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Category: animals / animal smarts
Ed Yong: Zombie roaches and other parasite tales | TED Talk | TED.com
Watch this fascinating, hilarious, extremely well written TED Talk.
— excerpt of video transcript below —
Ed Yong
Zombie roaches and other parasite tales
Posted Mar 2014 Rated Fascinating, Informative
A herd of wildebeests, a shoal of fish, a flock of birds. Many animals gather in large groups that are among the most wonderful spectacles in the natural world. But why do these groups form? The common answers include things like seeking safety in numbers or hunting in packs or gathering to mate or breed, and all of these explanations, while often true, make a huge assumption about animal behavior, that the animals are in control of their own actions, that they are in charge of their bodies. And that is often not the case.
This is Artemia, a brine shrimp. You probably know it better as a sea monkey. It's small, and it typically lives alone, but it can gather in these large red swarms that span for meters, and these form because of a parasite. These shrimp are infected with a tapeworm. A tapeworm is effectively a long, living gut with genitals at one end and a hooked mouth at the other. As a freelance journalist, I sympathize. (Laughter) The tapeworm drains nutrients from Artemia's body, but it also does other things. It castrates them, it changes their color from transparent to bright red, it makes them live longer, and as biologist Nicolas Rode has found, it makes them swim in groups. Why? Because the tapeworm, like many other parasites, has a complicated life cycle involving many different hosts. The shrimp are just one step on its journey. Its ultimate destination is this, the greater flamingo. Only in a flamingo can the tapeworm reproduce, so to get there, it manipulates its shrimp hosts into forming these conspicuous colored swarms that are easier for a flamingo to spot and to devour, and that is the secret of the Artemia swarm. They aren't sociable through their own volition, but because they are being controlled. It's not safety in numbers. It's actually the exact opposite. The tapeworm hijacks their brains and their bodies, turning them into vehicles for getting itself into a flamingo.
And here is another example of a parasitic manipulation. This is a suicidal cricket. This cricket swallowed the larvae of a Gordian worm, or horsehair worm. The worm grew to adult size within it, but it needs to get into water in order to mate, and it does that by releasing proteins that addle the cricket's brain, causing it to behave erratically. When the cricket nears a body of water, such as this swimming pool, it jumps in and drowns, and the worm wriggles out of its suicidal corpse. Crickets are really roomy. Who knew?
The tapeworm and the Gordian worm are not alone. They are part of an entire cavalcade of mind-controlling parasites, of fungi, viruses, and worms and insects and more that all specialize in subverting and overriding the wills of their hosts. Now, I first learned about this way of life through David Attenborough's "Trials of Life" about 20 years ago, and then later through a wonderful book called "Parasite Rex" by my friend Carl Zimmer. And I've been writing about these creatures ever since. Few topics in biology enthrall me more. It's like the parasites have subverted my own brain. Because after all, they are always compelling and they are delightfully macabre. When you write about parasites, your lexicon swells with phrases like "devoured alive" and "bursts out of its body." (Laughter)
But there's more to it than that. I'm a writer, and fellow writers in the audience will know that we love stories. Parasites invite us to resist the allure of obvious stories. Their world is one of plot twists and unexpected explanations. Why, for example, does this caterpillar start violently thrashing about when another insect gets close to it and those white cocoons that it seems to be standing guard over? Is it maybe protecting its siblings? No. This caterpillar was attacked by a parasitic wasp which laid eggs inside it. The eggs hatched and the young wasps devoured the caterpillar alive before bursting out of its body. See what I mean? Now, the caterpillar didn't die. Some of the wasps seemed to stay behind and controlled it into defending their siblings which are metamorphosing into adults within those cocoons. This caterpillar is a head-banging zombie bodyguard defending the offspring of the creature that killed it.
We have a lot to get through. I only have 13 minutes. (Laughter)
Now, some of you are probably just desperately clawing for some solace in the idea that these things are oddities of the natural world, that they are outliers, and that point of view is understandable, because by their nature, parasites are quite small and they spend a lot of their time inside the bodies of other things. They're easy to overlook, but that doesn't mean that they aren't important. A few years back, a man called Kevin Lafferty took a group of scientists into three Californian estuaries and they pretty much weighed and dissected and recorded everything they could find, and what they found were parasites in extreme abundance. Especially common were trematodes, tiny worms that specialize in castrating their hosts like this unfortunate snail. Now, a single trematode is tiny, microscopic, but collectively they weighed as much as all the fish in the estuaries and three to nine times more than all the birds. And remember the Gordian worm that I showed you, the cricket thing? One Japanese scientist called Takuya Sato found that in one stream, these things drive so many crickets and grasshoppers into the water that the drowned insects make up some 60 percent of the diet of local trout. Manipulation is not an oddity. It is a critical and common part of the world around us, and scientists have now found hundreds of examples of such manipulators, and more excitingly, they're starting to understand exactly how these creatures control their hosts.
And this is one of my favorite examples. This is Ampulex compressa, the emerald cockroach wasp, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that an emerald cockroach wasp in possession of some fertilized eggs must be in want of a cockroach. When she finds one, she stabs it with a stinger that is also a sense organ. This discovery came out three weeks ago. She stabs it with a stinger that is a sense organ equipped with small sensory bumps that allow her to feel the distinctive texture of a roach's brain. So like a person blindly rooting about in a bag, she finds the brain, and she injects it with venom into two very specific clusters of neurons. Israeli scientists Frederic Libersat and Ram Gal found that the venom is a very specific chemical weapon. It doesn't kill the roach, nor does it sedate it. The roach could walk away or fly or run if it chose to, but it doesn't choose to, because the venom nixes its motivation to walk, and only that. The wasp basically un-checks the escape-from-danger box in the roach's operating system, allowing her to lead her helpless victim back to her lair by its antennae like a person walking a dog. And once there, she lays an egg on it, egg hatches, devoured alive, bursts out of body, yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill. (Laughter) (Applause)
Now I would argue that, once stung, the cockroach isn't a roach anymore. It's more of an extension of the wasp, just like the cricket was an extension of the Gordian worm. These hosts won't get to survive or reproduce. They have as much control over their own fates as my car. Once the parasites get in, the hosts don't get a say.
Now humans, of course, are no stranger to manipulation. We take drugs to shift the chemistries of our brains and to change our moods, and what are arguments or advertising or big ideas if not an attempt to influence someone else's mind? But our attempts at doing this are crude and blundering compared to the fine-grained specificity of the parasites. Don Draper only wishes he was as elegant and precise as the emerald cockroach wasp. Now, I think this is part of what makes parasites so sinister and so compelling. We place such a premium on our free will and our independence that the prospect of losing those qualities to forces unseen informs many of our deepest societal fears. Orwellian dystopias and shadowy cabals and mind-controlling supervillains — these are tropes that fill our darkest fiction, but in nature, they happen all the time.
Which leads me to an obvious and disquieting question: Are there dark, sinister parasites that are influencing our behavior without us knowing about it, besides the NSA? If there are any — (Laughter) (Applause) I've got a red dot on my forehead now, don't I? (Laughter)
If there are any, this is a good candidate for them. This is Toxoplasma gondii, or Toxo, for short, because the terrifying creature always deserves a cute nickname. Toxo infects mammals, a wide variety of mammals, but it can only sexually reproduce in a cat. And scientists like Joanne Webster have shown that if Toxo gets into a rat or a mouse, it turns the rodent into a cat-seeking missile. If the infected rat smells the delightful odor of cat piss, it runs towards the source of the smell rather than the more sensible direction of away. The cat eats the rat. Toxo gets to have sex. It's a classic tale of Eat, Prey, Love. (Laughter) (Applause)
You're very charitable, generous people. Hi, Elizabeth, I loved your talk.
How does the parasite control its host in this way? We don't really know. We know that Toxo releases an enzyme that makes dopamine, a substance involved in reward and motivation. We know it targets certain parts of a rodent's brain, including those involved in sexual arousal. But how those puzzle pieces fit together is not immediately clear. What is clear is that this thing is a single cell. This has no nervous system. It has no consciousness. It doesn't even have a body. But it's manipulating a mammal? We are mammals. We are more intelligent than a mere rat, to be sure, but our brains have the same basic structure, the same types of cells, the same chemicals running through them, and the same parasites. Estimates vary a lot, but some figures suggest that one in three people around the world have Toxo in their brains. Now typically, this doesn't lead to any overt illness. The parasite holds up in a dormant state for a long period of time. But there's some evidence that those people who are carriers score slightly differently on personality questionnaires than other people, that they have a slightly higher risk of car accidents, and there's some evidence that people with schizophrenia are more likely to be infected. Now, I think this evidence is still inconclusive, and even among Toxo researchers, opinion is divided as to whether the parasite is truly influencing our behavior. But given the widespread nature of such manipulations, it would be completely implausible for humans to be the only species that weren't similarly affected.
And I think that this capacity to constantly subvert our way of thinking about the world makes parasites amazing. They're constantly inviting us to look at the natural world sideways, and to ask if the behaviors we're seeing, whether they're simple and obvious or baffling and puzzling, are not the results of individuals acting through their own accord but because they are being bent to the control of something else. And while that idea may be disquieting, and while parasites' habits may be very grisly, I think that ability to surprise us makes them as wonderful and as charismatic as any panda or butterfly or dolphin.
At the end of "On the Origin of Species," Charles Darwin writes about the grandeur of life, and of endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful, and I like to think he could easily have been talking about a tapeworm that makes shrimp sociable or a wasp that takes cockroaches for walks.
But perhaps, that's just a parasite talking.
Thank you.
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For healthier buildings, just add bacteria? |
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For healthier buildings, just add bacteria?
Jan 24, 2017 / Ed Yong
Sacha Vega/TED
Just like a human being, a house or office has its own microbiome, with good and bad microorganisms. One researcher has a targeted idea: to customize our spaces with the right microbes.
Right before the University of Chicago's Center for Care and Discovery opened in 2013, a team of researchers — overseen by Jack Gilbert, microbial researcher and director of the Microbiome Center at the University of Chicago — went through the eerily empty hallways, armed with bags of Q-tips. None of the rooms were home to humans yet; their only residents were microbes, which the team was there to collect. They swabbed the pristine floors, the gleaming bedrails, the perfectly folded sheets. They collected samples from light switches, door handles, air vents and more. Finally, they fitted the rooms with data loggers to measure light, temperature, humidity and air pressure, carbon dioxide monitors that would automatically record if a room was occupied, and infrared sensors that could tell when people entered or left. After the hospital opened, the team collected weekly samples.
Just as others have catalogued the developing microbiome of a newborn baby, Gilbert has, for the first time, catalogued the developing microbiome of a newborn building. His team is analyzing the data to work out how the presence of humans has changed the building's microbial character and whether those environmental microbes have flowed back into the occupants. Nowhere are those questions more important than in a hospital. There, the flow of microbes can mean life or death — a lot of deaths. In the developed world, around five to ten percent of people who check into hospitals and other health-care institutions pick up an infection during their stay, falling ill in the very places that are meant to make them healthier. In the United States alone, this means around 1.7 million infections and 90,000 deaths a year.
Ever since the 1860s, when Joseph Lister instigated sterile techniques in his hospital, cleaning regimes have helped curb the spread of pathogens. But just as we have gone overboard in taking unnecessary antibiotics or lathering ourselves in antibacterial sanitizers, we have also gone too far in cleaning our buildings, even our hospitals. As an example, one US hospital recently spent around $700,000 to install flooring that was impregnated with antibacterial substances, despite no evidence that such measures work. They might even make things worse. Perhaps the quest to sterilize our hospitals has created dysbiosis in the microbiomes of our buildings. By removing harmless bacteria that would otherwise impede the growth of pathogens, perhaps we have inadvertently constructed a more dangerous ecosystem.
Researcher Gilbert has visions of adding microbial spheres to neonatal intensive care units, to expose babies to a 'rich microbial ecosystem'
Rather than trying to exclude microbes from our buildings and public spaces, perhaps it is time to lay the welcome mat out for them. One of Gilbert's many microbial ideas: to deliberately seed buildings with bacteria. The microbes won't be sprayed or plastered onto walls. Instead, they'll come caged within tiny plastic spheres, created by engineer Ramille Shah. She will use three-dimensional printers to fashion balls that contain a warren of microscopic nooks and crannies. Gilbert will then impregnate these with useful bacteria like Clostridia, which digests fiber and quenches inflammation, as well as nutrients that nourish those microbes.
These bacteria should then jump over to anyone who interacts with the spheres. Gilbert is testing this with germ-free mice. He wants to see if the bacteria are stable in their cages, if they jump into rodents that play with the balls, if they last in their new hosts and if they can cure the rodents of inflammatory diseases. If that works, Gilbert has visions of testing the microbial spheres in office blocks or hospital wards. He imagines adding them to the cots in neonatal intensive care units, so that the infants would "be constantly exposed to a rich microbial ecosystem that we've designed to be beneficial." He adds, "I want to create 3D-printable teething toys, too. You can imagine children playing with these."
These spheres are effectively a different take on probiotics — a way of delivering beneficial microbes not through yogurt drinks or nutritional supplements, but via an animal's surroundings. "I don't want to put the microbes in their food and shove it down their gullet," he says. "I want the microbes to interact with their nasal membranes, their mouths and their hands. I want them to experience that microbiome in a more natural way."
Microbes that prevent dandruff and dermatitis might be used to stop mold from developing in homes
But Gilbert is interested in implementing his ideas on a much larger scale. He wants to shape the microbiomes of entire cities, starting with Chicago. He has been talking to architect Luke Leung, who designed the world's tallest building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa. Since meeting Gilbert, Leung has also become something of a microbiome fanatic. In several of his buildings, Leung has routed the ventilation system so that it flows through a wall of plants, which not only pleases the eye but also filters the air. To him, Gilbert's idea of lacing walls with microbial spheres — which I've suggested should be called Baccy Balls — makes perfect sense. Karen Weigert, Chicago's chief sustainability officer, has also become a microbiome enthusiast.
The four of us — Leung, Gilbert, Weigert and me — are meeting for lunch at a Chicago restaurant overlooking Lake Michigan. Like Leung, Weigert is excited about using bacteria in architecture, and she asks Gilbert if the Baccy Balls would work in low-income housing, as well as in skyscrapers. Yes, he says. He wants to make them as cheaply as possible.
She switches the conversation to Chicago's perennial problem with flooding. The sewer system backs up a lot and will probably do so more and more as the global climate changes. "Is there something we can do to manage flooding, or after-effects like mold?" she asks. "There actually is," says Gilbert.
In a different project, he has been working with L'Oréal to identify bacteria that can prevent dandruff and dermatitis, by stopping fungi from germinating on the scalp. These microbes could form the basis of anti-dandruff probiotic shampoos, but they could also be used to create "micro-wetlands" that stop flooded homes from becoming overrun by mold. So if a home floods, fungi would get a bonanza of water, but also face a bloom of antifungal microbes. "You'd get automatic built-in mold control," says Gilbert.
"So how real is all of this? Where are you with it?" asks Weigert.
"We've got the fungal control agents, and we're trying to work out how to implant them into plastics," says Gilbert. "We're probably two or three years off from having something that we'd feel comfortable inserting in somebody's home — someone who wasn't a colleague. And it may be three or four years before we have something reliable we can roll out."
"We've been getting pretty good at killing bacteria, but we want to revitalize that relationship," Leung says. "We want to understand how the bacteria can help us in the built environment."
It's the start of a new era, when people are finally able to embrace the microbial world.
Manipulating the microbiomes of buildings and cities is just the start of Gilbert's ambitions. As well as the hospital and aquarium initiatives, he is also studying the microbiomes of a local gym and a college dorm. He and microbial researcher Rob Knight at UC San Diego (TED Talk: How our microbes make us who we are) are looking into forensic applications. He is studying the microbiomes of a wastewater treatment plant, floodplains, oil-contaminated waters in the Gulf of Mexico, prairies, a neonatal intensive care unit and Merlot grapes. He is studying how gut microbes change over the course of the day and whether that affects our risk of becoming fat. He is analyzing samples from several dozen wild baboons to see if the females that are most successful at rearing young have anything distinctive in their microbiomes.
Finally, together with Knight and Janet Jansson (of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Gilbert is coordinating the Earth Microbiome Project — a breathtakingly ambitious plan to take full stock of the planet's microbes. The team are making contact with people who work on oceans or grasslands or floodplains, and persuading them to share their samples and their data. Ultimately, they want to be able to predict the kinds of microbes that live in a given ecosystem by plugging in basic factors like temperature, vegetation, wind speed or levels of sunlight. And they want to predict how those species would respond to environmental changes, like the flooding of a river, or the passage from night to day. As goals go, it is ludicrously ambitious; some would say, unachievably so. But Gilbert and his colleagues are undeterred.
Now is a time for thinking big. It's a time when families can be persuaded to swab their houses for researchers, when aquarium managers are as concerned about the invisible life in their waters as they are about the charismatic dolphins, when hospitals are seriously considering adding microbes to walls rather than removing them. It's the start of a new era, when people are finally ready to embrace the microbial world.
Excerpted from the new book I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View on Life by Ed Yong. Copyright 2016 Ed Yong. Reprinted with permission from Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
About the author
Ed Yong writes the award-winning blog Not Exactly Rocket Science (hosted by National Geographic). He also contributes to Nature, Wired, Scientific American and many other web and print outlets.
baccy ballsbacteriabook excerptearth microbiome projectEd Yongjack gilbertJoseph ListerKaren WeigertLuke LeungmicrobesmicrobiologymicrobiomeRamille ShahRob Knight
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Aweinspiring animals: Cat vs alligator, Animals rescue other species of animals, amazing animal relationships
Newfound respect and Awe for Cats as an amazing creature: Cat vs (Racoon, Aligator, Dog, Snake, Poosum, etc..)
Cat vs R(acoon, Aligator, Dog, Snake, Poosum, etc…)
Animals rescue animals of a different species.
Cross species animals as friends
Cat acts as guard dog to keep alligators away.
Young Cheetah mothers baby monkey.
This one has some annoying parts, but just skip forward at that point. There is amazing footage intermixed, through to the end.
His "Best Friend" is a Bear
Anderson worked for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks as a wildlife rehabilitation technician, and for several privately owned wildlife parks as an animal keeper and trainer. In 2002, he adopted an orphaned grizzly bear cub, Brutus, from an overcrowded wildlife park where the cub was destined to spend his life in captivity or be euthanized. This led to Anderson's future career as trainer to Brutus and co-owner of Montana Grizzly Encounter which is a sanctuary that rehabilitates grizzlies rescued from bad captivity situations and which aids in the study of grizzlies.
Cat Scares Bear Away
"I'm just gonna chill here for awhile…" – GIF on Imgur
"I'm just gonna chill here for awhile…" – GIF on Imgur.
A very strange cat pic (video) – I didn't know a cat could sit like this. Interesting to see how he does it.
The question is, why? Very odd. Almost disturbing.
or, human like.
Baby Seal Enters House and Naps on Couch – ABC News
Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain Your Mood? – NYTimes.com
Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain Your Mood?
The rich array of microbiota in our intestines can tell us more than you might think.
By PETER ANDREY SMITH
Eighteen vials were rocking back and forth on a squeaky mechanical device the shape of a butcher scale, and Mark Lyte was beside himself with excitement. ''We actually got some fresh yesterday — freshly frozen,'' Lyte said to a lab technician.
Each vial contained a tiny nugget of monkey feces that were collected at the Harlow primate lab near Madison, Wis., the day before and shipped to Lyte's lab on the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center campus in Abilene, Tex.
Lyte's interest was not in the feces per se but in the hidden form of life they harbor. The digestive tube of a monkey, like that of all vertebrates, contains vast quantities of what biologists call gut microbiota. The genetic material of these trillions of microbes, as well as others living elsewhere in and on the body, is collectively known as the microbiome. Taken together, these bacteria can weigh as much as six pounds, and they make up a sort of organ whose functions have only begun to reveal themselves to science. Lyte has spent his career trying to prove that gut microbes communicate with the nervous system using some of the same neurochemicals that relay messages in the brain.Inside a closet-size room at his lab that afternoon, Lyte hunched over to inspect the vials, whose samples had been spun down in a centrifuge to a radiant, golden broth. Lyte, 60, spoke fast and emphatically. ''You wouldn't believe what we're extracting out of poop,'' he told me. ''We found that the guys here in the gut make neurochemicals. We didn't know that. Now, if they make this stuff here, does it have an influence there? Guess what? We make the same stuff. Maybe all this communication has an influence on our behavior.'
'Since 2007, when scientists announced plans for a Human Microbiome Project to catalog the micro-organisms living in our body, the profound appreciation for the influence of such organisms has grown rapidly with each passing year. Bacteria in the gut produce vitamins and break down our food; their presence or absence has been linked to obesity, inflammatory bowel disease and the toxic side effects of prescription drugs. Biologists now believe that much of what makes us human depends on microbial activity. The two million unique bacterial genes found in each human microbiome can make the 23,000 genes in our cells seem paltry, almost negligible, by comparison. ''It has enormous implications for the sense of self,'' Tom Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, told me. ''We are, at least from the standpoint of DNA, more microbial than human. That's a phenomenal insight and one that we have to take seriously when we think about human development.''Given the extent to which bacteria are now understood to influence human physiology, it is hardly surprising that scientists have turned their attention to how bacteria might affect the brain. Micro-organisms in our gut secrete a profound number of chemicals, and researchers like Lyte have found that among those chemicals are the same substances used by our neurons to communicate and regulate mood, like dopamine, serotonin and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). These, in turn, appear to play a function in intestinal disorders, which coincide with high levels of major depression and anxiety.
Last year, for example, a group in Norway examined feces from 55 people and found certain bacteria were more likely to be associated with depressive patients.At the time of my visit to Lyte's lab, he was nearly six months into an experiment that he hoped would better establish how certain gut microbes influenced the brain, functioning, in effect, as psychiatric drugs. He was currently compiling a list of the psychoactive compounds found in the feces of infant monkeys. Once that was established, he planned to transfer the microbes found in one newborn monkey's feces into another's intestine, so that the recipient would end up with a completely new set of microbes — and, if all went as predicted, change their neurodevelopment.
The experiment reflected an intriguing hypothesis. Anxiety, depression and several pediatric disorders, including autism and hyperactivity, have been linked with gastrointestinal abnormalities. Microbial transplants were not invasive brain surgery, and that was the point: Changing a patient's bacteria might be difficult but it still seemed more straightforward than altering his genes.
When Lyte began his work on the link between microbes and the brain three decades ago, it was dismissed as a curiosity. By contrast, last September, the National Institute of Mental Health awarded four grants worth up to $1 million each to spur new research on the gut microbiome's role in mental disorders, affirming the legitimacy of a field that had long struggled to attract serious scientific credibility. Lyte and one of his longtime colleagues, Christopher Coe, at the Harlow primate lab, received one of the four. ''What Mark proposed going back almost 25 years now has come to fruition,'' Coe told me. ''Now what we're struggling to do is to figure out the logic of it.'' It seems plausible, if not yet proved, that we might one day use microbes to diagnose neurodevelopmental disorders, treat mental illnesses and perhaps even fix them in the brain.
In 2011, a team of researchers at University College Cork, in Ireland, and McMaster University, in Ontario, published a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that has become one of the best-known experiments linking bacteria in the gut to the brain. Laboratory mice were dropped into tall, cylindrical columns of water in what is known as a forced-swim test, which measures over six minutes how long the mice swim before they realize that they can neither touch the bottom nor climb out, and instead collapse into a forlorn float. Researchers use the amount of time a mouse floats as a way to measure what they call ''behavioral despair.'' (Antidepressant drugs, like Zoloft and Prozac, were initially tested using this forced-swim test.)
For several weeks, the team, led by John Cryan, the neuroscientist who designed the study, fed a small group of healthy rodents a broth infused with Lactobacillus rhamnosus, a common bacterium that is found in humans and also used to ferment milk into probiotic yogurt. Lactobacilli are one of the dominant organisms babies ingest as they pass through the birth canal. Recent studies have shown that mice stressed during pregnancy pass on lowered levels of the bacterium to their pups. This type of bacteria is known to release immense quantities of GABA; as an inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA calms nervous activity, which explains why the most common anti-anxiety drugs, like Valium and Xanax, work by targeting GABA receptors.Cryan found that the mice that had been fed the bacteria-laden broth kept swimming longer and spent less time in a state of immobilized woe. ''They behaved as if they were on Prozac,'' he said. ''They were more chilled out and more relaxed.''
The results suggested that the bacteria were somehow altering the neural chemistry of mice.Until he joined his colleagues at Cork 10 years ago, Cryan thought about microbiology in terms of pathology: the neurological damage created by diseases like syphilis or H.I.V. ''There are certain fields that just don't seem to interact well,'' he said. ''Microbiology and neuroscience, as whole disciplines, don't tend to have had much interaction, largely because the brain is somewhat protected.'' He was referring to the fact that the brain is anatomically isolated, guarded by a blood-brain barrier that allows nutrients in but keeps out pathogens and inflammation, the immune system's typical response to germs. Cryan's study added to the growing evidence that signals from beneficial bacteria nonetheless find a way through the barrier. Somehow — though his 2011 paper could not pinpoint exactly how — micro-organisms in the gut tickle a sensory nerve ending in the fingerlike protrusion lining the intestine and carry that electrical impulse up the vagus nerve and into the deep-brain structures thought to be responsible for elemental emotions like anxiety. Soon after that, Cryan and a co-author, Ted Dinan, published a theory paper in Biological Psychiatry calling these potentially mind-altering microbes ''psychobiotics.''
It has long been known that much of our supply of neurochemicals — an estimated 50 percent of the dopamine, for example, and a vast majority of the serotonin — originate in the intestine, where these chemical signals regulate appetite, feelings of fullness and digestion. But only in recent years has mainstream psychiatric research given serious consideration to the role microbes might play in creating those chemicals. Lyte's own interest in the question dates back to his time as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pittsburgh in 1985, when he found himself immersed in an emerging field with an unwieldy name: psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI, for short. The central theory, quite controversial at the time, suggested that stress worsened disease by suppressing our immune system.By 1990, at a lab in Mankato, Minn., Lyte distilled the theory into three words, which he wrote on a chalkboard in his office: Stress->Immune->Disease. In the course of several experiments, he homed in on a paradox. When he dropped an intruder mouse in the cage of an animal that lived alone, the intruder ramped up its immune system — a boost, he suspected, intended to fight off germ-ridden bites or scratches. Surprisingly, though, this did not stop infections. It instead had the opposite effect: Stressed animals got sick. Lyte walked up to the board and scratched a line through the word ''Immune.'' Stress, he suspected, directly affected the bacterial bugs that caused infections.
To test how micro-organisms reacted to stress, he filled petri plates with a bovine-serum-based medium and laced the dishes with a strain of bacterium. In some, he dropped norepinephrine, a neurochemical that mammals produce when stressed. The next day, he snapped a Polaroid. The results were visible and obvious: The control plates were nearly barren, but those with the norepinephrine bloomed with bacteria that filigreed in frostlike patterns. Bacteria clearly responded to stress.Then, to see if bacteria could induce stress, Lyte fed white mice a liquid solution of Campylobacter jejuni, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning in humans but generally doesn't prompt an immune response in mice. To the trained eye, his treated mice were as healthy as the controls. But when he ran them through a plexiglass maze raised several feet above the lab floor, the bacteria-fed mice were less likely to venture out on the high, unprotected ledges of the maze. In human terms, they seemed anxious. Without the bacteria, they walked the narrow, elevated planks.Each of these results was fascinating, but Lyte had a difficult time finding microbiology journals that would publish either. ''It was so anathema to them,'' he told me. When the mouse study finally appeared in the journal Physiology & Behavior in 1998, it garnered little attention. And yet as Stephen Collins, a gastroenterologist at McMaster University, told me, those first papers contained the seeds of an entire new field of research. ''Mark showed, quite clearly, in elegant studies that are not often cited, that introducing a pathological bacterium into the gut will cause a change in behavior.''
Lyte went on to show how stressful conditions for newborn cattle worsened deadly E. coli infections. In another experiment, he fed mice lean ground hamburger that appeared to improve memory and learning — a conceptual proof that by changing diet, he could change gut microbes and change behavior. After accumulating nearly a decade's worth of evidence, in July 2008, he flew to Washington to present his research. He was a finalist for the National Institutes of Health's Pioneer Award, a $2.5 million grant for so-called blue-sky biomedical research. Finally, it seemed, his time had come. When he got up to speak, Lyte described a dialogue between the bacterial organ and our central nervous system. At the two-minute mark, a prominent scientist in the audience did a spit
''Dr. Lyte,'' he later asked at a question-and-answer session, ''if what you're saying is right, then why is it when we give antibiotics to patients to kill bacteria, they are not running around crazy on the wards?''
Lyte knew it was a dismissive question. And when he lost out on the grant, it confirmed to him that the scientific community was still unwilling to imagine that any part of our neural circuitry could be influenced by single-celled organisms. Lyte published his theory in Medical Hypotheses, a low-ranking journal that served as a forum for unconventional ideas. The response, predictably, was underwhelming. ''I had people call me crazy,'' he said.
But by 2011 — when he published a second theory paper in Bioessays, proposing that probiotic bacteria could be tailored to treat specific psychological diseases — the scientific community had become much more receptive to the idea. A Canadian team, led by Stephen Collins, had demonstrated that antibiotics could be linked to less cautious behavior in mice, and only a few months before Lyte, Sven Pettersson, a microbiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, published a landmark paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that showed that mice raised without microbes spent far more time running around outside than healthy mice in a control group; without the microbes, the mice showed less apparent anxiety and were more daring. In Ireland, Cryan published his forced-swim-test study on psychobiotics. There was now a groundswell of new research. In short order, an implausible idea had become a hypothesis in need of serious validation.Late last year, Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist at the California Institute of Technology, gave a presentation at the Society for Neuroscience, ''Gut Microbes and the Brain: Paradigm Shift in Neuroscience.'' Someone had inadvertently dropped a question mark from the end, so the speculation appeared to be a definitive statement of fact. But if anyone has a chance of delivering on that promise, it's Mazmanian, whose research has moved beyond the basic neurochemicals to focus on a broader class of molecules called metabolites: small, equally druglike chemicals that are produced by micro-organisms. Using high-powered computational tools, he also hopes to move beyond the suggestive correlations that have typified psychobiotic research to date, and instead make decisive discoveries about the mechanisms by which microbes affect brain function.
Two years ago, Mazmanian published a study in the journal Cell with Elaine Hsiao, then a graduate student and now a neuroscientist at Caltech, and others, that made a provocative link between a single molecule and behavior. Their research found that mice exhibiting abnormal communication and repetitive behaviors, like obsessively burying marbles, were mollified when they were given one of two strains of the bacterium Bacteroides fragilis.The study added to a working hypothesis in the field that microbes don't just affect the permeability of the barrier around the brain but also influence the intestinal lining, which normally prevents certain bacteria from leaking out and others from getting in. When the intestinal barrier was compromised in his model, normally ''beneficial'' bacteria and the toxins they produce seeped into the bloodstream and raised the possibility they could slip past the blood-brain barrier. As one of his colleagues, Michael Fischbach, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said: ''The scientific community has a way of remaining skeptical until every last arrow has been drawn, until the entire picture is colored in. Other scientists drew the pencil outlines, and Sarkis is filling in a lot of the color.''
Mazmanian knew the results offered only a provisional explanation for why restrictive diets and antibacterial treatments seemed to help some children with autism: Altering the microbial composition might be changing the permeability of the intestine. ''The larger concept is, and this is pure speculation: Is a disease like autism really a disease of the brain or maybe a disease of the gut or some other aspect of physiology?'' Mazmanian said. For any disease in which such a link could be proved, he saw a future in drugs derived from these small molecules found inside microbes. (A company he co-founded, Symbiotix Biotherapies, is developing a complex sugar called PSA, which is associated with Bacteroides fragilis, into treatments for intestinal disease and multiple sclerosis.) In his view, the prescriptive solutions probably involve more than increasing our exposure to environmental microbes in soil, dogs or even fermented foods; he believed there were wholesale failures in the way we shared our microbes and inoculated children with these bacteria. So far, though, the only conclusion he could draw was that disorders once thought to be conditions of the brain might be symptoms of microbial disruptions, and it was the careful defining of these disruptions that promised to be helpful in the coming decades.
The list of potential treatments incubating in labs around the world is startling. Several international groups have found that psychobiotics had subtle yet perceptible effects in healthy volunteers in a battery of brain-scanning and psychological tests. Another team in Arizona recently finished an open trial on fecal transplants in children with autism. (Simultaneously, at least two offshore clinics, in Australia and England, began offering fecal microbiota treatments to treat neurological disorders, like multiple sclerosis.) Mazmanian, however, cautions that this research is still in its infancy. ''We've reached the stage where there's a lot of, you know, 'The microbiome is the cure for everything,' '' he said. ''I have a vested interest if it does. But I'd be shocked if it did.''Lyte issues the same caveat. ''People are obviously desperate for solutions,'' Lyte said when I visited him in Abilene. (He has since moved to Iowa State's College of Veterinary Medicine.) ''My main fear is the hype is running ahead of the science.'' He knew that parents emailing him for answers meant they had exhausted every option offered by modern medicine. ''It's the Wild West out there,'' he said. ''You can go online and buy any amount of probiotics for any number of conditions now, and my paper is one of those cited. I never said go out and take probiotics.'' He added, ''We really need a lot more research done before we actually have people trying therapies out.''
If the idea of psychobiotics had now, in some ways, eclipsed him, it was nevertheless a curious kind of affirmation, even redemption: an old-school microbiologist thrust into the midst of one of the most promising aspects of neuroscience. At the moment, he had a rough map in his head and a freezer full of monkey fecals that might translate, somehow, into telling differences between gregarious or shy monkeys later in life. I asked him if what amounted to a personality transplant still sounded a bit far-fetched. He seemed no closer to unlocking exactly what brain functions could be traced to the same organ that produced feces. ''If you transfer the microbiota from one animal to another, you can transfer the behavior,'' Lyte said. ''What we're trying to understand are the mechanisms by which the microbiota can influence the brain and development. If you believe that, are you now out on the precipice? The answer is yes. Do I think it's the future? I think it's a long way away.''
Correction: July 12, 2015An article on June 28 about microbiota and the brain described incorrectly the affiliation of Elaine Hsiao, an author of a study published in the journal Cell that linked bacteria to behavioral changes. At the time, she was a graduate student in the lab of Paul Patterson, another author of the study, not in the lab of Sarkis Mazmanian.
Peter Andrey Smith is a reporter living in Brooklyn.
He frequently writes about the microbial world.Reporting for this article was supported by the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship.
Oxytocin Bonding Birth and Trust – BrainFacts.org
Invasive ants are extreme excavators
Invasive ants are extreme excavators http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32609797
Microbe is relative of complex life
Microbe is relative of complex life http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32610177


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


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Definition of heiligenschein
: a bright light around the shadow of a person's head (as on a field or lawn) caused by diffraction and reflection of sunlight by dewdrops
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Origin and Etymology of heiligenschein
German, literally, halo, from heiliger saint (from heilig holy, from Old High German heilag) + schein shine, light, from Old High German scīn; akin to Old High German skīnan to shine
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Wood Elves Hotfix
Playing as Wood Elves is too tough.
It's intended to be a challenge to lead the Wood Elves, and that comes both from the degree of micro you need to exercise in battle and their general mechanics which demand that they play differently from other races. Looking at some of the feedback, some players are really connecting with that and enjoying it, however some aren't and we will think on how we flag up different playstyles in future factions and make them easier to understand for people who would otherwise expect the norm.
Notwithstanding that there will be some people who just don't get on with a particular playstyle, and that's fine, hopefully with a diverse line up there will be something for everyone. Safe to say though that we don't intend to homogenise the races, and we feel that making them more unique rather than less is the way to go.
Waywatcher is costed too high/underpowered.
We'd agree, and in the hotfix we have reduced the unit by 100 gold to a new price of: 1100. The unit has also been given: +20 missile range and +4 Armour Piercing Missile Damage.
Waywatchers are missing an ability, modders found it!
No, there's a placeholder in the code, but it wasn't used for anything in the end.
Wildwood Rangers don't stack up against other units too well.
Again, we'd agree, and the unit has been rebalanced with the following stat changes: +2 Melee Attack, +7 Melee Defence, +5 Armour Piercing Damage. With these changes the unit is much more formidable in battle and can now defeat Empire Greatswords one-on-one.
Forest Dragons are too weak.
We'd disagree here; Forest Dragons are the hammer of the Wood Elf army, compared to the anvil that is the Treemen or Treekin. Its best use is in more of an overwatch supporting role, where you can pick off enemy stragglers or crash into a combat where the Treemen/Treekin are acting as an anvil and holding down the fight.
They have not been designed to be thrown into mass combat, due to the other units in the diverse Wood Elves roster and will quickly succumb to spear and pike if used in this manner.
They have poison attacks in their arsenal which can be used to help slow and reduce the enemy damage output and are easily healed with Life casters in the Wood Elves ranks.
Buffs for standing in woods are great, but Welf units do shoot the trees…
All be it that Wood Elves use magical arrows, they do use the same physic based rules as our other missile units from the other races, so do need clear lines of sight. That being said they can very efficiently kite larger enemies into the forests and woods hampering the enemies movement by 20% whilst still being able to fire at them.
Wood Elf archers are the worst in the game, when they should be the best!
Quarrellers, for example, will outshoot them toe to toe, but if you are toe to toe with Quarrellers something has gone very wrong already. The strength in Wood Elf archery comes from precision, manoeuvrability and the wealth of additional abilities and ammo types which make them a much more flexible threat on the battlefield point for point. Other ranged units will do more technical damage in terms of a straight number value, but that is ignoring the full package.
Having said all that, we've made their edge more obvious in the hotfix, giving all infantry-based Wood Elf archers the greatest range in the game to help players get the most from their shoot and run strengths. Changes include: +20m Range (All archer units and characters) +4 Missile Damage (Glade Guard/Glade Guard [Hagbane Tips]/Deepwood Scouts)
It is hard to conquer the map and hold all the outposts.
Playing Wood Elves where you try and do that will likely end in defeat for all but the most canny player. Raiding and winning then giving up outposts as you move around the map to achieve your longer term objectives is an absolutely viable tactic and certainly one of the largest problems a player trying to play a traditional conquest-style game could struggle with the ideology of. It's worth approaching differently and seeing how you get on.
Welf Lords get access to Lightning strike later than other Lords.
Woods Elves get the Lightning Strike ability later than other Lords, due to the abundance of new unique buffs that we have given them in their various skill chains. No other Lord can specialise in the same vein to improve their army to become as effective in either missile or melee combat.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when continuing Campaign save games created on older patches.
- Increased the frequency of matched combat animations for Great Eagle units in Battle.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Cloak of Isha Quest Battle to not have any trees in it.
- Sally out Battles for the Wood Elves will no longer load into Battle maps with mountainous/impassable terrain.
- Added missing Wood Elves playstyle icons for French and Spanish in the Front End for the Campaign.
- Updated the Italian and Korean localisation.
- Reduced the colonisation cost for ruined settlements when playing as the Wood Elves in the Grand Campaign.
- Asrai Lookouts (Outposts) will now generate 50 income per turn.
- Adjusted the penalties when running at an Amber deficit:
> 0 to -10 Amber: Reduced rate of replenishment.
> -11 to -20 Amber: No replenishment, but do not suffer from attrition.
> -21 to -99 Amber: No replenishment and suffer attrition (no change from before).
Glade Lord (Includes mounted variants) + 20m Range
Glade Guard + 4 Missile Damage + 20m Range
Glade Guard (Hagbane tips) + 4 Missile Damage + 20m Range
Glade Guard (Starfire Shafts) + 20m Range
Glade Riders + 4 Missile Damage
Glade Riders (Hagbane Tips) + 4 Missile Damage
Deepwood Scouts + 4 Missile Damage + 20m Range
Deepwood Scouts (Swift Shiver Shards) + 20m Range
Waywatchers + 20m Range + 4 Armour-Piercing Missile Damage -100 Cost Reduction [1100] (Custom battle & campaign)
Waystalker + 20m Range
Eternal Guard - 50 Recruitment Cost (Custom battle & campaign)
Wildwood Rangers + 2 Melee Attack + 7 Melee Defence + 5 Armour Piercing Weapon Damage
Wild Riders + 5 Charge Bonus


text:
Aiden Starr
Aiden Starr
|Also known as:
|Mistress Lolita, Lolita LeMarchand, Lolita Lemarchand, Lolita Lamorehand, Aiden Star
|August 27, 1979
New Milford, New Jersey, U.S.
|Years active:
|Bra/cup size:
|5 ft 0 in (1.52 m)
|125 lb (57 kg)
|Body type:
|Eye color:
|Redhead, Blonde
Long, Straight
|Underarm hair:
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|Topless, Bush, Full frontal, Pink
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|Blowjob, Vaginal, Creampie
|Personal pages
|IMDb IAFD AFDB
Aiden Starr (born 1979 in New Milford, New Jersey) is an American porn star, writer, producer, and film director.
Starr moved to New York City to attend university but ended up becoming a fetish superstar. In the late 1990's Aiden began performing for the cameras not for the money but for the thrill she got as an exhibitionist. Aiden quickly became involved in the high-profile Manhattan SM scene and used her porn earnings as a way to pay for her NYU education.
As a popular fixture in the New York scene Aiden became known as Mistress Lolita and was hired as head manager for The Den of Antiquity, a prominent fetish dungeon. After completing her education Aiden moved to the West Coast and opened her own branch of the Den in the heart of Hollywood. The L.A. Den quickly became an in-demand filming location for producers from not only the straight porn and fetish industries but the regular entertainment industry as well, inspiring Mistress Lolita herself to take up video production.
In 2006, Aiden Starr joined forces with long-time friend Julie Simone to begin producing Vicious Vixens for Julie Simone Productions. The popular series combines an authentic respect and understanding for the fetish lifestyle market with just enough of a veneer of glossy eroticism to attract the mainstream market as well. The series has been critically acclaimed and nominated for Best BDSM film at the AVN Awards.
Awards and nominations
- 2009 AVN Award for Best All-Girl 3-Way Sex Scene for Belladonna's Girl Train (with Belladonna & Kimberly Kane)
Partial filmography
|Boob A Mammy
|Aiden Starr, Cheyenne Hunter, Kayla Quinn, Kristine Madison, Kylie G Worthy, Phyllisha Anne
|Addicted To Boobs 6
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|Mark Wood
|Aiden Starr, Cassandra Calogera, Jenna Doll, Leigh Livingston, Victoria Vonn
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External links
- Aiden Starr profile at Kink
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- Aiden Starr links at FreeOnes
- Aiden Starr links at theNUDE.eu
- Aiden Starr Full Filmography at Adult Empire
- Aiden Starr at SevereSexFilms.com
- Media files at Wikimedia Commons
- Aiden Starr at pimpyporn.com
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|2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013 · 2014 · 2015 · 2016
- 1979 births
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text:
In a study conducted by UCL and Bangor University researchers in which people were shown a Google Street View, a painting of St. Peter's Basilica and a surreal computer generated image, architects, sculptors and painters consistently conceptualized of the space differently than those with no... View full entry
McMansion Hell, which besides satire, also regularly features educational posts on the history and significance of vernacular architecture in the US, was threatened with a lawsuit this week for using photos obtained from Zillow for parody. Image courtesy of McMansionHell.comAfter Electronic... View full entry
While no one can claim that they understand where inspiration comes from, most would agree that it doesn't hurt to have an unfettered view of nature in an architecturally inventive setting. Norwegian architects Reiulf Ramstad are among the seven finalists in the Ross Pavilion International Design... View full entry
If you've ever wanted to measure the dimensions of a window that you can't reach physically, it's largely been a trick of algebra. However, the new AR Measure App, as developed by Laan Labs, promises to make it easy to accurately measure physical objects by simply pointing an iOS device at it. In... View full entry
The MIT project — the Managed, Reconfigurable, In-space Nodal Assembly (MARINA) — was designed as a commercially owned and operated space station, featuring a luxury hotel as the primary anchor tenant and NASA as a temporary co-anchor tenant for 10 years. NASA's estimated recurring costs, $360 million per year, represent an order of magnitude reduction from the current costs of maintaining and operating the International Space Station. — MIT News
Left to right: Caitlin Mueller (faculty advisor), Matthew Moraguez, George Lordos, and Valentina Sumini are some of the members of the interdisciplinary MIT team that won first place in the graduate division of the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts-Academic Linkage Design Competition... View full entry
With the rise of autonomous transportation technology in the U.S., what implementable strategies can help a dense urban landscape like New York City prepare efficiently for a driverless future? Design teams from around the world proposed their ideas in the Driverless Future Challenge... View full entry
With a sleek modern sensibility and an awareness of the power of open, cleanly articulated vistas, Frank Welch designed sophisticated homes for a sophisticated clientele. Known affectionately as "The Dean," Welch's 90 years on earth spanned the creation of numerous spacious, elegant structures in... View full entry
Jenny Sabin's Lumen installation, made up of over a thousand digitally knitted photo luminescent cells that change color in the presence of sunlight, is raised over MoMA's PS1 courtyard and will open today, on June 27. In the recently published videos, the architect explains the development of... View full entry
Although the original Foster + Partners renderings for the new Chicago Apple Store did not include a logo on its gray, rectilinear convex carbon-fiber roof, construction workers briefly unrolled the trademark white Apple across what now can only be viewed as a giant MacBook (no word yet on whether... View full entry
Potential employers don't pose design challenges with the expectation that you blow them away with your ingenuity or clever solutions. They want to see if you ask probing questions that uncover constraints, or if you rush to the whiteboard without deeper understanding. — Muzli
Design challenges are often used by companies to asses potential employees' problem solving skills. This Google interview challenge in particular seems to have captivated the design community —How do you design an interface for a 1000 floor elevator? Dozens of designers around the world... View full entry
Spotted by The Mercury News, it's designed for "densely populated" areas. The tower allows drones to fly in and out, acting like a giant beehive, with robotic arms that help snatch them out of the sky. Inside, the core features layers of spokes around one central hub. The spokes are specialized for various purposes, like repairing the drones, or loading them with goods. — Fast Co. Design
Amazon has been experimenting with the use of delivery drones for some time now though this approach to shipping has yet to take off for the e-commerce giant. As they continue testing this prospective delivery method, it is clear the retailer takes the particular vision quite seriously. On... View full entry
Featuring a talk by Dr. Ann Rubbo on the artist and architect Marion Mahony Griffin, this screening of "A Girl is a Fellow Here: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright" at the Center for Architecture in New York on June 28th at 6 p.m. investigates Wright's history of working... View full entry
Turning iconicity on its head, MVRDV have designed a striking building that purposefully refuses easy categorization. Depending on the angle from which it is viewed, the Baltyk Tower seems to assume different forms, a look that is achieved by a series of scenic terraces and a rippling... View full entry
The Fundació Mies van der Rohe has launched an app so that anyone with a mobile phone can find on a map, and visit, the nominated works of this year's European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture. The app suggests routes for visiting the sites and even allows it's users to propose new ones... View full entry
"It would be quite fun to be on Mars because you would have gravity that is about 37% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around," [Elon Musk] adds, predicting that journey times could eventually be cut to 30 days. — The Guardian
Aside from the money, specific technology, and solid timeframe, Elon Musk has figured out a way to get to Mars. The colonization plan, which is designed to place about 1 million people on the planet in 40-100 years using a yet-to-be constructed ship that would carry 100 passengers per trip, needs... View full entry
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[January 17, 2013]
CenturyLink to build Technology Center of Excellence
MONROE, La., Jan. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) plans to build a facility that will feature industry-leading technology resources as part of its plan to expand its workforce in Monroe, and the company has selected Yates Construction as the construction management company for the project.
) The CenturyLink Technology Center of Excellence will include technology research and development labs, a network operations center and office and meeting space. In the center, employees and vendors with network technology and IT skills will work together to create innovative products and services for CenturyLink's customers.
The center, which will be located on the north side of CenturyLink's existing headquarters building on Hwy. 165 North in Monroe, will encompass approximately 250,000 square feet, and will accommodate about 800 employees.
"The Technology Center of Excellence will help support our objective of bringing high-quality jobs to Monroe," said CEO and President Glen F. Post, III. "We expect the center to spur innovation, idea generation and problem solving that will benefit our customers, our employees and the communities we serve." CenturyLink plans to build the facility to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification requirements.
CenturyLink hopes to break ground on the center in early 2013. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2014, and should be operational in early 2015.
Yates Construction has been in business for almost 50 years and has offices across the U.S. and internationally. With multiple Louisiana offices, Yates will provide local support including an on-site construction executive in Monroe who will manage the contractors required for CenturyLink's expanded facility.
About CenturyLink CenturyLink is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States and is recognized as a leader in the network services market by technology industry analyst firms. The company is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprise customers. CenturyLink provides data, voice and managed services in local, national and select international markets through its high-quality advanced fiber optic network and multiple data centers for businesses and consumers. The company also offers advanced entertainment services under the CenturyLink® Prism(TM) TV and DIRECTV brands. Headquartered in Monroe, La., CenturyLink is an S&P 500 company and is included among the Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations. For more information, visit www.centurylink.com.
SOURCE CenturyLink, Inc.
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Finding yourself questioning your grasp on reality? Or is reality just not what you'd hoped it would be? Join us at La Tréatmont for a deep probe into your subconscious; engage with the latest auto-creative techniques; and receive expert analysis into the concealed meaning within your dreams. At La Tréatmont we have a special interest in women: our personal mission is to increase your confidence, empowerment, and joy. Come, ride your subconscious to success!
What if the Surrealists were working today, not as artists, but therapists?
Surrealist artists based their work on the teaching of Freud, on the importance of the subconscious, of dreams, and of automatic creativity, to forming a greater understanding of the human condition. They also spent a great deal of time thinking about sex. If André Breton, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and the others had not found their outlet in art, and were instead drawn into psychoanalysis as their end as well as means, they may have found themselves forming La Tréatmont. Named in homage to a key influence on their thought as well as the basis of their practice, this clinic is not afraid of double-entendres. Their visual identity (barely) conceals a plethora of potential meanings; what the imagery means to you is a matter for analysis.
La Tréatmont is is part of a personal project initiated in response to the Hiive Remix bursary prize, won by Danielle Wright and two others. More information about this project can be found on our blog.


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Ask a Lawyer and Get Answers to Your Legal Questions
Hi! I will be the professional that will be helping you today. I look forward to providing you with information to help with your question and concern
Darren, good morning. If you applied jointly, then all applicants would need to be stated on the paperwork. The refinance is reviewed by the lender and all the information of the applicants are needed to decide if the refinance should be approved by underwriting. Since you all voluntarily agreed to apply jointly for this, they would not have to provide separate documents since this is one application.
I just wanted to follow up and see if you had any other questions or needed me to clarify something. I am here to help, so please let me know. Thanks!


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Hydroponic Grow Lights & Bulbs
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Grow Light Reflectors
Hydroponic Nutrients
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Hydroponic Pumps
Hydroponic Pots
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Hydroponic Seeds
Hydroponic Foggers
This item has been shown 0 times.
You are offerding on a 1985-86 John Deere 490 excavator. This machine was used for regurarly until about a year ago when the motor went bad. It has some normal wear and tear and since it has been sitting some neighborhood kids busted the back glass and cracked the driver glass door. Although the motor is bad there are plenty of good parts left. It has good hydraulic pump and jacks, undercarriage is around 50%, plus the bucket and boom. This is mainly a parts machine but it could easily be fixed and put back to use. Before offerding please call me about pick up so I can explain in detail. This machine broke down while I was doing some work around my house so it is currently there. I will explain what it will take to move and load this machine based on the fact that it does not run. I hope my 100% positive response speaks for itself but please offer with confidence and call me with any questions you may have about shipping or just the machine itself. This machine is locally advertised therefore I reserve the right to end the sale early if locally sold. Thanks
Contact Tony with any questions.
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Baby bedding with name, TrainPetitePeople
A beautiful set of light blue baby bedding with the name. The bed linen is a super nice quality from Hugo Kragh Design Zelection.
Bedding is embroidered with at exquisite little train, ideal for any little upcoming train fan, all in boyish fresh colors, in blue
Baby bedding is a good idea as maternity gift or christening.
Baby Bedding name is personal and exclusive.
We embroider the baby's name in bedding and possibly. date of birth.


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Contact Details
You can find out more / contact Sally Hirst in the following ways:
Phone:07753 863490
Email:For our artists privacy & reduce Spam, please contact Sally Hirst via our web form.
Share Sally Hirst's artwork on your Social Media Sites
Artist Statement
My work has always reflected where I live, places I visit and journeys I embark upon. The texture, architecture and structures of each new environment dictate the development of my artwork. My prints are inspired by the ravages of time and tide on man-made structures; piers, bridges, abandoned gas towers, old fishing huts and boats. Each print incorporates a range of printing techniques including collagraphy, carborundum and relief printing. In addition I have included rust by inventing a process of oxidising iron filings. By doing so I have created work that physically incorporates the environment it reflects, allowing it to play a role in the art itself. I describe myself as an experimental printmaker. For me it means that I enjoy bending rules, inventing process and exploring layers of imagery. I am somewhat irreverent and always curious, always learning and always experimenting. I strive to create richly textured surfaces, to depict their essence through the abstraction of colour, shapes and typography, overlapping forms and textures. I am constantly intrigued by the concepts surrounding repeating, re-presenting and reworking of both concepts and images. The work is complete when it stops asking for more.
I enjoy sharing what I know with others and regularly teach printmaking workshops. Through my interest in enabling creativity I have recently begun training as a Creativity Coach, this is similar to life coaching, but focuses more specifically on creative work.
Previous Exhibitions
©2017 Norwich Print Fair. All rights reserved.Site by Cube Connection


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Did Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger "Sandbag" Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown?
KNBC/Channel 4 political reporter Conan Nolan is raising a very plausible notion: that Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger--likely miffed over negative portrayals of the Governator by Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman--"sandbagged" both candidates.
And it all went down in Long Beach, where Shriver is suspected of having strong-armed the reluctant candidates into appearing onstage with her husband and Matt "Where in the World Am I? Oh, the LBC" Lauer at Shriver's The Women's Conference 2010.
His would-be replacements shake hands and the Governator looks on.
Nolan's enlightening PropZero" post is here.
The set-up: Lauer, Whitman, Schwarzenegger and Brown, sitting left to right on a stage before 15,000 women, engaged in a mostly pleasant conversation that had California's gubernatorial hopefuls taking about their moms, how they started their careers and what they love about the Golden State.
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But then, the NBC Today Show host tossed out the "gotcha":
"With six days left in the campaign," Lauer asked, "will you promise to stop the negativity?"
The hall erupted in thunderous applause. Ahnuld leaned back with that tickled, toothy grin of his. Lauer filled the respective candidate's invisible spit takes.
"Will you promise to pull your negative TV ads within the next 24 hours?"
Brown, as is his wont, tried to dodge with, "Negativity is in the eye of the beholder, there is a spectrum."
Loud boos.
Whitman won over her fellow members of the fairer sex by talking of the hurt from personal attacks and name calling, which are unfair to California voters.
Big applause.
Pressing for commitments, Lauer first turned to Brown.
"Listen . . . I will take mine off, no question. If we do it together no problem, I will do that right now," Brown said.
Big applause.
Whitman agreed to take down any commercial that "remotely" called into question Brown's character but complained she should not have to remove ads "that talk about where Governor Brown stands on the issues."
Loud boos.
Wily Brown then said he would agree on the spot to keep running an ad that has him looking in the camera and stating what he is for if Whitman did the same with a similar ad of hers he admires.
Big applause.
Whitman looked quesy. Arnold looked happy to have no dog in this fight. Jerry went in for the kill.
"I have a positive commercial where you are talking about how great California was 30 years ago . . . and guess who was governor then?"
Thunderous applause, like Oprah had just given everyone in the audience new cars.
Nolan reports nearly half the reporters in the media tent applauded, too.
Here's the video:
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found a new home!
Plenty of my friends are looking
for one too. Find a pet to adopt.
I am already neutered, housetrained, purebred, up to date with shots, good with kids, and good with dogs.
This dog's fosterhome is located in: ****Wolcott, Connecticutt****
We'd like you to get to know Bennett! Bennett is being fostered in Wolcott CT, and is a 2 year-old male weighing about 12 pounds. He is a type B rattie with the short legs. Bennett has those sweet, soulful eyes that will make you melt. He is quite the love bug and enjoys snuggling on the couch and sleeping in bed with you. Bennett loves for you to wrap your arms right around him and hold him all night. This sweetheart is housebroken and crate trained. He gets along great with other dogs his size, but has not been around larger dogs yet. He is relaxed around women, but takes a couple of days to get comfortable with men. He needs to know that men won't hurt him. We have not cat-scanned him yet but we can if a prospective home has a resident feline. He is very gentle, so we assume he would be good with cats. He even plays with a 3-pound chihuahua, and is so good and gentle with her. Bennett is still a bit mouthy in play with people so we would suggest kids over 6 . He is leash trained but is afraid of busy traffic, he was hit by a car before coming into rescue, so who can blame him! He was very lucky to only have some cuts and muscle soreness, and has healed well. He shows his joy at being alive by doing rat runs around the yard of his foster home. If you are looking for dedicated little man in your life , here he is! He will never stop showing his love.
Bennett, a of Rat Terrier dog was adopted! Here's how you can benefit by looking at adoption as an option to buying a Rat Terrier for sale in of, or seeking a Rat Terrier dog from a breeder in of.


text: My opinion was wrong. Adjust content blocking tentaclerapist next random Comment Top NextComment My white space is better than yours. All random rolls deleted. All failed dubz Thumbed down into the ground. ****, Front page? lol didn't think it was that interesting, thanx anyway! next fit me, checking out latest uploads. decent content appears""" Ct] Hey, thats pretty YOU. Funny I wonder how many other people liked this. ... +1113 Views: 24934 Submitted: 09/17/2011 Facebook Twitter Google+ Tumblr Pinterest


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Wyoming Liberty Group
Inconveniently inefficient
Wyoming's constitution mandates K-12 education be universal, free of charge and efficient 1. However, the concept of efficiency is so inconvenient it was scarcely mentioned in the course of more than twenty years of litigation about K-12 funding. The result is the mammoth and terrifically expensive education system we now have.
Efficiency often simply means maximum benefit in return for minimum cost. Is our K-12 system efficient? No, it is not. Here's why.
One of the benefits obtained through Wyoming's statewide education system is measurement of student performance on standardized tests such as the ACT and NAEP. Those are two national standardized tests with long history and credibility. Wyoming's average scores on them are no better than the low national average and, more importantly, leave the majority of kids below the level of proficiency they need to be career or college ready. Wyoming Liberty Group (WLG) has previously reported on Wyoming's modest (at best) performance on these tests. Indeed, Wyoming's lead education consultant reports our kids should be doing better. Accordingly, it is easy for unbiased observers to conclude we are not getting the required "maximum benefit" part of efficiency.
Are we at least getting these non-maximum benefits at minimum cost? Regrettably, no.
Graph 1 shows the ratio of the number of K-12 students to the number of all employed staff since 2000. For the entire time, Wyoming had an unusually low figure compared to surrounding states and the national average. In fact, in 2012, the most recent year for which comparison data is available, Wyoming ranked second lowest in the nation. Things don't appear to have changed recently either because Wyoming's ratio for 2014-15 was 5.5. This means Wyoming has many, many more adults in schools to educate and manage students than other states do – states which score as well as Wyoming does on standardized tests. We know those adults don't work for free. Consequently, this is extremely costly to Wyoming taxpayers; our cost per pupil per year is 40 percent above the national average. And 83 percent of that cost is salaries and benefits.
Ideally the majority of those paid staff people would be teachers so kids get the individualized attention that is often touted as a goal of the system. Sadly, it is not the case. Look at Graph 2 which is based on data through 2012, the most recent comparison data. It shows that significantly less than half of Wyoming's K-12 staff were certified teachers. Moreover, Wyoming's percentage was much lower than those of neighboring states and the national average. In other words, the large majority of people historically employed in Wyoming's K-12 education system have not been teachers in classrooms. Recent data show no change: teachers were 45 percent of staff in 2014-15, according to Wyoming Department of Education reports. Thus, Wyoming has a lot more administration, support and overhead staff than teaching staff.
What does this mean? The simplest conclusion is Wyoming's school districts (primarily the larger ones since they have the biggest effect on the averages) are heavily bureaucratic, inefficient and costly.
Wyoming's K-12 system is constitutionally required to be efficient but, in spite of lavish funding, it has only produced low to average results on measurable benchmarks over an entire decade. Those low results put our children's and Wyoming's future at risk. The high cost puts our financial wellbeing at risk. So efficiency isn't just a legality; it's key; it's smart. Let's work together to find the way to better educational outcomes at sustainable cost.
1 Wyoming Constitution Article 7 Section 9 Taxation for schools.


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Pyongyang: A US delegation pressed North Korea to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow in UN inspectors even as the top American negotiator said it would be difficult for a weekend deadline on the closure to be met.
The US delegation said North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan, told them on 9 April that his government would allow UN nuclear inspectors into the country as soon as $25 million (Rs107 crore) in disputed North Korean funds are released.
Kim, who is also vice foreign minister, met with Bill Richardson, a Democratic US presidential candidate, and Anthony Principi, US president George W Bush's former veteran affairs secretary, who are visiting Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.
But Kim told the US delegation that it would be difficult to shut down the nuclear reactor by 14 April, deadline called for in a February nuclear disarmament accord, Principi said.
"They can make a beginning, but whether they can completely shut down a nuclear reactor in such a short time would be very difficult," Principi said.
The North only agreed to shut down the reactor after the US promised to resolve the financial issue within 30 days, which Washington failed to do as the fund transfer has been mired in technical complications.
Kim "indicated that the North Korean government would invite the inspectors back, once the funds are released to the North Korean government," Principi said.
"They believe that it's critical that the $25 million be returned to their government," he said.
The dispute over the money has held up progress in implementing the landmark 13 February agreement in which North Korea promised to take initial steps toward dismantling its nuclear program, including closing its main nuclear reactor, in exchange for economic aid and political concessions.
In Tokyo, the top US nuclear envoy said on 9 April that it was difficult to meet because of the ongoing dispute over the frozen funds.
"Clearly, we're aiming for the complete implementation of the February agreement by day 60 but that timeline is becoming difficult," said Christopher Hill, who is in Japan to discuss the next stage of the nuclear talks.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to comment on what might happen if North Korea misses the deadline but said the US continued to believe that all parties to the agreement are "working in good faith to meet it."
But, he said the money issue "was more complicated than anyone could have imagined," and suggested Washington might not object to an extension in the deadline.
The impoverished North has refused to move forward due to the delayed transfer of the money frozen by Macau authorities after the US blacklisted a bank in the Chinese-administered region in 2005 for allegedly helping Pyongyang launder money.


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Llŷn Peninsula
Tel: 01758 612581
Pen Y Berth Caravan Park is located on the South side of the beautiful Llŷn Peninsula, only a pebble's throw from the waters of Cardigan Bay.
From the caravan park, it's only a short three-mile drive to the popular seaside town of Pwllheli where you will find a stunning marina, two beaches and a variety of shops and eateries.
Fancy a day at the beach? The picturesque coastal village of Llanbedrog is only two miles away from Pen Y Berth Caravan Park, it's home to the National Trust owned Llanbedrog Beach which is made up mostly of sand, there is also a row of brightly-coloured beach huts that may be hired by the day or by the week.
Pen Y Berth Caravan Park is a tranquil, relaxing place, it's not a site that's out to compete with facilities offered by those large national holiday parks. That said, Pen Y Berth does have something which stands head and shoulders above other holiday parks, its own 9-hole golf course and driving range. Llŷn Golf boasts the only 9 hole pay and play golf course on the Llŷn Peninsula, it welcomes players of all ages (experienced or not). Llŷn Golf also offers the opportunity for players to try their hand (or feet) at FootGolf, the game plays along the same lines as golf (to sink the ball in as fewer hits as possible), except instead of hitting the ball with a club you kick it. The ball used is football sized and the holes are also football sized. Short breaks at Pen Y Berth Caravan Park
Planning a mid-week, weekend or long weekend break somewhere in North Wales? Why not consider a renting a caravan for a short break at Pen Y Berth Caravan Park. Travelling To Pen Y Berth Caravan Park?
View Pen Y Berth Caravan Park travel information for driving directions and approximate driving distances, as well as information on the nearest train station to Pen Y Berth Caravan Park.


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Crete Island hotels: get the best Crete Island hotel deal by cheap rates. No booking fees. You pay for the hotel room in Crete Island at the check-out. Free cancellation.
Crete Island Greece Arrival&Departure
We are all accustomed to the classification of accommodations by the stars. Crete is not an exception. But few people know that Crete hotels are still classified in Latin letters. So De Luxe hotels match 5 stars, hotels of A class are 3 - 4 stars, hotels of B class are 2 - 3 stars, class C corresponding to 1 - 2 stars accommodations. They are built in quantity, and you can choose any level of comfort. Besides, they provide an opportunity to taste the most delicious dishes of Greek cuisine. It seems that the staff and local people are the most hospitable and friendly on the planet. If necessary, you can find in Crete hotels for the children.
So, if you would like to have a family rest, you should come to this amazing place, full of various opportunities. You can reach the island is either by ferry or by plane. Crete has several existing airports. But international flights take airports of Heraklion and Chania. Year-round scheduled flights from the capitals of the European Union, USA cities and Canada, South America and Australia run only in Athens. From this destination point are regular flights to Crete by the local Olympic and Aegean Airlines.
Regular ferry service connects Athens with Cretan ports. A travel by ferry is cheaper than air flight. Modern high-speed ferries are comfortable and safe. They run every day. You can easily move around the island of Crete, using buses and taxis, or you can even hire a car. In addition, regular routes also connect Crete with Santorini and Mykonos, making it possible to visit these islands, even if you choose Crete as main base.
It is not difficult to get to Crete, the same as find there a proper place for a stay. There are many accommodations of different categories. At each hotel, staff speaks English or German. Recently, many hotels of Crete and restaurants have even Russian-speaking staff. Most of them are placed along the sea coast, giving an opportunity to enjoy fabulous views, feel the fresh breeze and admire green surroundings. All these accommodations are comfortable and rather modern, offering necessary facilities. Rooms are clean and wide, and have good furniture.
We offer 5256 hotels in Crete Island Greece with low prices and discount rates. Our reservation system features cheap and luxury hotels in Crete Island, hostels, motels, B&B and other affordable accommodations in Crete Island. We have great hotel deals in central Crete Island. You can also book Crete Island airport hotels at cheap rates. Our system is secure and absolutely free of charge.
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1990 in Northern Ireland
|This article does not cite any sources. (February 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
|See also:
- 1 January - The Northern Ireland Fair Employment Act becomes law.
- 24 July - The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) kills three policemen and a nun in a bomb attack near Armagh.
- 24 August - Brian Keenan is released after 1574 days in captivity in Beirut.
- 6 September - RFA Fort Victoria bombing: RFA Fort Victoria, launched three months earlier at Harland and Wolff's shipyard, is boarded by an IRA unit in Belfast who plant bombs on board, one of which explodes, causing considerable damage.
- 24 October - The IRA kills six soldiers and a civilian in bomb attacks in Derry and Newry.
Arts and literature[edit]
- 6 February - Marie Jones' The Hamster Wheel opens at The Arts Theatre, Belfast.
- 24 April - Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
- Ciarán Carson's Belfast Confetti poetry collection is published and wins the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry.
- David Park's short story collection Oranges from Spain is published.
- Northern Ireland does not qualify for the 1990 world cup
- Irish League
- Winners: Portadown
- Ireland (David Feherty, Ronan Rafferty, Philip Walton) win the Dunhill Cup.
- Robert Dunlop wins three MCN Supercup races, two races at the North West 200 and the 125cc race at the Isle of Man TT.
|This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (July 2010)
- 21 January - Patrick Mulligan, Bishop of Clogher 1970-1979 (born 1912).
- 12 February - Harold McCusker, Ulster Unionist Party MP (born 1940).
- 6 April - Peter Doherty, footballer (born 1913).
- 8 May - Tomás Ó Fiaich, Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland 1978-1990 (born 1923).
- 12 June - Terence O'Neill, Fourth Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (born 1914).
- 1 October - John Stewart Bell, scientist (born 1928).
- 15 October - David McCalden, Holocaust denier (born 1951).
- 18 November - Fred Daly, golfer (born 1911).