Scripture always speaks with absolute authority. It is as authoritative when it instructs us as it is when it commands us. It is as true when it tells the future as it is when it records the past. Although it is not a textbook on science, wherever it intersects with scientific data, it speaks with the same authority as when it gives us moral precepts. Although many have tried to set science against Scripture, science never has disproved one jot or tittle of the Bible--and it never will.
It is therefore a serious mistake to imagine that modern scientists can speak more authoritatively than Scripture on the subject of origins. Scripture is God's own eyewitness account of what happened in the beginning. When it deals with the origin of the universe, all science can offer is conjecture. Science has proven nothing that negates the Genesis record. In fact, the Genesis record answers the mysteries of science.
A clear pattern for interpreting Genesis is given to us in the New Testament. If the language of early Genesis were meant to be interpreted figuratively, we could expect to see Genesis interpreted in the New Testament in a figurative sense. After all, the New Testament is itself inspired Scripture, so it is the Creator's own commentary on the Genesis record.
What do we find in the New Testament? In every New Testament reference to Genesis, the events recorded by Moses are treated as historical events. And in particular, the first three chapters of Genesis are consistently treated as a literal record of historical events. The New Testament affirms, for example, the creation of Adam in the image of God (James 3:9).
Paul wrote to Timothy, "Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression" (1 Timothy 2:13-14). In 1 Corinthians 11:8-9, he writes, "Man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man."
Paul's presentation of the doctrine of original sin in Romans 5:12-20 depends on a historical Adam and a literal interpretation of the account in Genesis about how he fell. Furthermore, everything Paul has to say about the doctrine of justification by faith depends on that. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22). Clearly Paul regarded both the creation and fall of Adam as history, not allegory. Jesus Himself referred to the creation of Adam and Eve as a historical event (Mark 10:6). To question the historicity of these events is to undermine the very essence of Christian doctrine.
Moreover, if Scripture itself treats the creation and fall of Adam as historical events, there is no warrant for treating the rest of the creation account as allegory or literary device. Nowhere in all of Scripture are any of these events handled as merely symbolic.
In fact, when the New Testament refers to creation, (e.g., Mark 13:19; John 1:3; Acts 4:24; 14:15; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2, 10; Revelation 4:11; 10:6; 14:7) it always refers to a past, completed event--an immediate work of God, not a still-occurring process of evolution. The promised New Creation, a running theme in both Old and New Testaments, is portrayed as an immediate fiat creation, too--not an eons-long process (Isaiah 65:17). In fact, the model for the New Creation is the original creation (cf. Romans 8:21; Revelation 21:1, 5).
Hebrews 11:3 even makes belief in creation by divine fiat the very essence of faith itself: "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." Creation ex nihilo is the clear and consistent teaching of the Bible.


The CEI is currently involved in many international space missions and projects.
Gaia: Gaia was adopted within the scientific programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) in October 2000. The mission aims to: measure the positions of ~1 billion stars both in our Galaxy and other members of the Local Group, with an accuracy down to 20 µas, perform spectral and photometric measurements of all objects, derive space velocities of the Galaxy's constituent stars using the stellar distances and motions, and create a three-dimensional structural map of the Galaxy. The gathered large datasets will provide astronomers with a wealth of information covering a wide range of research fields: from solar system studies, galactic astronomy, cosmology to general relativity. The CEI is involved in a number of different projects including modelling the CCDs designed for the Gaia mission to simulate the charge trapping effect of radiation damage, analysis of the BP/RP and RVS radiation campaign datasets and the development of the data processing pipeline.
IXO: The International X-ray Observatory (IXO) is a new X-ray telescope with joint participation from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). This project supersedes both NASA's Constellation-X and ESA's XEUS mission concepts. IXO is a next-generation facility designed to examine three main areas: black holes and matter under extreme conditions, formation and evolution of galaxies, clusters and large scale structure, and the life cycles of matter and energy. The IXO optics will have 20 times more collecting area at 1 keV than any previous X-ray telescope. The focal plane instruments will deliver up to 100-fold increase in effective area for high resolution spectroscopy from 0.3-10 keV, deep spectral imaging from 0.2-40 keV over a wide field of view, unprecedented polarimetric sensitivity, and microsecond spectroscopic timing with high count rate capability. The CEI is currently developing instrumentation for the X-ray Grating Spectrometer (XGS) readout.
Euclid: Euclid is a medium class mission candidate for launch in 2017 as part of the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme and will spend five years in orbit at L2. The mission is a combination of two missions: the Dark UNiverse Explorer (DUNE) and the SPectroscopic All Sky Cosmic Explorer (SPACE). The primary goal is to study the dark universe by means of two main cosmological probes: the Weak Lensing (WL) technique which maps the distribution of dark matter and measures the properties of dark energy in the universe and the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) technique which uses the scales in the spatial and angular power spectra as "standard rulers" to measure the equation of state and rate of change of dark energy.
The CEI is working with a number of institutes, including ESA and Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) on the characterisation of the radiation effects to the Euclid CCDs. This work involves pre- and post-irradiation characterisation of the e2v CCD204s provided by ESA, based on the same architecture as the CCD203 which is proposed to be used onboard Euclid. A model of the CCD204 pixel structure is being created to explore the electron density for charge storage as a function of signal size and being used in CTE simulations under a variety of signal conditions to predict CTE effects at the mid and end of mission. The aim is to provide recommendations on CCD design modifications for improved radiation tolerance, device operation and shielding.
Chandrayaan-1 & 2: The Indian Space Research Organisation Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was launched on the 22nd of October 2008. It spent nine months in a 100 km circular orbit around the Moon before communication was lost. During this time it surveyed the around 15 percent of the lunar surface providing a map of chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. The spacecraft carried a number of instruments including a terrain mapping camera, infrared spectrometers, and the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS). The C1XS instrument consisted of 24 e2v technologies CCD54 swept-charge device silicon X-ray detectors arranged in 6 modules that will carried out high quality X-ray spectroscopic mapping of the Moon using the technique of X-ray fluorescence in the energy range 0.5-10 keV.
The CEI was involved in performing the proton radiation damage assessment for the CCD54 devices recommending instrument shielding, operating temperature and operating potentials. The pre-flight characterisation of the 14 modules available for flight selection was also conducted recommending ten modules suitable for use in the instrument. The ESA space environment information system (SPENVIS) software was utilised to estimate the worse case end of life 10 MeV equivalent proton fluence, which was used to irradiate a number of CCD54 devices to investigate their post irradiation performance. The CEI continues to be involved in the instrument in an advisory role on the observed radiation effects to the CCD54 devices.
Chandrayaan-2 is the second Indian lunar mission, to be launched in 2014 into a 200 km polar orbit where is will use and test various new technologies. The spacecraft will include a number of instruments, one being the Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS) instrument which is a continuation of the successful C1XS instrument. CLASS will map the abundance of major rock forming elements on the lunar surface, mapping elemental abundances with a nominal spatial resolution of 25 km. The instrument uses the second generation swept charge device, CCD236, and has a geometrical area three times that of C1XS which will allow for data collection at low levels of solar activity.
The CEI will provide assistance with the characterisation of the SCDs and an analysis of the impact of radiation damage on their performance. Initial studies have demonstrated a factor of two improvement in radiation hardness, further optimisation and a more detailed investigation into device performance is currently underway.
UKube-1: The UK Space Agency is planning to launch their first cubesat later this year. The cubesat platform allows fast mission turnaround of small payloads, allowing more groups to be involved with the missions. After launch in late 2011, the satellite will spend 1 year in a low Earth orbit (~400km), with a view to operating for a further 2 years if successful.
The CEI has successfully bid for design and production of a single payload, working in tandem with Clydespace to develop a payload responsible for imaging of the Earth with narrow and wide field imagers. In addition the group plans to include an imager to monitor radiation damage effects on the 0.18µm CMOS sensors, which have been previously characterised on the ground. This is the first such instrument under total development by the group, and will provide ample training and expansion of knowledge of mission development within the group. Click Here to access the mission page for more information.


Yes, let's start with the basics:
What are the typical mistakes people make with percentages?
What is the margin of error in a poll?
It would be virtually impossible to conduct a poll on the entire voting population in the United States. Pollsters therefore question a sample of a population.
What is the difference between causation and correlation?
One of the most common errors we find in the press is the confusion between correlation and causation in scientific and health-related studies.
What does it mean for a result to be “statistically significant”?
How can we tell whether two events happen at the same time by chance, or for a reason?
What is the difference between absolute and relative risk?
Which one tells you about the actual risk ?
What is the difference between controlled, observational and case controlled studies?
There are advantages and disadvantages to each type, and an awareness of these differences makes for a savvier consumer of public health information.
What are confounding factors and how do they affect studies?


Volume 15, Number 2—February 2009
Reemergence of Human and Animal Brucellosis, Bulgaria
Bulgaria had been free from brucellosis since 1958, but during 2005–2007, a reemergence of human and animal disease was recorded. The reemergence of this zoonosis in the country highlights the importance of maintaining an active surveillance system for infectious diseases that will require full cooperation between public health and veterinary authorities.
According to the World Health Organization (1), brucellosis is one of the most common zoonoses worldwide and is considered a reemerging infectious disease in many areas of the world. An estimated 500,000 new human cases occur annually worldwide (2). In Europe, 1,033 human brucellosis cases were reported in 2006 (3); data from a passive surveillance system were based on clinical findings, supported by epidemiologic criteria, and confirmed by serologic tests. Here we report the results of a survey performed in Bulgaria during 2005–2007, which has been considered free from Brucellosis melitensis and B. abortus disease since 1958 (4).
In Bulgaria, until 1998 serologic screening was mandatory for all cattle, sheep, and goats >12 months of age. Afterward, based on risk assessment, animal surveillance activities covered 100% of heads reared in municipalities along the borders with countries endemic for brucellosis such as Turkey, Greece, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; 50% of the animals reared in other municipalities of the regions bordering the aforementioned countries; and 25% of animals reared in the inner Bulgarian regions. Currently, an active surveillance system is in place for dairy factory employees and persons considered at risk after outbreaks in ruminants.
During 2005–2007 (Figure 1), a total of 105 human cases of brucellosis were diagnosed among 2,054 persons who were tested on the basis of clinical suspicion or risky exposure. A human case of brucellosis was considered confirmed if results of serologic tests, such as ELISA or complement fixation test, were positive, in accordance with the World Health Organization case definition (5). Bacteria isolation and characterization had not been performed routinely.
The alert started in 2005 (Figure 1, panel A), when a case of brucellosis occurred in a Bulgarian migrant animal keeper working in Greece. Active surveillance of persons at risk was implemented, enabling detection of a total of 34 human cases of brucellosis. All cases were classified as imported cases; therefore, no supplemental active surveillance on animals was implemented. Additionally, during routine screening for at-risk workers, 3 other persons employed in a dairy factory were found to be seropositive. Due to the lack of traceability of the raw material used in the factory, it was not possible to trace the origin of the infection. At that time, there was no evidence of animal cases of brucellosis.
During 2006 (Figure 1, panel B), a total of 10 cases of human brucellosis were reported from different regions of the country. According to anamnestic information, these case-patients had different sources of infection: 3 of the 10 were considered imported infections; 1 case-patient was diagnosed during hospitalization in Sicily (Italy), where the patient reported having eaten ricotta cheese, and 2 occurred in Bulgarian migrant animal keepers working in Greece. Concerning the origin of infection, epidemiologic data suggest that 5 of the 10 cases were related to occupational risk and the remaining to consumption of raw milk and milk derivates. Surveillance activities enabled detection of 10 animals (7 small ruminants and 3 cows) with positive serologic results; these animals were then killed and destroyed. During 2007 (Figure 1, panel C), a total of 58 human cases were identified. Of 58 cases, 54 were classified as autochthonous (i.e., acquired by imported animals found to be infected during regular veterinary surveillance). These cases were identified in a Bulgarian region bordering Greece and Turkey (Haskovo region).
Two other cases, which were also classified as autochthonous, were diagnosed in patients who stated they had consumed a risky product (i.e., raw milk handled without adherence to hygienic standards). The remaining 2 cases were classified as imported because they involved Bulgarian migrant animal keepers working in Greece. Active surveillance in place for animals found a total of 625 heads (618 small ruminants, 7 cows) with positive serologic results; all were killed and destroyed. Analagous with what we observed in humans, most of the infected animals were found in the Haskovo region. All animals found to be infected during surveillance activity were bred at the family farm, and their milk and dairy products were prepared and eaten without adherence to proper hygienic standards.
Our data show that brucellosis is reemerging in Bulgaria (Figure 2). On the basis of information provided in this report, we can make several hypotheses regarding the causes of the resurgence of a previously controlled infection in a transitional, rapidly changing country.
Overall, 105 human cases of human brucellosis were identified over a 3-year period. Of them, 84 cases (80%) were identified in persons at occupational risk. This finding suggests that when brucellosis is introduced into naive territories (i.e., those territories that were considered officially free of brucellosis), the primary source of infection for humans is direct contact with infected animals (i.e., exposure to abortion/delivery products) or domestic consumption of products produced on family farms (milk, raw cheese). However, environmental exposure can also occur, especially in infants and children, who are considered at lower risk for direct contact with potentially infected animals, as recently observed (6). This hypothesis appears to be consistent with the context of a naive setting, where preventive measures are not routinely implemented. Continuous health education and other strategies may contribute to reduce the circulation of human brucellosis in endemic areas (7).
The reemergence of brucellosis is not limited to Bulgaria but involves several countries in the Balkan region and even in the Caucasian region (P. Pasquali, unpub. data). This trend or reemergence has several explanations. First, due to socioeconomic changes, many countries in these regions are experiencing a dramatic increase of animal trade, animal movement, and occupational migration, which in turn may increase the risk for introduction and spread of infectious diseases, such as brucellosis, from other disease-endemic countries like Greece or Turkey (2). Second, the process that has characterized the change of the social and administrative organization since the collapse of the Soviet Union is far from being completed; the public health systems are still flawed in many countries. Finally, part of the increase may simply be that brucellosis is a complex disease, which has different cycles of expansion and regression.
Before drawing conclusions, we should mention 2 possible limitations of the study. First, samples from patients with positive serologic results were used for bacterial culture for brucellosis only if sample collection was properly timed; no culture positive case is available. Second, we cannot exclude the possibility that part of the increase in cases of brucellosis could be due to improved surveillance; in particular, temporal trends and geographic comparison might be, to some extent, affected by the intensity of screening activities. However, this increased surveillance is unlikely to bias the observed shift from imported to locally acquired cases.
In conclusion, this report shows how a disease such as brucellosis may increase its public health impact, particularly in transitional countries such as Bulgaria. Our findings emphasize the importance of the combination of health education and active surveillance systems for controlling infectious diseases and highlight the need for cooperation between public health officials and veterinary officers. Creating and improving capacity building are necessary to properly address issues that pose public health hazards.
Dr Russo is a physician at Sapienza University in Rome. His research interests are infectious diseases in resource-limited countries in the context of natural disasters.
The authors thank Massimo Amicosante and Luca Avellis for logistic support.
This work was conducted as part of a cooperative effort between Italy and Bulgaria, supported by the European Union.
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Organisation for Animal Health, and World Health Organization. Brucellosis in human and animals. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2006. WHO/CDS/EPR/2006.7 [cited 2009 Jan 7]. Available from http://www.who.int/entity/csr/resources/publications/Brucellosis.pdf
- Pappas G, Papadimitriou P, Akritidis N, Christou L, Tsianos EV. The new global map of human brucellosis. Lancet Infect Dis. 2006;6:91–9.
- European Food Safety Authority–European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The community summary report on trends and sources of zoonoses, zoonotic agents, antimicrobial resistance and foodborne outbreaks in the European Union in 2006. EFSA Journal. 2007;2007:130 [cited 2009 Jan 5]. Available from http://www.efsa.europa.eu/cs/BlobServer/DocumentSet/Zoon_report_2006_en,0.pdf?ssbinary=true
- Corbel MJ. Brucellosis: an overview. 1st international conference on emerging zoonoses (Jerusalem, Israel). Emerg Infect Dis. 1997;3:213–21.
- Robinson A. Guidelines for coordinated human and animal brucellosis surveillance. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; 2003. FAO Animal Production and Health Paper 156.
- Makis AC, Pappas G, Galanakis E, Haliasos N, Siamopoulou A. Brucellosis in infant after familial outbreak. Emerg Infect Dis. 2008;14:1319–20.
- Jelastopulu E, Bikas C, Petropoulos C, Leotsinidis M. Incidence of human brucellosis in a rural area in western Greece after the implementation of a vaccination programme against animal brucellosis. BMC Public Health. 2008;8:241.
Suggested citation for this article: Russo G, Pasquali P, Nenova R, Alexandrov T, Ralchev S, Vullo V, et al. Reemergence of human and animal brucellosis, Bulgaria. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2009 Feb [date cited]. Available from http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/2/08-1025.htm


Charles Heywood kept his cannon firing even as his ship sank.
Born in Waterville on Oct. 3, 1839, Heywood was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps at New York City on April 5, 1858. Thirty-five months later he reported aboard the USS Cumberland, a 24-gun sloop of war then assigned to the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Va.
Fearing the shipyard’s capture by Confederate militia, senior Navy officers ordered Gosport abandoned on April 20, 1861. After mining key installations with barrels of gunpowder, Heywood and his Marines lit the fuses and hastened aboard the USS Cumberland, already slipping seaward on the ebbing Elizabeth River.
The resulting explosions and fires caused significant damage, but Confederate engineers quickly repaired crucial machinery. They also raised the burned and scuttled USS Merrimac. Upon its hull arose an ironclad, the CSS Virginia. Measuring 263 feet in length and weighing 3,200 tons, the steam-engine ironclad mounted 10 massive cannons. The skipper was Capt. Franklin Buchanan.
He intended to sail into Hampton Roads and sink the Yankee warships stationed there. By the time Buchanan ordered his ship to sail on March 8, 1862, Heywood was a captain commanding the USS Cumberland’s Marine contingent.
Brilliant late-winter sunshine and warm air engulfed Hampton Roads as the CSS Virginia stood downriver that Saturday. Buchanan had already selected his first target. “I am going to ram the Cumberland,” which was equipped with “the new rifled guns, the only ones in their whole fleet we have cause to fear,” he told Chief Engineer H. Ashton Ramsay. “The moment we are out in the Roads, I’m going to make right for her and ram her.”
That morning, the USS Cumberland lay moored some 300 yards off Newport News on the north shore of Hampton Roads. Aboard the Cumberland, Cmdr. William Radford had gone ashore, leaving Lt. George Morris, the executive officer, in command.
At noon, sailors on watch aboard the Cumberland “discovered three vessels under steam, standing down the Elizabeth River toward Sewell’s Point,” Morris wrote on March 9. One ship belched black smoke; Morris, Heywood, and other USS Cumberland officers could see the smoke without using their spyglasses.
Buchanan’s underpowered ironclad steamed ponderously into Hampton Roads. After the CSS Virginia cleared Sewell’s Point about 1:30 p.m., Buchanan steered west to attack the USS Cumberland.
Aboard that ship, crewmen had already “double breeched the guns on the main deck, and cleared [the] ship for action,” Morris reported. He ordered the sloop pivoted on her anchor so that her starboard broadside would face the ironclad.
Assigned to his ship’s after gun division, Heywood stood with his gun crews and watched as the Virginia approached. At 2 p.m. aboard the ironclad, Lt. Charles Simms fired the bow pivot gun, a 7-inch Brooke rifle.
According to William C. Davis writing in “Duel Between the First Ironclads,” Simms’ cannon ball “screamed across the Roads and hit” the USS Cumberland “squarely, passing through the starboard-quarter rail” and hurling wood splinters into nearby Marines. After a Cumberland gun crew fired their ship’s forward 10-inch pivot gun and missed, Simms’ second shot exploded amidst that gun crew and killed all but two men.
“Our firing became at once very rapid from the few guns we could bring to bear” as the ironclad “approached slowly,” recalled Master Moses Stuyvesant, who commanded the sloop’s after gun division. Simms’ pivot gun pounded the Cumberland; as shell fragments and wood splinters struck down sailors and Marines alike, Heywood’s crews fired their cannons through the dense smoke.
At approximately 2:30 p.m., Cumberland pilot A.B. Smith thought the approaching ironclad resembled “a huge half-submerged crocodile” with its “iron ram projecting, straight forward.”
Steaming at 6 knots, the Virginia “stood on and struck us under the starboard fore channels” near the Cumberland’s bow, Morris reported. “She delivered her fire at the same time; the destruction was great. We returned the fire with solid shot with alacrity.”
The ironclad’s ram opened a hole about 7 feet across. Flooding with seawater, the USS Cumberland listed to starboard — and the ship’s weight bore the Virginia downward.
The ironclad was already reversing its engines as the tide pivoted the trapped Virginia alongside the sinking Cumberland. Then the ram broke off, freeing the ironclad from a potential watery grave. Buchanan backed his ship until it lay parallel to the Cumberland and only 20 feet away.
Cannons flashed and boomed for some 30 minutes as Heywood and his comrades heroically fought the Virginia amidst “a scene of carnage and destruction never to be recalled without horror,” Stuyvesant remembered. Blood and gore splattered across the main deck as Heywood shouted at sailors and Marines to drag wounded comrades to the ship’s port side.
Now the sea lapped at the Cumberland’s main deck as the bowsprit disappeared into Hampton Roads. Gun crews kept firing until their cannons submerged. Stationed near the stern, Heywood worked his guns even as another cannon broke loose and lurched across the deck to crush a sailor.
“At 3:35 [p.m.] the water had risen to the main hatchway, and the ship canted to port, and we delivered a parting fire, each man trying to save himself by jumping overboard,” Morris recalled. Acknowledging that severely wounded men taken below decks could only be left to drown, he credited specific officers for their coolness under fire.
“I can only say in conclusion that all did their duty and we sunk with the American flag at the [mast] peak,” Morris closed his report.
Even as the Cumberland’s deck sharply canted, Heywood remained with the aft guns. “The water began to swash over the upper deck, and still every unencumbered gun was hurling defiance at the foe,” wrote John S.C. Abbott in “The History of the Civil War in America, Vol. 1,” published in 1863.
“The ship careened upon one side. The last gunner [Heywood], knee-deep in water, pulled the trigger of the last gun,” Abbott wrote. Then “the majestic frigate, with all her dead and all her wounded, sank like lead.”
And Charles Heywood went overboard into Marine Corps lore.
His heroism went noticed. “I omitted to mention to you the gallant conduct of Lieutenant Charles Heywood … whose bravery upon the occasion of the fight with the Merrimack won my highest applause,” Morris wrote Navy Secretary Gideon Welles on April 12.
Heywood received a brevet promotion to major after the battle. Of the 46 Marines aboard the USS Cumberland, 14 died. Another 107 sailors were killed aboard the sloop on March 8.
The next day, the Monitor fought the Virginia in Hampton Roads in history’s first ironclad-to-ironclad sea battle. Most history books still call the Virginia the “Merrimac.”
Heywood would fight during another famous Civil War battle; he was commanding two gun crews aboard the USS Hartford at Mobile Bay, Ala. as Adm. David Farragut roared, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” on Aug. 5, 1864. Within an hour, Heywood and Farragut traded shot and shell with another Confederate ironclad, the CSS Tennessee — commanded by Adm. Franklin Buchanan.
This time Buchanan lost and Heywood won.
Named the ninth Marine Corps commandant on Jan. 30, 1891, Charles Heywood instituted important changes to the corps’ mission and strength. Promoted to major general a year before his 1903 retirement, he died at Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26, 1915. His wife, Caroline Bacon, outlived him by 12 years.
Heywood lies buried in Section 2, Lot 1115 at Arlington National Cemetery.
Brian Swartz is the BDN special sections editor. An avid Civil War buff, he has extensively explored and photographed Civil War battlefields throughout the South. Swartz may be reached at email@example.com or visit his blog at http://maineatwar.bangordailynews.com.


"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." -Joseph Stalin
When figuring out how people will respond to a foreign tragedy, it comes down to three things: location, location, location.
And TV cameras too.The September 11, 2001 homicide attacks
killed about 3,000 people yet it's had more impact on American politics and foreign policy than anything since World War II. And to the great extent that American foreign policy impacts the rest of the world, it had a huge impact on international affairs as well.
While 3,000 is pretty big death toll for a single incident, there have been other wars and attacks with greater loss of life that had a relatively miniscule influence on American or international affairs. Why? Because those attacks didn't occur in the heart of New York City. The international response would've been significantly less if the attack had been launched in Kathmandu, Bogota or Algiers (in countries with homegrown terrorist problems).The Asian tsunami of 2004
had a devastating effect and cost an estimated 283,000 lives and over a million displaced. It generated an international response that was probably unprecedented in scale. As someone who regularly reads articles on underfunded international crisis appeals, I was heartened by the response to the tsunami. That it hit easily accessible coastal regions, including many tourist areas, made it easier to TV crews to get images. That Europeans and Americans were amongst the victims, if a tiny fraction, ensured that it got coverage in the western media.
But if I told you there was a conflict that has cost almost 15 times as many lives as the tsunami, could you name that crisis? If I told you there was a crisis that, in mortality terms, was the equivalent of a three 9/11s every week for the last 7 years
, would you know which one I'm talking about?
I bet few westerners could, even though it's by far the deadiest conflict of the last 60 years.
The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) is killing an estimated 38,000 people each month, according to the British medical journal The Lancet
. And if not for the involvement of humanitarian non-governmental organizations and UN relief agencies, the toll would be much higher.Most of the deaths are not caused by violence but by malnutrition and preventable diseases after the collapse of health services, the study said
, notes the BBC. Since the war began in 1998, some 4m people have died, making it the world's most deadly war since 1945, it said.
A peace deal has ended most of the fighting but armed gangs continue to roam the east, killing and looting.
The political process in the DRC is slowly inching in the right direction. Voters in the country recently approved a new constitution
, to replace the one imposed on it by the outgoing Belgian colonialists. EU officials praised the referendum as free and fair, probably the first truly open poll in the country's history. Elections are scheduled for June of this year.
However, instability reigns in much of the country, particularly the east. And central government throughout the entireity of the country has never been strong in this gigantic country. There are 17,000 UN peacekeepers doing the best they can but the country's the size of Western Europe. (By contrast the Americans and British have ten times as many troops in Iraq, a country that's less than 1/5 the size of the DRC. And we know how many problems they're having there)
And this shows why war should ALWAYS be a last resort. Most of the deaths have not been directly caused by war
(bullet wounds, landmines, etc). Most of the deaths have been caused by factors provoked by war's instability and destruction. The destruction of all infrastructure like roads and medical clinics. The inability to get to sources of clean water. The fear of leaving the house to tend the fields or go to the market.
38,000 people a month. If you get pissed off at Howard Dean or Pat Robertson, spare a little outrage for this.
And maybe a few bucks.
WANNA HELP? TAKE YOUR PICK
-Doctors Without Borders
-World Food Program
-Catholic Relief Services


There isn't a huge difference in the way residential homes are built in Japan compared to in the U.S., although the Japanese are more likely to invest in special earthquake engineering, particularly in commercial and higher-end residential buildings.
Home builders in both Japan and the U.S. use a lot of wood-frame construction, which is flexible and tends to ride out a quake fairly well, said Heidi Faison, outreach director at the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center in Berkeley, Calif. But wood frame structures do have potential vulnerabilities in two key areas: the foundation and the wall that supports a crawl space, which is called a cripple wall.
She recommends home buyers hire an engineer to make sure the wood frame is bolted to the foundation. If a house has a crawl space underneath it or you need to climb a few steps to get up to the first floor, it likely is supported by a cripple wall, which can buckle in an earthquake. If you're in an earthquake-prone location, that space needs to be filled in with a solid material.
Gary Ehrlick, a structural engineer and program manager for Structural Codes & Standards at the National Association of Home Builders, outlines some other house features to consider:
• Look at the garage, if the house has one. A large garage door opening or a lot of big windows on the first floor, that can create a soft story -- an open space without enough support to withstand violent shaking.
• Brick veneer can present a major hazard if it's not attached well. Brick was a problem in the 6.3 magnitude temblor that struck New Zealand last month. "It doesn't create as much of a hazard inside, but outside it can injure or kill,'' he said.
• Houses built on a slope are often an issue. They need to be tied back well with footings. Also make sure the slope is stable. Liquefaction -- where saturated soil becomes liquid -- can be a problem and can occur when a building is located near a lake or river. In an earthquake, liquefaction can cause the ground to behave like quicksand, as seen in New Zealand and in the 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta in the mountains of Santa Cruz, Calif.
In Japan, most of the damage was actually inflicted by the subsequent tsunami, just as most of the destruction in the San Francisco quake of 1906 was caused by fires that ripped through the city after gas lines were ruptured.
A disaster's chain of events makes the preparation scenario a bit more complicated.
There is a growing interest in designing homes better able to survive a tsunami. The basic idea in tsunami design, as in flood-resistant construction is to get some of your structure up above the expected level of water, said Gary Ehrlick.
"In commercial structures they talk about vertical evacuation zones.'' Under this theory, the first floor, built out of concrete or steel, is strong enough to withstand the pressure of the water. The "zone of refuge'' occupies the upper floors.
Another concept that came out of the earthquake/tsunami that leveled Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on Check out our gallery of Day in 2004 is a house where the first floor allows the wave to wash through it, destroying the walls but preserving the foundation. This would be a concrete frame with columns or wall segments in each corner of the house. The walls are panels made out of something light, like bamboo or wood. After a disaster, such panels would be easy to replace.
Check out our photo gallery of a tsunami-resistant home designed by Kazunori Fujimoto Architect & Associates:
Gallery: See Photos of Earthquake Proof Home
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Tomorrow, in Philadelphia, Queen's University professor Arthur B. McDonald is scheduled to receive a half-share of the Benjamin Franklin Institute's annual physics prize. It is the latest in a long series of honours for Prof. McDonald, who was the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). As one of the oldest internationally recognized honours for research achievements, the Franklin Medal puts him on an altogether new plane, amidst what the French call les nobelisables.
The scientific prestige surrounding the SNO, which ceased collecting data in November of last year, is still growing. As an experiment, it performed exactly as promised, and in an environment of institutional cost-cutting, it did so at a cost (about $70-million) much lower than that required by other particle-physics projects around the world. For every plaudit the SNO receives, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of Canadians eligible for a share of reflected glory. They ranged from the dozens of physicists who worked on the data-crunching, to the federal bureaucrats who recognized SNO's value and steered clear of it with their budget axes, to the executives at Inco who arranged to set aside space for the project a mile and a half down in the company's Creighton Mine. And let's not forget the miners, who went down into the pit with physicists every day, and during a 1997 strike allowed them to cross a picket line in order to continue their work.
All this was done in the name of hunting the elusive neutrino, a subatomic particle that has no electrical charge and that passes through almost all matter without being stopped or deflected. The existence of neutrinos had been predicted in 1930, and they were first detected in nature as early as 1956, but 40 more years of research had left scientists uncertain whether they possessed any mass. Meanwhile, the sun's interior, a naturally occurring fusion reactor, seemed to be producing only about one-half to one-third as many neutrinos as the so-called Standard Model of particle physics predicted.
The "solar neutrino" problem was a big one. It seemed that scientists would either be required to revise their existing inferential images of the sun's interior, or to do away with the Standard Model itself. For a while it seemed possible that the sun was a lot cooler on the inside than anyone had thought, a discovery that would have had consequences for the ultimate fate of the solar system. Fortunately, when physicists began looking for ways the Standard Model could be modified to allow for the mysteriously low rate of solar neutrino emissions, they realized that if neutrinos did have mass, they were capable of flipping freely in space between three different "flavours" --only one of which earlier neutrino observatories had been capable of observing.
On June 18, 2001, the SNO -- basically a giant tank of heavy water surrounded by cameras that could detect the "flash" created by a single neutrino penetrating to the Earth's core -- solved all of these problems with the release of just one batch of results. It turned out that neutrinos do have mass, that Earth is receiving all three types of neutrinos from the sun and that the total number agrees with established models. Nobel laureate John Bahcall described the discovery in 2004 as "epochal", "revolutionary" and the "fingerprints on the smoking gun" of the solar-neutrino problem.
In the future, the discoveries that the SNO made possible may be placed on a par with Ben Franklin's own research into electricity. Already "neutrino astronomy" is an important field; detectors like SNO will give astronomers early warning of the next supernova in our galactic neighbourhood. As the SNO's "smoking gun" showed, neutrino detection is like having an extra sense to work with when it comes to understanding the solar core. And futurists are spinning wild ideas for neutrinobased imaging and telecommunications -- ideas that now seem as far-fetched, but just as tempting, as alternating current would have been to Franklin.


By Rob Coppinger in London
European hypersonic civil transport project heats up as three concepts undergo trials
An aircraft capable of flying five times the speed of sound and reaching Sydney in between two and four hours from Brussels is the leading design in a €7 million European research project to find a hypersonic civilian airliner replacement to the supersonic Concorde.
A Mach 5 civil transport aircraft designed by a UK team is leading a pack of three concepts undergoing preliminary studies for the three-year, €7 million ($9 million) European hypersonic research project, Long Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies (LAPCAT).
With €4 million from the European Commission and the rest from industry, LAPCAT aims to develop a vehicle capable of travelling from Europe to Australia in 2-4h.
Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engine says its A2 (a Flight artist's impression of which is pictured above), meets take-off noise restrictions and is powered by hydrogen-fuelled turbine-based combine cycle (TBCC) engines.
The other two concepts are an EADS Mach 8 vehicle with rocket-based combined cycle propulsion and German aerospace research centre DLR’s kerosene-fuelled, TBCC-powered Mach 4 craft.
LAPCAT is being co-ordinated by the European Space Agency for the EC. “Results so far show [the Mach 5 vehicle from Reaction Engines] can avoid later [technology] pitfalls and could travel from Brussels to Sydney,” says ESA’s LAPCAT project co-ordinator Johan Steelant. Criteria for vehicle evaluation include safety, ability to reach diversion airports, adaptability to different sonic boom restrictions and technological maturation. Steelant cites the heat exchangers in Reaction Engine’s Scimitar TBCC engine as being more advanced in their development.
Later this month tests of an experimental engine intake will start at a DLR windtunnel facility. These should be followed by nozzle tests in July and eventually combustion chamber and combined intake, chamber and nozzle testing.


Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917
July 18–October 11, 2010
Matisse conceived this "souvenir of Morocco" in 1912, stretched a canvas for it in 1913, and returned to the composition late in 1915, only to start again on a new canvas in early 1916. Black is the principal agent, at once simplifying, dividing, and joining the three zones of the canvas: the still life of melons and leaves on a gridded pavement, bottom left; the architecture with domed marabout, top left; and the figures, at right. Next to a seated Moroccan shown from behind, the large curving ocher shape and circular form derive from a reclining figure in the sketches. Above the shadowed archway, figures in profile may be discerned in the two windows: at right, the lower part of a seated man; at left, the upper part of a man with raised arms. Matisse built up the surface with thin layers of pigment, the color of the underlying layers modifying those on top. Painter Gino Severini reported that "Matisse said . . . that everything that did not contribute to the balance and rhythm of [this] work, had to be eliminated . . . as you would prune a tree."
Matisse developed this painting of what he described as “the terrace of the little cafe of the casbah” in the years following two visits to Morocco, in 1912 and 1913. As he worked on various studies he eliminated details he felt were extraneous to the painting’s overall balance. A balcony with a flowerpot and a mosque behind it are at upper left, at lower left is a still life of vegetables, and to the right is a man wearing a round turban, seen from behind. Matisse’s generous application of black paint helps unify the three sections of the painting across its abstract expanse.
Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917, July 18–October 11, 2010
Director, Glenn Lowry: Matisse first conceived this painting in 1912, while he was visiting Morocco. But he didn't actually start the canvas until early 1916. Once he did, he continued working on it—with great focus and concentration—through the fall.
Curator, John Elderfield: The forms are difficult to decipher. I know some people who have thought that what Matisse says are melons and leaves are in fact the Moroccans, but Matisse is insistent that they are not. I think one can clearly see the figure whose back is towards us. And if we look at it carefully we can see that that figure's grown in size. To the right of it, that black area does seem to derive from drawings of an arched doorway with light hitting the bottom, but the top part is in shadow, leading into another architectural space. And the two elements at the top are ones which we can trace back to drawings he made in Morocco—the one at the right, of a sort of seated figure, and the one to the left, more puzzling, but somewhat amusingly, in one of the drawings—and he refers to this in his letter—is of a figure who has got his arms raised to look through binoculars. All that remains is the forearms and part of the body, and Matisse is quite happy to have carried it to that point of almost unintelligibility. But I don't think the painting asks us to be specific about these forms.
Curator, Stephanie D’Alessandro: I don't think so either. I think there's a level of memory and recollection, and maybe even nostalgia with this picture.
Glenn Lowry: One aspect of Morocco that stayed with Matisse was the harsh contrast between the midday sun and the shade, evoked here in the black background.
Conservator, Michael Duffy: You can see how it defines certain shapes. Particularly the shape in the middle, this curved shape, which is made up of ochre and white. The black edge on the left is painted over, so he actually defines the form further by overlaying the black paint. When you look closely at the black paint, you'll see that it covers areas of blue and pink underneath, and that gives the black a very warm color. And it's very typical of the way Matisse painted. Rather than blending his colors together, to achieve one color, he would typically layer colors, even black, over several layers, in order to build up a kind of rich, optical surface.
MoMA Audio: Collection, 2008
Curator Emeritus, John Elderfield: This painting was made in 1915–1916 and is a remembrance of visits that Matisse made to Morocco. And while the paintings made in Morocco are beautifully, limpidly colored, obviously the remembrance is rather of the great heat, of contrasts of color in the conditions of very bright light.
The Moroccans themselves are on the right on the terrace with their melons and gourds—the green and yellow forms at the left. We can see a figure with his back to us, and then, with more difficulty, figures in windows at the top. In the background is a mosque with a vase of blue and white flowers standing on the parapet.
Matisse said that he put black in his pictures to simplify the composition. And indeed, through the teens and into the 1920s, he regularly puts in a little dosing of black to hold everything else in place. I think, unquestionably, he was thinking of shadow, and of the kind of stifling midday sun in North Africa. There is that element of renunciation of color and wanting to put in an element of real gravity in the composition. Its hard to imagine any other color doing it in that same way.
The Museum of Modern Art , MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 79
The Moroccans marvelously evokes tropical sun and heat even while its ground is an enveloping black, what Matisse called "a grand black, . . . as luminous as the other colors in the painting." Utterly dense, this black evokes a space as tangible as any object, and allows a gravity and measured drama without the illusion of depth once necessary to achieve this kind of grandeur.
The painting, which Matisse described as picturing "the terrace of the little café of the casbah," is divided into three: at the upper left, an architectural section showing a balcony with flowerpot and the dome of a mosque behind; a still life, of four green-leafed yellow melons at the lower left; and a figural scene in which an Arab sits with his back to us. To his right is an arched doorway, and windows above contain vestigial figures. The form to his left is hard to decipher, but has been interpreted as a man's burnoose and circular turban.
During his visit to Morocco in 1912-13, Matisse had been inspired by African light and color. At the same time, he faced the challenge of Cubism, the leading avant-garde art movement of the period, and The Moroccans summarizes his memories of Morocco while also combining the intellectual rigor of Cubist syntax with the larger scale and richer palette of his own art.
Matisse Picasso, February 13–May 19, 2003
Narrator: In 1911 and again in 1912 Matisse traveled to Morocco. Three years later, he tapped those memories for this big souvenir picture, The Moroccans. By that time he was deeply involved in the Cubist vocabulary of reduced geometric form.
Curator, John Elderfield: What it shows is on the upper left a mosque with a vase of flowers on the right hand side. In the bottom left is a pavement with melons with their green leaves. And at the right, more difficult to figure out, various figures who are presumably sitting on some sort of terrace outside a cafe in Tangier. One can I think clearly understand the figure with his back to us, with a white turban and, blue shirt. And to the right, what looks like the top of an archway in shadow.
Matisse talked about the black as being a way of representing heat and light. And as one gets further south, one gets these very strong black and white contrasts. It's also trying to convey some of the sense of the intense light, and the almost tangible heat of Tangier.
Curator, Kirk Varnedoe: Certainly Picasso must have looked intensely at a major picture like this, and learned from it a new vocabulary of Cubism, more highly abstracted, more monumental. When you compare The Moroccans to Picasso's Three Musicians of 1921...what leaps out at you are certain similarities—the use of black for example. But Picasso unlike Matisse is not a traveler. Picasso often said, "If someone didn't come to the studio in the morning, I wouldn't have anything to paint in the afternoon."
Narrator: The Three Musicians most likely represent the artist and his friends. Picasso himself is at the center, identified by the harlequin costume and guitar he often used as his symbols. To the right, the man dressed as a monk with a stylized beard is probably Picasso's friend the poet Max Jacob, who had entered a monastery after the First World War. And the large white figure with the clarinet may be another poet friend, Guillaume Apollinaire, who had died from war wounds.
Kirk Varnedoe: The picture has a kind of gravity, a kind of sadness or melancholy, which is played off by small and amusing details, like the tiny little zig zags that represent the hand on the notes of music, or the dog that lies under the table to the left. So you imagine the music being played. Is it syncopated like a kind of bright jazz, and on the other hand melancholy like a threnody? And when you compare this in its detail, then you sense how monumental the Matisse is by comparison, and how in a certain sense impersonal it is.


EARLY SPRING in the Lamar River Valley: several wolves chase elk while an interested grizzly bear awaits the outcome. Grizzlies can drive wolves off a kill; more often they scavenge after the wolves have eaten their fill. Image: DIANE HARGREAVES
Several scrawny cottonwood trees do not usually generate much excitement in the world of ecology. But on a wind-whipped August afternoon in Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley, William J. Ripple, a professor of botany at Oregon State University, stands next to a 12-foot-high cottonwood tree and is quietly ecstatic. "You can see the terminal bud scars," the bespectacled Ripple says, bending the limber tree over to show lines that mark a year's growth of a foot or more on the broom-handle-size trunk. "You can see that elk haven't browsed it this year, didn't browse it last year and, in fact, haven't browsed it since 1998."
Ripple gestures at the sprawling mountain valley around us and points out that although numerous other cottonwoods dot the landscape, this knot of saplings comprises the only young ones--the rest of this part of the Lamar is a geriatric ward for trees. The stately specimens that grow in the valley bottom are 70 to 100 years old, and not a newcomer is in sight to take their place. On the hillside, aspen trees present a similar picture. Groves of elderly aspen tremble in the wind, but no sprouts push up in the understory.


Darfur’s people are a complex mosaic of between 40 and 90 ethnic groups, some of ‘African’ origin (mostly settled farmers), some Arabs. All Darfurians are Muslim. The Arabs began arriving in the 14th century and established themselves as mainly nomadic cattle and camel herders. Peaceful coexistence has been the norm, with inevitable disputes over resources between fixed and migratory communities resolved through the mediation of local leaders. For much of its history, the division between ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ has been blurred at best, with so much intermarriage that all Darfurians can claim mixed ancestry. Identities have been defined in different ways at different times, based on race, speech, appearance or way of life.
An Independent Sultanate
At the heart of Darfur is an extinct volcano in a mountainous area called Jebel Marra. Around it the land is famously fertile, and it was here that the earliest known inhabitants of Darfur lived – the Daju. Very little is known about them. The recorded history of Darfur begins in the 14th century, when the Daju dynasty was superseded by the Tunjur, who brought Islam to the region.
Darfur existed as an independent state for several hundred years. In the mid-17th century, the Keyra Fur Sultanate was established, and Darfur prospered.
In its heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries the Fur Sultanate’s geographical location made it a thriving commercial hub, trading with the Mediterranean in slaves, ivory and ostrich feathers, raiding its neighbours and fighting wars of conquest in the surrounding region.
Darfur under siege
In the mid-19th century, Darfur’s sultan was defeated by notorious slave trader Zubayr Rahma, who was in turn subjugated by the Ottoman Empire. At the time, this included Egypt and what is now northern Sudan. The collapse of the Keyra dynasty plunged Darfur into lawlessness. Roaming bandits and local armies preyed on vulnerable communities, and Islamic ‘Mahdist’ forces fighting British colonial control of the region sought to incorporate Darfur into a much larger Islamic republic. A period of almost constant war followed, until 1899 when the Egyptians – now under British rule – recognized Ali Dinar, grandson of one of the Keyra sultans, as Sultan of Darfur. This marked a de facto return to independence, and Darfur lived in peace for a few years.
Colonial ‘benign neglect’
Ali Dinar refused to submit to the wishes of either the French or the British, who were busy building their empires around his territory. Diplomatic friction turned into open warfare. Ali Dinar defied the British forces for six months, but was ambushed and killed, along with his two sons, in November 1916. In January 1917 Darfur was absorbed into the British Empire and became part of Sudan, making this the largest country in Africa.
The only aim of Darfur’s new colonial rulers was to keep the peace. Entirely uninterested in the region’s development (or lack thereof), no investment was forthcoming. In stark contrast to the north of Sudan, by 1935 Darfur had only four schools, no maternity clinic, no railways or major roads outside the largest towns. Darfur has been treated as an unimportant backwater, a pawn in power games, by its successive rulers ever since.
Independence brings war
The British reluctantly but peacefully granted Sudan independence in 1956. The colonialists had kept North and South Sudan separate, developing the fertile lands around the Nile Valley in the North, whilst neglecting the South, East and Darfur to the west. They handed over political power directly to a minority of northern Arab élites who, in various groupings, have been in power ever since. This caused the South to mutiny in 1955, starting the first North-South war. It lasted until 1972 when peace was signed under President Nimeiry. But the Government continually flouted the peace agreement. This, combined with its shift towards imposing radical political Islam on an unwilling people, and the discovery of oil, reignited conflict in the South in 1983.
Darfur, meanwhile, became embroiled in the various conflicts raging around it: not just internal wars by the centre over its marginalized populations – many of the soldiers who fought for the Government against the South were Darfurian recruits – but also regional struggles. The use of Darfur by Libya’s Colonel Qadafhi as a military base for his Islamist wars in Chad promoted Arab supremacism, inflamed ethnic tensions, flooded the region with weaponry and sparked the Arab-Fur war (1987-89), in which thousands were killed and hundreds of Fur villages burned. The people’s suffering was exacerbated by a devastating famine in the mid-1980s, during which the Government abandoned Darfurians to their fate.
Bashir seizes power
In 1989 the National Islamic Front (NIF), led by General Omar al-Bashir, seized power in Sudan from the democratically elected government of Sadiq al Mahdi, in a bloodless coup. The NIF revoked the constitution, banned opposition parties, unravelled steps towards peace and instead proclaimed jihad against the non-Muslim South, regularly using ethnic militias to do the fighting. Although depending on Muslim Darfur for political support, the NIF’s programme of ‘Arabization’ further marginalized the region’s ‘African’ population.
The regime harboured several Islamic fundamentalist organizations, including providing a home for Osama bin Laden from 1991 until 1996, when the US forced his expulsion. Sudan was implicated in the June 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Mubarak. Its support for terrorists and increasing international isolation culminated in a US cruise-missile attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory in 1998, following terrorist bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
The Janjaweed: ‘counterinsurgency on the cheap’
Janjaweed fighters, with their philosophy of violent Arab supremacism, were first active in Darfur in the Arab-Fur war in the late 1980s. Recruited mainly from Arab nomadic tribes, demobilized soldiers and criminal elements, the word janjaweed means ‘hordes’ or ‘ruffians’, but also sounds like ‘devil on horseback’ in Arabic. The ruthlessly opportunistic Sudanese Government first armed, trained and deployed them against the Massalit people of Darfur in 1996-98. This was an established strategy by which the Government used ethnic militias to fight as proxy forces for them. It allowed the Government to fight local wars cheaply, and also to deny it was behind the conflict, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement
When President George W Bush came to power in 2000, US policy shifted from isolationism to engagement with Sudan. After 11 September 2001 Bashir ‘fell into line’, started to co-operate with the US in their ‘war on terror’ and a peace process began in earnest in the South. After years of painstaking negotiations, and under substantial pressure from the US, in January 2005 a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between the Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), ending 21 years of bloody war which killed two million people, displaced another four million and razed southern Sudan to the ground.
A surprisingly favourable deal for the South, the CPA included a power-sharing agreement leading up to a referendum on independence for the South in 2011, a 50-50 share of the profits from its lucrative oilfields, national elections in 2009, and 10,000 UN peacekeepers to oversee the agreement’s implementation. But the ‘comprehensive’ deal completely ignored Darfur, catalyzing the conflict that is currently engulfing the region.
The rebels attack
Rebellion had been brewing in marginalized, poverty-stricken Darfur for years. After decades in the political wilderness, being left out of the peace negotiations was the final straw. Inspired by the SPLA’s success, rebel attacks against Government targets became increasingly frequent as two main rebel groups emerged – the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). By early 2003 they had formed an alliance. Attacks on garrisons, and a joint attack in April on an airbase that reduced several Government planes and helicopters to ashes, were causing serious damage and running rings around the Sudanese army.
Facing the prospect of its control over the entire country unravelling, in 2003 the Government decided to counterattack. Manipulating ethnic tensions that had flared up in Darfur around access to increasingly scarce land and water resources, they unleashed the Janjaweed to attack communities they claimed had links to the rebels.
Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: a Short History of a Long War, Zed Books, 2005; Ruth Iyob and Gilbert M. Khadiagala, Sudan: The Elusive Quest for Peace, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006; Douglas H. Johnson, The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars, Indiana University Press, 2006; Gerard Prunier, Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide, Cornell University Press, 2007; www.wikipedia.org
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Evaluating Tagging Methods and Movement Patterns of Round Gobies
The round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) is an invasive fish species introduced in the St. Clair River in 1990 and is now found throughout the Great Lakes basin. Information on round goby movement and behavior is needed to understand their potential impact on the Great Lakes. Research on potential tagging methods and movement of round gobies is scant. We explored the use of marking round gobies with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags in order to determine the effects of tagging on growth and mortality. In general, we found that the presence of a tag in the fish had no strong effect on growth or mortality. We also conducted a study on the movement patterns of round gobies in Muskegon Lake. Using PIT tagged fish we followed 48 round gobies enclosed in a 20x20-m block net for 22 days. Our goal was to determine the movement patterns of the gobies within the block net and examine the effects of various factors on these patterns. However, during the course the study, we found that the equipment used was not optimal for use with round gobies. Due to a high escape rate and low detection rate of fish, no conclusions could be surmised on round goby movement. Overall, we determined that although PIT tags do not strongly affect the growth or mortality of round gobies, the equipment available currently seems to be inadequate for tracking round gobies in shallow-water, lake habitats.
Faculty Mentor: Carl Ruetz
Page last modified July 14, 2009


The Immigration History Research Center is home to thousands of feet of archival records that illuminate the immigrant experience, past and present. While these records are available to students and teachers for research in the University of Minnesota’s Andersen Library, exploring the archive from afar is as simple as connecting to the internet. The IHRC’s collection of digitized archival material provides a plethora of resources suitable for a variety of purposes, including the creation of curriculum for K-12 educators interested in migration history.
What were characteristics of the immigrant experience? How did immigrants and refugees adjust to their new lives in the United States? Inversely, how did American citizens born in the United States react to the increased diversification of their communities, and learn to live with individuals from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds? Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards in Social Studies expect students of all grade levels to consider how immigrants and citizens alike participate in the civic lives of their communities, and to understand the steps that immigrants take to become United States citizens. Incorporating digitized archival material into lesson plans will provide opportunities for students to engage these questions, and prompt young people to begin considering the many types of common experiences that bring together people from all corners of the globe.
In the pages that follow, IHRC staff members have identified digitized images from the collections of the Ukrainian Folk Ballet of the Twin Cities; Immigration and Refugee Services of America; and the International Institute. Founded in 1919, the International Institute was established to provide various services for migrants who recently arrived to the United States. With branches in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, St. Louis, San Francisco, and other major U.S. cities, the International Institute continues to address the needs of the immigrants and refugees who settle in the United States.
The images have been organized thematically in order to initiate student discussion related to Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards and Benchmarks that address the study of migration. By incorporating these archival records into lesson plans, students will be able to think critically about the immigrant experience. Furthermore, working directly with primary sources will enable students to practice and develop research skills that will become increasingly important as they progress in their studies.
English language class
To discover more digital records for use in K-12 lesson plans, visit the IHRC’s portal for digital resources via the University of Minnesota’s UMedia Archive:http://ihrc.umn.edu/research/digitalsources.php
Click here for additional resources.
Back to the Spotlight on Selected Sources index page
Back to all finding aids in IHRC VITRAGE.


The Basics of Home Canning
I never missed the signs of summer coming to a close while I was growing up: shopping for school clothes, getting backpacks and pencils together...and the smell of boiling tomatoes, hot peppers, and pectin permeating the kitchen.
With eleven kids to care for, canning food was not only an event in my household, but a necessity. As soon as we saw the familiar sight of glass mason jars lining the kitchen cupboard, we knew it wouldn’t be long before we were recruited to pick tomatoes, peel peaches, or even pit cherries. Sometimes it seemed mom felt the need to can every living thing in our backyard (with the exception of the dog).
But those long days spent working and canning as a family built stronger relationships, even if it didn’t always build our food storage, like the time a fateful food fight left half our tomatoes on the ground instead of in the bottles.
No matter what produce you plan to stuff away into bottles for the winter, canning can be the ideal way to preserve those fresh foods from your garden or the local market and also provide one last activity to bring your family together before the summer ends.
Canning requires some different utensils that you might not already have in your kitchen. Some of the necessary equipment includes: a boiling-water canner (or a big pot), mason-type jars (different sizes are available, wide-mouth jars are easiest to fill), lids and rings (you can only use the lids once), a jar lifter, and a candy thermometer.
Washing and Sterilizing
This is an important step in the canning process in order to get rid of all bacteria that could contaminate your food. Wash canning jars, new lids, and metal rings in hot, soapy water or the dishwasher, and rinse them thoroughly. To sterilize the jars place them upright in the canner, cover them with hot water, and boil for 10 minutes. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions that come with your lids.
Foods can be processed a number of different ways including: boiling-water, steam-pressure, and freezing. The recipes in this article follow the boiling-water process. To begin the boiling-water method, place a rack on the bottom of the pot to keep jars from touching the canner. Fill the canner half full with hot water and heat to 140º F for raw-packed foods, or 180º F for hot-packed foods. With the jars filled and capped, lower them into the canner with a jar lifter. Add more boiling water, if needed, so the water level is at least one inch above jar tops. Turn the heat to its highest position until water boils vigorously. Set a timer for the minutes required for processing food (according to the recipe).
Add more boiling water, if needed, to keep the water level above the jars. When jars have been boiled for the recommended time, turn off the heat and remove the canner lid. Using a jar lifter, remove the jars and place them on a towel, leaving at least one-inch spaces between the jars during cooling.Start Canning!
If you are trying to can for the first time, it would be best to start with fruit, because most use the boiling-water method. When selecting what fruits to can, select firm, ripe fruit.
Fruits are often canned in light sugar syrups. Depending on your desired taste, the amount of sugar in the syrup varies with fruits. For the recipes here, use a heaping 1/3 cup to 3/4 cup per quart of water. Place the sugar in a quart measuring pitcher and add cold water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
These are one of the most successfully canned of all foods. Wash and peel. Halve or quarter and cut out the cores. Boil gently in the syrup liquid for five minutes. Pack the hot pears in hot jars. Add the hot liquid, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Process for 20 minutes.
Dip peaches in boiling water and remove after a few seconds; slip off the skins. Cut the fruits in half and remove the pits. Place in a pan without crowding, cover with the desired liquid, and bring to a boil. Ladle the hot fruit into hot jars, packing the halves in layers, cut side down. Add the hot liquid, leaving a 1/2-inch headspace. Process for 20 minutes.
TomatoesTomatoes are a canning favorite and can easily be canned using the boiling-water method. To peel tomatoes: Using a small knife, cut a small X in the bottom of the tomatoes; do not cut the flesh. Ease the tomatoes one by one into a pot of boiling water. Leave ripe tomatoes in for about 15 seconds, barely ripe tomatoes for twice as long. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and drop into a bowl of ice water. Pull off the skin with the tip of a knife.
Wash, peel, and cut tomatoes into halves. Put in a pan without crowding, add water to cover, and boil gently for five minutes. Pack the hot tomatoes in hot jars. Add salt to taste. Add the hot cooking liquid, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Process pints for 40 minutes in canner, quarts for 45 minutes.
Get Yourself into a Jam
Preserving jams can also be a rewarding and easy way to fill your food storage. Jams can be preserved through freezing or canning. For first-timers, frozen jam is generally easier to preserve, but below is also a good canned berry jam recipe for the adventurous.Strawberry Jam (frozen)
2 cups crushed strawberries (1 qt.)
4 cups granulated sugar
1 box fruit pectin
Wash berries, remove stems, and crush. Measure the 2 cups of crushed berries into a large bowl. Measure the sugar into another bowl and then stir it into fruit. Set aside for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Stir 1 box of fruit pectin and 3/4 cup water together in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for 1 minute, and remove from the heat. Stir the pectin mixture into the fruit mixture, stirring constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved and no longer grainy.
Pour quickly into clean plastic containers to within 1/2" of the top. Wipe off the top edges of the containers and cover with the lids. Let stand at room temperature for 24 hours to set, and then refrigerate for immediate use or freeze. (Do not double this recipe; make one batch at a time.)
Berry Jam (canned)
Peel, core, and finely grate:
8 ounces tart green apples
- 2 pounds blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, elderberries, or raspberries (stemmed)
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
3 cups sugar
Cook together, crushing one-quarter of the berries that are in the pot, leaving the rest whole (but do not crush raspberries). Boil rapidly, stirring frequently, to the jelling point. This is the point preserves will jell once cooled; a good visual indicator is when, after boiling high and foamy in the pan, the mixture settles, and suddenly its surface is covered with furiously boiling small bubbles. You can also check using a thermometer. Jelling point is 8 to 10 degrees higher than the boiling point of water. Remove from the heat and skim off any foam before ladling into hot jars. Leave 1/4-inch headspace, and process for 10 minutes.


Winter Around the World:
Whether you observe Yule, Christmas, Sol Invictus, or Hogmanay, the winter season is typically a time of celebration around the world. Traditions vary widely from one country to the next, but one thing they all have in common is the observance of customs around the time of the winter solstice. Here are some ways that residents of different countries observe the season.
Althought Australia is huge geographically, the population sits at under 20 million people. Many of them come from a blend of cultures and ethnic backgrounds, and celebration in December is often a mix of many different elements. Because Australia is in the southern hemisphere, December is part of the warm season. Residents still hhave Christmas trees, Father Christmas, Christmas Carols and gifts which are a familiar Christmas and gifts, as well as being visited by Father Christmas. Because it coincides with school holidays, it's not uncommon for Australians to celebrate the season on vacation away from home.
In China, only about two percent of the population observes Christmas as a religious holiday, although it is gaining in popularity as a commercial event. However, the main winter festival in China is New Year celebration that occurs at the end of January. Recently, it's become known as the Spring Festival, and is a time of gift-giving and feasting. A key aspect of the Chinese New Year is ancestor worship, and painings and portraits are brought out and honored in the family's home.
In Denmark, Christmas Eve dinner is a big cause for celebration. The most anticipated part of the meal is the traditional rice pudding, baked with a single almond inside. Whichever guest gets the almond in his pudding is guaranteed good luck for the coming year. Children leave out glasses of milk for the Juulnisse, which are elves that live in peoples' homes, and for Julemanden, the Danish version of Santa Claus.
The Finns have a tradition of resting and relaxing on Christmas Day. The night before, on Christmas Eve, is really the time of the big feast -- and leftovers are consumed the next day. On December 26, the day of St. Stephen the Martyr, everyone goes out and visits friends and relatives, weather permitting. One fun custom is that of Glogg parties, which involve the drinking of Glogg, a mulled wine made from Madeira, and the eating of lots of baked treats.
Christmas was typically not a huge holiday in Greece, as it is in North America. However, the recognition of St. Nicholas has always been important, because he was the patron saint of sailors, among other things. Hearth fires burn for several days between December 25 and January 6, and a sprig of basil is wrapped around a wooden cross to protect the home from the Killantzaroi, which are negative spirits that only appear during the twelve days after Christmas. Gifts are exchanged on January 1, which is St. Basil's day.
India's Hindu population typically observes this time of year by placing clay oil lamps on the roof in honor of the return of the sun. The country's Christians celebrate by decorating mango and banana trees, and adorning homes with red flowers, such as the poinsettia. Gifts are exchanged with family and friends, and baksheesh, or charity, is given to the poor and needy.
In Italy, there is the legend of La Befana, a kind old witch who travels the earth giving gifts to children. It is said that the three Magi stopped on their way to Bethlehem and asked her for shelter for a night. She rejected them, but later realized she'd been quite rude. However, when she went to call them back, they had gone. Now she travels the world, searching, and delivering gifts to all the children.
In Romania, people still observe an old fertility ritual which probably pre-dates Christianity. A woman bakes a confection called a turta, made of pastry dough and filled with melted sugar and honey. Before baking the cake, as the wife is kneading the dough, she follows her husband outdoors. The man goes from one barren tree to another, threatening to cut each down. Each time, the wife begs him to spare the tree, saying, "Oh no, I am sure this tree will be as heavy with fruit next spring as my fingers are with dough today." The man relents, the wife bakes the turta, and the trees are spared for another year.
In Scotland, the big holiday is that of Hogmanay. On Hogmanay, which is observed on December 31, festivities typically spill over into the first couple of days of January. There's a tradition known as "first-footing", in which the first person to cross a home's threshold brings the residents good luck for the coming year -- as long as the guest is dark-haired and male. The tradition stems from back when a red- or blonde-haired stranger was probably an invading Norseman.


Pricing in the sky
Many policy problems (from road congestion to water and electricity shortages) can be greatly improved through the proper application of a simple concept–pricing. In this USA Today article, Reason's Bob Poole explains how to apply pricing to air traffic control: By charging planes to use the most congested airports and airways, the system would give its customers economic incentives to reschedule flight times or choose less-congested airports without such charges. That easing of demand would provide breathing room to address the looming shortfalls in air-traffic-control capacity. All sorts of new technology can increase this capacity, both cross-country and on the approaches to airport runways. "Synthetic vision" systems can permit pilots to land at socked-in airports at nearly the same rate as in clear weather. So the air-traffic system need not break down just because Chicago has a bad-weather day. Other advanced technologies can reduce the size of the protective bubble needed around planes en route to keep them safely separated.


The eye of a hurricane passes over Grand Bahama Island in a
direction 60.0° north of west with a speed of 41.0 km/h. Three
hours later, the course of the hurricane suddenly shifts due north,
and its speed slows to 25.0 km/h. How far from Grand Bahama is the
hurricane 4.50 h after it passes over the island?


Lesson 1: Why Pray?
This first lesson of a series of three will introduce children to the importance of prayer in their daily lives.
Christian Living, Knowing God, Listening, Prayer, Relationships
AS KIDS ARRIVE (10 minutes)
Display the following items on a table:
Telephone Newspaper Letters & Envelopes Road Map Radio
As the children arrive, give them a sheet of paper and ask them to list what they think the items on the table have in common. Just before class starts let the kids know that all the things displayed on the table are used to communicate with each other. Today our lesson is about another way we communicate. More specifically, it is about how we communicate with God.
OPENING PRAYER AND PRAISE (5 minutes)
Further info? Click here
MEMORY WORK (12 minutes)
"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart" Jeremiah 29:13
Write the verse on the board. Say the verse together as a group several times. Then erase one word. Have the kids say the verse correctly again with the missing word. Then erase another word and say the verse again. Continue erasing words until the kids can say the entire verse without seeing the words.
SCRIPTURE READING AND DISCUSSION (15 minutes)
Today we will learn that prayer is communicating or talking with God. We may not be able to call God on the telephone or send Him a letter, but prayer is just as real as e-mail or newspapers. Why should we pray? Because it makes our relationship with God stronger. Could you imagine trying to have a best friend without communicating with them? Prayer is seeking God and His direction for our lives. Praying also helps keep us out of trouble. Jesus told us to pray, "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." (Matthew 26:41)
Read James 5:13-16 (The Prayer of Faith)
Have the kids find James 5:13-16 in their Bibles. Ask for a volunteer to read the passage, or if you prefer, read the passage to the children yourself.
1. What is prayer? (Prayer is spiritual communication between ourselves and God.)
2. Can you pray when you are in trouble? (Yes.)
3. Can you pray when you are happy? (Yes.)
4. What is another name for happy prayers? (Praises.)
5. What are some of the examples of why to pray mentioned in James 5:13-16? (When you are in trouble, when you are happy, when you are sick, to show faith, for confession of sin, and to pray for others.)
6. What else can we pray for? (Some examples include: Guidance, Protection, Strength, Wisdom.)
7. Is the prayer of a righteous man powerful? Is it effective? (Yes the Bible tells us in James 5:16b that the prayers of the righteous are both powerful and effective.)
CLASS EXERCISE (5 minutes)
Answers Without Speaking (Activity) Click here
ALTERNATE CLASS EXERCISE (5 minutes)
So Don't Worry (Activity) Click here
APPLICATION (2 minutes)
Why pray? It's simple, to talk with God and to get His direction for our lives. God is so good and will help us when we are happy, sad, sick or even when we're in trouble. God will give us wisdom, strength and understanding if we only ask Him. In fact God is willing to give us many good things as long as we ask for them in accordance to His Will. God answers our prayers with signs, the Holy Spirit and His Word, the Bible. When we pray our relationship with God grows.
Did you ever see a human that thought he was a robot? If not, be sure to come back next week.
CLOSING PRAYER (2 minutes)
Further info? Click here


Constitution of Oregon: 2011 Version
Sec. 1. Election to accept or reject Constitution
2. Questions submitted to voters
3. Majority of votes required to accept or reject Constitution
4. Vote on certain sections of Constitution
5. Apportionment of Senators and Representatives
6. Election under Constitution; organization of state
7. Former laws continued in force
8. Officers to continue in office
9. Crimes against territory
10. Saving existing rights and liabilities
11. Judicial districts
Section 1. Election to accept or reject Constitution. For the purpose of taking the vote of the electors of the State, for the acceptance or rejection of this Constitution, an election shall be held on the second Monday of November, in the year 1857, to be conducted according to existing laws regulating the election of Delegates in Congress, so far as applicable, except as herein otherwise provided.
Section 2. Questions submitted to voters. Each elector who offers to vote upon this Constitution, shall be asked by the judges of election this question:
Do you vote for the Constitution? Yes, or No.
And also this question:
Do you vote for Slavery in Oregon? Yes, or No.
And in the poll books shall be columns headed respectively.
“Constitution, Yes.” “Constitution, No"
“Slavery, Yes." “Slavery, No."
And the names of the electors shall be entered in the poll books, together with their answers to the said questions, under their appropriate heads. The abstracts of the votes transmitted to the Secretary of the Territory, shall be publicly opened, and canvassed by the Governor and Secretary, or by either of them in the absence of the other; and the Governor, or in his absence the Secretary, shall forthwith issue his proclamation, and publish the same in the several newspapers printed in this State, declaring the result of the said election upon each of said questions. [Constitution of 1859; Amendment proposed by S.J.R. 7, 2001, and adopted by the people Nov. 5, 2002]
Section 3. Majority of votes required to accept or reject Constitution. If a majority of all the votes given for, and against the Constitution, shall be given for the Constitution, then this Constitution shall be deemed to be approved, and accepted by the electors of the State, and shall take effect accordingly; and if a majority of such votes shall be given against the Constitution, then this Constitution shall be deemed to be rejected by the electors of the State, and shall be void.–
Section 4. Vote on certain sections of Constitution. If this Constitution shall be accepted by the electors, and a majority of all the votes given for, and against slavery, shall be given for slavery, then the following section shall be added to the Bill of Rights, and shall be part of this Constitution:
“Sec. ___ “Persons lawfully held as slaves in any State, Territory, or District of the United States, under the laws thereof, may be brought into this State, and such Slaves, and their descendants may be held as slaves within this State, and shall not be emancipated without the consent of their owners.”
And if a majority of such votes shall be given against slavery, then the foregoing section shall not, but the following sections shall be added to the Bill of Rights, and shall be a part of this Constitution.
“Sec. ___ There shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in the State, otherwise than as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” [Constitution of 1859; Amendment proposed by S.J.R. 7, 2001, and adopted by the people Nov. 5, 2002]
Note: See sections 34 and 35 of Article I, Oregon Constitution.
Section 5. Apportionment of Senators and Representatives. Until an enumeration of the inhabitants of the State shall be made, and the senators and representatives apportioned as directed in the Constitution, the County of Marion shall have two senators, and four representatives.
Linn two senators, and four representatives.
Lane two senators, and three representatives.
Clackamas and Wasco, one senator jointly, and Clackamas three representatives, and Wasco one representative.
Yamhill one senator, and two representatives.
Polk one senator, and two representatives.
Benton one senator, and two representatives.
Multnomah, one senator, and two representatives.
Washington, Columbia, Clatsop, and Tillamook one senator jointly, and Washington one representative, and Washington and Columbia one representative jointly, and Clatsop and Tillamook one representative jointly.
Douglas, one senator, and two representatives.
Jackson one senator, and three representatives.
Josephine one senator, and one representative.
Umpqua, Coos and Curry, one senator jointly, and Umpqua one representative, and Coos and Curry one representative jointly. [Constitution of 1859; Amendment proposed by S.J.R. 7, 2001, and adopted by the people Nov. 5, 2002]
Section 6. Election under Constitution; organization of state. If this Constitution shall be ratified, an election shall be held on the first Monday of June 1858, for the election of members of the Legislative Assembly, a Representative in Congress, and State and County officers, and the Legislative Assembly shall convene at the Capital on the first Monday of July 1858, and proceed to elect two senators in Congress, and make such further provision as may be necessary to the complete organization of a State government.–
Section 7. Former laws continued in force. All laws in force in the Territory of Oregon when this Constitution takes effect, and consistent therewith, shall continue in force until altered, or repealed.–
Section 8. Officers to continue in office. All officers of the Territory of Oregon, or under its laws, when this Constitution takes effect, shall continue in office, until superseded by the State authorities.–
Section 9. Crimes against territory. Crimes and misdemeanors committed against the Territory of Oregon shall be punished by the State, as they might have been punished by the Territory, if the change of government had not been made.–
Section 10. Saving existing rights and liabilities. All property and rights of the Territory, and of the several counties, subdivisions, and political bodies corporate, of, or in the Territory, including fines, penalties, forfeitures, debts and claims, of whatsoever nature, and recognizances, obligations, and undertakings to, or for the use of the Territory, or any county, political corporation, office, or otherwise, to or for the public, shall inure to the State, or remain to the county, local division, corporation, officer, or public, as if the change of government had not been made. And private rights shall not be affected by such change.–
Section 11. Judicial districts. Until otherwise provided by law, the judicial districts of the State, shall be constituted as follows: The counties of Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas, shall constitute the first district. The counties of Umpqua, Coos, Curry, Lane, and Benton, shall constitute the second district.–The counties of Linn, Marion, Polk, Yamhill and Washington, shall constitute the third district.–The counties of Clackamas, Multnomah, Wasco, Columbia, Clatsop, and Tillamook, shall constitute the fourth district–and the County of Tillamook shall be attached to the county of Clatsop for judicial purposes.–


Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on TwitterSedimentary rock covers 70% of the Earth. Erosion is constantly changing the face of the Earth. Weathering agents…wind, water, and ice…break rock into smaller pieces that flow down waterways until the settle to the bottom permanently. These sediments( pebbles, sand, clay, and gravel) pile up and for new layers. After hundred or thousands of years these rocks become pressed together to form sedimentary rock.
Sedimentary rock can form in two different ways. When layer after layer of sediment forms it puts pressure on the lower layers which then form into a solid piece of rock. The other way is called cementing. Certain minerals in the water interact to form a bond between rocks. This process is similar to making modern cement. Any animal carcasses or organisms that are caught in the layers of sediment will eventually turn into fossils. Sedimentary rock is the source of quite a few of our dinosaur findings.
There are four common types of sedimentary rock: sandstone, limestone, shale, and conglomerate. Each is formed in a different way from different materials. Sandstone is formed when grains of sand are pressed together. Sandstone may be the most common type of rock on the planet. Limestone is formed by the tiny pieces of shell that have been cemented together over the years. Conglomerate rock consists of sand and pebbles that have been cemented together. Shale forms under still waters like those found in bogs or swamps. The mud and clay at the bottom is pressed together to form it.
Sedimentary rock has the following general characteristics:
- it is classified by texture and composition
- it often contains fossils
- occasionally reacts with acid
- has layers that can be flat or curved
- it is usually composed of material that is cemented or pressed together
- a great variety of color
- particle size varies
- there are pores between pieces
- can have cross bedding, worm holes, mud cracks, and raindrop impressions
This is only meant to be a brief introduction to sedimentary rock. There are many more in depth articles and entire books that have been written on the subject. Here is a link to a very interesting introduction to rocks. Here on Universe Today there is a great article on how sedimentary rock show very old signs of life. Astronomy Cast has a good episode on the Earth’s formation.