Per Square Meter
Warm-up: Relationships in Ecosystems (10 minutes)
1. Begin this lesson by presenting the powerpoint, “Per Square Meter”.
2. After the presentation, ask students to think of animal relationships that correspond to each of the following types; Competition, Predation, Parasitism, and Mutualism
a. For example, two animals that compete for food are lions and cheetahs (they compete for zebras and antelopes)
3. Record the different types of relationships on the board.
Activity One: My Own Square Meter (30 minutes)
1. Have students go outside and pick a small area (about a square meter each) to explore. It is preferable that this area be grassy or ‘natural’. The school playground might be a good spot.
2. Each student should keep a list of both the living organisms and man-made products found in their area (i.e grass, birds, insects, flowers, sidewalk etc.) Students are allowed to collect a few specimens from this area to show to the class. If students do not have jars, they can draw their observations. *See Reproducible #1
Activity Two: Who lives in our playground? (10 minutes)
1. After listing, collecting, and drawing specimens, students should return to the classroom and present their findings.
a. Have the students sit in a circle. Each student should read his or her list of findings out loud. If they collected specimens or drew observations, have them present them to the class.
2. Make a list of these findings on the board. Only write repeated findings once (to avoid writing grass as many times as there are students). Keep one list of living organisms and one list of man-made products.
3. For now, focus on the list of living organisms. As a class, help students name possible relationships between the organisms. See if they can find one of each type of relationship. For example, a bee on a flower is an example of mutualism because the nectar from the flower nourishes the bee and in return, the bee pollinates the flower.
Activity Three: Humans and the Environment: Human Effect on one Square Meter (15 minutes)
1. Now that students have focused on the animal relationships of their square meter, it is time to examine the effect of humans on the natural environment. Focus on the human-made product list. Ask students to consider the possible relationships between the human-made products and the environment. Prompt a brief class discussion on the effects of man-made products on the environment. Use the following questions as guidelines.
a. What is the effect of an empty drink bottle (or any other piece of trash) in a grassy field? Will it decompose? Will it be used by an animal as a habitat or food?
Answer: Trash is an invasive man-made product. Most trash is non-bio degradable and is harmful to the environment and to eco-system relations.Therefore, it is a harmful addition to the square meter.
b. Who left the bottle there? Do you think they are still thinking about it? Did they leave it there on purpose? Why did they leave it there?
Answer: Most people litter thoughtlessly. They are not thinking about their actions and how they may effect the environment or eco-systems. It is important that people recognize that litter has a major effect on the environment.
c. What about a bench? Does a park bench have the same effect on the environment as a piece of trash?
Answer: A park bench can be considered as a positive human-made product. A park bench has little negative effect on the environment and even helps humans further appreciate eco-systems. The Park Bench may even provide shelter or a perch for the eco-systems living organisms.
d. Is there a difference between positive human-made products and negative ones? What are some examples of each?
Answer: Yes, there is a difference between positive and negative human-made products. Positive products have minimal effect on the functioning of eco systems whereas negative products have major effects on eco systems. An example of a positive human-made product would be a solar powered house. An example of a negative human-made product would be a car that produces a lot of pollution.
Wrap Up: Our Classroom Eco-Web (20-30 minutes)
1. Have students create classroom artwork by illustrating the relationships between their eco-systems.
2. Each student should draw at least two components of his or her square meter.
3. After everyone has finished their illustrations, create a web relating the illustrations. Draw arrows between illustrated components with written indications of the type of relationship exemplified.
4. Post the finished product in the classroom so that students can see the interconnectedness of the earth’s eco-systems.
Extension: Exploring Aquatic Eco-Systems (On-going Activity)
Students can explore another type of eco-system by creating a classroom aquarium or terrarium. The supplies for both of these mini eco-systems can be found at your local pet store. Students should help set up and maintain the aquarium or terrarium throughout the year. Periodically, students should observe how the mini-ecosystem is progressing, note changes, and assess the relationships between the organisms of the eco-system. This way, students are able to directly participate in the functioning of a natural system.
Another related activity might be to take your students on a field trip to a different eco-system from that of your school. If you live near a river, lake, or ocean take them there to explore different ecological relations. If you live in a city, examples of diverse eco-systems can be found at the local zoo or aquarium.


From the time of Aristotle (384-322 BC) until the late 1500’s, gravity was believed to act differently on different objects.
- Drop a metal bar and a feather at the same time… which one hits the ground first?
- Obviously, common sense will tell you that the bar will hit first, while the feather slowly flutters to the ground.
- In Aristotle’s view, this was because the bar was being pulled harder (and faster) by gravity because of its physical properties.
- Because everyone sees this when they drop different objects, it wasn’t questioned for almost 2000 years.
Galileo Galilei was the first major scientist to refute (prove wrong) Aristotle’s theories.
- In his famous (at least to Physicists!) experiment, Galileo went to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and dropped a wooden ball and a lead ball, both the same size, but different masses.
- They both hit the ground at the same time, even though Aristotle would say that the heavier metal ball should hit first.
- Galileo had shown that the different rates at which some objects fall is due to air resistance, a type of friction.
- Get rid of friction (air resistance) and all objects will fall at the same rate.
- Galileo said that the acceleration of any object (in the absence of air resistance) is the same.
- To this day we follow the model that Galileo created.
ag = g = 9.81m/s2
ag = g = acceleration due to gravity
Since gravity is just an acceleration like any other, it can be used in any of the formulas that we have used so far.
- Just be careful about using the correct sign (positive or negative) depending on the problem.
Examples of Calculations with Gravity
Example 1: A ball is thrown up into the air at an initial velocity of 56.3m/s. Determine its velocity after 4.52s have passed.
In the question the velocity upwards is positive, and I’ll keep it that way. That just means that I have to make sure that I use gravity as a negative number, since gravity always acts down.
vf = vi + at
= 56.3m/s + (-9.81m/s2)(4.52s)
vf = 12.0 m/s
This value is still positive, but smaller. The ball is slowing down as it rises into the air.
Example 2: I throw a ball down off the top of a cliff so that it leaves my hand at 12m/s. Determine how fast is it going 3.47 seconds later.
In this question I gave a downward velocity as positive. I might as well stick with this, but that means I have defined down as positive. That means gravity will be positive as well.vf = vi + at
= 12m/s + (9.81m/s2)(3.47s)
vf = 46 m/s
Here the number is getting bigger. It’s positive, but in this question I’ve defined down as positive, so it’s speeding up in the positive direction.
Example 3: I throw up a ball at 56.3 m/s again. Determine how fast is it going after 8.0s.
We’re defining up as positive again.
vf = vi + at
= 56.3m/s + (-9.81m/s2)(8.0s)
vf = -22 m/s
Why did I get a negative answer?
- The ball reached its maximum height, where it stopped, and then started to fall down.
- Falling down means a negative velocity.
There’s a few rules that you have to keep track of. Let’s look at the way an object thrown up into the air moves.
As the ball is going up…
- It starts at the bottom at the maximum speed.
- As it rises, it slows down.
- It finally reaches it’s maximum height, where for a moment its velocity is zero.
- This is exactly half ways through the flight time.
As the ball is coming down…
- The ball begins to speed up, but downwards.
- When it reaches the same height that it started from, it will be going at the same speed as it was originally moving at.
- It takes just as long to go up as it takes to come down.
Example 4: I throw my ball up into the (again) at a velocity of 56.3 m/s.
a) Determine how much time does it take to reach its maximum height.
- It reaches its maximum height when its velocity is zero. We’ll use that as the final velocity.
- Also, if we define up as positive, we need to remember to define down (like gravity) as negative.
a = (vf - vi) / t
t = (vf - vi) / a
= (0 - 56.3m/s) / -9.81m/s2
t = 5.74s
b) Determine how high it goes.
- It’s best to try to avoid using the number you calculated in part (a), since if you made a mistake, this answer will be wrong also.
- If you can’t avoid it, then go ahead and use it.
vf2 = vi2 + 2ad
d = (vf2 = vi2) / 2a
= (0 - 56.32) / 2(-9.81m/s2)
d = 1.62e2 m
c) Determine how fast is it going when it reaches my hand again.
- Ignoring air resistance, it will be going as fast coming down as it was going up.
You might have heard people in movies say how many "gee’s" they were feeling.
- All this means is that they are comparing the acceleration they are feeling to regular gravity.
- So, right now, you are experiencing 1g… regular gravity.
- During lift-off the astronauts in the space shuttle experience about 4g’s.
- That works out to about 39m/s2.
- Gravity on the moon is about 1.7m/s2 = 0.17g


March 30, 2011 by Valerie Elkins
The short answer is keizu. The longer answer is not so easy. There several reasons why it is difficult for those of Japanese ancestry living outside of Japan to trace their lineage. One of the main reasons is a lack of understanding of the language. I am not going to sugar coat it, learning Japanese is hard, BUT learning how to pronounce it is not.
There are 5 basic vowel sounds in Japanese. They are always pronounced the same unlike in English! Vowel lengths are all uniformly short:
|a||as in ‘father’|
|e||as in ‘bet’|
|i||as in ‘beet’|
|u||as in ‘boot’|
|o||as in ‘boat’|
You do not need to know everything in Japanese but learning some genealogical terms is helpful.
Glossary of Japanese genealogical terms to begin building your vocabulary.
- koseki ~ household register, includes everyone in a household under the head of house (who usually was male)
- koseki tohon ~ certified copy which recorded everything from the original record.
- koseki shohon ~ certified copy which recorded only parts from the original.
- joseki ~ expired register in which all persons originally entered have been removed because of death, change of residence, etc. A joseki file is ordinarily available for 80 years after its expiration.
- kaisei genkoseki ~ revised koseki
- honseki ~ permanent residence or registered address (i.e. person may move to Tokyo but their records remain in hometown city hall).
- genseki ~ another name for honseki
- kakocho ~ Buddist death register
- kaimyo ~ Buddist name given to deceased person and recorded in kakocho.
- homyo ~ Buddist name given to living converts, similar to homyo.
- kuni ~ country or nation
- ken ~ prefecture
- shi ~ city
- gun ~ county
- to ~ metropolitan prefecture (Tokyo-to). Similar to ken.
- do ~ urban prefecture (Hokkaido). Similar to ken.
- fu ~ urban prefecture (Kyoto-fu, Osaka-fu) similar to ken.
- ku ~ ward in some large cities (Sapparo, Sendai, Tokyo) divided in to town (cho).
- cho ~ town
- aza ~unorganized district
- machi ~ town within a city (cho) or ward (ku), town within a county (gun).
- chome ~ smaller division of a town (cho) in some neighborhoods.
- mura or son ~ village within a county (gun).
- koshu or hittousha or stainushi ~ head of household, the head of the family
- zen koshu ~ former head of household
- otto ~ husband
- tsuma ~ wife
- chichi or fu ~ father
- haha or bo ~ mother
- sofu ~ grandfather
- sobo ~ grandmother
- otoko or dan or nan ~ male, man, son
- onna or jo ~ female, woman, daughter
- ani or kei or kyou ~ older brother
- otouto or tei ~ younger brother
- ane or shi ~ older sister
- imouto or mai ~ younger sister
- mago or son ~ grandchild
- himago or souson ~ great-grandchild
- oi ~ nephew
- mei ~ niece
- youshi ~ adopted child or son
- youjo ~ adopted daughter
- muko youshi ~ a man without sons may adopt his eldest daughter’s husband as his own son and the young man will take his wife’s surname and be listed on her family’s koseki
- seimei or shime ~ full name, family name
- shussei or shusshou ~ birth
- shibou ~ deceased
- nen or toshi ~ year
- gatsu, getsu or tsuki ~ month
- hi or nichi or ka ~ day
- ji or toki ~ hour, time
- sai or toshi ~ age
- issei ~ person born in Japan and later immigrate elsewhere
- nisei ~ child/generation of issei and born outside of Japan
- sansei ~ child/generation of nisei and born outside of Japan
- yonsei ~ child/generation of sansei and born outside of Japan
- gosei ~ child/generation of yonsei and born outside of Japan
There is another Japanese term you really need to know. It is ganbatte which means ‘hang in there’ or ‘do your best’ and either one is will work.
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Writing An Acceptable Use Policy For Your School
A helpful guide to creating an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for a school's use of services provided by the Internet. The author notes that an AUP is the most important document a school will create since it states the terms, conditions, and rules of Internet use determined by a school or district. Topics include: What is an AUP; Why Establish an AUP; Objectives of an AUP; Components; Distribution; Samples (web based); Resources (web based). Additional coverage is given to writing policy statements and consent forms, and maintaining copyrights, netiquette, privacy, and user responsibility.
Books & Booklets; Internet Resources
Administration & Leadership
Administrator, Teacher, Board Member / Trustee


A Brief Description of Islam as the Shi'ites Believe
5- MONOTHEISM IS THE VERY SOUL OF ALL THE ISLAMIC COMMANDMENTS
WE BELIEVE that one of the most important subjects of the knowledge of God, is the MONOTHEISM, i.e. the belief that there is but one God. As a matter of fact Monotheism (TOWHID) is not only a principle of the religion, but the most important of the tenets. It is the very soul and the base of all the Islamic ideas and beliefs. We can say that the roots, as well as the branches of Islam take their forms in the monotheism.
The UNITY and ONENESS is a general topic of conversation everywhere and in every field:- UNITY OF GOD'S ESSENCE, Unity of His attributes, and actions. In other word, also the unity of prophets and their teachings, the unity of the LAW, GHIBLEH, and the books. And after all, the unity of Moslims through their brotherhood and the unity of the resurrection day. From this point of view the HOLY QURØ·N declares POLYTHEISM as an unforgiveable SIN:-
"Allah does not forgive those who set up partners with Him, but He may forgive any sin inferior to that, of whom he wills.
He that sets up CO-SHARERS with Allah is guilty of a SIN which is most heinous indeed."
THE HOLY QURAN - S4: 48
"It has already been revealed to you as it was revealed to those before you that:-" If you join gods with Allah, your deeds shall be fruitless, and you surely will be one of those who lose. (all spiritual goodnesses)
THE HOLY QURAN - S39: 65
6- THE BRANCHES OF MONOTHEISM
WE BELIEVE that MONOTHEISM, (TOWHID) has many branches among which four are the most important ones:-


What we ship things in makes a difference.
Take the banana, for example. In 1876, at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, the banana was a delicacy (and very black). Millions of bunches could only be sent to U.S. shores if they were refrigerated. By 1901, as I describe in Econ 101 1/2, United Fruit was distributing 14 million bunches of bananas in the U.S. One reason, in addition to the railroad and the steamboat, was a banana vessel that could maintain a 53 degree temperature for its cargo.
Just like refrigerated banana vessels transformed world trade, so too has the cargo container. Introduced in 1956, now one ship can carry 3,000 forty foot containers with 100,000 tons of shoes, electronics and clothing. Imagine the potential efficiency. Put everything in the container, arrive at a port, and just slip it onto a truck or a railroad car for it to move to its next stop. Journalist Marc Levinson says the result is more variety for consumers, lower freight bills, less shipping time, lower inventory costs and longer supply chains.
This takes us back to yesterday’s supership post and the expansion of the Panama Canal. Larger ships mean more containers on board. The NY Times said that the newest generation of superships could hold 15,000 containers that are 20 feet long.
The Economic Lesson
Adam Smith would have been delighted to see his ideas about mass production and regional specialization extend around the world. Describing the productivity of factory pin production in The Wealth of Nations, he told us that one worker, functioning alone, could produce 1 pin per day. However, when that worker specialized through a division of labor in a factory, 4,800 pins per worker per day were made.
Adam Smith used the term “distant sale” to explain the transport of goods from a factory to a distant market. He could have been describing a container ship moving from China to the U.S.


ASL Literature and Art
This section is a collection of ASL storytelling, poetry, works of art, and other creative works. It also consists of posts on literary aspects of ASL.
Speech language can convey sound effects in storytelling, whereas sign language can convey cinematic effects in storytelling.
Poetry in sign language has its own poetic features such as rhymes, rhythms, meters, and other features that charactierize poetry which is not limited to speech.
Explore ASL literary arts in this section including some visual-linguistic literary works in ASL and discussion.
Selected works of interest
Deconstruct W.O.R.D.: an original poetry performance.
Knowing Fish: poetic narrative video.
Compare three versions of the poem "Spring Dawn" originally written by Meng Hao-jan. The poem is translated by the literary artist Jolanta Lapiak into ASL in video and unique one-of-a-kind photograph print. Watch how ASL rhymes arise in this signed poem.


May 19, 2008 A vaccine created by University of Rochester Medical Center scientists prevents the development of Alzheimer's disease-like pathology in mice without causing inflammation or significant side effects.
Vaccinated mice generated an immune response to the protein known as amyloid-beta peptide, which accumulates in what are called "amyloid plaques" in brains of people with Alzheimer's. The vaccinated mice demonstrated normal learning skills and functioning memory in spite of being genetically designed to develop an aggressive form of the disease.
The Rochester scientists reported the findings in an article in the May issue of Molecular Therapy, the journal of The American Society of Gene Therapy.
"Our study demonstrates that we can create a potent but safe version of a vaccine that utilizes the strategy of immune response shaping to prevent Alzheimer's-related pathologies and memory deficits," said William Bowers, associate professor of neurology and of microbiology and immunology at the Medical Center and lead author of the article. "The vaccinated mice not only performed better, we found no evidence of signature amyloid plaque in their brains."
Alzheimer's is a progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with dementia and a decline in performance of normal activities. Hallmarks of the disease include the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brains of patients and the loss of normal functioning tau, a protein that stabilizes the transport networks in neurons. Abnormal tau function eventually leads to another classic hallmark of Alzheimer's, neurofibrillary tangle in nerve cells. After several decades of exposure to these insults, neurons ultimately succumb and die, leading to progressively damaged learning and memory centers in the brain.
The mice that received the vaccines were genetically engineered to express large amounts of amyloid beta protein. They also harbored a mutation that causes the tau-related tangle pathology. Prior to the start of the vaccine study, the mice were trained to navigate a maze using spatial clues. They were then tested periodically during the 10-month study on the amount of time and distance traveled to an escape pod and the number of errors made along the way.
"What we found exciting was that by targeting one pathology of Alzheimer's -- amyloid beta -- we were able to also prevent the transition of tau from its normal form to a form found in the disease state," Bowers said.
The goal of the vaccine is to prompt the immune system to recognize amyloid beta protein and remove it. To create the vaccine, Bowers and the research group use a herpes virus that is stripped of the viral genes that can cause disease or harm. They then load the virus container with the genetic code for amyloid beta and interleukin-4, a protein that stimulates immune responses involving type 2 T helper cells, which are lymphocytes that play an important role in the immune system.
The research group tested several versions of a vaccine. Mice were given three injections of empty virus alone, a vaccine carrying only the amyloid beta genetic code, or a vaccine encoding both amyloid beta and interlueikin-4, which was found to be the most effective.
"We have learned a great deal from this ongoing project," Bowers said. "Importantly, it has demonstrated the combined strengths of the gene delivery platform and the immune shaping concept for the creation of customized vaccines for Alzheimer's disease, as well as a number of other diseases. We are currently working on strategies we believe can make the vaccine even safer."
Bowers expects the vaccine eventually to be tested in people, but due to the number of studies required to satisfy regulatory requirements, it could be three or more years before human trials testing this type of Alzheimer's vaccine occur.
Grants from the National Institutes of Health supported the study. In addition to Bowers, authors of the Molecular Therapy article include Maria E. Frazer, Jennifer E. Hughes, Michael A. Mastrangelo and Jennifer Tibbens of the Medical Center and Howard J. Federoff of Georgetown University Medical Center.
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Saint ZachariasArticle Free Pass
Saint Zacharias, English Zachary (born , San Severino, duchy of Benevento [Italy]—died March 14/22, 752, Rome; feast day March 15), pope from 741 to 752.
The last of the Greek popes, Zacharias was supposedly a Roman deacon when he succeeded Pope St. Gregory III in November/December 741. His pontificate was devoted to diplomatic relations with the Lombard and Frankish kingdoms and with the Byzantine Empire. He initiated a policy of conciliation with the Lombards while endeavouring to dissuade their rulers, Liutprand and Rachis, from conquering the Byzantine exarchate of Ravenna. Successful, he thus made peace with the Lombards. He maintained amiable relations with the Byzantine emperor Constantine V Copronymus, whom he advised to restore the veneration of icons.
Zacharias’s relations with the Franks were similarly cordial, and his correspondence with St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, shows how great his influence was on contemporary events in the Frankish kingdom. In 741 he made Boniface legate and charged him with the reformation of the whole Frankish church. He supported the deposition (751–752) of Childeric III, the last Merovingian king, and authorized the Frankish church to anoint Pippin III the Short as king of the Franks. Zacharias’s action in the transference of the royal crown from the Merovingians to the house of Pippin (Carolingians) began a new era for church and state by establishing the Carolingian-papal alliance, which was to be of the greatest significance in future relations between pope and emperor and was of extreme importance to the theorists and controversialists of the Investiture Controversy (11th and 12th centuries). The latter dispute concerned secular rulers’ right to invest bishops and abbots, which right became one of the paramount aspects in the struggle for power between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.
Zacharias is known especially in the East for his Greek translation of the Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory I the Great.
What made you want to look up "Saint Zacharias"? Please share what surprised you most...


Nephila jurassica: The biggest spider fossil ever found
Spiders are small arthropods, famous for their elasticity, strength and web-making abilities. For some people, spiders are not welcome in the home; as soon as they see one crawling on the ceiling, the first thought that comes to mind is to swat it at once.
But spiders predate us humans by a long way. And while sometimes spiders are tiny creatures, a team of scientists has discovered the largest spider fossil ever in a layer of volcanic ash in Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia, China. The research was carried out by Paleontologist Professor Paul Selden, of the University of Kansas, with his team.
Named Nephila jurassica, this 165-million-year-old fossil is 2.5 cm in length and has a leg span of almost 9 cm. It is currently the largest known fossilized spider, and is from the family known as Nephilidae, the largest web-weaving spiders alive today.
According to research published online in the 20th April, 2011 issue of Biology Letters, this prehistoric spider was female and shows characteristics of the golden orb weaver. Widespread in warmer regions, the golden silk orb weavers are well-known for the fabulous webs they weave. Females of this family weave the largest orb webs known.
"When I first saw it, I immediately realized that it was very unique not only because of its size, but also because the preservation was excellent," said ChungKun Shih, study co-author, and a visiting professor at Capital Normal University in Beijing, China.
According to a press release: “This fossil finding provides evidence that golden orb-webs were being woven and capturing medium to large insects in Jurassic times, and predation by these spiders would have played an important role in the natural selection of contemporaneous insects.”


Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.
Cleopatra, born in 69 B.C., was made Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt, upon the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 B.C. Her brother was made King Ptolemy XIII at the same time, and the siblings ruled Egypt under the formal title of husband and wife. Cleopatra and Ptolemy were members of the Macedonian dynasty that governed Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Although Cleopatra had no Egyptian blood, she alone in her ruling house learned Egyptian. To further her influence over the Egyptian people, she was also proclaimed the daughter of Re, the Egyptian sun god. Cleopatra soon fell into dispute with her brother, and civil war erupted in 48 B.C.
Rome, the greatest power in the Western world, was also beset by civil war at the time. Just as Cleopatra was preparing to attack her brother with a large Arab army, the Roman civil war spilled into Egypt. Pompey the Great, defeated by Julius Caesar in Greece, fled to Egypt seeking solace but was immediately murdered by agents of Ptolemy XIII. Caesar arrived in Alexandria soon after and, finding his enemy dead, decided to restore order in Egypt.
During the preceding century, Rome had exercised increasing control over the rich Egyptian kingdom, and Cleopatra sought to advance her political aims by winning the favor of Caesar. She traveled to the royal palace in Alexandria and was allegedly carried to Caesar rolled in a rug, which was offered as a gift. Cleopatra, beautiful and alluring, captivated the powerful Roman leader, and he agreed to intercede in the Egyptian civil war on her behalf.
In 47 B.C., Ptolemy XIII was killed after a defeat against Caesar's forces, and Cleopatra was made dual ruler with another brother, Ptolemy XIV. Julius and Cleopatra spent several amorous weeks together, and then Caesar departed for Asia Minor, where he declared "Veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered), after putting down a rebellion. In June 47 B.C., Cleopatra bore a son, whom she claimed was Caesar's and named Caesarion, meaning "little Caesar."
Upon Caesar's triumphant return to Rome, Cleopatra and Caesarion joined him there. Under the auspices of negotiating a treaty with Rome, Cleopatra lived discretely in a villa that Caesar owned outside the capital. After Caesar was assassinated in March 44 B.C., she returned to Egypt. Soon after, Ptolemy XIV died, likely poisoned by Cleopatra, and the queen made her son co-ruler with her as Ptolemy XV Caesar.
With Julius Caesar's murder, Rome again fell into civil war, which was temporarily resolved in 43 B.C. with the formation of the second triumvirate, made up of Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and chosen heir; Mark Antony, a powerful general; and Lepidus, a Roman statesman. Antony took up the administration of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and he summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus, in Asia Minor, to answer charges that she had aided his enemies.
Cleopatra sought to seduce Antony, as she had Caesar before him, and in 41 B.C. arrived in Tarsus on a magnificent river barge, dressed as Venus, the Roman god of love. Successful in her efforts, Antony returned with her to Alexandria, where they spent the winter in debauchery. In 40 B.C., Antony returned to Rome and married Octavian's sister Octavia in an effort to mend his strained alliance with Octavian. The triumvirate, however, continued to deteriorate. In 37 B.C., Antony separated from Octavia and traveled east, arranging for Cleopatra to join him in Syria. In their time apart, Cleopatra had borne him twins, a son and a daughter. According to Octavian's propagandists, the lovers were then married, which violated the Roman law restricting Romans from marrying foreigners.
Antony's disastrous military campaign against Parthia in 36 B.C. further reduced his prestige, but in 34 B.C. he was more successful against Armenia. To celebrate the victory, he staged a triumphal procession through the streets of Alexandria, in which he and Cleopatra sat on golden thrones, and Caesarion and their children were given imposing royal titles. Many in Rome, spurred on by Octavian, interpreted the spectacle as a sign that Antony intended to deliver the Roman Empire into alien hands.
After several more years of tension and propaganda attacks, Octavian declared war against Cleopatra, and therefore Antony, in 31 B.C. Enemies of Octavian rallied to Antony's side, but Octavian's brilliant military commanders gained early successes against his forces. On September 2, 31 B.C., their fleets clashed at Actium in Greece. After heavy fighting, Cleopatra broke from the engagement and set course for Egypt with 60 of her ships. Antony then broke through the enemy line and followed her. The disheartened fleet that remained surrendered to Octavian. One week later, Antony's land forces surrendered.
Although they had suffered a decisive defeat, it was nearly a year before Octavian reached Alexandria and again defeated Antony. In the aftermath of the battle, Cleopatra took refuge in the mausoleum she had commissioned for herself. Antony, informed that Cleopatra was dead, stabbed himself with his sword. Before he died, another messenger arrived, saying Cleopatra still lived. Antony had himself carried to Cleopatra's retreat, where he died after bidding her to make her peace with Octavian. When the triumphant Roman arrived, she attempted to seduce him, but he resisted her charms. Rather than fall under Octavian's domination, Cleopatra committed suicide on August 30, 30 B.C., possibly by means of an asp, a poisonous Egyptian serpent and symbol of divine royalty.
Octavian then executed her son Caesarion, annexed Egypt into the Roman Empire, and used Cleopatra's treasure to pay off his veterans. In 27 B.C., Octavian became Augustus, the first and arguably most successful of all Roman emperors. He ruled a peaceful, prosperous, and expanding Roman Empire until his death in 14 A.D. at the age of 75.


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N'kisi & the N'kisi Project
N'kisi (pronounced ‘‘in-key-see’’) is a captive bred eight or nine-year-old hand raised African Grey Parrot whose owner, Aimée Morgana, thinks uses language. She doesn't think he just sounds out words. She thinks he communicates with her in language, which would in effect make N'kisi a rational parrot. For example, N'kisi utters "pretty smell medicine" when he wants to describe the aromatherapy oils that Aimée uses.* Furthermore, Aimée says her parrot has a fine sense of humor and knows how to laugh. Imagine having conversations with a humorous parrot. Think of all the things you could talk and joke about, besides aromatherapy. You could discuss the fame that would come to anyone who had a parrot that can think and converse in intelligent discourse, like pretty smell medicine and look at my pretty naked body.* And when some nasty skeptic makes fun of you, the two of you can joke about it.
I'm afraid that this story stretches the boundaries of reasonable credibility, though stories of rational parrots go back at least to the 17th century. John Locke, for example, relates a tale of a Portuguese-speaking parrot of some note in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (II.xxvii.8). These cases are more likely cases of self-deception, delusion, and gullibility than of language-using parrots. Listen to this audio clip of N'kisi, Aimée, and a toy that "talks" when a button is pushed. First listen without reading the transcript. Some of it is intelligible, especially after the fourth or fifth repetition, but it is difficult to understand the "conversation," especially with the toy making its sounds as Aimée stimulates her parrot. Some of the tape sounds like gibberish until you are told what to listen for. When you listen while reading the transcript something amazing happens: you can hear just what you're reading. Why is that? The same thing happens when you listen to audio tapes played backward. When you just listen without anyone telling you what to listen for, you usually don't understand anything intelligible. But as soon as someone shows or tells you what to listen for, you can hear the message. Such is the power of suggestion and the way of audio perception. Hearing is a constructive process, like vision, in that bits of sensory data are "filled in" by the brain to produce a visual or auditory perception that is clear and distinct, and in accord with your expectations. Consider the following from an interview with Dr. Irene Pepperberg, Morgana's inspiration, who has been studying Alex, an African Grey Parrot, for many years:
We were doing demos at the Media Lab [at MIT] for our corporate sponsors; we had a very small amount of time scheduled and the visitors wanted to see Alex work. So we put a number of differently colored letters on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and asked, "Alex, what sound is blue?" He answers, "Ssss." It was an "s", so we say "Good birdie" and he replies, "Want a nut."
Well, I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time to eat a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, "What sound is green?" Alex answers, "Ssshh." He's right, it's "sh," and we go through the routine again: "Good parrot." "Want a nut." "Alex, wait. What sound is orange?" "ch." "Good bird!" "Want a nut." We're going on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated. He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, "Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh."
Not only could you imagine him thinking, "Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?" but the point was that he had leaped over where we were and had begun sounding out the letters of the words for us. This was in a sense his way of saying to us, "I know where you're headed! Let's get on with it," which gave us the feeling that we were on the right track with what we were doing.*
Dr. Pepperberg thinks the bird is responding cognitively to her questions rather than simply responding to a stimulus. She thinks the bird is getting frustrated, but she has stipulated earlier in the interview:
I never claim that Alex has full-blown language; I never would. I'm not going to be able to put Alex on a "T" stand and have you interview him the way you interview me.
So, whereas you or I might say "give me the nut or this interview is over" were we parrots with intentionality and language, the parrot's movements and sounds have to be less direct and more complex, so that they have to be interpreted for us by Pepperberg. In her view, Alex is "clearly getting more frustrated" and his frustration culminates with a "very slitty-eyed" expression. But this is Pepperberg's interpretation, as is her hearing the bird sound out the letters of the word 'nut'. It could have been a stutter for all we know, but Pepperberg is facilitating Alex's communication by telling us what she hears. The final paragraph indicates that Pepperberg is having a hard time drawing the line between imagining what a parrot might be thinking and projecting those thoughts into the parrot's movements and sounds. She's also having a hard time getting grant money (NIH turned her down), so she started her own private foundation, the Alex Foundation.
When news of N'kisi broke on the pages of BBC online, there was no mention in the article by Alex Kirby of the parrot having conversations with people other than Aimée Morgana. (The story was originally told in USA Today in the February 12, 2001, edition.) Despite the headline "Parrot's oratory stuns scientists," there was no evidence given that the parrot had stunned anyone during a conversation. It seems that Aimée is to her parrot what the facilitator is to her client in facilitated communication, except that the parrot is actually providing data to interpret and is more like clever Hans, the horse that responded to unconscious movements of his master, than a disabled human who may not be providing any content or direction at all to the facilitator. It is Aimée who gives intentionality to the parrot's sounds. She is the one who attributes 'laughter' to his shrieks and conscious awareness to his responses, though those responses could be due to any one of many stimuli, consciously or unconsciously provided by Aimée or items in the immediate environment. Nevertheless, Dr. Jane Goodall, who studies chimpanzees, met N'kisi and said that he provides an "outstanding example of interspecies communication." There is some evidence, however, that much of the work with language-using primates also mistakes subjective validation by scientists for complex linguistic abilities of their animal subjects (Wallman 1992).
According to Mr. Kirby, N'kisi not only uses language but has been tested for telepathy and he passed the test with flying colors:
In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards.
Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance.
Kirby doesn't provide any details about the experiment, so a reader might misinterpret this claim as implying that this parrot did about twice as well as people did in the ganzfeld telepathy experiments. In those experiments, subjects in separate rooms were monitored as one tried to telepathically send information from a picture or video to the other. Typically, there was a 20% chance of guessing what the item was but results as high as 38% were reported in some meta-analyses. If the parrot scored three times better than chance, then he would have gotten 60% correct. The odds of a parrot randomly blurting out words that match up 60% of the time with pictures being looked at simultaneously in another room are so high that there is virtually no way that this could happen by chance. However, as you might suspect, Kirby's claim is a bit misleading.
I assume that Kirby was writing about an experiment that was part of the N'kisi project, a joint effort by Morgana and Rupert Sheldrake to test not only the parrot's language-using abilities but his telepathic talents as well. Sheldrake has already validated the telepathic abilities of a dog and thinks the "findings [of this experiment] are consistent with the hypothesis that N'kisi was reacting telepathically to Aimée's mental activity."*
The full text of Sheldrake's study published in the peer reviewed Journal of Scientific Exploration is available online. The title of the paper would send most journal editors to their grave, killed by laughter: "Testing a Language-Using Parrot for Telepathy." Fortunately for Sheldrake and his associates there will always be a sympathetic editor for another story like that of J. B. Rhine and the telepathic horse, "Lady Wonder." At least Sheldrake's protocols show some measure of sophistication, unlike Rhine's. Even so, as the editor at the Journal of Scientific Exploration commented: "once again, we have suggestive results, a level of statistical significance that is less than compelling, and the devout wish that further work with refined protocols will ensue."* So, we'll just have to wait and see whether further study of N'kisi supports the telepathic hypothesis.
Anyway, here is how Sheldrake set up the experiment. He first compiled a list of 30 words from the bird's vocabulary that "could be represented by visual images." A package of 167 photos from a stock supplier was used for the test. Since only 20 of the photos corresponded to words on the list, the word list was reduced to 20. The word 'camera' was removed from the list because 'N’kisi "used it so frequently to comment on the cameras used in the tests themselves." Thus, they were left with 19 words.
During the tests, N’kisi remained in his cage in Aimée’s apartment in Manhattan, New York. There was no one in the room with him. Meanwhile, Aimée went to a separate enclosed room on a different floor. N’kisi could not see or hear her, and in any case, Aimée said nothing, as confirmed by the audio track recorded on the camera that filmed her continuously. The distance between Aimée and N’kisi was about 55 feet. Aimée could hear N’kisi through a wireless baby monitor, which she used to gain ‘‘feedback’’ to help her to adjust her mental state as image sender.
Both Aimée and N’kisi were filmed continuously throughout the test sessions by two synchronized cameras on time-coded videotape. The cameras were mounted on tripods and ran continuously without interruption throughout each session. N’kisi was also recorded continuously on a separate audio tape recorder. (Sheldrake and Morgana 2003)
According to Sheldrake:
We conducted a total of 147 two-minute trials. The recordings of N’kisi during these trials were transcribed blind by three independent transcribers....He scored 23 hits: the key words he said corresponded to the target pictures....If N’kisi said a key word that did not correspond to the photograph, that was counted as a miss, and if he said a key word corresponding to the photograph, that was a hit. (Sheldrake and Morgana 2003)
However, sixty of the trials were discarded because in those trials N'kisi either was silent or uttered things that were not key words, i.e., showed no signs of telepathy. A few other trials were discarded because the transcribers did not agree on what N'kisi said. In short, Sheldrake's statistical conclusions are based on the results of 71 of the trials. I'll let the reader decide whether it was proper to omit 40% of the data because the parrot didn't utter a word on the key word list during those trials. Some might argue that those sessions should be counted as misses and that by ignoring so much data where the parrot clearly did not indicate any sign of telepathy is strong evidence that Sheldrake was more interested in confirming his biases than in getting at the truth.
N'kisi's misses were listed at 94. Ten of the 23 hits were on the picture that corresponded to the word 'flower', which N'kisi uttered 23 times during the trials. The flower image, selected randomly, was used in 17 trials. The image corresponding to water was used in 10 of the trials. The bird said 'water' in twelve trials and got 2 hits. It seems oddly biased that almost one-third of the images and more than half the hits came from just 2 of the 19 pictures.
One of the peer reviewers thought that the fact that the flower word and picture played so heavy a role in the outcome that the paper's results were distorted and that the paper should not be published. The other reviewer accepted Sheldrake's observation that even if you throw out the flower data, you still get some sort of statistical significance. This may be true. However, since the bird allegedly had a vocabulary of some 950 words at the time of the test, omitting sessions where the bird said nothing or said something not on the key list, is unjustifiable. Furthermore, there is no evidence that it is reasonable to assume that when the parrot is by itself uttering words that it is trying to communicate telepathically with Morgana. Or are we to accept Sheldrake's assumption that the parrot turns his telepathic interest off and on, and it was on only when he uttered a word on the key list? That assumption is no more valid that Morgana's belief that the telepathy doesn't work as well when she makes an effort to send a telepathic message to her parrot. In any case, I wonder why Sheldrake didn't do a baseline study, where the parrot was videotaped for two-minutes at a time while Morgana was taking an aromatherapy bath or meditating or doing something unrelated to the key word pictures. Had he made several hundred such clips, he could then have randomly selected 71 and compared them to the 71 clips he used for his analysis. If there was no significant difference between the randomly selected clips and the ones that emerged during the experiment, then the telepathy hypothesis would not be supported. On the other hand, if he found a robust statistically significant difference, then the telepathy hypothesis would be supported. I suggest he do something along these lines when he attempts to replicate his parrot telepathy test.
In some trials, N’kisi repeated a given key word. For example, in one trial N’kisi said ‘‘phone’’ three times, and in another he said ‘‘flower’’ ten times, and in the tabulation of data the numbers of times he said these words are shown in parentheses as: phone (3); flower (10). For most of the statistical analyses, repetitions were ignored, but in one analysis the numbers of words that were said more than once in a given trial were compared statistically with those said only once for both hits and misses. For each trial, the key word or words represented in the photograph were tabulated. Some images had only one key word, but others had two or more. For example, a picture of a couple hugging in a pool of water involved two key words, ‘‘water’’ and ‘‘hug.’’ (Sheldrake and Morgana 2003)
He calculated 51 hits and 126 misses when repetitions were included. I'm not going to bother with any more detail because by now the overall picture should be clear. Once the statisticians went to work on the data, they were able to provide support for the claim that the data were consistent with the telepathic hypothesis. But nowhere in Sheldrake's paper can I find a claim that the parrot did three times better than expected by chance. In any case, I have to agree with the editor who published Sheldrake's parrot paper: the results have a statistical significance that is less than compelling. However, unlike that editor, my devout wish is that when such studies as these are published in the future, responsible journalists continue to ignore them and recognize them for the rubbish they are. On the other hand, if you happen to think your parrot is psychic, drop Dr. Sheldrake a line. He's set up a page just for you.
Sheldrake has responded to this article. His comments and my responses are posted here.
books and articles
new Grey parrots use reasoning where monkeys and dogs can’t "Christian Schloegl and his team at the University of Vienna, let six parrots choose between two containers, one containing a nut. Both containers were shaken, one eliciting a rattling sound and the other nothing. The parrots preferred the container that rattled, even if only the empty container was shaken....Thus, grey parrots seem to possess ape-like reasoning skills...." [/new]
Last updated 16-Aug-2012