the guests on Beck’s show was David Barton, founder of WallBuilders and author of “American History in Black and White.” Another was Dr. Lucas Morel, a professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and author of “Lincoln’s Sacred Effort.” Barton goes into greater detail about Armistead’s role in American history, as well as the friendship between Lafayette and Armistead.
Barton also talked about Wentworth Cheswell, who is considered the first black American elected to public office. We all know about Paul Revere’s famous ride warning that the British were coming, but Cheswell rode in another direction to give the same warning.
At one point, Barton points out that obviously at some point in history, since many of these black founders show up in various paintings of the Revolution, we knew about the role of black Americans in our founding. Somewhere along the way, like many historical facts, this has been forgotten.
There is also considerable discussion of Frederick Douglass, who is better known in history and someone Beck calls a “re-founder.” Barton says Douglass once believed the “Three-Fifths Compromise” was a terrible affront to enslaved black Americans and that it rendered the U.S. Constitution totally corrupt. However, when he studied the Constitution along with the notes from the Constitutional Convention, he realized it was an anti-slavery document.
The bulk of the founders recognized that slavery was wrong and was counter to the ideals of freedom upon which the American Revolution was based. However, there were some in the South who wanted to preserve slavery in the United States, and the impasse threatened the union of our fledgling nation. As a compromise, they came up with the idea of counting slaves as “three-fifths” for the purposes of representation and apportionment.
If a slave was not worthy of freedom like any other American, then he should not really be counted for the purposes of representation and apportionment. Of course, the Southern states saw how this would hurt them in the federal government, so they compromised by counting slaves at three-fifths of a free person. It made it harder for pro-slavery states to get as much representation in congress; thus the anti-slavery states would have greater representation in apportionment…and in making laws for the nation in general. This gave the Southern states an incentive to free their slaves so that their overall population numbers would increase and thus give the Southern states greater representation and apportionment.
Of course, the truth doesn’t fit the liberal narrative of America as an evil place, a place founded by evil rich slave-owning white guys (and there is some truth to that: some founders were wealthy, and some did own slaves) that has always been a place of great inequality. The truth doesn’t advance the culture of victimhood promoted by the modern Left in America. The reality of our history–both good and bad–must be sanitized and revised and rewritten, therefore, in order for the Left to fundamentally alter our present and future public policy.
People like Lemuel Haynes (as well as some of these other black American historical figures) throw a lot of water on that revisionist narrative, however. Haynes was a black American, born to a white woman and a black man. He became a minister and pastored a church with a white congregation, and also fought in the militia in the American Revolution. Barton says that he always preached a special sermon about George Washington on Washington’s birthday every year.
There was Benjamin Banneker, a black American who was involved in the planning of Washington D.C. and was said to be very intelligent and involved with building clocks and predicting eclipses. – Dakotavoice.com
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A University of Massachusetts Amherst engineering student has designed a helmet that could help save the lives of thousands of motorcyclists. His Wireless Impact Guardian, or WIG, signals for help in case of emergency.
"The WIG will be activated when it is buckled on," says student designer Brycen Spencer. "If you fall and hit your head, the helmet will detect that and beep for a minute or so. If you don't turn it off, WIG sends for help, either directly to 911 or to a third-party service that relays the emergency call to 911. Included with the message will be a GPS location giving your geographical coordinates so the emergency team knows precisely where you are."
Nicknamed "The OnStar of Helmets," Spencer's WIG would be a boon for motorcyclists, ATV enthusiasts and others, especially those venturing into remote areas.
At this time, the WIG has no competition. A similar invention on the market is a personal locater beacon that skiers and others use in case of accidents, but this device must be manually activated. There is also a football helmet that detects if the wearer suffers a concussion, but nothing on the market phones for help automatically like the WIG.
Spencer has started a seed-stage business with a business plan that recently won a $1,250 prize from the Executive Summary Competition in the campus' Technology Innovation Challenge. Last spring he also won $1,250 from the Grinspoon Foundation for Entrepreneurship, whose scholarship provides monetary awards to students who demonstrate the "entrepreneurial spirit" and who have a strong desire to own their own businesses. Spencer has also invested $2,500 of his own money, no small amount for a student, in a one-year Provisional Patent that will lead, patent pending, to a 20-year Utility Patent.
Spencer has used all the prize money to buy the inner workings for his helmet, including an accelerometer to detect any impact that exceeds a predetermined safety level and a communications device to provide the user's location for rescue crews. All the electronics are small and relatively inexpensive, allowing them to fit in the current helmet configuration with little physical modification or increase in overall helmet price.
After the success he's already enjoyed with his invention, and with all the help he's getting on campus to incubate his new business, Spencer is convinced his WIG is an idea whose time has come.
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Search our database of handpicked sites
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How to find Saturn in the night sky.
Amazing footage and narration describing the rocket engines of the Saturn V rocket that took human to the moon during the Apollo programme.
Details of Cassini's ongoing mission to explore Saturn.
Find out all about the mission to Saturn. This site has lots of great images and info as well as activities for teachers to use.
Four hundred years after they were discovered, Saturn's breath-taking rings remain a mystery.
The moon, mars, Saturn and beyond.... Cool map featuring the paths of over 200 space missions.
The Huygen mission probe which landed on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, in January 2005. Includes good images and animations.
Nasa's webpage about the Cassini space probe to Saturn and Titan with news, images and findings from the mission.
Biography of Christiaan Huygens (1619 - 1695) , an astronomer and physicist, who founded the wave theory of light, discovered the true shape of the rings of Saturn, and made original contributions to ...
A profile of Wernher von Braun, the german scientist who worked on the V2 rocket and the Saturn 5 rocket.
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For more than a century, women everywhere have fought for economic and educational equality and political empowerment. And they have fought to erase stereotypes. In our time – they have fought to alter portrayals of women in media and entertainment, which tend to undermine the status of women in everyday life.
While watching G-rated films with her young daughter, Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis noticed how few roles were played by women – even in animated films. Questioning what she was seeing, she uncovered an alarming statistic: the ratio of male to female characters in Hollywood films has been exactly the same since 1946. She realized the necessity of altering portrayals of women in media and entertainment and decided to create an institute to tackle this issue – The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.
Geena Davis joined Mike Walter on Full Frame to discuss how women are portrayed in film and television – and what she’s doing to bring about change.
One of key findings of the research conducted thus far by The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media has been the importance of the role women play as gate keepers in the production of film and television programs.
“The ratio for men to women behind the camera is 5 to 1, if you look at director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor – the top positions,” Geena Davis said. “We also found that if there is a woman in one of those positions, the percentage of female characters on screen goes up.”
The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media has also started conducting research on the portrayal of women in media around the world in the first global gender and media study.
“We are looking at films in the most popular market around the globe because we want to know what other countries are doing,” said Geena Davis. “Maybe some regions are doing much better than us in the USA.”
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Large marker with map and text which follows:
Original Date Cast:
During late January 1862, a Federal land-sea expedition assembled at Hatteras Inlet to take Roanoke Island and capture control of the North Carolina Sound region. The force was under the joint command of General Ambrose Burnside and navy Flag-Officer Louis Goldsborough. After several delays due to bad weather, the Union fleet, consisting of numerous troop transports and more than 20 war vessels, arrived at the southern end of Roanoke Island.
On February 7, 1862, Federal ships bombarded Fort Bartow, southernmost of the Confederate defenses. The fort returned the fire but with little effect. The Confederate fleet, under Captain W. F. Lynch, waited to engage the Federals behind a line of obstructions placed in Croatan Sound to retard the Federal advance. However, the Confederates, after a sharp engagement which was ended only by darkness, were forced to retire due to lack of ammunition. On February 8, 1862, the Federal fleet bombarded various positions on Roanoke Island including Fort Blanchard and Fort Forrest in support of General Burnside’s land offensive. After the Union victory on the afternoon of February 8, a detachment of Federal ships under Commodore S. C. Rowan was sent into Albemarle Sound in pursuit of the Confederate fleet. The Union forces were now in control of most of the inland waters of northeastern North Carolina.
John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (1963)
John Stephen Carbone, The Civil War in Coastal North Carolina (2001)
Lorenzo Traver, Burnside Expedition in North Carolina: Battles of Roanoke Island and Elizabeth City (1880)
Richard Allen Sauers, The Burnside Expedition in North Carolina (1996)
Naval Battle of Roanoke Island--the bombardment of Fort Bartow
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Definitions for queen mabmæb
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word queen mab
Queen Mab is a fairy referred to in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. She later appears in other poetry and literature, and in various guises in drama and cinema. In the play her activity is described in a famous speech by Mercutio written originally in prose and often adapted into iambic pentameter, in which she is described as a miniature creature who drives her chariot into the noses and into the brains of sleeping people to compel them to experience dreams of wish-fulfillment. She would also "plague" "ladies' lips" "with blisters", which is thought a reference to the plague or to herpes simplex. She is also described as a midwife to help sleepers 'give birth' to their dreams. She may be a figure borrowed from folklore, and though she is often associated with the Irish Medb in popular culture and has been suggested by historian Thomas Keightley to be from Habundia, a more likely origin for her name would be from Mabel and the Middle English derivative "Mabily" all from the Latin "amabilis".
The numerical value of queen mab in Chaldean Numerology is: 2
The numerical value of queen mab in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6
Images & Illustrations of queen mab
Find a translation for the queen mab definition in other languages:
Select another language:
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On Thursday, August 17, 1909, paleontologist Earl Douglass made a wonderful discovery. After spending two weeks enduring the searing summer temperatures in the vicinity of Jensen, Utah and feeling “disgusted” by the poor quality of the fossil bones he was finding, Douglass spotted part of an enormous dinosaur. He later recorded the moment of discovery in his journal:
At last, in the top of the ledge where the softer overlying beds form a divide, a kind of saddle, I saw eight of the tail bones of a brontosaurus in exact position. It was a beautiful sight. Part of the ledge had weathered away and several of the vertebra had weathered out and the beautifully preserved centra lay on the ground. It is by far the best looking dinosaur prospect I have ever found. The part exposed is worth preserving anyway.
This was a dream come true for Douglass. As expressed in a partial biography and reprint of selected journal entries organized by his son Gawin and others, published under the title Speak To the Earth and It Will Teach You, Douglass sometimes daydreamed of finding a near-perfect, articulated dinosaur skeleton sticking out of a rock formation. (A dream shared by many paleontologists.) Strangely, though, Douglass did not feel very enthusiastic about his assignment from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to look for dinosaurs.
Douglass had spent much of his fossil-hunting career looking for mammals. Prehistoric horses, camels, elephants and other mammals were what drew him into paleontology in the first place, but in August of 1909 he received a letter from his boss, museum director William Jacob Holland, that the Carnegie needed dinosaurs. The great natural history museums of Pittsburgh, Chicago and New York City were all hungry for impressive sauropod skeletons—the paleontological one-upmanship was detailed by Paul Brinkman in The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush—and Douglass was drawn into the mostly friendly competition despite his other interests.
Douglass’ dinosaur discovery—a partial Apatosaurus now at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History—would mark the beginning of his long tenure at what would become part of Dinosaur National Monument. The paleontologist’s dream of having an in situ museum showcasing the Jurassic dinosaurs there would be realized in 1957. Long before this, though, visitors came in droves to see Douglass at work on the dinosaurs he was extracting from the Morrison Formation. In fact, no sooner did Douglass find the Apatosaurus than curious townspeople began to show up to see the dinosaur for themselves. In a journal entry dated Sunday, August 22, 1909, Douglass wrote:
Today two loads of people came from Vernal to see the dinosaur and there were several loads from other places. For a time the rocks that never had the impress of a woman’s foot, and seldom that of a man’s, swarmed with people of all ages. Mothers and grandmothers ascended the steep, almost dangerous, slopes with babies and there were men and women well along in years.
The stream of visitors continued for days. On August 29, Douglass noted, “A lot of people came from Vernal again. … The strong, the lame, the fat and the lean went up .” Not all the visitors to the site were respectful of Douglass’ work, though. Before taking them out, Douglass attempted to secure the fossil bones with plaster, paste and other materials, which some of the local rodents quite liked. In journal entry marked Monday, October 11, 1909, Douglass wrote, “Went up to the dinosaur again this morning. … Took my gun along. Got some shot gun shells yesterday. Killed three of the chipmunks that have been pestering us so by eating paste off from the specimens.”
Visits to Douglass’ quarry became less frequent as work continued, and stopped as the excavations there were completed, but they picked up once again with the establishment of the quarry visitor’s center in 1957. The site became a must-see dinosaur landmark, though the famous quarry visitor’s center had to be closed in 2006 due to structural problems related to the building’s placement on unstable ground. The good news is that a new, improved visitor’s center is nearing completion. In just a few more months, visitors will once again be able to see the spectacular quarry wall, dotted with the remains of fantastic Jurassic dinosaurs.
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Am Fam Physician. 2007 Aug 1;76(3):433.
Background: A significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States is infection secondary to influenza A and B viruses. These viruses are associated with the seasonal increase of influenza and pneumonia diagnoses, hospitalizations, and exacerbations of underlying chronic diseases. The primary prevention against influenza is annual vaccination. Studies have shown that influenza vaccination reduces all-cause mortality and hospitalizations in older persons and decreases work absences in younger persons. Other vaccines have been shown to provide attenuation of other illnesses, but influenza vaccine has not been evaluated concerning this issue. Spaude and colleagues assessed the effect of previous influenza immunization on outcomes in adults with community-acquired pneumonia.
The Study: The four-year study included adults admitted to one health care system during each influenza season (November through April) with the diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia. Data collected on admission were age, sex, medical history, nursing home residency, vital signs, clinical and radiographic findings, and laboratory values. The data were used to calculate the Pneumonia Outcome Research Team (PORT) score, which is a 5-point scale that predicts pneumonia outcomes. Patients who score 4 or 5 on the PORT scale are at significantly higher risk of in-hospital death. Information about influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations also was collected. The main outcome measure was in-hospital mortality.
Results: From 34 participating hospitals, 17,393 persons met the inclusion criteria. Of those with recorded vaccination status, 1,590 patients (19 percent) had received an influenza vaccination in the current or most recent influenza season. Those who reported receiving the vaccination were significantly less likely to die in the hospital of any cause than those who did not receive it (odds ratio = 0.30; 95% confidence interval, 0.22 to 0.41). After adjusting for the presence of other comorbidities and pneumococcal vaccination, this outcome remained significant. The reduction of all-cause mortality occurred in those with high or low PORT scores.
Conclusion: Influenza vaccination was shown to improve survival rates in patients hospitalized during the influenza season with community-acquired pneumonia. The authors add that this information, if confirmed by other studies, could be used to improve vaccination rates in adults at risk of community-acquired pneumonia.
Spaude KA, et al. Influenza vaccination and risk of mortality among adults hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia. Arch Intern Med. January 8, 2007;167:53–9.
Copyright © 2007 by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
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The National Conference of Catholic Bishops had appointed James T. McHugh
during April 1967 to ...
This model continued until 1966 when the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops (NCCB) and the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) were ...
Today's Reading · Lecturas del Día · National Bible Week · Readings - Audio ·
Reflections - Video · Books of the .... Catholic Campaign for Human Development
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, US:Catholic Conference Library:
Religion Collections in Libraries and Archives (Main Reading Room, Library of ...
Following the Vatican II Council, the bishops reorganized the NCWC in 1966,
transforming it into the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and its ...
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops with Archdiocese of Washington
and Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington,
Posts about National Council of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) written by Joe ... justice
in the era when the U.S.Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote major pastoral ...
Nov 14, 2014 ... A lack of passion and leadership marked the meeting of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops this week in Baltimore. Their agenda was ...
National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference ...
Policy Framework: When the bishops established the Environmental Justice ...
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released their eleventh
annual report on the progress of implementing the Charter for the Protection .
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Beethoven's Sixth Symphony and the Expression of Feeling through the Arts
After exploring nature and country life through literature, poetry, visual art, science and social science, young children will explore feelings about nature by responding with movement to Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Opus 68, known as Pastoral Symphony, or Recollections of Country Life. By listening to the words of Beethoven (from documented source materials), students will become familiar with his feelings and his desire to express these feelings through his Symphony No. 6. Students will explore and identify images and feelings about the countryside, and note the differences. Students will identify and explore the range of possible feelings one may have when in the countryside and respond to Beethoven's music and feeling through creative movement.
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Sir James George Frazer (18541941). The Golden Bough. 1922.
XVII. The Burden of Royalty
§ 1. Royal and Priestly Taboos
AT A CERTAIN stage of early society the king or priest is often thought to be endowed with supernatural powers or to be an incarnation of a deity, and consistently with this belief the course of nature is supposed to be more or less under his control, and he is held responsible for bad weather, failure of the crops, and similar calamities. To some extent it appears to be assumed that the kings power over nature, like that over his subjects and slaves, is exerted through definite acts of will; and therefore if drought, famine, pestilence, or storms arise, the people attribute the misfortune to the negligence or guilt of their king, and punish him accordingly with stripes and bonds, or, if he remains obdurate, with deposition and death. Sometimes, however, the course of nature, while regarded as dependent on the king, is supposed to be partly independent of his will. His person is considered, if we may express it so, as the dynamical centre of the universe, from which lines of force radiate to all quarters of the heaven; so that any motion of histhe turning of his head, the lifting of his handinstantaneously affects and may seriously disturb some part of nature. He is the point of support on which hangs the balance of the world, and the slightest irregularity on his part may overthrow the delicate equipoise. The greatest care must, therefore, be taken both by and of him; and his whole life, down to its minutest details, must be so regulated that no act of his, voluntary or involuntary, may disarrange or upset the established order of nature. Of this class of monarchs the Mikado or Dairi, the spiritual emperor of Japan, is or rather used to be a typical example. He is an incarnation of the sun goddess, the deity who rules the universe, gods and men included; once a year all the gods wait upon him and spend a month at his court. During that month, the name of which means without gods, no one frequents the temples, for they are believed to be deserted. The Mikado receives from his people and assumes in his official proclamations and decrees the title of manifest or incarnate deity, and he claims a general authority over the gods of Japan. For example, in an official decree of the year 646 the emperor is described as the incarnate god who governs the universe.
Even to this day the princes descended of this family, more particularly those who sit on the throne, are looked upon as persons most holy in themselves, and as Popes by birth. And, in order to preserve these advantageous notions in the minds of their subjects, they are obliged to take an uncommon care of their sacred persons, and to do such things, which, examined according to the customs of other nations, would be thought ridiculous and impertinent. It will not be improper to give a few instances of it. He thinks that it would be very prejudicial to his dignity and holiness to touch the ground with his feet; for this reason, when he intends to go anywhere, he must be carried thither on mens shoulders. Much less will they suffer that he should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the sun is not thought worthy to shine on his head. There is such a holiness ascribed to all the parts of his body that he dares to cut off neither his hair, nor his beard, nor his nails. However, lest he should grow too dirty, they may clean him in the night when he is asleep; because, they say, that which is taken from his body at that time, hath been stolen from him, and that such a theft doth not prejudice his holiness or dignity. In ancient times, he was obliged to sit on the throne for some hours every morning, with the imperial crown on his head, but to sit altogether like a statue, without stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed any part of his body, because, by this means, it was thought that he could preserve peace and tranquillity in his empire; for if, unfortunately, he turned himself on one side or the other, or if he looked a good while towards any part of his dominions, it was apprehended that war, famine, fire, or some other great misfortune was near at hand to desolate the country. But it having been afterwards discovered, that the imperial crown was the palladium, which by its immobility could preserve peace in the empire, it was thought expedient to deliver his imperial person, consecrated only to idleness and pleasures, from this burthensome duty, and therefore the crown is at present placed on the throne for some hours every morning. His victuals must be dressed every time in new pots, and served at table in new dishes: both are very clean and neat, but made only of common clay; that without any considerable expense they may be laid aside, or broke, after they have served once. They are generally broke, for fear they should come into the hands of laymen, for they believe religiously, that if any layman should presume to eat his food out of these sacred dishes, it would swell and inflame his mouth and throat. The like ill effect is dreaded from the Dairis sacred habits; for they believe that if a layman should wear them, without the Emperors express leave or command, they would occasion swellings and pains in all parts of his body. To the same effect an earlier account of the Mikado says: It was considered as a shameful degradation for him even to touch the ground with his foot. The sun and moon were not even permitted to shine upon his head. None of the superfluities of the body were ever taken from him, neither his hair, his beard, nor his nails were cut. Whatever he eat was dressed in new vessels.
Similar priestly or rather divine kings are found, at a lower level of barbarism, on the west coast of Africa. At Shark Point near Cape Padron, in Lower Guinea, lives the priestly king Kukulu, alone in a wood. He may not touch a woman nor leave his house; indeed he may not even quit his chair, in which he is obliged to sleep sitting, for if he lay down no wind would arise and navigation would be stopped. He regulates storms, and in general maintains a wholesome and equable state of the atmosphere. On Mount Agu in Togo there lives a fetish or spirit called Bagba, who is of great importance for the whole of the surrounding country. The power of giving or withholding rain is ascribed to him, and he is lord of the winds, including the Harmattan, the dry, hot wind which blows from the interior. His priest dwells in a house on the highest peak of the mountain, where he keeps the winds bottled up in huge jars. Applications for rain, too, are made to him, and he does a good business in amulets, which consist of the teeth and claws of leopards. Yet though his power is great and he is indeed the real chief of the land, the rule of the fetish forbids him ever to leave the mountain, and he must spend the whole of his life on its summit. Only once a year may he come down to make purchases in the market; but even then he may not set foot in the hut of any mortal man, and must return to his place of exile the same day. The business of government in the villages is conducted by subordinate chiefs, who are appointed by him. In the West African kingdom of Congo there was a supreme pontiff called Chitomé or Chitombé, whom the negroes regarded as a god on earth and all-powerful in heaven. Hence before they would taste the new crops they offered him the first-fruits, fearing that manifold misfortunes would befall them if they broke this rule. When he left his residence to visit other places within his jurisdiction, all married people had to observe strict continence the whole time he was out; for it was supposed that any act of incontinence would prove fatal to him. And if he were to die a natural death, they thought that the world would perish, and the earth, which he alone sustained by his power and merit, would immediately be annihilated. Amongst the semi-barbarous nations of the New World, at the date of the Spanish conquest, there were found hierarchies or theocracies like those of Japan; in particular, the high pontiff of the Zapotecs appears to have presented a close parallel to the Mikado. A powerful rival to the king himself, this spiritual lord governed Yopaa, one of the chief cities of the kingdom, with absolute dominion. It is impossible, we are told, to overrate the reverence in which he was held. He was looked on as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold nor the sun to shine upon. He profaned his sanctity if he even touched the ground with his foot. The officers who bore his palanquin on their shoulders were members of the highest families: he hardly deigned to look on anything around him; and all who met him fell with their faces to the earth, fearing that death would overtake them if they saw even his shadow. A rule of continence was regularly imposed on the Zapotec priests, especially upon the high pontiff; but on certain days in each year, which were generally celebrated with feasts and dances, it was customary for the high priest to become drunk. While in this state, seeming to belong neither to heaven nor to earth, one of the most beautiful of the virgins consecrated to the service of the gods was brought to him. If the child she bore him was a son, he was brought up as a prince of the blood, and the eldest son succeeded his father on the pontifical throne. The supernatural powers attributed to this pontiff are not specified, but probably they resembled those of the Mikado and Chitomé.
Wherever, as in Japan and West Africa, it is supposed that the order of nature, and even the existence of the world, is bound up with the life of the king or priest, it is clear that he must be regarded by his subjects as a source both of infinite blessing and of infinite danger. On the one hand, the people have to thank him for the rain and sunshine which foster the fruits of the earth, for the wind which brings ships to their coasts, and even for the solid ground beneath their feet. But what he gives he can refuse; and so close is the dependence of nature on his person, so delicate the balance of the system of forces whereof he is the centre, that the least irregularity on his part may set up a tremor which shall shake the earth to its foundations. And if nature may be disturbed by the slightest involuntary act of the king, it is easy to conceive the convulsion which his death might provoke. The natural death of the Chitomé, as we have seen, was thought to entail the destruction of all things. Clearly, therefore, out of a regard for their own safety, which might be imperilled by any rash act of the king, and still more by his death, the people will exact of their king or priest a strict conformity to those rules, the observance of which is deemed necessary for his own preservation, and consequently for the preservation of his people and the world. The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects; his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his peoples benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is dismissed ignominiously, and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is entirely of a piece. If their king is their god, he is or should be also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them, he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by a ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.
Of the supernaturally endowed kings of Loango it is said that the more powerful a king is, the more taboos is he bound to observe; they regulate all his actions, his walking and his standing, his eating and drinking, his sleeping and waking. To these restraints the heir to the throne is subject from infancy; but as he advances in life the number of abstinences and ceremonies which he must observe increases, until at the moment that he ascends the throne he is lost in the ocean of rites and taboos. In the crater of an extinct volcano, enclosed on all sides by grassy slopes, lie the scattered huts and yam-fields of Riabba, the capital of the native king of Fernando Po. This mysterious being lives in the lowest depths of the crater, surrounded by a harem of forty women, and covered, it is said, with old silver coins. Naked savage as he is, he yet exercises far more influence in the island than the Spanish governor at Santa Isabel. In him the conservative spirit of the Boobies or aboriginal inhabitants of the island is, as it were, incorporate. He has never seen a white man and, according to the firm conviction of all the Boobies, the sight of a pale face would cause his instant death. He cannot bear to look upon the sea; indeed it is said that he may never see it even in the distance, and that therefore he wears away his life with shackles on his legs in the dim twilight of his hut. Certain it is that he has never set foot on the beach. With the exception of his musket and knife, he uses nothing that comes from the whites; European cloth never touches his person, and he scorns tobacco, rum, and even salt.
Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the king is at the same time high priest. In this quality he was, particularly in former times, unapproachable by his subjects. Only by night was he allowed to quit his dwelling in order to bathe and so forth. None but his representative, the so-called visible king, with three chosen elders might converse with him, and even they had to sit on an ox-hide with their backs turned to him. He might not see any European nor any horse, nor might he look upon the sea, for which reason he was not allowed to quit his capital even for a few moments. These rules have been disregarded in recent times. The king of Dahomey himself is subject to the prohibition of beholding the sea, and so are the kings of Loango and Great Ardra in Guinea. The sea is the fetish of the Eyeos, to the north-west of Dahomey, and they and their king are threatened with death by their priests if ever they dare to look on it. It is believed that the king of Cayor in Senegal would infallibly die within the year if he were to cross a river or an arm of the sea. In Mashonaland down to recent times the chiefs would not cross certain rivers, particularly the Rurikwi and the Nyadiri; and the custom was still strictly observed by at least one chief within recent years. On no account will the chief cross the river. If it is absolutely necessary for him to do so, he is blindfolded and carried across with shouting and singing. Should he walk across, he will go blind or die and certainly lose the chieftainship. So among the Mahafalys and Sakalavas in the south of Madagascar some kings are forbidden to sail on the sea or to cross certain rivers. Among the Sakalavas the chief is regarded as a sacred being, but he is held in leash by a crowd of restrictions, which regulate his behaviour like that of the emperor of China. He can undertake nothing whatever unless the sorcerers have declared the omens favourable; he may not eat warm food: on certain days he may not quit his hut; and so on. Among some of the hill tribes of Assam both the headman and his wife have to observe many taboos in respect of food; thus they may not eat buffalo, pork, dog, fowl, or tomatoes. The headman must be chaste, the husband of one wife, and he must separate himself from her on the eve of a general or public observance of taboo. In one group of tribes the headman is forbidden to eat in a strange village, and under no provocation whatever may he utter a word of abuse. Apparently the people imagine that the violation of any of these taboos by a headman would bring down misfortune on the whole village.
The ancient kings of Ireland, as well as the kings of the four provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster, were subject to certain quaint prohibitions or taboos, on the due observance of which the prosperity of the people of the country, as well as their own, was supposed to depend. Thus, for example, the sun might not rise on the king of Ireland in his bed at Tara, the old capital of Erin; he was forbidden to alight on Wednesday at Magh Breagh, to traverse Magh Cuillinn after sunset, to incite his horse at Fan-Chomair, to go in a ship upon the water the Monday after Bealltaine (May day), and to leave the track of his army upon Ath Maighne the Tuesday after All-Hallows. The king of Leinster might not go round Tuath Laighean left-hand-wise on Wednesday, nor sleep between the Dothair (Dodder) and the Duibhlinn with his head inclining to one side, nor encamp for nine days on the plains of Cualann, nor travel the road of Duibhlinn on Monday, nor ride a dirty black-heeled horse across Magh Maistean. The king of Munster was prohibited from enjoying the feast of Loch Lein from one Monday to another; from banqueting by night in the beginning of harvest before Geim at Leitreacha; from encamping for nine days upon the Siuir; and from holding a border meeting at Gabhran. The king of Connaught might not conclude a treaty respecting his ancient palace of Cruachan after making peace on All-Hallows Day, nor go in a speckled garment on a grey speckled steed to the heath of Dal Chais, nor repair to an assembly of women at Seaghais, nor sit in autumn on the sepulchral mounds of the wife of Maine, nor contend in running with the rider of a grey one-eyed horse at Ath Gallta between two posts. The king of Ulster was forbidden to attend the horse fair at Rath Line among the youths of Dal Araidhe, to listen to the fluttering of the flocks of birds of Linn Saileach after sunset, to celebrate the feast of the bull of Daire-mic-Daire, to go into Magh Cobha in the month of March, and to drink of the water of Bo Neimhidh between two darknesses. If the kings of Ireland strictly observed these and many other customs, which were enjoined by immemorial usage, it was believed that they would never meet with mischance or misfortune, and would live for ninety years without experiencing the decay of old age; that no epidemic or mortality would occur during their reigns; and that the seasons would be favourable and the earth yield its fruit in abundance; whereas, if they set the ancient usages at naught, the country would be visited with plague, famine, and bad weather.
The kings of Egypt were worshipped as gods, and the routine of their daily life was regulated in every detail by precise and unvarying rules. The life of the kings of Egypt, says Diodorus, was not like that of other monarchs who are irresponsible and may do just what they choose; on the contrary, everything was fixed for them by law, not only their official duties, but even the details of their daily life . The hours both of day and night were arranged at which the king had to do, not what he pleased, but what was prescribed for him . For not only were the times appointed at which he should transact public business or sit in judgment; but the very hours for his walking and bathing and sleeping with his wife, and, in short, performing every act of life were all settled. Custom enjoined a simple diet; the only flesh he might eat was veal and goose, and he might only drink a prescribed quantity of wine. However, there is reason to think that these rules were observed, not by the ancient Pharaohs, but by the priestly kings who reigned at Thebes and Ethiopia at the close of the twentieth dynasty.
Of the taboos imposed on priests we may see a striking example in the rules of life prescribed for the Flamen Dialis at Rome, who has been interpreted as a living image of Jupiter, or a human embodiment of the sky-spirit. They were such as the following: The Flamen Dialis might not ride or even touch a horse, nor see an army under arms, nor wear a ring which was not broken, nor have a knot on any part of his garments; no fire except a sacred fire might be taken out of his house; he might not touch wheaten flour or leavened bread; he might not touch or even name a goat, a dog, raw meat, beans, and ivy; he might not walk under a vine; the feet of his bed had to be daubed with mud; his hair could be cut only by a free man and with a bronze knife and his hair and nails when cut had to be buried under a lucky tree; he might not touch a dead body nor enter a place where one was burned; he might not see work being done on holy days; he might not be uncovered in the open air; if a man in bonds were taken into his house, the captive had to be unbound and the cords had to be drawn up through a hole in the roof and so let down into the street. His wife, the Flaminica, had to observe nearly the same rules, and others of her own besides. She might not ascend more than three steps of the kind of staircase called Greek; at a certain festival she might not comb her hair; the leather of her shoes might not be made from a beast that had died a natural death, but only from one that had been slain or sacrificed; if she heard thunder she was tabooed till she had offered an expiatory sacrifice.
Among the Grebo people of Sierra Leone there is a pontiff who bears the title of Bodia and has been compared, on somewhat slender grounds, to the high priest of the Jews. He is appointed in accordance with the behest of an oracle. At an elaborate ceremony of installation he is anointed, a ring is put on his ankle as a badge of office, and the door-posts of his house are sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed goat. He has charge of the public talismans and idols, which he feeds with rice and oil every new moon; and he sacrifices on behalf of the town to the dead and to demons. Nominally his power is very great, but in practice it is very limited; for he dare not defy public opinion, and he is held responsible, even with his life, for any adversity that befalls the country. It is expected of him that he should cause the earth to bring forth abundantly, the people to be healthy, war to be driven far away, and witchcraft to be kept in abeyance. His life is trammelled by the observance of certain restrictions or taboos. Thus he may not sleep in any house but his own official residence, which is called the anointed house with reference to the ceremony of anointing him at inauguration. He may not drink water on the highway. He may not eat while a corpse is in the town, and he may not mourn for the dead. If he dies while in office, he must be buried at dead of night; few may hear of his burial, and none may mourn for him when his death is made public. Should he have fallen a victim to the poison ordeal by drinking a decoction of sassywood, as it is called, he must be buried under a running stream of water.
Among the Todas of Southern India the holy milkman, who acts as priest of the sacred dairy, is subject to a variety of irksome and burdensome restrictions during the whole time of his incumbency, which may last many years. Thus he must live at the sacred dairy and may never visit his home or any ordinary village. He must be celibate; if he is married he must leave his wife. On no account may any ordinary person touch the holy milkman or the holy dairy; such a touch would so defile his holiness that he would forfeit his office. It is only on two days a week, namely Mondays and Thursdays, that a mere layman may even approach the milkman; on other days if he has any business with him, he must stand at a distance (some say a quarter of a mile) and shout his message across the intervening space. Further, the holy milkman never cuts his hair or pares his nails so long as he holds office; he never crosses a river by a bridge, but wades through a ford and only certain fords; if a death occurs in his clan, he may not attend any of the funeral ceremonies, unless he first resigns his office and descends from the exalted rank of milkman to that of a mere common mortal. Indeed it appears that in old days he had to resign the seals, or rather the pails, of office whenever any member of his clan departed this life. However, these heavy restraints are laid in their entirety only on milkmen of the very highest class.
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HB 429 (BR 1381) - R. Meeks
AN ACT relating to recognition of American Indian tribes.
Create a new section of KRS Chapter 171 to allow a group desiring to be formally recognized as an American Indian tribe to submit a petition to the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission; provide criteria that shall be met to be recognized as an American Indian tribe; authorize the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission to approve petitions submitted for recognition; provide approved petitions to the Governor and, if the Governor accepts the recommendation, provide for issuance of an executive order recognizing the approved group; require the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission to promulgate administrative regulations identifying the procedures to be followed in submitting a petition and appealing and decision of the commission.
Jan 31-introduced in House
Feb 1-to State Government (H)
Feb 5-posted in committee
Feb 14-reported favorably, 1st reading, to Calendar
Feb 15-2nd reading, to Rules
Feb 25-posted for passage in the Regular Orders of the Day for Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Feb 27-3rd reading, passed 77-14
Feb 28-received in Senate
Mar 3-to Health & Welfare (S)
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Congo, Democratic Republic of the Zaire as a Military Aid Donor
Sources: The Library of Congress Country Studies; CIA World Factbook
In addition to receiving military assistance from numerous countries, Zaire aided other African countries, often in support of Western interests. Zaire's relationship with Chad was preeminent in this respect. In 1983 President Mobutu sent approximately 3,000 troops to Chad to help Chadian president Hissein Habré stop a Libyan-backed rebel offensive. France and the United States also aided Habré. Several Chadian commando battalions were trained at the Zairian Commando Training Center and Chadian officers trained at Zaire's Armor Training School. In September 1986, Zaire sent two airborne companies to Togo to help Togolese president Gnassingbe Eyadéma stabilize his capital city after an attempted coup, and in late 1990 Mobutu sent elements of the DSP to help neighboring Rwanda fight an insurgency. Zaire also provided training at its Armor Training School for students from several other African countries.
Data as of December 1993
NOTE: The information regarding Congo, Democratic Republic of the on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Zaire as a Military Aid Donor information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Congo, Democratic Republic of the Zaire as a Military Aid Donor should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.
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Migration was the theme at the kindergarten field trip today, as we hosted 30 students from the Palacios, Texas school district. It was a joy to see their eyes light up when we showed them a ruby throated hummingbird, curved billed thrasher, white-eyed vireo, yellow warbler, northern mockingbird, yellow-breasted chat and an Acadian flycatcher. Volunteers, John and Margaret Green, from Washington State and Carol Jones from Gulf Coast Bird Observatory helped us introduce the kids to body parts of birds and to the concept of migration. Before they got back on the bus, each child was banded with a paper band, with their own unique number. One little boy told me it was his best day ever, with the birds! Another one asked me "Which one of you should I hug?"
Mad Island Banding
May 3, 2012 by Bea Harrison
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Our lab investigates the human genetic disorder ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). A-T is initially manifested as ataxia (lack of coordination of movements) during childhood, which later develops into severe neuromotor dysfunction. This results from progressive degeneration of the cerebellar cortex, manifested as striking loss of the Purkinje and granule cells. Telangiectasias (dilated blood vessels) appear later, usually in the eyeballs. This multisystem disorder also includes immunodeficiency, chromosomal instability, cancer predisposition, and acute sensitivity to agents that induce double-strand breaks in the DNA, such as ionizing radiation (IR) and radiomimetic chemicals.
The gene that is mutated in A-T, called ATM, was identified and named in our lab in 1995. Its product, the ATM protein, is a powerful and versatile protein kinase, which is involved in various aspects of cellular homeostasis and is most vigorously activated in the presence of DNA double-strand breaks. It then mobilizes a vast signaling network known as the DNA damage response - by phosphorylating numerous key players in its multiple branches. ATM also enhances the responses to other DNA lesions or abnormal DNA structures by phosphorylating pertinent proteins.
Our lab investigates the various branches of the ATM-mediated DNA damage response. We strive to understand how the loss of ATM impacts the cell’s complex response to genotoxic stresses, and to explain the most cardinal and debilitating symptom of A-T – the cerebellar degeneration.
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We are pleased to welcome Irina Zhuravleva as a guest blogger today. Irina is the first author of a new paper describing a crucial role of gas turbulence in interaction between supermassive black holes and hot gas in galaxy clusters, the subject of our latest press release. Irina studied theoretical astrophysics in the department of mathematics and mechanics at Saint Petersburg State University in Russia, followed by a PhD in astrophysics at Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany. After that she moved to San Francisco area as a postdoctoral researcher at KIPAC, Stanford University.
Chaotic, turbulent flows are commonly encountered in everyday life: swirling eddies of milk poured into coffee, flickering flames of a campfire, external flows over cars and ships, white froth from breaking waves in the ocean, quaint patterns of clouds in the sky and pyroclastic flow in a volcanic eruption.
Complex and at first glance disordered patterns of turbulence have been fascinating and triggering the imagination of scientists and artists for centuries. Perhaps the world's first attempt to grasp turbulence was done by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century in his famous sketch of the swirling flow "la turbolenza' produced by a water jet from a channel into a pool. The most striking and certainly famous artistic depictures of turbulence are "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh and "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai, which was later even sculptured by Athena Tacha. Interestingly, van Gogh was the only painter capable of rendering turbulence with mathematical precision1.
Fig. 1 The Great Red Spot in atmosphere of Jupiter
Even more interesting cases can be found in space. One of my favorite examples is a picture of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter made by Voyager 1 in 1979. The wealth of detail is spectacular! Similar flows of gas are ubiquitous in the Universe. Turbulence naturally arises in planet atmospheres, stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies.
Clusters of galaxies contain the largest reservoirs of gas in the Universe, which is heated to tens and hundreds of millions of degrees and, therefore, "shines" in X-rays. Extremely interesting information about the physics of the gas is provided by data from several X-ray observatories. However, the instruments are not yet capable of probing the velocities of gas motions necessary for studies of the gas turbulence. Astrophysicists will be able to do it only in one to two years, after the launch of a new X-ray observatory, Astro-H, with an innovative X-ray microcalorimeter on board. Nevertheless, I was impatient and too curious to explore this new field and was thinking about alternative, indirect ways to probe the cluster "chaos".
Everything started about 6 years ago, when I was working on my first PhD project about X-ray polarization in galaxy clusters and developing a method to probe transverse motions of gas2. It turned out to be possible to do in theory, but it may take a while until sensitive polarimeters are in space. So, I switched to a more feasible future: Astro-H. Several techniques to investigate different properties of turbulence were developed3,4 and some of them were even applied to a few giant elliptical galaxies5,6. But even if Astro-H is in our near future, it would be great to have any constraints available now since there are so many unresolved triggering puzzles that require this information.
Fig. 2 X-ray image of fluctuations in the Perseus Cluster (left) and image of fluctuations on the smallest scales we probe (right)
The idea came from the discussion of different structures we see in X-ray images of galaxy clusters. Imagine waves in an ocean. A simple relation between the amplitude of waves and the velocity of water exists: the higher the velocity of water, the stronger (the higher) the waves. The same idea can be applied to the gas atmospheres of galaxy clusters: the gas displacement from the equilibrium position depends on the velocity of gas. But why can we see the displacement of the gas? This time imagine adding a drop of red dye into white paint, which we start stirring with a spoon. We will see red dye tracing the motions in the white paint induced by the spoon. The same thing will happen in galaxy clusters, but instead of white paint we have hot gas. Instead of red dye we have gas entropy (a measure of the amount of disorder in the gas motions), and instead of the spoon we have any source of perturbations in the gas (e.g. induced by supermassive black hole in the center, motions of galaxies, different mergers, etc.). The displaced gas retains its entropy, but its density will be different from the ambient gas. As a result higher density gas shines stronger in X-rays and becomes visible as a perturbation. So, all we need to probe turbulence in galaxy clusters is to measure the amplitude of density fluctuations of different sizes in galaxy clusters7,8.
We took X-ray images of the Perseus and Virgo clusters obtained from very deep observations done by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and removed the global model of the cluster to emphasize the fluctuations (Fig. 2). The advantage of using Chandra is that it provides the sharpest X-ray images currently available, Its resolution allows us to probe even the tiniest structures present in the gas. We decompose the “messy” image with fluctuations into a set of images with filtered fluctuations of a certain size and measure the mean amplitude of fluctuations present on each image. Multiplying it by the sound speed of gas, we measure the amplitude of turbulent motions on each scale. It so much easier than I thought 6 years ago!
It’s not yet the end of the story. We compared the energy released after turbulence dissipates with the rate of cooling by radiation in the cores of the two clusters and it turned out that both are comparable! This means that the balance between cooling and heating in the cores of clusters, which is regulated by the supermassive black hole, is set through turbulence. In other words, turbulence provides communication between the central black hole and the gas in the cores of galaxy clusters and elliptical galaxies9. It would be great to check it with Astro-H!
(1) Aragón J. L., Naumis Gerardo G., Bai M. et al., arXiv:physics/0606246 (2006);
(2) Zhuravleva I. V., Churazov E. M., Sazonov S. Yu. et al. MNRAS, 403, 129 (2010);
(3) Zhuravleva I., Churazov E., Kravtsov A. & Sunyaev R. MNRAS, 422, 2712 (2012);
(4) Zhuravleva I., Churazov E., Sunyaev R. et al. MNRAS, 435, 3111 (2013);
(5) Werner N., Zhuravleva I., Churazov E. et al. MNRAS, 398, 23 (2009);
(6) de Plaa J., Zhuravleva I., Werner N. et al. A&A, 539, A34 (2012);
(7) Zhuravleva I., Churazov E. M., Schekochihin A. A. et al. ApJ, 788, L13 (2014);
(8) Gaspari M., Churazov E., Nagai D. et al. A&A, 569, A67 (2014);
(9) Zhuravleva I., Churazov E., Schekochihin A. A. et al., Nature, in press. (2014).
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Nosema ceranae causes a widespread disease that reduces honey bee health but is only thought to infect adult honey bees, not larvae, a critical life stage. We reared honey bee (Apis mellifera) larvae in vitro and provide the first demonstration that N. ceranae can infect larvae and decrease subsequent adult longevity. We exposed three-day-old larvae to a single dose of 40,000 (40K), 10,000 (10K), zero (control), or 40K autoclaved (control) N. ceranae spores in larval food. Spores developed intracellularly in midgut cells at the pre-pupal stage (8 days after egg hatching) of 41% of bees exposed as larvae. We counted the number of N. ceranae spores in dissected bee midguts of pre-pupae and, in a separate group, upon adult death. Pre-pupae exposed to the 10K or 40K spore treatments as larvae had significantly elevated spore counts as compared to controls. Adults exposed as larvae had significantly elevated spore counts as compared to controls. Larval spore exposure decreased longevity: a 40K treatment decreased the age by which 75% of adult bees died by 28%. Unexpectedly, the low dose (10K) led to significantly greater infection (1.3 fold more spores and 1.5 fold more infected bees) than the high dose (40K) upon adult death. Differential immune activation may be involved if the higher dose triggered a stronger larval immune response that resulted in fewer adult spores but imposed a cost, reducing lifespan. The impact of N. ceranae on honey bee larval development and the larvae of naturally infected colonies therefore deserve further study.
Citation: Eiri DM, Suwannapong G, Endler M, Nieh JC (2015) Nosema ceranae Can Infect Honey Bee Larvae and Reduces Subsequent Adult Longevity. PLoS ONE 10(5): e0126330. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0126330
Academic Editor: Guido Favia, University of Camerino, ITALY
Received: November 20, 2014; Accepted: March 10, 2015; Published: May 27, 2015
Copyright: © 2015 Eiri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Data Availability: All data are publicly available through the Dryad database: doi:10.5061/dryad.sh2qf.
Funding: This research was made possible by funding from the University of California San Diego Academic Senate (https://senate.ucsd.edu/), National Honey Board (http://www.honey.com/honey-industry/honey-and-bee-research/honey-bee-research/c/2012-research-projects), and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (http://www.pollinator.org/honeybee_health.htm). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Honey bees provide valuable pollination services for multiple agricultural crops [1,2]. However, despite the increasing global demand for this pollination service , problems with bee health have contributed to limiting the supply of colonies . Each year since 2006, the USA has experienced consecutive overwintering colony losses of approximately 30% , and some European countries have reported similar losses [6,7]. Although the causes for these declines are not completely understood, researchers have identified multiple factors: mite infestation, pesticides, pathogens, and interactions between these factors [8,9].
We focus on a globally-distributed pathogen, Nosema ceranae, which significantly reduces the survival of bee colonies [10,11]. This microsporidian pathogen originally infected the Asian honey bee species, Apis cerana and now also infects the European honey bee, A. mellifera [13,14]. The degree to which N. ceranae contributes to global colony losses is unclear: its effect on colony health varies between studies in different geographical areas [15,16], perhaps due to different environmental conditions . However, multiple studies have demonstrated that N. ceranae infection decreases honey bee health , primarily by degenerating digestive tissue [18,19] and resulting in malnutrition and reducing lifespan [20,21]. In A. cerana and A. florea, infection reduces the protein content in hypopharyngeal glands . Flight behavior can also be impaired by infection, which may reduce forager numbers and colony food intake . In addition, synergistic interactions between pesticide exposure and N. ceranae infection can increase susceptibility to N. ceranae infection [9,24] and mortality [25,26].
Nosema ceranae is believed to infect only adult honey bees, although Nosema species can infect larvae of other insect species, including a close relative of honey bees, bumble bees (tested by inoculating larvae with spores ). Larval Lepidoptera and Coleoptera can also be infected by different Nosema species. Surprisingly, no published studies, to date, have directly tested if N. ceranae can infect honey bee larvae, although there is some evidence for larval infection. Traver & Fell detected low levels of N. ceranae DNA in honey bee queen and drone larvae.
Transmission of N. ceranae is poorly understood. Spores are exclusively produced in midgut tissues . However, spores have been detected in corbicular pollen . Recently, Traver and Fell detected N. ceranae DNA in royal jelly from hives naturally infected with N. ceranae. Thus, larval food could provide a natural infection route. However, even if N. ceranae is not directly transmitted through brood food, nurse bees feed larvae orally and oral transmission can occur between adults . Such oral transmission may arise from fecal spores traveling to the mouthparts of the food recipient, but it nonetheless demonstrates that a bee obtaining food from an infected bee can also be infected by N. ceranae.
The evidence that N. ceranae cannot infect A. mellifera larvae is largely indirect. Newly emerged adults from Nosema-infected colonies are reportedly uninfected, as measured through gut spore counts . However, in these newly emerged bees, Nosema may still be in the intracellular life stage (actively reproducing vegetative state) that later produces the mature spores seen in older bees. Nurse bees may also behave hygienically, removing brood that is heavily infected, as they do in colonies infected with Paenibacillus larvae or with the fungal pathogen, Ascophaera apis . Finally, sick bees that emerge may remove themselves from the colony. Rueppell et al. demonstrated this phenomenon in young adult bees sickened with drug or CO2 treatments. Goblirsch et al. found that workers infected with N. ceranae were twice as likely to engage in early foraging, causing them to spend more time outside of the colony. It is also possible that honey bee larvae are relatively more resistant to N. ceranae infection than adults. However, given the evidence for larval infection in the closely related bumble bees and other taxa, it is reasonable to ask if N. ceranae can infect honey bee larvae.
We therefore tested the larval infection hypothesis by directly infecting A. mellifera larvae with N. ceranae. We used a single dose of N. ceranae spores given only once to larvae in their brood food. To exclude the possibility of hygienic bees removing infected larvae, we used in vitro rearing. We hypothesized that the midgut cells of pre-pupae infected as larvae would show proliferating spores and therefore used histology to check for intracellular spore development. A separate set of treated bees were reared to adulthood and maintained in cages to measure their longevity and to eliminate the possibility of infected adult self-removal. We hypothesized that larvae receiving the N. ceranae treatment would become infected, that pre-pupae and adult stages would contain N. ceranae spores in their midguts, and that this infection would decrease adult longevity. Finally, larvae were fed autoclaved spores as a control to test the possibility that spores counted in pre-pupae and adults were residual spores from the treatment, not the result of infection.
At the pre-pupal stage (8 days after egg hatching), 41% of bees fed as larvae (3 days after egg hatching) showed spores developing intracellularly in bee midgut cells (n = 35 bees from two colonies). Fig 1a–1e shows densely packed spores that have propagated inside midgut cells. Fig 1b shows a classic clustering of developing spores around the midgut cell nucleus. In infected bees (individuals with at least one intracellular N. ceranae spore in a midgut cell), 52±2% of these midgut cells were infected (range of 20–100% of cells infected). Nosema ceranae can therefore infect honey bee larval midgut tissue.
(a-f) Images are shown at relative magnifications from 400-1400X, and scale bars correspond to 50 μm. The abbreviations refer to the following: lu = lumen (interior of midgut), bm = basement membrane, sp = Nosema spore, and n = midgut cell nucleus (relatively large blue-green ovoid structures shown in part b).
Pre-pupae infection levels
We reared 220 first instars (1 day after egg hatching) from three colonies to the pre-pupal stage. We gave larvae N. ceranae spores at 3 days after egg hatching. Overall, 55% and 60% of larvae treated with a single 10K or 40K spore dosage, respectively, had midgut spores as pre-pupae (Table 1). The maximum number of spores per bee was 12,500 and 15,000 for 10K and 40K treatments, respectively, and only 1.4% of control larvae fed no spores had spores present as pre-pupae (maximum of 2,500 spores per bee). None of the bees fed autoclaved spores had any spores in their midguts as pre-pupae.
The 10K and 40K larval treatments resulted in significantly elevated pre-pupal spore counts as compared to control bees fed no spores or autoclaved spores (Table 1, Fig 2a; Kruskal-Wallis: χ2 = 72.29, df = 3, P < 0.0001; Steel-Dwass: Z > 4.16, P ≤ 0.0002). There is no significant difference in pre-pupal spore counts between 10K and 40K treatment groups (Steel-Dwass: Z > 0.39, P = 0.92). There is no significant difference in spore counts between larvae fed no-spores or autoclaved spores (Steel-Dwass: Z = -0.51, P = 0.96). In addition, respectively 1.4% and 0% of larvae fed no spores or autoclaved spores had spores as pre-pupae. In contrast, 55% and 60% of larvae respectively fed 10K and 40K spores were infected as pre-pupae (Table 1, Fig 2c).
Effect of larval exposure to N. ceranae on midgut spore count in (a) pre-pupae and (b) adults upon death. (a) The average number of spores per bee midgut is shown. Error bars show standard errors. Different letters indicate significantly different treatments. (b) A higher percentage of bees fed N. ceranae as larvae were infected as (c) pre-pupae and (d) adults. These graphs show the percentage of bees with different levels of infection.
Survival to adult emergence
To determine if N. ceranae treatment at the larval stage affects survival to adult emergence, we reared 551 individuals to adulthood from five colonies. Among the three treatments (control, 10K, and 40K), there is no significant difference in the number of larvae that survived to emerge as adults: 89%, 78%, and 72% of larvae in the control, 10K, and 40K treatment groups survived to adulthood (Gpooled = 3.00, P = 0.22, df = 2, n = 551 bees). There are no significant differences between trials (Gheterogeneity = 11.64, df = 10, P = 0.31, n = 6 trials).
Adult emergence mass
We found no significant effect of treatment upon adult emergence mass (F2,404 = 0.47, P = 0.63). The average masses of adults upon emergence are respectively 135.0 ± 2.0, 134.2 ± 2.1, and 132.1 ± 2.3 mg for the control, 10K, and 40K treatments.
Adult infection levels at death
We counted the number of spores per adult at death in 386 individuals from seven colonies (Table 1). There is a significant effect of treatment: larvae that were fed a single dose of N. ceranae spores subsequently had significantly elevated spore counts as adults (Kruskal-Wallis: χ2 = 137.01, df = 3, P < 0.0001; Fig 2b). A few individuals treated with N. ceranae spores contained up to 295,000 spores upon adult death. Surprisingly, 10K treated larvae had 1.3 fold more spores upon adult death than 40K treated larvae. This difference was statistically significant (Steel-Dwass: Z = -3.01, P = 0.0073; Fig 2b). Similarly, a higher percentage of adult bees (67%) were infected (had non-zero spore counts) from the 10K larval treatment as compared to the 40K larval treatment (44% of adult bees). Only 3% of control bees had spores (maximum of 10,000 spores per bee). None of the larvae fed autoclaved spores had any midgut spores as adults. Both 10K and 40K treatments resulted in significantly elevated spore counts compared to both control treatments: Steel-Dwass: Z > 5.72, P ≤ 0.001).
We monitored 238 adult bees, reared in vitro, until they died in incubated cages, providing water, sterilized sucrose (2.0M), and pollen mixed with sucrose ad libitum. Larval exposure to a single 40K spore dose significantly reduced adult longevity as compared to the control (Fig 3; Survival analysis, Log-Rank test, χ2 = 4.64, df = 1, P = 0.03). The age at which 75% of adults died is respectively 18 days, 14 days, and 13 days for the control, 10K, and 40K treatments. Thus, a 40K treatment decreased the age by which 75% of adult bees died by 28% as compared to controls. There is no significant difference in adult lifespan between the control and 10K or between the 10K and 40K treatments (Fig 3; Survival analysis, Log-Rank test, χ2 < 1.79, df = 1, P ≥ 0.18).
Nosema ceranae infection contributes to poor honey bee health globally and is thought to only infect adult honey bees. However, by using controlled in vitro exposure to spores in brood food, we show that N. ceranae can infect A. mellifera larvae. A single exposure to 10K or 40K N. ceranae spores during larval development resulted in low levels of pre-pupal infection and elevated adult infection (Fig 2). By the early pre-pupal stage, spores visibly developed intracellularly in bee midgut cells (Fig 1). Nosema infects by injecting sporoplasm, not whole spores, inside midgut cells . Thus the presence of spores inside midgut cells is a result of an active, propagating infection. In addition, the presence of fully formed spores packed inside midgut cells (Fig 1) demonstrates that N. ceranae can develop through its full life cycle in larvae and is not halted at merogony or early sporogony.
We fed larvae with a 40K spore dose and then used histology to examine their midgut cells 5 days later. In infected bees (41% of bees had at least one intracellular N. ceranae spore in a midgut cell), 52±2% of these midgut cells were infected. In comparison, Higes et al. fed newly emerged A. mellifera workers with N. ceranae (125,000 spores/bee) and showed that 66% and 82% of their midgut cells were respectively infected 6 and 7 days after infection. Suwannapong et al. fed newly emerged A. cerana workers with a 40K dose of N. ceranae spores and reported that 34% of bee midgut cells were infected 6 days later (infection percentage converted from the reported infection ratio). The percentage of infected midgut cells increases with spore dose , which is 3-fold higher in Higes et al. as compared to Suwannapong et al. . Thus, the percentage of infected pre-pupal midgut cells in our study, given our 40K dose, is lower than the values reported by Higes et al. in newly emerged A. mellifera adults. These differences may arise from differences in initial spore doses, the bee species and Nosema species used, bee immune responses at different developmental stages, other physiological factors, or a combination of these factors [17,45].
We used a standard method, midgut spore counts, to assay infection levels . Real-time PCR provides another method of detecting spores and different life stages of Nosema. However, Nosema is spread through spores . Thus, counting the number of spores in the midgut provides a direct measure of how infectious a bee will be. It is possible that some of the spores counted in pre-pupae and adults were original, un-germinated spores given to larvae and were not the result of sporogenesis in the larvae. However, this is unlikely to explain our results. First, the spores (10 μl in volume) were only provided in brood food (100 μl) given to larvae 3 days after egg hatching. Each day, we aspirated out the old food and provided new food that did not contain spores. Each larva therefore had four changes of food, substantially diluting any residual spores in its growth chamber and limiting surface contamination. When the larvae began to produce uric acid crystals, a sign of initial defecation , we gently blotted them dry with sterile tissues and moved them to sterile pupation plates where we allowed them to completely defecate over the next 24 hours. We then carefully dissected out the midgut only and counted the spores on a hemocytometer . Most importantly, control larvae fed 40K autoclaved spores and treated in exactly the same way as larvae given live spores all showed 0 spore counts as pre-pupae and upon adult death (Table 1). Thus, the pre-pupae spore counts were the result of infection by living spores.
Throughout our experiment, accidental contamination through daily handling or through the bees’ artificial diet was evidently minimal. Only one of the 70 control pre-pupae had spores, estimated at 2,500 spores. Very few of our adult bees in the control group were found to have spores present in their midgut (Table 1) and adult infection levels were significantly higher in the 10K and 40K treatment groups than in the control group (Fig 2b).
Because adults were held in group-cages, infected adults could have passed on spores to other adults in the same cage. However, each cage only contained adults from the same treatment of the same trial (maximum of 12 bees per cage). Any spores shared between adults would therefore have arisen from an infection started by the original one-time larval dose. Cross-cage contamination was not a factor because control bees were essentially uninfected as adults (Table 1). Such adult spore exchange could have homogenized infection levels among adult bees within a cage, but the average infection level should still reflect the degree of adult infection caused by the larval treatment.
Finally, N. ceranae increases food consumption in adult bees [20,50], we therefore expected that larvae infected by N. ceranae would be heavier at adult emergence. However, we did not find any significant effect of treatment on body mass, which was 133.9 ± 2.0 mg (for all treatment groups) similar to the 138.9 ± 2.0 mg of emerging adults reported by another in vitro study .
Nosema species infect larvae of other insects
The previously reported inability of Nosema to infect honey bee larvae is surprising because Nosema can infect larvae of other insects. In the Lepidoptera, N. algerae, N. ploidiae, N. pyrausta, and N. bombycis respectively infect the larvae of Heliothis zia, ; of the Indian-meal moth, Plodia interpunctella ; of the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis ; and of the silk moth, Bombyx mori . In the Coleoptera, N. whitei infects the larvae of flour beetles, Tribolium castaneum and Tenebrio molitor . Most relevantly, in the Hymenoptera, N. bombi can infect bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) larvae . A separate study confirmed this, showing that B. terrestris queens inoculated as larvae with 313,000 N. bombi spores developed nosemosis and were less able to found colonies . A field study revealed additional fitness consequences. Infected B. terrestris queens produced fewer workers, drones, and virgin queens than controls . In addition, N. bombi DNA is found in eggs of the bumble bee, B. lucorum, suggesting vertical transmission . Similarly, Traver & Fell detected low levels of N. ceranae DNA in honey bee queen larvae. Our finding that N. ceranae can infect A. mellifera larvae (Figs 1 and 2) therefore fits with the known ability of Nosema spp. to infect larvae in a wide variety of insects, including the Apidae.
Evidence for and against larval infection of Apis mellifera
Traver & Fell provided evidence that N. ceranae can infect honey bee larvae by detecting low levels of N. ceranae DNA in larvae and newly emerged queens. However, Bailey and Smart & Sheppard found no spores in recently emerged bees originating from infected colonies. This may not be surprising because Meana et al. reported lower and highly variable spore counts in younger bees as compared to older bees in infected colonies. Hassanein added spores of a different species of Nosema, N. apis, to combs containing larval honey bees and then placed these brood combs back into a nest infected with N. apis. None of the resulting pupae or adult bees were infected. Thus, N. apis may not infect A. mellifera larvae, although removal of infected larvae by hygienic bees could also yield this result.
In vitro rearing allowed us to control for potential hygienic behavior and may have reduced larval health, increasing their susceptibility to N. ceranae infection. However, 89% of our control larvae survived to adulthood. In natural rearing by full colonies, 85% of eggs laid by the queen survive to become to adult workers . Thus, our artificial rearing conditions resulted in an excellent survival rate when compared to natural rearing. It is possible that some aspect of our bee diet may have increased bee susceptibility to N. ceranae infection . For example, raising larvae on an artificial diet may have reduced the diversity of pollen protein sources that they received. However, the protein in the larval diet came from natural royal jelly and, upon adulthood, bees were fed natural pollen harvested from diverse sources by honey bees. Even if our diet facilitated N. ceranae infection, our results still demonstrate that this pathogen can infect honey bee larvae. Honey bees are increasingly exposed to a wide variety of stressors from diet, diseases, parasites, and chemicals [64–66], and thus the ability of N. ceranae to infect even potentially stressed larvae remains relevant.
Adult infection levels
Multiple conditions can affect spore infectivity , and studies report a wide range in infectivity [13,17,37,67]. Although spore counts obtained from randomly sampled bees in a colony may not be a good measure of colony health, measuring spore counts in older bees (foragers) is recommended as a more reliable measure of colony infection levels and health . We therefore reared our bees to their maximum adult lifespan (Fig 3) and only measured spore counts upon adult death.
In terms of the percentage of infected bees, Forsgren & Fries gave young adult A. mellifera workers a 10K N. ceranae dose and found that they were all infected after 12 days. Suwannapong et al. treated A. florea adults and reported that 45% and 68% were infected after 14 days when treated with 10K and 40K spores, respectively. In our experiment with A. mellifera, the percentage of infected adults was 66% and 44% for 10K and 40K larval treatments, respectively (Table 1).
With respect to spore counts per bee, bees from both N. ceranae treatments were significantly infected compared to controls (Fig 2). In naturally infected colonies, the mean spore count was 13,400 spores/bee for house bees (≤21 days old) and 2,380,000 spores for foragers (≥22 days old) . In the US, average spore counts in naturally infected colonies range from 564,000 to 800,000 spores per bee . In our study, although some individuals were infected with more than 200,000 spores, average infection levels were low (16,021 and 12,454 spores per bee for the 10K and 40K treatments, respectively) when compared to experimental studies in which adult bees, not larvae, were infected. However, most of these studies exposed adults at much higher doses. When adult A. mellifera were fed approximately 100,000 spores/bee (2.5 fold more spores than our highest treatment), the average infection level after six days was 570,000 spores/bee . Finally, major gut reorganization during honey bee metamorphosis [48,49] could affect subsequent levels of adult infection, particularly if such reorganization reduces infection levels. This remains to be determined.
Our longevity results also show a smaller decrease in longevity for bees infected as larvae (Fig 2) than for bees infected as adults . Goblirsch et al. infected newly emerged adults with 10K N. ceranae spores and showed a 21% decrease in the age at which 75% of bees died and a 36% decrease in the median age of death. In our experiment, a 40K treatment decreased the age by which 75% of adult bees died by 28% and the median age of death by 10% (Fig 2). However, even relatively small changes in longevity may have a cumulative effect, particularly if the colony’s health is challenged by other factors .
Both 10K and 40K treatments resulted in significant adult infection compared to controls, but larvae given the lower (10K) dose had 1.3 fold more midgut spores upon adult death than larvae given the higher (40K) dose. We speculate that the unexpectedly stronger effect of the lower spore dose may have arisen from larval immune responses. A 10K spore dose per bee is an order of magnitude lower than the dose typically fed to infect adult bees [13,69] and may not have fully activated an immune response, allowing individuals to be infected. The 40K dose may be large enough to trigger a stronger immune response, resulting in equal infection levels at the pupal stage and culminating in a lower spore count (than the 10K treatment) upon adult death. Alternatively, infection levels should increase as bees age . It is thus possible that the 40K dose resulted in lower spore counts because these bees had a slightly younger median age of death (13 days) compared to 10K-treated individuals (14 days). However, there is no significant difference between the longevity of bees receiving the 10K or 40K treatments (see Results). A future study is required to test this immune response hypothesis.
Our data suggest the following pattern of infection: relatively low spore production in larvae and pre-pupae followed by a higher rate of spore proliferation in adult bees. However, this should be verified in the field with colonies naturally infected with N. ceranae. Although our results demonstrate that larvae can be infected, future studies with field colonies are necessary to determine what spore doses larvae are exposed to and if larval infection is common or rare. Finally, it is interesting that N. ceranae is highly prevalent and somewhat resistant to treatment in warmer climates where brood production, to varying degrees, can occur year-round. Could brood infection by N. ceranae result provide a residual, time-delayed source of hive infection?
Materials and Methods
Bee colonies located at the University of California, San Diego Biological Field station required no permits. Appropriate permission was obtained from the UC Natural Reserve System for bee colonies located at the Elliott Chaparral Reserve.
Nosema ceranae spores were originally obtained from infected A. florea and A. cerana workers in Chon Buri, Thailand and fed to A. mellifera workers in La Jolla, California to ensure a fresh stock, renewed weekly, for our experiments. Spore-producing bees were not fed pollen, only pure 2.0 M sucrose solution (55% sucrose w/w) to ensure that gut contents consisted mainly of spores. To obtain spores, we dissected out adult honey bee midguts, homogenized them in sterile double distilled water (ddH20), and vacuum-filtered them through Fisherbrand P8 filter paper with 20–25 μm pores. We collected the filtrate in microcentrifuge tubes that we centrifuged (Eppendorf 5415D centrifuge) at 9279 g (Relative Centrifugal Force) for 15 min, a modified method of Webster et al. . We then removed the supernatant and resuspended the pellet in sterile ddH20 water. This procedure resulted in fairly pure spore preparations as determined with a microscope. We measured spore concentrations with a hemocytometer in a compound microscope (Zeiss Axioskop), making two independent measures of each sample and recording the average spore count . We made appropriate dilutions with sterile ddH2O to obtain the necessary treatment doses.
DNA was extracted to confirm we were using N. ceranae. We centrifuged dissected honey bee gut tissues with an estimated 40,000 spores per microliter at 9279 g to form a pellet. We then crushed the pellet using liquid nitrogen and extracted DNA with the Bioneer Accuprep Genomic DNA extraction kit. Using standard PCR methods, we sequenced the resulting spore DNA, using Genbank sequences to confirm their identity. DNA extracts for N. ceranae were screened using primer pairs NoscRNAPol-F2 and NoscRNAPol-R2 . All PCR reactions were carried out in 20 μl reactions containing at least 5 ng total DNA, 10X PCR buffer (750 mM Tris-HCL [pH 8.5], (NH4)2SO4 (Apex Life Science company), 0.25 mM of each dNTP (Promega), 0.5 μM of each primer (Allele Biotech), 1% Tween, 50 mM MgCl2, and 1 unit of Taq DNA polymerase (Apex Life Science Co.). Cycling conditions were an initial 5 min at 95°C, then 35 cycles of 1 min at 95°C, 1 min annealing at 58°C, 1 minute at 72°C, and a final 10 min extension at 72°C. The 662 base pair amplicon was separated through gel electrophoresis and visualized using SYBR-safe (New England Biolabs). DNA was sequenced by Retrogen, Inc. with an Applied Biosystems 3730xl DNA Analyzer.
Infecting honey bee larvae
The standard developmental timeline for a honey bee is as follows: 1, 7, and 19 days after egg hatching, the bee respectively becomes a larva, a pre-pupae, and finally an adult worker . Our experiment used the following timeline: we grafted first instars (1 day after egg hatching), and inoculated individuals with the treatment or control when they were 3 days old after egg hatching. Once larvae had become pre-pupae, we dissected out their midguts at 8 days after egg hatching.
Methods for rearing larvae in vitro were modified from Huang . Honey bee larvae for the different experiments were obtained from eight different colonies located at the University of California, San Diego Biological Field Station and the Elliott Chaparral Reserve, between November 2011 and March 2013. Larvae (1 day after egg hatching) were grafted individually into 24-well cell culture plates containing 100 μl of basic larval diet (BLD, see below) in each cell with a sterilized bamboo grafting tool. We maintained sterile conditions, carrying out all grafting, feeding, and transferring in a sterile laminar flow hood (AirClean 600). All equipment, including incubators, cages for holding adults, cell culture plates, glassware, and pipettes were regularly sterilized with bleach (10% solution, soaking for at least 30 min followed by repeated rinses with deionized water), followed by 70% ethanol, dried in the sterile hood, and sterilized with ultraviolet light for 1 hr. Researchers wore gloves sterilized with 70% ethanol. All pipette tips and tissues used were autoclaved. We collected and autoclaved all waste to reduce N. ceranae contamination of the environment.
All larvae were fed a basic larval diet (BLD) consisting of 50% royal jelly (Stakich, Inc., Royal Oak, Michigan, USA 48073), 37% distilled water, 6% D-glucose, 6% D-fructose, and 1% yeast [46,73]. Royal jelly was not analyzed for the presence of N. ceranae, but all treatments were fed the same diet and individuals treated with the control had minimal spores detected in pre-pupae and in adults. We boiled distilled water, cooled it to 34°C, and then added glucose, fructose, and yeast. Defrosted royal jelly and the remaining ingredients were then combined and thoroughly mixed to the correct concentrations. This BLD was stored at 4°C and used for up to three days. Before feeding, BLD was warmed to 34°C.
It is unclear what spore dose larvae may naturally be exposed to. However, our goal was to test if larvae could be infected by N. ceranae. We therefore infected larvae with three different spore doses, a low dose of 10,000 (10K) spores, a higher dose of 40,000 (40K) spores, and an additional 40,000 spore dose that was autoclaved (40K autoclaved). Although previous studies have inoculated adult bees with larger doses [45,74], 10,000 spores is a standard minimum dose that has been shown to produce infection [41,44,68]. This low dose also reduces the possibility of counting non-germinated spores as spores produced by infection . The autoclaved spore treatment is also designed to test this potential issue.
Larvae were kept in a dark incubator maintained at 34°C and 90% humidity when not being fed. The BLD was removed by aspiration and the following amounts of new BLD were added daily to each cell: 100 μl (for larvae ≤ 3 days old after egg hatching) and 200 μl (up to pre-pupal stage). When larvae were 3 days old (after egg hatching), we added 10 μl of each of the following treatments prepared in sterile distilled water to each larva’s share of BLD: control (0K) spores/bee, 10,000 (10K) spores/bee, 40,000 (40K) spores/bee, or 40,000 (40K autoclaved) autoclaved spores/bee. Because it is not possible for experimenters to orally feed larvae, each larva could have consumed fewer spores. These doses therefore represent the maximum number of spores that a larva could have consumed. However, all larvae were given 10 μl of distilled water containing the same number of spores (within each treatment dose) in 100 μl of fresh BLD after old BLD had been removed by aspiration.
Once larvae entered the pre-pupal stage (identified by the uric acid crystal excreted by bees 7 days from egg hatching) we prepared new, sterile 24-well cell culture plates, with each cell containing an autoclaved dust-free tissue (Kimwipes, 3 cm x 3 cm strips). Pre-pupae were delicately cleaned with sterile tissues and transferred to new cell culture plates, which were kept in a dark environment maintained at 34°C and 75% humidity.
Larvae from two colonies were obtained, grafted, and treated with the 40K spore dose at three days old, after-egg hatching. Once individuals defecated and became pre-pupae (day 8 from egg hatching), the midguts were dissected out and the tissue was fixed using Bouin’s fluid solution for 24 hours, followed by three washes with 70% ethanol, dehydrated with a standard 70%-100% ethanol series, and embedded in melted paraffin. Using a rotary microtome (Leica, Germany), we sliced the midguts into 6 μm thick cross sections, stained with Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) stain, and used Light Green Counterstain ). All sections were then examined using a compound light microscope. For each bee, we randomly selected three cross-sections and counted the number of infected and uninfected midgut cells in each section. An infected cell has at least one intracellular N. ceranae spore. We then calculated the average percentage of infected midgut cells per bee.
Adult honey bees
Once the honey bees reared in vitro emerged as adults, we weighed them (Mettler AE200 scale), placed them into sterilized ventilated clear plastic cages (12 cm x 8 cm x 12 cm), separated by treatment (12 bees per cage), and fed sterile 2.0 M sucrose, sterile water, and grounded up pollen mixed with sucrose (30% 2.0M sterile sucrose and 70% pollen w/w) ad libitum . All solutions were sterilized by autoclaving. The pollen (Betterbee Inc., Greenwich, New York, 12834) was obtained from honey bee corbiculae and was irradiated to kill potential pathogens. Adults were allowed to live as long as possible. Each day, we removed dead bees, recorded mortality, and changed the pollen-sucrose food mixture. Dead bees were kept at -18°C until their midguts were removed. Cages were maintained in a dark environment at 34°C and 70% humidity. After all bees in a cage had died, we removed the cage and sterilized it as described above.
We allowed pre-pupae to defecate (day 7 from egg hatching), cleaned them gently with sterile Kimwipes and placed them into new clean and sterile cell culture plates where they pupated for another 24 hours . Pre-pupae were then frozen at -80°C. After thawing, we used dissecting tools that we meticulously cleaned with bleach, ethanol, and rinsed multiple times with water between each bee. We carefully cut open each bee (pre-pupa or adult upon death, depending upon the experiment) and gently pulled out the midgut through the base of the abdomen , placing the contents in 100 μl of distilled water in a centrifuge tube. We homogenized the gut contents and then pipetted out 7μl into a hemocytometer to count spores . Two different samples were counted and then averaged to determine the number of spores per individual.
We used G-tests (calculated with Microsoft Excel v14.3.9) to test if the number of larvae surviving to emerge as adults varied among treatments. After confirming that our adult emergence mass data met parametric assumptions, we used ANOVA to analyze our mass data. We used a Kruskal-Wallis test and Steel-Dwass post-hoc comparisons test to determine the effect of our treatments on N. ceranae spore counts in pre-pupae and adults. We tested the effect of treatment on adult longevity with non-parametric Kaplan-Meier survival analyses (Log-Rank tests). All other tests were performed using JMP 10.0 statistical software. We report averages as mean ± 1 standard error.
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers who improved our manuscript. We would like to thank Daniel Erickson for sequencing our N. ceranae and the volunteers who helped collect data: Kristi Choi, Jackie Ho, Spencer Huey, Joanna Lee, Alina Nabedrik, Sabhyata Sharma, and Adam Yen. We also thank Eric Robinson and the San Diego Beekeeping Society for providing us with some of the bee colonies used.
Conceived and designed the experiments: DME GS ME JCN. Performed the experiments: DME GS ME. Analyzed the data: DME JCN. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: GS JCN. Wrote the paper: DME JCN. Performed the histology: GS.
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- 62. Fukuda H, Sakagami SF. Worker brood survival in honeybees. Res Popul Ecol. 1968;10: 31–39. doi: 10.1007/bf02514731
- 63. Di Pasquale G, Salignon M, Le Conte Y, Belzunces LP, Decourtye A, Kretzschmar A, et al. Influence of pollen nutrition on honey bee health: do pollen quality and diversity matter? PLoS One. 2013;8: e72016. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072016.s003. pmid:23940803
- 64. Zhu W, Schmehl DR, Mullin CA, Frazier JL. Four common pesticides, their mixtures and a formulation solvent in the hive environment have high oral toxicity to honey bee larvae. PLoS One. 2014;9. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0077547.
- 65. Cornman RS, Tarpy DR, Chen YP, Jeffreys L, Lopez D, et al. Pathogen webs in collapsing honey bee colonies. PLoS One. 2012;7: e43562. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043562. pmid:22927991
- 66. vanEngelsdorp D, Speybroeck N, Evans JD, Nguyen BK, Mullin C, Frazier M, et al. Weighing risk factors associated with bee colony collapse disorder by classification and regression tree analysis. J Econ Entomol. 2010;103: 1517–1523. doi: 10.1603/EC09429. pmid:21061948
- 67. Chaimanee V, Chantawannakul P, Chen YP, Evans JD, Pettis JS. Differential expression of immune genes of adult honey bee (Apis mellifera) after inoculated by Nosema ceranae. J Insect Physiol. 2012;58: 1090–1095. doi: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2012.04.016. pmid:22609362
- 68. Forsgren E, Fries I. Comparative virulence of Nosema ceranae and Nosema apis in individual European honey bees. Vet Parasitol. 2010;170: 212–217. doi: 10.1016/j.vetpar.2010.02.010. pmid:20299152
- 69. Huang Q, Kryger P, Le Conte Y, Moritz RFA. Survival and immune response of drones of a Nosemosis tolerant honey bee strain towards N. ceranae infections. J Invertebr Pathol. 2012;109: 297–302. doi: 10.1016/j.jip.2012.01.004. pmid:22285444
- 70. Webster TC, Pomper KW, Hunt G, Thacker EM, Jones SC. Nosema apis infection in worker and queen Apis mellifera. Apidologie. 2004;35: 49–54. doi: 10.1051/apido:2003063.
- 71. Gisder S, Genersch E. Molecular differentiation of Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae based on species-specific sequence differences in a protein coding gene. J Invertebr Pathol. 2013;113: 1–6. doi: 10.1016/j.jip.2013.01.004. pmid:23352902
- 72. Winston ML. The biology of the honey bee. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; 1987. pmid:17784300
- 73. Crailsheim K, Brodschneider R, Aupinel P, Behrens D, Genersch E, Vollmann J, et al. Standard methods for artificial rearing of Apis mellifera larvae. J Apic Res. 2013;52: 1–15. doi: 10.3896/IBRA.1.52.1.05.
- 74. Huang Q, Kryger P, Le Conte Y, Lattorff HMG, Kraus FB, Moritz RFA. Four quantitative trait loci associated with low Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) spore load in the honeybee Apis mellifera. Apidologie. 2014;45: 248–256. doi: 10.1007/s13592-013-0243-4.
- 75. Fries I, Chauzat M-PP, Chen YP, Doublet V, Genersch E, Gisder S, et al. Standard methods for Nosema research. J Apic Res. 2013;52: 1–28. doi: 10.3896/IBRA.184.108.40.206.
- 76. Williams GR, Alaux C, Costa C, Csáki T, Doublet V, Eisenhardt D, et al. Standard methods for maintaining adult Apis mellifera in cages under in vitro laboratory conditions. J Apic Res. 2013;52: 1–34. doi: 10.3896/IBRA.1.52.1.04.
- 77. Dadant. The hive and the honeybee. Hamilton, Illinois: Dadant & Sons; 1975.
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EVERYWHERE we saw traces and heard sad tales of the grasshoppers. Many of the farmers let their fields lie waste rather than plant for them to eat as they had done for two years. In the gardens of Government House and of the Penitentiary, in the old fields at Kildonan and along the banks of both rivers we saw the effects of the ravages. The garden of Deer Lodge was destroyed in a few hours. Mr. McKay had the insects swept up and so filled two bushel baskets. They were scalded in hot water and fed to pigs. It is difficult to form an adequate idea of the numbers that came down and devoured every green thing which they found. One calculating individual gives the following account of his experience :” When I saw them travelling on the street I took occasion to count a few of them, and found that there were at least twenty to the square foot on an average. That would give sixteen hundred and two millions to the square mile. Now, allowing that they were placed, one behind the other in a row, and each to occupy one inch of space (and allowing that at present they cover say twenty miles in width north and south, and one hundred miles east and west), there would be twelve hundred and sixty-seven thousand three hundred and sixty millions of hoppers in the Province ; placed as aforesaid, they would encircle the earth seven hundred and ninety-one times, and have one hundred and -eighty-two millions to spare ; or, in other words, they would form a band around the earth sixty-six feet wide.
The insects which are found on this continent are of three kinds : first is the Caloptenus Spretus, distinguished by its length of wings, which extend, when closed, one-third of their length beyond the tip of the abdomen ; second, the Caloptenus femor rubrum, or common red-legged grasshopper, with shorter wings ; third, the Pacific migratory locust, Oedipoda atrox, more than an inch in length, with several roundish brown spots on back and wings, and a dark fuscous spot behind the eye, which is seldom seen on this side of the Pacific slope. Their habits and the treatment required by each are the same. The first mentioned species, the Spretus, or Hateful, locust, is that which invades and devastates the prairies. Their natural breeding ground is in the arid plains of Colerado, Utah, Idaho and Montana, to the south and west of the Mississippi. They are generally, therefore, called Rocky Mountain locusts. From its more northern position, Manitoba is much less liable to their visitation than regions farther South, in the United States’ territories and the swarms which, invade this Province are not so dense or destructive. Much attention and learning has of late years been bestowed on this subject in Minnesota and elsewhere in that part of our neighbours’ territory most subject to the pest. We are indebted to the labours of Professor C. V. Riley, (State entomologist of Missouri) and to a report lately published by the authorities of Minnesota, for our illustrations and some of the remarks explaining them.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST :a, a, a, female in different positions, ovipositing ; b, egg pod extracted from ground with the end broken open, showing how the eggs are arranged ; c, a few eggs lying loose on the ground ; d, e, shows the earth partially removed to illustrate an egg-mass already in place, and one being placed ; f, shows where such a mass has been cover up.
There are usually from thirty to one hundred eggs in this mass. From these eggs the young locust emerges kicking off a thin white skin which enshrouds it and the larva is at once a locust. As it grows its skin distends till it bursts, and the locust comes forth in a new garment. It is now called a pupa ; the knobs on its back gradually grow into wings, when it is a full-armed locust. The following picture shows these several stages in the development of the locust after it leaves the egg :
How voraciously the young locust feeds ; and what a destructive creature he is before, as well as after, his wings appear, we need not recount.
All records of the grass hopper plague prove that their visitations are periodical, that they do not come further east than the Lake of the Woods, and that, in many years, they will not he seen in Manitoba, or if at all, to no mischievous extent.
The Jesuit history of missions in California states, that the year 1722 was disastrous. They came again in 1746, continuing three years ; next in 1753, 1754 ; afterwards in 176 5, 1766 and 1767. During this century the periods of greatest destruction were 1828, 1838, 1846 and 1855. The locusts extended theselvesin one year over a surface corn – prised within thirty-eight degrees of latitude, and in the broadest part eighteen degrees of longitude.See article on Grasshoppers and Locusts of America in Smithsonian Reports for 1858, page 200. Since the settlement of Minnesota, there have been six grasshopper years, 1856, 1857, 1865, 1873, 1874, and 1875. The history of Red River settlement presents a similar proportion of years of suffering and exemption. Since Lord Selkirk’s settlement in 1812, the locusts have appeared in 1818 and 1819; then not till 1857 and 1858 ; next in 1864 and 1865, doing little in-jury ; then in 1867, 1868, 1869 and 1870, and again in these last three years. In 1872, they came too late to do much damage to the wheat which was then ripening.
The last four years have been very unfortunate, there being but one full crop the average loss being fully one half the crop. Mr. Taylor, the united States Consul, who has given much attention to this subject, estimates that, with the extension of settlement in Manitoba, the average annual loss in locust years will be reduced to ten per cent., the rate observed in the States west of the Mississippi, still more exposed to the pest. Among the means to be used for their destruction, Mr. Taylor first enumerates natural remedies. It is a curious fact that the immunity of any particular district may turn upon the fact of a bright sun and clear sky, through which they move on, while the sun shines in the warm air, but settling down and taking refuge in the shrubs and grass as rain approaches” Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day ; but when the sun arises they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.”
Nahum iii. 17. Among other descriptions of them in holy writ, the most wonderful is that in the second chap-ter of Joel, to which we refer our readers. Professor Hind met them near the Qu’Appelle river in July, 1858 : ” Here we observed during the morning the grass-hoppers descending from a great height, perpendicularly, like hail a sign, our half-breeds stated, of approaching rain.” They were, he adds, excellent prognosticators–a thunder storm soon came on. But, to revert to our immediate subject, the means of relief from the pest.
(1) A fly, resembling the house fly, deposits its larvae between the head and body, which penetrate and destroy the grasshopper. This fly is the Tachina or Sarcophaga. (2) The Ichneumon, Pimpla instigator, deposits its eggs in the egg-sack of the locust, and when the larva of the Ichneumon fly comes out it sucks the eggs of the locust, destroying them. (3) The red parasites, found near the base of the wings eat into the back, and destroy the insect. These were very frequently observed. Birds the blackbird, crow, domestic fowl, &c. make havoc of them. Beasts, too, are used to trample them, when they fall in the evening, in the European plains. In Hungary and elsewhere, horses, camels, cattle, &c., are driven over and trample them. It is suggested that the disappearance of the buffalo has tended to increase their number, as the eggs and young grasshoppers are most numerous on the paths which these animals would take. Next in order are enumerated mechanical means, which, if on a sufficiently large scale and persevered in, have been found, to some extent, successful. When the soil is ploughed early and deep the eggs are destroyed and the ravages are lessened. The crops should be planted early and may be harvested in time to anticipate the pest. Government may also aid a general effort, as has been for ages done in China, Greece, Italy, Hungary, France and Russia. In Minnesota this has been tried. The bounty system was partially and tardily applied, but with very successful results in Le Sueur, Blue Earth and other counties. Blue Earth county paid in 1875, $31,225 for 15,766 bushels ; Todd county, $333 for 130 bushels ; Meeker, $959 for 293 bushels ; Brown, $1,600 for 4,525 bushels ; Sibley, $8,784 for 439,225 pounds, and Nicollet county $25,000 for 25,000 bushels of the full-grown locusts. The total damage to crops by the locust invasion of 1875 is estimated at $2,000,000.
There is no crop which may be grown with assurance of immunity in a locust year. They prefer unripe cereals and juicy grasses, and, unless hard pressed, will pass peas and beans. These are a valuable and generally sure crop and may be planted as a fringe round the fields, and, especially if a ditch full of water can be added to this green wall, will so protect the other grain by diverting the young insect before it is winged, its most hungry and dangerous stage, from passing the barrier, the more rash and daring intruders floundering into the water and being drowned. If the Manitoba people had used such efforts last year unitedly, where settled close together as at Kildonan, they would have gained much in the result.
It must not be supposed that all the crops were destroyed. No better wheat and potatoes can anywhere be found than were in 1875 harvested at Portage la Prairie, and along the Red River between Fargo and Pembina, and in the neighbourhood of St. Joe, at the south-west corner of the Province. All this is spring-sown, in rich well-drained soil. Efforts in the infested regions, made by settlers and their families during the few hours in which the locust rested, such as building fires, surrounding the field or garden with a ditch into which the insects fall and drown, beating with bushes, &c., have been successful in saving large parts of the crops. The Consul and Mr. Spencer, Collector of Customs at Winnipeg, are among my authorities for this statement.
Since the harvest season we have had favourable ac-counts from many places where partial crops were saved. In the Boyne settlement in the centre of the Province, a large acreage was harvested, yielding 35 bushels to the acre. In the Pembina Mountain region also a fair crop was cut. Mr. J. M. Machar, one of the Government commissioners who, last summer, spent some months in the Province, gives the following as his experience :
” Between the Assiniboine and the southern shore of Lake Manitoba there lies a district of about ten miles square, chiefly settled and farmed by emigrants from Ontario. Last fall these farmers harvested, in spite of the grasshoppers, a two-thirds crop, which is better than an average crop in Ontario. Instead of, as in the parishes of Baie St. Paul, and Francois Xavier, sowing nothing, as did many of their neighbours, or lazily watching the grasshoppers devour what they had sown, as did most of the others, these brave men sowed in hope, and when the enemy appeared, turned out and fought him. I saw a forty-acre field of splendid wheat at Portage Creek, the property of a family of New Brunswickers named Green. They spread a swath of straw right across the middle of the field. Then, through the long June days, the whole family four stalwart young men and three young ladies, daughters of the farm, but as truly refined as any of the graduates of our city boarding schools armed themselves with boughs, and forming in line, drove the ` hoppers ‘ before them into the straw. It seems that the brutes have their own idea of comfort, and like to have a bed under them. At all events, they concluded to roost there. When evening came a match was applied, and in five minutes nothing was left of the invaders but their horny coverings, which at the time of my visit in August, still littered the ground in millions. Of course I am not prepared to say whether the ` hoppers ‘ were as numerous in that section as they were on the Red River, where, in June, I saw them sweep all before them ; but in view of these results, and of the successful campaign of last summer in several of the Western States, one cannot help thinking that whatever Government may do should be in the direction of encouraging and helping people to help themselves.”
We did not meet any who had tried the edible qualities of the grasshopper, but Dr. Riley declares in favour of such diet, and describes the most epicurean methods of preparing it. The insects yield, he says, an agreeable nutty flavour when, the legs and wings being removed, they are fried in butter. Palatable soup may also be made from them. The Indians catch, roast and eat them, and in the East, the Arabs esteem them a delicacy.
Dr. Riley does not regard John the Baptist as so badly off in the way of dainties, as we are accustomed to consider that prophet of the wilderness, whose food was locusts and wild honey.
That the farmers of Minnesota and Dakota were wise, in sowing as usual in the spring of 1875, we had ample proofs as we passed from Winnipeg along their broad fields ripening with a rich harvest. The vessel in which we sailed from Duluth carried in her hold 5,000 barrels of Minnesota wheat flour, and had to leave as many more for the next boat to carry. Mr. Nimmons, who settled in 1869 about six miles north-west of Winnipeg, furnishes a worthy example, which some older settlers would have done well to follow. He has a fine farm of 320 acres, or half a section, and last autumn found a ready market in Winnipeg for some hundreds of bushels of potatoes. Starting without capital he struggled on through difficulties, and then had nearly 100 acres broken, and 50 acres under heavy crops of barley, wheat, oats, peas, turnips and potatoes, for all of which he obtained good prices. A sample of his last year’s wheat of 66 pounds to the bushel has gone to the Centennial. When asked how he had escaped the grass-hoppers, he answered that he had fought them in every stage of their growth, commencing the previous fall by ploughing and reploughing their eggs under the ground, thereby preventing them hatching ; but, of course they came on to his fields last summer from the uncultivated prairie in myriads. These he battled against by fire, and by driving, so successfully as to save nearly his entire planting. Mr. Nimmons summed up the matter by stating it as his belief that the grasshoppers may be met and conquered by hard work and common sense means ; and that in closely-settled neighbourhoods, if each occupant does his share, a fair crop may always be counted upon. As this opinion tallies with the experience of Messrs. Tristan and Morgan, of Headingly, and that of many others, and indeed is but to repeat the history of the plague in other lands, we have no doubt it is correct.
It is generally hoped that but little of this plague will be felt for some years in Manitoba. The grounds for such confidence are the historical facts as to its periodicity stated, the great numbers of the parasites found on specimens examined, and the fact that the locusts flew off without depositing their eggs. In lands where nature has dealt with less lavish hand, the farmer might well hesitate to embark his means and labour in tillage, but the great returns which the marvellous rich, deep soil of this Province will yearly produce, will doubtless allow an ample margin for periodical losses from this plague, and these losses too may be anticipated, and to a great extent met and lessened, by united skilful effort, when the lands become settled, as no doubt they soon will be, with industrious farmers using all modern means of agriculture.
The Mennonites, coming from a land where this pest is not unknown to settle here, should convince us that it is not to be too much dreaded. No settlers can be found more shrewd and capable of selecting a good home and forming opinions as to agricultural matters, than they. They are quickly occupying the beautiful townships as-signed them on either side of Red River, between Winnipeg and Pembina.
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September 2, 2005Its numbers may be as spotty as its coat,
but the rare Asiatic cheetah is holding its own, as seen in this
photograph taken by an automatic "camera trap" in Iran. A female
cheetah and her four six-month-old cubs wandered into the camera's
range while settling down for a rest in the shade. Experts say this
is the largest group of the endangered cheetah ever photographed.
The camera was set up earlier this year in Iran's Dar-e Anjir Wildlife Refuge by scientists hoping to track the cheetah's progress.
The big cats are perilously close to extinction, with only about 60 adults known to exist in all of Asia, mostly in Iran's arid central plateau.
Closely related to the African cheetah, the Asiatic cheetah once thrived from the Arabian Pensinsula to India, but hunting and habitat loss have taken their toll. Now protected in Iran, the cheetah faces a new threathuman overhunting of its prey, such as gazelle and wild sheep.
According to Luke Hunter, a Wildlife Conservation Society biologist with the camera-trap project, this healthy family photo is a welcome sign.
"This is the first female we've seen with cubs," Hunter said. "We just haven't seen large litters like this that are so old."
Blake de Pastino
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See Today's Top News Stories
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Polignac, Jules Armand, prince de (zhül ärmäNˈ prăNs də pôlēnyäkˈ) [key], 1780–1847, French statesman. Belonging to one of the oldest families of France, he emigrated with them during the French Revolution. Under Napoleon I he was imprisoned (1804–14) for his part in the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal. In 1815, Louis XVIII named him a peer of France. He served as ambassador to England from 1823 to 1829. A champion and leader of the ultraroyalists in the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, Polignac was strongly clerical, even refusing to take the oath to the constitutional charter on religious grounds. He became minister of foreign affairs and premier in Aug., 1829, and by his reactionary measures precipitated the July Revolution of 1830. In Mar., 1830, a majority of the chamber of deputies demanded the dismissal of the Polignac ministry. Instead, the chamber was dissolved, and when the new elections again resulted in a liberal majority, Polignac issued (July 26, 1830) the July Ordinances, which dissolved the new chamber even before it met, established a new electoral law, and ended the freedom of the press. The revolution broke out immediately. Polignac was arrested and condemned by the chamber of peers to life imprisonment. Amnestied in 1836, he was banished and went to England. He returned in 1845. He wrote Considérations politiques (1832, tr. 1832), Études historiques, politiques et morales (1845), and Réponse à mes adversaires (1845).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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The S curve, a mathematical model also known as the logistic curve, describes the growth of one variable in terms of another variable over time. S curves are found in fields from biology and physics to business and technology. In business, the S curve is used to describe, and sometimes predict, the performance of a company or a product over a period of time.
Anatomy of an S Curve
Systems, whether in business or embryology, that follow an S curve have the distinctive shape of a flattened S, although the slope of a steep mountain that plateaus at the summit is probably a more accurate description. S curves start with a modest and shallow growth, described by the mathematical term "the lower asymptote." Then the growth accelerates rapidly and the slope arches upwards until it reaches maximum growth. This point of maximum growth is the point of inflexion. After the point of inflexion the growth tapers down to its mature where there is little to no growth. This mature stage of the S curve is called the upper asymptote.
S Curves and Business
Businesses, or the products of businesses, that follow an S curve are characterized by a shallow start, where only early adopters and niche markets buy the product or invest in the company. Then they experience a rapid growth, and the product or business has a dominant position in the market. After the rapid growth, these businesses maintain a high performance level but with little growth, which often signals a mature but saturated market.
Technology businesses, such as computer, software and electronic manufacturers often display an S curve life cycle. One explanation for this, is that initial progress is slow because the principles of the technology are poorly understood. Once researchers get a better understanding of the technology, progress accelerates rapidly. However, as time goes by, the effort required to improve on the technology reaches such a level that increase slows down and the growth curve flattens out. Businesses and technologies with a well documented S curve growth cycle include automobiles, semiconductors, steam engines and disk drives.
It may seem surprising such a variety of phenomena and fields, from the growth in size of cows to the performance of hard disk manufacturers, follow a similar growth curve. The reason is they all are constrained by some kind of limiting factor. For instance, the population of a living organism is limited by the carrying capacity of its environment, while business growth is limited by the demand of its market or the financial viability of the products it sells.
- Comstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images
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Asthma is a common condition that causes coughing, wheezing, tightness of the chest and breathlessness. Most people with asthma who take the appropriate treatment can live normal lives, but left untreated, asthma can cause permanent damage to the airways
Symptoms of asthma
The usual symptoms of asthma are
- shortness of breath
- tightness in the chest.
Not everyone will get all of these symptoms. Some people experience them from time to time; a few people may experience these symptoms all the time.
Treatment of asthma
There isn't a cure for asthma. However, treatments are available to help manage your symptoms. Your treatment plan will be individual to you, combining medicines and asthma management in a way that works best for you
Living with asthma
Medicines are only part of your treatment for asthma. You will also need to deal with the things that make it worse. Keep a diary to record anything that triggers your asthma - this can help you to discover a pattern. Using a peak flow meter to monitor your lung function can also help. If you have repeatedly low readings in a certain situation (for example, at the end of a working day, after exercise or after contact with an animal) this may indicate the trigger.
This website has been revamped to meet the needs of the thousands of people with asthma who visit the site each day, either to find important information about asthma and how to control it
An excellent resource with useful video, audio, images and references relating to asthma.
NHS Choices - Asthma
Further information about symptoms, treatment, causes and prevention of Asthma.
These links all come from trusted resources but if you are unsure about these or any other medical matters please contact your doctor or pharmacist for advice.
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The importance of plant macrofossils in the reconstruction of Lateglacial vegetation and climate: examples from Scotland, western Norway, and Minnesota, USA
TypeJournal article; Peer reviewed
MetadataShow full item record
Lateglacial and early Holocene (ca 14–9000 14C yr BP; 15–10,000 cal yr BP) pollen records are used to make vegetation and climate reconstructions that are the basis for inferring mechanisms of past climate change and for validating palaeoclimate model simulations. Therefore, it is important that reconstructions from pollen data are realistic and reliable. Two examples of the need for independent validation of pollen interpretations are considered here. First, Lateglacial-interstadial Betula pollen records in northern Scotland and western Norway have been interpreted frequently as reflecting the presence of tree-birch that has strongly influenced the resulting climate reconstructions. However, no associated tree-birch macrofossils have been found so far, and the local dwarf-shrub or open vegetation reconstructed from macrofossil evidence indicates climates too cold for tree-birch establishment. The low local pollen production resulted in the misleadingly high percentage representation of long-distance tree-birch pollen. Second, in the Minnesotan Lateglacial Picea zone, low pollen percentages from thermophilous deciduous trees could derive either from local occurrences of the tree taxa in the Picea/Larix forest or from long-distance dispersal from areas further south. The regionally consistent occurrence of low pollen percentages, even in sites with local tundra vegetation, and the lack of any corresponding macrofossil records support the hypothesis that the trees were not locally present. Macrofossils in the Picea zone represent tundra vegetation or Picea/Larix forest associated with typically boreal taxa, suggesting it was too cold for most thermophilous deciduous trees to grow. Any long-distance tree pollen is not masked by the low pollen production of tundra and Picea and Larix and therefore it is registered relatively strongly in the percentage pollen spectra. Many Lateglacial pollen assemblages have no recognisable modern analogues and contain high representations of well-dispersed ‘indicator’ taxa such as Betula or Artemisia. The spectra could have been derived from vegetation types that do not occur today, perhaps responding to the different climate that resulted from the different balance of climate forcing functions then. However, the available contemporaneous plant-macrofossil assemblages can be readily interpreted in terms of modern vegetation communities, suggesting that the pollen assemblages could have been influenced by mixing of locally produced pollen with long-distance pollen from remote vegetation types that are then over-represented in situations with low local pollen production. In such situations, it is important to validate the climate reconstructions made from the pollen data with a macrofossil record.
CitationQuaternary Science Reviews 2003 22(5-7): 453-473
Copyright 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd.
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The independent automakers who had survived the depression of the 1930s had flexibility and enough capital from the war to be the first to launch all-new models for a car starved nation. So lucrative was the American post-war car market that new automobile companies were also formed to cash in on the pent-up demand for new cars. This is their story told through text and the use of contemporary brochures, period literature, factory photos, road test info and over 90 new, unpublished color photos of restored examples to relate the importance of these historic vehicles.
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Rent American 'Independent' Automakers 1st edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by Norm Mort. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Veloce Publishing Limited.
Need help ASAP? We have you covered with 24/7 instant online tutoring. Connect with one of our tutors now.
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Invention of Paradise
Distributed for Hirmer Publishers
This sumptuous illustrated volume shows the hitherto unpublished pictures taken by the naval commander Paul-Émile Miot (1827–1900) in the early days of photography. Taken during an expedition to Polynesia, the photographs are accompanied by drawings and objects from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.
When the French naval commander Paul-Émile Miot was sent to Oceania aboard the “Astrée" in 1869, he took his photographic equipment with him. The pictures he took on this voyage, which are now published in this volume, are unique not only because they represent the first photographic record of the South Sea peoples, but above all because they are valuable documents of the history of the time. Miot took extraordinary care with the composition of his views and the staging of his portraits. In his pictures, he seems to have wanted to capture a paradise as the Western world of the 19th century liked to imagine it.
In the iconographic and carefully composed portraits of the inhabitants of Tahiti what we see with particular clarity is the transition from painting to photography.
This volume documents this change using objects and drawings by various artists, for example Conway Shipley and Charles-Claude Antiq, which are also being published for the first time. Articles by the South Seas expert Sydney Picasso and quotes from the novelist Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, complete this comprehensive documentation.
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Currently, Toronto Canada has the highest Light Rail ridership of any North American district. In the United States this honor is carried by the city of Boston, followed by Los Angeles. Canadian cities have a comparatively high rate of public transport usage as compared to that of the United States. There are presently two established Light Rail Systems in Mexico. In the United States, Light rails are common modes of transportation in cities that are mid-sized to large. In any case these are more feasible in such cities mainly because the roads are not overtly crowded and the population size is just right to be able to get through such a setup. There are a total of seven streetcar systems that are strictly the modern versions of the Light rail system and do not owe any modifications to the conventional streetcar versions in the USA.
The oldest street car system that is currently operational is found in San Diego, California. This is revered for being a first of its kind second generation system to be introduced in the United States, as most of the Light Rail Systems currently available presently second generation.
In North America, a few of the lately opened systems are the diesel powered ones, which include the Trillium Line in Ottawa, the Sprinter in San Diego California, and the River Line in the State of New Jersey (source: MaidMarines). Diesel powered lines are only sought out as an option in states that do not have a high population. This is because in a highly populated state starting a Light Rail system powered by diesel would cause high diesel consumption and expulsion, which would raise a lot of concern amongst environmentalists and the general public. Another option is to start in states that have interurban lines with the individual stations being spaced out at long distances which would facilitate a diesel run line that directly connects two points that would otherwise have a lot of hassle with the Metro Light Rail.
The Light Rail is one of the most efficient ways of travelling in North America, and has been so for a long time. It is convenient, inexpensive, and most importantly, environmentally friendly. The highlight of the Light Rail is that one can take it from the street itself while it moves.
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All embedded Intel® architecture products vary in their uses, but they have one thing in common: the complexity of their design. From an engineer's perspective there are many new and unfamiliar challenges of getting large amounts of electrical, electronic hardware on generally a smaller piece of board/PCB in the case of embedded design.
This white paper discusses some of the major factors that need to be considered in designing an embedded product and the various high-speed digital design concepts that play a vital role in the functionality of the hardware/ product as a whole. This paper will help a designer understand why the electrical signals act so differently on a high-speed design, identify the various problems that may occur in the design, and solve these problems.
In the world of high speed digital design and architecture the following concepts play a major role in deciding the success of a product.
First, the architecture of a system forms an important part of the design equation. Next, designers must get through the schematics and layout of the design. During the layout phase the signal integrity factors such as reflections, ground bounce, crosstalk, power supply noise and EMI factors such as radiation and electrostatic discharge need to be considered before the board is built. The guidelines necessary for the optimal schematic and layout design of the board are provided through the schematic and layout checklists in the product Platform Design Guideline (here on referred to as the PDG).
For a good design a lot of ground work is done before the actual board is built. This is made up of system architecture, schematics and layout of the design.
Get Me An Architect!
The first step toward a good design is the system architecture. Knowing the parts that make up your complete system and laying them out on a board using computer-aided software will help visualize what the board will end up looking like.
Be sure to keep memory, CPU, MCH sections separate from the ICH and IO sections. This will help create a clean design. This first step ensures that the designer will have a plan to work with when doing schematics and layout of devices. Figure 1 shows a sample board which employs a clean design technique.
Figure 1. Sample Customer Board with a clean design
Figure 1 illustrates a design that employs a good architecture and layout method by following the product PDG.
It is important to check the schematics against the guidelines provided for various high-speed buses (Clock signals, DDR2, DDR3, PCI Express, etc.) and to correct the errors. It's also imperative that all the pull-up/pull-down resistors are verified for the value and the voltages provided to the devices are checked. Additional information on schematic design and the process of checking schematics is available in the Embedded Design Center (EDC).
Schematics need to be thoroughly checked since layout is directly cascaded down from the schematics. A small error in the schematic will be harder to find in layout. Layout engineers do not check for the right values; they layout the schematic reports.
What's with the "Layout"?
High-speed signal principles are put to use in the layout stage. This stage defines how the copper wires on the PCB are cut into traces of stripline and microstrip. All the devices are also placed on the board either on the top or bottom layer and interconnections are made through an intensely woven inner layer of signals.
Layout is another stage during the design where the principles play a vital role. Most of the principles can be followed in a general manner in the architecture and schematic steps, but during layout the high-speed design principles are used in every signal route.
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The Pity of Partition Manto's Life, Times, and Work Across the India-Pakistan Divide Ayesha Jalal HarperCollins Publishers India
Almost every account of the way Saadat Hasan Manto's final years of life in Pakistan were spent raises the inevitable question: what compulsion was there, really, for him to leave Bombay behind and opt for a country that did not look promising for a writer of his intellectual range? While it is true that he was persecuted by the British colonial authorities on such charges as obscenity in his writings in pre-1947 India, there were reasons to think that conditions for literature, indeed for the arts, would be somewhat more encouraging in a free India. Perhaps it was a truth easily acknowledged by Manto. All truths in 1947, however, were subsumed by the bigger, uglier truth of communalism. Manto moved to Pakistan. He would suffer there in a way few writers in modern times would suffer.
Ayesha Jalal's The Pity of Partition is, in a broad manner of speaking, a narrative that speaks not just of Manto but of all those forces of creativity condemned to suffer the agony of Partition and its attendant displacement of population. Two million people perished in the process of the vivisection of the country. Millions more were left hearth and home. Women, on all sides of religious faith --- Muslim, Hindu, Sikh --- were abducted, raped and killed. Those who survived had little hope of living a normal life. In short, Partition was that eerie moment in time when collective madness, engineered by parochially-oriented politicians, when indeed civilization was brutalized in the Indian subcontinent, was rampant.
For Manto, nothing could be more poignant than an observation of the unfolding tragedy. Partition became for him a literary weapon through which he decried the mauling of culture and tradition in the country in the 1940s. Toba Tek Singh remains, of course, a point of reference. And there were others too. Thanda Gosht, again the story of a woman abducted in the frenzy of communalism, was one more manifestation of the macabre nature of truth. The new, ideology-driven authorities of Pakistan did not see it that way. Manto, they made it abundantly, and indignantly, clear, was undermining the cause of the new state through referring to Muslim women being subjected to abduction and rape by Hindu or Sikh men. Off with his head, said they, in that metaphorical sense of the meaning.
And it was Manto's head that the state was always after post-1947. It did not matter that Manto happened to be the most prolific, truth-telling writer the state of Pakistan ought to have been proud of claiming as its own. As it happened, his fellow-writers, many of whom had like him migrated from the old India to settle in Pakistan, were irked by his ceaseless attacks on their so-called progressive credentials. For their part, they thought they saw in Manto a willing spokesperson for the state. Such ironies are what Ayesha Jalal, all these years after her much acclaimed Sole Spokesman, a work on Mohammad Ali Jinnah, projects in The Pity of Partition. She does it with feeling, seeing that she is related to Manto and has therefore had access to various facts about him from the family cellar.
Manto's was a mind, as Jalal would have us know, consistently expanding through wide reading. In his youth (he was still a youth when politics and illness claimed his life in his early forties), his room 'was filled with the works of Victor Hugo, Lord Lytton, Maxim Gorky, Anton Chekhov, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Leonid Andreyev, Oscar Wilde, and Maupassant.' His interaction with Abdul Bari Alig was a turning point in his life, for in Bari he spotted all those elements he thought could be principles on which aspiring intellectuals would need to construct their lives. And yet Bari, for all his fervour, at a point disappointed Manto. When the police came looking for the young men who had put up a 'subversive' poster announcing a theatrical presentation of Wilde's Vera in translation, Bari slipped away. Manto and his friend Hasan Abbas were carted off to prison. It was a brother-in-law of Manto's, a former deputy superintendent of police, who scolded the policemen who had come to ask him questions about the detained young men: 'These are our children, go and do your work.' Manto and Abbas were freed. Some years later, it would be Manto's misfortune to find Bari employed in a lowly position at the British consulate in Lahore. It was a bad coming down.
The Pity of Partition is history encapsulated in the story of Saadat Hasan Manto. The march of characters, all of them literary, is revealing of the trauma Urdu literature went through in the course of the division of India. The instance of Thanda Gosht must come in once more. The case against Manto was brought before the Press Advisory Board of Pakistan. The poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who himself would soon be a victim of the communal state, was at the time editor of what was a progressive Pakistan Times and convener of the PAB. At one point of the inquisition, for that it is what it really was, Faiz attempted to defend Thanda Gosht. That elicited an angry roar from a self-professed defender of the Pakistan ideology, Maulana Akhtar Ali (the editor of Zamindar): 'No, no, this sort of literature will not work in Pakistan.'
Manto was eventually acquitted of the charge of obscenity in the Thanda Gosht affair. An unknown admirer from Gujranwala, thrilled by the judgement, wrote to Manto: 'Your victory is for the betterment of literature, how can a donkey know the value of saffron?' Apart from Manto's run-ins with the state, there are the details of his skirmishes with the Progressive Writers Association which Jalal provides in the work. In 1948, the PWA, obviously influenced by Soviet communism, decreed that a non-Marxist could not be considered a progressive. That effectively put Manto and other writers, such as Mohammad Hasan Askari and Rajinder Singh Bedi, on the PWA's exclusion list. It did not bother Manto.
It was despair more than drink that killed Manto. His alcoholism led him to rehabilitation centres for treatment. But it was a malaise that did not keep him away from his principles. He remained, to the end, a proper husband to his wife Safia and a loving father to his daughters. By the age of thirty nine, he had authored twenty two books and yet he did not own any property, could not afford it. Poverty stalked him all his life. He has, since his death in 1955, largely remained taboo --- except for the early 1970s when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto presided over Pakistan.
Manto wrote his own epitaph before death claimed him:
Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto. With him lie buried all the arts and mysteries of short story writing…Under tons of earth he lies, wondering who of the two is the greater short story writer: God or he.
His bereaved elder sister would not have the epitaph put up at his grave, for fear it might cause fresh outrage among an increasingly conservative Pakistan. The alternative was, again, in Manto's words:
This is the grave of Saadat Hasan Manto, who still thinks his name was not the repeated word on the tablet of time.
Ayesha Jalal gives you reason for refreshing new pain. After all, Manto's was a life lived in unmitigated pain.
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Elements of Fiction
The Author's Role
e.g. suspense, flashback, telescoping & foreshadowing
Definition of Plot: Events that form a significant pattern of action with a beginning, a middle and an end. They move from one place or event to another in order to form a pattern, usually with the purpose of overcoming a conflict. The plot is more formally called a narrative.
Elements of Plot:
1. Plot Line: a graph plotting the ups and downs of the central character's fortunes. A very conventional plot might look like the one above.
2. Initial Situation
i. Characters: Who are the central characters? What do they aspire to?
ii. Setting: Where/when do the characters live? Does the setting contribute to the narrative?
iii. Conflicts: What are the challenges facing the protagonist(s)? What are the conflict(s) that he or she (or they) will have to overcome?
The beginning is often called the introduction or exposition. By establishing the characters, setting and initial conflicts, the beginning "sets the scene" for the rest of the narrative. Dickens' famous opening line in A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," is a classic piece of exposition that helps establish the social and political background of the novel.
3. Incentive Moment:
i. Which event thrusts itself into the tension of the characters' situation and triggers the action of the story? A new event frequently jostles the smoothness of things and changes the course of action.
4. Episodes: After the introduction, a story usually presents a series of separate events in the plot, building from one situation to the next. A new episode (or scene) begins when the place and time change, or when something really important interrupts what has been happening. With each successive episode, the conflict becomes more and more intense, demanding some sort of resolution.
5. Climax: the critical point at which the central character is about to win or lose all. When the probable outcome of the main conflict is finally revealed (i.e. the turning point), the story has reached its climax. In a Shakespearian tragedy, the climax occurs when the main character's "momentum" switches from success to failure. Beyond that point, the ending is inevitable. However, the climax does not mark the end of conflict; it only determines how the conflict will be decided. The climax usually occurs anywhere from 50% to 90% of the completed story.
6. Falling Action (or Resolution or Denouement): the events that occur after the climax that tie up "loose ends"; they perform the necessary plot actions to fulfill the protagonist's fortunes that are now clear after the climax. It is a tricky part of a narrative to write as the author has to decide which parts of the plot to tie up and which to leave as questions for the reader to think about (or leave for a future story). Part of the decision regarding what to tie up and what to leave open often depends on the extent to which the author wants to satisfy the reader's need for a sense of justice or closure.
7. Epilogue: the part that tells the reader what happens to the characters well after the story is finished. It's seen in longer narratives (like novels and movies) rather than short fiction, but even then it is only used occasionally.
1. Plot grows out of the characters.
2. The author is always in control of what happens; fiction manipulates events; it is created.
3. Central focus of the story has to be intriguing, and the author has to arrange events in such a way as to:
i. Eliminate all events that are not significant.
ii. Make each succeeding event more and more intriguing until he reaches the climax. The purpose of fiction is to entertain; how well are you entertained?
1. Suspense: Frequently involves dilemma. e.g. Caught in a bad situation with a choice in a boating accident, you can save either your mother or your husband from drowning.
2. Flashback: The author waits until the story is moving and then flashes back to reveal biographical data or deep psychological reasons why a character acts as s/he does. It focuses more on why things happen, rather than on what happens.
3. Telescoping: It's a matter of economy. The author can't describe every motion of the character or event during the time the story covers. S/he has to choose the significant and merely suggest the others by saying they happened, without much description. Art attempts verisimilitude, not "reality."
4. Foreshadowing: The outcome of a conflict is often hinted at or "foreshadowed" before the climax and resolution. These clues are usually very subtle; you don't realize they are foreshadowing clues until you've finished the story. Early on in the novel Lord of the Flies, the boys roll a rock down from the light of the hill into the murky jungle below. The destruction of the foliage is a symbolic hint at what's to come: the boys' descent into savagery and destruction. Open School describes foreshadowing as "a technique that writers use to make the events in their stories more believable. In foreshadowing, the reader is given little hints about an important future event. Something like providing clues in a mystery novel, foreshadowing ensures that when an important event occurs, the reader thinks: "Oh, I should have seen that coming" rather than, "This doesn't fit anywhere in this piece!" Foreshadowing can be a small series of events leading up to a big event, or an event that is similar in a thematic way to something that happens later." Another example of foreshadowing in Lord of the Flies occurs just after the plane crash. The author, William Golding, describes the band of choirboys as dressed all in black and moving as if one creature. The black creature is led by Jack, which is a foreshadowing of the evil that will soon overtake him and his followers.
Plot usually involves one or more conflicts, which are problems that need to be solved. The "movement" towards a solution is what drives the narrative forward, and is what occupies most of the protagonist's time. The more rewarding plots are often built around mental, emotional and moral conflicts. Plots involving physical conflict, war, exploration, escapes often contain the most excitement and suspense. Here are the major types of conflict:
The first four types are said to be "external conflicts", while the last is "internal conflict".
1. Person vs. nature
2. Person vs. person
3. Person vs. society
4. Person vs. fate
5. Person vs. him/herself (e.g. facing a difficult personal choice or a dilemma)
- Who or what is the protagonist?
- Who or what is the antagonist?
- Why is this person or thing the antagonist?
- Why are the antagonist and the protagonist in conflict?
- Which events contribute to the developing conflict?
- Which event or episode is the climax?
- What does the outcome of the conflict reveal to you about the protagonist?
- Did you feel sympathetic toward the protagonist or the antagonist? Explain why.
For more information, check out the Open School's discussion of conflict.
I also recommend Susan Vaughan's article on conflict. It discusses the importance of conflict in narrative fiction, and offers a good distinction between internal and external conflict.
Setting is defined as the physical location and the time of a story. In short stories, one or both of these elements are often not defined.
a. Physical World in which Characters Live
1. Geographical location, topography, scenery, even the arrangement of objects in a room can carry special significance. Note detail.
2. Spot words that ask you to hear, see and feel elements that make up and strengthen awareness of physical setting.
b. Characters Revealed by Setting.
1. Physical objects surround characters in different ways and these differences reveal traits and changes in characters.
a. Psychologically, spiritually, economically and physically.
b. Observe feelings and actions of characters with respect to their surroundings; as setting changes, often so does character.
c. Listen for any remarks characters make about their setting.
d. Look for clues to characters in objects they have placed in their physical world.
c. Setting Revealed by Characters
1. Characters contribute clues about setting.
2. When time isn't made obvious, the reader can often make inferences from objects a character has placed in the setting
3. Dress and dialect contain clues as to historical period in which events take place, as well as to regional setting and social levels within a region.
d. Plot Assisted by Setting
1. Some stories or plots can take place only in certain settings. Actions governed by particular customs and mores.
2. Traditions established over many generations exert great influence on what characters do.
3. Physical nature also creates conditions that affect plot: setting can confine action as, for example, on the sea, or on a mountaintop.
e. Atmospheric Setting
1. The mood is reliant on the words and tone of description; a jingle can be light, full of life, and exciting, or, dark, foreboding, and full of evil.
2. The setting of a Victorian drawing room elicits an atmosphere of restraint and decorum.
3. Atmosphere can be overdrawn (as in many Harlequin romances) and become gooey with manufactured emotion.
f. Theme Revealed by Setting
1. Some authors skillfully use atmosphere to introduce and reinforce the theme of the novel; what happens in setting (flood) happens to characters (changed course of action).
2. Setting may reveal how man sees nature, they may show hate, agony, courage, etc. or men's struggle for insignificant things.
For more information, check out the Open School's discussion of setting.
F. Mood or Atmosphere: The mood is the feeling the reader gets while reading the story. The author helps to create the mood by using carefully chosen descriptive or evocative words. It can be compared to the use of music in films. Examples of mood are: hostile, optimistic, threatening, ominous, bitter, defiant, etc..
For more information, check out the Open School's discussion of mood.
G. Theme: The theme is a recurring social or psychological issue, like aging, violence, alienation or maturity. The author or poet weaves the theme into the plot, which is used as a vehicle to convey it. The title of the story or poem is often of significance in recognizing the theme.
What is theme?
- It's the unifying or central concept of a story.
- It's a theory of life which acts as the unifying force in a story, or the universal truth which the story illustrates.
- The simplest way of defining theme is this: it is the description of the basic challenges of mankind (e.g. "the human condition").
- In most stories it's not just a simple moral, which is usually what an author thinks about the theme.
Identifying a story's theme:
- Start with a clear idea of the character's situation and the plot. Why did the characters act as they did?
- Examine closely the central conflict. Overcoming a conflict is often the basis of the recurrent human challenge in the theme.
- Look closely at the events and/or characters that seem relevant to the main line of action. Why are they included?
- Does the author offer an explicit view point about the theme, or does s/he merely describe the many points of view?
- Look for literary devices such as symbolism or irony. They often reveal key elements of the theme.
For more information, check out the Open School's discussion of theme.
In literature, a symbol is an object, event or a character that's used to represent an abstract idea; it is something which stands for something else. Symbols are clues to what's going on in the story and often stand for key parts of the theme. A symbol is related to metaphor and simile insofar as it's a type of figurative (indirect/dual) language. The key thing to remember is that readers aren't told that something is a symbol, unlike a metaphor (the flower of my love) or a simile (my love is like a flower). A symbol just sits there inside the story... readers are simply expected to understand its symbolic existence.
- White Dove - Peace
- Santa/Mistletoe - Christmas
- Red Roses - Love
- Wedding Ring - Marriage/Eternal Love
- The mockingbird in To Kill A Mockingbird - a symbol of innocent people being unjustly persecuted
- Napoleon in Animal Farm - Joseph Stalin, dictator of the USSR
I. Point of View:
What is the story's point of view? Different points of view allow for different ways of understanding the characters' motives and events.
For more information, check out the Open School's discussion of point of view.
J. Characters: Which sorts of characters inhabit the story? How do these characters add or detract from the story?
For more information, check out the Open School's discussion of characterization.
K. Irony: Does the author employ irony? Is it used in specific instances, or is it revealed at the end of the narrative? What is the effect on the theme and you, the reader?
L. Other points to consider
1. Does the author write from any particular doctrine such as Christianity, socialism, or nationalism?
2. Do events occur logically and naturally, on the basis of cause and effect, or does the author contrive the events artificially in order to achieve an effect of purpose?
3. Does the story provide a sense of totality? Do all the events contribute to a single effect, impression, illusion or theme? Or is the structure intentionally loose and sprawling?
4. For information about style in fiction, check out the Open School's discussion of style. You should also download the FVDES Summary of Style.
5. For information about tone in fiction, check out the Open School's discussion of tone.
6. For information about voice in fiction, check out the Open School's discussion of voice.
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from the October 10, 2010 Newsletter issued from
Hacienda Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO
"ROOSTER FOOT" VINE
We're entering that time of year when morning-glory vines start flowering, and I've never seen anyplace in the world with more morning-glory species than the Yucatán. We must be at or near the morning-glory center of evolution.
This week here and there along roadsides a conspicuous new morning-glory vine has appeared, with large, completely white flowers with spiraling anthers, and broad, deeply lobed leaves, with the lobes spreading like the toes of a chicken's foot. You can see it above.
In that picture notice the deep pits in the flowers' throats, where hummingbird or moths with long proboscises can sup nectar. A close-up showing the unusual spiraling anthers dusted with white pollen, with the spherical, fuzzy-looking stigma atop its long, slender style down at the bottom-left, is shown below:
In Spanish this vine often is called Pata de Gallo, which means "Rooster Foot," because of the leaves' shape. It's OPERCULINA PINNATIFIDA, a species distributed from southern Texas through lowland Mexico into Guatemala.
The fruits are as unusual and interesting looking as the flowers. You can see one subtended by five sepals below:
The bladdery item divided into four compartments is the mature ovary wall, or fruit husk. Inside each of the four cells lies a single large, black, hard seed.
Maximino Martínez's Las Plantas Medicinales de México reports that sometimes hemorrhoid sufferers carry the black seeds in their pockets to ease their pain. This is a good example of the Doctrine of Signatures, which states that medicinal plants may indicate their use by certain signs. In this case I suppose that the sign is the swollen bladder, which somehow is suggestive of what hemorrhoids feel like, even though they don't necessarily look that way.
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Check out our
HARDWARE AND FREE SOFTWARE PROMOTIONS
Challenge your students in Olympic sports to help discriminate between b and d.
Young children love creating their own creatures with Making Creatures.
Develop pre-reading skills with colorful characters, catchy music, and fun surprises.
Young children will love improving hand-eye coordination, visual and auditory discrimination, tracking, and communication skills.
Turn on The Moody Jukebox, Let's Dance, and The Singing Blobs to learn about music.
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Tom Vanderbilt's book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do is like the Freakonomics of cars. Vanderbilt draws material from his book on this Wilson Quarterly essay about "The Traffic Guru," Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman. He gained fame especially among traffic calming enthusiasts for his "shared space" approach to urban street design. Monderman found that traffic efficiency and safety improved when the street and surrounding public space was redesigned to encourage each person to negotiate their movement directly with others. Shared Space designs typically call for removing regulatory traffic control features.
Some highlights from Vanderbilt's essay:
Traffic engineers are rather obscure characters, though their work influences our lives every day. A geographic survey of East Lansing, Michigan, for example, once found that more than 50 percent of the retail district was dedicated to “automobile space”—parking, roads, and the like. By and large, the design and management of this space is handed over to traffic engineers, and our behavior in it is heavily influenced by their decisions.
“Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” Monderman might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.”
“When government takes over the responsibility from citizens, the citizens can’t develop their own values anymore,” he told me. “So when you want people to develop their own values in how to cope with social interactions between people, you have to give them freedom.”
"Discarded Traffic Signs." Photo by Ian in St. Paul, Minnesota. CC license.
Vanderbilt also discusses how Level of Service is described only in terms of motor vehicle travel -- any other mode of transportation is viewed only in terms of how they hinder automobile travel, and roads are designed to remove these impediments with the idea that travel can be faster and safer.
We know our roads are not absolutely safe, of course -- like Monderman predicted, the people who are treated like idiots are indeed behaving like idiots on the road. Vanderbilt contrasts this with "the improvised grass parking lots at county fairs: no stop signs, no speed limits, no markings of any kind—maybe just some kids with flags telling you where to go. But people, by and large, drive and walk in a cautious manner. There is no great epidemic of traffic fatalities at county fairs."
His point about the county fair is simple: without any road or road signs, the majority of drivers still behave responsibly.
Fritz, your link to second-generation road calming should be linked. It provides other examples of why and when drivers tend to drive more cautiously and link their future with that of the young cyclists. Drivers' speed and attitudes are important factors in making STR successful. Jack
Mike, the name of Monderman's concept is "Shared Space." The Wikipedia article seems like a good explanation, and from the examples it looks like something like Castro Street in Mountain View or the numbered streets in downtown San Jose between Santa Clara and San Carlos could be candidates.
Throughfares like ECR probably wouldn't be good candidates, at least not in the United States. Can you imagine the uproar if Menlo Park tried to "calm" ECR around the Santa Cruz Ave area?
That's my non-expert take on it, anyway. When I participated in traffic calming efforts it was always residential and "business district" streets, not arterial routes.
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The Mill Industry
Our mills cannot today spin enough for our wants, and if they did, they would not keep down prices unless they were compelled. They are frankly money-makers and will not, therefore, regulate prices according to the needs of the nation. Hand-spinning is therefore, designed to put millions of rupees in the hands of poor villagers. Every agricultural country requires a supplementary industry to enable the peasants to utilize spare hours. Such industry for India has always been spinning. Is it a visionary ideal – an attempt to revive an ancient occupation whose destruction has brought on slavery, pauperism and disappearance of the inimitable artistic talent which was once all expressed in the wonderful fabric of India and which was the envy of the world?
Young India, 16-2-'21
The great mill industry may be claimed to be an Indian industry. But in spite of its ability to computer with Japan and Lancashire, it is an industry that exploits the masses and deepens their poverty in exact proportion to its success over Khadi. In the modern craze for industrialization, my presentation has been questioned, if not brushed aside. It has been contended that the growing poverty of the masses, due to the progress of industrialization, is inevitable, and should, therefore, be suffered. The A.I.S.A. has successfully demonstrated the possibility of the villages manufacturing the whole of the cloth requirements of India, simply by employing the leisure hours of the nation in spinning and the anterior processes. The difficulty lies in weaning the nation from the use of mill cloth.
Mill-owners are not philanthropists to go on providing yarn to the handloom weaver when he enters into effective competition with them.
As soon as the mill-owners can do so profitably, they will certainly stop selling mill yarn and will weave it themselves. They are not philanthropists. They have set mills to make money. They will stop selling their yarn to handloom weavers, if they find weaving it more profitable.
The use of mill-yarn is the principal stranglehold on the handloom industry. In hand-spun yarn lies its only salvation. If the spinning wheel goes, the handloom is bound to follow suit.
I am personally opposed to great trusts and concentration of industries by means of elaborate machinery. If India takes to khaddar and all it means, I do not lose the hope of India taking only as much of the modern machinery as may be considered necessary for the amenities of life and labour-saving devices.
Young India, 24-7-‘24
Organization of machinery for the purpose of concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few and for the exploitation of many I hold to be altogether wrong. Much of the organization of machinery of the present age is of that type. The movement of the spinning wheel is an organized attempt to displace machinery from that state of exclusiveness and exploitation and to place it in its proper state. Under my scheme, therefore, men in charge of machinery will think not of themselves or even of the nation to which they belong but of the whole human race. Thus Lancashire men will cease to use their machinery for exploiting India and other countries but on the contrary they will devise means of enabling India to convert in her own villages her cotton into cloth. Nor will Americans under my scheme seek to enrich themselves by exploiting the other races of the earth through their inventive skill.
Young India, 17-9-‘25
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Sources of Common Contaminants and Their Health Effects
From Cutting Edge
This EPA site features a table showing various contaminants, their common sources, and health effects of exposure. Examples include heavy metals, solvents, pesticides, herbicides and PCBs. The site also provides links to information about how to deal with exposure to toxic materials.
Intended for grade levels:
Type of resource:
No specific technical requirements, just a browser required
Cost / Copyright:
Information presented on this site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied.
DLESE Catalog ID: SERC-NAGT-000-000-000-573
This resource is part of 'Geology and Human Health'
This resource is part of 'Human Health and Ecological Risk'
Resource contact / Creator / Publisher:
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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 12 (HealthDay News) -- The recession did not have much impact on rates of child maltreatment in the United States, the results of a new study suggest.
"Many of us worried about possible large increases in 2009 due to worsening economic conditions. But so far the impact of the recession on child maltreatment does not appear too dire," David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said in a university news release.
Finkelhor and his colleagues analyzed federal data and found a 5 percent decline in sexual abuse between 2008 and 2009, a 3 percent increase in the number of child maltreatment-related deaths, and no change in rates for physical abuse and neglect.
"It was particularly encouraging that neglect did not increase," he explained, because it is considered to be the form of maltreatment most closely tied to economic conditions.
While the 3 percent rise in maltreatment-related deaths is cause for concern, it was confined almost exclusively to one geographic region: There was an increase of 50 deaths in Texas, the investigators found.
The 5 percent decline in sexual abuse is a continuation of a trend dating back to 1992. Since then, cases of child sexual abuse in the United States have fallen by 61 percent to a new low of 65,700.
Finkelhor believes that established prevention and intervention programs helped prevent a large increase in child maltreatment during the recession.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about child abuse.
-- Robert Preidt
SOURCE: University of New Hampshire, news release, Jan. 7, 2011
All rights reserved
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Shared Decision Making (SDM) is a collaborative, patient-directed decision making process that helps Veterans, together with their family caregivers and health care team, set goals and priorities, and make choices that meet patient needs while honoring patient values and preferences. Shared Decision Making is an effective approach for making difficult decisions such as planning for long term care.
Shared Decision Making Worksheet
You can download a worksheet to guide Veterans and their caregivers through difficult decisions.
Caregiver Self-Assessment Worksheet
Caregiver stress and burnout can leave Veterans vulnerable.
Download and review the Caregiver Self-Assessment Worksheet. Use this to:
- Guide discussions about your roles and responsibilities
- Determine how you can support the Veteran in meeting their goals and priorities while meeting your own needs
What is Shared Decision Making?
This animated video explains how patients can make a shared decision about their medical treatment.
Shared Decision Making Helps Providers
Three providers explain how shared decision making improves their patient visits.
VHA Leadership Supports Shared Decision Making? - Learn why VHA leaders are supporting shared decision making for choices about long term services and supports.
Shared Decision Making in Rural Areas - Learn how social work is key to helping Veterans, their family and caregivers make decisions about long term services and supports.
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THOUGHTS ON THE DAILY DAF
brought to you by Kollel Iyun Hadaf of Har Nof
Rosh Kollel: Rav Mordecai Kornfeld
Ask A Question about the Daf
1) PLANTING MULTIPLE SEEDS IN ONE "ARUGAH"
OPINIONS: How far apart must the different types of seeds be planted in one
Arugah in order to be permissible? Since a discernible division is
necessary between each type of seed, what distance serves to create this
visible difference? Furthermore, does "Rosh Tor" ("the top of a triangle"
which -- due to the contrast that it creates through the angle which
appears when it runs into a row of seeds planted in a different direction
-- serves to indicate that the rows of seeds are indeed separate from each
other) serve as an effective discernible division?
(a) RASHI maintains that since the seeds draw nourishment from the ground
up to 1 1/2 Tefachim away, and since one plant's nourishment must be kept
away from the nourishment of another type of plant, they must therefore be
a total of *3* Tefachim away from each other. If, however, they are planted
at angles to each other, the angle serves as a recognizable differentiation
(because of "Rosh Tor") and it is permitted to sow two rows close to each
other, even if the distance between them is less than three Tefachim.
(NOTE: All of the pictures printed in our Gemaras are slightly in error.
See Girsa section of the Background notes, and Graphics #2 and #3.)
(b) TOSFOS agrees that plants draw nourishment from the ground up to 1 1/2
Tefachim away, and that different types of plants must be kept 3 Tefachim
apart from each other. Tosfos argues with Rashi and maintains that the
distinction of "Rosh Tor" is not utilized for rows of seeds within an
Arugah (see Gemara top of 85b). Tosfos therefore draws the original 5-seed
Arugah differently (see previous Insight, and Graphic #2).
(c) The RAMBAM in Perush ha'Mishnayos (Kilayim 3:1) and BARTENURA explain,
too, that the seeds draw nourishment from the ground 1 1/2 Tefachim away.
However, they argue with Rashi and Tosfos and maintain that it is not
necessary to keep two different types of plants from drawing nourishment
from the same ground. It is only necessary to keep one plant from drawing
nourishment from the *other plant*. Thus, they need be separated only 1 1/2
Tefachim. They also permit "Rosh Tor" within an Arugah (like Rashi, and not
like Tosfos), and therefore they draw the Arugah differently (see Graphic
(d) The RASH in Kilayim (loc. cit.) also explains that the plant draws
nourishment from 1 1/2 Tefachim away and that it must be distanced only
from the other plant itself. He does not permit, however, "Rosh Tor" within
an Arugah (see Grahpic #2).
(e) The VILNA GA'ON says that whenever an Arugah is *filled* with one type
of seed (covering the entire 6-by-6 area of the Arugah), it is permitted to
plant other types of seeds on the outer sides of the Arugah (leaving the
corners fallow). A fully-planted Arugah is, in itself, a distinguishing
indication that this patch was planted separate from the rows of seeds
around it (because a 6-by-6 track is a separate piece of land that is
normally planted by itself). (See Graphic #2)
2) A FURROW IN THE GARDEN
OPINIONS: The Gemara asks if someone dug a "Telem" through the Arugah,
covering the length of the entire Arugah, is it "Mevatel the Shurah" or
not? The answer to the question is left as a Machlokes between Rav Sheshes
and Rav Ashi.
What is a "Telem," and what does it mean to be "Mevatel Shurah?"
(a) RASHI explains that a furrow ("Telem") was dug straight through the
middle of the Arugah, from one edge to the other. The question of the
Gemara is whether this furrow will be "Mevatel the Shurah," meaning *the
laws of Arugah*, so that it will no longer be considered an Arugah in order
to be permitted to plant five species of seeds there.
Rashi adds that seeds are planted in that furrow. This is problematic,
because if the furrow is being planted it is certainly forbidden to make
the furrow to begin with, for it is forbidden to plant more than five types
of seeds in the Arugah! It must be that Rashi understood that the furrow
was dug deeply into the ground, and since the seeds there grow on the
bottom of the furrow, below the level of the other seeds in the Arugah, it
is considered to be apparent that those seeds were planted separately from
the other seeds in the Arugah.
A field is land in which furrows are dug; an Arugah is land which is sown
directly, without digging furrows. The question the Gemara is whether this
furrow takes this piece of land out of the state of a garden patch and
turns it into a field. (It is not clear what exactly it is about the furrow
which turns this Arugah into a field. It seems to be because it is cut into
the ground, and not just planted overground from one end of the Arugah to
(b) TOSFOS explains that it has nothing to do with a furrow that is dug and
planted *in* the Arugah. Rather, the question of the Gemara involves a
furrow that is dug *around* the Arugah and is a Tefach deep. Is that enough
of a distinction to permit planting another Arugah next to this Arugah,
without having any additional space between the two?
The "Shurah" refers to the "Telem," or the ditch itself. The Gemara is
asking whether that Shurah is Batel (as if it does not exist) because of
the Arugah, or if that Shurah is not Batel and therefore serves to separate
the Arugah from another.
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One of the most daunting tasks facing a virtual machine administrator is hardware management. The topic is confusing,...
By submitting your email address, you agree to receive emails regarding relevant topic offers from TechTarget and its partners. You can withdraw your consent at any time. Contact TechTarget at 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA.
because sometimes you have to deal with real hardware, and sometimes you are talking to virtualized hardware. In some cases, you'll be using full virtualization, and in some cases not. So, according to the virtualization technique that you are using, the hardware will be presented in a different way. In this article, you'll learn about the differences between hardware drivers in full virtual and paravirtual environments. I'll be using a Xen environment in this example.
In the Xen architecture, the Dom0 normally is the driver domain. The meaning of this is that only this domain is allowed to use "real" drivers to talk to the hardware devices directly. It is quite common that Domain0 is used as the driver domain, but it is not the only possibility. As you'll learn later, you can give management of certain drivers to certain domain if so required. All domains that are not the driver domain use virtual device drivers that work with the drivers in the driver domain.
In the Xen driver model, there is a back-end driver that runs in the driver domain -- typically dom0 -- and that talks directly to the hardware devices. In the DomU, there is a front-end driver that talks to the back-end driver in the driver domain. To communicate with the back-end driver, Xen creates the Xen bus. This is a virtual bus on which all front-end drivers can talk to the back-end driver in the driver domain. It is the task of this back end driver to handle communications to the hardware device.
The communication between the front-end and back-end drivers can happen in two ways. First, paravirtualization can be used. As an alternative when paravirtualization is not available, emulation can be used.
If you are using a paravirtualized operating system, you automatically will use paravirtualized drivers as well. In this scenario, the driver software knows that it is used in a virtualized environment. As a result, the driver can generate optimized instructions to talk to the hardware directly.
Paravirtualized drivers are not only available in paravirtualization, as also in full virtualization paravirtualized drivers can be used. An example of this is when the Novell Virtual Machine Driver Pack is used. This driver pack, which is available for some operating systems, makes it possible to use paravirtualized drivers for block and network devices. Since these devices cause the highest workload, performance will increase enormously when these drivers are used.
The alternative for the paravirtualized driver is the driver in a full virtualized environment. Since in those environments, the driver is not aware that it is virtualized, all instructions that it generates have to be trapped and emulated. To do this, the Qemu solutions are used, see this Qemu page for more details. Qemu is a processor emulator that offers several solutions to talk to for example emulated disk devices.
To help drivers in the full virtualization, communication has to go through the driver in the driver domain and that negatively impacts performance. Fortunately, there is no extra memory overhead in the driver domain to handle the workload that is caused by these emulated drivers. This is because of a special technique -- which is known as "shadow pages" -- is used in the driver domain.
The properties of drivers in a Xen virtual environment depend on the virtualization technique that you are using. As a result, some operations may be possible in a full virtualized environment and not in a paravirtualized environment, and some problems may exist in one environment and not in another environment. In the following subsections, you'll find essential information about the types of devices and their properties in specific virtualization environments:
- Block devices: When addressing block devices through paravirtualization, you will see them in the DomU's as the xvd (Xen Virtual Disk) devices. The first paravirtual block device will be xvda, the second one will be xvdb and so on.
The operating system in the virtual machine will normally perceive these devices as SCSI disk devices. You can have a maximum of 16 of these devices in a virtual machine. The xvd devices in the virtual machines talk to the xenblk module in the Dom0 machine. In the virtual machine itself, the blkbk and blktap kernel modules are used.
Should you work with a full virtualized DomU machine without using paravirtual drivers, then the machines sees "normal" block devices. That is, if you're virtualizing Linux, you would see hda and hdb, like you are used to on a non-virtualized machine. You should be aware that it's a choice between one or the other. If some of your block devices are full virtualized, all have to be full virtualized.
- LAN devices: The differences between full virtual or paravirtualized LAN devices are not as obvious as when using block devices. In both cases, you can have a maximum of three virtual network boards. In a paravirtual environment, the netbk and netloop kernel modules are used to talk to the xennet module in the Dom0 environment. The network card itself is presented as the xennet network card. When using Full virtualization, you can choose between a Realtek 8139, an AMD PCnet32 and an NE2000 network board.
- Video devices: Also for the video board, there is a difference between paravirtual and full virtual. In general, you probably don't even care about this difference as the video board is not important at all for server performance. When using a paravirtual video board, it is presented as a frame buffer device. In the DomU, the frame buffer driver is used to provide its services and in the front end, this driver communicates to the xenfb module. When using an emulated video driver in full virtualization, it is presented as a Cirrus Logic or a generic VESA video card.
Benefits of paravirtualized device drivers
In this article, you've learned about the two ways that virtual drivers are used in a Xen environment. Even if you are working in an environment with full virtualization, it still is possible to use paravirtualized device drivers for some devices. This normally greatly enhances performance of these devices because paravirtual device drivers are aware of the fact that they are used in a virtualized environment.
About the author: Sander van Vugt is an author and independent technical trainer, specializing in Linux since 1994. Vugt is also a technical consultant for high-availability (HA) clustering and performance optimization, as well as an expert on SLED 10 administration.
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The word “freedom” is both dear to the American heart and almost never well defined.
Politicians love to line up their favorite issues behind freedom's banner, as if mere association with the word were enough to make everything from packing heat to pornography the essence of freedom.
Those who study political philosophy have long divided freedom into so-called positive freedom (the freedom to) and negative freedom (the freedom from). Positive freedoms are active, such as speech or peaceable assembly. Negative freedoms are passive, such as being free from unwarranted seizure or search.
Practically, these different freedoms work together: most interpretations of the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment say that it assures both the freedom to practice a religion and freedom from being subject to a state religion.
But neither of these formulations takes into account the real complexity of what freedom means for the individual. For that, it might be helpful to apply self-determination theory.
Self-determination theory has found that we need three elements to act on our own behalf: we need autonomy-- that is, no one telling us we can't do something. We can think of that as negative freedom. And we need a sense of competence— the feeling that we are capable of doing something. That parallels our sense of positive freedom. But we also need relatedness-- the sense that we are supported in what we're doing by those around us.
In other words, freedom is not just a matter of being allowed to or not prohibited from; we must also feel that what we do matters in a social context.
As we've seen, Americans are great at the first two: competence and autonomy. But if we want to get at why so many of us still feel that we are not free, perhaps we should look at how we have failed to relate, how we fail to support one another in what they do.
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Link to this Article: http://www.llewellyn.com/encyclopedia/article/189
This article was written by Tadhg MacCrossan on May 14, 2002
posted under Druidism
According to ancient Celtic beliefs, three main realms co-exist: an Underworld associated with the past, an earthly realm of the middle world associated with manifested reality, and an Upperworld associated with potential reality and all possible futures where abstract concepts dwell with the divine.
The plains of the realms are divided into quarters by a vertical axis that interconnects and links them all together. This axis (Bilios) is one version of the world-tree, similar to the Germanic Yggdrasil or the Greek conception of an Omphalos. At the center all realms converge. Time flows like the waters of a river from the upper to the lower, and from east toward west. The southern realms are associated with the heat, energy and warmth of the summer half of the year, while the northern realms are associated with the static and cold of the winter half. The south and east are of the Deuoi, or Tuatha Dé Danann, while the north and west are realms of the Fomors.
This is why the myths depicted the gods arriving on the southeast coast of Ireland and the giants dwelling on Tory Island off the northwest coast. The divinities of Lír (ocean), the benevolent sea gods, dwelt in the southwest beyond the waves. The Tuatha Dé Danann were also associated with four realms; Falias (fail), "understone"; Gorias (gor), "warmth"; Findias (find), "white"; and Muirias (muir), "sea." Lia Fáil (lee-uh foyl or lee-uh faw-yil) means "the rock of the understone"; it is a divine analogue of the stone of truth—a flat rock with footprints carved into it, which is stood upon when swearing oaths or delivering testimony.
This must stand for the manifested realm. Findias and Gorias may stand for the realms of atmosphere and fire, or the light of the sky. Muirias is certainly the waters surrounding the earth in the manifested world. The sea and other bodies of water were considered openings to the Underworld, a watery abode beneath this earth.
The three main realms:
The Upperworld called Nemos or Uindomagos (in Welsh, nef, or gwynfa; Irish, neamh or Magh Find/Magh Findargat)
The Middleworld, called Mediomagos (in Irish, Magh Mide)
The Lowerworld, called Andumnos or Antumnos (in Welsh, Annwn, or Annwfn; in Irish, Andomhain)
Even the geography of the countryside reflected Celtic conceptions of the magic of time and space. Ireland was divided into fifths, called coícit in Old Irish, now translated to mean "province." Four of these are still represented on maps of Ireland today:
Leinster (or Laigin) in the east
Munster (or Mumu) in the south
Connaught (or Connacht) in the west
Ulster (or Ulaid) in the north
Mide ("middle") was the central fifth, now remembered in County Meath and West Meath, which are now Leinster. The province of Mide or Meath was the ritual center where the tuathas/toutas of Ireland gathered annually and held festivals.
Please note that the use of Llewellyn Encyclopedia articles
is subject to certain Terms and Conditions
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HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENTS OF FATTY ACID SEPARATION TECHNIQUES
PREPARATION OF FATTY ACIDS
The analysis of fatty acid-containing compounds requires previously their hydrolysis or saponification, the separation of the non-acidic constituents (when necessary) and the liberation of the acids from the mixture of soap.
Frequently, the lipids are transesterified to produce esters in a single step.
Alkaline hydrolysis of glycerides
The process which involves the production of soap is commonly referred to as saponification.
Discovered and described in detail by Chevreul in 1823, the process is yet run nearly in its original form. In his famous work, Hilditch (1956) recommends for most natural fats saponifying 100 parts by weight of fat with a solution of 30 parts of KOH in 500 parts of alcohol (95-100%), boiling under reflux for 3 hours, followed by removal of most of the alcohol by distillation. Ethanol is generally satisfactory but other solvents have been recommended. A small amount of water must be present to affect rapid and complete saponification of glyceride oils.
Henriques R (Z angew Chem 1895, 8, 721; 1896, 9, 221) reported that fats can be saponified readily at room temperature. The process may be carried out by dissolving 260 g of KOH in 250 ml water. After some minutes, a liter of the oil to be saponified is added to this solution. Ethanol (10 ml) is then added. This process was applied to fats containing easily altered fatty acids (i.e. conjugated fatty acids, highly unsaturated).
Separation of unsaponifiable matter
After saponification, approximately half of the alcohol is removed under vacuum, the residue being diluted with water and the unsaponifiable matter (hydrocarbons, tocopherols, sterols, etc ) extracted by shaking with an organic solvent, diethyl ether or petroleum ether.
Recovery of acids from soaps
Fatty acids are liberated by the addition of mineral acid, usually a 10% excess of sulfuric acid or HCl. When very short-chain acids are present, the alcohol is removed prior acidification under vacuum with the addition of sufficient water to keep soaps in solution. If the amount of acids is important, the long-chain acids are separated from the aqueous medium by allowing the mixture to stand in the cold.
Hydrolysis of waxes
Many waxes can be saponified by dissolving 2-5 g of wax in 30 ml of alcohol and adding 50 ml of 0.5 M KOH and refluxing the mixture for 1 or more hours. For some wax (carnauba wax) it was recommended to use xylene instead of ethanol.
After their separation, fatty acids may be purified by one of these procedures :
UREA-FATTY ACID COMPLEXES
Fractional distillation at reduced pressures was
initially used to separate mixtures of fatty acids and esters derived from
natural fats. The early distillation apparatus were not very efficient. Thus,
natural mixtures were first separated into chemically similar groups prior to
The oldest record of a distillation process dates about 3600 B.C.. It was found at Tape Gowra in Mesopotamia, the instrument was 48 cm high and 53 cm in largest diameter. The distillation pot had a capacity of about 40 liters and the distillate collecting ring held about 2 liters. It was probably used to make perfumes (Great Chemists, E Farber ed, Interscience, NY 1961). As a science, distillation and fractional distillation had to await the discovery of the physical laws of Dalton (1766-1844) and Raoult (1830-1901). After that, the science of distillation developed at an amazing rate.
Distillation apparatus made its appearance in the chemical laboratory in the early part of the 19th century, according to Underwood AJV ( Trans Inst Chem Engrs (London) 1932, 10, 112-152). An anonymous publication (Ind Eng Chem, News Ed 1935, 13, 140) attributes the invention of the distillation column to Cellier-Blumenthal and Derosene in France; Thorpe JF (Thorpe's Dictionary of appl Chem, vol 1, 1937) attributes it to Coffey in England. These bubble-plate towers were used primarily for the commercial distillation of spirits. An early laboratory distillation unit used for the fractionation of fatty acid esters is illustrated in Reilly's book (Distillation, Methuen, London, 1936). A similar instrument and its operation are described by Hilditch (The constitution of natural fats, 1940, pp374-6).The earliest laboratory column were simply open tubes and spiral-type column was introduced by Warren in 1864 (Mem Am Acad Arts Sci, 1867, 9, 121). The period 1900-1930 was one during which marked advances were made. One of the most important was the development of highly efficient packed columns. Columns containing rotating fractionation sections were described later by Podbielniak in 1935. This device was modified with a thin metal strip rotates at high speeds (1000-2500 rpm) in the glass column (spinning-band column). Baker (Ind Eng Chem, Anal Ed 1940, 12, 468) described a 18-ft column, 0.6 cm in diameter with a separation efficiency equivalent to 70 theoretical plates. The head pressure was 1 mm Hg. This device was used by Privett OS et al (J Am Oil Chem Soc 1959, 36, 443) to distill several fractions of methyl esters of pork liver lipid. One sample of esters was separated into 38 distillate fractions with chain lengths from C14 to C22. 19 specific fatty acids could be identified and quantified (amounts from 0.2 to 35.4% plus traces of 8 other fatty acids, C10-C15, C17 and C19.
The history of fractional distillation of fats and oils may be divided roughly into 2 periods, one preceding and one following the year 1930. Laboratory vacuum distillation was not introduced until 1869 (Dittmar W et al., J Chem Soc 1869, 22, 446; Kekule A et al., Ber 1872, 5, 906). Between 1880 and 1903 Krafft carried out distillations of fatty acids, esters and aldehydes under high vacuum. Separations of pure palmitic and stearic acids for the synthesis of glycerides were reported in 1903 (Krafft F, Ber 1903, 36, 4336) and by Kreiser H et al. (Ber 1903, 36, 2766). A few years later (Haller A et al., Compt Rend 1906, 143, 803) reported the fractional distillation of the methyl esters derived from coconut oil, but without quantification. In 1906, Bull H (Ber 1906, 39, 3570) fractionated methyl esters from cod liver oil and isolated 9-eicosanoic acid. Elsdon GD calculated the composition of coconut oil and palm kernel oil from analytical data obtained by fractional distillation (Analyst 1913, 38, 8-11; 1914, 39, 78). Between 1920 and 1930, analytical fractionation of methyl esters was applied in determining the composition of several oils and fats : peanuts (Jamieson GS et al., J Am Chem Soc 1921, 43, 2696), sunflower (Jamieson GS et al., J Am Chem Soc 1922, 44, 2952), soybeans (Baughman WF et al., J Am Chem Soc 1922, 44, 2947), olives (Jamieson GS et al., J Oil Fat Ind 1925, 2, 40; 1927, 4, 63) etc. In 1923, Brown JB et al. (J Am Chem Soc 1923, 45, 1289) published results of investigations of the unsaturated acids from menhaden oil. The same technique was applied by Brown JB with beef brain lipids (J Biol Chem 1929, 83, 783; 1930, 89, 167).
Following 1930, the objective of ester distillation was to obtain fractions containing "no more than two adjacent homologous saturated and two unsaturated members "(Hilditch Biochem J 1934, 28, 779) and having chain lengths differing by two carbon atoms. Later, with the development of spinning-band columns the objective was to produce fractions of the same chain length irrespective of the degree of unsaturation. This new concept is exemplified by the isolation and identification of 32 compounds from wool wax (Weitkamp AW et al., J Am Chem Soc 1945, 67, 447).
Technical improvements led to molecular distillation of vitamin D (Bills CE et al., J Biol Chem 1938, 126, 241), esters from fish oil (Komori S et al., J Chem Soc Japan, Ind Chem Sect 1951, 54, 225), cholesterol (Hickman KC Ind Eng Chem 1940, 32, 1451) and tocopherols (Hickman Ind Eng Chem 1940, 32, 1451).
Farmer et al (J Soc Chem Ind London 1938, 57, 24) applied molecular distillation to the fractionation of methyl esters from fish oils. They were able to separate DHA in a high state of purity (> 99%). Schuwirth K (Z physiol Chem 1943, 277, 147) distilled the methyl esters of the unsaturated fatty acids of brain phospholipids.
Saturated and unsaturated fatty acids form salts with metallic ions, whose solubilities in water and organic solvents vary with the nature of the metallic ion and the chain length, degree of unsaturation, and other characteristics of the acid radicals.
The oldest and most widely used method of metallic salt separation depends on the differential solubility of the lead salts or soaps of fatty acids in ether. This method was introduced by Gusserow CA in 1828 (Arch Pharm 1828, 27, 153) and improved later by Varrentrapp F (Ann Chem Liebigs 1840, 35, 196).
One of the more important modifications was introduced by Twitchell (Ind Eng Chem 1921, 13, 806) who substituted ethanol for diethyl ether. Both methods were used for analytical purposes but they are preferable for preparative purpose. The solid or saturated acids are regenerated from the insoluble lead salts by boiling the latter with dilute HCl. After cooling, the cake of solid acids is separated and the aqueous layer is extracted with ether. Complete and sharp separation between saturated and unsaturated acids is impossible. The method is not reliable for the separation of mixtures containing unsaturated acids of chain length greater than C18 or saturated acids of chain length of C14 or shorter. It may be said that the method is applicable with vegetable oils, but not with the seed fats of the Palmae, the rapid drying oils, the cruciferous oils, castor oil, marine oils, and oils with trans-fatty acids.
We give below the procedure of "The precipitation of solid fatty acids with lead acetate in alcoholic solution" as it was written by Twitchell in 1921:
process in detail
Weigh in a beaker as much of the fatty acid as is estimated to contain 1 to 1.5 g. of solid acids. In the case of a very liquid oil this amount will be about 10 g., while in the case of tallow it will be only 2 or 3 g. Dissolve in 95 per cent alcohol. Dissolve 1.5 g. of lead acetate in 95 per cent alcohol. The total alcohol for the two solutions should be about 100 cc. Heat both solutions to boiling and pour the lead acetate solution into the solution of fatty acid. Allow to cool slowly to room temperature, and then for several hours, preferably over night, to about 15°C. Filter and test the filtrate for lead with a few drops of an alcoholic solution of sulfuric acid. If there is no precipitate, showing that lead is not in excess, the analysis must be repeated, using less fatty acid or more lead acetate. Wash the precipitate with 95 per cent alcohol until a sample of the washings diluted with water remains clear. Transfer and wash the precipitate from the filter back into the beaker using about 100 cc of 95 per cent alcohol. Add 0.5 g. of acetic acid and heat to boiling. The precipitate will slowly dissolve. Allow to cool to room temperature and then to 15°C. as before. Filter and wash with 95 per cent alcohol as before. Transfer the precipitate by washing the filter paper with ether into the beaker. Add sufficient dilute nitric acid to decompose the lead salts. Pour and wash the whole mixture into a separatory funnel and shake. Wash with water until the washings are no longer acid to methyl orange. If a trace of nitric acid should remain with the ethereal solution it will act on the fatty acids in the subsequent drying. Transfer the ethereal solution to an evaporating dish, evaporate, dry, and weigh.
Crystallization of acids and esters from solvents at low temperatures was introduced in the late 1930's at the time that precise fractional distillation was being developed. It was widely applied for the separation of fatty acids and monoesters, and also for the separation of glycerides and other lipid substances. A review can be found from Brown JB et al. (Prog Chem fats and other lipids, vol 3 Pergamon 1955, pp 57-94) who first applied low-temperature crystallization for the separation of fatty acids.
The firt reports on the separation of fatty acids were made in 1937 (Brown JB et al., J Am Chem Soc 1937, 59, 3-6; 6-8). Previous attempts were made (Holde D et al., Ber 1901, 34, 2402) in separating the glycerides of olive oil.
Hilditch used extensively this method to fractionate glycerides of natural fats. Various modifications were made with respect to solvents, concentration of fats or glycerides, and temperatures. Low-temperature crystallization has been applied for about 25 years and as an alternative to the lead salt method. It was useful to prepare concentrates of specific unsaturated fatty acids from raw stocks.
A review can be found from Markley KS (Fatty acids, Markley ed., Interscience Pub, 1964, part 3, 1983-2123).
Michael Tswett (1872-1920) is credited with developing the first concepts and techniques of chromatography as they are now known. Thus, the separation of plant pigments gave rise to the first chromatographic studies. Tswett was aware that his results possessed significance beyond the mere separation of pigments, as is evident from his first communication. Chemists were not attracted by methods which enable to handle only milligrams of materials.
Kuhn R et al. (Z Physiol Chem 1931, 197, 141)
rediscovered chromatography in the course of studies on carotenoids. The
subsequent applications of chromatography with fatty acids and lipids in general
will wait until 1950 to find some references in this field.
The first chromatographic separations of fatty acids were concerned with short-chain acids and were reported by Smith EL (Biochem J 1942, 36, 22) and Elsden SR (Biochem J 1946, 40, 252). Adsorption chromatography was used by White MF et al. (J Am Chem Soc 1948, 70, 4269) to purify methyl arachidonate on alumina, by Herb SF (J Am Oil Chem Soc 1951, 28, 505-7) to separate several unsaturated fatty acids on silicic acid as it is now currently used.
The reversed polarity partition chromatography was first used by Boldingh J (Experientia 1948, 4, 270) to separate fatty acids on sheets of filter paper impregnated with latex to support the non-polar phase. Powdered latex was later used for column partition chromatography (Boldingh J, Rec Trav Chim 1950, 69, 247), and aqueous acetone or methanol as mobile phase to separate long-chain fatty acids. Besides rubber, or glyceride oils, silicone oil or synthetic polymers were used in paper and column chromatography.
Reversed polarity partition was used by
Wittenberg JB (Biochem J 1957, 65, 42) to separate the even-numbered
C6-C12 acids. Hirsch J (Fed Proc 1959, 18, 246 abst) used acetone + water
for separation of C4-C20 acids, Stoffel W et al (J Lipid Res 1960, 1, 139)
used this technique to separate C18 and C20 acids from menhaden oil.
The first separation using reversed phase column was reported by Boldingh J (Rec Trav Chim 1950, 69, 247) who used latex powder saturated with benzene or peanut oil as the stationary phases and methanol + acetone or methanol + water as mobile solvents.
The history of the gas-liquid chromatography of fatty acids dates from 1952, when James AT et al. (Biochem J 1952, 50, 679) published a description of separations of free fatty acids from 1 to 12 carbon atoms by this technique. Later, they discovered that a previous methylation of fatty acids improved their volatility and their separation at temperatures below 250°C (James AT et al., Biochem J 1956, 63, 144-152). These classic papers contain yet valid descriptions of the principles of gas chromatography and may serve as an introduction for those needing basic information on that important technique. It is noticeable that the first publication of James and Martin was not only the first description of gas-liquid chromatography of fatty acids, but corresponds also to the first description of that technique. These authors used Apiezon stopcock grease (silicon-free hydrocarbon grease) as the stationary phase incorporated into a solid powdered support (Celite 545) and packed into a glass column. At that time it was not possible to analyze a complex mixture since the use of increasing temperatures was foreseen but impossible to apply with the detector included in the instruments. A major advance was the introduction by Orr CA et al. (J Am Chem Soc 1958, 80, 249) of a liquid polyester phase as stationary phase able to conveniently separate saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Later, the use of capillary columns with very thin films of various polar phases enabled to profundly improve fatty acid analyses (Horning EC et al., Anal Chem 1963, 35, 526).
UREA-FATTY ACID COMPLEXES
The first description of the urea-fatty acid complexes by Bengen F in 1940 (German Patent Appl. OZ 12438, march 18, 1940) revolutionized fat chemistry for about 20 years. For a long time this technique was efficient in preparing relatively purified fatty acids from fats and vegetal oils. During his research on milk, Bengen showed that urea forms in water, methanol, and ethanol well-defined crystalline inclusion compounds with straight-chain compounds but not with branched-chain or cyclic compounds (Bengen F, Experientia 1949, 5, 200). He generalized this phenomenon to hydrocarbons, fatty acids, esters, alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones. In addition to Bengen's group, several researches were conducted by petroleum companies on the separation of linear and branched-chain hydrocarbons. These inclusion compounds are combinations of two or more molecules, one of which is contained within the crystalline framework of the other. The stability of urea complexes increases with increasing chain length. Furthermore, it was observed that the greater the degree of unsaturation the greater the deviation in behavior from the corresponding normal saturated compound. Thus, at a constant chain length, saturated fatty acids form urea complexes preferentially to monounsaturated, mono- preferentially to di-unsaturated, and so on. With this approach, oleic (Swern D et al., J Am Oil Chem Soc 1952, 29, 614), linoleic and linolenic acids (Swern D et al., J Am Oil Chem Soc 1953, 30, 5) were isolated and purified (80-95%) from natural sources on a Kg basis.
As an example, we give below a brief description of the procedure used by Swern and co-workers for preparing linoleic acid from a natural oil.
To a solution of 880 g of urea in 2.7 l of hot methanol, 1 Kg of safflower oil acids (containing 78 % linoleic acid) is rapidly added and the mixture is heated and stirred until complete dissolution. After cooling overnight at room temperature, the precipitate is filtered off and discarded. The filtrate is evaporated and several volumes of warm water containing 30 ml of 6 M HCl is added. The insoluble oil is dissolved in hexane and washed several times with water to remove urea. Evaporation of the solvent yields 790 g of linoleic acid. The authors distillated under vacuum this oil and obtained 610 g of 95% linoleic acid (and 5 % oleic acid).
A simple procedure which can be easily used at a laboratory level is described in this site.
The formation of urea complexes was also used to reduce the free fatty acid content of natural glycerides to 1 % or less. Moreover, Schlenk H et al. (J Am Chem Soc 1950, 72, 5001) were the first to separate unoxidized from oxidized fatty acids by precipitation of the former as urea complexes. Similarly, oxidatively produced polymers may be separated as they do not form urea complexes. Abu-Nasr AM et al. (J Am Oil Chem Soc 1954, 31, 16) applied the same process to enrich several fish oils in polyunsaturated fatty acids. This was the basis of the purification of methyl eicosapentaenoate and docosahexaenoate. Extensive data from the literature can be found in the Schlenk's review (Progress in the chemistry of fats and other lipids, Vol 2, Pergamon Press, NY, 1954, pp. 243-267)
Aylward F et al. (J Appl Chem 1957, 7, 583) have shown that saturated 1-monoglycerides were able to form urea complexes, whereas 2-monoglycerides do not.
As before the development of gas-liquid chromatography (1960) the chemical identification of long-chain fatty acids remained a complex problem, it is worthy of note that the formation of urea complexes and their dissociation temperature were used to define the length of the carbon chain (Knight HB et al. Anal Chem 1952, 24, 1331). A review on the physical description of urea inclusion compounds may be found in the paper of Hayes DG (Inform 2002, 13, 781).
A remarkable property of urea complexes of unsaturated fatty acids is their resistance toward autoxidation (Schlenk H et al. J Am Oil Chem Soc 1950, 72, 5001).
Owing to its low cost, low toxicity, and simplicity, urea fractionation has been most frequently used for the purification of fatty acids from fish oil (Ratnayake WMN et al., Fat Sci Technol 1988, 90, 381) and from several vegetal oils (blackcurrant oil : Traitler H et al., J. Am Oil Chem Soc 1988, 65, 755; borage oil : Shimada Y et al., J Am Oil Chem Soc 1988, 75, 1539; linseed oil : Swern D et al., J Am Oil Chem Soc 1953, 30, 5; rapeseed oil : Hayes DG et al., J Am Oil Chem Soc 1998, 75, 1403; cyclopropene fatty acids : Fehling E et al., J. Am Oil Chem Soc 1998, 75, 1757; conjugated fatty acids : Ma DWL et al., J Am Oil Chem Soc 1999, 76, 729).
A review of the main applications of urea fractionation may be found in a review by Hayes DG (Inform 2002, 13, 832).
More recently, urea complexation has been used to fractionate the complex mixture of fatty acid methyl esters from butter samples (Schroder M et al., JAOCS 2013, 90, 771).
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NOAA Satellites Observe Warming Oceans
Profile: Q&A with Sydney Levitus
Sydney Levitus, an award-winning oceanographer and researcher at NOAA, has tracked historical changes in the world's oceans for the past 25 years. As director of the Word Data Center for Oceanography and chief of the Ocean Climate Laboratory at NOAA's National Oceanographic Data Center, Levitus is recognized as one of the top experts in ocean sciences, and was just elected as a 2010 Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Recently, he offered insight on the impact of climate change on the oceans and the crucial role satellites have in ocean research.
Q: How is the ocean's absorption of heat impacting weather and sea-level rise?
A: The ocean's heat absorption is affecting sea level in a measurable way. One of the reasons for the observed increase in sea level during the past 50 years is that the ocean has warmed and expanded in many places. It's actually the ocean that heats the atmosphere because, nearly everywhere, sea surface temperature is warmer than the temperature of the overlying atmosphere. Any change in how much heat the ocean is storing may affect our weather. We are now seeing the melting of permafrost, mountain glaciers, and many other phenomenon that are the results of a warmer climate. The ocean plays a key role in all of this because of its tremendous capacity to store heat and move this heat around.
This image, developed by NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory was generated from NODC's World Ocean Atlas. It shows the
long-term average sea surface temperature for February.
Q: 2010 was tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record for combined global land and ocean surface temperatures. What would you say is the impact of climate change on the upper ocean versus the mid-to-lower ocean levels?
A: The ocean has absorbed about 90 percent of the heat that has been generated by the increasing amount of greenhouse gases in earth's atmosphere during the last 50 years. In fact, by some estimates of the amount of greenhouse gases, aerosols, etc. in earth's atmosphere, we would have expected to see an even larger increase, especially for the past several years when ocean heat content has remained approximately the same in the upper 700 m of the world ocean. It may be that heat is being stored in deeper levels. This heat will warm the atmosphere for many years to come, even if we stopped increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in earth's atmosphere today.
Q: If that's the case, would that mean the warmer waters would eventually make their way closer to the surface at some point?
A: Yes that certainly can occur and is one of the reasons that the effect of increased greenhouse gases may be very long-lived. This is also why we need to keep improving our ocean-atmosphere general circulation models. We need to be able to make improved projections of climate change. What happens in the future may critically depend on the heat being stored in the deep ocean.
Q: Is the ocean heat content also a factor in the amount of tropical storms or cloudy days, bacteria and fish kills?
A: An ocean region, with more (or less) heat being stored in it than usual, can certainly be a factor in the amount, or intensity, of tropical storms. The existence of the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico is an example of this. It is a relatively deep pool of warm water that affects the intensity of storms passing over it. Variations in the intensity or position of the Loop Current will affect storm tracks.
Q: How have satellites made ocean observations easier?
A : Using satellites has brought about a revolution in how we're able to observe the oceans and the type of data we're able to acquire. It's simply too expensive to put research ships everywhere to obtain ocean data, and merchant ships sail on the same geographically limited sea-lanes.
Q: Which satellite instruments, or sensors, bring oceanographers the most valuable data?
A: There are several satellite instruments making a huge difference in terms of the high-quality data we have: the radiometer, altimeter, gravimeter and scatterometer. The radiometer gives us near-global sea surface temperature observations, which have helped improve weather forecasting. The altimeters provide information about changing sea level and ocean currents. Gravimeter measurements also help determine ocean currents and show us how earth's ice caps and mountain glaciers are changing. Studies of water storage in river drainage basins are now possible on a near-global basis because of satellite gravity measurements. The scatterometer measures the wind stress at the sea surface on a near-global basis. Radiometer instruments on satellites also provide information about ocean color and storm water plumes in the coastal ocean that were generated on land along with bacteria that may accompany these plumes.
Q: Why do we collect these data? How do NODC's data and products benefit the public on a daily basis? Have your scientific findings and research been used for predicting sea level or coastal rise?
A: We collect and archive these data because the ocean plays a major role in determining earth's climate and our fisheries. We need to understand how earth's entire climate system works - which includes the atmosphere, ocean and cryosphere (ice) if we are going to improve forecasts of weather, fisheries, sea level, and Harmful Algal Blooms to name just a few quantities of importance to the public. We need to collect and save these data for a record of how earth's climate system is changing -- whatever the cause -- although the great majority of scientists believe that humankind is now having an effect on earth's climate. These data are also needed for testing our prediction models so NOAA can improve its atmospheric and ocean forecasts. Our scientific findings and research have been central to the improvement of understanding the reasons for present day sea level rise and will be of importance in predicting future sea level rise. This is still very much a research topic. Possible melting of parts of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps will be important for sea level rise depending on how much melting occurs.
Q: With upcoming advanced satellite systems from NOAA- the Joint Polar Satellite System and GOES-R - how much more data about the oceans can scientists expect?
Both of these systems will fly more advanced instruments and sensors than what are used on today's satellites. But the polar-orbiting satellite missions, like JPSS, which fly in a lower orbit compared with the geostationary satellites, will be absolutely important to furthering our understanding of what's happening in the oceans.
Q: What type of ocean analyses are the WDC and the Ocean Climate Laboratory working on now?
A: We are developing climatologies with much greater resolution in the vertical. We are improving our estimates of ocean heat content by adding historical data. We acquire these historical data under the auspices of the Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue project of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. It is partly for leadership of this project that I was elected as a Fellow of the AAAS.
Q: What was it like when you first started your career in oceanography? How has gathering observations changed?
A: Even as an undergraduate, I wanted to work with ocean data and make maps of ocean properties and do computations similar to what meteorologists did in their studies of the general circulation of the atmosphere. Oceanographers were then making hand-drawn maps of ocean properties (and some still do today). Within two years of earning my M.S. degree, I was working at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in the "Observational Studies Group." That is when I began the work that I do today with the Ocean Climate Laboratory which I have been able to build here at NOAA's National Oceanographic Data Center. We use computers for our data analyses and mapping and the Internet for acquiring much of the data we receive. These tools were almost unimaginable when I started my career. However, visionary oceanographers like Henry Stommel, Doug Webb, Bill Pierson, and John Apel were among those who brought us into the modern era of oceanography. Oceanographers now have a global network of profiling floats, which provide us vertical profiles of temperature and salinity about the subsurface ocean and we have satellites making measurements of the ocean. No longer do oceanographers have to depend on data gathered almost at random for their climate system studies.
Sydney Levitus Elected Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
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Originally posted by Quickfix
reply to post by network dude
Usually a hypothetical question, gets a hypothetical answer, just so you know.
The plane being up higher wouldn't make a difference, there still would be a contrail or chem-trail. It being up even higher would make more of a
contrail on your side of the debate, since the moisture in the air is usually higher up and since it is colder up higher it would form the contrail
It will almost certainly be colder, but there is no guarantee at all that the humidity will be as high.
shows atmpspheric soundings at various sites around the British
Clicking on any point on the map gives a graph of various measurements - I will use Nottingham for this example - it is the red dot in the middle of
The blue line at the left is the dew point profile, and if you slide your cursor along it you will see the humidity at various heights given in
brackets next to the dew point (which is given as a temperature).
If I set my cursor at the 300mb pressure scale on the left of the graph it shows the altitude to be 29846 feet, dew point to be -63.9 deg C, and
2 intervals above on the graph the pressure is 286mb, altitude is 30873 feet (so only 1027 feet higher), and hte dew point is -61.9 - but hte humidity
is now 34% - 11% change in about 1000 feet.
So the difference can be quite large for a small change in altitude.
Henche the video is not evidence of anything, except that the aircraft are flying in differenet atmospheric conditions - you can't even say which is
higher or lower from the persistance of the contrails - it could go either way.
As for the KC-10 - the physics involved in creating aerodynamic contrails is about year 11-12 level.
Do you remember the gas laws? PV=nRT?? If you drop the pressure in a constant volume you also drop the temperature.
Aircraft wings work by dropping the pressure on the top of the wing (so basically the higher pressure underneath pushes upwards), and so the
temperature drops. If the atmospheric conditions are such that the temperature drops to tehpoint where moisture condenses out of the air then of
course you get condensation.
it really is that simple.
And with your response to the video being a hoax, do you have some other video or thread to point to, to show for your what if view point?
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Piping Plover - July 2003 Species of the Month
This small shorebird shares select behaviors with
some of New Jersey residents and summer visitors: they select their "territory"
on the beach, nestle into the sand, scurry around at the water's edge,
feed their young, and watch life go on around them. This harmonious analogy
is misleading though, as the coastal activities of people often conflict
with what the piping plover needs to successfully reproduce while here
in New Jersey.
Recreational, residential and commercial development
along the shore have reduced the amount of coastal habitat available for
piping plovers to nest and feed. The Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP) listed the piping as an endangered species in 1984, meaning it faces
extirpation from New Jersey. The U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service listed the Atlantic coast population as threatened
Since its federal listing, the Atlantic coast piping
plover population has grown from 790 pairs in 1986 to 1,525 pairs in 2001
(USFWS). In New Jersey, the population has remained relatively stable
at about 120 pairs, ranging from a low of 93 pairs in 1998 to a high of
138 pairs in 2002.
Due to its precarious existence on New Jersey's beaches,
the piping plover remains one of New Jersey's most endangered species.
Without intense protection and management it is unlikely that the piping
plover population would survive in our state.
Plover nest with eggs
Newborn chick in nest
Plover with chick
Life Can Be "A Beach"
for the Piping Plover
- Hunters and egg collectors decimated piping
plovers and other shorebirds in the late 1800s through early
1900s, using their plumes to accessorize hats that were then
considered fashionable. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918
(as well as changing fashion trends) helped the population to
recover throughout the 1930s.
- Coastal development and increased recreational
use of New Jersey beaches caused a second population decline
in the decades following World War II.
- Human disturbance, including vehicular
and foot traffic, can crush young birds, and destroy nests.
By disrupting parental care, human disturbance also can expose
eggs and chicks to killing heat and cold, cut off access to
important feeding habitats, and increase the chances of being
eaten by predators.
- Dogs are an especially disruptive, as plover
adults react to dogs as they would a fox or similar predator.
Dogs also will prey on plover chicks and eggs.
- Domestic and feral cats are efficient
predators of plover eggs and chicks.
Natural threats to the piping plover include
higher tides resulting from storms, along with predators like
foxes, raccoons, skunks, crows and gulls. Trash receptacles
from commercial food establishments, as well as food waste
left behind by beach-goers, can attract more predator.
Facts of Interest about the Piping
- Piping plovers return to their breeding grounds
in late March to early April. After males and females perform
courtship rituals and establish their nesting territory, they
form a depression in the sand that becomes their nest. Sometimes
the pair will line the nest with small stones or shell fragments.
- Nests are found on the beach between dunes
and the high-tide line. Piping plovers also prefer nesting amid
sparse vegetation, which provides them with cover from predators
and weather. At the same time, they do not establish nests in
areas with dense vegetation (such as among the dunes), which provides
cover for predators.
- Plovers lay as many as four eggs at a time.
Hatching occurs about a month later, and the young birds soon
follow their parents to forage for food. When predators or intruders
are near, the chicks squat motionless in the sand while the adults
try to lure away the threat by feigning a broken wing. Plover
chicks can fly 25 to 35 days after hatching
- During the non-breeding season piping plovers
inhabit beaches, barrier islands, sandflats and mudflats and look
for food in these same areas. They typically consume insects,
insect eggs, crustaceans and marine worms.
Erecting exclosure around nest
Electric fence exclosure around nest
Protected plover on nest
- Piping plovers are robin-sized shorebirds with
sand-colored plumage, a black neckband, and a black bar across the forehead.
It runs in stops and starts on yellow-orange legs and is often identified
by its whistling "peep-lo" call.
- When piping plovers arrive in New Jersey each spring
they eat a lot to recover the energy and body weight lost during the
long migration from their coastal wintering grounds to the south. Piping
plovers winter from North Carolina to Mexico, the Bahamas, and the West
Indies. By mid-September both the adult and young piping plovers will
have left New Jersey for their wintering areas.
|Ways You Can Help
Volunteer posting sign
- Stay out of all beach areas that are fenced or
posted for the protection of shorebirds and other types of wildlife.
Do not approach or disturb piping plovers, their chicks, or their nest
sites. Adhere to the advice and direction provided by ENSP staff or
volunteers who are patrolling these "off-limits" areas, especially
during busy weekends.
- Keep pets off the beach or far from nesting areas.
Even leashed dogs are major disturbance, and dogs are prohibited on
most beaches during the summer months.
- Do not leave or bury litter, food or food containers
on the beach, because food attracts predators.
- Join the DEP Beach Nesting
Bird Project - volunteers can assist with nest protection, nest
monitoring and public outreach. Visit the website for details or e-mail
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For Release: Monday, July 30, 2012
Lake Champlain Basin Aquatic Invasive Species Task Force Releases Water Flea Spread Prevention Recommendations
The Lake Champlain Basin Aquatic Invasive Species Rapid Response Task Force today released seven recommendations to slow the spread of spiny water flea into Lake Champlain.
The Task Force identifies preventing the flow of excess waters from the Glens Falls Feeder Canal to Lake Champlain by diverting that flow into the Hudson River drainage as the most effective option to slow the spread of spiny water flea.
The Task Force also seeks completion of a feasibility study to identify a hydrologic barrier to prevent the movement of aquatic plants and animals between the Champlain and Hudson Watersheds through the Champlain Canal system. This long-term solution will prevent the canal system from serving as a vector for any aquatic invasive species from moving in and out of the Lake Champlain Basin.
The Task Force recognizes that the quick closure of the Champlain Canal and Glens Falls Feeder Canal, which could control and eradicate spiny water flea, is not technically, legally or economically feasible.
After monitoring and sampling efforts determined the presence of spiny water flea in the Champlain Canal and the Glens Falls Feeder Canal in June, the Task Force undertook a significant process to identify and review a number of options to prevent the spread of spiny water flea to Lake Champlain.
The Task Force carefully considered the effectiveness and technical feasibility of implementing behavioral, chemical, biological, physical or mechanical interventions in the Champlain Canal to prevent the introduction of spiny water flea to Lake Champlain.
The Task Force recommends the following actions be taken to slow the spread of spiny water flea and prevent future introductions of aquatic invasive species in the canal:
- Pursue options to redirect surplus flow in the Champlain Canal into the Hudson River side of the system and away from Lake Champlain side of the system as it is currently directed.
- Undertake the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Champlain Canal Barrier Feasibility Study to identify means of developing a hydrologic barrier in the canal system.
- Increase and enhance sampling efforts by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in the Champlain Canal and Glens Falls Feeder Canal to determine the extent and levels of spiny water flea populations in those waters.
- Issue a public service announcement from the New York Canal Corporation alerting canal traffic about the presence of spiny water flea and educating boaters and anglers how to prevent its spread.
- Build a predictive model of lake susceptibility to spiny water flea with support from the Lake Champlain Basin Aquatic Nuisance Species Subcommittee to identify the lakes most susceptible to invasion by the spiny water flea. Target those lakes for intensive education and outreach spread prevention efforts.
- Expand the lake steward/greeter program and provide more information on spiny water flea, and pursue stewards dedicated to the canal system.
- Seek the resources to print significant numbers of spiny water flea watch cards, and distribute them and other aquatic nuisance species spread prevention information to canal users and other key user groups.
A detailed report on the Task Forces efforts and recommendations regarding spiny water flea may be viewed and downloaded on the Lake Champlain Basin Program's web site using the link in the upper right column.
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A titular see in the Island of Cyprus. The name appears to be derived from the Greek ammochostos (a sandy point) rather than from Fama Augusti, the traditional etymology. The history of the city cannot be traced beyond the eighth century of our era. It is not certain, Lequien to the contrary notwithstanding (II, 1065), that it occupies the site of Arsinoe. Famagusta prospered through the destruction of the neighbouring Salamis, the former capital of the island. By the twelfth century its importance was such that Guy de Lusignan chose to be crowned there (1191) King of Jerusalem and Cyprus. The French princes fortified the town, and in the thirteenth century built the beautiful Cathedral of St. Nicholas, transformed since then into a mosque. Famagusta was the seat of a Latin diocese from the twelfth century and had residential bishops till the end of the sixteenth. The list is given by Lequien, III, 1219-24; Ducange, "Les familles d'outre-mer", 861-864; Eubel, I, 253-54, II, 168; Hackett, "History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus ", London, 1901, 577-87.
The prosperity of Famagusta was not effected by the fall of Acre. In 1342, a German writer described it as one of the richest and most beautiful cities of the world, its wealth surpassing that of Constantinople and Venice. (See Mas-Latrie, L'île de Chypre, Paris, 1879, 236-40.) St. Bridget of Sweden, in her revelations, compares it to Sodom and Gomorrha . Captured by the Genoese in 1374, it fell, in 1389, into the hands of the Venetians, who retained it till 1571. Finally, after a siege of ten months, which cost the enemy 50,000 men, the city surrendered to the Turks, who, despite their treaty, massacred the garrison, burned alive the brave governor, Bragadino, and completely sacked the city. Famagusta, which formerly numbered 70,000 inhabitants, was reduced to a mere village. It is known today as Mankosta (1000 inhabitants) and is the chief town of one of the six departments of the island. Its harbour is choked with sand; its palaces, dwellings, highways, ramparts, and churches are all in ruins.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed between 1907 and 1912 in fifteen hard copy volumes.
Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.
No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny.
Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912
Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online
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Narrative is the media term for story
telling. Narrative is the way the different
elements in a story are organised to make a
meaningful story. Some of these elements
can be facts as in documentary, or
characters and actions as in a drama.
Narrative, or telling stories, is our way of making sense of
the world about us and trying to put some meaning into that
Because we live in a world that is organised by time - hours
of the day, days of the month, the years, so story telling starts
off as being linear.
We tell a story as a line of events. Then she did this, then he
did that, then they got married.
All cultures in all countries tell stories; theorists recognise
that story telling is an important art of being human.
When we look at narrative we see that
stories throughout the media share certain
characteristics. This often lnks them to
Different media tell stories in a variety of
The key areas concerned with narrative are:
• Narrative structure is the way the story or plot
unfolds. Is the story an open or closed structure.
A closed structure means the story ends
satisfactorily as in most films - this is known as
closure, with the girl getting the boy or the hero
saving the planet.
• An open ending means there is no final
conclusion to the story - a television has no final
ending, it just has minor endings ( a character
gets killed). The audience may be asked to
decide how an open story ends.
• A multi-strand narrative structure
means there are several narratives
running at the same time. This is very
common in television and radio soaps
and ongoing drama series, such as
Holby City, and The Bill.
• Breaking Bad typically has an open
ended narrative, why?
• However due to it also being multi-
stranded, various stories will close
throughout a typical episode.
Some texts have an interactive structure
where the audience is asked to be involved
in deciding the outcome of a programme.
Reality television series such as Big Brother
and X Factor rely on the audience’s vote to
continue the series.
Ubisoft announced an interactive TV show basedaround its lovable, quirky rabbit-like creaturescalled Rabbids Invasion at its E3 press conference.The show will come to Xbox One and will allowviewers to interact with the show's characters,dancing with the Rabbids and solving puzzles thatwill push the story forward.
Ubisoft's trailer for the game showed children usingmotion control gestures to launch eggs at Rabbidsand scream along to virtually crack the screen invarying mini-games.
Other narrative structures
Point of view (POV) - The narrative can take the POV
of the first person as in Bridget Jones Diary where
Bridget narrates the story, or the third person where a
narrator uses ‘voice over’ to tell the story.
In documentaries a particular point of view may be
put forward by an on-screen presenter e.g. Michael
Moore and Morgan Spurlock. An unseen presenter
can progress the narrative with commentary written
to explain the story behind the pictures.
• A popular narrative device is
the enigma. The plot
constructs a puzzle that the
audience is asked to solve
wile the characters act out the
story. An enigma may end
with a surprising twist as in
Fight Club (1999).
Narrative is informed by character, action and location.
Characters have functions such as heroes or villains, or someone who
assists the hero or villain as a helper or messenger.
The location of a film or television programme is an important
ingredient in how the story unfolds. A horror film about Dracula is
assumed it must have a castle.
Narrative is delivered to the audience by expectation, suspense,
tension and closure. The audience is led to expect certain things to
happen which leads to tension and excitement.
Expectations, suspense and tension are created by the use of Media
Language such as editing and shot selection, sound and music,
framing and mis-en-scene.
There are many theoretical ways of studying the narrative. One
of the most famous theorists to do with fictional narrative
Todorov’s theory has three main parts:
1.The text begins with a state of equilibrium - everything appears
to be normal
2.There is some kind of disruption or disequilibrium - this is
often a threat to the normal situation or it could just be a setback.
3.A new equilibrium is produced to end the narrative. In the best
narratives there is some kind of change for the better perhaps in
the main character’s behaviour or outlook on life.
Where does the equilibrium,
disequilibrium and the new equilibrium
come into play in the fairytale Cinderella?
Theory 2: Vladimir Propp
Another important theorist is Vladimir Propp (1895-1970), who
discussed that fairy tales shared basic narrative elements. He
proposed ways of grouping characters and their actions into
eight broad character types or ‘spheres of action’
He discussed the theory that all media texts revolved around
eight character types:
4.Her Father -
6. The Donor
7. False Hero
8. The Dispatcher
• How has Disney Pixar played with
Propps narrative theory in the Shrek 2
• Can you identify all the character types
in the trailer?
Watching an episode of New Girl and
consider the following questions:
1. How is the narrative organised?
2. What is the audience’s role in relation to the
3. How are the characters used in the narrative?
4. What techniques of identification and alienation are
used in the text?
5. What does the filmmaker do to engage our attention
and tell the story?
6. What are the major themes of the narrative and what
values and ideology are evident.
Extension - Activity
• Todorov’s theory can be seen to be
working in many films and televisions
shows. Choose a drama of your choice
and discuss how you can apply.
Todorov’s theory of:
• New Equilibrium
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Denisovan Ancestry in East Eurasian and Native American Populations
12 November 2011
Was it a tool? A Belted Kingfisher figure stone? Both? Flint raises issue of pareidolia in assessing ambiguous stone artifacts
Buckeye Lake, Licking County, Ohio, flint was found in the context of several other suspected "bird head flints" near the north shore of the "post Ohio and Erie Canal" lake.
Was this flint made as a tool, a bird figure? Or is the bird head figure I perceive a complete coincidence? Pareidolia, or "seeing images in the clouds" is informed by the same cognitive function as our ability to make sense of our visual world. The context of other flints resembling species-identifiable bird heads, to be posted in the future on this web site, supports the great likelihood of human intent to make figurines.
The Belted Kingfisher is still common near the find site of this flint artifact. I drop anchor on a swampy part of Buckeye Lake to relax and take in the sights and am always pleased when a Belted Kingfisher is in view. They don't like people and usually move quickly once your presence is known. Being out on the water in my pontoon boat allows me a better chance to see them in action. They dive mostly for small fish and their way of life is unique in the shallow freshwater bird world.
The blue coloration, lighter neck band and shape of this flint prompted me to immediately think "...a Belted Kingfisher head" when I found the artifact.
I think this material is known as "Coschocton Blue" flint, lithic source perhaps 150 km from the find site. The Belted Kingfisher is a predominantly blue creature.
(click photos to expand)
There is a slight worked depression in the place of an "eye" in this view
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| 0.94953
| 397
| 2.703125
| 3
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Ways of Life, Food and Cuisine
The United States has rich and productive land that has provided Americans with plentiful resources for a healthy diet. Despite this, Americans did not begin to pay close attention to the variety and quality of the food they ate until the 20th century, when they became concerned about eating too much and becoming overweight. American food also grew more similar around the country as American malls and fast-food outlets tended to standardize eating patterns throughout the nation, especially among young people. Nevertheless, American food has become more complex as it draws from the diverse cuisines that immigrants have brought with them.
Historically, the rest of the world has envied the good, wholesome food available in the United States. In the 18th and 19th centuries, fertile soil and widespread land ownership made grains, meats, and vegetables widely available, and famine that was common elsewhere was unknown in the United States. Some immigrants, such as the Irish, moved to the United States to escape famine, while others saw the bounty of food as one of the advantages of immigration. By the late 19th century, America's food surplus was beginning to feed the world. After World War I (1914-1918) and World War II, the United States distributed food in Europe to help countries severely damaged by the wars. Throughout the 20th century, American food exports have helped compensate for inadequate harvests in other parts of the world. Although hunger does exist in the United States, it results more from food being poorly distributed rather than from food being unavailable.
Traditional American cuisine has included conventional European foodstuffs such as wheat, dairy products, pork, beef, and poultry. It has also incorporated products that were either known only in the New World or that were grown there first and then introduced to Europe. Such foods include potatoes, corn, codfish, molasses, pumpkin and other squashes, sweet potatoes, and peanuts. American cuisine also varies by region. Southern cooking was often different from cooking in New England and its upper Midwest offshoots. Doughnuts, for example, were a New England staple, while Southerners preferred corn bread. The availability of foods also affected regional diets, such as the different kinds of fish eaten in New England and the Gulf Coast. For instance, Boston clam chowder and Louisiana gumbo are widely different versions of fish soup. Other variations often depended on the contributions of indigenous peoples. In the Southwest, for example, Mexican and Native Americans made hot peppers a staple and helped define the spicy hot barbecues and chili dishes of the area. In Louisiana, Cajun influence similarly created spicy dishes as a local variation of Southern cuisine, and African slaves throughout the South introduced foods such as okra and yams.
By the late 19th century, immigrants from Europe and Asia were introducing even more variations into the American diet. American cuisine began to reflect these foreign cuisines, not only in their original forms but in Americanized versions as well. Immigrants from Japan and Italy introduced a range of fresh vegetables that added important nutrients as well as variety to the protein-heavy American diet. Germans and Italians contributed new skills and refinements to the production of alcoholic beverages, especially beer and wine, which supplemented the more customary hard cider and indigenous corn-mash whiskeys. Some imports became distinctly American products, such as hot dogs, which are descended from German wurst, or sausage. Spaghetti and pizza from Italy, especially, grew increasingly more American and developed many regional spin-offs. Americans even adapted chow mein from China into a simple American dish. Not until the late 20th century did Americans rediscover these cuisines, and many others, paying far more attention to their original forms and cooking styles.
Until the early 20th century, the federal government did not regulate food for consumers, and food was sometimes dangerous and impure. During the Progressive period in the early 20th century, the federal government intervened to protect consumers against the worst kinds of food adulterations and diseases by passing legislation such as the Pure Food and Drug Acts. As a result, American food became safer. By the early 20th century, Americans began to consume convenient, packaged foods such as breads and cookies, preserved fruits, and pickles. By the mid-20th century, packaged products had expanded greatly to include canned soups, noodles, processed breakfast cereals, preserved meats, frozen vegetables, instant puddings, and gelatins. These prepackaged foods became staples used in recipes contained in popular cookbooks, while peanut butter sandwiches and packaged cupcakes became standard lunchbox fare. As a result, the American diet became noteworthy for its blandness rather than its flavors, and for its wholesomeness rather than its subtlety.
Americans were proud of their technology in food production and processing. They used fertilizers, hybridization (genetically combining two varieties), and other technologies to increase crop yields and consumer selection, making foods cheaper if not always better tasting. Additionally, by the 1950s, the refrigerator had replaced the old-fashioned icebox and the cold cellar as a place to store food. Refrigeration, because it allowed food to last longer, made the American kitchen a convenient place to maintain readily available food stocks. However, plentiful wholesome food, when combined with the sedentary 20th-century lifestyle and work habits, brought its own unpleasant consequences—overeating and excess weight. During the 1970s, 25 percent of Americans were overweight; by the 1990s that had increased to 35 percent.
America's foods began to affect the rest of the world—not only raw staples such as wheat and corn, but a new American cuisine that spread throughout the world. American emphasis on convenience and rapid consumption is best represented in fast foods such as hamburgers, french fries, and soft drinks, which almost all Americans have eaten. By the 1960s and 1970s fast foods became one of America's strongest exports as franchises for McDonald's and Burger King spread through Europe and other parts of the world, including the former Soviet Union and Communist China. Traditional meals cooked at home and consumed at a leisurely pace—common in the rest of the world, and once common in the United States—gave way to quick lunches and dinners eaten on the run as other countries mimicked American cultural patterns.
By the late 20th century, Americans had become more conscious of their diets, eating more poultry, fish, and fresh fruits and vegetables and fewer eggs and less beef. They also began appreciating fresh ingredients and livelier flavors, and cooks began to rediscover many world cuisines in forms closer to their original. In California, chefs combined the fresh fruits and vegetables available year-round with ingredients and spices sometimes borrowed from immigrant kitchens to create an innovative cooking style that was lighter than traditional French, but more interesting and varied than typical American cuisine. Along with the state's wines, California cuisine eventually took its place among the acknowledged forms of fine dining.
As Americans became more concerned about their diets, they also became more ecologically conscious. This consciousness often included an antitechnology aspect that led some Americans to switch to a partially or wholly vegetarian diet, or to emphasize products produced organically (without chemical fertilizers and pesticides). Many considered these foods more wholesome and socially responsible because their production was less taxing to the environment. In the latter 20th century, Americans also worried about the effects of newly introduced genetically altered foods and irradiation processes for killing bacteria. They feared that these new processes made their food less natural and therefore harmful.
These concerns and the emphasis on variety were by no means universal, since food habits in the late 20th century often reflected society's ethnic and class differences. Not all Americans appreciated California cuisine or vegetarian food, and many recent immigrants, like their immigrant predecessors, often continued eating the foods they knew best.
At the end of the 20th century, American eating habits and food production were increasingly taking place outside the home. Many people relied on restaurants and on new types of fully prepared meals to help busy families in which both adults worked full-time. Another sign of the public's changing food habits was the microwave oven, probably the most widely used new kitchen appliance, since it can quickly cook foods and reheat prepared foods and leftovers. Since Americans are generally cooking less of their own food, they are more aware than at any time since the early 20th century of the quality and health standards applied to food. Recent attention to cases in which children have died from contaminated and poorly prepared food has once again directed the public's attention to the government's role in monitoring food safety.
In some ways, American food developments are contradictory. Americans are more aware of food quality despite, and maybe because of, their increasing dependence on convenience. They eat a more varied diet, drawing on the cuisines of immigrant groups (Thai, Vietnamese, Greek, Indian, Cuban, Mexican, and Ethiopian), but they also regularly eat fast foods found in every shopping mall and along every highway. They are more suspicious of technology, although they rely heavily on it for their daily meals. In many ways, these contradictions reflect the many influences on American life in the late 20th century—immigration, double-income households, genetic technologies, domestic and foreign travel—and food has become an even deeper expression of the complex culture of which it is part.
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Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur 1735-1813
(Wrote under the name J. Hector St. John) French-born American fiction writer and novelist.
Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur was a naturalized American citizen whose observations on life in pre-Revolutionary America are still read today. His most famous work, Letters from an American Farmer (1782), was instrumental in differentiating the life and culture of the American colonies from that of Europe, and in helping to establish an American literary tradition out of common cultural experience where none was believed to exist. He is credited with formulating the idea of America as a melting pot where “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.” One of the book's individual letters, “What Is an American?,” has long been considered a classic articulation of the character and identity of the members of that new nation.
Crèvecoeur was born in Caen, France, in 1735 to Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur, a minor member of the Norman nobility, and Marie-Anne-Thérèse Blouet, the daughter of a banker. He was educated at the local Jesuit college, and at the age of nineteen left France, first for England and then for Canada, where he served the French colonial militia as a surveyor and cartographer. In 1758 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the regular army of France and was wounded in the battle for Quebec the following year. He resigned his commission and left Canada for the British colonies to the south, again working as a surveyor while traveling through New York, Vermont, and the Ohio region. He was naturalized in New York as a British subject and changed his name to J. Hector St. John. In 1769, Crèvecoeur married Mehitable Tippet, the daughter of a prosperous Westchester family, and purchased a farm near the Hudson River in Orange County, New York. Within the next six years, the couple had three children, two boys and a girl. During this time, Crèvecoeur worked his farm and began writing, in English, producing but not publishing Letters from an American Farmer.
Although he was not sympathetic to the cause of the American Revolution, Crèvecoeur tried to remain neutral. As a result, neither side trusted him and he was imprisoned by the British for three months, after which he left for London in a British ship with his eldest son. His wife and remaining children were left in charge of the farm. While in England, he sold Letters From an American Farmer to a publisher and returned in 1781 to his native France, where he resumed his French citizenship. While there, he published Lettres d'un Cultivateur Américain (1784), an adaptation and expansion of his earlier work.
Crèvecoeur returned to New York in 1783 as French Consul to New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York and worked to promote trade and goodwill between France and the United States. During his absence, his wife had died and his beloved farmhouse in New York had been destroyed in an Indian raid. His children, originally believed dead, were eventually found in Boston. Crèvecoeur returned to France in 1790 and lived there for the remaining twenty-three years of his life, never again visiting his adopted country. He died at Sarcelles in 1813.
Crèvecoeur's most famous work, Letters from an American Farmer occupies a unique place in American literary history. The work consists of twelve letters written by James Hector St. John, an American-born farmer of English descent. The recipient of these letters is an English gentleman, F. B., who is interested in learning more about American life and provides Farmer James with topics for the letters. The worldly and sophisticated F. B. is contrasted with Farmer James, a self-described “tabula rasa,” (blank slate) who admits his lack of education and experience. The first three letters detail life on an American farm and contrast the opportunities abounding in the colonies as opposed to the limited options available to a poor man in Europe. The third letter, “What Is an American?,” offers a statement of national identity for this new breed of man who has shed the vestiges of European feudalism and embraced the principles of agrarian democracy. This individual letter has been extensively anthologized and is considered such a definitive description of the American national character that it was included in the onboard reading material for passengers on American Airlines in the 1970s.
The middle five letters detail life on Nantucket Island and although the idyllic picture of agrarian life Farmer James favored in New York could not be applied to the rocky, barren soil of Nantucket, the letters are still optimistic. The inhabitants of Nantucket were whalers, and by extending the farming metaphor to the ocean, James suggests that even in this seemingly inhospitable region, men unfettered by restrictive government could attain an earthly paradise.
In Letter IX, the narrator leaves Nantucket for the South, and the tone of the work changes abruptly. It describes “a melancholy scene” in Charleston, South Carolina, where Farmer James discovers a slave suspended in a cage and left to die as punishment for having killed the overseer of his master's plantation. Farmer James, a slaveholder himself, expounds on the evils of slavery, but insists that his slaves are not part of the same system: “They enjoy as much liberty as their masters, they are as well clad and as well fed; in health and sickness they are tenderly taken care of; they live under the same roof and are, truly speaking, a part of our families.” In the remaining letters, Farmer James's disillusionment grows as the horrors of revolution threaten his Eden, and he makes plans to flee his farm for the wilderness, an area he once denounced as savage and chaotic.
After his return to France, Crèvecoeur published Lettres d'un Cultivateur Américain, which is not a translation of the earlier publication, but a new composition written in French, drawing on the materials of Letters From an American Farmer, but consisting of sixty-four letters, rather than twelve as in the original. In 1800, again back in France, Crèvecoeur began writing Voyage dans la Haute Pennsylvanie et dans l'État de New York, which was published the following year. Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America went unpublished until 1925, two years after the manuscript was discovered in Normandy. It consists of several letters and sketches, many of which were considered too hostile to the American Revolution and too Loyalist to the British to be included in Letters from an American Farmer. One such sketch, “The American Belisarius,” describes the persecution of a virtuous Loyalist by his pro-Revolutionary neighbors; it is balanced, though, by the portion of “Susquehanna” that was published in Sketches as “The Wyoming Massacre,” an account of the massacre of a Patriot community by British troops.
Of Crèvecoeur's writings, Letters from an American Farmer has attracted the largest share of critical attention, and debate on the work has centered on its appropriate classification and on the general tone of its author's assessment of American life. The book, published in London, gained immediate popularity there; among its admirers were Thomas Paine and William Godwin, as well as the more radical figures of Romanticism. At that time, the work was only moderately popular in America. Until the latter half of the twentieth century, the majority of critics concentrated on Letter III and thus believed the work to be optimistic, even utopian in its evaluation of life in America. In recent years, criticism has shifted considerably to assess Letters as a whole, as well as within the context of Crèvecoeur's other writing, particularly Sketches of Eighteenth Century America. These critics, among them James C. Mohr, see Crèvecoeur's work as far more sophisticated and subtle than originally believed.
Crèvecoeur's work has been the subject of extended critical debate regarding the genre within which it should be classified. Much early criticism took these letters as autobiographical, considering the author and his narrator to be one and the same. This led to charges of inauthenticity as critics focused on exposing the fact that the author/narrator was not the grandson of immigrants from England at all, but was, in fact, born in France; that he was not a naive farmer, but an educated, sophisticated gentleman. Recent criticism has treated the work as fiction and eliminated the confusion between J. Hector St. John and his fictional persona, Farmer James. In form Letters from an American Farmer draws on the eighteenth-century epistolary tradition, and its individual letters read like essays on the series of topics suggested by the fictional recipient of the correspondence. However, some critics classify it as a romance, while still others claim that the work anticipates the nineteenth-century novel, insisting that the letters are unified by the narrator's progression from optimism to disillusionment.
The disillusionment that characterizes the ending of Letters from an American Farmer, as well as the far more pessimistic view of American life presented in Sketches of Eighteenth Century America have led many twentieth-century scholars to focus on these apparent ambiguities in Crèvecoeur's work. Some critics insist that Crèvecoeur genuinely believed that the American colonies could provide a testing ground for Enlightenment ideals, and that his optimism and subsequent disappointment were, therefore, genuine. Others believe that the author was being ironic in the early descriptions of an idyllic agrarian democracy, and that the expressions of disillusionment that followed convey the true tone of the work. Mary E. Rucker suggests that Letters is actually a dialectic on Enlightenment principles between the optimistic Farmer James and the pessimistic Crèvecoeur.
Other ambiguities explored by scholars include the work's treatment of slavery where Farmer James denounces the institution in the South at the same time he endorses it in his home region. Pierre Aubéry has explored the element of racism that runs through Letters, and which is inconsistent with the idealized American identity that Crèvecoeur was seeking to establish. Myra Jehlen has concentrated on the apparent contradiction between Crèvecoeur's admiration for America and his opposition to the American Revolution. Stephen Carl Arch suggests that the true purpose of Letters was to expose the dangers of revolution in general, while David M. Larson believes that Crèvecoeur's sentimental descriptions of the war's effect on settlers was a contrast to the usual abstract Revolutionary War rhetoric which stressed political considerations over personal hardships. For Larson, Crèvecoeur's version counters the “bloodless sanitized version of the conflict which forms the stuff of popular legend.”
Letters from an American Farmer: Describing Certain Provincial Situations, Manners, and Customs, Not Generally Known; and Conveying Some Idea of the Late and Present Interior Circumstances of the British Colonies of North America. Written for the Information of a Friend in England, by J. Hector St. John, A Farmer in Pennsylvania (fictional letters) 1782
Lettres d'un Cultivateur Américain, Écrites à W. S., Ecuyer, depuis l'année 1770, jusqu'à 1781, Traduites de l'anglois par *** 2 volumes (fictional letters) 1784
Voyage dans la Haute Pennsylvanie et dans l'État de New York, Par un Membre Adoptif de la Nation Onéida. Traduit et publié par l'auteur des Lettres...
(The entire section is 176 words.)
SOURCE: “Theory and Experience in Crèvecoeur's America,” in American Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 4, Winter, 1967, pp. 707-18.
[In the following essay, Rapping discusses Crèvecoeur's belief that the newly settled land of America offered an opportunity to test the principles of the Enlightenment.]
We often read that American literature developed late because we lacked a common cultural past, and meaningful conventions and symbols for describing our shared experience. But as early as 1782, with his Letters from an American Farmer, J. Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur discovered and made literary use of a very real imaginative past shared by Americans. For...
(The entire section is 5647 words.)
SOURCE: “Calculated Disillusionment: Crèvecoeur's Letters Reconsidered,” in South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 3, Summer, 1970, pp. 354-63.
[In the following essay, Mohr claims that the usual reading of Letters from an American Farmer is an oversimplification, and that Crèvecoeur's vision of America was far more subtle and complex than most critics allow.]
In the study of the American culture J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur is certainly best known as the man who first posed the now famous question, “What then is the American, this new man?” Few questions are more often discussed, more often used as the introduction for a lecture, or more...
(The entire section is 3934 words.)
SOURCE: “Crèvecoeur Revisited,” in Journal of American Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1975, pp. 129-44.
[In the following essay, Cunliffe explores the contrasting tone and content of Crèvecoeur's two major publications about America: Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America. The first is optimistic and patriotic; the second is pessimistic and critical.]
Almost every twentieth-century discussion of American history, literature, culture or character makes reference to J. Hector St John de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer, a book first published in 1782. Anthologies usually find...
(The entire section is 7481 words.)
SOURCE: “Crèvecoeur's Farmer James: A Reappraisal,” in Essays in Literature, Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall, 1976, pp. 206-13.
[In the following essay, Kehler takes issue with some twentieth-century critics who suggest that Crèvecoeur's Farmer James is merely a straw man for demonstrating the inadequacies of Enlightenment principles.]
Recent criticism of Letters from an American Farmer has focused more and more closely on the gradual psychological dissolution of St. John de Crèvecoeur's paradigmatic New World Man, Farmer James, seeing in it a case study in the souring of the American Dream. The concomitant trend has been to characterize James's observations in the...
(The entire section is 4178 words.)
SOURCE: “The Aestheticism of Crèvecoeur's American Farmer,” in Early American Literature, Vol. 12, No. 2, Fall, 1977, pp. 197-201.
[In the following essay, Kulungian examines Farmer James's aesthetic sensibilities, which are based solely on sentiment, in an effort to better understand Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer.]
The colonial writer famous for first formulating the “melting-pot” interpretation of America, St. John de Crèvecoeur, was, like many sons of the European Enlightenment, a many-sided man. In his famous Letters from an American Farmer (1782) he evinces his aptitude for “speculative inquiries” such as history, economics,...
(The entire section is 2145 words.)
SOURCE: “St. John de Crèvecoeur: a Case History in Literary Anglomania,” in French Review, Vol. 51, No. 4, March, 1978, pp. 565-76.
[In the following essay, Aubéry examines the way in which Crèvecoeur sought to establish an idealized American identity even as his work appeared to justify the undercurrent of racism existing in America at the time.]
Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crèvecœur, born in Caen on 31 January 1735, was a prolific writer. Under the pen-name of J. Hector St. John he published his Letters from an American Farmer,1 which later became Lettres d'un cultivateur américain,2 his own adaptation from his original...
(The entire section is 6040 words.)
SOURCE: “Crèvecoeur's Letters and Enlightenment Doctrine,” in Early American Literature, Vol. 13, No. 2, Fall, 1978, pp. 193-212.
[In the following essay, Rucker analyzes Letters from an American Farmer as a dialectic between the rational and pessimistic Crèvecoeur and his emotional and optimistic narrative persona, Farmer James.]
The laudation of British North America offered in the first eight sketches of Letters from an American Farmer is predicated upon several Enlightenment concepts: the ideal value of an agrarian democracy located midway between unhandseled nature and civilization; the validity of an economic system based on the pursuit...
(The entire section is 10022 words.)
SOURCE: “Sentimental Aesthetics and the American Revolution: Crèvecoeur's War Sketches,” in Eighteenth-Century Life, Vol. 5, No. 2, Winter, 1978, pp. 1-12.
[In the following essay, Larson argues that Crèvecoeur applied the conventions of the European sentimental novel to the uniquely American experiences of colonialism and revolution, with uneven and often unsatisfying results.]
After spending decades trying to identify wholly original, indigenous characteristics of American literature, critics finally seem willing to acknowledge the impact of English and European literary movements upon our literature. With the abandonment of literary isolationism,...
(The entire section is 5128 words.)
SOURCE: “J. Hector St. John Crèvecoeur: A Monarcho-Anarchist in Revolutionary America,” in American Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2, Summer, 1979, pp. 204-22.
[In the following essay, Jehlen analyzes the apparent contradiction between Crèvecoeur's admiration for America and his opposition to the American Revolution.]
The author of Letters from an American Farmer boasted that in America “we have no princes, for whom we toil, starve and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing in the world.”1 But he opposed the American Revolution and remained loyal to the English crown, though his French origin alone should have made him its opponent....
(The entire section is 8548 words.)
SOURCE: “‘Strange Order of Things!’: The Journey to Chaos in Letters from an American Farmer,” in Early American Literature, Vol. 19, No. 3, Winter, 1984, pp. 249-67.
[In the following essay, Winston analyzes Letters as a romance, suggesting that such an analysis helps explain the apparent contradiction between the early optimistic letters and the pessimistic letters that appear at the end of the work.]
When Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur first published Letters from an American Farmer in England in 1782, an advertisement described the letters as “the genuine production of the American farmer whose name they bear. They were privately...
(The entire section is 7784 words.)
SOURCE: “The Landscape of Tragedy: Crèvecoeur's ‘Susquehanna,’” in Early American Literature, Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring, 1985, pp. 39-63.
[In the following essay, Hales discusses “Susquehanna,” a portion of which appeared in Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America, and which describes the destruction of Wyoming, a community in central Pennsylvania.]
The last chapters of Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer are characterized by what Moses Coit Tyler called a “note of pain” that, by Letter 12, “rises into something like a wail” (2:356). The rural bliss described in the first letters has been shattered by the...
(The entire section is 9998 words.)
SOURCE: “Community and Utopia in Crèvecoeur's Sketches,” in American Literature, Vol. 62, No. 1, March, 1990, pp. 17-31.
[In the following essay, Robinson examines Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America as a text that illuminates some of the contradictions often cited in Letters from an American Farmer.]
By the end of the eighteenth century, Leo Marx tells us, the idea that “the American continent may be the site of a new golden age could be taken seriously in politics.”1 Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer is perhaps the best articulation of this utopian impulse, embodying in its third...
(The entire section is 5821 words.)
SOURCE: “The ‘Progressive Steps’ of the Narrator in Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer,” in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 18, No. 2, Autumn, 1990, pp. 145-58.
[In the following essay, Arch challenges the common critical assessment of Letters as an American romance, suggesting instead that it is a work of fiction designed to expose the dangers of revolution.]
Throughout J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's Letters From An American Farmer, James, the narrator, is interested in the concept of “progress,” especially the “progressive” acculturation of Europeans who have immigrated to America. “All I wish to delineate,”...
(The entire section is 6654 words.)
SOURCE: “Crèvecoeur's American: Beginning the World Anew,” in William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 2, April, 1991, pp. 159-72.
[In the following essay, Grabo suggests that Letters, taken as a whole, not only celebrates America's seemingly endless possibilities, but also expresses the disillusionment accompanying the failure of those possibilities to be realized.]
In 1779, Mr. James Hector St. John—a French-born New York farmer of loyalist sympathies, but suspected of being a Revolutionary spy—lay sick, hungry, impoverished, and terrified in the New York City prison. Born in Caen, Normandy, in 1735, the forty-four-year-old St. John found himself...
(The entire section is 6959 words.)
SOURCE: “The Nantucket Sequence in Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer,” in New England Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 3, September, 1991, pp. 414-32.
[In the following essay, Philbrick claims that the usual assessment of Letters as an epistolary novel may prove useful in explaining the beginning and ending of the text, but such a reading ignores the middle sequence of letters dealing with Nantucket Island.]
In the last twenty years, critics have tended to approach J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782) as an embryonic epistolary novel. When read in this way, what had earlier been considered a travelogue...
(The entire section is 5927 words.)
SOURCE: “Revolution, Domestic Life, and the End of ‘Common Mercy’ in Crèvecoeur's ‘Landscapes,’” in William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 2, April, 1998, pp. 281-96.
[In the following essay, Richards explores the contrast between the idyllic image of American life in Letter III of Letters from an American Farmer and the nightmare of Revolutionary cruelty depicted in “Landscapes.”]
Few Revolutionary-era writers defy categorization as resolutely as Michel Guillaume Jean-de-Crèvecoeur. Best known for his book Letters from an American Farmer (1782),1 Crèvecoeur wrote several essays, sketches, and other short works in English...
(The entire section is 8960 words.)
Mitchell, Julia Post. St. John de Crèvecoeur. New York: Columbia U.P., 1916, 362 p.
A seminal work on the life and writings of Crèvecoeur, written before the discovery of Sketches in 1925.
Philbrick, Thomas. St. John de Crèvecoeur. New York: Twayne, 1970, 178 p.
Considered a cornerstone of the study of Crèvecoeur, this work examines the influences and motifs found in the author's limited canon.
Beidler, Philip D. “Franklin's and Crèvecoeur's ‘Literary’ Americans.” Early American Literature 13, No. 1 (Spring 1978): 50-63....
(The entire section is 551 words.)
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Theater of War presents readings of Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes to military and civilian communities across the United States and Europe. These ancient plays timelessly and universally depict the psychological and physical wounds inflicted upon warriors by war. By presenting these plays to military and civilian audiences, our hope is to de-stigmatize psychological injury, increase awareness of post-deployment psychological health issues, disseminate information regarding available resources, and foster greater family, community, and troop resilience. Using Sophocles’ plays to forge a common vocabulary for openly discussing the impact of war on individuals, families, and communities, these events will be aimed at generating compassion and understanding between diverse audiences.
It has been suggested that ancient Greek drama was a form of storytelling, communal therapy, and ritual reintegration for combat veterans by combat veterans. Sophocles himself was a general. At the time Aeschylus wrote and produced his famous Oresteia, Athens was at war on six fronts. The audiences for whom these plays were performed were undoubtedly composed of citizen-soldiers. Also, the performers themselves were most likely veterans or cadets. Seen through this lens, ancient Greek drama appears to have been an elaborate ritual aimed at helping combat veterans return to civilian life after deployments during a century that saw 80 years of war.
Plays like Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes read like textbook descriptions of wounded warriors, struggling under the weight of psychological and physical injuries to maintain their dignity, identity, and honor. Given this context, it seemed natural that military audiences today might have something to teach us about the impulses behind these ancient stories. It also seemed like these ancient stories would have something important and relevant to say to military audiences today.
Theater of War Productions has presented over 300 performances of Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes for military and civilian audiences throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. We have performed at military sites as diverse as the Pentagon, Guantanamo Bay, Army posts throughout Germany, VA Hospitals, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, homeless shelters, high school auditoriums, theaters, and churches. Our audiences have included service members and veterans from the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Special Forces, National Guard, and Reserves, as well as high-ranking officials from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Each reading has been followed by a town-hall style audience discussion, which has been facilitated with the help of military community members. These have been arresting, emotionally charged events, in which service members have spoken openly about their experiences in combat and at home. To date, over 60,000 service members, veterans, and their families have attended and participated in Theater of War performances and discussions.
Through a generous grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in collaboration with the USO, Theater of War expanded the scope of its programs to engage mixed civilian-military audiences in dialogue about the seen and unseen wounds of war at twelve prominent theaters across the U.S. Please click on our Theater Partners link for more information.
Theater of War Trailer
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SALEM WITCH TRIALS.
Manuscript Document variously signed, 1 p, oblong 4to, Sudberry, [MA], "in this province and dominion of New England in America," October 3, 1692, signed by James Minott and Thomas Hinchman as Justices; John Loker as the Accused; Isaac Rice and Matthew Rice (his mark) as sureties for Loker, light wear, laid down on tissue.
A WRONGFUL ACCUSER OF "THE HORRID CRIME OF WITCHCRAFT" POSTS BAIL. This document states that John Loker of Sudberry wrongfully accused his fellow townsman Cornet William Brown of "the horrid crime of witchcraft." Loker is required to remain on good behavior and present himself to the county court of Charlestown against a bond of 100 pounds.
Any documents relating to the colonial Witch Trials are extremely rare and especially one naming witchcraft within the text. This document dates to almost precisely the middle of the Salem witch trials which lasted from February 1692 to May 1693 and spread over much of the province. Cornet William Brown was exceedingly lucky in not being condemned, though his gender certainly helped.
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República Federativa do Brasil
Location on Map
|Years Hosted Olympics||2016 Summer|
|Years Attended Olympics|| Summer: 1920-24, 1932-2012|
|Medals 2008 Summer||3 gold, 4 silver, 8 bronze|
|Medals 2010 Winter||none|
|Total Olympic Medals|
|National Olympic Committee|
|Comitê Olímpico Brasileiro|
Brazil first participated at the Olympic Games in 1920, and has sent athletes to compete in every Summer Olympic Games since then, except for the 1928 Games. Brazil has also participated in the Winter Olympic Games since 1992, though to this date no Brazilian athlete has won a medal in winter sports.
Brazilian athletes have won a total of 91 medals, with volleyball, sailing and judo as the top medal-producing sports. 1996 and 2008 were the years with the most medals, with 15, and 2004 had the most golds with 5. Furthermore, a Brazilian athlete has been awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal.
The National Olympic Committee for Brazil is the Comitê Olímpico Brasileiro, which was created in 1914 and recognized in 1935. Brazil won the rights to host the 2016 Summer Olympics in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
- See also: All-time Olympic Games medal count
Medals by Summer GamesEdit
|1928 Amsterdam||did not participate|
|1932 Los Angeles||0||0||0||0|
|1968 Mexico City||0||1||2||3|
|1984 Los Angeles||1||5||2||8|
Medals by summer sportEdit
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1. Who does a lung biopsy?
Lung biopsy procedure is mostly done by a Surgeon or a Radiologist
2. Where is the lung biopsy performed?
Lung biopsy is mostly performed in the surgery department. Or Radiology Room
3. What should be done before the lung biopsy?
Visit your doctor or clinician to brief about your health history, medications, and allergies.
Undergo a brief physical examination Blood will be collected from you
A chest x-ray or CT scan will be taken
Sign a consent form after clearing your doubts about the biopsy procedure
4. What should be done after the lung biopsy?
Chest X-ray will be taken after the biopsy procedure to monitor for air leakage to avoid lung collapse.
4 hours of critical observation will be monitored
After 4 hours a second chest x-ray will be taken
If no abnormality in chest x-ray is observed you will be discharged.
In case, of abnormality in X-ray due to air leakage a tube will be inserted in to the chest wall to remove the air in the pleural cavity.
The tube will be removed after the lung turns to normal condition.
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Who was Gidget and who were the Woman Warriors? They weren't specific individuals, but rather symbols that defined perceptions of women during the 1950s and 1960s. Popular media was doing everything possible to undo the strong, work-oriented Rosie the Riveter image of the 1940s and bring women back into the domestic fold. the young, blonde Gidget image offered young girls a role model for carefree living before they settled down to fulfill their patriotic duty as wives and mothers. Yet many women weren't buying the media images that advised them on how to catch husbands and become dutiful wives and mothers. Instead, they pursued the Woman Warrior persona to emerge as astronauts, peace activists, and women who challenged bigotry and racism. While their 1940s sisters had asked, ''Who am I? Who do I want to become?'' females of the 50s and 60s began to ask, ''Who are we? What will society allow us to become?'' Their search for answers to these questions would radically change the American woman's role in society. Learn more about the images and issues that framed perceptions about women in these tumultuous decades.
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Rent Gidgets and Women Warriors 1st edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by Catherine Gourley. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Lerner Publishing Group.
Need help ASAP? We have you covered with 24/7 instant online tutoring. Connect with one of our tutors now.
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1 Answer | Add Yours
I"m not sure how you tend to address the Boston Tea Party; but if you wish to discuss how it affected the colonies' relationship with Britain, you might use as your thesis that the Tea Party was in reaction to perceived interference by the East India Company with Colonial commerce. It met with considerable criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. Many in the colonies believed that the perpetrators had overreacted; in fact Benjamin Franklin offered to pay for the tea from his own funds. In Britain, the Tea Party led to imposition of the Coercive Acts. Though intended to punish the people of Boston for the raid and bring them into line, it had the opposite effect and brought the formerly disunited colonies together in protest.
In case you were not aware, the Tea Act which led to the Tea Party did NOT impose a new tax on tea; in fact it lowered the price. It did, however, insist that tea could only be purchased by merchants operating under the British East India Tea Company. The company had ties with Lord North, the British Prime Minister. The effect was to deprive colonial merchants of the tea trade which led to the protest.
Hopefully, this will give you enough information to get started.
We’ve answered 328,235 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question
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Help support New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more all for only $19.99...
A distinguished Irish Franciscan theologian, philosopher, and writer of Latin prose and verse, b. at Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland, 1610; d. at Rome, 18 March, 1696. His mother was a sister of the well-known Franciscan, Luke Wadding, and his brother Geoffrey was a trusted ambassador of the Irish Confederates in their negotiations with the continental rulers. He himself joined the Franciscan community of Clonmel, pursued his studies in philosophy at Louvain, and afterwards proceeded to Rome, where he took up his residence in the Irish College of St. Isidore founded by his uncle, Father Wadding. Here, on the completion of his theological course, he was appointed professor, and devoted himself specially to a defence of the Scotist system then generally assailed. During his stay in Rome he published numerous works on theology, philosophy, and history, a full list of which is appended below. About the year 1651 he left Rome, owing, it is said, to some difficulty with the master of the sacred palace, and went first to a house of his order at Schwaz in the Tyrol, and then to Salzburg, where he was kindly received by Archbishop Guidobald. He was sent as provincial commissary into Hungary (about 1656), was again in Schwaz (1661), went to Paris, taught for some time at Wurzburg, where he published a volume of his "Opuscula" (1668), taught theology at Lyons, and finally returned to Italy. It is said that representations were made to secure his appointment to the Archbishopric of Cashel, but that he declined the office. He was appointed historiographer (1676) by Cosmo de' Medici, Grand-duke of Tuscany, and was elected a member of the Academy of Florence. While under the patronage of the grand-duke he published the "Trias Tuscia", in honour of three remarkable religious of the country, and, in the same year, the "Orbes Medicei". His last work was a history of the Order for Redemption of Captives, from 1198 till 1297. He died 18 March, 1696, and was buried at St. Isidore's in Rome, where his tomb with the inscription, written by John De Burgo, a rector of the college, still exists. Two contemporary oil paintings of him have come down to us, one preserved in St. Isidore's, the other in the Franciscan house, Dublin. His principal works are "Panegyrici Sacroprophani" (Rome, 1643; Lyons, 1656); "Obsidio et expugnatio Arcis Duncannon sub Thoma Preston"; "Praelusiones Philosophicae" (Rome, 1651; Lyons, 1661); "Boetius Absolutus" (Rome, 1653); "Scotus defensus et amplificatus" (3 vols., Cologne, 1664); "Cursus Theologicus" (6 vols., 1670); "Opuscula" (4 vols., 1666-71); "Annales Ordinis Sanctae Trinitatis pro redemptione captivorum ab anno 1198 usque ad annum 1297" (Rome, 1864).
Annales Minorum (Fonseca, 1731); Ware, Irish Writers, ed. Harris, 253; Gilbert ed., History of Irish Confederation and War in Ireland, 1641-48 (Dublin, 1882); Franciscan MSS. (Dublin); Meehan, Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries (Dublin, 1872), 89-93, 217.
APA citation. (1907). Bonaventura Baron. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02303c.htm
MLA citation. "Bonaventura Baron." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02303c.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Susan Birkenseer.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
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The Healthy School Facility Environments web site was developed for parents, students, school staff, administrators, architects, engineers and contractors. It contains important information about preventing, identifying and controlling health and safety hazards in school buildings.
With more than 1.4 million children and 200,000 staff spending many hours a day in New Jersey 's 3,600 public and private school facilities, the school environment is of great importance. A healthy school can even help create a positive learning environment. Research suggests that reducing contaminant levels in schools may improve student test scores, concentration and attendance, as well as staff performance and sick leave rates. These elements combine to support a school’s core mission -- educating children.
In New Jersey, six state and two federal government agencies share responsibility for healthy schools. There are also many community, environmental, and labor organizations working for healthy schools. This web site is the result of a cooperative effort among state government agencies and advocacy groups.
Each of the participating state agencies and advocacy groups is described on these web pages, their responsibilities highlighted and their resources linked. Key phone contact numbers are also provided for reporting school environmental health and safety concerns.
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The huge earthquake in Chile has emergency officials in the U.S. taking inventory.
They want to know how serious the risk is for a major quake and tsunami to strike the West Coast, and how prepared Americans would be in the event of such a disaster.
If a major earthquake hit off the coast of Portland, Ore., experts say tall buildings would shake violently, and winds could carry broken glass as far as a half mile away.
They also say, similar to what happened in Chile, rubble would be everywhere and there would be casualties.
Portland resident Kinsey Horne and her family are not taking any chances.
"Yeah, in grade school and high school they always told us to make an earthquake kit, so I have one in my car and one in my house, and my parents have them in their house," Horne said.
According to Oregon's State Geologist Vicki McConnell, a large earthquake like the one that devastated Chile will occur near Portland.
"We are about 75 miles out where the subduction zone is to the coast, and in the course it's only another 60-70 miles into Portland...." McConnell said.
Geologists found earthquakes hazards across the region, including old bridges and hundreds of buildings put up before nationwide seismic regulations that went into effect in 1971.
"Unfortunately for us it's an uphill battle, because people don't pay attention to the fact that it can happen here," said Keith Berkery of the Portland Office of Emergency Management.
What about a Tsunami?
Emergency officials in California have experienced numerous earthquakes, but a tsunami is a different story.
However, the state's emergency management agency says its tsunami warning system worked much better this time.
California was criticized back in 2006 for its lack of coordination when an earthquake rattled Japan.
"We were pleased with the ability to immediately connect with all the counties and be able to provide them any information and updates," said Kelly Huston of the California Emergency Management Agency.
The Sacramento Operations Center had even mapped out where the big waves might occur, with Pismo Beach, Calif., having the most potential for destruction possibly facing surges of up to 9 feet.
Fortunately, the California coast never saw the big destructive waves this week. So whether it's a tsunami or earthquake or both, it appears emergency leaders on the West Coast are taking preparations seriously.
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To the Supercave
Alexander Klimchouk, Bill Stone, and the race to discover the Mount Everest of caves.
Written by Science & TechnologyFiled under
Exploring the world’s deepest caves is often described as the subterranean equivalent of climbing the highest mountains. It’s an apt comparison, as there are more than a few similarities between speleological expeditions and high altitude mountaineering. Both typically require vertical climbing, for instance, and both manifest the ever-present threat of falling to one’s death, being crushed by rock (or ice), or getting swept away by a flash flood (or avalanche). But if anything, venturing deep below the earth’s surface is even more stressful, because caves are invariably dark, wet, and drafty. (Imagine being sequestered in a pitch-black room, soaking wet, with an air-conditioner blowing on you, for days or weeks at a time.) And caves are often deafeningly loud. (Imagine the sound of a thundering waterfall confined to an enclosed space.) Never mind the often unseen threats—rabid bats, venomous snakes, fist-sized spiders, and microbes that cause horrific afflictions like histoplasmosis and leishmaniasis.
Of course, none of the above has deterred the world’s elite cavers from attempting to find—and reach—the bottom of these caves. American Bill Stone, a structural engineer, spent years exploring and mapping in southern Mexico before establishing Cheve (CHAY-vay, 4,869 feet) as the deepest cave in North America. Then in October 2004, Ukranian Alexander Klimchouk, who holds a doctorate in hydrogeology, reached the dry bottom of the world (6,825 feet) inside Krubera (KRU-bera), which is found within the Arabika Massif in the western Caucasus Mountains, in a region of Abkhazia in southeastern Republic of Georgia. (In August 2006, Ukranian cave diver Gennadiy Samokhin reached Krubera’s ultimate depth of 7,188 feet.)
Last week I interviewed James M. Tabor, author of the best-selling new book “Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth” (Random House), to discuss the ongoing race to find the world’s deepest cave, the physical and mental challenges of extreme caving, and why the unendingly patient scientists at the forefront of this endeavor haven’t received the same level of attention and accolades as other going-where-no-one-has-gone-before adventurers.
“Extreme cavers have to deal with more failure than just about anybody else,” quipped Tabor at the outset of our discussion, noting that nine of ten cave passages are ultimately blocked by breakdown or boulder chokes—or simply come to a dead end. “Cavers have to be the most persistent bastards,” he contends, “as they’re the only explorers who don’t know what the next ten yards will look like, because there’s no way to get any advance imagery.”
What is the definition of a supercave?
I coined the term because I thought big, big caves deserved their own label. Having done some mountaineering and being a lover of mountaineering literature, I knew that there’s a special category of peaks referred to as eight thousanders—the 14 mountains that are more than eight thousand meters [26,247 feet] high. As I researched “Blind Descent,” I realized that there are maybe half a dozen caves that are close to or more than a vertical mile deep. There’s Krubera, the deepest of all; there’s Cheve and Huautla in southern Mexico; and there’s Lamprechtsofen in Austria and Aladaglar in Turkey. They may have discovered one in China but the jury is still out. So supercaves are even rarer than eight thousanders.
What’s it like in one of these caves?
The expeditions I wrote about took place in 2004 and I didn’t discover them until 2007, but I have been in some big caves in TAG [Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia], an international caving Mecca. The first thing you become acutely aware of in a big cave is the darkness. After a while it seems to have a palpable presence.
Another thing is that these caves are wet and noisy. There is almost always water flowing alongside the routes, and the water courses can be immense. There are 150-foot waterfalls in Cheve. And Bill Stone has described the noise from one particular waterfall in Huautla as being like standing next to a jetliner, and not being able to get away from it.
Finally, supercaves tend to be characterized by vast open spaces. There are chambers in Cheve that could hold fifty diesel locomotives. The immensity of the spaces is counterintuitive.
I understand these caves can also be quite windy.
Most people think caves are dead holes, but they are alive in many ways. For one, they breathe. There are pressure changes at the surface, and as the pressure increases it forces air down into the cave, so it’s inhaling, as it were. When the surface pressure decreases, that cave starts to exhale. They have clocked the exhalations at Lechugilla cave in New Mexico at over sixty miles per hour. So they can really roar.
What are the main differences between Cheve and Krubera?
The first and most immediately noticeable difference is shape. Cheve is shaped like a giant L. The vertical shaft is about 3,000 feet deep and roughly two miles of passages are required to get to the bottom. The remainder is a long, gradually sloping passage that goes on for another two miles and drops roughly 2,000 feet. It’s also a relatively warm cave. The air temperature ranges from 47 degrees Fahrenheit at its entrance to the low 50s down deep, and the water temperatures are about the same.
Krubera is like a gigantic elevator shaft. Ninety percent of its descent terrain is technical, meaning the cavers are on rope descending or ascending. At 7,188 feet, you could stack seven Empire State Buildings within the depth that Krubera represents. It’s also murderously cold. The water is never much more than 32 degrees and the air temperature in summer is 34-36 degrees. Many expeditions prefer to climb there in winter because there is less chance of flash flooding, but then the air temperature is about zero degrees Fahrenheit and the wind chill remains below zero.
What kind of physical demands are made on extreme cavers?
Cavers not only have to contend with the climbs and the extreme verticality, they have to deal with constant absolute darkness. Unless they are moving or performing a task they turn off their lights to save battery power, so most of the time they are in the dark. They are always wet and cold and there is always a high level of anxiety. They typically lose a pound or a pound-and-a-half a day, in part because of the kind of physical work that is required—descending or rappelling with very heavy loads, and ascending the same way. In Krubera, cavers are underground for up to a month.
What are the effects of prolonged absolute darkness?
There are several that have been studied scientifically. One effect is that it disrupts normal circadian rhythms. Cavers may work for twenty-four hours at a stretch and then sleep for twenty or twenty-four hours. Second, their immune systems really take a beating without sunlight or natural light. Stone told me that after he had been underground in Cheve for two weeks, every one of his fingernails became infected with staphyloccocus.
Another thing is that each human brain has a unique tolerance for darkness. Some individuals reach their limit after a certain number of days or certain number of feet below the surface, and then they have an attack called The Rapture, which is like a panic attack on speed. I’ve interviewed people who’ve experienced it and they say it’s like a panic attack but multiplied a hundred times in intensity.
Is there a caving equivalent of high altitude mountaineering’s “death zone”?
I know what you’re referring to—that special area above 26,000 feet [where the air is so thin it is not life-sustaining]. There are two crucially dangerous things about supercave exploration. One is that you frequently have to change from one descent rope to another while hanging from a vertical wall. Two of the deaths and one of the serious injuries I describe in the book happened because of rebelays.
The other thing is the scuba diving. Three of the deaths associated with Stone’s expeditions to Cheve and Huautla were diving deaths. There is no more dangerous form of exploration than cave diving, and when you do it in an environment where there is no chance of rescue it amps up the risk an order of magnitude. I would say that the death zones in caves are the sumps—the flooded tunnels and passageways that require very sophisticated scuba diving to pass through.
Another challenge is that cavers aren’t able to communicate with the surface, correct?
That’s another thing that is uniquely unpleasant about deep cave exploration. We have deep sea vehicles that can rescue submariners thousands of feet beneath the surface. And in May 2005, a French test pilot [Didier Delsalle] landed a helicopter on the summit of Mount Everest, so if conditions are right, you can now be helicoptered off even the highest mountains. But there is no rescue in a cave. If you get in trouble five thousand feet down and four miles from the surface, you either work it out on your own or you die.
One expedition did attempt to string a telephone line down into Krubera, yes?
You can do that as long as you have a relatively free route. The line you are referring to went down about a thousand feet. But lightning struck the communications center on the surface and the charge almost killed a Russian caver [Ilya Zharkov] who was talking on the phone at the other end.
What technological developments have helped advance extreme caving?
There is so much vertical work in caving that you cannot use lightweight rappel hardware like mountain climbers do. The first big development came in the 1960s, when a southerner [John Cole] invented what cavers now call the rappel rack—essentially a supersized, beefed up rappelling device that has enabled cavers to do seven-hundred-foot free vertical drops on slick, muddy ropes, and still have control.
But by the late 1980s cavers had reached the limits of traditional open circuit scuba equipment in terms of deep caves, because there were only so many of those forty-five pound tanks that one could carry down. So Stone decided to create a rebreather, which allows a diver to re-breathe his or her own breath. It took him ten years to develop one in his home laboratory, and the model that he invented is now being marketed [for recreational use] by a company called Poseidon, which is headquartered in Sweden. The Poseidon Rebreather [Discovery MKVI] weighs about forty pounds fully charged and gives a diver eight to twelve hours of continuous time underwater. Stone remained underwater for twenty-four hours with a prototype, and the only problem he had was staying awake.
Stone might have failed in his quest to find the world’s deepest cave, but his impact and legacy seems likely to be much greater than that of Alexander Klimchouk.
I could not agree more. There’s the rebreather, but I also think we have not seen the last of Stone. For almost eight years he has been working on a NASA-sponsored program called ENDURANCE [Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic ANtarctiC Explorer]. [Stone Aerospace] has built a big orange robot that looks like a flyer saucer and is about the size of a Volkswagen, which NASA plans to fly to Jupiter’s moon Europa, where it will land and melt its way down through Europa’s icecap, then drop down into the water ocean that they believe is beneath, and send information back to Earth. In 2009, they tested it [on Lake Bonney] in Antarctica. In addition to cave exploration, Stone may one day be remembered as a space explorer.
Since we’ve discussed Stone, tell me about Klimchouk.
Klimchouk’s focus has been more single-mindedly on cave exploration—finding deep caves and exploring them to their very bottom. He is particularly interested in the hydrogeology of these caves—aquifers in particular, including how they are formed, how they are polluted, and how to prevent them from becoming polluted. His legacy is going to more as a classical speleologist.
Have either Stone’s or Klimchouk’s teams made any important scientific discoveries during their cave explorations?
One of the things that is coming out of deep caves like the ones Stone and Klimchouk have opened up are life forms called extremophiles, which in the laboratory are giving birth to new families of antibiotics that are proving effective against MRSA and some of the really vicious drug-resistant bugs. I liken Stone and Klimchouk to Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong—the forerunners who open a virgin, alien environment and prove that humans can get there. Some hard science comes out of what they do, but they are effectively opening the way for others to come behind them.
Why haven’t cave explorers received as much media attention as mountaineers have enjoyed?
I’ve identified several reasons. First, we have spectacular mountaineering pictures going back as far as the 1920s. But until very recently we haven’t had pictures from deep in supercaves because we haven’t had the cameras and batteries that could withstand the beating.
Another factor is that cavers tend to be a secretive group and aren’t all that fond of publicity. There’s a reason for that. It’s much easier for untrained people to find a cave and get in serious trouble than it is for someone to get on Mount Everest, for example. So cavers tend to keep caving and their activities out of the limelight by choice.
Another part of it is that caving is dark, wet, and dirty. It’s a PR person’s nightmare, and hasn’t lent itself to the same kind of exposure that mountain climbers, divers, and astronauts more easily generate. But next year James Cameron [Avatar, Titanic] is releasing a feature film [Sanctum 3D] about extreme cavers.
What surprised you most when researching “Blind Descent”?
The immense scope and scale of the supercave expeditions; they make Himalayan mountaineering expeditions seem small in comparison. Not only do they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, they require keeping scores of highly skilled people on site for months at a time. And as I mentioned, climbers are underground for up to a month, so the time on technical, dangerous terrain is triple or quadruple [that of high altitude mountaineering]. I had no idea how much was involved and required to get down into and back out of one of these caves.
What are the chances that an even deeper cave will be discovered in the next decade or so?
Those who have devoted their lives to researching the Mexican caves claim that Krubera is by no means the Mount Everest of caves. I did two and a half years of research for the book and talked to geologists who had no vested interest one way or the other. My considered opinion is that Krubera is not going to be bested.
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The basic assumptions about human nature that inform economic and political decision-making are long outdated and fundamentally flawed. By acknowledging our interdependence and common ethical values, we can build a more sustainable, cooperative and inclusive global economy.
As the 21st Century unfolds, humanity is faced with a stark reality. Following the world stock market crash in 2008, people everywhere are questioning the unbridled greed, selfishness and competition that has driven the dominant economic model for decades. The old obsession with protecting national interests, the drive to maximise profits at all costs, and the materialistic pursuit of economic growth has failed to benefit the world’s poor and led to catastrophic consequences for planet earth.
The incidence of hunger is more widespread than ever before in human history, surpassing 1 billion people in 2009 despite the record harvests of food being reaped in recent years. At least 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty, a number equivalent to more than four times the population of the United States. One out of every five people does not have access to clean drinking water. More than a billion people lack access to basic health care services, while over a billion people – the majority of them women – lack a basic education. Every week, more than 115,000 people move into a slum somewhere in Africa, Asia or Latin America. Every day, around 50,000 people die needlessly as a result of being denied the essentials of life.
In the face of these immense challenges, international aid has proven largely ineffective, inadequate, and incapable of enabling governments to secure the basic needs of all citizens. Developed countries were cutting back on foreign aid commitments even before the economic downturn, while the agreed aid target of 0.7 percent of rich countries’ GDP has never been met since it was first conceived 40 years ago. The Millennium Development Goals of merely halving the incidence of hunger and extreme poverty, even if reached by 2015, will still leave hundreds of millions of people in a state of undernourishment and deprivation. When several trillion dollars was rapidly summoned to bail out failed banks in late 2008, it became impossible to understand why the governments of rich nations could not afford a fraction of this sum to ‘bail out’ the world’s poor.
The enduring gap between rich and poor, both within and between countries, is a crisis that lies at the heart of our political and economic problems. For decades, 20 percent of the world population have controlled 80 percent of the economy and resources. By 2008, more than half of the world’s assets were owned by the richest 2 percent of adults, while the bottom half of the world adult population owned only 1 percent of wealth. The vast discrepancies in living standards between the Global North and South, which provides no basis for a stable and secure future, can only be redressed through a more equitable distribution of resources at the international level. This will require more inclusive structures of global governance and a new economic framework that goes far beyond existing development efforts to reduce poverty, decrease poor country debt and provide overseas aid.
Known and very popular cialis coupon which gives all the chance to receive a discount for a preparation which has to be available and exactly cialis coupons has been found in the distant room of this big house about which wood-grouses in the houses tell.
Humanity’s ability to effectively address these interrelated crises requires governments to accept certain fundamental understandings that are instrumental to securing our common future. Firstly, that humankind is part of an extended family that shares the same basic needs and rights, and this must be adequately reflected in the structures and institutions of global governance. And secondly, that many basic assumptions about human nature that inform the thrust of economic decision making - particularly in industrialied nations - are long outdated and fundamentally flawed. The creation of an inclusive economic framework that reflects our global interdependence requires policymakers to move beyond the belief that human beings are competitive and individualistic, and to instead accept humanity’s innate propensity to cooperate and share. This more holistic understanding of our relationship to each other and the planet transcends nations and cultures, and builds on ethics and values common to faith groups around the world. It also reflects the strong sense of solidarity and internationalism which lies at the heart of the global justice movement.
The first true political expression of our global unity was embodied in the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. Since then, international laws have been devised to help govern relationships between nations and uphold human rights. Cross-border issues such as climate change, global poverty and conflict are uniting world public opinion and compelling governments to cooperate and plan for our collective future. The globalisation of knowledge and cultures, and the ease with which we can communicate and travel around the world, has further served to unite diverse people in distant countries.
But the fact of our global unity is still not sufficiently expressed in our political and economic structures. The international community has yet to ensure that basic human needs, such as access to staple food, clean water and primary healthcare, are universally secured. This cannot be achieved until nations cooperate more effectively, share their natural and economic resources, and ensure that global governance mechanisms reflect and directly support our common needs and rights. At present, the main institutions that govern the global economy are failing to work on behalf of humanity as a whole. In particular, the major bodies that uphold the Bretton Woods mandate (the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation) are all widely criticised for being undemocratic and furthering the interests of large corporations and rich countries.
A more inclusive international framework urgently needs to be established through the United Nations (UN) and its agencies. Although in need of being significantly strengthened and renewed, the UN is the only multilateral governmental agency with the necessary experience and resources to coordinate the process of restructuring the world economy. The UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been adopted by all member states and embody some of the highest ideals expressed by humanity. If the UN is rendered more democratic and entrusted with more authority, it would be in a position to foster the growing sense of community between nations and harmonise global economic relationships.
Establishing more inclusive structures of global governance will only remedy one aspect of a complex system. Another key transformation that must take place is in our understanding and practice of ‘economics’ so that government policies can become closely aligned with urgent humanitarian and ecological needs.
The economic principles that have fashioned the world’s existing global governance framework - particularly in relation to international trade and finance - can be traced back to the moral philosophy of Enlightenment thinkers during the emergence of industrial society in Britain. Drawing on the ideas of these early theorists, mainstream economists have assumed that human beings are inherently selfish, competitive, acquisitive and individualistic. Such notions about human nature are now firmly established as the principles upon which modern economies are built, and have been used to justify the proliferation of free markets as the best way to organise societies.
Particularly since the 1980’s, these basic economic assumptions have increasingly dominated public policy and pushed aside ethical considerations in the pursuit of efficiency, short-term growth and profit maximisation. But the ‘neoliberal’ ideology that institutionalised greed and self-interest was fundamentally discredited by the collapse of banks and a world stock market crash in 2008. As a consequence, the global financial crisis reinvigorated a long-standing debate about the importance of morality and ethics in relation to the market economy.
At the same time, recent experiments by evolutionary biologists and neuro-cognitive scientists have demonstrated that human beings are biologically predisposed to cooperate and share. Without this evolutionary advantage, we may not have survived as a species. Anthropological findings have long supported this view of human nature with case studies revealing that sharing and gifting often formed the basis of economic life in traditional societies, leading individuals to prioritise their social relationships above all other concerns. As a whole, these findings challenge many of the core assumptions of classical economic theory – in particular the firmly held belief that people in any society will always act competitively to maximise their economic interests.
If humanity is to survive the formidable challenges that define our generation – including climate change, diminishing fossil fuels and global conflict – it is necessary to forge new ethical understandings that embrace our collective values and global interdependence. We urgently need a new paradigm for human advancement, beginning with a fundamental reordering of world priorities: an immediate end to hunger, the securing of universal basic needs, and a rapid safeguarding of the environment and atmosphere. No longer can national self-interest, international competition and excessive commercialisation form the foundation of our global economic framework.
The crucial first step towards creating an inclusive world system requires overhauling our outdated assumptions about human nature, reconnecting our public life with fundamental values, and rethinking the role of markets in achieving the common good. In line with what we now know about human behaviour and psychology, integrating the principle of sharing into our economic system would reflect our global unity and have far-reaching implications for how we distribute and consume the planet’s wealth and resources. Sharing the world’s resources more equitably can allow us to build a more sustainable, cooperative and inclusive global economy – one that reflects and supports what it really means to be human.
This article has been adapted from sections of a recent booklet entitled Sharing the World’s Resources – An Introduction.
Rajesh Makwana is the director of Share The World's Resources and can be contacted at rajesh(at)stwr.org. Adam Parsons is the editor at Share The World's Resources and can be contacted at adam(at)stwr.org.
by Rajesh Makwana A growing body of progressives within the global justice movement, including environmentalists, economists and policy...
by Rajesh Makwana Despite the scientific consensus on the urgent need to address the causes of climate change, a stubborn attachment to...
by Rajesh Makwana The rising tide of economic growth has failed to lift all boats and is now promising to be environmentally disastrous. In the...
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Details about Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the State:
1. Indigenous Peoples. Genocide in the Americas. Indigenous Peoples: Subordinated and Marginalized. Imperialism and Evolutionary Theory. Ethnocide and Its Justifications. Ethnocide: The Counter-Arguments. India: Where Indigenous Is Scheduled. Southeast Asia and Indonesia: Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. Africa and the Politics of Tribalism. Conclusion.
2. Ethnic Groups. Uncertain Ethnicity. Large Multiethnic States. Ethnicity within the System.
3. Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing. Rwanda. The Former Yugoslavia. Conclusion.
4. The State. State and Nation. Ideal State and Real States. Ethnicity and the State Reconsidered. Tribalism as Marginality and Metaphor.
5. Different States, Different World.
Back to top
Rent Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the State 2nd edition today, or search our site for other textbooks by David Maybury-Lewis. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Pearson.
Need help ASAP? We have you covered with 24/7 instant online tutoring. Connect with one of our Anthropology tutors now.
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Brief SummaryRead full entry
BiologyBy day, lorises are known to sleep curled up in the fork of a tree (2), but during the night, these animals can be seen moving slowly and deliberately through the trees on all fours (2) (5). They walk and climb along tree limbs, and stretch between terminal branches to cross to a neighbouring tree (5). Pygmy lorises feed on insects, seizing flying insects in their hands whilst they grip a branch with both hindfeet (2). This protein-rich food is supplemented with fruit, as well as gum from trees (3). To digest these gums, lorises possess unusually large cecums, a bag joining the large intestine that houses bacteria which enables these sugary gums to be broken down (5). It is thought that this ability to feed on gum helps pygmy lorises survive times when there is a shortage of other food sources (3). The pygmy loris gives birth to just a single young each year, after a gestation period of 184 to 200 days. The young are weaned at the age of 123 to 146 days (3), but generally stay within their mother's territory until they are sexually mature and establish a range of their own (5). The life span of the pygmy loris is believed to be about 20 years (3).
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22 December 2009
New insight in nerve cell communication
New nano research gives important insights in nerve cell communication that will help the fight against nerve pain following amputation and diabetes. Researchers from the Nano-Science Center and the Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology have with nanotechnology techniques studied the way proteins recognize the small membrane vesicles that transmit signalling molecules from one nerve cell to another. The research has been published in the journal EMBO Journal.
Communication between nerve cells is vital for our bodies to function. Part of this communication happens through vesicles containing signalling molecules called neurotransmitters. The vesicle fuses with the nerve cell membrane; the neurotransmitters are released and quickly recorded by the next nerve cell. It is crucial that new vesicles constantly are produced for the nerve cell communication continuously to take place. If parts of this communication do not work, it leads to nerve pain like phantom pain following amputation.
New discoveries on a nanoscale
- In patients with nerve pain, part of the pathological picture is a defect in a protein domain we call BAR. We have studied how BAR binds to small membrane vesicles of different size. We expect that the new knowledge can be used to combat nerve pain in the future, explains Associate Professor Dimitrios Stamou, Bio-Nanotechnology Laboratory, Nano-Science Center and the Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology. Dimitrios Stamou has led the work.
- We have used nanotechnology techniques, which give us the unique opportunity to study the binding of proteins to individual vesicles. Earlier studies have been performed in solutions where you measure a large number of vesicles and proteins at a time. This gives an average value of binding and "masks out" a large number of important information that we can retrieve by measurements on single vesicles, says Dimitrios Stamou.
Error in communication
More and more studies - this study included, show that the curvature of the membrane is absolutely central to the binding of proteins to cell membranes - the greater the curvature, the greater the binding. This also applies to nerve cells in the brain. It therefore provides an important insight for the overall understanding of how nerve cells communicate with each other and for treating diseases where the communication has failed.
- To our great surprise we find that BAR binds to the membrane vesicles via small cracks in the vesicle membrane. We had expected that BAR bound to the small round membrane vesicles both because of its banana shaped structure, which fits with the shape of the vesicle, and by means of an attraction between "the banana's" positive surface and vesicle's negative surface. But instead, it is the hydrophobic part of BAR that is involved in binding, explains Associate Professor Dimitrios Stamou, Bio-Nanotechnology Laboratory, Nano-Science Center and the Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology.
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Christmas Tree Facts
Great Moments in Christmas Tree History
- The use of evergreen trees to celebrate the winter season occurred before the birth of Christ.
- The first decorated Christmas tree was in Riga, Latvia in 1510.
- The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
- Besides evergreens, other types of trees such as cherry and hawthorns were used as Christmas trees in the past.
- Using small candles to light a Christmas tree dates back to the middle of the 17th century.
- Thomas Edison's assistant, Edward Johnson, came up with the idea of electric lights for Christmas trees in 1882. Christmas tree lights were first mass-produced in 1890.
- In 1900, large stores started to erect big illuminated Christmas trees.
- The tradition of an official Chicago Christmas tree was initiated in 1913 when one was first lit by Mayor Carter H. Harrison in Grant Park.
- The official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933. Since 2004 the tree has been topped with a 550-pound Swarovski Crystal star. And since 2007, the tree has been lit with 30,000 energy-efficient LED's which are powered by solar panels.
- Every year since 1947, the people of Oslo, Norway have given a Christmas tree to the city of Westminster, England. The gift is an expression of good will and gratitude for Britain's help to Norway during World War II.
- Since 1971, the Province of Nova Scotia has presented the Boston Christmas tree to the people of Boston, in gratitude for the relief supplies received from the citizens of Boston after a ship exploded in 1917 following a collision in the Halifax, Nova Scotia Harbor. Part of the city was leveled, killing and injuring thousands.
Presidential Christmas Trees
- In 1856 Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, was the first President to place a Christmas tree in the White House.
- President Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923.
- Teddy Roosevelt banned the Christmas tree from the White House for environmental reasons.
- From 1948 to 1951, President Truman spent Christmas at his home in Independence, Missouri, and lit the National Community Christmas Tree by remote control. Truman agreed to stay at the White House for Christmas 1952, and personally lit the tree.
- In 1963, the National Christmas Tree was not lit until December 22nd, because of a national 30-day period of mourning following the assassination of President Kennedy.
- Since 1966, the National Christmas Tree Association has given a Christmas tree to the President and first family for display in the Blue Room.
- In 1979, the National Christmas Tree was not lit except for the top ornament. This was done to honor the American hostages in Iran.
- In 1984, the National Christmas tree was lit on December 13thwith temperatures in the 70's, making it one of the warmest tree lightings in history.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, and Elsewhere
- Nineteenth century Americans cut their trees in nearby forests. Today most real Christmas trees are grown on farms as sustainable crops like corn or pumpkins.
- 98 percent of all Christmas trees are grown on farms, while only 2% are cut from the wild.
- To ensure enough trees for harvest, growers plant one to three seedlings for every tree harvested.
- In 2012, 46 million Christmas tree seedlings were planted by U.S. growers.
- More than 2,000 trees are usually planted per acre. On average 1,000-1,500 of these trees will survive. In the northern part of the country, perhaps 750 trees will remain.
- Almost all trees require shearing to attain the Christmas tree shape. At six to seven feet, trees are ready for harvest.
- It takes six to ten years of fighting heavy rain, wind, hail and drought to get a mature tree.
- Most Christmas trees are cut weeks before they get to a retail outlet. It is important to keep them watered thoroughly when they reach your home. In the first week, a Christmas tree in your home will consume as much as a quart of water per day.
Is It or Isn't It?
- Artificial Christmas trees were developed in Germany during the 19th century and later became popular in the United States. These "trees" were made using goose feathers that were dyed green and attached to wire branches. The wire branches were then wrapped around a central dowel rod that acted as the trunk.
- In 1930 the U.S.-based Addis Brush Company created the first artificial Christmas tree made from brush bristles. The company used the same machinery that it used to manufacture toilet brushes, but they were dyed green.
- Artificial Christmas trees made largely from aluminum were manufactured in the United States, first in Chicago in 1958.
- Today, most artificial Christmas trees are made from PVC plastic. PVC trees are fire-retardant but not fire-resistant. Eighty percent of artificial trees worldwide are manufactured in China.
- 10.9 million artificial trees were purchased in the United States in 2012.
To Market to Market
- Live Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United States since about 1850.
- The first Christmas tree retail lot in the United States was started by Mark Carr in New York, in 1851.
- From 1887-1933 a fishing schooner called the "Christmas Ship" would tie up at the Clark Street Bridge in Chicago and sell spruce trees from Michigan to Chicagoans.
- In 2012, 35% of real Christmas trees sold were from chain stores or garden centers/nursery, 24% from cut and harvest farms, 15% from retail tree lots, and 15% from non-profit groups.
- In 2012, 85% of the Christmas trees purchased were pre-cut, and 14% were cut-your-own.
- An estimated 175,000 real Christmas trees are sold via e-commerce or catalogue and shipped mail order.
- The most popular Christmas trees are: Scotch pine, Douglas fir, noble fir, Fraser fir, balsam fir, Virginia pine and white pine.
- Christmas trees are baled to protect the branches from damage during shipping.
- Helicopters help to lift harvested Christmas trees from farms.
The United States of Trees
- In the United States, there are more than 15,000 Christmas tree farms.
- There are approximately 350 million Christmas trees growing on U.S. farms.
- Approximately 100,000 people are employed full or part-time in the Christmas tree industry.
- 24.5 million farm-grown Christmas trees were purchased in the United States in 2012, with a real market value of $1.01 billion.
- The mean average purchase price of a live tree in 2012 was $41.30.
- Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Washington, New York, and Virginia are the top Christmas tree producing states.
- 350,000 acres of land in the United States are in production for growing Christmas trees.
- Christmas trees are grown and harvested in all 50 states.
- Michigan ranks third among all states in the production of real Christmas trees, but grows a larger variety of Christmas trees than any other state.
Make Your Christmas Really Green
- 93% of real Christmas tree consumers recycle their tree in community recycling programs, their garden or backyard.
- In the United States, there are more than 4,000 Christmas tree recycling programs.
- Recycled real Christmas trees have been used to make sand and soil erosion barriers and been placed in ponds for fish shelter.
- Growing Christmas trees provides a habitat for wildlife.
- Christmas trees can remove dust and pollen from the air.
- Cook County, IL uses old Christmas trees to rebuild housing structures for natural wildlife that has been destroyed through development.
- Artificial trees will last for six years in your home, but for centuries in a landfill.
- An acre of Christmas trees provides the daily oxygen requirements of 18 people.
- You should not burn your Christmas tree in the fireplace; it can contribute to creosote buildup.
- Live Christmas trees are involved in less than one-tenth of one percent of residential fires, and mostly when ignited by some external ignition sources. The major factors involved in Christmas tree fires are electrical problems, decorative lights, candles, and a heat source too close to the tree.
- In 1971 the government concluded that Christmas tree tinsel made of lead was a health risk and convinced manufactures to voluntarily stop producing lead tinsel. It is now made of plastic.
Sources: National Christmas Tree Association, USDA Census of Agriculture, PolitiFact.com, Christmas Tree Farm Network, Christmas Trees Magazine, Forestry.about.com, Facts about Treecycling, U.S. Commerce Dept., NFPA Fire Analysis and Research.
Special thanks to Rick Dungey of the NCTA for his assistance.
Updated by: University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners Janice Byron, Carol Stitzer, and MaryAnne Spinner
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Other Names: Cunning Man/Woman, Wise Woman/Man, Cunning Craft, Cunning Art, Pellar, Fairy Doctor, Spae Wife, Spaecraft, Mother Red Cap, Conjuror, Sorceror, Wizard, and others.
Definition & History
Who better than to define Cunning Folk than Dr. Owen Davies, a researcher of witchcraft and the role of the Cunning Folk in the British Isles:
“Cunning-folk, who were also known as wise-women, wise-men, conjurors and wizards, were an integral part of English society right up until the early twentieth century. Over the centuries hundreds of thousands of people must have consulted them regarding a wide range of problems, but particularly those concerning affairs of the heart, theft, sickness and most important of all witchcraft. They were multi-skilled, or at least professed to be so. They practised herbalism, treasure-seeking and love magic. They revealed the identity of thieves and divined the whereabouts of lost and stolen property. The more learned cunning-folk also practised astrology, while the less learned pretended to be masters of the art. The most lucrative aspect of their business was the curing of those people and animals who were thought to be bewitched, and also the trade in charms to ward off witches and evil spirits.“ (Source)
A cunning person is essentially a traditional folk-magic practitioner from the United Kingdom. It is believed those who were literate drew upon the magical grimoires and chapbooks of the times to add to their repertoires with some cunning folk’s reputations based solely on the grimoire they owned. Practices and services varied from region to region. The practices of a Cornish Pellar might be completely different when compared to that of their Scottish or Irish counterpart. In Scotland, and possibly other regions, the wise women and men were divided into two categories: those that could practice only harm (buidseach or “black magician”), and those that could practice only good (cailleach or “spae wife”). Depending on what service a person needed they would go to one or the other for a curse or a cure. However, having said that, both types of cunning crafters were known to perform curses, it depended on the individual’s ethics.
According to the 19th century Orkney folklorist, Walter Traill Dennison, the Orcadian wise-woman, or spae-wife, was said to possess:
“…all the supernatural wisdom, some of the supernatural power, without any of the malevolent spirit of witches… The women of this class were skilled in medicinal and surgery, in dreams, in foresight and second-sight, and in forestalling the evil influence of witchcraft. Such women were looked upon with a kind of holy respect.“ (Source)
From the definition, many modern pagans may think of a cunning person as a witch, but in fact they were mainly called upon to protect from or undo spells of witchcraft. Before the witch trials when witchcraft was a constant threat to the peasant mind, a cunning person would have been hired to do workings against evil spirits, the evil eye, and any mischief or harm done by fairies.
The fact that cunning folk have been in existence for over 500 years does not prove the existence of any unbroken witchcraft traditions or lines of witches as cunning folk were essentially individual practitioners and as stated above did not consider themselves to be witches. In regards to Liddell’s The Pickingill Papers: The Origin of the Gardnerian Craft, it is up to the reader to determine whether they believe Liddell and Eric Maple’s claims that Gardner’s Wicca originated from the practices of Pickingill’s infamous nine covens.
Today’s Cunning Folk
In modern publishing the terms “hedgewitchery” and “hedge witch” are often mistakingly used to refer to cunning folk and their practices (see article on Hedge Witchery). Cunning folk are no longer an intrinsic part of British Isles society, but their services are still needed and called upon today. People still fall in love and get heartbroken, need healing or divination services, and desire for things to go their way when attempting to get a new job or house. The people who call upon the services of a wise man or woman are usually non-magical folk seeking a little magical help. There is also a wonderful interest in and revival of the old practices being taken up by newer generations. An example of a modern cunning man is Cecil Williamson, West Country Witch and the original founder of the Boscastle Witchcraft Museum – and while he may not have called himself such when he was alive – he fit the bill perfectly. Some good examples of modern wise women include Gemma Gary, a charm-maker and cunning woman in Cornwall, and Cassandra Latham, a village wisewoman also in Cornwall.
- Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History (reprint of Davies’ Cunning-Folk)
- A People Bewitched: Witchcraft and Magic in 19th Century Somerset
- Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736-1951
- Murder, Magic, Madness: The Victorian Trials of Dove and the Wizard
- An Joan the Crone: The History and Craft of the Cornish Witch
- Biddy Early: The Wise Woman of Clare – Meda Ryan
- Cunning Folk And Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions In Early Modern British Witchcraft And Magic
- Secrets of East Anglian Magic – Nigel Pennick
- Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing
- The Gaelic Otherworld
- Witchcraft in England – Christina Hole
- The Pickingill Papers: The Origin of the Gardnerian Craft
- Cronnekdhu: Traditional Cornish Witchcraft
- Cornish Witchcraft
- Cassandra Latham – Village Wisewoman
- “The Fairy Doctor” – Lady Wilde
- “Annual Visit of the West-Country Folks to the Pellar of Helston, to have their Protection Renewed” – William Bottrell, 1870
- “The Pellar and Tom Treva’s Cows” – William Bottrell, 1870
- “The Cunning Men of Essex” – by Sue Kendrick
- “Cunning Folk of Cornwall” – by Gemma Gary
- “Old Mother Red-Cap and the Cunners of Old”
- “Cunning Folk” – Wikipedia
- “Biddy Early: Seers and Healers” – Lady Gregory
- “Cunning Murrell, A Study of a Nineteenth-Century Cunning Man in Hadleigh, Essex” – by Eric Maple, Folklore March 1960 (must have access to the JSTOR database to read)
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Definitions for magnetic storms
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word magnetic storms
The Standard Electrical Dictionary
Terrestrial magnetic disturbances sometimes covering very wide areas, and affecting the magnetic declination and inclination. One such disturbance was felt simultaneously at Toronto, Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, Prague and Van Diemen's Land. (Sabine.)
The numerical value of magnetic storms in Chaldean Numerology is: 4
The numerical value of magnetic storms in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5
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Hands on: learn how to program with Sphero: Gadgets
Gadgets: Hands on: learn how to program with Sphero3:59 /
Orbotix co-founder Ian Bernstein shows Macrolab, an app that's part of the SPRK program to teach kids programming using the Sphero robotic ball.
Here with us today is Ian Bernstein, co-founder of Orbotix. Now, you've brought the Ollie in to show us. Apart from the shape, how does the Ollie differ from the Sphero? so, unlike Sphero, which is sort of a more general device, you can do a lot of different things with Sphero, Ollie is really just about driving. Crazy, crazy, driving, fun and tricks. So Ollie actually goes about six and a half meters per second. If you hit a little ramp on the ground that's maybe ten centimeters tall, it can jump about a meter and a half in the air. And when you're in the air, you can do different tricks. You can cause, cause it to spin directions repeatedly. Do different tricks, record those tricks, and share them with your friends. So, a month and a half ago you launched Spark. Yeah. Why don't you tell us a bit about Spark. So, Spark is our programme to teach kids, programming and basic math skills. So right now, we're using Sphero in schools. So we have over a thousand Spheros in over 125 schools museums and other places. Where they're teaching these kids programming using a couple of our apps. So we have an app that we've created for the phone called MacroLab that lets you put a series of commands in visually, so you don't have to write any code, and then you can play that sequence back. Alright, so I'm gonna give you a quick demo here of MacroLab. [MUSIC] And we're gonna program the bulb to change color and then drive forward for a certain amount of time. So you hit this little little plus sign to say drive is the name of our macro. And now you can hit this plus sign in the corner to add all these different commands. So we're gonna add a RGB color command. We can set the color to whatever we want. With red, green, and blue. [MUSIC] We'll create that. And then we'll add a new command. We're conna add a roll command. So you can give it a speed. So we'll say, a little over half speed. And then you give it an angle from 0 to 360 degrees. We'll say zero degrees, which will make it go straight. We'll create that. Now we also need to give it a little bit of a delay. So, how long is it gonna drive forward? So, we'll go down to the Delay command. And this is in milliseconds. So 1,000 milliseconds is one second. So we'll create that. And then, after we try it, we want it to stop. So, we're gonna add a Stop command. So now, if I hit this little Play button on the bottom, Sphero is gonna drive forward for one second. And how have kids been responding to this program? It's been great. Super awesome. I think because it's, it's a, it's a fun gaming robot, and there's all these games, and they get to play around with it and then program it, they kind of come at it from a different angle. So, it's not, it's not an educational robot that doesn't do anything until they program it. It's a fun gaming robot that they also get to program. So, the kids have so much fun. And, if, if they want to take a little break from programming they can watch one of our apps and play the game for a little bit and then go back to programming. And, you know, they get really excited. [MUSIC] The app MacroLab was actually built for our internal developers, so that we could quickly just test little ideas without having to write any code. And I forget how it sort of got out to kids, but we realized that this app, you know, was so much cooler than just, you know, using it internally, so we ended up launching it in the app store. And then we went to a couple of schools to start, you know, to see if the idea actually worked. To use it a teaching tool or a teaching app. And, yeah, I mean, just seeing the reaction of the kids was awesome, and we launched our Spark program a month and a half ago, on April 15. [MUSIC]
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The juxtaposition of two apparently contradictory notions, namely, vulnerability and security, makes for a wonderful paradox in the best of Lutheran tradition. They seem mutually exclusive but, in fact, comprise two basic, coexisting human characteristics: all human beings desire security, safety, protection, and shelter. As human beings, however, we also experience that we are vulnerable, dependent, and finite. Security is one of the basic human instincts. In child development, it is noticeable that children deprived of this basic need will be less confident and self-assured. Yet, to experience oneself as vulnerable is equally important. While it reminds us of human limitations, it also leads us to rely on others and undertake collective efforts to overcome shortcomings. This paradox reveals the complexity of human existence.
In a study done in Northeast Brazil, among workers in the sugar cane plantations, it was discovered that most parents locked their children up in their small shacks when they left at 4 o'clock in the morning to work as seasonal workers, cutting cane. The children grew up not having their basic needs fulfilled. When they cried because they were hungry, soiled, or simply scared, there was no adult to take care of them. Usually left under the care of a slightly older child (one not old enough to work in the fields), this older child would usually make use of spanking to stop the crying. Their need for security - translated in this particular context as having access to food, shelter, clothing, and love - was never satisfied. It created generation after generation of passive human beings.
Vulnerability and security are intertwined: both are needed to foster healthy, well-integrated human beings. Excessive vulnerability or excessive security leads to problematic situations. The example from Northeast Brazil also demonstrates how issues of vulnerability and security are dependent on a multiplicity of factors. The physical and emotional vulnerability of the children reflects the social and economic vulnerability of their parents. The apparent security of the older sibling (who can spank the younger ones) compensates for the insecurity of being left at home in charge of others. Being made responsible does not empower this child since she or he does not have the appropriate means to feed, clothe, or protect the siblings. Children themselves employ violence to resolve conflicts, since it is the only model they know. It masquerades their sense of inadequacy and gives the strongest ones a feeling of control. They know that they are vulnerable and at the mercy of the larger powers. They repeat, in a smaller scale, the power dynamics between their parents, who are poor and underemployed, and the large landowners and their thugs, corrupt politicians, and century old oligarchies. The story of these small children is a microcosm that reflects a broader picture.
In Latin America, issues of vulnerability and security have been addressed especially in the 20th century, in light of the socio-economic theories of dependency and the appearance of liberation theology. From an economic and political perspective, security was at the forefront, a key element in a rhetoric that maintained the status quo. Security always came associated with other concepts such as national security, economic security, and political security. However, such concerns were expressed by those in power. Particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, the concept of national security was employed to curtail freedom, upholding a military dictatorship. Concerns for vulnerability were not voiced in light of solidarity with the poor or disenfranchised. Security was the ideological mantelpiece of a system that maintained the status quo, proliferating poverty and reducing people's freedom.
This background helps to explain why Latin Americans may be suspicious - it not openly doubtful - when security becomes a paramount issue for political leaders. Security is usually the means to assure the privileges of a few at the cost of the many. Latin American history teaches us to be skeptical about security. The State never saw it as its role to assure the rights of the common people or to promote a welfare system. The State was not created for a common good, but to develop a system in which the goods could be better appropriated by the financial and political oligarchies. Security for the powerful meant insecurity for the poor and marginalized. Social and political vulnerability could only be overcome though efforts of solidarity among those disenfranchised. Rights were conquered, not given.
After more than five centuries of colonialism and post-colonialism, most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean today are facing a neo-liberal economy. If, in the past, wealth was drained, plantations were established, and dependency was fostered, the reality nowadays, in a globalized economy, is more complex. There is no longer a distinct separation between rich and poor countries, colonies and colonized. Countries that formerly were part of the "after-dinner economy" (they exported primarily coffee, sugar and cocoa - items served as desert, after dinner, and therefore not as valuable) are now playing in the global market. In addition, the categorization of countries as either rich or poor is both artificial and simplistic, considering the existence of both extreme wealth and poverty within any given country.
Transnational companies also make it difficult to demand accountability. They play into a global market, drawing wealth from local sweatshops, where labor unions are less strict or less organized. Local governments offer more incentives to foreign business than national ones. A sophisticated banking and investment system gives the impression of affluence in a system that creates illusory money, also in the southern hemisphere. Ironically, the search for financial security leads to invest in less palpable things (particularly fiscal paradises). This brings us to yet another facet of the paradox: the sense of vulnerability of the secure. The more vulnerable people fear the more they search for security. Among the affluent in Latin America, this led to the build-up of a military economy (including war efforts), opening of markets to exportation, investment in a cash crop economy, and a general weakening of local government.
Socially, the paradox between vulnerability and security is thus constructed: the security of some is the vulnerability of many, and the vulnerability of a few (in those aspects that affect power, might, status, and stability) leads to the lack of security for all.
In Latin America, vulnerability has been addressed particularly in light of Jesus' life and death. Such message emphasized vulnerability (not security), considering that this is the social and theological locus of the majority of the people. Theologians such as Jon Sobrino and Leonardo Boff wrote dramatic accounts relating the suffering of Christ with the suffering of the poor and marginalized in the continent. The vulnerability of God, in Jesus Christ, is recalled yearly in El Salvador, when martyrs are remembered. But the cross is a powerful symbol everywhere. The blood of the innocent, shed by military powers, the blood of the poor, shed by economic injustice, and the blood of children, shed by famine or disease are as painful and concrete as the death of Jesus on the cross. Liberation theologians have long stressed that the role of Christianity is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. In our context, this demands a prophetic role: denouncing injustices and announcing a new reality of life in abundance.
In more recent years, feminist theologians have gone a step further in addressing how to go about doing this. Again, the issue of vulnerability and security - although not exactly in these words - can be traced. The emphasis is not exclusively the macro structures of power, but an analysis of the multiple ways this system affects people, particularly women, in their concrete life stories. The interconnection of economic and political security vis-à-vis social and political disenfranchisement is spelled out by feminist theory and theology by stating that the personal is political. There is no dichotomy between the violence experienced by women and children, at home, and the violence suffered outside the home.
The interconnectedness of the elements is also valid for the security-vulnerability paradox. To overemphasize security, from a religious perspective, can lead to a theology of prosperity, justification by works, or a spirituality that denies God as the ultimate. To over-stress security is to deny our dependence on God and the fact that, as human beings, we are bound to a finite reality. A theology that solely stresses security does not need to rely on God's grace, because it is sure (similar to the Pharisees) of its own merits. On the other hand, a theology that only preaches vulnerability can easily perceive its members solely as victims, and not as agents of transformation. To stress vulnerability alone may prevent accountability, responsibility, and active participation. Therefore, to acknowledge vulnerability does not mean to enforce passivity or resignation. To recognize the need for security does not mean a compliancy to power structures. How can security and vulnerability be maintained in such a creative tension?
An example of a theological reflection that sustains such paradoxical tension can be given through a biblical analysis of Matthew 1:18-25, which narrates the birth of Jesus. This account, unlike the mostly used version in Luke, gives a brief yet powerful description of the events that preceded Jesus' birth. In my opinion, it offers crucial information about the incarnation. Incarnation, in itself, is a paradox since it combines both divine and human natures in Jesus. It is one of the most puzzling, awesome and invigorating faith statements: that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The fact that God becomes flesh, fully assuming his human body, reveals a God who rejoices and suffers with the whole creation. It embodies power and weakness.
The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Joseph and Mary were engaged (practically married). According to the Jewish tradition, this was a two-step process. One was the legal procedure, and the other the actual living together. The fist part of the ceremony had been performed but, apparently, not the second. When Mary is found to be pregnant, Joseph seems quite sure that the child is not his. This creates a difficult situation. The text says very little about Mary. It does say, in verse 19, that Joseph was a just man and unwilling to put her to shame. Therefore, he decided to divorce her quietly. We do not know if he was just because he wanted to divorce her quietly (if he did not want to shame her) or because he did not follow the legal procedures. Being already married, Mary's pregnancy was a concrete sign of adultery, a crime punishable by stoning. Divorcing her in public was not only a shame, but a threat. Mary could have been stoned to death.
It has always surprised me how favorable Jesus looks at the adulterous women (John 8:1-11). In fact, seeing Mary as a potentially adulterous woman might seem shocking to many Christians. However, a closer look at the other women in Jesus' genealogy shows that his lineage is far from pristine. Tamar (Matthew 1:3) is a woman remembered for being clever when a patriarchal system benefited her father-in-law. She dressed up as a prostitute and become pregnant. Under the accusation of adultery, she was able to produce her father-in-laws staff and ring, proving that he was the father, thus assuring her survival through the law of levirate.
Rahab (Matthew 1:5) is also in Jesus' genealogy. A well-known prostitute, Rahab plays an instrumental role in the occupation. Ruth (Matthew 1:5) is a foreigner, and she is remembered for her strategy and survival skills, devised with the help of her mother-in-law. Next comes the wife of Uriah (Matthew 1:6), better known by her name Bathsheba. This is a sordid story of how David arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle so that he could keep his wife.
All these life stories comprise the history of Jesus' family tree. Through so many twists and turns, it is clear how fragile, dependent, and little human beings are in the overall historical scheme. It is important to remember that these stories are part of Jesus' heritage, one that entirely assumes vulnerability and counts on God's liberating intervention to assure security. The biblical narratives about these four women are not included accidentally. There is intentionality. Each human being present in Jesus' genealogy is there because God acts in strange, mysterious, and even humorous ways.
Martin Luther, commenting about his passage, also noticed the women of questionable reputation listed in Jesus' genealogy. His explanation conveys important aspects of a theology of incarnation. God could have chosen to be born in a palace, and yet chose a humble stable. God could have chosen any woman to give birth to the savior, and yet chose a young woman called Mary. God could have chosen somebody rich and powerful, and yet delighted in a maid. Luther, in his commentary on the Magnificat (1521), stresses Mary's humilitas (her humbleness). In a similar way, all the women in his genealogy are there to show that God did not choose perfection, but real life and real people. The history of Jesus' family is just like yours and mine, says Luther. It is human history in its most fragile aspect. It is its vulnerability that makes it perfect.
The genealogy closes with startling information: the Messiah had to be born from the house of David. This lineage, however, is given through Joseph, and not through Mary. If Jesus is not the biological son of Joseph, how can he be a descendent of David? Here again the biblical narrative gives us an example of how vulnerability and security maintain a creative tension in divine incarnation. As we have seen, a crucial theme is Mary's role, her reputation, the possibility of being stoned to death and the concrete peril that this pregnancy might never come to fruition. We think that Jesus' close encounters with death come with his ministry. Perhaps, we might phantom that danger in the Christmas narrative, as Herod killed other children. Yet, it starts even before that. We realize that Jesus is the incarnate divine, a vulnerable God who is at risk from the very beginning of incarnation.
Another theme is his position in the genealogy. How can Jesus be the Messiah if there is no direct link with the house of David? The answer is given by divine intervention. Joseph had decided to divorce Mary, thus allowing the real father to step up and assume his role. However, the story makes clear that Joseph plays an important role, nonetheless due to his lineage. Now, the text emphasizes that Joseph is a just man. He is probably a respectable Jewish citizen, somebody the community looks up to. But he is also a man and as such a beneficiary of a cultural and social system that privileges males. The text stresses that he is a just man, making no reference about Mary being a just woman (although Luke, in the Magnificat, shows that she is also a prophetic voice in that family). In line with Joseph's ancestors, listed in the genealogy, he too could play the role of the omnipotent patriarch. The story could have ended before it even started.
But the narrative has a twist: an angel appears to Joseph in a dream, telling him to take Mary. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and Joseph is to call his name Jesus - for he will save the people from their sins. By naming the child, Joseph will officially assume his responsibility toward the child, as a father. By becoming Jesus' father, Joseph assures the messianic lineage, removes the danger of Mary's ill-reputation, casts away the threat of being stoned, and assures that Jesus will be born safely. His act turns vulnerability into security. It symbolizes how the paradox is present in the theology of incarnation even before Jesus' birth.
Incarnation is God's option for vulnerability in a world that strives for security. In a most surprising manner, security is not achieved through might or power. It is achieved by assuring survival, the birth of a defenseless child. The link between the two pieces in this paradox (vulnerability and security) is survival: the continuity of life. This vulnerability includes a young woman capable of making decisions regarding her own body and saying yes to a pregnancy that would forever disturb the world. This vulnerability includes God speaking through angels. But it also includes a man stepping out of his patriarchal and omnipotent role. Security is assured by following God's vision, dreaming dreams, and following them. When men, like Joseph, dream, new things can happen.
Incarnation draws on human capacity to depend on others, to trust one's dreams, and to rely on the cooperative efforts that make life possible. It is not surprising that Jesus would be born in a town called Bethlehem. Beth is house, lehem is bread. Or that Jesus would become the bread of life. Survival and abundance of life are ever-present themes in Jesus' preaching, teaching, ministering, and announcing the Reign of God. This paradox - vulnerability and security - is constantly addressed though an ethics of life in abundance. Not merely life, but superlative, with quality. It is not the definition of security and freedom as established by a few, who arrogantly claim to be able to "extend the benefits of freedom across the globe." Rather, it draws from a cooperative, dialogical, more humble approach. Once we recognize that it is a paradox, not one side can be overstated.
Ethical considerations from a Latin American perspective
An ethical debate from a Latin American perspective will, of course, draw on an ethics of vulnerability instead of one of self-assurance and pseudo-security. Vulnerability is not only our most human characteristic, but it is the ethos of Christian love, as embodied in a theology of incarnation. The human capacity to creatively rely on others and build a society that fosters cooperation is something very dear to Latin Americans. It is part of living at the margins of a system that excludes. People only survive if networks of cooperation are created.
It is a different outlook when one takes vulnerability, and not security, as one's life experience. Latin Americans in general can hardly rely on government to assure welfare. One doesn't presume that the social, political or economic system will work for the individual. That is not a constitutive part of our history. The rights of the individual are not an a priori. Being aware of one's vulnerability does, however, teach us to rely on each other, to create alternative networks, to device ways to assure that basic rights will be respected. It is a powerful process to become aware of one's citizenship. Around this concept, scholars such as Paulo Freire emphasized consciousness-raising, that is, the capacity of each human being to critically read reality and transform it.
This can only be done collectively. Through collaborative efforts, citizens become aware that politics, the economy, education, healthcare, and security are not topics decided by others and that affect them directly or indirectly. These are concrete realms in which Christians act and live their faith. This collective and conscious participation acknowledges that a nation is not built by old oligarchies who keep themselves in power through corruption and force. From a Christian perspective, citizenship is not merely a right or a privilege. It is a responsibility.
This, of course, is not a new idea in Latin America, although it is a recent one. It is necessary to say that the election of the Brazilian president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva - a man who comes from a very poor background, who doesn't have a college degree, and who made his political career through the labor movement - is only possible due to a major shift in political paradigms. The democratic idea that political leaders will serve the interests of the people (and not their own) is quite novel. Yet, such change only happened because of consciousness-raising, because of Christian base communities, and because an alterative network was created.
Citizenship has become a key concept in terms of decision-making processes in politics and economics. It has concrete ethical implications because it presupposes agency, active participation, role modeling, and pursuit of values such as justice, equality, respect for diversity, and assurance that people's needs are both met and respected. Such model draws on cooperation and active participation, accountability and service. A good example of this is the participatory budget, whereby the municipality decides where the money collected through taxes will be invested. Usually such decisions are made exclusively by the elected representatives, in the City Hall. However, through a participatory budget, citizens meet in local assemblies and make these decisions collectively. Of course, there is not enough money to do everything that is needed. But this is why and how common people learn to negotiate and establish priorities. There is a strong ethical component in the whole process, as people decide which projects take priority.
This concept can be taken one step further when we also acknowledge that citizenship is a concept that goes beyond the boundaries of one's nation. We all are global citizens, deeply affect by what happens in our planet (whether it be by weather, forces of nature, warfare, or the economy). Such awareness that we are simultaneously and paradoxically local and global is expressed creatively in the term glocal. Glocal concerns and initiatives are being carried out by churches, ecumenical organizations, NGOs, political parties, and governments.
A good example of how the global community is addressing issues of vulnerability and security is the World Social Forum, held every year concomitant to the economic summit of Davos, Switzerland. The last World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre (Brazil) brought together more than 100,000 people under the firm belief that "Another world is possible". This is a momentous occasion to celebrate a plethora of economic initiatives, grassroots organizations, human rights groups, ecological programs, and a growing ecumenical movement built on concrete initiatives of peace and justice. It is a beautiful festival of life made possible only because people are aware of human vulnerability.
A theology of incarnation is ultimately an invitation to live the paradox of vulnerability and security. It is an invitation to recognize the powerful God-given gifts bestowed on us: creativity, solidarity, talents, community, food, shelter, and love. It is also an invitation to denounce systems of evil that prevent life from flowing abundantly and to join forces against such systems. Finally, it is an invitation to live our present lives as true experiences of grace, because life is a gift and deserves to be savored fully.
GUTIERREZ, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1973; BOFF, Clodovis. Theology and Praxis, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987.
GALEANO, Eduardo. Open veins of Latin America: five centuries of the pillage of a continent. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973.
SOBRINO, Jon. Christology at the Crossroads. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1978; BOFF, Leonardo. Jesus Christ Liberator. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1978.
JONES, Serene. Feminist theory and Christian theology: cartographies of grace. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.
KARANT-NUNN, Susan C. and WIESNER-HANKS, Merry E. Luther on women - a sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1970.
For contextual appropriations of Christology, see STALSETT, Sturla (org). Discovering Jesus in our place: Contextual Christologies in a Globalised World. Dehli: ISPCK, 2003.
Such powerful statement comes from ecofeminism. See GEBARA, Ivone. Out of the depths: women's experience of evil and salvation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.
© June 2005
Journal of Lutheran Ethics
Volume 5, Issue 6
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Reading is paramount to language learning, yet, much to the disappointment of teachers, it can be a difficult skill to teach.
How do you teach students to become better readers, especially with academic texts? As a teacher, you can arm students with specific reading strategies that will help students navigate and comprehend any given text. Below are 5 essential strategies and ways to use them in your classroom.
Try These 5 Activities for Teaching Reading Strategies
One of the most essential reading skills is scanning for specific information. By training students to scan the page to look for key words, they learn to group specific letters together and quickly identify words, thus improving their fluency over time. Scanning is also a critical test-taking skill that allows students to read questions carefully and know how to look back in the text quickly to find the answer.
Activities: A good scanning activity is a “running race.” To do this activity, prepare 9 or 10 questions about the details of a text; these questions should not be subjective but have one clear objective answer. This activity can work both before students read the text or as a review activity when students have finished the reading. Put students into pairs with each student having a copy of the text in front of them and make enough copies of the questions for each pair. Cut the questions so they are in strips of paper, and give each pair question number one only. When you tell students to start, they should race to find the correct answer to the first question, and then one partner should run their written answer to your desk to show you. If the student is correct, give them question number two, and so on until a group has answered all of the questions correctly. This activity works well with any text but can be especially challenging if you give students the classifieds section of the newspaper. For more advanced students, you can mix-up the order of your questions so that they do not follow in order with the text.
Another scanning activity is to do a “find the word” race. With the text in front of them, write down a word on the board that only occurs once in the text. When students find the word, they should stand up. Wait until all students are standing to have the first student point out the sentence that the word is in. A more challenging alternative is to only say the word aloud without writing it down. This is a good way to pre-teach vocabulary by drawing students’ attention to these words and discussing the meaning of these words. This activity also works as a way to preview the text as it can lead to a discussion of what the students believe the story will be about based on the words you select from the text.
Skimming is an essential skill because it previews the text for the learner. Just like knowing the topic of a conversation beforehand helps us be better listeners, knowing the main idea of a text is extremely beneficial before students begin to read closely. A general understanding of the broad topic will prepare them to read for understanding and allow them to read faster.
Activity: Have skimming activities where you copy the text, blocking out everything but the title, pictures, first lines of each paragraph, and the last paragraph. From this information, get your students to identify the main idea and why the author is writing this story. Have a discussion about what they already know about the text and what they think they will learn in the details.
Main idea is one of the most difficult skills for students because it’s one of the only test questions where the answer can’t always be found in an exact line within the text. Students need to be able to comprehend an entire text and then decide what is the big picture idea. While the skimming strategy described above helps students to determine the main idea before reading, the main idea strategy is for students to understand the “big picture” after reading the text.
Activities: Give students the “6W questions” to ask about the author’s purpose after reading an entire text. Who is writing this text and who did the author want to read this text? What is the author saying? Why is the author saying this? When did the author write this story? Where does this story take place? How did the author write this story? By getting the basics of the author’s purpose, we can more easily understand what the main idea is.
Alternatively, you can try the main idea builder after reading a text in its entirety. Ask students to close their books and tell you what this article is about in one word. For example, is we had just read a story about the ancient Mayan civilization and some of their customs, the one word response would be “The Mayans.” After giving you one word, then ask them to put more description on that one word, such as “Mayan civilizations.” Slowly add onto your description one or two words at a time until you get a full, complex sentence that highlights the main idea of the story. An alternative to this activity is to have students close their books, and then describe their article to a partner, but they must pretend that their partner has never read the story. You can also have students write a letter to their family member describing the story to them.
Another activity that emphasizes main idea is outlining. Give students a blank outline form that asks them to fill in the author’s thesis, main points, details, and examples. If the text you’re working with doesn’t lend itself well to the rigid structure of an outline, have students write down one sentence for each paragraph that expresses the main idea that paragraph. When they are finished, they should be able to put their main idea sentences for each paragraph together to find the main idea of the whole story.
Many times students are too reliant on their dictionaries; they use their dictionaries every time they encounter an unfamiliar word which disrupts reading fluency and sentence comprehension. A better and more realistic approach to help them master unknown words is discovering meaning through context. Context clues can be found in other words nearby and also from the grammatical structure of the sentence.
Activity: Choose a made-up word (for example, noubit ) and use it in many different contextual sentences, and ask students to determine the meaning of this non-word. Keep the same made-up word for each sentence, but use appropriate word endings to illustrate the change in part of speech (i.e. noubits, noubiting, nubition, nubitous, noubitously, etc…). Using the same non-word throughout the exercise will prevent them from relying on their dictionaries while also keeping them from thinking that this word is a real word. Your sentences should be rich with context so that students can determine the meaning, for example “The invention of the car has made transportation much easier. In the past, people had to use noubits to get around which took a long time.” Emphasize to the students that it’s not always necessary to get the exact, precise meaning of the word. For example, in the above sentence, “noubits” could be horses, bicycles, or feet, but any of those meanings will still allow them to comprehend the importance of the invention of the car. As long as students can understand the meaning of the sentence, that will be enough for them to finish reading, and they can look up the specific word in their dictionaries later. Also, some of your sentences should include grammatical clues, such as appositives, for example, “The task was so noubitous, or strenuous, for the students.” Take time to go over each question as a class so that you can model for your students how to identify and effectively use these context clues.
Like main idea, inferences can’t be found directly in the lines of the text; you must teach your students to read between the lines. Being good at making inferences relies a lot on critical thinking skills which can be a difficult thing to teach.
Activity: Using riddles with your students is a good way to illustrate the importance of inference. Start with something simple like, “I love my job. I go to the hospital everyday, and I take care of my patients. What am I?” Students should easily be able to identify the description of a doctor/nurse. Ask them how they knew that when you never explicitly stated what your job was. Similar to the context clues example above, students may have similar but different answers, such as a doctor and a nurse. Many times we won’t be able to identify exactly what the author is inferring, but if we can determine something that retains the main meaning, we can still understand the text appropriately. As students progress, give more challenging riddles.
Another activity to do is to find short mystery stories or “whodunit” stories. The very old book series Encyclopedia Brown works great for this reading skill, and there are countless others to be found on the web. These activities will teach your students close reading skills and force them to think critically about what is both in and not in the text, thus helping them become better at inferences.
Skimming, scanning, main idea, context clues, and making inferences are the foundational skills necessary to develop your students as strong readers.
Model and practice these skills with your students regularly and watch over time how they will be reading stronger, better, and faster!
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Studies on Retail Food Safety Programs
This page lists EHS-Net food safety projects and study objectives with a focus on retail food safety practice.
Objective: To evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of environmental health specialists regarding inspections and outbreak investigations.
Study Results: Focus group results concerning inspections indicated that environmental health specialists thought that identifying and correcting critical violations of food safety regulations, educating restaurant workers and managers about these critical violations, and developing a good relationship with restaurant managers were common and important inspection activities. Specialists also identified inspection difficulties associated with the restaurant industry, the inspection structure, and environmental health management.
Results concerning outbreak investigations revealed substantial variability in the type of activities in which participants engaged during investigations, and the amount and nature of the collaboration between epidemiology and environmental health during investigations. Also, many participants indicated that they did not often identify contributing factors to outbreaks during investigations. Participants also identified several difficulties associated with outbreak investigations, including those associated with restaurant employees, restaurant customers, and environmental health organizations.
Publication: Selman CA, Green LR. Environmental health specialists’ self-reported foodborne illness outbreak investigation practices. [PDF - 331 KB] J Environ Health. 2008;70(6):16-21.
Study findings in plain language: How environmental health specialists investigate outbreaks.
Objective: To determine if the presence of a certified kitchen manager results in fewer critical violations.
Study Results: Restaurants are associated with a significant number of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States. Certification of kitchen managers through an accredited training and testing program may help improve food safety practices and thus prevent foodborne illness. In this study, relationships between the results of routine restaurant inspections and the presence of a certified kitchen manager (CKM) were examined. We analyzed data for 4,461 restaurants in Iowa that were inspected during 2005 and 2006 (8,338 total inspections). Using logistic regression analysis, we modeled the outcome variable (0 = no critical violations [CVs]; 1 = one or more CVs) as a function of presence or absence of a CKM and other explanatory variables. We estimated separate models for seven inspection categories. Restaurants with a CKM present during inspection were less likely to have a CV for personnel (P < 0.01), food source or handling (P < 0.01), facility or equipment requirements (P < 0.05), warewashing (P < 0.10), and other operations (P < 0.10). However, restaurants with a CKM present during inspection were equally likely to have a CV for temperature or time control and plumbing, water, or sewage as were restaurants without a CKM present. Analyses by type of violation within the temperature and time control category revealed that restaurants with a CKM present during inspection were less likely to have a CV for hot holding (P < 0.05), but the presence of a CKM did not affect other types of temperature and time control violations. Our analyses suggest that the presence of a CKM is protective for most types of CVs, and we identify areas for improving training of CKMs.
Publication: Cates SC, Muth MK, Karns SA, Penne MA, Stone CN, Harrison JE. Certified kitchen managers: do they improve restaurant inspection outcomes? [PDF - 310 KB] J Food Prot. 2009;72(2):384-91.
Study findings in plain language: Kitchen manager certification study and food safety.Top of Page
- Page last reviewed: April 2, 2012
- Page last updated: June 28, 2016
- Content source:
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This map of the ancient sky shows the minute variations in the microwave background discovered by the team led by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory astrophysicist George Smoot. As seen in the map, vast regions of space have minute variations in temperature. Over billions of years, gravity magnified these small differences into the clusters of galaxies we observe today. Displayed horizontally across the middle of the map is the Milky Way galaxy.
The image, a 360-degree map of the whole sky, shows the relic radiation from the Big Bang. The map was derived from one year of data taken by the Differential Microwave Radiometers onboard NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite. Using Galactic coordinates, the map shows the plane of the Milky Way galaxy horizontally and the center of our galaxy at its center.
The colors represent temperature variations with red indicating regions that are a hundredth of a percent warmer and blue indicating regions that are a hundredth of a percent cooler than the average temperature of 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. Away from the plane of the galaxy, many of the features shown are noise.
According to the "inflationary Big Bang" theory on the birth of the universe, as the universe began to expand in the instant after the primeval explosion, its energy density was nearly uniform in all directions save for very small amplitude variations. Gravity working over billions of years magnified these variations, causing galaxies to form and to cluster in the sky. These galaxy clustering patterns, predicted by theory, have been seen for several years, but this study provides the first evidence for the corresponding fluctuations in the background radiation in the sky. Thus, a 15-billion-year-old fossil of the conditions of the universe has been detected and measured for the first time.
Computer analyses show that the pattern of the fluctuations agrees with the predictions from the inflationary Big Bang scenario. The amplitudes of the observed fluctuations are consistent with theories that explain the birth and growth of galaxies using large amounts of an enigmatic material called "dark matter." According to these theories, most of the universe is composed of material that we not only know very little about, but that has never been seen directly.
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The Basics Of Aspartame
Aspartame was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981. This ingredient has gone through one of the most important scientific reviews ever. Most people who consume aspartame are concerned with healthy living and weight control.
Athletes consume it in sport drinks, either powdered or pre-mixed (bottled), for a lower caloric intake and higher energetic benefits. Below are some general benefits and dangers of aspartame.
| aspartame |
Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar, tastes good and enhances citrus and other fruit flavors. This sugar supplement is virtually calorie-free and does not generate tooth decay. Moreover, aspartame is easily digestible because it breaks down quickly when its components are absorbed by the blood. These components do not accumulate in the body over time, they are simply eliminated.
The FDA found that people consume only 3% of the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of aspartame. Therefore, consumption of aspartame can increase considerably without being harmful to the body. Tests have also been conducted using humans and after consuming greater levels of aspartame than what the ADI recommends, no adverse side effects resulted.
To support the FDA's findings, the American Medical Association's council on scientific affairs reviewed research on aspartame and found the sweetener safe for use. Discoveries in research have also shown that in general, aspartame can be consumed safely by pregnant women, diabetics and children. Exceptions may arise, therefore it is recommended to consult a physician before consumption.
Studies conducted seem to refute the general negative outlook on aspartame, but aspartame does have its pitfalls. Aspartame cannot be used in cooking meals that require heat.
The result is a loss of sweetness, therefore a loss of its basic use. People affected with phenylketonuria, a rare disease diagnosed at birth, must control aspartame consumption because it can be hazardous to their health.
Methanol, which is one of the components of aspartame, could affect vision if over-consumed. Finally, no specific research has been done on long-term effects concerning the development of different cancers or tumors as a result of aspartame usage. Today's tip is to consume minimal amounts of aspartame and sugar in order to ensure sound health.
Hope this clarifies some misconceptions on aspartame.
Have a question? Get it answered by AskMen's guyQ.
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A new study of the batteries commonly used in hybrid and electric-only cars has revealed an unexpected factor that could limit the performance of batteries currently on the road.
Researchers led by Ohio State University engineers examined used car batteries and discovered that over time lithium accumulates beyond the battery electrodes—in the "current collector," a sheet of copper which facilitates electron transfer between the electrodes and the car's electrical system.
This knowledge could aid in improving design and performance of batteries, explains Bharat Bhushan, Ohio Eminent Scholar and the Howard D. Winbigler Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
"Our study shows that the copper current collector plays a role in the performance of the battery," he says.
The study, which appears in a recent issue of Scripta Materialia, reflects an ongoing collaboration between Bhushan and Suresh Babu, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the National Science Foundation Center for Integrative Materials Joining for Energy Applications, headquartered at the university. The team is trying to determine the factors that limit battery life.
Lithium-ion batteries are the rechargeable batteries used in most hybrid-electric cars and all-electric cars as well. Inside, lithium ions shuttle back and forth between the anode and cathode of the battery—to the anode when the battery is charging, and back to the cathode when the battery is discharging.
Previously, the researchers determined that, during aging of the battery, cyclable lithium permanently builds up on the surface of the anode, and the battery loses charge capacity.
This latest study revealed that lithium migrates through the anode to build up on the copper current collector as well.
"We didn't set out to find lithium in the current collector, so you could say we accidentally discovered it, and how it got there is a bit of a mystery. As far as we know, nobody has ever expected active lithium to migrate inside the current collector," Bhushan says.
Shrikant Nagpure, now postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State, carried out this research as a part of his doctoral degree. He examined batteries that were aged in collaboration with the university's Center for Automotive Research, where colleagues Yann Guezennec and Giorgio Rizzoni have studied battery aging for several years, in collaboration with the automotive industry.
Key to the discovery of lithium in the current collector was collaboration between the Ohio State team and Gregory Downing, a research chemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and an expert on a technique called neutron depth profiling (NDP), a tool for impurity analysis in materials.
Previously, the researchers used NDP to study the cathodes and anodes of six off-the-shelf lithium-ion car batteries—one new battery and five batteries which they aged themselves in the laboratory—and found that lithium builds up on the anode surface over time.
To understand more about how these batteries degrade, Bhushan and his colleagues have been studying the batteries further, at various scales ranging from the millimeter down to the nanometer with different techniques.
In the NDP technique, researchers pass neutrons through a material and capture the charged particles that emerge from the fission reaction between neutrons and lithium in the electrodes. Since different chemical elements emit a certain signature set of particles with specific energies, NDP can reveal the presence of impurities in a material.
In this latest study, NDP detected the presence of lithium in the copper current collector from one of the aged batteries. The detection was measured as a ratio of the number of copper atoms in the collector to the number of lithium atoms that had collected there. The test yielded a ratio of up to 0.08%, or approximately one lithium atom per 1,250 copper atoms in the collector.
That's a small number, but high enough that it could conceivably affect the electrical performance of the current collector—and, in turn, the performance of a battery, Bhushan says. He hopes that battery makers will further investigate this phenomenon and use the information to design new materials that might prevent lithium from escaping the electrode material.
Next, he and his colleagues will study the impedance, or internal electrical resistance, of lithium-ion batteries on the nanoscale.
Source: Ohio State University
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Drug withdrawal is the term used to describe the onset of symptoms that occur when someone using drugs or alcohol suddenly ceases using these substances or there is a decrease in dosage or amount taken. The reason an individual who is addicted to drugs experiences the symptoms of drug withdrawal is because of the physical and/or mental dependence that they have developed to their drug of choice over time. The length and variety of drug withdrawal symptoms the user may experience vary depending on the drug used, dosage amount and length of use. Additionally, the route of administration, whether intravenous, intramuscular, oral or otherwise, may also determine the length and severity of drug withdrawal symptoms. For example, someone who has been intravenously injecting heroin for 10 years will experience a more painful and uncomfortable drug withdrawal than someone who has smoked marijuana for a short period of time. Not to say that the underlying psychological issues which are at the root of the individual's drug use are any more or less significant, but the drug withdrawal process surely will be.
The long-term use of many kinds of drugs causes changes in the body that tend to lessen the drug's original effects over time, and the individual develops a tolerance to the drug. The individual is considered to have developed a physical dependency to the drug at this point. This is why someone using drugs experiences the physical symptoms of withdrawal upon discontinuation of use. This is not only true for recreational drugs and alcohol but also for prescription drugs. It is important to know that withdrawal from certain drugs can be fatal and it is advisable to seek the approval and help of trained medical professionals when deciding to cease using any drug, especially prescription medication. Additionally, withdrawal from alcohol is similarly dangerous and individuals who have been drinking heavily for an extended period of time can experience seizures and other dangerous symptoms which can be fatal. Individuals must take extra caution when they decide to suddenly stop drinking and seek the help of professionals when they decide to do so.
The onset of drug withdrawal can start within a few hours to several days after cessation of use. One of the first symptoms of drug withdrawal will be cravings, and the individual will have an almost overpowering desire to obtain and use their drug of choice at this stage in the game. This is a crucial time when the individual needs the best care and support possible, as this craving often leads to relapse.
As time goes on, the individual will likely begin to feel worse and worse until the drug withdrawal symptoms go away. Drug withdrawal symptoms may be more pronounced when long-term drug use has caused malnutrition, disease, chronic pain, or sleep deprivation for example. When the person stops using the drug, discomforts from these secondary symptoms return and are sometimes confused with drug withdrawal symptoms. A few examples of drug withdrawal include:
Drug use affects the reward center of the brain, and raises the level of a chemical known as dopamine which produces a sense of euphoria in the user. This is a key reason individuals become addicted to drugs, as the individual's brain remembers these feelings and wants them repeated. The urge to use drugs is so strong as a result of this, that individuals find many ways to rationalize their drug use which negatively impacts their life. However, long-term use of the drug results in less and less stimulation of this area of the brain until eventually it produces no euphoria at all. Complete discontinuation of drug use produces a drug withdrawal syndrome that is the exact opposite of euphoria, as activity in this area of the brain decreases below normal levels. Therefore, drug withdrawal symptoms as a result of less stimulation in the reward center of the brain can cause depression, anxiety, craving and even suicide.
Drug withdrawal can be extremely dangerous and even fatal if attempted on one's own, which is why a proper inpatient drug rehab with drug detoxification is the safest and surest way to get through the withdrawal process. Don't risk relapse or other consequences and make things harder for yourself or the one's the care about you the most. Get the professional help you need to get through drug withdrawal. In this website you will find information that pertains to drug withdrawal in regards to many commonly abused drugs including alcohol and recreational and prescription drugs.
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Ándros (änˈthrôs, ănˈdrəs) [key], island (1991 pop. 8,781), 146 sq mi (378 sq km), SE Greece, in the Aegean Sea, the northernmost and second largest of the Cyclades. Ándros (1991 pop. 1,370) is the capital and chief town. The island produces silk, wine, and fruit and has manganese deposits. Colonized by Athens in the 5th cent. B.C., Ándros rebelled in 410 B.C., became a free state, and later passed successively to Macedon, Pergamum, and Rome. Seized (1204) from the Byzantines by Venice and made a principality, it remained almost entirely under Venetian rule until its conquest (1514) by the Turks. In 1829 it passed to Greece.
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Our world is becoming increasingly automated, with many tasks handled by computers and robots. Although this bring many benefits, it is unclear who is responsible for the associated risks. We believe that automation is necessary for the world, and that an automated future can be safe. However, all of society needs to approach the creation of robots with a more fundamental approach to safety. This site covers case studies of contemporary robotic applications:
In addition, we look at the problem of regulation: How can the creation and operation of safe robots be guided by rules?
What emerges is not a simple, prescriptive answer. The world is changing, and robots are going to play important roles in our lives. In order for this to happen properly, we must all be aware of the risks associated with advanced machines.
Recent advances in technology have brought many benefits and changes to our society. As the software behind this technology becomes increasingly complex, humans are able to rely on the automation of tasks that would otherwise require much time and effort. However, this complexity also creates problems for which our solutions are steadily more dependent on the power of computers. In addition, technology has brought benefits that bring forward new issues that require ever greater technical creativity to solve.
For example, technological leaps in medicine have led to an increase in average life expectancy, but left the ever growing elderly population without adequate resources to support them. This is particularly a big problem in Japan, where nursing homes are increasingly turning to robots to relieve the labor force. Similarly, advances in business, military, and research have led to systems that are either too large or dangerous for humans to operate; algorithmically advanced robots may present a possible solution.
Today, robots already have quite a presence, but the technology is still young and the dangers of giving machines too much responsibility are not yet evident. However, as machines become more intelligent, they will be placed in situations where they will make decisions for humans. It is important to continue our development with a strong understanding of the risks. We cannot guarantee ultimate safety, but we can guard against them. Our research focuses on how to draw the line between power and safety when assigning responsibility to robots. We will also cover the extensive changes that will have to be implemented by engineers, manufacturers, and users of this technology in order to ensure that intelligent machines will not pose a serious risk to human users.
Who are we?
This site is a project by Kseniya Charova, Cameron Schaeffer, and Lucas Garron for the CS181 course at Stanford in Spring 2011.
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Last week, I woke up in the middle of the night to winds raging outside. I figured they were chinooks — strong, brief winds common this time of year near the mountains — and went back to sleep.
Well, they weren’t chinooks. They were from this:
[Click to coriolinate.]
Holy isobaric imbalance! What a monster!
This was the storm that tore across the US last week as seen by NASA’s GOES Earth-observing satellite. It spawned tornadoes, high winds, and all manners of mischief over more than 30 states. It wasn’t technically a hurricane — it’s actually an extratropical cyclone — but it had the lowest recorded pressure ever seen in the US:
At 5:13 p.m. CDT, the weather station in Bigfork, Minnesota recorded 955.2 millibars (28.21 inches of pressure). Pressure is one indicator of a storm’s strength, and this measurement corresponds to the pressure seen in a Category 3 hurricane.
Yikes. There are also videos of the storm’s development on the NASA page, just in case you think the Earth was tailor-made for us humans to live comfortably and complacently.
Incidentally, if there is some sort of metaphor between this storm marching across the country and today’s elections, I invite you to make the connection on your own.
Image credit: Jesse Allen, NASA GOES Project Science Office
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This is Part 3 of a six-part series telling the story of humankind’s efforts to understand the origins of life by looking for it in extreme environments where life thrives without relying on the sun as an energy source.
It follows an oceanographic expedition to the Mid-Cayman Rise led by Chris German of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and NASA’s efforts to plan a future mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. By understanding how life can live without the sun, we may discover how life began on our planet and whether or not Earth is the only place in the universe capable of supporting a biosphere.
Hydrogen sulfide is a poison gas that’s lethal for humans even in very low concentrations. Yet, this compound — two parts hydrogen, one part sulfur — turned out to be the food source for bacteria that drive an entirely new ecosystem. (New to usat least. Some scientists suspect this type of ecosystem might, in fact, be the oldest on our planet.)
For more than a century, biologists have known that bacterial life can exist based on chemosynthesis, but before the 1977 Galapagos Hydrothermal Expedition, no one had imagined an entire ecosystem could be generated from chemosynthetic processes alone. [Extremophiles: World's Weirdest Life]
Chemosynthesis is the biological conversion of carbon molecules and nutrients into organic matter — the stuff of life. Whereas photosynthesis uses energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into that organic matter, giving off oxygen as a byproduct, chemosynthesis uses inorganic molecules (such as hydrogen sulfide) or methane and combines them with an oxygen source (in this case seawater) to create simple sugars.
Those sugars are the fuel that bacteria live off, and the bacteria are the fuel that larger organisms need to survive. Chemosynthesis that uses hydrogen sulfide produces sulfur as a byproduct — and it’s the sulfur that smells like rotten eggs.
Hydrogen sulfide is one of many compounds that hitch a ride in the superheated water, rocketing back up to the surface of the seafloor after sneaking down through fissures to meet pockets of magma from the Earth’s mantle.
These substances get dissolved by the hot water from the rocks lining the fissure, creating a chemically enriched water mixture. This mixture then gets buoyant as it is heated, eventually escaping back into the frigid ocean water.
But how could such an alien process — fundamentally different from the basis for the vast majority of all life on Earth — exist here?
Searching for life's origins
Enter Günter Wächtershäuser. A German chemist turned patent lawyer who specializes in chemical and biochemical inventions, Wächtershäuser (pronounced VEK-terz-hoi-zer) first proposed in 1988 that a similar chemosynthetic process to the one observed on the Galapagos Hydrothermal Vent Expedition had been around on Earth for a very long time.
Not only was it common to the planet Earth throughout its history, he argues, this process was fundamental to all living ecosystems going back to the very first genesis of life around four billion years ago. [7 Theories on the Origin of Life]
If we could travel back to that time, we’d see a wholly different Earth than the one we see today. We’d see a planet emerging from the cataclysm of an impact with a rogue planet that created the moon and is thought to have tilted the Earth’s axis to about 23.5 degrees.
Earth would have only recently cooled down enough to bear a solid crust, and intense volcanism and geological upheaval would have created a toxic atmosphere almost completely devoid of oxygen. With no ozone layer, the planet would be drenched with massive doses of ultraviolet light and radiation from the sun.
We’d see comets, meteorites and asteroids raining down across the landscape in a period of heavy bombardment, leaving behind condensed water that would form clouds and eventually, combined with volcanic outgassing, oceans. Photosynthesis wouldn’t take place on Earth for perhaps another two billion years.
Yet, it would have been in this literal hell on Earth that we would have seen (if we’d remembered to take a microscope with us) the first life forms start to appear.
Life rising from Earth's depths?
Wächtershäuser, who’s also an honorary professor of evolutionary biochemistry at the University of Regensburg in Germany, points to Earth’s early oceans and period of high volcanic activity as the perfect environment for the birth of Earth Life Form No. 1, or the “pioneer organism”, an acellular (containing no cells) entity that likely passed through the loneliest life in the history of the planet in a manner of minutes.
His origin-of-life premise is called the Iron-Sulfur World Theory. It posits that hot, pressurized water mixed with dissolved gases (including hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia) passed out of prehistoric vents and over various minerals containing iron, nickel and other metals within the rocks around the vents.[Gallery: Creatures of Deep-Sea Vents]
These metals served as catalysts for a chain reaction that synthesized organic compounds and coupled some of them with other metals to form new compounds with greater ability to yield new chemical reactions.
This coupling between the catalyst and the product of an organic reaction is the key first step of Wächtershäuser’s theory.
What comes next is the miracle of evolution. Starting with these metals and gases reacting together as life emerged, Wächtershäuser says evolution starts with the beginning of a primitive metabolism that created increasingly complex chemical reactions, eventually leading over time to the formation of DNA — life’s blueprints for making more living cells today.
Before living cells were around, these metals and gases reacted together in a purely chemical sense, according to predetermined “pathways.” There were only so many compounds around back then and only so many ways these could react together.
“Hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide. Hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia,” Wächtershäuser said, pausing before adding, “Oh, phosphorus oxide, P4O10. That’s it.”
Aside from a few other trace molecules, these were the gases belched from the belly of the planet that formed the first chemical reactions that served as the precursor to life.
Feeding it forward
When these gases come up from deep within the Earth, they move from a state of high pressure and high temperature to one of low pressure and low temperature. This happens rapidly, causing a non-equilibrium condition called quenching— where the ratio of gases at a high temperature gets frozen in the same concentration upon transferring into a low-temperature environment.
“Let’s say at high temperatures you have an equilibrium ratio of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, 1:1,” Wächtershäuser said. “And at low temperatures, you may have an equilibrium ratio of 10,000:1. So if you quench, then you may have a low-temperature mixture still having a high concentration of carbon monoxide.”
The quenching is important because it creates a chemical potential. The chemical potential drives the reactions between gases and metals at hydrothermal vents. There, because of the unique combination of the right gases and the right metals at the right temperatures, reactions start to build off each other, creating “a synthetic reaction whereby the organic products that are synthesized promote in turn the rate of another reaction,” Wächtershäuser said.
In other words, certain reactions create byproducts that then are used to speed up other reactions, leading to longer, more complex strings of organic molecules.
According to his theory, all evolution happens using this method of “feed forward” reactions, where organic products promote other reactions yielding new organic products of increasing complexity. This is what gave rise to amino acids, peptides, sugars, proteins, nucleotides and nucleic acids, like DNA and RNA.
After that, as the theory goes, life evolved higher levels of complexity and ventured beyond vent communities. It isn’t clear when photosynthesis first arose, but most estimates range from 2.5 to 3 billion years ago. The rest, as they say, is history.
The 'Replicator-first' theory
Since we can’t go back in time, we’ll never know if Günter’s theory of life rising from the depths of the Earth’s molten innards is true or not. And his is only one of several competing origin-of-life theories, which generally fall into two camps.
Metabolism-first theories (like the Iron-Sulfur World Theory) start with simple molecules that build increasing levels of complexity. Replicator-first theories, on the other hand, suggest that simple organic molecules occur naturally and are able to self-replicate right from the start.
Chemist Stanley Miller is in the replicator-first camp. Miller, who is sometimes referred to as the “Father of origin-of-life chemistry,” earned early fame for a classic experiment he conducted in 1952 as a graduate student with Harold Urey demonstrating how amino acids could be generated in a lab environment from simple compounds subjected to electrical discharges in the early Earth's atmosphere. [What Are the Ingredients of Life?]
The spontaneous creation of amino acids doesn’t by itself explain life’s origins, since it’s still a huge jump to go from simple amino acids to complex, self-replicating chains of genetic instructions contained within DNA and RNA. But his findings did lay the cornerstone for origin-of-life research and sparked many curious minds to test all sorts of combinations of conditions that could have been around on the early Earth. Still, 60 years later, none of these efforts have been able to replicate life from scratch in a lab.
One of the leading variants of the replicator-first camp is the “RNA World Theory,” which suggests that RNA molecules arose before the first proteins since before them, there would have been no molecule of heredity, or “blueprint” molecule to manufacture other molecules consistently.
Advocates of this theory say there was a time when RNA alone handled all maintenance activities of a cell, acting as both genetic material and a catalyst for metabolism reactions. The evolution of DNA then reallocated labor for replication and genetic storage to the more stable DNA molecule.
Looking toward Europa
But Wächtershäuser thinks it’s too much of a jump to assume life began with the ability to self-replicate. “The beginning of the genetic machinery is not replication. Replication has no purpose in itself,” Wächtershäuser said.
To him, the beginning of the genetic machinery of replication begins with something akin to the chemistry that goes on in the core of the ribosome, which is a bit like the manufacturing plant of all cells. That chemistry boils down to peptide formation — basically, simple amino acids linked together.
It’s a crucial step and it’s something his experiments have been able to produce in the lab under high temperature conditions — the same conditions that are thought to have been around in the early Earth around hydrothermal vent systems. It isn’t conclusive proof his theory is right, but he’s getting closer.
Unfortunately for Wächtershäuser, maybe the best proof to his theory lies about 500 million miles away (800 million kilometers) from his lab in Germany, beneath the icy shell of a moon discovered more than 400 years ago by a man named Galileo Galilei: Jupiter’s moon Europa.
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Conductivity & Salinity Monitoring
Conductivity (EC) is a measure of the ability of water to pass an electric current; it is affected by the presence of dissolved solids such as chloride, nitrate and phosphate. Conductivity can be a very useful indicator that a discharge of some sort has entered a stream, or some other change has occurred.
Conductivity is affected by temperature; the warmer the water, the higher the conductivity. For this reason, conductivity is reported as conductivity at 25 degrees Celsius. In streams and rivers conductivity is affected by the area through which the water flows. Streams that run through granite bedrock have lower conductivity as granite is composed of more inert materials that do not ionize. However water that flows through clay soils have higher conductivity due to the presence of materials that ionize.
Distilled water has conductivity in the range of 0.5 to 3 µmhos/cm. Studies show that inland fresh water indicate that streams with good aquatic life have a range between 150 and 500 µhos/cm. Anything outside this range could be harmful to certain species of wildlife. Industrial waters can range as high as 10,000 µmhos/cm. Regular measurement of conductivity can alert you to discharge or another source of pollution that has entered the water.
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Modern traditional wrestling is one of the oldest
sports in Gambia and wrestling festivals are a common occurrence.
Leg locks are permitted but there are no patterned arm or
head locks, or complicated points system. The object of the
game is simply to throw one's opponent to the ground. The
first wrestler down in the bout loses the contest.
The most common style of grappling is shown among the
and Jolas. It involves each opponent grabbing each other's trunks at
the start of the bout. After some strategic manoeuvrings each one
would attempt to throw the other to the ground. Serers on the other
hand prefer to go straight for the lets and render their opponent
A wrestling match is part sport and
part celebration with music. However, in Gambia it is more than just
sport and entertainment. It is an important part of the traditional
culture and is organised to reflect some of the most deeply rooted
ideals of the societies that support it. The wrestling arena is a
place to show courage, labour, strength, fair play; a place to honour
the spirits of society.
Origins of Traditional Wrestling:
Gambian wrestling seems to have evolved as a modified version of real
combat techniques. Traditional warriors defeated their opponents by
throwing them to the ground with great force, preferably on their
head. Over time this kind of warfare developed into the non-violent
form of sport it is today.
The warrior was an honoured figure
in Gambian society and the social position of a wrestler in the
community became analogous to that of a warrior from times past.
Traditionally, all the boys in a village were taught how to wrestle.
The ones that showed skill and promise were held in high regard as a
man regardless of class. Many of the most famous Gambian chiefs such
as Sader Manneh of Kuntaur, Cherno Bande of Fuladu West and Moriba
Krubally of Georgetown had previously been talented wrestlers in their
youth. Even a slave could gain greater prestige, respect and adoration
than most freemen could only wish for.
The Kafo & Village Wrestling:
Within every Mandinka village, and to a lesser extent in the Wollof,
Serer and Jola villages, young men and women were divided into age
groups called Kafo. They carried out community projects and organised
social events. The Kambane Kafo comprised of young men aged between 18
and 25 years. Traditionally, the finest grapplers came from this age
Larger villages were often divided into wards and within
each village wrestling matches were often organised between Kafo of
different wards. However, no matter how many Kafo a village had, they
all joined together to issue collective challenges to the Kafo of
neighbouring villages, and met them in the wrestling arena as a
unified group. The performance of the Kafo reflected on the rest of
Inter-village wrestling matches most often took
place in the dry season after the harvest. This is because people had
more leisure time and the Kafo had enough food from their communal
farm to feed large numbers of crowds. The challenging village was
responsible for providing nourishment for their opponents.
wrestler's host was a very important part for the continued good
relations between villages. The host was the spokesperson and
go-between for the visitors with the rest of the community.
wrestlers are believed to possess a superior gift of spiritual
strength, which the Mandingo call Nyamo. Before matches he will spend
a lot of time putting on his amulets after keeping them warm over
small bonfires lit in the corner of the arena. This is part of the
Gambia's animist beliefs.
Almost the entire range of wrestling holds and throws, even those liable
to result in injury or death, were 'legal'. That is, they were
accepted as part of the game. However, the referees and
spectators set their own limits as to which tactics were
These limits were dictated by simple common sense.
The actions that are forbidden are beating, slapping, boxing,
sand throwing in the eyes of your opponent, and kicking. When a
wrestler indicated that he wanted to throw in the towel, he was
to be released immediately. Once a combatant has thrown his
opponent to the ground he is to get off him immediately.
In theory, there were no regular weight classifications; a
wrestler was free to accept any challenge. In practice,
combatants generally challenged or accepted challenges from
those near to their own size. Champions nearly always came from
the heavyweight class.
start of with, on the day of action, wrestlers from each village
paraded from their compounds into the arena, accompanied by
drummers and fans who sang their praises. Occasionally the
wrestler would bolt out from the crowd to dance and strut in
front of the crowd. Once the host team enters the arena, the
challenger team sits together on the opposite side and waits for
the match to start.
To open the match, one of the elders
of the hosts addresses the crowd by laying down the rules of the
game. He states that it is friendly sport and cheering for your
man is acceptable however, jeering for the opponent is
un-acceptable behaviour and would not be tolerated.
referee signals for the drums to begin. The conduct of the match
was usually marked by a sense of progression, with the youngest
and least skilled wrestlers opening the initial bouts. The whole
contest moves towards a climax in which the final bout was
between the champions of each team. However, within this general
set-up the order of events was not rigid and could move in line
with the pace set by the wrestlers themselves. They could issue
there own challenges with little interference from the referees.
Indeed any number of bouts could take place at the same time in
the same arena. In the meantime, other combatants dance round
the edge of he arena to the rhythm of drums, challenging anyone
(non-verbally) who would take them on.
are made with arm gestures, grimaces and body movements. When a
fight was accepted, the pair moved towards the centre of the
arena to begin their tousle. After the bout was over
the loser returned to his team
with cheers and jubilation. Often, if a loser felt that he had
been thrown by chance, he requested another bout immediately.
The winner usually accepted this second challenge, although he
would often return to this team mates and smear himself in Juju
potions before returning.
If the one who lost the first
bout wins the second, they usually agree to a third session. The
referees generally separated them if they wanted a 4th bout or
if someone was weakened or in a bad mood. Thus this is the
nature of Gambian wrestling.
short, wrestlers could use any technique that is not expressly
forbidden. However, bad sportsmanship is harshly reprimanded and
condemned. The referees, spectators and other wrestlers were
ready to step in and break up a bout if the wrestlers became
angry. If a fight broke out due to an outburst of bad temper,
the entire Kafo of the offender was held accountable by the
elders of his village. The Kafo was fined, beaten, or harshly
reprimanded in order to assuage the anger of the injured
wrestler's family and village. Because of this there was great
peer pressure to be a gentlemanly sportsman in the arena.
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Types of Transistors
Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR)
Full Wave Rectifiers
Half Wave Rectifiers
Synchronous Motor Excitation
When the synchronous motor is working at constant applied voltage V, the resultant air gap flux as demanded by V remains substantially constant. This resultant air gap flux is established by the co operation of both AC supply of armature winding and DC supply of rotor winding.
CASE 1: When the field current is sufficient enough to produce the air gap flux, as demanded by the constant supply voltage V, then the magnetizing current or lagging reactive VA required from ac source is zero and the motor operate at unity power factor. The field current, which causes this unity power factor is called normal excitation or normal field current. CASE 2: If the field current is not sufficient enough to produce the required air gap flux as demanded by V, additional magnetizing current or lagging reactive VA is drawn from the AC source. This magnetizing current produces the deficient flux (constant flux- flux set up by dc supply rotor winding). Hence in this case the motor is said to operate under lagging power factor and the is said to be under excited.
CASE 3: If the field current is more than the normal field current, motor is said to be over excited. This excess field current produces excess flux ( flux set up by DC supply rotor winding – resultant air gap flux) must be neutralized by the armature winding. Hence the armature winding draws leading reactive VA or demagnetizing current leading voltage by almost 90o from the AC source. Hence in this case the motor operate under leading power factor.
Conclusion: An overexcited synchronous motor operate at leading power factor, under-excited synchronous motor operate at lagging power factor and normal excited synchronous motor operate at unity power factor.
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As we continue our reflections on the names and titles of Jesus, we have two more of the “I am” sayings that are found in St. John’s Gospel to reflect on. We have already reflected on the fact that Jesus speaks about himself simply as “I am—Egō eimi,” and we mentioned, of course, many times, that this “I am” is the divine name. It’s the name that the Lord God Almighty, the El Shaddai, the Most High, speaks to Moses in the Pentateuch. That the Lord says, “I was known among you as El Shaddai, the Most High God, the Most High, the Elohim, but now I will be known as Yahweh, which means ‘I am, I am who I am.’ ”
So Jesus says: before Abraham was, I am; when I am lifted up, you will know and see that I am; unless you believe that I am, you will perish in your sins. So that “I am” is like a loaded, it’s a very loaded expression in the Bible generally, and certainly in the New Testament when Jesus, in John’s Gospel, in St. John’s Gospel, applies it to himself.
But then there are the other “I am"s with predicate nominatives: I am the way, the truth, and the life; I am the resurrection and the life; I am the living bread that comes down from heaven. You have these “I am"s: I am the good shepherd. So we have these, and now, today, we want to reflect on one of these “I am"s with a predicate nominative, and, of course, it comes from St. John’s Gospel. They all do; all the “I am” sayings come from St. John’s Gospel, but this particular saying comes in the tenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, and it is indeed the very chapter in which Jesus does say, “I am the good shepherd.” “I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”: you have this there in St. John’s Gospel.
But in the beginning of the Gospel, this is what is written. I’ll read from the Revised Standard Version first. It’s written (John 10):
“Truly, truly, I say to you: He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out. When he has brought out all of his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. The stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Then he speaks specifically. He says:
So Jesus spoke to them again: “Truly, truly, I say to you.”
Now let’s remember that that particular phrasing is found nowhere [else] in Scripture, and, in fact, the scholars think, as we mentioned before, that that particular way of speaking is absolutely unique to Jesus. No one else speaks that way. When a prophet speaks, he expects the people who hear him to say, “Amen, truly, verily, this is the truth.” When a teacher teaches, it’s the disciple who has to say to the master, “Amen. What you say, master, is true.”
“Amen” means “so be it.” So in Greek you have Jesus saying many times, again in St. John’s Gospel, he begins by saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you—Amēn, amēn, legō ymin,” translated in the RSV as, “Truly, truly, I say to you.” In the King James, it’s “Verily” that’s used: “Verily, verily, I say to you.” Sometimes they just don’t translate it; it’s just “Amen, amen, I say to you.”
And that means, as we have already mentioned several times, that there is no discussion, that this is not a sentence for discussion. This is a statement that I say “Amen” before I even say it, which means what I am saying to you, I am not looking for your Amen. Jesus isn’t looking for our Amen to him. Later on, we will even reflect on the fact that one of the titles of Jesus is the Amen. The Amen is a title of Christ in Scripture; we’ll talk about that later: our Amen to God is Jesus.
Here we have him saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you.” So what he’s saying is, “What I am saying is the truth. It’s the categorical truth. It’s not debatable. It’s not negotiable. I’m not asking for your agreement. This is my clear, categorical teaching that I affirm as the absolute truth and reality of things, and I do it by beginning by saying ‘Amen, amen, I say to you. Truly, truly, I say to you.’ ” So then he says again:
“Truly, truly, I say to you: I am the door of the sheep.”
Or it could also be translated: “I am the door of the sheepfold. I am the door of the flock, where the sheep are, where they are gathered together.” It says literally, “Egō eimi hē thyra tōn provatōn—I am the door of the sheep.” So the sheep go through this door: “I am the door of the sheep.” Then he says:
“If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.”
And that’s a categorical expression. If you go my way, if you go through me, if you go by way of me, if you go on the path that I open to you, if you enter into the house or into the vineyard or into the flock area or into the pasture, into the temple that I lead you though, you will be saved.
“If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it in abundance.”
“I came that they may have life and have it in abundance”: it’s just an amazing sentence. And then it continues:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
So he begins by saying that he is the door, and he moves into saying that he is the good shepherd. I think just for the record, so to speak, and for our edification here, illumination, let’s read it from the King James version. In the King James, it says that Jesus said these words about the sheep and following the shepherd and so on. It says:
Jesus spoke this parable unto them, but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
Then the King James continues:
Then said Jesus unto them again: “Verily, verily, I say unto you: I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door.”
And here you have simply “I am the door,” not “I am the door of the sheep,” but “I am the door,” period: “Egō eimi hē thyra—I am the door.”
“By me, if any man enters in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and shall find pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.”
And then he continues: “Egō eimi ho poimēn ho kalos—I am the good shepherd.”
Let’s think about this imagery of the door. Actually, in Greek, there are two words that are used interchangeably for “gate” or for “door.” One is “thyra,” which you have here, and that’s the word that we use in church, Orthodox people use in church for the doors on the icon screen, the doors into the temple itself, the doors into the church building. That would be the word “thyra.” For example, at the Divine Liturgy, when the doors of the nave are to be closed and only the faithful are to be present for the Holy Eucharist, the deacon—or if there is no deacon, the priest, the presbyter—says, “The doors, the doors! In wisdom, let us be attentive!” or “Let us attend!” “Tas thyras, tas thyras!—the doors, the doors!” So it just means a door, like a regular door. That’s what that particular word means.
But there’s also another word, “pylē, hē pylē,” which is also translated in the Bible as “door,” and sometimes it’s translated as “gate.” Sometimes even the word “thyra” is translated into English as “gate.” For example, the doors in the iconostasis in the church, we can call the royal doors or the heavenly doors or the kingly doors, or the deacon’s doors, the side doors that the deacons go in and out of in the service, but sometimes they can also be called the gates: the heavenly gates.
My own opinion here is that those two words are simply synonymous. I don’t think that there’s any particular connotation, one with the other, except, perhaps—maybe this is not accurate, but perhaps—“door,” the word “thyra, door,” that can mean just like a door into a room, or a door into a building, whereas “pylē” can mean like a gate, a gate in a fence. For example, in English, if we were passing by a fence and wanted to go into some territory that was fenced, we wouldn’t say, “I’m going through the door”; we’d say, “I’m going through the gate.” So fences have gates, and houses and buildings have doors.
But the meaning, obviously, essential meaning, is really the same. It’s just the same. So, for example, in the Bible, if we didn’t bother [ourselves] too much about the difference between “gate” and “door,” and understood them as pretty much being the same thing, you see how many times that symbolism of the gate is used. It’s interesting that on the very first pages of the Bible and on the very last pages of the Bible, you have the imagery of gates and doors being used.
In the Genesis stories, where you have Adam and Eve, the earth creature and the mother of the living, being created by God, and God breathes his breath into them and makes them in his own image and likeness, male and female, then he places them in Paradise—but then we know when the first humans sin, and when the humanity from the very beginning apostatizes against God, rebels against God, does not obey and love God, then they’re put out of Paradise into the present world, as St. Basil says in the Liturgy, that the Lord let them go outside Eden, outside Paradise—and then it speaks about a gate.
It speaks about an angel being put in front in front of the gate: the gates of Paradise, the doors of Paradise, that you cannot enter in again, and you’ve got to be saved, you’ve got to be redeemed, you’ve got to be forgiven, you’ve got to be healed, so that you can enter through that gate again. And here, right from the very get-go, right from the very beginning, in Genesis, Christians reading all of that would understand that the gate we can pass through to enter again into Paradise, to participate again of the Tree of Life, is Christ. So that very gate already, the gate of Paradise in the Holy Scripture, we Christians would sort of automatically, organically connect to this, these words in St. John’s Gospel. When Jesus says, “I am the door,” we realize he’s the door to Paradise! He’s the door that leads us into the Paradise of God, where we can participate of the Tree of Life and live forever in communion of God.
But then you have the gates being used other ways, and doors used other ways in the Holy Scripture. For example, you have when the Hebrews, the Jews, are going through the desert, you have the door of the camp, and only the righteous could go into the door of the camp, and when the people had violated the law of God, they were put outside the gate. They were put outside the door; they were not allowed to enter into the camp.
Then you had the doors on the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle that was built. Who could enter into the doors? And through some of the doors, only Moses could go. Not everyone could go through the doors. And you have the teaching that only the righteous enter through those doors, and the sinners have to be cast out from the doors, they’re not allowed to enter in.
Then you have the door of the Temple itself, probably one of the most wonderful [passages] that you find in Ezekiel, that there’s the door facing the East. We’ll talk about that in a minute more specifically. But this gate facing the East that the kabod Yahweh, the glory of the Lord passes through. And then that gate is shut and no one can enter into it, because the Lord has used that gate. And so the princes and the kings and the priests have to use the other door, the north door, not the east door. So there is this symbolism of the gates of the Temple.
And then, of course, you have the gates of Jerusalem in the Scripture. And then in the New Testament, you also have the gates of Jerusalem. And the horrible thing in the New Testament about the gates of Jerusalem is that our Lord Jesus Christ is crucified, according to Scripture, outside the gate. He goes outside the gate. He’s put out of the city. The one who is himself the Gate of the heavenly Jerusalem is himself cast out. He can’t go through the gate. Outside the walls, outside the gate, outside the camp. He goes out there with the unrighteous who are rejected, in order to become himself the Gate or the Door by which they will then, being forgiven and redeemed, be able to enter again into Jerusalem.
This is, of course, also, like everything in the New Testament, [having] its prefigurations in the Old Testament. For example, in the psalm—and it’s very interesting that this psalm that I’m going to quote now is 118, according to the Hebrew numberings—and that is that psalm of praise. It’s a Hallel psalm, I think they call it, the praise psalm, and it’s a very important psalm in the Orthodox Church, because it is like the Paschal psalm. It’s the psalm where the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever, and we call out to the Lord, and all the enemies are cut off, and then you have, it’s the glad songs of victory, the right hand of the Lord that does valiantly, the right hand that is exalted. Then you have the line “I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord” and “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it,” which is the Paschal prokeimenon in the Orthodox Church, the main psalm verse for the Holy Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ.
Then you have that very famous line: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” but it’s not only “come,” but “enter”: “Blessed is he who enters in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.” And here you have Jesus, also, entering the city of Jerusalem as the King, going through the gate. I think he goes through the gate called Beautiful on Palm Sunday. I’m not sure, but I think so. Then he enters into the Temple; he goes in through the gate into the Temple, and that particular line is used on Palm Sunday. It’s also used on Epiphany: “God is the Lord and has revealed himself to us. Blessed is he who enters in the name of the Lord” or “comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.”
Well, in that psalm, you also have the imagery of the gate being used. It’s the 19th and 20th verses. It says, “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it.” So we Christians, when we hear sentences like that, we think of the gates of Paradise; we think of the gates of the Temple; we think of the gate of the Holy of Holies within the Temple; we think of the gate of Jerusalem; and, of course, we should mention right away, we think of the gate of the heavenly kingdom, the heavenly Jerusalem.
Then, of course, we know that in the Book of Revelation, that imagery of the gate is used because in the Temple in the heavenly Jerusalem, and in the heavenly Jerusalem itself, according to the Holy Scripture, and this is how the Bible ends; it begins with the gates of Eden in Genesis; it ends with the gates of God’s Temple and God’s kingdom in the Apocalypse, in the Book of Revelation, but it says very specifically that there are no gates there. There are no doors there, in that heavenly kingdom. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come, let everyone who can enter, come” (Revelation 22:17).
The Lord by grace opens up the gates to all sinners if they will accept forgiveness and admit their sins and glorify God. They can enter in with no gates whatsoever. So what you find written in the Book of Revelation where it says about the temple and the heavenly kingdom, in fact, it even says that there is no temple in the city (Revelation 21). It had a great high wall with twelve gates, and the gates had the names of the angels, and the gates were similar to the [Temple in Jerusalem]. It’s prefigured in the Jerusalem Temple: three gates on each side, four sides, twelve foundations. The twelve are the apostles of the Lamb, but then it says that all the gates are open. All the gates are removed. In the temple of the Lord, there is no temple. The Lord God is Almighty and the Lamb of God is there. There’s no night there, and [the kings of the earth] shall bring [into it the glory and honor of] the nations.
It says that nothing unclean shall enter it, but the Lord invites everyone to enter into that reality of God’s coming kingdom. So then you have, for example, in almost the very last line of the Bible, it says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the Tree of Life, and that they may enter the city by the gates.” Outside those gates are the dogs, the sorcerers, the fornicators, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. The imagery takes us right back to Genesis, that they may have the right, the privilege, the boldness, to approach the Tree of Life.
When you hear in the Psalms, sentences like, “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord,” that’s eucharistic language. “Give thanks” is “efcharistein—to give thanks.” So we go into the church building. We enter into the Holy of Holies. The royal gates and doors of the icon screen are open. We have access to the altar of God, like it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, that you enter in, following the one High Priest, Jesus Christ, and everybody enters in. And then it says, “This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.”
Well, St. John tells us that gate is Jesus himself. Here, again, you have, very similar to the other “I am” sentences, that not only Jesus speaks about the gate when he says, for example, on the Sermon on the Mount, “Enter by the straight gate; enter by the narrow gate. The way is hard and the gate is narrow that leads to life,” so he uses the gate as the imagery; he not only says that we have to enter the sheepfold by the gate—you have even other things where he says, “I stand at the door and knock” or “He who stands at the door will [have it] be opened to them” and “I will open to you the gates, and you shall enter into the kingdom”—but he says, “I am the gate.” Here you have it again.
We spoke about this before, like when Jesus says… He doesn’t say, “I show you the truth”; He says, “I am the truth.” He doesn’t just speak the words of God; he is the Word of God. He doesn’t just illumine people; he is the Light which illumines them. He doesn’t simply show the way; he is the Way. And he does not only indicate the gate into salvation, the gate of righteousness, the gate of the house of God, the gate of the Lord—all these are biblical expressions—the gate of the New Jerusalem, the gate of Paradise—he doesn’t only show that gate. He not only is the one who opens up that gate, that he is not only the one who allows us to enter through that gate—but he is the gate. He is the gate himself.
He says, “I am the gate. I am the door. I am the door of the sheep. If the flock are going to enter through the gate, I’m not only the good shepherd, I’m the door by which they enter.” And then he says, in St. John, these kind of terrifying sentences, where he said, “Who does not enter the sheepfold by this door but climbs in another way is just simply a thief and a robber.” So what he’s saying is: “There isn’t any other door. I’m the only door there is. Any other door leads to perdition.” Just like any other way leads to perdition. And those other doors and ways are broad, that lead to destruction, as he says in the Sermon on the Mount.
But the door and the way, the road and the door and the gate that leads into God’s kingdom, into the Paradise of God, into the tabernacle of the holy, into the Holy of Holies is narrow, and few there be who find it, even, it says in Scripture. But he says, “But he who enters by the door is the shepherd.” So as the good shepherd, he’s the first one to walk through the door, but the door that he himself also is. And, of course, we could remember at this point that he’s also the Lamb.
He’s not only the shepherd, he’s not only the door of the sheepfold, but he’s also the sheep! He’s everything! And, basically, that is our conviction: that Jesus is everything. Anything you can name and think of, Jesus is. He is it, perfectly, hypostatically, that’s what he is, and we have to follow him through that gate, and through that gate that he himself is. And he says, “If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and go in and out and find pasture.”
Here, having affirmed these things, and it’s biblical teaching, so very clear, we have a few other things that we can reflect upon now, just in a few minutes. One is that you have this absolute teaching of the Christian faith of the uniqueness of Jesus. He’s not one of the truths; he is the truth. He doesn’t just show the way to life; he is the way and he is the life. He doesn’t just give the words; he is the Word. And here we would say he is also the unique Gate. There aren’t any other gates. He is the only gate. So if you’re saved, you enter by him.
When we hear things like this, immediately come to our mind sentences like this: “No one can come to the Father except by me. No one can be saved, even, except by me. No one can enter into life and into light and into truth except by me.” So there’s this great exception. He is the one and the only one. And we’ve said many times that he’s not one among the ways; he’s not one of many windows or doors; he’s not one of many words. He is the unique one and, in a sense, the only one that there is. There isn’t any other. It’s only by his name; only by him are we saved. If a person is saved, they are saved by him and no other way.
However, we’ve got to say right away; [it’s] very important, that that does not mean, at all, that if a person’s not a Christian, they can’t be saved. It doesn’t mean at all that if you do not accept Jesus as your personal savior in this life before you die that you’re going to burn in hell. It doesn’t mean that. The holy Fathers clearly teach, beginning with St. Paul in Romans 2, that what is being taught here is this: if a person does know anything about God and his kingdom, they only know it by way of Jesus. They only know it by way of him who is the Word and the Wisdom and the Light of God.
So there may be people who are hungering and thirsting to enter into God’s kingdom, but they don’t know where it is; they don’t know how it works. As St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans, they don’t know the teaching. They’ve never heard it. And we know that there are plenty of people who never heard the Gospel, either the Gospel of the Old Covenant or the Gospel of the New, because we should remember that the Old Covenant is nothing but a series of gospels: glad tidings of God’s victories of enemies. It’s all through the whole Bible. The Old Testament is a good news and a glad tidings as much as the New Testament is. It’s not that the Old Testament is Law, the New Testament is Gospel. It’s all Gospel! It’s all grace. It’s all faith, beginning with Abraham himself. He believed God, and it was accounted righteous.
And the good news was that God was the savior, that the only savior the Jews had was God. The only one who kept them going and kept them from being destroyed and gave them the land and promised himself in fidelity—this is the sheer grace of God; it’s not for the righteousness of the people at all, certainly not for the righteousness of the Jews and of Israel. Oh my goodness—just read the Bible! God is faithful and graciously saving them all the time, even when they don’t deserve it. They never deserve it. We never deserve it. Nobody ever deserves it. So this is our conviction.
However, we must say right now, and we will say right now: there are people who don’t know about that at all. Never heard about it. And, alas, as St. Paul also says in Romans 2, there are people who heard it all screwed up. They didn’t hear it in the right way at all. They heard a version of the Bible and of Christianity that no one in their right mind would want to follow. And how many people are peddling that now?
Have you ever heard Richard Dawkins list about how God is in the Bible? Oh my goodness! If that would be true without qualification, no one would want to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He’s just a horrible monster-creature, according to many people. But they don’t understand it. They don’t see the glad tidings in it. They don’t see how it’s fulfilled in Jesus. They don’t see the whole story. They don’t see the whole… They don’t go from the Paradise of Adam and Eve to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. They don’t start in the right place; they don’t end in the right place; and they don’t know anything in between! They’re just in darkness. They’re messed up.
And, let’s be honest, according to the Holy Scripture, a good reason for that is us. You know, St. Paul says it again in Romans 2. Read it. Read it carefully. He said, he quotes Isaiah, where the Lord says, “My name is blasphemed among the nations because of you.” Now, of course, Jesus as the door all the nations enter, too, not just the Jews. As the truth, as the way, as the life, it’s for all the nations, not just the Jews.
However, there can be people who are scandalized by how the Christians behave. They can be scandalized by how churches act. Who would not be scandalized when you look at Christianity these days? Which church are you going to go to? Which minister are you going to follow? Which preacher are you going to be with? Which elder is going to be yours? How do you understand all this? Which interpretation of the Bible are you going to have? And the Christians have been fighting each other, even killing each other, even burning each other at the stake and everything else through history.
You could imagine why, by the 21st century, there are some folks who want no part of this at all. But, if they do come to some light, if they do find some compassion, if they do find some truth, Orthodox Christians, ancient Orthodox Christians would confess: what they have found, even without knowing it, is Jesus himself. It’s the Christ himself.
And on the day of judgment, and the parousia of Christ, at the end of history, they will see that. They will realize that, and they will understand that the one that they were loving and hungering and thirsting for and wanting all along was Jesus Christ himself, and they will realize, also, at that day, that there’s no other way and no other door to God and his kingdom except Christ himself.
When a person knows anything about God, they know it by God’s Word, who is incarnate as Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit. No one can know anything of the one [true] God except being inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, through God’s Son and Word and icon and image, who is Jesus of Nazareth himself in the human flesh, the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world, the light of the whole world, the life of the whole world, the only gate by which people can be saved.
But this does not mean at all that if a person is not a Christian or even, some churches would say, if a person is not a member of my church, our church, they’re in some other church, that they’re just damned and are going to hell. That’s not for us to say. That’s God’s business. We preach Christ crucified and glorified as the way, the truth, the life, the door, the bread, the good shepherd. We’ll see also soon, the true vine. So many things we say about him, but how that ultimately works itself out and who is ultimately saved at the end, only God knows.
It may be some people who preach a lot, talk a lot, speak on Ancient Faith Radio, listen to Ancient Faith Radio—we ourselves might be cast out, because we really have made up our own Jesus. We have made up our own interpretation of the Bible. Or we may even have the real Jesus and the right interpretation, but we’re filled with vanity and pride and arrogance and judgment of others and condemnation of others and even presume to tell God whom he should save and not save and so on. And then we’re really in the hands of the devil.
When it says in Holy Scripture that “if anyone enters by me he will be saved, he will go in and he will go out and he will find the pasture of God’s kingdom,” that’s the absolute truth. If anyone is saved at all, they’re saved by Jesus. If anyone does anything good at all, they do it by mediation of Christ through the Holy Spirit. That’s our Christian conviction. If anyone is wise to any degree, the wisdom is Christ himself incarnate. If anyone is in truth at all, that truth is Jesus—any truth: natural science truth, whatever that truth is.
It’s important here to realize what we’re saying and what it means. He is that only Gate, but if somebody does make it into God’s kingdom, they have made it by him, and only by him. And they will even realize someday that if he were not crucified and then raised and glorified, they would just be dead. They would not be raised. When the dead are raised, they’re going to know who raised them. The one who raised them is the Resurrection and the Life who is Christ himself. Everybody will realize on that day that we’ve been raised by Jesus, and not by anybody else. And if we enter into God’s kingdom, we enter by him as the Way and as the Door, and not by anyone else. And that is the teaching of the Gospel.
One more thing here for today, and that is this: we Christians believe, certainly ancient Orthodox Christians believe, that it is God’s will, through his Son Jesus Christ, by the power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that we would not only have everything that God has, but we would actually become everything that God is. That as human beings, we would literally participate in the life of God and become divine. And here, the teaching—it’s a very bold teaching, but it is a clear, ancient Christian teaching—that by faith and by grace in Christ, we are to be everything that he is and do everything that he does.
In fact, Jesus says it in St. John’s Gospel. He says, “The one who believes in me”—a singular construction: “That individual, that person, who believes in me”—“will do the works that I do, and greater works even, because I go to my Father.” Now, what does that mean? If we just quickly, [in] shorthand, stated what it means, it means: if Jesus is the Son of God, we all, male and female, become sons of God through him. We are adopted sons of God with him. We have every gift and privilege of sonship. If he is the heir of all things, we become heirs of all things in and with him. We’ll talk about that later at some point: Jesus as the Heir, the Firstborn, [and] we become firstborns with him.
If Jesus is the light, we have to be light, too. He not only says, “I am the light of the world,” as we heard before, but he says, “You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men.” And we can say this about everything that Jesus is. If Jesus is the icon of God, we have to be icons of God. We’re created according to the image of God, who Christ is, to be images [ourselves]. If Jesus is the Word of God, we have to be living words of God. If Jesus is the Bread of Life, we have to become bread to people. We have to let people eat us, chew us up, swallow us, so that they could find life through our ministry to them. If Jesus is the Way, we should be living exemplars of the way. When people look at us, they should see the way to God, the way to the kingdom of heaven, the way to the truth, the way to real Life.
And, for today, we have to be gates, too. We have to be doors. If Christ is the Door, by faith in him and by God’s grace, we become doors, too. We participate in his Doorhood, so to speak, his Gateship, just like we participate in him as the Bread. At the Holy Liturgy, for example, we invoke the Holy Spirit upon us and upon the bread and wine so that we could become living sacrifices to God, together with him; that we could be lambs of God who are slain together with him.
Everything is together with him: co-crucified with him, co-raised with him, a co-heir with him, a joint son with him. It’s all joint; it’s all co-; it’s all together with, and therefore, we have to be gates. We, by grace, have to be gates. And here, in Orthodox Christianity, from the earliest centuries, we have a conviction that is very scandalous to many people, certainly to many Protestant Christians, where we call Mary the gate of heaven. In our prayers and in our hymns in church, we call Mary a gate; that she’s the gate by which Christ entered our world. She is the gate through which the Word of God passed in order to become human.
In the Prophecy of Ezekiel, when they speak about the gate facing east, through which the glory of God enters and then that gate is shut up and no one ever enters into it again, we use that even as a proof of the ever-virginity of Mary; that her womb, we believe it was opened—I believe it’s open; some people think God passed through her with her womb shut; I don’t agree with that personally, but God may have shut that womb after—and he certainly did shut it, because nobody else was ever born of her. She had only one child, and that was Jesus. But we certainly praise her in the hymns as the gate, the gate by which the glory of God enters into the world, the gate by which Christ himself came who is the Gate.
So we call Mary the gate, the same way we call Jesus the Gate. Or, let me be more accurate: we use the imagery of a gate and a door for Mary the same way we use the imagery of a gate and a door for Jesus, but in a different way. Jesus is it by nature: he is the Door. And then Mary becomes a door also, by the grace of God. The Holy Spirit comes upon her, the power of the Most High overshadows her, and she becomes the gate through which Christ enters the world.
And then she even can function, by her intercession, as a gate by which we can become in communion with her Son, Jesus. We can go by way of Mary into communion with Jesus, and then by way of Jesus, into communion with God the Father. And all that happens by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of the Holy Spirit. So we do speak. And then, in our hagiology, in our teaching about saints, we would say that saints are doors; saints are doors that lead us to God. If you follow this saint or that saint for what they are holy, you will come right to God; you will come right to Christ. You will be led into the very presence and the very sheepfold and into the very vineyard of God himself.
We are made to be gates, so every single one of us is supposed to be a gate, a gate for other people to enter into communion with God, into the fellowship with God, into the life with God, into everlasting life, into the New Jerusalem, into God’s kingdom—however you want to speak about it. And that means we should not be obstacles. We should not be barricades. We should not be shut-up, locked doors that never open to open to anybody and nobody could penetrate through us. No! Every one of us should be an open door. We should be an open door, like Christ is an open door, to God’s kingdom, inviting people to enter, and showing them how.
Of course, it says, terribly in Scripture, about certain people, that they not only [do not] enter themselves, but they shut the doors to those who would enter. Jesus used that imagery against certain of the leaders of the people. He says, “You go halfway around the world to get a proselyte, you make him half [as] much a child of hell as you yourself are. You do not enter yourself, and then you prevent other people from entering.” You don’t go through the door yourself, but you cease being a door. You become an obstacle. You become a dead end. You become a way that leads nowhere. You become a door that’s never opened, and if it would be opened, it would take you into hell.
So we’re supposed to be doors into Paradise ourselves. We’re supposed to enter in through the Door; we’re supposed to follow Christ who is the Door; and we’re supposed to become living doors [ourselves], by the grace of God. To be by grace what Christ himself is by nature. That’s a wonderful expression of St. Maximus the Confessor. St. Irenaeus said it a couple hundred years earlier. He said, “A Christian is a human being to be by grace everything that Christ is by nature.”
If Christ is real God and real human being, we are real human beings who are to become gods by grace. We can never be real God; that’s for sure: true God. But being human beings, we can become gods by grace. We can be sons of God, images of God, lights of God. We can be vessels of grace of God. We can be pillars of the wisdom of God. We could be bread of God that people could eat and be nourished. But we can also be doors. We can also be gates.
When we think about Christ saying, “I am the door—Egō eimi hē thyra—I am the door. Egō eimi hē thyra tōn provatōn—I am the door for the sheep. I am the door of the sheep, of the sheepfold,” well, that’s our faith. So we confess Jesus as the one and only Gate, the one and only Door. He’s the one by which and through which we enter. He’s the one who opens up all the doors that lead to life, the doors of righteousness, the door of faith—these are all biblical expressions—the door of the word of God, the door of Paradise, the door of the [New] Jerusalem, the door of the Temple, the door of the kingdom—he is all of that, and we pass through those doors.
But having done so, we also confess that we should be doors [ourselves]; that he can make us to be doors also. Words, ways, breads, and doors, lights. So let’s beg God, really, that we would believe, that we would receive the gift of God, that we would have Christ as our one and only Door, our one and only Gate, our only, one and only Way; and that we would know that he opens to us all the doors that lead to life, and that we would know also that we, in turn, should become doors and gates and ways for all of those around us.
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