title: Bulletproof vest

text: During the late 1920s through the early 1930s, gunmen from criminal gangs in the United States began wearing less-expensive vests made from thick layers of cotton padding and cloth. These early vests could absorb the impact of handgun rounds such as .22 Long Rifle, .25 ACP, .32 S&W Long, .32 S&W, .380 ACP, .38 Special and .45 ACP traveling at speeds of up to . To overcome these vests, law enforcement agents began using the newer and more powerful .38 Super, and later the .357 Magnum cartridge.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In 1940, the Medical Research Council in Britain proposed the use of a lightweight suit of armor for general use by infantry, and a heavier suit for troops in more dangerous positions, such as anti-aircraft and naval gun crews. By February 1941, trials had begun on body armor made of manganese steel plates. Two plates covered the front area and one plate on the lower back protected the kidneys and other vital organs. Five thousand sets were made and evaluated to almost unanimous approval – as well as providing adequate protection, the armor didn't severely impede the mobility of the soldier and were reasonably comfortable to wear. The armor was introduced in 1942 although the demand for it was later scaled down. The Canadian Army in northwestern Europe also adopted this armor for the medical personnel of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The British company Wilkinson Sword began to produce flak jackets for bomber crew in 1943 under contract with the Royal Air Force. It was realised that the majority of pilot deaths in the air was due to low velocity fragments rather than bullets. Surgeon of the United States Army Air Forces, Colonel M. C. Grow, stationed in Britain, thought that many wounds he was treating could have been prevented by some kind of light armor. Two types of armor were issued for different specifications. These jackets were made of nylon fabric and capable of stopping flak and fragmentation, but were not designed to stop bullets. Although they were considered too bulky for pilots using the Avro Lancaster bombers, they were adopted by United States Army Air Forces.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In the early stages of World War II, the United States also designed body armor for infantrymen, but most models were too heavy and mobility-restricting to be useful in the field and incompatible with existing required equipment. Near the middle of 1944, development of infantry body armor in the United States restarted. Several vests were produced for the US military, including but not limited to the T34, the T39, the T62E1, and the M12. The United States developed a vest using Doron Plate, a fiberglass-based laminate. These vests were first used in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The Soviet Armed Forces used several types of body armor, including the SN-42 ("Stalnoi Nagrudnik" is Russian for "steel breastplate", and the number denotes the design year). All were tested, but only the SN-42 was put in production. It consisted of two pressed steel plates that protected the front torso and groin. The plates were 2 mm thick and weighed 3.5 kg (7.7 lb). This armor was generally supplied to SHISBr (assault engineers) and Tankodesantniki. The SN armor protected wearers from 9×19mm bullets fired by an MP 40 at around 100 meters, and sometimes it was able to deflect 7.92 Mauser bullets (and bayonet blades), but only at very low angle. This made it useful in urban battles such as the Battle of Stalingrad. However, the SN's weight made it impractical for infantry in the open. Some apocryphal accounts note point blank deflection of 9mm bullets, and testing of similar armour supports this theory.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: During the Korean War several new vests were produced for the United States military, including the M-1951, which made use of fibre-reinforced plastic or aluminium segments woven into a nylon vest. These vests represented "a vast improvement on weight, but the armor failed to stop bullets and fragments very successfully," although officially they were claimed to be able to stop 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol rounds at the muzzle. Such vests equipped with Doron Plate have, in informal testing, defeated .45 ACP handgun ammunition. Developed by Natick Laboratories and introduced in 1967, T65-2 plate carriers were the first vests designed to hold hard ceramic plates, making them capable of stopping 7 mm rifle rounds.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: These "Chicken Plates" were made of either boron carbide, silicon carbide, or aluminium oxide. They were issued to the crew of low-flying aircraft, such as the UH-1 and UC-123, during the Vietnam War.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In 1969, American Body Armor was founded and began to produce a patented combination of quilted nylon faced with multiple steel plates. This armor configuration was marketed to American law enforcement agencies by Smith & Wesson under the trade name "Barrier Vest." The Barrier Vest was the first police vest to gain wide use during high threat police operations.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In 1971, research chemist Stephanie Kwolek discovered a liquid crystalline polymer solution. Its exceptional strength and stiffness led to the invention of Kevlar, a synthetic fibre, woven into a fabric and layered, that, by weight, has five times the tensile strength of steel. In the mid-1970s, DuPont, the company which employed Kwolek, introduced Kevlar. Immediately Kevlar was incorporated into a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) evaluation program to provide lightweight, able body armor to a test pool of American law enforcement officers to ascertain if everyday able wearing was possible. Lester Shubin, a program manager at the NIJ, managed this law enforcement feasibility study within a few selected large police agencies, and quickly determined that Kevlar body armor could be comfortably worn by police daily, and would save lives.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In 1975 Richard A. Armellino, the founder of American Body Armor, marketed an all Kevlar vest called the K-15, consisting of 15 layers of Kevlar that also included a 5" × 8" ballistic steel "Shok Plate" positioned vertically over the heart and was issued US Patent #3,971,072 for this innovation. Similarly sized and positioned "trauma plates" are still used today on most vests, reducing blunt trauma and increasing ballistic protection in the center-mass heart/sternum area.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In 1976, Richard Davis, founder of Second Chance Body Armor, designed the company's first all-Kevlar vest, the Model Y. The lightweight, able vest industry was launched and a new form of daily protection for the modern police officer was quickly adopted. By the mid-to-late 1980s, an estimated 1/3 to 1/2 of police patrol officers wore able vests daily. By 2006, more than 2,000 documented police vest "saves" were recorded, validating the success and efficiency of lightweight able body armor as a standard piece of everyday police equipment.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: During the 1980s, the US military issued the PASGT kevlar vest, tested privately at NIJ level IIA by several sources, able to stop pistol rounds (including 9 mm FMJ), but intended and approved only for fragmentation. West Germany issued a similar rated vest called the Splitterschutzweste.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Kevlar soft armor had its shortcomings because if "large fragments or high velocity bullets hit the vest, the energy could cause life-threatening, blunt trauma injuries" in selected, vital areas. Ranger Body Armor was developed for the American military in 1991. Although it was the second modern US body armor that was able to stop rifle caliber rounds and still be light enough to be worn by infantry soldiers in the field, (first being the ISAPO, or Interim Small Arms Protective Overvest,) it still had its flaws: "it was still heavier than the concurrently issued PASGT (Personal Armor System for Ground Troops) anti-fragmentation armor worn by regular infantry and ... did not have the same degree of ballistic protection around the neck and shoulders." The format of Ranger Body Armor (and more recent body armor issued to US special operations units) highlights the trade-offs between force protection and mobility that modern body armor forces organizations to address.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Newer armor issued by the United States armed forces to large numbers of troops includes the United States Army's Improved Outer Tactical Vest and the United States Marine Corps Modular Tactical Vest. All of these systems are designed with the vest intended to provide protection from fragments and pistol rounds. Hard ceramic plates, such as the Small Arms Protective Insert, as used with Interceptor Body Armor, are worn to protect the vital organs from higher level threats. These threats mostly take the form of high velocity and armor-piercing rifle rounds. Similar types of protective equipment have been adopted by modern armed forces over the world.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Since the 1970s, several new fibers and construction methods for bulletproof fabric have been developed besides woven Kevlar, such as DSM's Dyneema, Honeywell's Gold Flex and Spectra, Teijin Aramid's Twaron, Pinnacle Armor's Dragon Skin, and Toyobo's Zylon. The US military has developed body armor for the working dogs who aid soldiers in battle.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Since 2004, U.S. Special Operations Command has been at work on a new full-body armor that will rely on rheology, or the technology behind the elasticity of liquids in skin care and automotive products. Named TALOS, this new technology may be used in the future.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Due to the various types of projectile, it is often inaccurate to refer to a particular product as "bulletproof" because this implies that it will protect against any and all threats. Instead, the term bullet resistant is generally preferred. Vest specifications will typically include both penetration resistance requirements and limits on the amount of impact force that is delivered to the body. Even without penetration, heavy bullets can deal enough force to cause blunt force trauma under the impact point. On the other hand, some bullets can penetrate the vest, but deal low damage to its wearer due to the loss of speed or small/reduced mass/form. Armour piercing ammunition tends to have poor terminal ballistics due to it being specifically not intended to fragment or expand.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Body armor standards are regional. Around the world ammunition varies and as a result the armor testing must reflect the threats found locally. Law enforcement statistics show that many shootings where officers are injured or killed involve the officer's own weapon. As a result, each law enforcement agency or para-military organization will have their own standard for armor performance if only to ensure that their armor protects them from their own weapons.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: While many standards exist, a few standards are widely used as models. The US National Institute of Justice ballistic and stab documents are examples of broadly accepted standards. In addition to the NIJ, the UK Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB – formerly the Police Scientific Development Branch (PSDB)) and VPAM (German acronym for the Association of Laboratories for Bullet Resistant Materials And Constructions), originally from Germany, are other widely accepted standards. In the Russian area, the GOST standard is dominant.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Modern body armor is generally split into one of two categories: soft armor and hard armor. Soft armor is typically made of woven fabrics, like Dyneema or Kevlar, and usually provides protection against fragmentation and handgun threats. Hard armor usually refers to ballistic plates; these hardened plates are designed to defend against rifle threats, in addition to the threats covered by soft armor.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Soft armour is usually made of woven fabrics (synthetic or natural) and protects up to NIJ level IIIA. Soft armour can be worn stand-alone or can be combined with hard armor as part of an "In-Conjunction" armor system. In these in-conjunction systems, a soft armor "plate backer" is usually placed behind the ballistic plate and the combination of soft and hard armor provides the designated level of protection.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Broadly, there are three basic types of hard armor ballistic plates: ceramic plate-based systems, steel plate with spall fragmentation protective coating (or backer), and hard fiber-based laminate systems. These hard armor plates may be designed to be used stand-alone or "In-Conjunction" with soft armor backers, also called "plate backers".


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Many systems contain both hard ceramic components and laminated textile materials used together. Various ceramic materials types are in use, however: aluminum oxide, boron carbide and silicon carbide are the most common. The fibers used in these systems are the same as found in soft textile armor. However, for rifle protection, high pressure lamination of ultra high molecular weight polyethylene with a Kraton matrix is the most common.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The Small Arms Protective Insert (SAPI) and the enhanced SAPI plate for the US DOD generally has this form. Because of the use of ceramic plates for rifle protection, these vests are 5–8 times as heavy on an area basis as handgun protection. The weight and stiffness of rifle armor is a major technical challenge. Density, hardness and impact toughness are among the materials properties that are balanced to design these systems. While ceramic materials have some outstanding properties for ballistics, they have poor fracture toughness. Failure of ceramic plates by cracking must also be controlled. For this reason many ceramic rifle plates are a composite. The strike face is ceramic with the backface formed of laminated fiber and resin materials. The hardness of the ceramic prevents the penetration of the bullet while the tensile strength of the fiber backing helps prevent tensile failure. The U.S. military's Small Arms Protective Insert family is a well-known example of these plates.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: When a ceramic plate is shot, it cracks in the vicinity of the impact, which reduces the protection in this area. Although NIJ 0101.06 requires a Level III plate to stop six rounds of 7.62x51mm M80 ball ammunition, it imposes a minimum distance between shots of 2.0 inches (51mm); if two rounds impact the plate closer than this requirement permits, it may result in a penetration. To counter this, some plates, such as the Ceradyne Model AA4 and IMP/ACT (Improved Multi-hit Performance/Advanced Composite Technology) series, use a stainless steel crack arrestor embedded between the strike face and backer. This layer contains cracks in the strike face to the immediate area around an impact, resulting in markedly improved multi-hit ability; in conjunction with NIJ IIIA soft armor, a 3.9 lb IMP/ACT plate can stop eight rounds of 5.56x45mm M995, and a 4.2 lb plate such as the MH3 CQB can stop either ten rounds of 5.56x45mm M995 or six rounds of 7.62x39mm BZ API.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The standards for armor-piercing rifle bullets are not clear-cut, because the penetration of a bullet depends on the hardness of the target armor, and the armor type. However, there are a few general rules. For example, bullets with a soft lead-core and copper jacket are too easily deformed to penetrate hard materials, whereas rifle bullets intended for maximum penetration into hard armor are nearly always manufactured with high-hardness core materials such as tungsten carbide. Most other core materials would have effects between lead and tungsten carbide. Many common bullets, such as the 7.62×39mm M43 standard cartridge for the AK-47/AKM rifle, have a steel core with hardness rating ranging from Rc35 mild steel up to Rc45 medium hard steel. However, there is a caveat to this rule: with regards to penetration, the hardness of a bullet's core is significantly less important than the sectional density of that bullet. This is why there are many more bullets made with tungsten instead of tungsten carbide.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Additionally, as the hardness of the bullet core increases, so must the amount of ceramic plating used to stop penetration. Like in soft ballistics, a minimum ceramic material hardness of the bullet core is required to damage their respective hard core materials, however in armor-piercing rounds the bullet core is eroded rather than deformed.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The US Department of Defense uses several hard armor plates. The first, the Small Arms Protective Insert (SAPI), called for ceramic composite plates with a mass of 20–30 kg/m (4–5 lb/ft). SAPI plates have a black fabric cover with the text "7.62mm M80 Ball Protection"; as expected, they are required to stop three rounds of 7.62x51mm M80 ball, with the plate tilted thirty degrees towards the shooter for the third shot; this practice is common for all three-hit-protective plates in the SAPI series. Later, the Enhanced SAPI (ESAPI) specification was developed to protect from more penetrative ammunition. ESAPI ceramic plates have a green fabric cover with the text "7.62mm APM2 Protection" on the back and a density of 35–45 kg/m (7–9 lb/ft); they are designed to stop bullets like the .30-06 AP (M2) with a hardened steel core. Depending on revision, the plate may stop more than one. Since the issuance of CO/PD 04-19D on January 14, 2007, ESAPI plates are required to stop three rounds of M2AP. The plates may be differentiated by the text "REV." on the back, followed by a letter. A few years after the fielding of the ESAPI, the Department of Defense began to issue XSAPI plates in response to a perceived threat of AP projectiles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 120,000 inserts were procured; however, the AP threats they were meant to stop never materialized, and the plates were put into storage. XSAPI plates are required to stop three rounds of either the 7.62x51mm M993 or 5.56x45mm M995 tungsten-carbide armor-piercing projectiles (like newer ESAPIs, the third shot occurs with the plate tilted towards the shooter), and are distinguished by a tan cover with the text "7.62mm AP/WC Protection" on the back.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Cercom (now BAE Systems), CoorsTek, Ceradyne, TenCate Advanced Composites, Honeywell, DSM, Pinnacle Armor and a number of other engineering companies develop and manufacture the materials for composite ceramic rifle armor.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Body armor standards in the Russian Federation, as established in GOST R 50744-95, differ significantly from American standards, on account of a different security situation. The 7.62×25mm Tokarev round is a relatively common threat in Russia and is known to be able to penetrate NIJ IIIA soft armor. Armor protection in the face of the large numbers of these rounds, therefore, necessitates higher standards. GOST armor standards are more stringent than those of the NIJ with regards to protection and blunt impact.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: For example, one of the highest protection level, GOST 6A, requires the armor to withstand 3 7.62x54mmR B32 API hits fired from 5.10m away with 16mm of back-face deformation (BFD). NIJ Level IV-rated armor is only required to stop 1 hit of .30-06, or 7.62x63mm, M2AP with 44mm BFD.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Trauma plates, also called trauma pads, are inserts or pads which are placed behind ballistic armour plates/panels and serve to reduce the blunt force trauma absorbed by the body; they do not necessarily have any ballistic protective properties. While an armour system (hard or soft) may stop a projectile from penetrating, the projectile may still cause significant indentation and deformation of the armour, also called backface deformation. Trauma plates help protect against damage to the body from this backface deformation. Trauma plates should not be confused with soft armor or with ballistic plates, both of which do inherently provide ballistic protection.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Bomb disposal officers often wear heavy armor designed to protect against most effects of a moderate sized explosion, such as bombs encountered in terror threats. Full head helmet, covering the face and some degree of protection for limbs is mandatory in addition to very strong armor for the torso. An insert to protect the spine is usually applied to the back, in case an explosion throws the wearer. Visibility and mobility of the wearer is severely limited, as is the time that can be spent working on the device. Armor designed primarily to counter explosives is often somewhat less effective against bullets than armor designed for that purpose. The sheer mass of most bomb disposal armor usually provides some protection, and bullet-specific trauma plates are compatible with some bomb disposal suits. Bomb disposal technicians try to accomplish their task if possible using remote methods (e.g., robots, line and pulleys). Actually laying hands on a bomb is only done in an extremely life-threatening situation, where the hazards to people and critical structures cannot be lessened by using wheeled robots or other techniques.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: It is notable that despite the protection offered, much of it is in fragmentation. According to some sources, overpressure from ordinance beyond the charge of a typical hand grenade can overwhelm a bomb suit.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In some media, an EOD suit is portrayed as a heavily armoured bulletproof suit capable of ignoring explosions and gunfire; In real life this is not the case, as much of a bomb suit is made up of only soft armor.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In the mid-1980s the state of California Department of Corrections issued a requirement for a body armor using a commercial ice pick as the test penetrator. The test method attempted to simulate the capacity of a human attacker to deliver impact energy with their upper body. As was later shown by the work of the former British PSDB, this test overstated the capacity of human attackers. The test used a drop mass or sabot that carried the ice pick. Using gravitational force, the height of the drop mass above the vest was proportional to the impact energy. This test specified 109 joules (81 ft·lb) of energy and a 7.3 kg (16 lb) drop mass with a drop height of 153 cm (60 in).


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The ice pick has a 4 mm (0.16 in) diameter with a sharp tip with a 5.4 m/s (17 ft/s) terminal velocity in the test. The California standard did not include knife or cutting-edge weapons in the test protocol. The test method used the oil/clay (Roma Plastilena) tissue simulant as a test backing. In this early phase only titanium and steel plate offerings were successful in addressing this requirement. Point Blank developed the first ice pick certified offerings for CA Department of Corrections in shaped titanium sheet metal. Vests of this type are still in service in US corrections facilities as of 2008.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Beginning in the early 1990s, an optional test method was approved by California which permitted the use of 10% ballistic gelatin as a replacement for Roma clay. The transition from hard, dense clay-based Roma to soft low-density gelatin allowed all textile solutions to meet this attack energy requirement. Soon all textile "ice pick" vests began to be adopted by California and other US states as a result of this migration in the test methods. It is important for users to understand that the smooth, round tip of the ice pick does not cut fiber on impact and this permits the use of textile based vests for this application.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The earliest of these "all" fabric vests designed to address this ice pick test was Warwick Mills's TurtleSkin ultra tightly woven para-aramid fabric with a patent filed in 1993. Shortly after the TurtleSkin work, in 1995 DuPont patented a medium density fabric that was designated as Kevlar Correctional. These textile materials do not have equal performance with cutting-edge threats and these certifications were only with ice pick and were not tested with knives.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Parallel to the US development of "ice pick" vests, the British police, PSDB, was working on standards for knife-resistant body armor. Their program adopted a rigorous scientific approach and collected data on human attack capacity. Their ergonomic study suggested three levels of threat: 25, 35 and 45 joules of impact energy. In addition to impact energy attack, velocities were measured and were found to be 10–20 m/s (much faster than the California test). Two commercial knives were selected for use in this PSDB test method. In order to test at a representative velocity, an air cannon method was developed to propel the knife and sabot at the vest target using compressed air. In this first version, the PSDB ’93 test also used oil/clay materials as the tissue simulant backing. The introduction of knives which cut fiber and a hard-dense test backing required stab vest manufacturers to use metallic components in their vest designs to address this more rigorous standard. The current standard HOSDB Body Armour Standards for UK Police (2007) Part 3: Knife and Spike Resistance is harmonized with the US NIJ OO15 standard, use a drop test method and use a composite foam backing as a tissue simulant. Both the HOSDB and the NIJ test now specify engineered blades, double-edged S1 and single-edge P1 as well as the spike.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In addition to the stab standards, HOSDB has developed a standard for slash resistance (2006). This standard, like the stab standards, is based on drop testing with a test knife in a mounting of controlled mass. The slash test uses the Stanley Utility knife or box cutter blades. The slash standard tests the cut resistance of the armor panel parallel to the direction of blade travel. The test equipment measures the force at the instant the blade tip produces a sustained slash through the vest. The criteria require that slash failure of the armor be greater than 80 newtons of force.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Vests that combined stab and ballistic protection were a significant innovation in the 1990s period of vest development. The starting point for this development were the ballistic-only offerings of that time using NIJ Level 2A, 2, and 3A or HOSDB HG 1 and 2, with compliant ballistic vest products being manufactured with areal densities of between 5.5 and 6 kg/m (1.1 and 1.2 lb/ft or 18 and 20 oz/ft). However police forces were evaluating their "street threats" and requiring vests with both knife and ballistic protection. This multi-threat approach is common in the United Kingdom and other European countries and is less popular in the USA. Unfortunately for multi-threat users, the metallic array and chainmail systems that were necessary to defeat the test blades offered little ballistic performance. The multi-threat vests have areal densities close to the sum of the two solutions separately. These vests have mass values in the 7.5–8.5 kg/m (1.55–1.75 lb/ft) range. Ref (NIJ and HOSDB certification listings). Rolls Royce Composites -Megit and Highmark produced metallic array systems to address this HOSDB standard. These designs were used extensively by the London Metropolitan Police Service and other agencies in the United Kingdom.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: As vest manufacturers and the specifying authorities worked with these standards, the UK and US Standards teams began a collaboration on test methods. A number of issues with the first versions of the tests needed to be addressed. The use of commercial knives with inconsistent sharpness and tip shape created problems with test consistency. As a result, two new "engineered blades" were designed that could be manufactured to have reproducible penetrating behavior. The tissue simulants, Roma clay and gelatin, were either unrepresentative of tissue or not practical for the test operators. A composite-foam and hard-rubber test backing was developed as an alternative to address these issues. The drop test method was selected as the baseline for the updated standard over the air cannon option. The drop mass was reduced from the "ice pick test" and a wrist-like soft linkage was engineered into the penetrator-sabot to create a more realistic test impact. These closely related standards were first issued in 2003 as HOSDB 2003 and NIJ 0015. (The Police Scientific Development Branch (PSDB) was renamed the Home Office Scientific Development Branch in 2004.)


title: Bulletproof vest

text: These new standards created a focus on Level 1 at , Level 2 at , Level 3 at protection as tested with the new engineered knives defined in these test documents. The lowest level of this requirement at 25 joules was addressed by a series of textile products of both wovens, coated wovens and laminated woven materials. All of these materials were based on Para-aramid fiber. The co-efficient of friction for ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) prevented its use in this application. The TurtleSkin DiamondCoat and Twaron SRM products addressed this requirement using a combination of Para-Aramid wovens and bonded ceramic grain. These ceramic-coated products do not have the flexibility and softness of un-coated textile materials.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: For the higher levels of protection L2 and L3, the very aggressive penetration of the small, thin P1 blade has resulted in the continued use of metallic components in stab armor. In Germany, Mehler Vario Systems developed hybrid vests of woven para-aramid and chainmail, and their solution was selected by London's Metropolitan Police Service. Another German company BSST, in cooperation with Warwick Mills, has developed a system to meet the ballistic-stab requirement using Dyneema laminate and an advanced metallic-array system, TurtleSkin MFA. This system is currently implemented in the Netherlands. The trend in multi threat armor continues with requirements for needle protection in the Draft ISO prEN ISO 14876 norm. In many countries there is also an interest to combine military style explosive fragmentation protection with bullet-ballistics and stab requirements.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In order for ballistic protection to be wearable, the ballistic panels and/or hard rifle-resistant plates are placed within a carrier. The term "plate carrier" is used specifically to refer to armour carriers which can hold ballistic plates. Broadly, there are two major types of carriers: overt carriers, and low-profile carriers which are meant to be concealed:<ref name="spartan armor overt/covert"></ref>


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Overt/Tactical armour carriers typically include pouches and/or mounting systems, like MOLLE, for carrying gear and are usually designed to provide higher amounts of protection. The Improved Outer Tactical Vest and Soldier Plate Carrier Systems are examples of military carriers design to be used with ballistic plate inserts.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In addition to load carriage, this type of carrier may include pockets for neck protection, side plates, groin plates, and backside protection. Because this style of carrier is not close fitting, sizing in this system is straightforward for both men and women, making custom fabrication unnecessary.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Low profile/concealable carriers holds the ballistic panels and/or ballistic plates close to the wearer's body and a uniform shirt may be worn over the carrier. This type of carrier must be designed to conform closely to the officer's body shape. For concealable armor to conform to the body it must be correctly fitted to a particular individual. Many programs specify full custom measurement and manufacturing of armor panels and carriers to ensure good fit and comfortable armor. Officers who are either female or significantly overweight have more difficulty in getting accurately measured and having comfortable armor fabricated.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: A third textile layer is often found between the carrier and the ballistic components. The ballistic panels are covered in a coated pouch or slip. This slip provides the encapsulation of the ballistic materials. Slips are manufactured in two types: heat sealed hermetic slips and simple sewn slips. For some ballistic fibers such as Kevlar the slip is a critical part of the system. The slip prevents moisture from the user's body from saturating the ballistic materials. This protection from moisture cycling increases the useful life of the armor.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The vast majority of hard body armor plates, including the U.S. military's Small Arms Protective Insert family, are monolithic; their strike faces consist of a single ceramic tile. Monolithic plates are lighter than their non-monolithic counterparts, but suffer from reduced effectiveness when shot multiple times in a close area (i.e., shots spaced less than two inches/5.1 cm apart). However, several non-monolithic armor systems have emerged, the most well-known being the controversial Dragon Skin system. Dragon Skin, composed of dozens of overlapping ceramic scales, promised superior multi-hit performance and flexibility compared to the then-current ESAPI plate; however, it failed to deliver. When the U.S. Army tested the system against the same requirements as the ESAPI, Dragon Skin showed major issues with environmental damage; the scales would come apart when subjected to temperatures above 120 °F (49 °C) - not uncommon in Middle Eastern climates - when exposed to diesel vehicle fuel, or after the two four-foot drop tests (after these drops, ESAPI plates are put in an X-ray machine to determine the location of cracks, and then shot directly on said cracks), leaving the plate unable to reach its stated threat level and suffering 13 first- or second-shot complete penetrations by .30-06 M2 AP (the ESAPI test threat) out of 48 shots.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Perhaps less-well known is LIBA (Light Improved Body Armor), manufactured by Royal TenCate, ARES Protection, and Mofet Etzion in the early 2000s. LIBA uses an innovative array of ceramic pellets embedded in a polyethylene backer; although this layout lacks the flexibility of Dragon Skin, it provides impressive multi-hit ability as well as the unique ability to repair the armor by replacing damaged pellets and epoxying them over. In addition, there are variants of LIBA with multi-hit capacity against threats analogous to 7.62×51mm NATO M993 AP/WC, a tungsten-cored armor-piercing round. Field tests of LIBA have yielded successful results, with 15 AKM hits producing only minor bruises.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Ballistic vests use layers of very strong fibers to "catch" and deform a bullet, mushrooming it into a dish shape, and spreading its force over a larger portion of the vest fiber. The vest absorbs the energy from the deforming bullet, bringing it to a stop before it can completely penetrate the textile matrix. Some layers may be penetrated but as the bullet deforms, the energy is absorbed by a larger and larger fiber area.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In recent years, advances in material science have opened the door to the idea of a literal "bulletproof vest" able to stop handgun and rifle bullets with a soft textile vest, without the assistance of additional metal or ceramic plating. However, progress is moving at a slower rate compared to other technical disciplines. The most recent offering from Kevlar, Protera, was released in 1996. Current soft body armor can stop most handgun rounds (which has been the case for roughly 15 years ), but armor plates are needed to stop rifle rounds and steel-core handgun rounds such as 7.62×25mm. The para-aramids have not progressed beyond the limit of 23 grams per denier in fiber tenacity.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Modest ballistic performance improvements have been made by new producers of this fiber type. Much the same can be said for the UHMWPE material; the basic fiber properties have only advanced to the 30–35 g/d range. Improvements in this material have been seen in the development of cross-plied non-woven laminate, e.g. Spectra Shield. The major ballistic performance advance of fiber PBO is known as a "cautionary tale" in materials science. This fiber permitted the design of handgun soft armor that was 30–50% lower in mass as compared to the aramid and UHMWPE materials. However this higher tenacity was delivered with a well-publicized weakness in environmental durability.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Akzo-Magellan (now DuPont) teams have been working on fiber called M5 fiber; however, its announced startup of its pilot plant has been delayed more than 2 years. Data suggests if the M5 material can be brought to market, its performance will be roughly equivalent to PBO. In May 2008, the Teijin Aramid group announced a "super-fibers" development program. The Teijin emphasis appears to be on computational chemistry to define a solution to high tenacity without environmental weakness.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: The materials science of second generation "super" fibers is complex, requires large investments, and represent significant technical challenges. Research aims to develop artificial spider silk which could be super strong, yet light and flexible. Other research has been done to harness nanotechnology to help create super-strong fibers that could be used in future bulletproof vests. In 2018, the US military began conducting research into the feasibility of using artificial silk as body armor, which has the advantages of its light weight and its cooling capability.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Finer yarns and lighter woven fabrics have been a key factor in improving ballistic results. The cost of ballistic fibers increases dramatically as the yarn size decreases, so it's unclear how long this trend can continue. The current practical limit of fiber size is 200 denier with most wovens limited at the 400 denier level. Three-dimensional weaving with fibers connecting flat wovens together into a 3D system are being considered for both hard and soft ballistics. Team Engineering Inc is designing and weaving these multi layer materials. Dyneema DSM has developed higher performance laminates using a new, higher strength fiber designated SB61, and HB51. DSM feels this advanced material provides some improved performance, however the SB61 "soft ballistic" version has been recalled. At the Shot Show in 2008, a unique composite of interlocking steel plates and soft UHWMPE plate was exhibited by TurtleSkin. In combination with more traditional woven fabrics and laminates a number of research efforts are working with ballistic felts. Tex Tech has been working on these materials. Like the 3D weaving, Tex Tech sees the advantage in the 3-axis fiber orientation.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Ballistic nylon (until the 1970s) or Kevlar, Twaron or Spectra (a competitor for Kevlar) or polyethylene fiber could be used to manufacture bullet proof vests. The vests of the time were made of ballistic nylon & supplemented by plates of fiber-glass, steel, ceramic, titanium, Doron & composites of ceramic and fiberglass, the last being the most effective.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Ceramic materials, materials processing and progress in ceramic penetration mechanics are significant areas of academic and industrial activity. This combined field of ceramics armor research is broad and is perhaps summarized best by The American Ceramics Society. ACerS has run an annual armor conference for a number of years and compiled a proceedings 2004–2007. An area of special activity pertaining to vests is the emerging use of small ceramic components. Large torso sized ceramic plates are complex to manufacture and are subject to cracking in use. Monolithic plates also have limited multi hit capacity as a result of their large impact fracture zone These are the motivations for new types of armor plate. These new designs use two- and three-dimensional arrays of ceramic elements that can be rigid, flexible or semi-flexible. Dragon Skin body armor is one of these systems. European developments in spherical and hexagonal arrays have resulted in products that have some flex and multi hit performance. The manufacture of array type systems with flex, consistent ballistic performance at edges of ceramic elements is an active area of research. In addition advanced ceramic processing techniques arrays require adhesive assembly methods. One novel approach is use of hook and loop fasteners to assemble the ceramic arrays.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Currently, there are a number of methods by which nanomaterials are being implemented into body armor production. The first, developed at University of Delaware is based on nanoparticles within the suit that become rigid enough to protect the wearer as soon as a kinetic energy threshold is surpassed. These coatings have been described as shear thickening fluids. These nano-infused fabrics have been licensed by BAE systems, but as of mid-2008, no products have been released based on this technology.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In 2005 an Israeli company, ApNano, developed a material that was always rigid. It was announced that this nanocomposite based on tungsten disulfide nanotubes was able to withstand shocks generated by a steel projectile traveling at velocities of up to 1.5 km/s. The material was also reportedly able to withstand shock pressures generated by other impacts of up to 250 metric tons-force per square centimeter (24.5 gigapascals; 3,550,000 psi). During the tests, the material proved to be so strong that after the impact the samples remained essentially unmarred. Additionally, a study in France tested the material under isostatic pressure and found it to be stable up to at least 350 tf/cm (34 GPa; 5,000,000 psi).


title: Bulletproof vest

text: As of mid-2008, spider silk bulletproof vests and nano-based armors are being developed for potential market release. Both the British and American militaries have expressed interest in a carbon fiber woven from carbon nanotubes that was developed at University of Cambridge and has the potential to be used as body armor. In 2008, large format carbon nanotube sheets began being produced at Nanocomp.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In late 2014, researchers began studying and testing graphene as a material for use in body armor. Graphene is manufactured from carbon and is the thinnest, strongest, and most conductive material on the planet. Taking the form of hexagonally arranged atoms, its tensile strength is known to be 200 times greater than steel, but studies from Rice University have revealed it is also 10 times better than steel at dissipating energy, an ability that had previously not been thoroughly explored. To test its properties, the University of Massachusetts stacked together graphene sheets only a single carbon atom thick, creating layers ranging in thickness from 10 nanometers to 100 nanometers from 300 layers. Microscopic spherical silica "bullets" were fired at the sheets at speeds of up to 3 km (1.9 mi) per second, almost nine times the speed of sound. Upon impact, the projectiles deformed into a cone shape around the graphene before ultimately breaking through. In the three nanoseconds it held together however, the transferred energy traveled through the material at a speed of 22.2 km (13.8 mi) per second, faster than any other known material. If the impact stress can be spread out over a large enough area that the cone moves out at an appreciable velocity compared with the velocity of the projectile, stress will not be localized under where it hit. Although a wide impact hole opened up, a composite mixture of graphene and other materials could be made to create a new, revolutionary armor solution.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In Australia, it is illegal to import body armour without prior authorisation from Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. It is also illegal to possess body armour without authorization in South Australia, Victoria, Northern Territory, ACT, Queensland, New South Wales, and Tasmania.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: United States law restricts possession of body armor for convicted violent felons. Many U.S. states also have penalties for possession or use of body armor by felons. In other states, such as Kentucky, possession is not prohibited, but probation or parole is denied to a person convicted of committing certain violent crimes while wearing body armor and carrying a deadly weapon. Most states do not have restrictions for non-felons.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In all Canadian provinces except for Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba, it is legal to wear and to purchase body armour such as ballistic vests. Under the laws of these provinces, it is illegal to possess body armour without a license (unless exempted) issued by the provincial government. Nova Scotia has passed similar laws, but they are not yet in force.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: According to the Body Armour Control Act of Alberta which came into force on June 15, 2012, any individual in possession of a valid firearms licence under the Firearms Act of Canada can legally purchase, possess and wear body armour.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: Under Schedule C (item ML13) of Cap. 60G Import and Export (Strategic Commodities) Regulations, "armoured or protective equipment, constructions and components" are not regulated "when accompanying their user for the user's own personal protection".


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In the European Union, the import and sale of ballistic vests and body armor is allowed. There is an exception for vests that are developed under strict military specifications and/or for main military usage; shield above the level of protection NIJ 4 are considered by the law as "armament materials" and forbidden for civilian use. There are many shops in the EU that sell ballistic vests and body armor, used or new.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In Italy, the purchase, ownership and wear of ballistic vests and body armor is not subject to any restriction, except for those ballistic protections that are developed under strict military specifications and/or for main military usage, thus considered by the law as "armament materials" and forbidden to civilians. Furthermore, a number of laws and court rulings during the years have rehearsed the concept of a ballistic vest being mandatory to wear for those individuals who work in the private security sector.


title: Bulletproof vest

text: In the Netherlands the civilian ownership of body armour is subject to the European Union regulations. Body armour in various ballistic grades is sold by a range of different vendors, mainly aimed at providing to security guards and VIP's. The use of body armour while committing a crime is not an additional offence in itself, but may be interpreted as so under different laws such as resisting arrest.


title: Chess piece

text: A chess piece, or chessman, is a game piece that is placed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. It can be either white or black, and it can be one of six types: king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, or pawn.


title: Chess piece

text: Chess sets generally come with sixteen pieces of each color. Additional pieces, usually an extra queen per color, may be provided for use in promotion.


title: Chess piece

text: Each player begins with sixteen pieces (but see the subsection below for other usage of the term "piece"). The pieces that belong to each player are distinguished by color: the lighter colored pieces are referred to as "white" and the player that owns them as "White", whereas the darker colored pieces are referred to as "black" and the player that owns them as "Black".


title: Chess piece

text: The rules of chess prescribe the moves each type of chess piece can make. During play, the players take turns moving their own chess pieces.


title: Chess piece

text: Pieces other than pawns capture in the same way that they move. A capturing piece replaces the opponent piece on its square, except for an "en passant" capture by a pawn. Captured pieces are immediately removed from the game. A square may hold only one piece at any given time. Except for castling and the knight's move, no piece may jump over another piece.


title: Chess piece

text: The value assigned to a piece attempts to represent the potential strength of the piece in the game. As the game develops, the relative values of the pieces will also change. For example, in an , bishops are relatively more valuable; they can be positioned to control long, open diagonal spaces. In a with lines of protected pawns blocking bishops, however, knights usually become relatively more potent. Similar ideas apply to placing rooks on open files and knights on active, . The standard valuation is one point for a pawn, three points for a knight or bishop, five points for a rook, and nine points for a queen. These values are reliable in endgames, particularly with a limited number of pieces. But these values can change depending on the position or the phase of the game (opening, middle game, or ending). A for example, is worth an additional half-pawn on average. In specific circumstances, the values may be quite different: sometimes a knight can be more valuable than a queen if a particular angle is required for a mating attack, such as certain smothered mates. The humble pawn becomes more and more valuable the closer it is to securing a queen promotion for another example.


title: Chess piece

text: Chess evolved over time from its earliest versions in India and Persia to variants that spread both West and East. Pieces changed names and rules as well; the most notable changes was the Vizir (or Firz) becoming the Queen, and the Elephant becoming the Bishop in European versions of chess. The movement patterns for Queens and Bishops also changed, with the earliest rules restricting elephants to just two squares along a diagonal, but allowing them to "jump" (seen in the fairy chess piece the alfil); and the earliest versions of queens could only move a single square diagonally (the fairy chess piece Ferz). The modern bishop's movement was popularized in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the modern queen was popularized in the 15th and 16th centuries, with versions with the more powerful modern queen eclipsing older variants.


title: Chess piece

text: The characters implied by pieces' names vary between languages. For example, in many languages, the piece known in English as the "knight" frequently translates as "horse", and the English "bishop" frequently translates as "elephant" in language areas that adapted the modern bishop's movement pattern, but not its new name.


title: Chess piece

text: Chess variants sometimes include new, non-standard, or even old pieces. For example, Courier Chess, a predecessor of modern chess dating from the 12th century, was played on an 8×12 board and used all six modern chess piece types, plus three additional types of pieces: Courier, Mann (or "rath" or "sage"), and Jester. Variants of "old" chess might use the old rules for bishops/elephants with the alfil piece, or old rules for Queens with the ferz. Many modern variants with unorthdox pieces exist, such as Berolina chess which uses custom pawns that advance diagonally and capture vertically.


title: Pathogen

text: In biology, a pathogen (, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ.


title: Pathogen

text: The term "pathogen" came into use in the 1880s. Typically, the term "pathogen" is used to describe an "infectious" microorganism or agent, such as a virus, bacterium, protozoan, prion, viroid, or fungus. Small animals, such as helminths and insects, can also cause or transmit disease. However, these animals are usually referred to as parasites rather than pathogens. The scientific study of microscopic organisms, including microscopic pathogenic organisms, is called microbiology, while parasitology refers to the scientific study of parasites and the organisms that host them.


title: Pathogen

text: There are several pathways through which pathogens can invade a host. The principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil has the longest or most persistent potential for harboring a pathogen.


title: Pathogen

text: Diseases in humans that are caused by infectious agents are known as pathogenic diseases. Not all diseases are caused by pathogens, other causes are, for example, toxins, genetic disorders and the host's own immune system.


title: Pathogen

text: Pathogenicity is the potential disease-causing capacity of pathogens. Pathogenicity is related to virulence in meaning, but some authorities have come to distinguish it as a "qualitative" term, whereas the latter is "quantitative". By this standard, an organism may be said to be pathogenic or non-pathogenic in a particular context, but not "more pathogenic" than another. Such comparisons are described instead in terms of relative virulence. Pathogenicity is also distinct from the transmissibility of a virus, which quantifies the risk of infection.


title: Pathogen

text: A pathogen may be described in terms of its ability to produce toxins, enter tissue, colonize, hijack nutrients, and its ability to immunosuppress the host.


title: Pathogen

text: It is common to speak of an entire species of bacteria as pathogenic when it is identified as the cause of a disease "(cf. Koch's postulates)". However, the modern view is that pathogenicity depends on the microbial ecosystem as a whole. A bacterium may participate in opportunistic infections in immunocompromised hosts, acquire virulence factors by plasmid infection, become transferred to a different site within the host, or respond to changes in the overall numbers of other bacteria present. For example, infection of mesenteric lymph glands of mice with "Yersinia" can clear the way for continuing infection of these sites by "Lactobacillus", possibly by a mechanism of "immunological scarring".


title: Pathogen

text: Virulence (the tendency of a pathogen to reduce a host's fitness) evolves when a pathogen can spread from a diseased host, despite the host becoming debilitated. Horizontal transmission occurs between hosts of the same species, in contrast to vertical transmission, which tends to evolve toward symbiosis (after a period of high morbidity and mortality in the population) by linking the pathogen's evolutionary success to the evolutionary success of the host organism. Evolutionary biology proposes that many pathogens evolve an optimal virulence at which the fitness gained by increased replication rates is balanced by trade-offs in reduced transmission, but the exact mechanisms underlying these relationships remain controversial.


title: Pathogen

text: Transmission of pathogens occurs through many different routes, including airborne, direct or indirect contact, sexual contact, through blood, breast milk, or other body fluids, and through the fecal-oral route.


title: Pathogen

text: Algae are single-celled eukaryotes that are generally non-pathogenic although pathogenic varieties do exist. "Protothecosis" is a disease found in dogs, cats, cattle, and humans caused by a type of green alga known as prototheca that lacks chlorophyll. Often found in soil and sewage, the species "Prototheca wickerhami" is the cause for most human cases of the rare infection of protothecosis.


title: Pathogen

text: The vast majority of bacteria, which can range between 0.15 and 700 μM in length, are harmless or beneficial to humans. However, a relatively small list of pathogenic bacteria can cause infectious diseases. Pathogenic bacteria have several ways that they can cause disease. They can either directly affect the cells of their host, produce endotoxins that damage the cells of their host, or cause a strong enough immune response that the host cells are damaged.


title: Pathogen

text: One of the bacterial diseases with the highest disease burden is tuberculosis, caused by the bacterium "Mycobacterium tuberculosis", which killed 1.5 million people in 2013, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Pathogenic bacteria contribute to other globally significant diseases, such as pneumonia, which can be caused by bacteria such as "Streptococcus" and "Pseudomonas", and foodborne illnesses, which can be caused by bacteria such as "Shigella", "Campylobacter", and "Salmonella". In patients with cystic fibrosis, "Pseudomonas" bacteria can form a biofilm that has a high resistance to the immune system and antibiotics by developing adaptive mutations and producing virulence factors. Pathogenic bacteria also cause infections such as tetanus, typhoid fever, diphtheria, syphilis, and leprosy.


title: Pathogen

text: Fungi are eukaryotic organisms that can function as pathogens. There are approximately 300 known fungi that are pathogenic to humans including "Candida albicans", which is the most common cause of thrush, and "Cryptococcus neoformans", which can cause a severe form of meningitis. The typical fungal spore size is <4.7 μm in length, but some spores may be larger.


title: Pathogen

text: Prions are misfolded proteins that are transmissible and can influence the abnormal folding of normal proteins in the brain. They do not contain any DNA or RNA and cannot replicate other than to convert already existing normal proteins to the misfolded state. These abnormally folded proteins are found characteristically in many neurodegenerative diseases as they aggregate the central nervous system and create plaques that damages the tissue structure. This essentially creates "holes" in the tissue. It has been found that prions transmit in three ways: obtained, familial, and sporadic. It has also been found that plants play the role of vectors for prions. There are eight different diseases that affect mammals that are caused by prions such as scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE). There are also ten diseases that affect humans, such as Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) and Fatal familial insomnia (FFI).


title: Pathogen

text: Not to be confused with virusoid or virus. Viroids are the smallest infectious pathogens known. They are composed solely of a short strand of circular, single-stranded RNA that has no protein coating. All known viroids are inhabitants of higher plants, and most cause diseases, whose respective economic importance on humans vary widely.


title: Pathogen

text: Viruses are small particles, typically between 20 and 300 nanometers in length, containing RNA or DNA. Viruses require a host cell to replicate. Some of the diseases that are caused by viral pathogens include smallpox, influenza, mumps, measles, chickenpox, ebola, HIV, rubella, and COVID-19.


title: Pathogen

text: Pathogenic viruses are mainly from the families Adenoviridae, Coronaviridae, Picornaviridae, Herpesviridae, Hepadnaviridae, Flaviviridae, Retroviridae, Orthomyxoviridae, Paramyxoviridae, Papovaviridae, Polyomavirus, Rhabdoviridae, and Togaviridae. HIV is a notable member of the family Retroviridae which affected 37.9 million people across the world in 2018.


title: Pathogen

text: Protozoans are single-celled eukaryotes that feed on microorganisms and organic tissues. Considered as "one-celled animal" as they have animal like behaviors such as motility, predation, and a lack of a cell wall. Many protozoan pathogens are considered human parasites as they cause a variety of diseases such as: malaria, amoebiasis, giardiasis, toxoplasmosis, cryptosporidiosis, trichomoniasis, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), "Acanthamoeba" keratitis, and primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (naegleriasis).


title: Pathogen

text: Parasitic worms (helminths) are macroparasites that can be seen by the naked eye. Worms live and feed in their living host, receiving nourishment and shelter while affecting the host's way of digesting nutrients. They also manipulate the host's immune system by secreting immunomodulatory products which allows them to live in their host for years. Many parasitic worms are more commonly intestinal that are soil-transmitted and infect the digestive tract; other parasitic worms are found in the host's blood vessels. Parasitic worms living in the host can cause weakness and even lead to many diseases. Parasitic worms can cause many diseases to both humans and animals. Helminthiasis (worm infection), ascariasis, and enterobiasis (pinworm infection) are a few that are caused by various parasitic worms.


title: Pathogen

text: Although bacteria can be pathogens themselves, they can also be infected by pathogens. Bacteriophages are viruses, also known as phage (plural) and phages, that infect bacteria often leading to the death of the bacteria that was infected. Common bacteriophages include T7 and Lambda phage. There are bacteriophages that infect every kind of bacteria including both gram-negative and gram-positive. Even pathogenic bacteria that infect other species, including humans, can be infected with a phage.


title: Pathogen

text: Plants can play host to a wide range of pathogen types including viruses, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and even other plants. Notable plant viruses include the Papaya ringspot virus which has caused millions of dollars of damage to farmers in Hawaii and Southeast Asia, and the Tobacco mosaic virus which caused scientist Martinus Beijerinck to coin the term "virus" in 1898. Bacterial plant pathogens are also a serious problem causing leaf spots, blights, and rots in many plant species. The top two bacterial pathogens for plants are "Pseudomonas syringae" and "Ralstonia solanacearum" which cause leaf browning and other issues in potatoes, tomatoes, and bananas.


title: Pathogen

text: Fungi are another major pathogen type for plants. They can cause a wide variety of issues such as shorter plant height, growths or pits on tree trunks, root or seed rot, and leaf spots. Common and serious plant fungi include the rice blast fungus, Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight and the black knot and brown rot diseases of cherries, plums, and peaches. It is estimated that pathogenic fungi alone cause up to a 65% reduction in crop yield.


title: Pathogen

text: Overall, plants have a wide array of pathogens and it has been estimated that only 3% of the disease caused by plant pathogens can be managed.


title: Pathogen

text: Animals often get infected with many of the same or similar pathogens as humans including prions, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. While wild animals often get illnesses, the larger danger is for livestock animals. It is estimated that in rural settings, 90% or more of livestock deaths can be attributed to pathogens. The prion disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as Mad cow disease, is one of the few prion diseases that affect animals. Other animal diseases include a variety of immunodeficiency disorders that are caused by viruses related to the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) including BIV and FIV.


title: Pathogen

text: Humans can be infected with many types of pathogens including prions, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Viruses and bacteria that infect humans can cause symptoms such as sneezing, coughing, fever, vomiting, and even lead to death. Some of these symptoms are caused by the virus itself, while others are caused by the immune system of the infected person.


title: Pathogen

text: A variety of prevention and treatment options exist for some viral pathogens. Vaccines are one common and effective preventive measure against a variety of viral pathogens. Vaccines prime the immune system of the host, so that when the potential host encounters the virus in the wild, the immune system can defend against infection quickly. Vaccines exist for viruses such as the measles, mumps, and rubella viruses and the influenza virus. Some viruses such as HIV, dengue, and chikungunya do not have vaccines available.


title: Pathogen

text: Treatment of viral infections often involves treating the symptoms of the infection rather than providing any medication that affects the viral pathogen itself. Treating the symptoms of a viral infection gives the host immune system time to develop antibodies against the viral pathogen which will then clear the infection. In some cases, treatment against the virus is necessary. One example of this is HIV where antiretroviral therapy, also known as ART or HAART, is needed to prevent immune cell loss and the progression into AIDS.


title: Pathogen

text: Much like viral pathogens, infection by certain bacterial pathogens can be prevented via vaccines. Vaccines against bacterial pathogens include the anthrax vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine. Many other bacterial pathogens lack vaccines as a preventive measure, but infection by these bacteria can often be treated or prevented with antibiotics. Common antibiotics include amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, and doxycycline. Each antibiotic has different bacteria that it is effective against and has different mechanisms to kill that bacteria. For example, doxycycline inhibits the synthesis of new proteins in both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria which leads to the death of the affected bacteria.


title: Pathogen

text: Due in part to overprescribing antibiotics in circumstances where they are not needed, some bacterial pathogens have developed antibiotic resistance and are becoming hard to treat with classical antibiotics. A genetically distinct strain of Staphylococcus aureus called MRSA is one example of a bacterial pathogen that is difficult to treat with common antibiotics. A report released in 2013 by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimated that each year in the United States, at least 2 million people get an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, and at least 23,000 people die from those infections.


title: Pathogen

text: Due to their indispensability in Bacteria, essential persistent DNA methyltransferases are potential targets for the development of epigenetic inhibitors capable of, for example, enhance the therapeutic activity of antimicrobials, or decrease a pathogen's virulence.


title: Pathogen

text: Infection by fungal pathogens is treated with anti-fungal medication. Fungal infections such as athlete's foot, jock itch, and ringworm are infections of the skin and can be treated with topical anti-fungal medications like Clotrimazole. Other common fungal infections include infections by the yeast strain Candida albicans. Candida can cause infections of the mouth or throat, commonly referred to as thrush, or it can cause vaginal infections. These internal infections can either be treated with anti-fungal creams or with oral medication. Common anti-fungal drugs for internal infections include the Echinocandin family of drugs and Fluconazole.


title: Pathogen

text: Algae are commonly not thought of as pathogens, but the genus "Prototheca" is known to cause disease in humans"." Treatment for this kind of infection is currently under investigation and there is no consistency in clinical treatment.


title: Pathogen

text: Many pathogens are capable of sexual interaction. Among pathogenic bacteria, sexual interaction occurs between cells of the same species by the process of natural genetic transformation. Transformation involves the transfer of DNA from a donor cell to a recipient cell and the integration of the donor DNA into the recipient genome by recombination. Examples of bacterial pathogens capable of natural transformation are "Helicobacter pylori", "Haemophilus influenzae", "Legionella pneumophila", "Neisseria gonorrhoeae" and "Streptococcus pneumoniae".


title: Pathogen

text: Eukaryotic pathogens are often capable of sexual interaction by a process involving meiosis and syngamy. Meiosis involves the intimate pairing of homologous chromosomes and recombination between them. Examples of eukaryotic pathogens capable of sex include the protozoan parasites "Plasmodium falciparum", "Toxoplasma gondii", "Trypanosoma brucei", "Giardia intestinalis", and the fungi "Aspergillus fumigatus", "Candida albicans" and "Cryptococcus neoformans".


title: Pathogen

text: Viruses may also undergo sexual interaction when two or more viral genomes enter the same host cell. This process involves pairing of homologous genomes and recombination between them by a process referred to as multiplicity reactivation. Examples of viruses that undergo this process are herpes simplex virus, human immunodeficiency virus, and vaccinia virus.


title: Pathogen

text: The sexual processes in bacteria, microbial eukaryotes, and viruses all involve recombination between homologous genomes that appears to facilitate the repair of genomic damage to the pathogens caused by the defenses of their respective target hosts.


title: Silent Spring

text: Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.


title: Silent Spring

text: In the late 1950s, Carson began to work on environmental conservation, especially environmental problems that she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result of her research was "Silent Spring", which brought environmental concerns to the American public. The book was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, but it swayed public opinion and led to a reversal in U.S. pesticide policy, a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses, and an environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.


title: Silent Spring

text: In 2006, "Silent Spring" was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by the editors of "Discover" magazine.


title: Silent Spring

text: In the mid-1940s, Carson became concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, many of which had been developed through the military funding of science after World War II. The United States Department of Agriculture's 1957 fire ant eradication program, which involved aerial spraying of DDT and other pesticides mixed with fuel oil and included the spraying of private land, prompted Carson to devote her research, and her next book, to pesticides and environmental poisons. Landowners in Long Island filed a suit to have the spraying stopped, and many in affected regions followed the case closely. Though the suit was lost, the Supreme Court granted petitioners the right to gain injunctions against potential environmental damage in the future, laying the basis for later environmental actions.


title: Silent Spring

text: The impetus for "Silent Spring" was a letter written in January 1958 by Carson's friend, Olga Owens Huckins, to "The Boston Herald", describing the death of birds around her property in Duxbury, Massachusetts, resulting from the aerial spraying of DDT to kill mosquitoes, a copy of which Huckins sent to Carson. Carson later wrote that this letter prompted her to study the environmental problems caused by chemical pesticides.


title: Silent Spring

text: The Audubon Naturalist Society actively opposed chemical spraying programs and recruited Carson to help publicize the U.S. government's spraying practices and related research. Carson began the four-year project of "Silent Spring" by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She tried to enlist essayist E. B. White and a number of journalists and scientists to her cause. By 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to co-write with "Newsweek" science journalist Edwin Diamond. However, when "The New Yorker" commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, she began considering writing more than the introduction and conclusion as planned; soon it became a solo project. Diamond would later write one of the harshest critiques of "Silent Spring".


title: Silent Spring

text: As her research progressed, Carson found a sizable community of scientists who were documenting the physiological and environmental effects of pesticides. She took advantage of her personal connections with many government scientists, who supplied her with confidential information on the subject. From reading the scientific literature and interviewing scientists, Carson found two scientific camps: those who dismissed the possible danger of pesticide spraying barring conclusive proof, and those who were open to the possibility of harm and willing to consider alternative methods, such as biological pest control.


title: Silent Spring

text: By 1959, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service responded to the criticism by Carson and others with a public service film, "Fire Ants on Trial"; Carson called it "flagrant propaganda" that ignored the dangers that spraying pesticides posed to humans and wildlife. That spring, Carson wrote a letter, published in "The Washington Post", that attributed the recent decline in bird populationsin her words, the "silencing of birds"to pesticide overuse. The same year, the 1957, 1958, and 1959 crops of U.S. cranberries were found to contain high levels of the herbicide aminotriazole and the sale of all cranberry products was halted. Carson attended the ensuing FDA hearings on revising pesticide regulations; she was discouraged by the aggressive tactics of the chemical industry representatives, which included expert testimony that was firmly contradicted by the bulk of the scientific literature she had been studying. She also wondered about the possible "financial inducements behind certain pesticide programs".


title: Silent Spring

text: Research at the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers investigating the gamut of cancer-causing chemicals. Of particular significance was the work of National Cancer Institute researcher and founding director of the environmental cancer section Wilhelm Hueper, who classified many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and her research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer connection; to Carson the evidence for the toxicity of a wide array of synthetic pesticides was clear-cut, though such conclusions were very controversial beyond the small community of scientists studying pesticide carcinogenesis.


title: Silent Spring

text: By 1960, Carson had sufficient research material and the writing was progressing rapidly. She had investigated hundreds of individual incidents of pesticide exposure and the resulting human sickness and ecological damage. In January 1960, she suffered an illness which kept her bedridden for weeks, delaying the book. As she was nearing full recovery in March, she discovered cysts in her left breast, requiring a mastectomy. By December that year, Carson discovered that she had breast cancer, which had metastasized. Her research was also delayed by revision work for a new edition of "The Sea Around Us", and by a collaborative photo essay with Erich Hartmann. Most of the research and writing was done by the fall of 1960, except for a discussion of recent research on biological controls and investigations of some new pesticides. However, further health troubles delayed the final revisions in 1961 and early 1962.


title: Silent Spring

text: The work's title was inspired by a poem by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which contained the lines "The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing." "Silent Spring" was initially suggested as a title for the chapter on birds. By August 1961, Carson agreed to the suggestion of her literary agent Marie Rodell: "Silent Spring" would be a metaphorical title for the entire booksuggesting a bleak future for the whole natural worldrather than a literal chapter title about the absence of birdsong. With Carson's approval, editor Paul Brooks at Houghton Mifflin arranged for illustrations by Louis and Lois Darling, who also designed the cover. The final writing was the first chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow", which was intended to provide a gentle introduction to a serious topic. By mid-1962, Brooks and Carson had largely finished the editing and were planning to promote the book by sending the manuscript to select individuals for final suggestions. In "Silent Spring", Carson relied on evidence from two New York state organic farmers, Marjorie Spock and Mary Richards, and that of biodynamic farming advocate Ehrenfried Pfeiffer in developing her case against DDT.


title: Silent Spring

text: The overarching theme of "Silent Spring" is the powerfuland often negativeeffect humans have on the natural world. Carson's main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; she says these are more properly termed "biocides" because their effects are rarely limited to solely targeting pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticidesmany of which are subject to bioaccumulationare scrutinized. Carson accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides' effects on natural ecosystems, but four chapters detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides. About DDT and cancer, Carson says only:


title: Silent Spring

text: Carson predicts increased consequences in the future, especially since targeted pests may develop resistance to pesticides and weakened ecosystems fall prey to unanticipated invasive species. The book closes with a call for a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to chemical pesticides.


title: Silent Spring

text: Carson never called for an outright ban on DDT. She said in "Silent Spring" that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counterproductive because it would create insect resistance to pesticides, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:


title: Silent Spring

text: Carson also said that "Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes", and quoted the advice given by the director of Holland's Plant Protection Service: "Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity'. Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible."


title: Silent Spring

text: Carson and the others involved with publication of "Silent Spring" expected fierce criticism and were concerned about the possibility of being sued for libel. Carson was undergoing radiation therapy for her cancer and expected to have little energy to defend her work and respond to critics. In preparation for the anticipated attacks, Carson and her agent attempted to amass prominent supporters before the book's release.


title: Silent Spring

text: Most of the book's scientific chapters were reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among whom Carson found strong support. Carson attended the White House Conference on Conservation in May 1962; Houghton Mifflin distributed proof copies of "Silent Spring" to many of the delegates and promoted the upcoming serialization in "The New Yorker". Carson also sent a proof copy to Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, a long-time environmental advocate who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide spraying case and had provided Carson with some of the material included in her chapter on herbicides.


title: Silent Spring

text: Though "Silent Spring" had generated a fairly high level of interest based on pre-publication promotion, this became more intense with its serialization, which began in the June 16, 1962, issue. This brought the book to the attention of the chemical industry and its lobbyists, as well as the American public. Around that time, Carson learned that "Silent Spring" had been selected as the Book of the Month for October; she said this would "carry it to farms and hamlets all over that country that don't know what a bookstore looks likemuch less "The New Yorker"". Other publicity included a positive editorial in "The New York Times" and excerpts of the serialized version were published in "Audubon Magazine". There was another round of publicity in July and August as chemical companies responded. The story of the birth defect-causing drug thalidomide had broken just before the book's publication, inviting comparisons between Carson and Frances Oldham Kelsey, the Food and Drug Administration reviewer who had blocked the drug's sale in the United States.


title: Silent Spring

text: In the weeks before the September 27, 1962, publication, there was strong opposition to "Silent Spring" from the chemical industry. DuPont, a major manufacturer of DDT and 2,4-D, and Velsicol Chemical Company, the only manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor, were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin, and "The New Yorker" and "Audubon Magazine" unless their planned "Silent Spring" features were canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists lodged a range of non-specific complaints, some anonymously. Chemical companies and associated organizations produced brochures and articles promoting and defending pesticide use. However, Carson's and the publishers' lawyers were confident in the vetting process "Silent Spring" had undergone. The magazine and book publications proceeded as planned, as did the large Book-of-the-Month printing, which included a pamphlet by William O. Douglas endorsing the book.


title: Silent Spring

text: American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens and former Cyanamid chemist Thomas Jukes were among the most aggressive critics, especially of Carson's analysis of DDT. According to White-Stevens, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth". Others attacked Carson's personal character and scientific credentials, her training being in marine biology rather than biochemistry. White-Stevens called her "a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature", while some credited former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, in a letter to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as the source of a frequent question posed by Carson's critics: "Why a spinster with no children was so concerned about genetics?" His supposed conclusion: Carson was "probably a Communist".


title: Silent Spring

text: Monsanto published 5,000 copies of a parody called "The Desolate Year" (1962) which projected a world of famine and disease caused by banning pesticides.


title: Silent Spring

text: Many critics repeatedly said Carson was calling for the elimination of all pesticides, but she had made it clear she was not advocating this but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on ecosystems. She concludes her section on DDT in "Silent Spring" with advice for spraying as little as possible to limit the development of resistance. Mark Hamilton Lytle writes, Carson "quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined postwar American culture".


title: Silent Spring

text: The academic communityincluding prominent defenders such as H. J. Muller, Loren Eiseley, Clarence Cottam and Frank Eglermostly backed the book's scientific claims and public opinion backed Carson's text. The chemical industry campaign was counterproductive because the controversy increased public awareness of the potential dangers of pesticides, an early example of the Streisand Effect. Pesticide use became a major public issue after a "CBS Reports" television special, "The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson", which was broadcast on April 3, 1963. The program included segments of Carson reading from "Silent Spring" and interviews with other experts, mostly critics including White-Stevens. According to biographer Linda Lear, "in juxtaposition to the wild-eyed, loud-voiced Dr. Robert White-Stevens in white lab coat, Carson appeared anything but the hysterical alarmist that her critics contended". Reactions from the estimated audience of ten to fifteen million were overwhelmingly positive and the program spurred a congressional review of pesticide hazards and the public release of a pesticide report by the President's Science Advisory Committee. Within a year of publication, attacks on the book and on Carson had lost momentum.


title: Silent Spring

text: In one of her last public appearances, Carson testified before President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee, which issued its report on May 15, 1963, largely backing Carson's scientific claims. Following the report's release, Carson also testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee to make policy recommendations. Though Carson received hundreds of other speaking invitations, she was unable to accept most of them because her health was steadily declining, with only brief periods of remission. She spoke as much as she could, and appeared on "The Today Show" and gave speeches at several dinners held in her honor. In late 1963, she received a flurry of awards and honors: the Audubon Medal from the National Audubon Society, the Cullum Geographical Medal from the American Geographical Society, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.


title: Silent Spring

text: Of Carson, Maria Popova wrote, "Her lyrical writing rendered her not a mere translator of the natural world, but an alchemist transmuting the steel of science into the gold of wonder."


title: Silent Spring

text: The book was translated into German (under the title "Der stumme Frühling"), with the first German edition appearing in 1963, followed by a number of later editions.


title: Silent Spring

text: It was translated into French (as "Printemps silencieux"), with the first French edition also appearing in 1963.


title: Silent Spring

text: In 1964 the book was translated into Dutch (as "Dode lente"), according to Worldcat.org the second edition was published in 1962.


title: Silent Spring

text: It was translated into Japanese (as "生と死の妙薬"), with the first Japanese edition also appearing in 1964.


title: Silent Spring

text: The book's Italian title is "Primavera silenziosa".; and the Spanish title is "Primavera silenciosa".


title: Silent Spring

text: Carson's work had a powerful impact on the environmental movement. "Silent Spring" became a rallying point for the new social movement in the 1960s. According to environmental engineer and Carson scholar H. Patricia Hynes, ""Silent Spring" altered the balance of power in the world. No one since would be able to sell pollution as the necessary underside of progress so easily or uncritically." Carson's work and the activism it inspired are partly responsible for the deep ecology movement and the strength of the grassroots environmental movement since the 1960s. It was also influential to the rise of ecofeminism and to many feminist scientists. Carson's most direct legacy in the environmental movement was the campaign to ban the use of DDT in the United States, and related efforts to ban or limit its use throughout the world. The 1967 formation of the Environmental Defense Fund was the first major milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought lawsuits against the government to "establish a citizen's right to a clean environment", and the arguments against DDT largely mirrored Carson's. By 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups had succeeded in securing a phase-out of DDT use in the United States, except in emergency cases.


title: Silent Spring

text: The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by the Nixon Administration in 1970 addressed another concern that Carson had written about. Until then, the USDA was responsible both for regulating pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agriculture industry; Carson saw this as a conflict of interest, since the agency was not responsible for effects on wildlife or other environmental concerns beyond farm policy. Fifteen years after its creation, one journalist described the EPA as "the extended shadow of "Silent Spring"". Much of the agency's early work, such as enforcement of the 1972 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, was directly related to Carson's work. Contrary to the position of the pesticide industry, the DDT phase-out action taken by the EPA (led by William Ruckelshaus) implied that there was no way to adequately regulate DDT use. Ruckelshaus' conclusion was that DDT could not be used safely. History professor Gary Kroll wrote, "Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" played a large role in articulating ecology as a 'subversive subject'as a perspective that cuts against the grain of materialism, scientism, and the technologically engineered control of nature."


title: Silent Spring

text: In a 2013 interview, Ruckelshaus briefly recounted his decision to ban DDT except for emergency uses, noting that Carson's book featured DDT and for that reason the issue drew considerable public attention.


title: Silent Spring

text: Former Vice President of the United States and environmentalist Al Gore wrote an introduction to the 1992 edition of "Silent Spring". He wrote: ""Silent Spring" had a profound impact ... Indeed, Rachel Carson was one of the reasons that I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues  ...  [she] has had as much or more effect on me than any, and perhaps than all of them together."


title: Silent Spring

text: Carson has been targeted by some organizations opposed to the environmental movement, including Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria and the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute; these sources oppose restrictions on DDT, attribute large numbers of deaths to such restrictions, and argue that Carson was responsible for them. These arguments have been dismissed as "outrageous" by former WHO scientist Socrates Litsios. May Berenbaum, University of Illinois entomologist, says, "to blame environmentalists who oppose DDT for more deaths than Hitler is worse than irresponsible". Investigative journalist Adam Sarvana and others characterize this notion as a "myth" promoted principally by Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM).


title: Silent Spring

text: In the 1990s and 2000s, campaigns against the book intensified, in part due to efforts by the tobacco industry to cast larger doubt on science-driven policy as a way of contesting bans on smoking. In 2009, the heavily corporate-funded libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute set up a website falsely blaming Carson for deaths to malaria. This triggered a point-by-point rebuttal by biographer William Souder, who reviewed the distortions used by campaigners against "Silent Spring".


title: Silent Spring

text: A 2012 review article in "Nature" by Rob Dunn commemorating the 50th anniversary of "Silent Spring" and summarizing the progressive environmental-policy changes made since then, prompted a response in a letter written by Anthony Trewavas and co-signed by 10 others, including Christopher Leaver, Bruce Ames, Richard Tren and Peter Lachmann, who quote estimates of 60 to 80 million deaths "as a result of misguided fears based on poorly understood evidence".


title: Silent Spring

text: Biographer Hamilton Lytle believes these estimates are unrealistic, even if Carson can be "blamed" for worldwide DDT policies. John Quiggin and Tim Lambert wrote, "the most striking feature of the claim against Carson is the ease with which it can be refuted". DDT was never banned for anti-malarial use, and its ban for agricultural use in the United States in 1972 did not apply outside the U.S. nor to anti-malaria spraying. The international treaty that banned most uses of DDT and other organochlorine pesticidesthe 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (which became effective in 2004)included an exemption for the use of DDT for malaria control until affordable substitutes could be found. Mass outdoor spraying of DDT was abandoned in poor countries subject to malaria, such as Sri Lanka, in the 1970s and 1980s; this was not because of government prohibitions but because the DDT had lost its ability to kill the mosquitoes. Because of insects' very short breeding cycle and large number of offspring, the most resistant insects survive and pass on their genetic traits to their offspring, which replace the pesticide-slain insects relatively rapidly. Agricultural spraying of pesticides produces pesticide resistance in seven to ten years.


title: Silent Spring

text: Some experts have said that restrictions placed on the agricultural use of DDT have increased its effectiveness for malaria control. According to pro-DDT advocate Amir Attaran, the result of the (activated in 2004) Stockholm Convention banning DDT's use in agriculture "is arguably better than the status quo ... For the first time, there is now an insecticide which is restricted to vector control only, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before."


title: Silent Spring

text: "Silent Spring" has been featured in many lists of the best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. It was fifth in the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Nonfiction and number 78 in the "National Review" 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century. In 2006, "Silent Spring" was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by the editors of "Discover Magazine". In 2012, the American Chemical Society designated the legacy of "Silent Spring" a National Historic Chemical Landmark at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.


title: Silent Spring

text: In 1996, a follow-up book, "Beyond Silent Spring", co-written by H. F. van Emden and David Peakall, was published.


title: Silent Spring

text: In 1967 George Newson composed the tape composition "Silent Spring" using birdsong recorded at London Zoo as source material. It was premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in January 1968.


title: Silent Spring

text: In 2011, the American composer Steven Stucky wrote the eponymously titled symphonic poem "Silent Spring" to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's publication. The piece was given its world premiere in Pittsburgh on February 17, 2012, with the conductor Manfred Honeck leading the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.


title: Silent Spring

text: Naturalist David Attenborough has stated that "Silent Spring" was probably the book that had changed the scientific world the most, after the "Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.


title: Fly Me to the Moon (manga)

text: , also known outside Japan as Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kenjiro Hata. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's "Weekly Shōnen Sunday" since February 2018. The story surrounds around the teenage genius Nasa Yuzaki and his developing relationship with his new wife, Tsukasa, who saves him from a traffic accident during the beginning of the story. In North America, the manga is licensed by Viz Media. An anime television series adaptation by Seven Arcs aired from October to December 2020 on Tokyo MX and other channels. A second season is set to premiere in 2023.


title: Fly Me to the Moon (manga)

text: On a snowy winter night, Nasa Yuzaki, a boy who was made fun of during his childhood because of his peculiar name, encounters a beautiful girl after he received his practice exam grades for high school. When he tries to approach her, he gets hit by a truck due to his lack of attention. However, the girl saves him, and Nasa miraculously follows her at a bus stop and proceeds to confess his love for her. The girl, Tsukasa Tsukuyomi, agrees to become his girlfriend, but only if they are married first. Nasa quickly agrees to her demand and then passes out, waking up in a hospital. Nasa becomes heartbroken when he cannot find her again, until his 18th birthday, where Tsukasa suddenly shows up at his doorstep. Tsukasa goes inside with a marriage form, starting their relationship and their marriage.


title: Fly Me to the Moon (manga)

text: "Fly Me to the Moon" is written and illustrated by Kenjiro Hata, the author of the manga series "Hayate the Combat Butler". He had previously announced his desire to create a new series in November 2016. "Fly Me to the Moon " started its serialization in the 2018 12th issue of Shogakukan's "Weekly Shōnen Sunday", with a two-chapter debut on February 14, 2018. Shogakukan has collected its chapters into individual "tankōbon" volumes, with the first one published on May 18, 2018. With the release of its second volume on August 17, 2018, a teaser video was released for "Fly Me to the Moon" featuring Japanese musical group Earphones. As of September 15, 2022, twenty-one volumes have been published.


title: Fly Me to the Moon (manga)

text: In February 2020, Viz Media announced that they licensed the manga for an English release. The first volume was published on September 8, 2020. As of 13 September 2022, thirteen volumes have been released.


title: Fly Me to the Moon (manga)

text: An anime television series adaptation was announced on March 4, 2020. The series was produced by Seven Arcs and directed by Hiroshi Ikehata, with Kazuho Hyodo writing the scripts, Masakatsu Sasaki designing the characters, and Endō composing the music. It ran for 12 episodes from October 3 to December 19, 2020 on Tokyo MX, ytv and BS-NTV. Akari Kitō performed the opening theme , while KanoeRana performed the ending theme .


title: Fly Me to the Moon (manga)

text: Crunchyroll streamed the series in selective territories as part of its Crunchyroll Originals label. In Southeast Asia, Plus Media Networks Asia has licensed the series and they aired it on Aniplus Asia. On November 11, 2020, Crunchyroll announced that the series would receive an English dub, which premiered on November 20.