title: Václav Havel

text: In 1997, Havel received ex aequo the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities and the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.


title: Václav Havel

text: In 2002, he was the third recipient of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award presented by the Prague Society for International Cooperation. In 2003, he was awarded the International Gandhi Peace Prize by the government of India for his outstanding contribution towards world peace and upholding human rights in most difficult situations through Gandhian means; he was the inaugural recipient of Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award for his work in promoting human rights; he received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom; and he was appointed as an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada.


title: Václav Havel

text: In 2008 he was also awarded the Giuseppe Motta Medal for support for peace and democracy. As a former Czech President, Havel was a member of the Club of Madrid. In 2009 he was awarded the Quadriga Award, but decided to return it in 2011 following the announcement of Vladimir Putin as one of the 2011 award recipients.


title: Václav Havel

text: Havel also received multiple honorary doctorates from various universities such as the prestigious Institut d'études politiques de Paris in 2009, and was a Foreign Associate Member of the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques from October 1992 until his death.


title: Václav Havel

text: On 10 October 2011, Havel was awarded by the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili with the St. George Victory Order. In November 2014, he became only the fourth non-American honored with a bust in the U.S. Capitol.


title: Václav Havel

text: In April 2012, Havel's widow, Dagmar Havlová, authorized the creation of the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. The prize was created by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and is awarded at the annual Oslo Freedom Forum. The prize "will celebrate those who engage in creative dissent, exhibiting courage and creativity to challenge injustice and live in truth".


title: Václav Havel

text: The Václav Havel Library, located in Prague, is a charitable organization founded by Dagmar Havlová, Karel Schwarzenberg and Miloslav Petrusek on 26 July 2004. It maintains a collection of pictorial, audio and written materials and other artefacts linked to Václav Havel. The institution gathers these materials for the purpose of digitisation, documentation and research and to promote his ideas. It organises lectures, holds conferences and social and cultural events that introduce the public to the work of Václav Havel and club discussion meetings on current social issues. It runs educational activities for second-level students. It is also involved in the issuing of publications. The library makes accessible Václav Havel's literary, philosophical and political writings, and provides a digital reading room for researchers and students in the Czech Republic and elsewhere.


title: Václav Havel

text: In May 2012, the library opened a branch in New York City named the Václav Havel Library Foundation. In 2014, the Václav Havel Library moved to larger premises at Ostrovni 13, in the centre of Prague.


title: Václav Havel

text: In July 2017, the European Parliament opened a new building on its official Strasbourg site. The building was named after Havel and decorated with a bust of the former Czech president.


title: Václav Havel

text: On 4 October 2016, the day before what would have been the 80th birthday of Václav Havel, his photograph was presented on the fountain in Croatian capital Zagreb. Croatian-Czech Society proposed the Václav Havel Street in Zagreb.


title: Václav Havel

text: In November 2016, Václav Havel Boulevard was opened in Kyiv, Ukraine. The new name has replaced the one given during Soviet era when boulevard was named in honor of the Communist politician Jānis Lepse. In December, First Deputy Chairman Iryna Herashchenko along with Minister of Culture of Czech Republic Daniel Herman and Minister of Culture of Ukraine Yevhen Nyshchuk opened memorial plaque in honor of Václav Havel.


title: Václav Havel

text: The Václav Havel Bench (Havel's Place) is an artistic and urban utility project, created by Czech architect and designer Bořek Šípek. It is composed of two wooden garden chairs connected by a round table, which has a hole inside. A linden, the Czech national tree, is growing through this hole. These benches can be found in many Czech towns as well as in some foreign locations such as Washington, D.C., Dublin, Lisbon, and Barcelona.


title: Václav Havel

text: On 19 November 2014, a bust of Havel, created by Czech-American artist Lubomír Janečka, was unveiled at the U.S. Congress, commemorating the 25-year anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Havel is the fourth European ever to be honored by having a bust of himself in the U.S. Congress, after Winston Churchill, Raoul Wallenberg and Lajos Kossuth. Another sculpture of Havel is placed in a boardroom of Leinster House in Dublin, the historical seat of the Oireachtas, the Irish National Parliament.


title: Václav Havel

text: On 22 June 2017 a statue of Václav Havel created by Georgian sculptor Jumber Jikia was unveiled in Tbilisi, Georgia.


title: Václav Havel

text: The Václav Havel Library Foundation donated a bust of Havel to Columbia University in New York City. This bust was unveiled on 27 September 2018 while Havel was being honored by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.


title: Václav Havel

text: Václav Havel has been portrayed, as himself or a character based on him, in a number of feature and television films:


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone, also known as ', ', and ', is a synthetic stimulant drug of the amphetamine and cathinone classes. Slang names include drone, ', White Magic, meow meow, bubble, "txomin" and yurrpt. It is chemically similar to the cathinone compounds found in the khat plant of eastern Africa. It comes in the form of tablets or crystals, which users can swallow, snort or inject, producing effects similar to those of MDMA, amphetamines and cocaine.


title: Mephedrone

text: In addition to its stimulant effects, mephedrone produces side effects, of which bruxism is the most common. The metabolism of mephedrone has been studied in rats and humans and the metabolites can be detected in urine after usage.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone was first synthesised in 1929, but did not become widely known until it was rediscovered in 1999–2000 at which point it was legal to produce and possess in many countries. By 2000, mephedrone was reported to be available for sale on the internet, by 2008 law enforcement agencies had become aware of the compound, and by 2010, it had been reported in most of Europe, becoming particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom. Mephedrone was first made illegal in Israel in 2008, followed by Sweden later that year. In 2010, it was made illegal in many European countries and in December 2010, the EU ruled it illegal. In Australia, New Zealand and the United States, it is considered an analog of other illegal drugs and can be controlled by laws similar to the US Federal Analog Act. In September 2011, the US temporarily classified mephedrone as a Schedule I drug, effective October 2011. This classification was made permanent in July 2012 with the passage of the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act (SDAPA).


title: Mephedrone

text: Users have reported that mephedrone causes euphoria, stimulation, an enhanced appreciation for music, an elevated mood, decreased hostility, improved mental function and mild sexual stimulation; these effects are similar to the effects of cocaine, amphetamines and MDMA, and last different amounts of time depending on the way the drug is taken. Of 70 Dutch users of mephedrone, 58 described it as an overall pleasant experience and 12 described it as an unpleasant experience. In a survey of UK users who had previously taken cocaine, most users found it produced a better-quality and longer-lasting high and was less addictive. The users were also asked to compare the "risk", and they answered that it was equal. A study of users in Northern Ireland found they did not equate the fact that mephedrone was legal with it being safe to use. This was contrary to another study in New Zealand, where users of benzylpiperazine thought that because it was legal, it was safe.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone can come in the form of capsules, tablets or white powder that users may swallow, snort, inject, smoke or use rectally. When taken orally, users reported they could feel the effects within 15–45 minutes; when snorted, the effects were felt within minutes and peaked within half an hour. The effects last for between two and three hours when taken orally or nasally, but only half an hour if taken intravenously. It is sometimes sold mixed with methylone in a product called bubbles in the UK and also mixed with other cathinones, including ethcathinone, butylone, fluoromethcathinone and methedrone.


title: Mephedrone

text: One published study that analysed samples of mephedrone bought using the internet in the UK in 2010 found it was racemic (a mixture of both stereoisomers) and of high purity. An unpublished study of six samples also ordered off the internet in the UK in 2010 found they contained very few organic impurities. Four products sold in Irish head shops were tested in 2010 and were found to contain between 82% and 14% mephedrone, with some products containing benzocaine and caffeine.


title: Mephedrone

text: The EMCDDA reported mephedrone can cause various unintended side effects including: dilated pupils, poor concentration, teeth grinding, problems focusing visually, poor short-term memory, hallucinations, delusions, and erratic behaviour. They noted the most severe effects appear anecdotally to be linked with high doses or prolonged use, and the effects may be due to users taking other intoxicants at the same time. Other effects users in internet forums have noted include changes in body temperature, increased heart rate, breathing difficulties, loss of appetite, increased sweating, discolouration of extremities, anxiety, paranoia and depression. When snorted, it can also cause nose bleeds and nose burns. A survey conducted by the UK National Addiction Centre found 67% of mephedrone users experienced sweating, 51% suffered from headaches, 43% from heart palpitations, 27% from nausea and 15% from cold or blue fingers, indicative of vasoconstriction occurring. Doctors at Guy's Hospital in London reported that of 15 patients they treated after taking mephedrone in 2009, 53% were agitated, 40% had increased heart rates, 20% had systolic hypertension and 20% had seizures; three required treatment with benzodiazepines, predominantly to control their agitation. They reported none of their patients suffered from cold or blue peripheries, contrary to other reports. Nine of the 15 of patients had a Glasgow coma scale (GCS) of 15, indicating they were in a normal mental state, four had a GCS below 8, but these patients all reported using a central nervous system depressant, most commonly GHB, with mephedrone. The patients also reported polydrug use of a variety of compounds.


title: Mephedrone

text: Neurotoxic effect of mephedrone on serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) systems remains controversial. Although some studies in animal models reported no damage to DA nerve endings in the striatum and no significant changes in brain monoamine levels, some others suggested a rapid reduction in 5-HT and DA transporter function. Persistent serotonergic deficits were observed after binge like treatment in a warm environment and in both serotonergic and dopaminergic nerve endings at high ambient temperature. Oxidative stress cytotoxicity and an increase in frontal cortex lipid peroxidation were also reported.


title: Mephedrone

text: In 2009, one case of sympathomimetic toxicity was reported in the UK after a person took 0.2 g of mephedrone orally, and after this did not achieve the desired effect, subcutaneously injected 3.8 g mixed with water into his thighs. Shortly afterwards, the user "developed palpitations, blurred tunnel vision, chest pressure and sweating". The patient was treated with 1 mg of lorazepam and the sympathomimetic features decreased and the user was discharged within six hours of arrival. One case of serotonin syndrome has been reported, where the patient was already prescribed fluoxetine and olanzapine, and then took 40 tablets containing mephedrone in one night. He was treated with lorazepam and discharged 15 hours after admission. Both enantiomers of methcathinone, which differs only in the lack of the methyl group on the aryl ring when compared to mephedrone, have been shown to be toxic to rat dopamine neurons, and the "S"-enantiomer was also toxic against serotonin neurons. Simon Gibbons and Mire Zloh of the School of Pharmacy, University of London stated, based on the chemical similarities between methcathinone and mephedrone, "it is highly likely that mephedrone will display neurotoxicity". However, Brunt and colleagues stated, "extreme caution" should be used when inferring the toxicity of mephedrone from methcathinone, noting some of the toxicity associated with methcathinone is due to manganese impurities related to its synthesis, rather than the compound itself. They concluded more experimental research is needed to investigate the toxicity of mephedrone.


title: Mephedrone

text: Doctors who treated a 15-year-old female suffering from mephedrone intoxication suggested in "The Lancet" that, like MDMA, mephedrone may promote serotonin-mediated release of antidiuretic hormone, resulting in hyponatraemia and an altered mental state. In another case, a 19-year-old male was admitted to hospital suffering from inflammation of the heart, 20 hours after taking one gram of mephedrone. The doctors treating the patient stated it was caused by either a direct toxic effect of mephedrone on the heart muscle, or by an immune response. One case of acquired methaemoglobinaemia, where a patient had "bluish lips and fingers", has also been reported, after the user snorted one gram of mephedrone. The patient started to recover after arriving at the hospital and it was not necessary to administer any medication.


title: Mephedrone

text: In 2008, an 18-year-old Swedish woman died in Stockholm after taking mephedrone. The newspaper "Svenska Dagbladet" reported the woman went into convulsions and turned blue in the face. Doctors reported she was comatose and suffering from hyponatremia and severe hypokalemia; the woman died one and a half days after the onset of symptoms. An autopsy showed severe brain swelling. Mephedrone was scheduled to be classified as a "dangerous substance" in Sweden even before the woman's death at Karolinska University Hospital on 14 December, but the death brought more media attention to the drug. The possession of mephedrone became classified as a criminal offence in Sweden on 15 December 2008.


title: Mephedrone

text: In 2010, unconfirmed reports speculated about the role mephedrone has played in the deaths of several young people in the UK. By July 2010, mephedrone had been alleged to be involved in 52 fatalities in the UK, but detected in only 38 of these cases. Of the nine that coroners had finished investigating, two were caused directly by mephedrone. The first death reported to be caused by mephedrone use was that of 46-year-old, John Sterling Smith, who had underlying health problems and repeatedly injected the drug. A report in "Forensic Science International" in August 2010 stated mephedrone intoxication has been recorded as the cause of death in two cases in Scotland. "Post mortem" samples showed the concentration of mephedrone in their blood was 22 mg/L in one case and 3.3 mg/L in the other. The death of a teenager in the UK in November 2009 was widely reported as being caused by mephedrone, but a report by the coroner concluded she had died from natural causes. In March 2010, the deaths of two teenagers in Scunthorpe were widely reported by the media to be caused by mephedrone. Toxicology reports showed the teenagers had not taken any mephedrone and had died as a result of consuming alcohol and the synthetic opioid agonist methadone. According to Fiona Measham, a criminologist who is a member of the ACMD, the reporting of the unconfirmed deaths by newspapers followed "the usual cycle of 'exaggeration, distortion, inaccuracy and sensationalism'" associated with the reporting of recreational drug use.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone has been implicated in the death of a 22-year-old man, who had also injected black tar heroin. Mephedrone was found in his blood at a concentration of 0.50 mg/L and in his urine at a concentration of 198 mg/L. The blood concentration of morphine, a metabolite of heroin, was 0.06 mg/L. For comparison, the average blood morphine concentration resulting from deadly overdoses involving only heroin is around 0.34 mg/L.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone is a monoamine releasing agent. It is a chiral compound and both of its enantiomers display similar potency as substrates at dopamine transporters. "R"-Mephedrone is much less potent than "S"-mephedrone as a substrate at serotonin transporters.


title: Mephedrone

text: The keto oxygen renders mephedrone more hydrophilic than the corresponding amphetamine 4-Methylmethamphetamine, which may account for the higher doses required to achieve a similar effect, because mephedrone is less able to cross the blood–brain barrier.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone is often consumed with alcohol. A study in mice investigated the interrelation between these two substances, focusing on the psychostimulant and rewarding properties of mephedrone. It found that at low (non-stimulant) doses alcohol significantly enhanced the psychostimulant effects of mephedrone. This effect was mediated by an increase in synaptic dopamine, as haloperidol, but not ketanserin, was able to block the potentiation by alcohol. Similarly, the rewarding properties of mephedrone were enhanced by a low non-rewarding dose of alcohol.


title: Mephedrone

text: Several articles published near the end of 2011 examined the effects of mephedrone, compared to the similar drugs MDMA and amphetamine in the nucleus accumbens of rats, as well as examining the reinforcing potential of mephedrone. Dopamine and serotonin were collected using microdialysis, and increases in dopamine and serotonin were measured using HPLC. Reward and drug seeking are linked to increases in dopamine concentrations in the nucleus accumbens, and drug half-life plays a role in drug seeking, as well. Based on histological examination, most of the author's probes were in the nucleus accumbens shell. Mephedrone administration caused about a 500% increase in dopamine, and about a 950% increase in serotonin. They reached their peak concentrations at 40 minutes and 20 minutes, respectively, and returned to baseline by 120 minutes after injection. In comparison, MDMA caused a roughly 900% increase in serotonin at 40 minutes, with an insignificant increase in dopamine. Amphetamine administration resulted in about a 400% increase in dopamine, peaking at 40 minutes, with an insignificant increase in serotonin. Analysis of the ratio of the AUC for dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT) indicated mephedrone was preferentially a serotonin releaser, with a ratio of 1.22:1 (serotonin vs. dopamine). Additionally, half-lives for the decrease in DA and 5-HT were calculated for each drug. Mephedrone had decay rates of 24.5 minutes and 25.5 minutes, respectively. MDMA had decay values of 302.5 minutes and 47.9 minutes, respectively, while amphetamine values were 51 minutes and 84.1 minutes, respectively. Taken together, these findings show mephedrone induces a massive increase in both DA and 5-HT, combined with rapid clearance. The rapid rise and subsequent fall of DA levels could explain some of the addictive properties mephedrone displays in some users.


title: Mephedrone

text: Based on the analysis of rat and human urine by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, mephedrone is thought to be metabolised by three phase 1 pathways. It can be demethylated to the primary amine (producing compounds 2, 3 and 5), the ketone group can be reduced (producing 3) or the tolyl group can be oxidised (producing 6). Both 5 and 6 are thought to be further metabolised by conjugation to the glucuronide and sulfate derivatives. Knowledge of the primary routes of metabolism should allow the intake of mephedrone to be confirmed by drug tests, as well as more accurate determination of the causes of side effects and potential for toxicity.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone may be quantitated in blood, plasma or urine by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to confirm a diagnosis of poisoning in hospitalised patients or to provide evidence in a medicolegal death investigation. Blood or plasma mephedrone concentrations are expected to be in a range of 50–100 μg/L in persons using the drug recreationally, >100 μg/L in intoxicated patients and >500 μg/L in victims of acute overdosage.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone is a white substance. It is sold most commonly as crystals or a powder, but also in the form of capsules or pills. It can have a distinctive odour, reported to range the smell of vanilla and bleach, stale urine, or electric circuit boards.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone can be synthesised in several ways. The simplest method, due to the availability of the compounds, is to add 4-methylpropiophenone dissolved in glacial acetic acid to bromine, creating an oil fraction of 4'-methyl-2-bromopropiophenone. The oil fraction can then be dissolved in dichloromethane (CHCl) and drops of the solution added to another solution of CHCl-containing methylamine hydrochloride and triethylamine. Hydrochloric acid (HCl) is then added and the aqueous layer is removed and turned alkaline using sodium hydroxide before the amine is extracted using CHCl. The CHCl is then evaporated using a vacuum, creating an oil which is then dissolved in a nonaqueous ether. Finally, HCl gas is bubbled through the mixture to produce 4-methylmethcathinone hydrochloride. This method produces a mixture of both enantiomers and requires similar knowledge to that required to synthesise amphetamines and MDMA.


title: Mephedrone

text: It can also be produced by oxidising the ephedrine analogue 4-methylephedrine using potassium permanganate dissolved in sulfuric acid. Because 4-methylephedrine can be obtained in a specific enantiomeric form, mephedrone consisting of only one enantiomer can be produced. The danger associated with this method is it may cause manganese poisoning if the product is not correctly purified.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone does not react with most reagent testing kits. The exception is the Liebermann reagent, which gives a bright yellow reaction.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone is one of hundreds of designer drugs or legal highs that have been reported in recent years, including artificial chemicals such as synthetic cannabis and semisynthetic substances such as methylhexanamine. These drugs are primarily developed to avoid being controlled by laws against illegal drugs, thus giving them the label of designer drugs. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the synthesis of mephedrone was first reported in 1929 by Saem de Burnaga Sanchez in the "Bulletin de la Société Chimique de France", under the name "toluyl-alpha-monomethylaminoethylcetone", but the compound remained an obscure product of academia until 2003, when it was "re-discovered" and publicised by an underground chemist on The Hive website, registered to a Portuguese ip working under the pseudonym "Kinetic". Kinetic posted on the site, "I’ve been bored over the last couple of days and had a few fun reagents lying around, so I thought I’d try and make some 1-(4-methylphenyl)-2-methylaminopropanone hydrochloride, or 4-methylmethcathinone." before going on to describe that after taking it, the user had a "fantastic sense of well-being that I haven’t got from any drug before except my beloved Ecstasy." After the initial description of mephedrone's qualitative effects by Kinetic, the drug was commercially introduced in Israel by a mathematician named Ezekiel Golan or "Dr. Z".


title: Mephedrone

text: A drug similar to mephedrone, containing cathinone, was sold legally in Israel from around 2004, under the name "hagigat". When this was made illegal, the cathinone was modified and the new products were sold by the Israeli company, Neorganics. The products had names such as Neodoves pills, but the range was discontinued in January 2008 after the Israeli government made mephedrone illegal. The Psychonaut Research Project, an EU organisation that searches the internet for information regarding new drugs, first identified mephedrone in 2008. Their research suggested the drug first became available to purchase on the internet in 2007, made available through British contacts, contact unknown, when it was also discussed on internet forums. Mephedrone was first seized in France in May 2007, after police sent a tablet they assumed to be ecstasy to be analysed, with the discovery published in a paper titled "Is 4-methylephedrone, an "Ecstasy" of the twenty-first century?" Mephedrone was reported as having been sold as ecstasy in the Australian city of Cairns, along with ethylcathinone, in 2008. An annual survey of regular ecstasy users in Australia in 2010 found 21% of those surveyed had used mephedrone, with 17% having done so in the previous six months. The price they paid per gram varied from A$16 to $320.


title: Mephedrone

text: Europol noted they became aware of it in 2008, after it was found in Denmark, Finland and the UK. The Drug Enforcement Administration noted it was present in the United States in July 2009. By May 2010, mephedrone had been detected in all 22 EU member states that reported to Europol, as well as in Croatia and Norway. "The Daily Telegraph" reported in April 2009 that it was manufactured in China, but it has since been made illegal there. In March 2009, "Druglink" magazine reported it only cost a "couple of hundred pounds" to synthesise a kilogram of mephedrone, the same month, "The Daily Telegraph" reported manufacturers were making "huge amounts of money" from selling it. In January 2010, "Druglink" magazine reported dealers in Britain spent £2,500 to ship one kilogram from China, but could sell it for £10 a gram, making a profit of £7,500. A later report, in March 2010, stated the wholesale price of mephedrone was £4000 per kilogram.


title: Mephedrone

text: In March 2011, the International Narcotics Control Board published a report about designer drugs, noting mephedrone was by then being used recreationally in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and Australia.


title: Mephedrone

text: Between the summer of 2009 and March 2010, the use of mephedrone grew rapidly in the UK, with it becoming readily available at music festivals, head shops and on the internet. A survey of "Mixmag" readers in 2009, found it was the fourth most popular street drug in the United Kingdom, behind cannabis, cocaine, and ecstasy. The drug was used by a diverse range of social groups. Whilst the evidence was anecdotal, researchers, charity workers, teachers and users reported widespread and increasing use of the drug in 2009. The drug's rapid growth in popularity was believed to be related to both its availability and legality.


title: Mephedrone

text: In a book about drugs David Nutt reports the re-popularization story of mephedrone in a way that can be cross referenced with a report by Chemistry World in an article.


title: Mephedrone

text: Fiona Measham, a criminologist at The University of Lancaster, thought the emergence of mephedrone was also related to the decreasing purity of ecstasy and cocaine on sale in the UK, a view reinforced in a report by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. The average cocaine purity fell from 60% in 1999 to 22% in 2009 and about half of ecstasy pills seized in 2009 contained no MDMA, and by June 2010 almost all ecstasy pills seized in the UK contained no MDMA. A similar pattern was observed in the Netherlands, with the number of ecstasy tablets containing no MDMA rising from 10% in mid-2008 to 60% by mid-2009, with mephedrone being detected in 20% of ecstasy tablets by mid-2009. The decrease of MDMA was thought to be partly due to the seizure of 33 tonnes of sassafras oil, the precursor to MDMA, in Cambodia in June 2008, which could have been used to make 245 million doses of MDMA. According to John Ramsey, a toxicologist at St George's, University of London, the emergence of mephedrone was also related to the UK government banning the benzylpiperazine class of drugs in December 2009. "gamma"-Butyrolactone (GBL), another previously "legal high", was also banned in August 2009 despite concerns it would be replaced by other drugs.


title: Mephedrone

text: By December 2009 mephedrone was available on at least 31 websites based in the UK and by March 2010 there were at least 78 online shops, half of which sold amounts of less than 200 grams and half that also sold bulk quantities. The price per gram varied from £9.50 to £14. Between July 2009 and February 2010, UK health professionals accessed the National Poisons Information Services (NPIS) entry on mephedrone 1664 times and made 157 telephone inquiries; the requests increased month on month over this period. In comparison, over a similar time period, the entries for cocaine and MDMA were accessed approximately 2400 times. After mephedrone was made illegal the number of inquiries to the NPIS fell substantially, to only 19 in June 2010.


title: Mephedrone

text: Media organisations including the BBC and "The Guardian" incorrectly reported mephedrone was commonly used as a plant fertiliser. In fact sellers of the drug described it as "plant food" because it was illegal to sell the compound for human consumption. In late 2009 UK newspapers began referring to the drug as meow or miaow (sometimes doubled as meow meow or miaow miaow), a name that was almost unknown on the street at the time. In November 2009, the tabloid newspaper, "The Sun" published a story stating that a man had ripped off his own scrotum whilst using mephedrone. The story was later shown to be an online joke posted on mephedrone.com, later included in a police report with the caveat that it could be unreliable. The police report was used as a source for the story in "The Sun". Other myths the media often repeated during 2010 were that mephedrone had led to the deaths of over 20 people, teachers were unable to confiscate the drug from pupils and the government was too slow to ban the drug. Parallels were drawn between the media coverage of mephedrone and a piece of satire by Chris Morris in 1997 on "Brass Eye" when he tricked public figures into talking of the dangers of taking the fictional legal drug "cake". The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) have suggested that the media coverage of the drug led to its increased usage. Jon Silverman, a former BBC Home Affairs Correspondent, has written two articles discussing how the media had a strong influence over the UK government's drugs policy, particularly in that the government wished to demonstrate they were being "tough" on drugs.


title: Mephedrone

text: A survey of 1000 secondary school pupils and university students in Tayside conducted in February 2010 found 20% of them had previously taken mephedrone. Although at the time it was available legally over the internet, only 10% of users reported purchasing it online, with most purchasing it from street dealers. Of those who had used mephedrone, 97% said it was easy or very easy to obtain. Around 50% of users reported at least one negative effect associated with the use of mephedrone, of which teeth grinding is the most common. Detailed interviews with users in Northern Ireland similarly found that few purchased mephedrone online, with most interviewees citing concerns that their address would be traced or that family members could intercept the package.


title: Mephedrone

text: On 30 March 2010, Alan Johnson, the then Home Secretary, announced mephedrone would be made illegal "within weeks" after the ACMD sent him a report on the use of cathinones. The legislation would make all cathinones illegal, which Johnson said would "stop unscrupulous manufacturers and others peddling different but similarly harmful drugs". The ACMD had run into problems with the UK Government in 2009 regarding drugs policy, after the government did not follow the advice of the ACMD to reclassify ecstasy and cannabis, culminating in the dismissal of the ACMD chairman, David Nutt, after he reiterated the ACMD's findings in an academic lecture. Several members resigned after he was sacked, and prior to the announcement that mephedrone was to be banned, the trend continued when Dr Polly Taylor resigned, saying she "did not have trust" in the way the government would use the advice given by the ACMD. Eric Carlin, a member of the ACMD and former chairman of the English Drug Education Forum, also resigned after the announcement. He said the decision by the Home Secretary was "unduly based on media and political pressure" and there was "little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people's behaviour." Some former members of the ACMD and various charity groups expressed concern over the banning of the drug, arguing it would inevitably criminalise users, particularly young people. Others expressed concern that the drug would be left in the hands of black market dealers, who will only compound the problem. Carlin's resignation was specifically linked to the criminalisation of mephedrone; he stated: "We need to review our entire approach to drugs, dumping the idea that legally-sanctioned punishments for drug users should constitute a main part of the armoury in helping to solve our country’s drug problems. We need to stop harming people who need help and support".


title: Mephedrone

text: The parliamentary debate was held on 8 April, one day after the 2010 general election had been announced, meaning it was during the so-called "wash-up period" when legislation is passed with little scrutiny. Only one hour was spent debating the ban and all three parties agreed, meaning no vote was required. In an interview conducted in July 2010, when he was no longer a minister, Johnson admitted the decision to ban mephedrone was sped up after widespread reporting of deaths caused by the drug, and because the government wished to pass the law before parliament was dissolved prior to the upcoming general election. In January 2011, however, Johnson told the "Scunthorpe Telegraph" that the decision was based only on information from the ACMD. An editorial in the April 2010 edition of "The Lancet" questioned the decision to ban mephedrone, saying the ACMD did not have enough evidence to judge the potential harms caused by mephedrone and arguing that policy makers should have sought to understand why young people took it and how they could be influenced to not take it. Evan Harris, then the Liberal Democrat science spokesman, stated the ACMD "was not 'legally constituted'" as required by the Misuse of Drugs Act, when the report on cathinones was published, since after Taylor resigned, it lacked a veterinary surgeon. In the rush to make mephedrone illegal, the act that was passed specified the inactive enantiomer of mephedrone, leaving the active form legal until the loophole was closed in February 2011 by another act of parliament. In "Chemistry World", John Mann, professor of chemistry at Queen's University Belfast, suggested the UK create a law similar to the Federal Analog Act of the United States, which would have made mephedrone illegal as an analog of cathinone. In August 2010, James Brokenshire, the Home Office drugs minister, announced plans to create a new category in the Misuse of Drugs Act, through the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, that would allow new legal highs to be made temporarily illegal, without the need for a vote in parliament or advice from the ACMD, as was required to categorise mephedrone.


title: Mephedrone

text: According to the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, after mephedrone was made illegal, a street trade in the drug emerged, with prices around double those prior to the ban, at £20–£25 per gram. In September 2010, "Druglink" reported the ban had a mixed effect on mephedrone use, with it decreasing in some areas, remaining similar in others and becoming more prevalent in some areas. In an online survey of 150 users after the ban, 63% said they were continuing to use mephedrone; of those, half claimed unchanged usage amounts (as to dosage and frequency) and half claimed decreased usage. Compared to previous surveys, more users purchased it from dealers, rather than the internet. The average price per gram was £16, compared to around £10 before the ban. The 2010 "Mixmag" survey of 2,500 nightclubbers found one quarter had used mephedrone in the previous month, the price had roughly doubled since it was made illegal, and it was more likely to be cut with other substances. Of those who had already used mephedrone prior to the ban, 75% had continued to use it after the ban. Of the various drugs used by the survey participants, users were more likely to have concerns about it. Interviews with users in Northern Ireland also found the price had roughly doubled since it was made illegal, to around £30 a gram. Rather than the price rising due to increased scarcity of the drug, it is thought to have risen for two other reasons. Firstly, dealers knew there was still demand for mephedrone, but were aware the supplies may be exhausted in the future. Secondly, the dealers perceived customers were likely to be willing to pay more for an illegal substance.


title: Mephedrone

text: Professor Shiela Bird, a statistician at the Medical Research Council, suggested the ban of mephedrone may lead to more cocaine-related deaths. In the first six months of 2009, the number of cocaine-related deaths fell for the first time in four years, and fewer soldiers tested positive for cocaine in 2009 than in 2008. She suggested this may have been due to users switching to mephedrone from cocaine, but cautioned that before full figures are available for 2009 and 2010, it will be difficult to determine whether mephedrone saved lives, rather than cost them. Other supposedly legal drugs have filled the gap in the market since mephedrone was made illegal, including naphyrone (NRG-1) (since made illegal) and Ivory Wave, which has been found to contain MDPV, a compound made illegal at the same time as mephedrone. However, some products branded as Ivory Wave possibly do not contain MDPV. When tested, some products sold six weeks after mephedrone was banned, advertised as NRG-1, NRG-2 and MDAI, were found to be mephedrone. A "Drugscope" survey of drugs workers at the end of 2012 reported that mephedrone use was still widespread in the UK and that there increasing reports of problematic users. It was being taken as not only a "poor man's cocaine" but also amongst users of heroin and crack cocaine. Cases of intravenous use were also reported to be on the increase.


title: Mephedrone

text: When mephedrone was rediscovered in 2003, it was not specifically illegal to possess in any country. As its use has increased, many countries have passed legislation making its possession, sale and manufacture illegal. It was first made illegal in Israel, where it had been found in products such as Neodoves pills, in January 2008. After the death of a young woman in Sweden in December 2008 was linked to the use of mephedrone, it was classified as a hazardous substance a few days later, making it illegal to sell in Sweden. In June 2009, it was classified as a narcotic with the possession of 15 grams or more resulting in a minimum of two years in prison—a longer sentence, gram for gram than given for the possession of cocaine or heroin. In December 2008, Denmark also made it illegal and through the Medicines Act of Finland, it was made illegal to possess without a prescription. In November 2009, it was classified as a "narcotic or psychotropic" substance and added to the list of controlled substances in Estonia and made illegal to import into Guernsey along with other legal highs, before being classified as a Class B drug in April 2010. It was classified as a Class C drug in Jersey in December 2009.


title: Mephedrone

text: In 2010, as its use became more prevalent, many countries passed legislation prohibiting mephedrone. It became illegal in Croatia and Germany in January, followed by Romania and the Isle of Man in February. In March 2010, it was classified as an unregulated medicine in the Netherlands, making the sale and distribution of it illegal. The importation of mephedrone into the UK was banned on 29 March 2010. The next day, the ACMD in the UK published a report on the cathinones, including mephedrone, and recommended they be classified as Class B drugs. On 7 April 2010, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2010 was passed by parliament, making mephedrone and other substituted cathinones, Class B drugs from 16 April 2010. Prior to the ban taking effect, mephedrone was not covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. It was, though, an offence under the Medicines Act to sell it for human consumption, so it was often sold as "plant food" or "bath salts", although it has no use as these products; this, too, was possibly illegal under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. In the US, similar descriptions have been used to describe mephedrone, as well as methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV). In May 2010, the Republic of Ireland made mephedrone illegal, followed by Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, France and Norway in June and Russia in July. In August 2010, Austria and Poland made it illegal and China announced it would be illegal as of 1 September 2010. Mephedrone had been reported to be used in Singapore in February 2010, but it was made illegal in November 2010. In December 2010, following the advice of the EMCDDA, mephedrone was made illegal throughout the EU, a move Switzerland also made shortly afterwards. Countries which have not already banned it, such as the Netherlands, Greece and Portugal, will need to change legislation to comply with the EU ruling. In Hungary, a government advisory body recommended mephedrone should be made illegal in August 2010, which was followed, making it illegal in January 2011; Spain followed in February 2011. Mexico, by decree, outlawed mephedrone as a substance "with low or no therapeutical use which pose a serious threat to public health" in 2014.


title: Mephedrone

text: In some countries, mephedrone is not specifically listed as illegal, but is controlled under legislation that makes compounds illegal if they are analogs of drugs already listed. In Australia during 2010, it was not specifically listed as prohibited, but the Australian Federal Police stated it is an analogue to methcathinone and therefore illegal. It is now listed as a Schedule 9 prohibited substance in Australia under the Poisons Standard (October 2015). A Schedule 9 substance is a substance which may be abused or misused, the manufacture, possession, sale or use of which should be prohibited by law except when required for medical or scientific research, or for analytical, teaching or training purposes with approval of Commonwealth and/or State or Territory Health Authorities. In February 2010, 22 men were arrested in connection with importing mephedrone. By January 2011, every state in Australia, other than Victoria, had listed it as a controlled drug.


title: Mephedrone

text: In New Zealand, it is not included in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, but is illegal, as it is similar to controlled substances.


title: Mephedrone

text: In Canada, mephedrone is not explicitly listed in any schedule of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, but "amphetamines, their salts, derivatives, isomers and analogues and salts of derivatives, isomers and analogues" are included in Section 19 of Schedule I of the act. Cathinone and methcathinone are listed in separate sections of Schedule III, while diethylpropion and pyrovalerone (also cathinones), are listed in separate sections of Schedule IV, each without language to capture analogues, isomers, etc. Mephedrone is considered a controlled substance by Health Canada. In a report by the Canadian Medical Association in 2010, one lawyer was quoted as suggesting that mephedrone was less popular in Canada than in the U.K. because "there’s a provision in the substance act that says analogues of certain drugs and other similar drugs may be illegal too,"; on the other hand, the assistant director of the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia suggested there was a lack of "clear illegality". There have been several media reports of the Canadian police seizing mephedrone, but no reports of any successful prosecution of a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act offence implicating mephedrone.


title: Mephedrone

text: Mephedrone is also currently scheduled in the United States as of 2011. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) states, as an analogue of methcathinone, possession of mephedrone can be controlled by the Federal Analog Act, but according to the "Los Angeles Times", this only applies if it is sold for human consumption. Several cities and states, such as New York state, have passed legislation to specifically list mephedrone as illegal, but in most areas it remained legal, so long as it is not sold for human consumption, so retailers described it as 'bath salts'. In September 2011, The DEA began using its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control mephedrone. Except as authorised by law, this action made possessing and selling mephedrone or the products that contain it illegal in the US for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services conduct further study. Control of these compounds became permanent on 9 July 2012, via passage of the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012.


title: Mephedrone

text: A survey conducted in late 2009 by the National Addiction Centre (UK) found 41.3% of readers of "Mixmag" had used mephedrone in the last month, making it the fourth-most popular drug amongst clubbers. Of those, two-thirds snorted the drug and the average dosage per session was 0.9 g; the length of sessions increased as the dosage increased. Users who snorted the drug reported using more per session than those who took it orally (0.97 g compared to 0.74 g) and also reported using it more often (five days per month compared to three days per month). An Irish study of people on a methadone treatment program for heroin addicts found 29 of 209 patients tested positive for mephedrone usage.


title: Mephedrone

text: Professor David Nutt, former chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in the UK has said, "people are better off taking ecstasy or amphetamines than those [drugs] we know nothing about" and "Who knows what's in [mephedrone] when you buy it? We don't have a testing system. It could be very dangerous, we just don't know. These chemicals have never been put into animals, let alone humans." Les King, a former member of the ACMD, has stated mephedrone appears to be less potent than amphetamine and ecstasy, but that any benefit associated with this could be negated by users taking larger amounts. He also told the BBC, "all we can say is [mephedrone] is probably as harmful as ecstasy and amphetamines and wait until we have some better scientific evidence to support that."


title: Query string

text: A query string is a part of a uniform resource locator (URL) that assigns values to specified parameters. A query string commonly includes fields added to a base URL by a Web browser or other client application, for example as part of an HTML, choosing the appearance of a page, or jumping to positions in multimedia content.


title: Query string

text: A web server can handle a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request either by reading a file from its file system based on the URL path or by handling the request using logic that is specific to the type of resource. In cases where special logic is invoked, the query string will be available to that logic for use in its processing, along with the path component of the URL.


title: Query string

text: When a server receives a request for such a page, it may run a program, passing the query string, which in this case is codice_1, unchanged to the program. The question mark is used as a separator, and is not part of the query string.


title: Query string

text: Web frameworks may provide methods for parsing multiple parameters in the query string, separated by some delimiter. In the example URL below, multiple query parameters are separated by the ampersand, "codice_2":


title: Query string

text: The exact structure of the query string is not standardized. Methods used to parse the query string may differ between websites.


title: Query string

text: A link in a web page may have a URL that contains a query string. HTML defines three ways a user agent can generate the query string:


title: Query string

text: One of the original uses was to contain the content of an HTML form, also known as web form. In particular, when a form containing the fields codice_3, codice_4, codice_5 is submitted, the content of the fields is encoded as a query string as follows:


title: Query string

text: While there is no definitive standard, most web frameworks allow multiple values to be associated with a single field (e.g. codice_9).


title: Query string

text: For each field of the form, the query string contains a pair codice_10. Web forms may include fields that are not visible to the user; these fields are included in the query string when the form is submitted.


title: Query string

text: This convention is a W3C recommendation. In the recommendations of 1999, W3C recommended that all web servers support semicolon separators in addition to ampersand separators to allow application/x-www-form-urlencoded query strings in URLs within HTML documents without having to entity escape ampersands. Since 2014, W3C recommends to use only ampersand as query separator


title: Query string

text: The form content is only encoded in the URL's query string when the form submission method is GET. The same encoding is used by default when the submission method is POST, but the result is submitted as the HTTP request body rather than being included in a modified URL.


title: Query string

text: Before forms were added to HTML, browsers rendered the element as a single-line text-input control. The text entered into this control was sent to the server as a query string addition to a GET request for the base URL or another URL specified by the attribute. This was intended to allow web servers to use the provided text as query criteria so they could return a list of matching pages.


title: Query string

text: When the text input into the indexed search control is submitted, it is encoded as a query string as follows:


title: Query string

text: Though the element is deprecated and most browsers no longer support or render it, there are still some vestiges of indexed search in existence. For example, this is the source of the special handling of plus sign, 'codice_11' within browser URL percent encoding (which today, with the deprecation of indexed search, is all but redundant with codice_13). Also some web servers supporting CGI (e.g., Apache) will process the query string into command line arguments if it does not contain an equals sign, 'codice_6' (as per section 4.4 of CGI 1.1). Some CGI scripts still depend on and use this historic behavior for URLs embedded in HTML.


title: Query string

text: Some characters cannot be part of a URL (for example, the space) and some other characters have a special meaning in a URL: for example, the character codice_15 can be used to further specify a subsection (or fragment) of a document. In HTML forms, the character codice_6 is used to separate a name from a value. The URI generic syntax uses URL encoding to deal with this problem, while HTML forms make some additional substitutions rather than applying percent encoding for all such characters. SPACE is encoded as 'codice_11' or "codice_13".


title: Query string

text: HTML 5 specifies the following transformation for submitting HTML forms with the "GET" method to a web server. The following is a brief summary of the algorithm:


title: Query string

text: The octet corresponding to the tilde ("codice_27") is permitted in query strings by RFC3986 but required to be percent-encoded in HTML forms to "codice_34".


title: Query string

text: The encoding of SPACE as 'codice_11' and the selection of "as-is" characters distinguishes this encoding from RFC 3986.


title: Query string

text: and the user inserts the strings “this is a field” and “was it clear (already)?” in the two text fields and presses the submit button, the program codice_36 (the program specified by the codice_37 attribute of the codice_38 element in the above example) will receive the following query string:


title: Query string

text: If the form is processed on the server by a CGI script, the script may typically receive the query string as an environment variable named codice_40.


title: Query string

text: A program receiving a query string can ignore part or all of it. If the requested URL corresponds to a file and not to a program, the whole query string is ignored. However, regardless of whether the query string is used or not, the whole URL including it is stored in the server log files.


title: Query string

text: These facts allow query strings to be used to track users in a manner similar to that provided by HTTP cookies. For this to work, every time the user downloads a page, a unique identifier must be chosen and added as a query string to the URLs of all links the page contains. As soon as the user follows one of these links, the corresponding URL is requested to the server. This way, the download of this page is linked with the previous one.


title: Query string

text: The addition of the query string does not change the way the page is shown to the user. When the user follows, for example, the first link, the browser requests the page codice_42 to the server, which ignores what follows codice_43 and sends the page codice_44 as expected, adding the query string to its links as well.


title: Query string

text: This way, any subsequent page request from this user will carry the same query string codice_41, making it possible to establish that all these pages have been viewed by the same user. Query strings are often used in association with web beacons.


title: Query string

text: Various ad hoc limitations on request-line length are found in practice. It is RECOMMENDED that all HTTP senders and recipients support, at a minimum, request-line lengths of 8000 octets.


title: Query string

text: The common workaround for these problems is to use POST instead of GET and store the parameters in the request body. The length limits on request bodies are typically much higher than those on URL length. For example, the limit on POST size, by default, is 2 MB on IIS 4.0 and 128 KB on IIS 5.0. The limit is configurable on Apache2 using the codice_46 directive, which specifies the number of bytes from 0 (meaning unlimited) to 2147483647 (2 GB) that are allowed in a request body.


title: The Muppet Show

text: The Muppet Show is a sketch comedy television series created by Jim Henson and featuring the Muppets. The series originated as two pilot episodes produced by Henson for ABC in 1974 and 1975. While neither episode was moved forward as a series and other networks in the United States rejected Henson's proposals, British producer Lew Grade expressed enthusiasm for the project and agreed to co-produce "The Muppet Show" for the British channel ATV. Five seasons, totalling 120 episodes, were broadcast on ATV and other ITV franchises in the United Kingdom and in later first-run syndication in the US from 1976 to 1981. The programme was produced and recorded at ATV Elstree Studios, England.


title: The Muppet Show

text: "The Muppet Show" is presented as a variety show, featuring recurring sketches and musical numbers interspersed with plotlines taking place backstage and in other areas of the venue. Within its context, Kermit the Frog (performed by Henson) acts as showrunner and host, who tries to maintain control of the overwhelming antics of the other Muppet characters, as well as appease the rotating slate of guest stars. "The Muppet Show" is also known for its uniquely designed characters, burlesque nature, slapstick, sometimes absurdist and surreal humour, and parodies. As "The Muppet Show" became popular, many celebrities were eager to perform with the Muppets on television and in subsequent films.


title: The Muppet Show

text: The cast of performers over the course of the series included Henson, Frank Oz (credited as featured performer as well as creative consultant), Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Leo Sayer, Fran Brill, Eren Özker, Louise Gold, Kathryn Mullen, Karen Prell, Brian Muehl, Bob Payne, John Lovelady, Jane Henson, Peter Friedman, Betsy Baytos, and dancer Graham Fletcher. Many of the performers also worked on "Sesame Street", whose characters made sporadic appearances on "The Muppet Show". Jack Burns served as the head writer for the first season, before Jerry Juhl became the head writer from the second season. The music was performed by Jack Parnell and his orchestra.


title: The Muppet Show

text: "The Muppet Show" was produced by ITC Entertainment and Henson Associates. The series premiered in the UK on 5 September 1976 and ended on 23 May 1981. The rights to the series are currently owned by The Muppets Studio (a division of The Walt Disney Company), having been acquired from The Jim Henson Company on 17 February 2004.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Since its debut in 1969, "Sesame Street" had given Jim Henson's Muppet characters exposure; however, Henson began to perceive that he was becoming typecast as a children's entertainer. Subsequently, he began conceiving a programme for a more adult demographic. Two television specials, "The Muppets Valentine Show" (1974) and "" (1975), were produced for ABC and are considered pilots for "The Muppet Show". Neither of the two specials were ordered to series. However, the prime-time access rule was recently enacted, shifting the 7:30 to 8 pm ET slot from the networks to their affiliates. CBS became interested in Henson's series proposals and expressed intent to broadcast it weekly on its owned and operated stations. According to Henson's pitch reel, George Schlatter was originally involved.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Lew Grade, proprietor of the British commercial station ATV, was familiar with puppet television programmes, having underwritten the various works of Gerry Anderson, while also producing two specials with Henson: "Julie on Sesame Street" and a special on Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. Grade offered a deal to Henson that would result in the latter's programme being produced at the ATV Elstree Studios, England. ATV, as part of the ITV network, would broadcast the programme to other ITV stations in the United Kingdom, and its distribution arm, ITC Entertainment, would handle international broadcasts. Henson set aside his misgivings about syndication and accepted.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Meanwhile, Henson's Muppets were featured in "The Land of Gorch" skits during the first (1975–76) season of the American comedy television programme "Saturday Night Live". Although they lasted for only that one season on "Saturday Night Live" due to conflicts with that show's writers and producers, Henson and his team learned a great deal from being involved with the production. They gained institutional knowledge about adapting and quickly creating a television programme within a seven-day period. Henson also gained valuable friendships with multiple celebrities through his work on "Saturday Night Live". Henson and his team were later able to use these skills and relationships on "The Muppet Show".


title: The Muppet Show

text: "The Muppet Show" first aired in September 1976. By Christmas 1976, the series in the UK saw around 14 million viewers tuning in on Sunday evenings. In January 1977, over 100 countries had either acquired the series or were making offers, which had resulted in over £6 million in overseas sales.


title: The Muppet Show

text: During the first season, the theme song contained a joke from Fozzie Bear and featured Kermit introducing the guest star ("To introduce our guest star, that's what I'm here to do, so it really makes me happy to introduce to you..."). At the song's end, Gonzo the Great appeared in front of the "Muppet Show" banner, attempting to play the "O" in "Show" like a gong, with various comical results.


title: The Muppet Show

text: From the second to fourth seasons, the joke and Kermit's introduction were replaced by a short quip from Statler and Waldorf, then a shot of the audience singing "Why don't they get things started?" The fifth season version featured an extra verse from the hecklers ("Why do we always come here? I guess we'll never know. It's kind of like a torture to have to watch the show!"). At the end of the song, Gonzo appeared inside the "O" in "Show" to play the final note on a trumpet; again, with various comical results.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Each episode ended with an extended instrumental performance of "The Muppet Show Theme" by the Muppet orchestra before Statler and Waldorf gave the last laugh of the night, followed by Zoot playing an off-key final note on his saxophone. Some last-laugh sequences featured other Muppets on the balcony. For example, in one episode, the Muppets of "Sesame Street" appeared behind Statler and Waldorf, who told them, "How should we know how to get to Sesame Street? We don't even know how to get out of this stupid theater box!"


title: The Muppet Show

text: Every season, the TV version of the song was presented with re-worked lyrics. While the opening sequence evolved visually over the course of the show's five seasons, the musical composition remained essentially the same. Throughout the years, the song has become a staple of the Muppets franchise as a whole.


title: The Muppet Show

text: The Muppet Theater is the setting for "The Muppet Show", a grand old vaudeville house that has seen better days. In episode 106, Kermit identifies the name of the theatre as The Benny Vandergast Memorial Theater, although other episodes merely identify it as "the Muppet Theater". It is also identified as simply "Muppet Theater" in "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie". It is then that the theatre becomes registered as a historical landmark, and it cannot be shut down. In the film, the theatre is shown to be in New York City.


title: The Muppet Show

text: According to "The Phantom of the Muppet Theater", the theatre was built by a stage actor named John Stone in 1802. At some point, a production of "Hamlet" ran in the theatre, with Stone playing the title role. An alternative exterior is also shown in the book.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Locations seen in the Muppet Theater include backstage right (which includes Kermit's desk), the dressing rooms, the attic (featured in four compilation videos released in 1985), the canteen, the prop room, the stage, Statler and Waldorf's box, the auditorium, reception, the recording studio, the stage door lobby, and the back alley. Some of these sets were later re-used as the Happiness Hotel in "The Great Muppet Caper". A replica of the theatre serves as the setting for the Muppet*Vision 3D attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Scooter's uncle J.P. Grosse owns the theatre, and rents it to the Muppets. In a deleted scene from "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie", Kermit reveals that J.P. has died and left the theatre to the Muppets in his will. This would have taken place some time after 1996, as J.P. can be seen (and referred to as such by the head of the KMUP network) in episode 107 of "Muppets Tonight", the 1990s reworking of "The Muppet Show".


title: The Muppet Show

text: In the film "The Muppets", a badly deteriorated version of the Muppet Theater is located next to Muppet Studios in Los Angeles. The Muppets reunite in hopes of raising enough money to buy the theatre from oil magnate Tex Richman before he can demolish it and start drilling for oil on the site.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Many of the characters who appeared on "The Muppet Show" have appeared in previous and subsequent Muppet productions.


title: The Muppet Show

text: No guest star ever appeared twice on "The Muppet Show", although John Denver appeared both on the show and in two specials ("" and "John Denver & the Muppets: Rocky Mountain Holiday"), while Dudley Moore reappeared in the special, "The Muppets Go to the Movies". Additionally, several guest stars from the series had cameos in the first three Muppet theatrical films, and season four guest Alan Arkin cameoed in "The Muppets". Originally, the producers had to call on their personal contacts to appeal to them to appear, especially considering that doing so required an overseas trip to Britain. However, the situation changed when the renowned ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev offered to appear; his performance on this unusual TV programme produced so much favourable publicity that the series became one of the most sought after for various celebrities to appear in.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Many episodes featured actors, such as Steve Martin, Harvey Korman, Sylvester Stallone, Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Liza Minnelli, Christopher Reeve, Raquel Welch, Joel Grey and Dom DeLuise; some featured veteran performers like Ethel Merman, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Don Knotts, Liberace, Peter Ustinov, James Coburn, Lena Horne, Zero Mostel and Vincent Price; some featured well-known pop singers, including Elton John, Diana Ross, Harry Belafonte, Kenny Rogers, Linda Ronstadt, Alice Cooper, Paul Simon, Debbie Harry and Leo Sayer. Sayer's show used his hit "The Show Must Go On": he changed the lyrics in the second verse slightly, from "I wish I could tear down the walls of this theatre" to "I wish I could tear down the walls of this Muppet Theatre". Some guest stars, such as Monty Python star John Cleese, co-wrote much of their own episodes. The second to last episode, in 1981, featured then-James Bond actor Roger Moore, while the final episode to be taped guest-starred actor and dancer Gene Kelly. Mark Hamill appeared in one episode as both himself and Luke Skywalker, his role in the "Star Wars" film series. Two of Jim Henson's childhood idols, Edgar Bergen and Milton Berle, also guest-starred during the second season.


title: The Muppet Show

text: In 1977, Rita Moreno won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for her appearance. The next year, Peter Sellers—who chose not to appear as himself, instead appearing in a variety of characters— and Bernadette Peters earned nominations for the same award. One episode featured staff writer Chris Langham (who wrote some episodes of this show, starting in the third season) guest-starring due to Richard Pryor being unable to make the taping of the episode at the last minute.


title: The Muppet Show

text: An early tradition was to present the guest star with a Muppet likeness of themselves as a parting gift at the end of the show, but this only lasted for the first two episodes produced, featuring Connie Stevens and Juliet Prowse. The high cost and effort of creating these unique Muppets, scheduling conflicts, and potential legal issues contributed to the decline of this practice, although Muppet caricatures and parodies would continue to appear. The practice did however take place for actors Michael Caine and Tim Curry, who were the lead performers in "The Muppet Christmas Carol" and "Muppet Treasure Island", respectively.


title: The Muppet Show

text: "The Muppet Show" was nominated for nine BAFTA Awards during its run, winning three. It was nominated for twenty-one Primetime Emmy Awards, winning four, including the 1978 award for Outstanding Comedy-Variety or Music Series. It was presented with a Peabody Award in 1978. Also in 1978, the show received the Television Award of Merit by the Mary Washington Colonial Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.


title: The Muppet Show

text: The series also won the top Variety Prize in Golden Rose of Montreux international Contest in May 1977.


title: The Muppet Show

text: In 1985, Playhouse Video released a collection of video compilations under the Jim Henson's Muppet Video banner. Ten videos were released, featuring original linking material in addition to clips from the show.


title: The Muppet Show

text: In 1993, Jim Henson Video released two compilations under the "It's the Muppets" banner, "Meet the Muppets" and "More Muppets, Please!" Later, three volumes of "The Very Best of The Muppet Show" were released on VHS and DVD in the UK (volume 3 was a release of full episodes as opposed to compilations). Unlike the Playhouse Video releases, "It's the Muppets" and "The Very Best of The Muppet Show" did not include any original footage or guest star clips, but all compilation collections did include material cut from the original US broadcasts.


title: The Muppet Show

text: In 1994, Buena Vista Home Video under the Jim Henson Video imprint released "The Muppet Show: Monster Laughs with Vincent Price", featuring the episodes with Vincent Price and Alice Cooper. Both episodes were edited. In addition to replacing the first series opening and the ending logos with Zoot, the Vincent Price episode was edited to remove the songs "I'm Looking Through You" and "You've Got a Friend" (the latter of which would be cut again when released on the first series DVD) as well as a sketch with the talking houses, while the Alice Cooper episode removed Robin's performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".


title: The Muppet Show

text: Time-Life and Jim Henson Home Entertainment began marketing "best of" volumes of "The Muppet Show" for mail-order in 2001, with six initial volumes with three episodes on each VHS and DVD. Unique to each episode was an introduction by Jim Henson's son, Brian. Nine more volumes were added for 2002, the Muppets' 25th anniversary. The collection was available for retail in 2002 via Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment and Jim Henson Home Entertainment by which time Time-Life had released its tenth volume.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Buena Vista Home Entertainment released the three seasons on DVD in Region 1 in 2005 and 2008. The rights to the episodes and characters used in "The Muppet Show", and subsequent film outings, were bought in February 2004 by The Walt Disney Company.


title: The Muppet Show

text: Several songs were cut from the series 1 DVD release due to music licensing issues. There have also been some cuts in the intro sequence, and backstage scenes leading up to these songs. However, episodes that used Disney music remained unaltered (for example, episode 14 of series 1 used "Never Smile at a Crocodile" from "Peter Pan").


title: The Muppet Show

text: The only uncut release of Season 1 on DVD so far is the German DVD release by Buena Vista Home Entertainment Germany in 2010 (which also contains English audio). However, the intro and end credit sequences on this release are in German. In addition, the Paul Williams episode is missing a scene following "All of Me" wherein Fozzie and Scooter first discuss the "Old Telephone Pole bit". This scene does appear (albeit slightly abridged) in the international release. The German version also lacks the song "In My Life" performed by Twiggy, instead substituting it with a performance of "Lean on Me" by German singer Mary Roos.


title: The Muppet Show

text: "The Muppet Show" was released for streaming on Disney+ on 19 February 2021. However, two episodes featuring guests Brooke Shields and Chris Langham are omitted from the streaming service. In several European countries, the episode featuring John Denver is omitted as well. A content advisory was attached to several episodes describing "negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures".


title: European bison

text: The European bison (Bison bonasus) or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the American bison. The European bison is the heaviest wild land animal in Europe, and individuals in the past may have been even larger than their modern-day descendants. During late antiquity and the Middle Ages, bison became extinct in much of Europe and Asia, surviving into the 20th century only in northern-central Europe and the northern Caucasus Mountains. During the early years of the 20th century, bison were hunted to extinction in the wild.


title: European bison

text: The species — now numbering several thousand and returned to the wild by captive breeding programmes — is no longer in immediate danger of extinction, but remains absent from most of its historical range. It is not to be confused with the aurochs ("Bos primigenius"), the extinct ancestor of domestic cattle, with which it once co-existed.


title: European bison

text: Besides humans, bison have few predators. In the 19th century, there were scattered reports of wolves, lions, tigers, and


title: European bison

text: bears hunting bison. In the past, especially during the Middle Ages, humans commonly killed bison for their hide and meat. They used their horns to make drinking horns.


title: European bison

text: European bison were hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 20th century, with the last wild animals of the "B. b. bonasus" subspecies being shot in the Białowieża Forest (on today's Belarus–Poland border) in 1921. The last of the Caucasian wisent subspecies ("B. b. caucasicus") was shot in the north-western Caucasus in 1927. The Carpathian wisent ("B. b. hungarorum") had been hunted to extinction in the mid-1800s.


title: European bison

text: The Białowieża or lowland European bison was kept alive in captivity, and has since been reintroduced into several countries in Europe. In 1996, the International Union for Conservation of Nature classified the European bison as an endangered species, no longer extinct in the wild. Its status has improved since then, changing to vulnerable and later to near threatened.


title: European bison

text: European bison were first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Some later descriptions treat the European bison as conspecific with the American bison. Three subspecies of European bison existed in the recent past, but only one, the nominate subspecies ("B. b. bonasus"), survives today. The ancestry and relationships of the wisent to fossil bison species remain controversial and disputed.


title: European bison

text: The ancient Greeks and ancient Romans were the first to name bison as such; the 2nd-century AD authors Pausanias and Oppian referred to them as . Earlier, in the 4th century BC, during the Hellenistic period, Aristotle referred to bison as . He also noted that the Paeonians called it μόναπος ("monapos"). Claudius Aelianus, writing in the late 2nd or early 3rd centuries AD, also referred to the species as , and both Pliny the Elder's "Natural History" and Gaius Julius Solinus used and . Both Martial and Seneca the Younger mention (. ). Later Latin spellings of the term included , , and .


title: European bison

text: John Trevisa is the earliest author cited by the "Oxford English Dictionary" as using, in his 1398 translation of Bartholomeus Anglicus's "De proprietatibus rerum", the Latin plural in English, as "bysontes" ( and ). Philemon Holland's 1601 translation of Pliny's "Natural History", referred to "bisontes". The marginalia of the King James Version gives "bison" as a gloss for the Biblical animal called the "pygarg" mentioned in the "Book of Deuteronomy". Randle Cotgrave's 1611 French–English dictionary notes that was already in use, and it may have influenced the adoption of the word into English, or alternatively it may have been borrowed direct from Latin. John Minsheu's 1617 lexicon, "Ductor in linguas", gives a definition for "Bíson" ().


title: European bison

text: In the 18th century the name of the European animal was applied to the closely related American bison (initially in Latin in 1693, by John Ray) and the Indian bison (the gaur, "Bos gaurus"). Historically the word was also applied to Indian domestic cattle, the zebu ("B. indicus" or "B. primigenius indicus"). Because of the scarcity of the European bison the word ‘bison’ was most familiar in relation to the American species.


title: European bison

text: By the time of the adoption of ‘bison’ into Early Modern English, the early medieval English name for the species had long been obsolete: the had descended from , and was related to . The word ’wisent’ was then borrowed in the 19th century from modern [], itself related to , , , and to , , , and ultimately, like the Old English name, from Proto-Germanic. The , also found in "weasel", originally referred to the animal's musk.


title: European bison

text: The word ‘zubr’ in English is a borrowing from , previously also used to denote one race of the European bison. The Polish "żubr" is similar to the word for the European bison in other modern Slavic languages, such as and . The noun for the European bison in all living Slavonic tongues is thought to be derived from Proto-Slavic: "*zǫbrъ" ~ "*izǫbrъ", which itself possibly comes from Proto-Indo-European: "*ǵómbʰ-" for tooth, horn or peg.


title: European bison

text: The European bison is the heaviest surviving wild land animal in Europe. Similar to their American cousins, European bison were potentially larger historically than remnant descendants; modern animals are about in length, not counting a tail of , in height, and in weight for males, and about in body length without tails, in height, and in weight for females. At birth, calves are quite small, weighing between . In the free-ranging population of the Białowieża Forest of Belarus and Poland, body masses among adults (aged 6 and over) are on average in the cases of males, and among females. An occasional big bull European bison can weigh up to or more with old bull records of for lowland wisent and for Caucasian wisent.


title: European bison

text: On average, it is lighter in body mass, and yet slightly taller at the shoulder, than its American relatives, the wood bison ("Bison bison athabascae") and the plains bison ("Bison bison bison"). Compared to the American species, the wisent has shorter hair on the neck, head, and forequarters, but longer tail and horns. See differences from American bison.


title: European bison

text: The European bison makes a variety of vocalisations depending on its mood and behaviour, but when anxious, it emits a growl-like sound, known in Polish as "chruczenie" (). This sound can also be heard from wisent males during the mating season.


title: European bison

text: Historically, the lowland European bison's range encompassed most of the lowlands of northern Europe, extending from the Massif Central to the Volga River and the Caucasus. It may have once lived in the Asiatic part of what is now the Russian Federation, reaching to Lake Baikal and Altai Mountains in east. The European bison is known in southern Sweden only between 9500 and 8700 BP, and in Denmark similarly is documented only from the Pre-Boreal. It is not recorded from the British Isles, nor from Italy or the Iberian Peninsula, although prehistorical absence of the species among British Isles is debatable; bison fossils of unclarified species have been found on Doggerland or Brown Bank, and Isle of Wight and Oxfordshire, followed by fossil records of Pleistocene woodland bison and Steppe bison from the isles. The extinct Steppe bison ("B. priscus") is known from across Eurasia and North America, last occurring 7,000 BC to 5,400 BC, and is depicted in the Cave of Altamira and Lascaux. The Pleistocene woodland bison ("B. schoetensacki"), has been proposed to have last existed around 36,000 BC. But other authors restrict "B. schoetensacki" to remains that are hundreds of thousands of years older. Cave paintings appear to distinguish between "B. bonasus" and "B. priscus".


title: European bison

text: Within mainland Europe, its range decreased as human populations expanded and cut down forests. They seemed to be common in Aristotle's period on Mount Mesapion (possibly the modern Ograzhden). In the same wider area Pausanias calling them "Paeonian bulls" and "bisons", gives details on how they were captured alive; adding also the fact that a golden Paeonian bull head was offered to Delphi by the Paeonian king Dropion (3rd century BC) who lived in what is today Tikveš. The last references (Oppian, Claudius Aelianus) to the animal in the transitional Mediterranean/Continental biogeographical region in the Balkans in the area of modern borderline between Greece, North Macedonia and Bulgaria date to the 3rd century AD. In northern Bulgaria, the wisent survived until the 9th or 10th century AD. There is a possibility that the species' range extended to East Thrace during the 7th – 8th century AD. Its population in Gaul was extinct in the 8th century AD. The species survived in the Ardennes and the Vosges Mountains until the 15th century. In the Early Middle Ages, the wisent apparently still occurred in the forest steppes east of the Urals, in the Altai Mountains, and seems to have reached Lake Baikal in the east. The northern boundary in the Holocene was probably around 60°N in Finland. European bison survived in a few natural forests in Europe, but their numbers dwindled.


title: European bison

text: In 1513 the Białowieża Forest, at this point one of the last areas on Earth where the European bison still roamed free, was transferred from the Troki Voivodeship of Lithuania to the Podlaskie Voivodeship, which after the Union of Lublin became part of the Polish Crown. In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, at first European bison in the Białowieża Forest were legally the property of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania and later belonged to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Polish-Lithuanian rulers took measures to protect the European bison, such as King Sigismund II Augustus who instituted the death penalty for poaching bison in Białowieża in the mid-16th century. Wild European bison herds existed in the forest until the mid-17th century. In 1701, King Augustus II the Strong greatly increased protection over the forest; the first written sources mentioning the use of some forest meadows for the production of winter fodder for the bison come from this period. In the early 19th century, after the partitions of the Polish Commonwealth, the Russian tsars retained old Polish-Lithuanian laws protecting the European bison herd in Białowieża but also turned all the people inhabiting the area into serfs. Despite these measures and others, the European bison population continued to decline over the following century, with only Białowieża and Northern Caucasus populations surviving into the 20th century. The last European bison in Transylvania died in 1790.


title: European bison

text: During World War I, occupying German troops killed 600 of the European bison in the Białowieża Forest for sport, meat, hides and horns. A German scientist informed army officers that the European bison were facing imminent extinction, but at the very end of the war, retreating German soldiers shot all but nine animals. The last wild European bison in Poland was killed in 1921. The last wild European bison in the world was killed by poachers in 1927 in the western Caucasus. By that year, 48 remained, all held by zoos. The International Society for the Preservation of the Wisent was founded on 25 and 26 August 1923 in Berlin, following the example of the American Bison Society. The first chairman was Kurt Priemel, director of the Frankfurt Zoo, and among the members were experts like Hermann Pohle, Max Hilzheimer and Julius Riemer. The first goal of the society was to take stock of all living bison, in preparation for a breeding programme. Important members were the Polish Hunting Association and the Poznań zoological gardens, as well as a number of Polish private individuals, who provided funds to acquire the first bison cows and bulls. The breeding book was published in the company's annual report from 1932. While Priemel aimed to grow the population slowly with pure conservation of the breeding line, Lutz Heck planned to grow the population faster by cross-breeding with American bison in a separate breeding project in Munich, in 1934.


title: European bison

text: Heck gained the support of then "Reichsjägermeister" Hermann Göring, who hoped for huntable big game. Heck promised his powerful supporter in writing: "Since surplus bulls will soon be set, the hunting of the Wisent will be possible again in the foreseeable future". Göring himself took over the patronage of the German Professional Association of Wisent Breeders and Hegers, founded at Heck's suggestion. Kurt Priemel, who had since resigned as president of the International Society for the Preservation of the Wisent, warned in vain against "manification". Heck answered by announcing that Göring would take action against Priemel if he continued to oppose his crossing plans. Priemel was then banned from publishing in relation to bison breeding, and the regular bookkeeper of the International Society, Erna Mohr, was forced to hand over the official register in 1937. Thus, the older society was effectively incorporated into the newly created Professional Association. After the Second World War, therefore, only the pure-blooded bison in the game park Springe near Hanover were recognised as part of the international herd book.


title: European bison

text: The first two bison were released into the wild in the Białowieża Forest in 1929. By 1964 more than 100 existed. Over the following decades, thanks to Polish and international efforts, the Białowieża Forest regained its position as the location with the world's largest population of European bison, including those in the wild. In 2005-2007, a wild bison nicknamed Pubal became renowned in southeast Poland due to his friendly interactions with humans and unwillingness to reintegrate into the wild. As of 2014 there were 1,434 wisents in Poland, out of which 1,212 were in free-range herds and 522 belonged to the wild population in the Białowieża Forest. Compared to 2013, the total population in 2014 increased by 4.1%, while the free-ranging population increased by 6.5%. Bison from Poland have also been transported beyond the country's borders to boost the local populations of other countries, among them Bulgaria, Spain, Romania, Czechia and others. Poland has been described as the world's breeding centre of the European bison, where the bison population doubled between 1995 and 2017, reaching 2,269 by the end of 2019 – the total population has been increasing by around 15% to 18% yearly. In July 2022 a small population was released into woodland in Kent to trial their reintroduction into the UK.


title: European bison

text: Y chromosome analysis associated wisent and American bison. An earlier study, using amplified fragment-length polymorphism fingerprinting, showed a close association of wisent and American bison and probably with yak. It noted the interbreeding of Bovini species made determining relationships problematic.


title: European bison

text: European bison can crossbreed with American bison. This hybrid is known in Poland as a "". The products of a German interbreeding programme were destroyed after the Second World War. This programme was related to the impulse which created the Heck cattle. The cross-bred individuals created at other zoos were eliminated from breed books by the 1950s. A Russian back-breeding programme resulted in a wild herd of hybrid animals, which presently lives in the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve (550 animals in 1999).


title: European bison

text: Wisent-cattle hybrids also occur, similarly to the North American beefalo. Cattle and European bison hybridise fairly readily. First-generation males are infertile. In 1847, a herd of wisent-cattle hybrids named "żubroń" () was created by Leopold Walicki. The animals were intended to become durable and cheap alternatives to cattle. The experiment was continued by researchers from the Polish Academy of Sciences until the late 1980s. Although the program resulted in a quite successful animal that was both hardy and could be bred in marginal grazing lands, it was eventually discontinued. Currently, the only surviving żubroń herd consists of just a few animals in Białowieża Forest, Poland and Belarus.


title: European bison

text: In 2016, the first whole genome sequencing data from two European bison bulls from the Białowieża Forest revealed that the bison and bovine species diverged from about 1.7 to 0.85 Mya, through a speciation process involving limited gene flow. These data further support the occurrence of more recent secondary contacts, posterior to the divergence between "Bos primigenius primigenius" and "B. p. namadicus" (ca. 150,000 years ago), between the wisent and (European) taurine cattle lineages. An independent study of mitochondrial DNA and autosomal markers confirmed these secondary contacts (with an estimate of up to 10% of bovine ancestry in the modern wisent genome) leading the authors to go further in their conclusions by proposing the wisent to be a hybrid between steppe bison and aurochs with a hybridisation event originating before 120,000 years ago. However, other studies considered the 10% estimate for aurochs gene flow a gross overstimate and based on flawed data, and not supported by the data from the full nuclear genome of the wisent.


title: European bison

text: Some of the authors however support the hypothesis that similarity of wisent and cattle ("Bos") mitochondrial genomes is result of incomplete lineage sorting during divergence of "Bos" and "Bison" from their common ancestors rather than further post-speciation gene flow (ancient hybridisation between "Bos" and "Bison"). But they agree that limited gene flow from "Bos primigenius taurus" could account for the affiliation between wisent and cattle nuclear genomes (in contrast to mitochondrial ones).


title: European bison

text: Alternatively, genome sequencing completed on remains attributed to the Pleistocene woodland bison ("B. schoetensacki"), and published in 2017, posited that genetic similarities between the Pleistocene woodland bison and the wisent suggest that "B. schoetensaki" was the ancestor of the European wisent. However, other studies have disputed the attribution of the remains to this species, otherwise known from remains hundreds of thousands of years older, instead referring them to an unnamed lineage of bison closely related to "B. bonasius". A 2018 study proposed that the lineage leading to the wisent and to the lineage ancestral to both the American bison and "Bison priscus" had split over 1 million years ago, with the mitochondrial DNA discrepancy being the result of incomplete lineage sorting. The authors also proposed that during the late Middle Pleistocene there had been interbreeding between the ancestor of the wisent and the common ancestor of "Bison priscus" and the American bison.


title: European bison

text: The European bison is a herd animal, which lives in both mixed and solely male groups. Mixed groups consist of adult females, calves, young aged 2–3 years, and young adult bulls. The average herd size is dependent on environmental factors, though on average, they number eight to 13 animals per herd. Herds consisting solely of bulls are smaller than mixed ones, containing two individuals on average. European bison herds are not family units. Different herds frequently interact, combine, and quickly split after exchanging individuals.


title: European bison

text: Bison social structure has been described by specialists as a matriarchy, as it is the cows of the herd that lead it, and decide where the entire group moves to graze. Although larger and heavier than the females, the oldest and most powerful male bulls are usually satellites that hang around the edges of the herd to protect the group. Bulls begin to serve a more active role in the herd when a danger to the group's safety appears, as well as during the mating season – when they compete with each other.


title: European bison

text: Territory held by bulls is correlated by age, with young bulls aged between five and six tending to form larger home ranges than older males. The European bison does not defend territory, and herd ranges tend to greatly overlap. Core areas of territory are usually sited near meadows and water sources.


title: European bison

text: The rutting season occurs from August through to October. Bulls aged 4–6 years, though sexually mature, are prevented from mating by older bulls. Cows usually have a gestation period of 264 days, and typically give birth to one calf at a time.


title: European bison

text: On average, male calves weigh at birth, and females . Body size in males increases proportionately to the age of 6 years. While females have a higher increase in body mass in their first year, their growth rate is comparatively slower than that of males by the age of 3–5. Bulls reach sexual maturity at the age of two, while cows do so in their third year.


title: European bison

text: European bison have lived as long as 30 years in captivity, but in the wild their lifespans are shorter. The lifespan of a bison in the wild is usually between 18 and 24 years, though females live longer than males. Productive breeding years are between four and 20 years of age in females, and only between six and 12 years of age in males.


title: European bison

text: European bison feed predominantly on grasses, although they also browse on shoots and leaves; in summer, an adult male can consume 32 kg of food in a day. European bison in the Białowieża Forest in Poland have traditionally been fed hay in the winter for centuries, and large herds may gather around this diet supplement. European bison need to drink every day, and in winter can be seen breaking ice with their heavy hooves.


title: European bison

text: Although superficially similar, a number of physical and behavioural differences are seen between the European bison and the American bison. The bison has 14 pairs of ribs, while the American bison has 15. Adult European bison are (on average) taller than American bison, and have longer legs. European bison tend to browse more, and graze less than their American relatives, due to their necks being set differently. Compared to the American bison, the nose of the European bison is set further forward than the forehead when the neck is in a neutral position.


title: European bison

text: The body of the wisent is less hairy, though its tail is hairier than that of the American species. The horns of the European bison point forward through the plane of their faces, making them more adept at fighting through the interlocking of horns in the same manner as domestic cattle, unlike the American bison, which favours charging. European bison are less tameable than the American ones, and breed with domestic cattle less readily.


title: European bison

text: In terms of behavioural capability, European bison runs slower and with less stamina yet jumps higher and longer than American bisons, showing signs of more developed adaptations into mountainous habitats.


title: European bison

text: The protection of the European bison has a long history; between the 15th and 18th centuries, those in the forest of Białowieża were protected and their diet supplemented. Efforts to restore this species to the wild began in 1929, with the establishment of the Bison Restitution Centre at Białowieża, Poland. Subsequently, in 1948, the Bison Breeding Centre was established within the Prioksko-Terrasny Biosphere Reserve.


title: European bison

text: The modern herds are managed as two separate lines – one consisting of only "Bison bonasus bonasus" (all descended from only seven animals) and one consisting of all 12 ancestors, including the one "B. b. caucasicus" bull. The latter is generally not considered a separate subspecies because they contain DNA from both "B. b. bonasus" and "B. b. caucasicius", although some scientists classify them as a new subspecies, "B. b. montanus". Only a limited amount of inbreeding depression from the population bottleneck has been found, having a small effect on skeletal growth in cows and a small rise in calf mortality. Genetic variability continues to shrink. From five initial bulls, all current European bison bulls have one of only two remaining Y chromosomes.


title: European bison

text: Beginning in 1951, European bison have been reintroduced into the wild, including some areas where they were never found wild. Free-ranging herds are currently found in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Latvia, Switzerland, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, and in forest preserves in the Western Caucasus. The Białowieża Primeval Forest, an ancient woodland that straddles the border between Poland and Belarus, continues to have the largest free-living European bison population in the world with around 1000 wild bison counted in 2014. Herds have also been introduced in Moldova (2005), Spain (2010), Denmark (2012), and the Czech Republic (2014).


title: European bison

text: The Wilder Blean project, headed up by the Wildwood Trust and Kent Wildlife Trust, introduced European bison to the UK for the first time in 6000 years (although there was an unsuccessful attempt in Scotland in 2011, and the European bison is not confirmed to be native to England while the British Isles once used to be inhabited by now-extinct Steppe bison and Pleistocene woodland bison). The herd of 3 females, with plans to also release a male in the following months, was set free in July 2022 within a 2,500-acre conservation area in West Blean and Thornden Woods, near Canterbury. Unknown to the rangers, one of the females was pregnant and gave birth to a calf in October 2022, marking the first wild bison born in the UK for the first time in millennia.