Microbiology Lab: Biochemical Tests

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22 terms · Summary of the types of biochemical tests used in lab

Anaerobic growth

Purpose: Differentiates microorganisms based on their ability to grow in the absence of oxygen.
Procedure: Inoculate TSA and streak for isolation; incubate 48h at 37C in an anaerobic jar.
Positive: see growth
Negative: no growth

BHI with 6.5% NaCl

Purpose: Differentiates microorganisms based on their ability to grow in 6.5% NaCl.
Positive: Turbidity (growth)
Negative: No growth (clear)

Bile esculin hydrolysis

Purpose: Differentiates based on ability to hydrolyze esculin to esuletin and dextrose. The esculetin reacts with ferric citrate in the medium to form a dark brown/black complex.
Positive: Blackening of the slant.
Negative: No color change.

Purpose: Differentiates based on ability to utilize citrate as a sole carbon source. Uses a pH indicator called bromthymol blue. Organisms that are able to grow on the media will produce an alkaline reaction.
Positive: Growth with an intense blue color.
Negative: No growth/color change (remains green).

Purpose: Detection of the protein coagulase that is excreted by certain Staphylococcus species that causes fibrin clot formation. Inoculate a loop of organism into a coagulase (rabbit plasma) tube and incubate at 37 degrees. Positive: coagulation or clot formation (any degree).

Cystine Tryptic Agar (CTA) Sugars-Arabinose, Lactose, Mannitol, Raffinose, Salicin, Sucrose, Trehalose, Xylose

Purpose: Detection of carbohydrate utilization in microorganisms. Carbohydrate utilization is detected by the incorporation of the pH indicator, phenol red, in the medium. When the carbohydrate is metabolized, the medium is acidified resulting in a color change from red to yellow. Inoculate and incubate 48h at 37C. Positive: yellow color. Negative: no change in color.

Decarboxylation Reactions (Arginine, Lysine, Ornithine)

Principle: Dextrose, the amino acids arginine, lysine or ornithine and the pH indicator bromcresol purple are incorporated into the media. Following the fermentation of dextrose, there is a drop in the pH and a change of color from purple to yellow. If the organism can decarboxylate the amino acid, there is a rise in the pH due to the production of an amine that is an alkaline end product.

Arginine dihydrolase (decarboxylase)

Purpose: Detection of the enzyme arginine dihydrolase which hydrolyzes the amino acid arginine to ornithine, which is then decarboxylated to form the amine putrescine and carbon dioxide. Must put sterile mineral oil on the top of the medium after inoculating and cap should be tight during incubation. Positive: Purple color Negative: yellow

Lysine decarboxylase

Purpose: Detection of the enzyme lysine decarboxylase that degrades lysine to the diamine cadaverine and carbon dioxide. Mineral oil and cap tight as in previous test. Positive purple; negative yellow.

Ornithine decarboxylase

Purpose: Detection of the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase that degrades ornithine to the amine putrescine and carbon dioxide. Mineral oil and caps tight. Purple positive, yellow negative.

Hemolysis on SBA

Differentiates microorganisms based on their hemolytic activity on sheep blood agar. Alpha: incomplete hemolysis, greening of the media. Beta: complete hemolysis, clearing of the media. Gamma hemolysis: no hemolysis or discoloration of the media.

Methyl red

Purpose: Differentiates microorganisms based on their ability to produce and maintain stable acid end products from glucose fermentation. Inoculate an MRVP broth. Incubate 48-72 hours at 37C. Withdraw 1mL and transfer to a serological tube; add 5 drops of methyl red indicator. Positive: Immediate red color development. Negative: yellow color development.

Differentiates microorganisms based on susceptibility to novobiocin. Inoculate an .85% saline tube with organism to a density equivalent to a .5 McFarland Standard. Dip a sterile swab into the suspension then inoculate a Mueller-Hinton agar plate with a lawn streak of the organism. Using sterile forceps apply a 5 microgram disc of novobiocin to the center of the plate. Incubate 37C for 24h. Susceptible: Zone of inhibition greater than 17mm. Resistant: zone less than 17mm.

O/F Dextrose (glucose) or trehalose (oxidation-fermentation reaction)

Differentiates microorganisms based on oxidative or fermentative metabolism of carbohydrates. Stab or inoculate two tubes per organism and leave on exposed to air (oxidative) and one with sterile mineral oil (fermentative). Oxidative is yellow color in open tube only, Fermentative is yellow in both tubes, and if it does neither, there will be a green or blue color in both tubes.

Optochin (P) disc

Differentiates microorganisms based on susceptibility to ethyl hydrocupreine hydrochloride. Steak organism evenly across the blood agar plate. Apply P disk to streaked area and incubate at 37C. Susceptible will have a zone of inhibition 14mm or larger.

Penicillin susceptibility

Same as all the other antibiotics-any zone of inhibition indicates that the organism is susceptible.

Production of red pigment at 25C

Just inoculate TSA and incubate at 25C for 48h. Positive will produce red pigment (S. marcescens is positive).

Purple broth fermentation reactions (arabinose, lactose mannitol, sucrose)

Differentiates members of Enterobacteriaceae based on carboydrate fermentation. Contains specific carbohydrates and the pH indicator bromcresol purple-when an organism ferments the carbohydrate, an acidic product is produced, which changes the indicator to yellow. A bubble in the tube indicates gas production.

SIM (Sulfur, indole, motility)

Differentiates microorganisms based on hydrogen sulfide production, indole production and motility. Stab the SIM tube about 2/3 of the way to the bottom and incubate for 48 with caps loose.
H2S production: blackening along stab line
Indole: after incubation, add 3-4 drops of Indole or Kovac's reagent-positive will show a red color.
Motility: positive will diffuse outward from the stab line.

Swarming motility

Differentiates based on ability to spread across a plate demonstrating a swarming type of motility.

Differentiates organisms based on urease production. The enzyme urease will hydrolyze urea yielding ammonia. Ammonia is alkaline an din the presence of phenol red, it will change the color from light orange to a deep reddish pink color.

Differentiates based on ability to produce a neutral end product, 2,3 butanediol from glucose fermentation. This end product is oxidized to form acetoin that is detected with the addition of the VP reagents alpha-napthol and KOH.
Inoculate MRVP with test organism and incubate 72 hours; add the contents of VPA and shake, then add 5 drops of VP B and shake. Positive will show a red color development within 15 minutes.

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7.5 Multi-threading

The :thread-policy keyword argument of op:create_poa controls the number of threads created. The value can be one of:

Use the same thread for all requests.

Use an ORB specific number of threads.

An integer n

Use n threads.

Currently the "ORB specific number of threads" is 1, so this is the same as :single-thread-model .

See the Portable Object Adapter specification, available from OMG.

Developing Component Software with CORBA - 30 Oct 2007


College Catalog 2013-2014

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Course Descriptions

RPK - Recreation and Parks

RPK 120

(3.00 CR.)

Includes history and philosophy of conservation, preservation, and the development of outdoor recreation in the United States. Emphasizes development of practical skills in planning, instructing, and managing outdoor recreation programs and facilities, including youth resident camps, RV campgrounds, as well as resources in the urban setting. Lecture 2 hours. Laboratory 3 hours. Total 5 hours per week.


Dunnigan Charged with Burglary

Meridian police have re-arrested a teenager who was out on bond on an armed robbery charge.

15-year-old Richard Dunnigan of Meridian is now also charged in a residential burglary that happened June 30.

Dunnigan is charged as an adult, because he had already been charged with armed robbery in a case from earlier this year.

Bond was denied because of the previous charge.


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Eye Can Learn

Eye Exercises for Better Visual Health

Improve your Visual Information Process Skills:
Perception, Tracking, Focusing, and Eye Teaming

Click on the Exercises Below

Perception       Tracking       Focusing       Eye Teaming
Discrimination Peripheral Focus Shifts Eye Aiming
Visual Memory Jumps Cross-Eyed Viewing
Figure Ground  Number  Saccades    Relaxed Viewing
Visual Closure Line Tracking
Form Constancy   Pursuits Other Resources

Parents, teachers, and OT's, please note:  These activities are offered as a fun way to help sharpen "learning-related" visual skills that are critical for success in school.  If a child has deficits in visual information processing, these simple exercises alone are not sufficient to correct a problem.  Please do not confuse these exercises with vision therapy.  Vision therapy involves a much wider scope of remediation procedures involving the use of lenses, prisms, filters, and instrumentation in a closely sequenced program prescribed by developmental optometrists.  However, if your child has difficulty with these activities, it could indicate there is a problem with his/her vision system, and you may want to contact a developmental optometrist for further evaluation.  A developmental optometrists can run specialized tests to determine if your child has developed adequate visual skills for reading, learning, and visual attention. Developmental optometrists are sometimes called behavioral optometrists because of their role in evaluating how vision affects behavior and performance.  To locate a doctor in your area, contact the national certifying board at covd.org.

Vision Perception Skills

The vision skills we need to understand, analyze, and interpret what we see are called visual perception. Here are some fun games and puzzles that will help sharpen your perceptual skills.

Visual Discrimination lets us see differences between objects that are similar.  Good visual discrimination helps keep us from getting confused.  For example, when we read, it's visual discrimination that let's us see the "was" and "saw" are different even though they have the same letters. Puzzle games that ask us to tell how two pictures are different are good ways to help develop visual discrimination.

For answers to the visual discrimination pictures, click here!

For the answers to the matching puzzles, click here!

Visual Memory is another important perceptual skill.  It helps us recall what we've seen.  Click on the buttons below and you will see a picture for five seconds, and then it will disappear.  After the picture disappears, can you remember the items you saw in the same order?

Minute Memory Game: You will see a picture for one minute.  Look at it carefully and try to remember as many details as possible.  After the minute is up, you'll be asked to tell as many things about the picture as you remember.  Good luck!

Figure Ground is the perceptual skill that let's us pick out details without getting confused by the background or surrounding images. This skill is especially helpful when we're presented with a lot of visual information at one time.  The popular puzzle games called "hidden pictures" requires good figure ground skills.  We've searched the internet and come up with some fun examples of hidden pictures. Click on the button below to see how good your figure ground skills are!

Visual Closure is the ability to visualize a complete whole when given incomplete information or a partial picture. This skill helps us understand things quickly because our visual system doesn't have to process every detail to recognize what we're seeing.  Where we're reading, this skill helps us recognize sight words. Click on the button below for some from practice with visual closure!

Visual Form Constancy is the ability to mentally turn and rotate objects in our minds and picture what they would look like. This skill helps us distinguish differences in size, shape, and orientation. Children with poor form-constancy may frequently reverse letters and numbers. Game like the following can help us get practice form constancy.  Click on the buttons below to play!

Tracking Skills

Good tracking skills allow us to follow a line of print without losing our place. It is our oculomotor system that lets us accurately direct our eye movements.  There are three main types of oculomotor skills:  fixation is the ability to maintain steady visual attention on a target; saccades is the ability to quickly and accurately make eye jumps from one target to another; and pursuits is the ability to smoothly follow a moving target.

Central-Peripheral Integration

Central Fixations and Peripheral Awareness, Activity 1:

Objective: A strong integration between our central and peripheral vision systems is critical to good reading skills. Our side vision allows us to locate objects and process where they are in space, but our clear, central vision tells us what it is we're looking at.  (These two systems are sometimes referred to as the "Where is it?" and "What is it?" systems.) In reading, our central vision processes the letters, while our side vision locates the next word and tells us where to aim our eyes next.  If there is not continuous, fluid, simultaneous processing between these two systems, reading will be jerky and loss of place will be common.

Directions: Watch the clown's face but do not move your eyes.  However, as you stare at the clown in the center, follow the edges of the red and blue boxes with your side vision as they move outward. Work on "seeing" the clown's face and the outside edge of the boxes at the same time.

Central Fixations and Peripheral Awareness with motor demand, Activity 2:

Objective: The following activity adds an eye-hand element to the visual demand.  Twenty percent of the raw visual data coming off the retina does not go back to the visual cortex for imaging but breaks away and travels up to the brain's motor centers to help with balance, coordination, and movement. Visual motor integration, commonly called eye-body or eye-hand coordination, is a critical component of vision.  Think of it as a visual "follow the leader": the eyes go first and tell the muscles where to follow.

Directions: Watch the circle in the center and do not look away.  However, you can see the circles on the side of the screen as you are watching the center.  As the center circle changes color, touch the same colored circle on the outside--without looking away from the center circle!  Start with the slow speed, but then switch to the fast as you get better using your side vision!

Clown Jumps: Objective: Saccades refer to the eye's ability to quickly and accurately shift from one target to another. This is an important visual skill, allowing us to accurately control where we aim our eyes.  The ability to make efficient saccades (or jump movements) is especially important in reading.  It keeps us from overshooting or undershooting, going too far ahead or not far enough when we're trying to follow a line of print and locate the next word.

Directions: Click on the button below. You will see a clown jumping around the screen. Watch the clown, being careful to only move your eyes and not your head.  (The inability to move the eyes without also moving the head is usually an indication of deficits in a child's oculomotor system.)

Rabbit Jumps with Motor Demand:  Objective: This is another tracking/visual motor activity, integrating the ability to control our eye movements with our ability to direct our hands.  This time, however, the directions ask the child to alternate hands, turning the demand up a notch.  This will also mean that sometimes the child will be reaching across his body to touch the screen.  The ability to bilaterally reach across the body's midline is an important developmental milestone. The target is also the same color as the background (less contrast) and moving quickly (requiring faster processing) so the child's visual system has to be fairly efficient in order to complete the task well.

Directions: Try to touch the rabbit with your index (pointer) finger before he moves.  Alternate hands--right, left, right, left, etc. Move only your eyes and hands, not your head.

Reading Saccades

Objective:  Reading involves some very specific eye movements. The eyes must move left to right along a straight line without deviating up or down to the lines above or below.  In addition, when we reach the end of a line, our eyes must make a difficult reverse sweep back to the beginning of the next line.  If a child cannot control these eye movements, he'll lose his place and comprehension becomes a problem.

Directions: Read the numbers left to right as they appear on the screen.  Move only your eyes, not your head. Start with the slow speed; if it is too easy, move on the medium speed.  Once the medium skill is mastered, try the fast speed. The goal is to read the numbers easily, smoothly, and accurately.

Line Tracking:  Objective: The oculomotor demand is increased in these activities by adding distracters.  There are more than one path.

Men have lost their hats, baby animals have lost their mothers, and fairy tale characters have been separated.  Can you help them?  Directions: Follow the lines without getting lost! Do you end up at the right place?  Remember to use only your eyes, not your finger!

Here are some harder line tracking activities to try.  Have fun!  Directions: Follow the lines without getting lost! What letters match up with what letters?  Remember to use only your eyes, not your finger!

Pursuits: Objective: The skill that allows our eyes to smoothly follow moving targets is called pursuits.   This is an especially important skills in most sports, allowing us to catch, hit, or kick a moving ball.

Following a moving target, slow speed:   Directions: Watch the butterfly fly around the screen.  Move only your eyes, not your head. Can you keep your eyes on the butterfly?

Following a moving target, fast speed:  Directions: Watch the ball bounce around the screen.  Move only your eyes, not your head. Can you keep your eyes on the ball?

Focusing Skills

Near-Far Focus Shifts

Objective: Our focusing system allows us to see clearly, especially up close.  At the close ranges required for reading, this is the visual skill needed to maintain clear sharp images for extended periods of time. It also includes the ability to quickly shift focus when looking from near to far, such as when children have to look from their desks to the board at school.

Directions: Highlight the small number chart below and copy and paste it into a Word document and print.  Cut the paper around the grid so that you have a small card with the numbers in the middle.  Then place a large calendar on the wall on the opposite side of the room.  Holding the small number chart about six inches from your nose, look at the number 1.  Is it clear?  If it's a little blurry, move the paper out until you can see the numbers clearly.  Then find the number one on the calendar.  Now look back at the number 2 on the small chart in your hand.  Then look up and find the two on the calendar.  Continue back and forth for the entire month.  Could you keep the numbers clear on both the wall calendar and on the small number chart as you hold it close to your eyes?   If so, move the number chart a little closer to your nose and do the exercise again.  Your goal is to be able to hold the number chart within three inches of your nose and still keep the numbers clear without double vision and make fast focusing shifts from near to far and back again.   Practice until this is easy and you don't feel a lot of eye strain.

Eye Teaming Skills

Controlling how we use and aim our eyes together is an importing skill that keeps us from seeing double.  The ability to use both eyes as a "team," or a single functioning pair, is what allows our brain to fuse the two separate pictures coming in from each eye into a single image. This skill is called binocularity.

There are two basic ways to aim or "team" our eyes:

1) The ability to turn our eyes inward to maintain single vision for objects up close is called convergence. It is similar to looking "cross-eyed," like this:

2) The ability to turn our eyes outward to maintain a single image for objects far away is called divergence. Our eyes appear to aim straight ahead, like this:

Eye Aiming Activities:

Objective: The ability to simultaneous use both eyes together as a single functioning pair is one of our most critical visual skills.  In fact, many poor readers have not developed adequate eye teaming control.  The activities in this section are fun ways to become aware of our eye teaming system.

Directions: Click on the button below and practice using the two different types of eye aim:

Three-Dimensional Pictures

3-D Photographs using the "Cross-Eyed" Viewing Method.

Objective: The ability to use and team our eyes together is what creates depth perception.  Technically called stereopsis, precise two-eyed fusion allows us to perceive three-dimensional depth.

Directions: Once you've practiced the "cross-eyed" look in the previous activity, here are some 3-D photographs you can have fun with.

Stereograms using the parallel, "straight ahead" viewing method.

Objective: Often called "Magic Eye" pictures, stereograms are a fun way to play with our eye teaming using the relaxed, straight-ahead look. This is harder for some people because our visual system's anatomy does not allow for the same degree of divergence as it does convergence. The following activity allows you to experience divergent eye teaming.

Directions: To be able to fuse stereograms, you must aim your eyes BEYOND the screen, much like you are looking out a window at something far way. Try a "day dreaming" look to keep your eyes relaxed and aiming straight ahead instead of at the screen.  Don't give up too soon.  It takes some time for your brain to make sense of the pictures each eye is sending it and form the combined image.  (Note:  If you try to do the "cross-eyed" look with these pictures, they'll be inverted and not make any sense.)

Other Fun Resources on the Web

Vision Perception: General

The following link has many, many different activities to improve visual perceptual skills. Very complete.

Visualization and Form Constancy

Follow the link below for work on fun "tangram" puzzles to improve your visualization and form constancy skills!  These ancient Chinese puzzles work much like electronic parquetry blocks.  Wonderful fun!

Jigsaw puzzles are wonderful for developing visualization and form constancy skills.  Here's a link to a great site that not only lets you choose which picture you want to put together, but how hard you want the picture to be!

Visual Memory

One good way to improve your visual memory skills is to play matching games. Click on the links below to practice your visual memory skills!

Here's a couple of fun memory games to help kids learn: multiplication facts, telling time, and even Spanish!

http://www.aplusmath.com/Games/Concentration/Multiplication_Concentration.html  (third grade and above)

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/con_math/g03c05.html (third grade and above)

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/hispanic/pinata/game.htm  (third grade and above)

Figure Ground

The Highlights children's magazine is famous for their hidden pictures; it's a regular feature in their monthly magazine.

This is a fun on-line game for older children called "Mystery Case Files: Huntsville."  Allow time for the Shockwave file to load.

Mah Jong, the ancient Chinese puzzle game, is another excellent opportunity to help develop figure ground skills.  Try the link below to a free on-line version.

Many, many fun images!: http://www.eyetricks.com/3dstereo.htm

Awesome sight! http://www.colorstereo.com/1_homep.age/directry.htm

Turn words into stereograms: http://www.kondo3d.com/stereo/java/stereoword-e.html

3-D Viewing Pictures

Here are some sites packed full of 3-D pictures to view either using the crossed-eyed or parallel viewing methods. Some include large anaglyph collections to use with red-blue glasses.

Awesome 3-d photographs from around the world.  You'll need red-blue (or red-green) glasses to view. http://www.3dphoto.net/stereo/stereo.html

 Wonderful pictures of Thailand with choice of viewing method: http://users.skynet.be/didier.leboutte/

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Dungeonland > Általános témák > Téma részletei
ZhonLord 2013. aug. 22. @ du. 7:21
Need advice on DM loadout
So currently I have a completely minion-oriented loadout that I have a lot of fun with. Problem is, whenever there's even one bot, normal difficulty becomes a crapshoot of either the heroes breezing through the entire level without losing a single life, or they get completely beaten into the dust and I end up taking 3 of their lives or more in one encounter. Any suggestions for making this build challenging WITHOUT it being a coin toss whether heroes win or lose?

Blocking Wall - 1 mana
Monster Trap - 1 mana
Ice Trap - 1 mana
Real Missiles - 1 mana
Teleport Monsters - 2 mana
Healing Area - 2 mana
Resurrection Tower - 3 mana

Orc Berserker - 2 mana
Imp - 2 mana
Skeleton Archer - 2 mana

Rabbit Breeder - 2 mana
Stalkers - 2 mana

Posession: Evil Heal

Boss: Minocow

Trait: Hordes of Things

(note: for danger events, always go with the 4 mana horde option rather than the 6 mana mini-boss)
Legutóbb szerkesztette: ZhonLord; 2013. aug. 22. @ du. 7:37


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When is ‘different’ treated differently?

October 19th, 2013

Joan Gambill noticed a rather odd use of an adjective in my characterization of pruinose the other day. Here is how she put it:

“In yesterday’s word email about pruinose, under Notes at the end of the paragraph, it seems as though it should be differently, not different. I do enjoy your words.”

In most dialects of English both different and differently are allowed after verbs depending on what you mean. The suffix -ly on differently associates the adjective different with the verb, so that to tell you differently would mean “to tell you in a way different from the normal way of telling”, e.g. whispering, or in a letter. To tell you different implies “to tell you that the thing we are talking about is different”.

It is difficult to find situations in which both the adjective and adverb are applicable but they do pop up from time to time: She worked furiously (to finish on time) vs. She worked furious (at the way the boss treated her). In the former sentence, furiously modifies the verb; in the latter sentence, furious refers to she. As you see here, when the adjective is used, we usually supply a subordinate clause to clarify.

Without the subordinate clause, the result is often humorous: “Mary ate her salad undressed.” Here the joke arises from the ambiguity of which thing is undressed: the salad or Mary?

New Games at alphaDictionary

October 17th, 2013

I have added two new games about idioms and adages to the growing supply of word games on alphaDictionary. The first consists in matching idioms and adages with an prose description comprising arcane vocabulary, e.g. neophyte serendipity = beginner’s luck: http://www.alphadictionary.com/fun/idiom_match.html

The other new game–my favorite–is matching idioms and adages with a picture of their literal meaning. For example, a picture of people climbing walls = climbing the walls. It may be found at http://www.alphadictionary.com/fun/idioms_adages.html.

Have fun.

A Small Menu

October 15th, 2013

I received this interesting note from Jean Perry this morning:

“I recently read in Barbara Ehrenrich’s book Dancing in the Streets, about public festivals, that menu peuple meant ‘simple people’. I couldn’t find the connection between menu as in ‘list’ and menu as in ‘simple’. Can you help me with this?”

This is a Middle French usage that came over when English borrowed the word. French menu then meant “unimportant” or “small”, because menu came to Old French from classical Latin minutus “minúte”. The earliest written evidence in Middle French was les menus = le menu peuple “the small, unimportant people”, plural of la gent menude “the small, unimportant person”. The usage of menu in this sense is now considered archaic.

October 7th, 2013

Forvo is a website which encourages its visitors to pronounce words. It has pronunciations of words in a large number of languages.

Can you Enjoy without a Direct Object?

September 23rd, 2013

Joel Jacubowicz sent me the following message today:

I have several questions about the usage of the word ‘enjoy’ as a complete, standalone sentence.

1) Is the complete sentence “Enjoy!” (As in, “Here’s your meal. Enjoy!”) grammatically correct?
2) If not, despite being ungrammatical could it be considered to be acceptable usage?
3) Is it an Americanism? And if so could it be argued to be acceptable to use it anyway in British English?

I ask this because a certain person I know has a pathological and irrational hatred of the phrase “Enjoy!”, e. g. without a direct object (“enjoy WHAT??!!”) but I argue that, even if it’s grammatically incorrect, it’s essentially a set phrase and communicates slightly different meaning to “enjoy this” or “enjoy your meal”, so it can be exempt from following the rules. Alternatively it could be just a command (Enjoy! / Eat! / Read! / Sit!) which is taken as a polite invitation rather than something that you absolutely must do.

Here is my response.

Enjoy! as an intransitive verb was first used by Yiddish speakers according to Harry Golden in his 1958 book, For 2 Cents Plain. I first heard it from a retired Pennsylvania forest ranger who made commercials for the Pennsylvania Department of Parks about 40 years ago. It would seem to have arisen among speakers of German dialects in the US. I don’t think it is common outside the US; I’ve never heard it used in all the British or Australian movies and TV series that my wife and I have watched over the past 25 or so years.

Enjoy is an obligatorily transitive verb, i.e. a verb which must have a direct object. There are pseudotransitive verbs, verbs which may be transitive or intransitive, i.e. the verbs you mention (eat, read, sit), but enjoy, devour, fix aren’t among them.

An interesting article from the New York Times Magazine points out that the imperative is the only way we can use the intransitive enjoy. I enjoy, you enjoy, s/he enjoys, etc. without a direct object are never heard or spoken. How can this be? It follows that this usage is at best idiomatic.

If this usage spreads throughout  the US, it will be an acceptable usage in the US only, hence it is dialectal. Transitivity is rather flexible; if anyone can think of a situation where a transitive verb works intransitively or vice versa, and they (mis)use it in that situation, it is just a matter of “catching on”. Still, this expression will only be dialectal and idiomatic.

(This blog was partially based on research by Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira.)

Labov “Dialect Diversity in America”

September 18th, 2013

Review of William Labov’s Dialect Diversity in America: The Politics of Language Change (2012, Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press)

I. What the Book is About.  It has been brought to my attention that my pseudonym has been taken in vain by another respected scholar in his recent monograph, Dialect Diversity in America, by  William Labov. Labov quoted this blog:

“Regional accents are dying out…the original dialects in this country were the results of the accents of various immigrants who came to this country looking for a better life. They all landed on the east coast, which is why all accents are currently located in the east. However, as they migrated to the west, all these accents merged into one, so there are no distinctive regional dialects west or north of southern Ohio (maybe southern Illinois and a bit in northern Minnesota).”

His remark to this quotation was, “This overwhelmingly common opinion is simply and jarringly wrong.”  The popularity of this opinion makes Labov’s task especially difficult, since the opinion is popular among professional linguists like Mr. Labov and myself.

I will proceed as follows. I will describe his monograph chapter by chapter and then remind us of what he omitted.

Chapter 1 About Language and Language Change. This chapter explains the common knowledge of how dialects emerge when some speakers of a language split away from the main body of speakers of a given language and that language continues to develop, but along different paths. Eventually, these two dialects become so different that mutual comprehensibility is lost, at which point we say that they have become different languages. We should expect that when dialect areas reintegrate, differences in dialectal characteristics disappear, but Labov claims that this is not happening in the US. In fact, dialectal differences are growing and spreading.

Chapter 2 A Hidden Consensus. This chapter explains how we know the suffix -ing is only pronounced -in’ in informal situations. He admits that this phenomenon is not strictly American; it has existed in all dialect areas for at least 1000 years. But he makes the point, well known by linguists, that there are not only regional dialects but social ones as well.

Chapter 3 Hidden Diversity. Having spent the first two chapters explaining the obvious and irrelevant, Labov begins this chapter by telling the reader that only phonological diversity will be considered, not morphological, syntactic, semantic, or lexical. So, Labov will be writing only about accents, not dialects. Dialects comprise differences in all aspects of grammar.

He them proceeds to quote some studies done in the 60s and  70s of the pronunciation of words, selected on the basis of known accent differences, recorded with Philadelphia, Chicago, and Birmingham. Recorded passages with accents were played in isolation to subjects in the same cities except the one they lived in. In isolation the subjects listening to each word recognized about 5% of them. When conjoined with one other word the percentage rose to around 30-40%. When the words were then repeated in complete sentences, the percentage rose to 90%.

Labov does not mention that linguistic sounds are relative to one another. We have no difficulty understanding people speaking with different foreign accents, even if they are using only native sounds. The ear has no trouble making the adjustment in seconds. So, Labov doesn’t even make the case that accents interfere with comprehensibility. Incomprehensibility, which leads dialects to become fully fledged languages, comes only with morphological, syntactic, semantic and lexical differences.

He then moves on to explain the major point of the book: Northern Cities Shift (NCS). NCS involves a circular shift of five sounds involving such those formerly heard only in the northeast, such as the pronunciation of bat moving bet, and bet to bit. He uses this shift, which has moved west across the northern tier of states, to prove that dialectal differences are increasing.

He fails to note that as this dialectal “difference” as it moved westward, must have obliterated all the dialectal differences in its path, proving my point, too, that dialectal, even accentual differences, are disappearing.

Chapter 4 The Growing Divergence of Black and White English. Amazingly, after claiming in Chapter 2 that only phonological features of “dialects” will be considered, this chapter deals almost exclusively with morphological differences.

Labov discusses the following features of Black English (or AAVE, African American Vernacular English, as he calls it):

1. Loss of r at the end of syllables;

2. Use of present tense with an infinitive (He can goes out)

3. HAD as a simple past based on one study in Springville, Texas;

4. BE as marker of habitual past (Imperfective Progressive: He be good);

5. BEEN as a remote present perfect

6. BE DONE as a remote present perfect

7. Omission of -s possessive: My mom room

8. Omission of -s present tense: She hit me when I come into her room.

Notice that only one of these topics involve phonology: the omission of R at the end of syllables. This is a universal trait of all English dialects, including the one  spoken by the Queen of England. Neither the Cambridge British nor the Oxford English Dictionary pronunciations ever include an R at the end of syllables.

On the loss of verbal S (He see me), the possessive S (my mom room) and the copula (he good), Labov reports a 1983 work by Baugh: “The majority of speakers, those who had very little contact with whites, show 78% absence of the possessive ['s], 72% for verbal /s/, and 52% for the copula. In contrast, the African Americans with high rates of contact with whites . . . show very low rates of -s absence . . . .”

What this description lacks is any number identifying how many speakers had “very little contact with whites”. Or any mention of the effects of the 1952 Brown v Board of Education decision, or the 1964 or 1965 civil rights laws, forced bussing, or affirmative action. Citing a 1983 work to prove a point is too early in the startling process in US education that brought an African American to the presidency.

So does Labov prove that Black English is expanding or splitting up? Although he cites much research based on interviews, he only cites in detail one work not written by him, a work that tracks the usage of had as a marker of the simple past: I had pushed him, where had marks, not the past perfect, but simple past. This usage is reported to have spread throughout the African American community of Springville, Texas. However, notice that a feature already in the dialect only spread within that dialect. It did not lead to an increase in the number of dialects.

Labov explains the expansion of African American English in these terms: “The answer to the question, why are the differences increasing? Is, first and foremost, residential segregation, as reinforced and maintained by institutional racism.” He cites a 1981 study by Hershberg based on a study of segregation between 1850 and 1970. An analysis of historical U.S. Census data by Harvard and Duke scholars, “The End of the Segregated Century”, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (January 2012) shows that racial separation has diminished significantly since the 1960s. That means that more African Americans since the 1970s have had “high rates of contact with whites.”

Chapter 5 – Politics of African American English.  At the center of this chapter is a series of jokes about Ebonics followed by a report on the failure of that movement’s claim that African American English is a foreign language, that courses needed be taught in African American English vernacular. The chapter ends with a description of the research into two commercial products produced by Labov, research which shows them successful.

Again, Labov does not mention the effects of integration, bussing to force the integration of schools, or affirmative action designed to fully integrate colleges and universities.  Did these politically motivated upheavals not affect the dialectal differences between white and black English?  How could Labov discuss the politics of “dialects” without mentioning the major political events that have had a great impact on the two major dialects in the United States? He does not raise this issue because it undermines his thesis.

Chapter 6 – Language Change as Language Politics.   This chapter discusses two phenomena: Canadian Raising in a village in Martha’s Vineyard  and similar the shift of the pronunciation of the diphthong in words like down [aw] to [ew]. Labov admits that two follow up studies found it to be non-existent or “showed signs of recession among the youngest speakers”. I fail to see why this bit of putative evidence was even mentioned in the book. Since, again, Labov only claims that this phenomenon is only spreading, not leading to dialectal distinction, I will omit comment in further detail on this phenomenon.

Chapter 7 – The Political Ideology of the Northern Cities Shift. This chapter returns to the Northern Cities Shift, tying it to the building of the Erie Canal (1817-1875). Without first showing that the Northern Cities Shift had taken place in New York by the time we started building the Erie Canal, Labov declares that it followed the route of that canal.

Labov then goes on to explain “the tendency to superimpose Yankee ideology on the rest of the world” as an explanation why, of all the accents brought in by workers on the Erie Canal, the New York accent prevailed. He then moves into an explanation of “Yankee ideology”, a topic far off subject.

II. What Labov Left Out. Although my claims were anecdotal, most of Labov’s arguments are anecdotal, too, based on interviews with individuals. The anecdotal evidence is so overwhelming as to make a statistical study, were it even possible to base such a study on data collected over the past 30 or so years, moot.

First, I began by noting that ALL my grandnieces and grandnephews, who live in rural North Carolina speak without a trace of even their parents’ mild accent. I have attended baseball games and soccer games they played in and none of their friends, black or white, spoke in the strong Southern dialect I was brought up speaking and hearing in the 40s. Remember, we are talking about rural North Carolina.

The white generation that preceded me used sot and holp as the past tense of sit and help, and et, as it is in Britain today, was the past tense of eat.  The words very and must didn’t exist in the rural North Carolina dialect I spoke. All my relatives and neighbors used mighty where Yankees would use very. I recall the first time I heard must coming from the mouth of a Southerner. Our high school was having career day and had invited a pianist from Fayetteville who had tried his luck in New York. He said, “I must go now; I have another session . . . . “  I was so struck by the incident, that I remember it to this day, a half century later. Now very and must are commonplace and holp, sot and et are not to be heard because dialects are disappearing.

The African American friends of my grandnieces and grandnephews continue to pronounce [th] as [t] and [d], as I did growing up (I am white) and some of their (white) parents still do. But I never hear Ise (I is), nor a you is, we is, they is when I return now.  Whites and blacks drop the R at the end of syllables and substitute -in for -ing, as do people speaking English informally around the world.

But that is the extent of the accentual differences that I hear today back home or here in Pennsylvania. I do not know when I have heard the strong African American accent by anyone interviewed on television. All I have heard for the past ten years are the three characteristics mentioned above. Interviews with African American athletes on the Sports Illustrated web site (si.com) seldom reveal a trace of African American accent beyond the three traits mentioned above.

Geographical separation is required for a dialect (not an accent) to thrive. When dialect D1 is mixed with D2 one is absorbed by the politically dominant one. It is economically advantageous to speak the politically dominant dialect or language. We had courses in standard English that were taught to Southerners and Northerners with a “Brooklyn” accent in the 80s. I haven’t heard of any such courses in the new millennium.

Migration patterns do not involve part of the US English speakers removing themselves geographically from the others. Migration is all internal and is based on economic factors. There has been an intermixture of dialects, rather than separation.

We must never forget the fundamental economic factor influencing the recent development of dialects in the US: you cannot succeed in the US unless you speak economically dominant “standard” English. Everyone, no matter which dialect or language (Spanish, Russian, etc.) you speak, wants to speak and write that dialect.

So Mr. Labov has not made his case with convincing examples or statistics. He offers a few tables of long-term statistics which show the development of pronunciation differences over time, no massive chronological tables which his case requires. The anecdotal evidence, on the other hand, so overwhelmingly favors my position, I personally see no need for long-term statistics, even were they to exist.

Of Peckerwoods and Woodpeckers

September 17th, 2013

I received an interesting inquiry from Jeanne Henry. Here is that inquiry and my response.

Peckerwood. That is what our Southern Baptist pastor called us kids when he got angry with us. I just attended a 40-year reunion of the youth church choir and we laughed about Dr. Jimmy Morgan getting mad at us in church and announcing from the pulpit, “You little peckerwoods better shut up!” Of course, that made us giggle and shake the church pews even more. Poor guy.”

“Anyway, what is the history of the word Peckerwood?”

It started out as simply a Southern variant of woodpecker. However, it is not always used that way and has naughty overtones due to a poem kids back in the 20s and 30s once recited:

Woodpecker pecking on the schoolhouse door.
He pecked and he pecked ‘til his pecker got sore.

When my mother heard me or my cousins reciting this rhyme—long before we knew the other meaning of pecker—she became clearly embarrassed and forbade its recitation. Of course, this only egged us on.

Since the word begins with pecker, it has become mildly profane as well as a mild insult. That word is covered up a bit in woodpecker.

The Names of Things

September 6th, 2013

Randy Bynder appealed to Dr. Goodword for help with a common problem facing parents: answering a child’s innocent question. Children are learning machines, sponges that absorb thousands of facts every day. Here is a questiona that stumped Randy:

“Lately my 8 year old daughter keeps asking where partcular words come from. For instance ‘Daddy why do they call it a couch? Why are we called people?’ etc.

“Question: can you help me to formulate an intelligent but easy to understand response to such questions? Thank you.”

The answer, according to Plato, is that there is no answer; the relation between sounds and meanings are purely arbitrary. We call a horse a “horse” while Russians call the same animal a loshad’, Germans call it a Pferd, Spaniards a caballo, and Serbs a kon. It is the same animal referred to by different sounds depending on which part of the world you are in, more specifically, the language you are speaking.

Historically speaking, is another question. The similarities between English sister, German Swester, Russian sestra are not coincidental. These languages belong to a known language family, called “Indo-European”. A language family is exactly what it sounds like, a group of related languages that descended (developed over time) from the same “proto” language. They have descended from one language that existed earlier.

So the best response is to take advantage of the question to make your daughter aware that people around the world speak 6,912 languages and dialects. People speaking a different language are not to be feared; they are just saying more or less the same things we say in a different way.

Laying the Lie-Lay Confusion to Rest

July 12th, 2013

Ted Whittier is at it again:

“Thanks, again, for your interesting and informative daily word pieces. I enjoy them immensely.”

“I do have a question however. Has the use of the words lay and lie changed since I went to school? In your word piece today for crepuscular, in the Notes section, fifth sentence, you state: ‘. . . so we mustn’t just let it lay there.’ I seem to recall that if we lay something down we then let it lie not lay. What say you, good Doctor?”

Ted, when you’re right, you’re right. I had written “lie there” and was called on it by one of my editors, but then forgot to correct it.

Lie differs from lay in that it is intransitive (can’t take a direct object) and lay is transitive can take a direct object, so “I lie down” but “I lay the paper down”.

The problem is, and has been for centuries, the past tense of lie is lay—lie, lay, lain. The parts of speech of lay are lay, laid, laid.

I’ve written on this problem somewhere else on the website and forgot in the heat of getting out the Good Word (usually late at night) my own advice.

Thank you for catching that.

New G-rated Limerick

July 10th, 2013

I recently published a raft of “G-rated” limericks created by visitors to the alphaDictionary site. I invited more contributions from our lot, and receive this one from Steve Parris:

The Alpha Agora might boast
Of limericks cleaner than most,
But when rhymers start cookin’
And nobody s lookin’
They write stuff they never could post
–Steve Parris

I plan to separate the original limericks from the unoriginal ones soon, so you will not see this one up until then.


Go the Distance, ChiRunning's Danny Dreyer Shows Us How

BOYT: Please share with our readers how the Chi Running technique came about.

Danny Dreyer: I was an ultra marathon runner for 25 years which means I consistently competed in races longer than the standard 26.2 marathon. Because of my intense running background, I was constantly training and striving to become a more efficient runner. Eleven years ago, I went to my first Tai Chi class. The Tai Chi instructor devoted the class time to teach how one strengthens the core, posture, and how to effectively rotate one’s body weight around the central alignment of the body. During the class I wondered if I could successfully apply these techniques to running. When I applied the Tai Chi philosophy to my run the next day, it totally blew my socks off! From that point forward I began learning Tai Chi and applying it to running and the ChiRunning technique was born. I was fortunate to collaborate with a Tai Chi master who was instrumental in helping me develop the philosophy behind Chi Running.

BOYT: Your book and ChiRunning DVD offers its readers very helpful tools to enjoy running and avoid injury with proper form. Would you say your book and DVDs are suitable for beginning to advanced levels of runners?
Danny Dreyer: The book and DVD is appropriate for all types of runners. In fact, the people in my classes range from people who have never worn running shoes to elite runners. I have had eleven year olds to eighty-five year olds. In ChiRunning, everyone begins at the same level because it is a completely new way to run so it works for runners at all levels. The DVD is great because it breaks down the running technique into easy to follow steps, and it is a great place for people to start in their journey with ChiRunning.
BOYT: You hear so many mixed messages in the media regarding whether or not training, specifically running, is safe to do daily. If one practices the ChiRunning techniques is it safe for someone to run every day?
Danny Dreyer: I recommend that no one runs more than six days a week. The body needs some time to rest and recover. However, the caveat with Chi running is that it teaches how to run efficiently and injury free. Consequently, if someone is incorporating Chi Running techniques, recovery time is unnecessary because they have not done anything to strain their body. The more efficiently one runs, the less the muscles are used, and the less the muscles are used, the less time needed to recover. The key is for people to listen to their body and run in a way that allows them to run as much as they desire without doing harm to their body.
BOYT: What are the biggest mistakes that new runners make? What can be done to correct the problem?
Danny Dreyer: There are two main mistakes new runners make that lead to injuries. New runners often have too long of a stride. When the stride is too long, the runner is reaching forward with his legs and hitting heel first, which is very harmful. The impact of hitting the road with the heel first will cause strain to the back, quads, or knees as they absorb the jolting force. Chi running teaches runners to run with shorter strides and to practice more of a mid-foot stride where the whole foot lands underneath the body. Chi running teaches runners to fall forward while swinging their legs to the rear rather than pushing themselves forward with their legs. This is the second common mistake runners make: by pushing oneself forward with one leg while catching yourself with the other is essentially running with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake.   Beginner runners automatically assume running is a hard sport because they are running inefficiently. One of the fundamentals of ChiRunning that stems from Tai Chi is that a successful runner or walker must cooperate with the forces that surround them. The primary force runners and walkers face is the road. If the runner is swinging their leg into the road and hitting heel first, the impact of the road is so much greater than when they land with their foot solidly underneath them while falling forward. ChiRunning teacher people how to minimize the impact of the road, thus decreasing strain and injury.
Danny Dreyer, ChiRunning, Chi Running Danny Dreyer, effective work outBOYT: Do you find that a treadmill offers as effective a work out as running on land?
Danny Dreyer: I much prefer street and trail running. There are a slew of reasons of why running outdoors is better for your body than running indoors on a treadmill. Running on a treadmill it is not really running; Treadmill running is more about keeping your balance on top of a moving object than running. The treadmill does most of the work, and the runner is more prone to injuries on a treadmill due to the strain put on the body during this balancing act. Running across a solid surface teaches one’s body how to balance and support itself while interacting and connecting with the earth. By increasing awareness of the body and the earth, a person is able to learn an incredible amount about themselves and the world they live in. Your connection to the earth is broken through using a treadmill. ChiRunning emphasizes the connection between the earth and your body that is only achieved through being mindful, and this empowering connection will ultimately improve your quality of life.
BOYT: We know that you suggest using a metronome to set your cadence. Do you suggest that a person listen to music while running?
Danny Dreyer: I recommend running intentionally and consciously because that is the only way to improve. Chi running is based on being mindful, and listening to music serves as a distraction and is detrimental to one’s running practice. I tell people who listen to music to split the days they listen to music and the days they run without it so they can focus and improve on their technique.
BOYT: Lastly, please share with our audience the most inspirational piece of advice or thought.
Danny Dreyer: I hope to transform running from a sport into a practice. When people practice yoga or meditation they intentionally pay attention to their activity, direct it with their mind, and responding accordingly with their body. The body is one’s direct connection to this world. If one wants to have a higher quality of life and an improved well-being, they must improve their connection with the world through communicating with the body. Ultimately by mastering a practice like running, a person is elevated to another level. I have been on spiritual paths forever and I believe it is so important to become familiar with the invisible world. Ultimately running can become a catalyst that leads into a deeper and more sensitive existence. Therefore, by treating running as a practice, a person is able to gain rewards that go far beyond receiving a medal for completing a race.
About Danny Dreyer
Danny Dreyer is the creator of ChiRunning® and ChiWalking®. He has successfully completed 40 ultra-marathons since 1995, finishing in the top 3 in his age group in all but one. Danny has lived a lifestyle steeped in holistic living, meditation, and personal wellness for over 30 years. He teaches techniques that tap into one's inner strength and power. For more information on ChiRunning, to purchase Danny Dreyer's book, and to contact Danny please visit his website.


‘We mutually pledge to each other ...’

July 4, 2013
By MIKE MATHISON - Sports editor

Six words in the Declaration of Independence should be the motto for every sports team: We mutually pledge to each other.

The last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is as follows:

The United States is 236 years old today.

Would the Founding Fathers recognize this country?

On June 28, 1776, Thomas Jefferson presented to congress the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Congress had voted in favor of independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, but did not complete the process of revising the Declaration of Independence until two days later.

After changes to Jefferson's original draft, a vote was taken late in the afternoon of July 4, 1776 - nine colonies voted in favor of the Declaration; two voted no, Pennsylvania and South Carolina; Delaware was undecided and New York abstained.

John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. It is said that he signed his name "with a great flourish so King George can read that without spectacles."

If you mutually pledge something to each other, you are telling the others they are more important than you.

You are telling them that the team is bigger than yourself.

That is something our military personnel do every day.

They mutually pledge to each other to fight for this country so you and I are free.

We are free to believe in God, or not.

We are free to burn the American flag, or not.

We are free so say what we want, or not. At the same time, if we say what we want, others are free to hold us accountable for what we say, or write, or shout, or tweet.

We are free to pray, or not.

We are free to make unbelievable stupid statements at sporting events on all levels, or not.

Thank you to all the men and women who serve in the armed forces, for you are the pure example of being humble.

You have put everybody ahead of yourself, something that I could not do in that situation.

I never wanted any part of being in the military.

That was never something that interested me in the least.

You are far better humans that I.

You lay down your lives so the Stars and Stripes can wave proudly.

You lay down your lives so we can have freedoms not found anywhere else in the world.

Thank you.

"Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." - C. S. Lewis

"Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility." - Saint Augustine

"Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire." - William Penn

"Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self." - Charles Spurgeon

"True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be." - Ralph W. Sockman

"As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you." - C.S. Lewis

"In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet." - Winston Churchill

"True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue." - Martin Luther

There is no talent in being humble.

I am looking for:


Latest Issue of Science News

Narcolepsy may be an autoimmune disease

Sleep disorder traced to assault on brain cells

Narcolepsy occurs when wayward immune forces launch an attack on brain cells responsible for wakefulness, a new study suggests. In a case of mistaken identity, immune cells that target a protein fragment from a microbial invader also on rare occasions ravage neurons that produce a similar protein fragment, or peptide, researchers report.

The victims of this cross fire are neurons that make a peptide called orexin, a neurotransmitter that is crucial for staying awake. The researchers say this could explain the lack of orexin neurons in people with narcolepsy, as shown previously in patient autopsies. A lack of orexin, also called hypocretin, leaves a person with disordered sleep, daytime drowsiness and the risk of nodding off abruptly — the hallmarks of narcolepsy.


Paper Session #4: The New "Local": Evolving Use of Theory in Ethnographic Research

Susan Squires
Event Time
Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Traditionally ethnography has been a local-level method for gathering direct, first-hand participant-observations and interviews in order to investigate the daily lives of a group of people, and to discover unmet needs. With the emergence of “digital communities,” “local” has taken on a new meaning for participants and researchers alike. Further, practitioners are now challenged to provide insights and recommendations, which provide value beyond product innovation and design. In this session we will look at two evolving aspects of our practice: how we are using theory to make sense of the new “digital local’ and how ethnographic research is evolving frameworks to accommodate the strategies and goals of large corporations that go beyond “local.”

The Luminosity of the Local

Michael Donovan

This paper seeks to capture the local in Locavore---both its concrete and symbolic character. Locavore itself is a kind of nascent identity that emerges from constellations of social relationships, self-defining “food communities”, made up of consumers and farmers and chefs, and food writers and environmentalists of various stripes. These communities live in the blogosphere, tweets and other media as well as face-to-face relationships and transactions. At their core are representations of the local—in foods, dishes, recipes, meals, places, and persons. Place-bound identities that in some theoretically interesting ways transcend place. Drawing on classical anthropological theory and recent studies in cultural geography and the formation of digital communities we explore ways in which the local is invented and given representational power in the creation of community. Implications for branding, marketing and understanding the continued power of place-bound identities in the very constitution of digitized and globalized worlds.

‘Mental Kartha Hai’ or ‘Its Blowing my Mind’: Evolution of the Mobile Internet in an Indian Slum

Nimmi Rangaswamy

This paper is an ethnographic exploration of on-line practices of teens in a slum in Hyderabad, India to develop concepts for building a novel user model in a unique socio- technical ecology. With little to spare upon ‘always on’ Internet enabled devices, they lead digital lives accessed on mobile phone piece meal and apportioned among peers in everyday communicative behaviours. The mobile internet has allowed the leapfrogging digital technologies, as they participate in and re-characterize the genre of virtual life: a leap discontinuous and disruptive, revolutionizing the media ecology of these teenagers. Indeed, for many of them the mobile phone is the inaugural personal gateway to a world of multi-media communications, entertainment and sociality. The paper examines contexts of youth-technology practices to identify and represent habituations of the mobile internet. These are anchored in the following contemplations: 1. the imagining of an ‘on demand internet’ rather than ‘always on’ internet 2. the forging of ‘persisting internet’ rather than ‘perpetual internet’. Our story is also about alternate infrastructures modifying constraining ecologies to endowing ecologies.

Shining a light on agency: Examining responses to resource constraints to uncover opportunities for design

Emma J. Rose
Robert Racadio

People employ creative ways to overcome the challenges of daily life. The construct of agency is a productive area of inquiry when considering how people respond to these challenges. Exploring moments of agency provides an embodied understanding of people’s motivations and helps reveal the structural and technological barriers they encounter every day. We propose a framework of agency and three corresponding categories: resourcefulness, resilience, and powerlessness. This framework was developed while working with data from two design ethnographies: one in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and the other in Seattle, Washington. In these settings, many people live with resource constraints, meaning they often have to make do or do without. Viewing structures through this analytic frame provides a mechanism to critique existing systems and provide design considerations for the future.

Unclear social etiquette online: how users experiment (and struggle) with interacting across many channels and devices in an ever-evolving and fast-changing landscape of communication tools

Martin Ortlieb

How should one behave and interact online? What kind of behavior can one expect from one’s partners in the online communication/interaction/transaction spaces from Social Networking to Online auctions and from Email and Instant messaging to blogs and reviews? These concerns from participants repeatedly surfaced in recently conducted research. People raised these issues, since they feel there is no established etiquette how purely online relationships should be conducted, but also how to transform relationships that began ‘online only’ into their social environments that reach beyond the Web. In my analysis I looked for practical clues from the research data: How do people calibrate their experiences with new forms and tools of communication on the Internet? How do they make sense and keep control of the digital relationships they’re engaging in? Based on these insights from research, I will illustrate how the current models of personal relationships (most notably the model of concentric realms extending outward from ego), especially online, are now proving insufficient, contradictory and unworkable for many users to be meaningfully applied in their social activities online.

Cracking Representations of the Emerging Markets: It’s Not Just about Affordability

Renee Kuriyan
Kathi Kitner, Scott Mainwaring, and Dawn Nafus

Emerging markets have grown to be a hotbed of technological innovation and use. How do businesses capture the seemingly large market opportunity comprised of what is known as the “emerging middle classes?” In the context of technology adoption, businesses create strategies to capture this market of potential First Time Buyers of PCs based on preconceived notions and representations of what emerging middle class consumers desire. Our research asked: what are the social and cultural forces that mediate technology adoption? What are their impacts on market opportunities? The paper uses the case of netbooks, specifically its slow uptake in emerging markets, to illustrate how using certain representations of these market segments to create strategies on messaging, positioning and communications to consumers can lead to missed market opportunities. We show how ethnographic frameworks to gauge social viability of products can be used to deconstruct these notions and help accelerate growth in emerging markets.

Evolutionary Matryoshka: Mapping the dimensions of the evolutionary forces impacting survival of ethnographic insights within a large financial enterprise

Ari Nave

Corporate ethnographies generate ideas that are subject to a number of evolutionary forces. Some ideas thrive, others mutate and propagate, still others wilt. These forces include the sui generis attributes of the ideas themselves, the mechanisms and mediums of transmission, and the ecology of selective forces that are brought to bear on the ideas, such as the corporate organizational structure, power relationships, and business demands. This article will also address the impact of the ethnographer’s agency on the entire process — when he or she is a participant in the development of communications strategies, based upon the research they’re conducting. While agency-based ethnographers may try to equip insights with the “skills” they need to survive, they themselves are subject to evolutionary forces that result in cognitive biases and impact choice. Duel-inheritance theory provides a robust platform for understanding the evolutionary forces on such systems.


environmental health

Tag archives for environmental health

Last year, reported cases of West Nile virus in the United States hit their highest levels in nearly a decade. It’s a good reminder to keep protecting yourself from getting bitten, but it also begs the question: Is this just a sign of a much bigger threat? The answer is just as wily as the pesky mosquito.

When most of us pass by a new high-rise or drive down a new road, we rarely think: Did the builders and planners consider my health? However, a new report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers evidence that certain types of land use and transportation decisions can indeed limit the human health and environmental impacts of development.

A couple years ago, two public health researchers attended a hearing about the possible expansion of an industrial food animal production facility. During the hearing, a community member stood up to say that if the expansion posed any hazards, the health department would surely be there to protect the people. The two researchers knew that probably wasn’t the case.

Excess breast cancer risk among women employed in automobile plastics facilities

Two recently published papers funded by the federal agency Health Canada report on excess risk of breast cancer among auto plastics workers and the chemical compounds and processes used that are the likely culprits.


Complementary Colors

Complementary (com-pluh-MEN-tuh-ree) colors sit opposite each other on the color wheel. Because they are opposites, they tend to look especially lively when used together. When you put complementary colors together, each color looks more noticeable.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent

Red and green are an example of complementary colors. Look at the painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. The reddish-pink color of the flowers really stands out against the green background. Imagine if Sargent had painted all yellow or blue flowers instead. They would just blend in with the green (ho-hum).

TRY IT! Choose colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. For example, you might choose blue and orange. Make a picture that uses both colors. Don't they make an interesting contrast? That's because the colors are opposites.

Value: Tints and ShadesArtAnalogous Colors

More on Complementary Colors from Fact Monster:

  • Neutral Colors - Neutral Colors Neutral (NOO-trul) colors don't usually show up on the color wheel. Neutral ...
  • printing: Illustrations and Color Printing - Illustrations and Color Printing In three kinds of printing—relief, intaglio, and ...
  • color: Apparent Color of Objects - Apparent Color of Objects Color is a property of light that depends on wavelength. When light falls ...


Last updated on April 16, 2014 at 6:17 EDT

Mustelinae Reference Libraries

Page 1 of about 11 Articles
Javan Ferret-badger Melogale orientalis
2013-01-01 14:09:23

The Javan ferret-badger (Melogale orientalis) can be found in Indonesia, with a range that includes Bali and Java. The preferred habitat of this species is not well known, but one specimen from Bali was found in a secondary forest near plantations. Other records show a preference for primary forests, so it is though that the Javan ferret-badger prefers a large variety of habitats. It was once...

Patagonian Weasel Lyncodon patagonicus
2012-12-31 13:27:36

The Patagonian weasel (Lyncodon patagonicus) is the sole member of its genus Lyncodon. Its range includes areas of Chile, western Argentina, and the Pampas. It prefers a habitat within xerophytic woodlands and shrub steppes. The Patagonian weasel can reach an average body length between 11.8 and 13.8, with a tail length between 2.4 and 3.5 inches. Its fur is mostly white, with brown and...

Striped Polecat Ictonyx striatus
2012-11-16 13:48:55

The striped polecat (Ictonyx striatus), also known as the zoril, zorilla, zorille, or the African polecat, is a member of the weasel family. It can be found in sub-Saharan Africa, West Africa, and the Congo Basin. It prefers a habitat within open areas and savannahs. This species resembles a skunk, and even releases a foul odor when threatened by predators. It is black in color with four white...

African Striped Weasel
2007-10-23 13:58:02

The African Striped Weasel (Poecilogale albinucha), is the only member in the genus Poecilogale. It is a small black and white weasel native to sub-Saharan Africa. The African striped weasel lives in forests, wetlands, and grasslands. It is a nocturnal hunter of small mammals, birds, and reptiles. The weasel kills its prey by whipping its own body and kicking, making use of its thin, lithe,...

Greater Grison
2007-08-23 04:53:33

The Greater Grison (Galictis vittata), is an animal that belongs to the ferret family Mustelidae. It is native to Central and South America. It can be found from Southern Mexico to Brazil and Bolivia. It lives in savannas and rainforests, usually near rivers and streams. Greater Grisons spend most of their time on the ground at night hunting for food. They are nocturnal, but also may be...

Lesser Grison
2007-08-23 04:52:24

The Lesser Grison (Galictis cuja), is an animal that belongs to the ferret family Mustelidae. It is native to South America and is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Paraguay.

2007-08-15 11:07:59

2007-08-10 16:41:52

The Wolverine (Gulo gulo) is the largest land-dwelling species of the weasel family Mustelidae. It is also known as the Glutton or Carcajou. The wolverine lives primarily in isolated areas in the northern hemisphere. These areas include Alaska, northern Canada, Siberia and Scandinavia. They are also native to Russia and the Baltic countries. Until the mid 1800's they were found as far south as...

Marbled Polecat
2007-06-25 07:46:23

European Polecat
2007-01-22 15:28:04

The European Polecat (Mustela putorius), also known as a fitch, is a member of the Mustelidae family. It is related to the stoats, otters, weasels, and minks. They are dark brown with a lighter bandit-like mask across the face, pale yellow underbody fur, a long tail and short legs. They are somewhat larger than weasels, weighing between 24.69 oz (0.7 kg) for females to 59.97 oz (1.7 kg) for...


Alien antique show: Egyptians wore JEWELRY FROM SPAAAACE

Boffins trace origin of 5,000-year-old cosmic bijoux

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Pic Archaeologists have discovered that ancient Egyptians fashioned their bling from rocks from outer space, not from iron ore.

Three of the nine ancient beads from Gerzeh, Egypt

Just bead it, bead it ... Three of the nine ancient beads from Gerzeh, Egypt

We're told beads kept at UCL's Petrie Museum in London predate the emergence of iron smelting by two millennia: the jewellery was made from pieces of meteorite, hammered into thin sheets and then rolled into tubes. The nine beads, which are at least 5,000 years old, were then strung together into a necklace along with gold and gemstones, reflecting the high value of the material in ancient times.

"The shape of the beads was obtained by smithing and rolling, most likely involving multiple cycles of hammering, and not by the traditional stone-working techniques such as carving or drilling which were used for the other beads found in the same tomb," said Professor Thilo Rehren, lead author of a paper on the find.

Because they started metal working with meteorite iron, smiths had nearly two millennia of experience by the time iron smelting started in the mid-second millennium BC, we're told. That knowledge was essential for coming up with smelting in the first place and the production of iron from iron ore, allowing the Iron Age to start and the metal to replace copper and bronze.

The beads were found in a pre-dynastic cemetery near the village of el-Gerzeh in Lower Egypt around 1911 and were completely corroded when discovered. A team of boffins had to use X-ray techniques to figure out if they were meteoric or magnetite, which can be mistaken for corroded iron due to its similar properties.

Shooting beams of neutrons and gamma-rays at the beads showed their unique texture and also revealed the high concentration of nickel, cobalt, phosphorus and germanium characteristic of meteoric iron.

The full paper, 5,000-years-old Egyptian iron beads made from hammered meteoritic iron, was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science and is available online from today. ®

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Keep items safe with the latest coffee table by Mexican industrial designer Jorge Diego Etienne. The series, fittingly entitled 'Cages,' resembles a place of imprisonment. Though it may be an intimidating aesthetic, the cages are in fact really handy, as books can be slid through the bars, while larger items can be placed inside through the removal of the top piece.

The rationale behind Jorge Diego Etienne's design is described on his website, as he states that, "cages provoke a dialogue about which is safer, being in or outside lockup, breaking expectations for what an occasional table's function is."

Available in two varying sizes, the powder-coated steel containers are sure to keep everything locked up. Each table comes in either a bright yellow or a rich black.