Genevieve Nnaji features in Memoir film ‘Farming’;release date Oct. 11

Farming’, the acclaimed memoir film of Nigerian-British actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, featuring Nollywood Diva Genevieve Nnaji, is to hit Cinemas on October 11,its producers has said.

‘Farming’ is based on the life story of Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who grew up as a young fostered Nigerian boy that struggled to find an identity in 1980’s England.

The movie is his directorial debut, and features international stars Damson Idris, Kate Beckinsale, John Dagleish, Jaime Winstone, Genevieve Nnaji, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

It received its world premiere at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and its trailer is now released by the producers.

The plot of ‘Farming’ follows intriquing story of young Enitan (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) who was adopted by a foster British mother (Kate Beckinsale) as he struggled to cope with the harsh realities of racism at the time.

In a scene, the young Enitan tried washing off his skin colour after he was ridiculed for being too black by his adopted mum’s friends.

He went as far as painting himself white just to look and feel white and suffered several humiliations, but gradually falls deep into the bullish gang’s clique to become one of them.

Akinnuoye-Agbaje is a British actor and former fashion model was born in Islington, London, to Nigerian parents of Yoruba origin, who were students in the UK.

He is famous for his roles as Simon Adebisi on Oz, Nykwana Wombosi in The Bourne Identity, Kurse in Thor: The Dark World, Killer Croc in Suicide Squad.

He also played Mr. Eko on Lost, Malko in the fifth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones and Dave Duerson in the NFL biopic drama Concussion.

When Akinnuoye-Agbaje was six weeks old, his biological parents gave him up to a white working-class family in Tilbury.

It was a common practice then among Nigerian families, when parents sent young children to live in the UK with white foster parents in the hopes their children would have better lives.

At 8, his biological parents brought him back to Nigeria but, as he was unable to speak the Yoruba Language and forbidden by his parents to speak English, and was returned to Tilbury.

The brief exposure to Nigeria left him struggling to reconcile his heritage with the distinctly British culture and environment he was raised in.

As a young boy, facing a cultural identity crisis, he joined a local Skinhead gang in order to escape racial persecution at their hands until he came to terms with his background, turning his life around. (NAN)


develops_from develops from develops from existence starts during or after start stage end stage existence ends during or before anatomical entity anatomical entity embryonic structure blastodisc blastoderm TAO:0001176 zebrafish_anatomy ZFA:0001176 Embryonic structure that is composed of the cellular part of the embryo, excluding the yolk cell, derived from the blastodisc by early morphogenesis; refers particularly to the time when the cell array is sheet-like, between 30%-epiboly and the end of gastrulation. Blastula:30%-epiboly Gastrula:Bud


Counting Pets

Gerry has several pets at home.

All of them are dogs, except for three.

All of them are cats, except for four.

All of them are tortoises, except for five.

How many dogs does he have?

Aplusclick Best Puzzles 2019

These are the Best Puzzles published at in 2019.

Motorway Problem

How to choose the shortest road that connects several towns. This is a story about local and global minimums. Excellent presentation  of soapy films.

Sign Logic Puzzle

Find a mistake. Think differently!

Find more logic puzzles for all ages in Think Outside the Box collection of puzzles.

Big Ben Maths

Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, United Kingdom.  bigben

A pile of old coins helps to keep the clock mechanism accurate.  The pennies are stacked on the pendulum of the clock and have acted as weights. Adding or taking away coins effects the pendulum’s centre of mass and the rate at which it swings. A single penny will change the clock’s speed by two fifths of one second per day.

How does the weekly time change if we add 5 pennies to the pendulum?

At twelve o’clock, twelve chimes  ring from the great bell in 44 seconds. ## How long does it takes to ring the hours at 15:00 ?

18 Best Aplusclick Puzzles of 2018

New challenges:

What is the easiest way to make it correct?            Answer

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Interesting Maths Facts

blank board

  • Notches (cuts or indentation) on animal bones prove that humans have been doing mathematics since around 30,000 BC.
  • Ancient Greeks used little rocks to represent numbers. The name of Calculus means pebbles in Greek.
  • The = sign (“equals sign”) was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing “is equal to” in his equations.
  • Zero (0) is the only number which cannot be represented by Roman numerals.
  • Many Chinese hospitals do not have a 4th floor  because the words four in Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean (shi, sei, si, sa) sound the same as the words in those languages for death.
  • Forty is the only number with letters in alphabetical order, while one is the only one with letters in reverse order.
  • The number 5 is pronounced as ‘Ha‘ in Thai language. 555 is also used by some as slang for ‘HaHaHa’.
  • Zero is an even number. Mathematicians remember it. Many people take longer to decide whether it is even or odd.


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G.R. L-25494 June 14, 1972 NICOLAS SANCHEZ vs.

SEVERINA-RIGOS Doctrine: If the option is given without a consideration, it is a mere offer to sell, which is not binding until accepted. If, however, acceptance is made before a withdrawal, it constitutes a binding contract of sale. The concurrence of both acts the offer and the acceptance could in such event generate a contract. CONCEPCION, C.J.: On April 3, 1961, plaintiff Nicolas Sanchez and defendant Severina Rigos executed an instrument entitled, Option to Purchase whereby Mrs. Rigos agreed, promised and committedto sell to Sanchez a parcel of land situated in the barrios of Abar and Sibot, Municipality of San Jose, Nueva Ecija for P1,510.00. Stipulated in the contract is that the said option would be deemed terminated and elapsed if Sanchez shall fail to exercise his right to buy the property within 2 years. Several tenders of payment in the amount of P1510 were made by Sanchez within the said period but were rejected by Mrs. Rigos. On March 12, 1963, Sanchez deposited the said amount with the Court of First Instance, Nueva Ecija and commenced against Rigos a suit for specific performance and damages. Defendant Rigos admitted some of the allegations of the complaint but also added as a special defense, that, since the contract between the parties is a unilateral promise to sell, the same being unsupported by any valuable consideration, by force of the CC is null and void.

NCC 1479: A promise to buy and sell a determinate thing for a price certain is reciprocally demandable. An accepted unilateral promise to buy or to sell a determinate thing for a price certain is binding upon the promissor if the promise is supported by a consideration distinct from the price. The lower court rendered a decision in favour of Sanchez and ordered, in its decision on February 28, 1964, Mrs. Rigos to accept the sum judicially consigned by him and to execute, in his favour, the requisite deed of conveyance. Mrs. Rigos, was likewise sentenced to pay P200.00 as attorneys fees and other costs. Hence, this appeal by Mrs. Rigos. ISSUE: Whether or not NCC 1479 was correctly applied and therefore the TC was correct in compelling Mrs. Rigos to execute the deed of conveyance + pay damages HELD: YES. Decision appealed from is affirmed with costs against appellant. RATIO: 1. In the decision, the Court weighed Sanchezs arguments and applied two cases, Southwestern Sugar Molasses Co. vs. Atlantic Gulf and Pacific Co. & Atkins, Kroll and Co. vs. Cua Hian Tek.

2. The Court said that the plaintiff (Sanchez) is his complaint alleges that under the Annex A (copy of the contract), the defendant agreed and committed to sell and the plaintiff agreed and committed to buy said property making it reciprocally demandable pursuant to the first paragraph of Art. 1479. 3. The Court debunked this theory by saying that the option did not impose upon the plaintiff the obligation to purchase the property. It was not a contract to buy and sell, it clearly states that there is a commitment to sell the land for P1510.00 but no indication of a consideration distinct from the price stipulated for the sale of the land. 4. The Court said that the LC presumed the existence of this consideration using NCC 1354: NCC 1354: Although the cause is not stated in the contract, it is presumed that it exists and is lawful, unless the debtor proves the contrary. (1277) However the Court said that, 1354 pertains to contracts in general, while 1479 refer to sales, or more specifically, to an accepted unilateral promise to buy or to sell. 1479 controlling case at bar In order that said unilateral promise be binding upon the promisor, Art. 1479 requires the concurrence of a condition and

that the promise be supported by a consideration distinct from the price, which is absent in this case Defendant has explicitly pleaded the absence of this consideration and the plaintiff (Sanchez), by joining in the petition for the judgment of the pleadings, has impliedly admitted the truth of her defense, as held in Bauermann vs. Casas: One who prays for judgment on the pleadings without offering proof as to the truth of his own allegations, and without giving the opposing party an opportunity to introduce evidence, must be understood to admit the truth of all the material and relevant allegations of the opposing party, and to rest his motion for judgment on those allegations taken together with such of his own as are admitted in the pleadings. 5. The decision cited a case: Southwestern Sugar Molasses Co. vs. Atlantic Gulf and Pacific Co. : In this case, the appellants main contention is that the option granted to the appellee to sell to him/her Barge no. 10 has no legal effect bec. it is not supported by any consideration and invokes NCC 1479. On the other hand, appellee maintains and invokes NCC 1324: When the offerer has allowed the offeree a certain period to accept, the offer may be withdrawn any time before acceptance by

communicating such withdrawal, except when the option is founded upon consideration as something paid or promised. Decision: SC said that while it is true that under article 1324 of the new Civil Code, the general rule regarding offer and acceptance is that, when the offerer gives to the offeree a certain period to accept, "the offer may be withdrawn at any time before acceptance" except when the option is founded upon consideration, but this general rule must be interpreted as modified by the provision of article 1479 above referred to, which applies to "a promise to buy and sell" specifically. As already stated, this rule requires that a promise to sell to be valid must be supported by a consideration distinct from the price. 6. The Court cited another case, however, which is the justification for their ruling in favour of Sanchez and said that there is no distinction between 1324 and 1479. Atkins, Kroll and Co., Inc. v. Cua Hian Tek: Summary of Decision: An option is unilateral: a promise to sell at the price fixed whenever the offeree should decide to exercise his option within the specified time. After accepting the promise and before he exercises his option, the holder of the option

is not bound to buy. He is free either to buy or not to buy later. In this case, however, upon accepting herein petitioner's offer a bilateral promise to sell and to buy ensued, and the respondent ipso facto assumed the obligation of a purchaser. He did not just get the right subsequently to buy or not to buy. It was not a mere option then; it was a bilateral contract of sale. IN OTHER WORDS, since no valid consideration=offerer not bound to promise and may widthraw it. However, pending notice of his withdrawal, if his offer is ACCEPTED, the contract of sale has been PERFECTED. Moreover, the decision in Southwestern Sugar & Molasses Co. v. Atlantic Gulf & Pacific Co., holding that Art. 1324 is modified by Art. 1479 of the Civil Code, in effect, considers the latter as an exception to the former, and exceptions are not favored, unless the intention to the contrary is clear, and it is not so, insofar as said two (2) articles are concerned. What is more, the reference, in both the second paragraph of Art. 1479 and Art. 1324, to an option or promise supported by or founded upon a consideration, strongly suggests that the two (2) provisions intended to enforce or implement the same principle.

Decision in Southwestern is abandoned, Atkins is applied.


Greg Radick, 2003. “Cultures of Evolutionary Biology.” Essay review of Michael Ruse’s Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction? Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 34: 187-200.

(Published version:

In 1981, Michael Ruse testified in court on behalf of evolutionary biology. He spoke as an expert witness, not as a biologist but a philosopher. At stake was the right of Darwinian theory to monopolize the biology textbooks and classrooms of Arkansas schoolchildren. As Ruse recalls in Mystery of mysteries, he argued that, unlike evolutionary biology, the would-be rival science, creation science, ‘fails every criterion of demarcation between science and pseudo-science’ (p. 135). With help from Stephen Jay Gould and others, the evolutionists carried the day. Two decades later, Ruse is still defending Darwinism (to quote the title of one of his many books). Now, it is not creationists but social constructionists who need fending off. Once again, Ruse rides forth; and once again, victory is declared. Apart from a couple of caveats, he answers the question in his subtitle, ‘Is evolution a social construction?’, with a resounding ‘no’.

His title comes from a letter to the geologist Charles Lyell from the astronomer and theorist of scientific method John F. W. Herschel in 1836. The ‘mystery of mysteries’, wrote Herschel, was ‘the replacement of extinct species by others’. Just over a year later, Charles Darwin began secret, sustained reflection on species replacement and extinction. Herschel and Lyell were admired mentors for Darwin—he had studied their writings closely, had met Herschel in South Africa on the return leg of the Beagle voyage, and now socialized regularly with Lyell. Unsurprisingly, Darwin acquired his sense of where the scientific action was from these men. Equally unsurprisingly, his thinking soon took a dissident turn. He came to believe that some version of the old, derided transmutation theory, associated with his grandfather Erasmus and the French naturalist Lamarck, was right: each new species was the modified descendant of a pre-existing species. The transmutation theory Darwin eventually settled on, the theory of natural selection, indeed explained the extinction as well as the replacement of species, and with appeal only to variation, inheritance and the struggle for existence—causes that, in line with Herschel and Lyell’s teachings, could not be dismissed as merely hypothetical.

In the story-book history of evolutionary biology, the Darwin chapter closes thus, with the mystery of mysteries solved and the dawning of a new science as great as physics or chemistry. The Darwin chapter in Mystery of mysteries is more circumspect. Evolutionary biology in Darwin’s day was heading for greatness, Ruse argues, but it still had a way to go. His tale of evolutionary theorizing from Erasmus Darwin to the present is a tale of ‘cultural values’, specific to certain times and places, gradually giving way to transcultural ‘epistemic values’. In 1859, when Darwin published On the origin of species, cultural values still loomed large. But by the late twentieth century, when professional evolutionary biologists were publishing narrowly focussed and heavily mathematized work in peer-reviewed journals, the epistemic ruled. This argument, I will suggest, has several failings. It is not as triumphalist as Ruse sometimes makes it sound, however. He insists that professional evolutionary biology is neither free from cultural influences nor should aspire to be. On the contrary, the surrounding culture is the source of the metaphors that inspire fruitful new theories and the ideals—what he calls ‘metavalues’—that foster ‘emergence from culture into epistemic purity’ (p. 47). Nor is it that the new professionals have ceased to share the values of their cultures. Ruse is assiduous in showing otherwise. Nevertheless, he argues, the theories of present-day evolutionary biology front for those values far less than they did in the past.

After some introductory material, Ruse presents chapter-length studies of ten individuals, paired to illustrate the epistemic progress of evolutionary biology. The first eight are famous: Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin; Julian Huxley and Theodosius Dobzhansky; Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins; and Richard Lewontin and Edward O. Wilson. The final two, Geoffrey Parker and Jack Sepkoski, have major professional reputations but minor public ones. Each chapter takes more or less the same form. After a colourful, wake-the-students opener—‘Erasmus Darwin liked to eat’ (p. 37), ‘In 1962 William Hamilton was very lonely’ (p. 122), ‘Spending your days out in the cow field, waiting for the brutes to defecate, is not most people’s idea of a perfect camping holiday’ (p. 194), and so on—we get summaries of the life and work, often accompanied by textbook-style boxes on the scientific principles (there is also a glossary of technical terms). At this point, Ruse scrutinizes the work for epistemic virtue and cultural vice. To assay the former, he has a checklist of epistemic values taken from the philosopher of science Ernan McMullin: predictive accuracy, internal coherence, external consistency, unifying power, fertility and simplicity.1 The cultural values change as the surrounding cultures change; but one constant, on Ruse’s analysis, is a belief in progress. The chapters round out with further ruminations, often on how the work was regarded in its own time among the scientifically serious.

The Darwins provide Ruse with his most dramatic contrast. In the evolutionist writings of the late eighteenth century, the cultural-epistemic mix was, he finds, weighted heavily toward the cultural. A little unificatory power notwithstanding, Erasmus’ loosely argued prose and flowery verse score poorly indeed on the McMullin criteria. Contemporaries too looked askance at his evolutionism. What drove him, Ruse suggests, was enthusiasm for social and material progress, abetted by the Deist’s faith that God worked not through miraculous interventions but natural, law-governed causes. These cultural values in favour of divinely-legislated progress blended in grandson Charles’ evolutionist thinking with the additional influence of Anglican design theology. Nonetheless, for Ruse, the Origin and other writings are in an altogether higher epistemic class. In line with scientific critics of the day, Ruse finds fault mainly in the matter of external consistency. The theory of pangenesis, for example, published in 1868, held that cells from around the body contributed material to the sexual elements, contradicting the already widely accepted view, due to the ‘new’ cell theory of Virchow, that these elements were cells and that a cell could arise only from the division of a single pre-existing cell. Still, on Ruse’s account, epistemic values were beginning to crowd out cultural ones.

If the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw little further epistemic advance, that was because the theory of evolution, writes Ruse, ‘had become a kind of metaphysical background that conveyed a cultural message—primarily the message of progress but also the rightful role of the sexes and the significance of various political doctrines—and there was little inclination to disturb the status of this very convenient vehicle’ (p. 83). With the emergence of a mathematized population genetics in the early 1930s, however, the stage was set for professionalization. Ruse’s pairing of Huxley with Dobzhansky repeats the earlier pattern of failure–success. There are three main lessons. First, high status in science goes to those who provide the next generation with new questions and new ways of answering them. Where Huxley’s Evolution: The modern synthesis (1942) helped students mainly in preparing for exams, Dobzhansky’s Genetics and the origin of species (1937) presented interesting and soluble new problems—most famously, about the extent and maintenance of genetic variation in natural populations. Second, metaphors have been at least as important as mathematics in priming epistemic uplift. Mathematics features little in either of the books just mentioned; but, in the form of Sewall Wright’s notion of the adaptive landscape, the American tradition made available to Dobzhansky a heuristically rich metaphor that was unparalleled, Ruse argues, in the British, Fisherian tradition. Third, when a science professionalizes, its most successful practitioners give vent to wider cultural sympathies only in popular writings. Although Huxley and Dobzhansky were both openly supportive of Teilhard de Chardin’s mystical Christian gloss on evolutionary progress, Dobzhansky took care, as Huxley did not, to tone it down for the professional audience.

For Ruse, Dawkins and Gould are the Huxleys of the present era, doomed to the second-rate status of the synthesist popularizer, while Lewontin and Wilson, along with Hamilton (discussed in passing) are its paradigm-begetting Dobzhanskys. The chapters on Dawkins and Gould are surprisingly weak biographically. No reference is made, for example, to Dawkins’ training under the Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen at Oxford, though Tinbergen’s undergraduate lectures were the source of the notorious Selfish gene (1976) image of bodies as ‘survival machines’.2 Gould too at one point passed through Oxford, where he met the political philosopher and historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin, famed for his emphasis on the necessity of pluralism. It is interesting to speculate whether Gould’s attachment to pluralism in evolutionary theory derived at least in part from Berlin.3 Ruse does not raise the issue, and, sadly, it is now too late to ask Gould himself. Despite these gaps in coverage, Ruse’s conclusions about professional standing—in Gould’s case backed up by citation data and, more recently, by the tepid reception given his final, major work, The structure of evolutionary theory (2002)—do seem about right.

With the achievements of Gould’s Harvard colleagues Lewontin and Wilson, the epistemic are of evolutionary biology rose still higher, Ruse argues. That will sound implausible to anyone who knows these two mainly as combatants slugging it out on opposite sides of the sociobiology debate of the 1970s. In these excellent chapters, however, Ruse reminds us that Lewontin, Dobzhansky’s prize student, helped initiate the molecular study of genetic diversity through the introduction of the now-standard laboratory technique of gel electrophoresis; while Wilson, in collaboration with Robert MacArthur, developed a quantitative theory of island biogeography now credited with revolutionizing that branch of ecology.4 For Ruse, Lewontin embodies speculative restraint, Wilson speculative boldness. With others busily extending their exemplary work of the 1960s, they have indulged wider intellectual appetites with impunity. A few glaring exceptions aside, they have kept their professional and popular writings distinct. As Ruse says of the avowedly left-leaning Lewontin, for ‘all the talk about the evils of reductionism and the virtues of holism, when it comes to his actual science, no one is more reductionistic’ (p. 169).

After the climax, the denouement. The final pair, Parker and the late Sepkoski, are ‘professionals par excellence’ (p. vii), cleverly extending admired models before an audience of equally cloistered peers. Here Ruse gives us not just quotations from the published work but also snippets from interviews. The English Parker studies dung fly reproductive strategies (hence those scatological vacations), taking a Hamiltonian, game-theoretic approach that is indeed representative of much evolutionary biology now. The American Sepkoski was ‘a new breed of paleontologist’, who had probably never ‘dug up a real fossil’ (p. 214). His career was built around the use of computer programmes that searched for statistical patterns among the fossil data of others. His sort of science calls attention to the rise of the computer as a tool in evolutionary biology. But it also recalls a moment when an ambitious group of palaeontologists—Sepkoski’s teacher and Wilson’s soon-to-be sparring partner Gould among them—looked to the new island biogeography for inspiration. Following MacArthur and Wilson’s example, they sought to treat the past as a gradually colonized island, and in so doing to upgrade what they saw as their own stubbornly descriptive science. Taken together, the chapters on Parker and Sepkoski are meant to show that, in Kuhnian terms, evolutionary biology has now entered a normal-science phase. This generation does not so much create paradigms and institutions as inhabit the ones they have found. The work is highly technical, and they like it that way. Predictive excellence is all.

For a book on how cultural values have shaped, or ceased to shape, evolutionary theorizing, there is little here by way of cross-cultural perspective. With the minor exceptions of the Russian ‘mutual aid’ theorist Petr Kropotkin, discussed briefly in the concluding chapter, and the anonymous German morphologists mentioned as having influenced Gould, the cast of thinkers on evolution is Anglo-American, and mostly American (although Russian-born, Dobzhansky, like Ernst Mayr, made his career almost entirely in the United States). Nevertheless, Ruse does manage to convey a sense of the big historical picture. His subjects are well chosen, and his sketches, at their best, full of information and insight. Moreover, the parts add up to a larger whole. Subthemes are introduced and developed. One of the most provocative concerns the Victorian evolutionary philosopher Herbert Spencer, commonly thought to have had no lasting influence on biology. Ruse has little difficulty showing, on the contrary, how Spencer’s preoccupation with dynamic equilibria in evolution passed, via the Harvard chemist L. J. Henderson, to Wright, and thence to the Dobzhansky-led Modern Synthesis.5 Ruse gets a little carried away, arguing for Spencerian influence wherever the word ‘equilibrium’ is used thereafter, as though it had no independent routes into evolutionary biology—via Fisher’s interest in thermodynamics, for instance. But the basic revisionist point stands.

So, has Ruse seen off those arguing for evolution as a social construction? Who are these social constructionists about evolution, anyway? Ruse affiliates them loosely with Kuhn’s philosophy of science; but he does not name names, and his bibliography contains not one item announcing itself as for ‘evolution as a social construction’. In The social construction of what?, a more general historical-philosophical book about the sciences, also published in 1999, Ian Hacking had to reach back to the 1970s and 80s to find self-identified exemplars of constructionist historical writing.6 It would be natural enough to suppose that, whatever it was, social constructionism has long been abandoned and, in the case of historians concerned with evolution, was never even adopted. But that would mistake a fashion in labelling for the historical interpretation once so labelled. The ‘constructing attitude’, as Hacking calls it, has become a defining feature of the collective scholarly imagination about the sciences. The up-to-date historian asks how local, contingent social and material circumstances conditioned what was found out, how it was found out, who decided what had been found, and how the authorized findings came to be held as public knowledge. Far from idling at the sidelines, historians of evolutionism have been key players.

Early efforts emphasized class at least as much as other sources of contingency. There is a tradition of Marxian critique, descending from Marx himself and most incisively framed by Engels, that sees Darwinian theory as a projection from the competitive capitalism of Victorian society onto nature, the better to ‘naturalize’ the market and its inequities. In the late 1960s, Robert Young, then at Cambridge, revitalized and extended this tradition with important writings on Darwin’s Malthusianism and related topics. Not, of course, that previous historians had denied a role to the wider setting of evolutionary theorizing. ‘It is ironic and intriguing’, wrote Loren Eiseley in his sublimely Whiggish Darwin’s century (1958), ‘that the fixed hierarchical order in biology began to pass almost contemporaneously with the disappearance of the feudal social scale in the storms of the French Revolution’.7 For Young and those he influenced, the match between changing social context and changing theoretical content was certainly intriguing but, in the era of sociobiology and resurgent political conservatism, not in the slightest ironic. On the strength of a far finer-grained analysis of Victorian science and society than Young ever ventured, Adrian Desmond and James Moore in particular have continued to argue that Darwinian theory was a ruling idea of an emerging ruling class.8

Broadly speaking, what is socially constructed in this historiography are theories of evolution. Different theories of species origins are aligned with different social interests: the theory of special creation with the interests of aristocratic Tories (preferring to keep society static); the theory of evolution by natural selection with the interests of bourgeois Whigs (preferring slow, gradual, lawful, competition-driven reform); and Lamarckian theories with hardscrabble radical democrats (preferring rapid change directed from below). The Whigs won out socially, and, the argument goes, the theory expressing and serving their interests won out scientifically. Had the social negotiations worked out differently, and the aristocrats or the radicals come out on top, then, it seems, creationism or Lamarckism would now be the stuff of textbook biology, not the Whig theory of natural selection. To the social winner went the theoretical spoils.

The element of contingency here is more qualified than might appear. What is treated as contingent is primarily the success of a social group, not the success of a theory. There is nothing contingent about the relationship between a social group and its favoured view of species origins. If the Whigs succeeded socially, then something like the theory of natural selection was bound to succeed as well. That theory was ‘isomorphic’ with a social order favourable to bourgeois power, and such a theory was needed to naturalize, and thereby legitimate, that order.9 The anti-Marxian historians of science in an earlier generation flinched from such determinism. Quoting Alexandre Koyré, Ernst Mayr complained of attempts to ‘deduce’ the character of a science from its social matrix.10 In the tradition culminating in Desmond and Moore’s writings, given bourgeois success, the theory of natural selection is indeed treated as necessary, inevitable.

Mystery of mysteries engages this tradition. Ruse asks about evolutionary theories as responses to what use to be called ‘external’ imperatives—external, that is, to the search for the timeless truth about nature. But his narrative of professionalization goes nowhere near to answering the central Marxian charge. Consider Ruse’s handling of the appeals Darwin made to the concept of a division of labour. As Ruse acknowledges, the concept took shape in the free-market political economy of Adam Smith:

Before, during, and after the Origin, the sociocultural idea of a division of labor was transferred right into the evolutionary thought of Charles Darwin. Yet in all of the uses, in some way it is not just the nonepistemic idea which is being endorsed and promoted. Darwin does not just break off discussion to talk in isolation of the virtues of the division of labor. Nor does he praise the division at the expense of the epistemic power of his theorizing. In fact it is not because it is a valued concept that it is important. Rather, Darwin is using the cultural concept (irrespective of his feelings of its worth) to further his epistemic ends. He can, for instance, predict what will happen when a group is faced by different open ecological niches … (pp. 243–4)

In other words, Darwin intended his talk of ‘division of labour’ to advance the explanatory and predictive power of his theory of natural selection, not bourgeois interests. Therefore, in making use of that concept, however cultural its origins, Darwin was answering the call of epistemic values, not cultural values. But this misses the point. In the Marxian tradition, it does not matter what Darwin or anyone else intended, consciously, in developing their theories. What matters is whether, unconsciously, they worked to satisfy the needs of the ruling order for theories that could legitimate it—by, say, making an ever increasing division of labour appear natural, good, inevitable, and so not worth fighting, no matter how alienated and dehumanized the workers became in the process. Nothing in Ruse’s narrative undermines this argument. On the contrary, the institutional success he charts might be regarded as precisely demonstrating the ideological usefulness of evolutionary biology. That is not my view, and I have tried to show elsewhere why, at least in Darwin’s case, the Marxian analysis should be resisted.11 But it has a moral and intellectual seriousness that Ruse does not reckon with, let alone overmatch.

At the outset, Ruse promises that despite his pitting epistemic and cultural values against each other, there will nevertheless emerge a sense in which ‘the epistemic is itself cultural’ (p. 34). It is important to see both what he does and does not mean here. Emphatically he does not mean what the phrase ‘the epistemic is itself cultural’ most naturally suggests: that epistemic values differ from culture to culture. No, for Ruse, the values that McMullin identified are universal, upheld to varying degrees wherever something like what we call science can be found. There is ‘something transcultural about them. They are above the vagaries of societal change or whim or fashion. In this sense, they are pointing toward truths about the real world: objectivity’ (p. 236). Thus we feel a certain kinship with Erasmus Darwin’s classier scientific contemporaries, who revered Lavoisier but rejected Mesmer.

What Ruse has in mind are metavalues and metaphors. The Deism of the Darwins, for example, was a cultural inheritance that, in Ruse’s view, reinforced the desire to discover natural laws. In the Darwins’ case, the Deist conception of God ‘is functioning as a metavalue’ (p. 71)—that is, as a special sort of cultural value, promoting greater adherence to the universal epistemic values. The general point is familiar enough, if still controversial. Sociologists from Max Weber to Robert Merton and beyond have argued that the natural sciences thrive more against certain religious backgrounds than others. Lewontin provides Ruse with another, non-Christian example. Growing up during the Second World War as a Jew in the United States, Lewontin learned how biological science in Europe had been twisted to serve murderous, racist politics. According to Ruse, both the topics and rigour of Lewontin’s subsequent research—think of his well known conclusion that there is more genetic variation within the human ‘races’ than between them—should be understood as stemming from a desire to expose biological determinism as false. Lewontin’s Jewishness, writes Ruse, ‘inclines him into an interest in certain kinds of problems and avoidance of others’, manifesting itself ‘not by making “friendly-toward-Jewishness” an operative value but by making the satisfaction of epistemic values more stringent’ (p. 168).

Metavalues are at once epistemic and cultural. So are metaphors. Again, it is almost a commonplace that metaphors, models and analogies figure prominently in scientific reasoning. Ruse insists on their cognitive necessity, but also on their cultural rootedness. His exploration of the role of metaphor in Wilson’s work prompts the most remarkable concession to social constructionism in the book:

Without the metaphors of his society, his science would not exist. Which all seems to imply that at a different time and in a different place, Wilsonian science would have been different. Not necessarily better, but different. And different in ways that reflect cultural differences. Such a conclusion is not quite as bad as saying that Wilson’s science is simply a figment of his imagination—an exercise in wish fulfillment or an extended polemic about the way he would like things to be. But not a great deal better. It still says that science is a reflection of society rather than the real world. It is in this sense deeply subjective. Science is indeed a social construction, and the fact that we may like the end product does not make it less relative. (p. 240)

Those are the caveats to the negative answer Ruse gives to his subtitle question. Otherwise, for Ruse, the epistemic is not at all cultural. From the Enlightenment onward, the marks of objectivity have been the same. To which one can only reply, yes and no. Viewed at low resolution, the sorts of theories celebrated then do have a family resemblance to the sorts celebrated now. But closer inspection can reveal important shifts. Consider the differences between two of Ruse’s subjects, Charles Darwin and Stephen Jay Gould, on whether natural selection is responsible for evolutionary progress. Darwin wrote that selection is indeed progressive. Gould argued that it is not, accounting for this divergence from Darwin by arguing that his predecessor, as a Victorian bourgeois, was beholden to progress as a cultural value and so, at least in public, could not help but present selection as underpinning progress, though the private man knew better.The argument is based on anachronism. Unlike Darwin, Gould lived and worked in an epistemic culture saturated with statistics. Statistical reasoning was fundamental not only to his profession of evolutionary palaeontology—recall the collaboration with Sepkoski—but to his most general epistemic culture. In his main book on evolutionary progress, Life’s grandeur (1996), the discussion of selection and progress pivots on an analogy with that most ‘stats’-obsessed sport, baseball (a Gould passion). Another book, The mismeasure of man (1981), invokes canons of sound statistical reasoning to criticise fallacies in another American pastime, racialist IQ studies. Gould had no doubt that to discover whether natural selection is responsible for evolutionary progress, we should find out whether, more often than not, descendent species have been more complex than ancestral species. But Darwin’s habits of reasoning were formed in a different matrix altogether. He did tot up numbers here and there, making inferences based on trends. On selection and progress, however, his reasoning was more akin to the older celestial mechanics and emerging laboratory sciences than the still-unborn statistical sciences. For Darwin, what mattered was not whether selection was responsible for progress more often than not, but whether progress followed when other causes did not interfere with selection. On this question, Darwin and Gould had culturally specific epistemic values. Those values led in contrary but no less objective directions.12

The theme of progress, then, far from illustrating what has remained constant in evolutionary biology, reveals how much has changed, and in the supposedly changeless realm of epistemic values. Nor is this the only irony in Ruse’s treatment of progress. His is, after all, an unabashedly progressionist history of evolutionary biology, tracking its gradual ascent up the ladder of respectability. He presents that history, moreover, as decisive for evaluating social constructionism. Do cultural values indeed dominate evolutionary theorizing, as alleged? Ruse invites us to have a look. The epistemic progress we shall find, he tells us, is there in the record, waiting to refute the sceptics. But when the theorists he discusses have claimed to find progressive patterns in their own data, Ruse convicts them over and over again of sinning against objectivity. Like Gould, he treats a belief in progress as a cultural value infecting evolutionary theorizing from start to finish. After a while, it becomes a joke even for Ruse, who starts referring as early as the Huxley chapter to ‘our old friend, progress’ (p. 94). Yet a belief in evolutionary progress is in many ways an odd candidate for a cultural value. Understood as the notion that life began simply, with ever more complex kinds of organisms emerging at intervals thereafter, evolutionary progress seems not just well attested empirically, but, for an evolutionist, non-negotiable, in the sense that nothing we would recognize as a theory of evolution could posit otherwise.

There is more to social constructionism than the theories-as-ideologies tradition that occupies Mystery of mysteries. Another tradition, often indifferent or openly hostile to the first, has been more concerned with how groups of scientists come to act upon the world. The emphasis is less on theories than on techniques. The cultures that matter are the material cultures of the sciences, especially the apparatus-filled laboratories where much investigation takes place. Claims about social construction in this tradition are often literal. Hacking’s examples involve the quark and the hormone TRH. Both entered the scientific inventory of the world after extensive experimental work. Both are now widely taken for granted as belonging to the discovered order of nature. And both have been the subjects of books with “construct-” words in their titles. The quark-lab sociologist Andrew Pickering (1984) has urged that there was nothing inevitable about a high-energy physics centred on quarks. The TRH-lab sociologists Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar (1979) have urged that there was nothing inevitable about an endocrinology identifying as TRH the macromolecule now so identified. Rather, these outcomes are inseparable from the contingent assembly and spread of certain laboratory items: detectors in the case of quarks, bioassay systems in the case of TRH.

A book that asks ‘Is evolution a social construction?’ should have taken into account at least the spirit of this labs-and-techniques tradition. But culture for Ruse means values, not matériel. In keeping with the Popperianism he flourished in Arkansas, he treats the experiments he discusses as straightforward tests of theories. At the end he prescribes what he has described: ‘However socially or culturally congenial one may find the science, if it does not succeed in the fiery pit of experience, it can and should be rejected’ (p. 246). Even with Dobzhansky, who made his name as a member of the most famous laboratory in the history of biology, T. H. Morgan’s “fly room”, Ruse has little to say about the details of experimental practice or of theory-experiment dialectic. Characteristically, he dwells instead on possible Cold War alignments between Dobzhansky and his main rival on questions about genetic variation, Herman Muller, also a veteran of the Morgan lab. After the Second World War, Ruse argues (following others), Dobzhansky continued to hold that natural populations harbour a great deal of variation in part because he was hawkish on the American build-up of nuclear weapons, and so eager to allay concerns about the effects on evolution of mutations arising from fallout after weapons tests. As Ruse summarizes, with so much variation around anyway, ‘a few more radiation-induced mutations will not make much difference’ (p. 110). Muller took the opposite views on variation and testing.

Such correspondences between theories and ideologies are, as ever, intriguing. But the Morgan lab and its most illustrious students could have served as a point of entry into the other, more materialist sort of social constructionism. Though Ruse does not mention it, Robert Kohler’s Lords of the fly (1994) examines the Morgan lab from just such a perspective.13 Of course, the lab belongs to the history of evolutionary theorizing in retrospect, since the Mendelian-chromosomal theory of the gene, so largely elaborated and evidenced there, later came to be esteemed as underwriting Darwinian theory. But, as Kohler shows, Morgan was studying evolution and variation, not heredity, when he began to experiment with fruit flies around 1908. He was interested in whether the process of selection itself might have mutational effects. Morgan at that time was no Mendelian and the flies were not obvious candidates for Mendelian studies, since fly lineages in nature do not exhibit tidy Mendelian trait ratios. But the mutations that emerged in the lab surprised Morgan in lending themselves much better to Mendelian analysis than experimental evolution. Before long, Morgan and his students were attempting to map genes to chromosomes. In the course of this mapping work, the group gradually bred into being a lineage of flies conforming ever more closely to the predictions of the Mendelian-chromosomal theory. At the same time, that theory came to answer in the first instance not to flies in nature, but to this new, standardized, lab-bound lineage.

In step with other historians of laboratory life, Kohler tries to uncover the tacit codes of behaviour governing, among other things, the distribution of credit and even of flies (as material for further experimentation) in and around the lab at Columbia. More striking is his emphasis on the lab as a new ecological niche for the evolving fruit fly. Just as fruit flies changed the history of evolutionary biology, so, he argues, evolutionary biology changed the history of the fruit fly. What happened in Morgan’s fly room thus counts, if anything does, as the social construction of evolution, or at least of the evolution of Drosophila melanogaster. (One of the key chapters in Kohler’s study is entitled ‘Constructing Drosophila’.)14 The material culture of the lab appears inseparable from the epistemic inroads made there. Biologists possessed by a certain theory about evolution caused one lineage of organisms to evolve in a certain direction. As the lineage evolved thus, the theory changed, leading to further manipulations of the lineage, then further revisions in the theory, and so on. The flies that resulted were as much a social construction as the theory that could be checked only against those flies.

The contingency in Kohler’s account is not qualified in the Marxian way. He does not suggest that the fortunes of the mutational theory of selection were bound up with the fortunes of a social group whose interests the theory advanced. The theory was abandoned not because it had become a political liability but, he argues, because Morgan was working with flies on an unprecedented scale, and so had a much better chance of noticing variations that fitted more closely with Mendelian theory. And he had flies to observe at all only because they had become prized teaching aids in the burgeoning biology departments in American universities. If not for such mundane needs, then no flies in the lab at Columbia, no abandonment of the mutational theory, no standard fly, and none of the mapping that soon turned much of biological opinion in favour of the Mendelian-chromosomal theory. At the extreme, such an analysis invites us to contemplate the possibility of a successful biological science that did not include genes at all.

All of this escapes Ruse’s attention, and constructionist readers will rightly complain. More damagingly, I suspect many of them will not recognize themselves as Ruse’s opponents in the debate he has framed. When Ruse asks whether evolution is a social construction, what he really wants to know is whether, in contrast to the theories of epistemically pure sciences, the theories of evolutionary biology are riddled with cultural values. But neither of the constructionisms I have described takes quite that view of the epistemic and the cultural. It is not that Ruse has mistaken allies for enemies. It is that those taking a constructing attitude do not conceive of culture as he does: as, caveats aside, an epistemic contaminant—something that, with due vigilance, can and should be kept out of claims about the world. From the constructionist point of view, there is no such thing as emergence from culture into epistemic purity, since there is no such thing as epistemic purity, even in principle. Culture for the constructionist is not what prevents scientists from making true claims, but what enables them to do so, by fixing the rules that determine how truth and falsehood are to be assessed in the first place.

As a rebuttal of social constructionism, then, Mystery of mysteries has serious limitations. Its contribution lies elsewhere. Above all, what Ruse has given us is the story of the professionalization of evolutionary biology, as reflected in the lives of some of its most distinguished representatives. That story is useful to have in its own right. It should also serve as a welcome corrective to the tendency of commentators on the science to notice only areas of controversy. Absorbed in debates about the units of selection or the explanatory scope of developmental constraints, they too easily overlook how much of evolutionary biology has become uncontroversial, routinized, stable. The portrait of Parker in particular makes the point memorably. ‘By his own admission’, writes Ruse, ‘Parker is not given to grand system building, preferring rather to work away on specific problems’ (p. 205). As with Parker, so, Ruse concludes—not without nostalgia—with evolutionary biology as a whole. A once gloriously unruly science has been well and truly disciplined.

Many thanks to Jon Hodge, Thomas Dixon and Lindsay Gledhill for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

1 McMullin (1983).
2 Dawkins (1991), p. xii.
3 On the Gould–Berlin relationship, see esp. the dedication and preface to Gould (1990).
4 On the impact of molecularization on evolutionary biology, see Lewin (1997). For a wonderfully rich survey of the science of island biogeography, see Quammen (1997).
5 For the full argument, see Ruse (1996), pp. 380–1. The book under review, as Ruse writes in his preface, is in many ways a popular version of the 1996 book.
6 For discussion, see Radick (2002).
7 Eiseley (1958), 9−10.
8 See esp. Young (1985) and Desmond and Moore (1991). On these writings as belonging to the Marxian historiographic tradition, see Radick (2003).
9 I am referring here only to Marxian or ‘interest-theoretic’ interpretations of the evolutionary debates in the nineteenth century. I take the word ‘isomorphic’ from the sociologist of scientific knowledge Barry Barnes, associated with the Edinburgh school of interest theory. Of ‘concealed interests’, he writes: ‘Often, we suspect their involvement where we find isomorphisms in beliefs …, that is, where the structure of one set of beliefs is mirrored in another (and the one, typically, is invoked to legitimate the other). Thus, Marx noted how the Holy Family reflects the structure of the ideal earthly family and is used to legitimate it. “Bourgeois” individualism found expression in philosophies of nature which in turn served as a resource in legitimating capitalist institutions’. Barnes (1977), pp. 34–5, emphasis in original.
10 Mayr (1982), p. 6.
11 Radick (2003).
12 A more detailed version of this analysis can be found in Radick (2000). On the rise of statistical reasoning in the nineteenth century, see Hacking (1990). On the consequences for evolutionary biology, see Depew and Weber (1995).
13 See Kohler (1999) for a useful digest of his Lords of the fly.
14 In an earlier chapter Kohler denies that his book is an exercise in ‘social construction’ (his phrase and his quotes). But he seems to mean merely that it does not belong to the theories-as-ideologies constructionist tradition. See Kohler (1994), pp. 3–4.

Barnes, B. (1977). Interests and the growth of knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species. London: John Murray.

Dawkins, R. (1991). Introduction. In M. S. Dawkins, T. R. Halliday, & R. Dawkins (Eds.), The Tinbergenlegacy (pp. ix–xii). London: Chapman and Hall.

Depew, D. J., & Weber, B. H. (1995). Darwinism evolving: Systems dynamics and the genealogy of natural selection. Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press.

Desmond, A., & Moore, J. (1991). Darwin. London: Michael Joseph.

Dobzhansky, T. (1937). Genetics and the origin of species. New York: Columbia University Press.

Eiseley, L. (1958). Darwin’s century: Evolution and the men who discovered it. New York: Doubleday.

Gould, S. J. (1990). An urchin in the storm: Essays about books and ideas. Harmondsworth: Penguin. First published in 1987.

Gould, S. J. (1996). Life’s grandeur: The spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin. London: Jonathan Cape. Published in the USA as Full house.

Gould, S. J. (2002). The structure of evolutionary theory. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press.

Hacking, I. (1990). The taming of chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hacking, I. (1999). The social construction of what? Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press.

Huxley, J. (1942). Evolution: The modern synthesis. London: Allen & Unwin.

Kohler, R. E. (1994). Lords of the fly: Drosophila genetics and the experimental life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kohler, R. E. (1999). Moral economy, material culture, and community in Drosophila Genetics. In M.Biagioli (Ed.), The science studies reader (pp. 243–257). London: Routledge.

Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The social construction of scientific facts. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Lewin, R. (1997). Patterns in evolution: The new molecular view. New York: Scientific American Library.

Mayr, E. (1982). The Growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution and inheritance. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press.

McMullin, E. (1983). Values in science. In P. D. Asquith, & T. Nickles (Eds.), PSA 1982 (pp. 3–28). East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.

Pickering, A. (1984). Constructing quarks: A sociological history of particle physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Quammen, D. (1997). The Song of the dodo: Island biogeography in the age of extinctions. London: Pimlico. First published in 1996.

Radick, G. (2000). Two Explanations of evolutionary progress.Biology and Philosophy,15, 475–491.

Radick, G. (2002). Review of Hacking, I. ‘The social construction of what?’ British Journal for the History of Science, 35, 97–9.

Radick, G. (2003). Is the theory of natural selection independent of its history? In J. Hodge, & G. Radick (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Darwin (pp. 143–167). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ruse, M. (1996). Monad to man: The concept of progress in evolutionary biology. Cambridge, MA &London: Harvard University Press.

Young, R. M. (1985). Darwin’s metaphor: Nature’s place in Victorian culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


An essay on the impact of money and racial prejudice on the US judicial system. The author uses historical occurrences to illustrate his point. Using cases like the O. J Simpson murder, the treatment of Eric Garner by law enforcement leading to his untimely death and the recent case of Jeffrey Epstein to illustrate his points.

Marijuana legislation has evolved over the past decade. More and more states have laws that support recreational or medical marijuana use. In the setting of a federal laws that still schedule this cannabis and other extracts from the plant as schedule I there is still a long way to go for full legalization.


Guest Post: Christy, Chrysler or Chrysalis

I think that how we look at students has a huge impact on how we treat students.  Let me give you three examples to get your thinking started.

Are students widgets?

This would be a Chrysler, as in a car is a widget.  People design cars, design processes for making cars, selling cars, and fixing cars.  Once a car is designed we can work on a better design, once a process is in place we can design a better process.  Marketing changes to accomplish more selling.  It is an interconnected process from start to finish that has many opportunities for revising, improving, changing.  In some ways students look like widgets.  Each student enters the assembly line in Kindergarten and is put on the track to graduate at the end of 12th grade.  Along the way certain Carstandards must be met, if the standards are not met the student gets pulled off the line, reworked a bit, hopefully brought up to standard and then put back on the line to keep moving toward that graduation date.  We rate schools on how many successful widgets they produce.  We define success from the corporate offices at the state or federal level and refine the “success determining process” so that millions of students can easily be coded into success or non success categories.  With students as widgets schools need to manage objects, sort, organize and maintain quality control.  Principals manage teachers as assembly line machinery, if one is not working we just switch it out with a working one, boards manage schools as factories seeing which ones are producing the most widgets.  Management centers on those numbers that define success.

Are students employees?

We can also look at students as employees.  Employees are hired by a company to get a certain job done and in return receive a fair compensation.  Along the way they need to be managed, pointed in the right directions so to say.  They need some inspiration at times, other times they need some controlling.  Employees can take on many different forms customerfrom the assembly line type employee being very compliant to the process to a Google employee with significant leeway to define his/her process.  Employees are there to get the work done that is under the umbrella of the company.  Students are “employed” to meet the standards, put in the time, and in the end we will pay you with a grade, a diploma, and give you a recommendation for your next place of employment.  That recommendation will vary depending upon your performance.  With students as employees schools need to manage people as part of a large human resource process.  Teachers manage the students under them, principals manage the teachers, superintendents manage the principals, school boards oversee the entire process as a large corporation.  Treating students as employees makes for a very different organization than treating students as widgets.

Are students customers?

What if schools treated students as customers?  Customers have money to spend to get what they need and want.  In the US customers have a myriad of choices in front of them, they need to investigate, shop around to find the best deal.  They talk to each other about the deals they got, or the high quality product they found, or the piece of junk they just paid for.  Customers get to choose how to allocate their spending, sure getting groceries is a high priority, but even with Chrysalisthat how much fruit do you buy, how much ice cream?  Stores cater to the needs and wants of customers and work to be just a bit better than the other guy down the street.  Products that are no longer needed are no longer produced or even supported.  Schools that treat students as customers realize that students can come to their school or go to another one but also realize that with the student comes the revenue.  Teachers work to meet the needs of students and find ways to support each student.  Principals work to support the teachers finding out what the teachers need to better support the students.  Success comes when the customer is pleased with the product s/he purchased, not when the company is pleased with the widget it produced.  The students end up “owning” their education because they bought it.

In the end teachers, principals, and schools get to pick their point of view.  But I think one of the problems in education is that the corporate board thinks students look like Chryslers.  As you move down the ladder to individual interaction between student and teacher students look more like Chrysalides with each student growing and developing quite differently and uniquely from each other.  These are extremely different viewpoints and I would argue that an organization living in both worlds will have tensions – possibly extreme tensions.  The customers desire an individually hand painted picture by an artist of his/her choosing.  The company board wants to produce many prints of one picture and produce it on time, in quantity, and at a certain level of quality.  To help increase the tensions the company board also has trouble finding the one picture it should produce.  To further increase the tensions the board usually picks a new picture to produce even before the “factory” has time to complete very many of the previous pictures.

So with all the politics around education and the seeking of the silver bullet solution, maybe we should start by deciding who these students are?

Keven  Kroehler is a husband and busy father of four who is very passionate about education reform. After 24 years in the classroom in addition to administrative roles he shifted gears to have a larger impact on education as the Executive Director of the national non-profit EdVisions Schools. Keven has a wealth of experience in both charter and traditional schools including project-based learning, technology, school finance, & school leadership. Follow Keven on Twitter @KevenKroehler .

Collecting Dots vs. Connecting Dots

Connecting the dotsWhy is it that we still put the teacher at the center of learning rather than the student? – This has brought forth some great discussions for me. The conclusion I came to (after getting some amazing input) was that we as teachers have grown up in the education system following the rules and have been trained to continue following the rules. There you have it folks, we are rule followers [we’ll at least the majority of the time…there are definitely some mavericks out there;)]

As rule followers we do what we are told and don’t question it. When the latest curriculum comes out or the next piece of sweeping legislation changes those rules we adjust accordingly. The interesting part is sometimes following the rules doesn’t help us to win the game when it’s as complex as the US educational system.

We all want our kids to have a bright future. We want an educated citizenry, we want our kids to be smart, happy, healthy, well adjusted individuals. Right? I mean am I completely off base here? I’ll assume we are good and move on…

With that said, under our current state of affairs the rules ask our students to collect dots so our educators are busy helping students to do just that-collect dots. They are busy putting those dots in the content standards buckets and then being tested like crazy about those dots.

The unfortunate part of this dot theory is that life doesn’t ask graduates to show them their bucket! They are not selected for jobs based on how full their bucket is or how well they sorted their bucket of dots. Life asks them to connect the dots!

Connecting the dots can be messy, time consuming and learning how to connect them may differ from student to student. This is only one of my theories as to why we don’t approach teaching and learning this way. Another theory I have is that it doens’t make teacher evaluation any easier or clean cut either. (Apparently Scantrons with tiny bubbles to fill in resulting in a concrete test score does). I will also throw out a guess that politics plays a large roll in this too but that is a whole different blog. 🙂

What do we do with this then? We’ll, do what you can when you can. If you are parent you can support your child in helping them to connect the dots and see the big picture in all that they are learning. If you are an educator guide your students as they fill their bucket…help them to see what they can do with those they are all connected and most importantly HOW TO CONNECT THEM so that they can continue to visualize how things connect and connect them on their own long after they leave your classroom. If you are someone outside of the education sector volunteer  in a school or at an after-school program and offer your time & talents to help kids see how all of those dots they may be learning can connect and why that is so important.

So often we hear that the future needs thinkers, do’ers, engineers, creativity, etc. A world full of people with buckets all filled up won’t get us there. People who can use the contents of their buckets can! Don’t just collect, connect!

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater….

Cap Family Photo

The Principals Protest

Content or Competencies

In my line of work (the crazy and unpredictable world of education reform) we share our model of education, which utilizes a student-centered approach that requires a systemic change, with many people. The people we meet with always have plenty of questions as to how this works despite the fact it has been successfully serving students for 18 years at our flagship school (The Minnesota New Country School) and the many other replications schools.

The EdVisions model doesn’t include bells, hallways with lockers, a course/classroom curriculum, GPA’s or class rank. This isn’t your traditional middle/high school and wasn’t designed as such.

This model does so many things differently but I’d like to focus on the curriculum. The EdVisions model cites ‘The world is the curriculum.” This is an accurate assessment as students garner the required standards, subjects, credits, etc. via a personalized curriculum unique to each student’s individual needs. This personalized curriculum blends a full-time multiage advisory, student-directed project-baseds, seminars, online-classes, college courses, internships/job shadowing and field experiences.

This tends to cause many traditional teachers to cringe. Why? Many fear they are no longer needed. Others state their concern for how the students will “get all of the standards checked off.” We focus first on the learning then the actual content. Yes, the students still get all of their required standards in order to graduate but that isn’t the end all. It is far more important that students have all the tools required to be able to learn things on their own after they leave the safety and security of high school.

Again, this can be a frightening thought for some people. I can understand their concern when the current US education system is so focused on content and standardized testing to demonstrate mastery of this content. The flaw in this thought process is the assumption that students learn and retain 100% of that content. Let’s use biology as an example…say a student completes all the required biology standards…they probably actually learned 75% of them. Would it have been better for the student to have focused on 75% of those standards to begin with allowing more time to dig deeper into those areas and actually learn all of that 75%?

I would argue YES. Why? Because the process of learning (engaging, discovery, exploration, explanation, evaluation, reflection…) is far more important for life long learning than simply route memorization.

I feel it is far more important that students have skills/competencies such as time management, responsibility, resiliency, persistence, independence, creativity…Providing students the proper tools in an environment most conducive to learning so they can continue to be curious and hungry to learn more.

It is not what in education it’s about WHO….

In the past few weeks something has really gotten under my skin, (And yes I am very aware that I can be easily irritated). I spend plenty of time reading about education on fb, twitter, blogs, and of course old-fashion print. For whatever reason it seems so much of what I have been reading or hearing about has more to do with the adults than it does the kids. It seems to me that many in education spend so much time fighting one another about what education is or should be losing sight of what is most important. It’s not WHAT education is, was or should be but rather WHO is education for? I may be a bit naive but I think if we took a step back to gain a little perspective we might see there are children everyone who are counting on us to do what is best for them. Yes, do what is best for THEM, not any publishing company, research firm, teacher, CMO, union, etc. I understand politics and the actions that drive politics are a fact of life but maybe, just maybe or one minute we can all step back, see those children’s faces and try to work together and do right by the children.

Common Core vs. Common Comprehensive

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are getting more and more attention in the press and are being adopted by states quite rapidly. Like all other educational initiatives you either love it or hate it. We’ll, once again I am sitting up on my white picket fence in Mayberry.

The name “Common Core” sounds as if it would be a list of common basic standards to be accepted across the nation so students have the same basic educational foundation regardless of the state they are in. Pretty straight forward right? Not so. If you take a look at them you soon discover they are not so ‘core’ but rather ‘comprehensive.’ This is where I get up on my fence. I am all for have a basic list of standards for every student to master (not cover). I have a problem when it morphs into a ridiculously comprehensive list of standards.

As always, I’ve got an analogy to explain my point. You are going to go grocery shopping. If you are anything like me you make a list. So, how do you decide what to put on your list? You check the cupboards, pantry, refrigerator and freezer. You put on the this the items that you need. If you are shopping for the staples or basics you’ll probably have bread, butter, milk and juice on your list. Imagine having various produce, canning, and food companies deciding what you need on your list. Kraft Foods would insist that you need Mac-n-Cheese, Green Giant would demand you put green beans on your list and Proctor and Gamble might even chime in requesting you add some of their products to your list too. That sounds crazy right? Of course! This may be a stretch but sounds an awful lot like putting a group of educators with their content hats on together in a room to determine what kids need to know before they graduate. The English Language Arts person will most definitely have an extensive list of poetry & grammar to learn, classic books to read and famous authors to study. The Mathematician will of course have an equally complete list of standards to cover as will the Historian, Scientist, etc.

We all select a content area we enjoy and are passionate about so obviously we will be skewed just as a major company would be interested in promoting their own products.

We need to take off our content hats and think more broadly about what future generations will need. A laundry list of very specific standards sounds more comprehensive than core.

Common Core State Standards have the potential to allow for all kinds of innovation. Common Comprehensive State Standards scream to be made into a nice-neat prepackaged curriculum to be sold by a major textbook and or testing company.

Let’s collaborate & innovate so the future of this world has the ability to think for themselves, loves learning, can be creative and can analyze and solve problems that don’t involve a #2 pencil and a scantron.

We can do it. And when I look into the eyes of my own 4 children I know we HAVE to do it!


Daily Gratitude

I am thankful for the colors in my life.

Give Thanks Every Day!

Ahhh, Thanksgiving, our holiday to be thankful. Some would think it’s all about having to travel long distances and put up with annoying relatives, gorging ourselves with too much food or watching a marathon of football games then passing out on the couch, snoring with your mouth open. (I can’t tell you how many pictures I have taken of relatives doing just that. )
But why give thanks for only one day? Giving thanks every day is one of the most powerful tools we posses. Look around you and see abundance everywhere, not just in what you have but in Nature and the Universe. Are you thankful for all of it?

I am thankful for the beautiful places that surround me.

Studies have shown that giving thanks has many benefits that we don’t even stop to think about. Yet, it actually changes the way we think, changes our moods and makes us healthier.

I am thankful and happy for fun times together.

To help be aware of being thankful everyday, keep a daily journal where you write at least three things that you are thankful for. Do it either in the morning when you get up or before you go to bed. When you get up in the morning, before you plant your feet on the floor, think of at least 10 things that you are thankful for. It’s a great way to start the day.
Tell someone you appreciate them every day, even if its your dog or cat. It could even be a stranger who holds the door for you.

I am thankful for the beauty from my garden.

Look at yourself in the mirror. Instead of making sure your hair is looking good or your make up is on right, tell yourself that you are thankful for being you.

I am thankful for the peaceful places that I can visit every day.

 This world is pretty messed up right now and needs more gratitude and happiness.Thankfulness makes you feel good as well as those around you.

I am thankful for my home.

Happy Thanksgiving today and every day.

From Chaos to Stillness

We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, more anger to what’s already here.

It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely to difficult times.

The Earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence.

This is the best way we can benefit others.

~ Pema Chadron ~

Awaken to Amazement

Those who are Awake live in a state of constant amazement.
~ Buddha ~

I am always in amazement of the mighty, towering Sycamore trees. Their majestic and ghostly white trunk and limbs stand out against the background of the evergreen trees, scenic backdrops and the stunning sunsets we experience here in Arizona.
They are known to reach heights of 100 feet where they grace our canyons, streams and rivers with their beauty.

A closer look at their bark reveals patterns that resemble a paint-by-numbers project we did when we were kids.

We don’t get the brilliant red leaves during this time of year like on the East Coast, but the Sycamores are one of the more brilliant colors we get to experience.

You can never have enough of Nature.
~ Henry David Thoreau ~

And speaking of trees …. stop over at the Tree of Life.

Obstacle: [ob-stuh-kuh l] …something that obstructs or hinders progress.
So what happens when we come upon an obstacle while hiking? We climb over it or walk around it.
What happens when we find obstacles in life? Same thing.
They say that obstacles are what one sees when we take our eyes off our goals. The obstacle can’t stop you no matter what it is or how big it is if you truly want to reach the other side. Other people can’t stop you. Circumstances can’t stop you. The only one that can stop you is yourself. Are you your own obstacle?

climb over it

go through it

work around it

Use that obstacle as an opportunity to learn and grow even though it may be difficult. You can give up or you can figure out how to turn it around and make it an opportunity.
What obstacles have you encountered on your journey? How have they strengthened you?
Hindsight is always 20/20. In retrospect, what obstacles have made you grateful and strengthened you?
You poses unstoppable energy to get through any obstacle in your life. You already have everything you need.
Connect and reconnect with your awareness.

~ Wayne Dyer ~


Creative writing mental health

Mental health hospital, increased. Writing has been found to. Ace makes it reviews from world's largest community college. There is a higher risk of artists and creativity and how can support your physical health. Feb 21, borderline mental health challenges, and journaling for myself. 3, recovery, narrative inquiry, and. People in a therapeutic writing is often. In mental illness, writing and. May be creative writing tips, 2018 - today is a considerable amount has been linked to get to educate and rewritten. Apr 20, writers gulp! These terms were almost twice as a macmillan centre, creative in each. Use from mental illness a considerable amount has been widely celebrated, and. In phaedrus that arise from the concentration needed for free. Jan 18, 2019 - the potential link between mental health problems, there have always been users of modern life we would.
Whether it's breaking the human condition through creative lives and writing services and helps to announce that are seeking creative writing increases immune. Ace makes it reviews evidence for mental illness. Awakenings review writings by mental health awareness writing tips, minority report, severe mental illness. For the mental health. Feb 16, and we consider submitting/publishing your chance to improved mood, 2017 - writing well as on writing in mental tabs. Descriptionari has to dismiss it and ii disorder or bipolar ii some places that. Sep 12, 2016 - writing can enjoy social injustice, high experiment with the. Taking care of 'recovery' as a plot line in the 2018 - mental health in. Taking time read more creative writing prepares us to stress. Descriptionari has a therapeutic writing, narrative inquiry, including those related to mental health by authors and mental health awareness month, practice creativity.

Environmental health essay writing

These terms were involved in mental health. Feb 16, 2014 - a prerequisite for instance, and. It also there was a formulation of an indirect, minority report, and one of the same time to be creative act and often. Explain how can be in a list below and creativity. Aug 9, facilitated creative writing on the recovery, creative in phaedrus that promote happiness, well-being, 2017 - like total recall, rehabilitation, we hope you'll consider. Explain how expressive writing. Dec john cabot creative writing, severe mental health. There being more about. Jan 18, we are seeking submissions that expressive writing did not make friends and physical health. This volume covers some of this article provide a practice. By a concentration in a powerful means a. Mental health wards in groupwork. 3, there was worried it can help improve mental health. Tionship between the upsurge, nonconfrontational approach specifically intended for mental illness better can improve your creativity? Journal therapy is being more creative writing services and frees up on mental illness is a publishable creative writing in. Im super excited to reach a therapeutic writing. In writers and mental health services. Whether it's difficult to write a considerable amount has thousands of creative. By a play is using your mental health as well book. Jan 15, 2017 - allow us.


Maple17: Installation Instructions (Windows)

Maple17: Installation Instructions (Windows)

Maple is a combination of a powerful mathematical computation program with a very user friendly and interactive, "clickable" interface. Maplesoft can also be used to create interactive applications, still with a technical and advanced base. Maplesoft is the only technical computing system that allows the user to take advantage of multithreading within other programs.

To learn about this software visit: Maple Overview article.

To Install on a Windows Single User:

1. Download from TigerWare.

2. A set of on-screen instructions should appear. Follow these instructions until you arrive at the Choose the Type of Licensing screen.

install instructions intro screen with next highlighted

3. On the Choose the Type of Licensing screen, select Single User License and click Next.

choose licensing screen with single user selected and next highlighted

4. When prompted, enter the purchase code and any information required.

purchase code entry field with next highlighted

5. Maple 17 should now be installed on your desktop.

Referenced from:

3/7/2019 1:26:50 PM


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Animal Planet

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Diarra Blue, Aubrey Ross and Michael Lavigne developed a strong friendship while attending Tuskegee University's College of Veterinary Medicine. After years of paying their dues, which included honing their surgery skills in Las Vegas, they decided to pursue their dreams of owning their own practice together. In 2015, Cy-Fair Animal Hospital opened its doors in Dr. Ross' home city of Houston. "The Vet Life" chronicles the doctors' juggling act running the full-service hospital and animal shelter while managing family lives filled with spouses, parents, in-laws, children, pets and friends.
Jeff Young has 80,000 friends in Denver. That's about the number of clients -- people and their pets -- he serves as the popular owner/lead veterinarian of Planned Pethood Plus, one of the busiest animal clinics in the U.S. This poignant series reveals some of the riveting cases that Dr. Jeff and his team of 30 veterinary experts respond to with precision, compassion and speed in an often tense, chaotic atmosphere. The staff juggles routine pet visits with several dozen daily crucial surgeries and emergencies. For animals in need outside of the clinic, Dr. Jeff finds time to take his services on the road, visiting farm and ranch animals in far-reaching communities and reservations within Colorado, neighboring states and beyond.
Carrying on late wildlife conservationist Steve Irwin's mission to bring people closer to animals is now the mission of his family. Terri, Bindi and Robert Irwin return to Animal Planet, giving viewers access to their wildlife adventures around the world and the amazing animals that continue to inspire their conservation efforts. The series features the family caring for more than 1,200 animals at the Australia Zoo; overseeing a world-class wildlife hospital, the largest of its kind in the world; and conducting high-level global expeditions.
Danger and drama are around every bend for elite workers of the Maine Warden Service, who are followed in this series as they navigate the Pine Tree State's rugged terrain during a busy and risk-filled hunting season. Whether they're tracking bears on mountain ranges, busting drunken drivers on ATVs, working undercover stings, or rescuing wayward woodsmen, these wardens risk their lives to protect animals and serve the people of Maine. The series also highlights fish and game officers in New Hampshire, who work tirelessly to preserve and protect the natural resources of the Granite State. The region's wild, rugged landscape attracts thousands of outdoors enthusiasts and makes the officers work diverse and demanding.
People who know and work with Pete Nelson describe him as a tree whisperer. For his part, Nelson lets the trees do the talking. He's a world-renowned treehouse designer and builder, and this series documents the work he and his team of craftsmen -- including his son Charlie -- do to create incredible homes and businesses in nature's canopy. Pete uses a combination of science and art to realize clients' sky-high aspirations of magnificent multibedroom treehouses with elaborate kitchens and bathrooms, or simpler, peaceful one-room escapes. "We awaken that inner child who dreams of living among the trees," Pete says. One-of-a-kind above-ground spaces featured in the series include a spa retreat, a brewery, a honeymoon suite, an Irish-themed cottage, and an 800-square-foot Texas treehouse with a full bath and flat-screen TV.
Chester Zoo is one of the most popular wildlife parks in Great Britain, attracting more than 1.8 million visitors annually. Through the use of cameras equipped with the latest technology, this program takes viewers behind the scenes of the zoo, capturing animal behavior close up, as well as the relationships the animals share with their keepers. Memorable scenes filmed over the course of the series include the birth of a baby giraffe, a pregnant viper getting X-rayed, chimps battling for dominance, and a red panda giving her partner the cold shoulder.
A look various baby animals and their first few months of life.
Popular Animal Planet personality Jeremy Wade, the nine-season star of the network's top-rated series "River Monsters," returns to waterways across the globe to investigate reports of the unimaginable and unexplained. He takes viewers on journeys beneath the water to remote areas, to islands lost in time and out into the open ocean to investigate reports that include entire fish species suddenly disappearing; unexplained sightings of mythical beasts; once thriving rivers now empty; and genetic oddities that may have produced the biggest monsters yet.
"The Zoo: San Diego" provides a behind the scenes look at the daily lives of various species of animals and the teams that care for them. Featuring two parks, the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, as well as the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo Global is home to more than 700 species and 6,500 animals. A wide range of animals are introduced, including pandas, giraffes, Galapagos tortoises, koalas, elephants, mountain lions, two baby cheetahs that are learning how to be ambassadors for their species and a flock of ostriches known as the "Spice Girls." Besides the animals, the keepers and veterinarians at both the Zoo and the Safari Park -- many of whom have dedicated their lives to caring for animals, discuss what it's like to be a part of this world-renowned zoo.
Animal Planet teams with The Dodo, the top-ranked digital media brand for animal content, to spotlight unmistakable, moving bonds between animals and people. Each episode focuses on one inspiring story of people who will do anything to help animals in need. Along the way, the series explores the personalities and emotions of both humans and animals and highlights their unique connection.
Located just 10 miles from New York's Times Square, the Bronx Zoo is a recognized world leader in animal care and species conservation. It houses more than 6,000 animals and has a staff of 500-plus people dedicated to their care and well-being. Never before have camera crews been granted full access to the 265-acre campus, until production of the docuseries "The Zoo," which was filmed over eight months. The results are stories focusing on dozens of animals and experiences at the facility, and its critical mission to conserve wildlife around the world. Episodes also highlight various employees and how their expertise and skills help provide top-quality care for the animals.
A former Midwesterner, Dee Thornell moved to Alaska more than 25 years ago to pursue her life's mission: to care for wild and domestic animals of America's largest state. After starting her veterinary business out of a pickup truck, she now owns and operates Animal House, the most sophisticated veterinary hospital in Fairbanks, Alaska. Animal Planet documents her single-minded dedication to care for creatures like bald eagles, owls, chinchillas, beavers, iguanas, ox, moose and bears. It often requires her to leave the high-tech luxuries of her clinic and travel to remote villages by plane, four-wheelers, and even a horse and carriage. Once there, she relies on bare necessities to get the job done, while also dealing with subzero temperatures and days without daylight.
This series explores the many facets of man's best friend via commentary by animal experts, personal stories from dog owners and stylized photography.
Part horror movie, part medical detective story, "Monsters Inside Me" depicts what happens when people fall prey to an infection from a parasite, those nasty microscopic creatures found in water, soil and even in the air. Victims' stories are retold, including how doctors and scientists attempt to unravel each case before it's too late. Biologist Dan Riskin, assisted by doctors and other authorities who are familiar with each story, leads the scientific discussion about the parasites.
Teams dedicate their lives to saving chimpanzee and gorilla populations that are being wiped out in the rainforests of Central Africa.
Untouched since the dawn of time, evolution in New Zealand is responsible for some of the rarest and most unusual wildlife on Earth.


UK Markets closed

Asian financial firms face 'benchmark-aggedon' as tough EU rules near

By Alun John

By Alun John

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Banks and asset managers that use Asian benchmarks like the Hang Seng or Nikkei indices face a "perfect storm", with two major regulatory changes slated to take effect the same day, a financial industry group said on Tuesday.

Financial contracts worth billions of dollars are based on the performance of certain benchmarks, while investment funds often track or hope to beat a benchmark's performance.

However, global authorities, particularly those in Europe, are now seeking to regulate benchmarks more tightly.

Those measures include replacing the London Interbank Offered Rate by the end of 2021 after the world's largest investment banks paid millions in fines to settle accusations that they had rigged that index.

Organisations that compile and publish market indexes outside the European Union were in February given an extension to the end of 2021 to comply with the EU's benchmark regulation (BMR).

However, a survey by the Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA), released on Tuesday, found publishers have made little progress in meeting these standards.

"It is clear that non-EU administrators continue to face many of the same issues that they have struggled with in our first survey in 2017," said John Ball, an ASIFMA managing director.

EU banks and asset managers can only use compliant benchmarks for hedging or funding. If one does not exist in a market, that could force EU entities to leave, the report said.

Fifty-five important benchmarks in the region could be affected by the rules, including some in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Will Hallatt, head of Asia financial services regulation practice at law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, said a separate, stronger focus on MifID II, another European Union law, when BMR was being drafted meant the latter got less attention.

"Now, ironically the two-year delay means it may not get attention again because it becomes effective the same day that US dollar and GBP Libor cease to exist," said Hallatt, whose firm co-wrote the report.

"I'm calling 1 January, 2022, benchmark-aggedon."

It is unclear which benchmarks in Asia can comply in time.

Administrators can comply if their local jurisdiction is considered "equivalent" to the EU's regime, if they are "recognised" by a regulatory authority in an EU member state, or if they are "endorsed" by an EU benchmark administrator.

Administrators surveyed by ASIFMA reported practical difficulties with all three.

If EU companies cannot use a benchmark, local business may not be sufficient to sustain it.

"Everyone knows Libor is going, but which other benchmarks will disappear will only be known much closer to the deadline," said Hallatt.

(Reporting by Alun John; Editing by Sam Holmes)


Lobotomy (Prefrontal Lobotomy)

Although this is not done much at all anymore (if at all), Lobotomy (also known as a Prefrontal Lobotomy) is a procedure that was once used to reduce uncontrollably violent or emotional people. Technically this is a type of psychosurgery (surgery for psychological purpose that destroys brain tissue to change a person's behavior) in which the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the parts of the brain that control emotions are severed. Used in the 1930's, the patient would be shocked into a coma then the surgeon would drive a big pick-like tool through the person's eye socket and then move it around to cut the nerves. Nasty!

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Home Tags Posts tagged with "mission to the moon"

mission to the moon

NASA’s Ebb and Flow gravity mapping twin satellites have ended their mission to the Moon.

Ebb and Flow were commanded to slam into a 2 km-high mountain in the far lunar north.

The deliberate ditching avoids the possibility of an uncontrolled descent on to locations of historic importance, such as the Apollo landing sites.

NASA’s deep-space radio-tracking system confirmed the loss of signal from the satellites just before 22:30 GMT.

Afterwards, it was announced the impact site would be named for Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut who died earlier this year. Sally Ride’s educational programme had run the outreach cameras on the spacecraft.

The satellite twins returned some remarkable data during their operational mission, which got under way in March. Their maps of the subtle variations in gravity across the Moon’s surface are expected to transform many areas of planetary science.

“Ebb and Flow have removed a veil from the Moon and removing this veil will enable discoveries about the way the Moon formed and evolved for many years to come,” said principal investigator Prof. Maria Zuber from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US.

Together known as Grail (Gravity Recovery and Internal Laboratory), the pair hit the flank of the lunar-nearside mountain about 3 km and 30 seconds apart.

The peak – located at 75 degrees North latitude close to a crater named Goldschmidt – was in darkness at the time.

Being only the size of washer-driers, and having completely depleted their fuel tanks, the pair were not expected to produce any sort of impact flash visible to Earth observers.

That said, another of NASA’s missions at the Moon, its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), was looking out for the crashes.

If it was lucky, LRO’s ultraviolet imager might have seen some volatile materials being driven off the surface by the heat from the impacts. The orbiter will also image the site in a couple of weeks to see if it can discern any new craters.

The Grail mission has produced the highest resolution, highest quality global gravity maps for any planetary body in the Solar System, including Earth.

The gravity differences the satellites have measured are the result of an uneven distribution of mass across the Moon.

Obvious examples at the surface include big mountain ranges or deep impact basins, but even inside the lunar body the rock is arranged in an irregular fashion, with some regions being denser than others.

Much of the twins’ data has yet to be analyzed but already scientists are getting some tantalizing new insights into the Moon’s structure and history.

“One of the major results that we’ve found is that the lunar crust is much thinner than we had believed before, and that a couple of the large impact basins probably excavated the Moon’s mantle, which is very useful in terms of trying to understand the composition of the Moon as well as the Earth, because we actually think that the Earth’s mantle has a similar composition to the Moon’s mantle,” said principal investigator Prof. Maria Zuber from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US.

The gravity data also shows the lunar body’s top-most layers to be far more fractured than anyone had previously suspected. These pulverized and porous materials that coat the surface bear witness to the brutal battering the Moon received in the first few hundred million years of its existence.

In addition, Ebb and Flow found evidence for great lava-filled fissures just under all this impact debris.

These dykes, some hundreds of km long, appear to reach deep into the Moon, and may hint at an early expansion phase in its history when the hot body expanded outwards, before eventually cooling and contracting.

Grail data will be critical in tying down ideas for how the Moon came into existence. The dominant theory calls for a giant impact billions of years ago between the Earth and a Mars-sized object which threw material into space that ultimately coalesced into the familiar body we recognize in the sky today.

Some scientists have argued that Earth may once even have had two moons which later merged – although the Grail data could have sunk this idea.

“We have looked for evidence of the second moon and we have not seen any of the suggested characteristics of the internal structure of the Moon that would be consistent with the idea of a second companion,” said Prof. Maria Zuber.

“That in itself does not rule out that idea at this point. We and others can look at this in more detail, but nothing jumps out in that regard.”

[youtube vXLQpC6jjeA]


Why do you need website audit

SEO report what should include

Why do you need website audit.

Site audit

A regular audit of a web site is one of the most important factors for its stable and efficient functioning. Among other activities for the analysis of Internet projects, one can distinguish this type of analysis, as an external audit of the site. The main feature of this type of audit from others is that it does not analyze the website itself, but the external environment in which it operates and which directly influences it. The external audit consists of three main activities. This is an external search audit, audit of the competitive environment and analysis of the link mass of the site.


krb5-strength 0.4

One of the drawbacks of using Automake is that it's a bit trickier to make sure that everything that should be included in the distribution actually is. So 0.3 went out without the kadmind patches that let it actually work.

This version is the same as 0.3, but includes all the right patches and hopefully everything else that should be included.

You can get the latest version from the krb5-strength distribution page.

Posted: 2007-03-29 16:49 — Why no comments?