John Douglas Edwards is an American rock singer who sang for the bands Buster Brown, Montrose, King Kobra, Wild Horses, Northrup, Royal Jelly and is best known as the second lead singer of the rock band Foreigner.

Biography

Edwards' first band of note was Buster Brown from Louisville, Kentucky.  Together with drummer James Kottak, who had joined the group for their 1985 sophomore album, Sign of Victory, Edwards was recruited by guitarist Ronnie Montrose to appear on his 1987 album, Mean. Now based in California, Edwards teamed up with the band Northrup whose members were approached by drummer Carmine Appice to join forces in a new version of King Kobra.  The resulting King Kobra III''' album was released in 1988 but Appice's focus was already on Blue Murder by then and King Kobra split up.

With Northrup not making any progress and a deal with Enigma Records falling apart, Edwards joined former Buster Brown and Montrose bandmate James Kottak, fresh out of  Kingdom Come, and Kingdom Come guitarist Rick Steier in a new band called Wild Horses, championed by producer Keith Olsen.  However, Edwards would end up leaving the band before their first album after receiving an offer to join Foreigner.

Mick Jones, the founding member, lead guitarist, and main songwriter of Foreigner had been at home recovering from having the flu. Jones was in the process of listening to audition tapes of various singers to replace the newly departed Lou Gramm when he came upon a cassette of Johnny Edwards. Upon hearing the demo tape, he jumped out of bed and shouted out, "This is it!", referring to Edwards as Jones' choice as Foreigner's new lead singer.

Released on June 14, 1991, Foreigner's new album, Unusual Heat had eleven songs in total, and ten of these were the combination of mainstay Mick, Johnny and co-producer, Terry Thomas, who had previously worked with Bad Company's lead vocalist, Brian Howe, on their last three albums as producer and songwriter.

In addition to providing lead vocals, Edwards was also an accomplished guitarist who not only played rhythm guitar but also played the lead guitar in the song "Mountain of Love", the fifth track on the Unusual Heat album. The Billboard 200 documented Unusual Heat at #117 on August 3, 1991. The album's first single, "Lowdown and Dirty" was included on the band's Rhino double-CD retrospective, "Juke Box Heroes". Edwards was not accepted by Foreigner fans, as he did not sound much like Lou Gramm. Unusual Heat was a commercial failure, and Gramm returned the following year, immediately ending Edwards' tenure as Foreigner's lead vocalist. In 1992, the reunited Gramm and Foreigner founder Mick Jones released The Very Best & Beyond, a greatest hits collection with three new songs. One of the tracks, "With Heaven On Our Side", was co-written by Johnny Edwards.  At the time of his departure from Foreigner, Edwards had co-written ten songs with Jones, in anticipation of a follow-up album to Unusual Heat.

After leaving Foreigner, Edwards teamed up with former Kingdom Come guitarist Danny Steigerwald, aka Danny Stag, bassist David Seaton, and drummer Jeff Klaven, formerly with Cobra and Krokus, under the name Royal Jelly.  The group's eponymous 1994 debut album was produced by Matt Wallace and released on Island Records.  Despite its contemporary alternative rock flavor, it sank without a trace.

– Johnny Edwards on his album with Royal Jelly

Edwards mostly retired from playing and recording music in 1995, returning to his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, to raise a family.  He later became associated with the telecommunications industry.

In 2001 an album of Northrup demos recorded in the late 1980s featuring Edwards on lead vocals, was released by Metal Mayhem Music under the name JK Northrup.

In a 2004 interview Jeff "JK" Northrup, Edwards' old bandmate and friend, discussed receiving an offer to record a new rock album with Edwards as vocalist. Edwards declined, choosing to remain outside music. Paul Shortino assumed lead vocals on the project. Edwards still contributed songwriting and co-lead vocals for two tracks on the album Afterlife, issued in 2004 on MTM Music.

Edwards made another guest vocal appearance on JK Northrup's 2007 album, Wired In My Skin providing lead vocals on the title track.

Edwards and Northrup also can be heard playing and singing together on two compilation rock albums released by the MelodicRock Records label and website.

Edwards is currently fronting Louisville, KY based rock band Bleu Phonque who released their eponymous debut album in 2018.

Discography

With Buster BrownLoud and Clear (1984)Sign of Victory (1985)

With MontroseMean (1987)

With King KobraKing Kobra III (1988)

With ForeignerUnusual Heat (1991)

With Royal JellyRoyal Jelly (1994)

With JK NorthrupJK Northrup (2001)

With Shortino/NorthrupAfterlife (2004) (vocals on two songs)

With JK NorthrupWired In My Skin (2007) (vocals on title track)

With Bleu PhonqueBleu Phonque'' (2018)

References

External links

 Bleu Phonque website

Foreigner (band) members
King Kobra members
Montrose (band) members
American rock singers
Musicians from Louisville, Kentucky
Wild Horses (American rock band) members
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
Singers from Kentucky
Rock musicians from Kentucky

Johnny Edwards (musician)


Bertalan Zakany (born 19 January 1984 in Miskolc, Hungary) is a Hungarian figure skater. He is the 2002 Hungarian national champion. His highest placement at an ISU Championship was 26th at the 2002 World Junior Figure Skating Championships. He has also competed at the European Figure Skating Championships and the World Figure Skating Championships. He currently plays Pinocchio in Pinocchio On Ice.

Results

External links

 Pinocchio On Ice Review

Hungarian male single skaters
1984 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Miskolc

Bertalan Zakany


Massimo Donadi (born 11 February 1963 in Venice, Italy) is an Italian politician from Veneto.

Having joined Italy of Values (IdV) in 2000, he was elected to the Italian Senate in a by-election held in January 2005. He was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2006 and re-elected in 2008. Since 2006 Donadi has been IdV floor leader in the Chamber.

In the run-up of the Venetian regional election of 2010 Donadi was mentioned as a possible candidate for president.

References

1963 births
Living people
Politicians of Veneto
Politicians from Venice
Italy of Values politicians
Senators of Legislature XIV of Italy
Deputies of Legislature XV of Italy
Deputies of Legislature XVI of Italy

Massimo Donadi


Nahusha () is a king of the Chandravamsha (Lunar dynasty) in Hindu mythology. He is described to be the son of Āyus, the eldest son of Pururavas, and Prabha, the daughter of Svarbhānu.

Literature
Nahusha is mentioned often in the Rigveda, starting in Mandala 1. Nahusha reigned from Pratishthana. According to the Harivamsha, the appendix of the epic Mahabharata, he married Viraja, the mind-born daughter of the Pitrs. They had six or seven sons, according to different scriptures. His eldest son Yati became a muni (ascetic). He was succeeded by his second son, Yayati.

According to the Padma Purana, Nahusha married Ashokasundari, the daughter of Shiva and Parvati; she is said to have given birth to Yayati and a hundred daughters of Nahusha.

Legend

Birth and early life
According to the Padma Purana, Parvati and Shiva once went to the Nandana grove. Parvati saw the Kalpavriksha (wish-giving tree) and wished for a daughter. Instantly, a woman named Ashokasundari was born. Parvati prophesied that Ashoksundari would marry the son of Ayu. Once, when the asura Hunda entered the grove, he desired Ashoksundari, but the latter informed him of her mother's prophecy. Hunda assumed the form of a beautiful damsel, and tricked Ashokasundari into coming to his palace, whereupon he attempted to violate her chastity. Escaping, Ashokasundari cursed Hunda that the son of Ayu would kill him, after which she began to perform severe penance.

Meanwhile, Pururavas, the ancestor of the Chandravamsha dynasty, ruled over the kingdom of Prayaga, with Pratishthana as his capital. After he retired and gave up his kingdom to his son and ascended to heaven, his eldest son Āyu became the king. Āyu was married to Prabha, the daughter of the asura, Rahu. However, he remained childless.

Āyu approached the seer Dattatreya, and after propitiating him, he requested the sage to grant him a son who would be invincible and possess many virtuous qualities which are required for a great king. The sage obliged and a son was born to Āyu. Hunda was just waiting for the birth of Ayu's son because he was scared that Ashoksundari's curse would come true. So, the infant was kidnapped by the asura Hunda and he ordered his minions to slay the child. However, the minions only abandoned the child at the hermitage of Sage Vashistha. Vashistha took the child and named him Nahusha "the fearless one". Nahusha grew into a youth, a disciple of Vashistha. Eventually, Vashistha revealed Nahusha's true parentage. Nahusha acquired weapons from the gods and killed Hunda in battle and returned to his parents. He then married Ashoksundari.

Ruling Svarga
Nahusha was made the ruler of Svarga during Indra's absence, during his war against Vrita. He soon became arrogant and wished to make Shachi, the wife of Indra, his wife. He made the Saptarishi (Seven Vedic sages) convey his palanquin towards the mansion of Indra's wife with the intent of seducing her, asking them to hasten, telling them, 'sarpa', 'sarpa', (move on, move on). The sage Agastya, furious by this disrespect, turned him into a 'sarpa' (serpent). He fell down from the sky, and remained there until he met Yudhishthira.

In the Dvapara Yuga, when the Pandavas were on their final journey in the Himalayas, Nahusha in his serpent form captures Bhima and decides to eat him. Despite Bhima's extraordinary strength, Nahusha is too powerful, as he had received a boon while falling, from Agastya, that taken by him, strong beings superior to him, shall immediately lose their strength.

Meanwhile, Yudhishthira was looking for Bhima. He found him and saw what was happening to him. Nahusha reveals himself to be Yudhishthira's ancestor and tells him of his curse. Yudhishthira and Nahusha discourse with each other on their views of dharma. Nahusha tells Yudhishthira of his mistakes and asks him to learn from them. Nahusha is relieved from his curse and goes to heaven. Bhima then receives his strength.

Nahusha also finds mention in the story, "The Worth of Kine" by Sister Nivedita, in relation to the great sage Bharadvaja who was accidentally caught in a net along with fish by fishermen who were fishing in a river. The fishermen took the rishi Chyavana to King Nahusha and asked him to pay the price for the fish and the rishi, with the king offering a cow in return for the sage.

References

External links

 Hindu Mythology Stories, Facts, and Information

Characters in Hindu mythology
 Characters in the Mahabharata

Nahusha


Lady Sings the Blues is a 1972 American biographical drama film directed by Sidney J. Furie about jazz singer Billie Holiday, loosely based on her 1956 autobiography which, in turn, took its title from Holiday's song. It was produced by Motown Productions for Paramount Pictures. Diana Ross, in her feature film debut, portrayed Holiday, alongside a cast including Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, James T. Callahan, and Scatman Crothers. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1973, including Best Actress in a Leading Role for Diana Ross.

Plot
In 1936 New York City, Eleanora Fagan,  Billie Holiday, is arrested on a drug charge.

In a flashback to 1928, Billie is working as a housekeeper in a brothel in Baltimore. When she returns to her aunt's house, she is home alone and is raped by a man who followed her home from the brothel. She runs away to her mother Sadie, who sets up a job cleaning for another brothel in the Harlem section of New York. The brothel is run by arrogant and selfish owner Lorraine, who pays Billie very little money. Eventually, Billie tires of scrubbing floors and becomes a prostitute, but later quits and returns to a nightclub to unsuccessfully audition to become a showgirl. After "Piano Man" accompanies Billie when she sings "All of Me", club owner Jerry books her as a singer in the show.

Billie's debut begins unsuccessfully until Louis McKay arrives and gives her a fifty dollar tip. Billie takes the money and sings "Them There Eyes". Billie takes a liking to Louis and begins a relationship with him. Eventually she is discovered by Harry and Reg Hanley, who sign her as a soloist for their southern tour in hopes of landing a radio network gig. During the tour, Billie witnesses the aftermath of the lynching of an African-American man, which presses her to record the controversial song "Strange Fruit". The harsh experiences on the tour result in Billie taking drugs, which Harry supplies after Billie collapses on stage. One night when Billie is performing, Louis comes to see Billie. In her dressing room, Louis notices her needle marks, knows that she is doing drugs, and tells her she is going home with him. Billie promises to stay off the drugs if Louis stays with her.

In New York, Reg and Louis arrange Billie's radio debut, but the station does not call her up to the stage to sing; the radio sponsors, a soap company, objected to her race. The group heads to Cafe Manhattan to drown their sorrows. Billie has too much to drink and asks Harry for drugs, saying that she does not want her family to know that the radio show upset her. He refuses and she throws her drink in his face. She is ready to leave, but Louis has arranged for her to sing at the Cafe, a club where she once aspired to sing. She obliges with one song but refuses an encore, leaving the club in urgent need of a fix. Louis, suspicious that Billie has broken her promise, takes her back to his home but refuses to allow her access to the bathroom or her kit. She fights Louis for it, pulling a razor on him. Louis leaves her to shoot up, telling her he does not want her there when he returns.

Billie returns to the Harlem nightclub, where her drug use intensifies until she hears of the death of Sadie. Billie checks herself into a drug clinic, but because she cannot afford her treatment the hospital secretly calls Louis, who comes to see her and agrees to pay her bills without her knowledge. Impressed with the initiative she has taken to straighten herself out, Louis proposes to her at the hospital. Just as things are looking up, Billie is arrested for possession of narcotics and removed from the clinic.

In prison, Billie goes through crippling withdrawal. Louis brings the doctor from the hospital to treat her, but she is incoherent. He puts a ring on her finger to remind her of his promise to marry her. When she finishes her prison sentence, Billie returns home and tells her friends that she does not want to sing anymore.

Billie marries Louis and pledges not to continue her career, but the lure of performing is too strong and she returns to singing with Louis as her manager. Unfortunately, her felony conviction has stripped her of her Cabaret Card, which would allow her to sing in NYC nightclubs. To restore public confidence and regain her license, Billie agrees to a cross-country tour. Billie's career takes off on the nightclub circuit.

Louis leaves for New York to arrange a comeback performance for Billie at Carnegie Hall. Despondent at Louis' absence and the never-ending stream of venues, Billie asks Piano Man to pawn the ring Louis gave her in exchange for drugs. While they are high that evening, Piano Man's drug connections arrive; he neither pawned the ring nor paid for the drugs. Piano Man is killed by the dealers. Within the hour, Louis and her promoter call Billie with news that they got Carnegie Hall. Louis returns to find a very fragile Billie who is traumatized and has fallen back into drugs. Louis takes her back to New York.

Billie plays to a packed house at Carnegie Hall. Her encore, "God Bless the Child", is overlaid with newspaper clippings highlighting subsequent events: the concert fails to sway the commission to restore her license; subsequent appeals are denied; she is later re-arrested on drug charges and finally dies when she is 44. Nevertheless, the Carnegie triumph is frozen in time.

Cast

Release

Home Media
The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc in 1980 and then on DVD on November 8, 2005. The film debuted on the Blu-ray format for the first time on February 23, 2021.

Reception

Box office
The film earned an estimated $9,050,000 in North American rentals in 1973. Its overall domestic box office totaled $19,726,490.

Critical reception
Vincent Canby of The New York Times described Ross as "an actress of exceptional beauty and wit, who is very much involved in trying to make a bad movie work ... her only apparent limitations are those imposed on her by a screenplay and direction seemingly designed to turn a legitimate legend into a whopper of a cliché." Variety wrote that "for the bulk of general audiences, the film serves as a very good screen debut vehicle for Diana Ross, supported strongly by excellent casting, handsome '30s physical values, and a script which is far better in dialog than structure." Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing that Ross had given "one of the great performances of 1972" and observing that the film "has most of the clichés we expect—but do we really mind clichés in a movie like this? I don't think so." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune also awarded three out of four stars, writing, "The fact that 'Lady Sings the Blues' is a failure as a biography of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday doesn't mean it can't be an entertaining movie. And it is just that—entertaining—because of an old fashioned grand dame performance by Diana Ross, late of the pop-rock scene, in the title role." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Ross gave "one of the truly fine screen performances, full of power and pathos and enormously engaging and sympathetic." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote that "when the movie was over I wrote 'I love it' on my pad of paper ... Factually it's a fraud, but emotionally it delivers. It has what makes movies work for a mass audience: easy pleasure, tawdry electricity, personality—great quantities of personality." Tom Milne of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that Ross did "a remarkable pastiche job on the tone and timbre of Billie Holiday's voice, [but] misses the elegant, almost literary wit of her phrasing," and found the presentation of Holiday's life story "offensively simplistic."

The film holds a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 20 reviews.

Accolades

The film was also screened at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
 "God Bless the Child" – Nominated

Soundtrack
Motown released a hugely successful soundtrack double-album of Ross' recordings of Billie Holiday songs from the film, also titled Lady Sings the Blues. The album went to number one on the Billboard Top LP's & Tape chart, for the week-ending dates of April 7 and 14, 1973.

See also
 Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill – A 1986 play and 2016 television movie, starring Audra McDonald.
 The United States vs. Billie Holiday – A 2021 biopic of Billie Holiday, starring Andra Day.
 List of American films of 1972

References

External links

1972 films
1972 drama films
1970s American films
1970s biographical drama films
1970s English-language films
African-American biographical dramas
Biographical films about singers
Cultural depictions of Billie Holiday
Films about drugs
Films about the Ku Klux Klan
Films based on autobiographies
Films directed by Sidney J. Furie
Films scored by Michel Legrand
Films set in the 1920s
Films set in 1928
Films set in the 1930s
Films set in 1936
Films set in New York City
Films shot in Los Angeles
Jazz films
Motown Productions films
Paramount Pictures films
Films set in Baltimore

Lady Sings the Blues (film)


Deflagration  (Lat: de + flagrare, 'to burn down') is subsonic combustion in which a pre-mixed flame propagates through an explosive or a mixture of fuel and oxidizer. Deflagrations in high and low explosives may, or may not transition to a detonation depending upon confinement and other factors. Deflagrations in fuel/oxidizer mixtures may also transition to detonations depending on confinement and other factors. Most fires found in daily life are diffusion flames. Deflagrations with flame speeds in the range of 1 m/sec differ from detonations which propagate supersonically through shock waves with detonation velocities in the range of kilometers/second.

Applications
Deflagrations are often used in engineering applications when the force of the expanding gas is used to move an object such as a projectile down a barrel, or a piston in an internal combustion engine. Deflagration systems and products can also be used in mining, demolition and stone quarrying via gas pressure blasting as a beneficial alternative to high explosives.

Terminology of explosive safety
When studying or discussing explosive safety, or the safety of systems containing explosives, the terms deflagration, detonation and deflagration-to-detonation transition (commonly referred to as DDT) must be understood and used appropriately to convey relevant information. As explained above, a deflagration is a subsonic reaction, whereas a detonation is a supersonic (greater than the sound speed of the material) reaction. Distinguishing between a deflagration or a detonation can be difficult to impossible to the casual observer. Rather, confidently differentiating between the two requires instrumentation and diagnostics to ascertain reaction speed in the affected material. Therefore, when an unexpected event or an accident occurs with an explosive material or an explosive-containing system it is usually impossible to know whether the explosive deflagrated or detonated as both can appear as very violent, energetic reactions. Therefore, the energetic materials community coined the term "high explosive violent reaction" or "HEVR" to describe a violent reaction that, because it lacked diagnostics to measure sound-speed, could have been either a deflagration or a detonation.

Flame physics
The underlying flame physics can be understood with the help of an idealized model consisting of a uniform one-dimensional tube of unburnt and burned gaseous fuel, separated by a thin transitional region of width  in which the burning occurs. The burning region is commonly referred to as the flame or flame front. In equilibrium, thermal diffusion across the flame front is balanced by the heat supplied by burning.

Two characteristic timescales are important here. The first is the thermal diffusion timescale , which is approximately equal to

,

where  is the thermal diffusivity. The second is the burning timescale  that strongly decreases with temperature, typically as

,

where  is the activation barrier for the burning reaction and  is the temperature developed as the result of burning; the value of this so-called "flame temperature" can be determined from the laws of thermodynamics.

For a stationary moving deflagration front, these two timescales must be equal: the heat generated by burning is equal to the heat carried away by heat transfer. This makes it possible to calculate the characteristic width  of the flame front:

,

thus

.

Now, the thermal flame front propagates at a characteristic speed , which is simply equal to the flame width divided by the burn time:

.

This simplified model neglects the change of temperature and thus the burning rate across the deflagration front. This model also neglects the possible influence of turbulence. As a result, this derivation gives only the laminar flame speed—hence the designation .

Damaging events

Damage to buildings, equipment and people can result from a large-scale, short-duration deflagration.  The potential damage is primarily a function of the total amount of fuel burned in the event (total energy available), the maximum reaction velocity that is achieved, and the manner in which the expansion of the combustion gases is contained. Vented deflagrations tend to be less violent or damaging than contained deflagrations.

In free-air deflagrations, there is a continuous variation in deflagration effects relative to the maximum flame velocity.  When flame velocities are low, the effect of a deflagration is to release heat, such as in a flash fire.  At flame velocities near the speed of sound, the energy released is in the form of pressure, and the resulting high pressure can damage equipment and buildings.

See also

 Conflagration
 Deflagration to detonation transition
 Pressure piling

References

Combustion
Explosives
Physical chemistry

Deflagration


George Sessions Perry (May 5, 1910 – December 13, 1956) was an American novelist, World War II correspondent, and one of the highest paid popular magazine contributors of his time. He is remembered best for his 1941 novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand, which won the National Book Award and the Texas Institute of Letters award in 1941. In 1945, French director Jean Renoir directed The Southerner, based on Hold Autumn in Your Hand, starring Zachary Scott and Beulah Bondi. The critical praise and comparisons to John Steinbeck established Perry as one of the top writers of his era.

Early days

Born in Rockdale, Texas, he was the only son of Andrew Perry, a businessman who owned the local drug store, and Laura Perry. After the death of his father in 1922 and the suicide of his mother a year later, George lived with his maternal grandmother Mai Van de Venter, whom he later immortalized in his book My Granny Van, and his Uncle Perry. He spent a year at Southwestern University in nearby Georgetown, the first of three attempts at a college education that included stints at Southwestern, Purdue and the University of Houston, never earning a degree. At Southwestern he met Claire Hodges, daughter of a Beaumont medical doctor.

Career

In 1931, he returned from traveling abroad to marry Claire and move back to Rockdale. Insulated from the worst effects of the Great Depression by a small inherited income, Perry spent the next six years writing six novels and more than 50 short stories about rural and small-town Texas and the semifeudal system of tenant farming that prevailed at the time. Claire Perry acted as his typist, grammarian, and audience. In 1937, The Saturday Evening Post published one of his stories, and soon thereafter Doubleday published his first book, Walls Rise Up, a comic novel about three vagrants living along the Brazos River. In 1941, Perry firmly established his place on the Texas literary scene with Hold Autumn in Your Hand, a novel about a year in the life of a tenant farmer, perhaps the best agrarian novel about Texas. The book won the Texas Institute of Letters "Book of the Year" award in 1941 and became the first Texas book to win the National Book Award. The novel also was named Bookseller Discovery of 1941, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association. According to The New York Times, the Discovery was "a sort of consolation prize that the booksellers hope will draw attention to his work"; 7,000 copies had been sold.

George and Claire Perry acquired a second home in Guilford, Connecticut in the late 1940s. He became one of the most popular writers in the nation in the postwar period as a correspondent for The Saturday Evening Post, particularly with the series "Cities of America" and "Families of America." To the consternation of many of his fans and literary critics, however, he never returned to novels. In declining physical and mental health in his later years, he disappeared on December 13, 1956 after walking into a river near his home there. His body was recovered February 13, 1957 in a small stream, and a coroner's inquest ruled accidental drowning.

Notes

References

Further reading

External links
George Sessions Perry in the Handbook of Texas Online

1910 births
1956 deaths
Writers from Texas
American war correspondents
National Book Award winners
20th-century American non-fiction writers
People from Rockdale, Texas

George Sessions Perry


Johanna Elisabeth von Nassau-Hadamar (17 January 1619, in Dillenburg – 2 March 1647, in Harzgerode) was a princess of Nassau-Hadamar by birth, and by marriage a princess of Anhalt-Harzgerode.

Life
Her father was Prince John Louis of Nassau-Hadamar, her mother was Ursula of Lippe-Detmold, a daughter of Count Simon VI of Lippe.

Marriage and issue
She married Prince Frederick of Anhalt-Harzgerode on 10 August 1642 in Bückeburg.  She was his first wife.  They had the following children:
 William Louis (1643-1709), Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode, married
 in 1671 to Countess Elizabeth Albertine of Solms-Laubach (1631-1693)
 in 1695 to Princess Sophie Auguste of Nassau-Dillenburg (1666-1733)
 Anna Ursula (1645-1647)
 Elizabeth Charlotte (1647-1723), married
 in 1663 to Prince William Louis of Anhalt-Köthen (1638-1665)
 in 1666 Duke Augustus of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön-Norburg (1635-1699)

House of Nassau
1619 births
17th-century German people
1647 deaths
Daughters of monarchs
Deaths in childbirth

Johanna Elisabeth of Nassau-Hadamar


"Working for the Weekend" is a song by Canadian rock band Loverboy, from their second studio album, Get Lucky (1982). It was written by guitarist Paul Dean, vocalist Mike Reno and drummer Matt Frenette; and produced by Bruce Fairbairn and Dean. The song was released as the lead single from the album in October 1981. It has more of a power pop feel than the band's other songs, but this new sound proved to generate success; the song reached number 29 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number two on Billboards Mainstream Rock chart in January 1982.

"Working for the Weekend" is ranked number 100 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 80s.

Background
The song originated when guitarist Paul Dean was out walking one Wednesday afternoon, looking for inspiration in his songwriting. He noticed that much of the area was deserted, as most people were at work. "So I'm out on the beach and wondering, 'Where is everybody? Well, I guess they're all waiting for the weekend,'" he later said. Mike Reno, the band's vocalist, suggested they change the title to "Working for the Weekend". According to Dean, he first began writing the song in a hotel room following a Montreal concert. At the time, the band were still playing bars to little response from patrons. After completing the song, they used it to open one set, and Dean recalled that "the dance floor was packed".

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Cover versions
The song was covered by former American Idol contestant and country music singer Josh Gracin on the 2005 soundtrack to the final installment of the Herbie franchise, Herbie: Fully Loaded, starring Lindsay Lohan and Justin Long in the scene where the team works to fix Herbie overnight in time for the final race.
American virtuoso guitarist Paul Gilbert included an instrumental cover of this song as the first track on his 2014 album Stone Pushing Uphill Man.
Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) performed a parody version of the song on Conan on November 20, 2013, suggesting he had been asked by Rob Ford to cover the song as Ford's campaign song for re-election as Mayor of Toronto, the lyrics parodying Ford's ongoing substance abuse scandal.

References

1981 singles
1981 songs
1982 singles
Columbia Records singles
Epic Records singles
Loverboy songs
Power pop songs
Song recordings produced by Bruce Fairbairn
Songs about social issues
Songs written by Matt Frenette
Songs written by Mike Reno
Songs written by Paul Dean (guitarist)

Working for the Weekend


A humid continental climate  is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900. A place with a humid continental climate has big seasonal temperature differences. It has warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes very cold in the northern areas) winters. Precipitation usually happens throughout the year. In a humid continental climate, the average temperature of the coldest month must be below  (or ) and there must be at least four months whose average temperatures are at or above .

Humid continental climates are usually found between latitudes 40° N and 60° N, within the central and northeastern parts of North America, Europe, and Asia.

References

Köppen climate classifications

Humid continental climate


The AeroVironment Switchblade is a miniature loitering munition designed by AeroVironment and used by several branches of the United States military. Small enough to fit in a backpack, the Switchblade launches from a tube, flies to the target area, and crashes into its target while detonating its explosive warhead. The name Switchblade comes from the way the spring-loaded wings are folded up inside a tube and flip out once released.

Introduced in 2011, the original Switchblade was rebranded the Switchblade300 after the much larger and very different Switchblade600 anti-armor variant was unveiled in 2020. The Blackwing, an unarmed variant of the Switchblade300, was released in 2015. More than 700 Switchblade 300 drones were sent to Ukraine by the United States as part of an arms package after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

History
Conceived by the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), developed by the U.S. Army, the Switchblade was meant to help U.S. troops respond to enemy ambushes in Afghanistan. Close air support takes time to arrive, is expensive to conduct, and risks collateral damage in urban areas. Troop-carried guided missiles such as the FGM-148 Javelin are also much larger, heavier, more expensive, and few, if any, are carried on a typical patrol.

Human-portable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like the Raven or Puma can spot threats but lack weapons. The backpackable, relatively inexpensive Switchblade has sensors to help spot enemy fighters and an explosive warhead to attack them from above, which is especially helpful in dug-in positions like rooftops or ridge lines.

On July 29, 2011, the U.S. Army awarded AeroVironment a $4.9 million contract for "rapid fielding" of an unspecified number of Switchblades to forces in Afghanistan. On March 20, 2012, the Army added $5.1 million, totaling $10 million.

In May 2012, the United States Marine Corps began ordering Switchblades to allow troops to strike improvised explosive device (IED) emplacement teams and similar targets. Usually, when air support is called in, attackers slip away before a large UAV, attack helicopter, fighter bomber, or quick reaction force can arrive at the station. Marines sometimes couldn't get support due to other units getting mission priority. The Switchblade is small enough to fit in a Marine's ALICE or MOLLE pack, and locks onto and tracks a target once selected.

In late 2012, 75 Switchblades were supplied to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Several successful employments had occurred by January 2013. Although the military would not confirm details about its deployment, effectiveness, distribution, or tactical employment, commanders reported that it was "very effective." Shortly after, the Army theater commanders requested a joint urgent needs statement for more systems. The number requested was not specified, but was "dramatically more" than the 75 systems initially supplied and exceeded budget limitations. The Switchblade gained notoriety among soldiers using it and insurgents targeted by it. The Army classifies it as a direct-fire munition rather than a drone.

Soldiers embraced it as a valuable tool, especially to reduce collateral damage. Unlike most other weapons, the Switchblade can wave off or abort a mission if the situation changes after launch, allowing it to engage a secondary target or destroy itself without inflicting casualties or property damage. Wave off was used over a dozen times to prevent civilian casualties that could have been caused had a person not been in the decision loop.

On August 28, 2013, AeroVironment announced it had been awarded five contracts totaling $15.8 million to supply more Switchblade systems, ancillary equipment, and support to the Army. One week later, the Pentagon gave the company a follow-on contract worth $6.6 million. On September 5, 2013, AeroVironment was awarded a $29 million contract modification to supply Switchblade munitions systems and associated hardware and support services, totaling $51.4 million worth in contracts announced over nine days.

In April 2015, the Marines test-fired a Switchblade from the back of an MV-22 Osprey. The drone was not equipped with a warhead but was successfully released and accurately steered toward a target. The test showed that the Switchblade could be air-launched from the aircraft and add a remotely controlled, weaponized surveillance tool to the Osprey. From its introduction to the end of Operation Enduring Freedom, over 4,000 Switchblades were deployed in Afghanistan. In mid-2017, 350 Switchblades were delivered to SOCOM for use against Islamic State.

On April 28, 2016, AeroVironment announced they had developed an upgrade for the Switchblade Tactical Missile system designated Block 10C. In October 2016, AeroVironment announced the Multi-Pack Launcher (MPL), a system to carry and remotely launch several Switchblades.

In October 2020, AeroVironment announced a project with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions to demonstrate a "high-speed, long-range unmanned combat air vehicle" that serves as a mothership to deliver Switchblade 300s in large numbers that cooperatively attack and overwhelm enemy defenses.

In late 2018, AeroVironment was working on the larger Switchblade 600. In March 2020, AeroVironment revealed it had flight tested the product the previous year. In October 2020, AeroVironment unveiled the larger unit. By the time of its unveiling, it had undergone 60 test flights from ground launches against fixed and moving targets.

On March 31, 2021, AeroVironment was awarded a USD26.1 million contract by SOCOM for the Switchblade 600. The system addresses the United States Naval Special Warfare Command's Maritime Precision Engagement (MPE) requirement to engage asymmetric threats with Combatant Craft Medium (CCM) and Heavy (CCH) boats acting as host platforms.

In March 2022, it was reported that the US was considering providing Switchblade drones to the Ukrainian armed forces following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On March 16, the White House announced that "100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems" would be provided to Ukraine as part of an $800 million military aid package. Another 600 systems were announced to be sent in April, bringing the total number of munitions sent to Ukraine to 700.

Ukraine first reported using a Switchblade on a Russian target in Kharkiv Oblast in early May. A Switchblade 300 was used against a bunker; it is unclear if it was shot down or completed its task by exploding. Russian forces recovered the remains. Despite receiving hundreds of Switchblade drones, some Ukrainian units prefer to use commercial drones equipped with explosives that are easier to use. The U.S. planned to also send the anti-armor Switchblade 600, but although the Switchblade 300 was delivered soon after being pledged to Ukraine, the larger Switchblade 600 was not because it was still a prototype and not considered a fielded capability, so it had to complete testing and evaluation. While the Switchblade 300 has been used against soft Russian targets like fuel trucks, personnel carriers, machine gun nests, trench positions, and dismounted infantry, the Switchblade 600 can be used against heavy armor, including tanks. In October 2022, AeroVironment said the first batch of 10 Switchblade 600s would likely be in Ukraine "in the next few weeks."

The Switchblade's effectiveness depends on whether Ukraine has received them sufficiently and to what extent they prove qualitatively superior to Ukraine's many improvised loitering munition solutions regarding range, accuracy, and resistance to jamming. Jamming is likely responsible for the majority of drone losses in the conflict. Ukraine initially used the Switchblade-300 when the war broke out, but the system's use gradually declined because the Russian improved its air defense and electronic warfare systems. According to three unnamed Ukrainian officers in April and May 2023, Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month to Russian electronic-warfare systems that send fake signals and interfere with their navigation.

On April 23, 2023, the US Army decided not to buy more Switchblade 300. In Ukraine, the anti-personnel Switchblade 300 performs poorly against Russian tanks and artillery, and the cost was significantly more expensive than commercial competition. In the 2022 budget, the price for a single unit – the airframe, sensors, integrated guidance, warhead, data link, and launcher – was $58,063. This cost does not include additional elements like the guidance unit, which costs around $30,000, or fielding costs, spares, support, training rounds, and simulators. Ukrainian units prefer to use commercial drones equipped with cheaper explosives, at around $700 or less.

The U.S. Army ordered more than 100 Switchblade 600s in October 2023 as part of the first increment of the Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance (LASSO) program; they will be operated at company-level.

Design

Switchblade 300

The Switchblade 300 is designed as an expendable UAV to offer precision firepower for platoon-sized infantry units.

It helps engage long-range targets and assists in relieving units pinned down by enemy fire. It can identify, track, and engage targets and follow a pre-programmed course.

It has been used to destroy light armored vehicles and personnel. The operator can call to re-target a unit en route. Its small size and silent flight makes it extremely difficult to detect or intercept.

The Switchblade uses the same Ground Control Station (GCS) as other AeroVironment UAVs, including the Wasp, RQ-11 Raven, and RQ-20 Puma. This creates a commonality and the potential for teaming of longer-endurance small UAVs to recon for targets, then having the Switchblade attack once they are identified with the same controller.

The warhead is designed for controlled firepower to reduce collateral damage through a focused blast. It has a forward-firing shotgun-blast effect rather than a 360-degree blast, expelling pellets in the direction that the missile is traveling. It can be fused to detonate at a predetermined height, which can be adjusted mid-flight. When diving, the operator can cancel the attack until four seconds from impact. The warhead can be detonated mid-flight to destroy it.

The U.S. Army categorizes the Switchblade as a missile rather than a drone. The term "loitering munition" is preferred. Unlike UAVs, it is not recoverable once launched. Its operation is similar to the wireless TOW missile through a fly-by-radio frequency signal. The TOW doesn't loiter, but both have the same operator-in-the-loop characteristics.

The Switchblade does not fit into established doctrines since it is not an armed reconnaissance vehicle dispatched by a platoon commander to scout over an area and destroy enemies, or an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platform, as its cameras are for viewing targets instead of recon. It meets the need for squads and platoons that lack high-level intelligence and communications to fire missiles beyond the ranges they are trying to influence.

SRC Inc. developed software to combine the Switchblade with sensors to intercept hostile UAVs. The Switchblade is used alongside an existing counter-artillery radar and IED jamming system, all of which can be towed by Humvees. Interception of an enemy drone occurs in layers: if a drone gets through covering fighters or is too small to be targeted by them, it is picked up by the fire-finding radar. Once detected, the jammer performs electronic warfare to break its data link. If the drone resists EW, a Switchblade is launched to impact and destroy it physically.

Block 10C
Each Block 10C unit is  long and weighs  including the carrying case and launcher, making it small and light enough for one soldier to carry. It can be controlled at distances of up to . Flight time is 10 minutes. It is equipped with (daytime) color and infrared cameras and a GPS locator. Its warhead is equivalent to a 40mm grenade. An electric motor propels the aircraft and can reach speeds of .

The Switchblade uses daytime, as well as an "aided target tracker" to lock on to stationary and moving targets.

Block 10C incorporates a Digital Data Link (DDL) to provide a stable and secure encrypted communication link through more efficient use of existing frequency bands and significantly reduced likelihood of signal interception, as well as concurrent operation of multiple Switchblade systems in the same vicinity without signal conflict, gives opportunity to extend operational ranges using another DDL arbiter such as a different AeroVironment UAV, and facilitates sensor to shooter operations through automatic communication of mission plans from one AeroVironment UAS to a Switchblade.

The Multi-Pack Launcher (MPL) remotely launches multiple Switchblades. The MPL is fully loaded in a standard 6-pack configuration weighing . The design is scalable from 2 to 20 rounds and enables rapid reloading of less than 30 seconds per round. The U.S. Army began deploying the MPL in early 2019 for base defense.

Block 20
Block 20 increases flight time to 20 minutes. It features an improved DDL range. It has an EO/IR panning camera suite to provide real-time video and left-hand commit with continuous identification (PID).

It has a gross weight of about . The 4-lb (2-kg) unit can be launched in less than two minutes. The launch tube includes an integrated control and can support land, sea, and mobile platforms.

It can send back intelligence, such as GPS coordinates of targets.

Switchblade 600
The larger Switchblade 600 loitering munition weighs  including the all-up round in the tube and FCS; the airframe weighs , with the fire control-system consisting of a tablet and long-range antenna. The system is man-portable and can be set up in 10 minutes. It is designed to fly out to  in 20 minutes, then loiter for another 20 minutes (giving it an  total range), however, reaching its maximum capable range requires using two long-range antennas deployed on the field to relay command from one operator to another through the handoff capability of the data link. It attacks at a  dash speed, carrying an ATGM warhead based on the Javelin ATGM, designed to neutralize armored vehicles.

A touchscreen tablet-based fire control system can manually or autonomously control the munition. It is secured through onboard encrypted data links and Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module GPS with a patented wave-off capability. An optional pocket digital data link (DDL) module allows engagements beyond . The larger Switchblade could be fitted with an anti-tank warhead while having longer range and costing less than anti-tank missiles like the FGM-148 Javelin.

The Switchblade 600 was developed for the Army Single Multi-Mission Attack Missile development program. Other methods could include a six-pack vehicle-mounted version and by air-launch.

In October 2022, AeroVironment said it was capable of producing more than 2,000 Switchblade 600 systems annually, and that it planned within a few months to increase production capacity to 6,000 per year.

Blackwing
First demonstrated in 2015, the AeroVironment Blackwing is an unarmed variant of the Switchblade300 with similar weight and dimensions. It was developed for the United States Navy to provide rapid ISR (Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) as well as command and control relay operations among surface and undersea manned and unmanned vessels. The Blackwing can be deployed from a submerged submarine, surface ship, or mobile ground launcher.

Current operators

British Armed Forces

U.S. Armed Forces

Ukrainian Armed Forces

Future operators

Ministère des Armées: In April 2023 AeroVironment announced a contract with the Ministry of the Armed Forces, without specifying the number of Switchblade 300.

Lithuanian Armed Forces: In December 2022, Lithuania signed a contract to acquire Switchblade 600 loitering munitions.

See also
 Raytheon Coyote
 Phoenix Ghost, a similar drone
 UVision HERO-30
 Pike (munition)
 ZALA Lancet

References

External links
 Switchblade 300 AeroVironment website
 Switchblade 600 AeroVironment website

Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States
Loitering munition
Military vehicles introduced in the 2010s
Tandem-wing aircraft

AeroVironment Switchblade


Lee Rainwater (7 January 1928 – 4 July 2015) was an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology at Harvard University for 23 years and was a co-founder of the Luxembourg Income Study, for which he was research director between 1983 and 2005. He was the author, co-author, or editor of over twenty books, including Behind Ghetto Walls: Black Families in a Federal Slum (1970), a study of the notorious St Louis, Missouri, housing development Pruitt–Igoe. A series of memorial lectures has been founded in his name at CUNY and began in 2017.

Rainwater was the dissertation adviser for Laud Humphreys, the sociologist best known for his work on men who have sex with men in public restrooms (known as tearooms), and for the controversies surrounding the potential ethics involved in the study.

References

American sociologists
Harvard University faculty
1928 births
2015 deaths

Lee Rainwater


Researchers study Social media and suicide to find if a correlation exists between the two. Some research has shown that there may be a correlation.

Background
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and as of 2020, the second leading cause of death in the United States for those aged 15–34. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide was the third leading cause of death among adolescents in the US, from 1999 to 2006.

In 2020, people in the US ages 10-64 had a suicide rate of 10.7 per 100,000. Suicide was a leading cause of death in the United States accounting for 48,183 deaths in 2021. Suicide rates increased by 30 per cent from 2000-2018 and declined in 2019 and 2020.

Despite suicide prevention programs, therapy, and pharmacological treatments, suicide remains a public health issue worldwide. Suicide has been identified not only as an individual phenomenon but also as being influenced by social and environmental factors. There is growing evidence that online activity has influenced suicide-related behavior.  The use of social media throughout the 21st century has grown exponentially.  For this reason, there are a variety of sources that are accessible to the public in various forms, especially social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and many more. Although these platforms were intended to allow people to connect virtually, these platforms can lead to cyberbullying, insecurity, and emotional distress, and sometimes may influence a person to attempt suicide.

Bullying, whether on social media or elsewhere, physical or not, significantly increases victims' risk of suicidal behavior. Since social media was introduced some people have taken their lives as a result of cyberbullying. Furthermore, suicide rates among teenagers have  increased from 2010 to 2022 as social media has become something that people interact with more throughout their day-to-day lives.

Media algorithms tend to popularize videos and posts to inform the country of the rising trouble, which may create a popular appeal to the young and immature minds of teenagers. This is why, social media could provide higher risks with the promotion of different kinds of pro-suicidal sites, message boards, chat rooms, and forums. Moreover, the Internet not only reports suicide incidents but documents suicide methods (for example, suicide pacts, an agreement between two or more people to kill themselves at a particular time and often by the same lethal means). Therefore, the role the Internet plays, particularly social media, in suicide-related behavior is a topic of growing interest.

Cyberbullying
There is substantial evidence that the Internet and social media can influence suicide-related behavior. Such evidence includes an increase in exposure to graphic content. According to a research study by Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, there is also a correlation between cyberbullying and suicide. Additionally, cyberbullying increases suicidal thoughts by 14.5 percent and suicide attempts by 8.7 percent. Most importantly, children and young people under 25 who are victims of cyberbullying are more than twice as likely to self-harm and enact suicidal behavior. Overall, teen suicide rates have increased within the past decade. This is a highly considerable public health problem, having over 40,000 suicide deaths in the United States and nearly one million suicide deaths worldwide occurring yearly.

According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, data, 14.9 per cent of teenagers have experienced online bullying, and 13.6 per cent of teenagers have attempted suicide seriously. Both of these incidents are in increasing numbers in the United States. Furthermore, in numerous recent incidents, cyberbullying led the victim to commit suicide; this phenomenon is now known as cyberbullicide. Most importantly, parents and kids are typically ignorant of the dangers and possible legal repercussions of cyberbullying. Thus, antibullying regulations and their implementation by the schools forbid any bullying at school through technology and try to safeguard the students against online bullying. Although some states have laws against cyberbullying, there are no federal regulations.

Social media's influence on suicide
The media may portray suicidal behavior or language which can potentially influence people to act on these suicidal tendencies. This may include news reports of actual suicides that have occurred or television shows and films that reenact suicides.

Some organizations have proposed guidelines about how the media should report suicide. There is evidence that compliance with the guidelines varies. Some research showed that it is unclear whether the guidelines have successfully reduced the number of suicides. On the contrary, other research studies stated that the guidelines have worked in some cases.

Impact of pro-suicidal sites, message boards, chat rooms and forums
Social media platforms have transformed traditional methods of communication by allowing the instantaneous and interactive sharing of information created and controlled by individuals, groups, organizations, and governments. As of the third quarter of 2022, Facebook had 266 million monthly active users, between Canada and the US. An immense quantity of information on the topic of suicide is available on the Internet and via social media. The information available on social media on the topic of suicide can influence suicidal behavior, both negatively and positively.

The social cognitive theory plays a vital role in suicide attempts influenced through social media. This theory is demonstrated when one is influenced by what they see through various processes that form into modeled behaviors. This can be shown when people post their suicide attempts online or promote suicidal behavior in general.

Contributors to these social media platforms may also exert peer pressure and encourage others to take their own lives, idolize those who have killed themselves, and facilitate suicide pacts. These pro-suicidal sites reported the following. For example, on a Japanese message board in 2008, it was shared that people can kill themselves using hydrogen sulfide gas. Shortly after 220 people attempted suicide in this way, and 208 were successful. Biddle et al. conducted a systematic Web search of 12 suicide-associated terms (e.g., suicide, suicide methods, how to kill yourself, and best suicide methods) to analyze the search results and found that pro-suicide sites and chat rooms that discussed general issues associated with suicide most often occurred within the first few hits of a search. also conducted a study that examined suicide-related sites that can be found using Internet search engines. Of 373 website hits, 31% were suicide neutral, 29% were anti-suicide, and 11% were pro-suicide. Together, these studies have shown that obtaining pro-suicide information on the Internet, including detailed information on suicide methods, is very easy.

While social media has been prevalent in young adult suicide, some young adults find comfort and solace through these platforms. Young adults are making connections with people in like situations that are helping them feel less lonely. Although the public opinion is that message boards are harmful, the following studies show how they point to suicide prevention and have positive influences. A study using content analysis analyzed all of the postings on the AOL Suicide Bulletin Board over 11 months and concluded that most contributions contained positive, empathetic, and supportive postings. Then, a multi-method study was able to demonstrate that the users of such forums experience a great deal of social support and only a small amount of social strain. Lastly, in the survey participants were asked to assess the extent of their suicidal thoughts on a 7-level scale (0, absolutely no suicidal thoughts, to 7, very strong suicidal thoughts) for the time directly before their first forum visit and at the time of the survey. The study found a significant reduction after using the forum. The study however cannot conclude the forum is the only reason for the decrease. Together, these studies show how forums can reduce the number of suicides.

An example of how social media can play a role in suicide is that of a male adolescent who arrived at the emergency department with his parents after suspected medication ingestion in which he attempted to overdose. Beforehand he had sent an ex-girlfriend a Snapchat picture of himself holding a bottle of acetaminophen, which was forwarded to the young male's parents. This picture was used by medical experts to establish the time of his ingestion, oral N-acetylcysteine was administered and he was brought to a pediatric care facility, where he had an uneventful recovery and psychiatric evaluation.

In 2013, the main cause of nine teen suicides was due to hateful anonymous messages on Ask.fm.

Cyberbullying and suicide
Cyberbullying has received considerable attention as a possible cause of suicide. With the rise of social media, the risk of falling victim to blackmail has also increased. It has been deemed a major health concern for affected teens and a major health threat to those affected by the psychological trauma inflicted by perpetrators on social media. While there isn't one Federal Law that is specific to cyberbullying, 48 states have laws against cyberbullying or online harassment with 44 of those states having criminal sanctions within the laws. Many states have enhanced their harassment laws to include online harassment. Criminal harassment statutes often provide a basis for bringing charges in severe cases, and more serious criminal charges have been brought in cases where evidence indicates a resultant suicide or other tragic consequences. Civil remedies have been sought in many cases where criminal liability was difficult to prove.

In 2006, 13 year old Megan Meier hanged herself in her bedroom closet following a series of MySpace messages that came from a friend's mother and her 18 year old associate, who posed as a teen boy named "Josh Evans" and encouraged Megan to commit suicide. The mother, Lori Drew, faced federal conspiracy charges related to computer fraud and abuse, but was later acquitted.

In 2012, Canadian high school student Amanda Todd hanged herself after being blackmailed by a stalker, and suffering from repeated cyberbullying and harassment at school. On September 7, Todd posted a 9-minute YouTube video titled My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self-harm, which showed her using a series of flashcards to tell of her experiences being bullied. The video went viral after her death on October 10, 2012, receiving over 1,600,000 views by October 13, 2012, with news websites from around the world linking to it.

In 2014, Conrad Roy killed himself after exchanging numerous text messages with Michelle Carter, his long-distance girlfriend, who repeatedly encouraged him to commit suicide. She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Carter was released in January 2020.

Sadie Riggs, a Pennsylvania teen, killed herself in 2015 allegedly because of online bullying and harassment at school on her appearance. Sadie's aunt, Sarah Smith, contacted various social media companies, police, and Sadie's school in hopes to make the bullying stop. In desperation, Smith went as far as to break Sadie's phone, in her presence, in an attempt to stop the bullying. No charges were ever filed against any alleged suspect.

In a 2018 Florida case, two preteens were arrested and charged with cyberstalking after they were accused of cyberbullying another female middle school student, 12 year old Gabriella Green. Online rumors were spread about her, and she hanged herself immediately after a call with one of the abusers, who told her that "If you're going to do it, just do it" and ended the call, according to police.

In 2019, Canadian Inuk pop singer Kelly Fraser, who was most popular for her Inuktitut language covers of pop songs, was found dead in her home near Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her death was ruled a suicide, which Fraser's family attributed to "childhood traumas, racism, and persistent cyberbullying."

Media contagion effect
Suicide contagion can be viewed within the larger context of behavioral contagion, which has been described as a situation in which the same behavior spreads quickly and spontaneously through a group. Suicide contagion refers to the phenomenon of indirect exposure to suicide or suicidal behaviors influencing others to attempt to kill themselves. The Persons most susceptible to suicide contagions are those under 25 years of age. Media coverage of suicides has been shown to significantly increase the rate of suicide, and the magnitude of the increase is related to the amount, duration, and prominence of coverage. A recent study by Dunlop et al. specifically examined possible contagion effects on suicidal behavior via the Internet and social media. Of 719 individuals aged 14 to 24 years, 79% reported being exposed to suicide-related content through family, friends, and traditional news media such as newspapers, and 59% found such content through Internet sources. This information may pose a hazard for vulnerable groups by influencing decisions to die by suicide. In particular, interactions via chat rooms or discussion forums may foster peer pressure to die by suicide, encourage users to idolize those who have died by suicide, or facilitate suicide pacts. Recently there has been a trend in creating memorial social media pages in honor of a deceased person. In New Zealand, a memorial page was made after a person committed suicide, this resulted in the suicide of 8 other persons thereafter, which further shows the power of the media contagion effect. One South Korean study demonstrated that social media data can be used to predict national suicide numbers.

Suicide notes
It has generally been found that those who post suicide notes online tend to not receive help.

Several notable cases support this argument:

Kevin Whitrick and Abraham K. Biggs webcast both of their suicides. "I am going to leave this for whoever stumbles across my bookmarks later on."
 Paul Zolezzi indicated via a Facebook update his intent to commit suicide.
 In 2010, John Patrick Bedell left a Wikipedia user page and YouTube videos interpreted by some as a suicide note; the former was deleted by Wikipedia administrators.
Joe Stack also posted a suicide note online.
Chris McKinstry, an AI researcher, committed suicide after posting a note to both his blog and the Joel on Software off-topic forum explaining the reasons for his demise.
 A girl who attended a Louisville-area high school posted a video suicide note and then killed herself in 2014. The girl did not receive any help prior to her suicide, leading H. Eric Sparks, director of the American School Counselor Association, to say that troubled students should be directed to help hotlines or to trusted authorities to seek intervention as quickly as possible.

Suicide pacts
A suicide pact is an agreement between two or more people to die by suicide at a particular time and often by the same lethal means. Although suicide pacts are found to be rare however, there are traditional suicide pacts that have typically developed among individuals who know each other, such as a couple of friends. Additionally, a suicide pact that has been formed or developed in some way through the use of the Internet is known as a cyber suicide pact. A primary difference between cybersuicide pacts and traditional suicide pacts is that these pacts are usually formed among strangers. They mostly use online chat rooms and virtual bulletin boards and forums as an unmediated avenue to share their feelings with other like-minded individuals, which can be easier than talking about such thoughts and feelings in person.

The first documented use of the Internet to form a suicide pact was reported in Japan in 2000. It has now become a more common form of suicide in Japan, where the suicide rate increased from 34 suicides in 2003 to 91 suicides in 2005. Also, South Korea now has one of the world's highest suicide rates (24.7/100 000 in 2005), and evidence exists that cyber suicide pacts may account for almost one-third of suicides in that country. Suicide pacts are also in the United States. In April 2018, Macon Middle School, a middle school in North Carolina, became aware of a group on social media called "Edgy" or "Edgy Fan Page 101" in which this group came up with a suicide pact and had suicidal ideations. The middle school contacted the parents and informed them to look into their children's social media pages and talk with them about the dangers of a group like this.

Gerald Krein and William Francis Melchert-Dinkel were accused of arranging internet suicide pacts.

Interventions
Suicide intervention on social media has saved many lives on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. All of the aforementioned companies have slightly different ways to report posts that may seem suicidal.

Facebook
Facebook, assisted by, among a handful of other experts, Dr. Dan Reidenburg of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education—"uses an algorithm to track down buzzwords and phrases that are commonly associated with suicide" and has intervened in over 3,500 cases, according to company reports. The algorithm reportedly tracks buzzwords and phrases associated with suicide and an alert is sent to Facebook's Safety Center.

"The technology itself isn't going to send somebody to their house. A person at Facebook would have to do that…"
–Dr. Dan Reidenburg

Twitter

Demi Moore and her followers intervened to stop a suicide that had been announced on Twitter.
Twitter followers of Chicago rapper CupcakKe alerted authorities after the rapper posted ominous phrases onto Twitter. She later thanked all of her followers after receiving help.

Forums
 A German was prevented from killing himself after Spanish internet users saw him announcing his decision.

Discussion and support groups
The Defense Centers of Excellence have expressed interest in using social media for suicide prevention. Facebook groups have sometimes been set up for suicide prevention purposes, including one that attracted 47,000 members. Although many teens and preteens encounter suicide-related posts from peers on different social media apps, they also encounter suicide prevention hotlines and website links as well.

SAMHSA's Suicide Prevention Lifeline operates on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The American Foundation For Suicide Prevention is trying to understand and prevent suicide through research, education, and advocacy.

See also
Blue Whale (game)
Death and the Internet
Instagram's impact on people
Momo Challenge
Suicide and the Internet
Virtual crime
alt.suicide.holiday
Sanctioned Suicide

References

Further reading
Luxton, David D.; June, Jennifer D.; Fairall, Jonathan M. (2012-5). "Social Media and Suicide: A Public Health Perspective". American Journal of Public Health. 102(Suppl 2): S195–S200. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300608. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 3477910. PMID 22401525.</ref>
 Hawton, K. (2002-12-14). "Influences of the media on suicide". BMJ. 325 (7377): 1374–1375. doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7377.1374. PMC 1124845. PMID 12480830.
 Liu, Xingyun; Huang, Jiasheng; Yu, Nancy Xiaonan; Li, Qing; Zhu, Tingshao (2020-04-28). "Mediation Effect of Suicide-Related Social Media Use Behaviors on the Association Between Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempt: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Study". Journal of Medical Internet Research. 22 (4): e14940. doi:10.2196/14940. ISSN 1438-8871.

Cyberbullying
Social media

Social media and suicide


Sarath Amunugama, JP is a leading Sri Lankan academic, who is a professor of French and the founding Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Visual & Performing Arts, Colombo. He is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya.

Amunugama received his secondary education at Kingswood College, Kandy and entered the University of Ceylon before attending University of Sorbonne III, Paris specializing in modern languages where he gained his Licentiate, Master's and PhD. He then gain a DESS from the University of Burgundy.

During his long teaching career he had held several distinguished positions such as dean, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya before benign appointed as the first Vice Chancellor of the newly established University of the Visual & Performing Arts on  July 1, 2005. In 2008 he was appointed vice chancellor of the University of Kelaniya.

Honors

He was awarded the title Chevalier (knight) of the L'Ordre des Palmes académiques by the government of France.
In 2006 he was made a Justice of Peace by the government of Sri Lanka.

See also
University of the Visual & Performing Arts
University of Kelaniya

References

Sinhalese academics
Academic staff of the University of Paris
University of Paris alumni
Alumni of the University of Ceylon (Peradeniya)
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of Kingswood College, Kandy
Vice-Chancellors of the University of Kelaniya
Academics from Kandy
University of Burgundy alumni
Sri Lankan expatriates in France

Sarath Amunugama


India is the world's 8th most biodiverse region with a 0.46 BioD score on diversity index, 102,718 species of fauna and 23.39% of the nation's geographical area under forest and tree cover in 2020. India encompasses a wide range of biomes: desert, high mountains, highlands, tropical and temperate forests, swamplands, plains, grasslands, areas surrounding rivers, as well as island archipelago. Officially, three out of the 36 Biodiversity Hotspots in the world are present in India: the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, and the Indo-Burma region. To these may be added the Sundarbans and the Terrai-Duar Savannah grasslands for their unique foliage and animal species.
These hotspots have numerous endemic species. Nearly 5% of India's total area is formally classified under protected areas .

India, for the most part, lies within the Indomalayan realm, with the upper reaches of the Himalayas forming part of the Palearctic realm; the contours of 2000 to 2500m are considered to be the altitudinal boundary between the Indo-Malayan and Palearctic zones. India displays significant biodiversity. One of seventeen megadiverse countries, it is home to 7.6% of all mammalian, 12.6% of all avian, 6.2% of all reptilian, 4.4% of all amphibian and 11.7% of all fish.

The region is also heavily influenced by summer monsoons that cause major seasonal changes in vegetation and habitat.
India forms a large part of the Indomalayan biogeographical zone and many of the floral and faunal forms show Malayan affinities with only a few taxa being unique to the Indian region. The unique forms includes the snake family Uropeltidae found only in the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka. Fossil taxa from the Cretaceous show links to the Seychelles and Madagascar chain of islands. The Cretaceous fauna include reptiles, amphibians and fishes and an extant species demonstrating this phylogeographical link is the purple frog. The separation of India and Madagascar is traditionally estimated to have taken place about 88 million years ago. However, there are suggestions that the links to Madagascar and Africa were present even at the time when the Indian subcontinent met Eurasia. India has been suggested as a ship for the movement of several African taxa into Asia. These taxa include five frog families (including the Myobatrachidae), three caecilian families, a lacertid lizard and freshwater snails of the family Pomatiopsidae. A thirty million year old Oligocene-era fossil tooth from the Bugti Hills of central Pakistan has been identified as from a lemur-like primate, prompting controversial suggestions that the lemurs may have originated in Asia. Lemur fossils from India in the past led to theories of a lost continent called Lemuria. This theory however was dismissed when continental drift and plate tectonics became well established.

India is home to several well-known large mammals, including the Asian elephant, Bengal tiger, Asiatic lion, Indian leopard and Indian rhinoceros. Some of these animals are engrained in Indian culture, often being associated with deities.
These large mammals are important for wildlife tourism in India, with several national parks and wildlife sanctuaries catering to these needs. The popularity of these charismatic animals have greatly helped conservation efforts in India. The tiger has been particularly important, and Project Tiger, started in 1972, was a major effort to conserve the tiger and its habitats. Project Elephant, though less known, started in 1992 and works for elephant protection. Most of India's rhinos today survive in the Kaziranga National Park.

Some other well-known large Indian mammals are ungulates such as the water buffalo, nilgai, gaur and several species of deer and antelope. Some members of the dog family such as the Indian wolf, Bengal fox, golden jackal and the dhole or wild dogs are also widely distributed. It is also home to the striped hyena. Many smaller animals such as macaques, langurs and mongoose species are especially well known due to their ability to live close to or inside urban areas.

Fauna of India

The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), with its headquarters in Kolkata (the capital of West Bengal) and 16 regional stations is responsible for surveying the faunal resources of India. Possessing a tremendous diversity of climate and physical conditions, India has great variety of fauna, numbering 89,451 species.

The mammals include the Indian elephant, the gaur or erroneously the Indian bison - the largest of existing bovines,  the great Indian rhinoceros, and the wild water buffalo. Deer and antelopes include the barasingha, the sangai, chital, sambar deer, Indian hog deer, Himalayan musk deer, Indian muntjac, Indian spotted chevrotain, Kashmir stag, Tibetan antelope, blackbuck, chausingha, goa, Indian gazelle, and nilgai. There are also wild donkeys like Indian wild ass and kiang, and caprines like Bhutan takin, Mishmi takin, red serow, Himalayan serow, red goral, Himalayan goral, markhor, Siberian ibex, Nilgiri tahr, Himalayan tahr, urial, argali, and blue sheep. These caprines are generally found in the Himalayas of Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), as well as the Dooars forest and the Terai region, floodplains at the base of the Himalayas. A notable exception is the Nilgiri tahr which is endemic to the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. There are several big cats; the Asiatic lion, Bengal tiger, Indian leopard, snow leopard, clouded leopard, Eurasian lynx and caracal. Lesser cat species include fishing cat, Asiatic wildcat, jungle cat, Pallas's cat, Bengal cat, marbled cat, Asian golden cat, and leopard cat. There are also canines such as Ussuri dhole, Indian jackal, Indian wolf, Bengal fox, Tibetan wolf, and Tibetan fox. Another carnivore is the striped hyena. Several birds, like greater flamingos, Brahminy ducks, white-breasted waterhen, pheasant-tailed jacana, Eurasian spoonbills, lesser flamingos, purple herons, great and cattle egret, Indian pond herons, oriental magpie-robins, Nicobar pigeons, Indian mynas, Indian rollers, slaty-breasted rails, greater coucals, black-bellied terns, Indian pittas, Indian paradise flycatchers, sarus cranes, Siberian cranes, demoiselle cranes, great hornbills, rose-ringed parakeets, vernal hanging parrots, knob-billed ducks, painted storks, and Asian openbills inhabit forests, wetlands, and mountains. The Indian peafowl is the national bird of India, and is also found in white and mixed varieties. Pheasants include red junglefowl, grey junglefowl, Himalayan monals, satyr tragopans, and kalij pheasants; the great Indian bustard is also common in grasslands. Predatory birds include the Northern goshawk, shikra, black kite, white-bellied sea eagle, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, Indian vulture, slender-billed vulture, and white-backed vulture. The house crow and Indian jungle crow are some crow species in India. Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse is a sandgrouse found in India. There are plenty of small mammals in India. These include the Asian house shrew, the northern and greater hog badger, the Chinese ferret-badger, the honey badger, the Indian pangolin, and the Chinese pangolin. Arboreal small mammals include the Nilgiri marten, small-toothed palm civet, Asian palm civet, small Indian civet, large Indian civet, binturong, and red panda. The bears of India are sun bear, sloth bear, Himalayan black bear, and Himalayan brown bear. There are also many primates in India. The apes of India are the gibbons; western hoolock gibbon and eastern hoolock gibbon. Macaques include rhesus macaque, bonnet macaque, lion-tailed macaque, Northern pig-tailed macaque, stump-tailed macaque, Arunachal macaque, white-cheeked macaque and Assamese macaque among others. The various species of langurs include purple-faced langur, the Nilgiri langur, the Gee's golden langur and capped langur. There is also the Phayre's leaf monkey. The suids in India are Indian boar and the critically endangered pygmy hog. There are lagomorphs like the critically endangered hispid hare, the woolly hare and the black-naped hare. The Royle's pika and Himalayan marmot are some of the montane small mammals. There is also the large Malabar giant squirrel, Indian palm squirrel, Indian gerbil, porcupine species Indian crested porcupine and hedgehog species bare-bellied hedgehog and Indian hedgehog. Another predator in India is the spotted linsang, a civet-like creature.

Many are domesticated in India, and seeing them in the streets of villages and even cities is common. Bovines include the zebu, which descended from the extinct Indian aurochs, the domestic water buffalo, the gayal, which is a domesticated gaur, and in the northern regions domestic yak, which descended from the also native wild yak. Dromedary camel can be found in desert states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Punjab. Mongrel dogs are a common sight in most cities of India. Other small mammals found throughout urban areas are several species of mongoose and white-tailed mole. These mongoose species are ruddy mongoose, Indian grey mongoose, Indian brown mongoose, small Indian mongoose, stripe-necked mongoose, and crab-eating mongoose. The desert locust is infamous for destroying crops.

Rivers and lakes harbour mugger crocodiles and gharials. The saltwater crocodile is found along the eastern coast and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. A project for breeding crocodiles, started in 1974, has been instrumental in saving the crocodile from extinction. Snakes include king cobra, Indian cobra, monocled cobra, Indian rock python, reticulated python, Sri Lankan green vine snake, Brahminy blind snake, green pit viper, Salazar's pit viper,Russell's viper, saw-scaled viper and Indian krait. The cobras are an important part of Indian culture. Frogs include purple frog, Chunam tree frog, Indus Valley bullfrog, and Indian green frog. A notable newt is the Himalayan newt; it is the only salamander in India. There are also caecilian species, like the yellow-striped caecilian. India's coasts are full of sea turtles; these include the leatherback sea turtle, green sea turtle, hawksbill sea turtle, loggerhead sea turtle, and olive ridley sea turtle. Indian softshell turtles and Indian flapshell turtles are found in mangrove vegetation, lagoons, and freshwater and brackish bodies. The Asian water monitor and Bengal monitor are the monitor lizards in India; there are also several gecko species like the golden gecko, and the only chameleon, Indian chameleon.

Fish are a major part of the Indian economy. The fish include tilapia, Atlantic pomfret, hilsa, barramundi, rohu, largetooth sawfish, Pearse's mudskipper, giant oceanic manta ray, leopard torpedo, among thousands of others. Hilsa and barramundi are important in the fishing industry of India, especially in West Bengal. These also include sharks, such as thresher shark, great white shark, mako shark, hammerhead shark, tiger shark, and sand tiger shark. Bull sharks and Ganges sharks are also found in freshwater areas and brackish areas such as the Sundarbans National Park, part of the world's largest mangrove forest the Sundarbans. Remora are commonly found attached to these sharks. Coral reefs in India are rich in fish such as angelfish, clownfish, powder blue tang, pufferfish, parrotfish, moray eel, Chinese trumpetfish, redtoothed triggerfish, and butterfly fish.

Marine dolphins along the coast of India include bottlenose dolphin, common dolphin, and pantropical spotted dolphin among others. Finless porpoise are found along the coast as well. The endangered Irrawaddy dolphin is found in freshwater areas, such as Chilika Lake, alongside the Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin. Blue whales, humpback whales, sperm whales, dwarf sperm whales, orcas, Cuvier's beaked whales, and pygmy killer whales are the most common whales. The semi-aquatic mammals in India are otters. The species of otters are Asian small-clawed otter, Eurasian otter, and smooth-coated otter. The increasingly endangered dugong is found throughout coastal estuaries and brackish water bodies.

A notable dragonfly is the Himalayan relict dragonfly. India is also known for its butterflies, such as lesser grass blue, common blue Apollo, common mime, common Mormon, and common Pierrot. The orchid mantis is an iconic mantis found in the Western Ghats of India. Laboratory stick insects and leaf insects are found in abundance.

Stegodon elephants, Indosaurus, Himalayan quail, and pink-headed duck are famous extinct animals from India. The Himalayan quail and pink-headed duck are only presumed extinct. However, there are other quails such as rain quail in India, and the pink-headed duck's relative the Indian spot-billed duck.

Depletion of vegetative cover due to expansion of agriculture, habitat destruction, over-exploitation, pollution, introduction of toxic imbalance in community structure, epidemics, floods, droughts and cyclones, contribute to the loss of flora and fauna. More than 39 species of mammals, 72 species of birds, 17 species of reptiles, three species of amphibians, two species of fish, and a large number of butterflies, moth, and beetles are considered vulnerable and endangered.

Biodiversity

India is listed 12th among the mega-biodiverse nations in the world with a BioD score of 0.46 on the diversity index "which is calculated by its percentage of species in each group relative to the total global number of species in each group". With 23.39% of its geographical area under forest and tree cover, India is rich in biodiversity. A 2020 faunal survey of India by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) reported a total of 102,718 species of fauna, with 557 new species including 407 newly described species and 150 new country records. Among the new finds, 486 species were invertebrates (mostly insects), and 71 were vertebrate species, mostly fishes and reptiles. New species were reported from Karnataka (66 species), Kerala (51), Rajasthan (46) and West Bengal (30). From 2010 to 2020, 4,112 species, including 2,800 new species and 1,312 new records, were added to the Indian fauna.

There is insufficient information about the invertebrate fauna of India, with significant work having been done only in a few groups of insects, notably the butterflies, Odonata and Hymenoptera, mostly in The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma series.

There are about 2,546 species of fishes (about 11% of the world species) found in Indian waters. About 197 species of amphibians (4.4% of the world total) and more than 408 reptile species (6% of the world total) are found in India. Among these groups the highest levels of endemism are found in the amphibians.

There are about 1361 species of birds recorded from India, with some variations, depending on taxonomic treatments, accounting for about 12% of the world species.

There are about 410 species of mammals known from India, which is about 8.86% of the world species.

India has the greatest number of cat species in the world.

The World Conservation Monitoring Centre gives an estimate of about 15,000 species of flowering plants in India.

Biodiversity hotspots

The Western Ghats

The Western Ghats are a chain of hills that run along the western edge of peninsular India. Their proximity to the ocean and through orographic effect, they receive high rainfall. These regions have moist deciduous forest and rain forest. The region shows high species diversity as well as high levels of endemism. Nearly 77% of the amphibians and 62% of the reptile species found here are found nowhere else. The region shows biogeographical affinities to the Malayan region, and the Satpura hypothesis proposed by Sunder Lal Hora suggests that the hill chains of Central India may have once formed a connection with the forests of northeastern India and into the Indo-Malayan region. Hora used torrent stream fishes to support the theory, but it was also suggested to hold for birds. Later studies have suggested that Hora's original model species were a demonstration of convergent evolution rather than speciation by isolation.

More recent phylogeographic studies have attempted to study the problem using molecular approaches. There are also differences in taxa which are dependent on time of divergence and geological history. Along with Sri Lanka this region also shows some fauna similarities with the Madagascan region especially in the reptiles and amphibians. Examples include the Sinophis snakes, the purple frog and Sri Lankan lizard genus Nessia which appears similar to the Madagascan genus Acontias. Numerous floral links to the Madagascan region also exist. An alternate hypothesis that these taxa may have originally evolved out-of-India has also been suggested.

Bio geographical quirks exist with some taxa of Malayan origin occurring in Sri Lanka but absent in the Western Ghats. These include insects groups such as the plants such as those of the genus Nepenthes.

The Eastern Himalayas
The Eastern Himalayas is the region encompassing Bhutan, northeastern India, West Bengal, and
southern, central and eastern Nepal. The region is geologically young and shows high altitudinal variation. It has nearly 163 globally threatened species including the one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), the Wild Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis (Arnee)) and in all 45 mammals, 50 birds, 17 reptiles, 12 amphibians, 3 invertebrate and 36 plant species. The Dooars forest in the Terai is a biologically diverse area, with Himalayan biodiversity as well as tropical biodiversity. The relict dragonfly (Epiophlebia laidlawi) is an endangered species found here with the only other species in the genus being found in Japan. The region is also home to the Himalayan newt (Tylototriton verrucosus), the only salamander species found within Indian limits.

Extinct and fossil forms
During the early Tertiary period, the Indian tableland, what is today peninsular India, was a large island. Prior to becoming an island, it was connected to the African region. During the tertiary period, this island was separated from the Asian mainland by a shallow sea. The Himalayan region and the greater part of Tibet lay under this sea. The movement of the Indian subcontinent into the Asian landmass created the great Himalayan ranges and raised the sea bed into, what is today, the plains of northern India.

Once connected to the Asian mainland, many species moved into India. The Himalayas were created in several upheavals. The Siwaliks were formed at the last and the largest number of fossils of the Tertiary period are found in these ranges.

The Siwalik fossils include mastodons, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, sivatherium, a large four-horned ruminant, giraffe, horses, camels, bison, deer, antelope, gorillas, pigs, chimpanzees, orangutans, baboons, langurs, macaques, cheetahs, sabre-toothed cats, lions, tigers, sloth bear, Aurochs, leopards, wolves, dholes, porcupines, rabbits and a host of other mammals.

Many fossil tree species have been found in the intertrappean beds, including Grewioxylon from the Eocene and Heritieroxylon keralensis from the middle Miocene in Kerala and Heritieroxylon arunachalensis from the Mio-Pliocene of Arunachal Pradesh and at many other places. The discovery of Glossopteris fern fossils from India and Antarctica led to the discovery of Gondwanaland and led to the greater understanding of continental drift. Fossil Cycads are known from India while seven Cycad species continue to survive in India.

Titanosaurus indicus was perhaps the first dinosaur discovered in India by Richard Lydekker in 1877 in the Narmada valley. This area has been one of the most important areas for paleontology in India. Another dinosaur known from India is Rajasaurus narmadensis, a heavy-bodied and stout carnivorous abelisaurid (theropod) dinosaur that inhabited the area near present-day Narmada river. It was 9 m in length and 3 m in height and somewhat horizontal in posture with a double-crested crown on the skull.

Some fossil snakes from the Cenozoic era are also known.

Some scientists have suggested that the Deccan lava flows and the gases produced were responsible for the global extinction of dinosaurs. However, these have been disputed.

Himalayacetus subathuensis, the oldest-known whale fossil of the family Protocetidae (Eocene), about 53.5 million years old was found in the Simla hills in the foothills of the Himalayas. This area was underwater (in the Tethys sea) during the Tertiary period (when India was an island off Asia). This whale may have been capable of living partly on land.  Other fossil whales from India include Remingtonocetus approximately 43-46 million years old.

Several small mammal fossils have been recorded in the intertrappean beds, however larger mammals are mostly unknown. The only major primate fossils have been from the nearby region of Myanmar.

 See also Geology of India

Recent extinctions
The exploitation of land and forest resources by humans along with hunting and trapping for food and sport has led to the extinction of many species in India in recent times.

Probably the first species to vanish during the time of the Indus Valley civilisation was the species of wild cattle, Bos primegenius nomadicus or the wild zebu, which vanished from its range in the Indus valley and western India, possibly due to inter-breeding with domestic cattle and resultant fragmentation of wild populations due to loss of habitat.

Notable mammals which became or are presumed extinct within the country itself include the Indian / Asiatic cheetah, Javan rhinoceros and Sumatran rhinoceros. While some of these large mammal species are confirmed extinct, there have been many smaller animal and plant species whose status is harder to determine. Many species have not been seen since their description.
Hubbardia heptaneuron, a species of grass that grew in the spray zone of the Jog Falls prior to the construction of the Linganamakki reservoir, was thought to be extinct but a few were rediscovered near Kolhapur.

Some species of birds have gone extinct in recent times, including the pink-headed duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea) and the Himalayan quail (Ophrysia superciliosa). A species of warbler, Acrocephalus orinus, known earlier from a single specimen collected by Allan Octavian Hume from near Rampur in Himachal Pradesh was rediscovered after 139 years in Thailand. Similarly, the Jerdon's courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus), named after the zoologist Thomas C. Jerdon who discovered it in 1848, was rediscovered in 1986 by Bharat Bhushan, an ornithologist at the Bombay Natural History Society after being thought to be extinct.

Species estimates

An estimate of the numbers of species by group in India is given below. This is based on Alfred, 1998.

Taxonomic lists and indices

This section provides links to lists of species of various taxa found in India.

Animals

Invertebrates

 Molluscs
 List of non-marine molluscs of India
 Arachnids
Spiders of India
 Insects
 Odonata
 Dragonflies and damselflies of India
 Lepidoptera
 Butterflies of India
 Papilionid butterflies of India
 Pierid butterflies of India
 Nymphalid butterflies of India
 Lycaenid butterflies of India
 Hesperid butterflies of India
 Riodinid butterflies of India
 Moths of India
 Hymenoptera
 Ants of India

Vertebrates
Fishes of India
Amphibians of India
Reptiles of India
Snakes of India
Birds of South Asia
Birds in India
Mammals of India

See also

 Ecoregions in India
 Endangered Mammals of India
 Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma
 Flora of India
 List of Indian state birds
 Wildlife of India
 Other related
 Indian natural history
 Endemic birds of South Asia
 Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education
 India Nature Watch

References

Further reading
 SPECIES CHECKLIST: Species Diversity in India; ENVIS Centre: Wildlife & Protected Areas (Secondary Database); Wildlife Institute of India (WII)
 Biodiversity of India: List of all mammals of India and their taxonomic status based on data from the IBIN Portal, Encyclopedia of Life and Catalogue of Life 2010 checklist.
 ENVIS Centre: Wildlife & Protected Areas (Secondary Database); Wildlife Institute of India (WII)
 ENVIS Centre on Conservation of Ecological Heritage and Sacred Sights of India ; ENVIS; C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre is a Centre of Excellence of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

External links

 Tata Energy Research Institute
 Alliance for Zero extinction
 The official Indian Environment information site
 Biodiversity of India, a community-driven, Mediawiki based initiative to document the biodiversity of India.

Fauna of India


A buccal mask is a mask covering the buccal area and mouth. Often the mask will also cover the nose, in which case it may also be referred to as a naso-buccal mask.

Buccal masks were a common feature in some ancient Mesoamerican cultures and are portrayed on Aztec, Zapotec, and Epi-Olmec culture artwork.

Functional masks

Buccal mask