Sir Julian Sorell Huxley  (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was a British evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. He was secretary of the Zoological Society of London (1935–1942), the first Director of UNESCO, a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund, the president of the British Eugenics Society (1959-1962), and the first President of the British Humanist Association.

Huxley was well known for his presentation of science in books and articles, and on radio and television. He directed an Oscar-winning wildlife film. He was awarded UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science in 1953, the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 1956, and the Darwin–Wallace Medal of the Linnaean Society in 1958. He was also knighted in the 1958 New Year Honours, a hundred years after Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace announced the theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1956 he received a Special Award from the Lasker Foundation in the category Planned Parenthood – World Population.

Life

Personal life
Huxley came from the Huxley family on his father's side and the Arnold family on his mother's. His great-grandfather was Thomas Arnold of Rugby School, his great-uncle Matthew Arnold, and his aunt, Mrs Humphry Ward. His grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley was raised Anglican but eventually became an advocate of Agnosticism, a word he coined. Thomas was also a friend and supporter of Charles Darwin and proponent of evolution.

Huxley's father was a writer and an editor Leonard Huxley and his mother was Julia Arnold, a graduate of Somerville College,  Oxford, who had gained a First in English Literature there in 1882. Julia and Leonard married in 1885 and they had four children: Margaret (1899–1981), the novelist Aldous, Trevenen and Julian.

Huxley was born on 22 June 1887, at the London house of his aunt. His mother died in 1908, when he was 21. In 1912, his father married Rosalind Bruce, who was the same age as Julian, and he later acquired half-brothers Andrew Huxley and David Huxley.

In 1911, Huxley became informally engaged to  Kathleen Fordham, whom he had met some years earlier when she was a pupil at Prior's Field, the school his mother had run. During 1913 the relationship broke down  and Huxley had a nervous breakdown which a biographer described as caused by 'conflict between desire and guilt'.

In the first months of 1914 Huxley had severe depression and lived for some weeks at The Hermitage, a small private nursing home. In August 1914 while Huxley was in Scotland, his brother Trevenen also had a nervous breakdown and stayed in the same nursing home. Trevenen was worried about how he had treated one of his women friends and committed suicide whilst there.

In 1919, Huxley married Juliette Baillot (1896–1994) a French Swiss woman whom he had met while she was employed as a governess at Garsington Manor, the country house of Lady Ottoline Morrell. Huxley was later unfaithful to Baillot and told her that he wanted an open marriage. One of his affairs was with the poet May Sarton who in turn fell in love with Baillot and had a brief affair with her as well.

Huxley described himself in print as suffering from manic depression, and his wife's autobiography suggests that Julian Huxley suffered from  a bipolar disorder. He relied on his wife to provide moral and practical support throughout his life.

Sir Julian and Lady Juliette Huxley had two sons: Anthony Huxley (1920–1992) and Francis Huxley (1923–2016), who both became scientists.

Early career

Huxley grew up at the family home in Shackleford, Surrey, England, where he showed an early interest in nature, as he was given lessons by his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley. When he heard his grandfather talking at dinner about the lack of parental care in fish, Julian piped up with "What about the stickleback, Gran'pater?". His grandfather also took him to visit Joseph Dalton Hooker at Kew. At the age of thirteen Huxley attended Eton College as a King's Scholar, and continued to develop scientific interests; his grandfather had influenced the school to build science laboratories much earlier. At Eton he developed an interest in ornithology, guided by science master W. D. "Piggy" Hill. "Piggy was a genius as a teacher ... I have always been grateful to him." In 1905 Huxley won a scholarship in Zoology to Balliol College, Oxford and took up the place in 1906 after spending the summer in Germany. He developed a particular interest in embryology and protozoa and developed a friendship with the ornithologist William Warde Fowler. In the autumn term of his final year, 1908, his mother died from cancer at  the age of 46. In his final year he won the Newdigate Prize for his poem "Holyrood". In 1909 he graduated with first class honours, and spent that July at the international gathering for the centenary of Darwin's birth, held at the University of Cambridge.

Huxley was awarded a scholarship to spend a year at the Naples Marine Biological Station, where he developed his interest in developmental biology by investigating sea squirts and sea urchins. In 1910 he was appointed as Demonstrator in the Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Oxford, and started on the systematic observation of the courtship habits of water birds, such as the common redshank (a wader) and grebes (which are divers). Bird watching in childhood had given Huxley his interest in ornithology, and he helped devise systems for the surveying and conservation of birds. His particular interest was bird behaviour, especially the courtship of water birds. His 1914 paper on the great crested grebe, later published as a book, was a landmark in avian ethology; his invention of vivid labels for the rituals (such as 'penguin dance', 'plesiosaurus race' etc.) made the ideas memorable and interesting to the general reader.

In 1912 Huxley was asked by Edgar Odell Lovett to set up the Department of Biology at the newly created Rice Institute (now Rice University) in Houston, Texas, which he accepted, planning to start the following year. Huxley made an exploratory trip to the United States in September 1912, visiting a number of leading universities as well as the Rice Institute. At T. H. Morgan's fly lab (Columbia University) he invited H. J. Muller to join him at Rice. Muller agreed to be his deputy, hurried to complete his PhD and moved to Houston for the beginning of the 1915–1916 academic year. At Rice, Muller taught biology and continued Drosophila lab work.

Before taking up the post of Assistant Professor at the Rice Institute, Huxley spent a year in Germany preparing for his demanding new job. Working in a laboratory just months before the outbreak of World War I, Huxley overheard fellow academics comment on a passing aircraft "it will not be long before those planes are flying over England".

One pleasure of Huxley's life in Texas was the sight of his first hummingbird, though his visit to Edward Avery McIlhenny's estate on Avery Island in Louisiana was more significant. The McIlhennys and their Avery cousins owned the entire island, and the McIlhenny branch used it to produce their famous Tabasco sauce. Birds were one of McIlhenny's passions, however, and around 1895 he had set up a private sanctuary on the Island, called Bird City. There Huxley found egrets, herons and bitterns. These water birds, like the grebes, exhibit mutual courtship, with the pairs displaying to each other, and with the secondary sexual characteristics equally developed in both sexes.

In September 1916 Huxley returned to England from Texas to assist in the war effort. He was commissioned a temporary second lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps on 25 May 1917, and was transferred to the General List, working in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 26 January 1918, first in Sussex, and then in northern Italy. He was advanced in grade within the Intelligence Corps on 3 May 1918, relinquished his intelligence appointment on 10 January 1919 and was demobilised five days later, retaining his rank. After the war he became a Fellow at New College, Oxford, and was made Senior Demonstrator in the University Department of Zoology. In fact, Huxley took the place of his old tutor Geoffrey Smith, who had been killed in the battle of the Somme on the Western Front. The ecological geneticist E. B. Ford always remembered his openness and encouragement at the start of his career.

In 1925 Huxley moved to King's College London as Professor of Zoology, but in 1927, to the amazement of his colleagues and on the prodding of H. G. Wells whom he had promised 1,000 words a day, he resigned his chair to work full-time with Wells and his son G. P. Wells on The Science of Life (see below). For some time Huxley retained his room at King's College, continuing as Honorary Lecturer in the Zoology Department, and from 1927 to 1931 he was also Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, where he gave an annual lectures series, but this marked the end of his life as a university academic.

In 1929, after finishing work on The Science of Life, Huxley visited East Africa to advise the Colonial Office on education in British East Africa (for the most part Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika). He discovered that the wildlife on the Serengeti plain was almost undisturbed because the tsetse fly (the vector for the trypanosome parasite which causes sleeping sickness in humans) prevented human settlement there. He tells about these experiences in Africa view (1931), and so does his wife. She reveals that he fell in love with an 18-year-old American girl on board ship (when Juliette was not present), and then presented Juliette with his ideas for an open marriage: "What Julian really wanted was… a definite freedom from the conventional bonds of marriage." The couple separated for a while; Julian travelled to the US, hoping to land a suitable appointment and, in due course, to marry Miss Weldmeier. He left no account of what transpired, but he was evidently not successful, and returned to England to resume his marriage in 1931. For the next couple of years Huxley still angled for an appointment in the US, without success.

Mid career
As the 1930s started, Huxley travelled widely and took part in a variety of activities which were partly scientific and partly political. In 1931 Huxley visited the USSR at the invitation of Intourist, where initially he admired the results of social and economic planning on a large scale. Later, back in the United Kingdom, he became a founding member of the think tank Political and Economic Planning.

In the 1930s Huxley visited Kenya and other East African countries to see the conservation work, including the creation of national parks.

In 1933, he was one of eleven people involved in the appeal that led to the foundation of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), an organisation for the study of birds in the British Isles. From 1933 to 1938 he was a member of the committee for Lord Hailey's African Survey.

In 1935 Huxley was appointed secretary to the Zoological Society of London, and spent much of the next seven years running the society and its zoological gardens, the London Zoo and Whipsnade Park, alongside his writing and research. The previous Director, Peter Chalmers Mitchell, had been in post for many years, and had skillfully avoided conflict with the Fellows and Council. Things were rather different when Huxley arrived. Huxley was not a skilled administrator; his wife said "He was impatient… and lacked tact". He instituted a number of changes and innovations, more than some approved of. For example, Huxley introduced a whole range of ideas designed to make the Zoo child-friendly. Today, this would pass without comment; but then it was more controversial. He fenced off the Fellows' Lawn to establish Pets Corner; he appointed new assistant curators, encouraging them to talk to children; he initiated the Zoo Magazine. Fellows and their guests had the privilege of free entry on Sundays, a closed day to the general public. Today, that would be unthinkable, and Sundays are now open to the public. Huxley's mild suggestion (that the guests should pay) encroached on territory the Fellows thought was theirs by right.

In 1941 Huxley was invited to the United States on a lecturing tour, and generated some controversy by saying that he thought the United States should join World War II: a few weeks later came the attack on Pearl Harbor. When the US joined the war, he found it difficult to get a passage back to the UK, and his lecture tour was extended. The Council of the Zoological Society—"a curious assemblage… of wealthy amateurs, self-perpetuating and autocratic"—uneasy with their secretary, used this as an opportunity to remove him. This they did by abolishing his post "to save expenses". Since Huxley had taken a half-salary cut at the start of the war, and no salary at all whilst he was in America, the council's action was widely read as a personal attack on Huxley. A public controversy ensued, but eventually the Council got its way.

In 1943 he was asked by the British government to join the Colonial Commission on Higher Education. The commission's remit was to survey the West African Commonwealth countries for suitable locations for the creation of universities. There he acquired a disease, went down with hepatitis, and had a serious mental breakdown. He was completely disabled, treated with ECT, and took a full year to recover. He was 55.

In 1945, Huxley proposed to melt the polar ice caps by igniting atomic bombs to moderate the world climate in the northern hemisphere, and permit shipping across the top of the world.

Later career

Huxley, a lifelong internationalist with a concern for education, got involved in the creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and became the organization's first director-general in 1946. His term of office, six years in the Charter, was cut down to two years at the behest of the American delegation. The reasons are not known for sure, but his left-wing tendencies and humanism were likely factors. In a fortnight he dashed off a 60-page booklet on the purpose and philosophy of UNESCO, eventually printed and issued as an official document. There were, however, many conservative opponents of his scientific humanism. His idea of restraining population growth with birth control was anathema to both the Catholic Church and the Comintern/Cominform. In its first few years UNESCO was dynamic and broke new ground; since Huxley it has become larger, more bureaucratic and stable. The personal and social side of the years in Paris are well described by his wife.

Huxley's internationalist and conservation interests also led him, with Victor Stolan, Sir Peter Scott, Max Nicholson and Guy Mountfort, to set up the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature under its former name of the World Wildlife Fund).

Another post-war activity was Huxley's attack on the Soviet politico-scientist Trofim Lysenko, who had espoused a Lamarckian heredity, made unscientific pronouncements on agriculture, used his influence to destroy classical genetics in Russia and to move genuine scientists from their posts. In 1940, the leading botanical geneticist Nikolai Vavilov was arrested, and Lysenko replaced him as director of the Institute of Genetics. In 1941, Vavilov was tried, found guilty of 'sabotage' and sentenced to death. Reprieved, he died in jail of malnutrition in 1943. Lysenko's machinations were the cause of his arrest. Worse still, Lysenkoism not only denied proven genetic facts, it stopped the artificial selection of crops on Darwinian principles. This may have contributed to the regular shortage of food from the Soviet agricultural system (Soviet famines). Huxley, who had twice visited the Soviet Union, was originally not anti-communist, but the ruthless adoption of Lysenkoism by Joseph Stalin ended his tolerant attitude. Lysenko ended his days in a Soviet mental hospital, and Vavilov's reputation was posthumously restored in 1955.

In the 1950s Huxley played a role in bringing to the English-speaking public the work of the French Jesuit-palaeontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who he believed had been unfairly treated by the Catholic and Jesuit hierarchy. Both men believed in evolution, but differed in its interpretation as Teilhard de Chardin was a Christian, whilst Huxley was an atheist. Huxley wrote the foreword to The Phenomenon of Man (1959) and was bitterly attacked by his rationalist friends for doing so.

On Huxley's death at 87 on 14 February 1975, John Owen (Director of National Parks for Tanganyika) wrote "Julian Huxley was one of the world's great men… he played a seminal role in wild life conservation in [East] Africa in the early days… [and in] the far-reaching influence he exerted [on] the international community".

In addition to his international and humanist concerns, his research interests covered evolution in all its aspects, ethology, embryology, genetics, anthropology and to some extent the infant field of cell biology. Julian's eminence as an advocate for evolution, and especially his contribution to the modern evolutionary synthesis, led to his awards of the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 1956, and the Darwin–Wallace Medal of the Linnaean Society in 1958. 1958 was the centenary anniversary of the joint presentation On the tendency of species to form varieties; and the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection by Darwin and Wallace.

Huxley was a friend and mentor of the biologists and Nobel laureates Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen, and taught and encouraged many others. In general, he was more of an all-round naturalist than his famous grandfather, and contributed much to the acceptance of natural selection. His outlook was international, and somewhat idealistic: his interest in progress and evolutionary humanism runs through much of his published work. He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.

Special themes

Evolution
Huxley and biologist August Weismann insisted on natural selection as the primary agent in evolution. Huxley was a major player in the mid-twentieth century modern evolutionary synthesis. He was a prominent populariser of biological science to the public, with a focus on three aspects in particular.

Personal influence
In the early 20th century he was one of the minority of biologists who believed that natural selection was the main driving force of evolution, and that evolution occurred by small steps and not by saltation (jumps). These opinions are now standard.Though his time as an academic was quite brief, he taught and encouraged evolutionary biologists at the University of Oxford in the 1920s. Charles Elton (ecology), Alister Hardy (marine biology) and John Baker (cytology) all became highly successful, and Baker eventually wrote Huxley's Royal Society obituary memoir. Perhaps the most significant was Edmund Brisco Ford, who founded a field of research called ecological genetics, which played a role in the evolutionary synthesis. Another important disciple was Gavin de Beer, who wrote on evolution and development, and became Director of the Natural History Museum. Both these scholars had attended Huxley's lectures on genetics, experimental zoology (including embryology) and ethology. Later, they became his collaborators, and then leaders in their own right.

In an era when scientists did not travel so frequently as today, Huxley travelled widely in Europe, Africa and the United States. He was therefore able to learn from and influence other scientists, naturalists and administrators. In the US he was able to meet other evolutionists at a critical time in the reassessment of natural selection. In Africa he was able to influence colonial administrators about education and wildlife conservation. In Europe, through UNESCO, he was at the centre of the post-World War II revival of education. In Russia, however, his experiences were mixed. His initially favourable view was changed by his growing awareness of Stalin's murderous repression, and the Lysenko affair. There seems little evidence that he had any effect on the Soviet Union, and the same could be said for some other Western scientists. "Marxist-Leninism had become a dogmatic religion… and like all dogmatic religions, it had turned from reform to persecution."

Evolutionary synthesis
Huxley was one of the main architects of the modern evolutionary synthesis which took place around the time of World War II. The synthesis of genetic and population ideas produced a consensus which reigned in biology from about 1940, and which is still broadly tenable. "The most informative episode in the history of evolutionary biology was the establishment of the 'neo-Darwinian synthesis'." The synthesis was brought about "not by one side being proved right and the others wrong, but by the exchange of the most viable components of the previously competing research strategies". Ernst Mayr, 1980.

Huxley's first 'trial run' was the treatment of evolution in the Science of Life (1929–30), and in 1936 he published a long and significant paper for the British Association. In 1938 came three lengthy reviews on major evolutionary topics. Two of these papers were on the subject of sexual selection, an idea of Darwin's whose standing has been revived in recent times. Huxley thought that sexual selection was "…merely an aspect of natural selection which… is concerned with characters which subserve mating, and are usually sex-limited". This rather grudging acceptance of sexual selection was influenced by his studies on the courtship of the great crested grebe (and other birds that pair for life): the courtship takes place mostly after mate selection, not before.
Huxley tackled the subject of evolution at full length, in what became the defining work of his life. His role was that of a synthesiser, and it helped that he had met many of the other participants. His book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis was written whilst he was secretary to the Zoological Society, and made use of his collection of reprints covering the first part of the century. It was published in 1942. Reviews of the book in learned journals were little short of ecstatic; the American Naturalist called it "The outstanding evolutionary treatise of the decade, perhaps of the century. The approach is thoroughly scientific; the command of basic information amazing".

Huxley's main co-respondents in the modern evolutionary synthesis are usually listed as Ernst Mayr, Theodosius Dobzhansky, George Gaylord Simpson, Bernhard Rensch, Ledyard Stebbins and the population geneticists J. B. S. Haldane, Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright. However, at the time of Huxley's book several of these had yet to make their distinctive contribution. Certainly, for Huxley, E. B. Ford and his co-workers in ecological genetics were at least as important; and Cyril Darlington, the chromosome expert, was a notable source of facts and ideas.An analysis of the 'authorities cited' index of Evolution the modern synthesis shows indirectly those whom Huxley regarded as the most important contributors to the synthesis up to 1941 (the book was published in 1942, and references go up to 1941). The authorities cited 20 or more times are: Darlington, Darwin, Dobzhansky, Fisher, Ford, Goldschmidt, Haldane, J. S. Huxley, Muller, Rensch, Turrill, Wright.

Goldschmidt was an influential geneticist who advocated evolution by saltation, and was sometimes mentioned in disagreement. Turrill provided Huxley with botanical information. The list omits three key members of the synthesis who are listed above: Mayr, Stebbins the botanist and Simpson the palaeontologist. Mayr gets 16 citations and more in the two later editions; all three published outstanding and relevant books some years later, and their contribution to the synthesis is unquestionable. Their lesser weight in Huxley's citations was caused by the early publication date of his book. Huxley's book is not strong in palaeontology, which illustrates perfectly why Simpson's later works were such an important contribution.

Huxley coined the terms the new synthesis and evolutionary synthesis; he also invented the term cline in 1938 to refer to species whose members fall into a series of sub-species with continuous change in characters over a geographical area. The classic example of a cline is the circle of subspecies of the gull Larus round the Arctic zone. This cline is an example of a ring species.Some of Huxley's last contributions to the evolutionary synthesis were on the subject of ecological genetics. He noted how widespread polymorphism is in nature, with visible morphism much more prevalent in some groups than others. The immense diversity of colour and pattern in small bivalve molluscs, brittlestars, sea-anemones, tubicular polychaetes and various grasshoppers is perhaps maintained by making recognition by predators more difficult.

Evolutionary progress
Although Huxley believed that on a broad view evolution led to advances in organisation, he rejected  classical Aristotelian teleology: "The ordinary man, or at least the ordinary poet, philosopher and theologian, always was anxious to find purpose in the evolutionary process. I believe this reasoning to be totally false.". Huxley coined the phrase Progress without a goal to summarise his case in Evolution the modern synthesis  that  evolutionary progress was "a raising of the upper level of biological efficiency, this being defined as increased control over and independence of the environment." In Evolution in action he wrote thatNatural selection plus time produces biological improvement… 'Improvement' is not yet a recognised technical term in biology … however, living things are improved during evolution… Darwin was not afraid to use the word for the results of natural selection in general… I believe that improvement can become one of the key concepts in evolutionary biology.Can it be scientifically defined? Improvements in biological machinery… the limbs and teeth of grazing horses… the increase in brain-power… The eyes of a dragon-fly, which can see all round [it] in every direction, are an improvement over the mere microscopic eye-spots of early forms of life. [Over] the whole range of evolutionary time we see general advance—improvement in all the main properties of life, including its general organization. 'Advance' is thus a useful term for long-term improvement in some general property of life. [But] improvement is not universal. Lower forms manage to survive alongside higher".Huxley's views on progressive evolution were similar to those of G. Ledyard Stebbins and Bernhard Rensch, and were challenged in the latter part of the twentieth century with objections from Cladists, among others,  to any suggestion that one group could be scientifically described as 'advanced' and another as 'primitive'. Modern assessments of these views have been surveyed in Nitecki and Dawkins.

Secular humanism
Huxley's humanism came from his appreciation that mankind was in charge of its own destiny (at least in principle), and this raised the need for a sense of direction and a system of ethics. His grandfather T. H. Huxley, when faced with similar problems, had promoted agnosticism, but Julian chose humanism as being more directed to supplying a basis for ethics. Julian's thinking went along these lines: "The critical point in the evolution of man… was when he acquired the use of [language]… Man's development is potentially open… He has developed a new method of evolution: the transmission of organized experience by way of tradition, which… largely overrides the automatic process of natural selection as the agent of change." Both Huxley and his grandfather gave Romanes Lectures on the possible connection between evolution and ethics (see evolutionary ethics). Huxley's views on God could be described as being that of an agnostic atheist.

Huxley had a close association with the British rationalist and secular humanist movements. He was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association from 1927 until his death, and on the formation of the British Humanist Association in 1963 became its first President, to be succeeded by AJ Ayer in 1965. He was also closely involved with the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Many of Huxley's books address humanist themes. In 1962 Huxley accepted the American Humanist Association's annual "Humanist of the Year" award.

Huxley also presided over the founding Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and served with John Dewey, Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann on the founding advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York.

Religious naturalism
Huxley wrote that "There is no separate supernatural realm: all phenomena are part of one natural process of evolution. There is no basic cleavage between science and religion;… I believe that [a] drastic reorganization of our pattern of religious thought is now becoming necessary, from a god-centered to an evolutionary-centred pattern." Some believe the appropriate label for these views is religious naturalism.
Many people assert that this abandonment of the god hypothesis means the abandonment of all religion and all moral sanctions. This is simply not true. But it does mean, once our relief at jettisoning an outdated piece of ideological furniture is over, that we must construct something to take its place.

Parapsychology

Huxley took interest in investigating the claims of parapsychology and spiritualism. He joined the Society for Psychical Research in 1928. After investigation he found the field to be unscientific and full of charlatans. In 1934, he joined the International Institute for Psychical Research but resigned after a few months due to its members' spiritualist bias and non-scientific approach to the subject.

After attending séances, Huxley concluded that the phenomena could be explained "either by natural causes, or, more usually by fraud". Huxley, Harold Dearden and others were judges for a group formed by the Sunday Chronicle to investigate the materialization medium Harold Evans. During a séance Evans was exposed as a fraud. He was caught masquerading as a spirit, in a white nightshirt.

In 1952, Huxley wrote the foreword to Donovan Rawcliffe's The Psychology of the Occult.

Eugenics and race
Huxley was a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society, and was Vice-President (1937–1944) and President (1959–1962). He thought eugenics was important for removing undesirable variants from the human gene pool, though after World War II he believed race was a meaningless concept in biology, and its application to humans was highly inconsistent.

Huxley was an outspoken critic of the most extreme eugenicism in the 1920s and 1930s (the stimulus for which was the greater fertility of the 'feckless' poor compared to the 'responsible' prosperous classes). He was, nevertheless, a leading figure in the eugenics movement (see, for example, Eugenics manifesto). He gave the Galton memorial lecture twice, in 1936 and 1962. In his writing he used this argument several times: "no one doubts the wisdom of managing the germ plasm of agricultural stocks, so why not apply the same concept to human stocks?" The agricultural analogy appears over and over again as it did in the writings of many American eugenicists.

Huxley was one of many intellectuals at the time who believed that the lowest class in society was genetically inferior. In this passage, from 1941, he investigates a hypothetical scenario where Social Darwinism, capitalism, nationalism and the class society is taken for granted:

If so, then we must plan our eugenic policy along some such lines as the following:... The lowest strata, allegedly less well-endowed genetically, are reproducing relatively too fast. Therefore birth-control methods must be taught them; they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilization, or at least relief should be contingent upon no further children being brought into the world; and so on. That is to say, much of our eugenic programme will be curative and remedial merely, instead of preventive and constructive.

The sentiment is not at all atypical of the time, and similar views were held by many geneticists (William E. Castle, C. B. Davenport, H. J. Muller are examples), and by other prominent intellectuals.

Huxley advocated ensuring the lower classes have a nutritious diet, education and facilities for recreation:

We must therefore concentrate on producing a single equalized environment; and this clearly should be one as favourable as possible to the expression of the genetic qualities that we think desirable. Equally clearly, this should include the following items. A marked raising of the standard of diet for the great majority of the population, until all should be provided both with adequate calories and adequate accessory factors; provision of facilities for healthy exercise and recreation; and upward equalization of educational opportunity. ... we know from various sources that raising the standard of life among the poorest classes almost invariably results in a lowering of their fertility. In so far, therefore, as differential class-fertility exists, raising the environmental level will reduce any dysgenic effects which it may now have.

Concerning a public health and racial policy in general, Huxley wrote that "…unless [civilised societies] invent and enforce adequate measures for regulating human reproduction, for controlling the quantity of population, and at least preventing the deterioration of quality of racial stock, they are doomed to decay …" and remarked how biology should be the chief tool for rendering social politics scientific.

In the opinion of Duvall, "His views fell well within the spectrum of opinion acceptable to the English liberal intellectual elite. He shared Natures enthusiasm for birth control, and 'voluntary' sterilization." However, the word 'English' in this passage is unnecessary: such views were widespread. Duvall comments that Huxley's enthusiasm for centralised social and economic planning and anti-industrial values was common to leftist ideologists during the inter-war years. Towards the end of his life, Huxley himself must have recognised how unpopular these views became after the end of World War II. In the two volumes of his autobiography, there is no mention of eugenics in the index, nor is Galton mentioned; and the subject has also been omitted from many of the obituaries and biographies. An exception is the proceedings of a conference organised by the British Eugenics Society.

In response to the rise of European fascism in the 1930s, he was asked to write We Europeans with the ethnologist A. C. Haddon, the zoologist Alexander Carr-Saunders and the historian of science Charles Singer. Huxley suggested the word 'race' be replaced with ethnic group. After the Second World War, he was instrumental in producing the UNESCO statement The Race Question, which asserted that:

A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens"… "National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cult groups do not necessary coincide with racial groups: the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connexion with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term 'race' is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term 'race' altogether and speak of ethnic groups"… "Now what has the scientist to say about the groups of mankind which may be recognized at the present time? Human races can be and have been differently classified by different anthropologists, but at the present time most anthropologists agree on classifying the greater part of present-day mankind into three major divisions, as follows: The Mongoloid Division; The Negroid Division; The Caucasoid Division." … "Catholics, Protestants, Moslems and Jews are not races … The biological fact of race and the myth of 'race' should be distinguished. For all practical social purposes 'race' is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth. The myth 'race' has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years it has taken a heavy toll in human lives and caused untold suffering. It still prevents the normal development of millions of human beings and deprives civilization of the effective co-operation of productive minds. The biological differences between ethnic groups should be disregarded from the standpoint of social acceptance and social action. The unity of mankind from both the biological and social viewpoint is the main thing. To recognize this and to act accordingly is the first requirement of modern man ...

Huxley won the second Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for We Europeans in 1937.

In 1951, Huxley popularized the term transhumanism for the view that humans should better themselves through science and technology, possibly including eugenics, but also, importantly, the improvement of the social environment.

Public life and popularisation
Huxley was a capable and willing popularizer of science. Well over half his books are addressed to an educated general audience, and he wrote often in periodicals and newspapers. The most extensive bibliography of Huxley lists some of these ephemeral articles, though there are others unrecorded.

These articles, some reissued as Essays of a Biologist (1923), probably led to the invitation from H. G. Wells to help write a comprehensive work on biology for a general readership, The Science of Life. This work was published in stages in 1929–30, and in one volume in 1931. Of this Robert Olby said "Book IV The essence of the controversies about evolution offers perhaps the clearest, most readable, succinct and informative popular account of the subject ever penned. It was here that he first expounded his own version of what later developed into the evolutionary synthesis". In his memoirs, Huxley says that he made almost £10,000 from the book.

In 1934 Huxley collaborated with the naturalist Ronald Lockley to create for Alexander Korda the world's first natural history documentary The Private Life of the Gannets. For the film, shot with the support of the Royal Navy around Grassholm off the Pembrokeshire coast, they won an Oscar for best documentary.

Huxley had given talks on the radio since the 1920s, followed by written versions in The Listener. In later life, he became known to an even wider audience through television. In 1939 the BBC asked him to be a regular panelist on a Home Service general knowledge show, The Brains Trust, in which he and other panelists were asked to discuss questions submitted by listeners. The show was commissioned to keep up war time morale, by preventing the war from "disrupting the normal discussion of interesting ideas". The audience was not large for this somewhat elite programme; however, listener research ranked Huxley the most popular member of the Brains Trust from 1941 to 1944.

Later, he was a regular panelist on one of the BBC's first quiz shows (1955) Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? in which participants were asked to talk about objects chosen from museum and university collections.

In 1937 Huxley was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on Rare Animals and the Disappearance of Wild Life.

In his essay The Crowded World Huxley was openly critical of Communist and Catholic attitudes to birth control, population control and overpopulation. Based on variable rates of compound interest, Huxley predicted a probable world population of 6 billion by 2000. The United Nations Population Fund marked 12 October 1999 as The Day of Six Billion.

There is a public house named after Sir Julian in Selsdon, London Borough of Croydon, close to the Selsdon Wood Nature Reserve which he helped establish.

Terms coined

 Clade (1957): a monophyletic taxon; a single species and its descendants
 Cline (1938): a gradient of gene frequencies in a population, along a given transect
 Ethnic group (1936): as opposed to race
 Evolutionary grade (1959): a level of evolutionary advance, in contrast to a clade
 Mentifact (1955): objects which consist of ideas in people's minds
 Morph (1942): as more correct and simpler than polymorph
 Ritualization (1914): formalised activities in bird behaviour, caused by inherited behaviour chains
 Sociofact (1955): objects which consist of interactions between members of a social group
 Transhumanism (1957): the transforming of human beings

Titles and phrases

 Religion Without Revelation (1927, 1957)
 The New Systematics (1940)
 The Uniqueness of Man (1941)
 Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (1942)
 Evolutionary Ethics (1943)
 Evolution as a Process (1954)
 Essays of a Humanist (1964)
 The Future of Man (1966)

Selected works

Articles
 "Transhumanism." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 8, no. 1 (January 1968): 73-76. .
"Huxley gives the outline of what he believes future humanity could – and should – look like. By pointing out the numerous limitations and feebleness the human nature is – at the time – prone to, and by confronting them with the possibilities humankind has, Huxley expresses the need to research and put into use all possible measures that would enable man achieve utmost perfection."

Books
 The Individual in the Animal Kingdom. Cambridge University Press (1912)
 Courtship Habits of the Great Crested Grebe (1914) "A landmark in ethology."
 Essays of a Biologist (1923)
 Essays in Popular Science (1926)
 The Stream of Life (1926)
 The Tissue-Culture King (1926) [short story]
 Animal Biology, with J. B. S. Haldane (1927)
 Religion Without Revelation (1927) [Revised ed. 1957]
 Ants (1929)
 Science of Life: A Summary of Contemporary Knowledge About Life and its Possibilities, with H. G. & G. P. Wells (1929–30)
 First issued in 31 fortnightly parts published by Amalgamated Press, 1929–31, bound up in three volumes as publication proceeded. First issued in one volume by Cassell in 1931, reprinted 1934, 1937, popular edition, fully revised, 1938. Published as separate volumes by Cassell 1934–37: I The Living Body. II Patterns of life (1934). III Evolution—fact and theory. IV Reproduction, heredity and the development of sex. V The history and adventure of life. VI The drama of life. VII How animals behave (1937). VIII Man's mind and behaviour. IX Biology and the human race. Published in New York by Doubleday, Doran & Co. 1931, 1934, 1939; and by The Literary Guild 1934. Three of the Cassell spin-off books were also published by Doubleday in 1932: Evolution, fact and theory; The human mind and the behavior of Man; Reproduction, genetics and the development of sex.
 Bird-watching and Bird Behaviour (1930)
 An Introduction to Science with Edward Andrade (1931–34)
 What Dare I Think?: The Challenge of Modern Science to Human Action and Belief. London: Chatto & Windus; New York: Harper (1931)
 Africa View (1931)
 Captive Shrew and Other Poems (1932)
 Problems of Relative Growth (1932) (on allometry)
 A Scientist Among the Soviets (1932)
 If I Were Dictator. London: Methuen; New York: Harper (1934)
 Scientific Research and Social Needs (1934)
 Elements of Experimental Embryology, with Gavin de Beer (1934)
 Thomas Huxley's Diary of the Voyage of HMS Rattlesnake (1935)
 We Europeans, with A.C. Haddon (1936)
 Animal Language (1938) [Reprinted 1964] Photographs and audio recordings of animal calls by Ylla.
 Present Standing of the Theory of Sexual Selection. In: Gavin de Beer (ed). Evolution: Essays on Aspects of Evolutionary Biology. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1938): 11-42.
 Living Thoughts of Darwin (1939)
 New Systematics. Oxford (1940)
"...this multi-author volume, edited by Huxley, is one of the foundation stones of the 'Modern synthesis', with essays on taxonomy, evolution, natural selection, Mendelian genetics and population genetics."
 Democracy Marches. London: Chatto & Windus with Hogarth Press; New York: Harper (1941). Foreword by Lord Horder. .
 The Uniqueness of Man. London: Chatto & Windus (1941) (Reprinted 1943)
 Published in U.S. as Man Stands Alone. New York: Harper (1941)
 On Living in a Revolution. New York: Harper (1944)
 Evolution: The Modern Synthesis. London: Allen & Unwin (1942); New York: Harper (1943)
 "Summarizes research on all topics relevant to the modern synthesis of evolution and Mendelian genetics up to the Second World War."
 Reprinted (1943), (1944), (1945), (1948), (1955).
 2nd ed. (1963) New introduction and bibliography by the author.
 3rd ed. (1974) New introduction and bibliography by nine contributors.
 New ed. (2010) Cambridge: MIT Press. Foreword by Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B. Müller.
 Evolutionary Ethics (1943)
 TVA: Adventure in Planning (1944)
 Evolution and Ethics, 1893–1943. London: Pilot.
 Published in U.S. as Touchstone for Ethics New York: Harper (1947) with text from T. H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley.
 Man in the Modern World (1947) Essays selected from The Uniqueness of Man (1941) and On Living in a Revolution (1944)
 Soviet Genetics and World Science: Lysenko and the Meaning of Heredity. London: Chatto & Windus
 Published in U.S. as Heredity, East and West. New York: Schuman (1949).
 Evolution in Action (1953)
 Evolution as a Process with Hardy A. C. and Ford E. B. (editors). London: Allen & Unwin (1954)
 From an Antique Land: Ancient and Modern in the Middle East (1954)
 Revised ed. (1966)
 Kingdom of the Beasts with W. Suschitzky (1956)
 Biological Aspects of Cancer (1957)
 New Bottles for New Wine. London: Chatto & Windus; New York: Harper (1957)
 Reprinted as Knowledge, Morality, Destiny. New York: New American Library (1960) .
 Reprinted as "Knowledge, Morality, Destiny, I." Psychiatry, vol. 14, no. 2 (1960): 129-140. . .
 The Treasure House of Wild Life 13 Nov, More meat from game than cattle 13 Nov, Cropping the wild protein 20 Nov, Wild life as a World Asset, second page 27 Nov; The Observer newspaper articles that led to the setting up of the World Wildlife Fund (1960)
 The Humanist Frame (editor) (1961)
 The Coming New Religion of Humanism (1962)
 Essays of a Humanist (1964) [reprinted 1966, 1969, 1992]. .
 The Human Crisis (1964)
 Darwin and his World with Bernard Kettlewell (1965)
 Aldous Huxley 1894–1963: A Memorial Volume. (editor) (1965)
 The Future of Man: evolutionary Aspects. (1966)
 The Wonderful World of Evolution (1969)
 Memories (autobiography).
 volume 1 (1970)
 volume 2 (1973)
 Mitchell Beazley Atlas of World Wildlife. London: Mitchell Beazley & Zoological Society of London (1973)
 Republished as The Atlas of World Wildlife. Cape Town: Purnell (1973)

Notes

References

Biographies
 Baker John R. 1978. Julian Huxley, scientist and world citizen, 1887–1975. UNESCO, Paris.
 Clark, Ronald W. 1960. Sir Julian Huxley. Phoenix, London.
 Clark, Ronald W. 1968. The Huxleys. Heinemann, London.
 Dronamraju, Krishna R. 1993. If I am to be remembered: the life & work of Julian Huxley, with selected correspondence. World Scientific, Singapore.
 Green, Jens-Peter 1981. Krise und Hoffnung, der Evolutionshumanismus Julian Huxleys. Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.
 Huxley, Julian. 1970, 1973. Memories and Memories II. George Allen & Unwin, London.
 Huxley, Juliette 1986. Leaves of the tulip tree. Murray, London [her autobiography includes much about Julian]
 Keynes, Milo and Harrison, G. Ainsworth (eds) 1989. Evolutionary studies: a centenary celebration of the life of Julian Huxley. Proceedings of the 24th annual symposium of the Eugenics Society, London 1987. Macmillan, London.
 Biography of Julian Huxley by Chloé Maurel in the Biographical Dictionary of SG IOs:
 Chloé Maurel, L'Unesco de 1945 à 1974, PhD history, université Paris 1, 2005: [archive] (on J. Huxley, p. 47–65)
 Olby, Robert 2004. Huxley, Sir Julian Sorell (1887–1975). In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (2680 words)
 Waters, C. Kenneth and Van Helden, Albert (eds) 1993. Julian Huxley: biologist and statesman of science. Rice University Press, Houston. [scholarly articles by historians of science on Huxley's work and ideas]

External links

 Short biography.
 A Guide to the Papers of Julian Sorell Huxley by Sarah C. Bates and Mary G. Winkler. Houston, Tex.: Woodson Research Center, Rice University. Rev. ed. (June 1987) [February 1984]. . "...with the assistance of Christina Riquelmy."
 Julian Huxley's philosophy. By John Toye and Richard Toye. In 60 Years of Science at UNESCO 1945–2005, UNESCO, 2006.
 One World, Two Cultures? Alfred Zimmern, Julian Huxley and the Ideological Origins of UNESCO. By John Toye and Richard Toye. History, 95, 319: 308–331, 2010
 "Guide to the Julian Sorell Huxley Papers, 1899–1980" (Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA)—"Julian Huxley papers documenting his career as a biologist and a leading intellectual. 180 boxes of materials ranging in date from 1899–1980." Extent: 91 linear feet.
 "Transhumanism" in New Bottles for New Wine. London: Chatto & Windus, 1957.
 Essays of a Biologist (1923) at Project Gutenberg
 "The New Divination"  in Essays of a Humanist. London: Chatto & Windus, 1964.
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Kweku Sarpong Plahar (born 26 October 1988), better known by his stage name Zigi, is a Ghanaian singer.

Biography
Zigi began his career in the entertainment industry as a break dancer before going on to model for Smirnoff, MTN, and Canoe Magazine.  He signed to Lynx Entertainment Record Label in 2009 and released his debut album 'Prince of Pop' in 2011.   The album featured hit singles U Sey Wey Tin and Amanda and earned him the nomination for 'Discovery of the Year' at the 2011 4syte Music Video Awards.

Zigi received three nominations at the 2012 Ghana Music Awards for 'Best New Artiste of the Year', 'Afro-Pop Song of the Year' and 'Most Popular Song of the Year'. He went on to win the award for 'Afro-Pop Song of the Year' at the ceremony on 14 April 2012.

References

External links
 Official Website
 Zigi at museke.com

1988 births
Living people
20th-century Ghanaian male singers

Zigi


Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc.) or fanbase is a name used for a group of people (called "fans") who are interested in something. A fandom can be about any interest or activity. Fandoms can be for example about hobbies, genres or fashions, book or movie series, or even individual celebrities.

Related pages
Fan fiction
Fictional universe

Fandom


Katmai National Park was started in 1918 in southern Alaska, United States. It protects the region surrounding Mount Katmai and the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, which is an area of lava flows and ash created by a huge volcano eruption. The volcano is still active today. The park has salmon and thousands of brown bears. The Katmai National Park includes a tundra, forests, lakes and mountains.

National parks in the United States
IUCN Category VI

Katmai National Park


Basil or Vasiľ Hopko (21 April 1904, Hrabské — 23 July 1976) was an eparch (bishop) of the Slovak Greek Catholic Church. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 14 September 2003 for his martyrdom under Communist occupation.

Life
Basil Hopko was born in the Rusyn village of Hrabské, in the Sáros County of the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day eastern Slovakia). His parents, Basil and Anna née  Petrenko, were landless peasants. While Hopko was still an infant, his father was struck by lightning and died. His mother left him in care of her father, while she emigrated to the United States in search of work. When Hopko was 7 he was sent to live with his uncle Demeter Petrenko, a Greek Catholic priest.

He attended the Evangelical gymnasium in Prešov, then Czechoslovakia, graduating with honors in 1923. Hopko studied at the Eparchial Seminary in Prešov. He had dreams of joining his mother in America, and of pursuing his priestly vocation there, but the cost of recurring health problems left him unable to afford to travel. He later wrote that when he finally decided to stay and to serve in his homeland, he was suddenly cured, and realized he had been given a sign about his calling. He was ordained a Greek Catholic priest on 3 February 1929.

He served as a pastor (1929–1936) at the Greek Catholic parish in Prague, the Czechoslovak capital, where he was known for his focus on the poor, the unemployed, and students. His mother returned from America after 22 years and rejoined her son in Prague, becoming his housekeeper at the parish rectory.

In 1936 he returned to teach in Prešov's Eparchial Seminary, and was awarded the title of monsignor. He had already begun graduate studies at Charles University while in Prague, and he completed his Doctor of Theology in 1940 at Comenius University in Bratislava. In Prešov he headed the eparchy's publishing division, where he edited a monthly periodical.

After World War II, a growing Soviet Communist influence caused Bishop Pavol Peter Gojdič of Prešov to ask the Holy See for an Auxiliary Bishop to help defend the Greek Catholic Church. Hopko was appointed to the post on 11 May 1947. The Communist take-over of Czechoslovakia wrought havoc on the Greek Catholic Church. In 1950 it was officially abolished by the state as a religious organization, and its assets were turned over to the Russian Orthodox Church. Bishop Gojdič was arrested and was imprisoned for life. Bishop Hopko was arrested on 28 April 1950 and kept on starvation rations and tortured for weeks. Eventually he was tried and sentenced to 15 years for the "subversive activity" of staying loyal to Rome. He was repeatedly transferred from prison to prison. His health, physical and emotional, failed, and in 1964 he was transferred to a home for the aged. He never recovered his health.

During the Prague Spring the Czechoslovak government legally cleared Hopko on 13 June 1968 and the Prešov Eparchy was restored. However, activists insisted that a Slovak bishop be appointed to the see, and the Holy See named the Slovak priest Ján Hirka as Bishop Hopko's successor.

Bishop Hopko died in Prešov at age 72 on 23 July 1976. On 14 September 2003 Pope John Paul II beatified him at a ceremony in Bratislava, Slovakia.

References

 Bishop Basil Hopko - The Carpathian Connection

1904 births
1976 deaths
People from Bardejov District
People from the Kingdom of Hungary
Rusyn people
Slovak Greek Catholic bishops
Slovak beatified people
20th-century Eastern Catholic martyrs
Eastern Catholic beatified people
Comenius University alumni
Czechoslovak prisoners and detainees
Slovak prisoners and detainees
Prisoners and detainees of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic rehabilitations
20th-century venerated Christians
20th-century Eastern Catholic bishops
Beatifications by Pope John Paul II

Basil Hopko


Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American writer. He is also an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  Since the 1970s, he has often been called the "laureate of Deep Ecology." Since the 1950s, he has published travel-journals and essays.

Other websites

Lannan Foundation, Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder 2001 (see Wendell Berry entry for link)
1991 audio interview with Gary Snyder by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio
Gary Snyder - Books, Selected Poems, Prose and Biography - in Russian
Blue Neon Alley - Selected Poems, Quotes and Directory
Shambala Sun article "The Wild Mind Of Gary Snyder" by Trevor Carolan
 Modern American Poetry Collection - Ball State University Archives and Special Collections Research Center - Other website

Writers from San Francisco
1930 births
Living people
American environmentalists
Pulitzer Prize winners
Industrial Workers of the World

Gary Snyder


Michel Massot (born 25 October 1960, in Halle) is a Belgian tuba and trombone jazz musician.  He studied at Conservatoire de Liège.  He founded Trio Bravo with saxophonist Fabrizio Cassol and drummer Michel Debrulle in the middle of the 1980s.  The band became Trio Grande in 1993 after the departure of Fabrizio Cassol, who was replaced by French saxophonist Laurent Dehors.  Beside this, he also played with various musicians such as Garrett List, Henri Pousseur, Michel Hatzigeorgiou, Kris Defoort, Evan Parker and Kenny Wheeler (in the Klaus König Orchestra).

He is now a teacher at Conservatoire de Liège (one of his courses is called Chamber Rock).  He also is part of the Rêve d'éléphant Orchestra septet. Next to those bands, Massot also plays in Määk's Spirit, a band that is led by Belgian trumpeter Laurent Blondiau.

References
Jazz in Belgium bio

1960 births
Belgian jazz trombonists
Belgian jazz tubists
Living people
21st-century tubists

Michel Massot


Bernard de Bury or Buri (20 August 1720 – 19 November 1785) was a French musician and court composer of the late Baroque era.

Biography
Bernard de Bury was born at Versailles, a member of a family of musicians, many of whom had appointments to the French court, and was taught music as a young boy.

He wrote his first – and only – harpsichord book in 1737, at the age of seventeen, and dedicated it to his teacher, François Colin de Blamont, uncle of his future wife.

In 1741, he bought the charge of Claveciniste de la Chambre from Marguerite-Antoinette Couperin, which she had inherited from her father François Couperin as a survivance.

In 1743, he began a successful career with his opéra-ballet Les Caractères de la Folie ("Characters of Madness") which was performed at the Académie Royale de Musique. His works continued to be staged during the festivities given in Versailles, Sceaux, and Fontainebleau for more than thirty-five years. He also wrote several cantatas and motets, notably De profundis.

De Bury received a royal pension beginning in 1779, and was ennobled by Louis XVI in 1785, a few months before his death, which occurred at Versailles.

Selected compositions

Harpsichord works
Premiere Livre de Pièces de Clavecin (First book of harpsichord pieces), 4 suites in A, C, G, and E (1736):
Première suite en la: La Minerve – Les Regrets – Les Grâces badines – La Tendre agitation – Le Plaidoyer de Cythère, 1er et 2e rondeaux.
Deuxième suite en do: La Belle Brune – La Prude – L'Enfantine – La Cythère.
Troisième suite en sol: Les Amusements, 1er et 2e rondeaux  – La *** ou les sentiments – 1er Menuet: Zéphire – 2e Menuet: Flore – La Pythonisse – Loure – La Séduisante, 1er et 2e rondeaux .
Quatrième suite en mi: La Brillante – La Dampierre – La Michelon – La Jeunesse – Chaconne.

Operas and works for stage
Les Caractères de la Folie, opéra-ballet, prologue & 3 acts (C. P. Duclos), f.p. Paris, Opéra, 20 August 1743.
with new entrée Hylas et Zélie, f.p. Paris, Opéra, 6 July 1762.
Jupiter, vainquer des Titan, tragédie lyrique, (collab. Collin de Blamont), f.p. Versailles, 11 December 1745.
La nymphe de Versailles, divertissement, (Mlle de Lussan), f.p. Versailles, 19 March 1746.
Les fêtes de Thétis, ballet-héroique, prologue & 2 acts, (P. C. Roy), f.p. Versailles, 14 January 1750.
Titon et l'Aurore, pastorale-héroique, prologue & 1 act, (Abbé de La Marre & A. H. de Lamotte), f.p. Versailles, Théâtre des Petits Appartements, 14 January 1750.
La parque vaincue, divertissement in 1 act, (A. Tavenot), f.p. Versailles, Hôtel de Richelieu, 1751 (lost).
Palmyre, ballet-héroïque, (S. N. R. Chamfort), f.p. Fontainebleau, 24 October 1765.
Zénis et Amnasie, ballet-héroïque in 1 act, (Chamfort & Duc de Vallière, collab. with J. B. de La Borde), f.p. Fontainbleau, 2 November 1765.
Prologue for revival of: Persée by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1747), (collab. with Antoine Dauvergne, François Francoeur, & François Rebel), revival f.p. Versailles, 17 May 1770.

Doubtful works
Divertissements attributed to de Bury, cited by Fétis:
Les Bergers de Sceaux
Les Nymphes de la Seine

Sources
 Sadie, Stanley (Ed.) [1992] (1994). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 1, A-D, chpt: "Bury [Bury], Bernard de" by Philip Weller, New York: MacMillan. .

External links

1720 births
1785 deaths
French Baroque composers
French male classical composers
French opera composers
Male opera composers
People from Versailles
18th-century classical composers
French harpsichordists
18th-century French composers
18th-century French male musicians
17th-century male musicians

Bernard de Bury


Edward Cross (baptised 3 February 1774 – 26 September 1854) was an English zoo proprietor and dealer in animals.

Cross was born in London and baptised at St Andrew's, Holborn, presumably within days of his birth.  Apart from the names of his parents, Walter Cross and Jane (née Callow), his early life remains obscure.

Cross worked for Stephen Polito, the owner of the menagerie at Exeter Exchange in the Strand.  Cross's daughter married Polito's brother, and Cross bought the menagerie after Polito's death in 1814.  The menagerie had been operated at that site from 1773 in competition with the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London with lions, tigers, monkeys, and other exotic species, all confined in iron cages in small rooms.  The menagerie was primarily a visitor attraction open to the general public.  It was visited by Wordsworth and Byron - who records watching the "tigers sup", being amused by a hyena's affection for its keeper, and the tricks played by an elephant with its trunk.  Animals in the collection were painted by Edwin Landseer and Jacques-Laurent Agasse.  It was also visited by scientists such as Joshua Brookes and J. E. Gray.  Gray named the Rhinoceros crossii in his honour (now as a synonym for the Sumatran rhinoceros, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis).

Cross renamed the collection the Royal Grand National Menagerie, and employed a doorkeeper who was dressed as a Yeoman of the Guard. The living conditions for the animals were so poor that negative comments were made even in the early 19th century.  The situation became untenable after his bad-tempered elephant, Chunee, was put down by a firing squad of soldiers from Somerset House in March 1826.   Cross attempted to sell the collection to the new Zoological Society of London in 1826 and 1828, but the offer was refused on both occasions.

The Exeter Exchange was demolished in 1829, as part of general improvements to the Strand, and Cross moved the menagerie to the King's Mews near Trafalgar Square (now the site of the National Gallery).  Some of the animals were sold to the new London Zoo in Regent's Park.  In 1831, he sold the remaining animals to the Surrey Literary, Scientific and Zoological Institution – an institution that he had founded - for £3,500. Cross became superintendent of the new Surrey Zoological Gardens, and the animals were moved to Royal Surrey Gardens, in the grounds of Walworth Manor House in Kennington.  Many of the exotic animals were housed in a large circular domed glass conservatory,  in circumference with more than  of glass.  The collection expanded in the following years to include lions, tigers, an Indian rhinoceros, an orang-utan, and several giraffes.

Cross retired in 1844, and he died in Kennington in 1854.  His wife, Mary, predeceased him.

The zoo became run down after Cross retired, and the animals were sold off in 1856, to be replaced by Surrey Music Hall.

References

 J. C. Edwards, 'Cross, Edward (bap. 1774, d. 1854)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 17 Oct 2008

1774 births
1854 deaths
People from Holborn
Zoo owners

Edward Cross (zoo proprietor)


The Demographics of Pakistan are a study of the population and the people. It is estimated that Pakistan's population was over 170,000,000 in mid 2008. Pakistan had an estimated population of 169,300,000 as of July 2007,. Between 1951-1998, the number of people in Pakistan's cities and towns (known as the urban population) increased sevenfold. And by the next decade the population is expected to exceed 176 million. In the past, the country's population had a quite high growth rate. Dramatic social changes have led to rapid urbanisation and the emergence of megacities. Between 1990-2003, Pakistan sustained its historical lead as the most urbanised nation in South Asia, with city dwellers making up 34% of its population.

Pakistan has a multicultural and multi-ethnic society and has one of the largest refugee populations in the world as well as a young population.

Pakistan's next national census will take place in 2008.

Population data

Geographic distribution

The majority of southern Pakistan's population lives along the Indus River. In the northern half, most of the population lives about an arc formed by the cities of Faisalabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Nowshera, Swabi, Mardan and Peshawar.

References

Pakistan
Pakistan

Demographics of Pakistan


Eugène Paul Louis Schueller (20 March 1881 – 23 August 1957) was a French pharmacist and entrepreneur who was the founder of L'Oréal, the world's leading company in cosmetics and beauty.

Founding of L'Oréal
As a young French chemist of Alsatian paternal origin, Schueller graduated in 1904 from the Institut de Chimie Appliquée de Paris (now Chimie ParisTech). Schueller developed in 1907 an innovative hair-color formula, which he called Oréale. He formulated and manufactured his own products, and sold them to Parisian hairdressers.
In 1909, he registered his company, the Société Française de Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux, the future L'Oréal. The guiding principles of the company that would become L'Oréal were put into place from the start: research and innovation in the interest of beauty.

Support for fascism
During the early twentieth century, Schueller provided financial support and held meetings for La Cagoule at L'Oréal headquarters. La Cagoule was a violent French fascist-leaning, antisemitic and anti-communist group whose leader formed a political party Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire (MSR, Social Revolutionary Movement) which in Occupied France supported the Vichy collaboration with the conquerors from Nazi Germany.

L'Oréal hired several members of the group as executives after World War II, such as Jacques Corrèze, who served as CEO of the US operation. This involvement was extensively researched by Michael Bar-Zohar in his book, Bitter Scent.

Family
Schueller's daughter, Liliane Bettencourt, was the widow of André Bettencourt with whom she had one daughter, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, chairwoman of L'Oréal's board of directors and according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index the richest woman in the world and the 12th richest person in the world, with a net worth of USD 94.9 Billion as of January 2022. Françoise Meyers is married to Jean-Pierre Meyers, whose rabbi grandfather was murdered in Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. In 2017, Liliane Bettencourt was the wealthiest woman in the world, with holdings estimated at US$39.5 billion.

Legacy
The head office of L'Oréal in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine is named Centre Eugène Schueller.

References

External links

 Official website of L'Oréal
 Forbes article on L'Oréal

 Book Review of Bitter Scent

1881 births
1957 deaths
Businesspeople from Paris
20th-century French chemists
French cosmetics businesspeople
French fascists
History of cosmetics
L'Oréal people
French anti-communists
Knights of the Legion of Honour
French people of German descent
French company founders
French collaborators with Nazi Germany

Eugène Schueller


Alexander de Brus (c. 1285 – 17 February 1307), Dean of Glasgow, was a younger brother of King Robert I of Scotland, who supported his brother in the struggle for the crown of Scotland. He was captured by forces at Loch Ryan, Galloway, Scotland and later executed by the English.

Born c. 1285 at Carrick, Ayrshire, Scotland he was the fourth son of Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale and Margaret, Countess of Carrick. He is said to have been a learned man who was educated at Cambridge and was later named Dean of Glasgow.
On 9 February 1307 shortly after King Robert returned to the Isle of Arran from Rathlin Island, Alexander, his brother Thomas de Brus and Sir Reginald Crawford, sailing 18 galleys, landed with a force of some 1000 Irishmen at Loch Ryan. They were met by a force of Gallowaymen led by Dungal MacDouall, who was a supporter of the Comyns. Their force was overwhelmed in the ensuing battle and all three leaders were captured, badly wounded. All three were hanged, drawn and beheaded a few days later at Carlisle, Cumberland, England.

References

1285 births
1307 deaths
Alexander de Brus
People of the Wars of Scottish Independence

Alexander de Brus


Heberto Castillo Martínez (August 23, 1928 – April 5, 1997) was a Mexican civil engineer and political activist.

Castillo was born in Ixhuatlán de Madero, Veracruz, and received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the National Autonomous University. An accomplished engineer, he taught several courses at the UNAM and at the National Polytechnic Institute, wrote several textbooks and invented the tridilosa.

He became a political activist and got involved in several workers' rights struggles, leading to imprisonment by the federal government in the infamous Lecumberri Penitentiary. Castillo was one of the first among leading left-wing politicians to express dismay at the dictatorial nature of Soviet-bloc governments, starting a movement towards a social democracy-based left wing and away from a Moscow-based left leaning opposition in Mexico.

During his lifetime he co-founded three political parties: the Mexican Workers' Party (Partido Mexicano de los Trabajadores, PMT), the Mexican Socialist Party (Partido Mexicano Socialista, PMS) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD). In his last years in politics he became a staunch critic of the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas and, crucially, voluntarily withdrew from the presidential race in 1988 to support the unified candidacy of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.

He died on April 5, 1997 at the age of 68, in Mexico City and received the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor (postmortem) that same year.

References

External links
 The Heberto Castillo Foundation

1928 births
1997 deaths
Members of the Senate of the Republic (Mexico)
Party of the Democratic Revolution politicians
Mexican democracy activists
Mexican civil engineers
National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni
Academic staff of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional
Recipients of the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor
Mexican inventors
People from Veracruz
Socialist Mexican Party politicians
Mexican Workers' Party politicians
Science and technology in Mexico

Heberto Castillo


The Fleur-de-Lys Studios, also known as Fleur-de-Lis Studios or Sydney Burleigh Studio, is a historic art studio, and an important structure in the development of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the United States.  It is located at 7 Thomas Street in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island.  It was designed by Sydney Burleigh and Edmund R. Willson, and built in 1885.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.  In addition, it is part of the College Hill Historic District.

Description
The studio is a -story wood-frame building, set on the densely built north side of Thomas Street, opposite the First Baptist Meetinghouse (also a National Historic Landmark).  Its main facade is half-timbered, with elaborately stuccoed sections filling the spaces between the timbers.  On the first level, there are two bays, that on the right with a grouping of six casement windows in two tiers of three, of different sizes at each tier.  The left bay has a recessed entranceway, topped by a row of stucco panels and windows above.  The second level projects slightly, and has paired casement windows that project in a manner resembling a folding screen.  On either side and in between these two sections are colored panels bearing allegorical representations of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture.  The triangular gable area above this level is shingled, with a recessed square window just below the gable point.

The interior is relatively simple, with an enclosed stair rising on the left side of the building to a mezzanine level, a full second floor, and the attic area.  The first floor is divided, with a classroom and reception area in the south, and a studio space on the north side.  A staircase in the northwest corner leads from the studio to the mezzanine.  The mezzanine is open, with a small studio space over the entrance.  Smaller studio spaces occupy the second floor and attic level.

The building was a design collaboration between the artist Sydney Richmond Burleigh (1853-1931) and the architect Edmund R. Willson (1853-1906), and was built in 1885–86 in a collaborative effort involving both local builders and a local version of the London-based Art Workers Guild established by Burleigh. Among the artists contributing to the decoration was Charles Walter Stetson.

The building drew immediate notice in architectural publications in recognition for its unification of useful and ornamental arts.

George William Whitaker, known as the "Dean of Providence Painters," shared space with Burleigh in the studio during the late 1800s.

In 1939, the structure was deeded to the Providence Art Club by Burleigh's widow. In accordance with the stipulation of her gift, the space is still used for artists studios.

In popular culture
Horror writer H. P. Lovecraft made the Fleur-de-Lys building the residence of his character Henry Anthony Wilcox, a young artist and sculptor, in his famous tale "The Call of Cthulhu." Bertrand K. Hart, then literary editor of the Providence Journal and author of a regular column, "The Sideshow", read the story in an anthology, T. Everett Harre's Beware After Dark! (1929) and was astounded to find that Wilcox's residence (7 Thomas Street) was the same as the address where he had once resided. Feigning to offense, he vowed in his column of November 30, 1929, to send a ghost to Lovecraft's home at 3 a.m. to scare him; Lovecraft promptly wrote the poem "The Messenger" at 3 a.m. that night. Hart published the poem in his column of December 3.

See also

National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence, Rhode Island
List of National Historic Landmarks in Rhode Island

References

External links

Providence Art Club: About the Fleur-de-Lys Building
Rhode Island artist Anthony Tomaselli maintains a studio here

Buildings and structures in Providence, Rhode Island
National Historic Landmarks in Rhode Island
Cultural infrastructure completed in 1885
Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Rhode Island
Tudor Revival architecture in Rhode Island
Historic American Buildings Survey in Rhode Island
National Register of Historic Places in Providence, Rhode Island
Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Rhode Island

Fleur-de-lys Studios


The current Constitution of Transnistria was approved by national referendum on 24 December 1995, and signed into law by the President of Transnistria on 17 January 1996. As part of the territory's move towards market based reforms, it was modified on 30 June 2000.

The constitution provides for a separation of powers between judicial, legislative, and executive branches. It names Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian as the three official languages of the republic, grants religious freedom, and grants every citizen freedom of speech and the right to property. It further establishes Transnistria ( Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic) as an independent sovereign country with a multiparty democracy and a market economy.

In 2009, president Igor Smirnov appointed a constitutional commission, which has proposed some controversial constitutional changes. The stated purpose of the new constitution is to harmonize Transnistrian legislation with that of its main guarantor state, Russia. Among the proposed changes is the introduction of a bicameral legislature (of which the lower house is to be elected and the upper house to be appointed) and the abolition of elections for rural administrations. An official draft was published on 11 September 2009. Smirnov sent the draft to parliament on 23 October. A referendum was planned for 24 January 2010, but the proposal failed in parliament on 18 November. The draft is now to be amended once more.

In June, 2011, the parliament adopted, and in July, the president signed the new amendments, abolishing the post of Vice President of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), introducing the post of Prime Minister and such body as the Government of the PMR.

See also
 Politics of Transnistria

References

External links
 Constitution of Transnistria (as of 2006, Russian)
 Constitution of Transnistria (as of 2000, English)

Politics of Transnistria
Transnistria
1995 documents

Constitution of Transnistria


A law firm is a business group formed by one or more lawyers for the practice of law. The main reason of a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other matters in which legal advice or help is needed.

References

Law firm


Charles Greeley Abbot (May 31, 1872 – December 17, 1973) was an American astrophysicist and the fifth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, serving from 1928 until 1944. Abbot went from being director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, to becoming Assistant Secretary, and then Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution over the course of his career. As an astrophysicist, he researched the solar constant, research that led him to invent the solar cooker, solar boiler, solar still, and other patented solar energy inventions.

Early life and education

Charles Greeley Abbot was born in Wilton, New Hampshire. His parents, Harris Abbot and Caroline Ann Greeley, were farmers and he was the youngest of four children. As a youth he built and invented numerous things, such as a forge to fix tools, a water wheel to power a saw, and a bicycle. He dropped out of school when he was 13 to become a carpenter. Two years later he went back to high school. He attended Phillips Academy.
When a friend of his went to Boston to take the entrance exam to get into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Abbot went for the chance to visit Boston. However, upon arrival, he was uncomfortable visiting Boston alone and chose to take the exam instead. He passed and his family gathered the funds to send him to MIT for one year. He started out studying chemical engineering, but eventually moved on to physics.

He graduated in 1894 with a Master of Science in physics. During his time in Boston, Abbot met Samuel P. Langley on the MIT campus when Langley visited seeking an assistant. In 1895, he would start working as an aid at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

While at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), Abbot would work under Samuel P. Langley. Langley would go on to change his focus from solar radiation to aeronautics, with Abbot taking over solar radiation research. Abbot would participate in many expeditions. In 1900 he, along with Langley, would travel to Wadesboro, North Carolina to observe a solar eclipse, followed by another eclipse expedition to Sumatra in 1901. During his expedition experiences he would also travel to Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, Australia, and other countries, often in partnership with the National Geographic Society. Abbot would become acting director of SAO in 1906 and in 1907, Abbot became the Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, following the death of Samuel P. Langley. While Langley was still Director, he had visited Mount Whitney, and decided it would be a great place for an observatory. Abbot secured funding for the observatory and it was built in 1909. As Director, a position he would hold until his retirement, Abbot would open the Radiation Biology Laboratory in 1929, to study radiation effects on plants, and other organisms.  This helped to develop the first wave of biophysics researchers in the United States.

Life and work as Smithsonian Secretary

Abbot would become the Assistant Secretary at the Smithsonian Institution in 1918, upon the death of Frederick W. True.  In his role as Assistant Secretary he would oversee the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the International Exchange Service, and the SAO. He also co-created the Smithsonian Scientific Series books, which helped raise funds for the Smithsonian.

Ten years later, on January 10, 1928, he became the fifth Secretary of the Smithsonian after the death of Charles Doolittle Walcott. Abbot would also maintain his position as Director of the Astrophysical Observatory. In 1927, Walcott had finalized the Smithsonian's strategic plan, which Abbot took on responsibility for upon his election as Secretary. The Smithsonian began a capital campaign in 1929, coinciding with the start of the Great Depression. During this tenure, Abbot oversaw the Smithsonian's participation in Works Progress Administration projects, including the Federal Art Project. Projects included new buildings and artwork at the National Zoo, and the start of the Smithsonian's first media project, a radio show called The World is Yours. The program would be ceased in 1942 due to World War II.  In the 1930s an expansion was approved for the National Museum of Natural History building, which would not begin until the 1960s. The Institute for Social Anthropology was also transferred to the Smithsonian during this time. While Secretary, Abbot would fail to acquire the National Gallery of Art for the Smithsonian. Abbot's role in the United States National Museum was also minimal, and was under the primary care of Assistant Secretary Alexander Wetmore.

He was the first Smithsonian Secretary to retire, ending his tenure on July 1, 1944. Following retirement, he was awarded Secretary Emeritus status and proceeded to continue his research work. The first Smithsonian holiday party would be held during his tenure. At the party, Abbot sang and played the cello for the partygoers. While in Washington, he was a deacon at the First Congregational Church. He also played tennis frequently at the former tennis courts at the Smithsonian Castle.

Later life and legacy
On May 31, 1955, the Smithsonian held a birthday party for Abbot, marking his 83rd birthday and his 60th year of association with the Smithsonian. The event was held at the Smithsonian Castle and a bronze bust of Abbot, by Alicia Neatherly, was presented, and donated to the National Gallery of Art. Charles Greeley Abbot died, at age 101 in Maryland, on December 17, 1973. The American Solar Energy Society has an award named in Abbot's honor, which is awarded for contributions to solar energy research.

The Abbot crater on the Moon has been named after him.

Research work

Abbot began his astrophysics research focusing on solar radiation before proceeding to chart cyclic patterns found in solar variations. With this research he hoped to track solar constant in order to make weather pattern predictions. He believed that the sun was a variable star which effected the weather on Earth, which was criticized by many contemporaries. In 1953, he discovered a connection between solar variations and planetary climate. This discovery allowed general climate patterns to be predicted 50 years in advance. He did field work at the Smithsonian Institution Shelter, which was built during his tenure as director at SAO, Lick Observatory, and Mount Wilson Observatory. At Lick, he worked with W.W. Campbell. To fight critics, Abbot would utilize balloons with pyrheliometers installed on them for measurements. He was the first scientist in America to do so, with the balloons reaching upwards of 25 kilometers. One balloon returned data that allowed Abbot to determine the solar constant at the highest point of the Earth's atmosphere. Later in his research career, he turned his focus on solar energy use.

An instrumentalist, he invented the solar cooker, which was first built at Mount Wilson Observatory, the solar boiler, and held fifteen other patents related to solar energy. For his research and contributions to the sciences, Abbot was awarded a Henry Draper Medal in 1910 and a Rumford Medal in 1916.

Further reading
Selected publications by Charles Greeley Abbot
The 1914 Tests of the Langley "Aerodrome". Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution (1942).
An Account of the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution (1966).
Adventures in the World of Science. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press (1958).
"Astrophysical Contributions of the Smithsonian Institution." Science. 104.2693 (1946): 116-119.
Samuel Pierpont Langley. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution (1934).
A Shelter for Observers on Mount Whitney. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution (1910).

Bibliography
Davis, Margaret. "Charles Greeley Abbot." The George Washington University Magazine. 2: 32.35.
DeVorkin, David H. ""Defending a Dream: Charles Greeley Abbot's Years at the Smithsonian." Journal for the History of Astronomy. 21.61 (1990): 121-136.
Hoyt, Douglas V. "The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Solar Constant Program." Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics. 17.3 (May 1979): 427-458
Oehser, Paul H. Sons of Science: The Story of the Smithsonian Institution and its Leaders. New York: Henry Schuman (1949).
Ripley, Sidney Dillon. "The View From the Castle: Weather prediction is not enough: what's needed is an early-warning system to monitor change in the environment." Smithsonian. 1.2 (May 1970): 2.

See also
List of centenarians (scientists and mathematicians)

References

External links

Oral history interviews with Charles G. Abbot, 1973 from the Smithsonian Institution Archives
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir

1872 births
1973 deaths
20th-century American astronomers
American astrophysicists
American centenarians
Men centenarians
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
People from Anne Arundel County, Maryland
People from Wilton, New Hampshire
Phillips Academy alumni
Secretaries of the Smithsonian Institution
Solar energy
Scientists from New Hampshire

Charles Greeley Abbot


Cicchetti (; singular cicchetto), also sometimes spelled "cichetti" or called "cicheti" in Venetian language, are small snacks or side dishes, typically served in traditional "bàcari" (singular bàcaro: cicchetti bars or osterie) in Venice, Italy. Common cicchetti include tiny sandwiches, plates of olives or other vegetables, halved hard-boiled eggs, small servings of a combination of one or more of seafood, meat and vegetable ingredients laid on top of a slice of bread or polenta, and very small servings of typical full-course plates. Like Spanish tapas, one can also make a meal of cicchetti by ordering multiple plates.
Normally not a part of home cooking, the cicchetti's importance lies not just in the food itself, but also in how, when and where they are eaten: with fingers and toothpicks, usually standing up, hanging around the counter where they are displayed in numerous bars, osterie and bacari that offer them virtually all day long.
Venice's many cicchetti bars are quite active during the day, as Venetians (and tourists) typically eat cicchetti in the late morning, for lunch, or as afternoon snacks. Cicchetti are usually accompanied by a small glass of local white wine, which the locals refer to as an "ombra" (shadow).

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Venetian social life is contained in the phrase "Let's go to drink a shadow" (Venetian "Andémo béver un'ombra"). This is an invitation to go for a drink, and more exactly a small glass of wine (a "shadow"). It is a souvenir of the period in which wines were unloaded in the "Riva degli Schiavoni" and then sold in shaded stands located at the base of the Bell Tower of Saint Mark's Cathedral; as the sun changed position, the stands were moved so they could continue to stay in the shade (ombra).

References

External links
 Rick Steves: Crawling Through Venice's Cicchetti Pubs

Italian cuisine
Cuisine of Veneto

Cicchetti


The fancy rat or pet rat is a type of the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) that is bred to be a pet.  The name fancy rat has nothing to do with the "fanciness" of how they look. It comes from the phrase animal fancy.  A person who keeps pet rats is said to be involved in "rat fancy."  Some people domesticate black rats (Rattus rattus), and Gambian pouched rats (Cricetomys gambianus). These types of rats are not usually called fancy rats because the hobby does not center around them.

Fancy rats have been bred as pets at least since the late 19th century. They can have many different colors and coat types.  They are sociable, intelligent animals. They can learn to come when called, use a litter box, and do many different tricks. Pet rats act differently from rats found in nature. The number of generations since they have been removed from the wild and how they were bred has an effect on how much they act differently. They are not any more of a health risk than other common pets.

In the 19th century france, Fancy Rats were quite a popular attraction of entertainment, they could be taughtt a handfull of tricks.

Fancy rats do not have the diseases and illness as a wild rat would have.
Fancy rats can have ears on the top of their head (standard) or at the side (dumbo)

Old World rats and mice

Fancy rat


is a Japanese musician.

Yoshida does not play instruments, instead making her music with her own voice. Rather than conventional singing she makes a variety of vocalisations of such a nature that it is often hard to tell that the sounds are being produced by a voice at all. These sounds are sometimes subtly electronically altered. She describes her means of producing sound as the "howling voice".

Her records include Spiritual Voice (1997) and the thirteen track, four-minute EP . (2002, released on a business-card sized CD). Her 2003 release, Tiger Thrush on the Improvised Music from Japan label, includes 99 untitled tracks.

She has collaborated with a number of other musicians, among them Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M (with whom she performs as Cosmos) and Utah Kawasaki (with whom she makes up Astro Twin). Soba to Bara, a 2009 release on Erstwhile Records, found Yoshida and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) performing one 47-minute improvisation each and pairing the two recordings, each musician's part unheard by the other.

References

External links
Home page at the Improvised Music from Japan site

Avant-garde singers
Japanese musicians
1976 births
Living people
Japanese women in electronic music

Ami Yoshida


Emeritus is the title given to a professor who is retired. The term is also used for other occupations, most notably clergy, and presidents. Professors who are emeriti no longer need to fulfill all of their functions (such as teaching at a university), but they may still do so. Pope Benedict XVI retired on  11 February 2013, and was the first pope to do this in recent history. Today, he is Pope Emeritus. Benedict XVI was a professor at the University of Regensburg.

Titles

Emeritus professor


The Volga Upland, also known as the Volga Uplands, Volga Hills, or Volga Plateau (), is a vast region of the  East European Plain in the European part of Russia that lies west of the Volga River and east of the Central Russian Upland.

The uplands lie in the cool continental climate zone, characterised by large fluctuations in seasonal temperatures and generally little rainfall. Outside of the cities in the region, population density is generally between 28 and 129 inhabitants per square mile.

Geography
The uplands run for approximately  in a southwest-northeasterly direction from Volgograd to Kazan. The Tsimlyansk Reservoir lies at the southwestern end of the Volga Upland, with the Kuybyshev Reservoir at the northeastern end.

The landscape on the Volga Uplands is hilly, and several rivers have cut into it, such as the Khopyor, Medveditsa and the Sura. The Volga–Don Canal cuts through the lowlands between the Volga Uplands to the north and the adjacent Yergeni Hills to the south.

The Volga Uplands themselves are rather sparsely populated, but along their edges and in particular along the banks of the Volga there are several large cities, such as (from north to south) Kazan, Ulyanovsk, Saransk, Penza, Syzran, Saratov and Volgograd.

Subranges
The hill ranges along the Volga banks are traditionally called mountains (), despite being of low height. The main ones are:
 Uslon Mountains
 Yuryevy Mountains
 Bogorodskye Mountains
 Syukeyevo Mountains
 Tetyushi Mountains
 Undory Mountains
 Zhiguli Mountains
 Khvalynsk Mountains
 Don-Medveditsa Ridge

See also
Highest points of Russian Federal subjects
List of mountains and hills of Russia
 Taw yağı

References

External links

Plains of Russia
East European Plain
Volga basin
Regions of Russia

Volga Upland