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MIDI: The Musical Language of the Digital Age MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard that allows electronic musical instruments, computers, and other devices to communicate with each other. It was developed in the early 1980s, and has since become the de facto standard for digital music production. MIDI is not a recording format, like WAV or MP3. Instead, it is a way of sending instructions from one device to another. These instructions can include things like note pitches, velocity, and duration. MIDI data can be recorded and played back on a computer, or it can be sent directly to a synthesizer or other MIDI-compatible device. MIDI has revolutionized the way music is made. It allows musicians to create complex arrangements and sounds without having to be skilled in traditional music notation. It also makes it possible to collaborate on music projects with musicians from all over the world. 6 benefits of using MIDI - MIDI is a universal language. MIDI is supported by virtually all electronic musical instruments and computers, making it easy to connect different devices and create music. - MIDI is versatile. MIDI can be used to control a wide variety of synthesizers, samplers, and other electronic instruments. This makes it possible to create a wide range of sounds and effects. - MIDI is easy to use. MIDI is a simple protocol that can be learned quickly. This makes it a great option for beginners who are just starting to learn about music production. - MIDI is efficient. MIDI data is small and compact, making it easy to share and store. This makes it a great option for collaborating with other musicians or sharing your music online. - MIDI is future-proof. MIDI is a standard that has been around for decades and is still widely used today. This means that your MIDI files will be compatible with future music production software and hardware. - MIDI is affordable. MIDI is a very affordable way to create and produce music. You can get started with MIDI for just a few dollars. Virtual Instruments: The Power of Creation Virtual instruments are software synthesizers that can be used to create a wide variety of sounds. They are typically used in conjunction with MIDI controllers to allow musicians to play and control them in real time. Virtual instruments offer a number of advantages over traditional hardware synthesizers. They are typically more affordable, easier to use, and more versatile. They also allow musicians to create sounds that would be impossible to produce with a physical synthesizer. From highly accessible options to a more virtuoso approach MIDI instruments are the future of music Production Integration with Music Software As discussed earlier MIDI controllers can seamlessly integrate with popular music Production software and all DAWs remember those With some tools connecting via bluetooth students are free to This guide will give you everything you need to know for making MIDI a powerful part of your processfrom basic MIDI connections to using MIDI effectively in your music Production workflow If youre already using MIDI Ill also cover some useful tips to help you get the most out of your current setupVSTis are separate to VSTfx in that they do no alter sounds they generate sounds Generally using MIDI input data to recognize and recreate melodies and musical tones these instruments often work both as the primary plugin on a DAW Digital Audio Workstation software track or as a standalone program on your computerStep 1 Install the software on your computer and connect any hardware controllers you plan to use Step 2 Open your DAW and navigate to the plugins section Locate and open the VIP plugin Step 3 Once the VIP plugin is open you will see a browser window that displays your plugin and virtual instrument libraryWhat is a VST The basics of Virtual Studio Technology amp how it integrates with your DAW The significance of VST plugins and their myriad types The beauty of VST instruments and the different versions available An indepth look at VST effects Pro tips to help you make the most out of your VST pluginsWhat is a DAW Now that you have your Beyerdynamic M90 PRO X microphone youll need to send the signal to your DAW Because digital audio workstation DAW is about seven syllables too many most people just say DAWMIDI is a method of sending data that allows you to create music digitally It doesnt matter if you are a bedroom producer or a Grammy Award winner MIDI will play a big part in your working life In this article we will go into more detail about what MIDI is how it works and how to use itNo matter your skill level find your creative outlet with our free song maker and beatmaking app Enter our multitrack Studio an intuitive Digital Audio Workstation DAW to record edit and remix your music Easily record music on the go or build a beat with loops and samples from our royaltyfree sound packs 6 benefits of using virtual instruments - Virtual instruments are affordable. Virtual instruments are typically much more affordable than hardware synthesizers. This makes them a great option for budget-minded musicians. - Virtual instruments are easy to use. Virtual instruments are typically very easy to use, even for beginners. This makes them a great way to get started with music production. - Virtual instruments are versatile. Virtual instruments can be used to create a wide variety of sounds. This makes them a great option for musicians of all genres. - Virtual instruments are portable. Virtual instruments can be used on any computer with a sound card. This makes them a great option for musicians who need to be able to create music on the go. - Virtual instruments are constantly evolving. New virtual instruments are being released all the time. This means that musicians always have access to the latest and greatest sounds. - Virtual instruments are compatible with any DAW. Virtual instruments can be used with any digital audio workstation (DAW). This makes them a great option for musicians who already have a DAW that they like. MIDI and virtual instruments have revolutionized the way music is made. They have made it possible for anyone to create music, regardless of their skill level or budget. They have also opened up new possibilities for collaboration and creativity. If you are interested in getting started with music production, MIDI and virtual instruments are a great place to start.
THE WOLF: MYTH, LEGEND & MISCONCEPTION By T. R. Mader, Research Director Wolf Reintroduction throughout the United States is a highly controversial subject. Yet the concept is popular among many people today. Politics is blamed for holding up the move while others state that reintroduction is a bad idea. Those who oppose the wolf say this animal will sow nothing but havoc and destruction. They maintain that there is no possible good in reintroduction of such a killer. Those in favor of the wolf assert that the wolf is good as it would help maintain healthier herds by killing off the old and diseased animals in ungulate populations. These advocates of reintroduction also allege the hatred of the wolf comes more from myth and legend than from reality. So who is right? Are we turning loose an animal that will cause much destruction with little compensating good? Or are we disrupting the ecosystem, causing problems in our attempt to regulate nature as we see fit, instead of allowing nature to balance itself naturally? This issue requires serious consideration and an honest look at the evidence from history. If we take all the prejudice and emotion away from the wolf issue, the basis is history. What happened when the wolf was here? What is happening where the wolf is now? Is this animal a contribution or a problem? "Why do we need to study the history of the wolf when we've done all these studies on wolves?" Because wildlife management, including wolf research, is an art science, not a specific science. A specific science is conclusive and can be tested, tested and re-tested with the same results every time. Chemistry is an example. A chemist can mix one element with another element and get a certain and definite reaction every time. That is specific. Wildlife management is an art science in that there are so many variables that two biologists can look at the same studies and come up with different conclusions. Quite often wolf biologists do not agree with each other in their studies about wolves. This is the very reason it's important to review history. History helps biology and wildlife management become realistic. There are several misconceptions regarding the wolf issue. Those who favor the wolf blame those opposed to the wolf for spreading these untruths and vice versa. In reality, both sides are to blame. Misconceptions are formed from a person's personal feelings and some aspect of truth. It may not be a person's intention to distort, but due to lack of information on both sides of the issue, a misconception is born. If the misconception is not clarified in a prompt manner, it becomes the basis for truth to those who hear it and the cycle repeats itself with worse results. This report will look at misconceptions assumed to be true - the way it would be with the wolf. Then we will then look at history to either affirm or to bring reality in perspective. MISCONCEPTION 1 - MAN'S FEAR OF WOLVES COMES FROM MYTH AND LEGEND It's true that there are story book tales of the "Big, Bad Wolf." Is this the real reason that there is fear and hatred toward wolves? Research doesn't support such a claim. This author has spent hundreds of hours in research and interviews with people who have had personal experiences with the wolf and there was not one time a person alluded to a myth or a legend. They spoke of what they saw with their own eyes. Here are two examples. "I've seen the agonized look of pain in a two-year-old steer's eyes and heard his painful bellowing, lying in the hot sun with his side and hind quarter torn open by a blood-thirsty wolf that was not even hungry as he ate nothing of the animal," says Gertrude Lewis. The incident she spoke of occurred in 1913. Gertrude's family lived on Jane Cook Hubbell's ranch on Rock Creek some 10 miles northeast of Fossil, Wyoming. They had heard the wolves, common in that day, howling at night near the homestead but hadn't given them much thought at the time. It was early summer then and Ralph Soule, Gertrude's father, needed material to build some corrals and haystack fences. The best material in the area were Quaking Aspen located several miles from the house. Sister Elsie and Gertrude went with their father to the timber. A neighboring ranch, the BQ, had turned a herd of one hundred or more two-year-old steers in the area to graze. It was there the steer was found "lowing" in its injured state. Ralph always carried a rifle and so the poor animal was put out of its misery. Two days later, two more steers were found mutilated and still alive. They had to be disposed of. Word was sent to the foreman of the BQ and the steers were removed from the area.(1) Floyd McLean was raised on a dry farm northwest of Red Lodge, Montana. His brother-in-law, Isaac Walters, came to the McLean place and asked Floyd if he wanted to help skin some sheep. Floyd agreed to the job and returned to the sheep pasture with his brother-in-law. "I saw a sight I will never forget," states Floyd, "15 head in all, some dead, others with hamstrings cut and some with their flanks ripped open and their insides dragging on the ground." The wolves weren't hungry this time, Floyd observed, as none of the sheep were eaten.(2) MISCONCEPTION 2 - WOLVES ARE ENDANGERED THEREFORE WE MUST RECOVER THEM THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES The term "endangered" derives its familiarity from a very powerful federal law, the "Endangered Species Act (ESA)." This federal law was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1973.(3) The ESA has been accurately described as "the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation."(4) The ESA "is an extraordinary piece of legislation. It elevates the goal of conservation of listed species above virtually all other considerations."(5) Or, in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, "The plain language of the Act, ... shows clearly that Congress viewed the value of endangered species as 'incalculable.'"(6) Thus, "endangered" carries the powerful weight of federal law. "Endangered" to most people simply means "few in number." But that is not always the case. Animals can number in the thousands, be in no danger of extinction and still be listed as "endangered" on the ESA. Such is the case with the wolf. Wolves number more than 50,000 on the continent of North America.(7) Most of these wolves reside in Canada and Alaska. How can wolves be listed as "endangered" if there are so many on this continent? Because the ESA has two criteria for listing: 1. If an animal is actually "few in number," i.e. threatened with actual extinction; 2. "Distinct Populations" meaning a "species may be listed, even if that species is abundant elsewhere in its range."(8) The wolf is listed under "distinct populations" for two reasons: 1. Political boundaries between countries, i.e. wolves in Canada are Canadian wolves and, therefore not counted under a U.S. law, i.e. the ESA; 2. An obsolete subspecies classification of wolves. Obviously, animals do not recognize political boundaries. To not count Canadian wolves that are in close proximity of the United States creates a "political" definition for endangered species rather than a definition based on science. Yet, this is exactly what happened in order to mandate and force reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995 and 1996. The obsolete subspecies classification used to promote wolf recovery is based on the book, THE WOLVES OF NORTH AMERICA, by Stanley P. Young and Edward A. Goldman, published in 1944. In that book, Young and Goldman stated there were 24 subspecies of gray wolf based on their research which included weight, skull measurements, tooth placement and hair color.(9) Their subspecies listings were based upon averages and trends in a geographic areas.(10) With the advancement of modern science and biology, such subspecies listings are no longer consider accurate, particularly with the development of statistical analysis and other modern taxonomic methods.(11) Yet, even with such advancement, subspecies distinction is ultimately determined by man. "It has been said that species are created by God, but that other taxonomic categories, including subspecies, are devised in the human mind... Two workers may arrive at two quite different arrangements of subspecies."(12) Dr. David Mech, renowned wolf biologist, agrees, "Subspecies are nothing more than a local form of the wolf. Current thinking is there are only about five subspecies of North American Wolf. Even this idea should be viewed cautiously because even scientists could not tell them apart."(13) Yellowstone's wolf recovery was based on Young and Goldman's subspecies listing of "Canis lupus irremotus" also known as "the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf." Wolf recovery in New Mexico and Arizona are based on "Canis lupus baileyi" (the "Mexican wolf") another listing by Young and Goldman. Why would the government and biologists use obsolete, inaccurate data as the "scientific" basis for wolf recovery? Because this qualifies such recovery under "distinct populations" under the ESA. MISCONCEPTION 3 - WOLVES ARE NEEDED FOR CONTROL OF UNGULATE HERDS This misconception gives the idea that many ungulate herds suffer if not preyed upon by large predators. Not so! It is estimated that there are 690,000 head of elk in Western United States, Alberta and British Colombia.(14) None of the herds are in trouble. Even foreign countries maintain large herds with few predators.(15) There is no doubt that wolves would control ungulate herds wherever they are introduced. But how well would they control them? And, how would wolves be controlled if they became a problem? It has been stated often that Nature has a way of balancing itself. In Yellowstone National Park, for example, the elk population was perceived as high and therefore it was argued that wolves should be introduced to naturally cut back the overpopulation of elk. The result is simple, more wolves mean less elk as they would continue to depredate the herds of elk. This pattern continues until the elk, as well as other wildlife, are virtually removed and the numerous wolf population either dies off due to disease, interspecific fighting, etc. or moves out of the country in search of more prey. Then the elk would be able to increase its numbers due to less wolves in the Park. This process is often referred to as the “Balance of Nature.” There are problems with such a cycle. How popular would the Park be to the public during the times there were little or no ungulate populations to observe? At what point of this cycle would wolves become a problem to man or his livestock, due to limited prey? MISCONCEPTION 4 - DEPREDATION ON DOMESTIC ANIMALS OUTSIDE THE RECOVERY AREA WOULD BE INCONSEQUENTIAL A number of assumptions are the basis of this misconception. One is that all the wolves would stay in the designated recovery area. Another assumption is that as long as there is plenty of ungulate population, domestic animals will not be bothered. Most people assumed the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone and central Idaho would not immediately result in depredation of domestic animals. Wrong! Livestock depredation began almost immediately and has continued to increase with wolves being shot due to such depredation. Wolves were transplanted to Yellowstone and central Idaho on the following dates in 1995: January 11, 12, 19, 21. The first livestock killed was January 29, 1995 near Salmon, Idaho. By September of 1996, nearly 20% of the transplanted wolves have been involved livestock depredations. Eight adult wolves and four pups have been captured and relocated. Four wolves have been killed by agency personnel. Over 60 head of livestock and one dog have been documented killed by these wolves in little less than two years.(16) ("Documented" or "confirmed" kills generally reflect only a portion of the actual kills – see misconception 5.) Wolves transplanted to a recovery area will form packs, define their boundaries and generally stay within those boundaries. The question arises, "Where would the offspring go to establish their pack territories?" If those territories are outside the specified recovery (most would have to be) domestic animals will become prey for the wolf. Wolves eat whatever is easy to prey upon. This can be an old elk or a young calf on livestock range. Wolves in the past came out of the foothills and the forest reserves to prey upon domestic animals. Note the following: "The wolves coming down from the mountains for the past two weeks have wrought havoc among the livestock interests. Ranchers are using up good horse flesh every day in riding after them but to no avail. Nearly a score of cattle have been reported killed by the varmints which sweep down at night. The sight is heartrending to the rancher who must ride among his cattle and note the work of destruction. Many that were not killed have been badly bitten, chunks being takes out, leaving them badly crippled. There appears to be no way of getting the wolves except by running them, down on horse. The wolves breed in the mountains and Congress has been appealed to assist in the extermination of predatory wild animals which predominate the forest preserve."(17) The U.S. Biological Survey, at the request of and in cooperation with the Forest Service, started to address this problem in the early part of this century. The Bureau of Biological Survey stated that after adoption of methods which they recommended, "so many wolves were killed that the saving of stock this year (1907) amounts to at least a million dollars."(18) Many wolves were well-known for their extensive killings. The "Custer Wolf" was estimated to have killed $25,000 worth of livestock.(19) Figuring the rate of inflation from 1920, when the Custer Wolf was captured, to 1988, that figure would translate as $550,000 worth of livestock.(20) The "Aquila Wolf" in Arizona was known to have killed 65 sheep in one night and 40 at another time. "Three Toes of Harding County" in South Dakota was estimated to have killed $50,000 worth of livestock in its thirteen years of travel. This wolf killed 66 sheep in two nights shortly before its capture.(21) One area of wolf depredation that is largely overlooked is the destruction of domestic pets, dogs in particular. This fact is acknowledged by both sides of the wolf issue. Barry Lopez, in the introduction of his book, OF WOLVES AND MEN, recounts an episode of dogs killed by wolves in the Goldstream Valley in Alaska. Mr. Lopez comments, "Goldstream Valley is lightly settled and lies on the edge of an active wolf range, and that winter wolves got into the habit of visiting homes and killing pet dogs. A dog owner wouldn't hear a sound but the barking and growling of his dog. Then silence. He would pass a flashlight beam through the darkness and see nothing. In the morning he would find the dog's collar or a few of its bones stripped of meat. The wolves would have left behind little else but their enormous footprints in the snow." Lopez recalls the toll something like 42 dogs killed that one winter.(22) A man who worked for U.S. Fish and Wildlife recalled that one female wolf came on porches of houses where children were playing and would carry off the household dog. This wolf had been hurt and had pups to feed and so opted for the dogs.(23) Old accounts tell of the same. May Cummins and her daughter, Melva, homesteaded several miles out of Clearmont, Wyoming, in the early part of the century. They noticed and heard a large pack of wolves in their area when they moved in. Melva loved dogs. As a child they were her source of entertainment. She had a small puppy that stayed close to home. The wolves came in one night and attacked the little puppy. The little dog had enough strength to drag himself to the front door before it died.(24) Think of the loss a small child like Melva must have felt. MISCONCEPTION 5 - CONFIRMED KILLS ARE EASY TO ESTABLISH. ONCE A CONFIRMED KILL IS ESTABLISHED, THE TROUBLESOME WOLF CAN EITHER BERELOCATED OR DESTROYED A "confirmed" kill is evidence that a wolf attacked an animal. If a stockman finds the remains of a kill, they can call their state wildlife department who will send a man out to confirm the kill. Once confirmed as a wolf kill, a trapper is sent in to shoot or trap the wolves. It's logical that there should be evidence of a kill before a loss can be claimed. Otherwise, any farmer or rancher could randomly claim losses to wolves. On the other hand, confirmed kills are difficult to establish. Three natural factors make such confirmation difficult: 1. Wolves often eat all of the animal they attack, such as a sheep, lamb or calf. Often there is so little of an animal left, the carcass is not found at all. 2. If an animal attacked is not found within 24 hours of its death, scavengers - coyotes, eagles, foxes, skunks, crows, ravens, magpies, gulls - will have eliminated evidence of how an animal was killed. Decay also helps eliminate such evidence. 3. Terrain and/or heavy vegetation hide the carcass making it difficult to find. The United States has millions of acres of heavy timber making it next to impossible to find a carcass. Thus confirmed kills are certainly not accurate of actual wolf depredation in most cases. In the late seventies during calving season in the spring, a Minnesota farmer called the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and reported a wolf attack on a calf. A conservation officer went to the farm and confirmed the attack, a calf bitten on the upper back by a wolf, leaving a hole into the chest cavity large enough to place a fist.(25) A trapper was sent to the farm and proceeded to run some trap sets. During the time at the farm, the trapper noticed several cows, with tight udders, bawling as if in search of calves. The trapper mentioned his observation to the farmer and suggested that he count fresh cows and calves. The count revealed 26 calves missing from cows that had calved. The trapper caught two old wolves in the calving pasture shortly thereafter and the death loss ceased. In this case, the farmer was shown as having one confirmed kill, as the trapper did not recall any remains of the 26 missing calves being found.(26) An assumption that also comes with this misconception is that a troublesome wolf can be easily caught. Sometimes that is the case, but often the wolf proves to be very adept at evading capture. A pack of 5 wolves came out of Glacier National Park killing sheep and cattle near Browning, Montana. Animal Damage Control of the U.S. Department of Agriculture was called in to eradicate the wolves. In 1987, $41,000 was spent and all but one of the wolves was either destroyed or captured. The lone wolf left the area for a period of time but later returned to kill calves (confirmed) in the spring of 1988. Officials stated it was impossible to catch this wolf due to its constant movement, never staying in one area.(27) Is this an isolated case? Not hardly. In 1981 an old wolf came out of Glacier National Park and was causing considerable damage to livestock. Attempts at capture took over a year to catch this one wolf.(28) The historical record of famous wolves confirm the elusiveness of the wolf as they worked areas for years avoiding capture. Remember "Three Toes of Harding County" remained at large for 13 years (see misconception 4). MISCONCEPTION 6 - WOLVES KILL ONLY SICK, DISEASED AND OLD ANIMALS Human characteristics have often been attributed to the wolf. Some people think it can reason like a human. Unfortunately that is not the case. A wolf does not know "sick, diseased or old." These terms are not in its vocabulary. However it does know what it can catch easily and often these animals are part of its diet due to their condition. However, there are also the young, the replacement segment of the herd. They are not "sick, diseased or old," but they are relatively easy to catch. History is replete with accounts of wolves' depredation of the young. Duncan P. Grant and his brother Bob Grant hunted wolves for years in the early part of the century. They hunted the range of the Two Bar Ranch that spread from the Nebraska line to Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Most of the time there were six to eight wolves in a pack but they had seen packs with up to 22 wolves. Duncan writes, "When they run in packs they would kill almost anything they wanted to. I have seen them round up from twenty-five to thirty head of cattle in a bunch, and then pick out the ones they wanted, usually yearlings and two-year-olds, both cattle and horses. Yearling colts and calves that were coming yearlings were their pick."(29) Early newspapers frequently carried accounts as these. "Wm. Bell, in from his Redwater ranch Wednesday, reports timber wolves too numerous for comfort or profit in his vicinity. Thompson brothers have two valuable young colts badly hurt by them, so much so that it is a question they will ever recover. They attacked a young steer belonging to Fred Bond, killed and partly devoured it in full view of one of his neighbors. They also killed a cow and a calf out of his herd. Calves and colts are their favorite game but they do not hesitate to attack full grown animals when they cannot get the former."(30) "Geo. H. Allen, who came over from Pass Creek Monday, says that he and Harry Kincaid were moving his cattle down from Perry Ault's upper ranch, on Pass Creek, he found that the wolves had killed and eaten four calves out of his bunch; they found one calf still alive, with its hinder parts eaten away."(31) In wild game, it is much the same. David Mech and Jim Brandenburg observed a pack of Arctic wolves on 11 head of adult Musk Oxen and 3 calves. At first the Oxen stood their ground. Later they broke and run with the wolves in pursuit. A few minutes later, all three calves had been killed by the wolves.(32) In Gary Turbak's book, TWILIGHT HUNTERS: WOLVES, COYOTES AND FOXES, he opens the section on wolves with an account in which a pack of eight wolves attack and devour a young moose calf.(33) Wolves can decimate wildlife populations if not controlled. Biologist Vernon Bailey of the Bureau of Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, stated, "Wolves and coyotes cause a loss to the stockmen and farmers of the United States of several millions of dollars annually, and in some of the Northern States they threaten the extermination of deer on many of the best hunting grounds."(34) That statement, made in 1908, was reiterated in the Annual Reports of Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Biological Survey in 1922, "It has been estimated after careful investigation that not less than 10,000 deer are killed annually by predatory animals in that state (Michigan). Timber wolves, coyotes, wild cats, and foxes all join in game destruction, the kill being heaviest in winter, when snow is deep, and especially in the early spring, after the snow becomes crusted. At this period wolves and coyotes often appear to kill for no apparent reason other than for amusement or sheer lust of killing. "A good instance of the destructiveness of deer by wolves was observed by the bureau representative in southern Marquette County the latter part of March. Evidence had been found that a pack of wolves was working in the deer yards of that section, and one night they were heard howling. The following morning investigation was made on snowshoes and the tracks of a single wolf were soon located. The trail led a short distance to a swamp, where the wolf was joined by two others and the round of destruction begun. The remains of four freshly killed deer were found on a area of about 3 acres. Subsequent investigations disclosed that in the few weeks preceding this time probably a hundred deer in yards scattered over an area of about 3 square miles in that locality were killed by these wolves. This number does not include many unborn fawns. The wolves also worked through other yarding sections, as they spent only a part of their time in the area described."(35) Current accounts verify these same occurrences. Mark Miner assisted in an emergency deer feeding program in northern Minnesota in the early 1980s. One winter had been especially severe and the deer were in poor condition. The Department of Natural Resources allocated pellets to be fed in areas of Minnesota to keep the deer alive. One morning Mark and a friend set out on a snowmobile to run their circuit in the Chippewa National Forest. At their first stop, they found 9 deer and fed them some pellets. Approximately 3 hours later, they came by this feeding ground on their way home. Mark's friend grabbed Mark's shoulder and pointed to some blood on the snow. Mark turned the snowmobile off the trail and pulled in the clearing in the timber where they had first fed the 9 deer. Eight deer were lying dead. None were eaten. Most showed attack on the hind legs and the head and neck. One sight especially disturbed Mark. There was a windrow of brush at the end of the clearing. It was U-shaped. In the middle of the windrow lay a doe dead with her fawn lying beside her, still attached to its mother by the umbilical cord. From the tracks, Mark said it was apparent that the wolves had trapped the doe in the U-shaped windrow and had cut her off as she attempted to get out. The doe apparently aborted her young in all the running and then evidently collapsed and died from exhaustion. There was not a mark of blood or bite mark on the doe.(36) Historical data indicates that game cannot withstand uncontrolled predation. Predation has caused serious problems in bringing extermination to game in certain areas. This is still in evidence today where 90% to 95% of ungulate populations in areas of Canada were wiped out due to wolf depredation.(37) MISCONCEPTION 7 - WOLVES KILL ONLY WHAT THEY EAT This misconception is true in certain instances. Many times wolves devour their kill completely. A few bones or hair may be all that is left of a deer kill. One of the difficulties of "confirming" a kill of domestic animals is finding a carcass. Wolves' killing of young calves and lambs is well documented. These small animals are often completely consumed. However, total consumption is not always the case as seen in the above statement of Annual Reports of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Biological Survey. Those who have studied the wolf acknowledge that "overkill" does indeed occur. Some scientists think it happens due to a kind of "short-circuit" in the predators' hunting instincts. It is thought that killing in the wild is a whole series of actions including location of prey, stalking, chasing and capture. When animals are unable to escape, it is thought that wolves kill again and again because prey is available and easy to catch.(38) Although the exact scientific explanation may never be known, it is biologically and historically correct to state that wolves do kill without regard or need for the prey attacked (see examples under misconception 1 and 6). The accounts of wanton destruction of livestock and wild game are numerous. "I worked for Dick Richardson from 1898 to 1908 and can remember the grey wolves getting into his sheep. They cut out about fifty head and followed them for a distance of about ten miles. Three or four sheep made it to the ranch, the rest were all killed or badly bitten and left for the coyotes to finish."(39) "In Colorado a single wolf took a toll of nearly $3000 worth of cattle in one year. In Texas two wolves killed 72 sheep valued at $9 each during a period of two weeks. One wolf in New Mexico killed 25 head of cattle in two months, while another was reported by stockmen of the same state to have killed 150 cattle valued at no less than $5000 during six months preceding his capture by a survey hunter. In Wyoming two male wolves were killed, which during one month had destroyed 150 sheep and 7 colts; another pair were reported to have killed $4000 worth of stock during the year preceding their capture; while another, captured in June, had killed 30 head of cattle during the preceding spring. The County Agricultural Agent at Coalville, Utah reported that wolves had taken 20 percent of the year's calf crop in that section. A wolf taken in New Mexico was known to have killed during the preceding five months: 20 yearling steers, 9 calves, 1 cow, 15 sheep, and a valuable sheep dog. In two weeks at Ozona, Texas, two wolves killed 76 sheep.(40) "Timber Wolves have become so numerous and destructive to game in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and in extreme northern Wisconsin and Minnesota as to threaten to exterminate the deer...I have lately visited several localities from which the complaints came to study actual conditions with a view to the discovery of means of protecting deer from the attacks of wolves. "Deer were found in considerable numbers in the swamps and dense timber, where, during the time of deep snow, they had gathered into well-beaten yards, often a hundred or more in a yard. "Wolves were numerous, and dead deer were found in almost every yard visited, some partly eaten, others only torn and mangled. Large bucks, as well as does and fawns, have been killed, many more than could be eaten at the time. Only those killed since the last heavy fall of snow are visible, but in previous seasons hundreds of deer carcasses have been reported in the yards after the melting of the snow."(41) MISCONCEPTION 8 - PREY ANIMALS KILLED BY WOLVES SUFFER VERY LITTLE This misconception is another assumption that is true only part of the time. If the prey is a young moose calf or a fawn, the kill is often accomplished in a few moments thus reducing the suffering of the animal attacked. But as we have seen under misconceptions 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7, it is apparent that there are numerous times when an animal suffers extensively - often for days - until man finds the animal and puts it out of its misery. In the wild, an animal will either suffer until it dies or perchance the wolves come back and finish off the victim. Historical accounts of the suffering animals, after wolf attack, abound. "Some days previous a party of cowboys riding on Powder River discovered a large fat cow standing in a cut coulee, with three gray wolves keeping guard over her, and continually fighting her. Her hindquarters were almost eaten up, the cords in one leg being cut so that she could not stand upon it, and she was cut and torn all over the body, so badly that one of the men shot her to put her out of her misery."(42) Bob Fudge lived from 1862-1933. His life was that of a cowboy. He participated in many big cattle drives from Texas to Wyoming and Montana and later settled with a big cattle outfit in Montana called the XIT. Wolves were common during Bob's years on the range. "Wolves did not wait for their meat to die. When it was down and they were hungry, their meal was being eaten while their victim was dying. I have seen cattle and horses with great holes eaten in their hams and shoulders and unable to get to their feet. We always put cattle or horses out of their misery by shooting them when found in this condition.(43) Charles Weston and his new bride were living on his father's farm in Aitken County, Minnesota. Charles had acquired a holstein cow to start his own herd of milk cows. He had put his cow in the pasture with his father's cows. The country was wild at the time (1912) and so Charles took his rifle with him when he went to gather the cows for the evening milking. This particular fall evening, Charles' cow was missing. Charles searched until dark, but to no avail. Finally he gave up and started home. As he was returning home, Charles ran into a pack of wolves that seemed to be interested in something in an old water ditch. The ditch was mostly mud and mire and the sight was heartbreaking for Charles. There in the ditch was his only cow, hamstrung, partially devoured and mired in the mud. Charles got off a shot at the now fleeing wolves and killed one. Turning to the cow, a close inspection revealed that it was obvious it would not survive due to its injuries. Another rifle shot ended the suffering of the cow. Charles gathered the dead wolf and went home for the evening. The next morning Charles went back to the scene and observed what had happened. The wolves had chased the poor cow, attacking it while it ran, until it had become mired in the ditch. Then it was a feast for the wolves as they tore the hindquarters apart and devoured them from the struggling cow. Due to the loss of flesh on the cow, it was apparent that the wolves had eaten upon it for some time and yet the cow had not succumbed when found. Charles' effort at cattle-raising came to an abrupt end.(44) The suffering of prey animals is acknowledged by those who have studied the wolf. Ewan Clarkson in referring to David Mech's studies on Isle Royale comments, "Sometimes the end was mercifully swift. A nine-month-old calf (moose) was dispatched in five minutes, and, after a short chase, a cow was killed in ten minutes. Frequently, however, the wolves are reluctant or unable to press home their initial attack, and the wounded moose will linger for hours, its wounds slowly stiffening and its life ebbing away. All around, the wolf pack waits, licking the bloodstains from the snow or lying at ease on the ice. On occasion, the pack will abandon a wounded moose and move away to make a fresh kill, only to return a day or so later to finish off the cripple, or, if it has succumbed to its wounds, to scent out the carcass."(45) MISCONCEPTION 9 - THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A DESIRABLE BALANCE BETWEEN PREY AND PREDATOR History shows that there is a desirable “balance of nature” at times. But that is not always the case as we have seen in the previous biological reports. It has been assumed that, in the early part of the century, unrestricted hunting was the reason for the low numbers of wild game. This was the case in several areas. However, restrictions were imposed. Hunting was restricted, poaching curtailed and yet numbers of game continued to decline due to depredation of predatory animals. Mountain Lions and wolves were a major part in this decline. Such an imbalance occurred in Alaska. After a wolf reduction program in the 1950s, moose and caribou populations increased, reaching peak abundance in the 1960s. From 1966 to 1976, there was a decline in the moose due to periodic deep snow, harvest by man and predation by wolves. Moose hunting harvests were reduced from 6-19% to 2% annually in 1974. Wolf predation during winters 1973-1974 and 1974-1975 was estimated at 13-34% and a high proportion of calves during summer. The caribou calf reduction was so low from 1971-1975 (hunting stopped in 1973) that biologist determined a decline would have occurred without hunting. Virtually all calves died prior to winter in 1974. This was due to the heavy depredation of wolves upon the calves during the summer months.(46) An experimental program of wolf reduction was implemented and a 61% reduction took place. Coinciding with the reduction was increased survival of 200% to 400% for calf and yearling moose populations, thus increasing the overall moose population. Survival of caribou calves also increased, thus the caribou population increased. The wolf population was held at a 60% reduction level for three years (1976-1979) to allow the moose and caribou population to increase. A 300% increase was realized in the three years, bringing prey populations to a suitable level.(47) One of the conclusions of the Alaskan Report was that "great caution must be exercised in harvesting (hunting) ungulates in ecosystems where wolves are harvested lightly or are essentially naturally regulated."(48) In other words, hunting by man and wolves do not go together. Such an imbalance is not an isolated instance as Dr. David Mech and P. Karns documented the total destruction of a deer herd in an area of over 1500 square miles in Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota. Their conclusions were that, in absence of wolves, the deer herd would have not disappeared nor would the decline of deer in surrounding area been so drastic.(49) MISCONCEPTION 10 - WOLVES POSE NO THREAT TO MAN HIMSELF There are numerous accounts of wolf attacks on man. Most of these were told from person to person and few, if any, are verifiable. Accounts of rabid wolves on humans have been documented. In reality the wolf does not seek human company and will shy away from man as much as it can. But to say that the wolf has never attacked man is not telling it accurately either. History indicates that wolves, under certain circumstances, would attack man. Accounts of wolf attacks on man are numerous in Europe and Asia. Different authors have written about such attacks. Even National Geographic Magazine mentioned such occurrences in Russia. "It is only a step from Moscow, overcrowded and teeming with its peoples of many races, with rules of every movement and police to enforce them, into wild, wide open spaces. Wolves and bears still roam in the Moscow district, and when the dull winter dusk comes at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and the country is under its white mantle of snow, hunger drives them to prey on mankind. "They boldly attack villages and, this year, even assailed a railroad train of cattle. No peasant ventures alone far outside his village, and one group of twenty men, fancying safety in numbers, was attacked by a wolf pack. Several were killed and all seriously wounded."(50) Such accounts are not common in the Western Hemisphere. There have been some documented accounts of wolf and man. Most of them related to being followed rather than attacked. Nevertheless, the people involved in such incidences were apprehensive to say the least. "Farm boys south of Chugwater are carrying guns when they go out to get the cows these days. The reason is the presence in the district of two giant gray wolves so bold that it is feared they will attack some unarmed person. "Mrs. C.M. DuVall encountered the beasts while driving in some horses. The wolves stood their ground, snarling threateningly, and Mrs. DuVall hastily retreated. "While Viv Harry was driving in his cows he heard a panting behind him like that of a dog and wheeling was confronted by the two wolves, which were almost at his heels. He waved his arms and shouted but the wolves advanced menacingly. Harry, who was unarmed, used rocks to keep the marauders at a distance until he reached his barn, the wolves following him within a few feet of the door and hanging around expectantly for some time. "Five of Frank Casper's calves have been killed and partly devoured, supposedly by the same wolves."(51) "Helper engine 819, in charge of engineer Findo took a line repairer to Athol today and when coming back and within ten miles of town, the fireman spied a man on top of a telegraph pole, waving his arms frantically and as if he was in great terror. The engine was stopped, and the man threw his arms around the pole and slid to the ground, landing all in a heap. He was breathless and pale and very much excited. He proved to be a trackwalker, and, when he had sufficiently recovered, told the engineer that he had been chased by five huge grey wolves, and that the animals were at his heels as he reached the pole. 'Oh I don't know how I got up that pole. It was wet and smooth but I got there and would have been there yet if the engine hadn't come along.' The trackwalker is a level-headed man and his story is not doubted. His climbing of the telegraph pole will go on record as one of the most clever feats in western pole climbing. He says he has had all the walking he wants in a country where wolves thrive and today resigned his position."(52) Even in the early years, issue was taken with many of the wolf attacks. Bud Dalrymple was a trapper for more than 25 years. He hunted and trapped wolves in the Badlands of South Dakota. Often he would crawl back into wolf dens, shoot the mother and bring the pups out alive and was never attacked. There were many times, he would wound a wolf, track it down and kill it. Yet there never was a time he was attacked by a wolf.(53) But there have been documented accounts of actual wolf attacks on man. One such account was carried in the August 1947 Journal of Mammology. It was investigated by Mr. Vincent Crichton, of Chapleau, Ontario, wildlife specialist for the Fish and Wildlife Division of the Ontario Department of Lands and Forest. Sworn statements of all men involved were obtained as well as an investigation of the scene which had "undisputed signs of a struggle between man and a wolf." (statement of Investigator Crichton). Michael Dusiak, section foreman for the Canadian Pacific Railway, was patrolling a section of track on December 29, 1942. He was traveling the track on a speeder (4-wheeled open railroad car so small a single person could lift it off the track). Suddenly something hit and grabbed Dusiak by his left arm. The impact of blow knocked Dusiak and the speeder off the track. Dusiak relates: "It happened so fast and as it was still very dark, I thought an engine had hit me first. After getting up from out of the snow very quickly, I saw the wolf which was about fifty feet away from me and it was coming towards me. I grabbed the two axes (tools on the speeder), one in each hand and hit the wolf as he jumped at me right in the belly and in doing so lost one axe. Then the wolf started to circle me and got so close to me at times that I hit him with the head of the axe and it was only the wielding of the axe that kept him from me. All this time he was growling and gnashing his teeth. Then he would stop circling me and jump at me and I would hit him with the head of the axe. This happened five times and he kept edging me closer to the woods which was about 70 feet away. We fought this way for about fifteen minutes and I fought to stay out in the open track. I hit him quite often as he came at me very fast and quick and I was trying to hit him a solid blow in the head for I knew if once he got me down it would be my finish. Then in the course of the fight he got me over onto the north side of the track and we fought there for about another ten minutes. Then a west bound freight train came along traveling about thirty miles an hour and stopped about half a train length west of us and backed up to where we were fighting. The engineer, fireman and brakeman came off the engine armed with picks and other tools, and killed the wolf."(54) The wolf was skinned and inspected by Investigator Crichton. It appeared to be a young lean wolf in good condition. A more recent occurrence happened in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. In August 1987, a sixteen-year-old girl was bitten by a wolf. This girl was camping in the park with a youth group and shone a flashlight at the wolf. The wolf reacted to the light by biting the girl on the arm. The bite was not hard and due to a thick sweater and sweatshirt the girl was wearing, the girl sustained two scratch marks on her arm. The wolf was shot by Natural Resources personnel and tested negative for rabies.(55) In recent years, Vancouver Island, British Colombia has had numerous accounts of encounters of wolves and man. On the island the wolves are such a problem that there is a hunting season with a 3 wolf limit. One Specialist in Wildlife control related several accounts. Jakob Knopp encountered a small pack of 3 wolves as he was driving his tractor. Though it was daylight, the wolves stayed with him right up to his barn. Jakob then made a dash for the barn, retrieved a rifle and had to shoot two wolves before the other one left the area. George Williams heard noises in his chicken coop one night. He investigated and was met by a wolf in his yard. Williams had only time for a snap shot with his .22 single shot rifle and dropped the wolf. A second wolf came towards him and Williams hit it over the head with the rifle, stunning it momentarily. George headed for the house and, the next morning, found the wolf he had shot lying in the yard. A forester was out checking the timber on the island when he encountered some wolves that started to chase him. The forester climbed a tree and radioed for help. A plane landed on a nearby lake close to the treed man. When the Conservation Officers approached the treed man, they found the wolves were still at the base of the tree. One had to be shot before the others retreated into the timber.(56) Thus it has been confirmed that wolf attacks on man have occurred.(58) The aggressiveness of the wolf has been witnessed with domesticated wolves. Reports of maulings, dismemberment and killings by such wolves or wolf hybrids are abundant. MISCONCEPTION 11 - MAN INVARIABLY DISRUPTS THE BALANCE OF NATURE WHEN HE ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE IT There is an assumption at the basis of this misconception that man disrupts and causes havoc to the environment whenever he attempts to regulate it. It is also assumed that the balance of nature is the best way to go. After all, it is "natural." Although man has made some errors in ecology, he has done far more to enhance the earth than to destroy it. The examples are numerous, let's look at a few. In the west, many rivers flowing out of mountain areas would dry up during hot summer months. This created a water problem in the early years of settlement. However, irrigation was implemented and ditches were built to divert the water to farm lands in order to grow crops. By diverting water into irrigation ditches, dry land was utilized and production was greatly increased in many areas of the western states. It was also found that such irrigation created a "Return Flow" pattern. This pattern made these rivers, from which the irrigation was taken, to be live streams year around. It was found that the water used in irrigation eventually flowed back to the river it came from and thus aided in making the river a better habitat for fish as well as water for livestock and wildlife. This diversion is actually a disruption from the "natural" flow of water from mountain streams, yet the benefits are enormous. A related example is the National Grasslands and stock reservoirs. Much of western land was dry and semi-arid in many cases. Reservoirs and stock dams built provided water for livestock, wildlife, birds, etc. Thus the land was better utilized by man and nature. Organizations have been formed to enhance habitats of wildlife. One such organization is Ducks Unlimited. This organization has assisted in many wildlife habitat improvement projects over the years. Big Meadows Waterfowl Production Area in northwestern North Dakota is one such project. Before 1986, this 2330 acre wetland was unproductive. Upland ducks were in the area, but due to lack of nesting habitat and heavy predation of fox, skunk, raccoon and other animals, nest success for the Upland duck was estimated at 15%-20%. Ducks Unlimited, in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, placed 25 3/4 acre man-made islands in the marsh. In 1987, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey estimated the duck nesting success rates at better than 90% on the man-made islands. Thus 18 acres of marsh, improved by man, resulted in a 70% increase in the nesting success of Upland ducks.(58) The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is another organization involved in conservation and improvement of wildlife habitat. This foundation cooperates with federal and state agencies in projects which improve elk habitat. One such project is the Rock Creek Prescribed Burn Project. This project involves 33,000 acres of inaccessible timber. 95% of the area is large Lodge Pole Pine, 3% are Aspen, and only 2% is open area. Because of this dense timber mass, there is virtually no vegetation on the ground. It is best described as a "timber desert." What was needed were open areas which would grow a diversity of vegetation for elk, deer and other wildlife in the area. Due to inaccessibility, the timber cannot be cut and therefore a long term burn project has been started. The U.S. Forest Service, the Wyoming Game and Fish, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation have contributed to this project which involves burning 10-200 acre openings in this forest. The plan called for such burning over a span of several years in order to diversify growth patterns of vegetation in the area. This burn project has created wildlife habitat in an area virtually void of wildlife due to lack of vegetation.(59) As seen in the above illustrations, man's regulation of nature and environment have been beneficial. Yellowstone National Park and other parks throughout the nation have been "disrupted" so that millions of people can enjoy the natural beauty and wildlife of these areas. Highways, accommodations, etc. are all a "disruptions," yet they are of benefit as people, from all over the world, can come and see the wonders of nature. Yes, man has regulated the Yellowstone, but even today only .4% of 1% of the park is developed.(60) This shows that man is concerned about conservation of nature as well as practical use of the Park. Balanced use of natural resources and their conservation are generally considered the goal to be achieved. MISCONCEPTION 12 - THE ECOSYSTEM WOULD BE COMPLETE WITH THE WOLF When asked as to where man fit into the term "Ecosystem," one researcher stated that man was no part or only a small non-consuming part, if any, of a complete ecosystem.(61) This concept is similar to religious beliefs in some third world countries where people starve due to restrictions placed on their environment. Simply put, man must get out of designated recovery areas in order to return them to their natural and complete ecosystem. After all, that is the way it was, therefore it should be restored as such. The benefits would be that nature can conduct its affairs as it sees fit, but man could not enjoy these recovery areas which are often national parks or forests as he does today. It should be remembered that man, by legislation, set these areas aside so that future generations could enjoy their beauty. However, for most people who favor wolf reintroduction, the ecosystem is not complete only in the concept that the wolf is not there. At this point in time, man can still enjoy Yellowstone National Park and other designated recovery areas. One must then question the advantages of the wolf as opposed to the disadvantages of the wolf in such areas. The wolf will reduce the ungulate herds in and near all recovery areas. To some, the wolf contribute to the aesthetic beauty of an area. To some, "just knowing the wolf is out there" is important. Some may be fortunate enough to hear the howl of the wolf. Yet wolves will leave these recovery areas. This will cause a decline in big game populations because wolves have to eat. Hunting will be adversely affected. How much or to what extent? No one knows. However, history tells us the impact can be devastating. Other wolves will prey on domestic livestock and cause economic hardship for area farmers and ranchers. A compensation program would be necessary, but the problem with "confirming" livestock loss would make it very difficult to compensate for all losses. Many would simply not be found. Also, current compensation programs have two flaws: 1. Their funds are limited; 2. They are only in effect while wolves are listed on the Endangered Species Act. CONCLUSIONS OF HISTORICAL STUDY 1. Wolves are not biologically in danger of extinction and should be removed from the Endangered Species Act (ESA). There are 1,500 to 2,000 Wolves in Minnesota, 6,000 to 10,000 in Alaska and 40,000 to 50,000 wolves in Canada, according to the biologists. They are not, nor ever have been, in danger of extinction. 2. Wolf Reintroduction in any part of the United States would reduce ungulate populations in those areas. Most of these populations are at satisfactory levels at this time. 3. Wolves will affect hunting of ungulate populations in and surrounding recovery areas. Even if hunting is restricted in the recovery area, it will still affect hunting outside of the area since most ungulate animals migrate to some extent. Regarding hunting, the actual effect of wolf depredation is unknown. History shows serious problems in that hunting has been curtailed from 6-19% to 2% and completely stopped in other instances. Wolf depredation has caused the total destruction of some wild game herds in certain areas. As one wildlife biologist put it, “Really there isn’t any room for harvest by man if you have a healthy wolf population.” (62) 4. Wolves will not stay in recovery areas. Wolves have been documented traveling hundreds of miles. 5. Wolf depredation of domestic animals will occur. Once transplanted, wolves would increase through reproduction and leave the recovery areas. The areas these "disperser" wolves would go are likely to be where livestock is raised since most recovery areas are surrounded by privately owned or forest grazing lands. The extent of wolf depredation on domestic animals in unknown. However, recorded accounts of the past tell us that figures of loss due to wolf depredation have been estimated in the millions of dollars in the early part of this century. Compensatory amounts higher than $300,000 have been paid over a 5-year period in Alberta, Canada. Alberta pays only 80% of assessed value for confirmed losses and 50% for probable losses.(63) Compensation of livestock loss would have to be allowed. But such compensation would not cover total losses incurred due to difficulties in confirmation of wolf kills. 6. Wolves often kill more than they eat. Although the scientific explanation may be inconclusive as to why wolves kill for the sake of killing, it is a documented fact that wolves often do kill more than they require for food. 7. Death, destruction and suffering follow the wolf. The wolf is a predator and therefore has to take life in order to maintain its own life. Sometimes the time of suffering of the prey animal is short, but at other times, this suffering last for days. In the past, man has had to take action to end such suffering. 8. There will NOT always be a desirable balance between prey and predator especially if harvest by man (hunting) is allowed. The prey populations decline drastically when harvested by man and wolf. Wolf predation directly curtails hunting. Wolf predation alone often keeps wildlife populations low for extended periods of time. 9. States must consider economic factors of wolf reintroduction. Limited game would mean limited allowable licenses for that game. For example, federal officials estimated that 10 wolf packs in Yellowstone National Park would eat more than 1000 elk annually. The State of Wyoming figures that income per elk hunter (based on 1986) is as follows: Resident = $367.93 - Out of State = $1,221.00. If those 1000 elk were harvested equally by resident and out of state hunters, income to the state would be $794,469.00 annually. Thus wolf reintroduction could mean serious loss of income for wildlifemanagement to states slated for wolf recovery. 10. Wolves, at times, do pose a threat to man himself. This is the exception to the norm. Many early accounts were unverifiable or found to be untrue. But, there are enough current documented accounts to attest to wolf attacks on man. 11. Man does modify nature when he attempts to regulate it. However, such modification is usually for the best. Land, livestock and wildlife are better utilized, preserved and restored under man's regulation. In the West, mane has created millions of acres of wildlife habitat through the distribution of water. Also, man has the power of reason, thus he can make decisions based on study to correct an error should he see one. 12. The "completeness" of a given ecosystem is clearly subjective. Therefore in light of history and current studies attesting to many problems with the wolf, the best and most honest approach would be to admit that wolves are not endangered and should be removed from the Endangered Species Act thereby terminating the need for wolf recovery in any part of the United States. QUESTIONS THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED ON WOLF REINTRODUCTION 1. Should the wolf be on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) when there are thousands of wolves in Alaska, Canada and Minnesota? 2. Would reintroduction increase taxes in states surrounding wolf reintroduction areas due to: A. An increase in personnel to handle the wolf problems (trappers, hunters, wildlife specialists, etc.)? B. The loss of hunting revenue for wildlife management 3. Is there a guarantee of success in eradicating "problem" wolves? 4. Do advocates of reintroduction even care if wolves leave recovery areas? Or, do they have other objectives beyond the reintroduction of wolves such as land lock-up and control? 5. Is there a termination provision in the Wolf Recovery Plan? Example: What happens if the wolves don't stay in designated recovery areas? Would more wolves be released? Is there a quota of wolves that must stay in the recovery area for the program to be considered a success? 6. Will the federal government compensate the states for economic losses due to reduction of hunting because of wolf depredation on big game herds? 7. What are the ramifications of wolves straying from recovery areas? Where will the funding come from to eradicate the "disperser" wolves that will, year after year, come out of the recovery areas into other areas where they are not wanted? 8. What steps will be taken to assure that deer herds will not be exterminated due to wolf depredation as has happened in several areas of the Western Hemisphere? 9. Would the wolf enhance the public safety in or near recovery areas? 10. Would the wolf harm a lost child or injured hiker/snowmobiler in or near a recovery area? 11. Should tax dollars be used to fund wolf recovery or should the special interest groups promoting wolf recovery be required to fund their own agenda without handouts from U.S. Taxpayers? 12. What would a wolf do to a family pet that would get loose by accident? Would wolves come into campgrounds and attack such pets if they were tied outside a camper, trailer on motor home? 13. Should officials and/or advocates of wolf recovery be held personally liable if a pet was attacked or injured by wolves? 14. In the event of wolf attack on a human, who will be liable? What recourse can be followed in the case of injury or death due to a wolf attack? Rabid wolves have attacked man. Who would be held liable, in such cases, and, who would compensate injury or death? 15. Due to difficulty in "confirming" wolf kills, will compensation be given to "probable" kills? For example, a farmer/rancher utilizes certain grazing lands year after year with a 1% death loss in livestock. After the Wolf Reintroduction, this same farmer/rancher with the same number of livestock on the same range has an increase in death loss of livestock to 6%. If wolf kills have been established on the grazing range, will there be compensation paid on the 5% increase in death loss or will the farmer/rancher have to stand the loss without compensation? 16. Does wolf recovery really benefit wolves? Is forcing such recovery creating "hatred" as seen in years past? Why have the 3 "S's" ("Shoot, Shovel and Shut-up") become so common in the West where wolf recovery was forced upon the people of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho? 1. Personal correspondence with Gertrude Lewis, Kemmerer, WY, 11/20/87. 2. Personal correspondence with Floyd McLean, Thermopolis, WY, 11/17/87. 3. Rohlf, Daniel J; THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: A GUIDE TO ITS PROTECTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS (Sanford: Sanford Environmental Law Society, 1989) pp. 23-24. 4. Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 180 (1978). 5. Rohlf, Daniel J; THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: A GUIDE TO ITS PROTECTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS, p. 25. 6. Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. at 187. 7. Testimony before U.S. House Subcommittee on Natural Resources, January 26, 1995. 8. Rohlf, Daniel J; THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: A GUIDE TO ITS PROTECTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS, p. 26. 9. THE WOLVES OF NORTH AMERICA, by Young and Goldman, was written in two parts. Part II dealt with subspecies. This book is still available at many universities or through Inter-Library loan. 10. Nowak, Ronald M; "A Perspective on the Taxonomy of Wolves in North America" WOLVES IN ALASKA AND CANADA, Canadian Wildlife Service Report Series, Number 45, p. 13. 11. Ibid p. 11. 12. Ibid p. 13 13. Phone interview with Dr. Mech, February 28, 1990. 14. Van Zwoll, Wayne, and Weller, Susan; "Wapiti Across the West" BUGLE, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1987, p. 16. 15. Ecologist Dr. Charles E. Kay, Ph.D, stated that Sweden and Finlandmaintain a herd of 400,000 moose and the only predators are a handful f black bears. Lecture given August 23, 1991. 16. Data provided by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, September 1996. 17. THE PINEDALE ROUNDUP, 2/7/06, Vol. 2, No. 23, p. 1, Courtesy Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 18. Biological Survey Annual Report, 1907, pp. 486-487. 19. Poster by U.S. Biological Survey, Courtesy of Lyle Crosby, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal Damage Control, Casper, Wyoming. 20. Rate of inflation 1920-1988 based on Official Consumer Price index, U.S. Department of Labor & Statistics, Washington, D.C., 7/26/88. 21. Young, Stanley P. and Goldman, Edward A.; THE WOLVES OF NORTHAMERICA (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1944) pp. 276-277. 22. Lopez, Barry Holstein; OF WOLVES AND MEN (New York: CharlesSchribner's Sons, 1978) p. 2. 23. Interview with Walter Hexum, International Falls, MN, 7/19/88. 24. Westbrooke, Melva; MOM AND ME, p. 42. 25. Interview with Walter Hexum, International Falls, MN, 7/20/88. 27. Interview with Bill Rightmire, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal Damage Control, Billings, MT, 7/18/88. 29. Grant, Duncan Paul; FIVE YEARS AS WOLF HUNTER, Courtesy of Bob Grant, Wheatland, Wyoming. 30. SUNDANCE REFORM, 5/18/1893, p. 3, Courtesy Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 31. THE SARATOGA SUN, Vol. 5, No. 23, 2/12/1896, p. 1, Courtesy Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 32. Mech, L. David; "At Home With The Arctic Wolf", NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, Vol. 171, No. 5, May 1987, pp. 589. 33. Turbak, Gary; TWILIGHT HUNTERS: WOLVES, COYOTES AND FOXES (Northland Press, 1987) pp. 8-10. 34. Bailey, Vernon; "Destruction of Wolves & Coyotes" U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Biological Survey, Circular No. 63, April 29, 1908. 35. ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Biological Survey, 1922, p. 336. 36. Interview with Mark Miner, Deer River, MN, 7/19/88. 37. Interview with John Elliot, Regional Wildlife Biologist, Ministry of the Environment, Fort St. John, British, Colombia, 7/18/88. 38. Johnson, Sylvia A and Aamodt, Alice; WOLF PACK: TRACKING WOLVES IN THE WILD (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1985) pp. 66-67. 39. Personal experience of Matt Damm, ECHOING FOOTSTEPS, Powder River Historical Society, 1967, p. 429. 40. Bell, W.B.; "Hunting Down Stock Killer" YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 1920, pp. 294-295. 41. Bailey, Vernon; "Destruction of Deer by the Northern Timber Wolf" U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Biological Survey, Circular No. 58, May 4, 1907, p. 1. 42. THE SHERIDAN POST, No. 40, 2/9/1893, Courtesy Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 43. Russell, Jim; BOB FUDGE: TEXAS TRAIL DRIVER, MONTANA-WYOMING COWBOY 1862-1933, (Denver: Big Mountain Press, 1962) p. 108. 44. Personal correspondence with Mrs. Charles Weston, Royalton, MN, 2/5/88 and 3/9/88. 45. Clarkson, Ewan; WOLF COUNTRY: A WILDERNESS PILGRIMAGE, (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1975) p. 42. 46. Gasaway, William G; Stephenson, Robert O.; Davis, James L.; Shepherd, Peter E. K. and Burris, Oliver E; "Interrelationships of Wolves, Prey and Man in Interior Alaska" WILDLIFE MONOGRAPHS, No. 84, July 1983, p. 1 and p. 25. 47. Interview with Robert O. Stephenson, Wildlife Biologist, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 7/22/88. 48. Gasaway et al. "Interrelationships of Wolves, Prey & Man in Interior Alaska" WILDLIFE MONOGRAPHS, No. 84, July 1983, p. 46. 49. Mech, L. David and P. D. Karns, "Role of the Wolf in a deer decline in Superior National Forest" U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Research Paper NC-148, 1977. 50. Wood, Janius B., "Russia of the Hour" NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, Vol. L, No. 5, November 1926, pp. 521-524. 51. "Pair of Wolves Attack Farmers Near Chugwater", WYOMING STATE TRIBUNE, 11/1/20, p.8, Courtesy of Wyoming Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 52. "Chased by Wolves" PLATTE VALLEY LYRE, 3/8/1900, Courtesy Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 53. Dalrymple, Bud, "Those Man-eating Wolves", HUNTER-TRADER-TRAPPER, May 1925, Courtesy Wyoming State Archives, Museums, and Historical Department, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 54. "A Record of a Timber Wolf Attacking a Man", JOURNAL OF MAMMOLOGY, Vol. 28, No. 3, August 1947, pp. 294-295. 55. Interview with Ron Tozer, Park Naturalist for Algonquin Provincial Park, 7/25/88. 56. Interview with Don Hamilton, Specialist in Wildlife Control, Vancouver Island, British Colombia, 7/26/88. 57. For more information on wolf attacks on humans, write: Abundant Wildlife Society of North America, P.O. Box 2, Beresford, SD 57004, and ask for their report "Wolf Attacks on Humans." A fee is charged for reprint costs and shipping. 58. Interview with Bob Meeks, Wildlife Biologist, Great Plains Habitat Office of Ducks Unlimited, Bismarck, ND, 7/26/88. 59. Interview with Paul Beels, Range Conservation Officer, U.S. Forest Service, Buffalo, WY, 7/27/88. 60. Interview with John Varley, Chief of Research, Yellowstone National Park, 7/20/88. 61. Interview with Norm Bishop, Research Interpreter, Yellowstone National Park, 7/22/88. 62. Interview with John Gunson, Fish and Wildlife Biologist, Ministry of Environment, Edmunton, Alberta. 63. Aderhold, Mike, ALL FOR THE WOLF, p. 21. Copyright, 1995, T. R. Mader. Permission granted to quote from or reprint if full credit is given to the source. About the Author: T. R. Mader is Research Director of Abundant Wildlife Society of North America, an independent research organization. Mader has researched wolf history for more than 15 years and has traveled over 30,000 miles conducting research and interviews on environmental issues. For more information, contact: ABUNDANT WILDLIFE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA P.O. Box 2 Beresford, SD 57004
At the request of the Mayor's Office at the City of Houston, we conducted 10 hours of research into technology and human trafficking. We looked at apps, data-driven management approaches, and new platforms to help combat human trafficking. We identified broad segments that we used to categorize projects. We did not try to create an exhaustive list of resources. You can follow our thinking here. Our goal was to identify areas where the Mayor's office could make a meaningful contribution to this global movement. Human trafficking affects approximately 100,000 children. Houston is in a unique position to observe and enact human trafficking prevention programs. Even today, technology is still underused in the fight against human trafficking. It's important to identify what the state of technology solutions is today, and to provide an outline of areas where the City of Houston can play an appropriate role. We looked at a variety of human trafficking projects and categorized them into one of three groups: These are projects designed to create broad awareness of the problem, as well as best practices for reporting and handling. Technology that seeks to educate and inform falls into this segment. These are projects designed to assist with reporting suspicious incidents and providing support and insight for law enforcement. Reporting apps, whistleblower hotlines, and data sharing practices are good examples of projects that fall into this category. Rethink Supply Chains is an open innovation challenge for solutions that bring about supply chain transparency and accountability. Thorn is a coalition of tech professionals working on specific human trafficking problems: (1) accelerate victim identification, (2) disrupt platforms, and (3) deter predators. This article provides an excellent overview of the arguments against investing in technology solutions to combat human trafficking. It raises three key points: “There is the question of whether the information provided by anti-trafficking apps reaches those who need it most. To be sure, potential victims of trafficking are as likely as anybody to have access to the Internet or a smartphone. But will those who are at risk of exploitation be aware of the existence of an app that can provide information about where they can seek help? Would someone heading abroad for work use an app that would alert them to signs that they may be about to be trafficked?” “Then there is the fact that there is already a lot of information on the Internet and elsewhere about the risks of human trafficking. And yet, every day, people make the potentially risky choice of moving from their home to accept a job under questionable conditions. How likely is it that an app that does nothing to improve the material conditions in which people live (which is what drives them to take risks) will encourage potential victims to consider their options more carefully? Without addressing these conditions, can awareness-raising technologies make a difference?” “Finally, apps can be undermined by the coercion that often accompanies human trafficking. To be sure, one advantage of apps is that they can be quickly removed from a phone. But victims of human trafficking are often too fearful of repercussions to use the avenues of communication available to them to report the crimes being committed against them.” There is growing demand for training programs that target jobs that come into close contact with human trafficking perpetrators and victims. There are apps that help educate people (like Truckers Against Trafficking). There are also in-person programs, like Innocents at Risk, which specializes in educating the airline industry. The City of Houston could take a leadership role by identifying industries, such as retail commercial real estate, and partnering with community organizations to develop and deploy industry-specific training programs. How can we identify potential human trafficking violations by looking at unconventional datasets, such as Google and Yelp reviews? Or monitor commerical leasing data for suspicious activity? The City of Houston could host an open challenge for the best methods of using publicly available data to identify potential offenders. Crowdsourcing ideas, patterns, analysis, and other tasks not only solves an immediate problem, but it also educates smart people about the nuances of human trafficking. The City of Houston could use the existing 311 app to encourage the reporting of suspicious behavior. All of our preliminary research is contained in this Google doc. You are welcome to leave comments there. Some of the highlights from our research includes: Want more links? Check out our research notepad.
From an analysis of many seismic profiles across the stable continental regions of North America and northern Europe, the crustal and upper mantle velocity structure is determined. Analysis procedures include ray theory calculations and synthetic seismograms computed using reflectivity techniques. The P wave velocity structure beneath the Canadian Shield is virtually identical to that beneath the Baltic Shield to a depth of at least 800 km. Two major layers with a total thickness of about 42 km characterize the crust of these shield regions. Features of the upper mantle of these region include velocity discontinuities at depths of about 74 km, 330 km, 430 km and 700 km. A 13 km thick P wave low velocity channel beginning at a depth of about 94 km is also present. A number of problems associated with record section interpretation are identified and a generalized approach to seismic profile analysis using many record sections is described. The S wave velocity structure beneath the Canadian Shield is derived from constrained surface wave data. The thickness of the lithosphere beneath the Canadian and Baltic Shields is determined to be 95-100 km. The continental plate thickness may be the same as the lithospheric thickness, although available data do not exclude the possibility of the continental plate being thicker than the lithosphere. ?? 1987 Birkha??user Verlag. Additional publication details Crustal and upper mantle structure of stable continental regions in North America and northern Europe
The peace party of 1863 has been denounced hastily rather than carefully studied. Its precise machinations are not fully known, but the ugly fact stands forth that a portion of the foreign population of the North was roused in 1863 to rebellion. The occasion was the beginning of the first draft under the new law, in July, 1863, and the scene of the rebellion was the City of New York. The opponents of conscription had already made inflammatory attacks on the Government. Conspicuous among them was Horatio Seymour, who had been elected Governor of New York in that wave of reaction in the autumn of 1862. Several New York papers joined the crusade. In Congress, the Government had already been threatened with civil war if the act was enforced. Nevertheless, the public drawing by lot began on the days announced. In New York the first drawing took place on Saturday, July 12th, and the lists were published in the Sunday papers. As might be expected, many of the men drawn were of foreign birth, and all day Sunday, the foreign quarter of New York was a cauldron boiling. On Monday, the resumption of the drawing was the signal for revolt. A mob invaded one of the conscription offices, drove off the men in charge, and set fire to the building. In a short while, the streets were filled with dense crowds of foreignborn workmen shouting, "Down with the rich men," and singing, "We'll hang Horace Greeley on a sour apple tree." Houses of prominent citizens were attacked and set on fire, and several drafting offices were burned. Many negroes who were seized were either clubbed to death or hanged to lamp posts. Even an orphan asylum for colored children was burned. The office of the "Tribune" was raided, gutted, and set on fire. Finally a dispatch to Stanton, early in the night, reported that the mob had taken possession of the city. The events of the next day were no less shocking. The city was almost stripped of soldiers, as all available reserves had already been hurried south when Lee was advancing toward Gettysburg. But such militia as could be mustered, with a small force of federal troops, fought the mob in the streets. Barricades were carried by storm; blood was freely shed. It was not, however, until the fourth day that the rebellion was finally quelled, chiefly by New York regiments, hurried north by Stanton--among them the famous Seventh--which swept the streets with cannon. The aftermath of the New York riots was a correspondence between Lincoln and Seymour. The latter had demanded a suspension of the draft until the courts could decide on the constitutionality of the Conscription Act. Lincoln refused. With ten thousand troops now assembled in New York, the draft was resumed, and there was no further trouble. The resistance to the Government in New York was but the most terrible episode in a protracted contention which involves, as Americans are beginning to see, one of the most fundamental and permanent questions of Lincoln's rule: how can the exercise of necessary war powers by the President be reconciled with the guarantees of liberty in the Constitution? It is unfortunate that Lincoln did not draw up a fully rounded statement of his own theory regarding this problem, instead of leaving it to be inferred from detached observations and from his actions. Apparently, he felt there was nothing to do but to follow the Roman precedent and, in a case of emergency, frankly permit the use of extraordinary power. We may attribute to him that point of view expressed by a distinguished Democrat of our own day: "Democracy has to learn how to use the dictator as a necessary war tool."* Whether Lincoln set a good model for democracy in this perilous business is still to be determined. His actions have been freely labeled usurpation. The first notorious instance occurred in 1861, during the troubles in Maryland, when he authorized military arrests of suspected persons. For the release of one of these, a certain Merryman, Chief Justice Taney issued a writ of habeas corpus*. Lincoln authorized his military representatives to disregard the writ. In 1862 he issued a proclamation suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus in cases of persons charged with "discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting military drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice...." Such persons were to be tried by military commissions. President Edwin A. Alderman, of the University of Virginia. ** The Constitution permits the suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus "when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it," but fails to provide a method of suspension. Taney held that the power to suspend lay with Congress. Five years afterward, when Chase was Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, in ex parte Milligan, took the same view and further declared that even Congress could not deprive a citizen of his right to trial by jury so long as the local civil courts are in operation. The Confederate experience differed from the Federal inasmuch as Congress kept control of the power to suspend the writ. But both governments made use of such suspension to set up martial law in districts where the local courts were open but where, from one cause or another, the Administration had not confidence in their effectiveness. Under ex parte Milligan, both Presidents and both Congresses were guilty of usurpation. The mere layman waits for the next great hour of trial to learn whether this interpretation will stand. In the Milligan case the Chief Justice and three others dissented. There can be little doubt that this proclamation caused something like a panic in many minds, filled them with the dread of military despotism, and contributed to the reaction against Lincoln in the autumn of 1862. Under this proclamation many arrests were made and many victims were sent to prison. So violent was the opposition that on March 3, 1863, Congress passed an act which attempted to bring the military and civil courts into cooperation, though it did not take away from the President all the dictatorial power which he had assumed. The act seems; however, to have had little general effect, and it was disregarded in the most celebrated of the cases of military arrest, that of Clement L. Vallandigham.
Balloon time is aimed at Year 3 Science. It looks at the effect of heat. Students learn that heat does play an impact on objects in our world and try to pop 2 balloons using tea light candles. This experiment can be used in other year levels, however it does not specifically fit in with the curriculum for other year levels. A great little, hands-on activity that allows students to develop their inquiring minds. Australian Curriculum Links: Science – Year 3: Chemical & Physical Sciences - A change of state between solid and liquid can be caused by adding or removing heat (ACSSU046) - Heat can be produced in many ways and can move from one object to another (ACSSU049) - Science involves making predictions and describing patterns and relationships (ACSHE050) - Science knowledge helps people to understand the effect of their actions (ACSHE051) - With guidance, identify questions in familiar contexts that can be investigated scientifically and predict what might happen based on prior knowledge (ACSIS053) - Compare results with predictions, suggesting possible reasons for findings (ACSIS215) - Students to tell the teacher what they know about balloons. When do people use them? What are they made out of? Is a balloon a solid, liquid or a gas? What colours are they? What is inside a balloon? - Hand each student/group a balloon. Allow them to observe it. On their worksheet they will fill in everything they know about balloons in the first box. Encourage students to describe what it feels like, smells like etc… - Discuss responses as a class. Students can share the most interesting fact they recorded. - Hand each student a tea light candle. They will carefully observe their candle and discuss some interesting facts with their partner. What can you tell me about the candle? When do people use them? What does a candle give off? (Light and heat). What are some safety rules we should have when dealing with candles? - Students to fill in facts about the candle in the next box on their worksheet. What does it feel like, look like, smell like etc… - For the first part of the experiment, explain to students that you will place an ordinary inflated balloon over a burning candle. What do you think will happen? Discuss. - Use the Balloon poster signs and have them placed in corners of the classroom. The signs read: The balloon will pop, not sure and the balloon won’t pop. Have students stand next to the sign that they think is true. Students will explain why they chose to stand where they did. - Provide students with an explicit example of how to make a prediction. They will then write their prediction in the first part on their worksheet (See RESOURCES). Conduct the experiment. Hold the inflated balloon over the candle (see diagram below). The balloon should pop if done correctly. - Have students explain what they think happened and why? - What caused the balloon to pop? - Did heat play a part in causing the balloon to pop? - How so? - In the box under their prediction, students will draw what happened. - The second part of the experiment involves filling the balloon with water. The balloon will then be placed over the candle in the same way as before. What do you think will happen? Students will again stand in corners of the room and will justify why they are standing in that position. Have students raise their hand if their position has changed from last time. Why did you choose to move? - Students to fill in their second prediction. Conduct the experiment. Hold the inflated balloon over the candle (see diagram below). The balloon will not pop with the water in it. Place enough water to cover the bottom of the balloon but not too much to make the balloon extremely heavy. - Why do you think the balloon didn’t pop? - Observe the black substance at the bottom of the balloon, what is it? - Why does the water stop the balloon from popping? - Will the balloon ever pop? In the box under their prediction, students will draw what happened. - Have students share their predictions and evidence of what happened. - Ask them to create a theory as to why the balloon did not pop in the 2nd experiment. - Collect Worksheets. - Anecdotal assessment of student participation. - Tea Candles - Balloon Experiment Theory Signs (DOC) - Balloon Time – Experiment Worksheet (DOC) If you like this lesson, or have an idea to improve it, please consider sharing it on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook or leave a comment below. Featured image courtesy of: http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/8Nq_7pEvYlc/hqdefault.jpg
New Delhi, September 5 (IANSlife) Education serves as the cornerstone of societal advancement, and educators occupy a central role in its development. As we move forward into the future, the roles of teachers are rapidly evolving to address the dynamic requirements of our ever-changing world. Recent educational reports reveal compelling data that underscores the urgent necessity for a fundamental transformation. Bridging the Global Skills Gap The Global Teacher Status Index highlights the significant variation in teacher recognition from one nation to another. While some countries highly value educators, others do not. The challenge lies in establishing a global standard that acknowledges and supports teachers, ultimately attracting and retaining the finest talents to nurture future generations. Navigating the Changing Landscape of Education Recent data from the World Economic Forum forecasts that by 2030, automation may displace 85 million jobs, while 97 million new roles may emerge. This transformation in the job market underscores the critical importance of equipping teachers with the skills necessary to prepare students for an increasingly technology-driven workforce. Fostering Digital Literacy UNESCO estimates that nearly half of the world's population lacks basic digital skills. It is imperative that teachers are equipped to impart digital literacy as a foundational skill, ensuring that students are well-prepared for a technology-centric world. Advancing Personalized Learning The National Center for Education Statistics demonstrates that personalized learning enhances student outcomes. Teachers require training in adaptive learning techniques and technology integration to provide tailored educational experiences for their students. Addressing Mental Health Awareness Mental health challenges among students are on the rise, as indicated by the CDC's reports on the increased prevalence of anxiety and depression among American youth. Teachers need training to recognize signs of mental distress and provide necessary support. Emphasizing Environmental Education The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underscores the urgency of addressing climate change. Teachers must integrate environmental education into their curricula to nurture environmentally responsible citizens capable of addressing pressing global issues. Implementing Innovative Teaching Methods A study by the National Center for Education Statistics reveals that 94% of teachers personally finance classroom supplies. Training educators in innovative and cost-effective teaching methods can alleviate this burden while enriching the learning experience. Embracing Data-Driven Decision Making The significance of data analytics in education is on the rise. Teachers should receive training in data analysis to gain insights into their students' performance and adapt instruction accordingly. Nurturing Continuous Professional Development The Brookings Institution asserts that continuous professional development is integral to enhancing teacher quality. Cultivating a culture of ongoing learning and growth ensures that educators remain effective in an ever-evolving educational landscape. The future of education hinges on preparing teachers to confront the challenges of tomorrow with confidence. Recent statistics and reports clearly indicate the rapid evolution of the educational landscape. By equipping teachers with the requisite skills to navigate this new terrain, we can guarantee that students receive the highest quality education, preparing them for success in a dynamic and uncertain world. Embracing this challenge is not just an educational imperative; it is a commitment to the future of society itself.
Runoff resulting from rapid melting of a deep snow cover over much of eastern Nebraska resulted in exceptionally high stream stages and in severe flooding on many streams in eastern Nebraska during the latter part of March and the early part of April in 1960. Suspended-sediment concentrations and discharges for most of the streams were somewhat lower than would be expected during similar water discharges that might result from torrential rains rather than snowmelt. During the period March 28-April 8, 1960, when the total water discharge of Platte River at Louisville and of Elkhorn River at Waterloo was about one-fourth of the total for the year, the sediment discharge was an estimated 46 to 50 percent of the estimated total for the year at each station. Both the percentage of sand and the concentration of sand in the suspended sediment were much higher for the Platte and Elkhorn Rivers than for streams in the Big Blue River and Nemaha River basins. For Platte River at Louisville and for Elkhorn River at Waterloo, measured sediment discharges ranged from about 87 to 94 percent of the computed total sediment discharge. Additional publication details USGS Numbered Series Sediment discharge during floods in eastern Nebraska
At this point, you’ve probably heard all of the pros about volunteering. You can make a difference in the community, you can impact future generations, you can simply brighten someone else’s day, and so on and so forth. There are no limits to all of the positives that go hand-in-hand with an altruistic lifestyle. But, one benefit in particular which often gets overlooked is how volunteering affects you. Sure, you know volunteering has a positive influence (make friends, build connections, gain experiences, etc.), but did you know that it can actually assist your health? If you don’t believe us, check out these six healthy advantages of volunteering. 1. Volunteering boosts self-esteem. Possibly the greatest asset to volunteering is its obvious effects on mental health, particularly an individual’s self-esteem. Doing good for others and the community provides a natural sense of accomplishment, pride and new identity. Not to mention, building a group of encouraging individuals around you gives you a strong safety net of support, which helps boost your overall self-esteem and mental well-being. 2. Volunteering decreases stress. Nothing helps relieve stress better than a meaningful connection with another person or animal. Studies have often demonstrated the “Happiness Effect” of volunteering. When we give our time to others, our brains release the chemical dopamine, which influences our moods and helps lower stress levels. So if you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed, chances are volunteering for a cause can help calm your nerves. 3. Volunteering reduces depression. Overtime, these lower stress levels can also reduce rates of depression found in volunteers. Getting involved in a community of volunteers fosters social interaction and increases your support system based on common commitment and interests—both of which have been shown to decrease rates of depression. While volunteering definitely isn’t a cure for depression, it is a great element to keep in mind if your mental health is struggling. 4. Volunteering keeps you active. Of course, volunteering can even influence your physical health. Particularly for people who find themselves aging faster than anticipated, volunteering gives you a physical outlet for activity. It gets you out of the house and doing something active, even if it’s simply walking door to door and asking for donations. If you really want to boost your health, connect with a local nonprofit and see what volunteering opportunities they have that require physical activity. 5. Volunteering provides purpose. No matter which organization, cause or charity you choose to get involved with, volunteering plays an essential role in the well-being of your community. This kind of responsibility gives volunteers a genuine sense of purpose for their lives. With a newfound purpose, volunteers can experience better emotional and mental health as they strive towards something worthwhile. If you feel lost or confused, then volunteering could be the key to find your way out. 6. Volunteering promotes longevity. One study conducted by the Mayo Clinic found that, “...individuals who volunteer have lower mortality rates than those who do not, even when controlling for age, gender and physical health.” With all of its benefits on your physical, mental and emotional health, it’s no wonder that volunteering can even help you to live longer. By stepping outside of yourself and supporting someone else, you can encounter even more benefits. You already know all of the benefits volunteering has on others in the community. However, volunteering can also have significant advantages for your health. If you want to feel better physically, mentally and emotionally, then volunteering could be the perfect step. Give it a try and see how your life improves.
The Fast Food Challenge Believe it or not, you can make healthy fast-food choices. How? Know exactly what you are ordering and plan ahead. Keep the ground rules of good nutrition in mind: - Eat a variety of foods in moderate amounts. - Include non-starchy vegetables at each meal. - Choose whole grains. - Limit the “the bad fats”: saturated fat and trans fat. - Keep salt to a minimum. - Stick to moderate portion sizes. - Follow the guidelines you've worked out with your dietitian or doctor. What you order is the key. It's easy to eat an entire day's worth of fat, salt, and calories in just one fast-food meal. But it's also possible to make wise choices and eat a fairly healthy meal. Here are some tips to help you choose well: - Ask to see nutrition information for the foods. Most fast food places have it available somewhere in the restaurant. You can also look it up online ahead of time. - Know that an average fast-food meal can run as high as 1,000 calories or more, and raise your blood sugar above your target range. - Know the nutritional value of the foods you order. Although there are some good choices, most fast-food items are high in fat and calories. - If you are looking at a combo meal, ask to substitute a side salad, carrots, or apple slices for the fries. - If you're having fast-food for one meal, let your other meals that day contain healthier foods, like non-fried vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. - Think about how your food will be cooked. Chicken and fish can be good choices, but they can have more calories and fat if they are breaded and deep fried. If breakfast is your fast-food meal, choose an egg with a slice of whole wheat toast or English muffin. Or try fruit and yogurt with a few nuts sprinkled. Stay away from muffins that are loaded with sugar, fat and calories. Even “low-fat” muffins are usually very high in calories for the amount of food you get Add low-fat milk. Order cold cereal with fat-free milk, pancakes with sugar free syrup or plain scrambled eggs. Limit bacon and sausage because they are high in saturated fat. Simple Steps to a Better Meal The fast food we eat may stick around a lot longer than we'd like. With a little self-education, you can avoid the problem areas. Don't Go Jumbo Watch out for words like jumbo, giant, deluxe, biggie-sized or super-sized. Larger portions mean more calories. They also mean more saturated fat, cholesterol and salt. Stay away from double burgers or "super" hot dogs with cheese, chili, or sauces. Order a regular or junior-sized sandwich instead. Order items plain, without toppings, rich sauces, or mayonnaise. Add flavor with mustard, and crunch with lettuce, tomato, and onion. Ask for your sandwich or burger without the cheese. It carries an extra 100 calories per ounce, as well as added fat and sodium. Choose grilled or broiled sandwiches with meats such as lean roast beef, turkey or chicken breast, or lean ham. Be Bun Savvy Skip the croissant or biscuit. Eat your sandwich on a bun, bread or English muffin and save calories and fat. Choose a Salad Go for the salad bar and fill your salad with things like carrots, peppers, onion, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and other veggies. Toss on a few sunflower seeds to add some healthy fats and add lean protein like grilled chicken or beans or chick peas to add some protein. Watch out for potato and macaroni salads that are dressed with a lot of mayo, and other high-calorie toppings like dressings, bacon bits, cheeses, and croutons. Take Care When Eating Globally Order bean burritos, soft tacos, fajitas, and other non-fried items when eating Mexican fast foods. Choose chicken over beef. Limit refried beans. Or ask if they have beans that aren't refried. Pile on extra lettuce, tomatoes, and salsa but go easy on cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. Watch out for deep-fried taco salad shells - a taco salad can have more than 1,000 calories! Pizza can be a good fast food choice. Go for thin crust pizza with vegetable toppings. Limit to 1-2 slices. Meat and extra cheese add calories, fat and sodium. Chinese food may seem like a healthy choice, but many dishes are deep fried or high in fat and sodium, especially in the sauces. You can ask for the sauce on the side so you eat less. Skinless fried chicken can have almost as much fat as the regular kind. End on a Good Note End your meal with sugar-free, fat-free frozen yogurt or a small cone of fat-free yogurt. Better still, bring a piece of fresh fruit from home. Ices, sorbets, and sherbets have less fat and fewer calories than ice cream, but they are chock full of sugar. They can send your blood sugar too high if you don't work the extra carbohydrate into your meal plan. Eating out can be one of life's great pleasures. Make the right choices, ask for what you need, and balance your meals out with healthy meals at home. You can enjoy yourself and take good care of your diabetes at the same time.
"W hiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over," America's greatest writer Mark Twain reportedly said during the 1800s. Without water, we would not have whiskey either, but can we imagine a future without water? About one billion people live in areas with water shortages, and by the middle of this century that number is expected to rise to as high as four billion. Population growth, climate change and pollution are the main reasons for the worsening situation. A lack of water has always been a regional problem. For instance, North America has 15 times as much renewable water resources per person than the Middle East and North Africa. In the areas where water is scarce, water management is a matter of war and peace. For nearly 35 years, scientists at the Jacob Blaustein Institute in the middle of Israel's Negev Desert have been studying how desertification can be prevented and life sustained with minimal water levels. About one third of the researchers at the Blaustein Institute for Desert Research are focused on water chemistry and technology. Cost-efficient means of recycling water and desalinating sea water could solve the problem of water supply, but it will take time before they are fully developed. In the meantime, we must learn to get by with scarcity. Hendrik J. Bruins, who has studied the lives of herders in the Negev Desert, says that it is increasingly important that people around the world improve their readiness for intermittent droughts brought on by climate change. "As the world's population continues to grow, a drought in India or China could lead to a really serious food shortage everywhere. The seminomadic and sedentary pastoralists in Negev engage in water harvesting in order to collect and store rainwater in order to survive the dry spells. The rest of us must prepare for rainless periods by building up our grain reserves. This is particularly important in big countries such as China, India and United States," says Bruins. VIRTUAL WATER Growing a kilo of wheat takes an average of 900 litres of water, and a single slice of bread some 40 litres. A kilo of beef takes at least 10,000 litres, in some areas as much as 200,000 litres of water. When we take into consideration the kind of unseen so-called virtual water that lies behind our food and other consumption, we begin to see the Earth's water economy in a new way. "Agriculture accounts for 80 to 90 per cent of the world's water consumption. So the choices we make regarding food are extremely important in terms of the global water economy," says professor John Anthony Allan of King's College London, who developed the concept of virtual water. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) estimates that the average Briton uses about 150 litres of water per day, but 30 times that in virtual water used to manufacture food, clothing and other consumer goods. That would be enough water to take 58 baths a day. "Considering people's continually growing affluence and the projection that the world's population will increase from the current six billion to nine billion by the year 2050, our renewable water resources simply are not going to suffice. We have to develop better water processing technology and change our consumption habits," says Allan. iStockphoto "Growing a kilo of wheat takes an average of 900 litres of water, and a single slice of bread some 40 litres." 34 BLUE WINGS NOVEMBER 2008 Why do I see this page ? For proper operation Digipaper-publication needs Flash Player version 7 or newer. Install the latest version of Flash Player from this link.
Bioturbation refers to the mixing of sediment particles resulting from benthic faunal activity. It is the dominant particle mixing process in most marine sediments and exerts an important control on diagenetic processes. In models, bioturbation is usually treated as a diffusive process where the biodiffusion coefficient (Db) characterizes the biological mixing intensity. Biodiffusion coefficients are classically computed by fitting a diffusive model to vertical profiles of particle-bound radioisotopes. One peculiar observation is tracer-dependence: Db values from short-lived tracers tend to be larger than those obtained from long-lived tracers from the same site. Recent theoretical work, based on random walk theory and Lattice Automaton Bioturbation Simulations (LABS), has suggested that this tracer-dependence is simply a model artifact and has concluded that the biodiffusion model is not applicable to the short observational time scales associated with short-lived radioisotopes. Here we have compiled a global dataset of Db values obtained from different radiotracers to assess tracer-dependence from a data perspective. Tracer-dependence is significant in low-mixing environments like slope and deep-sea sediments, but is not present in intensely mixed coastal areas. Tracer-dependence is absent when the number of mixing events is larger than 20, or the potential length scale is greater than 0.5 cm. Roughly this comes down to tracer-derived Db values greater than 2 cm2 yr−1. This condition is met for 68%, 50%, and 8% of published Db values obtained from coastal, continental slope, and abyssal environments, respectively. These results show that short-lived radioisotopes are suitable to quantify biodiffusion mixing in sedimentary environments featuring intense bioturbation.
Knowing how to bend wood correctly is one of the hardest parts of carpentry. Usually used in chair making, wood is bent by the use of a steamer, which is then pulled into a mould. Here is what you will need to bend wood: - Wood steamer. You can buy one, or make one out of a simple household water boiler, some tubing and some PVC piping. Plug one end of the tube with a rag, so the air can flow, and then rig up some waterproof piping from the opening of the boiler to the PVC. The connections don't have to be completely airtight, but it should be close. - Leather gloves - Eye protection - Wood to be bent - Mould for the wood - Tongs (optional) Note: Always wear eyewear. You are working with hot steam. Anything can happen. In addition, you are bending wood, and sometimes splinters come flying out. We don't need to tell you that you don't want these anywhere near your eye. Before you start this procedure, practice taking a piece of wood out of the steamer and moving it to the mould. Time is against you, so you should do everything you can to prepare. Place wood inside of steamer. Make sure that there will be room for proper airflow. You want the steam to flow through the area where the wood is stored. You don't want it to pool up inside, you will end up soaking parts of the wood, which means that the wood will warp because of uneven loosening. Start up steamer. For every inch of thickness, you want you wood to be in the steamer for an hour. Once you turn on the boiler, you want to be wearing gloves any time you touch your rig. This will get very hot. Prepare mould. While the steamer is going, make sure everything you need to bend and mould the wood is in place. There are many different ways to affix the wood, but keep in mind that the wood will try to revert to its original form once it starts to cool. Keep an eye on the boiler, and check periodically to make sure that there is enough water. - Remove wood and put it in the mould. Wearing gloves and eyewear, turn off the boiler and let the steam out of the steamer. Then, using tongs or your gloved hand, remove the wood from the steamer. Take it to the mould and bend it to your will. Don't worry if anything splits, you can fix that later. The most important thing right now is to have a piece of wood that is generally bent the way you want it. There you have it. It's pretty tough, but once you practice it enough, it will be like second nature. What Others Are Reading Right Now. Acting, comedy and strong spirits converge in Speakeasy. When host Russell Peters interviews entertainers about all sorts of topics, neither the drinks nor the conversation is wate … What Your Shoes Tell Her About You How footwear can kick-start your dating game—or kick dirt on your grave. 10 Real-Life Heroes Who Inspired Indiana Jones Legend has it, these guys are the real MVPs.
Every human is equal. EveryHuman 2022-10-28 Every human is equal Every human is equal. This simple yet powerful statement encapsulates the idea that all human beings are deserving of equal treatment and respect, regardless of their race, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic. At the core of this belief is the recognition that all human beings are unique and valuable individuals, worthy of dignity and respect simply because they are human. The concept of human equality has a long and complex history, and has been shaped by a variety of cultural, philosophical, and political movements. In many ways, the idea of human equality is closely tied to the concept of human rights, which assert that all people are entitled to certain inalienable rights simply because they are human. These rights include the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as freedom from discrimination, oppression, and exploitation. Despite the widespread acceptance of the principle of human equality, in practice, it is often violated or ignored. Throughout history, various groups have been discriminated against and marginalized based on their race, gender, religion, or other characteristics. Even today, discrimination and inequality continue to plague many societies around the world, and efforts to combat these problems are ongoing. One of the main challenges in achieving true equality is overcoming the deeply ingrained biases and prejudices that exist in society. These biases often manifest themselves in subtle ways, such as in the way that people treat others based on their appearance or the way that they speak. They can also be more overt, such as in the form of laws or policies that discriminate against certain groups. In order to truly achieve equality, it is essential that we work to identify and eliminate these biases and prejudices, and actively promote equal treatment and respect for all individuals. Another important aspect of achieving human equality is ensuring that all people have access to the resources and opportunities they need to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives. This includes things like education, healthcare, and employment opportunities, as well as access to clean water, shelter, and other basic necessities. Without these resources, it is difficult for individuals to fully participate in society and realize their full potential. In conclusion, the belief that every human is equal is central to the values of justice and fairness, and is essential for building a more just and equitable world. While there is still much work to be done to achieve true equality, the progress that has been made so far is a testament to the power of this idea and the transformative impact it can have on society. Every Human is Equal What other species builds civilizations, records history, creates art, makes music, thinks abstractly, communicates in language, envisions and fabricates machinery, improves life through science and engineering, or explores the deeper truths found in philosophy and religion? If that is how we define ourselves, it is precisely how we will act. After Charlottesville, it is clear once again that one of the most fundamental American tenets—that all human beings are created equal—is nowhere near universally accepted. Lincoln, Gandhi, King and so many others, millions, billions, have fought and died for it, for equality, and the fights goes on today. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. We may prove ourselves helpful in the development of the society and country. Only humans have the capacity to embrace the good and to engage in evil—a moral attribute embedded in our very natures. Does Every Human Life Have Equal Moral Value Simply Because It is Human? No persons should be discriminated against in their sexual and reproductive lives. But if such a feature existed, it would provide a less negative reason to grant all human beings equal status. But Waldron also hastens to add—it is his main contribution—that we are looking for characteristics that come in a distinctively human range. Answer no, and we are just another animal in the forest. What other species has true freedom? It's a long but spectacular read: Everyone who considers himself a defender of good probably believes in basic human equality. Every human life is of equal value Kiyotaka Ayanokōji Monologue : At any rate, humans change over time based on their actions. If you like this pro-life article, Such blatant anti-humanism is often dismissed or unanswered in the public square. Where in the Constitution does it say everyone is equal? Science fell off the boat in Copenhagen so many years ago, and has yet to make it to shore. But that does not mean that there is any natural moral equality among different kinds of beings, or among humans. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Whether we were created by God, came into being through blind evolution, or were intelligently designed, the importance of human existence can and should be supported by the rational examination of the differences between us and all other known life forms. Are We Really All Equals? Women possess no less value than men. Are humans naturally hierarchical? I choose to limit suffering whenever I am able. READ: What does it mean when lights come on by themselves? But in fact it can be, it simply for many or most cannot be heard. For Rashdall, they were so pronounced that the inferior had to serve—and if necessary perish—to promote the interests of the superior. He cites forgotten English thinker Hastings Rashdall for thinking otherwise. Every human being should be treated equally according to their human rights Equal does not mean that we are all the same. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. The single absolute is One. . What Does the Bible Say About Every Man Is Created Equal? Do we really think that every human life is of equal value? Secular modernity inherited that faith and indeed tried to make it a living political principle in a way that religious cultures have rarely done, in their tolerance of extraordinary hierarchies. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. No matter the race of a person, what they look like, what they believe, how wealthy they are, we should all be seen as the same. The rioting byproduct of this situation is not the answer either. Correctly framing the problem may not solve it. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. And the people will oppress one another, every one his fellow and every one his neighbor; the youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable. And the people will oppress one another, every one his fellow and every one his neighbor; the youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable. It is important for all people to be equal because only then our society would develop in the true sense of the term. Even sparser is research regarding the effects of neural maturation on status perception, and how developmental changes in status processing influence the value and impact of social rank. Reports indicate that the pandemic has already claimed over 4. . Reason has long been a popular choice in the mix of argument. Are humans truly equal? He rejects the possibility that whether humans have enough continuity with one another and are special enough in their kindred capacities to deserve equal respect is primarily a decision to make rather than a truth to endorse. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. What does it mean we are all equal? This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. I believe that the police officers who stood around while George Floyd was being murdered are all an accessory to murder and deserve to lose their job and go to jail. . What Does the Bible Say About Everyone Is Equal? It is entitled simply: HUMAN RIGHTS. New variants of concern mean that the risks of infection have increased in all countries for people who are not yet protected by vaccination. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. What is the Basis for Human Equality? Equal has been found and now it must be practiced and shared. A delay will bring more unnecessary and uncalled risk and injustice by nurturing new, potentially deadlier variants exposing more people to infection and death. The sow that permits the runt of her litter to starve is not a negligent parent, but a human mother doing the same would be branded a monster. An excellent reason to regard human beings as equal would be that God made them that way assuming he did. Justice need only remove her blindfold, hello! Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Fifty million — about the number of kangaroos in Australia, people in South Korea and Facebook users whose information was breached in September. Fifty million is also about how many trees are estimated to have been killed by Sudden Oak Death on the West Coast alone. That number is rising every day. Forestry and natural resources senior Raymond Lee is determined to stop this trend from ever reaching San Luis Obispo County. Lee is spending his final quarter at Cal Poly predicting where Sudden Oak Death’s pathogen would affect San Luis Obispo County. By creating a risk map of where it would likely exist, Lee said he hopes to be proactive in treating the deadly disease. Plants get pathogens just like people; some are killed, and some are not. Sudden Oak Death, caused by the plant pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, affects more than 100 species but only kills a certain few. Lee is focusing on California bay laurel — a plant native to the golden state — because it is phenomenal at spreading Sudden Oak Death spores, but does not die from it. Though officials believe the pathogen has not yet made it to the county, it teeters on the San Luis Obispo County and Monterey County line, according to CAL FIRE Forest Health Specialist Kim Corella. “Once it’s here, there’s nothing we can really do,” Corella said. “It’s here to stay.” Sudden Oak Death acts differently in each species, but in tanoaks, coast live oaks, Shreve’s oaks, California black oaks and canyon live oaks, the disease typically lies dormant for years before showing signs of infection. It then kills the tree in a matter of weeks, according to the California Oak Mortality Task Force. For these species, the disease enters through the trunk — or the leaves, in the case of tanoaks — and causes red or brown cankers that ooze black or red sap before killing the tree altogether. Because trees have circulatory systems that are far different from that of humans, antibiotics would not work to treat them, according to forestry and natural resources professor Richard Cobb. Even if they did, it would be impossible to treat 5 billion oaks and tanoaks in coastal California, he said. “There’s no cure and people don’t want to hear that,” Cobb said. Though the disease is not necessarily curable, Cobb and Lee said they hope knowing at-risk regions in the county can help officials change their surveillance. Cobb described the pathogen as the most important biological source of tree mortality in the coastal range. Cobb, who is mentoring Lee through his senior project, said Sudden Oak Death is a serious threat to landowners and land managers throughout the county. He said Lee’s project is something county and state officials have been requesting for some time now. Corella explained that the culmination of drought and high temperatures have put incredible stress on trees in California. Because of this, Sudden Oak Death is killing trees that would have otherwise survived these conditions. Oaks are some of the most drought-tolerant trees, but climate change and extreme temperature patterns are devastating decades of growth that are hard to get back. Because the county is so biologically diverse, Corella said they are unsure how devastating the pathogen will be once it gets here. What they do know is that it will have a huge financial impact, because it is expensive to maintain and move trees or provide prescribed burns, which are currently the only options for treatment, according to Cobb. More importantly, the death of mass amounts of oaks will cause the loss of the keystone species coast live oak, Lee said. “Imagine going out to some park or reserve and there are just no oak trees,” Lee said. “You’d have a hillside that’s just bushes. And if you don’t have trees, it’s like, ‘Where am I gonna get my shade?’” Cobb said the areas that would most likely be affected would be parts of Poly Canyon, oak forests on Bishop Peak and some oak forests on Cuesta Ridge, all of which he considers “places that are pretty paramount to the community’s access to natural lands.” Greater than aesthetic and recreational value, the loss of oak forests would have devastating effects on the ecosystem. According to Cobb, we rely on forests for water quantity and quality, as well as for fire dynamics of the area, and food and shelter for different wildlife species. Cobb said he believes Sudden Oak Death could have been a factor in the 2008 Basin Complex Fire near Big Sur, as well as the 2017 Sonoma County fires. He said he sees that as his department’s responsibility — to anticipate problems as they come up and to then help local agencies come up with solutions. “That’s why I was paying attention in [San Luis Obispo] County with this risk map,” Cobb said. “I said, ‘Yes, you do [need one].’ Step one.” The beginnings of Lee’s project were humble — they started with failure. In a geographic information system (GIS) class, Applied GIS (NR 418), during Fall 2017, Lee’s group was assigned to work on the very project he is working on now. However, the first time around, the group’s compilation of jumbled data only led them wayward. He said they went in the wrong direction and used all of the wrong methods for weeks. He stayed through Thanksgiving break and missed his brother’s birthday. “That was a very difficult quarter. Straight up, that is one of the three classes I broke down in and was like, ‘I straight up can’t do this right now.’ That was hard. It was worth it, though,” Lee said. Lee went to Cobb after the quarter ended and decided he would try again with their data for his senior project. The team — Lee, enthusiastic to get on his bike and get some fresh air, and curly-haired Cobb, also a cyclist and one who prefers to be shoeless — are a spirited duo. The team said they were excited to get started on something that could be realistically applied to the county. From there, Lee spent six months sitting in front of a computer screen searching maps and databases for the likelihood of bay laurels and modeling data, and two months out in the field on his bike collecting data. The two displayed their research at the California Forest Pest Council Meeting at University of California, Davis on Nov. 13-14. They said they hope once they translate their research into more digestible information, they can make their maps public and their methodology can be used in other counties as a more efficient, inexpensive way to map risk. Lee graduated in December and hopes to do something with GIS or some form of research post-graduation. Ideally, he said, he would be able to be somewhere where he can spend time on his bike exploring the landscape. His greatest takeaway from the project: the uncertainty of it all. The first-hand research experience gave him a healthy glimpse of that. “That’s science: we’re mostly sure this is the right answer,” Lee laughed. Corella suggested hikers and bikers need to be diligent about cleaning their shoes after going out to prevent the spread of Sudden Oak Death. Because the pathogen’s spores can drop off and stay in the ground for years, if hikers go out in Monterey or Humboldt Counties, where the pathogen has killed millions of trees, there is a good chance it can be spread to San Luis Obispo if shoes are not cleaned. She also suggested not moving firewood. Students can stay educated by visiting suddenoakdeath.org and participating in the county’s SOD Blitz in May 2019, where volunteers will be educated on the pathogen before being sent into the county to collect samples of trees that may be affected by the disease to be lab-tested. Corella invites curious community members to call their county agricultural commissioner or send her an email at firstname.lastname@example.org for more information.
Having brought its first vaccine candidates from concept to clinical development in less than three months, BioNTech is making global waves as the pioneer behind Pfizerâ€™s COVID-19 vaccine. Because of such success stories, more eyes than ever are looking at opportunities raised by the biotechnology industry. As talented people around the world from academia, clinical practice, and other industries consider careers in this sector, they should examine the characteristics necessary to become successful biotechnology entrepreneurs. Biotechnology fuses science and business. It is a major global economic driver that, according to Statista, generated US$140 billion in revenue in 2016 (1). Biotech companies employ millions of people around the world, and demand for skilled professionals continues to rise. However, the sector creates different challenges from those facing other industries. It also works within long, complex timelines for product development and clinical trials. So what is most important to the livelihood of a biotechnology entrepreneur? Is it the ability to engineer a scientific breakthrough or the managerial skills needed to commercialize an innovation? Both are important. Good leaders fail because their technologies cannot support them, and good technology fails because of poor decision-making. But amid an ever-changing regulatory environment, the biotechnology sector demands other unique skills. Defining Biotechnology Leadership Risk Tolerance: Biotechnology entrepreneurs need high risk tolerance to weather industry volatility. The only constant in biotech is change. Companies adapt strategies and shift resources as new data inform their decisions. At a personnel level, biotechnology professionals commonly change jobs as companies come and go. In some regions of the United States, the average such professional changes positions every two to three years. The industry also restructures continually, expanding and contracting with the development and merging of companies â€” and those that bet on the wrong drug development plan will fail. Thus, biotechnology executives must make decisions bravely. They set timelines for conducting clinical studies that determine whether to advance or terminate a product. Many companies delay such studies, drawing investment from the promise of something revolutionary. Executives also must make critical personnel decisions, hiring the best talent and parting ways with employees who do not fit with their companiesâ€™ needs. Relevant Education: Examples abound of people who succeeded in biotechnology with no scientific background. By and large, however, biotech entrepreneurs should have at least a bachelorâ€™s degree in a life science and preferably a postgraduate degree in a specialty such as cellular/molecular biology, biochemistry, or genetics. Life Experience: The industry does not always behave logically, so conventional decision-making processes do not always apply. The smartest person from the best university might not be a smashing biotech success. Experience is key to making decisions that will help propel a business. In the absence of experience, entrepreneurs must be able to gather advice from a cohort of experienced industry contacts rather than rely on one or two mentors. Well-Roundedness: Biotechnology entrepreneurs benefit from having specialist and generalist knowledge. Most industry professionals start their careers specializing in clinical sciences/operations, regulatory affairs, research, quality, marketing, or manufacturing. But as employees progress into senior roles, particularly at small biotechnology companies, they will be asked to weigh in on scientific innovations, legal issues, corporate governance, investor and public relations, regulatory and securities issues, and even patent concerns. If you want to become a biotech entrepreneur, donâ€™t focus on one area. Itâ€™s useful to learn about all kinds of issues that influence your business. Networking Capability: Connect with colleagues, professors, and industry professionals; become active in professional associations. Maintaining contacts opens new opportunities and provides access to industry experts. Building the Biotechnology Industry Innovations donâ€™t happen overnight. The headline-making BioNTechâ€“Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine represents more than a decade of work. BioNTechâ€™s Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, who established the company in 2018 in Mainz, Germany, have spent years pioneering immunotherapies for cancer (2). Working in biotechnology means being part of something much bigger than yourself. Whether you dream of developing a lifesaving vaccine or ensuring food quality to prevent widespread illness, a career in biotechnology can make that possible â€” and it takes innovative people to keep the momentum going in such a constantly changing industry. 1 Key Figures on Established Biotechnology Centers Worldwide from 2012 to 2016. Statista, 2017; https://www.statista.com/statistics/215185/growth-in-established-biotechnology-centers-worldwide-since-2009. 2 Fox K, Pleitgen F. The Scientists Who Developed the Pfizerâ€“BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Are a Turkish-German Power Couple. CNN, 10 November 2020; https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/europe/biontech-pfizer-vaccine-team-couple-intl.
derekmead writes "Scientists have had a basic understanding of how life first popped up on Earth for a while. The so-called 'primordial soup' was sitting around, stagnant but containing the basic building blocks of life. Then something happened and we ended up with life. It's that 'something' that has been the sticking point for scientists, but new research from a team of scientists at the University of Leeds has started to shed light on the mystery, explaining just how objects from space might have kindled the reaction that sparked life on Earth. It's generally accepted that space rocks played an important role in life's genesis on Earth. Meteorites bombarding the planet early in its history delivered some of the necessary materials for life but none brought life as we know it. How inanimate rocks transformed into the building blocks of life has been a mystery. But this latest research suggests an answer. If meteorites containing phosphorus landed in the hot, acidic pools that surrounded young volcanoes on the early Earth, there could have been a reaction that produced a chemical similar one that's found in all living cells and is vital in producing the energy that makes something alive."
October is coming to an end, the month set aside to create awareness about breast cancer that is affecting a large population of women and men in Africa and across the world. Breast cancer is most commonly thought of as a disease that affects women, but it does occur in men as well. This is why men also have to be involved in this conversation. Male breast is most common in older men, though it can occur at any age and accounts for less than 1% of all breast cancers in the developed countries. According to a journal published on Hindawi.com, in sub-Saharan Africa patients with male breast cancer present late with advanced disease and associated comorbidity. These patients often seek nonorthodox treatment because of poor awareness, sociocultural or religious reasons. All men need to therefore know what signs of breast cancer to look for. For most men, this type of cancer doesn’t come to mind when they notice a change in their breasts, which can delay diagnosis. Did you know that men can also get breast cancer? As we have the breast cancer conversation, let’s involve the men in…Posted by Ngao Credit Limited on Tuesday, October 27, 2020 Most cases are diagnosed in men over the age of 50 and the diagnosis, treatment and survival rates for both men and women with this type of cancer is very similar. Some of the risk factors include: - Age: As we mentioned earlier men over the age of 50 have a very high chance of getting breast cancer - Men who also have several family members with breast cancer have an increased risk of developing the disease. - Obesity: Fat cells contribute to oestrogen production, and being overweight can raise oestrogen levels and is associated with breast enlargement. - Liver disease: Certain conditions, such as cirrhosis of the liver, can reduce male hormones and increase female hormones, increasing your risk of breast cancer. Bottom line, as Ngao Credit has been highlighting on the breast cancer campaign it has been running on its social media, maintaining a healthy lifestyle can help reduce the risk of breast cancer. And as we have this conversation, men should also be involved. Should you have any persistent signs or symptoms that worry you, make an appointment with your doctor. These symptoms include a painless lump under the nipple, an inverted nipple (turned inward), swelling of the breast tissue, a rash around the nipple, discharge or bleeding from the nipple; a swelling or lump in the armpit.
China may offer concessions to South Korea in upcoming talks on their disputed maritime border. Beijing wants to expand its relationship with Seoul to disrupt the US-South Korea-Japan alliance structure. Beijing will use any progress to encourage bilateral negotiations with other maritime disputants. TENSIONS are still high in the South China Sea, drawing a great deal of regional and international attention. But these Southeast Asian disputes are only part of the broader trend in the Pacific Rim. As China grows into a great power, it is pushing outward and disturbing the status quo across Asia. Because water defines the geopolitics of East Asia, Beijing’s rise is impacting numerous maritime boundaries that once held solid or had simply been ignored. One of these numerous disputes is between China and South Korea over a rock in the Yellow Sea known as Ieodo-Suyan. (Seoul calls it Ieodo, China calls it Suyan Rock and the international community refers to it as Socotra Rock.) This small landmass has been a point of contention since the 1990s, leading to violent clashes between fishermen and coastguard vessels. Beijing, however, may now be willing to make a concession to Seoul in the Yellow Sea to further solidify its South China Sea position. By being lenient with South Korea, China has a chance to set an example for other counter-claimants. Resolving the Ieodo-Suyan dispute may also reduce South Korea’s potential for involvement in the South China Sea, slightly eroding US power in the region by creating friction within the US-Japan-Korea security alliance. In early November it was announced that South Korean and Chinese representatives were to meet in December for talks aimed at demarcating their maritime border in the Yellow Sea — negotiations that will also determine ownership of Ieodo-Suyan. [The meeting was supposed to have been held on December 22. But there has been no solid news about the meeting until now.] This dispute is unlike many other Asian maritime disputes, which normally center on islands, because Ieodo-Suyan is not an island but a submerged rock. This makes it distinct in international law: ownership of the tiny landmass will not determine actual possession of territory but instead the extent of South Korean and Chinese territorial waters. In many ways this makes the issue easier to settle. This has not meant that the dispute has been a quiet one, however, and Ieodo-Suyan has been the scene of violence between coast guard and fishing vessels and is included in both countries’ recently expanded Air Defense Identification Zones. Maritime disputes are increasingly common in East Asia. The roots of the problem developed in the 1990s when many nations ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), which expanded the range of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) to 200 nautical miles. This placed considerably more maritime territory into bilateral and multilateral contention, leaving the contesting nations to resolve their disputes through dialogue — or else leave the disputes unresolved. Attention has focused on the islands, islets and reefs in the South China Sea and on the Senkaku-Diaoyutai and Dokdo-Takeshima disputes between Japan and China and South Korea respectively, but there are other contentious disputes over maritime boundaries that have received less attention. The disputed waters between China and South Korea in the Yellow Sea are notable, and Ieodo-Suyan in particular. The submerged rock sits 4.6 meters below sea level and is only visible in the troughs of waves during the most extreme weather. It is 80 nautical miles from the closest Korea island (Marado), 155 nautical miles from the nearest Chinese island (Sheshan Island), and 149 nautical miles from the nearest Japanese island (Torishima). As a submerged rock, Ieodo-Suyan does not offer any particular right of territoriality. Rather, determining legal control of Ieodo-Suyan will be based on how territorial waters are delineated. South Korea claims Ieodo falls within its continental shelf, and that it is inside what would be a mid-point line between China and Korea. China claims that because Ieodo-Suyan is located on the shelf that extends from Chinese land, it should therefore be included within the Chinese Exclusive Economic Zone. Much of the dispute centers over access to important fishing grounds, and Ieodo-Suyan plays a role in the folklore of fishermen on South Korea’s large southern island of Cheju. Violent encounters between Chinese fishing vessels and South Korean coast guard ships frequently occur near the rock, including incidents in 2011 and 2014 that led to fatalities. After years of failing to resolve the territorial disagreement, in 2003 South Korea built an elevated structure on Ieodo-Suyan, incorporating a helipad as well as hydrographic and weather stations. In 2013, China unilaterally expanded its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, bringing Ieodo-Suyan within the new Chinese zone. South Korea responded by expanding its own ADIZ to include the rock as well. (Prior to 2013 Ieodo-Suyan was only included within Japan’s ADIZ.) Chinese officials were quick to point out amid a political outcry in Korea that an ADIZ is not an assertion of sovereignty. The extension, however, was a strong political signal of China’s more active policies when it comes to its broader maritime claims. In 2014, South Korean President Park Geun Hye and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that Seoul and Beijing would begin the formal discussions on their maritime boundary before the end of 2015. Both countries said that these talks will begin this month. Although such talks may take years to complete, there is an incentive for China to accelerate negotiations with South Korea and to perhaps offer a more conciliatory solution to the dispute. China has long pressed for bilateral resolutions to its maritime disputes: bilateral negotiations often favor China and keep opposing claimants divided. By showing a willingness to compromise with South Korea, China would send a signal to counter-claimants across Asia that it is willing to make deals for mutual benefit. This may be more important now as China awaits the outcome of a Philippine court case against Beijing’s claims to disputed territory. The court is not ruling on the legitimacy of the claims, it is instead ruling on the definition of the territories in question. If they are not deemed “islands,” instead defined as high tide elevations or even just artificial islands, it could jeopardize China’s broader maritime claims. Ieodo-Suyan is an important fishing ground and may be located near subsurface oil and natural gas deposits, but it is not an island and in itself cannot really allow either China or South Korea to exert power in the nearby seas. Its location is more pertinent to South Korea’s maritime security than to China’s, as Seoul expands its naval presence in Cheju both to protect its southern approaches and to monitor or interdict North Korean naval and maritime activity passing around the southern end of the Korean peninsula. This may make China less likely to take a hard line on where to draw the boundary, even if there is concern from the domestic fishing community. China is also working to disrupt the strategic triangle between the United States, Japan and South Korea, through a combination of defense activities, economic incentives and political relations. China is one of the most critical trading partners for South Korea. Beijing has been able to help South Korea manage North Korean threats and the recent ratification of the China-South Korea free trade agreement will only strengthen the already important economic ties. China is also pushing Japan and South Korea to pursue a trilateral Northeast Asian trade agreement, emphasizing the importance of working alongside — rather than in opposition to — China. By offering territorial concessions to South Korea, Beijing may further reduce Seoul’s interest in getting involved in the South China Sea disputes. This flies in the face of US efforts to draw its two regional allies closer. Finally, there is a precedent for Chinese concessions. When China resolved part of its maritime border with Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin in 2000, China conceded a bit more of the disputed waters than Vietnam. China still holds this up as an example of a viable bilateral solution, although other maritime disputes with Vietnam remain. China is also preparing for additional talks with Vietnam on the mouth of the gulf, again trying to emphasize the potential benefits of directly engaging China rather than drawing the United States military into the equation. While resolving such disputes is never easy, for China there are strategic reasons to take a more conciliatory approach in its talks with South Korea. © STRATFOR GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
Welcome to our pastoral blog, where we delve into the wonders of science and nature to inspire and uplift our readers’ souls. Today, we commemorate a significant milestone in the realm of quantum computing as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the qubit. In this thought-provoking YouTube video titled “It’s the 25th anniversary of the qubit \| Science News,” we embark on a captivating journey through time, exploring the groundbreaking concepts and discoveries that have shaped our understanding of these ethereal units of information. So, join us as we dive deep into the world of quantum mechanics, unraveling the mysteries that lie within the intricate fabric of our universe. Prepare to be inspired by the limitless possibilities that the qubit has unlocked in our quest for scientific advancement and knowledge. 25th anniversary of the qubit: Pioneering Breakthroughs in Quantum Computing The 25th anniversary of the qubit marks a monumental milestone in the field of quantum computing. Over the past two and a half decades, researchers and scientists have achieved pioneering breakthroughs that have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of computation and paved the way for a new era in science and technology. Quantum computing, with its ability to process vast amounts of data simultaneously, promises to revolutionize industries across the globe, opening up a world of possibilities and unlocking new frontiers in various fields. Implications of the qubit on the Future of Science and Technology The impact of the qubit on the future of science and technology cannot be overstated. As we celebrate this momentous anniversary, we reflect on the profound implications quantum computing holds for our world. The qubit, the fundamental unit of quantum information, has unleashed a new wave of innovation and discovery. Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex problems that are currently beyond the capabilities of classical computers. With their extraordinary computational power, they can revolutionize fields such as cryptography, drug discovery, material science, optimization, and more. Not only can quantum computing transform industries, but it also holds the key to solving some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. From climate modeling to genetic research, the qubit’s incredible potential offers hope in addressing critical global issues. As we commemorate its 25th anniversary, we are driven by the vision of a future shaped by the limitless possibilities of quantum computing, where science and technology thrive hand in hand, transcending boundaries and ushering in a new era of progress and innovation. Revolutionizing Industries through Quantum Computing Applications The applications of quantum computing are boundless and have the potential to revolutionize industries in unprecedented ways. This transformative technology enables organizations to solve complex problems efficiently and achieve breakthroughs that were once thought impossible. In finance, quantum algorithms can optimize portfolio management, risk analysis, and hedging strategies, leading to more accurate predictions and better decision-making. Quantum simulations offer tremendous possibilities in understanding and predicting the behavior of molecules, revolutionizing the field of drug discovery and development. The qubit’s immense computational power can also enhance logistics and supply chain management, enabling efficient route planning, inventory optimization, and resource allocation. The potential of quantum computing is not confined to these examples, but it extends to numerous other sectors, empowering businesses with a competitive edge and driving economic growth. Maximizing the Potential of Quantum Computers: Recommendations for Further Research and Development As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the qubit, it is imperative that we continue to invest in research and development to maximize the potential of quantum computers. Further advancements in hardware, software, and algorithms are crucial to overcome current limitations and harness the full power of quantum computing. Collaboration between academia, industry, and government institutions is essential to fuel innovation and propel quantum research forward. Additionally, investments in education and workforce development will equip future generations to embrace and drive quantum technologies, ensuring a sustainable and thriving ecosystem. By fostering an environment of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement, we can pave the way for a future where the potential of quantum computers knows no bounds, unlocking groundbreaking discoveries and transforming the world as we know it. As we bid farewell to this captivating journey through the realms of scientific marvels, where the illumination of knowledge blossoms like the rainbow hues of a countryside garden, we find ourselves astounded by the monumental celebration of the 25th anniversary of the qubit. Through the enchanting verses composed by the gifted maestros of science, we have delved into the depths of quantum mechanics, where the ethereal dance of particles unveils nature’s clandestine secrets. Like a symphony of celestial bodies, the qubit orchestrates a mesmerizing melody, whispering the harmonious language of innovation and possibility. In this oasis of inspiration, we have basked in the brilliance of brilliant minds who labored tirelessly, tending to the garden of breakthroughs. As we reflect upon their gracious contributions, we realize that the journey of discovery is not a solitary pursuit, but a collective endeavor. It is through the collaboration of sparkling intellects that we have reached this captivating milestone. With the passing of each day, we stand witness to the unfolding of a technological Renaissance, a renaissance where the quantum revolution becomes ever more palpable. The confines of impossibility have been shattered, and horizons once hazy are now painted with vibrant hues of opportunity. The quantum world beckons us with open arms, inviting us to explore the very essence of reality itself. From this stirring voyage, we emerge not only enlightened but imbued with a newfound sense of wonder. Let us carry this flame of curiosity, this beacon of possibility, into our own lives. Let us embrace the qubit’s jubilant anniversary as a catalyst for our own personal growth, reminding us that we too can nurture the seeds of innovation within ourselves. As we bid adieu to the brilliant minds of the Science News video, we embrace the pastoral serenity that resides within us. Let us wander through the fields of knowledge, our hearts filled with gratitude for the wonders we have witnessed. Know that on this journey, we are not alone, for the spirit of scientific inquiry accompanies us, guiding our steps towards an exciting future. So, my dear fellow adventurers, let us embark upon our own quests, armed with inspiration and fortified by the spirit of the qubit’s 25th anniversary. May our pursuit of knowledge be as tender and nourishing as the breeze that whispers through a gentle meadow. And may the echoes of discovery eternally resonate within our souls. Farewell, dear companions. Until we meet again on the verdant shores of enlightenment, let us continue to dance to the symphony of science.
By Cameron Chai A new polyurethane-based sandwich material has been developed by researchers to build lightweight trains. Building lightweight trains using new polyurethane-based sandwich material The use of the sandwich material makes the components more than 35% lighter than aluminum- or steel-made components and also minimizes the costs by 30%. The material is ideal for various applications, including diesel engine housings. Manufacturers are looking for lighter materials as a replacement for steel and aluminum to make trains and cars more economical. Hence, Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) has collaborated with the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, the University of Stuttgart, the DLR’s Institute for Vehicle Concepts, DECS, Bayer MaterialScience, KraussMaffei Kunststofftechnik and Bombardier to meet their need for lighter materials. The team decided to construct a sandwich structure to ensure stability of components. The structure includes outer layers made of glass fiber reinforced polyurethane materials, and the inner part made of paper honeycomb. Polyurethane, a bulk plastic and known as customizable material, can be used to meet various requirements. It is available in compact and foamed forms. This material is hard and strong in compact form, and soft in foamed form. Fraunhofer’s team started modifying the polyurethane material by using various additives to meet the fire safety standards for railway vehicles. Then, the researchers focused on optimization of fiber spraying process to enable production of complex components in all sizes. A problem associated with the fiber spraying process is that measurement of the accurate thickness of the top polyurethane layers proved impossible. However, scientists have identified a solution for this. The layers can be examined using computer tomography, which is followed by application of an evaluation process to determine the exact thickness of the layers. They developed a diesel engine housing to demonstrate the capability of the sandwich material. The housing is over 2 m wide and about 4.5 m long and has passed the first strength test. In the test, the housing was placed in a rig and then forces were applied at different locations to measure the deformation rate.
Here you will find a collection of supplementary resources to help you design more thoughtful lessons and units. Throughout the Classroom Curriculum Design Resource Guide there are icons that look like the one pictured to the right. These icons let you know that there are digital forms and other helpful information related to the content you’re studying available at this Curriculum Design Resource Center. Click around and you’ll discover digital versions of your favorite design forms and bonus content complete with samples. Please note that the Curriculum Design Resource Center (CDRC) is still being developed. We will continue to update the CDRC with revised forms and new content as they become available. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please email us at email@example.com. © 2010-2013 Silver Strong & Associates \| Thoughtful Education Press. PLEASE NOTE: Mass duplication and distribution of all pages, templates, PDFs, materials, etc. on this website is prohibited.
Taking an innovative approach to instruction, the Oakland Unified School District(OUSD) has partnered with Oakland-based Scientific Learning Corp. to implement two educational software programs designed to help students accelerate their acquisition of cognitive, language, and reading skills essential for learning success. Based on more than 30 years of research, the Fast ForWord program from Scientific Learning accelerates learning for students across a wide spectrum of ages and abilities — including those working at, above or below grade level — by applying proven research on how the brain learns. By building cognitive skills in the areas of memory, attention, processing, and sequencing, learners can realize achievement gains of up to two years in as little as three months. The Reading Assistant program combines advanced speech recognition technology with research-based reading instruction to help students strengthen their reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. This school year, the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant programs will be implemented in 15 OUSD schools, up from six schools in 2011. For example, at Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy in East Oakland, the Fast ForWord program was launched in fall 2010 and Reading Assistant was added this year. Thanks to the hard work of teachers, students, parents and school leaders, the Title I school has achieved double-digit gains on the California Standards Tests (CSTs) in English-language arts and mathematics, and is a nominee for a National Blue Ribbon School. From 2009 to 2011, the percentage of students in grades 2-5 performing at the Proficient and Advanced levels on the CSTs increased from 17 percent to 41 percent in English-language arts, and from 39 percent to 67 percent in mathematics. Likewise, the school’s API score increased, rising from 641 points in 2009 to 788 points in 2011.
How much do you know about smoking bans? Answer these questions and find out. Secondhand smoke contains harmful gases and particles. At least 250 chemicals are known to be toxic, including more than 50 carcinogens, or cancer-causing agents. American Cancer Society Second Hand Smoke. What is it? American Lung Association Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet Centers for Disease Control and Preventionhttp://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/secondhand_smoke/ The Economic Impact of Secondhand Smoke in Maryland by Hugh Water, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General
Kevin Jennings taught high school in New England after graduating from Harvard and is best known for his work creating safe schools for LGBT students. In 1988, Jennings helped establish the nation's first Gay-Straight Alliance for students, and in 1990 he founded GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, to bring together teachers, parents, students, and community members to end anti-LGBT bias in schools. Mr. Jennings led GLSEN to success in making Massachusetts the first state in the nation to outlaw discrimination against public school students on the basis of sexual orientation, and he helped establish the Safe Schools Program for Gay & Lesbian Students. Under Jennings's guidance, GLSEN has become a national education and civil rights organization with a presence in all fifty states. Newsweek named him one of a hundred people to watch in the new century. Jennings tours extensively and makes frequent media appearances as an advocate and spokesperson for LGBT youth. The author ofOne Teacher in Ten and Always My Child: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Your Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender or Questioning Son or Daughter, Jennings also wrote and produced the historical documentary Out of the Past, which won the 1998 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary. Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir of Growing Up, Coming Out, and Changing America's Schoolsby Kevin Jennings Long before Kevin Jennings began advocating to end anti-LGBT bias in schools, he was a victim of it. In Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, Jennings traces the roots of his activism to his elementary school days in the conservative South, where "faggot" became more familiar to him than his own name. Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son is that rare memoir that is both a/i>/i>… See more details below Long before Kevin Jennings began advocating to end anti-LGBT bias in schools, he was a victim of it. In Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, Jennings traces the roots of his activism to his elementary school days in the conservative South, where "faggot" became more familiar to him than his own name. Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son is that rare memoir that is both a riveting personal story and an inside account of a critical chapter in our recent history. Creating safe schools for all youth is now a central part of the progressive agenda in American education—and Kevin Jennings is at the forefront of that fight. Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son earned an A- in Entertainment Weekly, was featured in Salon and The Advocate, and was called "a great read" by People. From the Trade Paperback edition. - Beacon Press - Publication date: - Sold by: - Penguin Random House Publisher Services - NOOK Book - Sales rank: - File size: - 283 KB Meet the Author and post it to your social network Most Helpful Customer Reviews See all customer reviews > An incredible, thoughtful, funny and heartbreaking memoir about love, hate, class, sexual orientation, religion, education, and identity. Beautiful and deserving of reading and recommending. This books is so heartfelt and so timely. My heart went out to both Kevin Jennings and every one of his remarkable students. If those students are typical of their generation, I look forward to turning our country over into their hands. I am buying a copy of this book for every one of my 7th grader's teachers. Some will love it, some will hate it, but I truly believe they all need to read it.
Like it or not, your mouth is home to a thriving community of microbial life. More than 600 different species of bacteria reside in this "microbiome," yet everyone hosts a unique set of bugs, and this could have important implications for health and disease. In a study published online in Genome Research ), scientists have performed the first global survey of salivary microbes, finding that the oral microbiome of your neighbor is just as different from yours as someone across the globe. The human body harbors ten times more bacterial cells than human cells - a stunning figure that suggests a likely dynamic between ourselves and the bacteria we carry, both in healthy and disease states. The National Institutes of Health recently launched an initiative to categorize the microbiomes of several regions of the body, with early studies focusing on the intestines and skin. It is appreciated that the human mouth, a major entry point for bacteria into the body, also contains a diverse array of microbial species. Yet microbiome diversity between individuals, and how this relates to diet, environment, health, and disease, remains unexplored. In this study, scientists have conducted the first in-depth study of global diversity in a human microbiome, characterizing the microbial life in human saliva from regions around the world. The researchers, led by Dr. Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have sequenced and analyzed variation in the bacterial gene encoding 16S rRNA, a component of the ribosome, in the salivary "metagenome" of 120 healthy subjects from six geographic areas. Stoneking and colleagues then compared the sequences they found with a database of 16S rRNA sequences to categorize the types of bacteria present. The group observed that there is considerable diversity of bacterial life in the saliva microbiome, both within and between individuals. However, they made an unexpected finding when comparing samples from different geographic areas. "The saliva microbiome does not vary substantially around the world," Stoneking described. "Which seems surprising given the large diversity in diet and other cultural factors that could influence the human salivary microbiome." Stoneking explained that this suggests the life inhabiting the mouth of your next-door neighbor is likely to be just as different from yours as someone on the other side of the world. Stoneking noted that by studying sequences from an easily obtained saliva sample, their work has provided the foundation for future studies exploring the influence of diet, cultural factors, and disease on variation in the saliva microbiome. In addition, the group's findings could help analyze human migrations and populations. While it may not be pleasant to think about the life teeming in your mouth, it is now evident that we will be able to learn a lot about oral health and disease by understanding what is living there.
Written by Juston Lewis, Staff Writer Every summer, athletes in the south are subjected to practices in scorching temperatures. These temperatures range anywhere from the high 90s to the low 100s, and can be detrimental to the health of the players. The symptoms include confusion, dizziness and fainting. What makes matters even worse, players often do not realize these symptoms until it is too late. A study showed that 31 high school football players died of heat stroke complications between 1995 and 2009. That same study showed that 64 percent of athletes that had heat related illnesses were overweight or obese. It is not fair to put student athletes who can be well over 250 pounds through gruesome practices in the middle of the summer. Being in the heat is not just dangerous for athletes, coaches are also at risk for heat illnesses as well. Most coaches have come under heat rashes, heat exhaustion or heat syncope which occurs with prolonged standing or sudden rising from sitting position. If a player or a coach is not hydrated they are at an even higher risk for one of these episodes. Hydration is a major key to avoiding heat related illness. Unfortunately, most athletes do not stay hydrated. According to the Southwest Athletic Trainers’ Association, two out of every three athletes come to practice without proper hydration. This leads to heat cramps which are an early signs of heat exhaustion. With all of these dangers most coaches still do not cancel or relocate practices indoors. In many cases they are not held accountable for players that are injured under their care. That is because it is the call of the director of sports medicine or head athletic trainers to officially call off any practice or game. There are several tests to measure the heat index but in all honesty it comes down to a common sense. More coaches need to step up and take care of their players rather than just being concerned with their personal agenda of winning. If a player becomes ill and dies, then nobody wins. Coaches should be concerned for their players health and find a balance of getting them acclimated to high heat and making sure they are not at any risk. Sports are already dangerous enough, there’s no need to put young athletes at an even greater risk. A national policy needs to be put into place to protect players from heat illnesses. If policies can be made for head trauma, then policies should be made to prevent heat related injuries.
Nurture by Nature: Understand Your Child's Personality Type - And Become a Better Parentby Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron-Tieger Every parent knows that children, even babies, have distinct personalities. Any parent with more than one child is probably well aware of how different from each other children, even siblings, can be. So it's only natural that the parenting strategies that work with one child may be less effective with another child. How can you be sure that your nurturing is well… See more details below Every parent knows that children, even babies, have distinct personalities. Any parent with more than one child is probably well aware of how different from each other children, even siblings, can be. So it's only natural that the parenting strategies that work with one child may be less effective with another child. How can you be sure that your nurturing is well suited to your child? With this one-of-a-kind parenting guide, you can use Personality Type analysis - a powerful and well-respected psychological tool - to understand your child better and become a more effective parent. In Nurture by Nature you'll learn which of 16 distinctly different types best matches your child's personality; how this personality type affects your child in each of the three stages of development - preschool, school age, and adolescence; how other parents, whose experiences are recounted in scores of case studies, deal with a wide array of challenging situations you may encounter: reining in a preschooler whose boundless energy constantly gets him into trouble; communicating with a child who keeps her thoughts and feelings secret; understanding an adolescent who seems not to care that he is forever losing things (his homework, his baseball cap, his keys); broadening the horizons of a child who resists trying anything new or unfamiliar...; and how you can adapt your parenting style to your child's type - and get better results when communicating, supporting, motivating, and disciplining. Whether your child is a tantrum-prone toddler, a shy third-grader, a rebellious teen, or somewhere in between, Nurture by Nature will give you the power to understand why children are the way they are - and to become the best parent you can be. - Little, Brown and Company - Publication date: - Sold by: - Hachette Digital, Inc. - NOOK Book - Sales rank: - File size: - 1 MB Read an Excerpt NURTURE by NATURE A Matter of Style Lisa and Barry had always imagined their children would be small versions of themselvestalkative, friendly, and active. Practical and down-to-earth people, Lisa and Barry essentially took each day as it came. They were busy, responsible, and hardworking and had a variety of friends and interests, which they eagerly anticipated sharing with their children. But to their amazement, Claire, their first child, was quiet, pensive, and reserved. As she got older, she became clever and observant, capable of detecting the tiniest flaw in her parents and sending them reeling with questions about everything. Lisa and Barry felt they were out of their league with this childshe seemed so oddly independent. Then came baby Robbie. And the world shifted on its axis again. Whereas Claire was serious and self-contained, Robbie was an impulsive clown. Robbie cried for attention, while Claire played independently for hours. Claire questioned every rule and every limit, while Robbie was responsive and eager to please. Claire somehow seemed older than her years, an "old soul," some said to her parents. Robbie was boisterous, the life of the party, excitable, talkative, and funny. Lisa and Barry were mystified. Their kids were quite different from them and so nearly opposite from one another that Lisa and Barry were often at a loss as to how to parent them. Guidance that worked with one child only seemed to make matters worse in the same situation with the other child. Lisa and Barry are hardly alone. As parents, most of us have expectations about the children wewill have. And then they arrivelike little mystery packages. We have no idea who they are and how best to love them. We are eager to do the right thingeven when we haven't a clue what that right thing is. There is probably no job more difficult, more rewarding, or more all-consuming than parenting. Children don't come with an instruction manual, nor as parents do we receive report cards along the way. Most of us don't even set out with a plan for how we will parent. We might have a vague sense of one approach being better or more effective than another, but ultimately, we all have to wait and see how our children turn out. And much of what we do is done because that was how we ourselves were parentedwhether our parents' way was particularly effective or not. We parent our children often by unconscious rotea sort of one-size fits- all strategy, without regard to the style of the child herself. And we do this, of course, with the best, most genuine, and loving of intentions. As with Lisa and Barry, simply being born to us doesn't mean our children will be anything like us. Parents of adopted children know this, but those of us who have our own biological children seem to assume our children will be carbon copies of us. Then we're surprised to find ourselves baffled by them. More than a few parents have said to us, "I just don't know which planet this child came from!" Or "She and her sister are like night and day." Or "If I hadn't actually watched this child be delivered, I wouldn't believe we're related!" It's all very normal and understandable to feel confused, concerned, worried, and even scared when we don't understand our children. As parents, it's our job to know what's best for them. But if we don't really know what makes them tick, how will we be able to protect them, to guide them, to support them? If only we could get into our child's mind, understand his impulses, drives, and desires; the way he processes information; and why he expresses himself as he does. What powerful insights those would be! Clearly, one of the hardest tasks of parenting is staying objective about our own children. It's so easy to get over involved in their successes, failures, struggles, and accomplishments. We come to see them as extensions of ourselves and their experiences as inextricably linked up with our own. We no longer see them as individuals, but rather as various expressions of us. That jumbled thinking makes it virtually impossible to clearly accept the ways in which our children may actually be distinctly different from one another and from us, and then to accommodate their unique needs. What one child needs, another may not. What motivated and excited us as kids may be boring or downright stressful for our child. But what if we did know, from early in our child's life, who she really was? What if we could figure outby watching her interactions, her play, or word choices, her decision-making stylewhat kind of person she is and then know which motivation techniques, which limit-setting approaches, which supportive efforts, would really work for her? What parents wouldn't want a true picture of the inner workings of their child's mind and heart? Who wouldn't want that gift of insight about who our children really are? Imagine a child growing up amid constant reassurance about the way she sees the world, interacts with others, likes to play, makes decisions, uses her time, organizes her room and toys, expresses her feelingsthat all are perfectly fine, normal, and acceptable. Imagine a child encouraged to believe in himself, to express his true self, and to trust his perceptions and reactions. Imagine a child made to feel lovable, capable, and worthy just exactly the way she is. Such a child would grow up confident, secure, honest, independent, and loving, because she would have been raised by parents who respected, accepted, accommodated, and celebrated her unique individuality. Deep down, all of us just want to be understood and accepted for who we are. This understanding is the greatest gift we can give our children. It's the real essence of self- esteem. Being Accepted for Who You Are - The Key to Real Self-esteem Talking about self-esteem in the current political climate is difficult. These days, the term has come to be associated with social programs or attitudes that try to make excuses for poor or even outrageous behavior and then blame that behavior on difficult home circumstances. As a society, we're tired of hearing how a person's troubled home life is the cause of the high crime rate, the skyrocketing number of births to teenage mothers, and the brutal violence we see all around us. So when we hear anyone mention the offending person's lack of self-esteem, there is impatience and even outrage. We cry: "Of course the kid has no self-esteem! Look at his behavior! He should feel poorly about himself for doing what he's done!" But that attitude puts the proverbial cart before the horse. The reality is that poor self-esteem is not caused by poor behavior. Poor behavior is caused by lack of self-esteem. Parents everywhere can easily spot the most obvious and dramatic causes of damaged self-worthcases of nauseating physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or neglect. It's obvious to everyone how that kind of treatment of children results in troubled or ruined psyches. We all know that no one can really love another unless he or she can love himself or herself. Self-esteem is, at its core, self love and acceptance. A lack of self- worth creates a chasm of deprivation in people so profound that they never learn how to love others, never take responsibility for their own actions, and spend their lives trying to fill the void they feel with destructive behavior that gives them a temporary sense of power and a brief but superficial feeling of worth. Happily, most children don't live in the kinds of horrible conditions that we have all seen so much of on the news. So why, then, do so many children become adults who feel lousy about themselves? Perhaps it's because the most common and pervasive assault on a child's self-esteem is the more subtle erosion of self- worth that goes on every day in most of our homes. As well-meaning but unaware parents, we all chip away at our child's sense of self in a multitude of little ways: the criticism and disparaging comments, our impatience, the times we hurry our children through tasks they are enjoying to do something we deem more important. It's the way we casually dismiss their interest or curiosity with things vaguely odd or seemingly inappropriate. It's when our children live through years of constant nagging, discouragement, or disrespect. Ironically, we often treat our children in ways we would never consider treating another adult and certainly wouldn't tolerate ourselves. Those are the conditions that erode our children's sense of themselves as strong, capable, and resilient individuals. And the price they pay for our criticism is that they begin to see themselves as we keep telling them we see themas inherently flawed and in need of major overhauling, rather than innately perfect, capable, and divine. When the measure of a child's worth is tied to how she compares to our estimation of what's good or valuable, we undermine her confidence. When we gauge a child's value by how he may meet our expectations, we cause him to doubt himself and doubt his true nature. Instead, as parents, we need to consciously accept and love our children for exactly who they are, naturally. That's how we encourage real self-esteem. But how we do we really accomplish this? By tailoring our parenting to match our child, rather than expecting our child to match our parenting. Individualized Parenting - a Return to the Garden Every generation seems to have its own theory about parenting. Conventional wisdom has run the gamut from "Children should be seen but not heard" and "Spare the rod and spoil the child" to employing the more contemporary and more reasonable techniques of "time out" and "grounding." But the problem with simply adopting any popular or culturally endorsed method of parenting is that it ignores the most important variable in the equation: the uniqueness of your child. So, rather than insist that one style of parenting will work with every child, we might take a page from the gardener's handbook. Just as the gardener accepts, without question or resistance, the plant's requirements and provides the right conditions each plant needs to grow and flourish, so, too, do we parents need to custom-design our parenting to fit the natural needs of each individual child. Although that may seem daunting, it is possible. Once we understand who OUI children really are, we can begin to figure out how to make changes in our parenting style to be more positive and accepting of each child we've been blessed to parent. We've seen this happen repeatedly. In the parenting workshops we've conducted, we've helped parents arrive at a new and more accepting view of their child. We've been gratified to watch as they develop new understanding, compassion, and optimism about their work as parents. The miraculous result is that they fall in love with their child all over again. Parents leave the workshops reenergized, better prepared, and eager to make the experience of parenting more rewarding for themselves and their children. It's possible for every parent to gain those same powerful insights and that same optimism. Consider Jason, age nine, and Rachel, age seven, the children of two parents in one of our workshops. A trip to Toys R Us to spend their Christmas money presents a striking contrast. Rachel loves the experience, easily and quickly selects three toys she can afford, and delights in the power she feels making decisions. For her brother, Jason, the experience is completely different. He agonizes over the countless choices in front of him and wanders distractedly down aisle after aisle. He can't seem to isolate any options from the thousands of possibilities and continually asks his parents: "If I get this, can I still get that?" and worries over every conceivable combination of purchases. After nearly an hour, his family is growing impatient. Now Jason feels additional pressure to hurry and make up his mind. Eventually, with the threat of simply leaving without buying anything, Jason chooses a superhero action figure set. When they finally leave the store, Rachel skips contentedly to the car, while Jason is worn out from the conflict he felt trying to make a decision and is not altogether happy with his purchase. The family is exhausted and irritated, and Jason feels incompetent, stupid, and plagued with fear that he made a bad choice. And this was supposed to be a fun outing! During the workshop we discussed ways to make shopping a more pleasant experience for Jason. Given their new perspective on Jason's style, his parents realized how much better he might have felt about himself if they had instead suggested he look through one of the many toy catalogs at home or shop at a specialty hobby or science shop. Because Jason generally finds decision making difficult, Toys R Us simply presented too many options. Had his parents known how to tailor the shopping expedition to meet his needs as an individual, rather than expecting him to adapt to the most common way of buying toys, Jason's self- esteem wouldn't have taken such an unnecessary beating. Personality TypeA Way to Understand Every Child Sometimes, seeing our children in a fresh, new way is the first step to changing old and ineffective ways of relating to them. Personality Type is a powerful and respected method of identifying and understanding a person's true, inherent nature. Based on the work of Carl Jung and the American mother-daughter team of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, we can now identify sixteen distinctly different personality types into which we all fit. Children are born with a type and remain that type their entire lives; parents are the same type they were as children. Our personality type affects all aspects of our lives, from the way in which we play as toddlers to the subjects or activities in school that interest or bore us to the occupations we find satisfying as adults. Our natural type is reflected in the kind and amount of interaction with people we like, the kinds of information we notice and remember, the way we make decisions, and how much and what kind of structure and control we prefer. By understanding your type and the type of your child, you will be able to identify ways of adapting your parenting techniques to emphasize the positive and constructive aspects of your child's individual nature. Personality Type gives us a powerful and enlightening way of altering our parenting styles and methods to be more positive. The result is fewer struggles and happier, healthier children. Knowing your child's type offers a virtual road map to the parenting style to which the child will respond best. And once we know what our children need to really thrive, we can find ways of giving it to them. How This Book Works and What It Does for You Reading this book is going to be an interactive process. Clearly, it is not our job to prescribe the values you wish to model and teach your child. That is perhaps one of the most personal choices any parent makes. But we do have some exciting insights to offer about children like yours and about the parents who have raised them. In hundreds of in-depth interviews, parents have shared their experiencesthe good and the difficult, the enlightening and the embarrassing and we're excited about sharing them with you. In Part 1 of Nurture by Nature, you will be introduced to the truly miraculous effect understanding Type can have on your effectiveness as parents and on your child's well-being. You'll learn the basic principles of Personality Type. You'll discover your own type and that of your child by reading engaging and recognizable descriptions of the sixteen personality types. Numerous examples, real-life case studies, and checklists of behaviors will help you identify your child's true type, and you will learn through the Verifying Type Profiles the inborn strengths and possible weaknesses of children and adults of each type. After identifying your child's type, you will turn to Part 2 of Nurture by Nature and read the appropriate in-depth type chapter for your child. Each of the sixteen type chapters describes children of that type at three different stages of development: preschool, school age, and adolescence. Then, each chapter provides guidelines on how to adapt your natural style of parenting when communicating, supporting, motivating, and disciplining your child as you reinforce his or her innate personality. We will share with you the many practical suggestions we've gained from all our parenting workshops, seminars, and interviews, and working with Type on a daily basis for over fifteen years. Using an understanding of Personality Type, you'll be able to view your child's personality characteristics as assets, not liabilities. The tools and insights you gain will help you begin to anticipate, rather than just react in an emergency mode. And we will explain how to use your new knowledge of the Type differences between you and your child to navigate around common sources of conflict with less tension, stress, and guilt for both parent and child. Finally, we'll offer you an exciting peek into your child's futurea profile of the self-confident adult of your child's type. Each type chapter concludes with a special "Crystal Ball" section in which we describe the kind of happy, well- adjusted adult a child of each type can become. By reading what works with other children like your own, you will be reassured, energized, and armed with powerful and accurate new insights about your child, and the tools to help you implement them. One important caveat. This book is written for parents of healthy children, those without serious learning disabilities, or physical, emotional, or mental- health challenges that require special attention and services. Just as one's genetics, life experiences, and culture overlie our type, so do those special needs and challenges. For practical reasons, those concerns are beyond the scope of this book.* So Who Are We, Anyway? About the Authors Nobody is really an expert at parenting. After all, every parent-child relationship is unique and complicated. But we do bring unique qualifications to the writing of Nurture by Nature. As co-authors of the successful Do What You Are, we introduced hundreds of thousands of career searchers to the benefits of understanding one's type in identifying and finding satisfying work. Having pioneered the application of Type in career development, we've gone on to apply our expertise in Personality Type to child rearing through our various workshops and seminars. Now we are ready to share our experiences and discoveries with you We have established ourselves as experts in the study and application of Psychological Type with our professional training programs, presentations at national and international conferences, speaking engagements, and numerous radio and television appearances. We also, not incidentally, have two children, aged eleven and seven, and regularly experience firsthand the benefits of applying Type to parenting dilemmas. If you are anything like us, you'll agree that parenting is the most challenging, complex, and sometimes intimidating responsibility you've ever taken onand undoubtedly the most important. Using the anecdotes from our workshop experiences and interviews with parents and children that will resonate for all parents, we will show how so many of the common conflicts between parent and child are very frequently the result of a clash of different personality types. In reading this book, we believe, you will come to know your child in a deeper and clearer way. We believe you will learn that adapting even slightly to your child's personality type can help you better manage conflict and communicate a strong message of acceptance and unconditional love that will last a lifetime. *Perhaps more than any other condition, we are aware of the struggle parents with children with ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) face. Throughout our research, we looked for connections between a child's type and that confounding condition. We found nothing conclusive about which types are most commonly afflicted, or what strategies might be most helpful for ADHD children of different types. What research we did find is listed in the Resources section at the back of this book. The Association for Psychological Type (also described there) is the organization we expect to be at the leading edge of research on this issue as it relates to Personality Type. and post it to your social network Most Helpful Customer Reviews See all customer reviews >
Mi’gmaq Language Resources This first resource is a collection of language resources for the Mi’gmaq language. What is interesting about this web resource is it is one that utilizes a variety of different tools for teaching the language. This is one of the more comprehensive resources that I have discovered so far. The Learning Mi’gmaq online portion of the resource is extremely detailed and set up in such a way that it can be used both by individuals and as a classroom support tool. The learning portion of the site also provides descriptions of how to say words and situations that they would be used in. Each section has an audio portion so that people can pick up on the intricacies of the words and phrases being learned. In addition to this main resource, the web page also has a quizlet section, a wiki page, a blog, a dictionary and links to both the Facebook and Twitter pages for the group. Tusaalanga – Learn the Inuit Language This is a second teaching a language based resource that can be used as a comparison to the first. This resource is again quite comprehensive as a tool and collection of words and phrases from the Inuit language. This website is also set up to allow individuals to progress through at their own pace and to benefit from hearing how words and phrases are said. The lesson structure for this site is not quite as user friendly as the first tool, but it is set up in a sensible order. Much like the first resource, the feel of this tool is that it was designed after traditional second or additional language courses. It chooses to focus on words and phrases that people may think are important to know when attempting to learn a language. These first two resources also create an opportunity to ensure that their particular language is preserved and that learning it is made accessible to people who may live outside of the respective community. First Peoples Principles of Learning The third resource that I wanted to include this week can be used for many different purposes. I chose to explore it from the standpoint of evaluating the first two resources and seeing how well they fit in with the First People’s principles of learning philosophy. As many web based language tools are likely being used by individuals and not in a face-to-face or group setting, it is important to evaluate if those tools are causing users to miss out on the important cultural aspect of language. Within this blog, the piece that I found related the most to my topic is the section that focuses on connectedness and sense of place. This section talks about how learning is a social process that benefits from the support of family and community. It can be helpful to critically evaluate the various online language learning tools that are available. In addition, educators may find this resource to be quite useful as a tool for better understanding the First People’s principles of learning. Globe and Mail – Indigenous Language vital to telling Canada’s story The last two artifacts that I have included in this post focus on the impact of language loss on communities and cultures. This first, is written by former Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, and provides an interesting perspective on the importance of preserving Indigenous languages. The main argument in the article is that Canada has shown to be a country that accepts a variety of languages and though we are officially a bilingual country, it is understood that many people speak a different language at home. The article goes on to highlight the drastic decline in fluent speakers of Indigenous languages, in particular in British Columbia where for many Indigenous languages, only about one in twenty Indigenous people are fluent in their native language. Clarkson makes a strong argument that Indigenous languages are unique from other languages because of their importance to culture, heritage and individual identity. She states that “losing one’s language is like losing all freedom of expression.” As this article is written by someone previously in a government position, it allows some insight into how people outside of Indigenous communities can view language loss. The Youth Journal – Language Loss I found this article to be quite interesting as it provides a youth’s perspective on language loss and its impact on culture and communities. The writer of this post is not Indigenous, but she provides some interesting insight into the issues that various communities can face. From her writing, the passion she has for this topic is quite clear and it definitely highlights the impact that language loss can have on people, communities and cultures. The article focuses mostly on Canada and highlights the challenge faced by Indigenous communities as many of the fluent speakers of their respective languages are adults and elders. In addition, the article focuses on the impact that language assimilation can have on language loss. This is quite relevant to our current and past education systems.
Anderson's Ferry on the Great Miami River was operated by Isaac Anderson from Section 23 of Ross Township on the west bank and connected with a community in Section 15 of Fairfield Township on the east bank. The Fairfield area was known at various times as Black Bottom, Fairplay, Hart's Block, Alston's Mill and Graham's Mill. Anderson, who was born in Ireland in 1758, the youngest of 13 children, came to the American colonies as a 14-year-old orphan. After rigorous service in the colonial army during the American Revolution, he resided in Pennsylvania before coming to Cincinnati in the winter of 1795-96. When the government began selling land west of the Great Miami River in 1801, Anderson purchased a section north of the mouth of Indian Creek, a spot through which he had passed in August 1781 as a prisoner after surviving the Lochry massacre on the Ohio River. The 1882 history of Butler County said Anderson moved his family to a farm on this land in 1812 and operated the ferry in addition to farming. He died there Dec. 18, 1839, at the age of 81.
On January 12, 1948, two police officers from the Waseda precinct in Tokyo accidentally came upon the remains of five infants. While that shocking find was clearly suspect, it was affirmed by an autopsy that showed the infants' deaths were not natural. An investigation led to the arrest of one Miyuki Ishikawa, two conspirators, and the reveal of a morbid practice that included the death of over one hundred infants. Much of Miyuki's early life is unknown. Born in 1897 in the southern Japanese town of Kunitomi, she attended and graduated the University of Tokyo, later marrying Takeshi Ishikawa. Miyuki's career led to her being a midwife at the Kotobuki maternity hospital and then becoming its director. As abortion wasn't legal in Japan during this time, many couples were having children they were not able to financially take care of. Miyuki saw this, and also knew that charitable resources were sparse. Through cold calculation, she decided it would be best if the children were killed. Through neglect, Miyuki killed somewhere between 103 and 169 infants. While the other midwives in the hospital knew of the practice, the local government ignored the deaths. This resulted in multiple midwives leaving the hospital. If the act of killing the defenseless wasn't repulsive enough, Miyuki then enlisted her husband and a doctor to take advantage of the situation. Dr. Shiro Nakayama drew up false death certificates for the infants that were killed, and Miyuki's husband went around asking the parents for large sums of money, telling them that it would be cheaper to pay them instead of raising the child. After the Waseda police found the five corpses, an investigation led to the arrest of Miyuki, her husband, and the doctor. A citywide search also led to the discovery of forty infant corpses in a mortician's house, and thirty more under a temple. During trial, Miyuki argued that the parents who deserted the children were responsible for their deaths. This defense received support from a large section of the public- a fact that was reflected in Japanese law, which gave infants almost no rights. Consequently, Miyuki was sentenced to eight years of prison. For their part, Miyuki's husband and Dr. Nakayama received only four years imprisonment. Miyuki and her husband even managed to halve their sentences through an appeal.
You raise a good question. It is common to gain weight when you quit smoking, an average of 6.6 to 13.2 pounds. If it occurs, this extra weight typically comes on within six months after you stop smoking and can be hard to shed. But results of a study published in the March 13, 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association suggest that the added weight doesn’t present the same risk of heart disease as smoking does. So you’re better off carrying some extra weight than continuing to smoke. The study looked at the association between smoking-cessation-related weight gain and disease risks, comparing them to the risks of continuing to smoke. The study population was 3,251 participants in the long-running Framingham Heart Study. Framingham doctors examined this group every four to six years between 1984 and 2011. The data showed that those who quit smoking were much less likely to experience a heart attack or other heart problems, or stroke, or to die from a cardiovascular cause than those who continued to smoke. In smokers who did not have diabetes, there were 5.89 cardiovascular events for every 100 examinations. These events dropped dramatically among participants who had recently quit smoking – 3.22 for every 100 examinations. Among nonsmokers there were only 2.43 cardiovascular events in every 100 checkups. Among participants with diabetes, smokers had 7.03 cardiovascular disease events per 100 examinations, compared with 6.11 for recent quitters, 6.53 for long-term quitters and 4.7 for nonsmokers. The researchers found that participants who did not have diabetes and had quit smoking most recently gained six pounds compared to those who were long-term quitters (two pounds), smokers (1.9 pounds) and nonsmokers (three pounds). Those with diabetes who had quit smoking recently gained the most weight (7.9 pounds). Smokers with diabetes gained 1.9 pounds over four years, while long-term quitters with diabetes gained no weight and nonsmokers gained 1.1 pounds. The good news for former smokers is that those who had quit recently had a 53 percent lower risk for cardiovascular disease, while long-term quitters had a 54 percent lower risk. Overall, this study shows that quitting smoking reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease despite any weight gain. Quitting now will certainly provide cardiac benefits, and you would not be trading one risk for another. Andrew Weil, M.D.
U.S. power company NRG Energy Inc said on Friday a technology it developed with the University of Delaware has sold power from electric vehicles to the power grid for the first time. The University and NRG said in a statement that they began work on the so-called eV2g program in September 2011 to provide a two-way interface between electric vehicles and the power grid that enables vehicle owners to sell electricity back to the grid while they are charging their cars. NRG said the project became an official participant in the PJM frequency regulation market on Feb. 27. The system is still in development and not yet a commercial offering. PJM operates the power grid for 60 million people in 13 U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Midwest states and the District of Columbia. Frequency regulation is used to balance supply and demand on the grid second-by-second. "This demonstrates that (electric vehicles) can provide both mobility and stationary power while helping make the grid more resilient and ultimately generating revenue for electric vehicle owners," NRG Executive Vice President Denise Wilson, who leads the company's emerging businesses, said in the statement. Electric vehicles can act as energy storage, allowing power grid operators like PJM to balance the power provided by intermittent renewable resources such as wind and solar. A key aspect of the technology, NRG said, is that it can aggregate power from multiple electric vehicles to create one larger power resource. BMW, a unit of German car maker Bayerische Motoren Werke AG , provided the electric vehicles. Milbank Manufacturing provided the charging stations. NRG said the technology is expected to be used at first by managers of commercial electric vehicle fleets, providing revenue while the vehicles are parked, with individual electric vehicle owners to eventually follow.
- Research article - Open Access High-throughput sequencing of Medicago truncatula short RNAs identifies eight new miRNA families BMC Genomics volume 9, Article number: 593 (2008) High-throughput sequencing technology is capable to identify novel short RNAs in plant species. We used Solexa sequencing to find new microRNAs in one of the model legume species, barrel medic (Medicago truncatula). 3,948,871 reads were obtained from two separate short RNA libraries generated from total RNA extracted from M. truncatula leaves, representing 1,563,959 distinct sequences. 2,168,937 reads were mapped to the available M. truncatula genome corresponding to 619,175 distinct sequences. 174,504 reads representing 25 conserved miRNA families showed perfect matches to known miRNAs. We also identified 26 novel miRNA candidates that were potentially generated from 32 loci. Nine of these loci produced eight distinct sequences, for which the miRNA* sequences were also sequenced. These sequences were not described in other plant species and accumulation of these eight novel miRNAs was confirmed by Northern blot analysis. Potential target genes were predicted for most conserved and novel miRNAs. Deep sequencing of short RNAs from M. truncatula leaves identified eight new miRNAs indicating that specific miRNAs exist in legume species. Gene expression is regulated at several layers in plants to ensure optimal temporal and spatial accumulation of proteins. One of the latest discovered regulatory layers involves short RNA (sRNA) molecules 21–24 nucleotides in length that act post-transcriptionally . There are surprisingly many different sRNAs in plant cells indicating an extensive role for these molecules . Plant sRNAs are produced from double stranded RNA (dsRNA) by one of the four Dicer-like proteins (DCL1-4). The different DCL proteins process dsRNAs generated by diverse pathways . MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are produced from partially complementary dsRNA precursor molecules (pre-miRNA) . Pre-miRNAs are originally single stranded RNAs with hairpin structures and recognized by DCL1 . The other large class of plant sRNAs is small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). siRNAs are processed from dsRNAs usually generated by one of the RNA Dependent RNA Polymerases (RDRs). Trans-acting siRNA (ta-siRNAs) precursors are generated by RDR6 [5, 6] and heterochromatin siRNA precursors are made by RDR2 . Another group of siRNAs, the natural antisense siRNAs (nat-siRNAs), are processed from dsRNA produced by overlapping antisense mRNAs . MiRNAs are the best characterized sRNAs in plants . The primary transcript (pri-miRNA) is transcribed by RNA polymerase II and contains an imperfect hairpin structure. DCL1 trims this hairpin structure producing the pre-miRNA and then a second cleavage by DCL1 produces the miRNA/miRNA* duplex . This molecule has a two nucleotide 3' overhang at each side of the duplex and contains a few mismatches . One of the strands of the miRNA/miRNA* duplex is integrated into RISC (RNA induced silencing complex). This strand is called mature miRNA and the partially complementary miRNA* strand gets degraded, although in most cases the miRNA* strand also accumulates at a lower level . RISC finds specific mRNAs because the incorporated mature miRNA can anneal to partially complementary target sites . Target sites show near perfect matches to plant miRNA sequences and initially it was thought that all target mRNAs are cleaved by RISC . Recently it was shown that the translation of plant mRNAs is also suppressed without a cleavage . Most plant miRNA families have been identified by traditional Sanger sequencing method in model species with known genome sequences (Arabidopsis, rice and poplar) and most miRNAs are conserved across plant families . However, some miRNAs are species/family specific and Allen et al. suggested that these "young" miRNAs have evolved recently, in contrary to the conserved miRNAs ("old" miRNAs). Since non-conserved miRNAs are often accumulated at a lower level than conserved miRNAs, traditional small-scale sequencing primarily reveals conserved miRNAs. Establishment of high-throughput technologies has allowed the identification of several non-conserved or lowly expressed miRNAs through deep sequencing, e.g. in Arabidopsis, wheat and tomato [14–17]. Here we describe the deep sequencing of short RNAs extracted from M. truncatula leaves and the experimental validation of eight novel miRNAs. Deep sequencing of M. truncatula short RNAs Two separate cDNA libraries of short RNAs were generated from Medicago truncatula leaves and both libraries were sequenced by Solexa (Illumina). The first PCR product was quantified by nanodrop and 5 pM was loaded to Solexa, which yielded 5942 clusters and 872,048 sequence reads. The second sample was also quantified on polyacrylamide gel because the capacity of Solexa is higher than this. Since the nanodrop gave an approximately 50 times higher concentration than quantification on a gel we concluded that the nanodrop overestimates the concentration of the PCR product. To obtain more sequences, we loaded four times of the amount that we would have loaded based only on the nanodrop reading and this yielded 23301 clusters and 3,076,823 sequence reads. It is worth mentioning that loading based on only quantification on gel would have led to overloading the Solexa and would have produced many but unreliable sequences. The two sets of reads were combined and analysed together (Table 1) using the miRCat pipeline we have developed earlier . The size distribution of sequence reads showed that the 24 nt class was the most abundant group of sRNAs followed by the 21 nt sequences and then the 23, 22 and 20 nt reads (Figure 1). The almost four million reads represented 1,563,959 distinct sequences suggesting that the library is still not saturated. Out of the four million reads 2,168,937 matched to the genome without any mismatches, representing 619,175 sequences. First we looked for known miRNAs by comparing our library to known miRNAs from other plant species. 174,504 reads corresponding to 25 conserved miRNA families showed perfect matches to known miRNAs. We analysed the number of reads for conserved miRNAs and miR156, 159 and 166 were represented most frequently in the library (Table 2). Allowing one or two mismatches between sequences in our library and sequences in miRBase increased the number of conserved miRNA families in M. truncatula to 31 (Table 2). Next we predicted target genes and putative targets were identified for 27 out of 31 conserved families (Additional File 1). No targets were found in M. truncatula for miR163, miR169, miR394 and miR894. We found homologs of known miRNA target genes for several conserved M. truncatula miRNAs, such as SBP for miR156, NAC for miR160, AGO1 for miR168, bZIP for miR165, GRAS for miR171, AP2 for miR172 and low affinity sulphur transporter for miR395. On the other hand we predicted many genes with unknown function and hypothetical genes for miRNA targeting (Additional File 1) and careful analysis of these potential targets will contribute to our understanding of the role of miRNAs in legume plants. The flanking regions of the 2,168,937 sequence reads matching the genome were subjected to secondary structure analysis. We used the strict criteria suggested by Jones-Rhoades et al. to identify potential miRNA loci. 32 short RNA producing loci corresponding to 26 sequence reads could be folded into step-loop structures (Additional File 2). Nine of these loci produced eight distinct sequences, for which we also sequenced the miRNA* sequences (Table 3). These eight sequences were considered as novel legume specific miRNAs based on Rajagopalan et al. , who demonstrated that loci producing sequenced mature miRNAs and miRNA* sequences are miRNA loci. The other 23 loci producing 18 sRNAs were considered as putative new miRNA genes since at the moment there is not sufficient evidence to classify them as miRNA genes. Accumulation of all eight new miRNAs and most miRNAs were validated by Northern blot analysis (Figure 2). We also predicted target genes for putative miRNAs (Additional file 3) and the new miRNAs with sequenced miRNA (Additional file 4). Five out of the eight new miRNAs have potential targets in the available M. truncatula genome. It is interesting that two of these five new miRNAs potentially target disease resistance genes suggesting a role for miRNAs in the regulation of biotic stress response. Deep sequencing of M. truncatula short RNAs Most conserved plant miRNAs were identified by traditional Sanger sequencing. Due to the relatively small number of sequences generated this method primarily discovered conserved miRNAs. Recent progress in sequencing technologies allows deep sequencing of large libraries of short RNAs [2, 7, 17, 19–23]. The longest reads are obtained by the 454 technology, which currently gives reads of 250–300 base pairs (bp). However, this technology yields much less reads than other techniques (about 400 000 per sample) . The Solexa platform (Illumina) generates shorter reads (up to 35 bp) but yields 1–3 million reads per sample . The other very high-throughput technique, massively parallel sequencing (MPSS), gives more reads than Solexa but the reads are even shorter, only 17 bp . miRNAs are only 21–23 nt sequences therefore even MPSS can identify them, although this technology generates shorter than 21 bp reads. Because of this it is not the ideal choice for miRNA discovery but it is useful for profiling conserved miRNAs. We decided to use the Solexa platform to test whether new miRNAs can be found in the model legume M. truncatula. We found the quantification of PCR product problematic because the nanodrop overestimated the concentration and using quantitative markers on polyacrylamide gel seemed to underestimate the concentration. The difference between the two approaches was 50 fold. Loading 5 pM sample according to the nanodrop result yielded relatively low number of sequences (872,048 reads), well below the capacity of Solexa. However, loading 50 times more would have given poor quality sequences due to overloading. We decided to load four times of the amount suggested by the nanodrop and this approach yielded sufficient number (more than 3 million) and good quality reads. Many short sequences did not map to the genome but it is not known what the explanation is for that. One possibility is that the rate of sequencing error is high and many short reads contains mistakes. The other possibility is that there are polymorphisms between the species we used and the one that was used for the genome sequencing. It is also possible that plants used in these experiments were infected symptomless pathogens and genomes of those organisms contaminated our libraries. First we searched for conserved miRNAs in the combined, almost four million reads from the two separate sRNA libraries. MiRNAs showing perfect matches to 25 conserved families were found in our combined library, which is more than was identified using bioinformatics approaches [24–26]. Allowing up to two mismatches further increased this number to 31 families. This work experimentally verified all conserved miRNAs predicted by [[24, 25] and ]. However, none of the predicted new miRNAs were found and the eight new miRNAs we found were not predicted by any of the three studies [[24, 25] and ] illustrating the benefit of the sequencing approach. Target prediction for conserved miRNAs found several genes showing homology to genes validated in other species. However, several predicted targets are new without known function indicating that more work is required to elucidate the role of miRNAs in legumes. Validation of non-conserved miRNAs can be achieved through several ways. One possibility is providing evidence of biogenesis characteristic of miRNAs. This involves the identification of stem-loop structure of the potential pre-miRNAs and sequencing of the miRNA* molecules . In the absence of evidence for biogenesis, functional data can complement the predictions based on structural analysis. MiRNA mediated cleavage is located in a specific site within the target site and this can be identified by 5'RACE analysis. We have found eight new non-conserved miRNAs supported by biogenesis data since the miRNA* strands were sequenced and detected by Northern blot analysis. We also found 18 other putative miRNAs based on structural data. However, we did not sequence the miRNA* strands for these and we do not have functional proof therefore at the moment these are only putative miRNAs. The role of miRNAs in development and abiotic stress response is well documented. Several transcription factors involved in development are targeted by miRNAs . Other miRNAs play a role in nutrient assimilation and responses to drought, cold and other abiotic stresses [1, 28]. Reports of miRNAs involved in biotic stress response are less common. Navarro et al showed that bacterial flagellin expression induced miR393 and F-box auxin receptor genes were regulated by miR393. Two of the new miRNAs are predicted to target disease resistance genes suggesting a more extensive role for miRNAs in biotic stress response. Targets of the other new miRNAs also include beta-glucan-binding protein, peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerise and a hypothetical protein. The biological importance of the potential regulation of these genes by miRNAs needs further investigation. High-throughput sequencing analysis of sRNAs from M. truncatula leaves identified eight new miRNAs, which were not found in other species. Sequencing sRNAs from specific tissues of legume plants by deep sequencing is expected to reveal more new miRNAs. Cloning of M. truncatula sRNAs and Northern blot analysis RNA was extracted using the miRVana kit (Ambion) from the aerial part (including stems and leaves) of nine week old Medicago truncatula Gaertn. cv. Jemalong seedlings. Plants were grown in pots with soil in a growth chamber having a photoperiod of 16/8 h day/night, a thermoperiod of 25/18°C day/night and humidity of 40%. Small RNA fraction between 19–24 nt was isolated from 15% denaturing polyacrylamide gel and 15 μg was ligated to adaptors without de-phosphorylating and re-phosphorylating . The short RNAs were converted to DNA by RT-PCR and the DNA was sequenced on a Solexa machine (Illumina). 15 μg of RNA extracted from M. truncatula leaves was analysed by Northern blot as described by Pall et al. . 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Zhou ZS, Huang SQ, Yang ZM: Bioinformatic identification and expression analysis of new microRNAs from Medicago truncatula. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 2008, 374: 538-542. 10.1016/j.bbrc.2008.07.083. Wen J, Frickey T, Weiller GF: Computational prediction of candidate miRNAs and their targets from Medicago truncatula non-protein-coding transcripts. In Silico Biol. 2008, 8 (3-4): 291-306. Kidner CA, Martienssen RA: The developmental role of microRNA in plants. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2005, 8 (1): 38-44. 10.1016/j.pbi.2004.11.008. Sunkar R, Zhu JK: Novel and stress-regulated microRNAs and other small RNAs from Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 2004, 16 (8): 2001-19. 10.1105/tpc.104.022830. Navarro L, Dunoyer P, Jay F, Arnold B, Dharmasiri N, Estelle M, Voinnet O, Jones JD: A plant miRNA contributes to antibacterial resistance by repressing auxin signaling. Science. 2006, 312 (5772): 436-9. 10.1126/science.1126088. Rathjen T, Pais H, Sweetman D, Moulton V, Munsterberg A, Dalmay T: High throughput sequencing of microRNAs in chicken somites. BMC Genomics. 2008, Pall GS, Codony-Servat C, Byrne J, Ritchie L, Hamilton A: Carbodiimide-mediated cross-linking of RNA to nylon membranes improves the detection of siRNA, miRNA and piRNA by northern blot. Nucleic Acids Research. 2007, 35 (8): e60-10.1093/nar/gkm112. Prufer K, Stenzel U, Dannemann M, Green REE, Lachmann M, Kelso J: PatMaN: rapid alignment of short sequences to large databases. Bioinformatics. 2008, 24 (13): 1530-1. 10.1093/bioinformatics/btn223. Moxon S, Schwach F, Maclean D, Dalmay T, Studholme DJ, Moulton V: A toolkit for analysing large-scale plant small RNA datasets. Bioinformatics. 2008, 24 (19): 2252-3. 10.1093/bioinformatics/btn428. The work was supported by the BBSRC (TD) and FCT (MPSF) through the ERA-NET Plant Genomics initiative. SG cloned the short RNAs and carried out most of the Northern blot analysis; SM analysed the sequences and was supervised by VM; DMS grew the plants and prepared the RNA; RJ carried out some of the Northern blot analysis; MPSF and TD designed and coordinated the study; TD analysed the results and wrote the manuscript. Gyorgy Szittya, Simon Moxon contributed equally to this work. Electronic supplementary material Additional file 1: Predicted targets of conserved M. truncatula miRNAs. The data provided describes the predicted target genes of conserved miRNAs found in M. truncatula. (XLS 128 KB) Additional file 2: Predicted secondary structures of new and putative M. truncatula . The data shows the predicted secondary structures of validated and putative new M. truncatula miRNAs. (PDF 92 KB) Additional file 3: Predicted targets of putative miRNAs. This table provides a list of predicted target genes of potential but not validated M. truncatula miRNAs. (XLS 124 KB) Additional file 4: Predicted targets of new validated M. truncatula miRNAs. This table provides a list of predicted target genes of new M. truncatula miRNAs with sequenced miRNA*. (DOC 52 KB) About this article Cite this article Szittya, G., Moxon, S., Santos, D.M. et al. High-throughput sequencing of Medicago truncatula short RNAs identifies eight new miRNA families. BMC Genomics 9, 593 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-9-593 - Deep Sequencing - Distinct Sequence - Medicago Truncatula - Predict Target Gene - Short RNAs
A new life sciences startup launched by Flagship Ventures in Cambridge hopes to turn our own red blood cells into potent new medications, capable of treating everything from immune system disorders to cancer. Rubius Therapeutics, also of Cambridge, will use stem cells collected from a patient’s blood to create new red blood cells. But these cells will be genetically modified by a virus to carry proteins that could repair a host of maladies. “We’re basically making medicinal blood cells,” said Rubius chief executive Avak Kahvejian. Flagship Ventures has invested $25 million in the new company. The company’s first target is phenylketonuria, a rare disease caused by the body’s inability to break down a common amino acid. The material builds up in the body and can cause serious damage to the brain and nervous system. Newborns are tested for the condition, which is found in one out of every 13,000 births in the United States. The only treatment is a restrictive diet that avoids foods containing the amino acid. But Kahvejian said his engineered blood cells can insert a protein that breaks down the amino acid, allowing phenylketonuria patients to eat whatever they like. And since red blood cells generally live about four months, a patient would only need to inject the modified cells three times a year. The method has been successfully tested in a laboratory and on animals. Rubius hopes to begin human testing late next year.
Psychologists at the Temple University have revealed that old fashioned toys allow children to experiment with their imagination and creativity, thus proving much healthier for them. Researchers think that simpler toys like rubber balls and building blocks are healthier for the creative development of the child, as compared to expensive electronic gizmos. "Old-fashioned retro toys, such as red rubber balls, simple building blocks, clay and crayons, that don't cost so much and are usually hidden in the back shelves are usually much healthier for children than the electronic educational toys that have fancier boxes and cost 89.99 dollars," said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University developmental psychologist, the Lefkowitz Professor of Psychology at Temple and co-director of the Temple University Infant Lab. She said that the overreaching principle is that the children are active creative problem-solvers and discoverers. "Your child gets to build his or her imagination around these simpler toys; the toys don't command what your child does, but your child commands what the toys do," she said. Roberta Golinkoff, head of the Infant Language Project at the University of Delaware said: "Electronic educational toys boast brain development and that they are going to give your child a head start. But developmental psychologists know that it doesn't really work this way. The toy manufacturers are playing on parents' fears that our children will be left behind in this global marketplace." "Kids are not like empty vessels to be filled. If they play with toys that allow them to be explorers, they are more likely to learn important lessons about how to master their world," she added. Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, co-authors of Einstein Never Used Flashcards, have offered parents the following advice, guidelines, and questions to ask themselves when choosing the proper toys for their young children: • Look for a toy that is 10 percent toy and 90 percent child • Toys are meant to be platforms for play • Look to see if the toy promises brain growth • Look to see if the toy encourages social interaction "This advice is not about marketing, but about what we know from 30 years of child psychology about how children learn and how they grow," said Hirsh-Pasek. Golinkoff added, "The irony is that the real educational toys are not the flashy gadgets and gizmos with big promises, but the staples that have built creative thinkers for decades."
SI Joint Dysfunction Facts & Information If you are experiencing the seemingly unbearable symptoms of SI joint dysfunction, it’s important to have an accurate diagnosis with thorough tests and evaluations. Often times, sacroiliac (SI) joint dysfunction is difficult to diagnose because the pain patterns are frequently mistaken for nerve irritation in the lower back, muscles sprains, or hip bursitis. How & Why Does SI Joint Dysfunction Develop? First, it’s key to understand that the SI joint connects the pelvic bone (ileum) to the lowest part of the spine (sacrum). There are two SI joints. Each is located on either side of the sacrum. SI joints are small and very strong, providing structural support and stability. They function as shock absorbers for the pelvis and the low back, dispersing the forces of the upper body. Whenever an SI joint is irritated or injured, the resultant joint dysfunction may cause pain in the lower back and legs. Young and middle-aged women are most susceptible to this condition, which can make sitting and standing a difficult and painful task. SI joints become painful because of alterations in the normal motion of the joints. Consider the following: - Two types of changes from normal motion can cause problems - Those changes are either too much movement (hyper-mobility) or too little movement (hypo-mobility) - Abnormal motion from work/sports can directly injure the joints via stretching/straining the primary SI ligaments - Any of these changes in joint mobility may lead to pain, as well as spasm in the supporting back and pelvic muscles - SI joint dysfunction may also result from direct trauma, such as injuries associated with a motor vehicle accident - Or an injury from something as simple as a fall on the buttocks or a missed step when descending stairs - Pain in the lower back - Generally aggravated by sitting, standing, or bending at the waist - When severe, there will be pain in the hip, groin, and legs Proper diagnosis starts with an experienced pain management doctor. The type of pain that you may have with SI joint dysfunction can be similar to the symptoms of several types of disorders. Accurately determining the correct source of your pain is critical to successful treatment. - Begins with a thorough clinical evaluation - Including a complete medical history, analysis of your symptoms, and physical examination - Testing may include x-rays, MRI and/or CT scans, and electro-diagnosis (EMG) - These advanced diagnostic techniques definitively pinpoint the source of pain We're Here to Help get Your Life Back Living with acute or chronic pain caused from SI joint dysfunction is a daily struggle and finding relief can be challenging. We are here for you. Our highly skilled pain doctors get right to the source of your pain and will provide treatment tailored to your needs. Stop letting pain run your life and request an appointment today.
Murphy’s Law was named after the U.S. engineer Edward A. Murphy and the term is known as worldly wisdom. You have probably experienced this yourself a few times. Your slice of toast with butter and jam slides off the plate and lands on the “wrong side” with the jam on the floor. Products you bought don’t work anymore right after the guarantee has just expired. Or you are looking for your car keys and will likely find them in the place you never thought they would be. Does that sound familiar? But is it really that way? We would like to give Murphy’s Law the blame when something goes wrong, but it actually has more to do with our inner perception than with Murphy’s Law. One aspect is the fact that we tend to have a selective perception by remembering negative experiences more than positive ones in everyday life. Besides that, our perception influences our behaviour. How do we judge a positive compared to a negative experience? When you observe yourself in your reaction and behaviour during a negative experience, do you notice that the negative emotions are felt stronger than the positive emotions such as happiness after a positive experience? We sometimes tend to take the positive experiences for granted and at the same time, we tend to put a lot of energy into the negative emotions when something goes wrong. When was the last time you were thankful for just waking up in the morning and having a whole new day as a gift? Last but not least our selective memory plays a role in the judgement. Negative experiences are more present in our minds than experiences that just went smoothly. Conclusion: Raise your awareness for the small things in life. Be grateful for what you have and who you are. Don’t be aggravated by little unimportant things. It’s not worth the energy you waste and only harms you.
- Iframe Basics - An introduction to iframes and a basic example. - Cross-Document Communication - How to obtain references so you can communicate between the document containing the iframe and the document inside the iframe. - Same Origin Policy - Information on the access denied errors that occur when trying to communicate between documents on different domains. - Setting Iframe Height - How to set the height of an iframe to show all of its content without need for iframe scrollbars. - Dynamically Generating an Iframe - How to create and insert an iframe using DOM methods. - Changing Iframe Src - How to change iframe - Iframe Onload Event - How to trigger action once an iframe loads. - Loading Documents Using Query String Data - How to specify URLs for iframes using data supplied in the query string. - Using a Hidden Iframe - How to use a hidden iframe to emulate some of the features that HTML5's seamless attribute will provide. - Fluid Iframe - A centered liquid iframe.
NASA Will Use Your Selfie To Make An Awesome Image Of Earth Published 9:08 am, Tuesday, April 22, 2014 Hope you're looking sharp today. NASA is inviting everyone to celebrate this Earth Day, April 22, by taking global selfies. What should you do? "Get outside and show us mountains, parks, the sky, rivers, lakes," NASA suggests. "Tell us where you are in a sign, words written in the sand, spelled out with rocks." Or, you can just print out this sign, which is available in many languages. After you snap a picture of yourself — wherever you are — post it Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, or Google+ using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie. You can also post to an event page on Facebook or Flickr. The event is part of the Earth Right Now campaign. NASA will use all the images to create "one unique mosaic of the Blue Marble." Sounds like something we should all participate in. - The Best Candidates For Earth 2.0 - 50 Pictures That Will Make You Fall In Love With Earth All Over Again - NASA Announces An Earth-Size Planet That May Have Liquid Water
According to Newman, the Blessed Virgin Mary is called Rosa Mystica, the Mystical Rose, because she “is the Queen of spiritual flowers; and therefore she is called the Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all flowers the most beautiful.” That would explain the name “rose” but Newman asks the reason for the adjective “hidden.” His reply is that her tomb was not to be found on earth as that of the saints and martyrs. “Is it conceivable that they who had been so reverent and careful of the bodies of the Saints and Martyrs should neglect her—her who was the Queen of Martyrs and the Queen of Saints, who was the very Mother of our Lord? It is impossible. Why then is she thus the hidden Rose? Plainly because that sacred body is in heaven, not on earth.” Holy Mary, Mystical Rose, you are the most beautiful flower created by God, in venerating you we praise God for his holiness and beauty. Mary is the “Rosa Mystica,” the Mystical Rose MARY is the most beautiful flower that ever was seen in the spiritual world. It is by the power of God’s grace that from this barren and desolate earth there have ever sprung up at all flowers of holiness and glory. And Mary is the Queen of them. She is the Queen of spiritual flowers; and therefore she is called the Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all flowers the most beautiful. But moreover, she is the Mystical, or hidden Rose; for mystical means hidden. How is she now “hidden” from us more than are other saints? What means this singular appellation, which we apply to her specially? The answer to this question introduces us to a third reason for believing in the reunion of her sacred body to her soul, and its assumption into heaven soon after her death, instead of its lingering in the grave until the General Resurrection at the last day. It is this:—if her body was not taken into heaven, where is it? how comes it that it is hidden from us? why do we not hear of her tomb as being here or there? why are not pilgrimages made to it? why are not relics producible of her, as of the saints in general? Is it not even a natural instinct which makes us reverent towards the places where our dead are buried? We bury our great men honourably. St. Peter speaks of the sepulchre of David as known in his day, though he had died many hundred years before. When our Lord’s body was taken down from the Cross, He was placed in an honourable tomb. Such too had been the honour already paid to St. John Baptist, his tomb being spoken of by St. Mark as generally known. Christians from the earliest times went from other countries to Jerusalem to see the holy places. And, when the time of persecution was over, they paid still more attention to the bodies of the Saints, as of St. Stephen, St. Mark, St. Barnabas, St. Peter, St. Paul, and other Apostles and Martyrs. These were transported to great cities, and portions of them sent to this place or that. Thus, from the first to this day it has been a great feature and characteristic of the Church to be most tender and reverent towards the bodies of the Saints. Now, if there was anyone who more than all would be preciously taken care of, it would be our Lady. Why then do we hear nothing of the Blessed Virgin’s body and its separate relics? Why is she thus the hidden Rose? Is it conceivable that they who had been so reverent and careful of the bodies of the Saints and Martyrs should neglect her—her who was the Queen of Martyrs and the Queen of Saints, who was the very Mother of our Lord? It is impossible. Why then is she thus the hidden Rose? Plainly because that sacred body is in heaven, not on earth. Meditations and Devotions, see www.newmanreader.org
Calming Strategy – Wave Breathing Think about the ocean waves as you try out this Wave Breathing strategy with your child. You might even want to play some ocean music. Inhale deeply as you raise your arms up over your head and then exhale slowly as you bring your arms back down to your sides. Repeat a few times. Shark Tooth Numeral Puzzle Using a recycled cereal box, cut out one of the large sides. On the inside write out the numerals in order from 1-6. Space your numerals far enough apart so that you can cut the cardboard into a puzzle. Cut the piece of cereal box into simple puzzle pieces using wavy lines, each numeral on one piece. Invite your child to put the puzzle together, naming the numbers when complete. Challenge your child to draw or glue cut out triangles to represent the appropriate number of shark teeth onto each puzzle piece. Make a list with your child of what they know about sharks and a list of what they would like to know about sharks. You could offer suggestions like where do they live, what do they eat, how big are they, how many teeth do they have. A couple of facts to get you started. Sharks are fish. Shark skin is rough like sandpaper. If a shark loses a tooth, a new one will grow. Sharks have good eyesight. Sharks do not have bones, they have cartilage, like we have in our ears. Measure out the length of a nurse shark (4.3 m) using a piece of string, to give your child an idea of the size of a large shark. Place 5 small towels or pillowcases on the floor with space in between to be islands. Explain to your child that the towels are the islands and there are sharks in the water around the islands. Call out a movement pattern (march, hop on one foot, jump, walk like a duck, etc.). Your child then moves around the islands using the called movement pattern until you call out “Shark”. Your child then needs to get to safety on one of the islands. To play outside you could draw circles with chalk for the islands. Using markers, have your child colour on a coffee filter. When finished spray the coffee filter with water. Allow to dry. Encourage your child to draw and colour a picture of a shark. When complete, have your child cut out the shark shape (help as needed) and glue it onto the dried coffee filter. www.arcademics.com Find fun and free educational games for children in grades K-8. Featuring a wide variety of math, language arts, typing and geography games. https://www.getepic.com/ Get 30 days of free access to 40,000 digital books for children ages 3-12.
A Concise History of Spain Read by Luis Soto This audiobook traces Spain’s development from prehistoric times to the present, focusing particularly on culture, society, politics and personalities. It introduces listeners to key themes that have shaped Spain’s history and culture, including its varied landscapes and climates; the impact of waves of diverse human migrations; the importance of its location as a bridge between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and Europe and Africa; and religion, particularly militant Catholic Christianity and its centuries of conflict with Islam and Protestantism, as well as debates over the place of the Church in modern Spain. Running Time: 12 h 13 m More product details Digital ISBN: 978-1-78198-281-5 Cat. no.: NA0381 Download size: 280 MB Edited by: Red Apple Creative Text: © 2010 & 2016 William D. Phillips Jr. and Carla Rahn Phillips BISAC: HIS045000 BIC: HBJD Released: January 2019 Listen to this title at Audible.com↗Buy on CD at Downpour.com↗Listen to this title at the Naxos Spoken Word Library↗ Due to copyright, this title is not currently available in your region.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 At age 32, in 1790, Kamehameha the Great built the enormous Pu'ukohola Heiau (temple) in honor of the war god Ku, and to celebrate a series of inter-island battle victories that had left him the first ruler of all the islands (except Kauai, at that point). The great king (pushing seven feet tall and well over three-hundred pounds) toiled alongside the thousands of workers who hauled stone to complete the task. Kamehameha's ascent to the throne has not been a gimme, starting from his birth, which had to take place in secret on the windy shores of Kohala to avoid the would-be monarch from being killed by rivals. During his military victories on Maui, Molokai, and Oahu in the late 1780s, Kamehameha found he had lost some turf in his absence to his Big Island cousin, Keoua Kuahu'ula. In 1791, Keoua was invited to the heiau's dedication ceremony, where he became the life of the party, or rather death, since things got out of hand and the cousin and his retinue we slain on the shore. Kamehameha's rule was then unquestioned. (Kauai capitulated a few years later, but that's another story.) Pu'ukohola is now a National Historic Site, located next to Spencer Beach park on the north end of the South Kohala Coast. The ladder scaffolding pictured on one rock face is a replica of those used in original construction, but this one was put up to make repairs after a 2006 earthquake.
The global epidemic of AIDS may be over by the year 2030, a UN official claimed, thanks to the speedy treatments and control of the disease. "I think that 2030 is a viable target to say that we have reached the end of the epidemic," said Luis Loures, a deputy executive director of UNAIDS, the UN agency leading the fight against HIV/AIDS. "HIV will continue existing as a case here or there but not at the epidemic level we have today," he told journalists late Wednesday. Three million new HIV infections are reported each year and the disease, which attacks the immune system, kills 1.7 million people a year. "We can get to the end of the epidemic because we have treatments and ways to control the infection," said Loures, who is in Panama to discuss AIDS strategy with UN agencies in Latin America. "We are making progress, without a doubt." Two decades ago the average annual cost of treatment per person with HIV was $19,000 while today it is $150 thanks to generic drugs. Moreover, people with HIV are getting treatment earlier, which retards the disease's development. According to UNAIDS, the annual incidence of new infections has fallen 20 percent over the past decade, and in 25 countries, including 13 in sub-Saharan Africa, it has fallen by 50 percent. Over the past two years, the number of people who have obtained treatment for HIV has increased by 60 percent. "The challenge is now for the most vulnerable groups," like homosexual males, sex workers and drug users who do not seek treatment for fear of being stigmatized or criminally prosecuted, Loures said. "If we do not succeed in controlling the epidemic among these groups, AIDS will stay with us," he warned. At the end of 2011, there were 34 million people living with HIV, 69 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa where one in 20 adults have the disease. "Today, there are a number of cases where we have evidence of a cure and that gives us great hope," Loures said.
Tackling Tornado Alley The first test of small drone-based augmented reality software suggests a new way to help emergency teams find roads, bridges and victims when disaster strikes. On May 13, during the height of twister season across America’s notorious Tornado Alley, faculty members Joe Cerreta, Dan Macchiarella and Scott Burgess headed to Oklahoma, along with seven students. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s colorful online tornado-prediction map was showing a dark bull’s-eye over central and western Oklahoma. The Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University team drove straight into the danger zone. The group had just set up operations in Alva, Oklahoma, when an EF2 tornado struck 100 miles to the south, in Elk City. Spinning winds as fast as 135 miles per hour, the storm caused damage to at least 150 homes and killed one person, according to Keli Cain, a public information officer with the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. Soon after the storm had passed, the Embry-Riddle team, working from a mobile command trailer, provided high-resolution damage assessments based on imagery captured by small unmanned aerial systems (UAS). They also conducted what is believed to be the nation’s first test of an emerging UAS technology to benefit first responders at disaster scenes. The team’s demonstration of the technology was livestreamed by the National Weather Service – another first. The Embry-Riddle group provided proof of an important new concept. Augmented Reality in Action Augmented reality software, coupled with livestreaming video captured by small drones, can provide emergency management personnel with real-time aerial damage assessments, as well as critical assistance in navigating roads and bridges obliterated by fallen trees, flattened homes and floodwaters. The technology lets first responders communicate with UAS operators via smartphones, using either voice or text messages to quickly clarify coordinates or request close-ups of shadowy debris. Combined with virtual “pins” indicating the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s four damage-assessment categories (affected, minor, major and destroyed), the augmented reality imagery may prove instrumental for getting communities the help they need when disasters happen, says Cerreta, an associate professor in the College of Aviation at the university’s Daytona Beach Campus in Florida. “To my knowledge, this was the first use of augmented reality for small drones in post-disaster relief operations in the United States,” Cerreta says. “A version of the technology was developed for unmanned aircraft systems used by the U.S. Army, but it has not previously been used with small drones to benefit civilian first responders in this country.” Cerreta’s assessment was confirmed by Michael Abernathy, director of technology for Rapid Imaging Software Inc., maker of the SmartCam3D View augmented reality software. “Although our augmented reality technology has been used by the military as well as NASA for decades, it is not in broad use for civilian applications,” Abernathy says. “This technology adds valuable information to video that improves decision-making. We foresee that in the near future it will be a must-have for large and small emergency response organizations, and it will save countless lives.” Putnam Reiter, project manager at the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, who helped spearhead the partnership with Embry-Riddle, reports that the technology demonstration went well. Reiter’s colleague Zach Stanford, a special projects officer, agreed. “The team positioned themselves in such a way that they could assist wherever they were needed,” Stanford says. “They assisted with providing an initial overview of the damage. There were several areas blocked by downed trees and power lines. They were able to get clear images from the air.” The SmartCam3D View software blends geographic information, such as road locations, boundaries and icons, with live UAS-captured video from the disaster area, essentially laying a map over obliterated office parks and submerged bridges. “Sometimes it’s difficult or dangerous for emergency crews to get into areas that were damaged – for instance, if there are wildfires or floodwaters,” Cain notes. “Anything that technology can do to make it less difficult for first responders would be a good thing.” Learning Through Real-Life Experience The Oklahoma project was part of a “study away” summer course – supervised by Cerreta; Macchiarella, a professor of aeronautical sciences at the university’s Daytona Beach Campus; and Burgess, an associate professor of aeronautics with the Worldwide Campus – for students pursuing degrees in unmanned aircraft systems. (While they were in Oklahoma, meteorology students in another Embry-Riddle study away program, supervised by Assistant Professor of Applied Meteorology Shawn Milrad and Associate Professor of Meteorology Thomas Guinn, searched for tornadoes from Kansas to Texas.) The goal of the UAS trip, says Rohit K. Gohil, a senior Embry-Riddle student studying unmanned aircraft systems science, was to “have aircraft in the sky within 15 minutes of finding a parking spot.” Working quickly, the group deployed a variety of drones, including a tiny fixed-wing senseFly eBee, a quadcopter DJI Phantom 4 and two DJI Inspire I models equipped with a Zenmuse X3 12-megapixel camera or thermal night-vision Zenmuse XT FLIR camera. The Elk City storm was bad, Gohil says, and he soon realized that strong organizational skills, along with clear, direct communication, were key. “The tornado was classified as an EF2, but it was strong enough that it threw part of a school bus a quarter of a mile, and it flipped a Greyhound bus on its side,” he says. “It generated grapefruit-sized hail.” The team trimmed its operational tear-down time to eight minutes, flat. They also learned to “scout and jump” locations by sending a small advance reconnaissance team to set the stage for the rest of the group. “This made it possible to be very responsive and transition from the initial touchdown location all the way to the end of the tornado’s path,” Burgess explains. At the request of an emergency management official in Johnston County, Oklahoma, where two tornadoes touched down, students located a herd of lost cattle. Cerreta, Macchiarella and Burgess stood back and let the students work. “Within three minutes,” Cerreta reports, “the students independently found the 30-animal herd stranded on a vanishing island in the middle of a flooded area. They applied UAS fundamentals to safely, effectively perform a beneficial use of UAS technology. It was a proud moment.” Also during their trip, the group provided homeowners with UAS-captured images to be sent to an insurance company. Macchiarella documented the car where a man in Elk City tragically lost his life during the tornado. The Embry-Riddle team further worked with industry partners Textron Systems and Aeryon Labs Inc. to provide community-engagement demonstrations at locations such as the Northwest Technology Center. They teamed up with Oklahoma State University partners as well as Oklahoma-based Embry-Riddle Worldwide faculty members, who provided access to private airspace. When they weren’t surveying tornado damage, students practiced capturing UAS-based multispectral imagery to assess the health of agricultural crops. “The multispectral imagery gets processed into false color maps,” Cerreta explains. “The maps show healthy vegetation as green, while yellows, oranges or reds indicate some type of issue that a farmer may want to address.” Maxwell Dunphy, a junior at Embry-Riddle, says helping people was his top priority during the study away program. He wasn’t disappointed. “I was able to help out a lot of people on this trip, and that’s one thing I was really looking forward to,” he says.
Antennarius maculatus is a smaller species of frogfish with numerous, well pronounced, knob-like warts. Various colors are known but usually with red-brown saddles and blotches on the body. They often display dark spots with light borders. It has a long illicium with a large lure, shaped like a leaf with mottled white and brown color. When the lure moves it looks like a banner. A dark, triangular saddle connects the eye with the dorsal fin. Not yet assessed by the IUCN Red list, but frequently seen on tropical reefs in the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific. Indo-Pacific. Mauritius to Hawaii, SouthWest Japan to Australia. It is often found among algae, sponges or soft coral of coastal reefs down to 15 meters. Oviparous. Eggs are laid in a gelatinous sheath or veil-like ribbon. Up to 15cm, but usually 10cm. Antennarius maculatus feeds on smaller fish, which it ambushes. It uses its lure to draw in smaller fish. They can change their color to their surroundings in several days or weeks. It also know by its other common name clown frogfish or clown anglerfish
Sites in Beirut, Benghazi and Brownsville, Texas, make a most-endangered list They are the most irreplaceable, endangered sites around the world, according to the World Monuments Fund. For nearly a quarter of a century, the nonprofit organization has released a biennial list of fragile places threatened by everything from tourism to terrorism. This list, it says, helps conserve these sites by raising awareness and, by extension, money. The World Monuments Watch has raised more than $300 million over the years in an effort to preserve places as varied as Chile's Easter Island, Cambodia's Angkor Archeological Park and Iraq's Mosul Cultural Museum. (The organization was started by a former U.S. Army colonel whose interest in saving historical landmarks was piqued in part by coming up with a scheme to arrest the Leaning Tower of Pisa through freezing the soil underneath.) This year's World Monuments list includes ancient Nubian pyramids in what's now Sudan, a still-vibrant Chinatown in Kolkata (the city once known as Calcutta) dating back to the 1800s and a sophisticated water management system built before Inca times in Peru. The current list was finalized before the raging warfare in Ukraine, and in a statement on Feb. 25. the World Monuments Fund expressed deep concern. "We urge that all precautions be taken to protect lives and avoid irreparable harm to cultural heritage in the region," it reads. "Our experience with post-crisis recovery around the world has revealed the lasting consequences of destruction on communities both near and far." WMF President Bénédicte de Montlaur told NPR there's an emphasis as never before on sites threatened by climate change, and toward developing local solutions to global problems. As an example, she described WMF's plan to help preserve a Nepalese system of traditional waterspouts that's on the 2022 Watch List. "What we are planning to do with this current watch site in Nepal is first to study this incredible network of water sources that are providing water and that are distribution points to underground channels," she explained. "Those need mapping and maintenance to provide Kathmandu Valley communities with reliable access to clean water. So, a big part of the work will be not only be engineering studies, but also talking with the local communities to understand where they are getting their water from, where their ancestors were getting water from, to be able to map those historic systems and then to revive them." "Two of the other issues we are trying to address through the Watch this year are underrepresentation and imbalanced tourism," she added. "And we want to have a real diversity of projects because we want to showcase the diversity of heritage and to tell the full story of humanity." The full list of sites on the 2022 Watch follows. The organization included the description of each site in the list below. Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home, Kinchela, Australia "A survivor-led effort seeks to transform a former government institution for Aboriginal boys forcibly taken from their families into a place of truth-telling and healing." Benghazi Historic City Center, Libya "Revival of an important public square in war-ravaged Benghazi can catalyze recovery efforts and serve as a symbol of community-driven urban resilience." Mosque City of Bagerhat, Bangladesh "The religious landscape of ancient Khalifatabad requires climate adaptation to ensure its survival and continued service to the Bagerhat community." La Maison du Peuple, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso "An important landmark and unique example of African modernism in Burkina Faso requires rehabilitation to enhance public life and foster civic pride." Heritage Buildings of Beirut, Lebanon "The vibrant coastal city of Beirut, devastated by the blast of August 2020, needs further recovery support to protect and rehabilitate the historic buildings essential to its identity." Koagannu Mosques and Cemetery, Maldives "A historic waterfront cemetery with distinct coral-stone architecture is threatened by rapidly rising seas and highlights the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for adaptive preservation solutions." Hitis (Water Fountains) of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal "An extensive system of historic water distribution points and underground channels needs maintenance to ensure that local communities have reliable access to clean water." Teotihuacan, San Juan Teotihuacan, Mexico "More inclusive tourism planning and visitor management at an iconic archaeological park can help address economic challenges facing surrounding communities." Fortified Manors of Yongtai, Fujian Province, China "Fortified family homes in remote southeast China present an opportunity for rural revitalization, community-led environmental management, and sustainable tourism." Tiretta Bazaar, Kolkata, India "India's earliest Chinatown is home to minority communities seeking recognition for their history and urban revitalization to support their way of life." Asante Traditional Buildings, Ghana "Sacred earthen shrines, among the last architectural vestiges of the Kingdom of Asante, face ongoing deterioration that calls for new approaches to management and maintenance." "Tourism and encroachment at one of Ancient Egypt's most important sites require technical expertise and careful planning to support sustainable preservation." Sumba Island, Indonesia "The sacred houses of the Sumbanese people will be lost without community-led training in the traditional knowledge necessary to maintain these structures and their layers of symbolic meaning." Tomb of Jahangir, Lahore, Pakistan "The only imperial Mughal tomb in Pakistan requires restoration to foster new visitation and provide invaluable greenspace for community recreation within an expanding urban setting." Alcântara and Rocha do Conde de Óbidos, Marine Stations (Almada Negreiros Murals) Lisbon, Portugal "Mid-century murals by Afro-Portuguese artist José de Almada Negreiros need conservation to promote underrepresented narratives and serve as a catalyst for port revitalization." Yanacancha-Huaquis Cultural Landscape, Miraflores District, Peru "Ancient pre-Inca water management systems and sustainable tourism planning are crucial for an Andean community to adapt to climate change and provide local economic benefit." Fabric Synagogue and Jewish Heritage of Timișoara, Timișoara, Romania "Cultural mapping and restoration of a grand synagogue can bring renewed visibility to Jewish heritage in western Romania and promote local social cohesion." "Royal pyramids of the ancient kingdom of Kush threatened by environmental factors require renewed management strategies and conservation interventions to prevent further deterioration." Monte Alegre State Park, Brazil "Prehistoric cave paintings in the Amazon are threatened by environmental degradation and call for improved stewardship that engages and benefits nearby communities." Lamanai, Indian Church Village, Belize "An international tourist destination encompassing an ancient Maya city requires a more inclusive heritage management plan to help reinforce the relationship between the site and local residents." Africatown, Mobile, Alabama, United States "A historic Alabama community established by formerly enslaved Africans is seeking support to leverage a recent archaeological discovery to protect their homes and call for environmental justice." Hurst Castle, Hampshire, United Kingdom "A fortress built by Henry VIII that suffered partial collapse in 2021 illustrates the urgent need to address the impact of climate change on coastal heritage through continued monitoring." Garcia Pasture, Brownsville, Texas, United States "The traditional territory of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas threatened by natural resource extraction and desecration of ancestral lands requires formal legal recognition to ensure its future." Soqotra Archipelago, Yemen "The Soqotri people seek to protect and promote their identity through cultural mapping and inventory of their rich heritage across Soqotra." Cultural Landscape of the Bunong People, Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia "Mapping and documentation of heritage places can support the Bunong people's struggle to protect ancestral land from agro-industrial development and encroachment." Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
Rebellion in Upper Canada, 1837 by J. Edgar Rea MHS Transactions, Series 3, Number 22, 1965-66 season Since there has been widespread acceptance of the fundamental role of the Upper Canadian rebellion of 1837 in our national history, it is rather disconcerting to realize how very little we actually know about it. If one approaches this central event to determine who rebelled, and for what reasons, our historical literature yields only contradiction and confusion. The paucity of detailed knowledge renders any general interpretation of the rebellion dubious at best. But worse, generalizations derived from inadequate evidence have tended to obscure some meaningful insights which may be gained by examining short run effects of the abortive rising. A survey of the representative literature will suggest the depth of our confusion over the meaning of the rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada. Appropriately, two of the main characters were among the first to record their impressions. Lieutenant-Governor Francis Bond Head considered that the radical Reformers who followed William Lyon Mackenzie were motivated by self-interest. They were "the idle, the profligate and the unprincipled." The bulk of the rebels, in his opinion, were good, but simple, people deluded by Mackenzie and the other rebel leaders who hoped "... to burn the city of Toronto, in order to plunder the Banks." Since this view was that of a participant rather than a witness, it is more self-revelation than evidence. Mackenzie, as one would expect, was at the other extreme. He argued that the "government was too unpopular to have any real adherents." He went on to assert that "about 3,500 persons joined us during the three days we were behind Toronto," and furthermore, "... thousands were on their way to join us on Thursday evening." Mackenzie offers no evidence for his claims to wide-spread support. He is still the polemicist. These two, early accounts, however, have set the limits of the debate about the rebellion. On the one hand, the Tory governor considered it a miserable affair, led by a knot of self-seekers who hoped to throw the province into the arms of the United States. On the other, Mackenzie held that disaffection was rampant, and the mass of the people eager to throw off the hold of the ruling elite group. Moderate opinion seemed to find in the apparent Americanization of Upper Canada the underlying cause of the revolt. Robert Baldwin Sullivan advised the newly-appointed Lieutenant-Governor Arthur that: Even so, Sullivan was sure the rebel forces consisted of only "... two or three hundred ignorant young men." His view as to the scope and origin of the rebellion was supported by Lord Durham. However, the latter made a careful distinction between rebels and reformers, and condemned the tendency of the Tories to lump them together indiscriminately. In his Report he concluded that: But Sir Francis Head and the Family Compact had their defenders. Sir Richard Bonnycastle, writing in the early 1850s explained that the party of: Radicals, Revolutionists or Destructives was composed of all the American settlers and speculators in land, some of the more simple and ignorant of the older class of farmers, and the rabble of adventurers who poured in every year from the United States or from Britain, to evade the laws of their respective countries ... This ultra-Tory saw only a contemptible scheme by place-seekers who hoped to achieve their object by making Upper Canada an integral part of the American republic. The first Canadian to study the problem in depth was Charles Lindsey, who had Mackenzie's papers at his disposal. Both by inclination and the obvious bias of his source he attempted to place Mackenzie in the best possible light. But Lindsey soon finds himself in a dilemma. His Whig interpretation of history emphasizes the evolutionary progress of Canada toward freedom through responsible government. The ruling oligarchy is challenged on the issues which had long disturbed the province, religion, land policy, education and others. As leader, and moulder of opinion against the Compact Mackenzie fits nicely into this interpretation. But Mackenzie was also the leader of the rebellion which had as an ultimate aim, the severing of the British connection. As a Whig, Lindsey could not condone a violent overthrow of the government. Yet, he pictures Mackenzie as the leader of a popular movement, and assumes the rebellion was necessary in the attainment of responsible government. His problem is best expressed in his own words: Several Canadian Whig historians were bedevilled by this contradiction. It did not disappear until they gave up the idea of the necessity of the rebellion in the march to responsible government. Lindsey had tried to have it both ways. The rebellion was popular in that it represented majority opinion in the province, yet it was a minority action because it was violent and hostile to the British connection. The next prominent account to appear was by J. C. Dent, another Whig. He saw the origin of the revolt in the stubborn resistance of a grasping oligarchy to legitimate, popular demands. But for all this, Dent claims that only a minority of Reformers would follow Mackenzie's increasing radicalism. It was only these anonymous few who revolted, according to Dent. Another Whig was soon in the field. William Kingsford's multivolume history of Canada included an intensive study of the rebellion. He followed Dent, essentially, emphasizing the same catalogue of grievances, but with rather more attention to the importance of the election of 1836. He wrote: In short, Kingsford argues in the whig tradition that it was a revolt of an insignificant minority without any social or economic motive. He denies explicitly that there was any threat to the British connection. The first challenge to the whig view came from D. B. Read in 1896. He flatly denied that the rebellion had any beneficial effect. Those who had engaged in revolt were a misguided few who had been deluded by self-seeking leaders. "Messrs. Papineau, Mackenzie and Rolph," he wrote pointedly, "after their exile of many years, returned to Canada to take part in the government of the country they had affected to believe was hopelessly sunk in the slough of despond, and was the victim of British tyranny." It is interesting to note that Read as a young student at Upper Canada College in 1837, had turned out eagerly in defense of the British connection. It is not surprising then, that to this author: Read's attempt to overturn the Whig interpretation was an isolated event. He was followed by two determined Whigs, W. S. Wallace, and Stephen Leacock, Wallace's study of the Family Compact concentrated on the constitutional problems of Upper Canada. This was the now standard whig view. The oligarchy had entrenched itself in power and employed the 1791 constitution as its defense. Reformers of all shades were engaged in the fight against the Compact. Mackenzie and his rebels were a well-meaning but misguided minority of the Reform group. The view of Stephen Leacock is almost identical: Both Wallace and Leacock tended to view the machinations of Francis Bond Head as the immediate cause of the revolt. Up to this point the whig interpretation has been dominant. The inherent problem was how to account for a violent revolt within an evolutionary British context. The authors have tended to treat Mackenzie's radicalism as an aberration. To do otherwise would mean accepting Mackenzie's objective of ending the British connection. This, as whigs, they could not do. A more obvious implication, however, would be that the rebellion was not a necessary step in the achievement of responsible government. While thus handicapped by the contradiction implicit in their reading of Upper Canadian history, they have offered little solid evidence as to who actually did revolt, other than suggesting it was the action of a despairing and misguided minority. Their opponents, as represented by Bonnycastle, Sullivan and Read, denied any widespread disaffection in the province and attributed the rebellion largely to American influences. Their evidence was chiefly negative, as they pointed out that Upper Canadians turned out in great numbers to oppose the outbreak. In any case, the whig view seemed to go into eclipse, and the historiography began to explore new directions, with much more insistence on credible evidence, and more sophisticated interpretations. Writing in 1931, Fred Landon explored the revolt in Western Upper Canada, an aspect completely ignored up till then. He claimed that this phase of the rebellion, although it "consisted of only a few poorly armed forces", was "abundant evidence of the widespread unrest in the western part of the province." But Landon's evidence dates largely from 1838, and the unrest of that year can be more readily explained by the fact that many Reformers suffered from the hysterical Tory reaction which followed the Toronto rising. Landon's view is sharply contested by F. C. Hamil who closely studied conditions in the southwestern area of the province. He asserts that "There were Reformers as well as tories in the Western District, but district radicals were few in number." The next interpretation to appear was one of the most bizarre. S. B. Ryerson, the grandson of the great Methodist leader, applied a Marxist interpretation to the Upper Canadian experience. He judged that the rebellion, which was supported by the majority in the province, could be equated to that stage in the Marxist view of history, when the feudal power is overthrown and capitalism established. As proof he quotes Mackenzie's resolution "that the right of obtaining articles of luxury, or necessity in the cheapest market, is inherent in the people." This, Ryerson claims, is a manifestation of the doctrine of "... freedom of the market, keystone of the bourgeoisie anti-feudal revolution." In evidence, he submits the names of those who signed the Declaration of the Toronto Reformers as characterizing the middle class nature of the group which supported the rebellion. This completely ignores the fact that Mackenzie had virtually no adherents in Toronto. In addition, it is a serious misreading of Mackenzie's thinking. The intellectual influences which shaped the rebel leader were those of agrarian radicalism. He was hardly a bourgeois capitalist. In that same year, 1937, Donald Creighton published the first edition of his Empire of the St. Lawrence, a much more reasonable economic analysis of the rebellion. He heavily stressed the impact of the depression of 1837. Further, he asserts that: Creighton thus sees the origin of the rebellion as being economic and specifically agrarian. The most serious limitation to this rural-urban interpretation is the fact that the rural communities overwhelmingly outnumbered the town dwellers, and Creighton admits that the rebellion was a minority movement. He offers no evidence that it represented widespread agrarian disaffection, and acknowledges that few in the province would countenance an end to the imperial connection. The next significant account of the rebellion was by E. C. Guillet who seemed to turn the whole affair on its head. He claims, "The real cause of the revolt, in which Mackenzie and his supporters had given their best, was a rebellion against the constitution by the ruling clique, a course of action in its essence worse than the consequent revolt against the Crown." Thus, Guillet feels that the great majority were loyal in 1837. Curiously, however, he describes the revolt as "essentially a workingman's movement." As evidence he presents an occupational breakdown of 885 men who were arrested or fled the province in 1837. Yet, on close examination, it reveals little more than a representative cross-section of any developed part of Upper Canada, rather than a basis of claim for a working man's revolt. The idea of American influence was revived by John Barnett, president of the Ontario Historical Society, in an article which appeared in Ontario History in 1949. He seizes on the American extraction of many of the major figures in the rebellion, and argues that Silas Fletcher, Jesse Lloyd, and a few others were the real instigators and that Mackenzie was under their influence rather than vice-versa. Barnett concludes by asserting these men: Barnett's interesting assertion remains just that, however. His rather tangled and inconsistent evidence will not support the thesis. A. R. M. Lower, in his Colony to Nation, describes the course of the Reform movement as a background to the revolt. He judges the cause, at least in part, to be the withdrawal of the moderate element after the election of 1836, thus giving the radical leaders their head. His analysis of the strength of the movement is ambiguous: William Kilbourn, in The Firebrand, a popular biography of Mackenzie, found the fundamental cause of the revolt to be agrarian discontent. He described the rebels as "... some last lagging contingent of agrarian democracy, too late to change the world's history, as Tyler's peasants had been too early." In a less romantic view, Kilbourn dwells on what he feels is the desperate economic condition of the Upper Canadian farmer, who saw in Mackenzie "... a projection of their own rage and hope. Upper Canada was ripe for an agrarian revolt." The two most recent works on the rebellion indicate the continuing divergencies of interpretation. S. D. Clark offers an application of the Turner thesis as an explanation. He writes: The validity of this novel interpretation would depend directly on convincing proof that the rebellion had widespread support. Thus, Clark argues that the revolt was popular, but mismanaged: After this careful construction of his argument, Clark destroys it a few pages later when he says "that only a small minority of people in Upper Canada has come to accept the position taken up by Mackenzie when he drafted his constitution for a republic of Upper Canada." Even more inexplicable in Clark's interpretation was the fact that those areas of the province which could most rightly be described as "frontier" were among those most conspicuously loyal. Finally, in his recent book, Upper Canada: The Formative Years, Gerald Craig seems to reflect the ideas of D. B. Read in a more sophisticated manner. The revolt was led by a minority who were definitely misguided, and found support among the older American settlers in the province. As for motivation, Craig places great stress on external influences; commercial distress in the Anglo-American world, the crisis coming to a head in Lower Canada, and the proximity of the neighbouring republican states. "Alternately goaded and inspired by these outside pressures, Mackenzie and a small group of followers determined on their ill-starred plan to overthrow by force a nearly unprotected government." The historiography of the rebellion of 1837 has followed a circuitous path, coming almost full-circle. William Lyon Mackenzie and S. D. Clark both agree that 1837 marked a fundamental social upheaval. Craig and the early Tories insist it was a fiasco which originated with the post-1790 American settlers in Upper Canada. It is clear that despite all that has been written, we are unable to answer accurately the question of who actually rebelled and why. Aside from Mackenzie, we know little about even the most prominent men who figured in the rebellion. Fortunately, there are avenues yet to be explored which may yield more precise information. It is curious, as well, that in their search for a broad interpretation Canadian historians have remained relatively blind to an important implication of the rebellion which is significant. 1837 was a major turning point in our history since it seems to have marked the end of ideological clash. The value systems of the Family Compact and the Mackenzie rebels could not be reconciled in the contemporary political context. One rather unnoticed outcome of the rebellion was that not only were the rebels defeated, the Compact did not survive. Canadians, after this episode, gave up extreme opinions, and in the 1840s R. B. Sullivan and W. H. Merritt, former Tories, could find common ground with Robert Baldwin, the Reformer. A broad stream of opinion, seeking the middle way, has dominated our political life ever since. Extreme opinion has found no home except for third party movements which have been relatively ineffectual. Perhaps, after all, the early whigs were right. The rebellion was a necessary step, but just so it was unsuccessful. The shock of revolt changed the course of constitutional development. Its failure allowed that development to take place within the British tradition. Page revised: 22 May 2010Back to top of page
“Respiratory viral infections such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 have proven themselves to be a precursor to secondary bacterial infections—infections that can often be the real cause of mortality, as was the case during the Spanish influenza of 1918. A significant proportion of hospitalised COVID-19 patients to date have been treated with antibiotics. Between 30 to 90% of all antibiotics are excreted in its active form. There will be a sustained release of antibiotics into the wastewater from COVID-19 infected patients on top of tons of antibiotics already in use in the UK, as was seen during the 2009 influenza pandemic. The biofilms that line the sewage pipes, flocs and biofilms within wastewater treatment plants and the bacteria that are ubiquitous within our rivers are all at increased risk of growth inhibition, death or acquisition of antibiotic resistance from this surge in antibiotic use. The quantity of antibiotic used during the COVID-19 pandemic will likely far exceed the amount used during the 2009 influenza pandemic given the severity and length of the pandemic. The lasting environmental effect of this medical response will be in a potential reduction in wastewater treatment efficiency due to growth inhibition or death of keystone species within the wastewater treatment plants, and changes in community structure within environmental compartments (i.e., biofilms, microbiomes). The longer-term implications could be a further increase in the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment and future lives lost as a result of the interconnectedness of environmental AMR and human health (i.e., One Health). The rationale for supporting scientific efforts that preclude or greatly diminish the effects of catastrophic pandemics include vaccination, surveillance, and support for the infrastructure needed to respond to a pandemic. This critical infrastructure comprises scientists, vaccine development, and antibiotic and antiviral research and development. These keys to future success are perhaps, now, abundantly clear to citizens and governments alike. There is a need to keep this focus to build capacity, embrace new ways of innovation, and invest in science for the long-term. This pandemic will end, but as we found with influenza, the next pandemic might only be ten years away.” Andrew Singer, Senior Scientist, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Key to getting children to eat greens revealed…just give them a glass of water with their meal 07:17 GMT, 16 May 2012 Giving water to children with their meals helps encourage them to eat their greens, a study has revealed. Researchers claim children who drink more water make better food choices and have a healthier appetite for vegetables. A team from the University of Oregon in the U.S. looked at the drinks and vegetables consumed by 75 children aged three to five. Giving children water to drink with their meals encourages them to eat more vegetables and to make healthier life choices, new research has found. Posed by model The children ate more raw vegetables such as carrots or peppers, when they had water with a meal rather than if they had a soft drink. Study co-author Professor Bettina Cornwell said that from an early age children learn to associate sweet, high-calorie drinks such as colas with salty and fatty foods like chips. She said: 'Our taste preferences are heavily influenced by repeated exposure to particular foods and drinks. 'This begins early through exposure to meals served at home and by meal combinations offered by many restaurants. 'Our simple recommendation is to serve water with all meals. Restaurants easily could use water as their default drink in kids' meal combos and charge extra for other drink alternatives.' Going green: Research by the University of Oregon found children ate more carrots and peppers if they were drinking water at the same time The researchers said serving water could be a simple and effective dietary change to help address the nation's growing obesity problem, which has seen increasing number of diabetes cases in young adults and a rise in health-care costs in general. The study, published in the science journal Appetite, suggests that early palate development may influence choices later in life. Dr Kimberly Espy, head of research and innovation at the University of Oregon, said: 'This important research has broad ramifications for how foods are marketed and served. 'Addressing the early contributors of unhealthy eating that contribute to obesity is important for our general well-being as a nation and, especially, for improving the nutritional choices our children will make over their lifetimes.'
Throughout the twentieth century, the State Historical Society of North Dakota made a concerted effort to better care for the state's important historic sites. To do so, it acquired many properties of historic importance - former military posts, homes of important North Dakotans and significant government buildings. While many of us have visited some of those famous landmarks, such as Chateau de Mores, Fort Abercrombie or the Former Governor's Mansion, a number of the sites have escaped the notice of many North Dakotans: places such as Brenner Crossing, situated 19 miles southeast of Fort Totten in Eddy County. Located in some of North Dakota's most beautiful farm land, Brenner Crossing State Historic Site marks the location of an old crossing station ran by Ernest William Brenner. Born in Germany in 1844, Ernest Brenner spent little time in his native land. Like many other Germans in the mid-nineteenth century, Ernest's father hoped to make a better life for himself in America, and set sail with the family for Boston in 1848. Ernest stayed in Massachusetts for some time, working for two different Massachusetts governors. However the young man grew restless with life in the East and by 1868 he had made his way to Dakota Territory where he established himself as Fort Totten's post trader and married Mary Bottineau, the daughter of the famous North Dakotan guide and scout, Pierre Bottineau. In 1882 Brenner left the fort to try his hand as a farmer, settling just south of the Sheyenne River along the Fort Totten-Fort Seward trail. Located along a well-traveled trail, and near a shallow stretch of the river, Brenner started a river crossing service and established himself as a local postmaster. While perhaps a creative way to earn money, Ernest's personal post office venture was not a success, closing only a few years after it opened. Not to be deterred, Brenner and his family moved to the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation where he was appointed a government agent in charge of farming. While Ernest Brenner only lived at "Brenner Crossing" five years, the name became a permanent fixture, and about 75 years later, on this date in 1959, the State Historical Society acquired ‘Brenner Crossing:' keeping Ernest Brenner's name alive, well over a century after the postmaster at the little outpost along the Sheyenne passed away. Written by Lane Sunwall Snortland, J. Signe, ed. A Traveler's Companion to North Dakota State Historic Sites. Bismarck, ND: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 1996. "State Historical Society of North Dakota Strategic Long-Range Plan", State Historical Society of North Dakota http://www.nd.gov/hist/LRPlan.htm (accessed July 3, 2008).
About the Arctic Fox The arctic fox is an incredibly hardy animal that can survive frigid Arctic temperatures as low as –58°F in the treeless lands where it makes its home. It has furry soles, short ears, and a short muzzle—all-important adaptations to the chilly clime. Arctic foxes live in burrows, and in a blizzard they may tunnel into the snow to create shelter. Arctic foxes have beautiful white (sometimes blue-gray) coats that act as very effective winter camouflage. The natural hues allow the animal to blend into the tundra's ubiquitous snow and ice. When the seasons change, the fox's coat turns as well, adopting a brown or gray appearance that provides cover among the summer tundra's rocks and plants. These colorings help foxes to effectively hunt rodents, birds, and even fish. But in winter prey can be scarce on the ground. At such times, arctic foxes will follow the region's premier predator—a polar bear—to eat the leftover scraps from its kills. Foxes will also eat vegetables when they are available. Like a cat's, this fox's thick tail aids its balance. But for an arctic fox the tail (or “brush”) is especially useful as warm cover in cold weather. Female arctic foxes give birth each spring to a large litter of up to 14 pups.
Title: Effects of bark beetle-caused tree mortality on wildfire Author: Hicke, Jeffrey A; Johnson, Morris C.; Hayes, Jane L.; Preisler, Haiganoush K.; Source: Forest Ecology and Management. 271: 81–90 Publication Series: Scientific Journal (JRNL) Description: Millions of trees killed by bark beetles in western North America have raised concerns about subsequent wildfire, but studies have reported a range of conclusions, often seemingly contradictory, about effects on fuels and wildfire. In this study, we reviewed and synthesized the published literature on modifications to fuels and fire characteristics following beetle-caused tree mortality. We found 39 studies addressing this topic with a variety of methods including fuels measurements, fire behavior simulations, an experiment, and observations of fire occurrence, severity, or frequency. From these publications, we developed a conceptual framework describing expected changes of fuels and fire behavior. Some characteristics of fuels and fire are enhanced following outbreaks and others are unchanged or diminished, with time since outbreak a key factor influencing changes. We also quantified areas of higher and lower confidence in our framework based on the number of studies addressing a particular area as well as agreement among studies. The published literature agrees about responses in many conditions, including fuels measurements and changes in stands with longer times since outbreak, and so we assigned higher confidence to our conceptual framework for these conditions. Disagreement or gaps in knowledge exist in several conditions, particularly in early postoutbreak phases and crown fire behavior responses, leading to low confidence in our framework in these areas and highlighting the need for future research. Our findings resolved some of the controversy about effects of bark beetles on fire through more specificity about time since outbreak and fuels or fire characteristic. Recognition of the type of study question was also important in resolving controversy: some publications assessed whether beetle-caused tree mortality caused differences relative to unattacked locations, whereas other publications assessed differences relative to other drivers of wildfire such as climate. However, some disagreement among studies remained. Given the large areas of recent bark beetle and wildfire disturbances and expected effects of climate change, land and fire managers need more confidence in key areas when making decisions about treatments to reduce future fire hazard and when fighting fires. Keywords: wildfire, bark beetles, fire behavior, fuels, forest disturbances - We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information. - This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain. XML: View XML Hicke, Jeffrey A; Johnson, Morris C.; Hayes, Jane L.; Preisler, Haiganoush K. 2012. Effects of bark beetle-caused tree mortality on wildfire. Forest Ecology and Management. 271:81–90. Get the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat reader or Acrobat Reader for Windows with Search and Accessibility
Boosting self-esteem has little effect on academic performance or misbehavior (including substance abuse, sex and violence), researchers concluded after a two-year review of studies on the subject. However, people with high self-esteem are significantly happier than others. (scientificamerican.com, 12-20-04) The First Amendment guarantee of free speech and press is unappreciated by high school students, according to a $1 million survey of 112,003 students last spring. More than a third of respondents believed newspapers need government approval of their stories before they can be published, and only half said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval. The study was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which released the results in January. Kindergarten teacher censors child reading from Christian book. A Sacramento girl who was invited to bring two of her favorite books to share with the class chose a book containing moral precepts attributed to Jesus. The teacher interrupted the girl and told her she needed to read her other book because pupils weren't allowed to read books about God in class. In another case, a 9th-grade student assigned to write an essay on personal feelings about starting classes wrote of her anxiety and how God helped to calm her down. The instructor told the class she did not want any more "writing about religion." The Pacific Justice Institute assisted families of both students in educating school officials about the legality of religious expression by students. Phonics helps adults with dyslexia, too. Intensive phonics instruction actually modifies activity in reading-related parts of the brain in a way that fosters improved performance on reading tests, a team of neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC concluded last fall based on a brain-imaging study. Phonics techniques have been found to boost reading skills in children with dyslexia but hadn't previously been studied in adults with the condition. (Science News, 11-6-04)
Guest Author - Bonnie DeLong Studies show that parents identify their own children as gifted with great accuracy; sometimes with greater accuracy than a school can provide. So why can it be so challenging for parents to know how to advocate for their children in a school setting? Several factors can affect this. Following are some road blocks to advocacy and ways to get around them. Knowledge: One basic step on the road to advocating for your gifted child is to educate yourself. Many parents do not have a background in education and can feel ill at ease with educational “jargon” and academic settings. Therefore, researching such topics as social/emotional needs of gifted children, early identification, acceleration, differentiation and service options, can provide parents with confidence and credibility when approaching individuals who are working with their children. Find out all you can about how gifted children learn and how they should be educated in order to arm yourself with information that can be helpful to your child and to the school as well. Locating this information is often no more difficult than typing these topics into the search engine bar on your computer. There are also good websites specifically designed for supporting gifted children. The National Association of the Gifted is a great place to start, as is a search for your state’s local gifted association, if one exists. Technique: How you go about advocating is as important as what you know. It can be easy to fall into the emotional trap of being so passionate about getting your child a good education that you lose sight of maintaining a good working relationship with the school. While it is true that it is the school’s job to educate your child, being demanding or angry when approaching the school will likely not be terribly effective. Before your meeting, organize your information and even practice what you will say. Try to foresee potential stumbling blocks and attempt to have alternative ideas ready. If the school is not willing to let your child go to a different classroom to receive instruction at his or her level, be ready with ideas about how this could work. Showing a willingness to be flexible and provide ideas will go a long way toward establishing good rapport with the school. Perspective: Consider the school’s point of view. Schools today face so many battles, sometimes they feel as though they have to pick which ones they’ll fight. While it’s true that many school districts nationwide are facing financial difficulties, a compounding issue is that there is little to no federal funding available for gifted education at all. Each state is left to decide what they can afford and what is important. On top of this, teacher training programs do not adequately prepare teachers to work with the upper end of the students in their classrooms; many don’t even realize that this requires specialized training. Parents need to remember that advocating for their children is a process. Establish a good relationship with the school and educate yourself about giftedness, then be persistent. You will not get things changed overnight. Even small changes are helpful and sometimes, you will just have to compromise. Without parents making their voices heard about providing for the needs of their gifted kids, this group will continue to be overlooked with the assumption that they’ll be just fine because they’re “so smart”. Advocate without being angry, be persistent without being pushy and be patient! True change comes with time and is usually worth the wait.
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition - adj. Providing physical comfort: a comfortable chair. - adj. Free from stress or anxiety; at ease: not comfortable about the interview. - adj. Producing feelings of ease or security: a comfortable person; a comfortable evening at home. - adj. Sufficient to provide financial security: comfortable earnings. from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License - n. A stuffed or quilted coverlet for a bed; a comforter. from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English - adj. Strong; vigorous; valiant. - adj. Serviceable; helpful. - adj. Affording or imparting comfort or consolation; able to comfort; cheering. - adj. In a condition of comfort; having comforts; not suffering or anxious; hence, contented; cheerful. - adj. Free, or comparatively free, from pain or distress; -- used of a sick person. - n. A stuffed or quilted coverlet for a bed; a comforter; a comfort. from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia - Being in a state of ease or moderate enjoyment, as after sickness or pain; enjoying contentment and ease or repose. - Cheerful; disposed to enjoyment. - Attended with or producing comfort; free from or not causing disquiet of body or mind: as, to be in comfortable circumstances. - Giving comfort; cheering; affording help, ease, or consolation; serviceable. - Of things. - Synonyms Pleasant, agreeable, grateful. - n. A thickly wadded and quilted bedcover. Also comfort and comforter. from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. - adj. free from stress or conducive to mental ease; having or affording peace of mind - adj. more than adequate - adj. providing or experiencing physical well-being or relief (`comfy' is informal) - adj. in fortunate circumstances financially; moderately rich - adj. sufficient to provide comfort (for the general had chosen them) that they were each and all of them in their way comfortable, in the full English spirit of the word, and according to the French explanation of _comfortable_, given to us by the Duchess d'Abrantes, _convenablement bon_; but in compassion to Mr. Churchill's fastidious restlessness, she would now show him a perfection of But that said, yes, for some people consuming porn can be totally unproductive, and the only way to remain comfortable is to forego it. I take my stand, therefore, upon this incontestable fact, that the man of leisure becomes daily more reluctant to undergo fatigue, that he eagerly seeks for what he calls the comfortable, that is to say for every means of sparing himself the play and the waste of the organs. Due to the many hassles of modern air travel, my wife and I fly as absolutely little as we can but when we do fly we use Southwest Airlines whose coach seats are a bit more comfortable than other airlines we've flown using the word comfortable loosely. Crocker earns what he describes as a "comfortable" living from his cut of YouTube profits through their Partnership Programme. As the philosopher was well aware, there also existed what he referred to as the comfortable habits of mind by which women were regarded as second-class citizens. McAndrew: I had what you call a comfortable fastball that was live when I kept it down. The South African Government said yesterday that when Mr. Mandela is fully recovered from TB he would be moved to what it called comfortable, secure accommodation where he would be able to see his family more freely. It is evident that, as society is constituted, man is the working and woman, generally, the ornamental portion, of it, at least in those classes to which Providence or society has given what we call comfortable circumstances. "Ah, that 's what I call comfortable!" said he, lying back in his chair.
Here is some of the lovely art we have been working on over the past few months. This month we have been learning all about Space. We learned all about the different planets and about the First Moon Landing. We have travelled to different planets, met aliens and even become astronauts! We made some rockets in Science this week. We decorated our rockets and then stuck a fat straw on the back. We stuck a thin straw into the fat one and blew air into them. The pressure of the air building up made the rocket fly through the air. We discovered that if we blew hard they would fly further then if we blew gently into the straws. We then had some races with them. We were doing directions in maths. We used a Bee Bot. A Beebot is a little robot that you can programme. We had to give each other directions to reach different areas on the map. We had to programme the correct directions into the Bee Bot to make sure it reached its destination. We had great fun. Ms Hargadon, Infant Teacher
Police Dispatchers monitor and respond to service and information requests from the public, evaluate service needs and dispatch appropriate units, and enter data into a computer-aided dispatch system. Active Listening Skills Dispatchers perform a vital function within the Police Department and require skills and abilities that are unique. At all times, they must have the ability to be calm when talking to emotionally upset or irate individuals or when confronted with life and death situations. Dispatchers must listen carefully, simultaneously distinguishing between, and monitoring, multiple radio transmissions and telephone conversations. They also must have the ability to remember past calls and events and relay correct information to officers in the field. Working under pressure, Dispatchers must exercise good judgment and make sound decisions in highly charged emergency situations. Knowledge of Broadcasting Procedures Dispatchers must also have a basic knowledge of standard radio broadcasting procedures and rules, the policies and procedures of the Arizona Criminal Justice Information System/ National Crime Information Center computer system and locations of street, parks, major landmarks and the city limits.
If people were meant to see 3D movies they would have been born with two eyes. -Apocryphally attributed to Sam Goldwyn Stereoscopic 3D is here to stay. Studios and manufacturers are pushing more shows and fancier tech. While digital workflows, impossible in the early days, mean a better experience for the viewer without the headaches of poorly balanced S3D. The basic principles of S3D are covered in depth elsewhere online. In brief the basic terms are: S3D not 3D Now when I say I’m a 3D artist I have to be careful. 3D means different things to different people. - 3D means I make virtual models of things in a 3D computer graphics package (3dsMax etc). - S3D Stereoscopic 3D vision (I’m wearing silly glasses ). My site is mostly dedicated to CG models and animation. So when I talk about Stereo Vision i’ll always say S3D. Interocular (io) distance The separation between our human eyes is called the Interocular distance. As a rule of thumb this distance is 65mm. Interaxial (ia) distance Interaxial (ia) distance is the separation of the stereo camera pair. ia should vary shot to shot and changes our impression of scale. Convergence (cv) distance Each camera’s center line crosses at the convergence point. This also place the viewing plane. The Depth Budget Each shot has a maximum amount of usable depth within which to create effective 3D. The maximum deviation on screen is a measurement of Parallax. It limits what is safe for the viewer. Avoids eye strain, and in turn headaches and sickness. Too much deviation must be avoided, especially positive Parallax which could (depending upon screen size and seating position) cause our eyes to diverge. It is possible to ‘break the rules’. But not, continuously or, by large amounts for long periods. Guides for TV (as defined by Sky): - Positive Parallax (appears behind the viewing plane): +2% - Negative Parallax (appears in front of the viewing plane): -1% - Total Parallax: 3% The illusion of stereoscopic vision. It’s important to note that the illusion of S3D created on the screen is not the same as our perception of depth in real life. Our eyes have a fixed FOV. Cameras do not. We have brains designed to fill in the gaps. Cameras do not. Interaxial (ia) and Convergence (cv) distances should vary shot to shot. There is no ‘real life’ value to dictate Interaxial distance. Especially when close ups may place someones head 10 foot high on the cinema screen. Fixing Interaxial distance is hugely restrictive, and ia should in fact vary shot to shot. Setting ia and cv is a creative decision to support the story. Together they define the scale of the viewer and the scene. We can view the shot as gods or insects it’s upto the DOP and the director to decide. 1/30th rule of thumb Interaxial distance will generally be around 1/30th of the distance to the convergence point. So if your converging 30m away then the camera pair should be 1m apart. When shooting native S3D we’d ideally need two camera rigs: - A mirror rig. For action close to the camera. ( where ia is less the width of the camera ) - A side by side rig. For action far from the camera Shooting Native S3D Our workflow for shooting native S3D This would mean that the cameras are literally parallel. But it’s suggested the cameras are toed in slightly and made to converge on the furthest point in the scene. Shooting parallel means the convergence point will be set in post. This is done by simply repositioning the plates. - The plate for the Left eye slides Right - The plate for the Right eye sides Left As the plates are transformed in this way the convergence point moves closer to the viewer. Shoot wider (more pixels) than your final frame format. Unless the images are oversized. Sliding the plates left and right will of course create black bars at the edge of frame. Shooting overscanned plates saves a lot time in post painting over black at the edge of frame. Be careful of issues that Flatten S3D General the idea is to preserve detail in the image, and pay attention to 2D and S3D depth cues. - Use a Long depth of field. Blurring reduces detail and flattens the S3D - Use Wider lenses than 2D photography. - Use light to create points of interest at different depths in the scene. S3D Post production workflow This is an outline of our workflow for a native S3D show. At Lexhag the depth grade is done on the fabulous Mistika. - Fix colour. Match histograms in each eye. - Fix rotation, position, and scale in each eye. - Establish whether the shot needs complex and costly fixes. 2. Pre DepthGrade. Roughly set the depth of each shot using simple position and scale transforms. If the cameras were set parallel this is absolutely necessary otherwise the entire shot will be in front of the viewing plane destroying the sense of S3D. 2a. Setting the convergence point (cv) The convergence point is set by a simple translation of the left and right eye. 2b. Setting the Interaxial distance (ia). If the Depth volume needs changing, a new camera position must be generated for each eye. This requires each plate to be warped to reflect a new Interaxial distance. The team must decide whether this is best done with a depth based warp, or a warp based on a disparity map ( see the dimension tools in the fusion studio manual ) But sometimes the only choice is a painstaking handcrafted re-projection in Nuke, Fusion, pfDepth etc If the shot is going to VFX then the changes required to create a new interaxial distance MUST be baked into each plate. DVE transform information is easy to pass around but per pixel changes are not. Camera tracking is going to be nasty with warped plates. If a camera track is needed then changes in ia MUST be done by the VFX team. 3. Pre Colour Grade. This sets the look for each shot. This will be passed to VFX as a LUT file. Compositors need to see each shot in S3D. In principle they’ll see the final look of the show on their monitor. We wish for data degradation to be kept to a minimum as images are passed from the Mistika to VFX and back again. Some optical flow operations such as calculating motion vectors and zDepth are computationally expensive. This data should be cached in RAM, or pre-rendered into .exr files. Continuously calculating this data obstructively slows down our workflow. 4a. Dealing with Colour fixes and Colour Grades. We have a Linear workflow using a LUT file from a colour grade. But now we have several colour transforms to manage, to balance each eye, and create the look of the show. It seems simplest to bake colour fixes ( matching the left and right eye ) into the plates, and pass colour grades as LUT files. With more automation all colour fixes could managed as data with baking anything into the plate before the final grade. 4b. DVE export and import Ideally DVE’s should be exported from the Mistika as Data to be imported as equivalent DVE nodes in Nuke or Fusion. We would like DVE data saved the metadata of each frame. SGO has offered to help us develop this tech. I can develop loader scripts for FUSION, but I may need help to create loader scripts to import DVE info into NUKE. 5.Final Depth Grade and Colour Grade When VFX has completed their slate there will be a final depth and colour grade before the show is delivered. I’m not sure if there is an ideal solution for viewing S3D images. As usual it will be a trade off between cash and quality. Active Monitors (shuttered glasses) Most Nvidea cards support S3D. Shuttered glasses also require a 3D vision ready monitor with a 120Hz refresh rate. Polarised light means cheap glasses without active shutters. However the downside is that images can be half as bright and at half resolution. Anaglyph is kinda old skool but works well to give a sense of depth without forking out for a 3D monitor and shuttered glasses. I carry a few cardboard glasses with me if I’m working away from my office. It takes a while for our eyes to adjust but eventually our brains compensate for the hue shift in each eye. However this means that we have to be careful about our colour perception. Before doing colour corrections remove the glasses and give your eyes time to settle back to normal.
What level of government is Health Canada? Health Canada is the Federal department responsible for helping Canadians maintain and improve their health, while respecting individual choices and circumstances. Is Health Canada the same as Public Health Agency of Canada? The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is part of Canada’s Health Portfolio, which includes Health Canada, and the two organizations collaborate closely. Is Health Canada a ministry? The current minister is Jean-Yves Duclos. The minister of health is responsible for maintaining and improving the health of Canadians. The minister is responsible for the Health Portfolio, which comprises: Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Minister of Health (Canada) \|Minister of Health\| What is the government doing about healthcare? The federal and state governments provide further support for the health care sector through tax policy, including the exclusion of employers’ contributions to group health insurance from taxable income for employees, granting of tax exempt status to many health care institutions, and individual tax deductions for … Is Canada part of the World health Organization? Canada’s support for the World Health Organization Canada works closely with WHO to reduce global diseases such as polio, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and to improve the health and rights of women and children, including nutrition. Can non citizens get healthcare in Canada? If you’re a foreigner visiting Canada, you must be wondering if you have access to its healthcare system. Canada is well known for its free universal healthcare. … So to answer your question, the short answer is yes, foreigners can get healthcare in Canada. Is public health a government responsibility? Public health is one of the greatest things in which a government can invest. … Public health promotes the welfare of the entire population, ensures its security and protects it from the spread of infectious disease and environmental hazards, and helps to ensure access to safe and quality care to benefit the population. What is the role of the Public Health Agency of Canada? The Public Health Agency of Canada is part of the federal health portfolio. Its activities focus on preventing disease and injuries, responding to public health threats, promoting good physical and mental health, and providing information to support informed decision making.
Making Sense of Madness Contesting the Meaning of Schizophrenia The experience of madness – which might also be referred to more formally as ‘schizophrenia’ or ‘psychosis’ – consists of a complex, confusing and often distressing collection of experiences, such as hearing voices or developing unusual, seemingly unfounded beliefs. Madness, in its various forms and guises, seems to be a ubiquitous feature of being human, yet our ability to make sense of madness, and our knowledge of how to help those who are so troubled, is limited. Making Sense of Madness explores the subjective experiences of madness. Using clients' stories and verbatim descriptions, it argues that the experience of 'madness' is an integral part of what it is to be human, and that greater focus on subjective experiences can contribute to professional understandings and ways of helping those who might be troubled by these experiences. Areas of discussion include: - how people who experience psychosis make sense of it themselves - scientific/professional understandings of ‘madness' - what the public thinks about ‘schizophrenia’ Making Sense of Madness will be essential reading for all mental health professionals as well as being of great interest to people who experience psychosis and their families and friends. 208 pages; ISBN 9781134043361 , or download in or Title: Making Sense of Madness Author: Jim Geekie; John Read - Academic > Health Sciences > Internal medicine > Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry > Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system > Psychiatry > Psychopathology > Psychoses - Academic > Health Sciences > Internal medicine > Psychosomatic medicine - Medicine > Psychiatry - Psychology & Psychiatry > Psychotherapy - Psychology & Psychiatry > Clinical Psychology - Psychology & Psychiatry > Psychopathology
I would like to know what some of the symptoms of a hernia are. A hernia is defined as 'the protrusion of an internal organ through a weakness in the muscle around it'. The weakness in question may be present at birth or acquired later in life. Common examples include: - inguinal hernia and femoral hernia, both involving the groin area - incisional hernia, involving muscles at the site of a previous operation - periumbilical hernia, which develops around the navel The common sign is that of a lump or swelling that usually returns to normal with gentle pressure or on lying down. Sometimes, mild discomfort or pain can occur in the region of the lump, as can swelling of the scrotum, with or without pain. If the pain is severe and associated with fever or vomiting, this may indicate that the hernia has lost its blood supply and become 'strangulated'. This represents a medical emergency requiring immediate attention. A hernia is usually treated surgically to repair the opening caused by the weakened muscle or tissue. The NetDoctor Medical Team Other Qs & As
Collecting for Fun . . . and Profit? Glossary terms from: One of many choices or courses of action that might be taken in a given situation. Decision made or course of action taken when faced with a set of alternatives. Government-issued pieces of metal that have value and are used as money. The quantity of a good or service that buyers are willing and able to buy at all possible prices during a period of time. Payments earned by households for selling or renting their productive resources. May include salaries, wages, interest and dividends. Money paid regularly, at a particular rate, for the use of borrowed money. The process of putting money someplace with the intention of making a financial gain. Investment possibilities include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, and other financial instruments or ventures. The purchase of capital goods (including machinery, technology or new buildings) that are used to produce goods and services. In personal finance, the amount of money invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other investment instruments. The additional income earned from saving or investing money, often expressed as an annual percentage of the amount invested. The ease with which savings or investments can be turned into cash. Market Price Risk The chance that the value of an investment will go down because of a change in supply and demand. Anything that is generally accepted as final payment for goods and services; serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value and a standard of value. Characteristics of money are portability, stability in value, uniformity, durability and acceptance. The fee paid for insurance protection. The amount of money that people pay when they buy a good or service; the amount they receive when they sell a good or service. Income received for entrepreneurial skills and risk taking, calculated by subtracting all of a firm's explicit and implicit costs from its total revenues. Property such as land, houses and office buildings. The basic kinds of resources used to produce goods and services: land or natural resources, human resources (including labor and entrepreneurship), and capital. Earnings from an investment, usually expressed as an annual percentage. The chance of losing money. An exchange of goods or services for money. The condition that exists because human wants exceed the capacity of available resources to satisfy those wants; also a situation in which a resource has more than one valuable use. The problem of scarcity faces all individuals and organizations, including firms and government agencies. The amount of a good or service that producers are willing and able to offer for sale at each possible price during a given period of time. The exchange of goods and services for money or other goods and services. Desires that can be satisfied by consuming or using a good or service. Economists do not differentiate between wants and needs.
We are very proud of how our Activism in Adoption speaker series has grown into a catalyst for having hard but honest conversations rooted in the intersection of race and adoption, and for the education it has provided for everyone in attendance. In honor of President Biden signing the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act this week, and given recent Harris Poll results indicating that nearly half of Americans are either not very or not at all aware of the significance of Juneteenth, we have curated some helpful Juneteenth resources for parents who have adopted transracially. If this is your first Juneteenth, consider recognizing it in a way that honors the history of the holiday. The image here is the official handwritten record of General Order No. 3, is preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. General Order No. 3 states: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” Slavery Didn't End On Juneteenth. Here's What You Should Know About This Important Day, by Sharon Pruitt-Young. If Juneteenth wasn't part of the Social Studies curriculum when you were in school, this is an excellent place to start, laying out the basic facts about the significance of this date. Juneteenth Challenges A Narrative About America’s History, by Alex Samuels, talks about how Juneteenth is being drawn into greater culture wars surrounding the current attempts to ban critical race theory from education. Here's What You Need to Know About the Juneteenth Flag, by Duncan Nielsen. The flag was first hoisted in 2000 at the Roxbury Heritage State Park in Boston, Massachusetts, by the foundation’s founder Ben Haith, who also created its design. Teach Your Kids About Juneteenth. This is an excellent basic primer for parents. Eight Great Books To Teach Kids About Juneteenth, by Petal Modeste. Books here run from ages 5-14+. 18 Books To Celebrate Juneteenth With, by Keyaira Boone. Her excellent curated list of books shed light on the history of Juneteenth through research and personal narratives, the racist systems erected in the aftermath of abolition and some of the art the holiday inspired. 68 Recipes From Black Creators to Celebrate Juneteenth, by Meiko and The Dish. This link is an excellent two-fer! Not only does every recipe on this list sound incredible, but you also get a curated list of 68 Black influencers and creators to follow. Songs For Freedom: A Juneteenth Playlist, curated by Pianist Lara Downes. Click through to Spotify for the full list, but first, check out the photogallery that accompanies these songs. The photographs are from the Scurlock Studio, the Black-owned Washington D.C. based photography business founded by Addison Scurlock in 1904. For almost a century, the Scurlock Studio utilized their cameras and their access to document the Black community in all its many facets; presenting a nuanced view of Black culture in 20th century Washington. NPR Special Series on Juneteenth. Here, you can learn about Miss Opal Lee, see the original copy of General Order No. 3, find book lists, and learn a little more history surrounding this holiday, and how it came to be. This is a small start, of course, and we always welcome suggestions for great links and resources.
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in March 2011. It has been updated.—Ed. Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945, the Gnostic view of early Christianity had largely been forgotten. The teachings of Gnostic Christianity—vilified especially since they were declared heretic by orthodox Christianity in the fourth century—had been virtually erased from history by the early church fathers, their gospels banned and even burned to make room for the view of Christian theology outlined in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But when two peasants discovered the Nag Hammadi texts, a 13-volume library of Coptic texts hidden beneath a large boulder near the town of Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt, the world was reintroduced to this long-forgotten and much-maligned branch of early Christian thought, Gnostic Christianity, from the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge.” The Nag Hammadi codices are 13 leather-bound volumes dated to the mid-fourth century that contain an unprecedented collection of more than 50 texts, including some that had been composed as early as the second century. Our free eBook Ten Top Biblical Archaeology Discoveries brings together the exciting worlds of archaeology and the Bible! Learn the fascinating insights gained from artifacts and ruins, like the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, where the Gospel of John says Jesus miraculously restored the sight of the blind man, and the Tel Dan inscription—the first historical evidence of King David outside the Bible. Once the Nag Hammadi codices had been translated and published by a team of scholars led by Claremont Graduate University’s James M. Robinson, the documents showed that Gnostic Christianity was not the depraved cult described by orthodox Christian writers but rather a legitimate religious movement that offered an alternate testament to Jesus’ life and teachings. The Nag Hammadi texts, which represent a range of attitudes and beliefs in Gnostic Christianity and include everything from competing gospels to apocalyptic revelations, all assert the primacy of spiritual and intellectual knowledge over physical action and material well-being. The Apocryphon of John, for example, is the most important tractate of classic Sethian Gnosticism. In it the risen Jesus reveals to John, son of Zebedee, the truth of creation.According to this Gnostic myth, the God of the Hebrew Bible is actually a corrupted lower deity. Only through the intervention of Sophia (Wisdom) can gnosis be revealed and salvation attained. Thus, while adherents of Gnostic Christianity certainly acknowledged the role of Jesus in their faith, their theology placed greater significance on the intellectual revelation of his message than on his crucifixion and resurrection. Also among the Nag Hammadi texts was the fully preserved Gospel of Thomas, which does not follow the canonical Gospels in telling the story of Jesus’ birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection, but rather presents the reader with an early collection of Jesus’ sayings. Although this mystical text was originally believed to one of the early texts of Gnosticism, it now seems to reveal yet another strand of early Christianity. From a historical perspective, the Nag Hammadi codices provide a clearer picture of the diverse theological and philosophical currents that found expression through early Christianity. Indeed, Gnosticism and its classically inspired philosophical ideals permeated not just early Christian thought but also the Jewish and pagan traditions from which Christianity arose. The Nag Hammadi codices, widely regarded as one of the most significant finds of the 20th century, revealed this complex religious milieu and offered an unparalleled glimpse into alternative visions of early Christianity. Based on “Issue 200: Ten Top Discoveries,” Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August September/October 2009. The apocryphal Acts of John describe the dance of Jesus and the apostles. How widespread was the ritual of dance in Christian worship? Read “Jesus as Lord of the Dance: From early Christianity to medieval Nubia” in Bible History Daily.
Visual StudioIf this is the first time you have run VS, you will be presented with a list of preferences intended for users who have experience with previous releases of this development environment. The choices you make here affect a number of things, such as the layout of windows, the way that console windows run, and so on. Therefore, choose Visual C# Development Settings; otherwise, you may find that things don’t quite work as described. The main window, which contains a helpful Start Page by default when VS is started, is where all your code is displayed. This window can contain many documents, each indicated by a tab, so you can easily switch between several files by clicking their file names. It also has other functions: It can display GUIs that you are designing for your projects, plain-text files, HTML, and various tools that are built into Visual Studio. Above the main window are toolbar and the VS menu. Here are brief descriptions of each of the main features that you will use the most: - The Toolbox toolbar pops up when the mouse moves over it. It provides access to, among other things, the user interface building blocks for Windows applications. - The Solution Explorer window displays information about the currently loaded solution. - Properties window, not shown in Figure because it appears only when you are working on a project. - Also not shown in the screenshot is another extremely important window: the Error List window It shows errors, warnings, and other project-related information. CONSOLE APPLICATIONS1.Create a new console application project by selecting File ? New ? Project 2.Choose the Console Application project type,in the Name text box enter "HelloWorld" 3.Click the OK button. static void Main(string args) Press Ctrl+F5 to Run Your App. Source CodeA program consists of source code that you type into a file. You compile thesource code file into IL (Microsoft Intermediate Language).You run your program and the CLR turns the IL into executable code. This is known as Just In Time compiling. The compiled code is then cached in memory. This program illustrates many concepts in C# programming. Let’s take it apart, piece-by-piece. The first three lines begin with the keyword using. The keyword using tells Visual C# Express you want to use the functionality defined in the reference after the using keyword. Namespace keyword is used to declare a scope. It could contain one or more classes. A class is an abstraction describing the common features of all objects in a group of similar objects. For example, a class called Student could be created to describe all Student characteristics. This means each and every Student object will have name,student Id,birth date,address ,...... A method is a function owned by your class.The member methods define what your class can do or how it behaves. For example, a class called "Human" some of his behaviors or functions will be : walk , eat , drink , ....... Every Method have a signature 1.it's the entry point of your program 2.There is only one entry point in the C# program 3.It must be static 4.It could either have return type or not(void) 5.It could declared with or without parameters CommentsC# supports three styles of comments: • multiple lines /* */ • Single line // • XML documentation comments ///
Web scraping is the process of loading and extracting large amounts of data from the pages of websites in an automated fashion and saving the data available on the websites to a file on your computer or database. Scraping can be used for legitimate business purposes, such as use by price comparison sites and market research companies, and for illegitimate purposes, like copyright theft and price undercutting, which can cause the targeted site to suffer financial losses. Website operators have asserted various civil claims against “web scrapers” (or “scrapers”) including copyright claims, trespass to chattels claims, contract claims, and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA") claims. This blog post will focus on claims under the CFAA. The CFAA was originally intended as an anti-hacking statute, so its application to scraping—which usually involves accessing publicly-available data on a publicly-available website—is not always intuitive. Congress passed the CFAA in 1986 to criminalize and counteract computer hacking. Section 1030(c) catalogs the criminal penalties for committing these offenses, which range from fines to imprisonment for 20 years to life. In 1994, Congress expanded the act to also permit civil actions for victims of crimes prohibited by the act. The CFAA protects computers in which there is a federal interest—federal computers, bank computers, and computers used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce. The statute shields these types of computers from trespass, damage, and being used as instruments of espionage or fraud. Plaintiffs asserting CFAA claims against scrapers usually allege a violation of subsection 1030(a)(2). This subsection prohibits accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding authorization, resulting in exposure to protected computer-housed information. The determinative question in assessing the viability of a CFAA claim for scraping is -- Did the scraper access the website without authorization or exceeding authorization? In deciding the issue of authorization, courts often rely upon whether the website gave users sufficient notice that access was not authorized. For example, courts have found that a CFAA claim may exist for scraping where the website took security measures to limit access, such as by requiring a password, and the users bypassed those measures in accessing the website. Similarly, courts have found a valid claim may exist where the website took affirmative steps to prevent a user’s access (for example, by blocking a user’s IP address or sending a user to cease and desist letters) once it discovered a user’s scraping activities, and the user continued scraping. In contrast, courts have dismissed CFAA claims against scrapers where the website and information were publicly available and did not require any login, password, or other individualized grants of access. For example, in United States v. Nosal, the Ninth Circuit held that access without authorization under the CFAA “does not extend to violations of use restrictions,” but concerns “hacking—the circumvention of technological access barriers.” In reaching its decision, the court emphasized the legislative history of the CFAA, noting that it was enacted primarily to address the growing problem of computer hacking. The court stated that applying the CFAA to use violations would “transform the CFAA from an anti-hacking statute into an expansive misappropriation statute.” The court also noted the absurd results that would follow from potentially criminalizing violations of website use restrictions, which, the court noted, nearly everyone who uses a computer is guilty of. If you have any questions about data scraping, contact email@example.com. Written by Stephanie Kostiuk - Founder, OpenDoor GC
Canada is a constitutional monarchy. This means: the Queen or King of Canada is the head of state. the Prime Minister is the head of government. Who actually governs Canada? Formally, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. The titular head is the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom (locally called the king or queen of Canada), who is represented locally by a governor-general (now always Canadian and appointed by the Canadian prime minister). Who has control over Canada? Monarchy of Canada \|Queen of Canada\| \|Elizabeth II since 6 February 1952\| \|Heir apparent\|\|Charles, Prince of Wales\| Is Canada under British rule? In 1982, it adopted its own constitution and became a completely independent country. Although it’s still part of the British Commonwealth—a constitutional monarchy that accepts the British monarch as its own. Elizabeth II is Queen of Canada. Does the queen rule Canada? As in all her realms, The Queen of Canada is a constitutional monarch, acting entirely on the advice of Canadian Government ministers. … The Queen personifies the state and is the personal symbol of allegiance, unity and authority for all Canadians. Who is the king of Canada? Formally, Queen Elizabeth II is described as being Canada’s head of state — a symbolic figure of political authority — but the prime minister is called the head of government — the actual ruler of the country. Do Canadian provinces have governors? Each of the ten Canadian provinces has a Lieutenant Governor. He or she is appointed by the Governor General, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, usually for a period of five years. … Providing Royal Assent to provincial bills. Why is Canada a dominion? The term dominion was chosen to indicate Canada’s status as a self-governing polity of the British Empire, the first time it was used in reference to a country. While the BNA Act eventually resulted in Canada having more autonomy than it had before, it was far from full independence from the United Kingdom. Is Canada politically stable? Canada ranks second for its perceived political stability, in addition to earning the No. 1 spot in the overall Best Countries rankings in 2021. The country, headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, also ranked first for quality of life, social purpose and its perceived commitment to social justice. Which party is in power in Canada? Five parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2021 election: the Liberal Party who currently form the government, the Conservative Party who are the Official Opposition, the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party of Canada. Why is Canada separate from USA? Is Canada Part of the US ? The answer lies in why Canada is not a part of the United States, lies in history — back to the Treaty of Paris signed on 3 September 1783 in Paris between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States of America that formally ended the American Revolution. Did Canada fight for independence? In other words, they were actual battles for independence. Only Canada claims to have achieved independence from its colonial master by fighting for that colonial power on European soil. … But few of those who fought at Vimy Ridge were motivated by a desire for Canadian independence. Is Australia owned by England? No. Australia has never been part of the United Kingdom. It was part of the British Empire, but it became mostly independent in 1931 (with the final constitutional ties being cut in 1986). It is part of the Commonwealth, but that’s a voluntary club.
Brain-to-Brain Interface – University of Washington Sharing thoughts through the connecting of two brain may not be too far off. Recently, University of Washington researchers Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco successfully performed what is believed to be the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface in history. Rao sent a brain signal to Stocco, who was sitting at the opposite side of the University of Washington campus, which caused Stocco to involuntarily hit the spacebar of a computer stationed in front of him. Both were hooked up to a form of magnetic stimulation, and the experiment used electrical brain recordings. Rao and Stocco plan to continue research. Stocco believes this technology could be used to help people who do not speak the same language communicate or even allow a person with disabilities to communicate his or her needs. Brain-to-Brain Interface – University of Washington With Earth’s population at a whopping 7.1 billion, resource consumption is a serious concern among the academic community. The ever-increasing demand for goods has pressured manufacturers to employ new techniques to increase production and minimize costs. Experts of all disciplines located all across the world are answering this call, with each bringing their specialties to the table. Colorado School of Mines, widely known for its contributions to the study of renewable energies, is now home to a new project. A stimulating interview, with Dr. Nanette Boyle, revealed groundwork details of this research proposal. Based in the field of synthetic biology, Dr. Boyle hopes to take advantage of cyanobacteria for the production of fuels and pharmaceuticals. Two researchers and their pilot were rescued from an Alaskan volcano after their helicopter’s blades were covered in ice, stranding them near the volcano for more than two days. Asked about how they spent the two days pilot Sam Egli said, “We just yakked.” The researchers were working on recovering some short-term volcano monitoring equipment. Due to the freezing ice storm they were unable to produce lift and the weather didn’t clear up after that. Luckily a rescue helicopter airlifted them to safety on Friday leaving the iced chopped on Mount Mageik. Career day is fast approaching. For freshmen, that means just trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, for sophomores and juniors it means research and hard work into getting that internship of a lifetime, and for seniors it is the day that leads to the job all of this hard work is for. The Career Center here at Mines provides plenty of resources for students, no matter what their goals at career fair are. Among the publications, appointments, and info sessions are workshops. Workshops are one of the easiest and fastest ways to get informed and updated on career fair etiquette, proper interview attire, and the all-important resume. Just one week before career day, Fast Enterprises of Tulsa, Oklahoma gave an informative presentation entitled, “Finding the Right Job for You.” The Blue Knight Group is a non-profit organization dedicated to finding a use for beetle kill. Richard Dziomba, a planning commissioner for Summit County started the Blue Knight Group four years ago when trying to determine what to do with a landfill that had been filled to the brim with waste from beetle kill. It was proposed that the firing range used by the sheriff department and local police forces be used to create more room for the dead trees. Of course this would be only a temporary solution. Dziomba told the Oredigger, “So the deal was the landfill simply could not except any more wood private or public. Summit county is two-thirds wooded. How do you create fire breaks? How do you let homeowners clear the land?” He continued to say that burning excess wood has been banned in a state moratorium after a forest fire was started by forest service trying to reduce fire hazard by removing excess trees. “So needless to say, all of us commissioners are not really thrilled about burning,” said Dziomba. “You know it’s dry, and what happens if it gets out of control?” Flashy, sometimes aggressive advertisements bombard web-goers when they visit sites like Facebook, Hulu and even the Wall Street Journal, but how do companies know if their ads are effective? What does effective even mean in the context of online advertisement? With the start of school, young first-year students recently packed for the year ahead. They were extra careful to pack their toothbrush, their comfiest pillows, the ten pound rock from down the road, and the number for Ghostbusters. Well, when there is something strange in your neighborhood who else are you gonna call? While Mines does not have friendly ghosts to roam the houses of students like everyone’s favorite School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, reports from on-campus residents point to a possible ghost in some of the dorms. There are two words sure to elicit a special kind of fear in astronomers: light pollution. While weather and other natural phenomena have cut short the star gazing dreams of many astronomers, both amateur and professional, these deterrents are passing. Light pollution on the other hand is much more permanent. At the dawn of civilization, stars peppered the skies in a way that is hard to imagine outside of places like Death Valley and the heart of Africa. To our ancestors on the plains of Africa, stellar features were more than prevalent. On nights where the moon wasn’t flooding the skies with its ethereal light, the Milky Way served as a backbone to the night and stellar clouds that we can only see today with long exposure shots served as a haunting miasma to the imaginations of our past.
Title: Characterizing fuels in the 21st century. Author: Sandberg, David V.; Ottmar, Roger D.; Cushon, Geoffrey H.; Source: International Journal of Wildland Fire. 10: 381-387 Publication Series: Miscellaneous Publication Description: The ongoing development of sophisticated fire behavior and effects models has demonstrated the need for a comprehensive system of fuel classification that more accurately captures the structural complexity and geographic diversity of fuelbeds. The Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team (FERA) of the USD Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, is developing a national system of fuel characteristic classification (FCC). The system is designed to accommodate researchers and managers operating at a variety of scales, and who have access to a variety of kinds of input data. Users can generate fuel characteristics by accessing existing fuelbed descriptions (fuelbed prototypes) using generic information such as cover type or vegetation form. Fuelbed prototypes will provide the best available predictions of the kind, quality and abundance of fuels. Users can accept these default settings or modify some or all of them using more detailed information about vegetation structure and fuel biomass. When the user has completed editing the fuelbed data, the FCC system calculates or infers quantitative fuel characteristics (physical, chemical, and structural properties) and probable fire parameters specific to that fuelbed. Each user-described fuelbed is also assigned to one of approximately 192 stylized fuel characteristic classes. Keywords: fire, fuel classification, fuel models, fuel characteristics, FCC, fire management, fire modeling, fire behavior, fire effects, United States, Alaska - We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information. - This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain. - You may send email to firstname.lastname@example.org to request a hard copy of this publication. (Please specify exactly which publication you are requesting and your mailing address.) XML: View XML Sandberg, David, V.; Ottmar, Roger D.; Cushon, Geoffrey H. 2001. Characterizing fuels in the 21st century. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 10: 381-387 Get the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat reader or Acrobat Reader for Windows with Search and Accessibility
The botanical name of garlic is Allium sativum. It belongs to family Liliaceae or Alliaceae. This medicinal herb needs no introduction as we all know it very well. Garlic has antibiotic, antiseptic, antifungal and hypotensive properties. It is useful in treating digestive disorder, respiratory infection and high blood pressure. It is also useful treating hair loss or Alopecia areata. Alopecia areata is hair loss from scalp in form of patches. It is a common disease and any one can be affected by this. Even if you are taking certain treatment for this condition, then also you can use garlic as adjuvant. Ayurvedic: Lahsun, Lasum, Lashun, Rasona, Yavaneshta, Ugragandha, Mahaushadh, Arishta Unani: Seer, Lahsun Siddha: Ullippoondu, Vellaippondu How to use garlic for alopecia or bald patches? For treating alopecia or bald patches with garlic, take its clove and remove peel. Crush it and rub this pulp on affected area. Rubbing improves blood circulation and stimulates hair regrowth. You can apply this twice a day, in morning and evening. Do this regularly for few months as this treatment takes time to show result.
No doubt you’ve either read about coyotes in your area, heard stories, or seen them for yourself. These canines used to live in wide grasslands and deserts, but now wander forests, mountains, and cities of North America. This species has even made its way into the suburbs of many major cities including Los Angeles. But, where do they hide their dens? Keep reading to learn more about where these cunning creatures live and how they build their dens. Where Do Coyotes Live? Coyote Dens Coyotes exclusively use dens during pup season; otherwise, they sleep in the open or undercover. Coyote dens can be discovered anywhere that is easily hidden. Dens can be a hollowed-out tree stump, a rock outcrop, or an existing raccoon, skunk, or another medium-sized predator burrow. Coyotes will also excavate their own dens. They prefer a protective cover like plants or trees, and a drainage slope. What Does A Coyote Den Look Like? To build a coyote den, both parents may dig on sandy hillsides or steep banks. Brush often conceals the entryway. The chamber is reached via a tunnel dug from a few feet to fifty feet under the hillside. The mother will nurse and protect her pups in the chamber three to six feet below the surface. Sometimes coyotes will expand other animals’ burrows. They may also use hollow logs, rock heaps, or culverts as a den. Even when denning in suburbs, coyotes pick spots with little human activity. If disturbed, the parents may relocate the litter. Mothers often transfer their young from den to den to keep them safe or reuse the same den year after year. However, in increasingly populated regions, coyotes may choose to create dens near houses, roads, or even parking lots. Where Do Coyotes Live? List of Common Habitats Coyote dens and hideouts have been discovered in many places such as: Surprisingly cautious towards humans, urban coyotes have become quite bold. These scavengers find safe green spots of land in parks and golf courses. If they run out of food, they expand their domain. City coyotes live peacefully if they have enough food and shelter, even in a tiny area. Coyotes live in cities, towns, and rural/semi-urban locations. Since many Americans are going green, this animal is more likely to reside near farms. They can readily prey on pets here. The coyote diet requires them to dwell near crops or fields. Historically, coyotes lived in woodlands. However, they are born in the wild and can adapt to any environment. Most coyotes seek cover in deep forests with plenty of food. They may dig tunnels and cover them with brush to disguise their den in the woods. Coyotes are undeniably the most adaptive creature. Many coyotes live in the Arizona Desert. The desert’s hot sun, sand, and chilly night breeze don’t bother them. Coyotes, like most wild animals, find refuge in grasslands. They inhabit all of North America’s grasslands. Similarly, many of these species reside and breed at Yellowstone National Park. Eastern and coastal North Carolina wetlands have coyote territories. The adaptive creature establishes territories in wetlands. But they establish territories away from alligators. Surprisingly, Coyotes can swim well. They thrive in the tundra, a huge treeless area of North America. They also live in the Arctic tundra. Although they are natural predators, coyotes aren’t out to get people. We can happily coexist with them wherever we live if we understand their motivations, how to keep them away, and how to protect ourselves and our pets. For example: - Don’t feed coyotes and keep food out of their reach. - Keep pet food indoors and rubbish out of sight. - Avoid letting tiny creatures (like squirrels) eat near bird feeders. They can attract coyotes. - When not in use, clean grills. - Dispose of roadkill and other deceased animals. - Don’t let your pets alone outside at night. - Put up fencing and motion sensor lights to keep predators away from your pets. - Provide enclosures or secure spaces for any outdoor animals. - Haze coyotes if you spot them. That includes yelling at them, swinging your arms, hurling stuff toward them (not at them), and/or spraying them with a hose, if available. Remember that although coyotes can become dog-like towards humans, they are still wild animals that will defend their territory in an instant. Therefore, If you find a coyote’s den, be cautious and never approach a coyote or its pup. Did you know? coyotes are quite human-like. Just like us, they have a large family structure, eat a wide variety of foods, and live in many settings. They mate for life with a single partner and both parents help raise the kids. They are incredibly gregarious animals who love their family. They will even carve off a section of their area for one of their offspring if they are unable to find suitable land. They playfully communicate through vocalizing and scent-marking and are very smart creatures. The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/roclwyr Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us? Contact the AZ Animals editorial team.
The Math Zone Improve Math Skills Includes Two Decks: 7-9 years & 9 years-adult 81 playing cards plus directions. Turn your child into a competent and successful math student How can you help your child learn to enjoy math? One of the easiest ways to help your child learn is to play with them. Remember, you are your child’s first teacher. When you play or interact with your child, doing things you enjoy doing, your child will tend naturally to like and enjoy the same things. Even if you do not particularly like math yourself, you know math is important for your child to learn. You want your child to feel confident about their ability to learn math, even if math was not your favorite subject in school. Your attitude toward math will have an effect on your child, and you want your child to have a good feeling about math so they may actually like it. When I was in the primary grades, I did OK in math, but once I got into 4th grade I dreaded math. Thank goodness my dad was home at night to help me with my math homework! One day, he told me “Bonnie, math is just like a game.” We started playing math games, and the more we played games, the quicker I got at getting my homework done, and the better I got with math. When my students started to learn how to multiply and divide, they really hated doing their math worksheets. I decided to make a math game similar to the one I played with my dad, so my students could get real math calculation practice in a game format. I created The Math Zone™, a card game that builds math skills. My students enjoyed playing this game and actually did as many or more problems than they would have done with a worksheet. The difference was, they were having fun while doing math! In fact, they were anxious to get to the higher level of play in the game, solving more difficult calculations because they would get a lot more points for playing with the higher level cards. Before you knew it, they were actually enjoying math and getting really good at it! The Math Zone™ is a solution to the first 2 roadblocks to math success: memory and math concepts. It also covers the math content standards for computation skills. Suzanne Churchman states, “A child’s math skills are also greatly enhanced by using math during everyday activities. Parents can provide these experiences.” Don’t spend another evening full of whining and complaining about how hard math is; become your child’s math tutor, play The Math Zone™, and let your child discover that math really is just a game! “The Math Zone is an exciting and fun way for any age group to learn and practice basic math skills. The game can be played for extended periods of time or in short intervals if time is limited.” The Math Zone™ is a clever new way to drill arithmetic that goes beyond simply completing math problems or flipping flash cards. The game can be played with one level or two levels of difficulty at the same time. Another enjoyable, interesting, and exciting game from Bonnie Terry Learning, this one meets several needs of the home schooling family. It includes materials that cover a wide age and interest range, supply real learning opportunities, and make learning really fun! The Math Zone™ builds basic math skills while students have fun! Watch your math grades soar as you practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in ways you never have before! Students learn math facts as their point totals grow and shrink. As with all Bonnie Terry Learning Products, The Math Zone comes with a 60-Day, Money-Back, No-Questions-Asked Guarantee.
Students build a boat that will float and hold as many pennies as possible, then discuss the process of building the boat and relate the experience to experiences they encounter in life. Students come to understand that they can control some things in their own lives, but they cannot control other people's lives. They will learn to model their behavior after other people who demonstrate a positive outlook. conflict resolution, cooperation, teamwork drinking straws cut in half, masking tape, container of water, pennies - Ask students to select a partner or assign partners. - Provide each pair with ten straw halves and as much masking tape as they need. - Explain that the object of the lesson is to build a boat that will float. Tell students that the activity will end in a contest, and the boat that can hold the most pennies without sinking will win. - Allow students 15 to 20 minutes to build their boats. - One at a time, have each pair of students put their boats in a container of water. Place pennies on each boat until it tilts, sinks, or spills the pennies. Have students chart the number of pennies each boat holds. After students have tested each craft, ask the following questions: - What were you able to control during the construction? - What did you have no control over? - If you could do this again, would you change the way you built your craft? Why or why not? - What things in your life can you control? - What do you have no control over? - If your actions, behaviors, or efforts in a particular area are not successful, do you keep doing the same thing or do you make changes? - Have you ever learned a new way of doing something by watching someone who was successful? - What changes can you make today to become more successful? Evaluate students based on their responses during class discussions and on their behavior after the lesson. Lesson Plan Source Sherrell Bailey, (email@example.com) Sumter County Middle School, Americus, Georgia [ SUBMIT YOUR LESSON PLAN ]
Capital Punishment Laws in General Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is reserved for the most heinous crimes in states that still impose the ultimate sentence. Capital crimes may include but are not limited to first-degree murder, accidental murder in the commission of another felony (such as armed robbery or kidnapping), and the murder of a police officer. The death penalty has a long and complex history in the United States and was strongly influenced by European criminal law. Even minor offenses such as shoplifting were punishable by death in some colonies prior to the nation's founding. A Brief History of New York's Capital Punishment Laws New York no longer has the death penalty, which was abolished in 2007 (the state actually has abolished and reinstated capital punishment multiple times in its history). The state stopped all executions in 1984, 11 years after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the practice. It was again reinstated by Governor George Pataki in 1995, using lethal injection as the means of execution. But executions were halted after the New York Court of Appeals found it unconstitutional. The statute was changed in 2007, officially prohibiting the death penalty. Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole became New York's stiffest penalty after capital punishment was abolished. Information about the abolition of New York's capital punishment laws and procedures in 2007 is listed in the following box. See FindLaw's Death Penalty section for more articles about capital punishment laws. \|Code Section\|\|N/A -- capital punishment abolished in 2007\| \|Is Capital Punishment Allowed?\|\|No. After the 2004 New York Court of Appeals decision in People v. LaValle, which found that the capital punishment statute violated the state's constitution, New York has not practiced the death penalty. It was formally abolished in 2007, with the last remaining death sentences converted to life imprisonment.\| \|Effect of Defendant's Incapacity\|\|-\| \|Available for Crimes Other than Homicide?\|\|-\| \|Definition of Capital Homicide\|\|-\| \|Method of Execution\|\|-\| Note: State laws are always subject to change through the passage of new legislation, rulings in the higher courts (including federal decisions), ballot initiatives, and other means. While we strive to provide the most current information available, please consult an attorney or conduct your own legal research to verify the state law(s) you are researching. Research the Law New York Capital Punishment Laws: Related Resources Have More Questions About New York Capital Punishment Laws? Ask an Attorney Even though New York no longer has the death penalty, there are still severe penalties for serious crimes. If you or someone you love is facing criminal charges, now is the time to act. Contact a criminal defense attorney in New York to learn about the laws, find out if there are any appeals available, and discover what your options are going forward. Contact a qualified attorney.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Nelson Lab group, which had traditionally researched pathogens in water, immediately thought, “What can we do to help?” This motivation led the group to develop COVID Wastewater Epidemiology for the Bay Area (COVID-WEB), an innovative partnership between UC Berkeley researchers, campus Environmental Health & Safety staff, 19 different local wastewater agencies, and 6 local public health departments to monitor the SARS-CoV-2 virus on campus and in the San Francisco Bay Area. COVID-WEB has been recognized with a 2021 Chancellor's Award for Public Service, which acknowledges its exceptional commitment to advancing social change through public service and improving the quality of life in our community. Over the last year, COVID-WEB has analyzed wastewater samples from around UC Berkeley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Because people who are infected with COVID-19 excrete the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their feces, detection of the virus in wastewater can provide critical information about infection levels in the population to complement other public health data. COVID-WEB developed novel methods to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, built out a laboratory and laboratory team and quickly ramped up to conduct routine monitoring. It regularly presents results of approximately 150 samples each week from 38 different sampling locations to local public health decision-makers. Over 2300 samples have been analyzed to date. In addition, the team is working on genetic sequencing of wastewater to detect mutations, which can provide information on whether new COVID-19 variants are being introduced from other regions. The team, led by Professor Kara Nelson, has seen that wastewater data about SARS-CoV-2 have a real, beneficial effect on managing the pandemic. For example, COVID-WEB’s wastewater data provided early warning to a local prison medical officer about an outbreak at the facility, allowing her to take extra precautions which likely reduced disease transmission. In another example, a local public health department was able to allocate strained contact-tracing resources to a sewershed which displayed relatively high concentrations of the virus in wastewater, but for which they had little clinical testing information. Moving forward, wastewater data is likely to be even more valuable as more of the population is vaccinated and routine clinical testing rates decline. COVID-WEB has exemplified one way in which UC Berkeley, in partnership with local public health and wastewater agencies, can leverage its scientific resources to make a difference in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. CEE students and researchers who are part of the COVID-WEB team: - Postdoc: Rose Kantor - Grad students: Lauren Kennedy, Hannah Greenwald, Adrian Hinkle, Alma Bartholow, Liwen Wang - Undergrad students: Aliya Ehde, Joaquin Bradley Silva, Christina Lang, Christina Baily, Karen Lee, Amita Muralidharan, Constance Chiang
One of my readers has asked “are Natural Gas cars really cleaner?” Well, what do you think? Many people believe that CNG stands for “Clean Natural Gas” but it actually stands for “Compressed Natural Gas”, no doubt a result of clever marketing. CNG is compressed methane (CH4) gas, which is extracted from the ground, often along with oil. CNG is not to be confused with LNG, which stands for “Liquid Natural Gas.” The main difference is that LNG is liquid wheras CNG is gaseous. Natural Gas is usually transported as LNG because it is less voluminous, but it is also more costly to cool it enough to make it liquid. Anyway, is it actually cleaner than gasoline? If you didn’t get a chance to read my “AskPablo: The Tailpipe Mystery” you might want to go back and read it first. OK, did you do it? Well, here we go… Methane, CH4, has molar mass of 16g/mol. When CH4 is combined with O2 and combusted it makes H2O and CO2. CO2 has a molar mass of 44g/mol. One kg of CH4 contains 62.5 mol (1000g / 16g/mol) and results in 2750g of CO2 (62.5 mol x 44g/mol), or 2.75kg of CO2 per kg of CH4. If you recall the result of “AskPablo: The Tailpipe Mystery” 1kg of gasoline creates 3.087kg of CO2. So, CNG creates less CO2, per kg of fuel. End of story? No, not quite. Since CNG and gasoline don’t have the same energy density we can’t make such a simple comparison. Gasoline has an energy density of 44MJ/kg, while CNG has an energy density of 55MJ/kg. So, while CNG creates only 89% as much CO2 as gasoline (2.750/3.087), when compared by energy density CNG creates only about 71.5% as much CO2. In “AskPablo: The Tailpipe Mystery” we assumed that my car averages 30 miles/gallon and I drive 18,000 miles per year. We calculated that I would need to buy 1,654 kg of fuel (30,000 km / 18.14 km/kg). Based on the factor that I derived this amounts to carbon dioxide emissions of 5,105kg, or roughly 5.1 metric tons. Now, if my car were powered by CNG my CO2 emissions would be 3,646kg, or 3.6 metric tons (the results from the DriveNeutral calculator are again quite close to this result). So, yes, the CNG fueled car is cleaner in terms of CO2 emissions. But there must be more to it… Why yes there is… In addition to producing less CO2, CNG also creates less particulate matter and other types of emissions, such as NOx. Quantifying these other gaseous emissions of both CNG and gasoline will have to be left for a future column. This discussion would not be complete if I didn’t mention a recent article in the newspaper of the Association of German Engineers (VDI). While the article states that CNG fueled cars emit 25% less CO2 than gasoline fueled vehicles ( 28.5% by my calculations) and up to 99% less particulate emissions, Prof. Hans Lenz maintains that CNG is not better. The reason is that there are significant emissions created in processing and transporting the fuel. Much of this comes from the process of liquefying the gas for transport in LNG tankers. So, in light of this information I will conclude that CNG-fueled cars emit less locally-harmful emissions (including locally emitted CO2) but the net CO2 emissions results are inconclusive.
GOD THE INVISIBLE KING by H. G. Wells 1. THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION 2. HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT 3. THE LIKENESS OF GOD 4. THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS 5. THE INVISIBLE KING 6. MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION 7. THE IDEA OF A CHURCH This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it is not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a profound belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in its statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for the expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several particulars opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be sympathetic with all sincere religious feeling. Nevertheless it is well to prepare the prospective reader for statements that may jar harshly against deeply rooted mental habits. It is well to warn him at the outset that the departure from accepted beliefs is here no vague scepticism, but a quite sharply defined objection to dogmas very widely revered. Let the writer state the most probable occasion of trouble forthwith. An issue upon which this book will be found particularly uncompromising is the dogma of the Trinity. The writer is of opinion that the Council of Nicaea, which forcibly crystallised the controversies of two centuries and formulated the creed upon which all the existing Christian churches are based, was one of the most disastrous and one of the least venerable of all religious gatherings, and he holds that the Alexandrine speculations which were then conclusively imposed upon Christianity merit only disrespectful attention at the present time. There you have a chief possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any awe for what he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that undignified gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or propitiatory in this connection. He criticises the creeds explicitly and frankly, because he believes it is particularly necessary to clear them out of the way of those who are seeking religious consolation at this present time of exceptional religious need. He does little to conceal his indignation at the role played by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing the religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible to storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read on at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a believer, but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to them more sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. That the writer cannot tell. He is not simply denying their God. He is declaring that there is a living God, different altogether from that Triune God and nearer to the heart of man. The spirit of this book is like that of a missionary who would only too gladly overthrow and smash some Polynesian divinity of shark's teeth and painted wood and mother-of-pearl. To the writer such elaborations as "begotten of the Father before all worlds" are no better than intellectual shark's teeth and oyster shells. His purpose, like the purpose of that missionary, is not primarily to shock and insult; but he is zealous to liberate, and he is impatient with a reverence that stands between man and God. He gives this fair warning and proceeds with his matter. His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only incidentally and because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal Christianity. In a previous book, "First and Last Things" (Constable and Co.), he has stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and thought as clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of metaphysics that is, seems to him to be a discussion of the relations of class and individual. The antagonism of the Nominalist and the Realist, the opposition of the One and the Many, the contrast of the Ideal and the Actual, all these oppositions express a certain structural and essential duality in the activity of the human mind. From an imperfect recognition of that duality ensue great masses of misconception. That was the substance of "First and Last Things." In this present book there is no further attack on philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we work at a less fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and religious ideas. But just as the writer was inclined to attribute a whole world of disputation and inexactitudes to confused thinking about the exact value of classes and terms, so here he is disposed to think that interminable controversies and conflicts arise out of a confusion of intention due to a double meaning of the word "God"; that the word "God" conveys not one idea or set of ideas, but several essentially different ideas, incompatible one with another, and falling mainly into one or other of two divergent groups; and that people slip carelessly from one to the other of these groups of ideas and so get into ultimately inextricable confusions. The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought that preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was essentially a struggle—obscured, of course, by many complexities—to reconcile and get into a relationship these two separate main series of God-ideas. Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two antagonistic typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by speaking of one of them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the other as God-as-Christ or the Redeemer. One is the great Outward God; the other is the Inmost God. The first idea was perhaps developed most highly and completely in the God of Spinoza. It is a conception of God tending to pantheism, to an idea of a comprehensive God as ruling with justice rather than affection, to a conception of aloofness and awestriking worshipfulness. The second idea, which is opposed to this idea of an absolute God, is the God of the human heart. The writer would suggest that the great outline of the theological struggles of that phase of civilisation and world unity which produced Christianity, was a persistent but unsuccessful attempt to get these two different ideas of God into one focus. It was an attempt to make the God of Nature accessible and the God of the Heart invincible, to bring the former into a conception of love and to vest the latter with the beauty of stars and flowers and the dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no finer metaphor for such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the trouble is that it seems impossible to most people to continue to regard the relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment of intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation. And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and inhumanity, which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator God, of an Infinite God, was the reason, so to speak, for the invention of a Holy Spirit, as something proceeding from him, as something bridging the great gulf, a Comforter, a mediator descending into the sphere of the human understanding. That, and the suggestive influence of the Egyptian Trinity that was then being worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had saturated the thought of Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in unity, are probably the realities that account for the Third Person of the Christian Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the discussions that shaped the Christian theology we know were dominated by such natural and fundamental thoughts. These discussions were, of course, complicated from the outset; and particularly were they complicated by the identification of the man Jesus with the theological Christ, by materialistic expectations of his second coming, by materialistic inventions about his "miraculous" begetting, and by the morbid speculations about virginity and the like that arose out of such grossness. They were still further complicated by the idea of the textual inspiration of the scriptures, which presently swamped thought in textual interpretation. That swamping came very early in the development of Christianity. The writer of St. John's gospel appears still to be thinking with a considerable freedom, but Origen is already hopelessly in the net of the texts. The writer of St. John's gospel was a free man, but Origen was a superstitious man. He was emasculated mentally as well as bodily through his bibliolatry. He quotes; his predecessor thinks. But the writer throws out these guesses at the probable intentions of early Christian thought in passing. His business here is the definition of a position. The writer's position here in this book is, firstly, complete Agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, and secondly, entire faith in the matter of God the Redeemer. That, so to speak, is the key of his book. He cannot bring the two ideas under the same term God. He uses the word God therefore for the God in our hearts only, and he uses the term the Veiled Being for the ultimate mysteries of the universe, and he declares that we do not know and perhaps cannot know in any comprehensible terms the relation of the Veiled Being to that living reality in our lives who is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking from the point of view of practical religion, he is restricting and defining the word God, as meaning only the personal God of mankind, he is restricting it so as to exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence from our religious thought and leave nothing but the essentials of the religious life. Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an Arian or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book acceptable to them if they will read "the Christ God" where the writer has written "God." They will then differ from him upon little more than the question whether there is an essential identity in aim and quality between the Christ God and the Veiled Being, who answer to their Creator God. This the orthodox post Nicaean Christians assert, and many pre-Nicaeans and many heretics (as the Cathars) contradicted with its exact contrary. The Cathars, Paulicians, Albigenses and so on held, with the Manichaeans, that the God of Nature, God the Father, was evil. The Christ God was his antagonist. This was the idea of the poet Shelley. And passing beyond Christian theology altogether a clue can still be found to many problems in comparative theology in this distinction between the Being of Nature (cf. Kant's "starry vault above") and the God of the heart (Kant's "moral law within"). The idea of an antagonism seems to have been cardinal in the thought of the Essenes and the Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, too, Buddhism seems to be "antagonistic." On the other hand, the Moslem teaching and modern Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the two; God the creator is altogether and without distinction also God the King of Mankind. Christianity stands somewhere between such complete identification and complete antagonism. It admits a difference in attitude between Father and Son in its distinction between the Old Dispensation (of the Old Testament) and the New. Every possible change is rung in the great religions of the world between identification, complete separation, equality, and disproportion of these Beings; but it will be found that these two ideas are, so to speak, the basal elements of all theology in the world. The writer is chary of assertion or denial in these matters. He believes that they are speculations not at all necessary to salvation. He believes that men may differ profoundly in their opinions upon these points and still be in perfect agreement upon the essentials of religion. The reality of religion he believes deals wholly and exclusively with the God of the Heart. He declares as his own opinion, and as the opinion which seems most expressive of modern thought, that there is no reason to suppose the Veiled Being either benevolent or malignant towards men. But if the reader believes that God is Almighty and in every way Infinite the practical outcome is not very different. For the purposes of human relationship it is impossible to deny that God PRESENTS HIMSELF AS FINITE, as struggling and taking a part against evil. The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in this book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer entangled in such speculations and disputes. Let him add only one other note of explanation in this preface, and that is to remark that except for one incidental passage (in Chapter IV., 1), nowhere does he discuss the question of personal immortality. [It is discussed in "First and Last Things," Book IV, 4.] He omits this question because he does not consider that it has any more bearing upon the essentials of religion, than have the theories we may hold about the relation of God and the moral law to the starry universe. The latter is a question for the theologian, the former for the psychologist. Whether we are mortal or immortal, whether the God in our hearts is the Son of or a rebel against the Universe, the reality of religion, the fact of salvation, is still our self-identification with God, irrespective of consequences, and the achievement of his kingdom, in our hearts and in the world. Whether we live forever or die tomorrow does not affect righteousness. Many people seem to find the prospect of a final personal death unendurable. This impresses me as egotism. I have no such appetite for a separate immortality. God is my immortality; what, of me, is identified with God, is God; what is not is of no more permanent value than the snows of yester-year. H. G. W. Dunmow, May, 1917. GOD THE INVISIBLE KING CHAPTER THE FIRST THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION 1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found in existence, and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the new belief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, to trace how Christianity drifted into the consciousness of the Roman world. But when a religion has been interrogated it has always had hitherto a tale of beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The renascent religion that is now taking shape, it seems, had no founder; it points to no origins. It is the Truth, its believers declare; it has always been here; it has always been visible to those who had eyes to see. It is perhaps plainer than it was and to more people—that is all. It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of those who hold it still think of it as if it were a kind of Christianity. Some, catching at a phrase of Huxley's, speak of it as Christianity without Theology. They do not know the creed they are carrying. It has, as a matter of fact, a very fine and subtle theology, flatly opposed to any belief that could, except by great stretching of charity and the imagination, be called Christianity. One might find, perhaps, a parallelism with the system ascribed to some Gnostics, but that is far more probably an accidental rather than a sympathetic coincidence. Of that the reader shall presently have an opportunity of judging. This indefiniteness of statement and relationship is probably only the opening phase of the new faith. Christianity also began with an extreme neglect of definition. It was not at first anything more than a sect of Judaism. It was only after three centuries, amidst the uproar and emotions of the council of Nicaea, when the more enthusiastic Trinitarians stuffed their fingers in their ears in affected horror at the arguments of old Arius, that the cardinal mystery of the Trinity was established as the essential fact of Christianity. Throughout those three centuries, the centuries of its greatest achievements and noblest martyrdoms, Christianity had not defined its God. And even to-day it has to be noted that a large majority of those who possess and repeat the Christian creeds have come into the practice so insensibly from unthinking childhood, that only in the slightest way do they realise the nature of the statements to which they subscribe. They will speak and think of both Christ and God in ways flatly incompatible with the doctrine of the Triune deity upon which, theoretically, the entire fabric of all the churches rests. They will show themselves as frankly Arians as though that damnable heresy had not been washed out of the world forever after centuries of persecution in torrents of blood. But whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters may be, there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to give Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement possible. Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its maturity, whatever the indecisions of its childhood or the confusions of its decay. The renascent religion that one finds now, a thing active and sufficient in many minds, has still scarcely come to self-consciousness. But it is so coming, and this present book is very largely an attempt to state the shape it is assuming and to compare it with the beliefs and imperatives and usages of the various Christian, pseudo-Christian, philosophical, and agnostic cults amidst which it has appeared. The writer's sympathies and convictions are entirely with this that he speaks of as renascent or modern religion; he is neither atheist nor Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He will make no pretence, therefore, to impartiality and detachment. He will do his best to be as fair as possible and as candid as possible, but the reader must reckon with this bias. He has found this faith growing up in himself; he has found it, or something very difficult to distinguish from it, growing independently in the minds of men and women he has met. They have been people of very various origins; English, Americans, Bengalis, Russians, French, people brought up in a "Catholic atmosphere," Positivists, Baptists, Sikhs, Mohammedans. Their diversity of source is as remarkable as their convergence of tendency. A miscellany of minds thinking upon parallel lines has come out to the same light. The new teaching is also traceable in many professedly Christian religious books and it is to be heard from Christian pulpits. The phase of definition is manifestly at hand. 2. MODERN RELIGION HAS A FINITE GOD Perhaps the most fundamental difference between this new faith and any recognised form of Christianity is that, knowingly or unknowingly, it worships A FINITE GOD. Directly the believer is fairly confronted with the plain questions of the case, the vague identifications that are still carelessly made with one or all of the persons of the Trinity dissolve away. He will admit that his God is neither all-wise, nor all-powerful, nor omnipresent; that he is neither the maker of heaven nor earth, and that he has little to identify him with that hereditary God of the Jews who became the "Father" in the Christian system. On the other hand he will assert that his God is a god of salvation, that he is a spirit, a person, a strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, inspiring, and lovable, who exists or strives to exist in every human soul. He will be much less certain in his denials that his God has a close resemblance to the Pauline (as distinguished from the Trinitarian) "Christ." . . . The modern religious man will almost certainly profess a kind of universalism; he will assert that whensoever men have called upon any God and have found fellowship and comfort and courage and that sense of God within them, that inner light which is the quintessence of the religious experience, it was the True God that answered them. For the True God is a generous God, not a jealous God; the very antithesis of that bickering monopolist who "will have none other gods but Me"; and when a human heart cries out—to what name it matters not—for a larger spirit and a stronger help than the visible things of life can give, straightway the nameless Helper is with it and the God of Man answers to the call. The True God has no scorn nor hate for those who have accepted the many-handed symbols of the Hindu or the lacquered idols of China. Where there is faith, where there is need, there is the True God ready to clasp the hands that stretch out seeking for him into the darkness behind the ivory and gold. The fact that God is FINITE is one upon which those who think clearly among the new believers are very insistent. He is, above everything else, a personality, and to be a personality is to have characteristics, to be limited by characteristics; he is a Being, not us but dealing with us and through us, he has an aim and that means he has a past and future; he is within time and not outside it. And they point out that this is really what everyone who prays sincerely to God or gets help from God, feels and believes. Our practice with God is better than our theory. None of us really pray to that fantastic, unqualified danse a trois, the Trinity, which the wranglings and disputes of the worthies of Alexandria and Syria declared to be God. We pray to one single understanding person. But so far the tactics of those Trinitarians at Nicaea, who stuck their fingers in their ears, have prevailed in this world; this was no matter for discussion, they declared, it was a Holy Mystery full of magical terror, and few religious people have thought it worth while to revive these terrors by a definite contradiction. The truly religious have been content to lapse quietly into the comparative sanity of an unformulated Arianism, they have left it to the scoffing Atheist to mock at the patent absurdities of the official creed. But one magnificent protest against this theological fantasy must have been the work of a sincerely religious man, the cold superb humour of that burlesque creed, ascribed, at first no doubt facetiously and then quite seriously, to Saint Athanasius the Great, which, by an irony far beyond its original intention, has become at last the accepted creed of the church. The long truce in the criticism of Trinitarian theology is drawing to its end. It is when men most urgently need God that they become least patient with foolish presentations and dogmas. The new believers are very definitely set upon a thorough analysis of the nature and growth of the Christian creeds and ideas. There has grown up a practice of assuming that, when God is spoken of, the Hebrew-Christian God of Nicaea is meant. But that God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and bad associations; his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange preferences, his vindictive Old Testament past. These things do not even make a caricature of the True God; they compose an altogether different and antagonistic figure. It is a very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has led the theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite qualities for their deity. One has to remember the poorness of the mental and moral quality of the churchmen of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who saddled Christendom with its characteristic dogmas, and the extreme poverty and confusion of the circle of ideas within which they thought. Many of these makers of Christianity, like Saint Ambrose of Milan (who had even to be baptised after his election to his bishopric), had been pitchforked into the church from civil life; they lived in a time of pitiless factions and personal feuds; they had to conduct their disputations amidst the struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs and favourites swayed their counsels, and popular rioting clinched their decisions. There was less freedom of discussion then in the Christian world than there is at present (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience of educated opinion by which a theory could be judged did not equal, either in numbers or accuracy of information, the present population of Constantinople. To these conditions we owe the claim that the Christian God is a magic god, very great medicine in battle, "in hoc signo vinces," and the argument so natural to the minds of those days and so absurd to ours, that since he had ALL power, all knowledge, and existed for ever and ever, it was no use whatever to set up any other god against him. . . . By the fifth century Christianity had adopted as its fundamental belief, without which everyone was to be "damned everlastingly," a conception of God and of Christ's relation to God, of which even by the Christian account of his teaching, Jesus was either totally unaware or so negligent and careless of the future comfort of his disciples as scarcely to make mention. The doctrine of the Trinity, so far as the relationship of the Third Person goes, hangs almost entirely upon one ambiguous and disputed utterance in St. John's gospel (XV. 26). Most of the teachings of Christian orthodoxy resolve themselves to the attentive student into assertions of the nature of contradiction and repartee. Someone floats an opinion in some matter that has been hitherto vague, in regard, for example, to the sonship of Christ or to the method of his birth. The new opinion arouses the hostility and alarm of minds unaccustomed to so definite a statement, and in the zeal of their recoil they fly to a contrary proposition. The Christians would neither admit that they worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor deny the divinity of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be polytheistic; equally did they dread the least apparent detraction from the power and importance of their Saviour. They were forced into the theory of the Trinity by the necessity of those contrary assertions, and they had to make it a mystery protected by curses to save it from a reductio ad absurdam. The entire history of the growth of the Christian doctrine in those disordered early centuries is a history of theology by committee; a history of furious wrangling, of hasty compromises, and still more hasty attempts to clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle was at its very worst, the church was confronted by enormous political opportunities. In order that it should seize these one chief thing appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and seated himself in the midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At the end of it all Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn everlastingly all those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had doubted at the beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that Constantine did not care who was damned or for what period, so long as the Christians ceased to wrangle among themselves. The practical unanimity of Nicaea was secured by threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he sought by threats to restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a common faith to unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of the Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the systematic destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, had about it none of that quality of honest conviction which comes to those who have a real knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of dissensions that, left to work themselves out, would have spoilt good business; it was the fist of Nicolas of Myra over again, except that after the days of Ambrose the sword of the executioner and the fires of the book-burner were added to the weapon of the human voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice formally offered up under these improved conditions to the greater glory of the reinforced Trinity. Thereafter the blood of the heretics was the cement of Christian unity. It is with these things in mind that those who profess the new faith are becoming so markedly anxious to distinguish God from the Trinitarian's deity. At present if anyone who has left the Christian communion declares himself a believer in God, priest and parson swell with self-complacency. There is no reason why they should do so. That many of us have gone from them and found God is no concern of theirs. It is not that we who went out into the wilderness which we thought to be a desert, away from their creeds and dogmas, have turned back and are returning. It is that we have gone on still further, and are beyond that desolation. Never more shall we return to those who gather under the cross. By faith we disbelieved and denied. By faith we said of that stuffed scarecrow of divinity, that incoherent accumulation of antique theological notions, the Nicene deity, "This is certainly no God." And by faith we have found God. . . . 3. THE INFINITE BEING IS NOT GOD There has always been a demand upon the theological teacher that he should supply a cosmogony. It has always been an effective propagandist thing to say: "OUR God made the whole universe. Don't you think that it would be wise to abandon YOUR deity, who did not, as you admit, do anything of the sort?" The attentive reader of the lives of the Saints will find that this style of argument did in the past bring many tribes and nations into the Christian fold. It was second only to the claim of magic advantages, demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great religious system, the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the temptation to secure for its divinity the honour and title of Creator. Modern religion is like Buddhism in that respect. It offers no theory whatever about the origin of the universe. It does not reach behind the appearances of space and time. It sees only a featureless presumption in that playing with superlatives which has entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the Hegelians with the delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or the Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known things there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence is a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or death or good or ill. Of that Being, whether it is simple or complex or divine, we know nothing; to us it is no more than the limit of understanding, the unknown beyond. It may be of practically limitless intricacy and possibility. The new religion does not pretend that the God of its life is that Being, or that he has any relation of control or association with that Being. It does not even assert that God knows all or much more than we do about that ultimate Being. For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. Human analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the Veiled Being reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as necessary forms of consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of whirls in the ether. Some day in the endless future there may be a knowledge, an understanding of relationship, a power and courage that will pierce into those black wrappings. To that it may be our God, the Captain of Mankind will take us. That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with the stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The Veiled Being, enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the mirror upon which the busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if it waited in a great stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and cannot deal with it. It may be that they may never be able to deal with it. 4. THE LIFE FORCE IS NOT GOD So it is that comprehensive setting of the universe presents itself to the modern mind. It is altogether outside good and evil and love and hate. It is outside God, who is love and goodness. And coming out of this veiled being, proceeding out of it in a manner altogether inconceivable, is another lesser being, an impulse thrusting through matter and clothing itself in continually changing material forms, the maker of our world, Life, the Will to Be. It comes out of that inscrutable being as a wave comes rolling to us from beyond the horizon. It is as it were a great wave rushing through matter and possessed by a spirit. It is a breeding, fighting thing; it pants through the jungle track as the tiger and lifts itself towards heaven as the tree; it is the rabbit bolting for its life and the dove calling to her mate; it crawls, it flies, it dives, it lusts and devours, it pursues and eats itself in order to live still more eagerly and hastily; it is every living thing, of it are our passions and desires and fears. And it is aware of itself not as a whole, but dispersedly as individual self-consciousness, starting out dispersedly from every one of the sentient creatures it has called into being. They look out for their little moments, red-eyed and fierce, full of greed, full of the passions of acquisition and assimilation and reproduction, submitting only to brief fellowships of defence or aggression. They are beings of strain and conflict and competition. They are living substance still mingled painfully with the dust. The forms in which this being clothes itself bear thorns and fangs and claws, are soaked with poison and bright with threats or allurements, prey slyly or openly on one another, hold their own for a little while, breed savagely and resentfully, and pass. . . . This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live, the Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother Nature. We may speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the Gnostics meant by the Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed all the Gnostic books that must remain a mere curious guess. We may speculate whether this heat and haste and wrath of life about us is the Dark God of the Manichees, the evil spirit of the sun worshippers. But in contemporary thought there is no conviction apparent that this Demiurge is either good or evil; it is conceived of as both good and evil. If it gives all the pain and conflict of life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, the delight and hope of youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a hundred thousand sorts of parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful limbs of man and woman; it has shaped the slug and the flower. And in it, as part of it, taking its rewards, responding to its goads, struggling against the final abandonment to death, do we all live, as the beasts live, glad, angry, sorry, revengeful, hopeful, weary, disgusted, forgetful, lustful, happy, excited, bored, in pain, mood after mood but always fearing death, with no certainty and no coherence within us, until we find God. And God comes to us neither out of the stars nor out of the pride of life, but as a still small voice within. 5. GOD IS WITHIN God comes we know not whence, into the conflict of life. He works in men and through men. He is a spirit, a single spirit and a single person; he has begun and he will never end. He is the immortal part and leader of mankind. He has motives, he has characteristics, he has an aim. He is by our poor scales of measurement boundless love, boundless courage, boundless generosity. He is thought and a steadfast will. He is our friend and brother and the light of the world. That briefly is the belief of the modern mind with regard to God. There is no very novel idea about this God, unless it be the idea that he had a beginning. This is the God that men have sought and found in all ages, as God or as the Messiah or the Saviour. The finding of him is salvation from the purposelessness of life. The new religion has but disentangled the idea of him from the absolutes and infinities and mysteries of the Christian theologians; from mythological virgin births and the cosmogonies and intellectual pretentiousness of a vanished age. Modern religion appeals to no revelation, no authoritative teaching, no mystery. The statement it makes is, it declares, a mere statement of what we may all perceive and experience. We all live in the storm of life, we all find our understandings limited by the Veiled Being; if we seek salvation and search within for God, presently we find him. All this is in the nature of things. If every one who perceives and states it were to be instantly killed and blotted out, presently other people would find their way to the same conclusions; and so on again and again. To this all true religion, casting aside its hulls of misconception, must ultimately come. To it indeed much religion is already coming. Christian thought struggles towards it, with the millstones of Syrian theology and an outrageous mythology of incarnation and resurrection about its neck. When at last our present bench of bishops join the early fathers of the church in heaven there will be, I fear, a note of reproach in their greeting of the ingenious person who saddled them with OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous for them has been the virgin birth, with the terrible fascination of its detail for unpoetic minds. How rich is the literature of authoritative Christianity with decisions upon the continuing virginity of Mary and the virginity of Joseph—ideas that first arose in Arabia as a Moslem gloss upon Christianity—and how little have these peepings and pryings to do with the needs of the heart and the finding of God! Within the last few years there have been a score or so of such volumes as that recently compiled by Dr. Foakes Jackson, entitled "The Faith and the War," a volume in which the curious reader may contemplate deans and canons, divines and church dignitaries, men intelligent and enquiring and religiously disposed, all lying like overladen camels, panting under this load of obsolete theological responsibility, groaning great articles, outside the needle's eye that leads to God. 6. THE COMING OF GOD Modern religion bases its knowledge of God and its account of God entirely upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not argue about God; it relates. It relates without any of those wrappings of awe and reverence that fold so necessarily about imposture, it relates as one tells of a friend and his assistance, of a happy adventure, of a beautiful thing found and picked up by the wayside. So far as its psychological phases go the new account of personal salvation tallies very closely with the account of "conversion" as it is given by other religions. It has little to tell that is not already familiar to the reader of William James's "Varieties of Religious Experience." It describes an initial state of distress with the aimlessness and cruelties of life, and particularly with the futility of the individual life, a state of helpless self-disgust, of inability to form any satisfactory plan of living. This is the common prelude known to many sorts of Christian as "conviction of sin"; it is, at any rate, a conviction of hopeless confusion. . . . Then in some way the idea of God comes into the distressed mind, at first simply as an idea, without substance or belief. It is read about or it is remembered; it is expounded by some teacher or some happy convert. In the case of all those of the new faith with whose personal experience I have any intimacy, the idea of God has remained for some time simply as an idea floating about in a mind still dissatisfied. God is not believed in, but it is realised that if there were such a being he would supply the needed consolation and direction, his continuing purpose would knit together the scattered effort of life, his immortality would take the sting from death. Under this realisation the idea is pursued and elaborated. For a time there is a curious resistance to the suggestion that God is truly a person; he is spoken of preferably by such phrases as the Purpose in Things, as the Racial Consciousness, as the Collective Mind. I believe that this resistance in so many contemporary minds to the idea of God as a person is due very largely to the enormous prejudice against divine personality created by the absurdities of the Christian teaching and the habitual monopoly of the Christian idea. The picture of Christ as the Good Shepherd thrusts itself before minds unaccustomed to the idea that they are lambs. The cross in the twilight bars the way. It is a novelty and an enormous relief to such people to realise that one may think of God without being committed to think of either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost, or of all of them at once. That freedom had not seemed possible to them. They had been hypnotised and obsessed by the idea that the Christian God is the only thinkable God. They had heard so much about that God and so little of any other. With that release their minds become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of God. Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is the attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself. It is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in aim. It is completer and more intimate, but it is like standing side by side with and touching someone that we love very dearly and trust completely. It is as if this being bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us into fellowship with a great multitude of other people. . . . "Closer he is than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under the stars, or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or while we sit and muse. It may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the battle. There is no saying when it may not come to us. . . . But after it has come our lives are changed, God is with us and there is no more doubt of God. Thereafter one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the confusion and evil within us and without. There comes into the heart an essential and enduring happiness and courage. There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has in this manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a faith, however mean and preposterous, that has not been a way to holiness. God who is himself finite, who himself struggles in his great effort from strength to strength, has no spite against error. Far beyond halfway he hastens to meet the purblind. But God is against the darkness in their eyes. The faith which is returning to men girds at veils and shadows, and would see God plainly. It has little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil of the temple in rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of this huge friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little beings. To find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all our days we have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with him. CHAPTER THE SECOND HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT 1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD Religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from original complexities; the sediment subsides. A life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without mentality; no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance of the instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss, or nirvana. It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is discord evoking the will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At every need consciousness breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments, needs, are the rents and tatters in the smooth dark veil of being through which the light of consciousness shines—the light of consciousness and will of which God is the sun. So that every need of human life, every disappointment and dissatisfaction and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men may and do come to the realisation of God. There is no cardinal need, there is no sort of experience in human life from which there does not come or has not come a contribution to men's religious ideas. At every challenge men have to put forth effort, feel doubt of adequacy, be thwarted, perceive the chill shadow of their mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility of help from without, the idea of eluding frustration, the aspiration towards immortality. It is possible to classify the appeals men make for God under the headings of their chief system of effort, their efforts to understand, their fear and their struggles for safety and happiness, the craving of their restlessness for peace, their angers against disorder and their desire for the avenger; their sexual passions and perplexities. . . . Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort of sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind of heresy, its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in the synthesis and mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the idea of God grows clear. The effort to understand completely, for example, leads to the endless Heresies of Theory. Men trip over the inherent infirmities of the human mind. But in these days one does not argue greatly about dogma. Almost every conceivable error about unity, about personality, about time and quantity and genus and species, about begetting and beginning and limitation and similarity and every kink in the difficult mind of man, has been thrust forward in some form of dogma. Beside the errors of thought are the errors of emotion. Fear and feebleness go straight to the Heresies that God is Magic or that God is Providence; restless egotism at leisure and unchallenged by urgent elementary realities breeds the Heresies of Mysticism, anger and hate call for God's Judgments, and the stormy emotions of sex gave mankind the Phallic God. Those who find themselves possessed by the new spirit in religion, realise very speedily the necessity of clearing the mind of all these exaggerations, transferences, and overflows of feeling. The search for divine truth is like gold washing; nothing is of any value until most has been swept away. 2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely the most various sort. It includes all those heresies which result from wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those which are the result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the heresies of the clever rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The former are of endless variety and complexity; the latter are in comparison natural, simple confusions. The former are the errors of the study, the latter the superstitions that spring by the wayside, or are brought down to us in our social structure out of a barbaric past. To the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate doctrine of the Trinity, dogmas about God's absolute qualities, such odd deductions as the accepted Christian teachings about the virginity of Mary and Joseph, and the like. All these things are parts of orthodox Christianity. Yet none of them did Christ, even by the Christian account, expound or recommend. He treated them as negligible. It was left for the Alexandrians, for Alexander, for little, red-haired, busy, wire-pulling Athanasius to find out exactly what their Master was driving at, three centuries after their Master was dead. . . . Men still sit at little desks remote from God or life, and rack their inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state unnecessary perfections. They seek God by logic, ignoring the marginal error that creeps into every syllogism. Their conceit blinds them to the limitations upon their thinking. They weave spider-like webs of muddle and disputation across the path by which men come to God. It would not matter very much if it were not that simpler souls are caught in these webs. Every great religious system in the world is choked by such webs; each system has its own. Of all the blood-stained tangled heresies which make up doctrinal Christianity and imprison the mind of the western world to-day, not one seems to have been known to the nominal founder of Christianity. Jesus Christ never certainly claimed to be the Messiah; never spoke clearly of the Trinity; was vague upon the scheme of salvation and the significance of his martyrdom. We are asked to suppose that he left his apostles without instructions, that were necessary to their eternal happiness, that he could give them the Lord's Prayer but leave them to guess at the all-important Creed,* and that the Church staggered along blindly, putting its foot in and out of damnation, until the "experts" of Nicaea, that "garland of priests," marshalled by Constantine's officials, came to its rescue. . . . From the conversion of Paul onward, the heresies of the intellect multiplied about Christ's memory and hid him from the sight of men. We are no longer clear about the doctrine he taught nor about the things he said and did. . . . * Even the "Apostles' Creed" is not traceable earlier than the fourth century. It is manifestly an old, patched formulary. Rutinius explains that it was not written down for a long time, but transmitted orally, kept secret, and used as a sort of password among the elect. We are all so weary of this theology of the Christians, we are all at heart so sceptical about their Triune God, that it is needless here to spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different formulae in which the orthodox have attempted to believe in something of the sort. There are several useful encyclopaedias of sects and heresies, compact, but still bulky, to which the curious may go. There are ten thousand different expositions of orthodoxy. No one who really seeks God thinks of the Trinity, either the Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of the Sabellian or the Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of those theories made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, who sit on lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the temples of India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of the human intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural heresies that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human character, and which are common to all religions. Against these it is necessary to keep constant watch. They return very insidiously. 3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is to consider him as something magic serving the ends of men. It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving our souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all too apt to hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the poor triumph of acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people who have been led to believe themselves religious, are in reality still keeping back their own souls and trying to use God for their own purposes. God is nothing more for them as yet than a magnificent Fetish. They did not really want him, but they have heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls think to make use of him. They call upon his name, they do certain things that are supposed to be peculiarly influential with him, such as saying prayers and repeating gross praises of him, or reading in a blind, industrious way that strange miscellany of Jewish and early Christian literature, the Bible, and suchlike mental mortification, or making the Sabbath dull and uncomfortable. In return for these fetishistic propitiations God is supposed to interfere with the normal course of causation in their favour. He becomes a celestial log-roller. He remedies unfavourable accidents, cures petty ailments, contrives unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or the like, he averts bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and does a thousand such services for his little clique of faithful people. The pious are represented as being constantly delighted by these little surprises, these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the divinity. Or contrawise he contrives spiteful turns for those who fail in their religious attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking children, or disorganises the careful business schemes of the ungodly. He is represented as going Sabbath-breakering on Sunday morning as a Staffordshire worker goes ratting. Ordinary everyday Christianity is saturated with this fetishistic conception of God. It may be disowned in THE HIBBERT JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly advocated in the parish magazine. It is an idea taken over by Christianity with the rest of the qualities of the Hebrew God. It is natural enough in minds so self-centred that their recognition of weakness and need brings with it no real self-surrender, but it is entirely inconsistent with the modern conception of the true God. There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical called THE NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with portraits of various clergymen of the Church of England, and of ladies and gentlemen who belong to the little school of thought which this magazine represents; it is, I should judge, a sub-sect entirely within the Established Church of England, that is to say within the Anglican communion of the Trinitarian Christians. It contains among other papers a very entertaining summary by a gentleman entitled—I cite the unusual title-page of the periodical—"Landseer Mackenzie, Esq.," of the views of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Obadiah upon the Kaiser William. They are distinctly hostile views. Mr. Landseer Mackenzie discourses not only upon these anticipatory condemnations but also upon the relations of the weather to this war. He is convinced quite simply and honestly that God has been persistently rigging the weather against the Germans. He points out that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of great help to the British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was the wet state of the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders in the winter of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in delaying the relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the difficult question why the Deity, having once decided upon intervention, did not, instead of this comparatively trivial meteorological assistance, adopt the more effective course of, for example, exploding or spoiling the German stores of ammunition by some simple atomic miracle, or misdirecting their gunfire by a sudden local modification of the laws of refraction or gravitation. Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only conclude that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible in the established church, and that I am charging orthodox Christianity here with nothing that has ever been officially repudiated. I find indeed the essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer Mackenzie repeated in endless official Christian utterances on the part of German and British and Russian divines. The Bishop of Chelmsford, for example, has recently ascribed our difficulties in the war to our impatience with long sermons—among other similar causes. Such Christians are manifestly convinced that God can be invoked by ritual—for example by special days of national prayer or an increased observance of Sunday—or made malignant by neglect or levity. It is almost fundamental in their idea of him. The ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic pettiness of God, and the belief of China in the magic propitiations and resentments of "Heaven" is at least equally strong. But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such God of luck and intervention. He is not to serve men's ends or the ends of nations or associations of men; he is careless of our ceremonies and invocations. He does not lose his temper with our follies and weaknesses. It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, he does not coddle us. He has his own ends for which he needs us. . . . 4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling about the order of events for our personal advantages. The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in "Tartarin in the Alps." You will remember how Tartarin's friend assured him that all Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon attracting tourists and far too wise and kind to permit them to venture into real danger, that all the precipices were netted invisibly, and all the loose rocks guarded against falling, that avalanches were prearranged spectacles and the crevasses at their worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment bags. If the mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned back by specious excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved with incredible daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of the whole world. There can be no doubt that it does enable many a timid soul to get through life with a certain recklessness. And provided there is no slip into a crevasse, the Providence theory works well. It would work altogether well if there were no crevasses. Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and escaped. But what would have happened to him if he had fallen into a crevasse? There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis Younghusband called "Within." [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is the confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in Providence until he was already well advanced in years. He went through battles and campaigns, he filled positions of great honour and responsibility, he saw much of the life of men, without altogether losing his faith. The loss of a child, an Indian famine, could shake it but not overthrow it. Then coming back one day from some races in France, he was knocked down by an automobile and hurt very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and mind. His sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost to see the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and the torment it inflicted, and being a man of sterling honesty and a fine essential simplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he could not do so. His confidence in the benevolent intervention of God was altogether destroyed. His book tells of this shattering, and how labouriously he reconstructed his religion upon less confident lines. It is a book typical of an age and of a very English sort of mind, a book well worth reading. That he came to a full sense of the true God cannot be asserted, but how near he came to God, let one quotation witness. "The existence of an outside Providence," he writes, "who created us, who watches over us, and who guides our lives like a Merciful Father, we have found impossible longer to believe in. But of the existence of a Holy Spirit radiating upward through all animate beings, and finding its fullest expression, in man in love, and in the flowers in beauty, we can be as certain as of anything in the world. This fiery spiritual impulsion at the centre and the source of things, ever burning in us, is the supremely important factor in our existence. It does not always attain to light. In many directions it fails; the conditions are too hard and it is utterly blocked. In others it only partially succeeds. But in a few it bursts forth into radiant light. There are few who in some heavenly moment of their lives have not been conscious of its presence. We may not be able to give it outward expression, but we know that it is there." . . . God does not guide our feet. He is no sedulous governess restraining and correcting the wayward steps of men. If you would fly into the air, there is no God to bank your aeroplane correctly for you or keep an ill-tended engine going; if you would cross a glacier, no God nor angel guides your steps amidst the slippery places. He will not even mind your innocent children for you if you leave them before an unguarded fire. Cherish no delusions; for yourself and others you challenge danger and chance on your own strength; no talisman, no God, can help you or those you care for. Nothing of such things will God do; it is an idle dream. But God will be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane or the dark ice-cave God will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, it is not an end. He will be with you as you face death; he will die with you as he has died already countless myriads of brave deaths. He will come so close to you that at the last you will not know whether it is you or he who dies, and the present death will be swallowed up in his victory. 5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us from ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience and adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant; he makes us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside one, shoulder to shoulder. The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape from life and action; it is the release of life and action from the prison of the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of Quietism, of many mystics. Commonly such people are people of some wealth, able to command services for all their everyday needs. They make religion a method of indolence. They turn their backs on the toil and stresses of existence and give themselves up to a delicious reverie in which they flirt with the divinity. They will recount their privileges and ecstasies, and how ingeniously and wonderfully God has tried and proved them. But indeed the true God was not the lover of Madame Guyon. The true God is not a spiritual troubadour wooing the hearts of men and women to no purpose. The true God goes through the world like fifes and drums and flags, calling for recruits along the street. We must go out to him. We must accept his discipline and fight his battle. The peace of God comes not by thinking about it but by forgetting oneself in him. 6. GOD DOES NOT PUNISH Man is a social animal, and there is in him a great faculty for moral indignation. Many of the early Gods were mainly Gods of Fear. They were more often "wrath" than not. Such was the temperament of the Semitic deity who, as the Hebrew Jehovah, proliferated, perhaps under the influence of the Alexandrian Serapeum, into the Christian Trinity and who became also the Moslem God.* The natural hatred of unregenerate men against everything that is unlike themselves, against strange people and cheerful people, against unfamiliar usages and things they do not understand, embodied itself in this conception of a malignant and partisan Deity, perpetually "upset" by the little things people did, and contriving murder and vengeance. Now this God would be drowning everybody in the world, now he would be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, now he would be inciting his congenial Israelites to the most terrific pogroms. This divine "frightfulness" is of course the natural human dislike and distrust for queer practices or for too sunny a carelessness, a dislike reinforced by the latent fierceness of the ape in us, liberating the latent fierceness of the ape in us, giving it an excuse and pressing permission upon it, handing the thing hated and feared over to its secular arm. . . . * It is not so generally understood as it should be among English and American readers that a very large proportion of early Christians before the creeds established and regularised the doctrine of the Trinity, denied absolutely that Jehovah was God; they regarded Christ as a rebel against Jehovah and a rescuer of humanity from him, just as Prometheus was a rebel against Jove. These beliefs survived for a thousand years throughout Christendom: they were held by a great multitude of persecuted sects, from the Albigenses and Cathars to the eastern Paulicians. The catholic church found it necessary to prohibit the circulation of the Old Testament among laymen very largely on account of the polemics of the Cathars against the Hebrew God. But in this book, be it noted, the word Christian, when it is not otherwise defined, is used to indicate only the Trinitarians who accept the official creeds. It is a human paradox that the desire for seemliness, the instinct for restraints and fair disciplines, and the impulse to cherish sweet familiar things, that these things of the True God should so readily liberate cruelty and tyranny. It is like a woman going with a light to tend and protect her sleeping child, and setting the house on fire. None the less, right down to to-day, the heresy of God the Revengeful, God the Persecutor and Avenger, haunts religion. It is only in quite recent years that the growing gentleness of everyday life has begun to make men a little ashamed of a Deity less tolerant and gentle than themselves. The recent literature of the Anglicans abounds in the evidence of this trouble. Bishop Colenso of Natal was prosecuted and condemned in 1863 for denying the irascibility of his God and teaching "the Kaffirs of Natal" the dangerous heresy that God is all mercy. "We cannot allow it to be said," the Dean of Cape Town insisted, "that God was not angry and was not appeased by punishment." He was angry "on account of Sin, which is a great evil and a great insult to His Majesty." The case of the Rev. Charles Voysey, which occurred in 1870, was a second assertion of the Church's insistence upon the fierceness of her God. This case is not to be found in the ordinary church histories nor is it even mentioned in the latest edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; nevertheless it appears to have been a very illuminating case. It is doubtful if the church would prosecute or condemn either Bishop Colenso or Mr. Voysey to-day. 7. GOD AND THE NURSERY-MAID Closely related to the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and he poisons all their lives. For many of us the word "God" first came into our lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, as the All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is a great convenience to the nursery-maid who wants to leave Fear to mind her charges and enforce her disciplines, while she goes off upon her own aims. But indeed, the teaching of God Bogey is an outrage upon the soul of a child scarcely less dreadful than an indecent assault. The reason rebels and is crushed under this horrible and pursuing suggestion. Many minds never rise again from their injury. They remain for the rest of life spiritually crippled and debased, haunted by a fear, stained with a persuasion of relentless cruelty in the ultimate cause of all things. I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell were the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed in him, and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic monster, perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting to condemn and to "strike me dead"; his flames as ready as a grill-room fire. He was over me and about my feebleness and silliness and forgetfulness as the sky and sea would be about a child drowning in mid-Atlantic. When I was still only a child of thirteen, by the grace of the true God in me, I flung this Lie out of my mind, and for many years, until I came to see that God himself had done this thing for me, the name of God meant nothing to me but the hideous scar in my heart where a fearful demon had been. I see about me to-day many dreadful moral and mental cripples with this bogey God of the nursery-maid, with his black, insane revenges, still living like a horrible parasite in their hearts in the place where God should be. They are afraid, afraid, afraid; they dare not be kindly to formal sinners, they dare not abandon a hundred foolish observances; they dare not look at the causes of things. They are afraid of sunshine, of nakedness, of health, of adventure, of science, lest that old watching spider take offence. The voice of the true God whispers in their hearts, echoes in speech and writing, but they avert themselves, fear-driven. For the true God has no lash of fear. And how the foul-minded bigot, with his ill-shaven face, his greasy skin, his thick, gesticulating hands, his bellowings and threatenings, loves to reap this harvest of fear the ignorant cunning of the nursery girl has sown for him! How he loves the importance of denunciation, and, himself a malignant cripple, to rally the company of these crippled souls to persecute and destroy the happy children of God! . . . Christian priestcraft turns a dreadful face to children. There is a real wickedness of the priest that is different from other wickedness, and that affects a reasonable mind just as cruelty and strange perversions of instinct affect it. Let a former Archbishop of Canterbury speak for me. This that follows is the account given by Archbishop Tait in a debate in the Upper House of Convocation (July 3rd, 1877) of one of the publications of a certain SOCIETY OF THE HOLY CROSS: "I take this book, as its contents show, to be meant for the instruction of very young children. I find, in one of the pages of it, the statement that between the ages of six and six and a half years would be the proper time for the inculcation of the teaching which is to be found in the book. Now, six to six and a half is certainly a very tender age, and to these children I find these statements addressed in the book: "'It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.' "I hope and trust the person, the three clergymen, or however many there were, did not exactly realise what they were writing; that they did not mean to say that a child was not to confess its sins to God direct; that it was not to confess its sins, at the age of six, to its mother, or to its father, but was only to have recourse to the priest. But the words, to say the least of them, are rash. Then comes the very obvious question: "'Do you know why? It is because God, when he was on earth, gave to his priests, and to them alone, the Divine Power of forgiving men their sins. It was to priests alone that Jesus said: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." . . . Those who will not confess will not be cured. Sin is a terrible sickness, and casts souls into hell.' "That is addressed to a child six years of age. "'I have known,' the book continues, 'poor children who concealed their sins in confession for years; they were very unhappy, were tormented with remorse, and if they had died in that state they would certainly have gone to the everlasting fires of hell.'" . . . Now here is something against nature, something that I have seen time after time in the faces and bearing of priests and heard in their preaching. It is a distinct lust. Much nobility and devotion there are among priests, saintly lives and kindly lives, lives of real worship, lives no man may better; this that I write is not of all, perhaps not of many priests. But there has been in all ages that have known sacerdotalism this terrible type of the priest; priestcraft and priestly power release an aggressive and narrow disposition to a recklessness of suffering and a hatred of liberty that surely exceeds the badness of any other sort of men. 8. THE CHILDREN'S GOD Children do not naturally love God. They have no great capacity for an idea so subtle and mature as the idea of God. While they are still children in a home and cared for, life is too kind and easy for them to feel any great need of God. All things are still something God-like. . . . The true God, our modern minds insist upon believing, can have no appetite for unnatural praise and adoration. He does not clamour for the attention of children. He is not like one of those senile uncles who dream of glory in the nursery, who love to hear it said, "The children adore him." If children are loved and trained to truth, justice, and mutual forbearance, they will be ready for the true God as their needs bring them within his scope. They should be left to their innocence, and to their trust in the innocence of the world, as long as they can be. They should be told only of God as a Great Friend whom some day they will need more and understand and know better. That is as much as most children need. The phrases of religion put too early into their mouths may become a cant, something worse than blasphemy. Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs in their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it does not follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological formulae or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike or misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a friend or a distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a child, then he may begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve him out of their slain bodies into his shining immortality. Or if by some menial treachery, through some prowling priest, the whisper of Old Bogey reaches our children, then we may set their minds at ease by the assurance of his limitless charity. . . . With adolescence comes the desire for God and to know more of God, and that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching. 9. GOD IS NOT SEXUAL In the last two or three hundred years there has been a very considerable disentanglement of the idea of God from the complex of sexual thought and feeling. But in the early days of religion the two things were inseparably bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, for example, is continually proclaiming the extraordinary "wrath" of their God at this or that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of the sexual tabus. The ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative of the original nature of the Semitic deity who developed into the Trinitarian God. So far as Christianity dropped this rite, so far Christianity disavowed the old associations. But to this day the representative Christian churches still make marriage into a mystical sacrament, and, with some exceptions, the Roman communion exacts the sacrifice of celibacy from its priesthood, regardless of the mischievousness and maliciousness that so often ensue. Nearly every Christian church inflicts as much discredit and injustice as it can contrive upon the illegitimate child. They do not treat illegitimate children as unfortunate children, but as children with a mystical and an incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may resent this statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes, but let them consult their orthodox authorities. One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred or sinful in itself and what is held to be one's duty or a nation's duty because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best thing to do. By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or all of our institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be justifiable. But my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that the Christian God remains a sex God in the minds of great numbers of his exponents. His disentanglement from that plexus is incomplete. Sexual things are still to the orthodox Christian, sacred things. Now the God whom those of the new faith are finding is only mediately concerned with the relations of men and women. He is no more sexual essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic. The God of Leviticus was all these things. He is represented as prescribing the most petty and intimate of observances—many of which are now habitually disregarded by the Christians who profess him. . . . It is part of the evolution of the idea of God that we have now so largely disentangled our conception of him from the dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual rules that were once inseparably bound up with his majesty. Christ himself was one of the chief forces in this disentanglement, there is the clearest evidence in several instances of his disregard of the rule and his insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit underlying and often masked by the rule. His Church, being made of baser matter, has followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further than it was obliged. But it has followed him far enough to admit his principle that in all these matters there is no need for superstitious fear, that the interpretation of the divine purpose is left to the unembarrassed intelligence of men. The church has followed him far enough to make the harsh threatenings of priests and ecclesiastics against what they are pleased to consider impurity or sexual impiety, a profound inconsistency. One seems to hear their distant protests when one reads of Christ and the Magdalen, or of Christ eating with publicans and sinners. The clergy of our own days play the part of the New Testament Pharisees with the utmost exactness and complete unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern ecclesiastic conversing with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary civility, unless she was in a very high social position indeed, or blending with disreputable characters without a dramatic sense of condescension and much explanatory by-play. Those who profess modern religion do but follow in these matters a course entirely compatible with what has survived of the authentic teachings of Christ, when they declare that God is not sexual, and that religious passion and insult and persecution upon the score of sexual things are a barbaric inheritance. But lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption that those who profess the religion of the true God are sexually anarchistic, let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of the preceding paragraph, and let me a little anticipate a section which follows. We would free men and women from exact and superstitious rules and observances, not to make them less the instruments of God but more wholly his. The claim of modern religion is that one should give oneself unreservedly to God, that there is no other salvation. The believer owes all his being and every moment of his life to God, to keep mind and body as clean, fine, wholesome, active and completely at God's service as he can. There is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such a consecrated life. It is a matter between the individual and his conscience or his doctor or his social understanding what exactly he may do or not do, what he may eat or drink or so forth, upon any occasion. Nothing can exonerate him from doing his utmost to determine and perform the right act. Nothing can excuse his failure to do so. But what is here being insisted upon is that none of these things has immediately to do with God or religious emotion, except only the general will to do right in God's service. The detailed interpretation of that "right" is for the dispassionate consideration of the human intelligence. All this is set down here as distinctly as possible. Because of the emotional reservoirs of sex, sexual dogmas are among the most obstinately recurrent of all heresies, and sexual excitement is always tending to leak back into religious feeling. Amongst the sex-tormented priesthood of the Roman communion in particular, ignorant of the extreme practices of the Essenes and of the Orphic cult and suchlike predecessors of Christianity, there seems to be an extraordinary belief that chastity was not invented until Christianity came, and that the religious life is largely the propitiation of God by feats of sexual abstinence. But a superstitious abstinence that scars and embitters the mind, distorts the imagination, makes the body gross and keeps it unclean, is just as offensive to God as any positive depravity. CHAPTER THE THIRD THE LIKENESS OF GOD 1. GOD IS COURAGE Now having set down what those who profess the new religion regard as the chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of ideas aside from our explanations, the path is cleared for the statement of what God is. Since language springs entirely from material, spatial things, there is always an element of metaphor in theological statement. So that I have not called this chapter the Nature of God, but the Likeness of God. And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE. 2. GOD IS A PERSON And next GOD IS A PERSON. Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion are very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the axis, of their religion. God is a person who can be known as one knows a friend, who can be served and who receives service, who partakes of our nature; who is, like us, a being in conflict with the unknown and the limitless and the forces of death; who values much that we value and is against much that we are pitted against. He is our king to whom we must be loyal; he is our captain, and to know him is to have a direction in our lives. He feels us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He hopes and attempts. . . . God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no Infinite. He is as real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace. Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking about the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, Show us this person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the silences within, presently they will hear him.) But when one argues, one finds oneself suddenly in the net of those ancient controversies between species and individual, between the one and the many, which arise out of the necessarily imperfect methods of the human mind. Upon these matters there has been much pregnant writing during the last half century. Such ideas as this writer has to offer are to be found in a previous little book of his, "First and Last Things," in which, writing as one without authority or specialisation in logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man vividly interested, for others in a like case, he was at some pains to elucidate the imperfections of this instrument of ours, this mind, by which we must seek and explain and reach up to God. Suffice it here to say that theological discussion may very easily become like the vision of a man with cataract, a mere projection of inherent imperfections. If we do not use our phraseology with a certain courage, and take that of those who are trying to convey their ideas to us with a certain politeness and charity, there is no end possible to any discussion in so subtle and intimate a matter as theology but assertions, denials, and wranglings. And about this word "person" it is necessary to be as clear and explicit as possible, though perfect clearness, a definition of mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of the case impossible.
Eye surgeon Brian Boxer Wachler is a fan of eating a wide variety of whole foods for overall health, but feels most people don't realize just how much including certain plant foods and animal proteins can do to keep eyes sharp. "I know that there is research behind vitamins and nutrients in foods that have reduced the risk of eye disease or lack of those that increase the risk of eye diseases and that's based on studies," said Wachler. Kale, for instance, is a good source of Vitamin E, a vitamin known for fighting oxidation or free radicals in the body. The antioxidants in plant food can fight free radicals which in turn helps fight cataracts and other age-related eye diseases. Beyond kale, foods rich in vitamin C like carrots, broccoli, and citrus, reduce the risk of cataracts with regular daily intake. Along with foods high in omega-3 fatty acids like nuts and seafood. "A lot of people don't realize that almonds are a great source of omega-3 fatty acids just like with seafood. When children are growing it helps support their visual system development and their brain as well and also helps support healthy retina function," Wachler said. These good fats - plus foods that contain zinc such as poultry and whole grains - are known to help fight cataracts. And don't forget the yolk when eating eggs. That's where you'll find the antioxidant glutathione that has been shown to fight not only cataracts, but glaucoma, retinal disease and diabetic blindness. What isn't eye healthy? Smoking and UV sun exposure. Wachler says put the cigarette pack down and make sure you're wearing sunglasses to help keep your eyesight intact.
One of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the US comes from heating buildings. The Biden administration is trying to change that by promoting efficient electric heat pumps. But as the Allegheny Front’s Reid Frazier reports, getting Americans to switch to heat pumps won’t be easy. FRAZIER: When it comes to carbon dioxide pollution, the main cause of climate change. Heat pumps have two advantages over fossil fuels like natural gas, propane and heating oil. One is they use electricity, so it’s possible to run them on zero carbon sources like wind, solar and nuclear. The other is they’re very efficient. Amy Boyd is with the Acadia Center in Boston, which helps northeastern states meet climate targets. She says heat pumps work so well because they’re not generating heat like a furnace or stove. Instead, they rely on a clever piece of technology called a heat exchanger. BOYD: The way that heat pumps work is they move heat. And so even if it seems cold to your eye, if it’s any warmer than the vacuum of space, then there is heat out there to be moved. FRAZIER: Because it’s only moving heat around, not creating it. Heat pumps are up to four times more efficient than a standard furnace. In the summer, they can reverse themselves, doubling as air conditioners. Right now, about 10% of homes in the U.S. use heat pumps. That number will have to go up if the country is going to meet its climate goals. BOYD: Eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions that are coming from our heat, particularly in the Northeast, is one of the biggest things that an individual consumer can do to fight climate change. You can listen to the full exchange or read the entire transcript here.
1/100 at f/4 ISO 3200 with ring flash Assignment 1, contrasts is based on an exercise created in the 1920s by Johanne Itten who ran the basic course at the Bauhaus School of art and design. Itten’s theory of composition was built on the concept of contrasts and as an early part of his teaching he asked his students to identify and illustrate contrasts selected from a list. Michael Freeman, in The Photographers Eye (2007), says that Itten’s intent was to “awaken a vital feeling for the subject through observation”. He goes on to explain that the exercise involved three steps; firstly to gain a feeling for each contrast, then to list the ways of expressing this feeling and finally to make an image. Assignment 1 calls for these same three steps and my approach has been to try and follow a process towards each pair of images. My first thought was to develop a theme through all 17 photographs as well as having a relationship, and a contrast, across the pairs. However, as I moved further into exploring ideas for the images the harder it became to stay within a single theme as it quickly became too restrictive, limiting subject matter, technique and creativity. The challenge in this assignment has been to avoid the obvious and the cliché. Aaron Siskind said “We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect… but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.” This appeared to be an apt thought to remember on embarking upon this assignment. My process began by creating a series of mind maps for most of the contrast pairs. This included using the Oxford Concise English Dictionary, not so much for definitions, but for the usage examples that it gives. For example “hard” offers dozens of linked words including hard problem, hard to suffer, hard life, hard frost, hard data, hard labour and so on. This helped to see the many nuances of a simple word, in fact I tended to find that the simpler the word the more widely it was used. The scanned page shown above is the mind map representing hard/soft. This has been a useful process and although I won’t be using most of the ideas it has helped spot potential images. Having created these mind maps I began to home in on some potential pairs. I created an initial list of matched pairs and then began exploring locations that might provide images that fitted in with my ideas. I began to visualise some images and set out to search them out and in other cases I felt that a particular location or situation might work for certain pairs. Of course many of the visualised images were disappointing and some locations were fruitless but the process of planning, then seeking an image sometimes allowed me to develop a potentially better idea. One useful visit was to an industrial museum where I hoped to find machinery that offered the opportunity to capture shapes that might work for example with rounded/diagonal, curved/straight, strong/weak and heavy/light. I expected that the most obvious contrasts available would be the physical ones such as size, texture and shape. Fig. 2 – 1/100 at f/1.8 ISO 2800 As the museum was indoors with very limited natural light it was challenging to manage the light but this helped to focus on shapes. I captured a series of images that were processed and assesses. This gave me half a dozen ideas that might work which I printed as rough drafts, and noting ideas about angles, lighting and compositions. For example in fig. 2, which might have worked for rounded, the wheels needed more light bottom left, perhaps a reflector, to bring the first wheel out of such deep shadow. The wheels are old and highly textured so light across the surface will bring that out. It also needs enough depth of field to have all the layers of wheels in focus but not so much that the very angular background comes into focus. Fig 3 – 1/100 at f/1.8 ISO 1000 Another idea for rounded was to find as many rounded objects as possible interacting with each other. Fig. 3 is one example of many. By getting in close I am trying to take the viewer away from seeing an old steam engine and just to see the shapes. I have noted to try this again with a more acute angle to see if it possible to show the rounded boiler more clearly. Fig. 4 – 1/125 at f/2.8 ISO 8063 Fig 4. is a different idea for rounded taken in the same location. I took several shots of these very distinctively shaped stairs that sweep round about the exhibits. I liked the idea of the people rounding the corner as well as the rounded structure of the stair case. The light was difficult with a skylight above and the dark underneath of the stairs which I felt was essential to the image . I have used the HDR Toning function in Photoshop to balance out the shadows and highlights to show the structure of the staircase. This nearly works for me it is insipid. I tried this technique after reading Michael Freemen’s blog post “HDR Revisted” where he makes the point that HDR does not have to be extreme and is a way of dealing with the often impossible light conditions inside buildings where outside facing windows are essential to the composition. Obviously fig. 4 is not true HDR as it is based on a single image but it was interesting to try to balance of the light this way. Fig. 5 – 1/125 at f/2.8 ISO 900 There was no shortage of diagonals on the old engines. Fig. 5 is one example, I liked the strong diagonal bottom left to top right and the lesser ones at the top. I used a an on-camera flash hence the flash reflection to the right. My notes for this were to look for a framing that included the red junctions at top and bottom and to try working with natural light or a reflector. This and a number of other images also made me think about using off camera flash to bring light in from different angles. Fig. 6 – 1/100 at f/5.6 ISO 18,000 One of the strongest images on that first visit was of a stone grinding wheel. I felt the key to a photograph of this wheel would be angled light to bring out the texture. It could work as an image for rough. A second visit to the museum allowed me to test a focussed number of ideas. Fig. 7 – 1/100 at f/5.6 ISO 400 with diffused off camera flash Fig. 7 was a development of the ideas of the stairs and the iron wheels. Starting out as “rounded” it became “curved” with the inclusion of the stairs. At one level I like this image, the curves work well being on two planes, vertical and horizontal but there is also a lot of straight lines and I am still unhappy with the lighting. I used an off-camera flash gun with a small diffuser and tried it in a variety of positions but the very black surface of the wheel was a magnet for blown out highlights and this is distracting. The light did not bring out the texture of the iron. It did not make the cut and I have subsequently moved onto a different idea for both curved and rounded but I have learnt something about using flash on this sort of subject. Fig. 8 – 1/60 at f/5.6 ISO 100 diffused off-camera flash Fig. 8 is another image that went to the reject pile but that I enjoyed planning and working on. I had seen the hook with the tensioned cable on my first visit. It is about 3 metres off the ground and has the lights of the museum roof above it. The built in flash gun I used on my first visit has not allowed me to isolate the hook from the background so I wanted to try again with a much stronger light from the side and below. I think there is some merit in the result, the tension on the cable and the strong diagonal line through the whole subject was intended to give me “strong”. However, like most of the museum photos it is a too obvious interpretation. Other ideas that seemed good on paper but week in practice include my hard and soft combination where I wanted the contrast of hard and soft wheels, or seats or suspension. I tried a variety of shots of steam rollers, vintage cars and iron clad cart wheels but have not found angles that offer anything beyond a photo of a wheel. Fig 9. – 1/60 at f/5.6 ISO 100 off-camera flash Fig. 9 is one of the better examples where I was trying to get tyres and suspension into the same composition. Unfortunately all of the shots says things like “vintage car” or “old” and not hard or soft. The two trips to the museum have achieved a lot. I use off-camera flash, in a soft box, to bring out the texture when I photograph food and taking this technique on-the-road was a useful learning experience. I have one shot which I am planning to include in my final pieces that is all about texture and came as a direct result of planning, taking test shots and returning to the same location with a planned image in mind. The fact that most of the other ideas fell short of my expectations was also helpful as it showed the gap between the idea and its execution. On balance by selection this location I saw too many unimaginative and limited interpretations of the word pairs. My next phase would be to look at quite different subjects. Michael Freemen’s blog post “HDR Revisted” Aaron Siskind quotation – http://photography.about.com
Bee Conservation is the first in a series of synopses that will cover different species groups and habitats, gradually building into a comprehensive summary of evidence on the effects of conservation interventions for all biodiversity throughout the world. By making evidence accessible in this way, we hope to enable a change in the practice of conservation, so it can become more evidence-based. We also aim to highlight where there are gaps in knowledge. This synopsis covers evidence on the effects of conservation interventions for native, wild bees. Evidence from all around the world is included. Conservation interventions are grouped primarily according to the relevant direct threats, as defined in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Unified Classification of Direct Threats This book is written for people who have to make decisions about how best to support or conserve biodiversity. You might be a land manager, a conservationist in the public or private sector, a farmer, a campaigner, an advisor or consultant, a policy-maker, a researcher or someone taking action to protect your own local wildlife. Our synopses summarise scientific evidence relevant to your conservation objectives and the actions you could take to achieve them. We do not aim to make your decisions for you, but to support your decision-making by telling you what evidence there is (or isn't) about the effects that your planned actions could have. Threat: residential and commercial development Threat: land use change due to agriculture Threat: pollution - agricultural and forestry effluents Threat: transportation and service corridors Threat: biological resource use Threat: natural system modification Threat: invasive non-native species Threat: problematic native species Providing artificial nest sites for bees Education and awareness-raising There are currently no reviews for this product. Be the first to review this product! Lynn Dicks is a Research Associate in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. David Showler is a Research Associate in the School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia and the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. William Sutherland is the Miriam Rothschild Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge.
"Give me a fever and I can cure the child." – Hippocrates There is a strong motivation to do something when your child is not feeling well. Fever, more than almost any other common condition, causes great parental anxiety. Parents fear fever not only because it makes their child look and feel ill, but also because they're concerned that the fever indicates that there is a serious medical problem, or that the fever is going to harm their child. The majority of calls to pediatricians are related to fevers in children. Historically, due to more serious illnesses of the past, fevers were indeed potentially devastating and, to watch old movies, a fever was something that could lead to catastrophic outcomes short of a dramatic breaking of the fever at dawn. Fear of fever is still part of the collective consciousness because in the modern day there is so much advertising of fever-reducing medications, and pediatricians' offices readily give samples and dosage advice for these drugs. It stands to reason that it must be necessary to take steps to abolish the fever, even waking a peacefully sleeping child to do so. Actually, fever represents a universal, ancient, and usually beneficial response to infection. It is one of the body's most effective weapons for fighting disease. Usually the best thing you can do is to let the fever run its course and do its job. There have been enough scientific studies over the years to show that fever is not harmful and that lowering fever can be counterproductive. Just what is a fever and what does it do? Fever is not an illness. It is an elevation in body temperature, usually in response to a viral or bacterial infection. When an illness is detected, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus increases the body's metabolism while decreasing its ability to disperse heat. - Makes it very difficult for infections to thrive because illness-causing germs will likely not survive in the higher temperature. - Reduces the amount of iron in the blood stream that is needed by the invading virus or bacteria, thus starving the infection of needed nutrients. - Increases the activity of white blood cells that kill bacteria in the body. The makers of such drugs as Tylenol (acetaminophen) and Motrin (ibuprofen) certainly want you believe that fever is something to be suppressed. However, because fever helps the body combat viruses and bacteria by retarding their growth and by stimulating an immunological response, reaching for a drug to bring down a child's fever may delay recovery. A growing body of research shows that letting a fever run its course may reduce the length and severity of such illnesses as colds, flu and other viral syndromes. In studies of children with routine infection, those who were treated with antipyretics (fever reducers) stayed sick longer. Fear of Brain Damage No scientific tests or investigations have ever confirmed the common fear that fever could cause brain damage. In the rare cases of meningitis or encephalitis, though, the opposite is true. These conditions themselves cause brain damage, which can then interfere with the brain's ability to control the body temperature. In neurologically normal children, the brain has an internal regulatory mechanism that does not allow fever to rise out of control. Fevers produced by viral or bacterial infections will not cause brain damage or permanent physical harm, despite the myths about children being severely compromised by having a high fever. A small percentage (about 3%) of children have an underlying predisposition that causes them to have a brief seizure when the temperature rises at an extremely rapid rate. They most often occur between the ages of six months and three years. The seizures are brief and are not harmful in any way. Most of the children that have this type of seizure will never have another one. Most children (97%) will never have a seizure, no matter how high their fever goes or how quickly it rises. These seizures, or febrile convulsions, usually occur at the very beginning of an illness before the parents even realize that there is a fever. For this reason, aggressively treating fever does not prevent seizures. The first time this happens is understandably terrifying to parents, but children who experience febrile convulsions are no more likely to develop a seizure disorder than children who have no previous history of them. Parents are advised to seek medical help when fever arises in a newborn in the first two months, as there is a heightened level of concern in such a young baby. Breastfeeding plays a critical role here, as breastfed babies are protected from a vast range of illnesses and have a lesser risk of developing febrile illnesses in the newborn phase. When a fever occurs, it is not necessary to artificially lower the temperature. It is, however, important to have the child drink plenty of fluids, because during this time of elevated body temperature, it is easy to become dehydrated. Signs of dehydration can be difficult to detect in young infants, but they include dryness of the mucous membranes (dry lips, dry eyes, no tears when crying), dry skin, infrequent wet diapers and a sunken fontanel (soft spot on the skull above the forehead). Encourage children to drink plenty of water or at least sips of water at frequent intervals. Honey or lemon can be added or dilute fresh juice given if preferred. Breast milk is perfect for nursing infants and will probably be all that is wanted anyway. Juice pops, soup broth, and herbal teas are great choices because they replace electrolytes that are used up in the fever process. Older babies or young children may be reluctant to drink, so sucking on ice cubes, frozen juice or a wet cloth or sponge may be an effective alternative. Rest during times of fever allows the body to use its energy to fight off infection. Don't be too concerned if a feverish child does not want to eat. It is common for children with an elevated temperature not to have an appetite, so don't insist they eat. This reduced appetite is a good sign, actually, as fasting helps the body to further eliminate toxins and allows the body's energy to focus on recovery, rather than digestion. Encourage a hungry child to eat light wholesome meals that are easily digested like vegetable soup, or raw or stewed fruit. How your child looks is more important than the exact reading on the thermometer. Children with a fever who are acting normally rarely have a serious medical problem. The illness is probably not serious if your child is alert and interested in his/her surroundings, is drinking and generally seems well. No treatment is needed other than fluids and rest. Deciding to call the doctor Fever is a natural process, but any time that you feel concerned, it is reasonable and expected that you request that the child's doctor evaluate for a possible serious infection. A child with a fever might have an underlying illness that needs to be diagnosed and possibly treated, so advice to let a fever run its course is not the same as ignoring what might be a serious condition if there is something about your child's condition that does not seem right. Your pediatrician will look for the possible source of fever, ask questions about your child's illness and do a thorough exam. Call your child's doctor if: - Your baby is under two months old and has a fever. Infants do not fight infections very well. Because of this your doctor will be more concerned about your infant with fever. - An older child is persistently warm and does not respond to home treatment within three days. - The fever is associated with respiratory difficulty. Look for labored breathing while at rest or noisy breathing. - The baby or child refuses to drink or breastfeed (there is a risk of dehydration). - Your child is always lying down, even after the fever has dropped, and does not have times of wanting to play and drink fluids (there might be a more serious illness). - There are associated symptoms such as irritability (difficult to console), abdominal pain, limping, or pain with urination.
Know Your Numbers: Blood Pressure Jeremiah Gums, M.D.Internal Medicine Blood pressure is basically a measure of strain on the vessels and so the top number is how much strain is on the vessels when your heart contracts and then the bottom number is the strain after the heart relaxes. Our goal is 120 over 80 but when you start to get somewhere between you know 120 over 80 to 140 over 90 that's considered that pre hypertensive area. Anything over 140 over 90 is considered hypertensive and that's when we start seeing problems. Are there any symptoms of high blood pressure? If your blood pressure is hanging out in that 150 to 180 systolic range, it's probably not going to lead to any symptoms. If it's really high it can cause things like headaches, vision changes, and that sort of thing, but it's a silent problem so a lot of times patients don't realize that their blood pressure is elevated. What are the consequences of high blood pressure? High blood pressure can lead to strokes, can also lead to heart disease, can lead to kidney disease and other complications as well. How is high blood pressure treated? Initially we can treat it with diet and exercise, if that fails or if it gets to a point where it's so far out of control that, that's not helping, then we need to move on to things like medications and there's some very good medications to help high blood pressure but we like to get it early enough to where we can maybe postpone that or try to control a diet and exercise alone. How often should my blood pressure be checked? If you have a problem with high blood pressure it's probably a good idea to check it a couple times a month, you don't necessarily have to check it every day. If your blood pressure is under control and it's never been a problem, it's probably okay just to check it, you know, every six months to a year. Does family history play a role in high blood pressure? People do need to be aware of their family history. If they do have a parent or both parents that have high blood pressure, they should be aware that they are at risk for developing high blood pressure as well. It is important to monitor your blood pressure as high blood pressure can create numerous health problems. Dr. Jeremiah Gums, Internist with Boys Town Internal Medicine, explains what your blood pressure means, symptoms of high blood pressure, the consequences of high blood pressure, treatment options, how often blood pressure should be checked, and the role your family history has on high blood pressure.
Photosynthesis Problem Set 1 Problem 6: Events during light reactions What three events occur during the light reactions of photosynthesis? A reduction of oxygen, oxidation of NADPH, formation of ATP B oxidation of water, reduction of NADP+ , formation of ATP C oxidation of water, recuction of NADP+ , hydrolysis of ATP D fixation of carbon dioxide, release of oxygen, synthesis of glucose E release of oxygen, fixation of carbon dioxide, hydrolysis of ATP The Biology Project University of Arizona Thursday, October 3, 1996 Contact the Development Team All contents copyright © 1996. All rights reserved.
District Water Management Agency The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) is a social security scheme that attempts to provide employment and livelihood to rural labourers in the country. In an effort to make inclusive and overall development a reality, the NREGA was passed as a labour law and implemented across 200 districts in 2006. By 2008, it came to cover the entire country. The scheme was designed to provide any adult who registers for rural employment a minimum job guarantee of 100 days each financial year. This includes non-skilled work, making it one-of-its-kind across the world. It was later renamed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The MGNREGA is an entitlement to work that every adult citizen holds. In case such employment is not provided within 15 days of registration, the applicant becomes eligible for an unemployment allowance. Works Taken up under MGNREGS - Land leveling works - Plantation works - Asset Oriented works like (SWPC, IHHLs, NADEP compost pits, Soak pits, Village parks, Burial Grounds, CC roads (with convergence), GP Buildings, Mandal Buildings, Silk warm raring sheds, Check dams, Horticulture Plantation & Avenue plantation. Roof Water Harvesting Structure, Recharge Bore well structure. - Present the Central Government has taken up the programme ofJal Shakthi Abhiyaan on war foot basis. The JSA programme main concept is to harvesting water and to increase Ground water levels.
What Is Chapter 4 Of A Dissertation And How To Write It? Welcome to this in-depth guide on a Chapter 4 dissertation! This important chapter can frequently feel like an intricate web of data and analysis as you start your research journey. Do not be alarmed; we are here to clear up the procedure and give you the information and resources you need to confidently traverse Chapter 4. The relevance of Chapter 4, its function, and the crucial components that make it a crucial component of your dissertation will all be covered in this blog. This resource will serve as your compass as you work towards a fruitful and meaningful representation of your research findings, regardless of whether you're using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods research. However, still, if you may need an expert's help to assist you in writing then consider to pay someone to do your dissertation and get the best possible results! What Is Chapter 4 Of A Dissertation? The "Results" or "Findings" chapter in a dissertation can be referred to as Chapter 4. Researchers report the findings of their study in this important portion using the information gathered over the research process. Chapter 4's main objective is to give empirical evidence and analyze it to respond to the research questions or objectives mentioned in Chapter 1's introduction. The purpose of this chapter is to help readers comprehend the fundamentals of the study and evaluate the accuracy and applicability of the findings considering the study's goals. The structure and subject matter of Chapter 4 dissertation may vary depending on the research methodology, but it is important since it presents the data that either confirms or disproves the study's findings or hypotheses. The information offered in this chapter must be carefully planned, effectively conveyed, and in line with the general goal of the research to contribute to the academic dialogue in the relevant field of study. However, if you’re someone whose writing skills aren’t good enough or are not finding enough time to give your dissertation complete attention because of other academic obligations then consider searching for cheap dissertation help UK-based and hire the one that best fits your budget! How To Write Chapter 4 Of Dissertation A crucial stage in presenting the study findings and responding to the research questions or objectives is writing Chapter 4 of a dissertation. The data gathered and examined throughout the study process ought to be succinctly described in this chapter. Therefore, to know how to write Chapter 4 of dissertation follow these essential strategies to compose Chapter 4 efficiently: Organize Your Results Start off writing chapter 4 of a dissertation by logically grouping the results. A cohesive sequence that is in line with your research questions or aims should be used to group similar data. This will make it easier for readers to follow the informational flow and make correlations between various findings. Language Should Be Simple And Clear Be sure to speak clearly and succinctly while reporting your findings. Prevent confusing the reader with superfluous technical phrases and jargon. For one to grasp the significance of the findings from each study, it is necessary to express the outcomes of each analysis in clear terms. Give An Interpretation And Background Give context and an explanation for each discovery in addition to the raw facts that you have presented. Describe the consequences of the findings and how they connect to the issues or hypotheses that informed the study. Make links within your findings and the work of other scholars by referencing previous material to back up your perspective. Employ Tables And Visuals Your findings may be better understood if you use visual aids like graphs, charts, and tables. Add these illustrations to your presentation to make complex information more understandable. Make certain that every image has a description in the text that corresponds to it and that it is clearly labeled. Limitations Are Addressed Declare in Chapter 4 the restrictions on your research. There are always limitations to research and mentioning them to the reader demonstrates that you are cognizant of any possible weaknesses in your work. Give some explanation as to how these constraints might have affected your findings and make any recommendations for future work. Reference The Research Questions Again Link your conclusions back to the research questions or objectives listed in Chapter 1 consistently across Chapter 4. This keeps everything in perspective and guarantees that the findings directly address the study's objectives. Use subheadings to create sections in Chapter 4 so that it remains clear and well-organized. This will render it simpler for readers to find certain details inside the chapter and traverse the text. Observe, Then Edit! Review and edit your work once you've finished Chapter 4. Ensure that the chapter progresses logically, that all the information is adequately presented, and that the inferences are solidly backed. Ask For Opinions Get input from your adviser or classmates before submitting Chapter 4 for editing. The standard of your work can be improved with constructive criticism, which can also help you spot any areas that might benefit from additional growth. Throughout Chapter 4, it's crucial to keep your composure. Without introducing personal prejudices or opinions, explain the data and observations as they are. Remember that Chapter 4 is an essential part of your dissertation since it offers the data to back up your findings and adds to the entire validity and importance of your research. So, consider opting for custom dissertation writing services UK-based and let the professionals help you in this task because the effect of your study will be increased, and you will add to the academic conversation in your field if you take the time to properly compose and explain your findings. Chapter 4 Dissertation Outline Writing The Results or Findings section of a dissertation is often referred to as Chapter 4. The results of the investigation are presented in this essential section using the information that has been gathered and examined. To successfully convey the study findings to the readers, Chapter 4 dissertation outline writing demands careful planning and organization. Here is a general outline to follow while writing Chapter 4 of a dissertation: Introduction To Chapter 4 - Provide a brief overview of the purpose of Chapter 4 and its significance in the research process. - State the research questions or hypotheses that this chapter will address. Data Analysis Plan - Describe the methods used for data analysis, such as statistical tests or qualitative coding techniques. - Justify why these methods were chosen and how they align with the research objectives. Presentation Of Findings - Present the research findings in a clear and organized manner using tables, charts, graphs, or narrative descriptions. - Ensure that the presentation is easy to comprehend and supports the research questions or hypotheses. Interpretation Of Results - Analyze and interpret the data, explaining the meaning and implications of the findings. - Discuss how the results align with previous research, theories, or literature in the field. Discussion Of Findings - Provide a comprehensive discussion of the research findings, linking them back to the research questions or hypotheses. - Highlight any unexpected or contradictory results and offer possible explanations. Limitations Of The Study - Acknowledge and discuss the limitations of the research, such as sample size, data collection methods, or potential biases. - Addressing the limitations shows the researcher's awareness of the study's constraints and enhances the credibility of the research. - Summarize the key findings of the study and their implications. - Restate the significance of the research and its contributions to the field. - Offer suggestions for future research based on the gaps identified in the current study. - Recommend how other researchers can build upon the current findings to advance knowledge in the field. Conclusion Of Chapter 4 - Provide a concise summary of the entire chapter and its main takeaways. - Emphasize the relevance of the findings in answering the research questions or testing the hypotheses. Writing Chapter 4 involves careful attention to detail and clarity to ensure that the research findings are effectively communicated and contribute significantly to the overall research endeavor. Chapter 4 Quantitative Dissertation Writing The results chapter, found in chapter 4 quantitative dissertation, presents the conclusions reached after analyzing numerical data gathered using organized research techniques like surveys or experiments. This chapter is extremely important since it presents the empirical data that was gathered and enables readers to judge whether the study's hypotheses and research questions are sound. The data is analyzed by researchers using statistical methods and tools, and they subsequently present the findings in effective tables, charts, and graphs. Focus is placed on reporting the findings with objectivity, correctness, and precision. Additionally, researchers explore the significance and importance of the findings as they interpret and link them back to the study questions. The limits of the study may also be addressed, along with any other unexpected results. A quantitative dissertation's Chapter 4 is a crucial section since it exemplifies the study's rigor and dependability, as well as how it advances knowledge in the subject of study. Qualitative Dissertation Chapter 4 Writing Qualitative dissertation chapter 4 – the conveying of the findings and outcomes from the study's qualitative research methodologies is the primary emphasis of writing. This chapter explores the analysis, interpretation, and integration of the information gathered using techniques including content analysis, interviews, and observations. Analysts provide a deep and nuanced comprehension of the research issue by presenting the themes, patterns, and narratives that evolved from the data. They back up their conclusions and show the veracity of their findings with comments and excerpts from the participants. Aside from acknowledging any possible prejudices or constraints that might have affected the study's findings, researchers may also consider their contributions to the research process. The qualitative dissertation Chapter 4 goes over the simple presentation of data and participates in a deeper analysis of the research issues, providing insightful contributions to the body of knowledge already in the field of study. Chapter 4 Of A Mixed Methods Dissertation In the "Results and Findings" chapter 4 of a mixed methods dissertation, researchers describe and analyze the data collected through qualitative as well as quantitative methods. To offer a thorough examination of the study questions or objectives, the researcher incorporates the results from both data sources in this chapter. The qualitative findings, which include themes, narratives, or patterns obtained from interviews, focus groups, or observations, may be presented after the quantitative findings, which include statistical evaluations and numerical data. This chapter's goal is to triangulate the findings from various methodologies and provide a more complete knowledge of the research topic. Researchers ought to tackle any contradictions or differences that may have emerged between the quantitative and qualitative data, as well as how the results fit into the larger research framework. Chapter 4 of a Mixed Methods Dissertation improves both the reliability and validity of the research and offers a deeper understanding of the research issue by mixing multiple data sources. Happily, you've finished reading the guide to writing chapter 4 of a dissertation. It is hoped that this excursion has given you the confidence to embrace this crucial chapter with clarity and purpose. Bear in consideration that Chapter 4 is a chance to highlight the results of the work you have put in, not just a collection of statistics. You can confidently and persuasively convey your research findings by adhering to the tenets of data analysis, comprehension, and clear presentation. Accept the difficulties and rewards that Chapter 4 offers and allow your data to show the way to fresh understandings in your area of expertise. Be proud that your research has contributed worthwhile insights to the scholarly debate as you finish this component of your dissertation. Good luck with your writing! However, still, if you may feel like your Chapter 4’s dissertation findings aren’t accurate according to your topic then consider searching for buy dissertation online UK-based and let the professionals write it for you!
The Dark Side of Certainty: Jacob Bronowski on the Spirit of Science and What Auschwitz Teaches Us About Our Compulsion for Control “Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible… We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power.” By Maria Popova Richard Feynman memorably argued that the chief responsibility of a great scientist is to remain uncertain. “It’s a wonderful idea: thoroughly conscious ignorance,” Stuart Firestein asserted in his wonderfully poetic TED talk on why ignorance rather than knowledge drives science. And yet the toxic belief persists that science is about our insatiable appetite for knowledge, power and, ultimately, control over the world. In 1973, a year before his death, Polish-born British mathematician, biologist, and science historian Jacob Bronowski captivated the world with his pioneering BBC series and companion book of the same title, The Ascent of Man (public library), tracing the development of human civilization through science, from flint tools to alchemy to quantum physics. Celebrated as one of the first works of “popular science,” it bears Carl Sagan’s succinct and perfectly descriptive one-word blurb: “Superb!” In this excerpt from the eleventh episode of the series, titled “Knowledge and Certainty,” Bronowski addresses with goosebump-giving poignancy the most dangerous extremes of our counterproductive compulsion for control and our quintessential discomfort with uncertainty: There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit. The assertion of dogma closes the mind and turns a nation, a civilization into a regiment of ghosts — obedient ghosts, or tortured ghosts. It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false — tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas — it was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods. Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible… We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people. Who more than Bronowski weaves a deep knowledge of history, art, cultural anthropology, literature and philosophy into one seamless cloth with his science? And does it lightly, effortlessly, never sinking to pretension? Bronowski uses the English language — not his first language, which makes it all the more remarkable — as a painter uses his brush, with mastery all the way from broad canvas to exquisite miniature. The full documentary is well worth watching as well. Complement it with Richard Feynman on the universal responsibility of scientists. Published April 24, 2014
Olympians Are Faster And Stronger, But How? NEAL CONAN, HOST: The motto of the Olympic Games translates as faster, higher, stronger. And for more than 100 years now, athletes have continually set new records. But how? There have to be physiological limits. Surely, the human body can only run so fast, jump so high or lift so much weight. But every time somebody establishes a new mark, somebody else comes along to break it, and even mere mortals can see the same dynamic at work as they establish individual bests in whatever their sport may be. So, athletes, call and tell us how did you surpass your expectations. Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email: firstname.lastname@example.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. Emily Sohn wrote about Olympian records for Discovery News and joins us now from Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul. Nice to have you with us today. EMILY SOHN: Thanks so much for having me. CONAN: And I was interested in the quote you got from an exercise physiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Carl Foster, who told you there is almost certainly a species limit. He thinks we're near it but that every time some scientist says humans can't go any faster, they're promptly shown to be wrong. SOHN: Yeah. And this is something that scientists and mathematicians seem to love to do is to look at - take these measurements of human ability in human bodies and do the math and see how fast they think we could possibly go. And it makes sense. I mean, if you think about something as simple as dissipating heat. You know, you start exercising, you sweat, you get hot. And if you got too hot, you would keel over and die. There has to be a limit at which your body is going to stop and not let you go any faster. And they do all these calculations and come up with numbers. And then, you know, bit by bit athletes keep breaking those records. CONAN: And there are kinds of reasons for that including that there is simply a bigger pool of athletes. SOHN: Yeah, and I think that's the biggest thing. And, you know, one thing just to get out of the way because I know it's going to come up is that, you know, doping comes up every time someone breaks a record that, you know, maybe they're taking performance-enhancing drugs and that's why. But there's a lot of evidence that records have started to stagnate and that detection is getting better. And it seems like the biggest thing really is that more people are playing sports, that they're starting at younger ages, that they're - sports medicine is so much better that they're able to recover from injuries that would've been career-ending. People are playing into their 20s and 30s, whereas they would've stopped at college age before. And then also, you know, there's this exposure. So we've got the TV and YouTube and the Olympics are on, and kids can see swimmers who were once in an obscure sport now becoming national heroes and they think, well, maybe I could do that. And instead of playing basketball or football or hockey, which were the big sports, you know, a couple of decades ago, they'll feel, maybe I'll try swimming. And it increases the chance that people with the innate talent to be swimmers are actually going to try swimming and thus increase the chances that those records will get broken. CONAN: And as you wrote in the piece, swimming, once a high school and collegiate sport, you can now be a professional swimmer. SOHN: Right. I mean, you can make a living at it, which you couldn't do before. Before it was, you know, you squeeze it in. And there was one anecdote - I don't know the runner, but there was a marathon runner in the 1920s or '10s and he worked a full-time job. So he would run to his work and work all day on his feet and run home. And now we know that you need recovery, that recovery is just as important as training. And, you know, athletes are able to do that. They're able to take the rest they need and do it as a full-time job, which, for sure, increases the chance that they're going to excel and reach as close to the limit as they can get. CONAN: Or they could pass and draw between a Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps. Mark Spitz won all those gold medals and went to work as a dentist because he had to pay the bills. Michael Phelps, able to make a living - a good living - as a swimmer. SOHN: Yeah, and I think Michael Phelps is just the perfect example. I mean, I just love watching him perform. And, I mean, it's been so many Olympics now. You've seen him grow up, and he's really become - and he is a household name. He is on the covers of newspapers all over the world. And what does that do for the sport of swimming? I mean, it really propels it to something that kids are going to want to try starting when they're 4 or 5 and, you know, giving themselves a chance to be the best. CONAN: And the same for sprinters from Jamaica, one assumes. SOHN: Right. And that came up too, that, you know, I think a great example is the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City when - I think until then the Europeans and Americans had been dominating running events. And then that Olympics was the first one that the East Africans made a show at. And I think the altitude worked in their favor as well, that they just dominated and suddenly were launched into the spotlight and making lots of money because of it. And, you know, it's easy to imagine that you see that and you live in Africa and you think, well, maybe I could be a runner. And all of these kids are starting to try to run. You know, now that the Jamaicans are really dominating things, the kids in Jamaica are going to think, well, you know, I see my national heroes doing this. I want to try it too. And maybe they're the next great Olympians. CONAN: As a whole generation of Dominican shortstops grew up in one town, San Pedro de Macoris. They saw somebody be successful and suddenly they decided to try it too. SOHN: And, you know, what's still untapped - Michael Joyner, who's an exercise researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, pointed out that, you know, India, you don't see a lot athletes from India at the Olympics. And there's such a huge amount of - number of people in India. What if they started swimming and running? You know, what - who is there? What kind of talent and genetics are there in India that we haven't seen yet? And I think the South American countries are also underrepresented in sports. So there's still major potential for, I think, people to topple records that seem insurmountable just because the people who are able to do it haven't tried it yet. CONAN: We're talking with Emily Sohn, a freelance journalist and a contributor to Discovery News. We'd like to hear from athletes in our audience, world class and lesser, who have surprised themselves and surpassed their expectations. How do you do it? 800-989-8255. Email us: email@example.com. We'll start with Mark. And he's on the line from Portland. MARK: Yes. Hi. Thanks for having me on. MARK: I'm a former SEAL, former long-distance runner. And I think when we talk about achieving limits, one of the assumptions when you say you can't break a limit is that the training itself isn't going to change. And I've seen that dramatically change over my lifetime in SEAL teams and in running. And when you incorporated things like CrossFit programs, things like where you're doing high-intensity interval training, which didn't exist when I went through, and so the athletes that are going up in SEAL training now are in much better condition than really anybody who went through it that time. And you see the times going down. I think the same thing is true of the Olympic athletes. When you look at the types of training they're doing, they're dramatically different than they were back then. So I think that - the assumption is that we're not going to realize additional efficiency in training, and I don't think we've seen the end of that, in my opinion. And the other thing, how did I achieve what I've done - I think two things: One is visualization, more or less believing that you can actually do what you're setting out to do. And the other piece of it, which is key to any high-end athletic program or athletic feat, is endurance or tolerance of pain. And so those are my comments. CONAN: It's interesting. And have you achieved something that you thought when you started out you could never do? MARK: I think getting through SEAL training, you know, doing some of the things that are done there, I certainly didn't think I could do that prior to going in. I think that was, you know, staying up for five days and (unintelligible) that was certainly pretty difficult. More recently, I think just - I gained weight and trying to go through the pain of losing weight has been a lot more difficult, so using visualization, believing that I could do it and accepting a very high level of paint is... MARK: ...unpleasant but doable. CONAN: Congratulations on the weight loss. And again, that is no small accomplishment to get through SEAL training. MARK: Thank you, sir. CONAN: All right. Appreciate the phone call. And Emily Sohn, one of the things you wrote about was, yes, improvement in training techniques. But one of the things that he was also talking about, visualization, the belief that you can do it. If somebody else breaks a record, you can do it too. SOHN: Yeah. And that comes up again and again. I think Roger Bannister is the perfect example of that, who was the first person to run a four-minute mile in 1954. And that record had been 4:01 for nine or 10 years. And people for 15, 20 years have been talking about breaking this four-minute barrier. It was so - it had become such a psychological barrier that, you know, there were even rumors from what I've heard - I don't verify this - but that people just thought if you did it, you know, you might die, that it was just that impossible. And then he did it. And within weeks, someone else did it and then he broke it again. And, you know, just a few, you know, 10 years later, a high school student was doing it. Now lots of high school students go under four minutes. So it's just sort of that example, and I think the newest one is going to be the two-hour marathon. The current record is 2:03, and there have been several papers written about... CONAN: That's for men, yeah? SOHN: For men, yeah. About how fast people will possibly go, factoring in, you know, the physiological limits as well as, you know, if you have the perfect conditions and the right temperature that scientists have speculated that the fastest marathon ever will be a 1:58 or maybe slightly under but never faster than that. But we'll see, I guess. CONAN: Andrew is on the line with us from Dayton, Ohio. ANDREW: Hi, Neal. A big fan. I just had a story that's - I ran cross country and track in high school. And for my sophomore year - I won state championship my freshman year in the 1,600 meters. And my sophomore year, up until the week before the state meets, there were five or six runners that had all run the exact same time that I'd run in the state meet the year before. And that was the fastest time that anyone had done in our classification in high school. And so there was - it was anyone's game. And after the - as the race played out, me and another one of the runners, who's a big rival of mine, person I knew personally and was friendly with but didn't - wasn't too friendly as we were pretty strong competitors, and after the 1,600 meters, we dropped our time by 10 full seconds... ANDREW: ...which - yeah, which in any race is pretty big and particularly in a race like that. And we dropped our time at 10 full seconds, and actually the difference in our time was seven hundredths of a second after all 1,600 meters, and he actually wound up edging me out. I got second after winning... CONAN: I was going to ask you - you got the silver, yeah. ANDREW: Yeah, it was pretty frustrating, but I've sort of come to appreciate it as a sort of sign of being able to come back. And even though - I mean, even though I lost, I still take a lot of pride in that accomplishment, and that was still was the fastest time I ever ran was that day. And I simply chalk it up to the fact that neither of us were willing to lose. We just would not lose a step to one another. CONAN: That's interesting. You mentioned Roger Bannister, Emily Sohn. He had Glenn Cunningham on his heels. So... ANDREW: He was a big role model for me. I really, really looked up to Roger Bannister in high school. And my dad wasn't a runner. He was a swimmer in college, but he always influenced - encouraged me to read and learn about Roger Bannister because he was sort of in college around the time that that whole thing happened, and that was a big inspiration for me, that someone said that this is an impossible feat and no one can ever do it. And then he just says, well, I'm going to go ahead and do it then. CONAN: So rivalry as a spur to athletic achievement. ANDREW: Yeah, absolutely. I think - I mean, the next person - the next closest person was a full six or seven seconds behind us. And so I really think that it was simply the fact that we were unwilling to lose that brought us down so much so quickly. CONAN: Andrew, thanks very much for the phone call. ANDREW: Thank you. CONAN: We're talking about the achievement of new records, either personal bests or world records and how that continues to be possible. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. There is also a technology, Emily Sohn, not just better training techniques, but better ways to evaluate what people are doing. SOHN: Right. And I think when we talked about exposure to sports, the idea that you could compete in a sport that you hadn't thought of before, once you pick it - you know, one of my sources pointed out there are these underwater cameras in a swimming pool, so you can see now what those top athletes are doing in a way that no one could before. And you as an amateur athlete could - can study that, work with your coach on that, refine your techniques, you know, compared to the days when you go out there and try to go fast, but don't necessarily know what you're doing. And then also on the technology angle there, the - there's also these - you know, if you imagine that there are these physiological limits and there's a line or a ceiling on a grass and we're marching up the curve ever closer to that ceiling, you know, if athletes are just as fit, say, you know, and you can argue about this, as they were before, that there are all these little technological advancements that can add up. You know, in the swimming pool where you get deeper pools, you get lane lines that absorb waves, synthetic tracks. There is fiberglass poles in the pole vault. All those little things kind of add up. And when you're talking about sports where tenths or even hundredths of a second matter, those things can lead to world records in ways that they didn't before. CONAN: Let's see if we go next to Alex, and Alex on the line with us from Steamboat Springs in Colorado. ALEX: Yeah. Thanks for taking my call. You know, I'm a wildland firefighter up in Northern Colorado, and I find that aside from having my captain yell in my face and getting me to run faster, when I was kid, coming from a broken home and coming from a lot of different issues, getting a pair of shoes for Christmas from my father really got me moving, got me competing against a lot of people and finding community that just had such positivity, put me in a world where I've gained respect from people I didn't know. And it helped me figure out my issues back home. So having that community, having that positivity and having that ability to make better choices through a community that you find is just incredible. Put me in track made me a wildland firefighter today, and I'm healthy as can be, you know? So that's kind of where I feel that comes from. CONAN: That's interesting. You've had a busy summer. ALEX: Oh, very busy summer. It's been interesting up here in Northern Colorado. CONAN: Interesting is one way to put it. ALEX: Yes, very much so. CONAN: All right. Well... ALEX: Thanks for taking my call. CONAN: Thanks very much. But it's interesting, Emily Sohn. You do point out that though we continue to break records, the rate at which we break them seems to be plateauing. SOHN: It does. And I think that really argues towards the first point, that it's the numbers of people participating that make the difference. With Title IX, I think, is a perfect example, in the 1970s when women were suddenly exploding into sports in numbers they never had before. They just shattered records left and right. They dropped and dropped and dropped, and then they've started to plateau just like the men's records have. So, you know, that argues for two things. Some people say it argues that maybe we're getting better at detecting doping, that records aren't getting smashed as much as they were. But also that maybe we are approaching these limits that we have. We're getting closer to them. CONAN: Emily Sohn, thanks very much for your time today. Appreciate it. SOHN: Thanks so much for having me. CONAN: Emily Sohn, a freelance journalist and contributing writer for Discovery News. She joined us from Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul. You can find a link to her piece "How Do Olympians Keep Getting Better?" on our website. That's at npr.org. Tomorrow, we'll talk with ranchers about how the drought is changing what they do. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Trials of Communism in the 1920s Communism is a political movement that began in 19th century Europe. The main ideals espoused by communists are the abolition of all private property and the rule of the working class. Most communists believed this rule would be obtained by a violent overthrow of monarchies and capitalist governments. Communism commanded a significant following in many European and American countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Russia became the first nation ruled by the Communist Party in 1918, followed by Mongolia in 1924. Communism faced several significant challenges in its infancy during the 1920s. 1 Nature of Communism One of the first challenges faced as the communists gained power in Russia concerned the nature of communism itself. Some leaders, including Leon Trotsky, believed that Communist Party membership should be open to the working class and that communism, to succeed, must be in a state of nonstop revolution until worldwide communism is achieved. Others, including Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin, believed that party membership should be restricted to professional revolutionaries who would rule on behalf of the working class, and that communism could succeed in a single country, temporarily coexisting with capitalist countries and monarchies. 2 Consolidating Gains Eventually Lenin and later Stalin came to power, which led to the adoption of the idea of "communism in one country." This was largely a practical concession to the fact that Russia lacked the resources to actively spread communist revolution to other countries. Heading into the 1920s, Russia's economy had been devastated by the constant warfare of World War I and the Russian Revolution. Some communists felt this failure to further spread revolution was a betrayal of communist principles. But Lenin believed that if communism succeeded in Russia, communist revolutions would arise of their own accord in other countries. 3 Agriculture, Industry and Housing Shortages In 1922, the Russia joined with Ukraine, the Transcaucasian Republic, and Byelorussia to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Two years later, the USSR helped Mongolia to form a satellite communist government. One of the first challenges these new communist nations faced was meeting domestic need for food, housing and other commodities. During the revolution, the Communist Party had seized all Russian industrial and agricultural production, but lacked the resources to keep the systems functioning. Realizing that workers and farmers must have some incentive to produce, Lenin introduced the New Economic Plan, which reintroduced some elements of capitalism into the Soviet economy and allowed workers to realize some personal profit from their labor. Towards the end of the 1920s, Josef Stalin replaced the NEP with a series of five-year plans designed to strengthen government control over the nation's production. 4 Communism and Tolerance The Soviet and Mongolian communist parties tolerated no criticism or political alternatives, and quickly suppressed public opposition in their own countries. Often this was accomplished by persecuting, imprisoning or executing the targets. But the international communist movement suffered significant setbacks in the 1920s as other countries enacted policies in direct reaction to the excesses of communist revolutions. In many countries, communism was outlawed. In others, communists were legally tolerated but viewed with suspicion. In countries that tolerated communism, communists faced opposition from more moderate socialists, who shared many ideals with communists, but favored bringing about reforms through the political process rather than armed revolution.
This unit examines Arab cities in terms of their social, historical, linguistic, religious, and cultural composition. It explores the cities through literature, music, visual arts, and popular culture. Arabic will be the means to the exploration and subject of the investigation in itself. 2x1hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week 2x750wd written reflections (30%), 4x125wd homework assignments (15%), 1x1000wd group project (20%), 2x250wd cultural portfolio (5%), 2x500wd presentations (20%), class participation (10%)
Estimates, some biased, vary wildly. But without critical details about alternative energies, offsets, and new technology, it's hard to say On June 26, the House of Representatives "passed the most important environmental and energy legislation in our nation's history," in the words of Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp. By putting limits on the emissions that cause climate change, the bill would alter the economy and make the nation cleaner and greener. The price tag for Americans in higher costs for energy and all manner of consumer products: as high as $3,000 a year per family, say Republicans. Hold on, it's more like $175 per family per year, says the Congressional Budget Office. Why the wildly divergent estimates? Much depends on how forecasters factor in basic assumptions, such as how quickly low-carbon technology can be developed. In addition, the cost depends heavily on the specifics of regulations yet to be written. "To be honest, it is just very uncertain what the outcome of the bill will be," says Scott J. Bloomberg, principal at economic modeler CRA International. The basic concept behind the bill is that utilities and other companies must have a permit, or allowance, for each ton of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas they emit, with an overall cap. Over the years the cap will be lowered to cut emissions 83% by 2050. Allowances get scarcer, and the price of emitting goes up. How much the price rises, however, depends on "things that are truly unknown," explains modeling expert Thomas Wilson of the Electric Power Research Institute. Costs will be lower, for instance, if the nation builds a lot of nuclear plants or if supplies of natural gas are abundant. The costs go up, though, if the technology to capture carbon dioxide from coal plants fizzles or if solar panels don't come down in price. If that's not complex enough, other provisions in the House bill add to the uncertainty. To reduce the impact on the economy, the legislation would allow companies to buy "offsets"—emission reductions made by, say, preventing deforestation—instead of making their own reductions or buying permits. In an analysis by John M. Reilly at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, such offsets cut the price of a ton of CO2 emissions from $55 to $17 in 2015. But other studies are less sanguine about how many offsets will be allowed, so they end up predicting higher costs. Meanwhile, separate provisions boosting incentives for energy efficiency would lower consumers' energy bills, but only some of the analyses figure in those savings. Given all these moving parts, it's easy for politicians to pick the numbers they want. In fact, "there's been outrageous demagoguery on the costs of the bill," says Daniel Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center. For instance, the Republicans' widely used $3,000-per-household figure comes from Reilly's MIT study, they say. Reilly says that's a misinterpretation—the number is far lower. For now, the most credible estimate, say experts, is the Congressional Budget Office's relatively low cost, although even it can't account for all the unknowns. But the reassuring lesson from history is that new regulations, such as the 1990 rules on acid rain, usually spur enough clever ideas to reduce costs below predictions and deliver greater benefits. "No economic model has ever accurately modeled technological change induced by government action," says Joseph J. Romm, a former Energy Dept. official. "That's why they overestimate the cost of action."
What is a balance sheet and what will I find on a balance sheet? The world of accountancy can be complex. It is advisable to hire an accountant who has the expertise but for SME’s and smaller businesses it can be tricky and costly to outsource this. A balance sheet is one of the basic documents that companies can use to quantify and understand their finances. On accountancy software, it is easy to look at and frequently monitor balance sheets. This article will give a basic breakdown of a balance sheet and some of the aspects you will find on there. Along with the income statement, statement of cash flows, statement of stakeholders’ equity and the statement of comprehensive income, a balance sheet is one of the main financial documents used by accountants. It represents the state of a company’s finances, identifying assets and pending out payments. In this article we’ll go through a step by step guide of a balance sheet and have a look at some of the individual components that make up the document; assets, liability and shareholders’ equity. The first item is assets. Assets are essentially what the company owns; the accumulated property of a company that have economic value and can be represented in currency. assets are the possessions of a company that they can legally claim ownership on. Assets can be split into two broad groups; liquid and non-liquid assets. Liquid assets include cash and all the property assets that can be converted to cash. Non-liquid assets on the other hand cannot be converted into cash quickly, such as buildings and land. Asset accounts are specifically used to report debit balances. Credit balances can be defined as contra assets. Assets can be further categorised into current and non-current assets. Current asset are the liquid short term assets that can be swiftly liquidated, such as investments, accounts receivable (credit owed) and the inventory; raw materials and products. (both completed and unfinished) Non-current assets include the non-liquid assets that can’t be quickly liquidated such as property, plant and equipment (PP&E): tangible fixed assets (land and buildings) and the intangible assets such as copyright, patents, goodwill and brand. A liability is an obligation or a legal commitment held by a business. Often liabilities can provide economic benefit at a later date. Liability includes money held the by a business in exchange for a service or order that is yet to be fulfilled. It’s the legal obligation of a business to fulfil a service or send a product in exchange for the initial payment before the money can be classed as a liquid asset. Liability accounts include; lawsuit payments, income tax payable, wages payable, bonds payable, customer deposit, notes payments, accounts payable, salaries payable, warranty liability and other accrued expenses payable. Similar to assets, liability accounts have credit balances and contra liability accounts have debit balances. Liabilities can be classified into two groups, defined by the time period left to fulfil. Current liabilities are due within one year, and long term liabilities are due after a one-year period. Shareholders (or owners) equity is the financial value of the shareholders. A sole proprietor will report this as owners equity on a balance sheet. This can be worked out by subtracting the liabilities from the assets. Retained earnings are what remains after paying dividends to the shareholder Equity is what remains after taking the liabilities off the assets. Shareholders equity is commonly referred to as the book value of the company. Examples of Shareholders Equity includes common stock, preferred stock, paid-in capital in excess of par value, paid-in capital from treasury stock, retained earnings, accumulated other comprehensive income. Importance of balance sheets This article has hopefully provided you with some valuable information about balance sheets. The different aspects that are included all quantify the performance and the actions taken by a business. These must all be taken into consideration when designing, producing and using a balance sheet. The insights that can be made from a balance sheet are integral to the growth of a business and are used to track ROI (returns on investment). Balance sheets are a clear way of monitoring these, and a comparative approach with old editions can provide excellent control measure on the financial performance of the business. Find out more about small business accounting costs more broadly and payroll costs specifically. Be sure to take a look at our financial advisor costs page and wealth manager fees pages for more information on how to better manage your finances and the costs involved in the advice. Find out how much it'll cost to outsource your bookkeeping Get a more accurate, no-obligation quote by filling in this form. 1. Tell us which bookkeeping service you're looking for What do you need help with? Payroll, cloud accounting or general bookkeeping? 2. Tell us where your company is based We can put you in touch with local or national businesses, depending on your preference. 3. Compare bookkeeping costs We'll put you in touch with trusted local companies and freelancers who will provide you with no-obligation quotes. Get quotes from accounting firms Save 100's on your yearly accounting by comparing quotes from local companies.
This is the third in a series of posts on largely unknown spaces in Boston that are open to the public. You could walk around the Boston Public Library’s two pink granite structures all day and never guess that nestled within lies a jewel of a courtyard. This beautiful hidden space offers visitors a secluded and tranquil place to read, relax, sip coffee and listen to music in the city’s Back Bay neighborhood. The library’s original building on Dartmouth Street was actually the third incarnation of the @BPLBoston, which is the oldest, free, municipal circulating library in America. The institution had outgrown its first two locations in downtown Boston before the Commonwealth granted it land in the Back Bay. It then moved west to the “new land” of the Back Bay. The building was designed by Charles Follen McKim of the New York firm of McKim, Mead & White. Inspired by Europe Like most architects at that time, Mr. McKim turned to Europe for inspiration. Thus the new Boston Public Library was partly inspired by Labrouste’s Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, and Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, Italy. This classical revival structure, built from 1888 to 1895, heralded the American Renaissance in architecture of the late nineteenth century. It was conceived and created as a “palace for the people” with lavish marble interiors ornamented with sculpture and murals. At its heart is the courtyard. This beautiful central space was based on the design of the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. It combines gardens surrounded by a cloistered walkway, a fountain, and a notorious statue. The arcaded gallery that allows you to view the courtyard from three sides encloses a small plaza, within a perimeter hedge, that’s planted with grass and flowers. In the middle is a small plaza around a square fountain basin in which a circle of water jets plays around a granite plinth. Atop this is a statue of “Dancing Bacchante and Infant Faun” by Frederick William MacMonnies. To be accurate, the BPL’s dancer is Bacchante III. The first version was given to the library in 1894 by Charles Follen McKim but it generated quite a furor. The Bacchante is a priest or priestess of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy. In keeping with Bacchus’s wild religious rites, the bacchante is nude, you see, and inebriated as well. To make things worse for Boston’s Brahmins and bluestockings she’s offering a bunch of grapes to the child in her arms. Nudity, dancing, and drinking, oh my! In addition, the sculptor used a 19-year-old mother and her child as models—a real naked woman instead of a classical reproduction! Worst of all, she’s having fun. The statue created a scandal and the outcry against it was so loud that Mr. McKim withdrew his gift three years later and presented it instead to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art where it could be admired by the more appreciative and less judgmental residents of Gotham. Bacchante II, cast from the same mold, is in the permanent collection of the Boston Museum of Arts, just down the road on Huntington Avenue. Nearly a hundred years after Mr. McKim’s original gift, tastes had changed sufficiently for the library to want its own version of MacMonnies’s delightful dancer and Bacchante III was cast from @MFABoston’s Bacchante II. For all the furor, though, it’s hard to look at this statue without smiling. The Bacchante’s happy face and exuberant dance are so filled with joy that the emotion extends to the viewer. More Information on the BPL Courtyard The courtyard at the Boston Public Library is free to all. A series of open-air concerts is given there in June, July and August, offering a variety of music from jazz and folk to classical and contemporary. In addition, the BPL runs the Courtyard Restaurant serving lunch and afternoon tea. It’s easy to find the BPL courtyard. Just walk in the main entrance on Dartmouth Street past the statues of Art and Science by Bela Pratt. Go through the monumental brass doors ornamented with bas relief sculptures by Daniel Chester French. Walk to either side of the great central staircase and turn past it so you’re continuing west. You should see arrows directing you to the courtyard. Follow them through the doors and you’ll enter a small piece of Rome in Boston. Sit, rest, listen to the fountain and enjoy one of Boston’s hidden gems.
The Weimar Republic was born out of Germany's defeat in the First World War and ended with the coming to power of Hitler and his Nazi Party in 1933. In many ways, it is a wonder that Weimar lasted as long as it did. Besieged from the outset by hostile forces, the young republic was threatened by revolution from the left and coups d'A(c)tats from the right. Plagued early on by a wave of high-profile political assassinations and a period of devastating hyper-inflation, its later years were dominated by the onset of the Great Depression. And yet, for a period from the mid-1920s it looked as if the Weimar system would not only survive but even flourish, with the return of economic stability and the gradual reintegration of the country into the international community. With contributions from an international team of ten experts, this volume in the Short Oxford History of Germany series offers an ideal introduction to Weimar Germany, challenging the reader to rethink preconceived ideas of the republic and throwing new light on important areas, such as military ideas for reshaping society after the First World War, constitutional and social reform, Jewish life, gender, and culture. Weimar Germany encapsulates the history of the period through a collection of essays... [which] provide much material for discussion. Paul Bookbinder, European History Quarterly. highly recommended as an introduction to the topic Andreas Wirsching, German Historical Institute London Bulletin provides an excellent introudction to new work and new approaches to the Weimar Republic ... this is a stimulating and accessibly volume which will inform and enliven dicussion of the Republic and its problems in an admirable way. Jonathan Wright, English Historical Review Series: Short Oxford History of Germany S. Audience: Tertiary; University or College Number Of Pages: 344 Published: 19th March 2009 Country of Publication: GB Dimensions (cm): 21.6 x 13.8 x 2.0 Weight (kg): 0.422
Learn about this topic in these articles: discussed in biography His Design This Day—the Technique of Order in the Machine Age (1940; rev. ed. 1949) traces the development of modern design and outlines the techniques necessary to the solution of design problems. He also wrote Land of Plenty, a Summary of Possibilities (1947) and, with John Storck, Flour for Man’s Bread, a History of Milling (1952).
You’re from Bombay? So what? You are like my brother!” Our guide’s voice rasps out through the lobby of the Eagles Nest Hotel in Pakistan’s Hunza valley. We had got through another Pakistani military checkpoint on our 1,250 km drive on the Karakoram Highway, from Islamabad to the Chinese border at Khunjerab, and I had just told him to keep my origins to himself. The noise drops as the information travels. The attendants turn to look at us: “You’re from Bombay?” We encounter this question often. But my concern over being identified as Indian in what I know as Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir was slowly replaced with the comforting knowledge that my inquisitors were just like gossiping neighbours back home. The Karakoram is a formidable natural frontier. The range hosts seven of the 20 highest mountains on earth, including K2, at 8,611 metres, the second highest. It is the most heavily glaciated part of the earth outside the poles, and includes the 122-km-long Biafo-Hispar, the world’s longest glacial system. Ringed by the Hindukush, Himalaya, Kunlun and Pamir ranges, the Karakoram is a gnarly, impenetrable knot. Some local kingdoms are still not fully assimilated into the country. Politics hasn’t helped. In the 19th Century, Britain and Russia jockeyed here for influence in Central Asia, immortalised as ‘The Great Game’ in Kipling’s Kim. With ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan, and keen interest from China, Afghanistan, and Russia, the Karakoram continues to be the pivot of Asia. On our journey to Gilgit, the last airstrip in the mountains, alpine forests and hilltops pass below our 15-seater airplane. We bank to dodge what looks like a whole mountain range. It turns out to be just one peak: Nanga Parbat, 8,126 metres, the world’s ninth highest mountain, so steep it suffers little snow. From the haze of the foothills, just south of the Indus, this massive rock forms a 30 km wall. It fills our window, and our minds. Two days later, we climb our way through 40°C heat in the moraines of Raikot Gah, one of Nanga Parbat’s many glacial valleys. I turn a corner and confront the mountain again. Nothing in our approach — from the rocky, barren Indus gorge — has prepared me for it. Avalanches thunder down the Raikot Face. I need to steady myself against the vertigo of finding the sky filled with ice and rock. At Beyal Base Camp, on the second day, a sign points to Harmanbull lodge. Hermann Buhl was an Austrian, the first man to summit Nanga Parbat. He then stood the night out on a narrow ledge at 8,000 metres, holding on to the freezing rock for balance. In the wooden hut named for him, as we dip biscuits in steaming chai, it is hard to make room in our hearts for his travails. Reading on the veranda, in the afterglow of exertion, with a full stomach and the splendour of Nanga Parbat must surely count as one of life’s enduring pleasures. Conversation with our driver during the jeep ride back to Gilgit turns to the chilling effect of the Taliban on tourism. I recall it has only been 20 years since this road was built. We are jolted back to thoughts of immediate survival, as our driver fails to overtake a heavy Chinese truck. We rage helplessly against the dust and carbon monoxide storms that billow behind it. Four hours later at Gilgit, caked with dust, numbed by the furnace-like heat of the rocky valleys, we resolve to take covered public transport to Hunza. Overnight rains have cooled the burning slopes. We hum through scented orchards on the banks of the Indus.We have new friends: A dry-fruit seller from Islamabad, a real estate broker from Multan, women visiting relatives, homebound schoolchildren, a French-Canadian hippie who gets called out at every roadblock to provide further identification. My Hindi passes for the Urdu of a city slicker and I am spared as our neighbours take great pleasure in vouching for me. Ali, the dry-fruit seller, delivers ceaseless commentary on passing historical and cultural sights: Here a bridge destroyed by floods in 1995 and rebuilt by the Chinese; there a shrine to a local pir (saint) and a fort that fended off a British invasion in 1891. The bus stops at a roadside dhaba. We try a chapshuro — spiced minced lamb and cheese roasted in a fresh naan — which is delicious. Ali doesn’t let me pay. He invites us to dinner, writing down his address in our Lonely Planet. The historian John Keay called Hunza an ‘incredible eyrie.’ Surrounded by mountains, frocked with deep green forests, the valley is rugged. The frontier is never far: In the forts, in the hazel eyes of a Hunza girl, in the growl of a dusty jeep navigating a hairpin bend. And it is lush. Bright orange apricots dangle tantalisingly, and lie squished, purple and matted, on the road below. Melt-water gurgles through irrigation canals and narrow gorges. Jagged pearly peaks rings the valley: Rakaposhi, a soaring 7,800 metre peak, Diran, Sangemar Mar, Spantik, Distaghil, ending with Bubulimating, a finger of rock jutting above the Ultar glacier. In the evening, as we sip fresh apricot juice on the balcony of our hotel, the sun drizzles the valley with softness and peak after peak lights up with orange fire. But there is more than a hint of intimacy with geopolitics. A monument to Queen Victoria sits on a ridge; Baltit, with its now silent cannons overlooks the valley; far below, on the twisting Karakoram Highway, signs read: ‘Long Live Pak China Friendship.’ We’ve already seen evidence of a Chinese victory in that old Great Game: Chinese-made bridges and trucks, and Chinese labourers chipping away at the spine of the Karakoram, hauling rubble to the cliff’s edge, mortaring retaining walls. They wear wide straw hats; toothless grins brighten tanned, leathery skins. They wave as we pass. The few Pakistanis we see seem to always be sitting around smoking. As Ali says: “The Chinese will make roads for us. We Pakistanis will teach them corruption!” Image: Ankur ShahKhunjerab Pass, Pakistan/china border The newly constructedChinese gatewayat the highest navigable pass in the world( 5000 metre altitude) In the late 19th Century, when Europeans first began to explore the north, the road was not even a passable trail. John Biddulph, the first European to return alive from Hunza, wrote: “On the occasion of my visit to Hunza in 1876, I suddenly found myself confronted with a more difficult and dangerous piece of ground than I had ever traversed in a tolerably large experience of Himalayan sport.” A narrow trail, often without footholds, landslides down steep slopes, deadly rivers below, all made the road almost impervious to traffic. But the British were paranoid about a Russian advance through the high passes of Central Asia, and subsequent invasion of Kashmir and then the plains of India. As the Great Game rose to a crescendo in the 1880s, British soldiers, politicians, and amateur explorers of all stripes attempted to build their careers on securing the Raj’s unknown flanks. The Karakoram proved impassable for infantry or artillery, but “the chance of a scrap” drove desperate and ambitious young men to Gilgit, the last British Agency in the north. None was more ambitious than Colonel Algernon Durand, brother of the Foreign Secretary of British India (Henry Durand, after whom the Durand Line is named). In the early 1890s, his Gilgit Agency launched two desperate, under-manned offensives, ostensibly to subjugate local kingdoms. Even as survey officers proclaimed, according to Keay, “We have no reason to fear a Russian advance through the passes,” Durand’s men attacked Chitral in the west. The subsequent mobilisation of the regular army to lift the siege on Durand’s men, and the extreme difficulty in crossing Malakand and Lowarai passes confirmed that the Karakoram would not bear the passage of armies. As we near the border at Khunjerab Pass, we make way for one Chinese 18-wheeler container truck after another. The jawans at the final Pakistani outpost are delighted to see us. We share a swig of Chinese arak, and I grimace as I swallow, greatly amusing them. Beyond a windswept no-man’s land at the roof of the world, a new gateway to China is under construction: A ghastly replica of the entrance to the Forbidden City. The red flag with its five golden stars flutters above. On the border, the mud track rises abruptly by two inches and becomes a four-lane tarmac road smooth enough to play carrom on. We are told it is like this all the way to Kashgar, in China’s Xinjiang Province, and will soon be the same to Islamabad, via the new 30-metre road we have seen being built by the Chinese. And onward via rail to Gwadar Port (built by the Chinese) on the Arabian Sea. The glimpse of the rolling domes of the Pamirs and China’s staggering vision leaves me subdued. We spend the night by the Hunza River in Passu, a small village overshadowed by the mouth of a spiny glacier and Tupopdan, a dramatic cathedral of spire-shaped rocks. The cavernous, dimly lit dining space of the Soviet-inspired hotel is not welcoming. The food is oily and unappetising, but the Chinese beer is refreshing, and our host, Ahmed, is worldly and wise. My Indian identity opens a reservoir of goodwill. We talk about social isolation in big cities, where offering a ride to strangers is rare. Growing up in Passu, Ahmed and his friends rolled burning rubber tires down the slopes at night. The mountains create an unbearable urge, he explains, to escape the mental cage imposed by the high horizon and the narrow valley. Pyromania is suddenly understandable. Ahmed refuses payment and the night leaves a lump in my heart as we part with yet another stranger who opened his arms to us. Two days later, the bus to Rawalpindi, 18 hours down the Karakoram Highway, pulls out of Gilgit without incident. We are in separate seats but our fellow passengers will not hear of it, and make room for us to sit together. At multiple breaks to replace flat tyres or stretch our legs, our companions share food, water, and their lives with us. The man on my left is a branch manager of the National Bank of Agriculture from Siachen, going to Islamabad for training on a new loan product. He shows us pictures of his daughters on his cellphone, is curious about Lonely Planet’s assessment of his village and its touristic offerings. At Dassu, in lawless Indus Kohistan, he will not hear of us paying for our lunch. For once there are vegetables, and I savour the bhindi and lightly-fried green chillies. At the Pir Wadhai terminal, Rawalpindi, a college friend has sent his car for us. The car, and the driver who rushes to take our bags, feel alien. We are like country bumpkins: Proud of our innocent adventure, warmed by our bonds with our neighbours, resentful of the big city lights that shine through the smog. Half-way home, we realise we did not offer our banker friend a ride, or even wish him goodbye. Map: Hemal SethIF YOU GOHow to Get There To Gilgit: Fly from Islamabad on Pakistan International Airlines ($50 one way). Or take a NATCO bus from Rawalpindi (AC-ed, cheap). Or drive (12-24 hours, weather and road condition dependent, $250 one way). Gilgit to Hunza and Khunjerab: public transport (cheap) or rent a jeep ($40/ day). Where to StayGilgit: Gilgit Serena, 4-star, luxurious but gaudy (Tel: +92 5811 455894, Doubles: $110/night). Lost Horizons, a guest house (doubles: $40/night, Tel: +92 5811 55017).Hunza: Eagles Nest has spectacular views; 30 minutes above Karimabad, free jeep transfers (doubles: $25/night with breakfast; Tel: +92 58134 58274). Baltit Inn, a 4-star, (doubles: $72/night, Tel: +92 58134 57660). Passu: only one small motel worth staying in; as soon as you enter the town on the left.Where to Eat Hunza: Hidden Paradise, Karimabad, serves delicious traditional food. Café de Hunza has thick, fresh walnut cakes with crusted honey. Passu: Glacier Breeze is the best in the valley; delicious fresh apricot cake, Islamabad-trained chef/owner (Tel: +92 5822 50003). Tips ATMs only in Gilgit, but often not functional. Indian citizens must get location-specific visas from the Government of Pakistan. (This story appears in the 02 July, 2010 issue of Forbes India. You can buy our tablet version from Magzter.com. To visit our Archives, click here.)
Do diapers end up in landfills? It’s no secret that about 20 billion pieces of used diapers will end up in landfills every year. This generates more than 3.5 million tonnes of diaper waste. This resource-consuming production and used diaper waste have led to many environmental issues and pose a threat to public health. How many baby diapers are in landfills? From Babies’ Bottoms to Landfills The Union of Concerned Scientists has estimated about 18 billion diapers are thrown into landfills every year. And a 1998 study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that diapers made up 3.4 million tons of waste, or 2.1 percent of U.S. garbage in landfills that year. How many years will it take to break down decompose these diapers? These disposable diapers take approximately 550 years to decompose in landfills, thus underscoring the efforts of programs offering diaper and absorbent hygiene product recycling. Every minute, every day, more than 120,000 aluminum cans are recycled only in America. How bad are disposable diapers for the environment? While the buzzwords many manufacturers use to describe their diapers may make you feel better about using them, there isn’t always a lot of science behind them. Traditional disposable diapers won’t do any harm to your baby. And eco-friendly diapers will cost you a lot more than more generic disposables. Why are diapers not good for babies? Most disposable diapers carry tiny amounts of dioxins. Some worry that the dioxins found in disposable diapers that have been thrown away will contaminate groundwater near landfills. Parents, of course, have an additional worry. There doesn’t seem to be enough dioxin in a diaper to threaten a baby’s health, however. Are disposable diapers bad? Disposable baby diapers produce an incredible amount of environmental waste. … Not only do they form a sizeable portion of non-recyclable landfill waste, but they also contain many harmful chemicals that are subsequently dispersed into the environment.
From Flies and Filth to Food and Fever The State Board of Health Asks you to carefully and attentively read this card; then put the question directly to yourself, whether flies should not be destroyed, or, a least, an effort be made to keep from pollut- ing food prepared for you to eat. Flies are disease carriers Live and breed in all kinds of filth Infect food and drink by germ-laden feet Each female fly can lay 150 eggs Should be kept out of dwellings Flies breed in horse manure, cow dung, decaying vegetables, garbage of all description, dead animals and human excrement. Flies are Nature's scavengers, it is true, filling the same function as some bacteria do, but become an intolerable nuisance and DANGER when entering human dwellings and contami- The presence of flies is a direct evidence of careless housekeeping and the existence of filth in some form about the premises. Remember that when and where absolute cleanliness prevails there will be no flies. Look daily after the garbage cans. See that they are carefully sprinkled with lime or kero- sene oil and effectively covered. Do the same thing to manure heaps, and remove all manure from stables every three or four days, and when removed, cover with lime and sand. Look carefully after the garbage cans. They require constant attention. This is particularly true in hotels, boarding houses, station houses, railroad stations, and in fact, wherever people congregate in large numbers. Flies are fond of feasting on turberculous sputum, and hover around cuspidors. The specks of flies contain live tubercle bacilli after they have eaten turberculous sputum, showing that the bacilli will pass through the digestive tract of the fly in an active infective state. Flies carry on their mouths (proboscis) and on their legs putrefying and disease germs, on which they have recently fed, and then crawl over food, infecting it, unless shut out by screens. Keep flies from the SICK, especially those ill with communicable or contagious diseases. If The room is not screened the patient should be treated under a net, both for the safety to others as well as for individual comfort. SCREEN ALL FOOD. Apply this rule, not only to food prepared at home, but to food- stuffs offered for sale, and especially fruits, salads and all other things which do not require to be cooked. For - Flies crawl over fruit when exposed for sale, unguarded by screens, and the generality of people do not wash fruit before eating it. This is a fruitful source of human infection, particu- larly if a case of typhoid fever nearby is being carelessly handled. Don't forget that flies will carry the bacilli of typhoid fever from the stools of the patient (if left exposed and not disinfected), if given an opportunity, to the food in the kitchen and dining- room. This is no conjecture, for the Spanish-American War proved this fact. The great secret of how to get rid of lies is CLEANLINESS FIRST, and by screening all openings of the home, especially the kitchen and dining-room. Look at the marginal illustrations. They are disgusting, it is true. So are flies. The disgust that your stomach receives through your eye is as nothing, however, to the probable and pos- sible benefit which you will receive by giving due heed to the warnings suggested by the etchings. STATE B0ARD of HEALTH E. M. HENDRY, President JOHN G. CHRISTOPHER H. L. SIMPSON, M. D. Jacksonville, Florida Pensacola, Florida JOSEPH Y. PORTER, M. D. Secretary of State Health Officer KEY WEST and JACKSONVILLE, FL Record Company, St. Augustine State Library of Florida: Florida Collection, BR0214 Linen poster from the State Board of Health encouraging the public to reduce the exposure of food, drinks, and dwellings to flies.