title: Altamont Free Concert

text: The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards was relatively sanguine about the show, calling it "basically well-handled, but lots of people were tired and a few tempers got frayed" and "on the whole, a good concert."


title: Altamont Free Concert

text: The Grateful Dead wrote several songs about, or in response to, what lyricist Robert Hunter called "the Altamont affair", including "New Speedway Boogie" (featuring the line "One way or another, this darkness got to give") and "Mason's Children". Both songs were written and recorded during sessions for the early 1970 album "Workingman's Dead," but "Mason's Children" was not included on the album.


title: Altamont Free Concert

text: Altamont also inspired the Blue Öyster Cult song "Transmaniacon MC" ("MC" means "motorcycle club"), the opening track of their first album.


title: Altamont Free Concert

text: The incident is mentioned in the 1996 film "The Cable Guy", in a scene where Jim Carrey's character Chip Douglas performs "Somebody to Love" on karaoke: "You might recognize this song as performed by Jefferson Airplane, in a little rockumentary called "Gimme Shelter", about the Rolling Stones and their nightmare at Altamont. That night the Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels had their way. Tonight, it's my turn."


title: Altamont Free Concert

text: In 2004 Australian electronic psych group Black Cab released their debut LP "Altamont Diary", a concept album based on the concert and its cultural fallout. The LP featured a cover of "New Speedway Boogie".


title: Altamont Free Concert

text: Altamont is also referenced by Don McLean in the song "American Pie" in the song's fifth verse, the majority of which contains symbols related to Altamont: "Jack Flash," a reference to San Francisco ("Candlestick," though that venue had nothing to do with the actual concert), (Sympathy for) "the Devil," an enraged spectator watching something on a stage, and an "angel born in Hell." McLean officially refused to confirm or deny the song's ties to Altamont until he sold his songwriting notes in 2015. Within the context of the song, Altamont served as the culmination of a period that had begun with the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in February 1959, during which "things (were) heading in the wrong direction" and life was "becoming less idyllic."


title: Altamont Free Concert

text: In 2008, a former FBI agent asserted that some members of the Hells Angels had conspired to murder Mick Jagger in retribution for the Rolling Stones' lack of support following the concert, and for the negative portrayal of the Angels in the "Gimme Shelter" film. The conspirators reportedly used a boat to approach a residence where Jagger was staying on Long Island, New York, the plot failing when the boat was nearly sunk by a storm. Jagger's spokesperson has refused to comment on the matter.


title: Altamont Free Concert

text: In January 2022, the Library of Congress shared a 30-minute clip of soundless footage shot from the stage at Altamont. The Library obtained the footage from the Prelinger Archives.


title: Brown sugar

text: Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content (natural brown sugar), or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white sugar (commercial brown sugar).


title: Brown sugar

text: The Codex Alimentarius requires brown sugar to contain at least 88% of sucrose plus invert sugar. Commercial brown sugar contains from 3.5% molasses (light brown sugar) to 6.5% molasses (dark brown sugar) based on total volume. Based on total weight, regular commercial brown sugar contains up to 10% molasses. The product is naturally moist from the hygroscopic nature of the molasses and is often labeled "soft." The product may undergo processing to give a product that flows better for industrial handling. The addition of dyes or other chemicals may be permitted in some areas or for industrial products.


title: Brown sugar

text: Particle size is variable but generally smaller than granulated white sugar. Products for industrial use (e.g., the industrial production of cakes) may be based on caster sugar, which has crystals of approximately 0.35mm.


title: Brown sugar

text: In the late 19th century, the newly consolidated refined white sugar industry, which did not have full control over brown sugar production, mounted a smear campaign against brown sugar, reproducing microscopic photographs of harmless but repulsive-looking microbes living in brown sugar. The effort was so successful that by 1900, a best-selling cookbook warned that brown sugar was of inferior quality and was susceptible to infestation by "a minute insect". This campaign of disinformation was also felt in other sectors using raw or brown sugar such as brewing;


title: Brown sugar

text: Brown sugar is often produced by adding sugarcane molasses to completely refined white sugar crystals to more carefully control the ratio of molasses to sugar crystals and to reduce manufacturing costs. Brown sugar prepared in this manner is often much coarser than its unrefined equivalent and its molasses may be easily separated from the crystals by simply washing to reveal the underlying white sugar crystals; in contrast, with unrefined brown sugar, washing will reveal underlying crystals which are off-white due to the inclusion of molasses.


title: Brown sugar

text: The molasses usually used for food is obtained from sugar cane, because the flavor is generally preferred over beet sugar molasses, although in some areas, especially in Belgium and the Netherlands, sugar beet molasses is used. The white sugar used can be from either beet or cane, as the chemical composition, nutritional value, color, and taste of fully refined white sugar is for practical purposes the same, no matter from what plant it originates. Even with less-than-perfect refining, the small differences in color, odor, and taste of the white sugar will be masked by the molasses.


title: Brown sugar

text: Natural brown sugar, raw sugar or whole cane sugar is sugar that retains some amount of the molasses from the mother liquor (the partially evaporated sugar cane juice). Based upon weight, brown cane sugar when fully refined yields up to 70% white sugar, the degree depending on how much molasses remained in the sugar crystals, which in turn is dependent upon whether the brown sugar was centrifuged or not. As there is more molasses in natural brown sugar, it contains minor nutritional value and mineral content. Some natural brown sugars have particular names and characteristics, and are sold as turbinado, demerara or raw sugar if they have been centrifuged to a large degree. Brown sugars that have been only mildly centrifuged or unrefined (non-centrifuged) retain a much higher degree of molasses and are called various names across the globe according to their country of origin: e.g. panela, rapadura, jaggery, muscovado, piloncillo, etc.


title: Brown sugar

text: Although brown sugar has been touted as having health benefits ranging from soothing menstrual cramps to serving as an anti-aging skin treatment, there is no nutritional basis to support brown sugar as a healthier alternative to refined sugars despite the negligible amounts of minerals in brown sugar not found in white sugar.


title: Brown sugar

text: Turbinado, demerara and "raw" sugars are made from crystallized, partially evaporated sugar cane juice and spun in a centrifuge to remove almost all of the molasses. The sugar crystals are large and golden-coloured. This sugar can be sold as is or sent to the refinery to produce white sugar.


title: Brown sugar

text: Muscovado, panela, piloncillo, chancaca, jaggery and other natural dark brown sugars have been minimally centrifuged or not at all. Typically these sugars are made in smaller factories or "cottage industries" in developing nations, where they are produced with traditional practices that do not make use of industrialized vacuum evaporators or centrifuges. They are commonly boiled in open pans upon wood-fired stoves until the sugar cane juice reaches approximately 30% of the former volume and sucrose crystallization begins. They are then poured into molds to solidify or onto cooling pans where they are beaten or worked vigorously to produce a granulated brown sugar. In some countries, such as Mauritius or the Philippines, a natural brown sugar called muscovado is produced by partially centrifuging the evaporated and crystallizing cane juice to create a sugar-crystal rich mush, which is allowed to drain under gravity to produce varying degrees of molasses content in the final product. This process approximates a slightly modernized practice introduced in the 19th century to generate a better quality of natural brown sugar.


title: Brown sugar

text: A similar Japanese version of uncentrifuged natural cane sugar is called "kokuto" ( "kokutō"). This is a regional specialty of Okinawa and is often sold in the form of large lumps. It is sometimes used to make shochu. Okinawan brown sugar is sometimes referred to as 'black sugar' for its darker colour compared to other types of unrefined sugar, although when broken up into smaller pieces its colour becomes lighter. "Kokuto" is commonly used as a flavouring for drinks and desserts, but can also be eaten raw as it has a taste similar to caramel. The sugar is also thought to be rich in nutrients removed during the refinement process of other sugars, such as potassium and iron.


title: Brown sugar

text: Brown sugar adds flavor to desserts and baked goods. It can be substituted for maple sugar, and maple sugar can be substituted for it in recipes. Brown sugar caramelizes much more readily than refined sugar, and this effect can be used to make glazes and gravies brown while cooking.


title: Brown sugar

text: For domestic purposes one can create the equivalent of brown sugar by mixing white sugar with molasses. Suitable proportions are about one tablespoon of molasses to each cup of sugar (one-sixteenth of the total volume). Molasses comprises 10% of brown sugar's total weight, which is about one ninth of the white sugar weight. Due to varying qualities and colors of molasses products, for lighter or darker sugar, reduce or increase its proportion according to taste.


title: Brown sugar

text: In following a modern recipe that specifies "brown sugar", one usually may assume that the intended meaning is light brown sugar, but which one prefers is largely a matter of taste. Even in recipes such as cakes, where the moisture content might be critical, the amount of water involved is too small to matter. More importantly, adding dark brown sugar or molasses will impart a stronger flavor, with more of a suggestion of caramel.


title: Brown sugar

text: Brown sugar that has hardened can be made soft again by adding a new source of moisture for the molasses, or by heating and remelting the molasses. Storing brown sugar in a freezer will prevent moisture from escaping and molasses from crystallizing, allowing for a much longer shelf life.


title: Brown sugar

text: One hundred grams of brown sugar contains 377 Calories (nutrition table), as opposed to 387 Calories in white sugar (link to nutrition table). However, brown sugar packs more densely than white sugar due to the smaller crystal size and may have more calories when measured by volume.


title: Brown sugar

text: Any minerals present in brown sugar come from the molasses added to the white sugar. In a 100-gram reference amount, brown sugar contains 15% of the Daily Value for iron, with no other vitamins or minerals in significant content (table).


title: Atoll

text: An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can grow. Most of the approximately 440 atolls in the world are in the Pacific Ocean.


title: Atoll

text: Two different, well-cited models, the subsidence and antecedent karst models, have been used to explain the development of atolls. According to Charles Darwin's "subsidence model", the formation of an atoll is explained by the subsidence of a volcanic island around which a coral fringing reef has formed. Over geologic time, the volcanic island becomes extinct and eroded as it subsides completely beneath the surface of the ocean. As the volcanic island subsides, the coral fringing reef becomes a barrier reef that is detached from the island. Eventually, reef and the small coral islets on top of it are all that is left of the original island, and a lagoon has taken the place of the former volcano. The lagoon is not the former volcanic crater. For the atoll to persist, the coral reef must be maintained at the sea surface, with coral growth matching any relative change in sea level (subsidence of the island or rising oceans).


title: Atoll

text: An alternative model for the origin of atolls, called the "antecedent karst" model, was first proposed by J. E. Hoffmeister, later revised by E. G. Prudy, and evaluated and modified using a compilation of seismic reflection and drillhole data from various atolls by A. W. Droxler and others. In the antecedent karst model, the first step in the formation of an atoll is the development of a flat top, mound-like coral reef during the subsidence of an oceanic island of either volcanic or nonvolcanic origin below sea level. Then, when relative sea level drops below the level of the flat surface of coral reef, it is exposed to the atmosphere as a flat topped island which is dissolved by rainfall to form limestone karst. Because of hydrologic properties of this karst, the rate of dissolution of the exposed coral is lowest along its rim and the rate of dissolution increases inward to its maximum at the center of the island. As a result, a saucer shaped island with a raised rim forms. When relative sea level submerges the island again, the rim provides a rocky core on which coral grow again to form the islands of an atoll and the flooded bottom of the saucer forms the lagoon within them.


title: Atoll

text: The word "atoll" comes from the Dhivehi word "atholhu" (Dhivehi: , ), Dhivehi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Maldives. The word's first recorded English use was in 1625 as "atollon". Charles Darwin coined the term in his monograph, "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs". He recognized the word's indigenous origin and defined it as a "circular group of coral islets", synonymously with "lagoon-island".


title: Atoll

text: More modern definitions of "atoll" describe them as "annular reefs enclosing a lagoon in which there are no promontories other than reefs and islets composed of reef detritus" or "in an exclusively morphological sense, [as] a ring-shaped ribbon reef enclosing a lagoon".


title: Atoll

text: Most of the world's atolls are in the Pacific Ocean (with concentrations in the Caroline Islands, the Coral Sea Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Tuamotu Islands, Kiribati, Tokelau, and Tuvalu) and the Indian Ocean (the Chagos Archipelago, Lakshadweep, the atolls of the Maldives, and the Outer Islands of Seychelles). The Atlantic Ocean has no large groups of atolls, other than eight atolls east of Nicaragua that belong to the Colombian department of San Andres and Providencia in the Caribbean.


title: Atoll

text: Reef-building corals will thrive only in warm tropical and subtropical waters of oceans and seas, and therefore atolls are found only in the tropics and subtropics. The northernmost atoll in the world is Kure Atoll at 28°25′ N, along with other atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The southernmost atolls in the world are Elizabeth Reef at 29°57′ S, and nearby Middleton Reef at 29°27′ S, in the Tasman Sea, both of which are part of the Coral Sea Islands Territory. The next southerly atoll is Ducie Island in the Pitcairn Islands Group, at 24°41′ S.


title: Atoll

text: The atoll closest to the Equator is Aranuka of Kiribati. Its southern tip is just 13 km (8 mi) north of the Equator.


title: Atoll

text: Bermuda is sometimes claimed as the "northernmost atoll" at a latitude of 32°18′ N. At this latitude, coral reefs would not develop without the warming waters of the Gulf Stream. However, Bermuda is termed a "pseudo-atoll" because its general form, while resembling that of an atoll, has a very different origin of formation.


title: Atoll

text: In most cases, the land area of an atoll is very small in comparison to the total area. Atoll islands are low lying, with their elevations less than . Measured by total area, Lifou () is the largest raised coral atoll of the world, followed by Rennell Island (). More sources, however, list Kiritimati as the largest atoll in the world in terms of land area. It is also a raised coral atoll ( land area; according to other sources even ), main lagoon, other lagoons (according to other sources total lagoon size).


title: Atoll

text: The remains of an ancient atoll as a hill in a limestone area is called a reef knoll. The second largest atoll by dry land area is Aldabra, with . The largest atoll in terms of island numbers is Huvadhu Atoll in the south of the Maldives, with 255 islands.


title: Atoll

text: In 1842, Charles Darwin explained the creation of coral atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean based upon observations made during a five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Darwin's explanation suggests that several tropical island types: from high volcanic island, through barrier reef island, to atoll, represented a sequence of gradual subsidence of what started as an oceanic volcano. He reasoned that a fringing coral reef surrounding a volcanic island in the tropical sea will grow upward as the island subsides (sinks), becoming an "almost atoll", or barrier reef island, as typified by an island such as Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, and Bora Bora and others in the Society Islands. The fringing reef becomes a barrier reef for the reason that the outer part of the reef maintains itself near sea level through biotic growth, while the inner part of the reef falls behind, becoming a lagoon because conditions are less favorable for the coral and calcareous algae responsible for most reef growth. In time, subsidence carries the old volcano below the ocean surface and the barrier reef remains. At this point, the island has become an atoll.


title: Atoll

text: As formulated by J. E. Hoffmeister, F. S. McNeil, E. G. Prudy, and others, the antecedent karst model argues that atolls are Pleistocene features that are the direct result of the interaction between subsidence and preferential karst dissolution that occurred in the interior of flat topped coral reefs during exposure during glacial lowstands of sea level. The elevated rims along an island created by this preferential karst dissolution become the sites of coral growth and islands of atolls when flooded during interglacial highstands.


title: Atoll

text: The research of A. W. Droxler and others supports the antecedent karst model as they found that the morphology of modern atolls are independent of any influence of an underlying submerged and buried island and are not rooted to an initial fringing reef /barrier reef attached to a slowly subsiding volcanic edifice. In fact, the Neogene reefs underlying the studied modern atolls overlie and completely bury the subsided island are all non-atoll, flat-topped reefs. In fact, they found that atolls did not form doing the subsidence of an island until MIS-11, Mid-Brunhes, long after the many the former islands had been completely submerged and buried by flat topped reefs during the Neogene.


title: Atoll

text: Atolls are the product of the growth of tropical marine organisms, and so these islands are found only in warm tropical waters. Volcanic islands located beyond the warm water temperature requirements of hermatypic (reef-building) organisms become seamounts as they subside, and are eroded away at the surface. An island that is located where the ocean water temperatures are just sufficiently warm for upward reef growth to keep pace with the rate of subsidence is said to be at the Darwin Point. Islands in colder, more polar regions evolve toward seamounts or guyots; warmer, more equatorial islands evolve toward atolls, for example Kure Atoll. However, ancient atolls during the Mesozoic appear to exhibit different growth and evolution patterns.


title: Atoll

text: Coral atolls are important as sites where dolomitization of calcite occurs. Several models have been proposed for the dolomitization of calcite and aragonite within them. They are the evaporative, seepage-reflux, mixing-zone, burial, and seawater models. Although the origin of replacement dolomites remains problematic and controversial, it is generally accepted that seawater was the source of magnesium for dolomitization and the fluid in which calcite was dolomitized to form the dolomites found within atolls. Various processes have been invoked to drive large amounts of seawater through an atoll in order for dolomitization to occur.


title: Atoll

text: In 1896, 1897 and 1898, the Royal Society of London carried out drilling on Funafuti atoll in Tuvalu for the purpose of investigating the formation of coral reefs. They wanted to determine whether traces of shallow water organisms could be found at depth in the coral of Pacific atolls. This investigation followed the work on the structure and distribution of coral reefs conducted by Charles Darwin in the Pacific.


title: Atoll

text: The first expedition in 1896 was led by Professor William Johnson Sollas of the University of Oxford. Geologists included Walter George Woolnough and Edgeworth David of the University of Sydney. Professor Edgeworth David led the expedition in 1897. The third expedition in 1898 was led by Alfred Edmund Finckh.


title: Atoll

text: On January 6, 2009, U.S. President George W. Bush announced the creation of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, covering several islands and atolls under U.S. jurisdiction.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Steve Roland "Pre" Prefontaine (January 25, 1951 – May 30, 1975) was an American long-distance runner who from 1973 to 1975 set American records at every distance from 2,000 to 10,000 meters. He competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics, and was preparing for the 1976 Olympics with the Oregon Track Club at the time of his death in 1975. Prefontaine's career, alongside those of Jim Ryun, Frank Shorter, and Bill Rodgers, generated considerable media coverage, which helped inspire the 1970s "running boom." He died at age 24 in an automobile crash near his residence in Eugene, Oregon. One of the premier track meets in the world, the Prefontaine Classic, is held annually in Eugene in his honor. Prefontaine's celebrity and charisma later resulted in two 1990s feature films about his short life.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine was born on January 25, 1951, in Coos Bay, Oregon. His father, Raymond George Prefontaine (November 11, 1919 – December 21, 2004), was a welder who served in the U.S. Army in World War II. Steve's mother, Elfriede Anna Marie Sennholz (March 4, 1925 – July 16, 2013), worked as a seamstress. The two returned to Coos Bay after Ray met Elfriede in Germany while serving with the U.S. occupation The middle child and only son, he had two sisters, Neta and Linda, and they all grew up in a house built by their father.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine was an exuberant person, even during his formative years. He was always moving around, partaking in different activities and events. In junior high, Prefontaine was on his school's football and basketball teams but was rarely allowed to play because of his short stature. In the eighth grade, he noticed several high school cross country team members jog to practice past the football field, an activity he then viewed as mundane. Later that year, he realized he could compete well in long-distance races during a three-week conditioning period in his physical education class. By the second week of the daily mile runs, Prefontaine could finish second in the group. With this newfound success and athletic ability, he fell in love with cross country running.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: When he got into Marshfield High School in the fall of 1965, Prefontaine joined the cross country team, coached by Walt McClure, Jr. McClure had run under coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon in Eugene and his father, Walt McClure, Sr. had run under Bill Hayward, also at Oregon.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine's freshman and sophomore years were decent, and he managed a personal best of 5:01 in the mile in his first year. Though starting as the seventh man, he progressed to be the second by the end of the year and placed 53rd in the state championship. In his sophomore year; he failed to qualify for the state meet in his event, the two-mile. However, his coach recalls that it was his sophomore year when his potential in the sport began to surface.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: With the advice of Walt McClure, Prefontaine's high school coach, he took it upon himself to train hard over the summer. He went through his junior cross country season undefeated and won the state title.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: In his senior year, many of his highest goals were set. He obtained a national record at the Corvallis Invitational with a time of 8:41.5, only one and a half seconds slower than his goal, and 6.9 seconds better than the previous record. He won two more state titles that year after another undefeated season in both the one and two mile


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Some forty colleges across the nation recruited Prefontaine, and he received numerous phone calls, letters, and drop-in visits from coaches. He referred many of his calls to McClure, who wanted Prefontaine to attend the University of Oregon. McClure turned away those universities that began trying to recruit him late. McClure maintained that he did not sway Prefontaine's collegiate choice, except to ask Steve where all the distance runners went to college.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine wanted to stay in-state for college and attend the University of Oregon. He had not heard much from Bill Bowerman, the head coach for the University of Oregon. Prefontaine only received letters from Oregon once a month, whereas other universities such as Villanova were persistent in recruiting him. As a result, Prefontaine did not know how much Bill Bowerman wanted him to attend Oregon. Bowerman stated that he did not recruit Prefontaine differently from anyone else. It was a matter of principle for him to advise recruits where to attend college, wherever it may be, and to not bombard the recruits with correspondence. He had followed Prefontaine's career since he was a sophomore and agreed with McClure in his assessment of Steve being a highly talented athlete.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: It wasn't until Prefontaine read Bowerman's letter that he decided to attend the University of Oregon. Bowerman wrote that he was 'certain' Prefontaine would become the world's greatest distance runner if he decided to run at Oregon. Although it was an odd promise, Prefontaine was up for the challenge. Sometime after Prefontaine announced that he signed a letter of intent to attend Oregon on the first of May in 1969, Bowerman wrote a letter addressed to the community of Coos Bay describing his appreciation for their role in helping Steve become a great runner.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Steve Prefontaine decided to enroll at the University of Oregon to train under coach Bill Bowerman (who in 1964 co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports, later to become known as Nike). He won four 5,000-meter titles in track three times in a row. At this time, he suffered only two more defeats in college (both in the mile), winning three Division I NCAA Cross Country Championships and four straight three-mile/5000-meter titles in track. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine became known as a very aggressive front runner, insisting on going out hard from the start and not relinquishing leads, reminiscent of the renowned 1956 Olympic gold medalist Vladimir Kuts, another famous front runner at 5,000 meters. Prefontaine said, "No one will ever win a 5,000 meter race by running an easy first two miles. Not against me." He would later state, "I am going to work so that it's a pure guts race. In the end, if it is, I'm the only one that can win it". Along with his reputation for leading early instead of pacing himself until the last lap, Prefontaine had tremendous leg speed; his career-best for the mile (3:54.6) was only 3.5 seconds off the world record at the time.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: A local celebrity, chants of "Pre! Pre! Pre!" became a frequent feature at Hayward Field, a place where famous runners ran. Fans liked to wear T-shirts that read "LEGEND" or "GO PRE", though there was one instance where a group of fans jokingly put on shirts that read "STOP PRE". Prefontaine found humor in the shirts and, when offered, decided to wear one for his victory lap. Prefontaine rapidly gained national attention and appeared on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" at age 19 in June 1970. He was on the cover of "Track and Field News's" November 1969 issue.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: In 1971, he began his training for the following year's Olympic Games in Munich, which had special meaning for his family (his mother was German, and his parents had met and married in Germany). Prefontaine set the American record of 13:22.8 in the 5,000 meters at the 1972 Olympic Trials in Eugene on July 9. An underdog at the 1972 Olympics in Munich in September, Prefontaine took the lead in the 5,000 m final during the last mile and ended the slow pace of the first two miles, negative splitting the race. In second place at the start of the bell lap, he fell back to third with 200 meters to go. Lasse Virén took the lead in the final turn over silver medalist Mohammed Gammoudi. Finding himself struggling to keep up, Prefontaine ran out of gas with only 10 meters to go as Britain's hard-charging Ian Stewart overtook him and moved into third place, depriving Prefontaine of an Olympic bronze medal. Prefontaine later said "That was the most disappointed I have ever been. I guess I underestimated the strength of Viren and Gammoudi, and Stewart was way too good for me at the end. That last 200 metres, I felt exhausted. They didn't allow me to run the race the way I had planned to, I was chasing them all the way." Following his fourth-place finish in the Olympic Games, Prefontaine went back to the University of Oregon with a newfound enthusiasm for running after his disappointing showing at the Olympics. This disappointment in his performance drove Pre to train harder than ever for his senior year of athletics, often logging over 10 miles per morning before he started his day.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: In his four years at Oregon, Prefontaine never lost a collegiate (NCAA) race at 3 miles, 5,000 meters, 6 miles, or 10,000 meters. Returning for his senior he ended his collegiate career with only three defeats in Eugene, all in the mile. It was during this year that Prefontaine began a protracted fight with the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which demanded that athletes who wanted to remain "amateur" for the Olympics not be paid for appearances in track meets. Some viewed this arrangement as unfair, because the participants drew large crowds that generated millions of dollars in revenue, with the athletes being forced to shoulder the burden of all their own expenses without assistance. At the time, the AAU was rescinding athletes' amateur status if they were endorsed in any way. Because Prefontaine was accepting free clothes and footwear from Nike, he was subject to the AAU's ruling.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Following his collegiate career at Oregon, Prefontaine prepared for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. While running for the Oregon Track Club, Prefontaine set American records in every race from 2,000 to 10,000 meters.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: In 1974, Prefontaine gave a presentation at a banquet. It was held in Eugene the night prior to the Junior College Cross Country Championships. Prefontaine talked about the importance of cross country through his own eyes. After his death, the notes Prefontaine made were given to his family.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: In 1975, a group of traveling Finnish athletes took part in an NCAA Prep meet at Hayward Field in Eugene. After the event on Thursday, May 29, which included a 5,000-meter race that Prefontaine won, the Finnish and American athletes attended a party at the home of former Duck runner Geoff Hollister. Shortly after midnight, Prefontaine left the party to drive Frank Shorter to Kenny Moore's home on Prospect Drive, then descended narrow Skyline Boulevard alone, east of the university campus near Hendricks Park. While in the extended right curve near the base, his gold-colored 1973 MGB convertible crossed the center line, jumped the curb, impacted a rock wall () and flipped, trapping him underneath it. One of the first persons on the scene was 20-year-old Karl Bylund, who raced from the scene in his car to his residence to get his dad, a doctor. A nearby resident, Bill Alvarado (1936–2006), arrived next on the scene (he had heard Bylund's car screeching off) and reported he found Prefontaine flat on his back, still alive but pinned beneath the wreck. By the time medics arrived, he was pronounced dead. It had been reported that his blood alcohol content was found by the Eugene Police Department to The official cause of death was traumatic asphyxiation and he had no other injuries that contributed.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine's body was buried in his hometown of Coos Bay at Sunset Memorial Park. A day after his funeral in Coos Bay, a memorial service at Hayward Field in Eugene drew thousands.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Eugene's "Register-Guard" called his death "the end of an era". At his death, Prefontaine was probably the most popular athlete in Oregon and, along with Jim Ryun, Frank Shorter, Jeff Galloway and Bill Rodgers, was credited with sparking the national running boom of the 1970s. An annual track event, the Prefontaine Classic, has been held in his memory since 1975. Known as the "Hayward Field Restoration Meet" in its first two years, it was rebranded as the "Bowerman Classic" for 1975 and set for June 7. Two days after Prefontaine's death, it was renamed by the Oregon Track Club on June 1, with Bill Bowerman's approval, and the first "Pre Classic" was held six days later.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: During his career, Prefontaine won 120 of the 153 races he ran (), and never lost a collegiate (NCAA) track race longer than one mile at the University of Oregon. In 2020, SuperWest Sports included Prefontaine in its list of The Greatest Pac-12 Male Track and Field Athletes of All Time.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: "Pre's Rock" is a memorial at the base of the roadside outcrop where Prefontaine died. An engraved stone memorial with a picture of Prefontaine, it reads:


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Runners inspired by Prefontaine leave behind memorabilia to honor his memory and his continued influence, such as race numbers, medals, and running shoes. Paying such homage to Prefontaine has become a tradition that reaches a height during important or noteworthy running events in Eugene (e.g. the Olympic Trials or the Prefontaine Classic). As University of Oregon professor Daniel Wojcik documents in his study of the memorial, Pre's Rock has become both a grassroots shrine and pilgrimage site for athletes and non-athletes from around the world.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Pre's Rock was dedicated in December 1997 and is maintained by Eugene Parks and Recreation as "Prefontaine Memorial Park". The rock () is a mile (1.6 km) due east of Hayward Field, just across the Willamette River from the east end of Pre's Trail. On Skyline Boulevard, it is approximately from its intersection with Birch Lane.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: The Prefontaine Memorial, featuring a relief of his face, records, and date of birth, is located at the Coos Bay Visitor Center in Coos Bay. In 2008, ten memorial plaques were laid along the Prefontaine Memorial Race route, the former training grounds of Prefontaine. The plaques bear an image of Prefontaine from his high school yearbook and various quotes and records from his time in Coos Bay. The plaques were part of a grant from the Oregon Tourism Commission, the Coos Bay-North Bend Visitor & Convention Bureau, and the Prefontaine Memorial Committee.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Each year on the third Saturday of September in Coos Bay, over a thousand runners engage in the Prefontaine Memorial Run, a 10k run honoring his accomplishments.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: The Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay contains a section dedicated to Prefontaine. This section includes medals he won during his career and the pair of spikes he wore when setting an American record for the 5,000 meters at Hayward Field.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1983, where several exhibits showcase his shoes, shirts, and other memorabilia. He was also inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in upper Manhattan where one of his Oregon track uniforms is on display.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: The Pete Susick Stadium at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay dedicated their track to honor Prefontaine, in April 2001.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Nike used video footage in a commercial titled "Pre Lives" advertising his spirit for their product. On the 30th anniversary of his death in 2005, Nike placed a memorial advertisement in "Sports Illustrated", Eugene's "Register-Guard", and aired a television commercial in his honor. Nike's headquarters have a building named after him.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: The day after Prefontaine's death, the "Register-Guard" printed "Ode to S. Roland", a poem by chief American rival Dick Buerkle.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine remains an iconic figure at the University of Oregon to this day. In 2020, the university polled alumni and fans on social media, asking them which four UO alumni they would place on a national Mount Rushmore for the university. Prefontaine was one of the four winners, along with Nike co-founder Phil Knight; current NFL player Marcus Mariota, the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner; and Sabrina Ionescu, who had just completed an epic college basketball career for the Ducks.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Steve Prefontaine's life story has been detailed in two feature films: 1997's "Prefontaine" (starring Jared Leto as Prefontaine) and 1998's "Without Limits" (starring Billy Crudup as Prefontaine), as well as the documentary film "Fire on the Track".


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Minnesota Golden Gopher Head Football Coach P.J. Fleck uses “Prefontaine Pace” among his many motivational sayings.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: Prefontaine is referenced in the chorus of the track "Strong" off Charles Wesley Godwin's 2021 album "How the Mighty Fall".


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: At the time of his death in May 1975, Prefontaine held every American outdoor track record between 2,000 and 10,000 meters. His personal best times over each distance, including those records, are below.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: While at Oregon Prefontaine won seven NCAA national titles: three in cross country, '70, '71 and '73; and four in track, '70, '71, '72 and '73. He was the first athlete to win four NCAA track titles in the same event.


title: Steve Prefontaine

text: During his junior and senior years at Marshfield High School, Prefontaine went undefeated in both cross country and track.


title: Winter's Bone

text: Winter's Bone is a 2010 American coming-of-age mystery drama film directed by Debra Granik. It was adapted by Granik and Anne Rosellini from the 2006 novel of the same name by Daniel Woodrell. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence as a poverty-stricken teenage girl named Ree Dolly in the rural Ozarks of Missouri who, to protect her family from eviction, must locate her missing father. The film explores the interrelated themes of close and distant family ties, the power and speed of gossip, self-sufficiency, poverty, and patriarchy as they are influenced by the pervasive underworld of illegal meth labs.


title: Winter's Bone

text: The film won several awards, including the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It also received four Oscar nominations at the 83rd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress in a Leading Role for 20-year-old Lawrence (the second-youngest Best Actress nominee at the time) and Best Supporting Actor for John Hawkes. In addition, Lawrence was nominated for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama and Outstanding Leading Actress at the 68th Golden Globe Awards and 17th Screen Actors Guild Awards, respectively.


title: Winter's Bone

text: In the rural Ozarks of Missouri, seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly looks after her mentally ill mother, Connie, twelve-year-old brother Sonny, and six-year-old sister Ashlee. She makes sure her siblings eat and teaches them survival skills such as hunting and cooking. The family is destitute. Ree's father, Jessup, has not been home for a long time; his whereabouts are unknown. He is out on bail following an arrest for manufacturing meth.


title: Winter's Bone

text: Sheriff Baskin tells Ree that if her father does not appear for his court date, they will lose the house because it was put up as part of his bond. Ree sets out to find her father. She starts with her meth-addicted uncle Teardrop and continues to more distant kin, eventually trying to talk to the local crime boss, Thump Milton. Milton refuses to see her; the only information Ree comes up with are warnings to leave the situation alone and stories that Jessup died in a meth lab fire or skipped town to avoid the trial.


title: Winter's Bone

text: When Jessup fails to appear for the trial, the bondsman comes looking for him and tells Ree that she has about a week before the house and land are seized. Ree tells him that Jessup must be dead, because "Dollys don't run". He tells her that she must provide proof that her father is dead to avoid the bond being forfeited.


title: Winter's Bone

text: Ree tries to go see Milton again and is severely beaten by the women of his family. Teardrop rescues Ree, promising her attackers that she will not cause more trouble. Teardrop tells Ree that her father was killed because he was going to inform on other meth cookers, but he does not know who killed him. He warns her that if she finds out who did, she must not tell him. Later, Ree talks to an Army recruiter about enlisting for the $40,000 bonus, but he tells her that she needs her parents' signatures to enlist and that she has the wrong reasons. On the way home from a bar, Ree and her uncle are stopped by the sheriff, who wants to question Teardrop. After a tense standoff, where Teardrop implies that he knows the Sheriff leaked that Jessup was an informer, Teardrop drives off.


title: Winter's Bone

text: A few nights later, the Milton women who beat Ree come to her house and offer to take her to "[her] daddy's bones". The women place a sack on her head and drive her to a pond, where they row to the shallow area where her father's submerged body lies. They tell Ree to reach into the water and grasp her father's hands so they can cut them off with a chainsaw; the severed hands will serve as proof of death for the authorities. Ree takes the hands to the sheriff, telling him that someone flung them onto the porch of her house.


title: Winter's Bone

text: The bondsman gives Ree the cash portion of the bond, which was put up by an anonymous associate of Jessup. Ree tries to give Jessup's banjo to Teardrop, but he tells her to keep it at the house for him. As he is leaving, he tells her that he now knows who killed her father. Ree reassures Sonny and Ashlee that she will never leave them. As the three sit on the porch, Ashlee begins to play the banjo.


title: Winter's Bone

text: "Winter's Bone" received critical acclaim, with Jennifer Lawrence's performance being universally lauded. The film has an approval rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 175 reviews with an average score of 8.30/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Bleak, haunting, and yet still somehow hopeful, "Winter's Bone" is writer-director Debra Granik's best work yet — and it boasts an incredible, starmaking performance from Jennifer Lawrence." The film also has a score of 90 out of 100 on Metacritic based on reviews from 38 critics indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Winter's Bone

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, praising Lawrence's steely "hope and courage" that remains optimistic despite her tribulations, and calling attention to Granik's direction that avoids passing moral judgment on the characters or descending into stereotypes. Reviewer Peter Travers found the film "unforgettable", writing in "Rolling Stone", "Granik handles this volatile, borderline horrific material with unblinking ferocity and feeling... In Lawrence, Granik has found just the right young actress to inhabit Ree. Her performance is more than acting, it's a gathering storm." Critic James Berardinelli said that ""Winter's Bone" is a welcome reminder that thrillers don't have to be loud and boisterous to grab the attention and keep it captive." David Edelstein wrote in "New York" magazine, "For all the horror, it’s the drive toward life, not the decay, that lingers in the mind. As a modern heroine, Ree Dolly has no peer, and "Winter’s Bone" is the year’s most stirring film." "New Yorker" critic David Denby called "Winter's Bone" "one of the great feminist works in film".


title: Winter's Bone

text: "Winter's Bone" was highly rated in many critics end-of-year lists, and Metacritic ranked it in second place for the year, only behind The Social Network.


title: Winter's Bone

text: The Writers Guild Foundation listed the script as one of the best in 2010s film and television. The script was praised as "filled with really specific dialogue and mountain speak, which just makes everything more vivid."


title: Winter's Bone

text: "Winter's Bone" debuted in cinemas on June 11, 2010 in a limited release in 4 theaters and grossed "a hearty" $84,797, with an average of $21,199 per theater and ranking #35 at the box office. The film's subsequent outing and expansion to 39 theaters earned $351,317, with an average of $9,008 per theater. The film's distributors Roadside Attractions aimed, concurrently with New York, Los Angeles and Boston, at "heartland cities" such as Minneapolis, Overland Park, St. Louis, Springfield, Dallas and Denver, which eventually all attracted significant audiences, surpassing New York's. According to the distributor, "the filmmakers had always wanted to deliver the movie to the people who helped them make it". The film was in cinemas for over 45 weeks and ultimately earned $6,531,503 domestically and $9,600,048 internationally for a total of $16,131,551, surpassing its $2 million budget.


title: Winter's Bone

text: The film won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film and the Best Screenplay Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It also received two awards at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival in Germany and at the 2010 Stockholm International Film Festival, it won the awards for Best Film, Best Actress (Lawrence) and the Fipresci Prize.


title: Winter's Bone

text: "Winter's Bone" also won Best Feature and Best Ensemble Performance at the 2010 Gotham Awards and it earned seven nominations at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress.


title: Helium-3

text: Helium-3 (He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (the most common isotope, helium-4, having two protons and two neutrons in contrast). Other than protium (ordinary hydrogen), helium-3 is the only stable isotope of any element with more protons than neutrons. Helium-3 was discovered in 1939.


title: Helium-3

text: Helium-3 occurs as a primordial nuclide, escaping from Earth's crust into its atmosphere and into outer space over millions of years. Helium-3 is also thought to be a natural nucleogenic and cosmogenic nuclide, one produced when lithium is bombarded by natural neutrons, which can be released by spontaneous fission and by nuclear reactions with cosmic rays. Some of the helium-3 found in the terrestrial atmosphere is also an artifact of atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing.


title: Helium-3

text: Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most nuclear fusion reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms releases large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive. However, the temperatures required to achieve helium-3 fusion reactions are much higher than in traditional fusion reactions, and the process may unavoidably create other reactions that themselves would cause the surrounding material to become radioactive.


title: Helium-3

text: The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years, though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants.


title: Helium-3

text: The existence of helium-3 was first proposed in 1934 by the Australian nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant while he was working at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory. Oliphant had performed experiments in which fast deuterons collided with deuteron targets (incidentally, the first demonstration of nuclear fusion). Isolation of helium-3 was first accomplished by Luis Alvarez and Robert Cornog in 1939. Helium-3 was thought to be a radioactive isotope until it was also found in samples of natural helium, which is mostly helium-4, taken both from the terrestrial atmosphere and from natural gas wells.


title: Helium-3

text: Because of its low atomic mass of 3.016 u, helium-3 has some physical properties different from those of helium-4, with a mass of 4.0026 u. Because of the weak, induced dipole–dipole interaction between the helium atoms, their microscopic physical properties are mainly determined by their zero-point energy. Also, the microscopic properties of helium-3 cause it to have a higher zero-point energy than helium-4. This implies that helium-3 can overcome dipole–dipole interactions with less thermal energy than helium-4 can.


title: Helium-3

text: The quantum mechanical effects on helium-3 and helium-4 are significantly different because with two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons, helium-4 has an overall spin of zero, making it a boson, but with one fewer neutron, helium-3 has an overall spin of one half, making it a fermion.


title: Helium-3

text: Helium-3 boils at 3.19 K compared with helium-4 at 4.23 K, and its critical point is also lower at 3.35 K, compared with helium-4 at 5.2 K. Helium-3 has less than half the density of helium-4 when it is at its boiling point: 59 g/L compared to 125 g/L of helium-4 at a pressure of one atmosphere. Its latent heat of vaporization is also considerably lower at 0.026 kJ/mol compared with the 0.0829 kJ/mol of helium-4.


title: Helium-3

text: He is a primordial substance in the Earth's mantle, considered to have become entrapped within the Earth during planetary formation. The ratio of He to He within the Earth's crust and mantle is less than that for assumptions of solar disk composition as obtained from meteorite and lunar samples, with terrestrial materials generally containing lower He/He ratios due to ingrowth of He from radioactive decay.


title: Helium-3

text: He has a cosmological ratio of 300 atoms per million atoms of He (at. ppm), leading to the assumption that the original ratio of these primordial gases in the mantle was around 200-300 ppm when Earth was formed. Over Earth's history alpha-particle decay of uranium, thorium and other radioactive isotopes has generated significant amounts of He, such that only around 7% of the helium now in the mantle is primordial helium, lowering the total He/He ratio to around 20 ppm. Ratios of He/He in excess of atmospheric are indicative of a contribution of He from the mantle. Crustal sources are dominated by the He produced by radioactive decay.


title: Helium-3

text: The ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 in natural Earth-bound sources varies greatly. Samples of the lithium ore spodumene from Edison Mine, South Dakota were found to contain 12 parts of helium-3 to a million parts of helium-4. Samples from other mines showed 2 parts per million.


title: Helium-3

text: Helium is also present as up to 7% of some natural gas sources, and large sources have over 0.5% (above 0.2% makes it viable to extract). The fraction of He in helium separated from natural gas in the U.S. was found to range from 70 to 242 parts per billion.<ref name="BoM/DoI"></ref> Hence the US 2002 stockpile of 1 billion normal m would have contained about of helium-3. According to American physicist Richard Garwin, about or almost of He is available annually for separation from the US natural gas stream. If the process of separating out the He could employ as feedstock the liquefied helium typically used to transport and store bulk quantities, estimates for the incremental energy cost range from NTP, excluding the cost of infrastructure and equipment. Algeria's annual gas production is assumed to contain 100 million normal cubic metres and this would contain between of helium-3 (about ) assuming a similar He fraction.


title: Helium-3

text: He is also present in the Earth's atmosphere. The natural abundance of He in naturally occurring helium gas is 1.38 (1.38 parts per million). The partial pressure of helium in the Earth's atmosphere is about , and thus helium accounts for 5.2 parts per million of the total pressure (101325 Pa) in the Earth's atmosphere, and He thus accounts for 7.2 parts per trillion of the atmosphere. Since the atmosphere of the Earth has a mass of about , the mass of He in the Earth's atmosphere is the product of these numbers, or about of He. (In fact the effective figure is ten times smaller, since the above ppm are ppmv and not ppmw. One must multiply by 3 (the molecular mass of helium-3) and divide by 29 (the mean molecular mass of the atmosphere), resulting in of helium-3 in the earth's atmosphere.)


title: Helium-3

text: He is produced on Earth from three sources: lithium spallation, cosmic rays, and beta decay of tritium (H). The contribution from cosmic rays is negligible within all except the oldest regolith materials, and lithium spallation reactions are a lesser contributor than the production of He by alpha particle emissions.


title: Helium-3

text: The total amount of helium-3 in the mantle may be in the range of . However, most of the mantle is not directly accessible. Some helium-3 leaks up through deep-sourced hotspot volcanoes such as those of the Hawaiian Islands, but only per year is emitted to the atmosphere. Mid-ocean ridges emit another . Around subduction zones, various sources produce helium-3 in natural gas deposits which possibly contain a thousand tonnes of helium-3 (although there may be 25 thousand tonnes if all ancient subduction zones have such deposits). Wittenberg estimated that United States crustal natural gas sources may have only half a tonne total. Wittenberg cited Anderson's estimate of another in interplanetary dust particles on the ocean floors. In the 1994 study, extracting helium-3 from these sources consumes more energy than fusion would release.


title: Helium-3

text: One early estimate of the primordial ratio of He to He in the solar nebula has been the measurement of their ratio in the atmosphere of Jupiter, measured by the mass spectrometer of the Galileo atmospheric entry probe. This ratio is about 1:10,000, or 100 parts of He per million parts of He. This is roughly the same ratio of the isotopes as in lunar regolith, which contains 28 ppm helium-4 and 2.8 ppb helium-3 (which is at the lower end of actual sample measurements, which vary from about 1.4 to 15 ppb). However, terrestrial ratios of the isotopes are lower by a factor of 100, mainly due to enrichment of helium-4 stocks in the mantle by billions of years of alpha decay from uranium, thorium as well as their decay products and extinct radionuclides.


title: Helium-3

text: Virtually all helium-3 used in industry today is produced from the radioactive decay of tritium, given its very low natural abundance and its very high cost.


title: Helium-3

text: Production, sales and distribution of helium-3 in the United States are managed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Isotope Program.


title: Helium-3

text: While tritium has several different experimentally determined values of its half-life, NIST lists (). It decays into helium-3 by beta decay as in this nuclear equation:


title: Helium-3

text: Among the total released energy of , the part taken by electron's kinetic energy varies, with an average of , while the remaining energy is carried off by the nearly undetectable electron antineutrino.


title: Helium-3

text: Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin. The unusually low energy released in the tritium beta decay makes the decay (along with that of rhenium-187) appropriate for absolute neutrino mass measurements in the laboratory (the most recent experiment being KATRIN).


title: Helium-3

text: The low energy of tritium's radiation makes it difficult to detect tritium-labeled compounds except by using liquid scintillation counting.


title: Helium-3

text: Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is typically produced by bombarding lithium-6 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The lithium nucleus absorbs a neutron and splits into helium-4 and tritium. Tritium decays into helium-3 with a half-life of , so helium-3 can be produced by simply storing the tritium until it undergoes radioactive decay. As tritium forms a stable compound with oxygen (tritiated water) while helium-3 does not, the storage and collection process could continuously collect the material that outgasses from the stored material.


title: Helium-3

text: Tritium is a critical component of nuclear weapons and historically it was produced and stockpiled primarily for this application. The decay of tritium into helium-3 reduces the explosive power of the fusion warhead, so periodically the accumulated helium-3 must be removed from warhead reservoirs and tritium in storage. Helium-3 removed during this process is marketed for other applications.


title: Helium-3

text: For decades this has been, and remains, the principal source of the world's helium-3. However, since the signing of the START I Treaty in 1991 the number of nuclear warheads that are kept ready for use has decreased. This has reduced the quantity of helium-3 available from this source. Helium-3 stockpiles have been further diminished by increased demand, primarily for use in neutron radiation detectors and medical diagnostic procedures. US industrial demand for helium-3 reached a peak of (approximately ) per year in 2008. Price at auction, historically about , reached as high as . Since then, demand for helium-3 has declined to about per year due to the high cost and efforts by the DOE to recycle it and find substitutes. Assuming a density of at 100$/l helium-3 would be about a thirtieth as expensive as tritium (roughly vs roughly ) while at 2000$/l helium-3 would be about half as expensive as tritium ( vs ).


title: Helium-3

text: The DOE recognized the developing shortage of both tritium and helium-3, and began producing tritium by lithium irradiation at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in 2010. In this process tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs) containing lithium in a ceramic form are inserted into the reactor in place of the normal boron control rods Periodically the TPBARs are replaced and the tritium extracted.


title: Helium-3

text: Currently only two commercial nuclear reactors (Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2) are being used for tritium production but the process could, if necessary, be vastly scaled up to meet any conceivable demand simply by utilizing more of the nation's power reactors.


title: Helium-3

text: Substantial quantities of tritium and helium-3 could also be extracted from the heavy water moderator in CANDU nuclear reactors. India and Canada, the two countries with the largest heavy water reactor fleet, are both known to extract tritium from moderator/coolant heavy water, but those amounts are not nearly enough to satisfy global demand of either tritium or helium-3.


title: Helium-3

text: As tritium is also produced inadvertently in various processes in light water reactors (see the article on tritium for details), extraction from those sources could be another source of helium-3. However, if one takes the annual discharge of tritium (per 2018 figures) at La Hague reprocessing facility as a basis, the amounts discharged ( at La Hague) are not nearly enough to satisfy demand, even if 100% recovery could be achieved.


title: Helium-3

text: Helium-3 can be used to do spin echo experiments of surface dynamics, which are currently untaken at the Surface Physics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and in the Chemistry Department at Swansea University.


title: Helium-3

text: Helium-3 is an important isotope in instrumentation for neutron detection. It has a high absorption cross section for thermal neutron beams and is used as a converter gas in neutron detectors. The neutron is converted through the nuclear reaction


title: Helium-3

text: into charged particles tritium ions (T, H) and Hydrogen ions, or protons (p, H) which then are detected by creating a charge cloud in the stopping gas of a proportional counter or a Geiger–Müller tube.


title: Helium-3

text: Furthermore, the absorption process is strongly spin-dependent, which allows a spin-polarized helium-3 volume to transmit neutrons with one spin component while absorbing the other. This effect is employed in neutron polarization analysis, a technique which probes for magnetic properties of matter.


title: Helium-3

text: The United States Department of Homeland Security had hoped to deploy detectors to spot smuggled plutonium in shipping containers by their neutron emissions, but the worldwide shortage of helium-3 following the drawdown in nuclear weapons production since the Cold War has to some extent prevented this. As of 2012, DHS determined the commercial supply of boron-10 would support converting its neutron detection infrastructure to that technology.


title: Helium-3

text: A helium-3 refrigerator uses helium-3 to achieve temperatures of 0.2 to 0.3 kelvin. A dilution refrigerator uses a mixture of helium-3 and helium-4 to reach cryogenic temperatures as low as a few thousandths of a kelvin.


title: Helium-3

text: An important property of helium-3, which distinguishes it from the more common helium-4, is that its nucleus is a fermion since it contains an odd number of spin particles. Helium-4 nuclei are bosons, containing an even number of spin particles. This is a direct result of the addition rules for quantized angular momentum. At low temperatures (about 2.17 K), helium-4 undergoes a phase transition: A fraction of it enters a superfluid phase that can be roughly understood as a type of Bose–Einstein condensate. Such a mechanism is not available for helium-3 atoms, which are fermions. However, it was widely speculated that helium-3 could also become a superfluid at much lower temperatures, if the atoms formed into "pairs" analogous to Cooper pairs in the BCS theory of superconductivity. Each Cooper pair, having integer spin, can be thought of as a boson. During the 1970s, David Lee, Douglas Osheroff and Robert Coleman Richardson discovered two phase transitions along the melting curve, which were soon realized to be the two superfluid phases of helium-3. The transition to a superfluid occurs at 2.491 millikelvins on the melting curve. They were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery. Alexei Abrikosov, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Tony Leggett won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on refining understanding of the superfluid phase of helium-3.


title: Helium-3

text: In a zero magnetic field, there are two distinct superfluid phases of He, the A-phase and the B-phase. The B-phase is the low-temperature, low-pressure phase which has an isotropic energy gap. The A-phase is the higher temperature, higher pressure phase that is further stabilized by a magnetic field and has two point nodes in its gap. The presence of two phases is a clear indication that He is an unconventional superfluid (superconductor), since the presence of two phases requires an additional symmetry, other than gauge symmetry, to be broken. In fact, it is a "p"-wave superfluid, with spin one, S=1, and angular momentum one, L=1. The ground state corresponds to total angular momentum zero, J=S+L=0 (vector addition). Excited states are possible with non-zero total angular momentum, J>0, which are excited pair collective modes. Because of the extreme purity of superfluid He (since all materials except He have solidified and


title: Helium-3

text: sunk to the bottom of the liquid He and any He has phase separated entirely, this is the most pure condensed matter state), these collective modes have been studied with much greater precision than in any other unconventional pairing system.


title: Helium-3

text: Helium-3 nuclei have an intrinsic nuclear spin of , and a relatively high magnetogyric ratio. Helium-3 can be hyperpolarized using non-equilibrium means such as spin-exchange optical pumping. During this process, circularly polarized infrared laser light, tuned to the appropriate wavelength, is used to excite electrons in an alkali metal, such as caesium or rubidium inside a sealed glass vessel. The angular momentum is transferred from the alkali metal electrons to the noble gas nuclei through collisions. In essence, this process effectively aligns the nuclear spins with the magnetic field in order to enhance the NMR signal. The hyperpolarized gas may then be stored at pressures of 10 atm, for up to 100 hours. Following inhalation, gas mixtures containing the hyperpolarized helium-3 gas can be imaged with an MRI scanner to produce anatomical and functional images of lung ventilation. This technique is also able to produce images of the airway tree, locate unventilated defects, measure the alveolar oxygen partial pressure, and measure the ventilation/perfusion ratio. This technique may be critical for the diagnosis and treatment management of chronic respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, cystic fibrosis, and asthma.


title: Helium-3

text: Both MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamak and the Joint European Torus (JET) have experimented with adding a little He-3 to a H-D plasma to increase the absorption of radio-frequency (RF) energy to heat the H & D ions, a "three-ion" effect.


title: Helium-3

text: can be produced by the low temperature fusion of → + γ + 4.98 MeV. If the fusion temperature is below that for the helium nuclei to fuse, the reaction produces a high energy alpha particle which quickly acquires an electron producing a stable light helium ion which can be utilized directly as a source of electricity without producing dangerous neutrons.


title: Helium-3

text: The conventional deuterium + tritium ("D-T") fusion process produces energetic neutrons which render reactor components radioactive with activation products. The appeal of helium-3 fusion stems from the aneutronic nature of its reaction products. Helium-3 itself is non-radioactive. The lone high-energy by-product, the proton, can be contained by means of electric and magnetic fields. The momentum energy of this proton (created in the fusion process) will interact with the containing electromagnetic field, resulting in direct net electricity generation.


title: Helium-3

text: Because of the higher Coulomb barrier, the temperatures required for fusion are much higher than those of conventional D-T fusion. Moreover, since both reactants need to be mixed together to fuse, reactions between nuclei of the same reactant will occur, and the D-D reaction () does produce a neutron. Reaction rates vary with temperature, but the D- reaction rate is never greater than 3.56 times the D-D reaction rate (see graph). Therefore, fusion using D- fuel at the right temperature and a D-lean fuel mixture, can produce a much lower neutron flux than D-T fusion, but is not clean, negating some of its main attraction.


title: Helium-3

text: The second possibility, fusing with itself (), requires even higher temperatures (since now both reactants have a +2 charge), and thus is even more difficult than the D- reaction. However, it does offer a possible reaction that produces no neutrons; the charged protons produced can be contained using electric and magnetic fields, which in turn results in direct electricity generation. fusion is feasible as demonstrated in the laboratory and has immense advantages, but commercial viability is many years in the future.


title: Helium-3

text: The amounts of helium-3 needed as a replacement for conventional fuels are substantial by comparison to amounts currently available. The total amount of energy produced in the reaction is 18.4 MeV, which corresponds to some 493 megawatt-hours (4.93×10 W·h) per three grams (one mole) of . If the total amount of energy could be converted to electrical power with 100% efficiency (a physical impossibility), it would correspond to about 30 minutes of output of a gigawatt electrical plant per mole of . Thus, a year's production (at 6 grams for each operation hour) would require 52.5 kilograms of helium-3. The amount of fuel needed for large-scale applications can also be put in terms of total consumption: electricity consumption by 107 million U.S. households in 2001 totaled 1,140 billion kW·h (1.14×10 W·h). Again assuming 100% conversion efficiency, 6.7 tonnes per year of helium-3 would be required for that segment of the energy demand of the United States, 15 to 20 tonnes per year given a more realistic end-to-end conversion efficiency.


title: Helium-3

text: A second-generation approach to controlled fusion power involves combining helium-3 and deuterium. This reaction produces a helium-4 ion () (like an alpha particle, but of different origin) and a high-energy proton (positively charged hydrogen ion). The most important potential advantage of this fusion reaction for power production as well as other applications lies in its compatibility with the use of electrostatic fields to control fuel ions and the fusion protons. High speed protons, as positively charged particles, can have their kinetic energy converted directly into electricity, through use of solid-state conversion materials as well as other techniques. Potential conversion efficiencies of 70% may be possible, as there is no need to convert proton energy to heat in order to drive a turbine-powered electrical generator.


title: Helium-3

text: There have been many claims about the capabilities of helium-3 power plants. According to proponents, fusion power plants operating on deuterium and helium-3 would offer lower capital and operating costs than their competitors due to less technical complexity, higher conversion efficiency, smaller size, the absence of radioactive fuel, no air or water pollution, and only low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements. Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant. Financial break even at today's wholesale electricity prices (5 US cents per kilowatt-hour) would occur after five 1-gigawatt plants were on line, replacing old conventional plants or meeting new demand.


title: Helium-3

text: The reality is not so clear-cut. The most advanced fusion programs in the world are inertial confinement fusion (such as National Ignition Facility) and magnetic confinement fusion (such as ITER and Wendelstein 7-X). In the case of the former, there is no solid roadmap to power generation. In the case of the latter, commercial power generation is not expected until around 2050. In both cases, the type of fusion discussed is the simplest: D-T fusion. The reason for this is the very low Coulomb barrier for this reaction; for D+He, the barrier is much higher, and it is even higher for He–He. The immense cost of reactors like ITER and National Ignition Facility are largely due to their immense size, yet to scale up to higher plasma temperatures would require reactors far larger still. The 14.7 MeV proton and 3.6 MeV alpha particle from D–He fusion, plus the higher conversion efficiency, means that more electricity is obtained per kilogram than with D-T fusion (17.6 MeV), but not that much more. As a further downside, the rates of reaction for helium-3 fusion reactions are not particularly high, requiring a reactor that is larger still or more reactors to produce the same amount of electricity.


title: Helium-3

text: To attempt to work around this problem of massively large power plants that may not even be economical with D-T fusion, let alone the far more challenging D–He fusion, a number of other reactors have been proposed – the Fusor, Polywell, Focus fusion, and many more, though many of these concepts have fundamental problems with achieving a net energy gain, and generally attempt to achieve fusion in thermal disequilibrium, something that could potentially prove impossible, and consequently, these long-shot programs tend to have trouble garnering funding despite their low budgets. Unlike the "big", "hot" fusion systems, however, if such systems were to work, they could scale to the higher barrier "aneutronic" fuels, and therefore their proponents tend to promote p-B fusion, which requires no exotic fuels such as helium-3.


title: Helium-3

text: Materials on the Moon's surface contain helium-3 at concentrations between 1.4 and 15 ppb in sunlit areas, and may contain concentrations as much as 50 ppb in permanently shadowed regions. A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986, have proposed to explore the Moon, mine lunar regolith and use the helium-3 for fusion. Because of the low concentrations of helium-3, any mining equipment would need to process extremely large amounts of regolith (over 150 tonnes of regolith to obtain one gram of helium-3).


title: Helium-3

text: The primary objective of Indian Space Research Organisation's first lunar probe called Chandrayaan-1, launched on October 22, 2008, was reported in some sources to be mapping the Moon's surface for helium-3-containing minerals. However, no such objective is mentioned in the project's official list of goals, although many of its scientific payloads have noted helium-3-related applications.


title: Helium-3

text: Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from which operation "each year, three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."


title: Helium-3

text: In January 2006, the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020, if funding can be found.


title: Helium-3

text: Not all writers feel the extraction of lunar helium-3 is feasible, or even that there will be a demand for it for fusion. Dwayne Day, writing in The Space Review in 2015, characterises helium-3 extraction from the moon for use in fusion as magical thinking about an unproven technology, and questions the feasibility of lunar extraction, as compared to production on Earth.


title: Helium-3

text: Mining gas giants for helium-3 has also been proposed. The British Interplanetary Society's hypothetical Project Daedalus interstellar probe design was fueled by helium-3 mines in the atmosphere of Jupiter, for example.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natural structures (e.g., mountains), or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of warfare-related technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear warfare.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to the aerial bombing of Guernica, Spain:


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: At the time, nuclear weapons had not been developed. Japan conducted research on biological weapons (see Unit 731), and chemical weapons had seen wide battlefield use in World War I. Their use was outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Italy used mustard agent against civilians and soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935–36.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and during the Cold War, the term came to refer more to non-conventional weapons. The application of the term to specifically nuclear and radiological weapons is traced by William Safire to the Russian phrase "Оружие массового поражения" – "oruzhiye massovogo porazheniya" (weapon of mass destruction).


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: William Safire credits James Goodby (of the Brookings Institution) with tracing what he considers the earliest known English-language use soon after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (although it is not quite verbatim): a communique from a 15 November 1945, meeting of Harry Truman, Clement Attlee and Mackenzie King (probably drafted by Vannevar Bush, as Bush claimed in 1970) referred to "weapons adaptable to mass destruction."


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Safire says Bernard Baruch used that exact phrase in 1946 (in a speech at the United Nations probably written by Herbert Bayard Swope). The phrase found its way into the very first resolution the United Nations General assembly adopted in January 1946 in London, which used the wording "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other weapons adaptable to mass destruction." The resolution also created the Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)).


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: An exact use of this term was given in a lecture titled "Atomic Energy as a Contemporary Problem" by J. Robert Oppenheimer. He delivered the lecture to the Foreign Service and the State Department, on 17 September 1947.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: It is a very far reaching control which would eliminate the rivalry between nations in this field, which would prevent the surreptitious arming of one nation against another, which would provide some cushion of time before atomic attack, and presumably therefore before any attack with weapons of mass destruction, and which would go a long way toward removing atomic energy at least as a source of conflict between the powers.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The term was also used in the introduction to the hugely influential U.S. government document known as NSC 68 written in 1950.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: During a speech at Rice University on 12 September 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke of not filling space "with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding." The following month, during a televised presentation about the Cuban Missile Crisis on 22 October 1962, Kennedy made reference to "offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction."


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: An early use of the exact phrase in an international treaty is in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, but the treaty provides no definition of the phrase, and the treaty also categorically prohibits the stationing of "weapons" and the testing of "any type of weapon" in outer space, in addition to its specific prohibition against placing in orbit, or installing on celestial bodies, "any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction."


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: During the Cold War, the term "weapons of mass destruction" was primarily a reference to nuclear weapons. At the time, in the West the euphemism "strategic weapons" was used to refer to the American nuclear arsenal. However, there is no precise definition of the "strategic" category, neither considering range nor yield of the nuclear weapon.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Subsequent to Operation Opera, the destruction of a pre-operational nuclear reactor inside Iraq by the Israeli Air Force in 1981, the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, countered criticism by saying that "on no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel." This policy of pre-emptive action against real or perceived weapons of mass destruction became known as the Begin Doctrine.<ref name="NTI/Isr">Country Profiles -Israel , Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), updated May, 2014</ref>


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The term "weapons of mass destruction" continued to see periodic use, usually in the context of nuclear arms control; Ronald Reagan used it during the 1986 Reykjavík Summit, when referring to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, used the term in a 1989 speech to the United Nations, primarily in reference to chemical arms.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The end of the Cold War reduced U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, causing it to shift its focus to disarmament. With the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and 1991 Gulf War, Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs became a particular concern of the first Bush Administration. Following the war, Bill Clinton and other western politicians and media continued to use the term, usually in reference to ongoing attempts to dismantle Iraq's weapons programs.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: After the 11 September 2001 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, an increased fear of nonconventional weapons and asymmetric warfare took hold in many countries. The fear reached a crescendo with the 2002 Iraq disarmament crisis and the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that became the primary justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq; however, American forces found none in Iraq. They found old stockpiles of chemical munitions including sarin and mustard agents, but all were considered to be unusable because of corrosion or degradation. Iraq, however, declared a chemical weapons stockpile in 2009 which U.N. personnel had secured after the 1991 Gulf War. The stockpile contained mainly chemical precursors, but some munitions remained usable.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Because of its prolific use and (worldwide) public profile during this period, the American Dialect Society voted "weapons of mass destruction" (and its abbreviation, "WMD") the word of the year in 2002, and in 2003 Lake Superior State University added WMD to its list of terms banished for "Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness" (and "as a card that trumps all forms of aggression").


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: In its criminal complaint against the main suspect of the Boston Marathon bombing of 15 April 2013, the FBI refers to a pressure-cooker improvised bomb as a "weapon of mass destruction."


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: There have been calls to classify at least some classes of cyber weapons as WMD, in particular those aimed to bring about large-scale (physical) destruction, such as by targeting critical infrastructure. However, some scholars have objected to classifying cyber weapons as WMD on the grounds that they "cannot [currently] directly injure or kill human beings as efficiently as guns or bombs" or clearly "meet the legal and historical definitions" of WMD.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The most widely used definition of "weapons of mass destruction" is that of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons (NBC) although there is no treaty or customary international law that contains an authoritative definition. Instead, international law has been used with respect to the specific categories of weapons within WMD, and not to WMD as a whole. While nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are regarded as the three major types of WMDs, some analysts have argued that radiological materials as well as missile technology and delivery systems such as aircraft and ballistic missiles could be labeled as WMDs as well.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: However, there is an argument that nuclear and biological weapons do not belong in the same category as chemical and "dirty bomb" radiological weapons, which have limited destructive potential (and close to none, as far as property is concerned), whereas nuclear and biological weapons have the unique ability to kill large numbers of people with very small amounts of material, and thus could be said to belong in a class by themselves.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The NBC definition has also been used in official U.S. documents, by the U.S. President, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Other documents expand the definition of WMD to also include radiological or conventional weapons. The U.S. military refers to WMD as:


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The significance of the words "separable and divisible part of the weapon" is that missiles such as the Pershing II and the SCUD are considered weapons of mass destruction, while aircraft capable of carrying bombloads are not.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: In 2004, the United Kingdom's Butler Review recognized the "considerable and long-standing academic debate about the proper interpretation of the phrase 'weapons of mass destruction. The committee set out to avoid the general term but when using it, employed the definition of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which defined the systems which Iraq was required to abandon:


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Chemical weapons expert Gert G. Harigel considers only nuclear weapons true weapons of mass destruction, because "only nuclear weapons are completely indiscriminate by their explosive power, heat radiation and radioactivity, and only they should therefore be called a weapon of mass destruction". He prefers to call chemical and biological weapons "weapons of terror" when aimed against civilians and "weapons of intimidation" for soldiers.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Testimony of one such soldier expresses the same viewpoint. For a period of several months in the winter of 2002–2003, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz frequently used the term "weapons of mass terror", apparently also recognizing the distinction between the psychological and the physical effects of many things currently falling into the WMD category.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Gustavo Bell Lemus, the Vice President of Colombia, at 9 July 2001 United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, quoted the Millennium Report of the UN Secretary-General to the General Assembly, in which Kofi Annan said that small arms could be described as WMD because the fatalities they cause "dwarf that of all other weapons systems – and in most years greatly exceed the toll of the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki".


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: An additional condition often implicitly applied to WMD is that the use of the weapons must be strategic. In other words, they would be designed to "have consequences far outweighing the size and effectiveness of the weapons themselves". The strategic nature of WMD also defines their function in the military doctrine of total war as targeting the means a country would use to support and supply its war effort, specifically its population, industry, and natural resources.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Within U.S. civil defense organizations, the category is now Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE), which defines WMD as:


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: (1) Any explosive, incendiary, poison gas, bomb, grenade, or rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces [113 g], missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce [7 g], or mine or device similar to the above. (2) Poison gas. (3) Any weapon involving a disease organism. (4) Any weapon that is designed to release radiation at a level dangerous to human life.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: For the purposes of the prevention of weapons proliferation, the U.S. Code defines weapons of mass destruction as "chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and chemical, biological, and nuclear materials used in the manufacture of such weapons".


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: For the purposes of U.S. criminal law concerning terrorism, weapons of mass destruction are defined as:


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The Federal Bureau of Investigation's definition is similar to that presented above from the terrorism statute:


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Indictments and convictions for possession and use of WMD such as truck bombs, pipe bombs, shoe bombs, and cactus needles coated with a biological toxin have been obtained under 18 USC 2332a.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Under the same statute, conspiring, attempting, threatening, or using a Weapon of Mass Destruction may be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, and if resulting in death, be punishable by death or by imprisonment for any terms of years or for life. They can also be asked to pay a maximum fine of $250,000.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: "The Washington Post" reported on 30 March 2006: "Jurors asked the judge in the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui today to define the term 'weapons of mass destruction' and were told it includes airplanes used as missiles". Moussaoui was indicted and tried for conspiracy to both destroy aircraft and use weapons of mass destruction, among others.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The surviving Boston Marathon bombing perpetrator, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was charged in June 2013 with the federal offense of "use of a weapon of mass destruction" after he and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev allegedly placed crude shrapnel bombs, made from pressure cookers packed with ball bearings and nails, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. He was convicted in April 2015. The bombing resulted in three deaths and at least 264 injuries.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The only country to have used a nuclear weapon in war is the United States, which dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: There are eight countries that have declared they possess nuclear weapons and are known to have tested a nuclear weapon, only five of which are members of the NPT. The eight are China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Israel is considered by most analysts to have nuclear weapons numbering in the low hundreds as well, but maintains an official policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither denying nor confirming its nuclear status.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: South Africa developed a small nuclear arsenal in the 1980s but disassembled them in the early 1990s, making it the only country to have fully given up an independently developed nuclear weapons arsenal. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine inherited stockpiles of nuclear arms following the break-up of the Soviet Union, but relinquished them to the Russian Federation.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Countries where nuclear weapons are deployed through nuclear sharing agreements include Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The history of biological warfare goes back at least to the Mongol siege of Caffa in 1346 and possibly much farther back to antiquity. However, only by the turn of the 20th century did advances in microbiology allow for the large-scale weaponization of pathogens. At least nine states have operated offensive biological weapons programs during the 20th century, including Canada (1946–1956), France (1921–1972), Iraq (1985–1990s), Japan (1930s–1945), Rhodesia, South Africa (1981–1993), the Soviet Union (1920s–1992), the United Kingdom (1934–1956), and the United States (1943–1969).


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: The Japanese biological weapons program, which was run by the secret Imperial Japanese Army Unit 731 during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), became infamous for conducting often fatal human experiments on prisoners and producing biological weapons for combat use. The Soviet Union covertly operated the world's largest, longest, and most sophisticated biological weapons program, in violation of its obligations under international law.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: International restrictions on biological warfare began with the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which prohibits the use but not the possession or development of biological and chemical weapons. Upon ratification of the Geneva Protocol, several countries made reservations regarding its applicability and use in retaliation. Due to these reservations, it was in practice a "no-first-use" agreement only. The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) supplements the Geneva Protocol by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling, and use of biological weapons. Having entered into force on 26 March 1975, the BWC was the first multilateral disarmament treaty to ban the production of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. As of March 2021, 183 states have become party to the treaty.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Chemical weapons have been used around the world by various civilizations since ancient times. In the industrial era, they were used extensively by both sides during World War I, and by the Axis powers during World War II (both in battle and in extermination camp gas chambers) though Allied powers also stockpiled them. Countries in Western Europe renounced the use of such weapons. As of 2018, a handful of countries have known inventories, and many are in the process of being safely destroyed under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Nonetheless, proliferation and use in war zones remains an active concern, most recently the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Some commentators classify some or all the uses of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons during wartime as a war crime (or crime against humanity if widespread) because they kill civilians (who are protected by the laws of war) indiscriminately or are specifically prohibited by international treaties (which have become more comprehensive over time). Proponents of use say that specific uses of such weapons have been necessary for defense or to avoid more deaths in a protracted war. The tactic of terror bombing from aircraft, and generally targeting cities with area bombardment or saturation carpet bombing has also been criticized, defended, and prohibited by treaty in the same way; the destructive effect of conventional saturation bombing is similar to that of a nuclear weapon.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Due to the potentially indiscriminate effects of WMD, the fear of a WMD attack has shaped political policies and campaigns, fostered social movements, and has been the central theme of many films. Support for different levels of WMD development and control varies nationally and internationally. Yet understanding of the nature of the threats is not high, in part because of imprecise usage of the term by politicians and the media.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Fear of WMD, or of threats diminished by the possession of WMD, has long been used to catalyze public support for various WMD policies. They include mobilization of pro- and anti-WMD campaigners alike, and generation of popular political support. The term WMD may be used as a powerful buzzword or to generate a culture of fear. It is also used ambiguously, particularly by not distinguishing among the different types of WMD.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: A television commercial called "Daisy", promoting Democrat Lyndon Johnson's 1964 presidential candidacy, invoked the fear of a nuclear war and was an element in Johnson's subsequent election.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Later, United States' President George W. Bush used the threat of potential WMD in Iraq as justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Broad reference to Iraqi WMD in general was seen as an element of President Bush's arguments. The claim that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) was a major factor that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by Coalition forces.


title: Weapon of mass destruction

text: Over 500 munitions containing mustard agent and sarin were discovered throughout Iraq since 2003; they were made in the 1980s and are no longer usable as originally intended due to corrosion.