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SUGARCREEK, Ohio — U.S. milk and dairy products have long been considered some of the safest, most wholesome foods available. But to maintain such a positive reputation, farmers and milk handlers need to give increased attention to how they medicate their animals and use modern technology. That was part of the message at a Feb. 15 dairy information event sponsored by Sugarcreek Veterinary Clinic, Pfizer Animal Health and OSU Extension, on the importance of proper antibiotic use on livestock. “At this point, we have a great trust by our customers. Almost anybody you ask on the street — milk is the most wholesome food we have,” said Pfizer veterinarian Gregory Edwards. “We need to keep that; we can’t risk that at all.” “It’s very important that you follow the label when treating animals so that the residue potential is not going to be there for humans,” he said. In addition to following the label, Edwards said producers should use medications only with a veterinarian’s guidance, administer all drugs properly and identify animals treated, maintain and use proper treatment records and promote proper drug use among farm workers. He said the top sources of beef carcass residue are dairy cows that have been culled, and veal calves. The company’s literature says dairy cows are 400 times more likely than feedlot cattle to be flagged for a carcass residue. Good records and employee training help ensure drugs are administered safely for the animals and our food supply. “You need to make sure that they (farm workers) have training on how it has to be done; not what they think or what they want,” he said. More than 150 attended the event, held in a banquet room at Dutch Valley Restaurant in Sugarcreek. In the morning, Chris Zoller, Tuscarawas County OSU Extension educator, talked about the importance of dairy planning and management. Jerry Lahmers, a farmer from Newcomerstown and a member of the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, gave an update on new animal care rules. In the afternoon, featured speaker Greg Quakenbush, a Pfizer veterinarian, presented Truth and Agriculture — an entertaining look at what is true about agriculture, and what consumers believe. Despite concerns about hormones in dairy milk, particularly estrogen, Quakenbush said milk is surprisingly healthier than many other foods. For instance, 3 ounces of milk non-BST contains the same amount of estrogen as milk from BST-enhanced cows — about 11 nanograms. And, milk contains far less estrogen than popular vegetables, he said, and considerable less than soy milk, which contains 30,000 nanograms per cup. Beef contains 1.2 nanograms, and beef from cattle given implants contain 1.6 nanograms. He estimated one birth control pill to contain the same amount of estrogen as 125,000 pounds of implanted beef. “Our culture picks some of the dangedest things to get freaked out about,” he said. But Quakenbush still stressed the importance of proper medication use, which determines the safety of milk and meat. He warned farmers about not following labels and veterinary recommendations. “The most expensive thing you can do to yourself or to us as an industry is to try and save a nickel. … Don’t go out and trip any triggers over residues. It’s the last thing we need.” Quakenbush said the truth about agriculture is encouraging, but the public has been frightened by activists and so-called scientists and who do not understand truth. “I believe science has been hijacked,” he said. “It’s overrun by pseudo-science.” He encouraged farmers to become more critical thinkers and find the truth in arguments, not just the politically correct view. “Find your ethical voice and begin to speak out because there’s a freight train coming of people who never even stepped in a cow pie — they have no concept,” he said. Absolute truth does exist, he said, and in a world full of lies and misinformation, farmers should seek to defend truth as much as possible. It’s what should determine our ethics and morals, he said, and how farmers should run their business.
The article “Safe Stabling: Protect the People” by Nancy Loving DVM shares a few tips and suggestions on how people can keep themselves safe around horses and in barns. Her fun photo challenge first caught my attention, as we have done similar challenges (as seen here). My career in designing horse farms has continuously focused on how to design for the safety of both horse and handler. I wanted to add some additional tips on how stable design can help keep both people and animals safe. One could write a book on the subject, and I have in fact. My book Healthy Stables by Design (www.healthystablesbydesign.com) has been released. But for now, I’ll name eight areas of concern: Circulation, Fire Separation, Ventilation, Finishes, Layout, Materials, Orientation, and Natural Light (see diagram below). I have shared one example under each, but in truth the list is virtually limitless. Feel free to comment with your own suggestions. Let’s build a list together and see how far we can take it. Circulation: In planning the farm and the location of the barn relative to paddocks, roadways, service lanes, and lead paths, always try to bring people, vehicles, and horses as close together as possible without crossing paths. They should be separate, but still efficient (as all circulation routes are costs in terms of installation, maintenance and operation). Fire Separation: It goes without saying that fire safety is a major concern around horse barns. Both how you design to prevent and contain a fire once it happens is important. I always suggest isolating hay, bedding, and flammable products (such as fuel and machinery) from the barn by placing them in a separate structure. Whenever you can, consider fire separations. For example, I frequently design a fire separation that isolates the stall area from the service areas of the barn by using pocket doors to close off the aisle. They serve to isolate the “human areas,” such as tack room, laundry, lounge, or office, from the “horse areas.” By doing so, they separate the areas of high risk from the horses. If there is a fire, the fire separation works to contain the smoke and slow the spread of the fire in order to give you more time to get the horses out. Ventilation: The most important health concern for your horses. Natural ventilation, including vertical ventilation, is the most important design consideration. Design the barn to be a natural machine, not just a static structure. Use the Bernoulli principle and the chimney effect to create that. Place the barn perpendicular to the summer prevailing breeze in order to take the most advantage of the site. Finishes: Avoid finishes that will collect dirt, moisture, bacteria, etc. For that reason, we do not advise using finishes that are not easily washable or do not drain well. Layout (site and building): Consider the natural slope and drainage of the land. Place the barn on a pad that is at least 18″ to 2 ft above finish grade. Ideally, one wants the ground to slope away from the finish floor of the barn, as this will aid with drainage. Materials: Never use exposed concrete if you can help it, unless adequately protected (rubber mats, etc). The use of concrete is especially bad in stalls and wash/grooming areas, where horse may be standing for long periods of time. Orientation: Orientation is important for natural ventilation, but it’s also important to consider the angles of the sun during different times of the year for natural light. Protection from the sun might also be a concern, so consider the design of openings, overhangs, view corridors, security, etc. Natural light: When designing a barn for health and safety, natural light is probably only second to natural ventilation in importance. The horse was meant to live in nature. Natural light is key to the natural cycling of broodmares in a thoroughbred-breeding farm, but it also helps promote the health of any horse. Lighting is also a safety and cost concern. The more you can use natural light to light your barn, the less you need to depend on man-made light, which is an operational cost but also a fire hazard. These are 8 of my favorite health and safety design principles. Read the article by Nancy Loving, look at your own farm and try to add to the list I have started above. We can all have a little fun with it and maybe learn a few pointers while we are at it. Good luck and I look forward to your responses.
You may have seen the article in The Guardian that circulated late last week: â€œAre You Ready For A World Without Antibioticsâ€ in which it is proclaimed that â€œThe era of antibiotics is coming to a closeâ€ and phrases like â€œantibiotic apocalypseâ€ are thrown out. In brief, a study published in The Lancet has found a bacterial gene that causes certain types of bacteria (including E. Coli and Pneumonia) to gain resistance to our current most powerful batches of antibiotics. In response to recent antibiotic resistant bacteria like MRSA some drug companies have focused on creating antibiotics to combat those strains, however, keeping antibiotics new and strong amounts to an arms race–one that isnâ€™t very profitable. With resistance spreading, thereâ€™s an estimate in The Guardian article that, optimistically, there are ten years of conservative antibiotic use left. What that means is that, if youâ€™re young, you will raise kids in a world without antibiotics, if youâ€™re old, lung diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis are incredibly more life-threatening, and if you arenâ€™t healthy–you need immuno-suppressants for a cancer treatment, a transplant, or you need a simple operation–thereâ€™s nothing to stop a bacterial infection from taking your life. It also means things we have become accustomed to treating, like Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), are again ravaging diseases, not to mention death from hospital strains of bacteria will (and already are) going up. How can you protect yourself? The immediate step is to practice rigorous hygiene: wash your hands frequently, and make a point of washing them before eating or touching your eyes/ears/mouth. Be especially careful when traveling, as many of the stronger antibiotic resistant bacteria developed in communities where water is shared without mindfulness of proper hygiene practices. Look for ways to keep your immune system strong; take care of yourself (stress, sleep, diet, exercise) and supplement to make sure that all of your bodies needs are filled; look for natural antibiotics that may help defend your immune system.
Tacca integrifolia Ker Gawl., Bot. Mag. 36: t. 1488 1812. (syn: Ataccia aspera (Roxb.) Kunth; Ataccia cristata (Jack) Kunth; Ataccia integrifolia (Ker Gawl.) C.Presl; Ataccia laevis (Roxb.) Kunth; Ataccia lancifolia (Zoll. & Moritzi) Kunth; Tacca aspera Roxb.; Tacca choudhuriana Deb; Tacca cristata Jack; Tacca laevis Roxb.; Tacca lancifolia Zoll. & Moritzi; Tacca rafflesiana Jack ex Wall. [Invalid]; Tacca sumatrana H.Limpr.); Bhutan to W. Malesia as per WCSP; Tacca integrifolia, the white batflower, is a species of flowering plant in the yam family, Dioscoreaceae, native to tropical and subtropical rainforests of Central Asia. It was first described by the English botanist John Bellenden Ker Gawler in 1812. Tacca integrifolia is a herb growing from a thick, cylindrical rhizome. The leaf blades are borne on long stems and are oblong-elliptical to oblong-lanceolate, some 50 by 20 cm (20 by 8 in), with tapering bases and slender pointed tips. The flower scape is about 55 cm (22 in) long and is topped with a pair of involucral bracts, broad and erect, white with mauve venation. Among the individual nodding flowers, which are arranged in an umbel, are further long, filiform (thread-like) bracts. The perianth of each flower is tubular and purplish-black, 1 to 2 cm (0.4 to 0.8 in) long, with two whorls of three perianth lobes, the outer three narrowly oblong and the inner three broadly obovate. The fruits are fleshy berries some 2 cm (0.8 in) long, and the seeds, which have six longitudinal ridges, have the remains of the perianth lobes still attached. The species is native to hilly regions of tropical and subtropical central Asia. It is known from Pakistan, eastern India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and eastern China. It grows in the understorey of humid rainforests, growing in the leaf litter in shady sites. The stamens are attached to the tube of the perianth in a helmet-like manner and, with the flat-topped stigma lobes, may form an insect trap; a sweet musky odour has been detected from these flowers and this may attract flies as pollinators. After pollination, the scape bends over and the developing fruits rest on the ground. The fleshy fruits are a dull colour with soft jelly-like pulp, and it is possible that the seeds are dispersed by rodents and other small mammals as they feed on the fruits. (From Wikipedia on 30.7.17) Tacca chanteri or Tacca integrifolia ? : 6 posts by 2 authors. Attachments (5) Location Rajnagar Kumarghat Unakoti district Tripura Thank you … The petals are white, not black White bat flower is Tacca integrifolia where as Black bat flower is Tacca chantrieri As petals are white, I am suspecting it to be Tacca integrifolia. Other than white petals, there is any other point which will confirm. Thanks, … Pl. check more images at Tacca chantrieri as well as other sites on net. For last two years I have been checking and finally I went to you I have many pictures of flowers which are CLEARLY WHITE, NOT AT ALL BLACK Thanks, … For me Tacca integrifolia looks quite different. Colour black to white (as stated by you) may be variable or changing with age. But you pl. verify this yourself. These are fresh flowers and they are completely white, no trace of black. Sorry, I got confused. You are right as per illustration & keys at TACCA SPECIES : 3 posts by 3 authors. Attachments (1) Attaching a collage depicting different stages of blooming of the flower. I saw this plant for the first time in Arunachal Pradesh. I brought a plant from there and I got few flowers. The plant is still surviving at this place. very nice progression. what does the whole plant look like? Tacca chantrieri ? : 2 posts by 1 author. Attachments (10) Could be Tacca chantrieri but petals are white Should be Tacca integrifolia only Tacca integrifolia: 2 high res. images. Behali Reserve Forest, Biswanath, Assam, India
What is Cancer of the Urethra? Urethral cancer is a disease in which cancerous cells form in the tissues of the urethra. The urethra is the tube that carries urine from the bladder to outside the body. Urethral cancer is a rare genitourinary cancer that occurs more often in women than in men. Cancer of the urethra may accompany tumors of the bladder. Rarely, tumors of the urethra occur in the absence of tumors elsewhere in the urinary tract. These are more frequently associated with chronic infection and scar tissue. Treatment Options for Urethral Cancer Urethral carcinoma may require aggressive surgical removal or less invasive procedures, depending on the location, stage and type of tumor. In these cases, careful surgical planning and a combination of therapies may preserve the bladder and its function. In females, this type of cancer may be related to a pocket or diverticulum which develops in the urethra as a result of chronic infection. Ostomy Support Group Fox Chase social workers offer a monthly support group for patients who have had a urostomy. Topics in This Section Find a Clinical Trial Benefit from new cancer treatments Read more »
Occitan Struggle (Occitan: Lucha Occitana, LO) was an Occitan political group created in 1971 from the Comitat Occitans d'Estudis e d'Accion. It was mainly composed of intellectuals, students and agricultural unionists. The group had a revolutionary, autonomist, and Occitan nationalist ideology, and was headquartered in Toulouse. The group primarily desired the complete decolonization of Occitania, and appealed to the Occitan working class, which they thought would contribute to the destruction of the capitalist French state. In 1972, LO signed the Brest Charter. \|Newspaper\|\|Païs Occitan-Lucha Occitana and Occitània Passat e Present\| Lucha Occitana published the newspapers Païs Occitan-Lucha Occitana in Toulouse and Occitània Passat e Present in Antibes. LO conducted an analysis of the Occitan situation. They opposed the separatist views of the Occitan Nationalist Party. Instead, their core beliefs were: - The existence of an Occitan identity that was culturally and linguistically different from that of the French identity. The group was resistant to French cultural hegemony and acculturation. - Capitalist and colonial exploitation was present in Occitania, pursuing the liquidation of the Occitan national minority. - The French state increasingly oppresses the Occitan lower classes. - The class struggle in Occitania reflects greater aspirations than those of the rest of the French hexagon. LO never had more than 500 militants. The group gained prominence thanks to demonstrations against the expropriations of Larzac. In 1974 Lucha Occitana underwent an internal crisis and fragmented into numerous factions. - (in Spanish) Albert, Jean-Pierre (2001). Nueva antropología de las sociedades mediterráneas: viejas culturas, nuevas visiones. Icaria Editorial. ISBN 978-84-7426-508-8.
Scientists have discovered that combining two existing forms of immunotherapy together is more effective at treating lung cancer. Working together, the two therapies deliver a one-two punch, targeting and then destroying lung tumour cells. The two-step therapy uses a patients’ immune cells to fight cancer. Scientists extract these “natural killers” from a patients’ tumour or blood and ‘supercharge’ them, expanding and activating them over three weeks, before returning them to the battle. “Re-arming lung cancer patients’ natural killer immune cells acts as a triple threat against lung cancer,” explains Sophie Poznanski, a McMaster University PhD student and lead author of the paper published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. By combining these supercharged cells with an advanced form of treatment known as checkpoint blockade therapy they can deliver a double blow to cancer cells. Poznanski explains how the novel therapy works. “First, these highly activated cells are able to kill tumour cells efficiently. Second, in doing so, they also reactivate tumour killing by exhausted immune cells within the patients’ tumours. And third, they release factors that sensitize patients’ tumours to another immunotherapy called immune checkpoint blockade therapy”. Checkpoint blockade therapy supports the body’s immune system to identify and target cancer cells. The immune system uses ‘checkpoints’ to identify between healthy normal cells and foreign cells, such as cancer. Scientists have observed that cancer cells find ways to use these checkpoints to avoid detection. Drugs called checkpoint inhibitors can target these areas and have proved to be highly effective in treating advanced lung cancer. Individually the therapies are powerful; together they have incredible potential. “The combination of these two therapies induces robust tumour destruction against patient tumours that are initially non-responsive to therapy,” Poznanski said. The combination of therapies delivers what Ali Ashkar, a professor of Medicine at McMaster University and a co-author of the paper, describes as a “one-two punch” that could rapidly translate into new lung cancer treatments. “Not only is this providing a new treatment for hard-to-treat lung cancer tumors with the natural killer cells, but that treatment also converts the patients who are not responsive to PD1-blockade therapy into highly responsive candidates for this effective treatment,” Ashkar said. The researchers are hopeful that human trials can commence shortly. The latest development is an encouraging step toward the development of targeted and personalised treatments for cancer. At RGCC, we welcome the contribution this new research makes to the field and believe it will inspire exciting new avenues for therapies and treatments that could save lives. In addition, RGCC CAMBISeq is an NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) based test used to predict a patient’s response to immune checkpoint inhibitors and other targeted therapies. You can read the full paper, Expanded human NK cells from lung cancer patients sensitize patients’ PDL1−negative tumors to PD1-blockade therapy, here.
Is drinking sweetened beverage good for you? Well, that is actually self-explanatory. We Create A Poll that researchers have asked for people to drink less sugar drinks. This since after the effects of a learning discovered that drinking many sugary fruit juice could escalate the hazard of developing cancer. As stated by Online Poll Creator, drinking sugary soda, fruit juices and energy drinks can cause obesity and associated health disorders, comprising type 2 diabetes. Whereas obesity itself can be an effect of cancer, the consequences of the research suggested that there were other reasons sugar intake could generate the occurrence of the illness. As we Create A Survey, researchers stated that once the set of sweetened beverages drinks was break up hundred percent fruit juices and other sugary drinks, the drinking of both beverage kinds was related with a hazard of overall cancer. The research analyzed drinks with high levels of sugar comprising hundred percent fruit juices and sugary carbonated drinks. As we Create Free Poll, researchers discovered that each extra 100ml of any sweetened drink a person consumed a day augmented the jeopardy of developing cancer by 18 percent. As Poll Maker who managed the research thought that typically with nourishment, the indication is not to evade foods, just to regulate the consumption. The approval from numerous public health organizations is to drink less than one beverage each day. If you drink occasionally a sugary drink it won’t be an issue. However, if you drink a minimum of one glass a day it can increase the hazard of some illnesses possibly cancer. Yet also with a high level of indication, cardio-metabolic disorders. In Online Survey Maker’s conclusion, to decrease the jeopardy of growing health problem, less consumption of sugary drinks is suggested. Even researchers determined that an environment where the WHO is enquiring the range of proof of the logical facts backing the application of a tax on sugary drinks. The outcomes of this empirical learning relied on a huge potential troop propose that a higher intake of sugary drinks is related with the hazard of overall cancer and breast cancer. Worth mentioning, hundred fruit juices were also related with the jeopardy of overall cancer in this research. If these outcomes are simulated in additional comprehensive potential studies and sustained by automatic experimental statistics. And specified the huge consumption of sugary drinks in Western countries, these beverages would signify an adaptable hazard feature for cancer stoppage. Beyond their well-established effect on cardio-metabolic health. The effects sustain the significance of prevailing nourishing commendations to restricts sugary drink intake. This comprises hundred percent fruit juice, along with policy arrangements. For instance, revenue system and advertising restrictions focusing on sugary drinks. Which might possibly subsidize to the decrease of cancer occurrence. A Quick Survey Maker on a Free Polling Website declared that this study informs a potential link amid higher consumption of sugary drinks and an augmented jeopardy of cancer. Although does not give evidence of effect, as the Poll Maker freely disclose. On the other hand, if consumed in moderation, the study said that 100% fruit juice lowers swelling, recovers antioxidant status, develops glucose control and does not stimulate body fat. All of these would lessen cancer risk, not aggravate it. Besides, 100% fruit juices are essential source of vitamin C which related with a lower cancer hazard. A drink in moderation can be part of a healthy, sensible diet and a healthy routine as well.
De-Glooming Doom: Fun Ways to Teach About Human Impacts in the Marine Environment - Author(s): Redman, Ali - et al. The goal of this capstone project was to develop lesson plans that introduce five of the major anthropogenic impacts on the oceans. The tone is to remain educational, positive and inspiring, rather than doom and gloom. The target audience is seventh to eighth grade, but can be easily modified to suit older or younger students. There are two sections for each category, one that provides instructors with a basic understanding of the topic and suggested readings, and a discovery activity. The discovery activity is divided into several sections: 1) Enduring Understanding- the big idea or core message you want students to remember years from now, 2) Important to Know and Do- key facts and actions the student can take to avoid contributing to the impact described, and 3) Worthwhile Knowing- information that provides a deep understanding of the issue. The topics covered by the lesson plan include: ocean acidification, marine debris, noise pollution, overfishing and bycatch, and water pollution.
Drafting the perfectly flawless persuasive essay is certainly no child’s play. It comes with a lot of criticalities and academic setbacks. Most importantly, the task of developing ideal persuasive speech topics is apparently one of the most challenging aspects of the entire scenario. Unless you are successful in developing compelling essay prompts or taking a persuasively effective stance, you will not be able to support your claims and persuade your readers at the end of the paper. Now that you are trying really hard to develop topics for persuasive speech, invest some time in reading this blog. It shall guide you through the nitty-gritty of persuasive papers, with 70+ unique topic examples for you to refer to. The Art of Developing Persuasive Speech Topics The word “Persuasion” refers to the act of compelling someone to walk into your shoes and perceive things from your point of view. Now, this could be a tough job, if especially, the topic or the context of the discussion isn’t strong enough to go about. Unless you come up with a persuasive speech topic which is actually worth digging, your target audience wouldn’t develop an interest towards reading through the entire piece. Such criticalities make it all the more essential for you to pay heed to the aspect of developing the right persuasive speech topics and initiate the task of final draft accordingly. Here are some recommended guidelines for developing good persuasive speech topics for your next semester. - Develop a position or stance that is concise, strong and straightforward. - Know your subject thoroughly and analyse whether the crux of the matter could possibly serve the purpose of persuasion. - Refrain from picking overly controversial or sensitive issues top talk about. - Be specific with your thought process and the point you would wish to highlight in your essay topic. - Always make it a point to choose the topic that is original and interesting from every single aspect. - While evaluating a particular persuasive speech topic, analyse what additional knowledge or rational information, you have acquired that most readers are yet not familiar with. - Also, it is equally important to ask yourself whether you have strongly held ideas or beliefs to talk about. - If yes, then how confident are you in the matter of putting across a point or establishing a strong tone of arguments? - Do not come up with anything vague. For example, the topic “Racism” can appear to be vague if you are targeting the global audience. - Wondering why? That’s because the status of racist attacks or racism scenario in the United States could any day be different than that of the United Kingdom. 50+ Unique Persuasive Speech Topics for College Students If you are still not clear of the concept or finding it tricky to approach or develop persuasive speech topics for college semesters, then take a look here. Here is an exclusive list of more than 70 good persuasive speech topics. You can refer to these prompts any time and develop the right analytical avenue in an endeavour to add perfection to the paper, at the end of the day. Good Persuasive Speech Topics for College - Should health insurance cover art and music therapy? - Should all national museums be made free for global citizens? - Are we almost close to experiencing alien invasions? - Should offensive or colloquially degrading languages be removed or banned completely from the modern-day literature? - Should bicycle riders be required to carry road licence in some countries around the world? - Should we accept or approve of criminal torture if it is done for the purpose of ensuring national security? - Can we reduce the odds of poverty by regulating proper housing finances? - Should schools teach students how to swim and box? - Do violent movies make young people more violent? - Is it wrong for the media to circulate outdated news for more than a period of one month? Unique Persuasive speech topics for college - Should we consider weekend retreats as one of the most therapeutic activities? - There is a parallel universe, more interesting that Earth – How far would you agree to it? - Should recycling be mandatory henceforth? Place your opinions and persuade your readers with the same. - Parental pressure brings devastating impacts on athletes – How far would you agree with the notion? - Is technology really connecting people or simply isolating them from each other? - Should the use of mobile phones in a public place be banned, once and for all? - Is there a possibility of planetary disarmament in the near future? - Should students learn new instruments in school or in college? - Can we completely rely on the proficiency of online teaching? - Should girls and boys in school be taught in separate classrooms? Easy Persuasive Speech Topics for College - The impact of globalisation hasn’t been promising for small businesses? Would you agree to the notion? - Should celebrities face stiffer penalties for breaking the law? - Should a female athlete be paid the same amount as compared to that of her male counterpart? - Is Bitcoin a legal currency? Should consider it a currency at all? - Will technology reduce the risk of data breaches or will it simply increase the risk of it? - Should parents be allowed to determine the sex of their children before birth? - Should the government lift capital punishment completely? - Are we exposed to data threats? Do we have a choice in this matter? - Does consuming meat affect our health in a negative way? - Is dieting apparently a reliable way to lose weight? Engaging Topics for a Persuasive Speech - Should drug addicts be sent to rehabs for treatment or should they be treated at home? - Should the government completely ban the sale of plastic bags? What could be the possible reasons behind the ban? - Should there be stricter penalties for doping charges in professional sports? - Why do some people consider wrestling as a sport? Is it really a sport? - At what age should children be using mobile phones? - Is the idea of peace on earth somewhat vague and irrelevant? - Should advertising be primarily aimed at the young age audience? - What are the critical differences between cults and religions? - Should we sell genetically modified foods in the supermarket? - Should the government foster the availability of free Wi-Fi in public places? Funny persuasive speech topics for college - Which came first? Chicken or egg? - Do vegetables have feelings? - Who had ever let the dog out? - Is camping fun or not so fun for the youngsters? - We can lie, but our eyes can’t – Is the notion true? - How to win an argument? Do we really need to argue in the first place? - How can we save iPhones from falling on floors? - How can people stop bragging about hitting the gym every day? - Why read the entire book when you can simply watch the movie? - Where did the word “cool” come from? - Is there a real-life Cinderella around us? Do you agree to this statement? Public speaking persuasive speech topics for college - The world has indirectly surrendered to the clutches of fascism? Is it true? - Did we all have a life before the internet? How have things changed over time? - Girls under 16 should not be allowed to wear makeup? Why such stringencies and taboos? - Is there a bigger revolution on our way? Are we really prepared for the same? - The world economy is at stake? Is it true, or is there another way around? - How not to lose confidence even if the world tries to pull you down? - What is it with the obsession for captivating animals at home? - The world needs better political leaders – Would you agree to this? - We should always keep personal things to our own selves – Try persuading readers to relate to this notion - What form of motivation should actually be fruitful for an amateur athlete Still Not Sure How to Approach Persuasive Speech Topics? Are you still grappling with the intricacy of developing and going about persuasive speech topics? No worries. Simply lean on the expertise of Essayassignmenthelper.com and take a step towards securing top spot in the class. Being one of the leading essay and assignment writing service providers, we are dedicated to having you covered with customised solutions on the go. And when it comes to helping you with persuasive speech topics, no one can beat our assistance quality. 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New Delhi (India), November 16: Animal cruelty is tremendously dangerous to human civilization. Those who are cruel to animals are frequently cruel to humans as well. For offenses ranging from domestic abuse to cheating to horrendous assault, a statistically significant percentage of people end up in prison. As a result, anyone in your neighbourhood who is aggressive against animals or who promotes violence and breaching the law through social media platforms such as WhatsApp should be kept on the lookout. The number and diversity of cruel and criminal acts perpetrated against animals have increased dramatically. This has risen significantly during the COVID era when people fearful for their futures and irritated at being confined for so long turned their rage on animals and animal feeders. Poisoning, stoning, pursuing, running over, relocating street animals, and harassing, beating, and intimidating animal workers all became commonplace. Some RWAs make it a rule that pets are not allowed on the premises. Some excellent residents for animal feeding. Some pet owners are charged extra maintenance fees. Some people designate areas where animals are not permitted. Some guards are given orders to hit community animals. Animals are prohibited in some elevators. The following is a quick reference guide for pet owners and RWAs on the ground laws: - No RWA has the authority to prohibit people from having animals. This is supported by two High Court decisions as well as society registrars. - RWAs are unable to impose penalties on people who maintain dogs. - No RWA has the authority to prohibit pets from using lifts, but, if questioned, owners can use alternate operating lifts if they are conveniently accessible and comfortable. - No RWA has the authority to ask a resident to give up their pet. - There may be times when a pet owner’s dog barks, which may be irritating to the neighbours. According to the standards, noise is a form of expression that must be tolerated. However, pet parents are encouraged to assist as much as possible in the circumstances to prevent causing difficulty to their neighbours. RWA resolutions that may harm animals violate Section 11 (3) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act, 1960. It is also against Article 51 A (g) of the Constitution, which provides for protection and improvement of the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures. However, maintaining the peace and beauty of your housing society is your responsibility, too. Pet owners should talk to their RWAs on how to dispose of pet faeces and other waste. The RWA can also designate pet corners and spaces for this purpose. It is also stated that pet owners, carers, and dog walkers must ensure that if their pet defecates in public places, the owner is responsible for keeping the area clean. The guidelines state, “It is underlined that each residential community and complex must determine which way works best for them, and solutions cannot be imposed on anyone.” Pets must be vaccinated regularly, and sterilization is recommended to prevent unlawful breeding. Consider your dog to be a child that expects his loving parents to provide him love, support, protection, and respect. By ignoring his pleas to play, walk, or leave him behind, you will never be able to resist your canine’s need for support and love. Keep in mind that you have family, friends, a career, and a pastime, whereas your dog has no one except you, and you are his top priority.
Bluezone is a revolutionary technology that kills or converts airborne contaminants with ultraviolet-enhanced oxidation. U.S. Military tested and fielded, Bluezone’s ultraviolet-enhanced oxidation technology is a breakthrough approach to air purification; instead of capturing and concentrating airborne contaminants in a particle filter or activated carbon, Bluezone kills or converts chemical and biological impurities. In other words, microbes are killed, and chemicals are broken down so that the air circulated through the Bluezone comes out clean and fresh. Bluezone works by drawing air into a self-contained reaction chamber. To achieve maximum kill-rate, Bluezone attacks different airborne contaminants differently. Some airborne contaminants such as ethylene are converted to H2O and CO2 via an oxidation process. Other airborne contaminants such as fungus-like powdery mildew or botrytis are killed instantly with Bluezone’s self-contained ultraviolet light. Oxidation and ultraviolet irradiation happen completely inside the reaction chamber, which is engineered to address the specific microbial and chemical contaminants in growhouses and produce storage.
What are MOTAPM? Mines other than anti-personnel mines (MOTAPM) refers to anti-vehicle mines. Unlike anti-personnel mines, this type of mine is activated by a vehicle driving over it, rather than a person stepping on it. MOTAPM includes anti-tank mines. Background on MOTAPM within the CCW The issue of MOTAPM prior and during the Second Review Conference Humanitarian concerns related to MOTAPM had been raised during the negotiations of the Convention of Protocol II in the 1970s, but with limited consideration. MOTAPM were part of the negotiations on Amended Protocol II during the First CCW Review Conference in 1995-1996. At the time, efforts were focused on addressing the significant humanitarian impact of anti-personnel landmines. For this reason, Amended Protocol II includes specific restrictions on the employment of anti-personnel mines and only general provisions concerning restrictions on the use of all types of mines. At the Preparatory Committee for the Second Review Conference in 2000-2001, Denmark and the United States of America tabled an official proposal for a new Protocol on MOTAPM. Due to persistent divergent views, the December 2001 Second Review Conference did not adopt a new Protocol on MOTAPM, and instead decided to create an open-ended Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) to address the issue. Period between the Second and Third Review Conferences, 2001 to 2006 During this period, various international organizations and non-governmental organizations continued to emphasize the importance of agreeing on a legally binding instrument on MOTAPM. For example, a July 2002 report by the ICRC called for additional measures namely “requiring that all AV mines should be detectable and equipped with either self-destruct or self-neutralization features as well as requiring that remotely delivered AV mines contain self-destruct or self-neutralization features.” New ideas were brought forward for the development of more effective controls over MOTAPM, which included: MOTAPM with sensitive fuses; MOTAPM with anti-handling devices; MOTAPM laid outside marked and fenced areas; warnings to civilians; the use of MOTAPM by non-state actors; transfers; transparency and confidence-building measures; and international cooperation and assistance. A new Protocol on MOTAPM incorporated all additional proposals and was co-sponsored by 31 states. However, despite efforts made by the GGE on MOTAPM between 2001 and 2006, it was not possible to eliminate differences, specifically with regard to issues of detectability and active life. The Third Review Conference of the CCW could not agree on a new protocol containing legally binding rules with regard to MOTAPM. Rather, the States Parties decided to maintain the issue of MOTAPM on the agendas of annual Meetings of the States Parties to the CCW. Due to the concerns regarding the humanitarian impact of MOTAPM, several CCW States Parties committed politically in a special declaration their intention to take the necessary steps to adopt as a matter of national policy the practices that were developed in the draft Protocol on MOTAPM. These states declared: “if circumstances change in the future, and it appears possible that consensus may be achieved on a protocol on anti-vehicle mines…they would join other governments in renewed efforts to adopt such a protocol, building on the work done on this subject over the last five years by the CCW coordinators.” Report of the 2012 Meeting of Experts on Mines Other Than Anti-Personnel Mines (MOTAPM) The Fourth Review Conference High Contracting Parties decided: To discuss further the implementation of international humanitarian law as it pertains to mines other than anti-personnel mines, and to submit a report to the 2012 Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Convention. The 2012 Meeting of Experts discussed the following issues: current status of international humanitarian law on MOTAPM; measures taken by States and existing international humanitarian law (IHL); humanitarian impact of MOTAPM use; National policies on the use of MOTAPM; possible measures to address the humanitarian impact of MOTAPM use. In past CCW discussions and during the 2012 Meeting of Experts, the requirement for MOTAPM to be detectable was a key issue. One of the major problems is that undetectable MOTAPM create considerable difficulties and costs for clearance operations, which in turn can drastically slow down or halt the delivery of humanitarian aid and movement in an area. However, the argument against detectability is that the financial costs of making MOTAPM detectable are prohibitive and the military utility of non-detectable MOTAPM much too valuable to forgo. Another crucial issue was reducing the active life of MOTAPM through self-destruct, self-neutralisation and self-deactivation devices. Other issues focused on the protection of civilians through perimeter marked areas; monitoring and security of minefields containing MOTAPM; addressing sensitive fuses and anti-handling devices; victim assistance; and cooperation and assistance. The MOTAPM Meeting of Experts as required by its mandate submitted a report to the Meeting of High Contracting Parties to the CCW, which took place from 15 to 16 November 2012. Although the CCW Meeting “welcomed the Report of the Meeting of Experts on MOTAPM and expressed its appreciation for the work carried out by Colonel Jim Burke of Ireland for his role as Friend of the Chair on MOTAPM”, the Experts were unable reach agreement on further work on this matter. Instead MOTAPM will be on the agenda for the 2013 Meeting of High Contracting Parties. High level statements on MOTAPM At the beginning of the 2012 Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the CCW, the United Nations Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon stated: "First, in my last report to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, I welcomed the work carried out on anti-vehicle mines this year under the aegis of the Convention. I strongly urge High Contracting Parties to continue to explore all possible avenues for ensuring that these weapons no longer harm civilians, impede the delivery of humanitarian aid or obstruct social and economic development. In doing so, I encourage Parties to consider the views and field experiences of United Nations entities." The Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict is attached here is an article on MOTAPM by the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Mr. Kassym-Jomart Takoyev. ۩ Go to Top
S-Space Language Education Institute (언어교육원) Language Research (어학연구) Language Research (어학연구) Volume 15 Number 1/2 (1979) Immediacy의 개념과 외국어교육 : The Concept of lmmediacy and Foreign-Language Education With Special Reference to EFL in Korea - Issue Date - 서울대학교 언어교육원 - 어학연구, Vol.15 No.2, pp. 141-154 - The present paper explores the concept of immediacy as it relates to language use in general and foreign language education in particular. As such, it opens with a general discussion of the concept, which is informally definable as the distance, physical or otherwise, between language and its learner-user. This is followed by a more specific discussion, in the course of which a distinction is made between the immediacy of awareness and the immediacy of relevance, between teacher- and learner-centered immediacy, and between absolute and relative immediacy. Each of these types of immediacy is illustrated with examples from English and/ or TEFL. In the main chapter, which is Chapter 3, the suggestion is made that the concept of immediacy can find applications in various aspects of language education, especially foreign language education. For one thing, it is argued that the concept can be instrumental in further refining the presently available statistical technique of vocabulary control. For another, it is claimed that the concept throws considerable light on the types and characteristics of errors that occur in the process of language acquisition.
Learn more about the intelligent mammals that inhabit our ocean, the problems they face, and their importance in the marine ecosystem. Read to explore NOAA’s efforts to protect dolphin populations and how national marine sanctuaries benefit dolphins. Dolphins are at the top of the food chain and play an important role in the overall balance of the marine environment. They belong to a group of marine mammals called cetaceans (si-tay-shn). Marine mammals in the cetacean family include whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Dolphins tend to be social and live in groups. They exhibit complex methods of communication and echolocation making squeaks, buzzes, whistles, and clicks that can be heard from miles away. Lesson Plans and Activities Utilize these interactive lesson plans and activities with students to learn and gain a better understanding of dolphins, as well as the key role they play in the marine ecosystem. The National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series provides general information, research findings, education materials, and empowers all audiences to protect marine resources. Enjoy this assortment of kelp forest oriented recorded webinars that offer a unique perspective from scientists, divers, researchers, and others on the topic. Want to encounter dolphins from the comfort of your own home? Dive into the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ video collection of various dolphin and porpoise species from across the country and learn about entanglements, endangered species, and how we can protect dolphins. Have a favorite dolphin species or want to learn more about rare dolphins you may have never heard of? Check out the Species Spotlight Section for resources on every type of dolphin! Many of our underwater parks are home to a variety of dolphin species with scientists eagerly working to learn more about them to ensure they are further protected. Read up on the various work being conducted to protect dolphins from oil spills, scientific research, and more. Wildlife Viewing Guidelines Encountering dolphins in the wild can be a once-in-a lifetime opportunity! For their safety as well as yours, please follow these guidelines: give wildlife plenty of space, be aware of local regulations and use your zoom lens or binoculars if you want that close-up view! NOAA Marine Mammal Resource Collection Marine mammals are found in marine ecosystems around the globe. Marine mammals are classified into four different taxonomic groups: cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses), sirenians (manatees and dugongs), and marine fissipeds (polar bears and sea otters). Check out NOAA’s Marine Mammal Resource Collection to learn more about all marine mammals and for further dolphin related resources. Do you want even more information on these special species? Look here for more information on dolphin species and the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ role in preserving dolphins and their natural habitats.
- Research article - Open Access Gene synteny comparisons between different vertebrates provide new insights into breakage and fusion events during mammalian karyotype evolution BMC Evolutionary Biology volume 9, Article number: 84 (2009) Genome comparisons have made possible the reconstruction of the eutherian ancestral karyotype but also have the potential to provide new insights into the evolutionary inter-relationship of the different eutherian orders within the mammalian phylogenetic tree. Such comparisons can additionally reveal (i) the nature of the DNA sequences present within the evolutionary breakpoint regions and (ii) whether or not the evolutionary breakpoints occur randomly across the genome. Gene synteny analysis (E-painting) not only greatly reduces the complexity of comparative genome sequence analysis but also extends its evolutionary reach. E-painting was used to compare the genome sequences of six different mammalian species and chicken. A total of 526 evolutionary breakpoint intervals were identified and these were mapped to a median resolution of 120 kb, the highest level of resolution so far obtained. A marked correlation was noted between evolutionary breakpoint frequency and gene density. This correlation was significant not only at the chromosomal level but also sub-chromosomally when comparing genome intervals of lengths as short as 40 kb. Contrary to previous findings, a comparison of evolutionary breakpoint locations with the chromosomal positions of well mapped common fragile sites and cancer-associated breakpoints failed to reveal any evidence for significant co-location. Primate-specific chromosomal rearrangements were however found to occur preferentially in regions containing segmental duplications and copy number variants. Specific chromosomal regions appear to be prone to recurring rearrangement in different mammalian lineages ('breakpoint reuse') even if the breakpoints themselves are likely to be non-identical. The putative ancestral eutherian genome, reconstructed on the basis of the synteny analysis of 7 vertebrate genome sequences, not only confirmed the results of previous molecular cytogenetic studies but also increased the definition of the inferred structure of ancestral eutherian chromosomes. For the first time in such an analysis, the opossum was included as an outgroup species. This served to confirm our previous model of the ancestral eutherian genome since all ancestral syntenic segment associations were also noted in this marsupial. By comparison with other vertebrates, mammals display a high degree of karyotype variability. Chromosome numbers vary considerably, ranging from 2n = 6 in the Indian muntjak to 2n = 102 in the red viscacha rat . Despite this numerical variability, conserved (syntenic) chromosome segments have been successfully identified by means of comparative cytogenetics . A conserved genome framework, initially concealed by inter-species karyotypic divergence, was first revealed by comparative gene mapping, but became readily apparent with the advent of comparative chromosome painting. The application of these methodologies has served to confirm the presence of a limited number of chromosomal segments which have been evolutionarily conserved across a variety of mammalian species [4–7]. Taken together, these approaches have allowed the reconstruction of synteny maps of a number of ancestral mammalian genomes [8–12]. Recently performed comparisons of entire genome sequences have extended our understanding of the evolutionary history of mammalian genomes by revealing the presence of a limited number of syntenic segments with highly conserved gene orders, termed 'conserved linkage groups' [9, 13–16]. These segments can be used, almost as if they were pieces of a giant jig-saw puzzle, to compare extant genomes as well as to reconstruct ancestral genomes. Both comparative chromosome painting and genome sequence comparisons have indicated that the human genome possesses an organization which is highly conserved evolutionarily and which displays considerable similarity to the postulated ancestral eutherian karyotype [10, 12, 17] dating from ~105 million years ago (MYA) . Ancestral genome models deduced from comparative cytogenetic analysis exhibit marked differences when compared to reconstructions of ancestral eutherian genomes based on whole genome sequence alignments [19, 20]. Recently, we devised a simplified method of comparative genome analysis based on the comparison of gene order in different species. By focussing exclusively on the relative positions of genes instead of aligning large contigs of genomic DNA, this method reduces the complexity of whole genome alignments thereby facilitating the identification of conserved syntenic segments. This technique was used successfully to identify the evolutionary origin of the mammalian X chromosome from three distinct ancestral chromosome building segments and has also made possible the reconstruction of a vertebrate protokaryotype from 450 MYA . Since this methodology relies upon in silico gene order comparisons using genome sequence data from different species, an approach reminiscent of comparative chromosome painting, the in silico approach has been termed 'E-painting' (electronic chromosome painting) . Estimates of the number, location and extent of evolutionary breakpoint intervals vary owing to methodological differences, and this variation has helped to fuel considerable controversy. Recent comparative genome sequence studies have been interpreted as indicating that evolutionary chromosomal rearrangements are non-randomly distributed across mammalian genomes and that the associated breakpoints have often been 'reused' [9, 23, 24]. The resulting 'fragile breakage model' of genome evolution has therefore presented a direct challenge to the now classical 'random breakage' model of Nadeau and Taylor . In this study, we have performed an in silico genome-wide analysis of synteny (E-painting) in order to improve our understanding of the organization of the ancestral eutherian genome. Our analysis employed genome sequence data from human , mouse , rat , dog , cow http://aug2007.archive.ensembl.org/Bos_taurus/index.html; B_tau3.1, and opossum , genomes which have all been sequenced with at least 7-fold coverage. The chicken genome sequence was also included in our comparison since previous studies have shown that chicken genome organization displays a remarkable resemblance to that of eutherian mammals [9, 21] despite its evolutionary divergence about 310 MYA. Establishment of syntenic relationships and reconstruction of ancestral karyotypes A previous comparative synteny analysis of about 3000 human genes and their orthologues in 5 other vertebrate species permitted the first reconstruction of an ancestral vertebrate karyotype . In this study, we have extended this comparative approach to identifying syntenic segments of orthologous genes and included all those human genes for which orthologues have been annotated in the genomes of mouse, rat, dog, cow, opossum (a marsupial) and chicken. Beginning with 28197 human genes (Human Genome Assembly 18, NCBI build 36), the number of orthologous genes in the studied species identified by the program BioMart ranges from 12591 in chicken to 17796 in mouse (Table 1). The maximum number of orthologous genes identifiable in a given species (by comparison with human) was recruited on the basis that the higher the number of genes employed in the analysis, the more precise would be the identification of the breakpoint intervals. Had we considered only those genes for which a one-to-one orthology relationship was identifiable in all species under investigation, this would have resulted in a considerable decrease in the number of genes to be analysed and hence a substantial decrease in the degree of resolution possible. Instead, the genome-wide coverage attained by using the maximum number of orthologous genes identifiable between human and the other studied vertebrate species served to optimize the resolution of the mapping of the evolutionary chromosomal breakpoints. The dataset from human, representing the best characterized vertebrate genome to date (as well as one of the evolutionarily most conserved karyotypes among eutherian mammals), provided the reference against which segments of conserved syntenic genes could be identified in the genomes of the other species under investigation. In principle, blocks or segments containing syntenic human genes were sought which are also present as blocks of syntenic genes in the other species under study. Conversion of the syntenic segment associations into colour-coded ideograms rendered the conserved syntenic segments (and at the same time, the breakpoint intervals) readily identifiable (Figure 1; Additional file 1). The colour code employed in Figure 2 was used to indicate the orthologous relationships of syntenic segments in a comparison of the different species with human, as depicted in Figure 1, Additional file 1 and Figure 3. For example, the region of human chromosome 1 between positions 1.27 Mb and 67.23 Mb is identifiable as a continuous (syntenic) segment on rat chromosome 5 and mouse chromosome 4 (Figure 1). During our analysis, we considered as evolutionary breakpoints those disruptions in gene order (synteny) that resulted from (i) interchromosomal rearrangements in an ancestral species as deduced by comparing human with one of the other six species under investigation and (ii) intrachromosomal inversions that occurred in the human lineage where both breakpoint regions could be identified. If the breakpoint region of an interchromosomal rearrangement, identified by comparing the human genome with that of another species, was found to coincide with the breakpoint of an intrachromosomal rearrangement in any one of the other species, this intrachromosomal breakpoint was also considered as a break in synteny. Employing these criteria to define evolutionary breakpoint intervals, a total of 526 such intervals, with an average size of 290 kb and a median size of 120 kb, were identified (Table 2; Additional file 2). To visualize all syntenic breakpoint intervals, chromosome ideograms were drawn up such that all breakpoints were arranged equidistantly, with the precise positions of the breakpoint intervals being demarcated by the genomic coordinates of the flanking genes (an exemplar is shown in Figure 1 for HSA1, whilst all ideograms from chromosomes 1 to 22 are depicted in Additional file 1). The orthologous relationships between the analyzed genomes served to identify a total of 38 different ancestral syntenic segments which are indicated by a colour code in Figure 2. The ideograms in Figure 1 and Additional file 1 are equivalent to a reverse chromosome painting dataset of the six analyzed species onto human chromosomes at high resolution. The precise positions of the genes flanking all identified breakpoint intervals are listed in Additional file 2. The graphical compilation of syntenic disruptions shown in Additional file 1 indicates that 7.6% of the evolutionary breakpoints (N = 40 of 526, highlighted by stippled green lines) have been 'reused' i.e. breakpoints were found in the same genomic intervals in at least three species from two different clades (reused breakpoints are marked in red in Additional file 1). The assignment of the species under investigation to different clades within the mammalian phylogenetic tree is indicated in Additional file 3 (during this analysis, chicken and opossum were considered as two different clades). Taking all autosomes into consideration, 218 breakpoint regions were identified in a comparison of the chicken and human genomes whereas 153 breaks in synteny serve to differentiate the human and opossum chromosomes. A total of 27 breakpoints were found to be shared between chicken and opossum but were not observed in any other species, suggesting that these constitute evolutionary breakpoints that occurred in the eutherian common ancestor (Additional file 2). A comparison of the gene orders exhibited by both murid species with those of humans, revealed 106 breaks in synteny (Additional file 2). However, only 4 breaks in synteny were specific to the rat whereas 17 were specific to the mouse. The many murid-shared breaks in synteny (N = 85) as compared with humans is clearly a reflection of the extended common phylogenetic history of mouse and rat, which only became separated into distinct species 16–23 MYA [32, 33]. The two ferungulate species, dog and cow, only share 14 breaks, with 65 breaks being restricted to the canine lineage and 114 breaks confined to the bovine lineage . The much higher number of lineage-specific breaks in these two species, both of which belong to the Laurasiatheria, is indicative of the longer period of time that has elapsed since the evolutionary divergence of the carnivores and artiodactyls ~88 MYA . The version of the cow genome used for our analysis (Btau_3.1) may contain some local errors caused by intrachromosomal misplacement of scaffold. These intrachromosomal inconsistencies are not however relevant to the tests we have performed since we were primarily interested in analysing interchromosomal rearrangements between the human and bovine genomes. Several breaks in synteny were identified in mouse, rat, dog, cow, opossum and chicken that are common to all six species (Additional file 2). The most parsimonious explanation for this observation is not breakpoint 'reuse' but rather that these were primate- (or even human-) specific breaks. Some 63 such primate lineage-specific breakpoints were identified and these are indicated by stippled red lines in the ideograms (Fig. 1A, Additional file 1). Most of these breaks appear to have been caused by primate-specific inversions (N = 22, Table 3). Proportional to its length, HSA17 is especially rich in such primate-specific inversions. A disproportionate number of these inversions were also noted in the orthologous segment of HSA19p in the lineage leading to rodents, in the orthologous segment of HSA20p in the lineage leading to chicken and in the orthologous segment of HSA1 in the canine lineage (Additional file 1). The remaining primate-specific breakpoints may be attributable to chromosome fusions and insertions of small segments. Employing the previously described method of concatenating overlapping conserved syntenic segments , the eutherian mammal genome data permitted the seamless assembly of conserved segments into ancestral chromosomes. Ancestral associations between conserved syntenic segments are identifiable by virtue of the presence of shared orthologies between mammalian chromosomes from at least three different species. The resulting model of the ancestral boreoeutherian genome (Figure 3), with a chromosome number of 2n = 46, describes the karyotype of the last common ancestor of primates and rodents (superorder Euarchontoglires, Additional file 3) as well as of carnivores and cetartiodactyls (superorder Laurasiatheria). Chromosomal sites of syntenic breakage High precision syntenic breakpoint mapping permits the evaluation, at least in principle, of whether or not these evolutionary breaks coincide with potential hotspots of chromosomal rearrangement such as fragile sites or cancer-associated breakpoints. Fragile sites are classified as either rare (spontaneously occurring) or common (inducible) . Altogether, some 89 common fragile sites have been mapped at the cytogenetic level although only the 11 most common autosomal fragile sites have been precisely characterized at the molecular level [35, 37–49]. A comparison of these 11 precisely characterized fragile sites with the positions of the evolutionary breakpoints identified in this study indicated that only FRA4F and FRA7E, which span distances of 5.9 Mb and 4.4 Mb respectively, partially overlap with evolutionary breakpoint regions (Table 4). For none of the other 524 evolutionary breakpoints was any overlap with a fragile site observed. Under a random model, we estimate that ~1.23% (37.9/3093) of the 526 observed breakpoints intervals would have been expected to overlap with one of the 11 fragile sites. Since only 2/526 breakpoints (0.38%) were found to display an overlap with a fragile site (p = 0.11), we concluded that there was no evidence for extensive co-location. A second class of chromosomal breakage hotspot is represented by recurring cancer-associated breakpoints. Although the majority of such breakpoints have been assigned to cytogenetic bands, they have not yet been mapped with any degree of precision. A variety of genes, with actual or potential roles in tumorigenesis, nevertheless reside at or near these breakpoints. We therefore identified the exact genomic positions of 387 annotated cancer-associated autosomal genes using the Atlas of Genetics and Cytogenetics in Oncology and Haematology http://atlasgeneticsoncology.org. For the purposes of this analysis, only well-established cancer-associated genes were included (for convenience, these are listed separately in this database). Other genes in this database that have not yet been convincingly implicated in cancer were not included in this analysis. Of the 387 cancer genes, only 13 mapped to evolutionary breakpoint intervals identified in this study (Table 5, Additional file 2). Since the 526 evolutionary breakpoint intervals together comprise 151.7 Mb of genomic sequence, we estimate that some 20 cancer-associated genes might have been expected to occur within the breakpoint intervals by chance alone. We therefore conclude that genes occurring at cancer-associated breakpoints are not disproportionately represented within regions of evolutionary breakpoints. The question then arises as to the location of these evolutionary breakpoints in relation to genes and other DNA sequence features. As mentioned above, a total of 66 primate-specific breaks in synteny were identified in this analysis. Remarkably, 78% of these breakpoint intervals coincide with segmental duplications (SDs) in the human genome (Additional file 2) despite the fact that SDs comprise only 4–5% of the human genome sequence [50–52]. Colocalization with copy number variants (CNVs) was also observed in the case of 76% of these breakpoints (Additional file 2). Thus, primate-specific breakpoint regions would appear to be highly enriched for both SDs and CNVs. Those human chromosomes that are known to be gene-dense also appear to contain significantly more breakpoints than gene-poor chromosomes (Table 6). Indeed, a strong correlation was noted between protein-coding gene density and the number of evolutionary breakpoints per chromosome (r = 0.60; p = 0.0031). When the gene-dense chromosomes HSA17, HSA19 and HSA22 were directly compared with the gene-poor chromosomes HSA13, HSA18 and HSA21, the gene-dense chromosomes exhibited nearly three times as many breaks per Mb as gene-poor chromosomes. We further observed a correlation between transcript density and breakpoint occurrence (r = 0.62, p = 0.0029). To calculate this correlation coefficient, we used the Human Transcriptome Map, based on the draft human genome sequence as provided by the UCSC Genome Bioinformatics Project http://genome.ucsc.edu/, which includes all transcribed sequences except processed pseudogenes (according to Versteeg et al. ). The correlation noted between transcript density and breakpoint occurrence became even stronger when chromosomal regions were considered rather than entire chromosomes. The evolutionary breakpoint regions identified here exhibited a 1.54-fold increase in transcript density for the central 1 Mb of syntenic breakpoint regions as compared to the genome average (Additional file 4). When this analysis was further restricted to the 144 most precisely mapped breakpoint intervals of <40 kb, the transcript density attained a value some 2.9 times that of the genome-wide average (Additional file 5). Finally, analyses of breakpoint intervals assigned to individual evolutionary lineages indicated that the breakpoint regions identified in both chicken and opossum lineages displayed very high transcript densities corresponding to 3.7 times the genomic average (Table 7). Random breakage or non-random location of evolutionary breakpoints In order to ascertain whether the evolutionary breakpoints identified in this study occurred randomly or were instead preferentially located in certain genomic regions, we performed simulation experiments. To avoid consideration of breakpoints that did not result from independent breakage (and which could have been identical-by-descent), we selected only breakpoints that were present in mouse, cow, opossum and chicken, respectively. Breakpoints in rat and dog were excluded from this analysis in order to avoid consideration of breakpoints that could have been identical-by-descent and shared either by mouse and rat or by dog and cow. For example, breakpoints present in mouse and rat (as compared to human) could have been identical-by-descent yet would have been counted twice in our analysis. Thus, only breakpoints in mouse and cow were considered (and not those in rat and dog) in order to avoid the potential double-counting of some evolutionary breakpoints. Those 63 breakpoint regions observed in all 4 species (mouse, cow, opossum, chicken) compared to human, and which were thus specific to the primate lineage, were also excluded (indicated in yellow in Additional file 2). Finally, a total of 519 breakpoints were considered that were evident in four species (N = 132 in mouse, N = 143 in cow, N = 89 in opossum and N = 155 in chicken; Additional file 2). These 519 breakpoints occurred in 410 genomic regions, 324 of which contained a breakpoint observed in only one species (as compared to human), whereas 63 genomic regions contained breakpoints in two species, and 23 genomic regions contained breakpoints in three species. By means of a simulation with 100,000 iterations, we then estimated the proportion of the genome in which these 519 breakpoints would have been expected to occur, by chance alone, given a certain specified number of genomic regions available to harbour evolutionary breakpoints (Additional file 6). For these simulations, the human genome was partitioned into 10,000 regions, each 0.3 Mb in length (the average length of the observed breakpoint regions). Assuming a random breakage model for the entire genome, partitioned into 10,000 equal-sized genomic segments available to harbour breakpoint regions, the 519 evolutionary breakpoints would have been expected to occur in between 500 and 516 regions with 99% probability (Additional file 6). In other words, given random breakage, a maximum of 19/519 (3.7%) breakpoints might reasonably have been expected to co-locate by chance to the same regions at the 1% level of probability. In practice, however, we have noted that the 519 observed evolutionary breakpoints were confined to only 410 breakpoint regions. According to our simulations (presented in Additional file 6), this number of breakpoint regions would be expected if only 7–10% of the genome (i.e. 700–1000 of the 0.3 Mb regions) were available to harbour evolutionary breakpoints. Thus, according to our model-based simulations, the observation of 519 breakpoints being located within 410 out of 10,000 genomic regions is most plausible when the occurrence of breakpoints is confined to only 7–10% of the genome. Even if we were to assume that some 20% of the genome could harbour evolutionary breakpoints, the observed distribution has a <1% probability of occurring under the model of random breakage. We therefore feel confident in rejecting the null hypothesis that these breakage events occurred randomly. We instead conclude that they occurred preferentially within certain genomic regions. Among the 519 breakpoints considered in the above mentioned simulation analysis were 27 breaks in synteny that occurred in the same genomic interval in both chicken and opossum, but not in mouse or cow. These breakpoints shared by chicken and opossum could however have been identical-by-descent and would thus have occurred only once in the eutherian common ancestor, not twice as we implicitly assumed in the previously described simulations. In order to avoid double counting of some breakpoints, we repeated the simulations, this time considering only the breakpoint regions in mouse (N = 132), cow (N = 143) and opossum (N = 89). A total of 41 breakpoint intervals were found to be shared by these species, whereas 323 breakpoint regions were unique to the species considered. During these simulations, the genome was subdivided into 10,000 bins, each of length 0.3 Mb (potential regions for a breakpoint), and the 323 mammalian breakpoints were distributed between these bins. The simulation experiments served to demonstrate that the breakpoint positions are incompatible with a random model of breakage. The expected number of breakpoint regions under this model was calculated to be 359.7; in none of the 100,000 simulation runs was such a low number of breakpoint intervals noted as that actually observed (N = 323; two-sided p-value approximates zero). When the model was relaxed to 2000 selected bins (special candidate regions for breakpoints), 342.6 unique breakpoints would have been expected (two-sided p = 0.00002). On the other hand, a model with 1000 bins, i.e. one using ~10% of the genome, appears to be compatible with the observed values: expected number of unique breakpoints = 322.3 (p = 0.92). Refining the structure of boreoeutherian ancestral chromosomes Comparative genome maps, based on more than eighty species of eutherian mammal, have previously been generated by chromosome painting. Such analyses have revealed the pathways of mammalian genome evolution at the chromosomal level [6–8, 10–12, 54–57]. However, comparative chromosome painting is inadequate to the task of comparing the genomes of species which have been separated for more than 100 million years. This is due to the lower hybridization efficiency of probes consequent to increased sequence divergence. Thus, reports of successful hybridizations of eutherian probes onto marsupial chromosomes are confined to a single chromosome . To overcome this limitation, comparative genome sequence analyses based on direct genome alignments have been performed with the aim of reconstructing precise ancestral gene orders [9, 14–16]. However, models of ancestral eutherian genome organization constructed from such genome sequence alignments display considerable differences with respect to the assignment of ancestral syntenic groups, when compared to models derived from comparative chromosome painting data [12, 19, 20, 59]. E-painting (electronic chromosome painting) was introduced in order both to overcome the inherent limitations of comparative cytogenetic approaches and to reduce the complexity of direct whole genome sequence alignments. This in silico technique is based on the comparative mapping of orthologous genes and the identification of conserved syntenic segments of genes instead of comparative alignments of large sequence contigs containing intergenic sequences as well as genes. The advantage of E-painting over comparative genome sequence analysis is that the former reduces the complexity of genome alignments to easily manageable conserved syntenic segments comprising orthologous genes. Its limitation, however, is that it cannot be applied to the investigation of telomeric, centromeric or non-genic regions that could have nevertheless played an important role during karyotype evolution. In the present study, E-painting was used to reinvestigate the previously proposed boreoeutherian protokaryotype [8, 10, 12, 54]. The resulting model of the boreoeutherian genome (Figure 3) closely resembles those models previously derived by means of comparative chromosome painting. Indeed, our data derived from E-painting analysis not only confirmed all major syntenic segment associations proposed in previous studies [8–12] but also served to refine the model by accommodating short syntenic segments orthologous to portions of chromosomes HSA7, HSA10, HSA12 and HSA22 (Figure 3). The improved definition of ancestral eutherian chromosomes by E-painting achieved in this study is particularly evident in the context of the evolution of chromosomes HSA12 and HSA22. A common feature of previously proposed protokaryotypes has been the presence of two different protochromosomes displaying associations of HSA12 and HSA22. As is evident from the colour-coded ideograms in Fig. 3, the larger protochromosome, 12p-q/22q, comprises an extended 12p-q segment stretching from HSA12pter to a point 106.67 Mb from 12q and includes the terminal segment of HSA22q (31.10 Mb toward 22qter). Further, we have identified a third proximal 2.7 Mb segment from HSA22q (14.4 Mb to 17.03 Mb) that bears the same colour code in all analyzed species (Figure 4) and which must therefore also form part of this large protochromosome. Additionally, the E-painting indicated that the ancestral chromosome orthologous to HSA10q should be extended by a 1.5 Mb-sized proximal portion of its p-arm (Figure 4). The existence of this extension was supported by both eutherian and chicken genome sequence data and indicates that the breakpoint is located in a region orthologous to 10p rather than within the centromere (Figure 4). Importantly, E-painting using the opossum and chicken genomes indicated an HSA10p/12/22 association (Figure 4). These findings, taken together with recent comparative chromosome painting data supporting the 10p/12/22 association in the Afrotheria and in some Xenarthra [10, 11, 56, 60] and carnivores , strongly corroborate an ancestral 10p/12/22 chromosome as part of the ancestral eutherian karyotype. Furthermore, this 10p/12/22 association is compatible with an ancestral eutherian chromosome number of 2n = 46 (Figure 3). The extensive agreement between ancestral genome reconstructions based respectively upon comparative chromosome painting and E-painting is strongly supportive of the validity of the E-painting approach. Further, the E-painting analysis performed here has confirmed the previously proposed ancestral eutherian chromosome associations, 3/21, 4/8, 7/16, 10/12/22, 12/22, 16/19 and 14/15 [8–12], since all these associations are readily identifiable in the opossum genome. However, the 3/21 association in the opossum involves a different set of genes as compared to the 3/21 association in the eutherian species, thereby indicating the presence of additional rearrangements involving the corresponding chromosomal regions in marsupials. Recent comparative chromosome painting studies performed with several afrotherian [10, 55, 60, 62] and xenarthran species [11, 56, 63] have indicated that their karyotypes display a remarkable degree of similarity to the previously proposed ancestral boreoeutherian karyotype . The chromosomal associations 1/19 and 5/21 seem, however, to be specific to afrotherians [55, 56, 62, 64] with no xenarthran-specific chromosomal rearrangements having been identified as yet [11, 56]. Our findings indicate that none of the afrotherian-specific rearrangements are evident in the opossum genome. This finding, together with the observation that the above mentioned ancestral eutherian chromosome associations are also present in the opossum, suggest that the ancestral boreoeutherian karyotype is very similar to the ancestral eutherian karyotype (see Additional file 3 for an overview of the phylogenetic relationships among the major placental groups, according to Wildman et al. ). Chromosomal distribution of evolutionary breakpoints The comparative synteny analysis presented here has succeeded in defining evolutionary chromosomal breakpoints with a considerably higher degree of resolution than has previously been achieved. For example, the length of the median breakpoint interval in this study is only 120 kb (Table 2). Furthermore, the average length (290 kb) of the breakpoint intervals assigned here is about a quarter of that reported by Murphy et al. . Ruiz-Herrera et al. , in a second related study, included data from Murphy et al. but added further species with even less precisely defined breakpoint data. The present study has avoided the uncertainty inherent in matching up cytogenetic band information with genome sequence data. The assessment of the spatial correlation between evolutionary chromosomal breakpoints and DNA sequence features such as gene density, GC-content, segmental duplications and copy number variations (as well as cytogenetic features such as fragile sites and cancer-associated breakpoints), promises to yield new insights into mechanisms of chromosomal rearrangement whose relevance may well extend beyond the confines of evolution and into the sphere of genetic disease (and particularly tumorigenesis). In this study, a total of 526 evolutionary breakpoint intervals were identified. Knowledge of their respective genomic positions then allowed us to address the question as to whether evolutionary breakpoints co-locate with cancer-associated breakpoints and/or common fragile sites, an issue which has been quite contentious over the last few years [23, 67]. The original 'random breakage model' of Nadeau and Taylor has been challenged by Pevzner and Tesler who favour an alternative model in which at least some evolutionary breakpoint regions are prone to repeated breakage in the context of disease-related rearrangements. Inherent to the latter model is the prediction that evolutionary breaks will frequently overlap with fragile sites and cancer-associated breakpoints [9, 66, 69, 70]. The precise mapping data presented here are not however compatible with such a physical overlap of breakpoints. When considering fragile sites, rare and common sites must be clearly distinguished . Rare fragile sites are less frequent and, at the DNA sequence level, are associated with expanded repeats. In some cases, such sites are associated with a specific clinical phenotype . By contrast, common fragile sites (numbering 89 according to Debacker and Kooy ) are observed in different mammalian species [71, 72] and may be spatially associated with large active gene clusters . In our analysis, we focussed exclusively on the 11 common fragile sites that have been well characterized at the DNA sequence level [35, 38–49] but only two of these sites were found to exhibit partial overlap with an evolutionary breakpoint interval (N = 526) identified here (Table 4). We cannot however make any statement with respect to a potential overlap between the evolutionary breakpoints and those common fragile sites that are hitherto poorly mapped and remain uncharacterized at the DNA sequence level. A second class of common chromosomal breakpoint is represented by those breakpoints associated with tumorigenesis. These cancer-related breakage events frequently generate fusion genes that are commonly characterized by gains of function . To refine the DNA sequence positions of known cancer-associated breakpoints, we utilized the known sequence coordinates of 387 cancer-associated genes. These were then cross-compared with the 526 evolutionary breakpoint intervals identified in our analysis. However, no evidence was found for the known cancer-associated genes (and hence their associated breakpoint regions) being over-represented within regions of evolutionary chromosomal breakpoints. A word of caution is appropriate here. Although it may eventually prove possible to identify unequivocally the positions of many evolutionary and cancer-associated breakpoints, there is no a priori reason to suppose that these breakpoints should occur in precisely the same locations. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that, even if we were to focus our attention upon those breakpoints which colocalize to the extended regions characterized by segmental duplication, these breakpoints would probably occur in heterogeneous locations with respect to the various genes present within the unstable regions. This is because, in order to come to clinical attention, somatic cancer-associated gene rearrangements must confer a growth advantage upon the affected cells or tissue, usually via gene deregulation or through the creation of a fusion gene. Evolutionary rearrangements (which must, by definition, be heritable and hence occur in germ cells) represent the other side of the coin: they could not have become fixed had they been disadvantageous to individuals of the species concerned. It follows that the rearrangements derived in these two quite different contexts (i.e. somatic/cancer-associated versus germ cell/evolutionary) are likely (i) to have affected the structure, function and expression of different genes in different ways, (ii) to have been subject to quite different 'selective pressures' in these different contexts and hence (iii) would have been most unlikely to have occurred in precisely the same genomic locations. In agreement with these predictions, a different regional distribution of cancer-associated and evolutionary breakpoints has been noted by Sankoff et al. whilst Helmrich et al. failed to detect any overlap between fragile sites and evolutionary breakpoints. Our E-painting data do however provide some support for the postulate that evolutionary breakpoints have been 'reused', sensu lato . Indeed, 7.6% of the identified evolutionary breakpoint intervals identified here contain two or more breakpoints. By computer simulation, we confirmed that the distribution of the 519 observed breakpoints into only 410 different genomic segments is best explained by non-random breakage with only ~7–10% of the genome harbouring evolutionary breakpoints. This proportion is somewhat lower than that previously reported (20%) for the 'reuse' of breakpoint regions but this could be due to the higher resolution breakpoint mapping achieved here. Recently, breakpoint 'reuse' has also been noted in the case of a recurrent inversion on the eutherian X chromosome and in a comparison of chicken chromosome GGA28 with orthologous syntenic segments in human, fish (Fugu), amphibian (Xenopus), opossum, dog and mouse . Taken together, these findings are quite compatible with the fragile breakage model of chromosome evolution first proposed by Pevzner and Tesler and sustained by the more recent analysis of Alekseyev and Pevzner . Our data confirm and extend previous reports of associations between segmental duplications (SDs) with evolutionary rearrangements [77, 78]. SDs comprise 4–5% of human autosomal euchromatin [50–52] whereas the primate lineage-specific breakpoint intervals comprise 0.86% of the euchromatin. This notwithstanding, some 78% of the evolutionary breakpoint intervals colocalize with known SDs whilst 76% coincide with regions of known copy number variation (Additional file 2). These proportions are significantly higher than those reported from comparative analyses of evolutionary breakpoints between the human and murine lineages [51, 78]. This difference is probably due to the focus in the present analysis having been placed upon primate lineage-specific breakage. Turning to the sites at which evolutionarily fixed chromosomal breaks have occurred, we have previously mapped at the DNA sequence level the breakpoints of eight inversions that serve to distinguish the human and chimpanzee karyotypes [79–81]. None of these rearrangements is as yet known to be associated with either the activation or inactivation of genes at or near the breakpoint sites. The present study indicates that, at least in the primate lineage, the evolutionary breakpoints are enriched for SDs whilst overlapping to a similar extent with sites of known copy number variants. This concurs with recent findings from comparative studies of syntenic disruptions between gibbon and human chromosomes [82, 83]. Indeed, nearly half of all gibbon-human breaks in synteny occur within regions of segmental duplication in the human genome, thereby providing further evidence for the evolutionary plasticity of these regions which has clearly been responsible for promoting a significant proportion of the chromosomal breaks in primates . Our analysis has revealed an even stronger correlation between high gene density and evolutionary fragility than that previously reported . Although the evolutionary breakpoint regions identified here display about 3 to 4 times the transcript density of the euchromatic genome average (Table 7), it would seem rather unlikely that evolutionary breakpoints have frequently disrupted gene coding regions. Intriguingly, a study of chicken chromosome GGA28 has revealed that evolutionary breakpoint regions, identified through the analysis of human-chicken synteny, are disproportionately located in regions with a high GC-content and high CpG island density rather than in gene-dense regions per se. Thus, it is tempting to speculate that at least some of these evolutionary breakpoints, particularly those occurring in gene-associated CpG-islands, could have contributed to functional changes in mammalian gene structure or expression . In summary, we have presented an approach that greatly reduces the complexity of comparative genome sequence analysis and which is capable of providing valuable insights into the dynamics of eutherian karyotype evolution. The gene synteny analysis data yielded high definition evolutionary breakpoint maps which have significantly improved the resolution of existing maps derived by chromosome painting . Correlation analyses with similarly well mapped cancer-associated breakpoints and fragile sites however failed to provide any evidence for an association with evolutionary breakpoints. We nevertheless noted a higher than previously observed positive correlation of evolutionary breakpoints with gene density and also corroborated the reported association of segmental duplications with evolutionary breakpoints in the primate lineage. The ancestral eutherian genome, reconstructed through E-painting, displays a high degree of agreement with that derived from the much larger comparative cytogenetic dataset. The inclusion of a marsupial genome in this comparison, which has not hitherto been attempted, suggested that the ancestral boreoeutherian karyotype was probably very similar to the ancestral eutherian karyotype. Gene synteny analysis The synteny comparisons across different vertebrate species were carried out in silico by means of reciprocal BLAST 'best-hit' searches using the ENSEMBL database; http://www.ensembl.org. Only genomes with at least a 7-fold sequence coverage were included in the analysis (human, mouse, rat, cow, dog, chicken, opossum). Data mining for established protein coding genes was performed using the program BioMart (http://www.ensembl.org; ENSEMBL release 46). Orthologous gene location data were retrieved from the genomes of rat, mouse, dog, cow, opossum and chicken, and were arranged by reference to the human gene order (NCBI Build 36). For the purposes of this analysis, a syntenic segment was defined as consisting of a group of contiguous genes in humans as well as in the other species under investigation (mouse, rat or dog etc). We have included in these gene order comparisons all those human genes for which orthologues have been annotated in the genomes of mouse, rat, dog, cow, opossum and chicken. Only segments with three or more consecutive syntenic genes were considered in order to avoid annotation errors or the inclusion of pseudogenes and retrotransposed genes. To aid visualization, the syntenic segments were individually identified by differential colour coding according to the colour code given in Figure 2. Breakpoint intervals were defined by the last gene from the proximal syntenic segment and the first gene from the following more distal syntenic segment of the respective species (summarized in Additional file 2). Gene positions are given in Mb according to the human genome sequence http://www.ensembl.org. The data analysis was otherwise performed as previously described [22, 34]. Gene density calculations were carried out using Stata software (StataCorp, College Station, TX) based on the transcriptome data presented by Versteeg et al. with updates available through the Human Transcriptome Map http://bioinfo.amc.uva.nl/HTMseq. The diploid chromosome numbers of the species investigated are: N = 40 in mouse; N = 42 in rat; N = 60 in cow; N = 78 in dog; N = 18 in opossum; N = 78 in chicken. The assembly of conserved syntenic segments into ancestral chromosomes was used to model the ancestral boreoeutherian karyotype with a chromosome number of 2n = 46. Bovine genome versions At the time of writing, the bovine genome sequence remains unpublished although a near complete version (B_tau3.1) was made available to us for the purposes of this study B_tau3.1 http://www.ensembl.org/Bos_taurus/index.html. B_tau3.1 has recently been replaced by the latest version B_tau4.0. The only major differences between the two versions of the bovine genome sequence resulted from scaffolds being misplaced within chromosomes BTA6, 19 and 29, respectively. These errors could however only account for the misclassification of intrachromosomal rearrangement breakpoints. Our synteny comparisons were, by contrast, largely based on the identification of interchromosomal rearrangements (syntenic genes in humans being located on two different chromosomes in the species under investigation). Nevertheless, re-examination of our data allowed us to conclude that our original results were not affected in any way by the occasional intrachromosomal misplacement of scaffolds on the BTA chromosomes in version B_tau3.1. All six intrachromosomal breakpoints (involving BTA chromosomes 6, 19 and 29) were found to coincide with breakpoints identified in other species (Additional file 1). Indeed, four of these 6 intrachromosomal breakpoints coincided with breakpoints in two or more additional species. It therefore follows that the removal of these B_tau3.1-derived 'breakpoints' from our analysis would not have resulted in any reduction in the overall breakpoint number. Assessment of overlap between evolutionary breakpoints and common fragile sites The χ2-goodness-of-fit (exact version implemented in SAS) was applied to test whether the overlap between autosomal fragile sites and evolutionary breakpoint intervals is non-random. The genomic region covered by 11 selected fragile sites is 34.6 Mb, as summarized in Table 4, amounting to 1.12% of the autosomal genome (assuming it to be 3093 Mb). Since the average extension of a breakpoint interval is 0.3 Mb, it is on average sufficient for an overlap that the midpoint of a breakpoint interval lies within the borders of a fragile site ± 0.15 Mb, an area which amounts to 34.6+11 × 0.3 = 37.9 Mb. Thus, under a random model, ~1.23% (37.9/3093) of the 526 observed breakpoints intervals would be predicted to overlap with a fragile site. Since only 2/526 breakpoints (0.38%) were found to display an overlap with a fragile site (p = 0.11), there was no evidence for significant co-location. To assess whether the positions of the breakpoints identified in this study would fit best with a model of random or non-random chromosomal breakage during vertebrate karyotype evolution, 100,000 simulation experiments were performed. Depending upon the number of genomic regions of length 0.3 Mb available for evolutionary breakpoints, the expected number of different breakpoint regions assumed to harbour a total of 519 observed breakpoints (N = 132 in mouse, 143 in cow, 89 in opossum and 155 in chicken) was estimated under a model of random breakpoint selection in each species. 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Genome Res. 2007, 17: 249-257. 10.1101/gr.6052507. Ferguson-Smith MA, Trifonov V: Mammalian karyotype evolution. Nature Reviews Genet. 2007, 8: 950-962. 10.1038/nrg2199. We are most grateful to Kim Worley and Richard Gibbs at the Human Genome Sequencing Center in Houston, Texas for making the B-tau3.1 version of the bovine genome available to us. This work was supported by grant HA 1082/16-3 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. HH and HKS conceived and designed the experiments. CK and MK performed the experiments. HKS, LF, HH and DNC analyzed the data and wrote the paper. JH performed the statistical analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Electronic supplementary material Additional file 1: Summary of E-painting results for human chromosomes 1–22. The conversion of the syntenic segment associations into colour-coded ideograms rendered the conserved syntenic segments (and at the same time, the breakpoint intervals) readily identifiable The human chromosome coordinates of the breakpoint intervals are given to the right of the human ideogram in Mb. The chromosome numbers of the orthologous segments in the analyzed species are indicated to the right of the conserved segments. Chromosomal breakpoints have been evenly spaced in order to facilitate visualization of the conserved syntenic segments. The resulting ideograms of the chromosomes and conserved segments are therefore not drawn to scale. The centromeric region is indicated by a black horizontal bar. The stippled red lines indicate breaks present in all analyzed vertebrate genomes which may therefore be attributed to rearrangements in the primate lineage. (PPT 693 KB) Additional file 2: Summary of the evolutionary breaks for all human autosomal chromosomes. The breakpoint intervals are demarcated by the last gene from the proximal segment of conserved synteny and the first gene of the distal segment of conserved synteny. For some breaks, a duplication of the gene at the breakpoint was noted (duplicated genes). The breaks specific to the primate lineage are marked in yellow. For these primate-specific breaks, the links to copy number variants (CNV) and segmental duplications (SD) contained within the break intervals have been added. In the last column, the cancer-associated genes which flank evolutionary breaks (these genes are included within the respective segments of common synteny) and the known cancer-associated genes localized within the break intervals (see Table 5) are given. (XLS 270 KB) Additional file 3: Phylogenetic relationships among the species investigated in this study and the armadillo and the elephant not analysed here (marked with an asterisk) according to Wildman et al. . Scheme to indicate phylogenetic relationships between clades. (PPT 26 KB) Additional file 6: Results of 100,000 simulation experiments designed to investigate the question of random or non-random breakage during mammalian karyotype evolution. Table indicating the results of 100,000 simulation experiments designed to investigate the question of random or non-random breakage during mammalian karyotype evolution. (XLS 38 KB) About this article Cite this article Kemkemer, C., Kohn, M., Cooper, D.N. et al. Gene synteny comparisons between different vertebrates provide new insights into breakage and fusion events during mammalian karyotype evolution. BMC Evol Biol 9, 84 (2009) doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-84 - Segmental Duplication - Fragile Site - Breakpoint Region - Common Fragile Site - Evolutionary Breakpoint
The sustainable use and biodiversity of paddies fields of Louisiana DATE OF SUBMISSION : DATE OF SUBMISSION : The term “working wetland” in Louisiana refers to wetlands (paddies) serving multiple functions: rice cultivation, crawfish harvesting, and waterfowl habitat. In St. Martin Parish, for example, farmers allow crawfish cultivated in the rice paddies to be fed on by birds, which is a natural part of the ecosystem there, for the preservation of biodiversity. Rice harvesting is done once or twice a year with the first harvest taking place in July and a possible second harvest in fall (depending on price and quality factors of both rice and crawfish). After the seeds are sown in March, water levels in the paddies are maintained at a depth of two inches for about two weeks, which is not only ideal for wading birds but also for controlling weeds. Crawfish are released into the paddies around May or June, when the rice has grown enough to provide a certain degree of protection from waterfowl. To keep sufficient food for crawfish, considerations are being paid in the use of pesticides, thereby maintaining biodiversity. Additionally, many aquatic animals that thrive in this man made, nature friendly environment are also used as sources of food; including frogs, alligators, turtles, and birds. By utilizing multiple aspects of the ecosystem here farmers have been able to increase both productivity and biodiversity simultaneously. wetlands, paddies, crawfish, multiple functions Mr. Mitsuhiko Toda is a Senior Research Scientist of Japan Wildlife Research Center (JWRC). His academic specialty is animal ecology and herpetology. He is interested in ecology of alien reptiles and amphibians in Japan. .He has been involved in the work on the Satoyama Initiative Projects, Alien Species Issue Research and Examination Project on Ogasawara Islands, and others. Dr. Takashi Inoue is a Research Scientist of Japan Wildlife Research Center (JWRC). His academic specialty is fish ecology and sandy beach ecology. He was a research fellow, worked as a researcher at the Graduate School of Agricultural Life Science, The University of Tokyo from 2005-2007. Since joining JWRC in 2007, he has been involved in the work on the Alien Species Issue Research and Examination Project and others. Louisiana Master Farmer Program Conservation Reserve Program LSU Ag Center (Louisiana State University Agricultural Center) 2008 Louisiana Summary of Agriculture and Natural Resources Wetlands Reserve Program The United States of America occupies the large continent, its climatic zone extends by the frigid zone from the subtropical zone, and it has a major mountain ranges, expansive prairies and vast rivers, and there are various natural environments. The U.S. is a major agricultural producer; much of its land is dedicated to farming for wheat, corn, soybeans, and other agricultural products, and the country harbors well-developed large-scale farming enterprises. The current paper presents a case study of efforts aimed at the sustainable use of secondary natural features and the conservation of biodiversity in a particular region of the U.S., in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. 1. Overview of the site Louisiana comprises about 130,000 square kilometers, roughly 110,000 square kilometers of which are land and 20,000 are water. About 57,000 square kilometers of that is forest. The northern part of the state is bordered on the east by the Mississippi River. The river then cuts through the southern part of the state, which faces the Gulf of Mexico. To the west it borders Texas, and to the north Arkansas. Louisiana has thriving agriculture, forestry and fishing industries. Its chief products include timber, rice, sugarcane and aquatic products (Louisiana is by far the world’s largest producer of crawfish). In addition to these, the state has well-developed chemical, petrol, and tourist industries. Information in Louisiana was collected chiefly through interviews conducted from December 2 through December 11, 2009, in St. Martin Parish area. The surveys were performed by Mitsuhiko Toda and Takashi Inoue of the Japan Wildlife Research Center with the powerful assistance of Stefan Ottomanski of Nagao Natural Environment Foundation. 2. Maintenance and biodiversity conservation in paddies combining wetland crop cultivation and crawfish harvesting (1) Working wetlands The term “working wetland” in Louisiana refers to the fact that the state’s wetlands (paddies) serve multiple functions: they are used to cultivate rice and harvest crawfish, and also provide waterfowl habitat. In St. Martin Parish, for example, farmers allow crawfish cultivated in paddies to be fed on by birds, thereby using the wetlands in a sustainable way and preserving biodiversity in the area. (2) Changes in land use in St. Martin Parish The land subject to the current study was at one time a forest, and the grandfather of the current farmer/landowner originally made his living through forestry. With the construction of levies along the Mississippi River in the 1920s, it was transformed into a wetland, after which it was used for paddy farming. Subsequently, the crawfish that thrived in the paddies were used as a source of food, but in the 1960s, with the introduction of rice farming, the crawfish came to be cultivated for commercial purposes. In recent years, in light of unstable rice prices, crawfish are cultivated together with paddy agricultural products as a means to mitigate the business risks associated with growing only rice. (3) Rice production The farm in this case study is run according to the guidelines of the Louisiana Master Farmer Program. It consists of a roughly 400-acre tract of wetland that is used mainly for the paddy farming of rice. (4) Crawfish cultivation Purchased crawfish Procambarus clarkii are released into paddies around May and June, when the rice planted in March has matured to a certain extent. Releasing crawfish into paddies at this timing affords them a certain degree of protection via the rice plants and lowers the levels of predation by waterfowl. The released crawfish reproduce before the first harvest. Crawfish grow by about 20 percent every time they shed their shells, but their maturation is affected by climatic and other conditions. The released crawfish grow by feeding upon aquatic insects and tadpoles that inhabit the paddies. They become cannibalistic when other sources of food are insufficient, so in the interest of maintaining a high level of biodiversity in the paddies, much care must be taken when using pesticides or fertilizers. Although the water is drained from the paddies immediately prior to harvesting, the crawfish survive the harvest by taking refuge in holes they dig in the paddy mud. (5) Biodiversity of the paddies and surrounding areas At the farm that was studied, much aquatic animals are used as source of food for human, including frogs (frequently found in irrigation canals and caught at night), American Alligators Alligator mississippiensis, Snapping Turtles Chelydra serpentina, etc. The Mourning Doves Zenaida macroura, Bobwhite Quail Colinus virginianus, and other birds are hunted for food. Many birds that are either predators or competitors to the crawfish have been observed in the paddies, and if one were to place emphasis only on the productivity of crawfish cultivation, such birds would be a nuisance. Despite this, at the site studied, paddies are used sustainably with the birds being allowed to feed upon the crawfish. Crawfish predators include herons, ibises,spoonbills, and gulls, while crawfish competitors include ducks and swans . (1) The use of secondary natural resources in Louisiana Natural areas have conventionally been converted into farmland based on the notion that nature is something to be conquered, but over the past two decades views of nature and ways to utilize it have begun to change. Large-scale sustainable farming is also gaining a foothold through decisions to plant crops other than corn, which imposes a significant burden upon the soil, on land traditionally used as cornfields, and to reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides and other agrochemicals. It should also be noted that the practice of hunting, which is a “consumptive” way of utilizing natural wildlife, is on the decline, while “non-consumptive” utilization, e.g. bird watching, is on the rise. (2) Efforts at conserving or rehabilitating the natural environment Examples of programs to conserve or rehabilitate natural environments in the United States include the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). These programs are designed to provide assistance in rehabilitating and protecting natural environments in areas of poor farmland. The main goal of the WRP is to conserve and rehabilitate wetlands to serve as habitats for waterfowl. The program is voluntary and operates under 30-year easements. The CRP, on the other hand, is chiefly a reforestation program with the goal of preventing soil erosion that targets areas ill-suited to farmland. In addition to these, there is also the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which provides farmers with incentives for improving the environmental quality of their land. The Louisiana State University Agriculture Center is appealing to the government to offer support for farms, such as the one described here, that utilize and conserve wildlife and natural resources such as crawfish, waterfowl, and water (levels and quality). The conservation of biodiversity in farming should also raise the level of biodiversity in areas surrounding wetland farms in Louisiana. Coreil, Paul. 1993. Wetland function and Values in Louisiana. LSU Agricultural Center and Louisiana Sea Grant College Program. Booklet. 13 pp. Conservation Reserve Program (http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=copr&topic=crp) LSU AgCenter (http://www.lsuagcenter.com/) 2008 Louisiana Summary of Agriculture and Natural Resources (http://www2.lsuagcenter.com/agsummary/) Wetlands Reserve Program (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/wrp/) About the Case Study The survey described here was conducted by Mitsuhiko Toda and Takashi Inoue of the Japan Wildlife Research Center as part of a project commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. Stefan Ottomanski of the Nagao Natural Environment Foundation lent his cooperation to the field survey, which was conducted between the 2nd and 11th of December 2009, and targeted St. Martin Parish in the southern part of Louisiana. Interviews were conducted with one farm operator who practices a method of farming that combines paddy rice cultivation and crawfish production (for commercial consumption) with efforts to conserve biodiversity in paddies. People associated with universities that are supporting the efforts of this farmer were also interviewed.
Please note: This information was current at the time of publication. But medical information is always changing, and some information given here may be out of date. For regularly updated information on a variety of health topics, please visit familydoctor.org, the AAFP patient education website. Information from Your Family Doctor Am Fam Physician. 2005 Jun 15;71(12):2319-2320. See related article on health issues for surfers. How can I stay safe while I’m surfing? The most common surfing injuries are cuts, sprains, and broken bones. Most cuts are caused by a surfer’s own board. Be aware of your board and other people around you. You can buy rubber guards for the side rails and fins to keep your board from hurting you or someone else. Buy a special helmet made for surfers and wear it every time you surf (see figure below). A special surfboard leash can keep your board from hitting someone else. But it also can make your board snap back and hit you. Ask an experienced surfer to show you how to use the leash. What should I do about cuts? If you get cut, get out of the water and push gently on the skin around the cut. If the bleeding does not stop, call your doctor. Cuts can get infected from germs in the water. See your doctor if a cut does not stop hurting, turns red, or has yellowish fluid coming out of it. Can I do anything to keep from getting ear problems? Surfers can get ear problems, especially if they surf in cold water. Using earplugs is the easiest way to prevent most ear problems. Strong waves or hitting the water too hard can break your eardrum. Wearing a helmet and earplugs can keep this from happening. Water in your ear canal can cause infections. Make sure your ears are dry after you leave the ocean. Surfing in cold water can cause bony growths in your ear canal. This can lead to hearing problems and ear infections. See your doctor if you have ear pain, trouble hearing, or fluid coming out of your ear. What else might be dangerous? Surfers should be aware of stingrays, coral, jellyfish, and sharks (see figure below). Stingrays bury themselves in shallow sand. They will stay away if they know you are coming. If there are stingrays where you surf, drag your feet through the sand to keep from stepping on them. If you get stung, get out of the water right away. Put hot water on the area where you were stung to help stop the pain. See your doctor if the area keeps hurting or you feel sick. Jellyfish float in the water and can sting you. They usually travel in groups and are hard to see. Jellyfish stings are painful, and some can even be deadly. Do not surf when jellyfish are in the water. If you get stung, get out of the water right away. Take off any parts of the jellyfish that are still on your skin, but do not use your bare hands. Do not use fresh water to rinse off the area. Fresh water can make the sting worse. Try rinsing with salt water, alcohol, baking soda, or vinegar. Hot salt water or hot packs can help with the pain. See your doctor right away if you feel sick. Coral reefs can be dangerous for surfers. Be aware of how deep the water is where you surf. Do not surf over shallow coral reefs. Cuts from coral can be painful and heal slowly. See your doctor if the pain and redness do not go away. Sharks very rarely attack people. Common sense can protect you from most shark attacks. Do not go into the water if sharks have been reported in your area. Do not surf if you are bleeding or have open cuts. If you see a shark, get out of the water. Do not try to touch the shark. Get help right away if you think you have been bitten. This handout is provided to you by your family doctor and the American Academy of Family Physicians. Other health-related information is available from the AAFP online at http://familydoctor.org. This information provides a general overview and may not apply to everyone. Talk to your family doctor to find out if this information applies to you and to get more information on this subject. Copyright © 2005 by the American Academy of Family Physicians. This content is owned by the AAFP. A person viewing it online may make one printout of the material and may use that printout only for his or her personal, non-commercial reference. This material may not otherwise be downloaded, copied, printed, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any medium, whether now known or later invented, except as authorized in writing by the AAFP. Contact email@example.com for copyright questions and/or permission requests. Want to use this article elsewhere? Get Permissions
An international collaboration led by academics at the University of Sheffield has shed new light into Parkinson's disease. The research could help with the development of cures or treatments in the future. The collaboration, which was led by Professor Peter Redgrave from the University's Department of Psychology, suggests that many of the problems suffered by patients with Parkinson's disease -- difficulties in initiating actions, slow laboured movements and tremors -- can be understood in terms of damage to control circuits in the brain responsible for habits. The analysis, which is published online and will appear in the November issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, has involved combining the experience of an international team of clinical experts to explain why, paradoxically, removal of part of the brain can help sufferers of Parkinson's disease regain smooth initiation of movements. An important processing unit in the brain (the basal ganglia) is part of two behavioural control circuits -- habitual control, which directs our fast, stimulus-driven automatic, largely unconscious movements; and voluntary goal-directed control, which is driven by a conscious appreciation of the action's outcome. This means goal-directed movements are typically slower, require effort, and can only be done one at a time. Different regions of the basal ganglia are involved in goal-directed and habitual control. An important proposal in the Nature Reviews Neuroscience article is that Parkinson's disease is linked to a preferential loss of the neurotransmitter dopamine from the regions involved in habitual control. Many of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease can therefore be understood in terms of a catastrophic loss of habits, which means patients have to rely on the goal-directed control system for everything they do. This idea can explain why their movements are slow, effortful and easily interrupted. For example, when approaching a narrow door or object, a patient with Parkinson's disease can suddenly freeze and find it difficult to start again. Under serial goal-directed control, (i.e. you can only think about doing one thing at a time), when the patient stops thinking about walking and starts to think about going through the door or avoiding the object, they stop walking. The proposed analysis offers a further important insight into the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. At the level of the basal ganglia, the goal-directed and habitual control circuits are physically separated, but down-stream, they converge on shared motor systems (that is, we can do the same action either under goal-directed or habitual control). Numerous experiments show that the loss of dopamine from the basal ganglia increases inhibitory output from the habitual control circuits. Therefore, for a patient with Parkinson's disease to express goal-directed behaviour, they have to overcome the distorting inhibitory signals from the malfunctioning habitual control system. This provides a further reason for why patients find it so difficult to initiate and maintain actions and why their behaviour is so effortful and slow. These ideas also offer a potential resolution of a continuing paradox in Parkinson's disease research -- why destruction of the parts of the basal ganglia responsible for habits can have such a beneficial effect on Parkinson's disease. Professor Redgrave and his team propose that removal of the distorting inhibitory output from habitual control circuits could make it easier for goal-directed behaviour to be expressed. It is hoped this new interpretation of Parkinson's disease will help in the discovery of new cures and treatment in the future for the 120,000 people in the UK suffering with the disease. Firstly, by directing attention to what makes the habitual basal ganglia particularly vulnerable, and secondly to parts of the brain where goal-directed behaviour is being disrupted by dysfunctional signals from the circuits responsible for habits. Neuroscientist Professor Peter Redgrave from the University of Sheffield's Department of Psychology, said: "We hope our analysis provides a better understanding of the link between normal and abnormal functioning in the basal ganglia. This is important because the better your understanding of normal function, the better the questions you can ask about its failings, which hopefully, will direct you towards more effective treatments." Cite This Page:
Carbon Free Boston (CFB) is the city’s initiative to reach carbon neutrality by the year 2050. For about a year, CFB researchers have been studying the pros and cons of different paths to that goal. Their report, due out later this fall, will estimate the amount of carbon reduction, the cost, and the environmental justice impacts of many potential ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The city will use this information to prioritize the best strategies. In June, CFB posted a preliminary report listing some of the options under consideration. Using this document and other information sources, BostonCAN has been familiarizing itself with potential strategies in the energy, transportation, and buildings sectors. Our purpose has not been to draw conclusions ahead of the research results, but to understand the choices and related issues so that we are prepared to respond after the report is released. Three of our Action Team meetings this fall feature presentations on carbon policy. The first of these, on the energy sector, was delivered on September 27 and is summarized below. By the “energy” sector, CFB means activities involved in the production of electricity. Options under study for this sector fall into four categories: district energy policy, gas policy, in-boundary renewable energy policy, and out-of-boundary renewable energy credit and purchase. A district energy system provides power efficiently to a group of buildings. An example is the Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP) in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston. Types of district energy systems include microgrids (small electric grids that can connect to the regional grid or operate independently), combined heat and power systems (where heat generated as a byproduct of electricity is captured to warm buildings), and trigeneration systems (which produce electricity, heating, and cooling). Potential policy options include building more district systems, forcing the retirement of ones that run on fossil fuel, and reducing related regulatory barriers. CFB’s preliminary report raised only two gas policy options: renewable gas supply and natural gas leak mitigation. “Renewable” gas refers to hydrogen and biogas. They are “renewable” in the sense that we can produce more, but they still emit greenhouse gases. Natural gas leaks are problematic because they waste resources, release the greenhouse gas methane into the air, poison plants and animals, and increase the risk of explosions. In-boundary renewable energy refers to “green” electricity that is generated within Boston. In an urban setting, the most practical source is solar panels. Two ways the city could bring more solar to Boston would be to mandate or incentivize building owners to install it or to put it on municipal buildings. A related option is to address the net metering cap, a state policy that currently inhibits the development of large solar projects. Under net metering, solar owners receive credits on their electric bills whenever they are producing more power than they are using (picture a sunny day with few appliances turned on). Net metering helps shorten the payback period for solar. If an owner runs a negative balance, the excess credit can be applied to another electric account. However, Massachusetts limits (caps) the amount each electric company has to pay for net metering. While most residential installations are small enough to qualify for net metering despite the cap, new larger arrays are ineligible once the cap is reached. An example of how this discourages larger projects is the experience of Bethel AME Church in Jamaica Plain. They planned to put many solar panels on their church and assign the excess power to congregation members. However, they had to settle for a smaller system than they wanted because of the cap. Out-of-boundary renewable energy is “green” power that is generated outside of Boston for the benefit of Boston users. There are several ways that people can get renewable energy without buying the generators that produce it (e.g., solar panels, wind turbines, or hydroelectric plants). - Community-owned renewable power means that a group of people own a “green” generator together. Community-owned renewable power can be located in- or out-of-boundary. - Power purchase agreements (PPAs) and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) are two ways of having green energy without buying or chipping in for the equipment. PPAs and RECs differ because the price of renewable energy is split into two parts: the actual energy, and the fact it is renewable. In a PPA, people buy the electricity itself from a renewable source. RECs are documentation proving that the owner of a “green” generator has produced a certain amount of renewable energy. When people buy RECs, they get the right to say that they are using green energy even though their power really comes from the grid, because they are providing financial support for renewables. - Carbon offsets allow an entity (usually a business or government) to pay another entity for the right to claim an amount of carbon reduction actually achieved by the second party. For example, if Boston and another city both have carbon reduction targets, and Boston is falling behind while the other city is ahead, Boston can buy carbon offsets from the other city. Offsets are intended to allow for the fact that some entities have more barriers to carbon reduction than others. - Providing clean power purchasing options to consumers is another thing that a city can do. Boston’s forthcoming Community Choice Energy program is an example. - The city could also provide financial incentives for on-site and off-site renewable generation. This could take several forms, including lower property or sales taxes. In the days to follow, we will publish summaries of BostonCAN’s presentations on CFB options in the transportation and buildings sectors. Stay tuned!
Early Wednesday morning, the ESA’s Rosetta Space Mission landed Space Craft Philae semi-gracefully on a comet (it might have bounced a kilometer off the comet first…), and it’s managed to blast through space while holding tight, sending images mid-flight for the world to see. It’s novel, unprecedented and amazing – this marks the first time a spacecraft has landed at the center of a comet and it’s been a long time coming. A lonely fellow, flitting around the Universe for at least the last Four Billion Years, Comet 67P was first discovered back in 1969 by Soviet Astronomers Svetlana Gerasimenko and Klim Churyumov; thus dubbed – Comet ’67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.’ And now, 45 years later, their hard work has paid off: Philae is set to probe it’s way into Comet 67P, analyzing everything it can about the comet’s iidentity- details about the comet’s atmosphere, physical terrain and chemical composition. Both Philae and the Rosetta Mission have been beaming back unbelievable images of the comet, and the vast depths of the universe; but that’s not even the coolest thing to me. My favorite part of the discovery has been the fact this comet sings! Yes, that’s right – it’s been jamming out for millions of years and now we can listen in! How’s this even possible? Well, there are oscillations in the comet’s magnetic field that sit around 40 to 50 millihertz. Though it’s unable to hear by human ears alone, scientists from the ESA have increased the frequency 10,000x to make it audible. But, you probably didn’t hear about that, because you know: ASS. Kim Kardashian’s ass, if you’d like to get specific. Now, first things first I’m not trying to debase or discredit the booty – in fact, praise the booty; that is a fine specimen. And, for all us ladies that lack the necessary junk in and around the trunk, I’m glad there’s someone out there that knows how to (a) respect her body and (b) celebrate her body. Now, to the critics: Photoshop, and other retouching applications, are a widely used resource in the digital marketing world and it’s silly to think otherwise. Not that I don’t see the correlations between the Jean Paul Gaude’s photo shoot with Grace Jones and Kim K – give me a break; I would give my right arm to recreate this amazing shot. And for the uproar and the hoopla circulating about the photo shoot and the tirades and charades around her love of nude modeling: why is what an individual does with their body more interesting or exciting than SPACE EXPLORATION?
When a NASA official said last week data from an instrument on the Mars Curiosity rover suggested something "for the history books," many people thought an announcement was imminent of the possible discovery of life on the Red Planet -- until the space agency began to seriously backpedal on the story. It may be a case of once bitten twice shy as NASA has been through this before -- a hotly anticipated and heavily hyped bit of news that only disappoints in the end. The current excitement began when Curiosity mission lead scientist John Grotzninger started receiving data on his computer from the rover's on-board chemistry lab while in the presence of a reporter from National Public Radio. The instrument known as Sam, sample analysis at Mars, has been analyzing a Martian soil sample. "This data is going to be one for the history books. It's looking really good," Grotzinger told NPR. Grotzinger would not reveal anything more, saying it could be several more weeks while NASA scientists went over the data to make sure it wasn't a glitch or something from earth contaminating the instrument sample. Still, a lot of people thought "one for the history books" could only mean SAM had found something suggesting evidence of life on Mars at some point. SAM is in fact designed to look for organic molecules and while organic molecules would be important, it is not the same thing as "life on Mars." NASA quickly began downplaying talk of a major discovery. "It won't be earthshaking but it will be interesting," said spokesperson Guy Webster of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. NASA's caution is understandable; it has been through this before. In 2010 researchers led by then NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon said they had discovered a form of "alien life" right here on Earth, bacteria found in a California lake whose DNA they claimed contained arsenic -- highly poisonous -- rather than phosphorus. Announced with much publicity and fanfare at a NASA news conference, the finding intrigued astrobiologists, who'd previously speculated extraterrestrial life might survive in unexpected and extreme environments if it were based on something other than phosphorus or carbon -- something like arsenic. But the finding was controversial, and soon other researchers said they were unable to duplicate the results Wolfe-Simon said she had discovered at California's Mono Lake. Many scientists responded by saying the data made no sense, were inconsistent with well-established chemical principles and did not support the interpretation and conclusions in the study published in Science. There was general disagreement with the original authors' contention that arsenic was incorporated into the DNA. The bacteria were highly resistant to arsenate, other researchers said, but they were still a phosphorus-based and thus a terrestrial life form. The studies left astrobiologists disappointed and left NASA with a bit of egg on its face for having made initial "alien life" comments in its run-up to the very public introduction of Wolfe-Simon's original research. A suggestion by one of the coauthors of the Science article of a "shadow bioshpere" based on chemistry other than that found in life on earth has failed to gain any traction with biologists. The "arsenic" episode is likely one reason NASA has in speculation about the Mars Curiosity discovery, to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment. NASA now says it will be repeating tests to conclusively confirm its still-secret findings -- whatever they are -- and will not officially release them until December, at the next meeting of the American Geophysical Union, set for Dec. 3-7 in San Francisco. Not "earthshaking," NASA reminds us -- just "interesting."
- Year Published: 1867 - Language: English - Country of Origin: Greece - Source: Aesop (1867) Aesop's Fables - Flesch–Kincaid Level: 4.0 - Word Count: 108 Aesop, . (1867). “The Donkey, the Fox, and the Lion”. Aesop's Fables (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved May 16, 2022, from Aesop, . "“The Donkey, the Fox, and the Lion”." Aesop's Fables. Lit2Go Edition. 1867. Web. <>. May 16, 2022. Aesop, "“The Donkey, the Fox, and the Lion”," Aesop's Fables, Lit2Go Edition, (1867), accessed May 16, 2022,. THE DONKEY and the Fox, having entered into partnership together for their mutual protection, went out into the forest to hunt. They had not proceeded far when they met a Lion. The Fox, seeing imminent danger, approached the Lion and promised to contrive for him the capture of the Donkey if the Lion would pledge his word not to harm the Fox. Then, upon assuring the Donkey that he would not be injured, the Fox led him to a deep pit and arranged that he should fall into it. The Lion, seeing that the Donkey was secured, immediately clutched the Fox, and attacked the Donkey at his leisure.
What is an Acoustic Sound Diffuser? Sound diffuser is an acoustic treatment device for scattering or diffusing of sound energy to reduce flutter echo and comb filtering. When sound bounces or reflected off a flat and hard surface, the reflected energy level is almost similar to the state before it hits the hard surface, and travels in the same composition but opposing direction. As a result of this reflected sound, standing waves and flutter echoes are created and interfere with the original sound produced. This distort sound clarity. With a sound or acoustic diffuser, the reflected sound is scattered in all direction, thereby diffusing the sound energy without removing it from the environment. Hence, sound clarity is maintained and improved acoustics. For example, in a control room diffusers are generally place onto real wall behind the listening position to reduce reflection from that wall and make the room more lively and sound larger than it really is. Sound Diffusion vs Absorption The difference is in the preserving of sound energy within the environment. Sound diffuser don’t absorb sound, they simply disperse the reflected sound waves, distributing the sound energy within the room. For this reason sound diffusers are made of hard materials with corrugated surfaces that are meant for breaking up the sound reflection. Since diffusers don’t absorb sound, you get almost the same amount of energy as it’s been produced. Whereas, sound absorption is basically the “soaking up” of sound energy. Sound absorbers are typically made of acoustic foam and mineral wool, such as Aurlex’s Studiofoam and Rockwool fiberglass board. Sound absorption is necessary for removing the unpleasant “glare” in sound or bright sound that usually happen on high frequencies. Low frequency sound energy absorption is in bass trapping which frequencies can be down to as low as 40Hz. Acoustic panels are great for mid to higher frequencies in acoustic sound absorption as it can also help in reducing standing waves and flutter echoes. Sound Diffusion For Small Room All domestic size rooms need absorption more than diffusion, especially at bass frequencies. Many rooms are treated entirely with absorption and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, most acoustic problems can be solved using only absorption. But if cost is not an issue, sound diffusers can add a nice touch and can make a room sound even larger than it is. Unfortunately, good diffusion cost more than good absorption. The less expensive diffusers generally, are too shallow to work to a low enough frequency. To be useful for music applications, a diffuser needs to be at least 2.5 inches deep to be useful. The conventional wisdom is that sound diffusers should never be placed close to an instrument, microphone or listener. As a thumb of rule, for each inch of diffuser depth you need to be about one foot away. A very large space such as an auditorium or a live room in a million-dollar recording studio has very different problems than a small room, which most people record and listen in. In small rooms, it is difficult to get much distance between the performers, their microphones and the room surfaces. So diffusers that work well at close distances with less audible artifacts are more appropriate for people recording and listening in small rooms. The Quadratic Residue Diffuser (QRD) is great for small room diffusion with, of course a good combination of proper absorber placement. Should You Build Your Own Sound Diffuser Buying ready made acoustic diffusers can easily rip apart your wallet if you have limited resources to build your first home studio or home theatre. Fortunately, there are tons of information online on how you can DIY your own acoustic sound diffuser with very minimum cost. However, it can be laborious and time consuming to make your own diffuser panels. It can take up to 3 to 4 hours to make just 1 acoustic diffuser panel. So a little time and work management spread over a few days should be sufficient for a couple of diffuser panels. The most popular material for a diy sound diffuser is hard wood, because of the simple construction and ease to work with. You just need a wood saw, sandpaper, wood glue and lacquer for the finishing touch. Of course not forgetting the hard wood strips and woodboard. For the acoustic diffuser design, here’s the BBC building specs for a low cost but effective QRD diffusor. One thing to note though, such diy diffusion panels may not be suitable for ceiling mount due to its weight. Unless you take great care in working out what weight limit your ceiling can support and apply the proper fastening, don’t even try for obvious safety reason. If ceiling mount is not an option, than you will need to go for the light weight polystyrene diffuser like the Auralex T’Fusor, which can be installed on a suspended ceiling grid. Where to Buy Acoustic Diffuser/Diffusor You can easily get those ready/factory made audio diffusers (or diffusors) from a professional audio equipment retailer in your location (if there’s one). Always buy from the pro shop so that you are getting not just the products, you will also get good tips or advice on where to place the sound diffuser. Otherwise, your best option would be to buy online. Company like Auralex offers a good range of acoustic diffusers to meet your acoustic treatment needs. Though you can’t buy directly from them, you can still receive all technical support direct from Auralex. You can also request a free personalized analysis of your room from Auralex before you get started. FREE Personalized Room Analysis Auralex Sound Diffusion Panels Auralex sound diffusion panels are aesthetically designed and precisely calibrated to meet the most demanding critics’ expectation. As evident from the impressive long list of clients, comprises established recording studios and artistes. Here’s the complete range of Auralex’s acoustic sound diffusers. - T’Fusor Diffusor - MiniFusor Diffusor - MetroFusor Diffusor - Q’Fusor-II Diffusor - Sustain Bamboo Diffusors - Hemisphere Diffusor Want to learn more about the theory, design and application of acoustic absorbers and diffusers? Here’s a great book by Trevor Cox, Professor of Acoustics at Salford University. An easy read for starters into acoustical treatment with diffusers and absorbers.
Issue No.04 - October-December (2005 vol.27) DOI Bookmark: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MAHC.2005.58 In 1948 the Federal Institute of Technology in Z?rich, Switzerland, (ETH), established a new institute in its mathematics division, the Institute of Applied Mathematics. Its first director, Professor Eduard Stiefel, recognized from the beginning, that the newly emerging computers would be adamant to this new field of mathematics. The early use of the Zuse Z4 Computer at Stiefel's Institute is well known, however no detailed description about Stiefel's own construction, the ERMETH computer have been published so far. This article describes why Stiefel decided to build his own computer and what objectives he set for it. The article also gives insight into the construction of ERMET, how it was programmed, and what it was used for. ERMETH, ETH, Switzerland, Stiefel Hans Neukom, "ERMETH: The First Swiss Computer", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol.27, no. 4, pp. 5-22, October-December 2005, doi:10.1109/MAHC.2005.58
The robots are a finicky bunch. Everything about them is fragile and fleeting. PVC pipe connects tiny plastic propellers to soldered wires, which have been known to short out. The wires trace back to a panel of switches powered by 9-volt batteries that have a habit of losing their juice. Getting the underwater robots to reach neutral buoyancy --where they hold still in the water without floating to the top or sinking to the bottom -- is as tedious and delicate a job as building a house of cards. Once they reach the correct buoyancy, getting the little bots to drive where their operators want them to go isn't much easier. Their course resembles that of a toddler-controlled toy car, as they spin in circles or make turns that are too wide or too sharp. The 5-foot plastic pool that holds an obstacle course for the bots might as well be the Atlantic Ocean. "It's kind of like driving a boat. It's not precision driving," said Christine Donohue, an Ooltewah High School senior working on the robots as part of a computer-aided drafting course. Students were perfecting techniques for driving their completed bots last week -- a long process of trial and error. "Building the bot is easy. But once you get it in the pool, there are no ideal conditions. So you just test and retest," Donohue said. Lynda Pickett, who teaches drafting and engineering courses at Ooltewah High School, said she modeled the robot project after one in engineering classes at Tennessee Tech University. She gave each team of students eight feet of PVC pipe, eight joints, four motors and four propellers. Before starting, students drew designs of the robots on a 3D software program. "All of this came out of their own heads. They designed it," Pickett said. Because they're doing close to college-level work, Pickett said her students who go on to study engineering are often ahead of others because they already understand the basics of design. "I get a lot of positive feedback from my students in college," she said. "They feel so much more ready than other students in their classes." Her classes have designed and built everything from miniature bridges to roller coasters. Pickett's courses are part of Ooltewah's engineering academy and receive federal vocational education funding. Senior Jose Quintero said the underwater bots were more involved and required much more patience than some other projects. "There's so much to do with this," he said, as he added pebbles to his PVC pipes to weight his bot down. "You have to design the whole thing, test it, get it to drive." Quintero plans to study biomedical engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. His love for engineering started at a young age, when he would become hypnotized by watching his father working on cars. "It pretty much carried over from my childhood," he said. "I questioned everything." Contact staff writer Kevin Hardy at firstname.lastname@example.org or 423-757-6249.
Who were the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, chief priests, and elders? "By what authority are you doing these things?" (Mark 11:27-28). With this and similar questions the gospels relentlessly portray Jesus' opponents—the chief priests, scribes, elders, Pharisees, and Sadducees—as bad guys who resisted Jesus at almost every turn and conspired to have him killed. The gospel accounts, however, tend to lump these folks together and offer very little information about who they were. Understanding them better helps us to grasp why the New Testament depicts them as such villains. The Pharisees criticized Jesus and his disciples for not keeping the law and consorting with sinners. Jesus in reply called them hypocrites and accused them of leading people astray, of corruption, betraying the heritage of the Jewish prophets, and generally having their religious priorities mixed up. There was another side to the Pharisees. By bringing Jewish religious life out of the Temple and into homes, synagogues, and the lives of everyday people, as well as advocating the continuing interpretation of the Torah, they helped preserve Jewish tradition after the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. But they had a big problem with Jesus' taking on the authority of God-healing people, setting himself up as the interpreter of the law, and forgiving sins. As did the Sadducees. They saw their role as upholding traditional practices and beliefs, and they resolutely defended worship at the Jerusalem Temple as the action that maintained the covenant between God and Israel. Though they differed with the Pharisees over belief in resurrection, like the Pharisees they vied for influence with the royal court and the Roman rulers and opposed this person Jesus, who challenged just about every religious authority he encountered. We see more members of the Israelite power elite in the elders, chief priests, and scribes. The elders acted as community leaders and judges. The chief priests were members of the high priestly families or those acting with the authority of the high priest, while the scribes with whom Jesus argued were probably lawyers and judges. While the scribes interpreted Jewish law, they did not make it, hence their conflicts with Jesus, who claimed authority over the law. Jesus' proclamation of a kingdom in which the unclean is clean and the unlawful is lawful turned inside out just about everything Jews of his time believed, giving a new way of living to many but making much of the leadership hostile—a conflict that led eventually to Jesus' death. This article appeared in the March 2009 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 74, No. 3, page 41).
OldPerth is a website that provides an alternative way to browse historical photographs from the State Library of Western Australia collection and relate them to geographical locations. The OldPerth project was built by the Curtin University HIVE in cooperation with the State Library of Western Australia. OldPerth provides an easy to navigate avenue to exploring photographs as primary sources in historical inquiry. Discovering Western Australian history with a geographical lens is referenced in the Western Australian Curriculum, particularly for year 5 and year 8. This online resource can be used to extend the learning of students who have visited the State Library and participated in guided workshops or it can be used as a stand-alone resource in the classroom. The content encourages students to ask further questions, reflect on local history and make geographical connections. This site provides lesson plans suggesting classroom learning activities along with worksheets for students to accompany each of the lesson plans. Disclaimer: Content warning The State Library of Western Australia acknowledges the traditional owners of Country throughout Western Australia and their continuing connection to land and culture. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. The Library is honoured to be located on Whadjuk Country, the ancestral lands of the Noongar people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this resource may contain images, names and references to deceased persons.
Solar power and other sources of renewable energy can help combat global warming but they have a drawback: they don't produce energy as predictably as plants powered by oil, coal or natural gas. Solar panels only produce electricity when the sun is shining, and wind turbines are only productive when the wind is brisk. Ideally, alternative energy sources would be complemented with massive systems to store and dispense power -- think batteries on steroids. Reversible fuel cells have been envisioned as one such storage solution. Fuel cells use oxygen and hydrogen as fuel to create electricity; if the process were run in reverse, the fuel cells could be used to store electricity, as well. "You can use the electricity from wind or solar to split water into hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell operating in reverse," said William Chueh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and a member of the Stanford Institute of Materials and Energy Sciences at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. "The hydrogen can be stored, and used later in the fuel cell to generate electricity at night or when the wind isn't blowing." But like the renewable energy sources they seek to complement, fuel cells also have a drawback: the chemical reactions that cleave water into hydrogen and oxygen or join them back together into water are not fully understood -- at least not to the degree of precision required to make utility-grade storage systems practical. Now Chueh, working with researchers at SLAC, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, has studied the chemical reactions in a fuel cell in a new and important way. In a paper published in Nature Communications, Chueh and his team describe how they observed the hydrogen-oxygen reaction in a specific type of high-efficiency solid-oxide fuel cell and took atomic-scale "snapshots" of this process using a particle accelerator known as a synchrotron. The knowledge gained from this first-of-its-kind analysis may lead to even more efficient fuel cells that could, in turn, make utility-scale alternative energy systems more practical. Role of electrons In a typical fuel cell, the anode and cathode are separated by a gas-tight membrane. Oxygen molecules are introduced at the cathode where a catalyst fractures them into negatively charged oxygen ions. These ions then make their way to the anode where they react with hydrogen molecules to form the cell's primary "waste" product: pure water. To perform both of these reactions, electrons also need to make the journey: electrons are added to the cathode and removed from the anode. Normally, the electrons are drawn to the cathode and the ions are drawn toward the anode, but while the ions pass directly through the membrane, the electrons can't penetrate it; they are forced to circumvent it via a circuit that can be harnessed to run anything from cars to power plants. Because electrons do the designated "work" of fuel cells, they are popularly perceived as the critical functioning component. But ion flow is just as important, said Chueh, a center fellow at Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy. "Electrons and ions constitute a two-way traffic pattern in many electrochemical processes," Chueh said. "Fuel cells require the simultaneous transfer of both electrons and ions at the catalysts, and both the electron and ion 'arrows' are essential." Electron transfer in electrochemical processes such as corrosion and electroplating is relatively well understood, Chueh said, but ion flow has remained, well, opaque. That's because the environment where ion transfer may best be studied -- catalysts in the interior of fuel cells -- is not conducive to inquiry. Solid-oxide fuel cells operate at relatively high temperatures. Certain materials are known to make superior fuel cell catalysts. Cerium oxide, or ceria, is particularly efficient. Cerium oxide fuel cells can hum along at 600 degrees Celsius, while fuel cells incorporating other catalysts must run at 800 C or more for optimal efficiency. Those 200 degrees represent a huge difference, Chueh said. "High temperatures are required for fast chemical reactivity," he said. "But, generally speaking, the higher the temperature, the quicker fuel cell components will degrade. So it's a major achievement if you can bring operating temperatures down." Why does it work? But while cerium oxide established itself as the gold standard for fuel cell catalysts, no one knew just why it works so well. And that paucity of data is troublesome: better understanding could lead to the fabrication of even better catalysts. What were needed were visualizations of ions flowing through catalytic materials. But you can't exactly stick an electron microscope into the pulsing, red-hot heart of a fuel cell running at full bore. "People have trying to observe these reactions for years," Chueh said. "Figuring out an effective approach was very difficult." In their Nature Communications paper, Chueh and his colleagues at Berkeley, Sandia and SLAC split water into hydrogen and oxygen (and vice versa) in a cerium oxide fuel cell. While the fuel cell was running, they applied high-brilliance X-rays produced by Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source to illuminate the routes the oxygen ions took in the catalyst. Access to the ALS tool and the cooperation of the staff enabled the researchers to create "snapshots" revealing just why ceria is such a superb catalytic material: it is, paradoxically, defective. "In this context, a 'defective' material is one that has a great many defects -- or, more specifically, missing oxygen atoms -- on an atomic scale," Chueh said. "For a fuel cell catalyst, that's highly desirable." Such oxygen "vacancies," he said, allow for higher reactivity and quicker ion transport, which in turn translate into an accelerated fuel cell reaction rate and higher power. "It turns out that a poor catalytic material is one where the atoms are very densely packed, like billiard balls racked for a game of eight ball," Chueh said. "That tight structure inhibits ion flow. But ions are able to exploit the abundant vacancies in ceria. We can now probe these vacancies; we can determine just how and to what degree they contribute to ion transfer. That has huge implications. When we can track what goes on in catalytic materials at the nanoscale, we can make them better -- and, ultimately, make better fuel cells and even batteries." Cite This Page:
George Washington Carver – Coloring Page Children read a short biography of the African-American inventor George Washington Carver, who discovered hundreds of products that could be made from peanuts. Then, they color in his picture. Use this worksheet as a supplement to your Black History Month (February) unit. Grade Levels: Pre-K - 5 Help with Printables If you need to teach it, we have it covered. Start your free trial to gain instant access to thousands of expertly curated worksheets, activities, and lessons created by educational publishers and teachers. Start Your Free Trial
Quails (Coturnix coturnix) are small birds that have been around in the country for quite some time now. This small (17 cm on average) plump breed usually comes in hues of brown, black, and grey with white streaks. They are fairly agile animals – so much so that smaller cages are more appropriate for them to avoid injuries. Previously known only as hunting or game birds, quails (also known as pugo in the Philippines) have now come to the forefront of the poultry industry due to the high demand not only for its meat, but also for its high-nutrient eggs (itlog ng pugo). Quail farming has been increasing in popularity as this breed is also considered a possible solution for the growing demand in poultry products. Quail egg production heavily relies on the hen’s nutrition; thus, making the feeding management very important in quality egg production. Despite the increasing demand for quail meat and egg, less investors venture into quail production as very little is known about raising this breed. Unknown to many, quail is relatively easier to raise compared with chicken as they require less nurturing because they are not susceptible to common poultry diseases, their cages entail less space, and they could be fed with cheaper organic compounds as in the study of Dr. Feliciano R. Bejar of the Samar State College of Agriculture and Forestry (SSCAF). What makes up quail feeds? In order to produce quality quail eggs that maintain high nutritional value and egg shell strength for higher and faster return of investment, feed content and management of quails should be closely monitored. Chicken feed content and management are largely different from that of quail, for example, the protein requirements vary for both at different stages of growth. Using chicken feeds for quails result to inefficient layers and even higher mortality rates as the quails’ necessities are not met. A carefully studied and balanced diet for a quail feed needs to be comprised of ingredients that provide the correct amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, and methionine at a given growth stage. Yellow corn, rice bran, fish meal, soybean meal, copra meal, dicaphos, limestone, lysine, DL methionine, oil, vitamin premix (vitamin A, E, D3, K, riboflavin, pantothenate, niacin, pyridoxine, B12 and choline), minerals (manganous sulfate, zinc oxide, ferrous sulfate, copper sulfate and oyster shell) and salt are the usual ingredients mixed together to create a suitable feed for raising quails. Mashed or crumbled feeds are sold commercially, with prices ranging from 800Php-1200Php per sack. A BAR-funded research In a recent study of a SSCAF-based instructor, Dr Feliciano R. Bejar, organic ingredients were induced to both the meal and drinking water of quails with aim to improve growth, production performance, and egg qualities of quail. Dr. Bejar uses Trichanthera gigantea Nees. (T. gigantea) leaf, aloe vera extract, and acid cheese whey to achieve better quality quail products at low cost. With the financial assistance granted from the Department of Agriculture – Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR) Thesis/Dissertation Assistance Program, Dr Bejar discovered how cheap organic materials could positively affect the production of quails and its eggs that could help fill the high market demand and encourage more investors into quail farming. DA-BAR opens its grant to all members of the National Research and Development System in Agriculture and Fisheries (NaRDSAF), such as members of the agriculture and fisheries research and development (R&D) systems, and local government units (LGUs), with financial support of up to 50,000Php, delivered in two installments (90 percent upon signing of contract, and the remaining 10% upon delivery of accomplished thesis/dissertation hard copy). What are T. gigantean, aloe vera, and acid cheese whey? In Dr. Bejar’s study, he added T. gigantean leaves, and aloe vera extract and acid cheese whey to quails’ feed and drinking water, respectively. He considered the quails’ growth performance, laying performance, egg qualities, and project viability as determining factors of the positive effects of these three components to quail performance and productivity. T. gigantea is a shrub native to the swampy areas of Latin America, but has adapted to the Philippines as it grows well in local tropical conditions. Used mainly as forage, living fence, and shade tree, it has now being used also as feed to produce organic pigs and chicken in the country. T. gigantea possesses medicinal values as it was used by Columbians to treat nephritis in humans. It contains high water soluble carbohydrate compared to other fodder trees. Its nutrient components include crude protein, water soluble protein, water soluble carbohydrates, starch, total sugars, reducing sugars, lignocelluloses, ether extract, among others. T. gigantea was added to the other ingredients of the feed at 0, 15, and 25 percent, respectively, in both grower and layer mash. On the other hand, additives to quails’ drinking water were aloe vera extract and acid cheese whey. Aloe vera extract is widely known as an anti-inflammatory for minor skin infections and natural remedy to hair loss problems in men and women, as compounds such as polysaccharides, mannans, anthraquinones and lectins are present. A specie of a succulent plant and believed to have originated in Sudan, aloe vera flourishes in dry countries like Africa, India, and Nepal. Orally or topically administered for wounds, aloe vera extends this therapeutic effect to animals. In a previous study in 2005 by the same author, it was found that supplementation of aloe vera extract to broilers resulted to positive growth response and high performance. Another additive to the quails’ drinking water was acid cheese whey. After coagulation and removal of curd, what remains is the water portion of the milk known as cheese whey. The two types of whey are sweet and acid, where the first is produced during the creation of rennet-type cheese and the latter during production of acid-type cheese. Acid cheese whey contained lactic acid bacteria and was considered probiotic – these are live enhancers of intestinal microbial balance. Organic components and quail and egg production T. gigantea, aloe vera extracts, and acid cheese whey were added to 300 13-day old quails’ meal and drinking water in a four-month experiment performed at the Northwest Samar State University, San Jorge Campus in Samar. Cages for brooding and growing were constructed at the University for the experimental birds. T. gigantea meals of 0, 15, and 25% were fed to quails, simultaneously were served with drinking water incorporated with aloe vera at levels 0, 15, and 25 mL throughout the growing and laying stages, and acid cheese whey (same levels) throughout the experimental period. Dr Bejar’s study showed that 15% of T. gigantea meals with simultaneous additives of aloe vera extract and acid cheese whey ultimately contributed to positive and increased growth response, laying performance, qualities of eggs, and project profitability. Quail eggs produced were longer and wider, with thicker shells and larger surface areas and increased breaking strength, which makes for sturdier transport during dissemination of egg products. Results of higher net income and return of investment is attributed to the positive effects to both the quails and their eggs. Above all, application of these three components enabled for the lowered cholesterol content of the egg yolks that makes pugo all the more nutritious and healthy, and in turn, make these little birds a big hit for an even bigger market. This article was based on the study, “Growth and Reproductive Performance of Quail Fed with Varying Levels of Trichanthera Gigantea Nees. Leaf Meal Supplemented with Aloe Vera Extract and Acid Cheese Whey in Drinking Water,” by Feliciano R. Bejar of the Samar State College of Agriculture and Forestry, San Jorge, Samar. For more details on the DA-BAR Thesis/Dissertation Program, please contact the Institutional Development Section, Program Development Division of the Bureau of Agricultural Research at RDMIC Bldg., Visayas Avenue corner Elliptical Road, Diliman Quezon City. Trunklines: (02) 928-8624 and (02) 928-8505; or email us at email@example.com 1. “Trichanthera gigantean” (n.d.). Retrieved from the Tropical Forages. http://www.tropicalforages.info/key/Forages/Media/Html/Trichanthera_gigantea.htm Source: Zuellen B. Reynoso, Bar Chronicle July 2011 Issue (Vol. 12 No. 7)
Basic Shih Tzu Information - Lifespan: 11 - 14 years - Height: 8 - 11 inches - Weight: 9 - 16 pounds Medical Conditions Seen in Shih Tzus - Elongated Soft Palate - Keratoconjunctivitis sicca - Brachycephalic Airway Syndrome - Cherry Eye - Hip Dysplasia - Chronic Valvular Disease - Intervertebral Disk Disease - Patellar Luxation - Progressive Retinal Atrophy - Renal Dysplasia - Ulcerative Keratitis Shih Tzu Traits - Jogging Partner - Lap Dog - Good with Children - Warm Weather - Cold Weather - Grooming Requirements - Ease of Training Shih Tzu History - The first small Tibetan lion dogs probably came from Tibet to China during the Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1662). - In the late 1800s, these dogs were interbred with Pekingese, pugs, and other Chinese dogs to create the Shih Tzu as we know it. This occurred in the kennels of the Dowager Empress T'zu Hsi. - After the Communist revolution in China, the shih tzu became extinct in its native land. - In the 1940s and 50s, military personnel brought back many shih tzu to the United States. - Seven males and seven females make up the foundation stock of all modern shih tzu. One of these dogs was actually a Pekingese brought into the gene pool in the 1950s. - The AKC recognized the breed in 1969. It soon grew to become one of most popular of all breeds in America. Shih Tzu Behavior Concerns - Makes both an affectionate lap dog and fun-loving companion. - Playful and good with children, but children must be supervised because they could easily hurt such a small dog. - Outgoing toward strangers. - Good with other dogs and pets. - Learns quickly, but tends to have a stubborn streak. - Does not do well with force-based training methods, but is very good with reward-based training involving food or games. - Housetraining can be more challenging than with many other breeds. Shih Tzu Suggested Exercises - Makes a lively and alert housedog. - Although many of its physical exercise needs can be met with indoor games, it still needs the mental stimulation of walking and sniffing outdoors. - A walk around the block once or twice daily will meet its outdoor needs, not counting bathroom breaks. Many shih tzu can be trained to use indoor potty systems. - Because of its short muzzle, the shih tzu is prone to overheating in warm weather. - Dog parks are not generally a good idea unless only small dogs are allowed together. - Swimming is not recommended unless constantly supervised. Swimming with a full coat could be dangerous as the coat can become heavy when wet. - Games and tricks provide needed mental exercise. - Excursions in a doggy purse can provide supplemental entertainment. Shih Tzu Grooming - Coat is long, dense and fairly straight. - Brushing and combing every other day is necessary to prevent matts. - Many pet owners elect to have their dogs professionally groomed, or clipped into a trim that is more easily cared for. - Take care that stray hairs and lashes don't irritate the eyes. - Monitor the hair around the anus for hygiene issues. - Because of poor air circulation, ears should be checked weekly for problems. - Shedding is below average. - The breed is prone to periodontal problems, which can be prevented in large part by regular tooth brushing. Suggested Shih Tzu Nutritional Needs - Shih tzu tend to stay in good weight or be a bit heavy. - Adult dogs should be fed a balanced diet, with restricted calories if the dog starts to gain too much weight. - Shih tzu puppies should be fed often to prevent hypoglycemia, a serious condition to which very small puppies are prone. Meals of high protein, fat, and complex carbohydrates may also help guard against this condition. Did you know? - Grapes and raisins are harmful to dogs. - Some dog parasites are transferable to humans. - Many common pet ailments may be detected early and prevented by visiting your veterinarian twice yearly - saving both time, money, and most importantly, ensuring the best quality of life for your dog. Come visit us, we would love to see you! We are here to help! Book an appointment today to continue your pet on a path to great health and wellness Ask the Vet Have unanswered pet health questions? Dr.Donna Spector, with 10+ years of hands-on Internal Medicine experience, is here with your answers every Friday.
Chewing Gum And Acid Reflux It acts to prevent the reflux of stomach acid into the esophagus. Symptoms occur when this. Avoid chewing gum and hard candy. They increase the amount of. 19 Dec 1995. Gastro-oesophageal reflux. pH monitoring. Saliva secretion. Chewing gum. Abstract. The presence of acid in the oesophagus has been shown. What is acid reflux? Stomach juices are. Chewing gum containing bicarbonate of soda (sold as tooth whitening gum) can be helpful. Eating smaller meals. 30 Apr 2015. “(LPR) encompasses acid reflux into all parts of the airway, including the nose, sinuses, Chewing gum to increase saliva and neutralize acid. If you suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), you're not alone. effects of GERD, you may be wondering if chewing gum is a solution for quick relief. 14 Apr 2015. Heartburn Chewing Gum Acid Reflux Gerd. If you thought that chewing gum was simply a nasty habit popular amongst school-children and. Signs of gastroesophageal reflux disease can show up in your mouth. Here are the oral symptoms of reflux. 25 Dec 2016. ACID reflux, also know as heartburn is a common health complaint for. experienced relief when they chewed a piece of sugar-free gum for 30. 30 Mar 2018. On occasion, they can even result in acid reflux, too. However, for some, chewing gum can cause you to swallow too much air which leads to. 13 Jan 2014. Dr. Bell says he has patients who chew gum to help soothe acid reflux, though he doesn't generally recommend it. "If the gum is flavored with. To help minimize heartburn symptoms: Chew gum. It boosts saliva production, allowing quicker and more efficient neutralization of refluxed acid. Lose weight, if. 8 Dec 2014. After your meal, freshen your breath and prevent acid reflux by chewing gum for 20 to 30 minutes. Gum stimulates the flow of your saliva, which. 21 Feb 2013. Also known as acid reflux, it's caused by the indigestion of acid due to. It's also best to avoid chewing gum, breath mints and mint-flavored. An overview of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) symptoms, Everyone has experienced gastroesophageal reflux. Inflammation of the gums 19 May 2006. My mom suffers from acid reflux – I'll have to have her try this and tell us if it works for her. She does chew gum, but her favorite is Juicy Fruit. Adam Spurgeon Â asked the Naked Scientists: Â Â Â When you chew gum does your body think there's food coming and add extraÂ acid to.
In 1900, Iowa bicycle makers August and Fred Duesenberg began playing with gasoline engines and in 1906, began to manufacture cars. Their company failed, but they developed an engine that did well in the Indianapolis 500. During World War I, they built aircraft engines for the military and after the war they used this experience to design their famous straight-eight engine which they used in a new car. Their company became part of E.L. Cord's empire in 1926. Cord gave the Duesenberg brothers carte blanche to build the finest car in the world and the result was the Model J in 1928. It featured a 420 cubic-inch, straight eight-cylinder engine producing 265 horsepower, more than double that of any other contemporary car. The chassis sold for $8,500 and the buyer had to spend another $2,500 to $8,000 for a custom body. The LeBaron Company was created in 1920 by Ralph Roberts, Thomas L. Hibbard, and Raymond H. Dietrich. Dietrich and Hibbard both had a history together working as draftsmen for one of the most prestigious American coachbuilders, Brewster of Long Island. They chose the name LeBaron to invoke the grandeur and prestige of French design. The initial vision for their new company was not a coach-building company, but rather a design-consulting firm. They would create designs and engineering plans from which a number of coachbuilders could perform their craft. In 1923, the company merged with the Bridgeport Body Company, giving them the ability to construct the very designs it created. By 1927, both Hibbard and Dietrich had left the firm they had created, though the company lived on, becoming one of the country's premier custom coachbuilders. They would create 38 bodies on the Mode J Duesenberg chassis. Of all the coachbuiders of the era, only LeBaron, Murphy, and Holbrook were selected to build bodies for the first Model Js, which were displayed at the model's 1929 debut in New York. One of LeBaron's most memorable design and their specialty was the Ralph Roberts-designed Dual Cowl Phaeton, which would prove to be their most popular style for the Model J chassis. These phaetons are divided into two main types: the sweep-panel and the barrelside. The sweep-panel section bears an initial resemblance to the phaetons later produced by LaGrande, though with softer curves. The Duesenberg Model J, with engine number J-129, is a Phaeton Sweep-Panel riding on a short-wheelbase. The car was originally owned by John Duval Dodge, the son of Matilda Dodge. It is believed that this example is the only Duesenberg delivered new in the city of Detroit. It had a purchase price of nearly $20,000. The car was sold through Duesenberg's Chicago dealership in black with a yellow sweep panel. Introduced at the December 1928 New York Automobile Salon the Duesenberg Model J quickly established itself as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the luxury grand tourer world. The LeBaron Dual Cowl Phaeton was one of the best and most luxurious bodies that could be built upon this chassis. LeBaron Carrossiers was founded in 1920 by Thomas L. Hibbard and Raymond Dietrich in New York City. They chose the LeBaron name because it sounded French and would lend a sophisticated air. They also chose to have only a design office, without coach-building facilities. This changed in 1927 when the company merged with the Briggs coach-building company and began building bodies. The chief designer of this and many other Duesenberg Js was John Tjaarda, father of Tom Tjaarda, who is a renowned designer in his own right. J-129 was sold in 1932 to Bert Schmidt of Chicago, who passed away soon after his purchase. The Duesenberg was then stored for all of 1934 in a workshop on Michigan Avenue. After being held in Chicago dealer Joe Neidlinger's inventory, the car was purchased in 1939 by Ken and Genelle Gibbs of Chicago. They would retain the car until 1948, when it was acquired by B. Goldberg of Libertyville. While in Mr. Goldberg's care, the rear end of the body was modified with a subtle forward slant, incorporating a lower top line. Dr. N.R. Joffee owned the car briefly in 1952, selling it in 1953 to Bernard Berger, who changed the sweep panel cove to red and sold it the following year to E.A. Wente of Ohio. Leo Gephart purchased the car in 1971 and reversed the Goldberg's body modification and sold it to George Wallace in 1972. Mr Wallace added the SJ-style external exhaust pipes and updated the radiator with chrome shutters before selling it to Ray Lutgert, who kept it until 1977. That year, the car joined the Richard Kughn collection where it would spend the next three decades before being sold to a Grand Rapids, Michigan collector. Near the end of 2008, the car entered the care of its current owner, who immediately began a 4,600 hour, full restoration that was conducted by Fran Roxas' Vintage Motor Group. The work was completed in time for the 2010 Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance, where it was awarded Best in Show, American. At Pebble Beach that same year, the car earned Second in Class behind the Best in Show nominee Graber-bodied Model J Duesenberg. In 2011, the car was shown at the Art of the Car Concours at the Kansas City Institute, where it won the People's Choice Award, and it received the Hagerty Children's Award at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. The car is currently finished in navy blue with crimson sweep panels. Inside, there is red leather and the engine is in the correct green enamel paint with polished aluminum components. The car rides on 19-inch, 78-spoke, snap-ring chrome wire wheels.By Daniel Vaughan \| Feb 2014
Engineers at Ford Motor Co. say taillights lit by lasers could lead to safer, more energy-efficient and better-looking automobiles. In an experimental design, fiber optics carry red light from a diode laser to a series of mirrors, which send the beam cascading across a 5-millimeter-thick sheet of acrylic. Reflective and refractive ridges direct the light outwards. Because they consume one-seventh the power of incandescent bulbs, lasers could prove useful in electric vehicles, says Ford lighting engineer Michael Marinelli. The thin acrylic would also allow designers to mold lights around contours. And since lasers flick on nearly instantaneously, Marinelli calculates drivers could see a car braking 0.2 seconds earlier, cutting highway stopping distance by 5 meters. Laser headlights are on the drawing board -but await development of cheap, powerful blue diode lasers. Subscribe to Continue Reading
By Alexandra Babcock, MPH, Dietetic Intern, Department of Nutrition In the fall of 2018, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an urgent report detailing the impacts of global warming by 1.5 degrees celsius and relevant responses for climate change. A number of suggested responses were detailed, with one particular solution that poses a unique value for both a sustainable future and a healthy one: eat more plants. The IPCC points to research demonstrating that increased sources of plant-based protein in people’s diets alleviate some of the methane and water burden impacting the environmental output system feeding climate change. Similarly, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health have identified this “planetary health diet” not only as a means of promoting dietary sustainability, but also the health of human beings. Researchers have estimated through modeling studies that 19-23.6 percent of adult mortality rates annually could be decreased from their current rate if this kind of diet was adopted. This way of eating also aligns with evidence-based nutrition recommendations for overall health promotion and disease prevention. The message to patients seems simple: fill your plate with more plants. However, as dietitians and medical professionals, we know that is easier said than done. How can anyone who typically eats animal-based foods change their belief about what constitutes a complete meal or a filling snack? Here are a few of the common challenges people identify and suggestions for overcoming them. Perception: It’s missing something. The challenge, for many, in healthy and sustainable eating is rooted in their perception of what makes up a meal. A plant-based meal, such as a warm-winter vegetable stew, may feel as though it’s missing something. Reality: Fiber from plants results in a filling meal. Consider striving to eating more plant-based meals by reducing how frequently you consume meat, poultry or cheese. Participate in Meatless Monday or try a new plant-based recipe for your lunch meal prep. Add mushrooms to displace meat in a burger or meatloaf, or slice chicken breasts or steak to plate smaller portions for serving at dinner. Perception: Plant-based eating is more expensive. Many people use cost-saving measures at the grocery store to make ends meet. Buying animal products, such as chicken breasts in bulk or ground beef on sale, are strategies people may use to stretch their budget at the market. Reality: Eating plant-based protein is a cost-saver. Many community dietitians argue that plant-based eating can be another cost-saver, especially when items such as beans, legumes and whole grains are bought in bulk. Try adding dried beans to your shopping cart during your next grocery run or purchasing local produce at the farmer’s market. Many supermarkets also have discounted day-of-sale carts in the produce aisle for fruit and vegetables that are nearing their expiration, but are ripe and ready for meal preparation. Perception: I can’t get enough protein from plants. Many patients question how to get the protein they need while following a plant-based diet. It’s true that animal sources have more complete protein per serving, meaning that the protein you absorb when eating that food has all the essential amino acids or cellular building blocks. Reality: Eating a variety of plants and legumes gives you complete protein. However, eating a variety of plants in combination, such as brown rice and beans, will give you the amino acids you need. By doing this and eating some animal-based protein foods, you can dramatically reduce the risk of not consuming enough protein. As we celebrate National Nutrition month, I encourage you to consider eating more plants. You may find yourself adopting a new habit that not only puts you one step ahead of chronic disease, but makes you an ambassador for the health of the planet.
Practice counting skills with this sunny day printable puzzle! Just print onto card and slice along the vertical lines, and ask the children to put the pieces back together in order to complete the picture again. We have a colour version, or one that your child can colour in first... Sunny Day Counting Jigsaw Help the children learn to spell in a fun way with our "sunny day" spelling jigsaw. Print onto card, laminate and cut the jigsaw along the dotted lines. Children need to put the strips in order to complete the picture and spell the words.
Overview of the issue From river breaks to high mesas and from sage coulees to semi-arid mountain ranges, tracts of intact and undeveloped Bureau of Land Management public lands are some of the most important places to hunt and fish left on the planet. These “backcountry” lands sustain high quality big game, upland bird and fisheries habitats, support traditional resource based economies and are widely appreciated by the public for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation. Most people like these places just the way they are: intact and undeveloped. Change is occurring rapidly across the West. We are a nation with a quickly expanding population, where recreational and ranching activities alike are under pressure, where wildlife habitats are shrinking, and where resource extraction is a necessity to meet an exploding global demand for energy. Traditional public lands users like hunters and anglers are feeling squeezed. Sportsmen must get involved and make ourselves heard in order to sustain our public lands hunting and fishing traditions. Right now, the future of 71 million acres of Bureau of Land Management public lands is being decided as the agency develops local land use plans across the West. These land use plans will determine the future of energy development, fish and wildlife habitat management and recreation on these lands. They represent the last great opportunity for sportsmen to conserve our best hunting and fishing areas. Why does TRCP care? To conserve these invaluable public lands, a coalition of more than 300 hunting and fishing groups and businesses, is promoting the responsible management of backcountry lands through local BLM land use plans across the West. Through backcountry conservation management and the use of a management tool called the “backcountry conservation area” or BCA, the BLM has the authority to conserve extraordinary fish and wildlife habitat from fragmentation and development, maintain important access, and focus management activities on the conservation and restoration of key habitats, while at the same time sustaining traditional uses of the land. Hunters and anglers are working with local stakeholders such as landowners, businesses and recreationists to advance backcountry conservation management through numerous land use plans in six Western states. Each of these areas provides some of the finest wildlife habitat and sporting opportunities in the West, and now is the time to conserve these public lands for future generations of sportsmen and women. For more information contact Joel Webster, Director, TRCP Center for Western Lands. >> CLICK ON AN INDIVIDUAL STATE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR LOCAL EFFORTS <<
You should feel good about eating these―the latest research shows they deserve a prominent place in a healthy diet. Misconception: I shouldn't eat avocados because they're high in fat. Why They're Good for You: Avocados are rich in heart-healthy monounsaturated fat and contain active compounds that may help prevent cancer. They are loaded with antioxidants, including familiar disease-fighting compounds such as lutein, beta-carotene, and vitamin E. They also help the body absorb phytochemicals from other foods. The lycopene in tomatoes or the beta-carotene in carrots may be better absorbed if there's a slice or two of avocado in the bowl. Scientists suspect that the fat content of avocados helps the body absorb these antioxidants.
10 January 2004 [This page printed from http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/TeachingAboutDarwinJan2004.html] (1) © [All Rights Reserved.] Placed on the WWW on January 9, 2004, for a workshop on January 10, 2004, sponsored by the Outreach Programs of the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco) and held at the Museum of Anthropology at California State University, (1) © [All Rights Reserved.] Placed on the WWW on January 9, 2004, for a workshop on January 10, 2004, sponsored by the Outreach Programs of the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco) and held at the Museum of Anthropology at California State University, Chico. ABSTRACT: Charles R. Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 and died on April 19, 1882. While primarily famous for his epoch-making 1859 publication entitled On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life Darwin is also noted for his 1871 publication entitled the The Descent of Man And Selection in Relation to Sex. [2nd edition of 1882]. This paper attempts to deal with the the phrase that "Human evolution is the most passionate aspect of the evolution-creation debate [stress added]." Larry A. Whitham, 2002, Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists And Evolutionists In America (Oxford University Press), page 242. Darwin sailed from England on HMS Beagle on December 27, 1831 and after research in South America, the HMS Beagle entered the Pacific Ocean on June 11, 1834. Darwin reached the Galápagos Islands on September 15, 1835. After that, HMS Beagle continued around the globe, arriving back in England on October 2, 1836. Darwin never left England again but continued his research, married and raised a family, and published numerous volumes which have implications today. The year 2009 will be important for educators, since the ideas of Darwin will not go away, and 2009 will be the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sequicentennial of the publication of Origin. The paper also discusses four "Darwin Videos" available at http://rce.csuchico.edu/darwin/darwinvideo.htm. [Photo by Charles F. Urbanowicz, Natural History Museum, London (1999). ABSTRACT [see above] BACKGROUND & VIDEOS: BASIC HUMANITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL THE CONTEXT OF THE VIDEOS: CONTENT, CONDUIT, CONSUMER, AND COORDINATION! EDUCATION, HMS BEAGLE, AND THE GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS DARWIN AND ORIGIN (1859+) DARWIN AND THE DESCENT OF MAN (1871) AND EXPRESSIONS (1872) PROBLEMS IN NOT KNOWING ABOUT EVOLUTION TODAY AND "INTELLIGENT DESIGN" REFERENCES (IN ADDITION TO THE ONES MENTIONED IN THE TEXT) JANUARY 2004 POSTSCRIPT: SEARCH ENGINE REFERENCES A FEW VISUALS BACKGROUND & VIDEOS: BASIC HUMANITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL "Yoo-hoo! It's the 2st century. But still the battle rages on in the classrooms of America and on the back bumpers of cars. It's the creationists versus the evolutionists, the fish with no feet versus fish with feet." Susan Faust, 2003, Darwin's origins, awesome creation. The San Francisco Chronicle, December 28, 2003, page M6. Thus does Susan Faust begin her marvelous review of The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin: Naturalist, Geologist and Thinker (2003) by Peter Sis. It is the 21st century, yet the battle rages on! And why? Because individuals do not know enough about evolution, do not know enough about the research of Charles Darwin, and do not know enough about Charles Darwin! In this brief paper, I bring to my interpretation of Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882) a passionate attempt to humanize the man. This web page documents some of the information I believe to be important if one wishes to "Teach About Darwin." I have also provided numerous print and non-print references, including links to my portrayal of Charles Darwin in the first person, available at http://rce.csuchico.edu/darwin/darwinvideo.htm. The idea of appearing as Darwin, in costume (and shaved head) is not a new one: Zoology Professor Richard Eakin (1910-1999), University of California (Berkeley), portrayed a variety of individuals, including William Harvey (1578-1657), Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), and Charles Darwin, to inspire students about science (R.M. Eakin, 1975, Great Scientists Speak Again). My interest in portraying Darwin in the first person in clearly inspired by the following: "Human evolution is the most passionate aspect of the evolution-creation debate [stress added]." Larry A. Whitham, 2002, Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists And Evolutionists In America (Oxford University Press), page 242. The 1973 Nobel Prize Winner Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) wrote: "I believe that even today we do not quite realize how much Charles Darwin knew [stress added]" (Konrad Lorenz, 1965, "Preface" in The Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals by Charles Darwin, 1872 [1965 University of Chicago Press edition], pages ix-xiii, pages xi-xiii) and I believe this to be perfectly true to this date and into the future. The year 2009 will be extremely important for educators, since the ideas of Darwin will not go away, and 2009 will be the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sequicentennial of the publication of Origin. It is important not only to understand the context of the times when Darwin did his research and published his works but his personality is also important for an understanding of his impact to date: "Darwin was famous for his modesty and his ability to remain aloof from the condemnations and eulogies that poured in upon him for twenty-two years, yet his personal writings reveal an amazing self-concern, expressed with wonderful naiveté and candor. His fiancée considered him '...the most open transparent man I ever saw....'" Abram Kardiner and Edward Preble, 1961, They Studied Man (NY: Mentor Books), page 15. Darwin was interested in the human condition and after his 1831-1836 trip around the world on HMS Beagle, he returned to England and in 1839 he married his cousin, Miss Emma Wedgwood (1808-1896). Emma Wedgewood was a very religious woman, one who attended church on a regular basis and she was greatly concerned about her husband's research. One of their daughters wrote that in Emma's youth "religion must have largely filled her life, and there is evidence in the papers she left that it distressed her in her early married life to know" that Charles Darwin did not share her faith (Nora Barlow, 1958, Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882, page 239). Emma Darwin expressed her concerns to her husband and in a letter she sent him shortly after they were married in 1839 she wrote that "everything that concerns you concerns me and I should be most unhappy if I thought we did not belong to each other forever." It was a known fact that Darwin was deeply moved by this and Emma found her letter to him among his notes after he died in 1892 and she read his following words: "When I am dead, know that many times, I have kissed and cryed over this" (Nora Barlow, 1958, Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882, page 237). Charles Darwin wrote a note to himself, wherein he carefully weighed the pro's & cons of marriage and he ended the note with the following: "Marry - Marry - Marry Q.E.D." The words that Charles Darwin wrote to Emma in a letter nine days before they were married in 1839 held true for all of their years: "I think you will humanize me, and soon teach me there is greater happiness than building theories and accumulating facts in silence and solitude [stress added]." Charles Darwin to Emma Wedgwood, dated Jan 20th 1839 (Francis Darwin, Editor, 1903, More Letters of Charles Darwin: A Record of His Work In A Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters, page 29.) There were family and societal problems for Charles Darwin, but he accepted (and overcame) them. Darwin was a prolific researcher and writer and it has been estimated that in his lifetime he published some "seven thousand pages, about three million words" (John Bowlby, 1990, Charles Darwin: A New Life, page 5). In questioning, reading, studying, and thinking about Darwin's numerous works and attempting to understand his ideas, please consider the following 20th century words (which most adequately summarize Darwin's 19th century ideas): "All the theory of natural selection says is the following. If within a species there is variation among individuals in their hereditary traits, and some traits are more conducive to survival and reproduction than others, than those traits will (obviously) become more widespread within the population. The result (obviously) is that the species' aggregate pool of hereditary traits changes. And there you have it [stress added]." Robert Wright, 1994, The Moral Animal (NY: Pantheon Books), page 23. THE CONTEXT OF THE VIDEOS: CONTENT, CONDUIT, CONSUMER, AND COORDINATION! "The rationale of collaborative research is the synergism of two or more minds working towards the solution of the same problem (two or more people working together can accomplish more than the sum of what would have been possible if those same people had been working on their own)." Sir Peter Medawar, 1986, Memoir of a Thinking Radish (Oxford University Press), page 107. Before reading about further information on Darwin, some comments must be made on the "teamwork" effort which allowed the videos to be created. The videotaping of "Urbanowicz as Darwin" took place over a four day period in April 1996 in Studio "A" in the Meriam Library at CSU, Chico, but prior to that, Ms. Donna Crowe (Instructional Media Center at CSU, Chico) did extensive research and wrote the script for the videotaping. After videotaping was completed, Donna coordinated and edited the creation and quest for graphics to add to the four videotapes and my interpretation of Charles Darwin was only possible because of a tremendous teamwork approach, spearheaded by Donna, who was the writer, producer, and co-director of the production. The other Co-Director was Mr. Clark Brandstatt (also of IMC). The narrator was Dr. Lynn Elliot (Department of English, CSU, Chico) and additional voices were provided by the following individuals: Alicia Croyle, Kris Frost, Brantly Payne, Michelle L. Smith, Alice Burkart-Roberts, Nanette Quintero, Jeff Hoheimer, Michael D. Jordan, Ryan Palmer, Karen Adelman, Steve Herman, Clark Brandstatt, and Terry Nolan. Camera operators were Kathleen Myers, Tony Bergman, and Karen Adelman. Costume and make-up were provided by Ms. Martha Acuña (now retired, from the Department of Theatre Arts, CSU, Chico). The teleprompter was handled by Karen Adelman and run-through readers were Marilyn Cervantes and C. Louis Nevins (both of IMC). Computer Graphics were created by H. Chris Ficken, Randy Wall, Derek Krauss, and Rachel Jupin (all of IMC). My appreciation and special thanks are also given to Dr. Randy Wonzong and Professor Marty Gilbert (Theatre Arts Department, CSU, Chico). The content was Darwin and the conduit to deliver the information was a multimedia production. The eventual consumer was thought to be any individual (singly or in a classroom situation) who would have an interest in Darwin: this interest could be in anthropology, biology, history, or a host of other disciplines that have been influenced by the ideas put forward by Darwin. With all of this in mind, there is obviously the need for coordination! And Donna Crowe was the masterful coordinator of completing the production! Without coordination one inevitably has a fifth "C" and that is CHAOS! Below you have a brief diagram which may be useful in numerous teaching situations. FIGURE #1: 4 C Paradigm. EDUCATION, HMS BEAGLE, AND THE GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS "The fact is that Charles Darwin was in almost all respects a fairly standard example of the nineteenth century student, well off, active in field sports, working hard enough to avoid academic failure, but a long way from academic success." Peter Brent 1981, Charles Darwin: A Man Of Enlarged Curiosity (NY: Harper & Row), page 89. Charles R. Darwin definitely proved many individuals wrong, and nothing is as clear as his monumental 1859 publication (and subsequent editions of 1860, 1861, 1866, 1869, and 1872): On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life [Note: this is the on-line version of the 1859 edition]; Darwin himself was to write in his Autobiography that the Origin "is no doubt the chief work of my life [stress added]" (Nora Barlow, 1958, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882: With Original Omissions Restored Edited With An Appendix And Notes By His Grand-Daughter, page 122). A succinct statement on Charles Darwin is the following following: "He was an Englishman who went on a five-year voyage when he was young and then retired to a house in the country, not far from London [sixteen miles southeast of London]. He wrote an account of his voyage, and then he wrote a book setting down his theory of evolution, based on a process he called natural selection, a theory that provided the foundation for modern biology. He was often ill and never left England again." John P. Wiley, Jr., 1998, Expressions: The Visible Link. Smithsonian, June, pages 22-24, page 22. Charles Darwin's first college experience was in Scotland. The contemporary United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland consists of the Principality of Wales and the Kingdom of Scotland. In 1603 the Scottish King James VI (1566-1625) succeeded to the English Crown after the death of Elizabeth I (1533-1603) and in 1707 Scotland officially became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain. In the early 19th century, when Dr. Robert Darwin (1768-1844) was considering a college for his son Charles, Edinburgh was the natural choice: Robert Darwin had attended Edinburgh as well as his father, the distinguished Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802): "The Doctor had decided on Edinburgh University for Charles, the 'Northern Athens.' It was the family tradition. He would be a third-generation Darwin to study medicine here, following his father and grandfather. ... Edinburgh was better equipped, better staffed, and offered better hospital facilities than the cloistered English universities. It turned out not only better-educated MDs than Oxford and Cambridge, but vastly more of them." Adrian Desmond & James Moore, 1991, Darwin (NY: Warner Books), pages 21-22. As the capital and largest city of Scotland, Edinburgh was the center of what has been termed the "Scottish Enlightenment" and Scottish education was outstanding: "Scotsmen boasted of their superiority in this respect" (John W. Derry, 1963, A Short History of Nineteenth-Century England [NY: Mentor], page 67). Charles Darwin, however, was not to go into medicine so he switched to Cambridge, and considered becoming a clergyman! Incidentally, it is with hindsight we praise Charles Darwin; consider the fact, however, that his father became frustrated with him, stating on one occasion that "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and your family [stress added]." (Julian Huxley and H.B.D. Kettlewell, 1965, Charles Darwin And His World, page 16). Charles Darwin himself was not enamoured of formal education, as Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) once wrote: "Nevertheless, Darwin found on board the 'Beagle' that which neither the pedagogues of Shrewsbury, nor the professoriate of Edinburgh, nor the tutors of Cambridge had managed to give him. 'I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real training or education of my mind (I. p. 61 [Life And Letters];' and in a letter written as he was leaving England, he calls the voyage on which he was just starting, with just insight, his 'second life.' (I.p.214) Happily for Darwin's education, the school time of the 'Beagle' lasted five years instead of two; and the countries which the ship visited were singularly well fitted to provide him with object-lessons, on the nature of things, of the greatest value [stress added]." Thomas Henry Huxley, 1881, Obituary. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Vol. 44; reprinted in Thomas H. Huxley, 1896, Darwiniana Essays [1970: New York AMS Reprint], pages 253-302, pages 270-271. Earlier in the same volume Huxley wrote the following about the young Darwin and his college days: "No doubt Darwin picked up a great deal of valuable knowledge during his two years' residence in Scotland; but it is equally clear that next to none of it came through the regular channels of academic education. Indeed, the influence of the Edinburgh professoriate appears to have been mainly negative, and in some cases deterrent; creating in his mind, not only a very low esteem of the value of lectures, but an antipathy to the subjects which had been the occasion of the boredom inflicted upon him by their instrumentality [stress added]." Thomas Henry Huxley, 1881, Obituary. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Vol. 44; reprinted in Thomas H. Huxley, 1896, Darwiniana Essays [1970: New York AMS Reprint], pages 253-302, page 260. The HMS Beagle, built by the Royal Navy in 1820, was a ten-cannon brig. It was a modest ship, measuring some 90 feet in length and with a crew of only 73 men, Commanded by Captain Robert Fitzroy (1805-1865). The HMS Beagle set sail from England on December 27, 1831 and Darwin was aboard as the unpaid naturalist. Incidentally, Darwin was not the first to be invited to join the HMS Beagle expedition. When he eventually met Captain FitzRoy, Fitzroy did not like the shape of Darwin's nose! As the delightful 1982 Darwin for Beginners, by Jonathan Miller & Borin Van Loon states it: "On the 5th of September , Darwin was interviewed by Captain FitzRoy of HMS Beagle. At this point, the whole project nearly came to grief. FitzRoy, a devotee of the fashionable Science of Physiognomy, took exception to the shape of Darwin's nose, thinking that it betrayed signs of laziness and hesitancy. For some reason, FitzRoy overcame his scruples and Darwin was signed on." Jonathan Miller & Borin Van Loon, 1982, Darwin for Beginners (NY: Pantheon Books), page 64. Incidentally, one must wonder how many individuals this month are aware of the significance of the (apparently) ill-fated Beagle 2 which was sent on a exploration visit to Mars: "The Beagle 2 is named after the ship on which British naturalist Charles Darwin sailed on the voyage to the Galapagos Islands in the 1830s that inspired his evolutionary ideas and the book that shook the world, The Origin of Species. The new Beagle's mission is equally as ambitious: to search for life, present or past." [http://planetary.org/html/news/articlearchive/headlines/2003/mex_invades_mars.html} The Planetary Society, 25 December 2003] Returning back to the 19th century, however, Darwin realized that he was not the first choice, for he wrote to his father as follows: "...they must have offered to many others before me the place of Naturalist." Charles Darwin to Dr. Robert Darwin, August 31, 1831. Nora Barlow, 1967, Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of An Idea - Letters 1831-1860 edited by Nora Barlow. (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press), pages 34-35. Nevertheless, Charles Darwin did join HMS Beagle and the rest is history! After years of research in South America the tiny ship finally arrived at the Galápagos Islands (some 600 miles west of the South American nation of Ecuador) on the15th of September 1835. They cruised though the islands for a little more than a month and Darwin was eventually to write that "nothing could be less inviting than the first appearance" of these islands. Galápagos means "tortoise" in Spanish and there are more than two dozen islands in the entire cluster, with their combined land mass being approximately 2,800 square miles. The islands themselves are approximately 175 miles across and there are six major islands, with the largest one (Albemarle) some sixty miles in length. As a point of comparison, Butte County is some 1,646 square miles in area Tehama County, to the north is similar in size to the Galápagos (2,953 square miles) as is Santa Barbara County (2,748 square miles) in the southern part of this state. Perhaps one of the most vivid description of the islands comes from the American Author Herman Melville (1819-1891), who stopped in the Galápagos on the whaler Acushnet, shortly after the visit of the HMS Beagle. Melville wrote: "Take five-and-twenty heaps of cinders dumped here and there in an outside city lot--imagine some of them magnified into mountains, and the vacant lot the sea; and you will have a fit idea of the general aspect of the Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles. A group of rather extinct volcanoes than of isles; looking much as the world at large might, after a penal conflagration." Nigel Calder, 1973, The Life Game: Evolution And The New Biology, page 44. Darwin and the crew gathered specimens of all sorts, including tortoises that weighed up to 500 pounds, iguanas that abounded on all of the islands, and a variety of small finch. Even though Charles R. Darwin was an exceptional naturalist at this point in time, it is quite clear that the facts of nature "do not speak for themselves" since someone has to do the interpreting. In a 1973 publication, Sir Nigel Calder wrote of an 1835 meeting that Darwin had in the Galápagos Islands with Mr. Lawson, the Englishman who was the Vice-Governor of the islands: "When the Vice-Governor remarked that he could tell from which island any tortoise had been brought, Darwin pricked up his ears. he had been carelessly mixing up his specimens from different islands, never dreaming that the islands would have been 'differently tenanted'; he quickly mended his way [Calder continued]. He examined the mockingbirds collected by himself and his shipmates, and found to his astonishment that all the birds from one island belonged to one species and all from another to a different species. But he had hopelessly muddled most of his specimens of the finches that were to make the Galapagos and himself jointly famous [stress added]. Please re-read that part of the phrase: "BUT HE HAD HOPELESSLY MUDDLED MOST OF HIS SPECIMENS OF THE FINCHES THAT WERE TO MAKE THE GALAPAGOS AND HIMSELF JOINTLY FAMOUS." What a mess, but who would have thought about the impact of the finches? Calder continued: "Who can blame him? They are small birds, the males being black and the females brown. When you glimpse them flitting among the thirsty trees of the Galapagos it is hard to acknowledge the impact such modest birds had on the human mind and its religious beliefs." Nigel Calder, 1973, The Life Game: Evolution And The New Biology, pages 45-46. HMS Beagle departed the Galápagos Islands headed across the Pacific Ocean to return to England. Back in England the "mixed-up finches" were delivered to John Gould (1804-1881). Gould was an ornithologist who confirmed the "perfect gradation in the size of the beaks in the different species." There were some finches with massive beaks, like nutcrackers, while there were other finches with beaks so delicate that they could be used as tweezers. There were also numerous beaks which Gould would classify as being intermediate. Darwin wrote in the first published account on the voyage of the HMS Beagle in 1839: "Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends." Chapter 17: The Galapagos Archipelago. Charles Darwin: The Voyage of The Beagle. Walter Sullivan [Introduction to edition] (NY: Bantam Books), page 328. Towards the end of the voyage of the HMS Beagle, even while Darwin was still at sea, he began to question the fixity of species that was then prevalent in biological thought and he wrote: "When I recollect the fact, that from the form of the body, shape of scale, and general size, the Spaniards can at once pronounce from which Island any tortoise may have been brought; when I see these Islands in sight of each other and possessed of but a scanty stock of animals, tenanted by these birds but slightly differing in structure and filling the same place in Nature, I must suspect they are only varieties. The only fact of a similar kind of which I am aware is the constant asserted difference between the wolf-like Fox of East and West Falkland Islands. If there is the slightest foundation for these remarks, the Zoology of Archipelagoes will be well worth examining; for such facts would undermine the stability of species [stress added]. Gavin De Beer, 1964, Charles Darwin: Evolution By Natural Selection, page 82. The non-fixity of species and different tenanted islands continued to nag Darwin and within two years of his return to England in 1836, he began to take detailed and copious notes on the transmutation of species. Dov Ospovat stated it succinctly in 1981: "When he left England on H.M.S. Beagle in 1831, Darwin believed, with most of his contemporaries, that each species has been independently created with characteristics that suit it admirably for the conditions under which it was destined to live. By the spring of 1837 he was a transmutationist, believing that each species has descended from some other previously existing species and that its characteristics have been determined largely by heredity [stress added]." Dov Ospovat, 1981,The Development Of Darwin's Theory: Natural History, Natural Theology, And Natural Selection, 1838-1859, page 6. It should also be pointed out (as John Kricher did in 2002) that the islands did not suddenly solidify everything for the young Charles Darwin: "Remarkably, however, Darwin wrote nothing in On the Origin of Species about the Galápagos finches, the very group that supposedly supplied the 'smoking gun' as evidence to bolster his case for evoluion. Instead, he referred to the mockingbirds, which he called mocking-thrushes: 'In the Galápagos Archipelago, many even of the birds, though so well adapted for flying from island to island are distinct on each; thus there are three closely-allied species of mocking thrush, each confined to its own island.' It would seem that by that point he had at least set the stage for a finch discussion, but Darwin asserted nothing. What a surprise, given the superb model of evolution that the Galápagos finches seemingly represent. Rather than being the very keystone example of evolution, rather than being prominently discussed throughout On The Origin of Species, they are most conspicuous by their absence. And that's not all that is missing. There is no discussion of the giant torroises, even though while on the islands Darwin became aware of how these large reptiles varied from one island to another. If the Galápagos, as is often stated in the popular literature, are a 'laboratory of evolution,' then why did Charles Darwin make so little use of the data from that laboratory when he assembled his case? What, exactly, was Charles Darwin's intellectual relationship with the Galápagos Islands? How much of the story of Darwin's conversion to evolution can be attributed to his experiences on the islands? Myths are part of our culture, and Darwin has certainly become part of a commonly promulgated myth [stress added]." John Kricher, 2002 in Galápagos (Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution), page 41. But his research through the islands did get him thinking for he wrote the following in his 1839 Voyage of the Beagle publication: "The natural history of these islands is eminently curious, and well deserves attention. Most of the organic productions are aboriginal creations, found nowhere else; there is even a difference between the inhabitants of the different islands; yet all show a marked relationship with those of America, though separated from that continent by an open space of ocean, between 500 and 600 miles in width. The archipelago is a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists, and has received the general character of its indigenous productions. Considering the small size of the islands, we feel the more astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range. Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still distinct, we are led to believe that within a period geologically recent, the unbroken ocean was here spread out. Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact--that mystery of mysteries-- first appearance of new beings on this earth [stress added]. Chapter 17: The Galapagos Archipelago. Charles Darwin: The Voyage of The Beagle. Walter Sullivan [Introduction to edition] (NY: Bantam Books), page 326. Incidentally, research in the Galápagos continues to this day and please consider the work of the Peter and Rosemary Grant, from Princeton University: "The Galapagos Island finches once studied by Charles Darwin respond quickly to changes in food supply by evolving new beaks and body sizes, according to researchers who studied the birds for almost 30 years. Starting in 1973, husband-and-wife researchers Peter and Rosemary grant of Princeton University have followed the evolutionary changes in two types of birds, the ground finch and the cactus finch, on Daphne Major, one of the Galapagos islands. In a study appearing today in the Journal Science, the Grants report that climate and weather have a dramatic effect on the evolutionary path the finches follow. Ground finches most eat small seeds, and their beaks have adapted to that purpose. When the weather turned dry in 1977, most of the plants that produce small seeds on Daphne Major were killed, leaving little food for finches with modest beaks. Most died off, but some ground finches with bigger, stronger beaks survived [stress added]." Anon., 2002, Finches Shown To Be Able to Change. The Chico Enterprise-Record, April 26, 2002, page 11A. DARWIN AND ORIGIN (1859+) "The first fossils recognized as Neandertals were found in August 1856. Two quarrymen were shoveling debris from a limestone cave near Dusseldorf, Germany.... The quarrymen were digging in a cave in the Neander Valley. (In the nineteenth century, the German word for valley was thal, but the spelling was changed to tal at the beginning of the twentieth century, since German does not have a th sound.) The valley was named after a seventeenth-century composer and poet named Joachim Neumann (Newman in English), who signed his compositions with the Greek version of his name, Neander. Thus the irony of Neandertal man's literal translation: 'man of the valley of the new man.' The timing of the discovery could not have been better. Three years later Charles Darwin [1809-1882], in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, broached the unthinkable [stress added]." Steve Olson, 2002, Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), pages 76-77. When what is commonly called Origin was published in 1859, it was an immediate (and controversial) success. In attempting to understand Darwin, and the impact of his ideas through time, the following information should be of interest: every edition of Origin published in Charles R. Darwin's lifetime is different! He re-wrote every-single-version of Origin and all are different! The reason it is important to point out the various editions of Origin is demonstrated by the following chart, based on information in the excellent 1959 publication of Morse Peckham [Editor] entitledThe Origin Of Species By Charles Darwin: A Variorum Text). The concept of change is definitely vital to an understanding of Darwin, whether you are reading Darwin himself or reading about him and I include the following tabular information on Darwin's Origin in virtually everything I present or write: If one is reluctant to read ALL of Darwin's Origin as indicated, there is a delightful book by Maurice Sagoff (1970) which is called to your attention: Shrinklits: Seventy of the World's Towering Classics Cut Down To Size (New York: Workman Publishing) wherein the following appears on page 99: Out of this surge 'Throw the bum out!' Is Nature's shout. And 'Class will tell' Sex-wise as well. The age-old race To win or place (At least to show) The way things look None Dares make book." Incidentally, Charles R. Darwin took great care not to write about Homo sapiens in Origin in 1859 and all he had to say about "man" was the following: "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. [Chapter XV: "Recapitulation And Conclusion"] By the 6th edition of Origin in 1872, Darwin had re-written the above passage as the following: "In the future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be securely based on the foundation already well laid by Mr. Herbert Spencer [1820-1903], that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. [Chapter XV: "Recapitulation And Conclusion"] Even with this passing reference to "man" Darwin caused problems (and inspired individuals!). "Although Darwin's Origin of Species, published in November 1859, had deliberately avoided speculation about humankind, the question of anthropogenesis was inevitably implicated in the emerging evolutionary debate, and during the next decade a number of influential texts were published on the issue of human origins and antiquity, most notably Thomas Henry Huxley's [1825-1895] Man's Place in Nature (1863), Lyell's [1797-1875] The Antiquity of Man (1863), and John Lubbock's [1834-1913] Pre-historic Times (1865), which covered the matter from the viewpoints of comparative anatomy (and paleontology), geology, and archaeology respectively.... [stress added]." Frank Spencer, 1988, Prologue to a Scientific Forgery. In} Bones, Bodies, Behavior [Edited by George W. Stocking, Jr.] (University of Wisconsin Press), pages 84-116, page 88. Charles R. Darwin did not reject all religious beliefs and did not deny the existence of a supreme being. I not only study Darwin and portray Darwin, I believe that I think like him. In his 1876 Autobiography, Darwin wrote that at the time of Origin (1859) he could be viewed as a theist, or one who had the conviction of the existence of God. Ideas and perspectives change over time and in 1876 Darwin wrote "When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic [stress added]." Nora Barlow, 1958, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882. With original omissions restored Edited with Appendix and Notes by his grand-daughter (NY: Norton 1969 paperback edition), pages 92-94. Charles R. Darwin was not an atheist ("a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of God or Gods") but an agnostic, a word created in 1869 by his good friend and scientific associate, Thomas Henry Huxley. A contemporary dictionary definition of the term "agnostic" provides the following: "1. a person who holds that the ultimate cause (God) and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable. 2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study. --adj. 3. of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism. 4. asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge. [<Gk agnost(os) not known, incapable of being known...." Jess Stein, 1975, Editor-in-Chief, The Random House College Dictionary (NY: Random House), page 27. Writing in 1889, Huxley had the following: "...Agnosticism is not properly described as a 'negative' creed, nor, indeed, as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle, which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man [or any individual!] to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism [stress added]." Thomas Henry Huxley, 1889, Agnosticism and Christianity. Reprinted in Alburey Castell, 1948, Selections from the Essays of T.H. Huxley (NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.), page 92. Moving into the 20th century, a celebrated individual associated with the "famous" Scopes Trial of 1925, wherein John T. Scopes (1900-1970) was accused of teaching "evolution" in the public schools of Tennessee, had the following to say: "An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds or faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Anyne who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he [or she!] must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the Western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith [stress added]." Clarence Darrow [1857-1938], 1994, Why I Am an Agnostic and Other Essays (NY: Prometheus Books), page 11. The Darrow-William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) confrontation was one of the most celebrated court cases concerning evolution and the schools, and although Scopes was convicted (and had was fined $100), the conviction was subsequently overturned in 1927...and court cases continue into the 21st century! (See http://www.ronaldbrucemeyer.com/rants/0721a-almanac.htm as well as http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/peopleevents/p_scopes.html.] DARWIN AND THE DESCENT OF MAN (1871) AND EXPRESSIONS (1872) "Darwin considered his Origin of Species to be his life's work, but he continued to work on steadily for the remaining years. Emma did not like his Descent of Man, considering that it took Charles 'further from God'." Edna Healey, 1986, Wives Of Fame: Mary Livingstone, Jenny Marx, Emma Darwin (London: Sidgwick & Jackson), page 177. Origin, Descent, and Expressions are three extremely interesting publications which all tie together: Origin deals with the struggle for life as it concerns living creatures (or biology), Descent dealt with humanity, and Expressions covered the influence of our primate heritage on present behaviors! As one has written: "...much of the Descent of Man was taken up with evidence designed to convince the reader that the higher faculties were not unique to mankind. Darwin cited numerous examples of animal behaviour that seemed to indicate that dogs, apes and other higher animals possessed at least rudimentary lements of intelligence and even of the moral sense. ... it was important for Darwin to create the impression that all the human faculties had some origin in the lower animals. Mental evolution would thus consist of an increase in the level of these faculties, not the creation of something entirely new. Darwin devoted another book to making the opposite point that human behaviour shows many relics of our animal ancestry. His Expression of the Emotions in Man and the Animals was published one year later (1872) and was intended to demonstrate that our emotional behaviour follows patterns that are already visible in the lower animals. ... It was the Descent of Man, however, which tackled the critical problem of explaining how the human species had acquired mental powers that were, even by Darwin's admission, lifted far above the level enjoyed by our closest animal relatives [stress added]."Peter J. Bowler, 1990, Charles Darwin: The Man and His influence (Cambridge University Press), pages 186-187. In 1871 in Descent Darwin postulated an African origin for mankind as follows: "We are naturally led to enquire, where was the birthplace of man at that stage of descent when our progenitors diverged from the Catarhine stock. The fact that they belonged to this stock clearly shews that they inhabited the Old World; but not Australia nor any oceanic island, as we may infer from the laws of geographical distribution. In each great region of the world the living mammals are closely related to the extinct species of the same region. It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere [stress added]." Charles R. Darwin, The Descent of Man And Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871 [1981 Princeton University Press edition, with Introduction by John T. Bonner and Robert M. May], Chapter 6, page 199. Please consider the following 21st century information pertaining to an African origin for human beings: "Humanity's plot thickens. The 'Toumai' skull isn't much to look at: a nearly complete cranium, some jawbones and a few teeth. But scientists are calling him [or her!] the most important discovery since the first fossilized remains of human ancestors were found 75 years ago. Why? Because Toumai pushes back by a million years the date when humanity's family tree is believed to have sprouted. ... Who knows which theories will hold? The only thing Toumai's discovery proves beyond a doubt is that he's a tiny part of a still-mysterious story [stress added]." USAToday "Editorial" on July 12, 2002, Page 8A. "At between 6 and 7 million years old, this skull is the earliest known record of the human family. Discovered in Chad in Central Africa, the new find, nicknamed 'Toumaï', comes from the crucial yet little-known interval when the human lineage was becoming distinct from that of chimpanzees. Because of this, the new find will galvanize the field of human origins like no other in living memory - perhaps not since 1925, when Raymond Dart described the first 'ape-man', Australopithecus africanus, transforming our ideas about human origins forever. A lifetime later, Toumaï raises the stakes once again and the consequences cannot yet be guessed. Dart's classic paper was published in Nature, as have most of the milestones in human origins and evolution. To celebrate the new find, we are proud to offer a selection of ten of the very best from Nature's archives, including Dart's classic paper [stress added]." FROM: http://www.nature.com/nature/ancestor/ and see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000B16B6-AA5E-1D2C-97CA809EC588EEDF [Scientific American July 11, 2002 and in http://www.sciam.com/, December 26, 2002] In the 19th century Darwin realized there would be problems with some of his ideas and he wrote the following in 1871: "Important as the struggle for existence has been and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of man's nature is concerned there are other agencies more important. For the moral qualities are advanced, either directly or indirectly, much more through the effects of habit, the reasoning powers, instruction, religion, &c., than through natural selection; though to this latter agency may be safely attributed the social instincts, which afforded the basis for the development of the moral sense, may be safely attributed. The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely that man is descended from some lowly-organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many. But.... [stress added]."Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882), The Descent of Man And Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871 [1981 Princeton University Press edition, with Introduction by John T. Bonner and Robert M. May], Part II, Chapter XXI, pages 403-404. In the "Preface" to the 2nd edition of Descent published in 1875, he commented on "the fiery ordeal through which this book has passed." Even though the term "evolution" is associated with the name of Darwin, Darwin actually did not use the specific term "evolution" in the first edition of Origin as Freeman pointed out in 1965; Darwin actually used the term "evolution" in his The Descent of Man publication before he used it in Origin: "The word evolution occurs for the first time in all of Darwin's works on page 2 of the first volume of the first edition [of The Descent of Man], that is to say before its appearance in the sixth edition of The Origin Of Species in the following year [stress added]." R. B. Freeman, 1965, The Works Of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographic Handlist, page 29. Stephen J. Gould also pointed this out some 37 years later in his 2002 publication entitled I Have Landed: The End Of A Beginning In Natural History: "But we should also note that Darwin himself never used the word 'evolution' in his epochal book of 1859, the Origin of Species, where he calls this fundamental biological process 'descent with modification.' ... Although the word evolution does not appear in the first edition of the Origin of Species, Darwin does use the verbal form 'evolved'--clearly in the vernacular sense and in an especially prominent spot: as the very last word of the book! Most students have failed to appreciate the incisive and intended 'gotcha' of these closing lines, which have generally been read as a poetic reverie, a harmless linguistic flourish essentially devoid of content, however rich in imagery. In fact, the canny Darwin used this maximally effective location to make a telling point about the absolute glory and comparative importance of natural history as a calling [stress added]." Stephen J. Gould, 2002, I Have Landed: The End Of A Beginning In Natural History (NY: Harmony Books), pages 242-243. Gould was indeed himself a "canny" individual when it came to writing about Darwin, for whenever he wrote he avoided making reference to editions two through six of Origin and consistently cited the first edition where Darwin did not use the term Creator! Paraphrasing Gould, most students would fail to appreciate tis ommision unless they have read Darwin in the original or have read a great deal about Darwin! In a 1993 publication Gould saw fit to quote Darwin's Origin as follows: "And I remembered that Charles Darwin had drawn the very same contrast in the final lines of the Origin of Species. When asking himself, in one climactic paragraph, to define the essence of the differences between life and the inanimate cosmos, Darwin chose the directional character of evolution vs. the cyclical repeatability of our clockwork solar system [and Gould then quotes the following from Darwin]: 'There is a grandeur in this view of life.... [these "...." are placed by Gould in his quote, which continues as follows] Whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.'" S. J. Gould, 1993, Eight Little Piggies: Reflections In Natural History, pp. 216-217. Gould must have had a reason for not mentioning Darwin's reference to the "Creator" (remember, added by Darwin in the second edition of 1860), but it is not be obvious to the casual reader. One deduces that Gould is quoting from the 1st edition since Peckham's Variorum work points out that in the 1st edition Darwin had a comma between "being" and "evolved" and by the 6th edition of 1872 Darwin changed it to "being evolved" (M. Peckham, 1959, page 105). Indeed, in an essay of 1844, Darwin introduced the term "Creator" into his writing and Darwin wrote the following: "My reasons have now been assigned for believing that specific forms are not immutable creations. ... It accords with what we know of the laws impressed by the Creator on matter that the production and extinction of forms should, like the birth and death of individuals, be the result of secondary means. It is derogatory that the Creator of countless Universes should have made by individuals His will the myriads of creeping parasites and worms, which since the earliest dawn of life have swarmed over the land and in the depths of the ocean [stress added]." Gavin De Beer, 1958, Evolution By Natural Selection: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace (Cambridge University Press), pages 252-253; and see Charles F. Urbanowicz, 2002, There Is A Grandeur In This View Of Life. In Darwin Day Collection One: The Single Best Idea Ever (2002) Edited by Amanda Chesworth et al. (Albuquerque, New Mexico: Tangled Bank Press), pages 67-70, page 69. This is why I honestly believe dates are important for an understanding of virtually everything: who influenced whom and when was it done! Darwin's 1871 publication of The Descent of Man, And Selection In Relation To Sex, was reissued in 1981, and the following 20th century words are well worth reading: "Descent of Man addresses an extraordinary number of problems that are, at this moment , on the minds of many biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers. It is the genius of Darwin that his ideas, clothed as they are in unhurried Victorian prose, are almost as modern now as they were when they were first published. John Bonner and Robert May, "Preface" to the Princeton University Press Edition of 1981, page vii. Darwin's 1872 The Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals was reissued in 1965 and some words from the "Preface" to that volume by the Nobel Prize Winner Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) are well worth considering. Lorenz was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973 in the category of "Physiology or Medicine" and he had this to say about Charles R. Darwin: "Like all really great scientific discoverers, Darwin possessed an almost uncanny ability to reason on the basis of hypotheses which were not only provisional and vague but also subconscious. He deduced correct consequences from facts more suspected than known, and verified both the theory and facts by the obvious truth of the conclusions reached. In other words, a man like Darwin knows much more than he thinks he knows, and it is not surprising that the consequences of his knowledge reach far and in different directions. ... The branch of behavior study commonly called ethology, which can be defined succinctly as the biology of behavior, has a special right to claim Charles Darwin as its patron saint. ...I believe that even today we do not quite realize how much Charles Darwin knew [stress added]. Konrad Lorenz, 1965, "Preface" in The Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals by Charles Darwin, 1872 [1965 University of Chicago Press edition], pages ix-xiii, pages xi-xiii. PROBLEMS IN NOT KNOWING ABOUT EVOLUTION TODAY AND "INTELLIGENT DESIGN" "The unit of survival [or adaptation] is organism plus environment. We are learning by bitter experience that the organism which destroys its environment destroys itself. If, now, we correct the Darwinian unit of survival to include the environment and the interaction between organism and environment, a very strange and surprising identity emerges: the unit of survival turns out to be identical with the unit of mind" [italics in original; stress added]." Gregory Bateson [1904-1980], 1972, Steps To An Ecology of Mind (NY: Ballantine Books), page 483. Darwin did his work within the context of a certain physical and social environment and I write (and teach) within my own environment. Bateson's words are very powerful, for as thinking organisms we are part of the environment. Darwin taught us that and there are numerous contemporary problems which we face as a species if we do not understand the implications of evolutionary theory! Consider, if you will, the following information published on December 22, 2003, concerning the latest "influenza" epidemic which was in North America quite recently; and not the use of the term "pandemic" which appeared in several other newpaper articles in December 2003: "After three of the mildest flu seasons in recent memory, Americans are enduring a major outbreak of influenza that has emptied classrooms and filled hospitals from California to New York. The difference, it appears, is a new strain of the flu virus, known in laboratory circles as A/Fujian/411/2002. In the Darwinian world of virus evolution, the Fujian A strain has out-competed its older cousin, a strain known as A/Panama/2007/99, which was responsible for the last few unremarkable flu seasons--and it's all due to a tiny change in a viral gene [namely evolution!] [stress added]." Sabin Russell, 2003, New flu strain could be harbinger of a pandemic. The San Francisco Chronicle, December 22, 2003, page A4. Evolution has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to occur (until something becomes extinct) and what is the best way to avoid becoming extinct? "What's the best way to keep from being eaten: Keep mustering new defenses, or create a single overwhelming one and warn potential attackers that they'll be sorry? Both approaches seem to work, according to new research. Some plants and beetles adapt to one another by evolving new attack and defense strategies, while poisonous frogs develop bright colors to warn predators that biting them can be a fatal error. ... The plants and beetles forced each other to continue adapting as they alternated strategies in a process call co-evolution. [Judith] Becerra said her study, by dating the ploy and counter ploy between specific species, provided the first direct evidence of synchronous changes [stress added]." Randolph H. Schmidt, Frogs have coats of many (quite poisonous) colors. The San Francisco Chronicle, October 9, 2003, page D8. The ideas of Darwin have value today, if we understand such concepts like "evolution" and "natural selection" and the overall environment in which organisms live and breed and die! As other have written: "The great value of Darwinism, it seems to me, was that it jolted modern men into questioning various sentimental beliefs about nature and man's place in it. In this, Darwin's influence closely parallels that of Galileo [1564-1642]. Just as the first modern astronomers and physicists destroyed a naive geocentrism, so Darwin and his successors overwhelmingly displaced what may be called homocentrism, the belief that nature exists for the sake of man [stress added]." Jacob Needleman, 1975, A Sense of the Cosmos: The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth (NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc.), page 72. "In the complex history of modern biology, only Darwin's theory of evolution has so shocked the mind as to raise serious questions about man's place in the universe. Darwin forced men to consider that they are animals, and that the designs of creation are played out on a much wider stage than was imagined. From the point of view of the theory of evolution, mankind is only one species among thousands which have their place within the field of organic life on earth. The fact that people took the theory of evolution as an enemy of religion only shows how rigidly they understood the idea of God [stress added]." Jacob Needleman, 1975, A Sense of the Cosmos: The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth (NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc.), page 64. Consider, if you will some of the following examples of "problems" when one does not accept evolutionary ideas: "Evolution does not make predictions, species don't know where they're going, humans did not have to evolve. In fact, if we were to rewind the tape to ten million years ago, when apes dominated the primate world, there would be no assurance that humans would evolve again. But humans have evolved, we are here today. Like no other species that has ever lived, we control the life of all living things--including ourselves. When we understand and accept that we are part of the continuum of life, we will be in a better position to make informed choices--choices which will ensure a better world for all species. Extinction is forever. We must not let it happen. Education is the great liberator. It frees us to think objectively. My studies of human evolution have taught me to respect the natural world. They have also taught me that all humans have a common origin and, therefore, a common destiny--the outcome of which will be determined by humankind itself. We do have the capacity to make the future a long and fruitful one, if only we will take the time to learn who we are and how we fit into the natural world [stress added]. Donald C. Johanson, 1993, from the "Forward" to Ian Tattersall's 1993, The Human Odyssey: Four Million Years of Human Evolution (Prentice Hall), page xiii. "Self-centered creatures that we are, we pay the greatest amount of attention to our own evolution. Like moneys, apes, lemurs, and tarsiers, we are primates. Our closest living relative is the chimpanzee. Humans and chimpanzees are genetically very close. They share about 98.5 percent of their DNA. But we are not, of course, descended from chimpanzees or from any other living ape. The human and ape lines diverged about five million years ago. In other words, humans and apes have a common ancestor, and both have been evolving for 5 million years since the split [stress added]." Richard Morris, 2001, The Evolutionists: The Struggle for Darwin's Soul (NY: W.H. Freeman and Co.), page 34. "The serious outbreak of staphylococcus infections resistant to antibiotic treatment.... The more an antibiotic is used, the more quickly bacteria mutate and develop resistance to the antibiotic [EVOLUTION!]. This resistance crisis is growing because of the overuse of antibiotics both in human medicine (the largest single cause of antibiotic resisance) and in animal agriculture (a lesser known but significant cause as well) [stress added]. Stephan E. Follansbee, 2003, Weak Links in the Food Chain: Antibiotic alert. The San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 2003, page A25. "Doctors are giving fewer antibiotics to U.S. children than they did in the mid-1990s, a trend that may slow the increase in germs resistant to those drugs, according to an extensive study out today. This reversal of a 20-year rise in antibiotic prescriptions is good news to many public health experts, who have long considered many antibiotic prescriptions unnecessary. Health officials around the world have voiced concerns about increasing levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria....." Marilyn Elias, 2003, Children Taking Fewer Antibiotics: Experts Hail Reversal of a 20-year trend, USA Today, September 2, 2003, page 1. "Alarmed by the growing ability of disease-causing microbes to fight off once-effective drugs, the World Health Organization warned Monday that the medical and veterinary professions must use antibiotics and other medicines more wisely or face the likelihood they will not effectively combat disease in the future [stress added]." Marc Kaufman, 2000, World Health Organization Warns of Antibiotic Misuse. The Sacramento Bee, June 13, 2000, page A6. "About 70% of the antibiotics produced in the USA each year - nearly 25 million pounds in all - are fed to healthy pigs, chickens and cattle to prevent disease or speed growth, says a report released Monday [January 8, 2001]. Such 'excessive' use of antibiotics in livestock is contributing ...[to] many of the microbes that plague humans....[stress added]." Anita Manning, 2001, Healthy Livestock Given More Antibiotics Than Ever. USA Today, January 9, 2001, page 8D "Roughly 20 million pounds of antibiotics are given each year to U.S. cattle, pigs, and chickens [stress added]." Sirley Leung, 2003, McDonald's Wants Suppliers Of Meat to limit Antibiotic Use. The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2003, page B2. "McDonald's Corp. said Thursday [June 19, 2003] it is directing its meat suppliers worldwide to phase out the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animals because of concerns that the practice lessens the drugs' effectiveness in humans. ... Doctors are increasingly confronting germs that have become antibiotic-resistant. Many scientists believe that the overuse of antibiotics in humans and livestock is causing many drugs to lose their efffectiveness by speeding up [EVOLUTION!!] the rate at which bacteria become resistant [NATURAL SELECTION!!] [stress added]." Anon. 2003, Consumer demand leads McDonald's to cut antibiotics in meat. The Chico Enterprise-Record, June 20, 2003, page 5A. "McDonald's said it was making the change because of growing evidence that the use of antibiotics in farm animals was creating antibiotic resistance in animals and in the bacteria that cause diseases in humans [stress added]." David Barboza with Sherri Day, 2003, McDonald's Asking Meat industry to Cut Use of Antibiotics. The New York Times, June 20, 2003, Page A1 + C2, page A1. "In a frustrating development in the medical fight against drug-resistant bacteria, scientists report that the first entirely new type of antibiotic [Zyvox] in 35 years has been beaten by a super-germ little more than a year after the drug was introduced. Researchers at Harvard Medical School describe in the Lancet medical journal this week...." Associated Press, The San Francisco Chronicle, July 20, 2001, page A3. "A hidden epidemic of life-threatening infections in America's hospitals is needlessly killing tens of thousands of patients each year. These infections are often characterized by the health-care industry as random and inevitable byproducts of lifesaving care. But a [Chicago] Tribune investigation found that in 2000, nearly three-quarters of the deadly infections--or about 75,000--were preventable, the result of unsanitary facilities, germ-laden instruments and unwashed hands. ... Deaths linked to hospital germs now represent the fourth-leading cause of mortality among Americans, behind heart disease, cancer and strokes, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ... Even a term adopted by the CDC -- nosocomial infection -- obscures the true source of the germs. Nosocomial is Latin for 'hospital.' CDC records show that the term was used to shield hospitals from the 'embarrassment' of germ-related deaths and injuries [stress added]." Michael Berens, 2002, Death by Hospital infection. The Sacramento Bee, July 21, 2002, page 1 and A20. "Infections caused by germs that resist treatment with antibiotics kill more than 14,000 Americans each year [Urbanowicz Adds} approximately 38 people a day!], says a coalition of federal and private groups that met Tuesday [April 15, 2001] in Washington, D.C., to launch an education campaign called Save Antibiotic Strength. Pilot programs will begin in San Diego, Norfolk, Va., and the state of Connecticut to raise awareness of the dangers of overprescription and misuse of antibiotics, which can lead to drug resistance [Urbanowicz adds} as a result of "evolution"]. 'It is estimated that 50 million antibiotic prescriptions for illnesses such as cold or flu are given each year [or ~136,986/day!], and are of no benefit in treating such conditions,' says Richard Roberts, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians [stress added]." Michelle Healy, 2001, A Better Life. USA Today, April 18, 2001, page 6D. "What makes the situation so desperate, experts agree, is that new and more effective drugs are not, in themselves, enough. As Richard Colonno, vice president for infectious disease at Bristol-Myers Squibb, sees it, what new drugs do is reset a pathogen's biological clock. They buy time, but eventually resistance to these compounds will also arise. Why? In a word, evolution [stress added]." J. Madeline Nash, 2001, The Antibiotic Crisis. Time, January 15, 2001, No Page Number. "To stop an infection, most doctors automatically reach for an antibiotic, the most effective way known to kill off infectious germs. But antibiotics are the nuclear weapons of medicine--they often also wipe out helpful bacteria and forster the growth of drug-resistant germ strains [stress added]." David P. Hamilton, 2002, Toothless Germs Can't Bite. The Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2002, page D8. "One Scary Bug: A New Virus from Asia raises a host of unnerving questions." ... "And as nature constantly reshuffles the genes in her microbial repertoire, new diseases or variations of old ones keep appearing in new places at an alarming rate. The 'Nipah' virus jumped from pigs to humans in Malaysia in 1998, for instance, killing 105 people before being stamped out. West Nile virus swepat across the U.S. last year, killing 277 people. 'It is the nature of these organisms to change [EVOLUTION!] in order to survive,' explains Dr. John B. Bruss, Pharmacia Corp's clinical director for infectious disease research in Kalamazoo, mich. 'As they change [or EVOLVE!], they can become more pathogenic to humans.' And a global urbanization and travel continue to increase, 'this type of worldwide outbreak will be more prevalent,' says Dr. Neil O. Fishman, director of health-care epidemiology and infection control and the university of Pennsylvania Medical Center [stress added]." John Carey et. al, 2003, One Scary Bug: A New Virus from Asia raises a host of unnerving questions. Business Week, April 14, 2003, pages 56-57, page 56. "In terms of sheer numbers, the SARS epidemic so far pales in comparison to other worldwide epidemics. The Spanish flu of 1918-1919 killed roughly 30 million people, including about 675,000 Americans. Over the past 20 years, the slow-motion funeral march of AIDS has carried off 20 million people; 40 million more are poised to die in the next decade [stress added]." Steve Sternberg, 2003, World health experts treat SARS as if it's the Big One. USA Today, April 24, 2003, pages 1-2, page 2. In addition to all of the above, one then has the latest in the anti-evolutionary ideas (it is no longer being called "scientific creationism" but "intelligent design"): "A parent's request that Roseville high schools teach ideas that rebut Darwin's theory of evolution could set the stage for debate over what critics call the newest version of creationism. When Roseville Joint Union High School District trustees took the first step toward approving a new biology textbook earlier this month, parent Larry Caldwell asked that supplementary materials be taught in conjunction with the text, which, like most biology books, presents the theory of evolution to explain the origins of life. ... Caldwell said he would like to work with district officials in gathering educational materials that present a theory called 'intelligent design.' ... Intelligent design proponents say natural selection doesn't adequately explain the complexity of the universe. Instead, they say, life is the product of a directed process with intention [stress added]." Laurel Rosen, 2003, Darwin faces a new rival. The Sacramento Bee, June 22, 2003, page B1 + B3. October 27,2003} "Should evolution be taught in high school science classes? RICHARD ANDERSON Editor's note: Ted Dickason, a candidate for Modesto City Schools board of trustees, has stated that he believes evolution and creationism should be taught side by side in high school science classes. This position has generated substantial debate in the community, including this article opposing the teaching of creationism in schools and the two letters to the editor to the right supporting creationism and/or Dickason.At the recent League of Women Voters' forum for the Modesto City Schools board, a candidate advocated teaching intelligent design (ID) in science classes. Intelligent design is the belief that life is too complex to have developed without an intelligent designer.While this claim may be true, it is a religious or philosophical belief because it invokes causes not investigable by science. Any voter wanting to avoid imposing more economic hardship on the Modesto City Schools should avoid candidates espousing ID in science classes. The California Science Content Standards (http://www.cde.ca.gov/standards/science/biology.html) make it clear that evolution is to be taught in ninth through 12th grades, but not creationism. Any California school board that recommends teaching creationism in science classes invites lawsuits by concerned parents and science education groups. Why can't we balance science classes by teaching intelligent design and evolution 'side by side,' as one candidate suggested? When U.S. school boards have tried to teach scientific creationism, courts have struck them down.For example, in the 1987 Edwards vs. Aguillard case, the U.S. Supreme Court found it illegal for Louisiana to require equal time for creationism whenever evolution is taught in science classrooms. For more cases, see 'Eight Significant Court Decisions' at http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp The problem is that biblical creationism is not science, no matter what it is called. Furthermore, it is not the only nonscientific alternative to evolution. For true balance, one would need to give equal time to the Mewuk story of how Coyote created man, plus more than a hundred other creation stories. (See, for example, Raymond Van Over, 'Sun Songs: Creation Myths From Around the World.') These stories are delicious reading, but they must compete for time in social studies classes, not science classes. Most mainstream American churches are not threatened by the concepts of biological evolution. M. Matsumura's 'Voices for Evolution' has reprinted excerpts from Jewish, Episcopal, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, Methodist and Presbyterian official documents that view evolution as compatible with their religions. Concerned parents should examine the issue broadly before voting for a candidate who espouses creationism or intelligent design in science classes. There is a truly vast literature on the subject; a good place to start is the National Center for Science Education (www.natcenscied.org). The spiritual needs of our students are very important, as several candidates have pointed out. A student certainly has a free speech right to be respected if they express their belief that biological evolution does not occur. But it should be made clear that such belief is religion, not science. Let us keep religious education in Modesto's synagogues, churches, temples, mosques and private schools, and out of public school science classes. Anderson is a professor of biology at Modesto Junior College [stress added]." [from: http://www.modbee.com/opinion/letters/story/7652165p-8557964c.html] My personal favorite concerning "intelligent design" comes from The Skeptical Enquirer of November 2003 (available at http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-11/intelligent-design.html) and the article entitled "Neither Intelligent nor Designed" by Bruce and Frances Martin wherein they begin with the following: "Are you puzzled by the appearance of the words "Intelligent Design" in recent anti-evolution discourse? Most of us lack time to follow the history of this term .... But as the phrase Intelligent Design shows up more and more often in public debate over science education, skeptical citizens need a handle on this topic" and they end their essay with the following: "...the premise of Intelligent Design fails to meet even the most fundamental elements of rational inquiry. By being able to account for everything by divine edict, Intelligent Design explains nothing." The Skeptical Enquirer is a publication of CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal which "encourages the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public." Please see http://www.csicop.org/, as well as The National Center for Science Education (http://www.ncseweb.org/) and The Darwin Day Program (http://www.darwinday.org/). These, and other Darwin-related references are provided below. The Scopes Trial of 1925, briefly mentioned above, continues to reverberate to this day and I truly like and appreciate the work of Jane Goodall (born 1934) and her following words: "How sad that so many people seem to think that science and religion are mutually exclusive [stress added]." Jane Goodall [with Phillip Berman], 1999, Reason For Hope: A Spiritual Journey (NY: Warner Books), page 174. Perhaps it was at the Scopes Trial in 1925 when Clarence Darrow best summarized the dangers of education by legislation, especially when it came to evolution: "If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind [stress added]. The World's Most Famous Court Trial: Tennessee Evolution Case (1925) (1990 Reprint Edition published by Bryan College, Dayton, Tennessee), page 87. The ideas associated with Charles R. Darwin are extremely important for the 21st century (and beyond!) and one can only begin to end with the following statements: "Career advice for the 21st century: Stay away from any job that can be done online.... profiting from the Darwinian labor economics of the Internet [stress added]." Mani and Me: Hearing 'Mister,' I work Cheap' From Across The Globe. Lee Gomes, June 3, 2002, The Wall Street Journal, page B. "Financial-service companies in the U.S. say they expect to transfer 500,000 jobs, or 8% of industry employment to foreign countries over the next five years [2003-2008]....Why? A call-center employee earns $20,000 a year in the U.S. but only $2,500 in India. And overseas cable costs have fallen as much as 80% since 1999. At the higher end, a researcher with a few years of experience might earn $250,000 on Wall Street, compared with $20,000 in India. Those sorts of savings are expected to help the U.S. financial industry cut annual costs [domestic positions] $30 billion a year by 2008.... [stress added]." Daniel Kadlec, 2003, Where Did My Raise Go? Time, May 26, 2003, pages 45-54, page 50. "Off the coast of Venezuela, three 400-ft. ships are laying down miles of high-speed fiber-optic cable capacious enough to carry 600,000 calls simultaneously. In a high mountaintown outside Cuzco, Peru, a co-op of native farmers has found a way to get more than 10 times the local price for its potato crop by selling it to a New York City organic-food store it found on the Internet [stress added]." Sandy M. Fernandez, Latin America Logs On. Time, May 8, 2000, pages B2-B4, page B2. "At least once a day in this village of 2,500 people, Ravi Sham Choudhry turns on the computer in his front room and logs in to ther Web site of the Chicago Board of Trade. He has the dirt of a farmer under his fingernails and pecks slowly at the keys. But he knows what he wants: the prices for soybean commodity futures. A drop in prices on the Chicago Board, shown in red, could augur a drop in prices here, meaning that he and fellow soybean farmers should sell their crop now. An increase argues that the farmers should wait for prices to rise. 'If it goes up there, it goes up here,' Mr. Choudhry said. The correlation is rough but real. Real, too, is the link betweem farmers in rural central India and around the globe, thanks to a company's innovation. The concept is the e-choupal, taken from the Hindi word for village square, or gathering place. ... E-choupal allows the farmers to check both futures prices across the globe and local prices before going to market. ... E-choupals may offer a model for all developing countries [stress added]." Amy Waldman, 2004, Indian Soybean Farmers Join the Global Village. The New York Times, January 1, 2004, page A1 + A8, page A8. "Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creatures, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system--with all these exalted powers--Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin [stress added]." [The final paragraph of Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882), The Descent of Man And Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871 [1981 Princeton University Press edition, with Introduction by John T. Bonner and Robert M. May.], page 405. In the 1860s and 1870s various events occurred to almost make Darwin's ideas almost passé while he was still alive! There was the celebrated 1860 debate at Oxford (between Huxley and Wilberforce [1805-1873]) and in 1860, seven English Churchmen published an item entitled Essays and Reviews, wherein certain orthodox religious doctrines were questioned. Other events influenced the view of Darwin (and Darwinian ideas) held by many individuals: "In 1862 Bishop [John William] Colenso [1814-1883] started to publish his doubts about the Pentateuch. In 1863 Sir Charles Lyell [1797-1875] produced his evidence on the antiquity of man, which seemed to be inconsistent with the account of creation in the Bible. In 1863 Renan's [1823-1892] humanizing Vie de Jésus appeared. In 1865 J. R. Seeley of Cambridge published another humanizing work on Christ called Ecce Homo. In 1870 the British Association at Exeter generally accepted evolution. [AND] In 1871 Darwin published his Descent of Man. Thus in these ten to twelve years orthodox religion received a series of body blows, which seemed to be aimed at its existence [stress added]." G. Kitson Clark, 1967, An Expanding Society: Britain In 1830-1900, pp. 95-96. When Descent of Man was published in 1871, the "controversy" was almost over in Darwin's time! A 1984 author had a nice summary statement of Darwin's 1871 publication: "Despite its more explicitly materialistic interpretation of man's essence, Descent was not met with the rancor that earlier had engulfed Origin . In barely more than a decade the concept of evolution--even human evolution--had become installed as a familiar feature on the landscape of popular ideas. If the scientific community's judgment of the work did not always convey unbridled admiration, rarely did it concede less than sober respect. The reviews of Descent were for the most part favorable (Mivart's [1827-1900] aside, of course), and the tone of criticism politely muted. A number of reviewers took the occasion to deliver the satisfying news that science posed no threat to religion after all [stress added]." Kenneth Korey, 1984, The Essential Darwin (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.), page 286. In all of my Darwin papers and presentations, I attempt to stress the basic humanity of Charles R. Darwin, a point others have also noted; I also stress the importance of reading items for yourself and forming your own opinions! Do your own research and go back to the "original" whenever possible and not to what some "commentator" says about the "original" (even though that commentator be Gould or Urbanowicz or ....). Darwin was human and was: "...very sensitive to criticism, and tried hard to satisfy all his critics by making appropriate alterations and accommodating conflicting points of view. This process is far more evident in Origin, where the first edition nowadays seems much superior to the sixth and last edition. John Bonner and Robert May, 1981, "Preface" in Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man And Selection In Relation To Sex, page xxxv. In reading Darwin, which "Darwin are you reading?" Origin is readily available, but what edition of Origin do you have? Darwin took his critics to heart and the various revisions in Origin (for example) have been documented above: "...in response to numerous criticisms Darwin undertook constant revisions between the book's first appearance in 1859 and the sixth edition of 1872. The later editions thus differ considerably from the first, and the last edition contains an additional chapter (chapter 7) dealing with objections to the theory. These changes tend to obscure the original argument and the first edition is thus by far the clearest expression of Darwin's insight [stress added]. Peter J. Bowler, 1990, Charles Darwin: The Man And His Influence (Cambridge University Press) page 144. There is something which is known as the "Darwin Industry" and these include such publication as Merryl Davies's Darwin And Fundamentalism (2000), Gabriel Dover's Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters On The Evolution of Life And Human Behavior (2000), Phillip E. Johnson's Defeating Darwinism By Opening Minds (1997), Randal Keynes's Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution (2002), Janet Browne's outstanding 2002 publication entitled Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (Volume II of a Biography, which is an excellent companion volume to her earlier 1995 volume entitled Charles Darwin: Voyaging (Volume I of a Biography), S. Alter's Darwin and The Linguistic Image (1999), Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search For Common Ground Between God And Evolution (1999 by Kenneth R. Miller), Gerald Weissmann's 1998 Darwin's Audubon: Science and The Liberal Imagination, Matthew Chapman's 2000/2001 Trials Of The Monkey, as well as Darwin and Archaeology: A Handbook of Key Concepts (a 2002 publication edited by John Hart and John Terrell). Indeed, it is in this last item that the editors have an excellent statement, well-summarizing "why" interest in Darwin took off so rapidly after 1859 (and why it continues to this day): "But what then is evolution? Although it may sound unconventional to say so, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is above all else a theory of history. While initially offered as an encompassing theory about the origin of new species by means of NATURAL SELECTION, Darwin's insights into the causes of biological evolution and persistence soon proved to be so powerful that many have sought to apply Darwinian theory to human affairs--to use Darwin's ways of thinking about history and evolution to explain not only our own oigins as a remarkably clever kind of animal (see BIOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS), but also our human ways and the history of human institutions and social practices (major elements of what many anthropologists and others call CULTURE) [stress added]." John Terrell and John Hart, 2002, Darwin and Archaeology: A Handbook of Key Concepts (Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey), page 2. Each of us can read anything we wish into virtually everything and just as in the 19th century, "Darwinism" meant different things to different people at different times, so it goes today. As Michael Ruse wrote in 1998: "We have a veritable Hegelian contradiction. Darwinism is sexist. Darwinism is feminist. How can this be? The obvious answer is that, in some sense, Darwinism is simply a clotheshorse on which people will hang any ideology that they find comforting. You are a sexist? Darwinism will accommodate you. You are a feminist? Darwinism will accommodate you, too [stress added]." Michael Ruse, 1998, Is Darwin Sexist? (And If It Is, So What?). A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science (NY: Oxford University Press), edited by Noretta Koertge (pages 119-129), page 121. The aforementioned Darwin Industry is alive and well and as Gillian Beer pointed out in her second edition of Darwin's Plots, published in the year 2000: "Darwin has grown younger in recent years. He is no longer the authoritative old man with a beard substituting for God. Instead his work and life are again in contention and debate. Sociologists, microbiologists, linguists, sociobiologists, philosophers, feminists, psychologists, biographers, geneticists, novelists, poets, post-colonialists, have their say." Gillian Beer, 2000, Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative In Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Second Edition) (Cambridge University Press), page xvii. Darwin lives and all (and that is such an understatement!) all that Darwin researched and demonstrated in his lifetime (with an immense amount of data that every educated person of the times could comprehend) is that while human beings consciously practice domestic selection, nature practices natural selection. Natural selection means that the population which is best adapted to the environment, be it bird or plant or domesticated horse or cow or pig, or human being, survives and may pass its genes unto the next generation; or it may not! "In the big scheme of things, extinctions are a constant, having occurred in every significantly long period of geological time. Of all the species that ever lived, more than 95 percent (indeed, probably more than 99 percent) are now extinct....Nonetheless, the generative power of evolution has always compensated. Since the emergence of the first nonmicroscopic animals some 600 million years ago the graph of life has been on the rise [stress added]." David Harmon, 2002, In Light of Our Differences: How Diversity In Nature And Culture Makes Us Human (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press), page 27. Consider, if you will, the "big picture" (and the importance of context and the overall environment) and the following information published in the United States on Thursday January 8, 2004: "Global warming has species facing extinction, study says. In the first study of its kind, researchers in spots ranging from northern Britain to the wet tropics of northeastern Australia and the Mexican desert said Wednesday that global warming at currently predicted rates wil drive 15 percent to 37 percent of living species towards extinction by midcentury [stress added]." Guy Gygliotta, 2004, The Sacramento Bee, January 8, 2004, page A7. "If global temperatures continue to rise as predicted in the next 50 years, more than 1 million plant and animal species will vanish from the Earth, scientists say in the first authoritative attempt to gauge the impact of climnate change on wildlife [stress added]." Jane Key, 2004, Dire warning on global warming. The San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 2004, page A1 + A4, page A1. "An international group of 19 scientists, analyzing research around the globe, has concluded that a warming climate will rival habitat destruction in prompting widespread extinctions in this century [stress added]." James Gorman, 2004, Scientists Predict Widespread Extinction by Global Warming. The New York Times, January 8, 2004, page A4. "More than one-third of all species in several regions of the world are at risk of extinction by 2050 if global warming isn't controlled, an international study reports today. In the report in the journal Nature, the most comprehensive analysis to date of potential species loss from man-made climate change.... Air pollution has caused the climate to warm, meaning some plant and animal species must move to higher, cooler ground. At the same time, their natural migratory paths have often been blocked by development, trapping them in an environment that no longer supports their life [stress added]. Robert Davis, 2004, Cost of global warming: 1 million species. USA Today, January 8, 2004, page 5D. Human beings can also become extinct. In beginning to end, I attempt to answer the question posed at the beginning of this presentation, namely "Why are there so many different kinds of living things?" In his closing words of the 1860 edition of Origin Darwin had the following: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object of which we are capable of conceiving, namely the production of higher animals directly follows. There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved [stress added]." "The notion that the Church was unanimous in an obscurantist rejection of Darwin in 1859 is as ignorant and incorrect as is also the belief that the scientific community was unanimous in welcoming him. The black-and-white accounts of those intellectually tempestuous times, so assiduously propagated in the media and in certain kinds of popular scientific writing, are just not true [stress added]." John Polkinghorne, 2000, Faith, Science & Understanding (New Haven: Yale University Press), page 29. Once again, as stated at the beginning of this paper, Darwin was a prolific researcher and writer: some three million words flowed from his mind in his lifetime and found their way into print. Darwin was never a teacher in a formal classroom, per se, and he had no legions of graduates or undergraduate students to listen to his presentations. However, should Darwin have been fortunate enough to be in any classroom, I think he would have wished to convey the vital importance of individuals finding their own patterns in the data, looking for the patterns of nature or for the patterns of human behavior. Someone once wrote about a leading 20th century Californian, Frank Oppenheimer of the San Francisco Exploratorium: "Letting people find the patterns in nature, Oppenheimer believed, empowered them and helped them make informed decisions in an increasingly technical age." If our world is not knowable, it is "at least understandable" (as cited by Gerald George in a book review of The Exploratorium: The Museum As Laboratory, by Hild Hein in The San Francisco Chronicle Review, July 15, 1990, page 11). Darwin was a determined researcher and a prolific writer and took his critics to heart; part of the problem, however, of teaching about Darwin, is that there is so much to learn (and so much to teach)! Darwin was conducting research and writing until the 73rd year of his life and while visiting a friend in London in December 1881, he suffered a mild heart seizure. On the 12th of February 1882, his 73rd birthday, he wrote to a friend that "my course is nearly run" (Julian Huxley and H.B.D. Kettlewell, 1965, Charles Darwin And His World, page 126). When Darwin had his fatal heart attack on Wednesday April 19, 1882, he made no deathbed statement as to his faith. However, had he been asked the question, "Darwin, have you made peace with God?" I think that he would have responded with the words attributed to Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) who, on his deathbed, is said to have replied to that question with "I didn't know we had quarreled" (Huston Smith, 1958, The Religions of Man, page 328). Over the years a "story" has appeared concerning Darwin's death: "Did you know that Charles Darwin became a Christian before he died? It's true. I read about it once in a book--or was it a magazine. I forget. Anyway...." (J. Moore, 1994, The Darwin Legend, page 21). Moore proves the story false by citing Francis Darwin (1848-1925), son of Charles and Emma Darwin: "Lady Hope's account of my father's views on religion is quite untrue. I have publicly accused her of falsehood, but have not seen any reply. My father's agnostic point of view is given in my 'Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,' Vol. I., pp. 304-317. You are at liberty to publish the above statement. Indeed, I shall be glad if you will do so. Yours faithfully, Francis Darwin. Brookthorpe, Gloucester. May 28, 1918." Although Charles Darwin wished to be buried in the village of Down, Kent, where he and his wife Emma had lived for forty years (1842-1882) it was not to be; on April 24, 1882, as a result of a request by various individuals, Charles R. Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Darwin's pall bearers included various notables, including the three leading British biologists of the times who were among Darwin's closest scientific friends: Thomas Huxley, Sir Joseph Hooker, and Alfred Russel Wallace. On Darwin's ceremony, it was written that "A choir sang a hymn adapted from the Book of Proverbs" as follows: "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." Carl Zimmer, 2001, Evolution: The Triumph of An Idea (NY: Harper Colins), pages 343-344. How should one remember Charles Robert Darwin? He was described in a 20th century encyclopedia as "an affectionate husband and father . . . and a steadfast friend to several eminent scientists" of his time (Ralph Colp, Jr., 1988, Darwin, Robert Charles (1809-1882)" in Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, edited by Sally Mitchell, pp. 208-210, page 209). As Emma and Charles Darwin grew older, so did their children: William became a wealthy banker, Horace an engineer, and George went into astronomy. One day, simply because there was no holding back the passage of time, Darwin recalled that the boys decided that they were too old to call him "Papa" anymore and would call me "Father" instead and he wrote that "I would sooner be called Dog" but time does serve as a great equalizer (Walter Karp, 1968, Charles Darwin And The Origin Of Species, page 139). After Darwin's death, perhaps it was one of his own children who best summarized his life: "My first remembrances of my father are of the delights of his playing with us. He was passionately attached to his own children, although he was not an indiscriminate child-lover. ... He cared for all our pursuits and interests, and lived our lives with us in a way that very few fathers do. But I am certain that none of us felt that this intimacy interfered the least with our respect and obedience. ... Another characteristic of his treatment of his children was his respect for their liberty, and for their personality. Our father and mother would not even wish to know what we were doing or thinking unless we wished to tell. He always made us feel that we were each of us creatures whose opinions and thoughts were valuable to him, so that whatever there was best in us came out in the sunshine of his presence [stress added]." Francis Darwin, 1950, Charles Darwin's Autobiography: With His Notes And Letters Depicting The Growth of The Origin of Species, pp. 96-98). Thomas Henry Huxley wrote Darwin's obituary for the April 27, 1882 issue of Nature (London) and he wrote that the words applied to Socrates "Apology" were appropriate for Darwin and the words ring: "...in our ears as if it were Charles Darwin's farewell:--'The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die and you to live. Which is the better, God only knows.'" Thomas H. Huxley, 1882, Charles Darwin. April 27, 1882, Nature (London); reprinted in Thomas H. Huxley, 1896, Darwiniana Essays [1970: New York AMS Reprint], pages 253-302, pages 244-247, page 247. SPECIFIC URBANOWICZ DARWIN ITEMS (in reverse chronological order): The Darwin Videos (all available at http://rce.csuchico.edu/darwin/darwinvideo.htm or): 2003 Charles Darwin: - Part Three: A Man of Science. [ ~Twenty-four Minute Video. Darwin from South America, through the Galápagos Islands, and back to England.] [http://rce.csuchico.edu/Darwin/RV/darwin4.ram] Produced and Edited by Ms. Donna Crowe: Instructional Media Center, CSU, Chico. Available via the Internet with REAL PLAYER [http://www.real.com/player/index.html]. Within a few years of his return to England, Charles Darwin happily settled into marriage, moved to a quiet house in the country, and begun a routine of research and writing which would occupy the rest of his life. In this episode discover why Darwin (Professor Charles Urbanowicz) waited over 20 years to publish his groundbreaking work Origin of Species ,and learn how ill health, family tragedies, friends, respected colleagues and ardent supporters shaped his life and career. 2001 Charles Darwin: - Part Two: The Voyage. [ ~Twenty-seven Minute Video. Darwin from South America, through the Galápagos Islands, and back to England.] [http://rce.csuchico.edu/darwin/RV/darwin3.ram] Edited by Ms. Vilma Hernandez and Produced by Ms. Donna Crowe: Instructional Media Center, CSU, Chico. Available via the Internet with REAL PLAYER [http://www.real.com/player/index.html]. The second half of the historic journey of the HMS Beagle finds Charles Darwin exploring more of South America and several islands in the Pacific. In this episode, Charley Darwin (Professor Charles Urbanowicz) views several active volcanoes, experiences an earthquake, treks to the Andes, explores the Galapagos Islands, and then heads for home. 1999 Charles Darwin: - Part One: The Voyage. [ ~Twenty-two Minute Video. Darwin sailing from England to South America.] [http://rce.csuchico.edu/darwin/RV/darwinvoyage.ram] Produced and Edited by Ms. Donna Crowe: Instructional Media Center, CSU, Chico. Available via the Internet with REAL PLAYER [http://www.real.com/player/index.html]. Sail along with Charley Darwin on the first half of his historic journey around the world aboard the HMS Beagle. In this second video in the series, Charley Darwin (Professor Charles Urbanowicz ) travels from England to unexplored reaches of South America and along the way he confronts slavery, rides with gauchos, experiences gunboat diplomacy, encounters a future dictator of Argentina, explores uncharted rivers, and discovers dinosaur bones. 1997 Charles Darwin: Reflections - Part one: The Beginning. [ ~Seventeen Minutes Video. Darwin in England]. [http://rce.csuchico.edu/darwin/RV/darwinreflections.ram]. Produced and Edited by Ms. Donna Crowe: Instructional Media Center, CSU, Chico. Available via the Internet with REAL PLAYER [http://www.real.com/player/index.html]. Imagine that you could visit with Charles Darwin as he remembers his youth. Perhaps you could learn what early experiences sharpened his power of observation and contributed to his unique perspective of the world. Join Dr. Charles Urbanowicz as he portrays the fascinating and very human Charley Darwin in the first program of the series Charles Darwin: Reflections: The Beginning. Urbanowicz-Generated Darwin Self-Tests: 2003 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/SelfTesting/DarwinTestThree.htm (Darwin Self-Test Three). 2001 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/SelfTesting/DarwinTestTwo.htm (Darwin Self-Test Two]. 2000 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/SelfTesting/DarwinTestOne.htm (Darwin 2000-2001 [Self]Test One). Others Urbanowicz Darwin-Specific Sites: 2003 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Jan2003Hawai'iDarwin.html [Teaching As Theatre Once Again: Darwin in the Classroom (And Beyond). (For the Hawai'i International Conference on Arts and Humanities, Honolulu, Hawai'i, January 12-15, 2003.) [Also published in The Conference Proceedings, CD-ROM: ISSN#1541-5899.] 2002a, http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/DarwinDayCollectionOneChapter.html [There Is A Grandeur in This View Of Life. Darwin Day Collection One: The Single Best Idea Ever (2002) Edited by Amanda Chesworth et al. (Albuquerque, New Mexico: Tangled Bank Press), pages 67-70. [NOTE: This is a shortened version of 2002b below.] 2002b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/DarwinSacFeb2002.html [On Darwin: Countdown to 2008/2009]. For "Darwin Day" activities, sponsored by HAGSA [The Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area], Sacramento, California, February 10, 2002]. 2002c Teaching As Theatre. Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, Second Edition (2002), edited by Patricia Rice & David W. McCurdy, Editors (NJ: Prentice Hall), pages 147-149. [NOTE: This is a shortened version of 2000a below.] 2001a http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/CorningSp2001.html (For a presentation to the 7th grade "Life Science" classroom of Ms. Tiana Scott, Maywood Middle School, Corning, CA, February 28). 2001b The Galápagos Islands: Every Little Bit Helps. The Chico Enterprise-Record, Sunday, February 25 (page E1 and E2) and see: http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/GalapagosIslandsoilspill.htm. 2000a Teaching As Theatre: Some Classroom Ideas, Specifically Those Concerning Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882) for the 99th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA (November 15-19). 2000b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/darwinvisualsonly.htm [Darwin Visuals} November 10, 2000]. 1998 Folklore Concerning Charles R. Darwin. Presented at the 1998 Meetings of the Southwestern Anthropological Society and The California Folklore Society, Sacramento, CA, April 16-18. [Dealing with various "myths" concerning Darwin and the general public. 1990 A Letter To The Editor [Concerning Charles R. Darwin]. [Chico Enterprise-Record], September 26, page B4.] [A brief dossier on Charles R. Darwin.] Some of the references below were discovered as a result of those specific web pages being "linked" to some of my web pages. I have only listed a few items, but if you consult http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/UrbanowiczCitations.html [Urbanowicz Citations on the Web} An on-going "Work-in-Progress"] you will come across numerous other web links for various academic courses: several AP (Advanced Placement) instructors have made reference to some of my Darwin work. http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/ [The Writings of Charles Darwin on The Web] http://www.literature.org/Works/Charles-Darwin/voyage/ (The Voyage of the Beagle) http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/biomed/his/darwin/darintro.htm (Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle - Birds) http://www.literature.org/Works/Charles-Darwin/origin/ (The Origin of Species) http://diogenes.baylor.edu/WWWproviders/Larry_Ridener/courses/DARWIN.HTML (Darwin} Origin of Species) http://www.uib.no/zoo/classics/descent.html (The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex) http://cc.owu.edu/~librweb/f2darwin.htm (Darwin's Paper Read at the Linnean Society Meeting ) http://www.dca.uac.pt/acores/darwin/edarwin.htm (Charles Darwin in the Azores) http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/victorian/darwin/darwinov.html (Darwin and Evolution Overview) http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/evolution.html (Evolution Entrance: University of California, Berkeley) EIGHTEEN OTHER DARWIN-RELATED WEB REFERENCES: http://www.darwinday.org/ [The Darwin Day Program] http://www.ncseweb.org/ [National Center For Science Education] http://www.calacademy.org/events/darwin/history.htm [California Academy of Sciences} History of Charles R. Darwin] http://www.darwinfoundation.org/ [Galápagos Islands} The Charles Darwin Foundation] http://www.darwinfoundation.org/links/lnkspage.html [The Charles Darwin Foundation} External links and References] http://www.chromosome.com/Charles_Darwin.html [Information on Charles Darwin, Down House, and The Origin of Species] http://www.rit.edu/~rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/Galapagos.html [Natural History of the Galápagos Islands] http://www.dropbears.com/l/links/beagle.htm [Links to Resources} Darwin and HMS Beagle] http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Departments/Darwin/ [Cambridge University} The Darwin Correspondence Project] http://www.aboutdarwin.com/timeline/time_01.html [Charles Darwin Timeline] http://darwin.baruch.cuny.edu/biography/shrewsbury/ [Shrewsbury, England} Charles Darwin] http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/bi/1995/darwin.html [Darwin's Obituary} For School Children] http://www.darwincountry.org/category.php3?trail=2989 [Charles Darwin on Garden Roses] http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/darwin_charles.shtml [BBC History} Charles Darwin (1809-1882) http://tyrrell.magtech.ab.ca/tour/evoltion.html (Royal Tyrrell Museum Tour: Evolution) http://web.raex.com/~ej0c/darwin.htm [Charles Darwin] http://www.users.waitrose.com/~victorian/darwin/mount1.jpg [A Tour around the Darwin Sites of Shrewsbury U.K.] http://academy.d20.co.edu/kadets/lundberg/darwin/CharlesDarwin.html [The House of Charles Darwin} Down House] FIFTEEN DARWIN-RELATED WEB REFERENCES: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/darwincentre/ [The "Darwin Centre" at the Natural History Museum, London} Note: they also have archived videos] http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/default.htm [Early Theories of Evolution Tutorial} Palomar College, San Marcos, California] [Important Note: This Palomar College site has fifteen other excellent tutorials--check the "menu" out!] http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/home.html [ENSI/SENSI: Evolution] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/darwin/index.html [Darwin} From WGBH/PBS "Evolution" Show] http://www.reptiland.com/onlinecourse/session2/resources.html [Evolution: Online Course for Teachers] http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/stiling4/chapter1/essay13/deluxe-content.html [Interactive Case study on Galápagos Finches'] http://www.calacademy.org/events/darwin/scavengerhunt.htm [California Academy of Sciences} Darwin Scavenger Hunt] http://www.gpc.peachnet.edu/~pgore/geology/historical_lab/evolutionlab.htm [Evolution Assignment} Geology course by Pamela J. W. Gore, Department of Geology, Georgia Perimeter College] http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1990/6/90.06.09.x.html [Creation, Evolution, and the Human Genome} Anthony B. Wight, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute] http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/fossil/ [Getting Into The Fossil Record} Collins & Lindstrom: UC Berkeley Modules, Sponsored by the National Science Foundation] http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/IU/template/tour1B.html [Life Has a History Lesson} ISTAT Digital Curriculum Guide] http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/geotime/ [Understanding Geologic Time} UC Berkeley] http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/it/projects/Museums/Teacher_Guide/Science/Unit.on.Dinosaurs.html [Unit on Dinosaurs} University of Virginia Museum] http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/jpitocch/resevol.html [Evolutionary Biology Resources} St. Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire]. http://www.darwinawards.com/ [Official Darwin Awards} "...showing us just how uncommon common sense can be." Wendy Northcutt, 2000, The Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action (Dutton) Jeffrey C. Brautigam & Stephen C. Zelcik, 1997/1999, A Student Introduction to Charles Darwin (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.). David Burne, 1999, Get A Grip On Evolution (England: Ivy Press/Time-Life Books). Merryl Wynn Davies, 2000, Darwin And Fundamentalism: Postmodern Encounters (Cambridge: Icon Books). Dylan Evans and Howard Selina, 2001, Introducing Evolution (Cambridge: Icon Books). Pete Goldie, 1997, Darwin 2nd Edition Multimedia CD-ROM for MACs, PCs, and UNIXs (San Francisco: Lightbinders, Inc., 2325 Thurd Streetm Suite 324m San Francisco, CA 94107). [Extremely useful item with complete text of many of Darwin's publications.] Gill Hands, 2001, Darwin: A Beginner's Guide (London: Hodder & Stoughton). Leslie Alan Horvitz, 2002, The Complete Idiot's Guide To Evolution (Indianapolis: Pearson Education, Inc.) Jonathan Howard, 1982/2001, Darwin: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press). Morton Jenkins, 2000, 101 Key Ideas: Evolution (Illinois: NTC/Contemporary Publishing). Richard Milner, n.d., Charles Darwin: Line & In Concert (NY: Richard Milner, 2067 Broadway, Suite 49, New York, New York, 10023). [Marvelous presentation by the Senior Editor at Natural History Magazine at the American Museum of Natural History.] [Also available through http://www.darwinday.org/arts/entertain-milner.html.] Jonathan Miller & Borin Van Loon, 1982, Darwin For Beginners (NY: Pantheon Books). Ahunur Ozharahan, 2001, Darwin for 5th and 6th grade children : an interactive multimedia CD-ROM / )Californ ia State University, Chico: Meriam Library Call #: AS111 095 2001 (Thesis). Rebecca Stefoff, 1996, Charles Darwin And the Evolution Revolution (Oxford). Patrick Tort, 2000, Charles Darwin: The Scholar Who Changed History (2001 English translation) [London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.). Jonathan Weiner, 1994, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (New York: Vintage Books) In 2000 there was a delightful book entitled Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters On The Evolution of Life And Human Behavior, wherein the author has Darwin saying: "I am so glad you have taken the time and trouble to write to me. It is one of the saddest aspects of human existence that, as soon as one passes away, it is generally assumed that the deceased has no further interest in what he or she spent a great part of life investigating. From what you tell me of the Darwin industry of scholars in your day, busy seeking out every nuance of my life and thoughts, I have to conclude that there is indeed life after death [stress added]." Gabriel Dover, 2000, Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters On The Evolution of Life And Human Behavior (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), page 3. For-virtually-every web page I do I try to "update" the following information concerning "Darwin" and "Search Engines" on the World Wide Web. Before examing the "Search Engine References" below, please consider the following: "Google--or any search engine--isn't just another website; it's the lens through which we see that information, and it affects what we see and don't see. At the risk of waxing Orwellian, how we search affects what we find and by extension, how we learn what we know [stress added]. Lev Grossman, 2003, Search And Destroy. Time, December 22, 2003, pages 46-50, page 50. On January 4, 2004, "search engine hits" for "Charles R. Darwin" resulted in the following information: Google had 251,000 items; Alta Vista Search had 89,979 items; WiseNut had 26,209 items; and AllTheWeb had 568,418 web pages. On September 27, 2003, "search engine hits" for "Charles R. Darwin" resulted in the following information: Google had 278,000 items; Alta Vista Search had 81,607 items; WiseNut had 39,116 items; and AllTheWeb had 463,572 web pages. On November 27, 2002, "search engine hits" for "Charles R. Darwin" resulted in the following information: Google had 143,000 items; "Power Search" by Northern Light had 2,720 items; Alta Vista Search had 84,274 items; MonkeySweat had numerous items; and WiseNut had 76,294 items (and AllTheWeb had 516,281 web pages for "Charles R. Darwin"). On May 2, 2002, "search engine hits" for "Charles R. Darwin" resulted in the following information: Google had 130,000 items; "Power Search" by Northern Light had 2,623 items; Alta Vista Search had 36,608 items; MonkeySweat had numerous items; and WiseNut had 64,940 items. On February 6, 2002, "search engine hits" for "Charles R. Darwin" resulted in the following information: Google had 118,000 items; "Power Search" by Northern Light had 2,587 items; Alta Vista Search had 40,131 items; and MonkeySweat had numerous items! On October 17, 2001, "search engine hits" for "Charles R. Darwin" resulted in the following information: Google had 120,000 items; Northern Light had 51,939 items; Alta Vista Search had 65,975,088 items; and MonkeySweat had numerous items! Two things should be obvious: (#1) interest in Darwin continues and (#2), obviously, just as with people, all "search engines" are not created equal and there is "cultural selection" involved in everything we do! How does one "evaluate" and "use" this wide range of information? One does it just as Darwin did, carefully, patiently, and slowly, for as Darwin wrote: "False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness: and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened." Charles R. Darwin, 1871, The Descent of Man And Selection in Relation to Sex[1981 Princeton University Press edition, with Introduction by John T. Bonner and Robert M. May], Chapter 21, page 385. A FEW VISUALS PLEASE see: http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/darwinvisualsonly.htm [Darwin Visuals} November 10, 2000] for numerous other visuals pertaining to Charles R. Darwin and the Galápagos Islands. (1) © [All Rights Reserved.] Placed on the WWW on January 9, 2004, for a workshop on January 10, 2004, sponsored by the Outreach Programs of the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco) and held at the Museum of Anthropology at California State University, Chico. To return to the beginning of this page, please click here. [~18,476 words]} 9 January 2004 to the Department of Anthropology; to the Museum of Anthropology, to California State University, Chico, to California Academy of Sciences. [This page printed from http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/TeachingAboutDarwinJan2004.html] Copyright © 2004; all rights reserved by Charles F. Urbanowicz 9 January 2004 by cfu
When in homes, most dogs are able to enjoy cuddling, playing, sniffing, eating treats, going for walks, visiting with people and dogs, and learning new things. Although all shelters must provide dogs with food, water, and shelter, it is also important to provide them with social interaction, mental stimulation, and the exercise that they need. The enrichment programs described in this section will help shelters fulfill these basic needs. To keep track of daily interactions with each dog, see our Canine Enrichment Chronicle [PDF]. Remember, not all dogs are the same, and each one will prefer to do different activities. Structured programs for shelter staff and volunteers provide people with guidance with regard to how to train and enrich the lives of shelter dogs. Canine Life and Social Skills, C.L.A.S.S., was created by the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. The C.L.A.S.S. program enables staff and volunteers to follow detailed training plans and guidelines which teach dogs life skills which may improve their ability to integrate successfully into a home. Dogs who complete the six C.L.A.S.S. lesson plans are eligible for a bachelor’s degree in C.L.A.S.S. To learn more, check out the C.L.A.S.S website here! Training and Motivation Training shelter dogs potentially increases their adoptability by teaching them behaviors that make them more desirable to adopters. Learn more about training and motivation programs. Providing dogs with physical and mental stimulation is a critical factor for maintaining their behavioral health. These enrichment activities will keep dogs busy, so they are less likely to do things we DON’T want them to do. Learn more about dog entertainment.
Sometimes keeping a healthy weight and a healthy level of physical activity can have unexpected benefits. Who would think there's a link between one's weight and their hearing? Yet a recent study found that obese women were more likely to experience hearing loss over the long-term than women with a normal, healthy weight. Accordingly, women with smaller waist circumferences were at lower risk for hearing loss compared to women with larger waist sizes. Although a woman's weight and waist size influenced her risk of hearing loss on their own, so did her physical activity. The more physically active women had a lower risk of hearing loss than the least physically active women. Just two hours of walking each week appeared to make a difference in women's risk for hearing loss. This study, led by Sharon G. Curhan, MD, MSc, of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, compared hearing loss rates among women of different weights and levels of physical therapy. The researchers compared health information and demographics among 68,421 women who were participating in a large study called the Nurses' Health Study II from 1989 to 2009. Among the information provided every other year during the study were the women's body mass index (BMI) measurements, their waist circumference and their physical activity. BMI is a ratio of a person's height to weight and is used to classify whether a person is overweight, underweight or an appropriately normal weight. A person with a BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered to have a normal weight, while an overweight BMI is between 25 and 30. An obese person has a BMI between 30 and 40, and a severely obese BMI would be a 40 or greater. Over an average of 16 years of follow-up, these researchers found 11,286 cases of hearing loss reported among the women. Women with a higher BMI and a larger waist circumference were found to have a higher likelihood of experiencing hearing loss than women with lower BMIs and smaller waists. For example, obese women with a BMI above 40 were about 25 percent more likely to have hearing loss than normal-weight women with a BMI less than 25. Similarly, women whose waist circumference was greater than 35 inches were about 27 percent more likely to have hearing loss than women with a waist circumference of less than 28 inches. However, the more physically active women were, the less likely they were to experience hearing loss. Women who ranked in the top one fifth of the group for their level of physical activity were 17 percent less likely to have hearing loss than women in the lowest fifth for physical activity. Specifically, walking at least two hours a week appeared to reduce women's risk of hearing loss. When the researchers took into account all three factors together — BMI, waist circumference and physical activity — it was clear that the three together were interacting and contributing to the reduced risk. However, each individual factor of these three also was related to the reduced risk. Therefore, even if the other two were not present, women's risk of hearing loss was still lower with just one of these three factors. "Higher BMI and larger waist circumference are associated with increased risk, and higher physical activity is associated with reduced risk of hearing loss in women," the researchers wrote. "These findings provide evidence that maintaining healthy weight and staying physically active, potentially modifiable lifestyle factors, may help reduce the risk of hearing loss," they wrote. This study was published in the December issue of the American Journal of Medicine. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Photo courtesy of Doug Latimer, Rocky Mountain Hiking The California grizzly bear (Ursus californicus) was designated official State Animal in 1953. Before dying out in California, this largest and most powerful of carnivores thrived in the great valleys and low mountains of the state, probably in greater numbers than anywhere else in the United States. As humans began to populate California, the grizzly stood its ground, refusing to retreat in the face of advancing civilization. It killed livestock and interfered with settlers. Less than 75 years after the discovery of gold, every grizzly bear in California had been tracked down and killed. The last one was killed in Tulare County in August 1922, more than 20 years before the authority to regulate the take of fish and wildlife was delegated to the California Fish and Game Commission by the State Legislature.
Basic Siamese Information - Lifespan: 12 - 15 years - Weight: 5 - 8 pounds Medical Conditions Seen in Siamese - Hip Dysplasia - Hyperesthesia Syndrome - Lysosomal Storage Disease - Mammary Cancer - Mast Cell Tumor - Myasthenia Gravis - Nasopharyngeal Polyps - Progressive Retinal Atrophy - Psychogenic Alopecia - Systemic Lupus - Vestibular Disease - Hemophilia A & B - Corneal Sequestration - Basal Cell Tumor - Lap Cat - Ease of Training - Grooming Requirements - Good with Children - Good with Dogs - Reigns as one of the oldest domesticated cat breeds, dating back to 14th Century Siam (now Thailand). - Once cherished as members of the Siam royal family and high-ranking priests. - Bestowed as gifts to visiting dignitaries from Europe by Siam royalty in the 1800s. - First known Siamese in the United States belonged to First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes in the late 1800s. - The Siamese was used in cross-breeding to create newer breeds, including the Balinese, Burmese, Himalayan, Ocicat and Tonkinese. Siamese Behavior Concerns - Extremely active yet affectionate. - Very loving, loyal and engaging with their favorite people and pets in the household. - Big talkers, Siamese are capable of producing a variety of sounds, including one that resembles a human baby's cry. - Favor being paired with another cat, especially another Siamese in the family. - Determined climbers, they need suitable, sturdy cat trees and shelves to prevent them from climbing drapes or window blinds. - Can exhibit anxiety from being left home alone by over grooming, possibly leading to psychogenic alopecia. - Young Siamese are prone to wool sucking and PICA (eating non-food items). Look of Siameses - With exotic Asian looks, the Siamese sports a long, lean, lithe and tubular body with a triangle-shaped head, oversized ears and oval-shaped blue eyes. - Ears, face, tail and feet are darker than the body. - Four main types of Siamese are seal point, chocolate, blue and lilac. - Kinked tails and crossed eyes were more common in earlier generations of Siamese, but careful breeding has reduced the incidents of these physical traits. - One of the inaugural breeds accepted by the Cat Fanciers Association in 1906. Grooming Siamese Cats - The Siamese coat becomes progressively darker with age. - Its short, silky coat requires minimal maintenance and yields little shedding. - Running a quick comb once a week is ample to remove dead hair in the coat. - Fastidious cleaners, the Siamese rarely needs to be bathed. Suggested Nutritional Needs for Siameses Please consult with your veterinarian about the type of dieta nd amount to feed your cat during their different life stages. Different breeds may have a greater risk of obesity based upon their diet, metabloism, activity and age. Thus, your veterinarian is your best source for information on this topic. Fun Facts of Siameses - Siamese have been part of the White House pet family during three presidencies: Rutherford B. Hayes, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. - Starred in the 1965 Disney classic, That Darn Cat with Dean Jones. - Regarded as a natural breed because no other cat is needed to create its specific Asian appearance. Did you know? - A decrease in cat grooming behavior may indicate they are in pain. - Some cat parasites are transferable to humans. - Many common pet ailments may be detected early and prevented by visiting your veterinarian twice yearly - saving both time, money, and most importantly, ensuring the best quality of life for your cat. Come visit us, we would love to see you! We are here to help! Book an appointment today to continue your pet on a path to great health and wellness Ask the Vet Have unanswered pet health questions? Dr.Donna Spector, with 10+ years of hands-on Internal Medicine experience, is here with your answers every Friday.
Lone Star Setting? San Jacinto Undone 165 years ago this weekend, Sam Houston`s ragged force of Texians—as the original American settlers of Texas called themselves—reeling from defeat and massacre at the Alamo and Goliad, retreated east across Texas, pursued by the much larger and better-equipped Mexican army of General Antonio López de Santa Anna. On April 20, 1836, Santa Anna`s force of some 1,300 made camp a few miles east of where the city of Houston now stands and prepared to massacre their 910 Texian opponents the next day. But on the 21st the Texians turned the tables, attacking the Mexican army at siesta. Surprise was complete; in 18 minutes the fighting was over. 630 Mexican soldiers died and 730 were taken prisoner, against nine dead and 30 wounded among the Anna was captured, hiding in tall grass dressed as a According to the inscription on the San Jacinto Monument: by its results, San Jacinto was one of the decisive battles of the world. The freedom of Texas from Mexico won here led to annexation and to the Mexican War, resulting in the acquisition by the United States of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Almost one-third of the present area of the American nation, nearly a million square miles of territory, changed sovereignty. When that inscription was written, one hundred years after the battle, it seemed that the results of San Jacinto and all that followed were permanent. The borders of the United States were fixed, the territories won from Mexico, largely empty of Hispanic inhabitants at their annexation, had been populated by Americans. No American doubted that they were fully But in 2001, Census data is casting doubt on the ability of the United States to maintain the American character of Texas and the Southwest—and, ultimately, even to retain sovereignty over the border regions. Thanks to the persistence of the Mexican mestizo (and the connivance of his government), and the anti-American behavior of US bureaucrats, academics and ethnic pressure groups (and the unheeding diffidence of mainstream Americans), the legacy of San Jacinto is Let`s look only at Texas, even though what is happening in Texas is happening in all the states on or near the Mexican border. Texas is a bellwether: the direction Texas takes in this decade will determine the political future of the United States for generations. The 2000 Census has revealed that “non-Hispanic Whites” will, if current trends continue, cease to be a majority in Texas in 2004, not 2008 as previously predicted. The Census admits to an undercount in Texas of almost 2%, so it probably underestimates the pace of change too. Meanwhile, Texas is becoming as large in population as it is in area. During the 1990s Texas became the second most populous state in the Union, after California, where non-Hispanic Whites ceased to a majority last year. In the 1990s, Texas` population increased from 17 million to 20.9 million (+23%), with Hispanics, however defined, providing 60% of the Hispanic population grew from 4.3 million (25% of the total) to 6.7 million (32%), an increase of 54%. The growth of the 1990s, while explosive, only continued a trend. In the 1980s, Texas` population grew by 20%, of which 45% was Hispanic growth and 76% was from foreign nations. The Census Bureau cannot say, because it will not ask, how many of Texas` inhabitants are Encouraged by Hispanic pressure groups such as MeCHA, LULAC and MALDEF, many people mistakenly assume that Texas was truly Mexican before independence and that the Texians drove a settled Mexican population out. This is quite wrong. To the Spanish viceroys of New Spain—colonial Mexico—Texas was the wilderness borderland of the remote frontier province of Coahuila. After an inspection tour of New Spain`s far northeast frontier, the Marqués de Rubí recommended to Carlos III of Spain that Texas “should be given back to Nature and the 1772, the King promulgated Rubí`s recommendations as law. Except along the Rio Grande and around San Antonio, the little Spanish settlement was effectively the Spanish crown had considered Texas part of the interior of New Spain, or really part of New Spain at all, the viceroys would never have granted Protestant American settlers the right to found colonies there. American settlement in Texas started in 1821. A look at the Texas State Historical of Texas shows that in 1744, the non-Indian population of Texas was estimated at 1,500, mostly missionaries and soldiers around San Antonio and La 1821, when Stephen F. Austin founded the first American colony along the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, the population was approximately 7,000. Best estimates for 1836, the year of Texas independence, give a population of 30,000 Anglo-American Texians, 14,200 Indians, 5,000 blacks (most of them Texians` slaves) and 3,470 Hispanic state`s Mexican community was a minor though always distinctive part of the Texan population until after about 1970, when it exploded. Hispanic Texans who can claim descent from the Tejanos of 1836 are a tiny percentage of the state`s Texas, at least from independence and certainly from statehood in 1845, has been part of the American South. Her Southern settlers brought their Anglo-Celtic virtues of independence and self-reliance mixed with gentility and hospitality. They also brought the South`s curse of The border, the western frontier, cattle, oil, German and Mexican minorities: all have made Texas unique, but Southern she remains. East Texas is as Deep South as Louisiana and of the slaves that some Texians brought with them from other Southern states, there has always been a significant minority of black Texans. But the state`s Mexican population has been a small In 1861, Texas seceded with the rest of the South and fought for the Confederacy. After defeat in the Civil War, Texas underwent with the rest of the South, Texas gradually changed in the 1970s and 1980s from a safe Democratic state to one dominated by Republicans. As the Democratic Party devoted its political energies to the interests of lawyers, government employees and minorities, it became less and less representative of traditional constituencies such as rural white Southerners and blue-collar workers. Breaking up the Solid South and winning Texas were great coups for the Reagan with California perhaps lost for good in the 1990s, not losing Texas to the Democrats is critical to Republican hopes of sustaining majorities in in the wake of an unprecedented and ongoing migration across the Rio Grande, Texas is fast becoming a very different state—and one ripe for Democratic Texas` transformation is already well along. Hispanics have become the largest demographic group in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and El Paso. The change in Houston and Dallas is startling. Until recently they were typical of larger Southern cities: a white majority with a significant black minority and not all that much else. Even in San Antonio, which has always had a Hispanic population, the demographic shift is a major Texas` mutation is not confined to the border and the big cities. The highest percentage increase in Hispanic population in any Texas county (+17.2%) was recorded in Titus County, in the northeast corner and about as far from the border as a Mexican can go without winding up in Arkansas. East Texas may not be Deep South much longer, something those of us who like the place`s distinctive character would regret. Faced with the incessant incursion, Texas Republicans panic, pander, and hang on hoping for the best. Success makes them complacent. Susan Weddington, their chairwoman, says in The New York Times: “The Democrats will claim Hispanics as their own when the reality is that the growth of Hispanics within the Republican Party is but how much more significant is the reality of Hispanic growth within the Democratic Party? Texas Republicans tie themselves in knots trying to appeal to Hispanics. White politicians call themselves “Anglos” and conduct business in the Legislature in Spanish (what do real Mexicans think of their accents?), becoming complicit in a Mexicanization of Texas that is neither historically justified, desired by most of their voters, nor inevitable. Republicans tell themselves that the new arrivals, presumed to be hard working and socially conservative, will be a natural Republican rates of welfare dependency, illegitimacy, and crime among Hispanic immigrants call that fancy into question. And the Republicans` love for Hispanics is largely unrequited. It is hard to imagine a Republican (a non-Mexican one, anyway) more likely to appeal to Texas Hispanics than Governor George W. Bush—very popular statewide, a Spanish-speaker (sort of) with Mexican relatives, who constantly “reached out” to Hispanics, vocally supported high immigration and was extremely solicitous of the—thoroughly Texas` Hispanic voters thanked him with about 40% of their votes when he ran for president. (Bush received 34% of the Hispanic vote nationally, which includes all those Cubans in Florida, and a mere 26% Texas Democrats suffer no such sense a great opportunity and are moving to cash in. Their chairwoman, Molly Beth Malcolm, tells The York Times: “The political ramifications are excellent for the Texas Democratic Party… Very definitely the trend is that Texas is becoming more Democrats are not the old Democratic Party of Solid South days. Far more astute than their Republican rivals, and unconstrained by any remnant of constitutional principle, they are poised to reap the benefit of the Knowing this, they urge amnesties for illegal aliens and reject any restriction of current legal Democrats, the party of racial and ethnic activism, are happy to encourage Hispanic separatism, even Mexican irredentism, in a bid for the new voters that immigration is manufacturing. It is naïve to expect Democrats to worry when large numbers of non-citizens vote in U.S. elections. Democrats assume, correctly, that they will vote, if at all, Democratic. Texas Democrats look to 2002 as the year of reconquista—using the burgeoning Hispanic electorate to win Texas as they have won California. Their likely gubernatorial candidate is Tony Sanchez, a wealthy businessman whose high political profile owes much to his appointment, by Governor Bush, to the board that oversees the vast University of Texas system, where multicultural political Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Project, looks forward to the campaign: “If Tony Sanchez is running on the Democratic ticket, forget it… Latinos are going to So where will all this lead, for Texas, and the country? Current immigration trends, left unchecked, will change Texas forever. Texas is not yet experiencing the exodus of Americans seen in California. But the time will come soon when Texans, strangers in their own land, move away from the border and out of their state. Any benefit that may accrue from cheap immigrant labor is outweighed by the costs and burdens imposed on most citizens. So long as they have a choice, they will leave – as Southern California and South Florida show. The demographic shift is leading to the end of American Texas, and ultimately the end of the United States as Americans have known it. If Mexican and Central American immigration into Texas is not slowed dramatically, the state will be firmly Democratic by the end of this decade. Nationally, the effect of the shift is compounded by the “rotten borough” effect of how the Census is used in redistricting. Alien, often illegal, bodies boost the Electoral College power of California, New York and (soon) California and New York both already solidly Democratic, largely due to immigration, the loss of Texas will mean the end of the Republican Party`s ability to win presidential elections. Probably the Republicans will also forfeit their tenuous majorities in the Congress. Control of the Congress and the White House will give the Democrats absolute control of the At that point the Constitution is just their fig leaf, and the powers of the states entirely In the years since 1836, Texans of all races have built a great, if imperfect, state on an American, and Southern, foundation of hard work, self-reliance, faith and the (Anglo-Saxon) rule of has followed a less successful path. I suspect that most Texans, including many Mexican-American Texans, want a future Texas that is more Texan than Mexican. As Americans move ever farther away from the originally British and European social, legal and political heritage that is the basis of our republic, there is ever less reason to believe that real democracy can be maintained in the United States. For a vision of that future, look at Latin America today. If it comes to pass here, then for Texas, and America, the legacy of San Jacinto will be undone. writer, a Spanish-speaker from boyhood, has lived and worked in Mexico. He wishes Mexico and the Mexicans all happiness and prosperity, in Mexico. His 3xgreat-uncle, Benjamin McCulloch, commanded one of the “Twin Sisters“—the two cannons that were all the artillery the Texan Army had -at San Jacinto. He was subsequently killed in 1862 at the Battle of Pea Ridge, while serving as a Brigadier General in the army of the Confederacy.
Guest post from Felicia M. Campbell’s Dwarf Hamster Phodopus campbelli was once considered to be a subspecies of the Winter White Dwarf Hamster Phodopus sungorus, but they are now considered to be two separate species. The two species are separated by the Altai Mountain range in Siberia with the Winter White Dwarf Hamsters north of the mountain range in Kazakhstan and Siberia, and the Campbell’s Dwarf Hamsters south of the mountain range in Mongolia. It is very difficult to tell the difference between a Winter White and a Campbell’s Dwarf Hamster, and until recently the two were often hybridized unknowingly by novice breeders. The Campbell’s Dwarf Hamster is more commonly seen for sale in pet shops, but the Winter White is gaining popularity. Both species in the agouti (natural) coloration are brownish grey in color with a black dorsal stripe running from head to tail and a cream white belly. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two species is to look at the sides of the hamster where the body color meets the white belly. In the Campbell’s, there is usually a cream/beige coloration between the transition of the brown/grey body color to the white belly. The Winter White, however, has darker lines contrasting between the brown/grey body color and the white belly. The Winter White usually has a thicker, darker black dorsal stripe. The Winter White Dwarf Hamster has a more compact, rounder body with a shorter face to conserve body heat in the cold. The Campbell’s Dwarf Hamster has a more lean, sleek body and mouse-like face with larger ears. These characteristics may only be noticeable to the trained eye, even when individuals of the two species are right next to one another. It is also notable that the Winter White hamster, when exposed to shorter photo-periods, will gradually turn all white except for the black dorsal stripe. Some captive color variations of the Campbell’s are white in color, but the black dorsal stripe is missing. So if you find a Dwarf Hamster in a local pet shop that is totally white, it is likely a Campbell’s. If you find a white Dwarf Hamster with a black dorsal stripe, it is either a Winter White in its winter coat, or the Pearl color variation of the Winter White Dwarf Hamster, which keeps its winter coat all year round. Hybridizing Dwarf Hamsters is not recommended because Campbell’s Dwarf Hamsters may pass on hereditary problems like diabetes or some rare lethal genes. Hybrids are often infertile and sometimes suffer from defects like tilted heads or missing limbs. Although the two species are typically the same size, the slightly differing body shape can cause a female and her hybrid young to die in labor. If you are thinking of adopting a hamster however, there is no reason that a Hybrid Dwarf Hamster would make a less interesting or lovable pet than a pure-bred hamster.
Burkina Faso has launched West Africa’s largest solar power plant- Zagtouli solar power plant. This is in a deliberate move by the country to boost renewables and cut energy dependence on its neighbours. The US $56.27m project has been funded in part by US $ 29.6m donations from the European Union and a loan of US $ 26.6m from France’s development agency. The West Africa’s largest solar power plant sits on a 55-hectare plant at Zagtouli on the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou. It will provide 33MW sufficient to power tens of thousands of homes in the country. The plant has been undergoing testing for the past six weeks producing 14 MW. However, production is hopefully going to reach a peak of 33 MW in December depending on available sunshine. Currently Burkina Faso imports electricity from Ivory Coast and Ghana which is sometimes unreliable. The country aims at meeting 30% of its electricity needs from photovoltaic solar panels by 2030 with plans to become self-sufficient in electricity production. Zagtouli solar power plant Plans are underway for a 17 MW extension at the Zagtouli site to take overall production capacity to 50 MW. Other schemes in the pipeline include two solar plants, one further west at Koudougou (of 20 MW) and a 10 MW version at Kaya, northeast of the capital. AFP reports that Cegelec, part of the French firm Vinci Energies, built the facility, designed to be a pilot scheme.
A anti-virus is a computer software designed to destruction a computer, helping to make antiviruses crucial tools to help keep hackers and malware from increasing. The best anti virus programs keep an eye on and record threats, guaranteeing they’re conscious of new viruses as soon as they emerge. They are also frequently up to date to keep up with the most current cybersecurity dangers, making it improbable for older infections to linger and infiltration your computer again. A popular sort of an IoT device is a Philips Shade, a smart lamps system lets you control your lights coming from a mobile app. These kinds of devices include helped to streamline day-to-day activities. Forget to feed your dog? No problem, anyone can use a smart pet feeding program. Don’t just like housework? Nowadays there are robotic vacuum cleaners. All of these gadgets save buyers time and effort simply by automating plan click this jobs, but they are all connected to the internet and thus vulnerable to cyberattacks. Many IoT devices aren’t secured or perhaps encrypted, which in turn leaves these people susceptible to hacker attacks. In the case of the Mirai botnet, this allowed assailants to take down websites such as the New York Circumstances and France web host OVH. For buyers, this means a lack of security is not just a inconvenience; it can experience serious effects. For example , if an attack disables the brakes in your connected car, it can put lives in risk. Hits on linked medical accessories, such as insulin pumps, can have comparable life-threatening consequences.
The Mojave Desert turned a stupefying green in June. After a cold, wet spring, a miniature forest of algae and moss sprouted out of the desert’s “cryptobiotic” crust—literally, the “soil of hidden life.” Little leaves on the mesquite and creosote pulsed with color, and the thick Joshua tree forest that grows out of the limestone formation at Cima Dome, a botanical marvel on the northern edge of the Mojave National Preserve, shimmered like an emerald city. The evening mist that settled each day into the pockets among the tall granite mountains made the Mojave look like nothing so much as Ireland. In other years, when the rain comes just right and the cold subsides earlier, the Mojave goes manic with color. Pale violet asters blanket slopes, while yellow marigolds and white pincushions drench the bajadas. Dark pink blooms explode from barrel cactuses, deep orange flowers emerge from beavertail tips, and white-blossomed stems shoot up from the yucca. In such flower-filled springs, endangered desert tortoises wander among the plants, stuffing their jaws with color. Even in less fruitful years, bighorn sheep and bobcats eke out a living here, and oases like Harper Dry Lake Marsh, located at the edge of one of the largest dry lakebeds in the Mojave, serve as important resting sites for thousands of migrating birds, including black-necked stilts and American avocets. Yet because visitors don’t see much plant life—some seeds may lay dormant for a century or more before germinating—and little wildlife emerges in the heat of the day, there’s a common misconception that the desert is a biodiversity wasteland. “Fifty to 80 percent of the [plant] species composition is only observable maybe 20 percent of the years,” explains botanist Jim André, director of the University of California’s Granite Mountains Desert Research Center, located in the Mojave National Preserve. Certain areas in the Mojave have “a plant species diversity comparable to what you’d find in the primeval redwood forest,” says André, adding that “if we were 600 feet tall, that primeval redwood forest would look barren to us, too.” In the seemingly empty desert Southwest, from the Mojave south to the Colorado Desert, a subset of the larger Sonoran Desert that extends down to Mexico, civilized society locates what it doesn’t want in suburban neighborhoods—from a U.S. Air Force base that remote-controls unmanned predator drones to the proposed nuclear waste storage site in Yucca Mountain. Now a solar energy boom is driving developers to these deserts, where tens of thousands of acres are slated for industrial-scale solar development. The flurry of activity began in 2005, when the federal Energy Policy Act called for 10,000 megawatts of non-hydropower renewable energy on public lands within a decade—almost enough to displace all the power plants that supply electricity to New York City. Then came California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s executive order that required utilities to obtain one-third of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, which the state legislature made law this year. Increasingly, environmentalists, government agencies, and solar companies are working together to protect and conserve critical desert ecosystems while allowing for appropriate solar energy projects on degraded lands. No one convincingly makes the case that we can do without these utility-scale plants altogether. Covering home rooftops with solar panels could never completely offset carbon-huffing fossil fuels, and such small batches of power complicate efforts to maintain a steady flow of electricity. Meanwhile, computers and, soon, electric cars will relentlessly strain an already sagging grid. Continuing to rely on fossil fuels to fulfill our growing energy needs will only accelerate climate change and spur the destruction of habitat to get at untapped reserves. The solution, stakeholders say, is a balancing act. To cut greenhouse-gas emissions and protect critical habitat on the ground, we must “do conservation planning at the same time that you do development planning for renewable energy,” says Garry George, Audubon California’s renewable energy project director. “Because the two really have the same goal: To help species survive.” During the solar rush’s first few years, developers focused on finding the best spots for solar radiation, not on how scraping clean thousands of acres of desert floor in a particular area might affect vulnerable flora and fauna. Global climate change was their chief environmental concern. “The mantra back then was, ‘Let’s build it as fast as we can because that’s the right thing to do,’ ” says Dan Taylor, director of public policy for Audubon California. Three projects that were planned back then are currently under way. All were permitted in a hurry—receiving the green light from California in its haste to hit its 2020 renewable energy targets, as well as from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which fast-tracked projects likely to meet a December 2010 deadline to qualify for stimulus funds. The developments include Solar Millennium’s Blythe Solar Power Project, an 11-square-mile concentrating solar thermal plant near the California–Arizona border. It will employ troughs of mirrors to focus solar heat on a liquid until it flashes into gas and spins turbines. A similar plant, NextEra Energy’s Genesis Project, will occupy 2.8 square miles about 20 miles west of the Blythe plant. And Oakland-based BrightSource Energy has begun construction on its Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which will cover 5.6 square miles of the Mojave near California’s border with Nevada. Its concentrating solar thermal technology relies on a vast field of mirrors called “heliostats” to focus sunlight on a water-filled tower. All three projects are under threat of litigation from Native American tribes and environmental groups that insist the hasty permitting process glossed over potential damage to cultural resources and the environment. Legal challenges have brought other projects down: German developer Solar Millennium canceled a western Mojave project when biologists discovered it would destroy habitat for the threatened Mojave ground squirrel. Meanwhile, Tessera Solar had planned an 850-megawatt solar plant near Barstow, California, but was delayed by fighting the Sierra Club in court over rare plants and tortoise habitat. In the process, Tessera lost its lucrative power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison, and another developer, K Road Power Holdings, has since purchased the rights. “That project remains of great concern to us,” says Barbara Boyle, the Sierra Club’s solar projects director. “It has overlapping issues—good habitat for a population of desert tortoises that’s important for species viability, a bighorn sheep movement area, and a significant collection of rare plants.” BrightSource officials stress the importance of including solar in the energy mix. The Ivanpah plant will produce up to 392 megawatts of electricity, enough to power some 140,000 homes, displacing power from several dirty gas “peaker” plants that fire up when air conditioners overload the grid. “The energy system is like an ecosystem,” says Arthur Haubenstock, vice president of regulatory affairs for BrightSource. “Every piece of it affects everything else. We need a number of things on the grid, but [utility-scale solar] is the closest solar energy gets to a swap-out with conventional power.” When the plans for Ivanpah were first drawn up in 2006, it seemed to many in the renewable energy industry like an unassailable idea. Located just 4.5 miles from the casino town of Primm, Nevada, the 4,000-acre project site abuts a transmission corridor that would need only upgrading to plug in the solar-generated watts. The entire parcel sits within a century-old grazing allotment. On a map it looked like degraded land. But documents and site visits revealed little evidence that cows had done much damage. Instead, the lush bajada, or broad slope, coming out of the Clark Mountains into Ivanpah Dry Lake has remained some of the richest habitat for the threatened desert tortoise, whose numbers have declined by as much as 90 percent as humans and the predatory ravens that follow them moved in over the past century. Once areas of the Mojave and Sonoran supported thousands of tortoises per square mile. Now in those same areas fewer than a dozen per square mile may remain. On April 15, 2011, the Bureau of Land Management temporarily stopped construction on parts of the Ivanpah site when biologists relocating the resident tortoise came upon many more individuals than originally predicted. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had set a limit of 38 tortoises that could be “harassed or captured” over the project’s 40-year lifespan. Biologists found the 39th in February, and three tortoises have died in the early stages of the plant’s construction. One was hit by a vehicle that may have been associated with construction activities, but two died as a direct result of the fencing constructed to keep the relocated animals out of the construction site. “Typically when you put up a tortoise fence, tortoises will pace back and forth trying to get where they want to go,” says Brian Croft, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. “One of the tortoises was out doing that and overheated.” Ivanpah was the product “of incomplete and ineffective analysis,” says Taylor. “I am optimistic that we can do better.” Taylor and George are helping to design an improved planning process, one less fraught with legal troubles and habitat destruction, called California’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP). The working group includes environmentalists; federal, state, and local representatives; utilities; and renewable energy developers—wind, solar, and geothermal—who collaborate on ways to build renewable energy projects with maximum efficiency and minimum conflict. “I’ve had it with green-on-green stories,” says George, mindful that he used to be at the forefront of those stories—while at Los Angeles Audubon he went to court in 2005 to stop the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power from building its Pine Tree wind farm in a songbird migration corridor in Tehachapi, California. (Audubon lost and the project went ahead; a recent monitoring report found it now kills more songbirds than almost any other wind farm in the United States.) Governor Schwarzenegger wrote the DRECP into the same November 2008 executive order in which he raised California’s renewable energy standard, perhaps anticipating that these land battles would ensue. The group has been tasked with helping to create a statewide Natural Communities Conservation Plan for California’s deserts, setting aside conservation areas and identifying degraded parcels close to transmission lines. Developers who build in designated areas will see their permits streamlined and their startup costs drop. “Getting a permit for a project that has conflicts with desert tortoises will be quicker and easier, as the conservation of the tortoises will be set out in the DRECP,” George says. “A developer won’t have to wait years and years to get a permit, and the conservation of the tortoise will be planned for the entire region rather than piecemeal, on a project-by-project basis.” The DRECP group has its sights set beyond the public land parcels that solar developers have mostly focused on so far. Lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management cost less for solar developers—yearly rents range from $65 to $300 per acre—but are more likely to abut wilderness areas, national parks, or preserves. Developers complain that it’s hard to find a contiguous and affordable parcel big enough to accommodate a utility-scale solar plant unless you stake your claim on public land. So the working group is looking to pre-negotiate deals between federal agencies and private landholders in order to knit together pieces of territory for developers. “It’s the most complicated and the largest such plan ever conceived, let alone developed,” says the Sierra Club’s Boyle. “It’s going to take longer than people think it will. But it’s the best we’ve got.” The BLM has launched a similar initiative in Arizona, called the Restoration Design Energy Project, to identify segments of chewed-up land—federal, local, and privately held—for renewable energy development. The agency has also teamed up with the Department of Energy to draw maps designating solar energy zones entirely on public lands in six western states—California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado—where developers might obtain streamlined permitting. Initially neither developers nor environmentalists had much good to say about the BLM’s plan, which has been in process since December 2008. Joint comments submitted on behalf of Audubon, the California Native Plant Society, the Sierra Club, and eight other environmental groups criticized the first draft of the plan for including in its zones crucial, well-known routes desert bighorn sheep use to access springs and seeps. The plan also left out degraded areas in the Sonoran Desert’s Chocolate Mountains and the western Mojave near the towns of Palmdale and Lancaster. Linda Resseguie, who manages the BLM’s solar zones effort, says the agency “doesn’t necessarily disagree” with the criticism. “We took our best shot identifying the areas most appropriate for utility-scale solar,” she says. “But that was two years ago, and we have a lot more information now about some of the sites.” In July the BLM began work on a supplement to the solar zones study, addressing key public comments and pledging to work in concert with state efforts like the DRECP. A final report on preferred development zones may be ready as early as next year; the DRECP, however, won’t completely wrap up until 2013 at the earliest. Still, George is optimistic that the group’s work will provide a roadmap for renewable energy development nationwide. “We’re hoping it will serve as a model for the rest of the U.S., not just for solar development but also for wind,” he says. “This kind of planning never happened with oil and it never happened with coal. But no one wants to spend millions of dollars developing a project that will only get canceled, and environmental groups don’t want to be fighting against renewable energy. So now we’re all getting together to say, ‘Let’s do environmentally responsible renewable energy development.’ We all want that.” For the developer who doesn’t want to wait for state or federal planners to finish drawing their maps but still wants a low-conflict development process, there’s yet another option: Find your own five-square-mile tract, and buy it outright. Kate Maracas, vice president of operations in Arizona for the solar developer Abengoa, suspects that corporate history inspired the Spanish company’s leadership to back her in 2008, when she proposed looking first into degraded private land for the site of the company’s first U.S. project, the 280-megawatt Solana Solar Generating System. Abengoa had already pulled out of a project in Spain after construction uncovered archaeological ruins; it wants to avoid that kind of obstacle again. Solana will use parabolic troughs of mirrors to heat a fluid that passes through in tubes. It will also store some of the day’s heat in molten salt to continue generating power through cloudy days and evenings. Maracas concedes that private land costs more. “But even with government-designated renewable energy zones, it’s still more time-consuming to go on public land. There are many more rules and many more queues.” Across her desk Maracas spreads a map showing the United States color-coded by incoming solar radiation, or “insolation.” In the cold North and East, the map pales to a drab yellow; in the Southwest it turns to dark red. She runs a finger across a brick-colored area of Arizona southwest of Phoenix—a region of the Sonoran Desert where the sunshine rivals the mid-elevation Mojave. “We started here,” she says. “After we’d homed in on four or five areas that looked like they met all the criteria”—great sun, close to transmission, and a reliable local workforce—“we retained a broker and said, ‘What’s for sale out here that’s a large area of contiguous land?’ Then we put on our cowboy boots, got in the truck, and drove miles and miles around in the desert.” They settled on a 4.7-square-mile site west of Gila Bend, Arizona. The area, part of what was once the 68,000-acre Paloma Ranch, is veined with irrigation canals dating from the 1920s. Snowy egrets and burrowing owls live here, and white-winged doves and vermilion flycatchers stop by on migration. Abengoa worked with the nonprofit rescue group Liberty Wildlife Foundation to protect the birds from construction operations. Solana had to go through an environmental review process anyway, to qualify for a $1.45 billion guaranteed loan from the Department of Energy. That review didn’t pronounce Solana perfect. Unlike the California and Nevada projects planned by BrightSource and Solar Millennium, it will use water as a coolant to return steam back to a liquid state. The BLM has all but forbidden such so-called wet cooling in desert systems, requiring developers to use dry desert air instead. But Solana sits atop the plentiful Paloma aquifer, which has served local agricultural operations for close to a century. The 3,000 acre-feet of water Solana needs every year is roughly one-tenth of the amount ranchers previously used to grow alfalfa. The project consequently has the support of just about every environmental group, from the Sonoran Institute to Defenders of Wildlife. (Audubon has not taken a position.) So far no one has sued. Abengoa also has a California project in the works, a 250-megawatt concentrating solar thermal plant on fallow agricultural land on Harper Dry Lake. It met some resistance from the California Energy Commission, ever concerned about drought, for its proposed use of wet cooling, but eventually a conservation agreement was worked out. The approval process was still faster than it would have been had the plant been proposed for nearby public land. And more such land exists. In addition to fallow agricultural fields, more of which become available as market conditions make crops like alfalfa and cotton less profitable, the Environmental Protection Agency has identified literally millions of acres of contaminated and degraded land that could be right for renewable energy development. In California alone, the agency has pinpointed 215 sites covering 1.7 million acres, including 90 sites larger than 200 acres. “I would not say Abengoa has a policy never to build anything on public land,” Maracas says. “But if we ever do, we’ll make sure we avoid any areas of contention. We just don’t need it.” Back in the Mojave, construction on Ivanpah resumed on June 10, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a new biological opinion. It strengthened tortoise protection provisions and acknowledged that more animals are likely to be injured or killed than originally thought. The tortoise losses may seem small compared with the threat of catastrophic climate disruption, but Jim André doesn’t believe the choice is so plain. “It’s not a matter of global climate change versus bulldozing the pristine desert,” he says. “How many acres are you willing to destroy of this pristine, highest-quality ecosystem, when there are degraded lands that could be used just as well? It’s as simple as that.” Audubon’s Taylor hopes it won’t come down to that. By providing state and local leaders with clearly defined areas suitable for renewable energy development and areas that should be protected, “it appears that they’ll consider that information and adopt the best practices.” If that’s the case, solar will indeed have a bright future.
The Department of Forestry offers a range of career-friendly concentrations, giving you the opportunity for in-depth study in the areas that advanced forestry students want. Our interdisciplinary approach helps students tailor the curriculum to their specific needs. The Shawnee National Forest, Cache River State Natural Area, Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge and other state parks and natural areas position SIU as a natural choice for students serious about advanced degrees in forestry. Forest Resource Management Our program melds a business-based approach with technical forestry principles for policy making and management approaches that address both conservation and economics for sustainable planning. Students learn urban forestry as well as wilderness forestry management, including tree improvement, forest resource marketing and tree physiology. Students learn about bringing back and maintaining healthy forests capable of contributing to overall ecological health. Our program addresses both the rising challenges facing restoration, and the economic and ecological benefits of a healthy population of trees and timber. Students study regeneration and old growth maintenance, and may participate in regional silviculture studies here or abroad. Students research fire science as it relates to effective wildland management, disturbance ecology and historical ecology. Field trips reinforce students’ hands-on learning and research opportunities. This program helps prepare informed policy makers and managers for both government and private sector careers. Our connections to local, state and federal agencies enhance our students’ career preparedness and provide nearby internship or research opportunities. Students learn to monitor, analyze and present data about the environmental impact of recreational activity in natural areas, and to create usage plans to minimize impact without eliminating recreational opportunities. Human dimensions of natural resource management This program focuses on decision-making and how it happens in natural resource management. Students learn about the stakeholders involved with natural resources, from landowners to guides and outfitters to government agencies. Students learn conflict management and problem-solving skills as well as data analysis and planning approaches. Wildlife habitat management This concentration gets students into the habitat and hands-on with the wildlife that’s in it. Opportunities for field research include tagging, tracking and data analysis contributing to real-world policy decisions about habitat management and species restoration. Students find interdisciplinary learning and researching options with the Cooperative Wildlife Research Lab. Students study sustainable distribution of watershed resources, and procedures and technical problems as well as alternative practices and the consequences of mismanagement. SIU’s location between two major rivers means students learn in real time about runoff, water rights, flood plains and drainage, water quality and overall planning and use of watersheds. Hydrology and soil science Students in this program study the fundamental relationship between soil, water and natural habitat health. Students will become well-versed in current issues at the regional, national and international levels. Resource and site evaluation, including the interface between wetlands and other ecosystems help students focus on particular areas for their research interests. The graduate forestry curriculum combines intense study of current literature and research methodologies, with personalized, guided field work and individual research. The diversity of our faculty experts means that students can find a mentor in several specific areas of forestry research, with publication as a goal. Students benefit further from our on-campus facilities and nearby access to a wildly diverse array of ecosystems. SIU is an important resource in the greater Southern Illinois region and areas of our neighboring states. Student research and field work can and does directly impact the region. Students who are looking to make a difference in the world should consider starting right here.
Written in Bone: Bone Biographies CloseRequest permissionsDownload image Print The cross section shows the midshaft of the femur of an 84-year-old female with advanced osteoporosis. This image was for Dr. Douglas Owsley's exhibit "Written in Bone." "Written in Bone" was a popular exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History that ran from February 7, 2009 to January 6, 2014. The exhibit examined history through forensic anthropological investigations of 17th-century human skeletal remains including those of colonists teetering on the edge of survival at Jamestown, Virginia; those living in the wealthy and well-established settlement of St. Mary's City, Maryland; and farmers located in Leavy Neck in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Original filename: 84YrFemale_XsecBone.tif Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Archives Capital Gallery, Suite 3000, MRC 507; 600 Maryland Avenue, SW; Washington, DC 20024-2520 SIA Acc. 16-150 [SIA16-150_D00020]
Chi-Squared Distribution and Reliability Demonstration The Chi-Squared distribution has been widely used in quality and reliability engineering. For instance, it is well-known for testing the goodness-of-fit. the Chi-Squared distribution is also used for reliability demonstration test design when the failure rate behavior of the product follows an exponential distribution. In this article, we will discuss this feature. For an exponential distribution, the probability density function (pdf) is: where λ is the failure rate. In the case of the exponential distribution, the mean time to failure (MTTF) is the inverse Manufacturers are often required to design a test to demonstrate the MTTF or failure rate of a product. To help engineers with this task, Weibull++ has a built-in tool for design of reliability tests (DRT). Figure 1: Design of Reliability Tests Tool in Weibull++ In the DRT tool, there are three methods that can be used for reliability demonstration test design: Parametric Binomial, Non-Parametric Binomial and Exponential Chi-Squared. The first two are based on the binomial distribution. From its name, we also can guess that the third method is based on the Chi-Squared distribution and is designed to be used in cases when the failure time distribution is exponential. The reliability function of an exponential distribution is: Because of the one-to-one relationship between the failure rate, MTTF, and reliability at time t, the test plan can be designed based on a requirement for either metric. For example, in Figure 1 the required lower bound of MTTF is 100 at a confidence level of 90%. This is the same as requiring the upper bound of the failure rate to be 1/100 = 0.01, or requiring the lower bound of the reliability at time t to be e-0.01xt. Defining the accumulated test time as T, the following formula is used for calculating T: where r is the number of failures and CL is the confidence The above equation is well-known to many engineers However, it was not so well-known 15 years ago according to Gorski who wrote: "Well-known to whom? My guess is that less than 0.1% of reliability and quality assurance engineers know it even though many statisticians do. In my 23 years of industry experience I never met an engineer who knew it and yet I worked on projects such as Minuteman I and Apollo where the intent was to bring on board the best people available." To popularize its application, Gorski wrote a paper on the showed how to use it to design a test plan by using a Chi-Squared distribution table. These days, it is not a popular idea to use a table and a hand calculator to design a test plan using Eqn. (4). It is much easier to do the calculation using the DRT tool in Weibull++. The question now is: why is Eqn. (4) valid? In other words, why can the Chi-Squared distribution be used for design of reliability demonstration tests? In the following discussion, we will provide an explanation. When the failure times follow an exponential distribution, the number of failures in the time interval T follows a Poisson distribution with associated parameter λT. The relationship is given by: where N(T) is the number of events during time T. The relationship above can then be used to obtain the upper bound of the failure rate λ by solving the following equation: - r is the total number of failures. - CL is the confidence level. - λ is the failure rate at confidence level of CL. We can then manipulate Eqn. (5) in a number of steps so that we can show the relationship with the Chi-Squared distribution. If we define x = λT, then Eqn. (5) becomes: Using Eqn. (6), for a given confidence level CL, the corresponding upper bound of the random variable X can be solved for. The upper bound is x, a realization of X. Eqn. (6) in fact shows the cumulative distribution function for variable X. It can be rewritten as: Eqn. (7) can then be related to the Gamma distribution. For a Gamma distribution Y~Gamma(k,λ), the cumulative distribution function (cdf) is: Comparing Eqn. (7) to Eqn. (8), one can see that x follows the Gamma distribution X ~ Gamma(r+1,1). Based on the properties of a Gamma random variable, we know 2X ~ Gamma(r+1,2). In addition, is a special case of the Gamma distribution if the random variable follows Gamma(r+1,2). Therefore, we can also say 2X ~ . Since x = λT, we know the upper bound of the failure rate is: From the relationship between the exponential, Gamma and Chi-Squared distributions, we have shown why the Chi-Squared distribution can be used in design of reliability tests when the units to be tested follow an exponential distribution. Two examples of using Eqn. (9) are given next. An engineer is required to determine the minimal test time in order to demonstrate that the MTTF of a product is at least 500 hours with a confidence level of 90%. The product is known to follow an exponential distribution. Based on the available resources, one failure is allowed in the test. So what should the test time be? Using Eqn. (9), we get: So a total of 1944.89 hours of testing is needed. The above calculation can also be done in Weibull++, as shown below. Figure 2: Result for Example 1 Assume the failure time of a system follows the exponential distribution. The warranty time of this system is 1000 hours. The manufacturer is required to show that the reliability of the system at the 1000th hour is at least 95% with a confidence level of 50%. No failures are allowed in the test. How long should the test last? We can get the required MTTF: By applying the Chi-Squared equation, the required test time, T, can be solved as: This solution also can be found using Weibull++. Figure 3: Result for Example 2 The Chi-Squared distribution is successfully used in reliability test designs when the assumption of a constant failure rate is valid. This article explains why the Chi-Squared distribution can be applied by using the relationship between the exponential distribution, the Gamma distribution and the Chi-Squared distribution. Two examples are provided to illustrate the step-by-step calculations. Weibull++ can be used to automate these calculations. Andrew Gorski, "Chi-Squared Probabilities Are Poisson Probabilities in Disguise." IEEE Transactions on Reliability, vol. R-34, No. 3, 1985.
Putting it Together: TPRS for English Language Learners TEACHER'S GUIDE & CURRICULUM by Elizabeth Skelton and Denise Milligan The first TPR Storytelling curriculum for adult and secondary English Language Learners. The 200-page Teacher's Guide is a comprehensive curriculum for teaching English to beginning through low intermediate adult and secondary English Language Learners using TPRS. The Teacher's Guide includes suggested gestures, questions, commands, and mini-scenarios for each target vocabulary phrase in each story. The chapters are divided according to the adult competencies of consumer economics, health, community, housing, and employment. Cultural connections and additional activities are also included. * Bulk discounts: School districts, schools, bookstores & distributors please contact us at email@example.com
Release Date: October 23, 2013 For immediate release High school students from Washington, D.C., learned about personal budgeting, responsible borrowing, and financing secondary education at workshops taught by Federal Reserve Board staff members on Wednesday. The sessions at Francis L. Cardozo Senior High School and Columbia Heights Educational Campus were part of Federal Reserve Financial Education Day. Reserve Banks conducted more than 25 similar events for students and teachers around the country, highlighting the importance of financial education for young people. "Financial education supports not only individual well-being but also the economic health of our nation," said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. "Effective financial education is not just about teaching students about financial products or performing financial calculations. It also involves teaching them the essential skills and concepts they will need to make major financial choices." Federal Reserve Financial Education Day events drew on a series of four classroom lesson plans, "Financial Fundamentals from the Fed," that teach topics including earning income, saving and budgeting, use of credit, and financial institutions and services. The lessons are free, classroom-tested, and ready for use in high schools. For more information about the lesson plans and the Federal Reserve's other financial education resources, visit www.federalreserveeducation.org . For media inquiries, please call 202-452-2955.
Difference Between VHS and DVD VHS vs DVD The Video Home System, which is commonly known as VHS, is a method of storing video files for playback. DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs) also serve the same purpose but in an entirely different way. At the physical level, we can immediately see that DVDs are a lot smaller compared to VHS tapes. DVDs also lack moving parts that makes it more reliable than VHS tapes. The tape can easily get tangled or break which happens pretty often. On the technical aspect, VHS stores the video and audio information in an analog format while DVDs use the digital format. This means that the video from DVDs can be reproduced more accurately than with VHS tapes which are quite prone to distortion. To the user, there is one minor but much appreciated feature, random access. VHS tapes needs to be rewound every time you finish viewing it. If you want to skip certain sections, you would also need to wind the tape forward. With DVDs, you can simply jump to wherever you want in an instant. It made viewing DVDs a lot more convenient as every time you pick up a DVD, you are sure that you can play it right away without having to wait as it is rewound in a rewinder. The magnetic nature of the tape also leads to certain problems that makes VHS tapes inappropriate for storing any information for extended periods of time. This is because the magnetic charge slowly degrades over time without any intervention. DVDs can last a lot longer than VHS tapes because the data is actually stored in a physical layer of the disc. Today, DVD is the most dominant video medium in use. It has superseded VHS and CD in this function. VHS production and sales has been dwindling for a very long time and has recently been halted altogether. 1.VHS tapes are big and prone to damage while DVDs are pretty slim and reliable 2.VHS uses a magnetic tape to store video and audio data while DVD uses an optical media 3.VHS tapes needs to be rewound or forwarded in order to go to certain sections while DVDs can go to any section instantly 4.VHS tends to lose information pretty quickly because of the analog nature while DVDs can store information for a very long time when stored properly 5.VHS has been rendered obsolete and is no longer being sold or produced while DVDs are still the dominant video media Search DifferenceBetween.net : Email This Post : If you like this article or our site. Please spread the word. Share it with your friends/family. - Difference Between VCD and SVCD \| Difference Between \| VCD vs SVCD - Difference Between Handycam and Camcorder \| Difference Between \| Hvsycam vs Camcorder Leave a Response
Roger Nash Baldwin (1884–1981), one of the principal founders of the American Civil Liberties Union, was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts, to a wealthy Unitarian family with deep New England roots. “[S]ocial work began in my mind in the Unitarian Church,” he wrote, “when . . . I started to do things that I thought would help other people.” As a youth, Baldwin admired Henry David Thoreau and other “gentleman radicals” who combined rugged spirit with cultural refinement, and he absorbed his family’s patrician values of service and education. His aunt Ruth Standish Baldwin, co-founder of the National Urban League, introduced him to progressives like Felix Adler, founder of the Ethical Culture movement. Like many sons of upper-crust New England, Baldwin attended Harvard. After completing a master’s degree in anthropology, he was hired as Washington University’s first instructor in sociology. In St. Louis, he delved into social work, directing a settlement house and working in the juvenile courts, and befriended more social reformers, including the anarchist Emma Goldman. As the United States entered World War I, Baldwin helped establish the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB) within the American Union Against Militarism to defend conscientious objectors. Baldwin himself served jail time for refusing to enlist. In 1920, the NCLB became the American Civil Liberties Union, with a mission to defend all freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and U.S. law. Although often linked to the political left, Baldwin and the ACLU championed causes across the political spectrum, from workers’ rights to unionize to Henry Ford’s right to critique unions. By representing the least sympathetic defendants, like the Ku Klux Klan, Baldwin believed that the ACLU would help America embody the democratic principles of its founding documents. In his four decades as director, the ACLU was shaped by Baldwin’s powerful personality and vision, as well as his contradictions. A devoted enemy of poverty and oppression, Baldwin nevertheless preferred the company of those from his own social milieu. A one-time member of the Industrial Workers of the World and friend to many socialists and communists, he helped eject ACLU co-founder and communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from the ACLU in 1940, ironically setting the precedent for “loyalty” measures the ACLU later fought. Under Baldwin’s leadership, the ACLU took part in landmark legal cases, including the 1925 trial of Tennessee teacher John Scopes (convicted of teaching evolution), and challenges to the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans. Though these cases were lost, they succeeded in shifting national debates and public opinion. The ACLU prevailed in other Supreme Court decisions, including Brown v. Board of Education (supporting the NAACP), Miranda v. Arizona (guaranteeing suspects be informed of their rights before police questioning), and Obergefell v. Hodges (affirming the freedom to marry in every state). Baldwin devoted his later years to universal rights and founded the International League for Human Rights. He died at age 97 and was celebrated in a memorial service at the Community Church of New York (Unitarian Universalist). His organization remains a lightning rod in American life, viewed by some as a champion of dangerous radicalism and by others as the legal conscience of our nation. Upon receiving the Medal of Freedom in 1981, Baldwin described liberty as an ongoing practice of healthy democracy: “Never yield . . . your courage to fight, to resist . . . to be free.” Echoes of that determination were heard in November 2016, when a newly elected U.S. president appeared to regard civil rights as flexible guidelines. The ACLU responded simply: “See you in court.”
About the Finger Lakes NYS Erie Canal and Seneca Cayuga Canal The 524-mile New York State Canal System connects with hundreds of miles of lakes and rivers across the Empire State, linking the Great Lakes with the majestic Hudson River and with five waterways in Canada. The New York State Erie Canal is connected to our own Seneca Lake via the Cayuga Seneca Canal. From Geneva and Seneca Lake you can almost "cruise the world" as the waterways are connected to the Hudson River through New York City and out to the Atlantic Ocean. The Great Lakes are also connected throughout western New York. Other popular towns on the canal include nearby Fairport, Macedon, and Pittsford. The legend of the grand Erie Canal flows as strongly today as it did when it was opened in 1825. Four waterways -- the Erie, the Champlain, the Oswego, and the Cayuga-Seneca -- travel through New York's heartland, gliding past lush farmland, famous battlefields, scenic port towns, and thriving wildlife preserves. Port Gibson is the only area in Ontario County that is accessible from the original Erie Canal. Low bridge, everybody down Low bridge cause we're coming to a town And you'll always know your neighbor And you'll always know your pal If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal Generations of families have been singing this popular song, "15 Miles on the Erie Canal". You, too, can come explore some of the oldest water routes in North America and follow in the wake of history here in the Finger Lakes. Come and join the chorus.
What is the greenhouse effect and how does it affect temperatures? The greenhouse effect is a process in which sunlight is trapped by gases in the atmosphere, most notably carbon dioxide. Those gases in turn re-radiate that heat back through the Earth's atmosphere. The reason it's called the greenhouse effect is because this process is exactly what happens in a greenhouse. If you've ever been in a greenhouse you know how warm it can get. More Homework Help Questions
Sintering happens as part of a manufacturing process used with metal and ceramic and other materials. The atoms in the materials diffuse across the boundaries of the particles, fusing the particles together and creating one solid piece. Because the sintering temperature does not have to reach the melting point of the material, sintering is often chosen as the shaping process for materials with extremely high melting points. Sintering can be observed when ice cubes in a glass of water adhere to each other, which is driven by the temperature difference between the water and the ice. Sintering is frequently considered successful when the process reduces porosity and enhances properties such as strength. In some special cases, sintering is precisely applied to enhance the strength of a material while conserving porosity, like in filters or catalysts, where gas absorbency is a priority. During the firing process, atomic diffusion drives powder surface elimination in different stages, starting at the formation of necks between powders to final elimination of small pores at the end of the process. Sintering is part of the firing process used in the manufacture of crockery and other ceramic objects. These objects are made from substances such as glass. Some ceramic raw materials have a lower absorption for water and a lower plastic index than clay requiring organic additives in the stages before sintering. Generally, most, if not all metals can be sintered. This applies especially to pure metals produced in vacuum which suffer no surface contamination. Sintering under atmospheric pressure requires the use of a protective gas. Sintering, with subsequent reworking, can produce a great range of material properties. Changes in density alloying and heat treatments can alter the physical characteristics of various products. Please contact our sales team today on 44 (0)1782 824453 or drop us an email to email@example.com
Let's calculate quickly what happens. We have an extremely simple Number Partitioning problem consisting of the set of numbers . It has an optimal solution, which is splitting the set into two subsets and . The Ising formulation for Number Partitioning is given as , where is the j-th number in the set. Thus, with , for the given set the result is . Now, the Hamiltonian for an Ising formulation is very simple: Replace by a Pauli Z Gate. We can now write the Hamiltonian using QuBits (with an exemplary QuBit state): Thus, we can evaluate the cost of a possible set of subsets by using QuBits. For instance, a state means that the numbers 1 and 3 are in one subset and the number 2 is in another subset. It should be noted that and . More specifically (where ), the Quantum formulation for our problem is: Here, we have , and . Thus, the total cost is: Note that one of the the optimal solutions is: Another one would have been the state . In summary, we can now adapt a bunch of QuBits to evaluate the goodness of a solution. This in turn opens interesting possibilities.. - Lucas, Andrew. "Ising formulations of many NP problems.", 2014
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke At the Conversation with the Chairman: A Teacher Town Hall Meeting, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C. August 7, 2012 Good afternoon and welcome. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak today with educators throughout the country on the topic of financial education. Thank you for your participation and for the important work you do. As an educator myself, I understand the profound effect that good teachers and a quality education have on the lives of our young people. Today I hope you will learn from each other and share ways to best promote learning and, in particular, to help students achieve greater financial literacy. Financial education supports not only individual well-being, but also the economic health of our nation. As the recent financial crisis illustrates, consumers who can make informed decisions about financial products and services not only serve their own best interests, but, collectively, they also help promote broader economic stability. Smart financial planning--such as budgeting, saving for emergencies, and preparing for retirement--can help households enjoy better lives while weathering financial shocks. Financial education can play a key role in getting to these outcomes. Research by Federal Reserve Board staff members on the effectiveness of financial education for young military personnel, for instance, found that those who had taken a high school financial education course were more likely to save regularly.1 Effective financial education is not just about teaching students about financial products or performing financial calculations. It also involves teaching them the essential skills and concepts they will need to make major financial choices. High school students might not recall specific information from a lesson about loans a year later when they go to get their first car loan or student loan. However, if they understand and remember some basic ideas--for instance, that it's important to shop around for a loan to get the lowest interest rate, to review the fees charged, and to know how to contact financial counselors and advisers--they will be more likely to make a good decision. A particularly valuable lesson we can teach students is how to apply an economic way of thinking to their decisions. For instance, the topic of student loan debt and whether students are prepared to service that debt upon graduation has received increased attention lately. Students with some exposure to economic thinking will be more likely to conceptualize their spending on postsecondary education as an investment in their own human capital and choose their school, course of study, means of paying for their education, and profession with that thought in mind. Likewise, the economic tool of cost-benefit analysis should help students make sounder personal and financial decisions. Financial education also provides a context for students to develop important skills that can be applied more broadly. Making good financial decisions requires that consumers seek out relevant information from trustworthy sources, and that they use critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and decisionmaking skills. These competencies are also some of the fundamental abilities our schools seek to inculcate in our children. As with other types of education, the format and quality of the content matters a great deal. Providing financial education that is realistic, interesting, and relevant can help students retain information and remain engaged. Games and simulations can be particularly effective at keeping students interested. For example, in 2010, I spoke at the opening of the Junior Achievement Finance Park in Fairfax, Virginia.2 This organization, as well as similar facilities throughout the country, allows students to play the role of a family head with financial challenges and opportunities, giving them a chance to practice financial decisionmaking in a realistic setting. Students and their parents can become financially literate together through exercises such as intergenerational homework assignments, which reinforce the concepts taught in class. Such strategies allow educators to help adults who until then may not have been exposed to financial concepts. To provide the most effective education, curriculums should also have clear standards and goals. To that end, the federal government's Financial Literacy and Education Commission, of which the Federal Reserve is a member, has identified five core competencies that should be covered by financial education: earning and income, spending, saving and investing, borrowing, and protecting. Behind each of these competencies is a set of related knowledge and skills, and corresponding behaviors. For example, in the category of earning and income, students are expected to know the difference between gross pay and net pay, and information about benefits and taxes. With this knowledge, they can understand their pay stubs and take full advantage of their workplace benefits. The five core competencies are reflected in the National Standards for Personal Finance being developed by the Council for Economic Education; several of our Federal Reserve System colleagues are working with the council on this project. While it is important to begin teaching financial skills to children and teenagers, achieving and maintaining financial know-how is a lifelong undertaking. The types of financial decisions that people have to make--from paying for school to buying a home to planning for retirement--vary through the course of their lives, and thus we need to ensure that access to financial education is readily available at all stages of life. Moreover, relevant, accurate, and reliable financial information must be readily available to consumers at the time they are making their decisions. Given the ubiquity of smartphones, applications for mobile devices may be one effective method of delivering this just-in-time information at a relatively low cost. For example, our colleagues at the Department of the Treasury are currently running an "app" contest to design mobile tools to help Americans make better financial choices. Because financially capable consumers ultimately contribute to a stable economic and financial system as well as improve their own financial situations, it's clear that the Federal Reserve has a significant stake in financial education. We demonstrate our commitment through numerous programs and resources offered by the Federal Reserve System staff and through partnerships our Reserve Banks have formed with local educators and institutions. For instance, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, during its annual Money Smart Week, conducts free classes and activities to help consumers better manage their personal finances. And the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis offers a broad selection of online personal finance courses that teachers can use along with their students. To find out more about what is happening in your area, I encourage you to visit the Federal Reserve System's education website, www.federalreserveeducation.org. I would again like to thank you for your participation today, and I look forward to your questions. 1. See Catherine Bell, Daniel Gorin, and Jeanne M. Hogarth (2009), "Does Financial Education Affect Soldiers' Financial Behaviors? (PDF)" paper presented at the Federal Reserve System Community Affairs Research Conference, held in Washington, April 16-17. Return to text
What is healthy eating? Healthy eating can be defined as: Providing adequate food intake from a variety of sources that will allow your child to grow and develop and reach their full potential physically, mentally and emotionally. Babies are born knowing how to eat. As a mother you will listen to a hunger cry, feed your baby, and watch as she turns away, indicating she is satisfied. This process of getting hungry, being fed and feeling full is at the heart of healthy eating. As your infant grows you will realize that her hunger is satisfied by food, tiredness by sleep and boredom by activity. Avoid using food to satisfy the latter two and you are on your way to encourage healthy eating patterns. Whether you opt to breast feed your baby or bottle feed your baby you can still choose and encourage feeding on demand (i.e. according to your baby’s needs). We know that breast milk is nature’s food for babies and nothing else has or ever will be able to compete with the amazing qualities of breastmilk and its perfect composition. Is breast milk the food of choice for babies? – the answer is yes. Is breast milk the only food that will grow a nutritionally healthy baby – the answer is no. Human science has been able to reproduce many qualities of breastmilk in the form of different formula feeds. Breastfeeding is not an exact science and moms are guided by their baby’s signals indicating hunger and when the baby is full. Likewise, if you are bottle feeding, don’t be tempted to ‘follow the tin’ as over or underfeeding can be a result. Aim to stop when your baby indicates fullness and be prepared to give more if your baby appears hungry. For a period after solids have been introduced, your baby needs very little solid food as milk is the primary food source. Pureed fruit, vegetables and maize/rice cereals in the early weaning stage are easily digestible options and good starter foods. With solid food, too, your baby will give you signals. When she has had enough of the offered food, she will signal the end of a meal, probably by turning away. This may not mean that she is full, but only that she has had enough of the solid food. She may still be hungry for milk. If your baby learns to eat solid foods while remaining a demand feeder (i.e. on her own terms), she will become more ready to try new foods and textures. Unless your child is an allergic child or has risk of food allergy development, you can become quite liberal as to what foods you introduce within the first year. Work within the following guidelines; - Keep foods initially separated - Don’t introduce more than one new food at a time - Avoid the use of excessive condiments, but make food tasty - Keep it simple Encourage tasting foods from all the various food groups listed below: - Protein foods are foods that build muscles in the body and contain iron necessary for growth and development. Protein foods include chicken, fish, meat, eggs, cheese, yoghurt, beans and lentils. Some proteins are more allergenic than others and need to be avoided if there is a history of allergies in your family. Consult your clinic sister before introducing proteins. - Energy foods fuel the body and include breads, pasta, rice, cereals, sugars and treat foods like cakes, sweets etc. Avoid simple and very processed carbohydrates. - Fats provide energy as a backup resource, however the primary role of fat in the diet is to build brain pathways, ‘oil’ the joints and assist the immune system while providing insulation for those cold winter months. Fats in the diet can include olive oil, canola oil, butters, margarines, tree nuts, avocado pears and olives. Do not be tempted to put your baby on a low fat diet. Babies need fat in their diets. - Fruit and vegetables are protective to the body and are the glamour foods. They sustain the immune system of the body to fight ‘bad bugs’ that cause illnesses and they also ensure our hair, skin and overall appearance is optimal!!! So what exactly is your role then as parent? Quite simply to: - Provide a variety of the above foods on a daily basis in various forms. - Identify the favourite foods of your little person, and provide these foods regularly - Offer texture changes as your child grows - Encourage (not force) introduction of new foods in a pleasant environment. - Watch and learn the cues your baby /toddler gives when they are hungry, or when they are full and satisfied and respond accordingly. Remember YOU can influence what YOU offer in your home as far as good food goes. What you can’t influence is when your baby is hungry or when your baby is full if you want your child to be an intuitive eater. Intuitive eaters enjoy having all kinds of food available when they are physically hungry. They enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, whole grains and dairy products – as well as chocolates and sweets sitting on the shelf and liters of ice cream in the freezer. They don’t need to compete for any foods. Nothing is forbidden. Weight gain and lifestyle disease will not be the punishment for enjoyable eating. Instead of saying “Don’t spoil your appetite,’ Rather say ‘Eat when you are hungry, eat foods of your choosing and stop when you are full.’ Is this not perhaps the ultimate definition of Healthy eating? By Meg Faure
Women in Manufacturing (WiM) conducted a survey that discovered that almost 45% of women wouldn’t choose a manufacturing career. People outside the industry tend to think of long working hours, manual labour and assembly lines. These stereotypes still exist about the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) industries. Female role models are important in the male-dominated industry. In 2018, the FTSE 100 reported a rise in female directorships from 294 to 305 – a growth of 1.3%. However, in the UK, we have the smallest proportion of female engineer jobs in Europe. Sadly, 51% of women employed in the STEM industry have experienced poorer treatment simply because of their gender. In fact, women in these roles have shown themselves to be beneficial in not only closing the gender gap but also in boosting firms’ profitability. Research proposes that each 10% increase in gender diversity equates to a 3.5% growth in gross profit. You may source silicone moulding from http://www.meadex.co.uk/silicone-mouldings. Industry Week looks at female role models in manufacturing https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/women-manufacturing-and-role-models-who-inspire-them. The Shine theory This American notion suggests that befriending accomplished women in the workplace, rather than fighting with them, will help you to succeed. Degrees are not for everyone, and apprenticeships are once again becoming popular. However, the statistics for the sectors offering apprenticeships aren’t wholly optimistic when it comes to plugging the gender gap. Subject areas including travel services, beauty therapy and learning support all showed 80% or more women applicants. However, the gas industry, vehicle maintenance, and repair and construction industries all had less than 10%. The energy provider has tried to get women to apply for their workplace apprenticeships by highlighting the careers of their highest-achieving female employees. Lookers motor group Among Centrica’s Top 100 employers, the national motor group has launched a female apprentice network. It sets up regular meetings among female apprentices, allowing them to share their knowledge and experience. A Guardian study in 2018 revealed that women make up only 14.4% of everyone working in the UK’s STEM, despite the fact that they comprise almost half of the workforce. Establishing prominent figures for women to look up to, such as Donna Strickland, the third woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, becomes imperative.
After seven years of rough conditions, calmer waters have finally allowed archeological dive teams to locate underwater remains of a long-lost Roman city off the coast of current-day Tunisia, which was submerged by a tsunami over 1,600 years ago. Mounir Fanter, the head of the Tunisian-Italian archaeological mission that made the find, told AFP News Agency, that the discovery of streets, monuments, mosaics, and nearly 100 tanks used to store garum, a fermented fish sauce sometimes called “Rome’s ketchup”, have allowed archaeologists to say that “Neapolis was a major center for the manufacture of garum and salt fish, probably the largest centre in the Roman world.”The thriving port of “Neapolis,” (the Greek words for “new city”), disappeared beneath the waves after an 8.5M earthquake rocked the ancient world near Crete, and followed closely by a giant, tsunami wave. Tom Hale at IFL science noted that accounts, mainly from the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, stated that on the morning of July 21, 365 CE, a number of towns in Crete, as well as parts of Greece, Cyprus, Sicily, Spain, and North Africa, were destroyed. Marcellinus also reported that the city of Alexandria, in Egypt, was also badly damaged at the time. The quest to find “Neapolis”, near the current day coastal town of Nabeul in Tunisia, has been on the Fanter team’s archeological radar for the last 10 years, but until this summer, ocean conditions have been too turbulent to allow dive teams any success. A combined project by the National Heritage Institute and the University of Sassari has sent divers to explore the 20-hectare (almost 50 acres) site – an area that was close to a third of the original city and the main area for trade of garum. According to Bethan McKenan of the Independent, “Very little has been recorded about the city because the citizens of Neapolis sided with Carthage rather than Rome during the Third Punic War in 149–146 BC, which ultimately destroyed the rival civilisation and brought its territory under Roman control. There are so few references to Neapolis over an extended period of Roman literature, it is thought the city was punished for its allegiances.” However the Romans may have viewed the allegiance of the coastal town of Neapolis, they couldn’t live without their ketchup equivalent – the fermented fish sauce called garum – the production of which contributed greatly to the wealth of the thriving port town. Carol A. Dery, writing in Fish: Food from the Waters, The Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1997, Ed. Harlan Walker, Prospect Books 1998, on Fish as Food and Symbol in Ancient Rome, p 106, exhaustively details the many types of fish sauces used by the Romans. She provides the following quote from the 10th century on the making of garum: “The most complete instructions for the production of garum are to be found in the Geoponica (20.46.1-6), a Greek agricultural manual, which dates from the tenth century AD: - So-called liquamen is made in this manner: the intestines of fish are put into a vessel and sailed. Small fish, either the best smelt, or small red mullets, or sprats, or wolf-fish, or whatever is small, are salted together, and fermented in the sun. and frequently shaken. - After it has been reduced in the heat, garum is obtained from it in this way: a large. strong basket is placed into the vessel containing the fish and the garum flows into the In this way the liquamen is strained through the basket when it is taken up. The remaining dregs are called alica. - The Bythnians prepare it in this manner: it is best if you take small or large sprats, but if not, wolf-fish or horse-mackerel, or mackerel or even alica, or a mixture of all, and put these into a baker’s kneading trough, in which they customarily knead meal. Toss into the modius of fish two Italian sextarii of salt, and mix thoroughly in order to strengthen it with salt. After leaving it overnight, put it into a vessel and place without a lid in the sun for two or three months, stirring with a stick from time to time. Then cover and store. - Some add two sextarii of old wine to one sextarius of fish. - If you wish to use the garum straight away that is to say, not to ferment it in the sun, but to boil it, you do it thus: when the brine has been tested, so that an egg that has been put into floats (if it sinks, it is not sufficiently salty), put the fish into the brine in a newly-made earthenware pot, add some oregano, and place on a sufficient fire until it is boiled, and begins to reduce a little. Some also add defrutum (reduced wine-must). Then put the cooled liquid through a strainer two or three times until it turns clear. Then after covering it, store it away. - The best garum, the so-called haimation, is made in this way: the intestines of tunny along with the gills, juice, and blood are taken, and sufficient salt is sprinkled After leaving the vessel to stand for two months at the most, pierce the vessel, and the garum called haimation is withdrawn.” See also, Andrew Smith’s From Garum to Ketchup, a Spicy Tale of Two Fish Sauces, also from Fish: Food from the Waters, The Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, on the making, popularity, and usage of garum and other sauces.
Five years ago, the FAA set out to revolutionize air traffic control. Their comprehensive plan failed to attain airspeed-will an incremental approach fly before aerial gridlock sets in? Birds do it. Bees do it. Even Orville Wright did it. Why can’t today’s pilots do it too? “It” is “free flight,” an alluring notion thrust into official awareness by a passionate group of pilots and researchers in the mid-1990s. Free flight, these advocates argued, would transform aviation from, well, the ground up. The idea sounded simple and intuitive, and at the same time radical: Free pilots from the rigid, circuitous routes imposed by ground-based air traffic control, and let them choose the quickest and most fuel-efficient paths around wind and weather. New satellite, computer and communications technologies would keep aircraft from crashing into one another. Planes would fly faster, cheaper and even more safely, avoiding the gridlock that currently threatens the overloaded air traffic system. Today, five years after Congress validated this vision and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) set out to realize it, free flight is still sitting on the runway. Air traffic is more congested, more delay-prone and scarcely any freer. “The whole idea of free flight’ has kind of fizzled,” says Heinz Erzberger of NASA’s Ames Research Center, the lead scientist in the development of a more limited air traffic automation scheme now coming into use. The FAA and its constituents have retreated from a comprehensive free-flight agenda (what some critics call the “Big Bang” approach) to limited demonstration projects and incremental improvements. For some, this retrenchment marks a welcome return to reality. For others, it is a temporary obstacle to clearance for takeoff. But for some of free flight’s radical devotees, it’s an unconscionable retreat from an urgent and eminently feasible mission, the latest in a string of costly botches and compromises by the FAA. And since there are no alternative proposals on the table for a substantial overhaul of the air traffic control system, some experts think were on course for a nightmare in the sky. “We’re currently number ten for takeoff…” Father figure: Many credit Bill Cotton with the idea of free flight. Though observers of airline traffic don’t agree on much, they all concede that the existing system must be improved. With about 21,000 commercial flight departures each day, a number variously projected to grow by 2 percent to 5 percent a year, air planners have moved from lamenting congestion to invoking the dreaded “G” word. “Gridlock is near,” the National Civil Aviation Review Commission intoned in a 1997 report titled, perhaps ironically, A Consensus for Change. “Traffic data and trends indicate that adding just a few minutes of delay to each airline flight in the United States will bring the aviation system to gridlock with dramatic negative impacts on the economy,” not to mention alarming “safety implications.” Delta Airlines, to name one example, has warned that even such relatively small additional delays will mean it can no longer function as a scheduled airline. Meanwhile, despite repeated, costly modernization efforts, the outdated, overloaded air traffic control system is straining to keep up. Again and again, aircraft simply “disappear” from controllers’ radar screens; last year, Air Force One vanished twice. To compensate for such lapses, controllers must increase safety margins by boosting separation distances and holding planes back. That has kept the accident rate in U.S. commercial aviation stunningly low. But according to the man often called “the father of free flight,” pilot-turned-airline-manager William B. Cotton of United Airlines, that record comes at a price: “Safety has always been maintained at the expense of capacity and efficiency.” Although the system is straining to the breaking point, it is still remarkable that it works as well as it does, given the way it’s grown. For 40 years, functions, hardware and software have been mixed, matched, replaced and added in, forming a massive patchwork. Today, controllers guide pilots verbally through each turn, climb, descent, acceleration and deceleration-from takeoff to landing-using only radar tracking and radio communications. Each controller in the FAA’s en-route centers monitors a sector that may be several hundred kilometers wide, with as many as 20 planes crossing at a time. Limiting planes to preset routes across each sector helps the controller track and negotiate traffic. This is critical, because controllers must perform time-and-distance calculations in their heads. But preset routes add turns and miles, wasting fuel. And “handing off” flights from one controller’s sector to another’s creates opportunities for potentially dangerous errors, and for delay-inducing logjams when volumes climb (as they have recently with the surge in short-haul regional jet operations). Even when this system was new, a few upstart innovators were thinking about making it better. Among the first was Cotton, now United Airlines’ Air Traffic and Flight Systems manager. In 1965, in his MIT master’s thesis, Cotton proposed that, instead of relying on ground instructions, planes could maintain flight separation through automatic air-to-air communication, with cockpit displays of the data they exchanged. At the time this scheme was a dream, since the technology to implement it didn’t exist. More than three decades later, these ideas would become essential elements of the FAA’s own free-flight concepts. In the Zone Cotton’s vision, which he refined over the years, was built around the concept of safety “zones.” Each plane would maintain two electronic surveillance zones: an inner “protected zone” around itself, nestled in a larger “alert zone” spreading out in front. To keep the protected zone inviolate, any overlap of alert zones would send a warning, prompting course corrections and restrictions. An early step toward implementing the concept of Cotton’s zones was the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), which grew out of collision-avoidance logic developed by Bendix in the 1950s. Required on all U.S. passenger aircraft since 1993, TCAS sends radio signals that, when returned by other planes’ transponders, inform the system of those planes’ approximate bearings and altitudes. It scans these data for prospective collisions and advises the pilot to climb, descend or stay steady. Subsequently modified to prevent false alarms, TCAS has proved to be a lifesaving backup to traffic control and navigation. It has also been seen as a possible tool for realizing the tantalizing notion of free flight. Indeed, it was TCAS that brought two of the key players in today’s free-flight debate together-before driving them apart. United pilot R. Michael Baiada had worked on navigation technologies as an engineer at Bendix and on proto-free-flight efforts as a manager at a small airline. In 1987 he signed on at United under Cotton to help test TCAS. Baiada’s Bare Bones As the official version of free flight lumbered toward takeoff, one of its champions-Baiada-was growing more and more impatient. The problem, he decided, was not too little technology, but too much reliance on new, unnecessary and unaffordable technologies. Baiada argues vehemently that while GPS, datalink and other avionics can make flight more efficient, they aren’t essential to free flight. And by making the move to free flight much more protracted, complicated and costly, they effectively keep it from happening. By contrast, Baiada proposes a starkly heretical “minimalist” approach to free flight. All it takes, he argues, is adding two software capabilities to existing ground-based computer systems. One, called “conflict probe,” would automate system-wide much of what human controllers now do in fragmented, sequential fashion in their individual sectors. While pilots and air dispatchers made or changed flight plans at will, the software would compare the plans with radar data, alerting controllers to any possible collisions between flights within the next, say, 10 or 15 minutes. Controllers would track flights as they do now, but only intervene to resolve such conflicts. The other element of Baiada’s minimalist scheme is “time-based sequencing” at the arrival end. This software would automatically determine each plane’s place in the landing queue-one of the many operations controllers now perform in their heads. Not only would this make the stream of traffic on the runway more steady, it would also give each flight a precise landing slot to aim for. This would enable pilots to pace themselves and stay at higher altitudes (where planes are more fuel-efficient) until the last minute, rather than descending and then having to wait to land. One thing that particularly galled Baiada was that he believed the FAA already had these tools and wasn’t taking advantage of them. In particular, Baiada wanted to see the agency implement a piece of conflict-probe software developed by FAA computer scientist Norman Watts and contractor Lonnie Bowlin. The software impressed some FAA researchers, managers and controllers, but after testing it at the Boston en-route center in 1995-96, the agency decided to go with a product from Mitre instead. By then, Baiada had already left his post under Cotton (though he continues to fly for United). He started waging his free-flight crusade in op-eds for the aviation press, conferences and every other forum he could find. Today, Cotton dismisses him as “a stonethrower” who’s burned too many bridges to be effective. Baiada insists that stonethrowing was the only way to get any action. Free Flight Lite While Baiada waged his lonely crusade, the FAA’s Flight 2000 scheme crashed and burned, thanks to lack of industry (and, consequently, congressional) support. Now two projects, each on a much smaller and more conservative scale, are rising from the failed plan’s ashes (see “The Technologies Behind Free Flight” table). Ironically, each one puts into practice the ideas of one of the two allies-turned-antagonists, Cotton and Baiada. One of the two current efforts, known as Safe Flight 21, incorporates two trials of the avionics approach pioneered by Cotton. In a slice of the original all-Alaska test bed, small planes-which fly outside of ground control-will use the Flight 2000 technologies in an attempt to improve safety. Safe Flight 21’s other component tests the same avionics in an interesting new sector: air cargo companies. Because cargo companies haven’t had to install TCAS (as passenger carriers have), they are particularly interested in one technology under study in Safe Flight 21 that might provide an even better collision-avoidance solution: Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, or ADS-B. This system transmits position, identification, velocity and direction information from cockpit to cockpit and cockpit to ground. And it doesn’t hurt that United Parcel Service (UPS) has backed the project as both a user and supplier of the new technology: Its subsidiary UPS Aviation Technologies makes the ADS-B units being tested. ADS-B performed well in initial Safe Flight 21 tests this summer. And though ADS-B hasn’t yet been proven as an avoidance system, UPS Airlines spokesman Ken Shapero is confident it will be: “Eventually, passenger airlines will want ADS-B for collision avoidance. It’s like digital versus analog cellular phones.” By leapfrogging over TCAS (an analog system with relatively short range) to digital, wider-range ADS-B, with its richer store of data, the carriers hope to get collision avoidance and much more. How much more? Maybe free flight, someday; UPS is driving to make ADS-B free flight’s base technology. “If we get the technology in place, then we can figure out applications,” argues Shapero. “The FAA failed with some Big Bang programs for which no technology existed, then tried to make the technology work.” The other current free flight initiative, Free Flight Phase 1, is a streamlined approach that happens to follow the same principles Baiada urges-act now, without waiting for any more newfangled technologies to come online. This scheme was prompted partly by the failure of the grander free-flight scheme. In mid-1998, the FAA was desperate to chalk up a success and show its commitment to modernization under a new administrator, Jane Garvey. “The industry and the agency got together and realized they needed to bring out something quicker, sooner, better,” says Free Flight Phase 1 assistant manager Robert Voss, echoing NASA’s “faster, better, cheaper” mantra. Thus was Free Flight Phase 1 born in July 1998, with a substantial budget but a mission that seemed drafted to defuse fears of over-reaching: “To introduce modernization into the national air system incrementally-taking a building block approach to fielding new systems to provide benefits to users as soon as possible.” Forget the fancy avionics; Free Flight Phase 1 would deploy software capabilities already available or in development to streamline ground-based control. The Technologies Behind Free Flight Technology Function Source Included in Safe Flight 21: Automatic-Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) Improved separation, “see and avoid,” taxiway navigation, surveillance in nonradar air space, perhaps collision avoidance UPS Aviation Technologies Datalink transceiver Digitized radio communications Honeywell, UPS Aviation Technologies, or Aviation Data Systems Innovation Traffic Information Services-Broadcast (TIS-B) Broadcasting traffic, weather, and other data from the ground to the cockpit Undetermined; planned for year 2000 Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI) Displays ADS-B and TIS-B data, controllers’ instructions UPS Aviation Technologies Global Positioning System (GPS) Navigation, location UPS Aviation Technologies (receivers) Digital terrain database with moving map Crash avoidance UPS Aviation Technologies Included in Free Flight Phase 1: Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS) Suite of automation tools for airport-approach and en-route control centers NASA Ames Research Center User-Request Evaluation Tool (URET) Conflict probe Mitre Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) Real-time exchange of scheduling data and changes by airlines and air space managers More than 50 airlines, federal agencies, universities, research and industry organizations participating Controller-Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) Limited ground-air digital communications FAA Surface Movement Advisor (SMA) Provides airlines with aircraft arrival information for better runway routing FAA Is Half a Cheer Better Than None? Free Flight Phase 1’s “free flight lite” approach and the pared-back avionics trials of Safe Flight 21 get cheers from the airlines, who have long pitched for such closely focused, cost-conscious approaches, and the traffic controllers, who are relieved that neither program threatens to eliminate their jobs. But free flight early advocates give perhaps only half a cheer. “They’re starting to implement free flight,” Cotton says, “but much too slowly.” Baiada actually agrees with Cotton on this point: “Free Flight Phase 1 would have been a good program-20 years ago.” Indeed, the three-year Free Flight Phase 1 program is neither breaking new technological ground nor implementing system-wide improvements. “It’s just another R&D effort,” laments Michael Goldfarb, a former FAA chief of staff who’s now in private consultancy. “They’re spending hundreds of millions on disparate things, none of which talk to each other,” Goldfarb says. “The FAA hasn’t figured out the concept of operations.” For his part, Baiada remains adamant that a stripped-down scheme, using only conflict probe and time-based sequencing, could achieve 70 percent to 90 percent of free flight’s eventual efficiency in just “three to five years.” All it would take, Baiada says, is a $500 million investment in off-the-shelf software to be installed in the current infrastructure. And again, the software he believes to be capable of getting the job done comes from Lonnie Bowlin’s company, Aerospace Engineering (see “Mighty Atom”).
Sunscreen for Newborns: Experts caution that no sunscreen is safe for infants under the age of 6 months. Babies should simply be kept out of direct sun. This is good common sense advice should to be heeded by the rest of us, too. While sunscreens offer temporary protection, the best and safest defense against skin cancer, premature aging and other effects is limiting sun exposure. Safer Sun Strategies: To keep your skin safe and out of the sun’s harmful rays, try safer sun strategies like these: - Avoid direct sun between the hours of 10 am and 3 pm when sunlight is strongest. - Remember that sun exposure is cumulative. Taking a shade break does not reset your sun clock. - Limit your exposure to reflective surfaces—sand, tile, water, snow, etc.—that bounce UV rays into shaded areas. - Know that UVA radiation stays relatively constant regardless of the time of day or cloud cover. - Use umbrellas—a big one at the beach and a smaller parasol for walks. - Wear a wide-brimmed hat, and long-sleeved shirts, long pants, or caftans made from light fabrics that you can’t see through. Consider UV-protective fabrics, which are specially woven to block sun but remain cool. - Avoid products containing retinyl palmitate; studies have suggested a possible link between it and skin cancer. - Apply a mineral sunscreen generously a half an hour before going outdoors and reapply it every two hours and/or after being in water. For more than 20 years Healthy Child Healthy World, a non-profit whose mission is to empower families to make better, safer choices, has been protecting children from the harmful effects of toxic chemicals. We are seeing increased evidence of the impact of these chemicals found in everyday products on children’s health. Through evidence-based information and up to date resources and programs, we help families, promote solutions, and influence policy.
The tag info for manipulation reads: The technique of disassembling two or more parts from one another. and all existing questions are actually about this. However the word manipulation has a much broader scope than this, which is suboptimal for two reasons: - It may lead to people misusing the tag. - People who want to search questions about disassembling Lego cannot find them, as they cannot find the tag.
Cover Story - Green Building Water-supply woes, energy costs and environmental concerns are pushing green building practices into the mainstream in Florida. What: Building practices that conserve energy and resources, involving building materials, landscaping, appliances, lighting, plumbing and approaches to site selection, heating and cooling. Why: Buildings are the biggest drain on energy and natural resources. Using solar power, trees to the east and west to shade houses, energy-efficient appliances, landscaping with drought-tolerant plants and rainwater to flush toilets can help save natural resources and money. Green buildings also can be healthier for the people who work or live in them. How: The U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) program (usgbc.org) is the national standard for commercial structures. The Florida Green Building Coalition (floridagreenbuilding.org) also offers green-building designations, including one for homes, which are not yet covered by LEED. Audubon International's sustainable development program (auduboninternational.org) is considered the most rigorous for community developments. Developers win certification by racking up minimum numbers of points in key categories, including energy, water, site selection and design, health and materials.
Atchison is a city and county seat of Atchison County, Kansas, United States, and is along the Missouri River. As of the 2020 census, its population was 10,885. The city is named for David Rice Atchison, a United States senator from Missouri. It was the original eastern starting point of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Aviator Amelia Earhart was born there. The Amelia Earhart Festival is held every year in July. Atchison is also home of Benedictine College, a Catholic liberal-arts college. \|Named for\|\|David Rice Atchison\| \|• Total\|\|8.47 sq mi (21.93 km2)\| \|• Land\|\|8.01 sq mi (20.75 km2)\| \|• Water\|\|0.46 sq mi (1.18 km2)\| \|Elevation\|\|869 ft (265 m)\| \|• Density\|\|1,300/sq mi (500/km2)\| \|Time zone\|\|UTC-6 (CST)\| \|• Summer (DST)\|\|UTC-5 (CDT)\| Atchison was founded in 1854. It was named for Senator David Rice Atchison, who, when Kansas was opened for settlement, interested some of his friends in the scheme of forming a city in the new territory. Senator Atchison was interested in making sure that the population of the new Kansas Territory would be mainly pro-slavery. He had been a prominent promoter of both slavery and the idea of popular sovereignty over the issue in the new lands. However, it seems that all were not agreed upon the location he had selected. On July 20, 1854, Dr. John H. Stringfellow, Ira Norris, Leonidas Oldham, James B. Martin and Neal Owens left Platte City, Missouri, to decide definitely upon a site. They found a site that was the natural outlet of a remarkably rich agricultural region just open to settlement. Eighteen persons were present when the town company was formally organized by electing Peter T. Abell, president. James Burns was elected treasurer. Dr. Stringfellow was elected the town secretary. Civil War change At the outbreak of the American Civil War there were three militia companies organized in Atchison. They joined other Kansas regiments. They were known as Companies A, C and “At All Hazards”. Early in September 1861, a home guard was organized in the town to protect it in case of invasion from Missouri. On the 15th of the month another company was raised, which later became a state regiment. In 1863 the city of Atchison raised $4,000 to assist the soldiers from the county. After the Lawrence Massacre a like sum was raised to assist the stricken people of that city. Citizens of the town also joined the vigilance committees that aided the civil authorities in protection against raiding and the lawless bands of thieves that infested the border counties. During the war, Atchison was also the headquarters of numerous bands of jayhawkers. This included the notorious Charles Metz, who was known as "Cleveland". Metz, a former prisoner at the Missouri State Penitentiary, selected Atchison as his headquarters for raids into Missouri. He was accepted with open arms by the people of the town. During his period of operations, he stole hundreds of horses from Missouri farmers and sold them in Kansas. He robbed any suspected southern sympathizer and threatened several leading citizens with murder and robbery if they remained in town. He even ran off the first president of Atchison, P.T. Abell, who was forced into exile until after the Civil War ended. He defied all authorities but was finally shot and killed at some point in 1862. He is buried in St. Joseph, Missouri. - U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Atchison, Kansas - "2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 19, 2023. - "QuickFacts: Atchison city, Kansas". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 19, 2023. - United States Postal Service (2012). "USPS - Look Up a ZIP Code". Retrieved 2012-02-15. - Frank W. Blackmar, ed. (1912). "Atchison". Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc ... Vol. I. Chicago: Standard Pub Co. pp. 108–111. Archived from the original on 2012-02-19. Retrieved 2016-06-14. The primary source for this history. - "Atchison, Kansas - Page 2". Legends of Kansas. Archived from the original on 23 June 2016. Retrieved 14 June 2016. - Ingalls, Sheffield (1916). History of Atchison County, Kansas. Standard Publishing Company.
In the world of packaging, there are several widely used materials, such as polyethylene and polypropylene. These two polymers are known for their versatility, strength, and barrier properties. In this article, we will explore the main differences between polyethylene and polypropylene, as well as the packaging products made with each of them. We will also highlight their common characteristics and the main distinctions that make them suitable for different applications. applications in the field of packaging. Polyethylene and Polypropylene: Main differences: Polyethylene and polypropylene are thermoplastic polymers widely used in the packaging industry due to their low cost, lightness and good chemical resistance. However, there are some key differences between them: - Melting point: Polyethylene is a polymer formed by the polymerization of ethylene, while polypropylene is obtained from the polymerization of propylene. These differences in molecular structure give them different properties and characteristics. - Melting point: Polyethylene has a lower melting point than polypropylene. Polyethylene melts at a temperature of approximately 115-135°C, while polypropylene has a higher melting point, around 160-175°C. This difference in melting point influences the processability and moldability of each material. - Heat resistance: Due to its higher melting point, polypropylene has better heat resistance compared to polyethylene. This means that packaging products made from polypropylene are more suitable for applications that require resistance to elevated temperatures. - Mechanical properties: Polypropylene tends to have higher stiffness and flexural strength than polyethylene. This is due to differences in their molecular structure and in the way the polymer chains are organized in the material. Polyethylene, on the other hand, has a higher impact resistance and is more flexible. Packaging products made with Polyethylene: Polyethylene is widely used in the manufacture of packaging products due to its versatility and excellent sealing ability. Some of the common packaging products made from polyethylene include: Plastic bags used in retail, grocery, and convenience stores are often made of polyethylene. These bags are lightweight, durable and have good barrier properties to protect products from moisture and contamination. Polyethylene stretch film is used to wrap pallets and secure loads during transport. Provides an additional layer of protection and prevents products from shifting or being damaged during handling. Garbage bags made from polyethylene are common in homes, offices, and industrial settings. The polyethylene used in these bags is strong and has barrier properties to contain odors and prevent leaks. Polyethylene freezer bags are ideal for storing food in the freezer. They are resistant to cold and prevent the formation of ice crystals, maintaining the quality and freshness of food. Packaging products made with Polypropylene: Polypropylene is widely used in the packaging industry due to its resistance to heat and its ability to form rigid products. Some examples of packaging products made from polypropylene are: - Rigid packaging : Rigid packaging made of polypropylene is used for a wide range of products, such as chemicals, food, medicines and cosmetics. These containers offer resistance, durability and protection against moisture. - Trays and containers: Trays and containers made of polypropylene are common in the food industry. These containers are lightweight, heat resistant, and microwaveable, making them ideal for packaging prepared foods and take-out meals. - Labels and stickers: Polypropylene is used to manufacture labels and stickers that adhere to a variety of products. These labels are water resistant and offer excellent durability, making them suitable for indoor and outdoor applications. - Woven bags: Polypropylene woven bags are used for packaging and transporting bulk products such as grains, chemicals and fertilisers. These bags are durable, tear resistant and have a high load capacity. Although polyethylene and polypropylene have significant differences, they also share some common characteristics: - Lightweight: Both polyethylene and polypropylene are lightweight materials, making them ideal for packaging products that need to reduce overall weight without compromising strength and protection of the contents. - Good chemical resistance: Both materials are known for their good resistance to chemicals, making them suitable for packaging products that could come into contact with corrosive or aggressive substances. - Versatile processing: Both polyethylene and polypropylene are easily mouldable and can be processed using different techniques such as extrusion, injection moulding and blow moulding, enabling the manufacture of a wide range of packaging products. Despite their similarities, there are key differences between polyethylene and polypropylene: Melting point: Polyethylene has a lower melting point than polypropylene, which makes it more suitable for applications that do not require high temperatures, while polypropylene is more heat resistant and is used in products that need to withstand high temperatures. Mechanical properties: Polyethylene is more flexible and has a higher impact resistance, whereas polypropylene is stiffer and has a better flexural strength. These differences in mechanical properties influence the choice of material for the specific application. Specific applications: Polyethylene is widely used in plastic bags, stretch films and rubbish bags, while polypropylene is used in rigid packaging, trays and adhesive labels. The particular properties of each material make them more suitable for certain types of products and applications. Both polyethylene and polypropylene play an important role in the packaging industry due to their unique characteristics and versatility. Understanding the differences between these materials is essential to select the right one according to the needs of each application. Whether it is plastic bags, rigid packaging or adhesive labels, polyethylene and polypropylene offer reliable and effective solutions in the field of packaging.
Venting an Attic A well-ventilated attic will maintain a temperature near that of the air outside. During the winter, cold attic air prevents ice damming. In the winter a well-ventilated attic will often have a thick blanket of unmelted snow on its roof, while a nearby roof of the same pitch with inadequate ventilation will display bare spots. Of course thick attic-floor insulation also helps keep the attic from heating up. In the summer proper ventilation keeps an attic from overheating, which can cause serious damage, especially if the hot air is humid. Poorly ventilated attics can reach temperatures of 150 degrees F. Homes built prior to the 1980s were often built with what is today considered inadequate ventilation. If you have an older home, it may make sense to upgrade the ventilation when you reshingle the roof. Ventilation means flow-through of air. In a typical arrangement air flows up through soffit vents under the eaves and out through a ridge vent at the peak or through roof vents near the peak. Some older homes have a cupola vent on the roof's peak. In another arrangement gable vents located near the peaks of rake ends pull air through the attic. Of course air must flow freely. If a soffit vent gets clogged with insulation, it will not distribute air. Some turbine-style roof vents spin with the upflow of warm air flowing through them; if the spinning mechanism gets stuck, they will be less efficient. Check with your building department or roofing supplier to find out how much ventilation is considered adequate in your locale. Typically if your attic floor insulation has a vapor barrier (look between floor joists for plastic sheeting covering the ceiling below), you should have 1 square foot of soffit vent opening and 1 square foot of ridge or roof vent opening for every 300 square feet of attic floor area. If the insulation is blown in, with no vapor barrier, double the ventilation to 1 square foot for every 150 square attic feet. In a finished attic with insulation pushed against the sheathing, you may need to add rigid baffles to allow air to move behind the insulation. For a roof vent you can choose either ridge vents (roll-type or rigid) that are covered by ridge roofing or those that have a visible metal cap. Roof vents may be square cap roof vents (skylight types help illumine the attic) or they may be turbines. Gable vents have louvers to keep out most of the rain; they may not be a good idea on a wall that receives driving rain. Power vents, for either the roof or a gable, add extra venting power when the attic heats up. Some are solar-powered, sparing you the chore of running power to the unit. Under-the-soffit vents include individual rectangular or circular vents, and a long continuous vent.
Ah, the dandelion, a fluffy golden marvel in the grass— a gourmet delight for our rabbit friends. But how many dandelions can they safely nibble without affecting their health? Allow us to illuminate this curious quandary! Rabbits and dandelions share a deep-rooted relationship, a tale of gourmet delight and nutritional balance. But like all good things, moderation is key. Join us as we leap into the verdant world of rabbit dietary habits, armed with wisdom and a touch of whimsy. By the end, you’ll be a dandelion sommelier for your long-eared friend, ensuring every hop is a leap towards health and happiness! In a hurry? Here’s a quick & short answer that will help you save some time: Rabbits can safely consume dandelions, but moderation is key. Dandelions should make up only a small part of a rabbit’s diet, approximately 15% of daily fresh food intake, with the remainder being a variety of leafy greens and hay. Always introduce new foods gradually to avoid digestive issues. Nutritional Benefits Of Dandelions Dandelions are a true nutritional powerhouse, renowned for their exceptional health benefits. Every part of this incredible plant offers something special regarding nutrition and wellness, from the roots to the petals. Dandelions can help improve overall physical health and well-being and contain compounds that protect against numerous diseases and disorders. Indeed, no other food on earth packs as much potential into such small packages! These tiny wonders provide an abundance of vitamins A, B-complex, C, D, E, and K. They’re also rich in minerals like iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, and phosphorus – all essential for the proper functioning of your body. On top of that, dandelion greens contain high amounts of antioxidants which fight off free radicals and reduce inflammation throughout the body. Plus, they boast a range of beneficial phytonutrients, including lutein and beta carotene, which promote healthy vision while protecting against certain cancers and cardiovascular diseases. In terms of fiber content too, dandelions have few rivals; each bite is packed full of soluble and insoluble fiber, ensuring smooth digestion while helping to regulate blood sugar levels more effectively. The Health Advantages of Dandelions If you’re looking for a reliable energy source or just trying to maintain good digestive health, adding some fresh dandelion greens to your diet is the perfect solution. The versatility of these edible weeds is hard to ignore; from salads through stir fries to oil infusions, there are seemingly endless ways to incorporate them into your meals without compromising taste or quality. In short: if you want abundant nutrition delivered in a delicious form, look no further than our beloved dandelion! With its wide array of nutrients working together synergistically towards optimum health outcomes, it’s easy to see why these lovely little plants should become a regular feature at meal times across the globe. Not just rabbits’ diets! To discover precisely how much dandelion rabbits should eat daily, we must delve deeper. How Much Dandelion Should A Rabbit Eat? Dandelions are a great source of nutrition for rabbits and can be an important part of their diet. Not only do they provide essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water, but dandelions also have several health benefits, including the ability to help support healthy digestion and reduce inflammation. The amount of dandelion that should be fed to a rabbit depends on age, size, and activity level. For example, young or small rabbits may need less than adult or giant rabbits since they tend to eat smaller quantities more frequently throughout the day. Additionally, active rabbits will require more food than relatively inactive ones due to more significant energy needs. When feeding dandelions to rabbits, it is essential to ensure that the plants have. Not been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides, as these chemicals can be toxic when ingested by animals. It is best practice to seek out organically grown sources of dandelion. In addition, it is essential to note that while fresh greens such as dandelion leaves are beneficial. Too much could cause digestive problems in some cases, so moderation should always be practiced when introducing new foods into the diet. Lastly, variety is vital in providing balanced nutrition and promoting rabbit health. While dandelion offers many nutritional benefits, other leafy green vegetables, such as romaine lettuce, kale, and collard greens, should also be included in their diet for optimal results. Considering these factors can help you ensure your Rabbit gets all the nutrients it needs from its food without overdoing certain ingredients like dandelion. With thoughtful planning and care, your furry friend will always enjoy a nutritious meal! Factors To Consider When Feeding Dandelions They say that too much of a good thing can be wrong. When it comes to rabbits and dandelions, this saying is no exception. Although they are an excellent source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals for rabbits, there are some factors to consider when feeding them dandelions. First, the amount of dandelion should depend on your Rabbit’s size. Smaller breeds require fewer servings than larger breeds. Furthermore, age also makes a difference; younger rabbits need more food than older ones. A healthy diet for a rabbit also includes hay and other vegetables like carrots or lettuce, in addition to dandelions. It is important not to overfeed your pet. If you give your Rabbit too many treats, such as dandelions, he may become overweight or even ill from malnutrition due to lack of nutrition from his regular meals. Here are some signs of overconsumption: - Lack of energy - Weight gain Therefore, while providing variety in their diets is essential for keeping pets happy and healthy, moderation is key when giving them treats like dandelions. Being mindful about how much you feed your bunny each day and ensuring they get plenty of exercises will help ensure their long-term health and well-being. Understanding the consequences of overfeeding can help prevent any serious problems down the line. With that knowledge in mind, we can explore what signs indicate potential overconsumption issues in rabbits. Signs Of Overconsumption Rabbits can eat significant dandelions without ill effects, but overconsumption may lead to adverse health issues. To understand the signs of overeating, we will examine some key indicators and provide insight into how much is too much for rabbits. \|Indicator\|\|Signs of Overconsumption\| \|Vomiting\|\|Projectile or profuse\| \|Lethargy\|\|Reduced activity levels\| \|Weight Loss\|\|Rapid drop in weight\| It’s important to note that when looking out for these symptoms, they should be considered as part of an overall assessment. For instance, if your Rabbit has diarrhea but is still eating normally, it could be due to dietary changes. On the other hand, if he is exhibiting vomiting, watery stools, and sedentary behavior, this indicates something more serious related to the overconsumption of dandelions. While not all symptoms need to be present for concern, having two or more together can indicate problems from excessive ingestion. In addition to the physical indications discussed above, behavioral changes such as increased aggression or hiding away from family members are also possible signifiers of overconsumption in rabbits. If you suspect your pet has eaten too many dandelions, take them immediately to their veterinarian for evaluation and treatment. Given the potential risks associated with consuming large quantities of dandelion greens, it is wise to monitor closely what your Rabbit eats and ensure. That they are getting a balanced diet composed primarily of hay supplemented with fresh vegetables like carrots or celery in moderation. Understanding how much your Rabbit should consume daily is essential to maintain optimal health and preventing any adverse side effects from occurring due to excess intake. Transitioning now into discussing dandelions as part of a balanced diet. Dandelions As Part Of A Balanced Diet It is a common misconception that rabbits can eat as many dandelions as they like. In truth, overconsumption of dandelions can harm and potentially harm a rabbit’s health. A vivid illustration of this danger was seen in the case of Alfonso, an adorable Dutch Dwarf rabbit who loved his daily servings of fresh dandelion greens. After three weeks of unrestricted access to these tasty treats, he began to suffer from severe indigestion and bloating. Sadly, before help could arrive, Alfonso passed away due to complications caused by toxic nitrate levels in the dandelions he had been consuming too frequently. Though all animals must maintain a balanced diet, this is especially true for rabbits, whose delicate digestive systems are susceptible to dietary changes. Overeating any food can lead to nutritional deficiencies or upset stomachs; if left unchecked, it may even cause severe medical conditions such as gastrointestinal stasis, which stops the passage of food through the intestine and requires immediate veterinary attention. Then, we must provide our beloved bunnies with varied meals containing plenty of fiber-rich hay alongside occasional small portions of dandelion leaves and flowers. When feeding your pet rabbit anything with their regular diet, always check whether it’s safe for them to consume. Include Some Dandelion Greens in Your Daily Diet Dandelions fall into an attractive grey area since their young leaves contain high amounts of vitamins C and K. Both beneficial nutrients for healthy bones and skin – mature plants also accumulate toxins making them unsuitable for long-term consumption by rabbits (and other animals). To ensure you’re giving your little friend only wholesome food sources try growing organically certified varieties at home so you know exactly what ends up on their plate! By being aware of limits even when providing something seemingly harmless as dandelions, we can better protect our furry friends’ well-being and keep them happy, complete. And contented day after day. With this knowledge in mind, let us now move on to avoiding toxic dandelions altogether… Avoiding Toxic Dandelions Rabbits are great foragers; one of their favorite treats is dandelion greens. While these nutritious leaves can provide several health benefits. It’s important to remember that not all dandelions are safe for rabbits to consume. Some species may contain toxins or other dangerous chemicals that could cause harm or even death if ingested by your Rabbit. To ensure your pet’s safety, you should identify and avoid potentially toxic varieties when feeding them dandelions. One way to determine whether a particular type of dandelion is safe for your Rabbit is to look at its leaf shape and color. Dandelion plants with lobed leaves tend to have more toxins than those with smooth edges, while white-tinged leaves indicate more significant concentrations of poisonous compounds. In addition, some species may exude an unpleasant odor or produce a bitter taste in the mouth—both signs that they contain toxins harmful to rabbits. Another critical factor in avoiding potential dangers from dandelions is habitat selection. Rabbits should only eat wild-growing specimens harvested away from roadsides, sidewalks. And lawns where chemical runoff from fertilizers and pesticides could accumulate on the plant’s foliage. Try to source organically grown specimens instead. Avoiding Dandelion Poison Though there’s no guarantee that they won’t contain any toxins, this will minimize the risks significantly. Finally, exact dosage amounts matter too; moderation is key here as excessive consumption could lead to digestive issues. Like stomach pain and bloating due to the high fiber content in certain dandelion greens. It’s best practice to gradually introduce small quantities into your Rabbit’s diet to keep their system manageable with a manageable amount all at once. With careful consideration given to identifying non-toxic varieties and maintaining proper portion control, rabbits can safely enjoy the flavorful delights of eating dandelions without risking their well-being. Transitioning now into talking about alternate food sources available for rabbits’ diets. Dandelion Alternatives For Rabbits Dandelions are not the only food source that rabbits can enjoy. There are several alternatives to dandelions, which provide the same nutritional value as feeding them dandelion greens. The main alternative options for rabbits include the following: - Vegetables such as kale, spinach, and turnip tops - Fruits like apples without seeds or stems - Alfalfa hay Vegetables offer essential nutrients like Vitamin A and fiber, while fruits contain carbohydrates and sugar in moderation. Alfalfa hay is a good choice since it has high amounts of calcium and protein. All three foods should be fed to rabbits in small quantities because they have different nutrient content than wild rabbits typically consume. It is essential to monitor how much your Rabbit consumes each type of food so you can adjust accordingly if necessary. Additionally, it may be beneficial to vary the types of plants that you feed your Rabbit. To ensure they get all the vitamins and minerals they need from their diet. By providing adequate healthy foods, your Rabbit will stay happy and healthy! With this knowledge about alternative food sources for rabbits now established, it is time to discuss preparing those items for consumption. Preparing Dandelions For Your Rabbit Dandelions are an excellent food source for rabbits, but it is essential to understand how they can be prepared before feeding them to your Rabbit. In the following table, we will look at some of the critical steps in preparing dandelions as an edible snack for your pet: \|1\|\|Wash Dandelion Leaves and Stems Thoroughly\|\|Removes dirt, pesticides or other contaminants that may have been present on the leaves. This helps ensure that your rabbit is safe from any potential harm when consuming these plants.\| \|2\|\|Cut into Smaller Pieces if Necessary\|\|If you want to make sure that your rabbit can safely eat the leaves without choking, then cutting them into smaller pieces would be beneficial. Additionally, this step also makes it easier for rabbits to chew on the leaves.\| \|3\|\|Blanch Dandelion Leaves Before Feeding\|\|Boiling or steaming dandelion leaves has been shown to increase their palatability and nutritional value for rabbits. Additionally, blanching helps remove toxins such as oxalic acid which can cause digestive issues in your pet if ingested in large amounts.\| \|4\|\|Offer Regularly But Do Not Overfeed\|\|Offering fresh dandelions regularly is a great way to give variety to your rabbit’s diet and provide essential nutrients like vitamins A & C. However, it’s important not to overfeed as too much of any one type of plant can lead to health complications due to an imbalance of minerals or other compounds found within those plants..\| The preparation process outlined above should help ensure that you provide a healthy snack for your furry friend while not exposing them to anything potentially harmful during consumption. When appropriately done, offering up freshly washed and cut dandelion leaves blanched beforehand is a beautiful treat for your Rabbit with numerous benefits, both nutritionally and mentally! With all this in mind, remember moderation when offering this tasty treat – after all, there’s no need for overindulgence! In conclusion, when it comes to feeding rabbits dandelions, there are several things to consider. First and foremost, the nutritional value of dandelion greens should be regarded as, as they can provide a variety of essential vitamins and minerals for your Rabbit’s dietary needs. Additionally, the amount of dandelion your Rabbit consumes must be monitored closely to prevent overconsumption which may lead to abdominal discomfort or digestive upset. When used in moderation in combination with other balanced foods, dandelions can help keep your Rabbit healthy “from head to toe.” Finally, ensure you only feed them from trusted sources free from toxins and any potential alternatives if needed. We can provide our furry friends access to a safe and nutritious diet by considering these measures.
The vast majority of the world's rivers are threatened by pollution, pesticide runoff and destructive species, say researchers from The City College (CCNY) of The City University of New York (CUNY), the University of Wisconsin and seven other institutions. And not only is the integrity of the world's water at heightened risk, but so are countless aquatic species that rely on the threatened habitats for survival. Published in the journal Nature, the study explains that the threats come from a multitude of different sources, and that an independent, reactive approach to dealing with them is not going to work. A more holistic approach is required, say scientists, if the problems have any chance of ever being remediated. "We can no longer look at human water security and biodiversity threats independently," said Dr. Charles Vorosmarty, director of the CUNY Environmental CrossRoads Initiative and professor of civil engineering at The Grove School of Engineering at CCNY. "We need to link the two." One example cited is the fact that while water reservoirs are largely beneficial to humans because they supply clean water, they simultaneously alter the biodiversity of aquatic life by changing water migration patterns. So evaluating these issues and coming up with long-term solutions to benefit both humans and the environment are necessary, they say. According to the team, nearly all European water resources are highly threatened by environmental factors, as are most in the U.S. Central Asia, the Middle East, subcontinent India and eastern China are also increasingly threatened as they continue to develop. Both industrialized and developing countries are experiencing the same threats, but the two handle them differently. Industrialized nations tend to treat the symptoms of the problem after the fact -- which is very costly -- while developing nations, if they do anything at all, tend towards protecting the resources in the first place. (10.02.2010, Jonathan Benson, staff writer) http://www.naturalnews.com/029922_rivers_pesticides.html Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea... "To Achieve World Government it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, their loyalty to family traditions and national identification" Brock Chisholm - Director of the World Health Organization "A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it's going to get." Ian Williams Goddard The fact is that "political correctness" is all about creating uniformity. Individualism is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of the New World Order. They want a public that is predictable and conditioned to do as it's told without asking questions. "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson
Welcome! This overview briefly describes and defines the Toolkit structure, formats, categories, and tags. Orientations are practical guidelines for how to implement this toolkit in your workplace or classroom. They can prompt ideas about how to apply specific activities and resources for your situation. Orientations have been written and revised by members of the Core Design Group and the Design for Diversity Grant Team. This Toolkit collects and annotates different types of resources, gathered or commissioned between 2016 and 2018. Study paths then combine these resources with learning activities for use in a workplace or classroom. Case studies and study paths were created specifically for this Toolkit, and we are very grateful to our authors. These materials have been organized using three sets of categories: - Topic: eight cross-cutting themes iteratively developed with the D4D community - Format: the different types and genre of material - Community of Focus: categories that attempt to make explicit the roles of race, gender, sexuality, ability status, ethnicity, religion, language, and other identifying traits in these materials
Methods of killing trees, sprouts, and brush \|Title:\|\|Methods of killing trees, sprouts, and brush.\| Freed, Virgil H. (Virgil Haven), 1919-, author. Ross, Charles R. (Charles Robert), 1908-, author. Oregon State College Federal Cooperative Extension Service,, issuing body. \|Type of Resource:\|\|text\| \|Extent:\|\|1 online resource (7 pages)\| Title from PDF cover (viewed on November 1, 2017). This archived document is maintained by the State Library of Oregon as part of the Oregon Documents Depository Program. It is for informational purposes and may not be suitable for legal purposes. Mode of access: Internet from the Oregon Government Publications Collection. Text in English. Brush -- Control Clearing of land \|Restrictions on Access:\|\|http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/\| \|Other Format:\|\|Print version:: Methods of killing trees, sprouts, and brush. Identifier: (OCoLC)698386738\| \|Is Part of Series:\|\|Extension circular (Oregon State College. Federal Cooperative Extension Service) ; 507.\|
Feet are often taken for granted, despite their critical role in the human body: they support our weight and keep us on the move, so that we can go about our busy daily lives. However, the anatomy of the foot is intricately complex, and the result of any structural complications can be very painful. This is the case with fallen arches. What Are Fallen Arches? The arches of the foot play an integral part in weight-bearing, absorbing pressure, and aiding in movement and stability. If the tendons and muscles in the foot weaken, the arches can collapse. The weakening of the tendons that causes fallen arches can occur due to factors such as aging, genetics, posterior tibial tendon dysfunction, or injuries to the feet. Other contributing factors include obesity, diabetes, arthritis, and involvement in high-impact sports. Fallen arches are an adult flatfoot condition, where the soles of the feet almost touch the ground completely while standing. Another visible indication of fallen arches is that the feet become turned outward. This condition is often painful and uncomfortable. If your arches have fallen, you may also experience symptoms such as: - Ankle pain - Heel pain - Pain in your hips or knees - Swelling around the ankle - Pain or fatigue when walking or standing up Thankfully, there are many different methods to treating fallen arches and relieving the pain that they cause. In some cases, conservative treatment options are the right fit; in more severe situations, surgery may be needed. It really comes down to consulting with a podiatrist to best ensure that your individual needs are met, and that your flatfoot condition is diagnosed and treated properly. For less severe cases, the RICE method (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) may be used to ease the discomfort and reduce the inflammation. Even the simplest changes such as wearing orthotics or more supportive shoes have been known to provide pain relief. Stretching exercises which strengthen the muscles are another approach to fallen arches treatment. Your foot doctor or physical therapist may recommend exercises that include actions such as lifting small objects with your toes in order to contract the arch. Boots, braces, and casts are other common approaches to treatment. Inflammatory medications are also prescribed to provide pain relief. Finding a Podiatrist Who Cares Unfortunately, fallen arches are not taken as seriously as they should be. At Superior Foot & Ankle Care Center, our expert podiatrists view surgery as a last resort and support instilling patient education, preventive methods, and proper foot health as the primary course of action. The care we offer is rooted in extensive podiatric knowledge, as well as our dedicated and sincere concern for our patients. Fallen arches may have gotten your arches down, but we will help you take a step in the right direction to achieving happier, healthier feet. Contact us today for an appointment at our Long Beach office.
Today, blue light is everywhere – emitted by everyday screens like smartphones, computers and other digital devices as well as by LED lights. While natural blue light from the sun is fine, artificial blue light is not. Artificial blue light is a problem for two reasons: we spend a lot of time front of our devices and our eyes are too close to these devices – often within arm’s length. Too much blue light from our devices and light sources can lead to eye strain – a problem that worsens with age. Other studies have shown that too much exposure to blue light can damage light-sensitive cells in the retina, which may lead to long-term problems such as cataracts, snow blindness and macular degeneration. Worse, when consumed at night, blue light can affect circadian rhythms and suppress melatonin production. This disrupts sleep patterns, causes insomnia, and has negative long-term health consequences. In addition, melatonin is an important agent for fighting cancer. This is a particular problem in hospitals, assisted living and other medical facilities. LED lights make it difficult for patients to fall asleep faster and get more restful sleep, leading to longer recovery times. Health industry concerns When it comes to screens, the problem with blue light, according to the Harvard Health Letter, is “Not all colors of light have the same effect… Blue wavelengths seem to be the most disruptive at night. And the proliferation of electronics with screens, as well as energy-efficient lighting, is increasing our exposure to blue wavelengths, especially after sundown.” “The more research we do, the more evidence we have that excess artificial light at night can have a profound, deleterious effect on many aspects of human health,” Charles Czeisler, PhD, MD, told WebMD. Czeisler is the chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and is also director of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School. “It is a growing public health concern.” The problem isn’t limited to office lighting and electronic screens. According to WebMD, “the American Medical Association … issued a statement showing concerns that the new ultra-bright light-emitting diode (LED) lamps many cities are now using in their streetlights could ‘contribute to the risk of chronic disease.’” WebMD also cited a study in which “people in a sleep lab who read from an e-reader at night saw their nighttime melatonin levels drop by 55% after five days, took longer to fall asleep, had less restorative rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and felt more groggy the next day than those reading a paper book.” A different study evaluating the impact of light on teenagers found that “just an hour of exposure from a glowing device, like a phone, suppressed melatonin by 23%; two hours decreased it by 38%.” To protect ourselves from blue light at night, the Harvard Health Letter recommended the following: - Replace any white nightlight bulb (which may emit blue light) with a colored bulb. For example, red light “has the least power to shift circadian rhythms and suppress melatonin,” a chemical that can help induce sleep. - Put down your device, stop watching TV or looking at bright screens about two hours before the time you want to go to sleep. - Consider wearing blue-blocking lenses if you work at night or constantly use screens at night. You might also want to install filters in your lamps to reduce blue light. In addition, choose your LED lighting carefully. Today there are an increasing number of human-centric lighting solutions that tune to the body’s circadian rhythms. However, truly healthy lighting must do more than adjust the visual color temperature, because that doesn’t reduce the amount of blue light. Instead look for solutions that remove blue light from the equation. Follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to a more restful night of sleep and a healthier future. Aurea Lighting is changing the lighting landscape with brilliantly healthy LED light panels that maintain energy efficiency while maximizing the health of those under them. Its healthy lighting enhances the body’s circadian rhythms. By “tuning” the wavelength to mimic natural light, our lighting increases alertness during the day or restfulness at night and improves overall biological and emotional well-being. To learn more, visit www.BambuGlobal/aurea-lighting.com
The month of March brings Nyepi – the day of silence throughout the whole of Bali Island. In the Balinese Hindu lunar calendar (Saka), Nyepi is New Year’s Day. It falls on the 7th of March, 2019. It is the first day of the 10th month of New Saka calendar year of 1941. It is the first night of the moon starts waxing. The day to implement Catur Brata Penyepian, the four religious restrictions are to be observed and practiced within a 24 hour day. No Travel, No Amusement, No Fire, No Work. It is a day wholly dedicated to rest, staying in, turning off the lights and keeping quiet for 24 hours. It is one of the biggest and most unique ceremonies of the year, where staying in and resting is enforced by bylaws. It is practiced island-wide where the Balinese dedicate an entire day to self-introspection, meditation, and spiritual cleansing. No businesses are open, no transport is allowed on the roads (except for emergency services), even the airport and seaports are shut down for 24 hours. Nyepi is a sacred day to give the island a break from 364 days of human activity, so Bali can replenish and recharge for the New Year. One day before Nyepi is Pengerupukan, the day to present Pecaruan, an offering dedicated to underworld spirits. It is placed on the cross roads and house gates. The offering aims at appeasing the demons. The communities also bang anything to produce the noise to awake and gather all the demons at twilight. The moment is considered the demon’s time to travel. The demons are meant to enjoy the offerings. The following day, the whole island is deserted. It indicates the whole island is emptied. The demons will leave the island because they see no man around. They have no one to play with for something coarse. All stay in house unless Pecalang, the traditional security guards are assigned to patrol the areas to ensure that no one violates the Nyepi restrictions. Some parades of ogoh-ogoh, the giant demon look dolls, are organized to be performed for public as an entertainment in the entire island. In some of regencies, it is contested. The size, color, artistic and other ornaments are to contribute to the whole demon character image to be looked at by the jury as the criterions to win the contest. Some of ogoh- ogoh look possibly illustrate the public figures whom are convicted for a crime. In some villages in Bali, they have their own auspicious day of silence, Nyepi Adat. It also occurred to Bugbug village in Karangasem regency on the 5th of February, 2019. The whole village only was shut down. Any vehicle passing through the village’s main roads is not allowed to make a single stop along the village territory to show the respect of this tradition practice. The accommodations with no exception remain operating the business within their own units’ premises only. Meals are served within restricted hours of operation. Lights at night are minimized. It won’t distract the attention of the Pecalang on duty. Experiencing the day of silence in the Island of Paradise Bali might be a memory in lifetime. You won’t find it in other parts of the world.
A Western Australian adult has been diagnosed with the Zika virus after recently returning from Central America. The WA Health Department said on Friday that it was the second case ever notified in the state, following a single case last year. Zika virus is transmitted to humans through the bites of infectious Aedes mosquitoes, most commonly Aedes aegypti, the same species that transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses in tropical countries. Most infected people have no symptoms or experience only a mild illness, but a recent increase in the number of babies born with microcephaly – a small head with abnormal brain development – has been linked to outbreaks of Zika virus in Brazil and other countries. WA Health’s chief health officer, Tarun Weeramanthri, said there was no risk to people who had not recently travelled to a Zika-affected country. “The Zika infection is only transmitted via Aedes mosquitoes and not by human-to-human contact, except possibly, very rarely, by sexual means,” Weeramanthri said. “Aedes mosquitoes are not found in Western Australia, so there is no recognised risk of the virus spreading here.” Since 2012, 23 cases of the infection have been reported in Australia and all were contracted overseas.
Medieval castles in the vicinity of Montgrí On this route we will not only travel to the past, but also the Empordà lands that are crowned by fantastic medieval fortifications that accompany us at all times. We begin with the north of Baix Empordà that is closer to the coast. Therefore, we will go from Bellcaire d'Emporda to Verges, through the Montgrí Castle and discovering charming corners that are unknown to many. We take the opportunity to learn about the traditions they have in these municipalities and help us to know a little history that has made them what they are today. In fact, this area shows traces of the Catalan past that gave rise to the shape of the Catalonia we know today and which is close to the territory. Castle Bellcaire d'Emporda was for many years a bone of contention between the counts of Empúries and the monarchy. In fact, the counts remained in the castle of Bellcaire and the monarchy, meanwhile, began to build the castle of Montgrí to assert their power. However, he did not need to finish, as the king finally took the castle of Bellcaire. For this reason, the castle of Montgrí was half and, even today, still staring at the village and the castle of Bellcaire, which is located on a hill and framed by the mountains of Valldavià and accessed from any of its narrow and steep streets. The village of Bellcaire d'Empordà presents a restored architectural ensemble carefully, so is declared a national monument. Castle Square presents this square building which is surrounded by an outer enclosure with round towers defense. Currently, this building serves as a council, like the large hall changed its use and now is the church of San Juan. Flag of Catalonia, the end of Empúries County Empúries County has resulted eventually in Empordà county and this was one of the last to join the Crown of Catalonia and Aragon. In fact, the history of Empúries County capitulation before the actual power is what Good Friday is narrated in the spectacle of flag of Catalonia, the end of Empúries County organized by the neighbors of the population. It was born from the hands of Stephen Albert and Corp who wrote the text of the work on the county. In this representation the events recounted in the thirteenth century, when James I the Conqueror received in the reunified heritage of Catalonia and Occitania by the Crown of Aragon and that was in full Mediterranean expansion area. The show also extends to early fourteenth century when James II, grandson of James I, extended the domains of the Crown of Aragon. The representation of the show Flag of Catalonia, the end of Empúries County for a few days accompanied Market Counts where we find food tastings, samples of trades and crafts. Montgrí massif majestic shown in the area and demands our attention, not only by the view from your feet, but also by the view offered from above. So, we can not recommend an excursion to the castle of Montgrí or Santa Catalina, the name given to the mountain where it is located. We've all heard previously, it is that the castle of Montgri has been defined in different ways. For example, some say that is a stone lighthouse that illuminates the Baix Empordà, since for many years has served to guide fishermen and farmers in the area; also it is said to be the nipple protruding from this mountain; or even, some say he sees the silhouette of a bishop resting in peace after a long life and still wears his ring, which represents the castle. The path that leads us up is the path GR-92 and takes us through barren fields where we still find old terraces and dry stone walls where there had been vineyards. Once the trail climbs, the road becomes a scree that leads us to the foot of the castle where we see the remains of the quarry that was used for its construction. At this point, the fortress built in 1294 tells its function as a control point Empúries County by the monarchy. As we said, its construction was half as Barcelona County consolidated its strength against the counts of Empúries. From the castle of Montgrí Once up, the only gateway to Montgrí Castle is located on the main facade. It consists of a semicircular arch supported by large segments that indicate the transition from architectural construction astride the Romanesque and Gothic that is evident in the details that shows this construction means and that if he had finished to build now we not appreciate. Inside are large tanks that had been prepared to supply the stalkers troops County Empúries. We also found stays in the round towers on each corner of the castle, plus a spiral staircase that let get us to the top the walls and towers. The views from up here are fantastic and allow us to see the town of Torroella de Montgrí, the Ter River, the Gulf of Roses, Cape Creus, Estartit and the Medes Islands. To finish this route, we will go to the last point of visit: the castle of Verges where we enter this villa surrounded by medieval air with ancient walls and towers still standing. The Ter river gave life to people born and grow and today still waters of the canal Mill ply the houses that are next to the wall. The oldest part of the town of Verges is walled with the openings of the gates to the main square and two towers, one square and one round, built in the thirteenth and fifteenth century respectively. Verges Castle which was built in the twelfth century and which gave rise to the population are few samples. Only one wall is now holding the town hall and together with the square in front and schools form the walled area. Inside wall also we find the parish church of San Julián and Santa Basilia that still retains the ship and part of the apse of the Romanesque church. Traditions preserved in these populations, as we have seen above, have a clear reference to its medieval past. In the case of Verges, one of the most traditional festivals it is related to the custom that had the feudal lord of the territory that was feeding the townspeople. This tradition is recovered every Shrove Tuesday. A soup cooked with what is acquired during the last of the soup is to go house to house and group the ingredients needed to make it done then. Since potatoes, chickpeas or meat and in some cases even money. Once cooked, the inhabitants and visitors of the population tested the soup cooked with all the ingredients listed and that both feel cold season. Procession of Verges This tradition is known throughout the country and, indeed, have a more extensive explanation in our path Passions we recommend visit to discover everything they offer us the celebrations of Holy Week in Catalonia. Procession of Verges is held on Holy Thursday and his most famous and best known is the part that represents the picture of the Dance of Death in ten skeletons dance to the drum marks the rhythm symbols ash, scythe the clock and the flag, indicating respectively, the dust in which we will, the tool to collect the fruits that gives us life, the passage of time and the constant presence of death before men, without exception. What to do Where to eat Where to sleep
It’s that time of the year – the first round of testing is coming up if it hasn’t happened already. Testing can be a stressful time for both parent and child! The good news is that even if your child doesn’t perform as well as you had hoped, there is good reason to be optimistic! What we need to do is be prepared and be ready to carry out a good plan of action should test scores be less than stellar. Ideas to consider: 1. Start by evaluating the situation to determine what is going on, focusing on what you know about your child. It always helps me process if I actually list my thoughts on paper. a. List what is easy for her, what she's good at, and how she's smart. In what areas do you feel she is capable, confident, and focused? Be very specific both in general characteristics (such as creativity, inventiveness, compassion, and empathy) as well as those things that relate to school. b. Identify in like manner what is hard for your child. Be very specific in terms of general characteristics (such as disorganized with belongings, following directions, etc.) as well as specific things relating to the classroom that are hard for him. What were the specific skills the testing identified as weak? 2. Consider options to help. a. What does the school suggest as a plan of action? Wait a bit to see if things improve? Pursue testing to rule out a disability? Extra help in the classroom or at home? b. What do you feel about this plan and how effective it will be for your child? c. How would your child respond to this plan? Will it help her do better in school? What do the tests actually show? What if poor test performance is simply the result of a mismatch between learning style and teaching style? Actually, the brain is designed to learn; it wants to learn. I have seen many situations in which children were failing until the presentation of material changed. Suddenly learning was easy. If your child did poorly on some tests, it is highly likely that he or she is a visual, right-brained learner who needs materials designed for that brain-strength. - Traditional classrooms present material in a left-brained manner - Roughly 66% of children prefer a right-brained approach (or an approach that takes the left-brained content and presents it within right-brained elements for learning) - Testing will primarily reveal how successful your child is at performing within a left-brained environment What I want you to come away with is a sense of confidence that you know your child and that you can trust your judgment in choosing a way to help her. I want you to embrace your child with his particular learning gifts, knowing that if he can’t learn the way another child learns it doesn’t mean he is incapable. I want you to know that learning is easy when we get the method right. We are here to help both with feedback and with materials designed for visual, right-brained learners. Please also look at these blog posts for specific helps: How to Help Your Child With Common Reading Challenges and Why You Should Teach Math in a Right-Brained Way. The first blog talks in detail about specific issues with reading and language and how to help. The second article tackles difficulties with math and how to help. This will be good! Remember, we are here to answer questions and to be a sounding board. If you want more direction about helping your child, please call us at 800-881-0912 or email us at email@example.com
Your Java class files run on a JVM - a "Java Virtual Machine" which is a program that reads the instructions in the (binary) class file and performs them. Although the class files are "architecture independent" - in other words, the same class file will work on an Intel and a PowerPC chip, and on Linux, Unix and Windows, the JVM is NOT portable in this way and you must have the right one for your system. The JVM is the running "engine" of Java, but just as most of us don't just buy an engine, we buy a complete car ... so it is with Java. Most of us need a JRE - a "Java Runtime Environment" which is a JVM plus all the standard classes which are needed to support our own piece of code. Even in a simple read / calculate / report program , you'll need to load in other standard classes to do jobs like handle command line data, convert a String of characters into a number, and produce output to the current window. All of those standard methods are in the JRE. Most users of Java programs will simply be running classes through a JVM with the support of a JRE, but the developers of Java programs will also need a way to turn the programs they write, in the "English-like" Java language stored in text files which can be edited easily - into those binary class files which run very mcuh quicker that a language that runs straight from the text (a 'truely interpretive language') but are impractical to edit. And those developers need not only the JVM and the supporting JRE, but also a JDK - that's a "Java Development kit" which amongst other things includes the java compiler program (javac) to convert english-like source into quickly-run binary. 1. "JSP"s - which are Java Server Pages, run on a web server, include Java source code within the web page. This means that if you're running JSPs on your web server, even if you're not developing any code / pages yourself, you will need the full JDK loaded ... onto not only your test and development servers, but also your production server! 2. You'll very often compile your Java code on a different computer to the one it's finally going to run on - your programmer's computer is really the one that you should be creating / maintaining programs on, and that should NOT be your live server. However, you must have a complete set of all the classes that your Java code calls up when it runs on your development machine - not only is that sensible because it lets you test your code (ALWAYS test even the smallest of changes - that advise comes from experience!) but also Java insists as it won't let you compile something if the classes that the compiled code relies on aren't available for it to check your code 'against'. JINI, JMX, JXTA, JAXB, JAXP, JAXR, SAAJ, JAX-RPC, JNI, JAXM ... are all extra technologies that you may wish to use in addition to your 'core Java'. Most of the ones I have listed are additional bundles of class files (known as "packages") which provide extra functionality for Java without the developer having to write it himself. They're accessed via method calls through their API (Application Programmer Interfaces) and to make good use of them, you need to (a) load them, (b) read the documentation / look at the samples and (c) understand something about what they actually do. The AWT, Swing, and many other elements are also extra technologies, but these particular examples are classes / packages that are bundled with the JRE distribution, so there's no need (in these cases) to download and install them separately. (written 2009-09-26) Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articlesA501 - Web Application Deployment - Java - Basic Language Overview Java on the Web Server - course for delegates with some prior Java experience - (2009-04-06) Java oversold? - (2006-09-19) Web Application Components - (2006-03-28)J601 - Java Introduction First Java Application - calculating the weight of a tablecloth - (2014-11-29) All the Cs ... and Java too - (2009-12-13) Finding your java program - the CLASSPATH variable - (2009-04-02) Java CLASSPATH explained - (2008-11-26) Diagrams to show you how - Tomcat, Java, PHP - (2008-08-22) Trying out our Java examples on our web site - (2008-02-27) Training Season Starts again! - (2008-01-07) Effective Java training - the bootcamp approach - (2007-12-09) A Golf Club Decision - Perl to Java - (2007-11-01) Private Java Course - A customer's pictures - (2007-04-22) Java 6, Apache Tomcat 6. - (2007-01-21) Is Java the right language to learn? - (2006-07-04) Programming languages - a comparison - (2005-05-20) PHP v Java - (2004-11-20) Training notes available under Open Distribution license - (2004-11-07) Release numbers - (2004-08-23) Some other Articles Operator overloading - redefining addition and other Perl tricksWhich version of MySQL am I running?Weekend and Christmas Promotion - Well House Manor Hotel, MelkshamA Winter Weekend Special at Well House ManorWhat is a JVM, a JRE, a JDK - components of the core Java EnvironmentLooking inside Java classes - javap and javadocSorting Collections of Objects in JavaExceptions in Java - why and howWhere is my Java class?Viv.java uses unchecked or unsafe operations - explanation and cure
Recovering from Disaster Disaster strikes anytime, anywhere. It takes many forms; a tornado, a flood, a fire, a hazardous materials spill, a winter storm, or an act of terrorism. A disaster can build over days, even weeks, or hit suddenly, with no warning. They are incidents that could pose threat to life, safety, and property beyond the response capabilities of local and state government. Each year, millions of Americans are devastated by the consequences of disasters. Recovering from a disaster is a gradual process. Safety is a primary issue, as are mental and physical well-being. If assistance is available, knowing how to access it can make the process faster and less stressful. The National Disaster Recovery Framework is a guide that enables effective recovery support to disaster-impacted states, tribes, territorial, and local jurisdictions. It provides a flexible structure that enables disaster recovery managers to operate in a unified and collaborative manner. It also focuses on how best to restore, redevelop, and revitalize the health, social, economic, natural and environmental fabric of the community and build a more resilient Nation.
A pioneering acne study that took four years, 16 researchers and the gunk extracted from the nose pores of 101 volunteers has yielded surprising new insights — ones that could spur innovative new treatments for the age-old skin affliction. “It’s a very interesting paper,” said Dr. Robert Dellavalle, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of Colorado who was not involved with the study. Published Thursday in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, the study used cutting-edge technology to analyze the connection between acne and the microbiome — the trillions of microbes that blanket our bodies. Scientists have long recognized the link between acne and a bacterium called Propionibacterium acnes, or P. acnes. But how the bacteria causes pimples, or why it causes breakouts in some people and not others, is still poorly understood. In the new study, UCLA researchers used metagenomic sequencing, a powerful tool that can analyze the DNA of entire microbial communities. When they compared the bacterial profiles of healthy skin versus pimply skin, the results were “not what we expected,” according to lead author Dr. Huiying Li, an associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA. For Li, the first surprise was that P. acnes dominated everyone’s pores, not just acne sufferers — it made up roughly 90 per cent of the microbial community inside the pores, regardless of skin type. What differed between the two groups of volunteers were the strains of P. acnes. “There were two kinds of strains that were mostly associated with acne, hardly found in any normal skin,” Li said. “That suggests these P. acne strains probably are linked to the disease. “But more surprisingly — actually, more exciting for us — is we found that there is another strain, a third type of strain, that is mostly found in normal skin,” she said. “We had thought that P. acnes was the bad guy . . . we didn’t really think there could be a good one that could protect us.” Technological innovations in the last decade have spurred an explosion of research into the microbiome, leading to all sorts of startling new medical insights about microbes’ impact on human health. This new paper — which was funded by the Human Microbiome Project, an initiative to genetically sequence every human microbe — provides further evidence that bacteria can both harm and help us, said Dr. Richard Gallo, chief of dermatology at the University of California, San Diego. Gallo, who was not involved with the study, said this paper is the first to show that acne sufferers may have different types of P. acnes. “It provides an essential new understanding of the difference in the ecology between healthy skin and skin of patients with acne,” he wrote in an email. Acne is a disfiguring skin disease and affects up to 85 per cent of teenagers and 11 per cent of adults, according to the paper. The study, which took place between 2008 and 2011, enlisted 49 volunteers with acne and 52 people with healthy skin. Researchers collected their bacteria using over-the-counter cleansing strips, which are stuck to the wet nose and then peeled away, lifting out any whiteheads or blackheads. Laboratory technician Bor-Han Chiu had the unenviable task of carefully collecting the nose pore “plugs” (called microcomedones) with a pair of sterilized tweezers — a painstaking process that took maybe 30 minutes per strip, according to Li. Chiu said some strips had nearly a hundred plugs or “huge microcomedones” but those were easier; the difficult strips were from the healthy noses. “For those with only one or two microcomedones, so tiny that they can barely be seen, searching through the strip several times can be energy consuming,” he wrote in an email. Chiu then extracted the DNA, which he prepared for sequencing. More than 1,000 strains were isolated and researchers sequenced the genomes of 66 strains of P. acnes, many of which had never been sequenced before. Li said the discovery of the “good” strain raises the possibility that P. acnes could even become an ally in the battle against bad skin. The study’s findings also suggest that current medications, which wipe out all forms of P. acnes, may be too blunt a force. The role of bacteria isn’t everything when it comes to acne, however, and many other factors also contribute to the disease, including a person’s immune system response or sebaceous gland activity. But Li hopes her research could lead to customized treatments, tailored to each individual’s unique “cocktail” of skin bacteria. “Acne is such an important disease but underemphasized because it’s not fatal,” she said. “It’s not considered as important, for example, as cancer. But so many people suffer from the disease (which can be) psychologically and socially disadvantageous.”
To ensure that GE’s wind blades do not pose noise issues today, airfoil level acoustic measurements are performed in wind tunnels, field measurements are done to validate acceptable noise levels, and noise-reducing operating modes are implemented in the control system. Better modeling will help maintain the current low noise levels while boosting output.“Sandia and other DOE national laboratories are using high-performance computing resources to tackle complex design problems in wind energy, such as reducing turbine blade noise to achieve significant reductions in cost-of-energy. Sandia helped GE gain valuable insights into blade noise mechanisms and how design engineers can improve their models,” said Matt Barone, of Sandia’s Aerosciences Department, formerly of the Wind Energy Technologies Department. GE’s testing involved Sandia’s Red Mesa supercomputer running a high-fidelity Large Eddy Simulation (LES) code, developed at Stanford University, to predict the detailed fluid dynamic phenomena and resulting wind blade noise. For a period of three months, this LES simulation of the turbulent air flow past a wind blade section was continuously performed on the Red Mesa HPC. The resulting flow-field predictions yielded valuable insights that were used to assess current engineering design models, the assumptions they make that most impact noise predictions, and the accuracy and reliability of model choices. “We found that high fidelity models can play a key role in accurately predicting trailing edge noise,” Jonkhof went on to say. “We believe that the results achieved from our simulations would, at the very least, lay the groundwork for improved noise design models.” About GE Global Research GE Global Research is the hub of technology development for all of GE's businesses. Our scientists and engineers redefine what’s possible, drive growth for our businesses, and find answers to some of the world’s toughest problems. We innovate 24 hours a day, with sites in Niskayuna, New York; San Ramon, California; Bangalore, India; Shanghai, China; Munich, Germany; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Ginger is a heat loving tropical plant. If you live in a cool or cold northern climate you will only be able to grow ginger indoors as even summer temperatures are too cold for this sensitive root. Ginger is not a fast growing plant so the first year you may see little reward. In the second year the ginger plant should produce a flower. Ginger plants produce beautiful flowers and are fun to watch grow on your windowsill or covered porch. Chose a ginger root that has small fresh green buds on it. Fresh ginger can be purchased at most grocery stores. Fill a planting pot with compost. If you do not have access to a compost pile you can buy it is small bags from most garden stores. Bury half the ginger root in the compost and pat down the soil around it. Water the newly planted ginger root thoroughly and keep the soil damp throughout the spring and summer months. Place the ginger root in a warm sunny spot inside such as a windowsill, covered porch or warm greenhouse. In the fall the ginger plant will die back. Discontinue watering and let the soil dry out over the winter. In the spring resume watering and the plant will begin to produce shoots again.
sodium chloride (Injection route)Pronunciation Commonly used brand name(s) In the U.S. - Sterile Saline Diluent Tip-Lok Syringe Available Dosage Forms: Therapeutic Class: Parenteral Electrolyte, Sodium Uses For sodium chloride Sodium chloride as a 20% solution is given by injection into the uterus to cause abortion. It is to be administered only by or under the immediate care of your doctor. Before Using sodium chloride In deciding to use a medicine, the risks of taking the medicine must be weighed against the good it will do. This is a decision you and your doctor will make. For sodium chloride, the following should be considered: Tell your doctor if you have ever had any unusual or allergic reaction to sodium chloride or any other medicines. Also tell your health care professional if you have any other types of allergies, such as to foods, dyes, preservatives, or animals. For non-prescription products, read the label or package ingredients carefully. \|All Trimesters\|\|C\|\|Animal studies have shown an adverse effect and there are no adequate studies in pregnant women OR no animal studies have been conducted and there are no adequate studies in pregnant women.\| Studies in women suggest that this medication poses minimal risk to the infant when used during breastfeeding. Interactions with Medicines Although certain medicines should not be used together at all, in other cases two different medicines may be used together even if an interaction might occur. In these cases, your doctor may want to change the dose, or other precautions may be necessary. Tell your healthcare professional if you are taking any other prescription or nonprescription (over-the-counter [OTC]) medicine. Interactions with Food/Tobacco/Alcohol Certain medicines should not be used at or around the time of eating food or eating certain types of food since interactions may occur. Using alcohol or tobacco with certain medicines may also cause interactions to occur. Discuss with your healthcare professional the use of your medicine with food, alcohol, or tobacco. Other Medical Problems The presence of other medical problems may affect the use of sodium chloride. Make sure you tell your doctor if you have any other medical problems, especially: - Bleeding problems or - Epilepsy or - Heart or blood vessel disease or - High blood pressure (hypertension) or - Kidney disease—Sodium chloride injection may make these conditions worse or increase the chance of side effects occurring - Fibroid tumors of the uterus—Large fibroid tumors may cause a problem with injecting sodium chloride into the uterus. Special injection precautions can be taken by the doctor if he knows that you have this type of tumor - Previous major surgery of the uterus, including a cesarean—Scars in the uterus from any previous surgery of the uterus may increase the chance of medical problems occurring. Special precautions can be taken by the doctor to prevent problems from occurring Proper Use of sodium chloride During the procedure, you will be awake and asked questions about how you are doing by the health care team. This helps them to react quickly to any problems you might have and to keep side effects to a minimum. The dose of sodium chloride will be different for different patients. Follow your doctor's orders or the directions on the label. The following information includes only the average doses of sodium chloride. If your dose is different, do not change it unless your doctor tells you to do so. The amount of medicine that you take depends on the strength of the medicine. Also, the number of doses you take each day, the time allowed between doses, and the length of time you take the medicine depend on the medical problem for which you are using the medicine. Precautions While Using sodium chloride Do not have sexual intercourse and avoid using tampons or douches for 2 to 3 weeks after the abortion to allow your body time to heal. This will also help protect you from getting an infection of the vagina or uterus. Spotting (or slight bleeding from the uterus) is normal after the abortion. This may continue for 2 weeks. Heavier spotting or uterine bleeding should be reported to your health care professional. Contraception should be considered for the near future because you may ovulate before your first menstrual period. Your first menstrual period will occur 4 to 6 weeks after the abortion. sodium chloride Side Effects Along with its needed effects, a medicine may cause some unwanted effects. Although not all of these side effects may occur, if they do occur they may need medical attention. Check with your doctor immediately if any of the following side effects occur:Less common - Excessive blood loss - burning pain in lower abdomen - chest pain, severe - convulsions (seizures) - feeling of heat - feeling of warmth in lips and tongue - headache (severe or dull) - numbness of the fingertips - pain in lower back, pelvis, or stomach - ringing in the ears - shortness of breath - thirst (sudden) or salty taste - vision problems After the procedure is completed, some side effects may occur that need medical attention. Check with your doctor if you notice any of the following side effects: - Abdominal cramping - bad smelling discharge from vagina - bleeding at place of injection - chills or shivering - increase in bleeding from the uterus - pain in lower abdomen - passing of pieces of tissue from the uterus - redness at place of injection Other side effects not listed may also occur in some patients. If you notice any other effects, check with your healthcare professional. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088. See also: Side effects (in more detail) The information contained in the Truven Health Micromedex products as delivered by Drugs.com is intended as an educational aid only. It is not intended as medical advice for individual conditions or treatment. It is not a substitute for a medical exam, nor does it replace the need for services provided by medical professionals. Talk to your doctor, nurse or pharmacist before taking any prescription or over the counter drugs (including any herbal medicines or supplements) or following any treatment or regimen. Only your doctor, nurse, or pharmacist can provide you with advice on what is safe and effective for you. The use of the Truven Health products is at your sole risk. These products are provided "AS IS" and "as available" for use, without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Truven Health and Drugs.com make no representation or warranty as to the accuracy, reliability, timeliness, usefulness or completeness of any of the information contained in the products. Additionally, TRUVEN HEALTH MAKES NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE OPINIONS OR OTHER SERVICE OR DATA YOU MAY ACCESS, DOWNLOAD OR USE AS A RESULT OF USE OF THE THOMSON REUTERS HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS. ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR USE ARE HEREBY EXCLUDED. Truven Health does not assume any responsibility or risk for your use of the Truven Health products. Copyright 2015 Truven Health Analytics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. More about sodium chloride - Saline bacteriostatic - Sodium chloride - Sodium chloride nebulizer solution - Sodium chloride solution - Sodium chloride inhalation - More (2) »
Humidity and Art: Moisture Damage to Artwork What can humidity do to art and artifacts? Humidity can cause a variety of issues with art and artifacts if not monitored properly and addressed quickly. As the air’s humidity increases and decreases, many materials respond by changing their physical form. Depending on the medium, humidity could cause bending and warping, cracks and splits, small breaks or separation of pieces. A dangerous humidity level could also affect an artifact or piece of art on a chemical level. Metal pieces could experience corrosion, paper could turn to a yellow shade, and dyes could fade on fabrics and other materials. If the relative humidity level is high enough, mold and fungi growth could begin to occur. What do we do? Museums and conservation labs take extra precautions to monitor and manage the amount of water in the air within storage spaces. Special equipment can be purchased that reads the humidity level of the space and provides continual data that can be monitored remotely from any computer or via phone app. However, just because a piece of art or artifact may be affected by humidity, many of these issues caused by humidity can be treated by a professional conservator (depending on the specifics of the situation). It is always best to check with a professional conservator when preparing precious art or artifacts for storage or before trying to clean or repair humidity damage on your own.
Despite California’s success in reducing tobacco use, a new study published today in JAMA Network Open demonstrates the continued and significant burden tobacco inflicts on people with cancer. The study was conducted by researchers at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center who used data collected from the California Cancer Registry, a state-mandated population-based cancer surveillance system managed by UC Davis. The study looked at people diagnosed with one of 12 tobacco-related cancers from 2014-2019 in California. The analyses showed that close to half of the cancer deaths over two years, between 2017 – 2019 (totaling 93,764 Californians), were associated with tobacco use. “This is almost double what was previously estimated in a study that looked at 2014 data,” said California Cancer Registry and UC Davis researcher Frances Maguire, who is the lead author of the study. “However, we believe this is a more accurate representation since tobacco use data came directly from individual patients with cancer rather than estimates based on general population surveys. This study is also specific to the 12 tobacco-related cancers.” Tobacco status data used in the study included use of cigarettes, other smoked tobacco products (such as cigars and pipes) and smokeless tobacco products (such as chewing tobacco and snuff). The use of vaping products is not yet collected by the registry. The study results showed that among the nearly 400,000 patients diagnosed with a tobacco-related cancer from 2014-2019, most were over 60 years old (72.3%). The majority (57.7%) were non-Hispanic white, were men (58%) and nearly half (46.6%) had lung or colorectal cancers.Cancers most impacted by tobacco use The greatest number of deaths attributable to tobacco, for both men and women, were from cancers of the lung and bladder. The greatest proportions of tobacco-related cancer deaths were found in the:lung (90.2%) larynx (85.6%) esophagus (58%) oral cavity/pharynx (55.5%) bladder (52.7%) Men mostly had higher proportions of tobacco-related cancers compared with women, with the largest differences seen in:liver cancer (33.9% men, 11.1% women) stomach cancer (25.9% men, 6.5% women) kidney cancer (23.8% men, 6.8% women) acute myeloid leukemia (20.8% men, 3.0% women) “Smoking remains the largest preventable cause of death from cancer and other diseases,” said UC Davis researcher Theresa Keegan, study co-author and co-principal investigator with the California Cancer Registry. “This study shows that tobacco continues to kill Californians with cancer at an alarming rate. Cancer registries can play an important role in monitoring progress for this priority population.”Tobacco use trends From 2014-2016 to 2017-2019, there was a decline in the proportion of deaths due to smoking from 48% to 45%, with larger declines for women compared with men. The overall number of smoking-attributed cancer deaths declined by approximately 10%. “Our analyses of changes over the two time periods suggest promising trends in tobacco behavior among Californians newly diagnosed with cancer, which could be related to the state’s ongoing tobacco control efforts,” senior author of the study UC Davis Health internist and tobacco researcher Elisa Tong said. In November 2016, a $2 per pack tobacco tax was passed by California voters that helps support the activities of the California Tobacco Control Program. The overall tobacco quit ratio in the study, at 69.6%, is a little higher than the general population in California of 65.9%. There was also an increase in this ratio over the two time periods, which reflects improvement after the implementation of the state tobacco tax. “Current tobacco use among the people diagnosed with cancer was higher than among the general population but decreased over time,” said Maguire. “This suggests that tobacco control efforts have contributed to a decline in cancer mortality in California, but smoking cessation efforts targeted at patients with cancer are needed.” Over half (57.6%) of Californians in the cancer study had used tobacco at some point and current tobacco use was higher than the general population (17.5% vs. 11%), totaling 69,103 patients. “What is important to note in the study findings is the number of Californians diagnosed with these 12 types of cancers that still use tobacco: about 1 in 5 men (19.6%) and 1 in 7 women (14.5%). Some people with lung cancer or laryngeal cancer had even higher use rates at 30-37%,” Tong said. “It’s important to remember that it’s never too late to quit smoking even after a cancer diagnosis because quitting can improve cancer treatment outcomes and significantly reduce mortality.” Other authors of the study included Ani S. Movsisyan, Cyllene Morris, and Arti Parikh-Patel, with UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated center serving the Central Valley and inland Northern California, a region of more than 6 million people. Its specialists provide compassionate, comprehensive care for more than 100,000 adults and children every year and access to more than 200 active clinical trials at any given time. Its innovative research program engages more than 240 scientists at UC Davis who work collaboratively to advance discovery of new tools to diagnose and treat cancer. Patients have access to leading-edge care, including immunotherapy and other targeted treatments. Its Office of Community Outreach and Engagement addresses disparities in cancer outcomes across diverse populations, and the cancer center provides comprehensive education and workforce development programs for the next generation of clinicians and scientists. For more information, visit cancer.ucdavis.edu.
Table of Contents: - What are the uses of microeconomics? - What is importance of microeconomics? - What do you think is the best economic system? - What are the central issues in the study of microeconomics? - What are the features of microeconomics? - What are the five characteristics of microeconomics? - What are the types of microeconomics? What are the uses of microeconomics? Microeconomics studies the decisions of individuals and firms to allocate resources of production, exchange, and consumption. Microeconomics deals with prices and production in single markets and the interaction between different markets but leaves the study of economy-wide aggregates to macroeconomics. What is importance of microeconomics? Importance of microeconomics Microeconomics explains the working of a capitalist economy where individual units are free to take their own decision. It describes how, in a free enterprise economy, individual units attain equilibrium position. It also helps the government in formulating correct price policies. What do you think is the best economic system? Capitalism is the world's greatest economic success story. It is the most effective way to provide for the needs of people and foster the democratic and moral values of a free society. Yet the worst recession in decades has widely--and understandably--shaken people's faith in our system. What are the central issues in the study of microeconomics? It focuses on broad issues such as growth of production, the number of unemployed people, the inflationary increase in prices, government deficits, and levels of exports and imports. Microeconomics and macroeconomics are not separate subjects, but rather complementary perspectives on the overall subject of the economy. What are the features of microeconomics? The various features of Micro economics are as follows: - i. Price Theory: - ii. Partial equilibrium: - iii. Microscopic approach: - iv. Analysis of Resource Allocation and Economic Efficiency: - This in turn, can help to answer the following questions: - V. Use of Marginalism Principle: - VI. Analysis of Market Structure: What are the five characteristics of microeconomics? - Nature of Analysis. In micro economics, the behaviour of individual consumers and producers in detail is analysed. ... - Method. Micro economics divides the economy into various small units and every unit is analysed in detail. ... - Scope. ... - Application. ... - Nature of Assumptions. What are the types of microeconomics? Microeconomics is of three types. - Micro statics. - Comparative micro statics. - Micro dynamics. - What are the 3 levels of social work? - What is the difference between Case Study and Action Research? - What is the purpose of a breaching experiment? - What are some sociological questions? - What's a cultural norm? - Does word in a sentence? - Who created social norms? - What is the phenomenological theory? - Which of the following is the best example of an ascribed status? - Which of the following is an example of social interaction? - What is ethnography approach? - What is the basic assumption of the structural functionalist perspective? - What is Dorothy Smith known for? - What is critical feminist theory? - What is the male version of a feminist? - What are feminist themes? - How do you define feminism? - What is the term for a social position that a person holds? - What is feminist view of culture? - Who was the first feminist philosopher?
We would like to honor the extraordinary heroes, National leaders, Generals, Scientists, Partisans, Diplomats, Civil Servants and the countless supremely brave Resistors -- all the individuals who helped eradicate the darkest period in history. The eleven million victims of the Nazi regime included intelligentsia, artists, homosexuals, religious groups including six million Jews, the mentally and physically disabled, prisoners of war, gypsies, and races that were deemed inferior. Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5) Sheltering the Jews - Stories of Holocaust Rescuers - Mordecai Paldiel The Heart has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers and their Stories of Courage - Mark Klempner Saving the Children- Bert Jan Flim Their Stories of Courage - Mark Klempner Rescuers; Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust - Malka Drucker Countries refusing to comply with Nazi demands of deporting Jews to Germany! National Leaders & Generals - Sir Winston Churchill Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. - Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands key to Dutch Resistance. - Franklin Delano Roosevelt 32nd President of the United States. - Harry S. Truman 33rd President of the United States. - HRH The Princess Alice of Greece & Denmark - sheltering Jewish refugees. - HRH The King of Denmark & Iceland - Elizabeth of Bavaria Queen consort of the Belgians. - General Dwight D. Eisenhower later 34th President of the United States. - Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein - Marshal Gregory Zhukov - Гео́ргий Жу́ков - General Charles de Gaulle later President of France. - General George C. Marshall Marshall Plan WWll. Diplomats and Civil Servants - Per Anger - Swedish Diplomat in Budapest, issue provisional passports to Jews. - Wladyslaw Bartoszewski - Polish Zegota activist. - Duke Roberto de Castro Brandao - Brazilian diplomat, issued diplomatic visas and passports to Jews in Marseilles, France. - Folke Bernadotte Count of Wisborg - Swedish Diplomat. Negotiated release of 27,000 people, majority Jews, to hospitals in Sweden. - Jacon (Jack) Bernardout - British diplomat to Dominican Republic. - Hiram Bingham American Vice Consul in Marseille, France 1940-1941. - Alberto Teixeira Branquinho - Hungarian Diplomat. - Angel Sanz Briz (the Angel of Budapest) - Spanish Diplomat. - Corl. José Castellanos Contreras Salvadoran General Consul in Geneva, 1942-1945. Saved at least 13,000 Central European Jews. - Eduardo Propper de Callejon - Spanish Diplomat. Saved thousands of Jews in WWII. - Luis Martins de Souza Dantas - illegally issued Brazilian diplomatic visas to hundreds of French Jews. - Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz - German diplomat in Denmark. - Carlos de Sampayo Garrido - Hungarian Diplomat. - Heorg Ferdinand Duckwitz - German diplomatic attaché in Denmark, alerted Danish politician Hans Hedtoft, and enabled rescue of the Danish Jews. - Frank Foley - British M16 agent undercover as passport officer in Berlin issued forged passports to Britain and the British Mandate of Palestine. - Albert Göring - Berman businessman (and younger brother of leading Nazi Hermann Göring) who helped Jews and dissidents survive in Germany. - Paul Grunginger- Swiss commander of police, provided falsely dated papers to over 3,000 refugees so that they could escape Austria after the Anschluss. - Kiichiro Higuchi- Japanese lieutenant general who saved 20,000 Jewish refugees. - Wilm Hosenfeld - German officer who helped pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew amongst many others. - Lucas Karrer - Mayor of Zakynthos, Greece refused to hand over list of Jews. - Prince Constantin Karadja - Romanian diplomat, saved over 51,000 Jews from deportation and extermination, as credited by Yad Vashem in 2005. - Carl Lutz, (1895 – 1975) Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest, Hungary from 1942 until the end of World War II. He is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi Extermination camps during the Holocaust. - Shyqyri Myrto - Albanian Muslim honoured for rescuing Jews, with Anti-Defamation League's Courage to Care Award. - George Mandel-Mantello El Salvador's honorary consul in Geneva for Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia - Aristides de Sousa Mendes do Amaral e Abranches, (1885 - 1954) Portuguese diplomat in France, issued 30,000 visas to Jews and other minorities which cost him his career. - Giovanni Palatucci - Chief of the Foreigner's Office, Fiume, Italy - Giuseppe Maria Palatucci - Catholic Bishop of Campagna - Giorgio Perlasca (1910 – 1992) Italian who posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved thousands of Jews from Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. - Guiseppe Roncalli - future Pope John XXIII issued transit visas from the Apolostic Delegation in Istanbul, Turkey. - Chiune Sugihara, 杉原千畝 (1900 - 1986) Vice Consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing them transit visas to travel to Japan. - Ho Feng Shan - Chinese Consul General to Austria, saved tens of thousands of Jews with fake diplomatic passes. - Rafael Leonids Trujillo- Dominican Dictator, promised to receive 100,000 Jews into Dominican Republic in 1938 post the international conference in Evian. Dominican Republic was only nation accepting Jews after the conference. - Selâhattin Ülkümen, (1914 – 2003) Turkish diplomat and consul in Rhodes during the Second World War, who assisted many local Jews to escape the Holocaust. - Raoul Wallenberg Swedish Diplomat. - Sir Nicholas George Winton (Wertheimer) British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for them and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. The UK press has dubbed him the "British Schindler". Spiritual Leaders and Scientists - Leo Baeck German-Polish Rabbi, Scholar. - Niels Bohr Nobel Laureate - The Manhattan Project. - Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Pastor, Theologian, Martyr. - Bishop Chrysostomos- Zakynthos offered his name and that of the Mayor's to Germans. - Archbiship Damaskinos - Archbishop of Athens during German Occupation. He quietly ordered chuches under his jurisdiction to fake Christian baptismal certificates to Jews fleeing the Nazis. - Archbishop Johannes de Jong - later Cardinal of Utrecht, Netherlands. Together with Titus Brandsma O. Carm (Dachau 1942) a letter that called for all Catholics to assist persecuted Jews, and openly condemned the Nazi German deportation of our Jewish fellow citizens (From: Herderlijk Schriven, read from all pulpits Sunday 26 January 1942). - Alfred Delp S.J. - Jesuit Priest, helped Jews escape to Switzerland while rector of St Georg Church in suburban Munich. Also involved with Kreisau Circle. Executed 2 February 1945 in Berlin. - Rfino Niccacci - Franciscan friar and priest who sheltered Jewish refugees in Assisi, Italy from September 1943 - June 1944. - Maximilian Kolbe - Polish Conventual Franciscan friar. In the friary Kolbe provided shelter to poeple from Greater Poland, including 2000 Jews. Active radio amateur, vilifying Nazi activities through his reports. - Omelyan Kovch - Ukranian Greek Catholic Priest, deported to Treblinka camp for helping thousands of Jews. He was canonized by Pope John Paul 11. - Bernard Lichtenberg - German Catholic priest at berlin's Cathedral. Sent to Dachau because he prayed for Jews at evening prayer. - Harav Israel Meir Lau, Heroes of Israel - Marcus Lazarus Melchior Chief Rabbi Denmark. - J. Robert Oppenheimer The Manhattan Project of WWII - Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty - Irish Catholic priest, saved 4,000 Allied soldiers and Jews. Known as the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican. Retold in the movie 'The Scarlet and the Black'. - John von Neumann The Manhattan Project of WWII - Sister Sara Salkahazi - Hungarian Roman Catholic nun who sheltered approximately 100 Jews in Budapest and saved thousands of Hungarian Jews. Recognised by Yad Vashem as well as beatified. - Martha Ingham Sharp - Archbishop Stefan of Sofia - Bishop of Sofia and Exarch of Bulgaria, protested against deportation of approximately 50,000 Jews. - Audrey Sheptytsky - Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukranian Greek Catholic Church, harboured hundreds of Jews in his residence and in Greek Catholic monastries. He issued the pastoral letter, Thou Shalt not Kill to protest Nazi atrocities. - Rav Yisroel Spira of Bluzhev, Spiritual Light of Bergen-Belsen. - Pastor Andre Trocme and Magda Trocme - French Paster and his wife, led the Le Chambon-sur-Lignon village movement that saved between 3500 - 5000 Jews. - Alan Turing Deciphered the German Enigma code. - Elie Wiesel Nobel Laureate, Author, Survivor. Partisans / Resistance Fighters - Adolf Avraham Berman Polish Editor, Leader Underground Resistance - Tuvia Bielski The Bielski Partisans' Commander. - Members of the Belgian Resistance - held up a train to Auschwitz freeing 231 people. - Dagobert Biermann Communist and German resistance fighter against National Socialism. Deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was killed on August 2, 1943. - Beneschek Sudenten German and Communist, hiding in Bialystok under a false identity. Employed Jews and Poles in his textile mill, making it possible for Jews to smuggle arms into the ghetto, provided them with false documents and money. - Arnold Bruynje - Mendel Borensztain - fought as partizan in battle with the Lita Groups and Polish Soldiers. - Johan Hendrik Bruijnjé - Genevieve de Gaulle Anthonioz Author - Helena de Wit - Gerta Hilton-Vrbova - Lion Feuchtwanger Prominent Playwright, Nazis designated as the "Enemy of the state number one" - Artur Frank - Tamas Frank - Jan Karski- Polish emissary of Armia Krajowa to Western Allies, and eye witness of the Holocaust. - Necdet Kent - Turkish Consul General at Marseille, granted Turkish citizenship to hundreds of Jews. At one point he entered an Auschwitz-bound train at enormous personal risk to save 70 Jews to whom he had granted Turkish citizenship, from deportation. - Dr. Bela Kiraly Military Historian - Kudlatschek a Sudeten German, in charge of the motor pool of all the textile mills in Bialystok, providing transport in his own car for Jews travelling to partisan territory, and transporting arms back to the Jewish resistance organization in the ghetto from Grodno and other distant towns. - Valdemar Langlet Swedish Publisher - Signe Langlet - Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort Key member of the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler] - Yashe Yankel Mazovi Founding Member of Iskra Jewish Partisans] - Jaap Nunes-Vaz Dutch Journalist - Niska Finnish Adventurer - Erwin Planck German politician - Witold Pilecki Member of the Polish Home Army - Dimitar Peshev- Minister of Justice, World War 11, Bulgaria, impeded deportation of 50,000 Jews, which was stopped. Later charged with anti-Semitism and anti-Communism and sentenced to death, sentenc commented and served one year. - Rudolf Vrba Rosenberg Mastermind of the Vrba-Wetzler Report] - The Reverend Waitstill Hastings Sharp - Cornelis Sieswerda Dutch Resistance - Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk, Graf von Stauffenberg Key member of the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler] - Hannah Szenes Paratrooper (behind Nazi conquered lines) Heroic Individuals of Tremendous Moral Courage Other heroic individuals - Irena Berman - Jacob Berman - Hon. Randolph Churchill, Son of Prime Minister, Winston Churchill - Endre Káldori, a Hungarian Stamp Maker - Holocaust Memoir of a Latvian Jew - Imre Reshka Reich - Josef Rosensaft - Emilie Schindler - Oskar Schindler, German industrialist Schindler's List Rescue Operation - Alexander Franz Clemens Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg - Berthold Alfred Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg - Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg - Afke Sipkema - Rudolph Steckl - Trijntje Sieswerda - Klara Somogyiova - Alexander Straubaum - Marie and Emile Taquet- Belgium, sheltered Jewish boys in a residential school or home. - Margarethe Ungar - Grietje Pieters Visser - William Weinberg - Jacob Wijbenga - Irena Sendler saved 2,500 children - The Irena Sendler Project Documentary: LIfe in a Jar - Irena Sendler story - Sir Nicholas Winton - BBC Programme "That's Life" aired in 1988 - Watch a Man Be Surprised by a Room Full of People He Rescued During the Holocaust - Sir Nicholas Winton - BBC Programme "That's Life" aired in 1988 - Nicholas Winton - In the Presence of Good - Uprising (2001) - Escape From Sobibor (1987) - Full Movie
In a message dated 10/1/02 8:35:58 AM Pacific Daylight Time, > Anyone have any great motivators / introductions to beginning a cubist > portrait lesson for 7th grade? You can try this, Have them make outline sketches of the portraits you want to use. This can be a good way to show proportions but even if they are crude so much the better. By using a pair of scissors cut them up in vertical and horizontal lines. Use a ruler to keep the lines straight. Take the squares and reassemble them to make the face again. Slightly shift the pieces up and down to distort the image and tape together with clear tape so that they are all one piece again. Graphite the back and transfer to paper and make a continuation of the shapes and lines after it is assembled. This could be colored with crayons, colored pencils or paint. Follow the cut lines and edges of new shapes and use different values or colors to show
Land cover: it describes the extent of vegetation, water bodies, built environments, and bare natural surfaces (eg gravel and rock) across New Zealand The exotic land cover indicator uses 10 detailed land cover classes in LCDB 5.0 grouped into the following four medium-level classes based on LAWA’s land cover classification hierarchy (see Factsheet: Land cover and why it is important): The accuracy of change in area is typically plus or minus 10 percent for large changes and plus or minus 30 percent for small changes (Dymond et al., 2017) The data comes from the New Zealand Land Cover Database (LCDB), which is a national classification of land cover and land use mapped using satellite imagery. Version 5.0 covers mainland New Zealand and the nearshore islands but not the Chatham Islands. The LCDB has five major versions (1–5), correlating to the five summer survey periods – 1996/97, 2001/02, 2008/09, 2012/13, and 2018/19. The land cover classification was developed over the first three versions. Classification changes can be tracked to allow comparison between versions.
Tooth brushing and flossing are effective in removing bacteria from teeth and gums. But, you know, 50 percent of bacteria in the mouth turns nesting on the surface of our tongue and is one of the causes of bad breath? This is why cleaning the tongue also needs to be part of our daily routine. "Bad breath is actually the result of toxic waste from bacteria in your mouth," said Marc Lowenberg, cosmetic dentist from Lowenberg, Litucy, and the Office in New York, United States, as reported by Women's Health Magazine. Quoting from Healthline, according to John D. Kling, a dentist in Vancouver, a mixture of saliva and bacteria on the tongue will stick to one another and form a layer above the surface of the tongue, called plaque. Unfortunately, removing plaque on the tongue just by rinsing it with water or rinsing it with mouthwash is not enough. Kling reasoned, when you gargle, only the outermost layer of plaque will collapse, while the bekteri below it still remains between the surface of the tongue. If the surface of your tongue tends to be cracked or curled, aka fissured tongue (an innocuous asymptomatic condition that makes the surface of the tongue look uneven), you will be more susceptible to the deposition of plaque in the mouth. Bacteria, according to Loweberg, will easily slip and hide between the cracks. In addition, bacteria can also stick to your taste bud receptors, which are textured like micro-sized buds. These receptor buds can trap bacteria which will lead to poor oral and dental health. The best and most effective way to neutralize bacteria on the tongue is to clean the tongue by scraping it using a special tongue cleanser. By eroding bacteria and poisons, you also contribute to better dental health, which leads to healthy teeth and gums. The bacteria that you clean from your tongue are responsible for things like periodontal problems, plaque buildup, tooth decay, gum infections, gum recession, and even loose teeth. How do you clean a good tongue? Although many dentists think brushing your tongue with a toothbrush is not very effective for optimal results, the American Dental Association says toothbrushes and tongue scrubbers work equally well for removing bacteria on the tongue. To clean the tongue properly and correctly, after you have brushed your teeth and gargled in the morning, use a tongue scrubbing tool from the bottom of the tongue and gently pull forward in one motion. Rinse the polisher and repeat. Do it at least 2-3 times until you feel the tongue is really clean. Don't forget to clean the side of the tongue. Finally, rinse with clean water. It's the same if you use a toothbrush. Brush your tongue slowly in one direction, from the back of the tongue to the front. You can also add a little toothpaste or soak your clean toothbrush into the mouthwash before you start brushing your tongue. Another alternative, you can use a toothbrush model that has a tongue cleaning feature on the back of the brush head. Make sure to clean your tongue at least once a day, especially on the morning after all night your body detects all poisons when you sleep. However, it would be better if you clean your tongue every time you brush your teeth in the morning and evening. - Garlic makes your mouth smell? Refuse by eating this food - Why do people get hiccups? - This habit looks trivial, but can invite dangerous diseases, you know!
During the expedition, Dallas Murphy will post questions on this page for our student explorers to ponder. Week 1 Questions Oct 4 - Underway on the Knorr 1. What do we mean by the "Arctic Circle"? 2. Where is the Arctic? 3. What countries are in the Arctic? Oct 5 - In the Irminger Sea 4. Can you name the world oceans? 5. Can you find them on a map? 6. Can you see how the oceans are connected to each other? Oct 6 - Wind on the Water For the simple reason that we live in the world, it’s important to know geography. So please haul out your maps or globes and use them to answer these questions: Pretend you’re captain of ship steaming north from the Strait of Gibraltar to the west coast of Ireland. 7. What ocean will you be in? 8. What countries will be on the right side of your ship (your “starboard hand” in nautical language)? 9. After you put in safely on the west coast of Ireland, you receive orders from the ship owners to make for Trondheim, Norway. 10. Taking the most direct route to Trondheim, what country will lie to the east of your ship? 11. What islands will lay east of your ship? 12. Now, after a safe passage, you arrive in Trondheim, Norway, and your pesky owners order you to Reykjavik, Iceland. 13. Would it be faster to pass to the north of Iceland to reach Reykjavik, or to the south? 14. Then the owners tell you to proceed from Reykjavik to Cape Farewell, Greenland. 15. What sea must you cross to reach Cape Farewell? 16. Once you put in at Cape Farwell, they want you to proceed to St. John’s, Newfoundland, but you say, “No, I quit.” And you fly home to London, England. 17. What direction will the airplane go to reach London? Oct 7 - The Angry Irminger 18. The second largest ice sheet in the world covers Greenland. Where is the largest? 19. The entire coast of Greenland is made up of fjords. What is a fjord? 20. Who are the native people of Greenland? 21. Who were the first Europeans to live in Greenland? What became of them? Oct 8 - Bridges and Galleys 22. Why do we call the sides of a ship “port” and “starboard” instead of just left and right? 23. What do these parts of a ship mean? Topsides? Beam? Transom? 24. What instrument do you use to measure a ship’s “heading”? 25. What distinguishes the “main deck” from the other decks? Oct 10 - Convection and the Crouton Count A current is described by its “set” and “drift.” Let’s say we have a current flowing at two knots from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. 26. What is its set? 27. What is its drift? Week 2 Questions Oct 11 - The Great Sinking 28. Can you trace the course of the Gulf Stream on a map? 29. The North Atlantic Current? 30. Why does water sink in the Irminger Sea? Oct 12 - Staying Put One of the most important advances in the history of oceanography as well as navigation itself is the Global Positioning System, or GPS. 31. What is GPS? 32. How does it work? Oct 13 - Current? What Current? Benjamin Franklin, the American diplomat, inventor, “founding father,” and polymath holds a special place in the history of oceanography. 33. What did he do? 34. And, incidentally, what’s a polymath? 35. There are basically two sorts of plankton. What is the main difference between them? Oct 14 - Storms Try to find a weather map for your area. The Internet might be your best bet. Think of it as a map of the movement of air overhead. 36. Is your weather dominated by a high pressure or low pressure of some combination of both? 37. What do you suppose those arrows with feathers on one side symbolize? 38. Try to find a weather map for the region between Iceland and Greenland. It will come in handy later. Oct 15 - The Great Barrier 39. What is the bridge? 40. What is the bridge officer's responsibility? 41. What is the bosun's area of responsibility? Oct 17 - Melting 42. The United-Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report of 2007 is arguably the most important message ever delivered by scientists to the public. For their work, the 200-plus scientists who drafted the report were awarded the Nobel Prize. What was their message to us? Week 3 Questions Oct 20 - Hard Land, Hard Water 43. “Topography” is a description or picture of the shape of land. What is “bathymetry”? Oct 22 - Night Show 44. The Inuit, for instance, were an aboriginal culture. What does that mean? 45. What is the difference between myth and legend? Oct 23 - The Warning 46. The circulation around a region of low pressure is properly called “cyclonic,” while that around a high pressure is called “anti-cyclonic.” Which way do the winds circulate in both? Oct 24 - The Long Stream 47. Try Googling “Franklin’s Gulf Stream Chart” and then a modern map of the Gulf Stream’s course. What differences do you see? Week 4 Questions Oct 27 - Bottom Effect 48. You might be interested in looking into “plate tectonics.” That’s the name of the explain-it-all discovery I mentioned in the Oct 27 dispatch. To make a complex, beautiful story short, the continents and the bottoms of the ocean slide (slowly) around on vast lakes of molten rocks aboard “plates,” the name for giant chunks of Earth’s crust. For example, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a seam in the Earth where volcanic action is actually spreading the plates on which Europe and North America ride. This means that the Atlantic Ocean is widening by about an inch a year. There is much more to this fascinating story—including the explanation of why do mountains exist. You might be interested.
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work! Nazism, also spelled Naziism, in full National Socialism, German Nationalsozialismus, totalitarian movement led by Adolf Hitler as head of the Nazi Party in Germany. In its intense nationalism, mass appeal, and dictatorial rule, Nazism shared many elements with Italian fascism. However, Nazism was far more extreme both in its ideas and in its practice. In almost every respect it was an anti-intellectual and atheoretical movement, emphasizing the will of the charismatic dictator as the sole source of inspiration of a people and a nation, as well as a vision of annihilation of all enemies of the Aryan Volk as the one and only goal of Nazi policy. The roots of Nazism Nazism had peculiarly German roots. It can be partly traced to the Prussian tradition as developed under Frederick William I (1688–1740), Frederick the Great (1712–68), and Otto von Bismarck (1815–98), which regarded the militant spirit and the discipline of the Prussian army as the model for all individual and civic life. To it was added the tradition of political romanticism, with its sharp hostility to rationalism and to the principles underlying the French Revolution, its emphasis on instinct and the past, and its proclamation of the rights of Friedrich Nietzsche’s exceptional individual (the Übermensch [“Superman”]) over all universal law and rules. These two traditions were later reinforced by the 19th-century adoration of science and of the laws of nature, which seemed to operate independently of all concepts of good and evil. Further reinforcements came from such 19th-century intellectual figures as the comte de Gobineau (1816–82), Richard Wagner (1813–83), and Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), all of whom greatly influenced early National Socialism with their claims of the racial and cultural superiority of the “Nordic” (Germanic) peoples over all other Europeans and all other races. Hitler’s intellectual viewpoint was influenced during his youth not only by these currents in the German tradition but also by specific Austrian movements that professed various political sentiments, notably those of pan-Germanic expansionism and anti-Semitism. Hitler’s ferocious nationalism, his contempt of the Slavs, and his hatred of the Jews can largely be explained by his bitter experiences as an unsuccessful artist living a threadbare existence on the streets of Vienna, the capital of the multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire. This intellectual preparation would probably not have been sufficient for the growth of Nazism in Germany but for that country’s defeat in World War I. The defeat and the resulting disillusionment, pauperization, and frustration—particularly among the lower middle classes—paved the way for the success of the propaganda of Hitler and the Nazis. The Treaty of Versailles (1919), the formal settlement of World War I drafted without German participation, alienated many Germans with its imposition of harsh monetary and territorial reparations. The significant resentment expressed toward the peace treaty gave Hitler a starting point. Because German representatives (branded the “November criminals” by National Socialists) agreed to cease hostilities and did not unconditionally surrender in the armistice of November 11, 1918, there was a widespread feeling—particularly in the military—that Germany’s defeat had been orchestrated by diplomats at the Versailles meetings. From the beginning, Hitler’s propaganda of revenge for this “traitorous” act, through which the German people had been “stabbed in the back,” and his call for rearmament had strong appeal within military circles, which regarded the peace only as a temporary setback in Germany’s expansionist program. The ruinous inflation of the German currency in 1923 wiped out the savings of many middle-class households and led to further public alienation and dissatisfaction. Hitler added to Pan-Germanic aspirations the almost mystical fanaticism of a faith in the mission of the German race and the fervour of a social revolutionary gospel. This gospel was most fully expressed in Hitler’s personal testament Mein Kampf (1925–27; “My Struggle”), in which he outlined both his practical aims and his theories of race and propaganda. Posing as a bulwark against communism, Hitler exploited the fears aroused in Germany and worldwide by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the consolidation of communist power in the Soviet Union. Thus, he was able to secure the support of many conservative elements that misunderstood the totalitarian character of his movement. Hitler’s most important individual contribution to the theory and practice of Nazism was his deep understanding of mass psychology and mass propaganda. He stressed the fact that all propaganda must hold its intellectual level at the capacity of the least intelligent of those at whom it is directed and that its truthfulness is much less important than its success. According to Hitler: It is part of a great leader’s genius to make even widely separated adversaries appear as if they belonged to but one category, because among weakly and undecided characters the recognition of various enemies all too easily marks the beginning of doubt of one’s own rightness. Hitler found this common denominator in the Jews, whom he identified with both Bolshevism and a kind of cosmic evil. The Jews were to be discriminated against not according to their religion but according to their “race.” Nazism declared the Jews—whatever their educational and social development—to be forever fundamentally different from and inimical to Germans. Nazism attempted to reconcile conservative, nationalist ideology with a socially radical doctrine. In so doing, it became a profoundly revolutionary movement—albeit a largely negative one. Rejecting rationalism, liberalism, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and all movements of international cooperation and peace, it stressed instinct, the subordination of the individual to the state, and the necessity of blind and unswerving obedience to leaders appointed from above. It also emphasized the inequality of men and races and the right of the strong to rule the weak; sought to purge or suppress competing political, religious, and social institutions; advanced an ethic of hardness and ferocity; and partly destroyed class distinctions by drawing into the movement misfits and failures from all social classes. Although socialism was traditionally an internationalist creed, the radical wing of Nazism knew that a mass base existed for policies that were simultaneously anticapitalist and nationalist. However, after Hitler secured power, this radical strain was eliminated.
Maximizing Your Energy Efficiency with a Solar Panel Array Introduction: As the world embraces sustainable energy solutions, solar power stands out as a prominent contender, offering clean and renewable electricity. To unlock the full potential of solar energy, it is essential to prioritize energy efficiency through a carefully designed solar panel array. This blog post aims to delve into the concept of energy efficiency within the realm of solar panel arrays, providing insights on how to optimize energy production, minimize wastage, and maximize the benefits of your solar investment. By implementing effective strategies and leveraging advanced technologies that enhance energy efficiency, you can not only reduce your carbon footprint but also enjoy significant long-term cost savings while achieving greater energy independence. Understanding Energy Efficiency: - Defining Energy Efficiency: Energy efficiency refers to the ability to achieve a desired output while minimizing energy input. In the context of solar panel arrays, it involves maximizing the amount of electricity generated per unit of sunlight received. - Importance of Energy Efficiency: Improving energy efficiency in solar panel arrays leads to higher electricity production, reduces dependence on other energy sources, and enhances overall system performance. Designing an Efficient Solar Panel Array: - System Sizing and Capacity: Properly sizing your solar panel array ensures that it can meet your energy needs without generating excessive electricity. This involves considering factors such as household energy consumption, available roof or ground space, and regional solar irradiation levels. - Optimal Panel Orientation and Tilt: Aligning solar panels at the correct angle and orientation allows them to capture the maximum amount of sunlight throughout the day, optimizing energy production. Factors such as latitude, climate, and shading should be taken into account when determining the optimal tilt and orientation. Enhancing Energy Harvesting and Conversion: - High-Quality Solar Panels: Investing in high-quality solar panels with higher conversion efficiencies ensures that more sunlight is converted into usable electricity, increasing overall energy output. - Advanced Inverter Technology: Upgrading to advanced inverter technologies, such as microinverters or power optimizers, maximizes energy harvest by minimizing the impact of shading or module mismatch. Monitoring and Managing Energy: - Real-Time Performance Tracking: By implementing a robust energy monitoring system, you gain the ability to monitor your solar panel array’s performance in real time. This empowers you to identify any issues or inefficiencies promptly and take necessary measures to optimize energy production. - Utilizing Energy Storage Solutions: Integrating energy storage systems, such as batteries, into your solar panel array enables you to store excess solar energy for later use. During periods of low sunlight or high energy demand, you can tap into the stored energy, further optimizing energy utilization and maximizing the benefits of your solar investment. Efficiency Beyond Solar Panels: - Energy-Efficient Appliances and Lighting: Using energy-efficient appliances and LED lighting reduces overall energy consumption, complementing the energy generation from your solar panel array. - Home Energy Management: Implementing smart energy management systems, such as programmable thermostats and energy-efficient HVAC systems, helps optimize energy usage throughout your home. The Future of Energy Efficiency in Solar Panel Arrays: - Technological Advancements: Ongoing research and development in solar technology aim to improve efficiency, durability, and affordability, driving the adoption of more advanced solar panel technologies. - Integrated Systems: The integration of solar panel arrays with smart grid technologies, electric vehicle charging, and energy management systems paves the way for comprehensive energy efficiency solutions. Maximizing energy efficiency with a solar panel array is key to unlocking the full potential of solar power. By implementing design considerations, utilizing high-quality components, monitoring energy production, and adopting energy-efficient practices, you can achieve optimal energy output, reduce environmental impact, and enjoy long-term cost savings. As solar technology continues to advance, the future holds even greater opportunities for energy-efficient solar panel arrays, ushering in a sustainable energy revolution. Embrace the power of an efficient solar panel array and contribute to a greener and more sustainable future.
When it comes to consuming seafood, many people like to try something new, such as an exotic kind of fish from another part of the world, or other kinds of edible sea creature altogether. But some consider themselves to be traditionalists, and prefer familiar tastes. To some Britons ’traditional’ means fish and chips in batter, but nothing is more traditional in the history of fish consumption than smoking. To get a smoked fish delivery is to be sample a culinary treat enjoyed for thousands of years. This is certainly not an originally British practice, although the UK has produced a number of distinctive variants on this theme. Indeed, there would not even have been such a thing as ‘Britain’ when the method began. Just when smoking fish started is something lost in the mists of prehistoric time. It may well date back to stone age times, when people living by the sea, lakes or rivers would have ample opportunities to catch fish and find it convenient to smoke them as a means of preservation. This would help dry the flesh and also apply a filmy coating to it to ward off bacteria, all of which would slow down any decay. With modern fridges and freezers being a long time coming, it should come as no surprise that this method of preservation was maintained down the ages. Smokehouses existed all over medieval England and it was not just fish that was smoked. Salting offered an alternative method of preservation, and is still commonly used in places like the Caribbean today, but smoking fish provided more flavour and was an obvious step when salt was not readily available, which is never a problem on small islands where everyone lives close to the sea. As with any other method of food preparation, distinctive local recipes have emerged. Perhaps the best known British example is the Arbroath smokie, a kind of smoked haddock that actually originated a few miles north of Arbroath in the small village of Auchmithie, although production moved to Arbroath in the early 20th century. The fish are smoked over a sawn-off whisky barrel, and the tradition has been maintained to this day, making it one of Scotland’s most distinct foods. Smoked haddock also appears in another traditional Scottish dish, Cullen Skink. This takes its name from the town of Cullen in Moray and combines the fish with potatoes in a creamy broth. Haddock is just one of the many fishes traditionally smoked in Britain, alongside salmon, trout, kippers and cod’s roe. A key difference is that some, like Arbroath smokies, are hot smoked, which means the process cooks the fish as well as smoking it. Cold smoking does not cook the fish and is applied to fish like Salmon, which is served raw, as well as herring or cod, which are then poached. With different techniques, various fish species and a number of recipes and applications, smoked fish remains a rich and popular culinary tradition. It’s not just something people have enjoyed since time immemorial; it is also a way to consume fish we can safely say people will still be enjoying far into the future.
It is thought that animal abuse by children is an exploratory stage of their development. This could be true; however, the intensity and motivation for this abuse must be explored. Educating children that all living creatures experience pain and suffering, including animals, and discussing the similarities between us and animals should develop empathy and go a long way towards preventing future cruelty. At this stage children/teenagers are exploring their self image and thinking about their relationships with others. Research has indicated that, during these years, teens can be affected by violence; therefore, discussions about animal cruelty should still be filtered. It should be made clear that, as adults, we do not condone violence. Children are affected by the words and actions of adults and rely upon them as role models. If a child grows up in an environment filled with violence there could be other reasons behind his/her motivation to harm animals. For instance, they may be forced by an adult to abuse an animal and then this may be used to coerce them into silence about being abused themselves. This can lead the child to feel powerless and therefore seek out their own victims to exert control over and gain power. They may well abuse a pet, a sibling or a peer in order to seek revenge for their own maltreatment. Animal abuse may also be part of an initiation rite for becoming a gang member. It is the belief of the DSPCA that all animal abuse situations are taken seriously. We should never disregard acts of animal cruelty as childish pranks; otherwise we are giving children ‘permission to inflict pain without fear of being punished;’ this is according to Richard De Angleis. We must also understand why children abuse animals in order to put in place intervention strategies. So, what are the effects of animal abuse on the abuser? Animal abuse can be an indicator of the likelihood of future acts of violence. Abusers and children who witness abuse may become desensitized to violence and may lose the ability to empathise with victims. The only way to stop the abuse is intervention. The earlier we intervene the higher the rate of success. Read more on Animal Cruelty. (Source: De Angleis, Richard, The Vicious Circle. Animal Guardian Vol 11; No 3, 1998 Pg 9. Arkow, Phil, 1998, Linking the Circle of Violence.)
Substance abuse is becoming an epidemic in our society. Adolescents and teens are starting to experiment with tobacco, alcohol and drugs at a younger age than they previously had. By the 8th grade, over half of all students in the United States have consumed an alcoholic beverage, while over 40 percent have smoked a cigarette, and 20 percent have tried marijuana at least once. Not only are Americans beginning to abuse drugs and alcohol an an earlier age, but the abuse is lasting many in our society through the remainder of their adult lives. For example, substance abuse has reached outrageously high levels in the senior citizen community. Surveys indicate that six to eleven percent of elderly patients admitted to hospitals exhibit symptoms of alcoholism, as do 20 percent of elderly patients in psychiatric wards and 14 percent of elderly patients in emergency rooms. In addition, several studies are indicating that alcohol abuse in nursing homes is reaching an astounding 49 percent. Many people in America falsely think that substance abuse doesn’t impact their everyday lives as long as they abstain themselves. They could not be more wrong. For starters, substance abuse costs the American economy over $414 billion every year with alcohol abuse alone counting for almost $166 billion of it. There are over half a million trips to emergency rooms every year due to overdoses and other substance abuse related complications that Americans pay for. In addition, healthcare costs for people addicted to drugs and alcohol are almost twice as high as they are for those who abstain. Another place the economic impact of substance abuse can be felt is in our nation’s jails and prisons. The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world with 756 people per 100,00 citizens incarcerated. Drug offenders count for over half of the prison population in this country, a population that has increased over 40 percent in the last ten years. American tax payers spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to keep non-violent drug offenders in jails. The effects of substance abuse can be seen long before an individual even tries drugs or alcohol for the first time. Children who grow up in a home with substance abuse often pay the heaviest prices from the earliest age.For example, a child who’s parents abuse drugs and alcohol will have an alarmingly higher rate of emotional difficulties, troubles in school and overall problems with delinquency than his/her classmate who comes from a home without substance abuse. Not surprisingly, the child who grew up in the household with substance abuse has a significantly increased risk of one day abusing substances themselves. Domestic violence is another blight on our society that often finds itself hand in hand with substance abuse. Over 75 percent of the victims of domestic violence in this country report that their attacker was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the assault. Substance abuse in the United States literally affects every single one of us. There are quality treatment programs for substance abuse and alcoholism that can help you or your loved ones recover from addiction and enjoy a happier and healthier life. Regardless of your socioeconomic status or your individual circumstances, there is a program for everyone that needs help. Many programs accept private insurance, and some accept Medicare, Medicaid, and other state funds. For those that have legal charges pending, an alternative sentencing program involving addiction treatment can be a good option, and there are treatment programs out there that have experience working with the courts. If you or a loved one is suffering from the effects of drug or alcohol abuse, Destination Hope: The Women's Program wants to help. Our programs are accredited by the Joint Commission and are designed specifically for women suffering from addiction or mental health issues. We urge you to give us a call at 1-866-808-7111 any time so we can discuss treatment options and breaking the toxic cycle of substance abuse.