Humans aren't the only ones who like fatty foods - bearded vultures do, too. A study by Antoni Margalida from the Bearded Vulture Study and Protection Group in El Pont de Suert, Spain, has found that the bearded vulture will discard less energy-dense bones and choose only the bones containing the highest fat content both for its consumption and delivery to its young. His findings will be published this week in the Springer journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
The bearded vulture is the only vertebrate with a bone-dominated diet and can ingest bones up to 28 cm (11 inches) long and up to 4 cm (1 inches) wide. This makes sound ecological sense because due to their high fat content, mammal bones actually have a higher energy content than muscle tissue. To aid ingestion or transportation, the bearded vulture breaks up large bones on rocky surfaces, known as 'ossuaries', throwing the bones down from the air until they break up into small enough pieces to be swallowed or carried. Bearded vultures are one of the few species of vulture who do not feed their young by regurgitation but transport prey remains to the nest in their feet and bills.
Margalida chose to study bearded vultures living in the mountains of the Pyrenees in Spain. It is a harsh environment and the author believes this contributes to the bearded vultures' high energy requirement leading them to choose smaller, more energy dense bones. This way they ensure that the energy consumed is greater than the energy expended in obtaining the food. As well as energy density, he also wanted to study whether larger bones were discounted as being too difficult to transport and swallow.
As he had expected, bones left in the feeding stations and ossuaries, which had not been selected by the bearded vultures, had a lower content of oleic acid than those bones which had been selected. This would imply that nutritive content had a greater impact on choice than bone size.
|Contact: Joan Robinson|


A spectacular night launch from Cape Canaveral marked the beginning of the almost seven-year journey of the Cassini-Huygens mission to the ringed planet Saturn and its icy moons.
After a decade of preparations, a Titan IVb, NASA’s most powerful launch vehicle, first brought the spacecraft into an orbit around Earth, and then boosted it with a Centaur upper stage in order to bring it into its complicated trajectory through the inner Solar System. Two close flybys of Venus and one each of Earth and, around the turn of the year 2001, of Jupiter, accelerated Cassini-Huygens to its ultimate cruising speed.
On 1 July 2004, the mission entered into orbit around Saturn. On 25 December 2004, Cassini released the European probe Huygens, which landed on Saturn’s moon Titan on 14 January 2005. The Cassini orbiter will be circling Saturn until at least 2010.


Easy Magic Tricks for Scouts
> > > Triple Prizes < < <
piece of paper
- Write 1089 on the paper without showing anyone, fold it, and place it on the table in plain view.
- Give someone a piece of paper and pencil.
- Tell them to write down any 3 digit number that uses 3 different numerals in the middle of the paper. Not 111 or 202 or 330 where the same numeral is used more than once.
- Tell him to reverse the number. If the number is larger, write it above the first one. If smaller, write it below.
- Subtract the smaller from the larger.
- If the resulting number has 2 digits, fill in ahead of it with a zero.
- Reverse the number and write it below the bottom number.
- Add the bottom two numbers.
- Unfold your paper and ask if it matches their result - 1089!
Guessing the Coins
- Give the penny and nickel to a friend.
- Turn your back and tell him to hold one coin in each hand.
- Say that you want him to focus on the coins and mathematics is the best way to get his mind in gear.
- Ask him to multiply the coin in the right hand by 2 and to say 'OK' when he has the answer.
- Ask him to multiply the coin in the left hand by 17 and to say 'OK' when he has the answer. If it took about the same amount of time for each, then the nickel is in the right hand since 1x17 is easy to compute. If the 2nd one was much slower, then the nickel is in the left hand.
The next time you do the trick, use different numbers like 13 or 19.
- Give your friend these instructions:
- Think of any number from one to 10.
- Multiply it by 9. [Pause while they do this]
- If it's a two-digit number, add them together.
- Now, subtract 5 from the number in your head. [Pause again]
- Now, think of the letter in the alphabet that corresponds with the number you are thinking about. For instance, if you are thinking of the number 1, it would be "A". Number 2 would be "B". 3 is "C", and so on.
- Now, think of a country that starts with the letter you're thinking of.
- Spell the country in your head. [Pause here]
- Think about the second letter in that country's name. Now, quickly think of an animal who's name begins with that letter.[Pause here]
- Now, think of the animal's color.
- [Pause and concentrate] That's funny... this can't be right... there ARE no gray elephants in Denmark!
Add to 15
paper and pencil
- Write your answer (15) on a slip of paper, fold it, and lay it on the table.
- Give your fiend the paper and pencil.
- Ask him to draw a Tic-Tac-Toe board.
- Ask him to write down the numerals 1 to 9 in order in the diagram. 1,2,3 on top. 4,5,6 middle. 7,8,9 on bottom.
- Have him circle any numeral in the first row.
- Have him circle any numberal in the second row that is not in the same column as the first one circled.
- Have him circle the numeral in the bottom row that is in the column with no circled numerals.
- Have him add up the circled numbers.
- Have him unfold your answer - 15!
Jump the Coin
- Bet your friend that he will not be able to jump over this coin when you set it down.
- Have him stand with his arms stright down at his sides and then place the coin on top of his head.
- If he complains that you tricked him, then give him another chance - put the coin in the very corner of the room.
Guess the Color
4 pieces of paper - 3 inch square
red, blue, and green markers
- Put a red spot on one piece of paper, blue on another, green the third.
- On the back of the red paper, write in small neat printing - "YOU CHOSE RED"
- On the envelope where the stamp would go, write "YOU CHOSE BLUE" - not too big so you can cover it with your thumb.
- On the 4th piece of paper, write "YOU CHOSE GREEN", fold it, and put it in the envelope.
- Put the 3 colored papers in the envelope and now the trick is ready.
- Pull the envelope out of your bag covering the writing with your fingers and lay it front down on the table.
- Slide the 3 colored papers out and lay them in a line on the table with the colors facing up.
- Ask a friend to think of one of the colors. Really concentrate on it.
- Say Kalamazoo and then ask him to tell you the color he chose.
- If he says "BLUE", put the papers back into the envelope, fold the flap over to close it and then hold up the front and have your friend read what is written there.
- If he says "RED", turn over the Green, then Blue, then Red papers and have him read what is written.
- If he says "GREEN", pick up the envelop, and spread it open so he can see the paper inside. Ask him to take it and read what is on it as you pick up the papers and put them away.
- Immediately retrieve the materials and put them away before they can be inspected. Do not do the same trick twice.
Find the Card
deck of cards
- Separate the deck so all reds are together and all blacks are together. Place the reds on top of the blacks.
- Fan out the deck face down on the table making just the bottom half of it spread out and the top half still piled. This will encourage the person to take a black card.
- Tell him to look at his card and show it to his buddies.
- While he is checking out his card, stack the deck back together.
- When he is ready, fan the deck again, this time trying to keep the bottom half stacked and fanning the top half.
- Have him slip his card into the deck wherever he wants.
- Stack the deck and ask him to cut the deck once.
- Stack the deck after the cut and ask someone else to cut it also.
- You can have it cut quite a few times without much chance of it going wrong.
- When ready, pick up the deck and look through it for a single card that is a different color from those around it. This is the card.
The Best Card Trick Ever
This is the card trick I learned in 6th grade and have used it ever since. It's easy but very entertaining for those that have never seen it before. And, it takes awhile to figure out.
deck of cards
- Count 21 cards off the top of the deck and give them to your friend.
- Ask him to shuffle and cut them as much as he wants. Tell him this is his only chance to touch the cards so he needs to do a good job.
- Have him give you the stack of cards face-down when he is finished.
- Deal the cards face-up into 3 columns of 7 cards each with each card in a column overlapping the one under it so they are easy to scoop into a stack keeping the cards in order. Put the rest of the deck aside.
- Point to each column telling everyone this is column 1, column 2, and column 3 from left to right.
- Ask your friend to select in his mind one card. Have him tell a friend if he wants.
- Have him tell you if the card is in column 1, 2, or 3.
- Whichever column he chooses, stack up each column and put his chosen column between the other two to create one large stack. At this point, you know his card is between the 7th and 15th cards.
- Now, lay the cards out in 3 columns again just like the start. The important thing to remember is to lay the cards out by row from left to right! This arranges them correctly.
- Ask which column the card is in now and repeat the stacking and column creation.
- Ask which column the card is in. At this point, you know the card is the middle card in the chosen column! Believe me. :-)
- When you recreate the stack putting his column in the center, his card is now the 11th card. The next part is the fun part of the trick.
- Deal out the cards into 4 card stars facedown. You will make 5 stars with 4 cards and the last one will have a 5th card in the center on top. As you deal out the cards, count them in your head so when you lay down card number 11, you know right where his card lays.
- Ask him to point (do NOT touch or the magic will evaporate) to 2 piles of cards. If he points to the pile his card is in, then swipe away the other piles. Otherwise, swipe away the piles he pointed to.
- Repeat asking him to point to 1 pile. Take away the pile or piles that do not contain his card.
- You may have to do it a 3rd time until there is just one pile left.
- Spread the cards apart a bit and have him point to 2 cards. Remove either the ones he pointed to or the others, leaving his chosen card behind.
- Repeat until only his card is left.
- Just sit there and wait for him to ask, or take all the other cards and shuffle them back into the deck and get up and go get a drink, or think of some other dramatic way to flip the card over.
How Many Cards Moved?
deck of cards
- Retrieve these cards of any mixture of suits - A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack or Joker
- Arrange the 11 cards on the top of the deck as 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A, J, 10, 9, 8, 7 with the 6 on the very top.
- Deal the top 11 cards from the prepared deck face-down into a row on the table going from left to right so the 6 is on the far left and the 7 is on the far right.
- Explain that you want your friend to move as many cards as he wants from his left to right, one at a time, while you turn your back.
- After he has moved the cards, turn back around and turn over the 7th card from your left. That number is the number of cards he moved! If it is the Jack, he tried to fool you by not moving any cards or by moving all of them.
deck of cards
- Separate a deck into two piles, those whose printed numeral has a ROUND top ( 2 6 8 9 10 Q ) and those whose printed numeral has a FLAT top ( 3 4 5 7 J K A )
- Put these two piles back together into one deck. It looks mixed up, but isn't really. It helps if you have the Ace of Spades as the bottom card for the Flat top group so it is easy to find in the middle of the deck.
- Divide the deck in half, giving each half to a friend. (this is where having the Ace of Spades as the center card helps.)
- Turn your back and ask them to each shuffle and cut their own decks as much as they like and let you know when they are finished.
- When they are ready, tell them to fan out their decks and pull one card from the other person's deck.
- Tell them to look at the card and then insert it anywhere into their own deck.
- If they would like, shuffle and cut their own decks as much as they'd like and tell you when they are done.
- When they are ready, turn around and have them give you their decks. Put the two decks together into one.
- Fan out the cards in your hand looking for the ROUND top number in among the flat tops and the FLAT top number among the round tops.
- Pull out the two cards and toss them on the table.
deck of cards
- Pull out all the Kings, Queens, and Jacks from the deck.
- Arrange them into 2 piles - the KH, JC, KS, QD, QC, JD in one pile, the QH, KC, JH, QS, KD in the other, The JS is not needed.
- Put the 5-card deck on your lap under the table and the 6-card deck on the table.
- Deal the 6 cards face-up into a row on the table.
- Have someone choose in their mind one of the cards and have him tell a friend.
- Ask them to really concentrate on that card as you collect all the cards into a deck and bring it under the table.
- While the cards are under the table, concentrate very hard, making mental contact with the two friends.
- Switch decks with the 5-card deck and deal out all the cards, stating that their card has disappeared!
- (of course ALL the cards have disappeared so it doesn't matter which card they chose. Don't do it twice!)
deck of cards
- Pull out all the Aces into a pile, all the Kings into another, and the Queens, and Jacks. Tell the audience that these are the King, Queen, Jack, and Ace patrols getting ready for a campout.
- Flip the piles over and stack them one on top of the other into one deck.
- Say that the patrols decided to mix it up and have one member of each patrol in a tent. Lay down (face-up) each Ace in a row. Then, on top of the Aces, flip the Kings, then the Queens, then the Jacks. Now, there are 4 piles with one of each card.
- Flip the piles over and say the Scoutmaster called lights out and its time to sleep.
- Pick up each pile, making a stack of the cards.
- Cut the cards 3 or 4 times saying that during the night the scouts tossed and turned and had a terrible time sleeping.
- Deal the cards one at a time into 4 piles (face-down) and say, "But morning finally came ..."
- Flip the piles of cards over as you say, "and they all woke to find themselves back with their own patrol!"
Finding the Aces
deck of cards
- Pull out all the Aces into a pile face-up.
- Shuffle the remaining cards and deal the top 3 cards into a row face-down.
- Deal out the remainder of the cards face-down onto these 3 cards until there are 14 on each. Then, put one more card each on the middle and right piles and put the remaining 4 cards face-down to the right as a 4th pile.
- You have 4 piles and the 4 Aces.
- Have a friend take the first pile and shuffle it all he wants, then put it back face-down.
- Have him place the top Ace face-down on top of the first pile.
- Have the friend shuffle the 2nd pile all he wants and then put it back.
- Have him take any number of cards from the 2nd pile and place them on top of the 1st pile.
- Have him place the 2nd Ace face-down on the 2nd pile.
- Have him shuffle the third pile, replace it, and take any number of cards and put them on the 2nd pile.
- Have him place the 3rd Ace face-down on the 3rd pile.
- Have him shuffle the 4th pile and place it face-down on top of the 3rd pile.
- When he is finished, place the 3rd pile on the 2nd, then the 2nd on the 1st. You still have the 4th Ace sitting aside.
- Now announce that even though the Aces are well hidden throughout the deck, you will bring them to the top.
- Deal 2 cards face-down next to each other. Continue dealing face-down alternating between the two piles until all cards are dealt.
- Pick up the left-hand deck and deal the top card from it onto the remaining deck. Deal the next card down where the left-hand deck had been. Continue dealing out cards alternating between the two piles.
- Repeat picking up the left-hand deck and dealing out the cards, first card on top of the remaining deck, until there are only 3 cards left.
- Dramatically show that these are the 3 missing Aces!
A Number from 1 to 9
deck of cards
- Give the deck of cards to a friend and turn your back to him.
- Let him shuffle the deck as much as he'd like.
- Tell him to think of a number from 1 to 9 and then deal out that many cards face-down into a pile quietly so you can not hear them.
- Tell him to now search through the rest of the deck for a card that matches the number he chose. So, if he chose 5, find the 5C or 5H or 5D or 5S.
- Once he finds his card, tell him to put the deck face-down on the table and put his card face down on top of it.
- Then, place his dealt out pile on top of the deck.
- Now, have him deal off each card from the top of the deck face-up on the table and announce the name of each card as it is dealt.
- Starting at zero, mentally count the cards he deals. When he calls a card that matches the number in your head, that is his card, so memorize it. If he calls 5 Spades when you are at '5', then that is his card.
- Let him continue to deal out cards up to 10 and then ask him to stop.
- Tell him his card was the 5 of Spades, or whichever matched.
- Then, turn around for the applause. :-)
More Cub Scout Information to Use:
Cub Scouts - information about the cub scout program
Bobcat Info - any grade
Tiger Info - 1st grade
Wolf Info - 2nd grade
Bear Info - 3rd grade
Webelos - 4th and 5th grade
To help make your Cub Scouts of America program the best it can be, use these pages to find good stuff:
Monthly Cub Scout Themes
Activities - find age-appropriate, advancement-supporting activites for Cub Scouts
Games - den or pack games just right for 1st through 3rd graders
Projects - fun projects for cub scouts to use to do a good turn
Recipes - easy recipes
Cub Scout Skits - skits that Cub Scouts love
Songs - songs to liven up a cub scout den or pack meeting
Stories - choose stories that cub scouts will enjoy and understand
Awards - see what awards are available to all cub scouts
Cub Scout Academics & Sports - extra recognition opportunities
Pinewood Derby - advice for the big race
Yukon Jack on Starting post
Yvonne N P on Outdoor Activity award
New Advanc Chair on Merit Badges
Mark Kirkendall on Project Search
Tamara on Project Search
Kim on Uniforms
Dwight S on Outdoor Activity award
Dawn on Webelos Super NOVA award
Anna R. on Arrow of Light
Contest - Ask a Question - Add Content - scout software
This site is not officially associated with the Boy Scouts of America


What is a raw food diet?
The recent boon in backyard and community gardens, farmers markets, and availability of organic foods offer evidence of increased consumer demand for more wholesome, sustainable, and environmentally-friendly foods. This growing trend to eat more fruits and vegetables and less processed foods combined with Americans’ favorite past-time of adopting restrictive, hard-to-maintain, weight-loss inducing diets at the turn of the New Year, creates a perfect storm for a surge in interest and popularity of the raw food diet.
The raw food diet emphasizes intake of foods in their natural, unprocessed, uncooked form. Raw fruits and vegetables top the list of food options. Add to that a mix of beans and legumes and it seems like you should have a nutrient-dense, filling, and weight-loss inducing “perfect diet.” After all, each of these foods is packed with nutrients, light on calories, and high in fiber. In a nation known for massive portion sizes and ready access to highly processed foods, this way of eating should be a welcome change. But a closer looks reveals a more complicated, expensive, and questionable eating plan.
Beyond promoting every nutrition expert’s mantra of “eat more vegetables and fruits”, the standard raw food diet is true to its name – most, if not all, foods need to be “raw”. This means dieters are prohibited from cooking food. The only allowed “cooking” is dehydration which requires a special machine that blows hot air through the food and increases the temperature to no more than 118F. Since grains are indigestible raw and the diet prohibits boiling them, raw grains must be soaked overnight or allowed to sprout before consumption. Proponents argue that avoiding heat exposure keeps food enzymes intact leading to better digestion; however, this argument does not physiologically hold merit since the acid in the stomach inactivates the enzymes once the food is eaten. Plus, the body already makes all the enzymes it needs to digest and absorb food. Since food can’t be cooked, meat and most animal products are off limits (unless a dieter chooses to put the risk of severe foodborne illness aside and eat raw meat). For this reason, the raw food diet typically resembles a vegan diet that is free of processed and cooked food. Most raw food devotees also consume a mostly organic foods to avoid exposure to pesticides and other synthetic chemicals. The extent of adherence to these tenants is pending the level of commitment to adopting a “pure” version of the diet.
Few published studies evaluate risks and benefits of a raw food diet. The limited available research suggests a variety of potential benefits such as improved “bad” LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels (Koebnick et al, 2005), weight loss (Koebnick et al, 1999), improvement in fibromyalgia symptoms (Donaldson et al, 2001) and decreased blood pressure (Douglass et al, 1985) as well as potential harmful effects including decreased “good” HDL cholesterol (Koebnick et al, 2005), decreased bone density (Fontana et al, 2005), and vitamin B12 deficiency (due to elimination of animal products) (Koebnick et al, 2005). Extremists who do not adopt the vegan approach but instead consume raw animal products risk serious foodborne illness. Plus, as with any restrictive diet, strict adherence to a raw food diet is challenging. But it turns out that this imperfect adherence may be its major redeeming feature. After all, an overall concerted effort to eat a healthier, more wholesome, mostly plant-based diet should be the goal of any dietary overhaul.
- Koebnick C., et al. (2005). Long-term consumption of a raw food diet is associated with favorable serum LDL cholesterol and triglycerides but also with elevated plasma homocysteine and low serum HDL cholesterol in humans. Journal of Nutrition, 135, 10, 2372-2378.
- Koebnick C., et al (1999). Consequences of a Long-Term Raw Food Diet on Body Weight and Menstruation: Results of a Questionnaire Survey. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, 43, 2, 69-79.
- Donaldson M.S., et al (2001). Fibromyalgia syndrome improved using a mostly raw vegetarian diet: an observational study. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2001, 1, 7. Douglass, J. M., et al (1985). Effects of a raw food diet on hypertension and obesity. Southern Medical Journal, 78, 7, 841-844.
- Fontana L., et al (2005). Low bone mass in subjects on a long-term raw vegetarian diet. Archives of Internal Medicine, 165, 684-689.


Alexander Todorov, an associate professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, has designed a new freshman seminar, "The Face: The Forces That Shape How We Perceive Others," to teach students about humans' specialized mechanisms for processing, recognizing and socially assessing faces — as well as the biases that lead to errors in perception.
Photo by Denise Applewhite
Academic journeys begin with freshman seminars
Princeton's newest undergraduates are setting out on a path of inquiry and discovery this fall through the University's freshman seminar program.
Freshman seminars enable students to build strong relationships with faculty members and classmates in a close-knit intellectual setting. Many students cite the freshman seminar as one of the highlights of their time at Princeton.
Among other subjects, freshmen this fall are exploring forces that shape facial perception, issues related to global environmental change, experiences with sound and music, and notions of individuality. A total of 480 freshmen are enrolled this semester in 35 seminars, each of which is hosted by a residential college. Class discussions often continue in informal settings both on and off campus, through meals, guest lectures, field trips and other activities.
This is part of a series of features highlighting freshman seminars offered at Princeton this semester. Other features:
Exploring the science and nuance of facial perception
Posted October 31, 2011; 12:00 p.m.
Professor Alexander Todorov showed the students in his freshman seminar a series of images of the same blurry face — with the hint that it was a non-American political leader — as it would appear from 200, 100 and 50 meters. At 50 meters, only one student figured out who it was — Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Todorov's next example illustrated how facial recognition can have serious consequences. He showed the students a photo of Darrell Edwards, a man who is currently fighting a 1999 murder conviction based in part on eyewitness testimony. Then Todorov demonstrated what Edwards would have looked like to the eyewitness who said she saw him the night of the murder from 271 feet (about 82 meters) away, without her prescription eyeglasses. The shocked students laughed at the blurry photograph.
"The jurors didn't have that reaction. They thought it was actually possible from this distance to identify a person," Todorov said. "The fact of the matter is, from this distance, you can't identify a person. You might be able to identify somebody who's a highly familiar person based on their gait and other things, but in this case an unfamiliar person, the eyewitness, didn't know who Darrell is."
In class, Todorov shows students photos of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from 200, 100 and 50 meters away to demonstrate how distance and familiarity influence facial recognition. (Images courtesy of Geoffrey Loftus)
Todorov, an associate professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, uses a wide array of visual aids in his course "The Face: The Forces That Shape How We Perceive Others," which is being offered for the first time this fall. His 15 students are learning about humans' specialized mechanisms for processing, recognizing and socially assessing faces — as well as the biases that lead to errors in perception.
"My ambition is to make them excited about psychology and cognitive science. It's a specialized topic but has something for everybody," Todorov said, with applications from eyewitness testimony to electoral outcomes to Hollywood casting of "attractive" performers.
Freshman Miriam Pearsall had enjoyed her psychology class in high school and was drawn immediately to the seminar topic.
"I was especially attracted to the fact that face perception has such great relevance in understanding society and the world as a whole," Pearsall said. "I love that this freshman seminar allows me to voluntarily delve in the topic. Then I can discuss what I've learned with people who are just as interested in the topic as I am."
Todorov (left) incorporates material related to topics ranging from criminal justice to Hollywood casting to show students, such as Victor Hsiao (center) and David Dohan (right), the many applications of facial perception. (Photo by Denise Applewhite)
Todorov began the course, which is designated as the Shelly and Michael Kassen '76 Freshman Seminar in the Life Sciences, by explaining how the brain develops facial representations. Students learned about unique ways the brain processes faces unlike other objects almost from birth; the fact that it takes less than 50 milliseconds of glimpsing a face to extract informatino about its familiarity, age, sex, race and attractiveness; and parts of the brain such as the fusiform face area dedicated to face processing.
The class also visited the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) lab in Green Hall on campus where Todorov, with the help of a graduate student, demonstrated how brain scans are done, and students received a primer on analyzing the scans.
For Sarah Cuneo, the trip to the fMRI lab has been the highlight of the class up to this point.
"It was amazing to be able to see for ourselves all the techniques and results that we had been reading about for weeks — there's definitely a huge difference between understanding something in theory and seeing it in practice," Cuneo said.
The classroom discussions have also shed light on and enlivened some of the more technical material, she said.
"The small size of our freshman seminar gives the class an incredibly collaborative feel; we get to really engage our classmates in discussion, which means that we legitimately learn from each other," Cuneo said. "A lot of what we do in class is discussion of scientific journal articles, and it's great to have an active debate about the results. Different people in the class will offer several perspectives on the significance of any given study, and that means we get to examine a hypothesis from a variety of angles."
From left, freshmen Miriam Pearsall, Jacob Simon and Sarah Cuneo are among the 15 students who engage in lively discussions about the nuances of facial perception and recognition in Todorov's seminar. (Photo by Denise Applewhite)
Todorov's lesson on eyewitnesses was meant to contrast sophisticated perception skills for familiar faces with the factors in play when observing unfamiliar faces. Scientists have not yet discovered why and how the processes for perceiving familiar and unfamiliar faces are so different.
In the same class as the discussion on Edwards, students picked out Michael Jordan, Bill Clinton and Jay Leno in a slide of blurry faces. Yet earlier, students had performed poorly on a hypothetical lineup. When they were asked to match the photo of a suspect to one of 10 mug shots, the students came to a consensus on one man and were surprised when Todorov told them that none of the 10 was the suspect.
"It makes sense that we would be less able to identify unfamiliar faces, but I didn't think we would be as bad as we were. We were really, really bad," Cuneo said.
Students suggested many factors and biases that could lead to a misidentification — witnesses may be agitated or motivated to find a culprit, or they may compare the faces in the lineup to each other rather than their own memory, or expect some variation between their memory and the lineup, among other factors.
"We can use these insights for better police procedures for not arresting innocent people," Todorov said, adding that New Jersey is one of the states that changed its lineup procedures to reflect research in this area and remove some sources of bias. "The point is not to dismiss this sort of evidence but to look at it with a critical eye."
From left, students Abidjan Walker, Kelly Kremer and Tova Bergsten listen attentively as Todorov (right) explains how overconfidence plays a role in facial perception. (Photo by Denise Applewhite)
In his own lab, Todorov studies the social perceptions of faces, and he will focus on related issues for the rest of the semester. Some discussion topics include how people perceive emotional expressions, how people form first impressions, how they assess personality traits such as trustworthiness, and what makes a face attractive.
"It's great to explain the basic concepts, and I also learn from teaching them," Todorov said. "I don't really want the students to be face experts, but if they get excited about the right way to do an experiment, how to test a theory, how to rule out alternative explanations and get excited about psychology, that's great."


Small group learning
is a useful educational
approach. The group
work has to be carefully planned and frequently requires a facilitator
to ensure group progress. In addition the group function and the learning that takes place needs to be assessed and evaluated. The material learned is just as important as the group's ability to achieve a common goal
. Facilitatory skills are important and require the teacher
to ensure that both the task is achieved and the group functioning is maintained.
Small group learning allows students to develop problem solving, interpersonal, presentational and communication skills, all beneficial to life outside the classroom. These generic skills are difficult to develop in isolation and require feedback and interaction with other individuals.
Small group communication


During slavery, some slaves were given a day of rest while others were forced to continue work. In some parts of the country, slaves were given a yule log to burn in the big house. As long as the log burned, they were granted rest during the holiday. Sometimes the log would burn until the New Year.
During the days of rest, some slaves would hold quilting bees, with both men and women. It was also sometimes tradition that slaves could keep the money they earned for the sale of goods during the holiday.
While the holiday season was meant to be a joyous occasion, slaves that worked inside the house would be worked hardest during Christmas, as many owners and their families would host Christmas parties.
The Christmas holiday would also be a time that some slaveowners gave wine and alcoholic beverages to their slaves. With business still in mind, the effects of alcohol were something unknown to many slaves, and most would overindulge. The increased lounge and slumber would discourage runaways during the break. This was a theory held by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Despite, some slaves were given passes to see nearby relatives during Christmas time and allowed visitors from neighboring plantations.
Along with the traditions of the Christmas holiday in Western culture, slaves had dancing and singing in the slave quarters. Sometimes the white masters would come to the slave quarters to watch the celebration. Parents would give children small, homemade tokens.
Another celebration known as Jonkonnu, or a Christmas masquerade, took place on the plantations. It was a basic traveling show in which the slave would put on makeshift costumes and go from house to house to perform for gifts and money.
The traditions of Christmas during slavery were tools for celebration in the harshest working and living conditions for blacks. While the whites in the “big house” were being showered with gifts and feast, they shared a portion of those with their captives, and at the same time, used the opportunity to convince slaves that slavery was their best option for living peacefully and safely among the masters.


Oh my, do I love this video.
But seriously. Don’t do this.
Thanks to Approximately Normal for the find.
I have to show that to my students – or maybe not – do you think they would be insulted?
Mary, it could definitely go south on you. Proceed with caution! I could imagine it being a way to open a conversation about how the class is going for students. As in, “I want to show you something funny, and the I want to talk about it. This video shows a math class going very very badly and I don’t want our class to be like this. So let’s talk afterwards about ways I can keep you from feeling like the student in this video…”
With a class of future teachers, we can use the video to discuss teaching and learning of math in the abstract. But in a College Algebra or Math Center course, we would have to be super careful.
Wow–on the other hand it’s hard to know what to do when you’re the teacher in that sort of situation. So what do you do?
I know some of the answers, of course–acting it out, using manipulatives, making it a more concrete problem (if you had 6 cookies and you ate one, how many would be left), using smaller numbers (if you had 3 cookies and you ate one, how many would be left), and those are the sorts of things I’d hope that my future teachers would come up with if we discussed this video, but even with those mental tools, you do come across students where nothing works.
I was working with a third grader some time ago, for whom the answer to taking away 0 was almost always 0 (what’s 4-0? 0!). Changing the wording and acting it out would work temporarily (though rarely the first time–asking if you had 4 cookies and you ate none of them how many would you have left generally resulted in the answer 0), but the next day we were generally back to 4-0=0, and I was never sure if anything was working or if it was all illusory. So–what should you do? If you have answers (or good resources) I’d love to have them. You never know when you might run into a child where you need a new trick.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, LSquared.
Let me make explicit what I see in this video.
First of all, I was finishing up a morning’s worth of writing Talking Math with Your Kids posts. So I wasn’t coming at the video so much from the teacher perspective as the parent one.
Either way, though, I suppose I have the same perspective. Namely: The learner’s ideas are nowhere present in this conversation. The goal in the interaction is getting to a right answer to a particular problem. The things you mention, LSquared, are all means to that end. Manipulatives, contextualizing the problem, etc. All positive moves.
But I would argue for putting the learners’ ideas at the center of the lesson (in school) or conversation (at home). My main resource for this is always going to be Children’s Mathematics, from the Cognitively Guided Instruction research project (CGI). CGI begins with the premise that children have mathematical ideas that do not match those of adults very well, but that these ideas have predictable structure and can be used to help kids move forward.
So I would say that what to do involves digging for kids’ ideas. Not giving them strategies so much as asking to find out what they do know. Then build on that.
Or we can just laugh along with the video and marvel at what a crazy and complex profession we’ve chosen for ourselves. I’m cool doing that too.
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The UNESCO World Heritage Convention provides a unique framework for securing the conservation of over 200 of the world’s most important natural areas, recognized as being of Outstanding Universal Value.
The identification of these Sites through the Convention is a direct response to the need to preserve and restore globally outstanding protected areas based on criteria that include scale of natural habitats, intactness of ecological processes, viability of populations of rare species, and rarity, notwithstanding aesthetic appeal which almost always accompany these natural wonders.
The Convention provides a unique platform for developing and sharing best-practice, and can act as a barometer of global protected area performance.
IUCN advises UNESCO on natural World Heritage Sites.This means that IUCN:
- Evaluates sites nominated for inscription on the World Heritage List
- Monitors the conservation state of existing natural sites, working with a global network of member organizations
- Trains and strengthens capacity of site managers, governments, scientists and local communities


PURPOSE: To easily input a three-dimensional picture to a computer by reading positions of picture elements of the reflecting light beams from its two-dimensional picture and inputting the positions to the three-dimensional coordinates of the three-dimensional surface or the surface of the solid body after conversion.
CONSTITUTION: When a solid body 3 is scanned in such a way that an origin O of three-dimensional coordinates is fixed inside the solid body 3 and light beams on a straight line are projected on the radial direction parallel to the XZ-plane by means of a 45°-inclined revolving mirror which successively makes relative movement along the fixed straight line of '0' on Z-axis and a fixed value on X-axis, one sides of plane mirrors 2 and 2' are respectively made coincident the fixed straight line of '0' on X-axis and a fixed value on Z-axis and the inclinations of the mirrors 2 and 2' are adjusted so that the optical beam can reflect in the direction parallel to Z-axis on one sides of the mirrors. Therefore, the optical beam never scans the area where the X-coordinate becomes negative and the terminating ends of the line images of the reflecting light always stay on the YZ-plane. Thus a solid body which is '0' or a positive value on X-coordinate can be scanned over its entire surface. Therefore, a three-dimensional picture can be inputted to a computer easily.
|WO/2011/111506||METHOD FOR DRIVING CIRCUIT AND METHOD FOR DRIVING DISPLAY DEVICE|
|JP2013003629||IMAGE FORMING DEVICE AND CONTROL PROGRAM|
|JP2008242758||PATTERN PRINT TRANSPARENT SHEET|


Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics
Dover Publications (1961)
|Abstract||This history of physics focuses on the question, "How do bodies act on one another across space?" The variety of answers illustrates the function of fundamental analogies or models in physics as well as the role of so-called unobservable entities. Forces and Fields presents an in-depth look at the science of ancient Greece, and it examines the influence of antique philosophy on seventeenth-century thought. Additional topics embrace many elements of modern physics--the empirical basis of quantum mechanics, wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle, and the action-at-a-distance theory of Wheeler and Feynman. 1961 ed.|
|Keywords||Physics History Physics Philosophy Force and energy|
|Buy the book||$11.15 new (45% off) $11.15 used (45% off) $15.60 direct from Amazon (22% off) Amazon page|
|Call number||QC7.H62 2005|
|External links||This entry has no external links. Add one.|
|Through your library||Configure|
Similar books and articles
Peter Kosso (1998). Appearance and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics. Oxford University Press.
Karl Rogers (2005). On the Metaphysics of Experimental Physics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Lawrence Sklar (1992). Philosophy of Physics. Westview Press.
Edward G. Ruestow (1973). Physics at Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Leiden: Philosophy and the New Science in the University. The Hague,Nijhoff.
Gordon Fraser (ed.) (2009). The New Physics for the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press.
C. W. Kilmister (1994/2005). Eddington's Search for a Fundamental Theory: A Key to the Universe. Cambridge University Press.
Paul M. Clark (ed.) (1981). Modern Physics and Problems of Knowledge. Open University Press.
José M. Sanchez-Ron (1985). Physics and Philosophy: Action at a Distance in 20th Century Physics. Theoria 1 (2):439-459.
Edward Rosen (1962). Book Review:Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics Mary Brenda Hesse. [REVIEW] Philosophy of Science 29 (4):434-.
Mary B. Hesse (1962/1970). Forces and Fields. Westport, Conn.,Greenwood Press.
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ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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Publication Date : 01-02-2013
Golden goose floats used in the funeral procession are based on the hamsa
The golden goose floats used in the funeral procession for the late King Father Friday are based on the hamsa, the Sanskrit name for an aquatic bird in Hindu mythology.
At least three such floats were seen as the procession got underway. One carried Venerables Bou Kry and Tep Vong, the heads of the two main Buddhist sects in Cambodia.
A second carried National Assembly President Heng Samrin, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Royal Palace Minister Kong Samol and Senate Vice President Say Chhum.
A third carried members of the royal family, who appeared to be grandchildren of the former king.
Brahma, the god of creation, is typically represented with four faces and four arms mounted on a hamsa.
Hamsas are still used as symbols and for decoration in India and Southeast Asia, especially in Myanmar, where they appear on some regional flags, and Thailand, where the mythical bird is featured on the royal barge.
In Cambodia, where the goose is known as a hang, the hamsa is found in the logo of the Ministry of Economy and Finance as well as Acleda Bank.
The Chu Nath Dictionary defines the hang as a wild goose distinguished by a long neck and wings that are usually white but sometimes yellow. It says the geese are known for flying long distances at extremely high altitudes and swimming on water to find food.
Some believe the mythical creature to be based on the bar-headed goose (Anser indicus) which migrates south across the Himalayas to spend the winters in India.
A paper published by America's National Academy of Sciences in 2011 said this species makes one of the highest trans-mountain migrations in the world.
The birds typically cross the Himalayas in a single day, climbing between 4,000 and 6,000 metres in seven to eight hours. According to the paper, they can support minimum climb rates of 0.8 to 2.2 kilometres an hour.
According to Birdlife International, the bar-headed goose mainly breeds in China, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Non-breeding populations are found in Pakistan and India as well as Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand.


Summary: With substance and style, Samaha helps students master the complexities of the criminal justice system and the law. His presentation engages students in active learning and encourages them to understand, rather than memorize. That students truly enjoy reading CRIMINAL JUSTICE is a testament to Samaha's skill as a teacher, writer, and scholar. Featuring a critical-thinking approach that encourages students to explore all sides of the criminal justice system, this thor ...show moreough introduction draws students in and encourages them to learn more. Samaha provides students with an important and realistic understanding of the formal and informal dimensions of criminal justice: from there, they have the ideal framework to learn about the sociology, politics, economics, and law of the discipline. ...show lessEdition/Copyright: 7TH 06
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Conservation and Research projects
At Wellington Zoo we support a number of conservation and research projects both at the Zoo (ex situ) and in the field (in situ).
Grand and Otago skinks
Wellington Zoo, in partnership with the Department of Conservation (DoC), is housing and caring for three pairs each of grand and Otago skinks – some of New Zealand’s rarest lizards. We hope that these skinks will breed to create a larger insurance population to conserve them for years to come. Our partnership with DoC allows Zoo staff to gain valuable field experience by monitoring wild skinks in their natural North Otago habitat.
Grand and Otago skinks are two of New Zealand’s rarest reptiles, estimated to remain in just 8% of their natural habitat and under increasing threat from predators. With no further protection in the wild, these species are predicted to become extinct within the next 10 years. The Department of Conservation has been working on grand and Otago skink recovery in Central Otago for several years. The decision was made in early 2007 to create an insurance population of both species in captivity, to ensure survival of genetic diversity of the skinks into the next decade.
Wellington Bush Builders
Bush Builders is a hands-on environmental education programme coordinated by Wellington Zoo, with the aim of connecting urban students with their local flora and fauna.
The programme uses the living world to excite and empower students to take positive action in their own communities. Bush Builders accesses a range of Wellington Zoo resources to create and in-depth learning experience for local students at curriculum levels 1 -8.
The Bush Builders programme develops environmental literacy over three distinct phases including a launch at Wellington Zoo and biological surveying at school. Schools can also choose to use Bush Builders as a Primary CREST Award activity.
To talk with us about how your school can get involved with Bush Builders contact firstname.lastname@example.org
Brothers Island tuatara
For just over six years, Wellington Zoo was the guardian of 53 Brothers Island tuatara – the rarest sub-species of New Zealand’s living dinosaur. Incubated and hatched at Victoria University of Wellington, the tuatara came to us in 2001 and were raised and cared for, off display, at the Zoo. In October 2007 the tuatara were released onto Long Island in the Marlborough Sounds, in conjunction with Victoria University, the Department of Conservation and Te Ati Awa, in hopes of establishing an insurance population for this rare reptile.
Other research projects undertaken by Zoo staff include:
- Kakapo vaccination 05/06: veterinary project: DoC asked us to help with the vaccination of all kakapo after an outbreak of Erysipelotrix rhusiopathiae (bacterium). Wellington Zoo staff went to Codfish Island and vaccinated and took blood samples from over 20 birds.
- Kea respiratory research 04/05: veterinary research project: First publication of chronic cystic pulmonary disease in a Kea together with Dr B Gartrell of Massey University. CT scans at Pacific Radiology helped make the diagnosis.
- New Zealand fur seal Jan 08: veterinary conservation project: Landcare Research asked us to perform the veterinary work on the Fur seals. 64 animals were caught and assessed by the vet team of the Zoo in January 2008.
- New Zealand sea lion 06 ongoing: veterinary conservation project: ongoing project with DoC in which we support them by providing the veterinary staff to anaesthetise sea lions and conduct health exams.
- Oral vaccination of exotic birds against salmonella strain May 08: Veterinary research: world first large scale vaccination of exotic birds with salmonella vaccine. Research trial into the efficacy of the vaccination by one of our vet residents.


Household Safety Checklist
In order to protect you and your family, a thorough safety check of every room in your home should be conducted on a regular basis. Unintentional accidents, injuries, and nontraumatic emergencies may be prevented and your family will be healthier and safer when you practice a little prevention.
The following checklist may be printed so it can be used for the inspection of your home.
___ Do not leave medications, toiletries, or other household products in drawers or on night stands.
___ To avoid accidental injuries or choking, keep penknives, nail files, scissors, and pocket change out of reach.
___ Install a smoke detector in the hallway outside of the bedrooms. Check and change the batteries regularly.
___ Make certain drapery cords and/or blind cords are well out of reach of children.
___ Make certain the crib mattress fits snugly.
___ Crib slats should be placed no wider than 2 and 3/8 inches apart.
___ Make certain the crib has been put together properly and is not missing screws or bolts to prevent it from collapsing.
___ Make certain there is a carpet or rug beneath the crib or changing table to soften the impact if an infant falls.
___ Make certain drapery cords and/or blind cords are well out of reach of children and cribs.
___ Remove all crib gyms, hanging toys, and decorations form a crib by the time a baby can raise up on hands and knees.
___ Make sure there is a safety belt on the infant changing table, and that it is used consistently and properly.
___ Make sure baby powder and lotions are out of a baby or child's reach. But, make sure the baby powder and lotions are within your reach, so you do not have to leave the infant to reach these items.
___ If your child can climb out of the crib, consider a youth bed with guard rails, or place the crib mattress on the floor.
___ Never leave small parts or pieces of a toy(s) in a child's room.
___ Make certain a night light is not near or touching drapes or the bedspread.
___ Never place a crib, playpen, or bed near a window.
___ Make certain window screens are securely in place, or that window guards are present to prevent a child from falling from a window.
___ Make certain there are plug protectors in the unused electrical outlets.
___ If there is a lid on the toy box, it should not be heavy, hinged, or lockable. Children may crawl inside and become trapped.
___ Put a nonskid bathmat on the floor and a nonskid mat or decals in the bathtub.
___ Protect all electrical outlets with ground fault circuit interrupters.
___ Store medicines, cosmetics, toiletries, and cleansers well out of reach of children.
___ When children are present, put child-resistant safety latches on all cabinets storing potentially harmful substances.
___ Store electrical appliances, such as hair dryers and curling irons, out of reach.
___ Always unplug such an appliance before leaving it unattended, no matter how briefly.
___ To avoid accidental scalding, make certain to set the water heater no higher than 120 degrees Fahreinheit (49 degrees Celsius).
___ Never leave a child or disabled person unattended in a bathtub, or in a bathroom where there is a tub, sink, or bucket containing water.
___ Keep toilet lids closed.
___ Do not store vitamins (or medications) on the kitchen table, counter top, or window sill.
___ Make certain knives, scissors, and other sharp utensils are out of reach.
___ Store dishwasher detergent and other cleaning supplies in their original containers and out of reach.
___ When children are present, install safety latches on cabinets and drawers within a child's reach.
___ Keep chairs and step stools away from counters and stoves.
___ Always turn pot handles inward when cooking on the stove. Use back burners whenever possible.
___ Keep the toaster out of the reach of toddlers.
___ Make certain appliance cords are not dangling, so they cannot be pulled from a counter.
___ Unplug appliance extension cords when not in use.
___ When children are present, use plug protectors for all unused wall outlets.
___ If a child is in a highchair, make sure it is sturdy and has a seat belt with a strap between the legs.
___ Keep a working fire extinguisher in your kitchen.
___ Keep houseplants out of reach of children. A number of plants are poisonous.
___ Make certain television sets and other heavy items are secure so they cannot be tipped over.
___ Remove unnecessary extension cords.
___ Put plug protectors in any unused electrical outlets when children are present.
___ Move tables and other objects with sharp edges away from the center of a room, especially if there are toddlers or disabled persons in the home.
___ Place protective material on sharp furniture edges.
___ Keep drapery and blind cords out of reach of children and/or disabled persons.
___ Secure area rugs to prevent falls and slips.
___ Keep stairs and walkways clear of snow, wet leaves, or other debris.
___ Repair cracks or chips in cement sidewalks and stairs.
___ Make certain railings, gates, and fences are secure and in good repair.
___ Keep garbage cans covered.
___ There should be a fence with a locked gate between the house and the backyard swimming pool.
___ Garden tools and lawn equipment should be securely stored.
___ Play equipment, such as swing sets and garden furniture, should be properly anchored and assembled. Check regularly for rust, splintered wood, or cracks.
___ If you have a fireplace, wood burning stove, or other heat source, place barriers around it to avoid accidental burns.
___ Inspect and clean chimneys and stovepipes regularly.
___ Make certain hazardous items, such as bug sprays, cleaners, auto care products, and weed killers, are secured and stored in their original containers in the garage, utility room, or basement.
___ Place "Mr. Yuk" stickers on all hazardous items.
___ The first action when a person has ingested a toxic substance is to consult with the local poison control center at the universal telephone number in the United States--800-222-1222.
___ Make certain plastic bags, broken pieces of toys, buttons, screws, and other choking or suffocation hazards are stored out of reach of children.
___ Post emergency telephone numbers near each telephone in your home.
___ When children are present, safety devices, such as gates, locks, and doorknob covers, should be in use at all stairways and exits in your home.
___ Make sure all indoor and outdoor stairways and entries are well-lighted and clear.
___ Make certain bathrooms and bedrooms can be unlocked from the outside.
___ Keep matches and lighters out of the reach of children and disabled persons.
___ A home should have two unobstructed exits, in case of fire or other emergency.
___ Check all electrical cords to make sure they are not cracked or frayed.
___ Make certain outlets or extension cords are not overloaded.
___ It is best not to use space heaters. If they are used, make sure they are in safe condition. Never plug them into an extension cord. Do not place them near drapes or furnishings.
___ Paint or wallpaper should not be chipping or peeling.
___ Keep purses, backpacks, and other portable storage bags out of a child's reach. They may contain medicines, penknives, hard candies, and other items that may harm children.


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I have a person in my class who has trouble communicating with math language. Recently I taught my class fractions. He has a hard time trying to do word problems with fractions. He understands how to change improper fractions to mixed fractions, fractions to decimals etc. He has trouble with word problems. What activities can I do to support the areas he has trouble with and not interrupt the whole class's learning pace?
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The Rand Corporation has released a new report "Strategies for Advancing Preschool Adequacy and Efficiency in California."
Among the reports key findings:
- Disadvantaged children, who are more likely to start school behind and stay behind, are also the least likely to attend high-quality preschool programs.
- California's underfunded preschool system serves only half the eligible three- and four-year-olds, and the system does not reward higher-quality providers.
- Increasing access to high-quality preschool for disadvantaged children can narrow existing achievement gaps.
- In the short term, California can allocate existing resources more efficiently and provide infrastructure supports for raising quality in the future.
- In the longer term, new resources should be used to expand access to and raise the quality of preschool programs for those who can benefit most.


This 1914 fire aerial ladder truck was in service at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition (world's fair) held in San Francisco to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal.
It is a 1905 Cadillac with an original price tag of $950.00 from Detroit. It was restored and has been part of the museum for 35 years. The sign says only 4,029 of these vehicles were made and very few remain today.
Drum roll, please...
From what I read, early fire departments used baking soda and acid (vinegar) together to form carbon dioxide gas to extinguish fires; thus, the term "chemical" hose.
It was purchased for $4,345.00 in 1890, a lot of money back then, and used in the 1906 earthquake. The fire station collapsed, but the firemen dug out the engine and used it to fight fires for 2 straight days.


Build a solid foundation in science, formulation and product development—find out more!
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Formulate This: Inverse Emulsions
By: Ken Klein, Cosmetech Labs
Posted: February 1, 2010, from the February 2010 issue of Cosmetics & Toiletries.
Editor’s note: Cosmetics & Toiletries presents "Formulate This,” a new column highlighting commonly asked formulating questions with answers provided by seasoned industry experts. This feature is designed to provide cosmetic chemists and formulators with ideas and advice to solve formulating challenges. To submit a question, e-mail FormulateThis@allured.com.
Question: I’m trying to understand cosmetic emulsion inversion. What actually happens inside the emulsion at the phase borders?
Answer: First, remember the HLB system. For ethoxylated emulsifiers, as the temperature increases, the HLB decreases--i.e., they switch from o/w emulsifiers at a low temperature to w/o emulsifiers at a high temperature. When an oil phase is added to a water phase, an o/w emulsion is formed.
As the temperature heats to 75°C, the HLBs of the o/w emulsifiers (ethoxylates) decrease and they orient to w/o. As the temperature is lowered, the HLB increases and there is a point at which the emulsifiers then orient to form an o/w emulsion (the Phase Inversion Temperature or PIT), resulting in an inverse emulsion.
From a theoretical standpoint (and in reality, too), to form an o/w emulsion, it is a good idea to first form a w/o emulsion and invert it into an o/w emulsion. The resulting resistant emulsion will have a narrow particle size distribution, and oftentimes a smaller average particle size, thus making it a more stable emulsion.


For many people, learning a language involves going to classes, doing homework, taking tests and trying to memorise vocabulary. Others try to teach themselves languages using similar techniques. These are all useful things to do, but won’t necessarily give you a fluency in the language. Conscious learning of a language using these methods tends to feel like hard work.
If you really want to become highly proficient in a language, you need to spend a lot of time immersed in it. To become good at speaking the language, for example, you need to find opportunities to use it with other people, ideally in situations where you have to use it, or at least try to say as much as you can without falling back on your native language. Listening to radio programmes, watching videos, films and TV programmes, reading books and other material, and writing it as often as you can are also good things to do. This may not feel like study, especially if they involves subjects and activities you really enjoy, but you will be absorbing and acquiring a lot of the language without realizing it.
Conscious learning and sub-conscious acquisition are both good ways to learn languages. You can probably make faster progress if you study a language consciously, but sub-conscious acquisition probably gives you a deeper knowledge of it. Combining the two together is even better.


All the evidence to date shows that value-added techniques are being employed responsibly
In one suburban school district, teachers across the system were ranked and evaluated according to the contribution they had made to student learning–based on a value-added analysis of state test results. When they were ranked again the next year, the results were very similar except for one teacher who moved from a top rank to a very low rank. When the school superintendent looked at the results, he immediately identified the teacher–her husband had died during the second year of rankings.
What does this anecdote illustrate? For starters, that value-added assessments can misidentify good and bad teachers–and that the discrepancies can be cleared up by local administrators. More important, however, was the fact that the findings were robust; teachers’ rankings were similar across three years of analysis. Moreover, these rankings were used to grant a standard reward to a top group of teachers, not to make fine distinctions in the amount of compensation that teachers received. In other words, the results of value-added analysis, when examined over a period of two or three years, were stable and were used in a way that respected the margin of error involved in using these statistical techniques.
Critics of value-added assessment tend to embrace the concept but don’t want the results gleaned from such analysis to be used for accountability purposes–and especially don’t want to use the results to reward or sanction teachers. But teachers are the dominant school input, in terms of both spending and impact on student learning. Excluding them essentially leaves the education system without accountability.
The main concern with value-added assessment is that the technique exacerbates the amount of random error involved in measuring student performance. The risk is that teachers and schools may be wrongfully rewarded or punished because value-added techniques either over- or underestimated their students’ learning gains. However, no intelligent users of standardized testing would make policy choices based on a single year’s result or small differences among schools and teachers. Texas, for example, rewards schools based on value-added achievement gains calculated using two-stage regression analysis. The state does not hand out awards based on decimal-point differences among schools; officials reward a previously set percentage of top-ranking schools. The point here is that most of the statistical objections to value-added measurements assume a misuse of the analysis. The statistical “noise” involved in measuring value-added should preclude decisions that are based on small, unreplicated analysis; it should not preclude decisions that are based on gross findings.
Confidence in gross findings can be developed by replication, by averaging results over several time periods, and by using several measures of the development of human capital–not tests alone, but also attendance rates, dropout rates, and promotion rates (a very high-quality assessment will track indicators of human capital such as post-secondary school earnings and higher-education outcomes as well). The richer the measures used, the less weight there is on the psychometric concerns involving test scores. The alternative is to rest teacher compensation on factors that have little to do with student learning. It is now well established, for example, that the number of degrees teachers possess and the number of hours teachers spend in education courses are unrelated to student learning. Put another way, an important criterion in the determination of a teacher’s salary does not have any bearing on the ability of the teacher to develop human capital. We know that because it has been replicated in many studies in many school districts, even though salary schedules have yet to reflect this information.
Critics often cite the difficulty of comparing the results of large and small schools and comparing one subject with another. It is essential in the debate over the usefulness of the value-added assessment approach that the unit of observation and the comparison group be specified. If, as has been the case in a number of places, the comparison group is all the teachers in a given grade in the school district–with, say, the top 15 percent of the 4th grade teachers receiving an award–what is the significance of a big or small school? The class is the unit, and class size tends to be uniform within a school district. At the high-school level, the comparison group is likely to be, for example, all history teachers or all science teachers across the district. The award-receiving group is a percentage of that comparison group, and it is not affected by the test scores in another subject.
If multiple factors are used for assessment, efforts to check on robustness are made, only extreme performances are rewarded or sanctioned, and comparison groups are selected carefully, the technical psychometric points raised by critics should not swamp the incentive and information benefits of performance-based compensation plans for teachers. If we are ready to determine reading programs, language labs, class sizes, and the use of computerized learning on the basis of value-added assessments, we should be ready to reward teachers using the same techniques.
There is already considerable evidence from several places–such as Tennessee and Florida, where value-added analysis has been used for accountability purposes–that low-achieving students are the main beneficiaries of the changes that occur when these techniques are implemented. When low-achieving students are taught the same body of knowledge over and over again, and when they are taught how to work under a time constraint, they benefit. Value-added assessment techniques reveal that information.
The Illusion of Transparency
Critics of value-added assessment say that it is just too complicated for teachers and the public to understand the results these systems will generate. In other words, the results will not be transparent. But if transparency is the criterion that trumps all other criteria, we would be compelled to use an assessment method that we know to be wrong. For example, there is no satisfactory way to make judgments about which method of teaching reading is superior–whole language or phonics–without factoring in the socioeconomic, school, and teacher characteristics of each of the groups of students in the experiment. Statistical controls must be used if the assessments of teachers, schools, or programs are to be accurate, even though very few educators understand the statistical principles and methods involved. I do not require a transparent understanding of the efficacy of the flu shot I take, nor do I require a transparent understanding of the operating characteristics of my car; I trust the experts on the techniques. So must it be in educational evaluation.
The problems with the use of value-added assessments, even for teachers, are greatly exaggerated, and the alternatives are simply untenable.
One proposed alternative is the use of one or more methods of subjective evaluation. Other teachers, students, and/or parents can be surveyed to make the judgments. Most of those surveys focus on whether respondents like the teacher, are happy in the classroom, or equally soft attributes. They do not really determine what kind of learning gains a certain teacher is eliciting relative to other teachers. Most people look back at their primary and secondary schooling and identify an extremely demanding teacher (whom they disliked at the time) as the one who made the biggest contribution to their educational development.
A second possibility is to set up a standard–some threshold–of student achievement as an absolute hurdle to define adequate performance. The problems with this are legion. How should the threshold be determined? Those who want to be rewarded set lower thresholds than those who watch budgets. The threshold becomes a major bargaining tool, quite divorced from the informed decisionmaking objective. What incentives for improvement are there for those who crossed the threshold?
Basically, subjective evaluation allows the information essential to the rational allocation of educational resources to be derived politically rather than scientifically.
The state of American public education has been deplored by critics for many years. The notion that student learning has remained somewhat stagnant over the past century, though the country has spent steadily more real resources on education, is a matter of profound concern. This surely indicates that we do not know a lot about what works and what doesn’t.
We need to know if we are to change the pattern. We must have calibrated results; we must use sophisticated statistical methods to interpret the data; we need to use multiple measures of performance; and we need to implement the analysis in ways that are appropriate to the quality of the information. And teachers, the most important school-controlled input into the educational process, cannot be exempt from this information-gathering activity. Our current unhappy results are consistent with the subjective and/or unsophisticated tools we use for assessing effectiveness and creating incentives.
-Anita A. Summers is a professor emeritus of public policy and management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Monday, September 24, 2012 - 18:30 in Astronomy & Space
NASA's rover Curiosity touched a Martian rock with its robotic arm for the first time on Sept. 22, assessing what chemical elements are in the rock called "Jake Matijevic."
- Curiosity on Mars sits on rocks similar to those found in marshes in MexicoTue, 30 Oct 2012, 11:07:11 EDT
- How Martian winds make rocks walkThu, 8 Jan 2009, 14:01:08 EST
- MIT moves toward greener chemistryFri, 3 Sep 2010, 12:51:40 EDT
- Martian rock arrangement not alien handiworkWed, 7 Jan 2009, 13:17:55 EST
- ASU instrument on NASA rover helps identify outcrop of long-sought rare rock on MarsThu, 3 Jun 2010, 14:52:54 EDT


Ike Dike Proposed to Protect Texas Coast
One year after the Hurricane Ike's 20-foot storm surge devastated Galveston, Texas, and surrounding areas, local governments are in the midst of making a decision about the proposed "Ike Dike" - an expansion of the existing Galveston Seawall that would cost the federal government billions of dollars.
The Ike Dike, as proposed by Texas A&M University at Galveston professor William Merrell, would extend the existing seawall by over 50 miles and add floodgates that would close before an approaching hurricane (more details). The idea is based on the Delta Works, a series of dams and barriers that protect the southwest Netherlands from storm surge and coastal flooding.
Supporters suggest that these additions would prevent future damage to Galveston Bay and the Port of Houston, protecting the region's oil production and shipping industry, in addition to Galveston Island's residents, infrastructure and the Galveston National Laboratory, a high-security medical research facility that houses some of the most contagious diseases in the world. Given the estimated $32 billion in damages to the Houston-Galveston area already caused by Ike and the likelihood of another catastrophic hurricane and rising sea levels, the Ike Dike's $2 to 3 billion dollar price tag and ten year timeline could make the project a worthwhile investment.
Opponents voice concern that the proposed storm barrier would alter the fragile Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, cause more coastal erosion and offer no protection from hurricane-force winds, which contributed to damage during Ike. They argue that the region could take alternative actions and that the Ike Dike should not be considered a final solution, but rather one step toward protecting the coast.
The questions remain: if rising sea levels and strong hurricanes remain constant threats to the Gulf Coast, should development along the shoreline and on barrier islands continue? Would the Ike Dike prove to be a lasting solution or just a band-aid to the already-injured subtropical shoreline that will be susceptible to hurricanes indefinitely?
| September 9, 2009; 10:00 AM ET
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The fillings referred to as "silver" are actually a mixture of silver, tin, copper, and mercury, and are more properly called amalgam fillings. The silver, tin, and copper are provided in a powder form by various manufacturers, with silver being the major constituent (40 to 70 percent), and tin and copper constituting 4 to 33 percent each, depending on the manufacturer. This powder is then mixed rapidly with mercury in a special machine, usually by the dental assistant, yielding a liquid that is from 50 to 60 percent mercury. The filling material is then placed in the tooth and smoothed with various dental tools.
|DID YOU KNOW . . .
Mercury (Hg), sometimes known as quicksilver, is named for the speedy Roman god who served as messenger for the other gods. The silver-white chemical is the only common metal that is a liquid at room temperature. It is used in thermometers, barometers, and some batteries, as well as in dental amalgams.
Since the 1970s, there has been controversy in the dental profession regarding the safety of mercury as a filling material. Some dentists contend that no matter what the amount used in dental fillings, the mercury is toxic. At the same time, the American Dental Association (ADA) asserts that only a small percentage of individuals exhibit allergies to mercury, and that once mercury is mixed and hardened as a filling material, the percentage of individuals who are sensitive to it becomes even smaller.
While the ADA has maintained that mercury in amalgam is stable, various researchers have demonstrated that it is not. In 1970, dentist Wallace Johnson and others published the results of their research in Journal of the American Dental Association. The report indicated that "mercury, an essential element of dental amalgams, is not a stable material but one that vaporizes at ordinary temperatures." In 1985, the Journal of Dental Research published a report by dentists Murry Vimy and F.L. Lorscheider, who also claimed that mercury vapor is released from amalgam fillings. These researchers further stated that the vapor is then distributed throughout the body via the respiratory system, but accumulates mostly in the brain, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract. Some of the symptoms associated with mercury toxicity include a metallic taste in the mouth, severe headaches, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, depression, hair loss, memory loss, coma, and death. Furthermore, a natural balance of microorganisms in the body is upset by excess mercury in the gastrointestinal tract, and this imbalance may lead to candida.
In addition, the previously mentioned researchers have reported that when the metal comes in contact with saliva, there is a "battery effect" in which currents are generated, causing mercury molecules from the surface of the fillings to be released into the tissues.
Another negative report was published in the Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry in 1983. David Eggleston, a dentist in private practice and a researcher and professor at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry, indicated that when amalgam and nickel-based fillings are present, there is a reduction in the T-lymphocytes of the immune system. Lymphocytes are white blood cells that are the core of the body's immune system. Lymphocytes that circulate through the thymus gland are called T-lymphocytes (thymocytes). They recognize foreign invaders in the body and form antibodies against them. Eggleston concluded that the introduction of mercury into the body might weaken the immune system by reducing the number of T-lymphocytes.


UNICEF says Children's Lives Are Improving
But 20 years after the adoption of a treaty guaranteeing children's rights, hundreds of millions still go without basics like food and health care, and violence against children remains a global problem.
Last updated on: November 20, 2009 3:54 AM
It's 20 years since the United Nations adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights and now the U.N. says children's lives have been transformed during those two decades. But it says there's a lot still to be done - to this day hundreds of millions go without basics like food and health care and violence against children remains a global problem. Selah Hennessy brings us this report from London.
The United Nations Children's Fund, commonly known as UNICEF, released a special report to mark this 20th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
VOA spoke to the author of the report, David Anthony. He said globally the lives of children have improved over the last 20 years.
"During its era, we have seen tremendous progress in child survival and development," he said. "For example, on average 10,000 fewer children now die every day than they did in 1990 - that's something that saves countless of millions of lives over the years."
The report lists a series of positive statistics showing great leaps in children's quality of life. It says globally 84 percent of primary-school-age children are in class and the gender gap is narrowing. And important steps have been taken, it says, to protect children from serving as soldiers or being trafficked into prostitution.
But Anthony adds there is still a long way to go. He says as many as one billion children still live without basic necessities such as clean water and food. And he says more needs to be done in the fields of protection and participation - the right of all children to have their opinions taken into account.
These problems, Anthony says, are global.
"You find that violence is something that no society can say it's immune from," he said. "I think protection in particular, and participation, are things which the industrialized countries, and the richer countries, cannot feel any great superiority over the developing countries and the least developed countries."
More than 70 countries have adopted the convention's principles into their own legal codes. Only two countries in the world, Somalia and the United States, have not ratified the treaty. The U.S. has been slow to approve the Convention because of fears of government interference in family life.
Anthony says although the convention has the widest support of any human rights treaty, not all countries are implementing its basic principles.
"One of the main emphasis of this report has been implementation," he said. "Countries who ratify the treaties - who sign the treaties - then have an obligation to implement them and the symbolism I think of endorsement is most welcome but the more important thing is that all countries apply the principles that are embodied within the convention and to ensure that all of their children have their rights met."
The report says despite progress, 24,000 children under the age of five die every day from largely preventable causes. And it says 150 million children between five and 14 are engaged in child labor.


What Is a Virtual Tape Library
Last Updated: 09-01-2010 , Posted: 06-16-2006
Virtual tape is a concept that has been in the data center for many years. Originally introduced for IBM mainframes, it is now exploding in the open systems arena. VTLs are logically just like physical tape libraries: They logically appear and operate as physical tape devices including virtual tape drives, data cartridges, tape slots, barcode labels and robotic arms.
Traditional Tape SolutionsTraditional tape devices have a few problems: They are slow and the only way to solve that problem is to add more and more tape drives. Tape library robotics are prone to failure and the tape media itself is "delicate" and must be stored in a conditioned, secure environment.
To increase backup performance, backups can be multiplexed across multiple drives and tapes. This increases the odds of a failed backup due to a bad tape, a faulty drive or malfunctioning robotics.
Restores from tape are also time-consuming. Consider trying to recover a file that was part of a five-tape multiplexed backup. Each of the five tapes must be located in the library and loaded into tape drives. If the drives have tapes in them already, the tapes must be removed from the drives and moved to free slots before another tape may be loaded. Once the tapes are loaded, they must be advanced to where the file is and then, finally, the file can be read from tape. It can take many minutes just to start the recovery. If the tapes are not in the library, it can take many hours to recover a single file.
On the plus side, tape-based solutions are usually considered to be relatively inexpensive. But when the tape media is considered, the cost can skyrocket.
Some studies show that users will buy 30 times the amount of slots worth of tapes during the life of a library. For a medium-sized, 100-slot library, that's 3,000 tapes. LTO-3 tapes are currently in the $100 price range. Add the fact that extensive human intervention is required to manage and maintain a tape solution and they are not very inexpensive. It can cost a lot of money to be able to successfully backup your data 60 percent of the time.
Comparing the problems associated with tape solutions with a virtual tape solution shows how a VTL can change how a data center can be run.
A virtual tape library solution can perform 10-times tape speeds for backups. Speeding up the backups will greatly shrink the backup window, which allows servers to be backed up faster. With existing backups finishing quicker, second- and third-tier servers that have not been backed up in the past may now fit into the backup schedule.
Recoveries are also significantly faster using a VTL (typically much faster than the backup). A single file can be recovered from a VTL faster than most tape libraries can find and load a tape into a drive. Full backups that span multiple tapes (as apposed to multiplexed) will also recover very slowly compared to a VTL since after the data is read from one tape the next tape must be located and loaded compared to a VTL that just keeps streaming data from disk.
All virtual tape loads are immediate so there is virtually no delay when a new "tape" is "loaded." People who resort to multiplexing backups to increase the performance of the backup are usually shocked to discover that their recovery times will be about twice as long as the backup was.
Most virtual tape library solutions also contain RAID-protected storage that has redundant, hot-swap components (drives, power, cooling). Backups that use a VTL rarely fail because of a VTL failure. Recoveries will never fail due to a bad or lost tape.
VTLs are just not prone to the types of failures that a traditional tape library has. For example, a backup to disk will never fail because of a bad tape, broken tape drive or broken robotics.
The initial cost of a tape library can be less than the cost of a VTL. But when a three- or five-year cost-of-ownership is considered (tape media, failed backups, lost data due to failed recoveries, management costs, and so on) a VTL will be less expensive.
Also consider the lower cost of backup software. Some backup software is tiered based on the number of tape slots. By configuring a virtual library to have few slots, but very large "tapes," the software tier can be lowered. For backup software that is tiered on the number of tape drives, configure a virtual library with fewer "drives." Some backup software solutions are now adding a virtual tape library option that is priced based on the capacity of the library.
Today's virtual tape libraries range from a customer-supplied server with VTL software and separate disk to a completely productized solution where the server, software and disk are all bundled.
There are pros and cons for both extremes.
With an unbundled solution, the user gets to purchase each piece separately. The pieces include the VTL software, server, disk and potentially the SAN infrastructure. Unfortunately, the user must also purchase separate support agreements for the VTL software, server, disk and SAN infrastructure and each piece must be managed and monitored by the IT staff.
With a bundled solution, all the pieces are included, tightly integrated and guaranteed to work together. The solution is managed and monitored as one entity and support is covered by one contract.
With current bundled VTL solutions expanding to a petabyte or more, scaling the solutions is not an issue. Adding an additional VTLs for each petabyte of backup is acceptable for most environments. The only negative with a bundled solution is that it is bundled. Some people just do not like that. When it comes to backup, it is best to keep things simple so a bundled VTL solution is probably the best bet (there are not very many home-made tape libraries in production so why make your own VTL solution?).
Adding a virtual tape library into an existing tape environment will always improve the reliability of backups and recoveries. Even if a VTL is configured to backup only as fast as an existing library, the increase in performance for day-to-day data recovery makes the investment a no-brainer.
Add the robust data processing capabilities not available in physical tape libraries (e.g., replication, single-instance data storage) and a VTL can open the door for tremendous advances in tape backup methodology and revolutionize traditional operations.
Did You Know...
|Key Terms To Understanding VTL:
virtual tape library


International Women’s Day 2013
Every year the United Nations chooses a theme for that year’s International Women’s Day. This theme is something many organizations choose to build on, make their own, or change it completely. This year, 2013, I believe the UN has chosen a great theme: “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.”
International Women’s Day has been celebrated since the early 1900s and is still thriving, and unfortunately necessary, today. We live in a country where the Violence Against Women Act comes up for reauthorization too often, with too much debate about its merits. Really, who could be against anything that aims to reduce violence against women?
Campaigning against violence against women does not diminish any pursuance of eliminating violence for all humans, but there is a particular reason why this must be a focus of the world at this time:
The United Nations General Assembly defines “violence against women” as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” The 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women noted that this violence could be perpetrated by assailants of either gender, family members and even the “State” itself.
Women are often the victims of violence simply because they are women.
To end these horrific acts, it must be a decision made by our local communities and global society. We must prioritize a solution for all. What kind of world do we want our daughters, and sons, to grow up to inherit?
- Follow @womensday on twitter #womensday
- Network at facebook.com/internationalwomensday.
- Celebrate and understand women’s strength and through photographs.
- Take action with We Are Equals: Join the Big Inequality Debate. The Facebook App showing your 1950s life is interesting.
- Learn more about International Women’s Day.
- Share, share, share!
What will you do today to support women?
This post was written for the Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of Mom Bloggers for Social Good members who focus on maternal health, children, hunger, and women and girls.


What does a price tell you?
Assume that you were going to purchase a GE Advantium 120 microwave oven on Sunday, August 12. Comparing Sears, Best Buy and Amazon’s sellers at 3 a.m., you would have seen, respectively, $899.99, 809.99 and 744.46. At Amazon’s website, the price changed to slightly more than $850 at 5 a.m., it dropped again to their $744.46 low several hours later and then back above $850 at 10 p.m. During that day, Sears kept the same price, Best Buy changed twice and Amazon, 9 times.
Call it dynamic pricing.
The story of dynamic pricing begins with airline deregulation in 1978. American Airlines (although some say Delta) was the first to realize that different classes of passengers were willing and able to pay different fares. Of course they could not ask if someone was planning a vacation or a business trip, but they could snag the business traveler by charging more if the flight was the next day. And so began what they called yield management. Spreading to hotels and cruises, rental car businesses and a host of others, yield management helped many firms increase revenue.
The dynamic pricing version of yield management has the same revenue enhancing goal. As you probably know, all sorts of goods like bicycles, jewelry and detergents are dynamically priced online. One baby clothes vendor changes his prices every 15 minutes because being cheaper than everyone else means he will top the list of price related search results.
But what does this mean? In a market economy, price is a source of information. Prices enable the supply side to assess productivity, to identify cost and to project profits. On the demand side, price can convey quality and affordability. With price changing frequently, the information flow increases.
Or, as one market participant commented, “The long term implication is that a price is no longer a price.”
My sources and other resources: A front page WSJ article, “Don’t Like This Price? Wait a Minute ” was interesting and had this fascinating graphic comparing price changes from Sears, Amazon and Best Buy. In addition, this academic article explains yield management while this more recent study looks at internet dynamic pricing.