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Hello all!
I've just signed up for the Henley Half Marathon on Sunday 13 October.
13.1 miles starting along the Thames towpath, then up Fawley Hill, and back along Fairmile to the finish. I'm aiming to complete the course in just under 2 hours. I've a few unnecessary pounds to shed between now and race day, but the training has already started…
I realise a lot of people ask for donations, but if you have it in you to make one more, I would greatly appreciate it. You can give here – http://www.justgiving.com/robruns10in10.
This is part of my on-going campaign to raise funds for Brathay Trust, a charitable foundation that works with vulnerable and disadvantaged young people throughout the UK, helping them develop the skills, confidence and motivation to make positive choices in their lives. These kids are often trapped in a vicious circle of abuse, drugs and crime – and without the help of Brathay Trust they would never escape.
In May 2012 I already raised over £3,500 for Brathay, by running 10 official marathons on 10 consecutive days round Lake Windermere. If you want to know what that feels like, check out my journal about the event.
However, my original fund-raising target was £5,000 – so I have unfinished business, to the tune of £1,500.
If you can help me complete my original goal on this one event, that would be formidable. £50, £10 or even £5 – every little counts!
Thank you in advance for your generosity – and if anyone is interested in running or supporting on the day (or in joining me for a couple of pints and a large lunch after the race), just let me know!
Finish Time — 06:07:10
Average Pace — 14:01 per mile
Steps Taken — 58,747
Mantra of the Day — "Keep your eye on the goal"
The beautiful spring morning on Day 10 was somewhat overshadowed by my apprehension about the day. Physically I woke up in slightly better condition than on previous days, but only marginally. Steve and Guido from Body Rehab worked their magic, but despite this I was not confident about my ability to "boss" my way around yet another marathon distance.
Despite all the talk about this being the "lap of honour", "easiest marathon of the ten", "light at the end of the tunnel", I could not stop thinking that the course and its challenges still demanded serious respect. And despite the resilience of my body in recovering from a potentially damaging injury, I was conscious (and apprehensive) that the slightest mis-step could undo all the progress of the last few days and reduce me to a hobbling walk.
Still, as I said earlier in the week, there is no courage without fear. So I did my best to harness my negative emotions and turn them into energy that would drive me round the course.
Ideally I would have liked to take the main 10-in-10 start today, making the most of the official send-off for Day 10. But this would have meant that I absolutely had to finish inside a 6-hour window in order to get back in time for the medal ceremony, which I did not want to miss at any price. So I made the tough decision to go for the early (and lonely) start along with Toks and Stuart.
As it turns out this decision was wise, because although I still ran to finish inside 6 hours, I did not have to deal with the pressure and stress of missing a once-in-a-lifetime moment if I needed a bit of extra time!
The spectacular weather lifted my spirits and I made good enough time to Newby Bridge. From here on, there were lots of course stewards setting up for the main marathon, supporters at various points, and local residents clapping from their front gardens. Every little encouragement was an extra boost and I maintained a steady pace all through the tough rolling hills from miles 14 to 18.
In case this all sounds easy, I can assure you that this was one of my hardest days out on the course. For the first time since Day 3 I felt that I was really running again, with some quarter or half-mile intervals where I was striding out and re-discovering my normal running style. But at every moment I was afraid to over-stride, or misplace my foot, and aggravate my ankle again. So I tried to keep it under control and focus on the 6-hour finish.
Bowness at mile 20 was a huge boost with large crowds cheering me through. Then Ice Cream Mountain sapped my legs and my energy, and for the next couple of miles I had to back right off the pace for fear of blowing a gasket.
At mile 23 the lead runner of the main marathon came through, clock on the race car showing 2:24. At this point my own time was 5:24. I had to make a massive mental and emotional effort not to grind to a halt, out of sheer disgust at how slow I have been moving this last week…
Although absolutely everybody has been tremendously supportive through my injury and my recovery, there is always a little voice in the back of one's own head that says "you're an idiot, what are you trying to prove, look at these guys who are orders of magnitude stronger and fitter than you can ever hope to become." This voice is quietly destructive, and very hard indeed to silence.
But with just 3 miles to go of this extraordinary 262-mile journey, I was not going to let myself be intimidated by some guy with a mere three-hour lead. So I gritted my teeth, put my inner chimp back in his cage, sucked down an energy gel, recalculated my finish time at about 6:10, and went for it!
The last mile or so through Ambleside and Clappersgate was phenomenal, with every single person I passed offering congratulations and encouragement. The pain and fatigue faded away, and I actually felt as if I was running properly again for the first time in a week!
Pushing up the Brathay driveway for the tenth and final time, I started to feel a sense of accomplishment that I had actually completed this amazing journey — while at the same time knowing that it will take me weeks and months to really understand what it is that I have done.
All of this went out of my head as I rounded the corner on to the crowded lawn. Spectators cheering and applauding; my name on the loudspeakers; Alex waiting for me at the finish line with my medal; surprise visit from Mrs Evans (Class 4); previous 10-in-10ers welcoming me to the club… So much emotion! This is without question the most intense finish of any race that I have ever run.
The rest of the day was a blur of activity. Highlights were the medal ceremony with fell-running legend Joss Naylor, and the 10-in-10 banquet in the evening. I will remember this day for many, many years to come!
I will post again in a day or two, because I have so much more to tell about this extraordinary journey that I have now completed.
In the meantime, I would like to thank you very warmly for following my progress, for your countless messages of support, and for your generous donations to Brathay Trust.
If you have made a pledge contingent upon me finishing the event, now is the moment to visit my fund-raising page.
Oh, and… those who had money on me pulling out early may want to consider doubling their stake and donating it to Brathay :)
Finish Time — 06:21:58
Average Pace — 14:35 per mile
Steps Taken — 57,295
Mantra of the Day — "Run strong, run light"
In case you've missed it previously, make sure to watch every day's video on Cumbria Live TV. It's compelling stuff, and a great insight into the challenges we have faced during this event!
Every morning here at Brathay, the alarm clock is harder to obey, and the bed is harder to leave. There is a definite progression of fatigue — no surprise of course, but it is interesting to watch how it evolves. Most surprising is how it takes the body about 60 minutes to move into "active" gear. When I first get out of bed I literally have trouble standing, and yet an hour later I am walking to Body Rehab with little or no discomfort. And once they finish with me I am capable of taking the start line of another marathon. I still have a hard time understanding how the body manages this transition, day after day.
And so it was that I started Day 9 at a gentle jog that held nicely to Hawkshead, my first refuelling station. Warmed up at this point, I decided to pick up the pace a little and see what happened. Everything felt good, I continued at a 13:30 pace for about 10 miles. Arriving at Fell Foot just after the halfway point, I was surprised and happy to see Sue (one of my colleagues), who had driven out to the course just to say hello.
At this point I was on target to finish the day in under 6 hours, but my left quad started to cause trouble and I had to slow the pace a little. Only six more miles and I was in Bowness greeting family by the roadside — what a treat to have so much support during this difficult second half of the course!
The six miles after Bowness were a world of pain. My thigh felt as if it had an iron spike driven through it and I was forced to take the downhills at little better than a walk. At the top of Ice Cream Mountain I was in such a mental "zone" that I have no idea who all the people were — but I do thank you all for coming out to support!
Despite the pain I somehow sensed that this was not a damaging injury but rather a response to accumulated fatigue. So all along I had been recalculating my pace, and saw that I could finish comfortably inside yesterday's time, without compromising my physical state for the Day 10 showdown.
Arriving at the bottom of the driveway I was caught by Matt who offered to finish together, a grand gesture from a guy who finishes this course two to two-and-a-half hours faster than me. Thank you Matt for giving me the extra ounce of oomph to get up the final climb today! End result — nearly 10 minutes quicker than yesterday, and I am satisfied with this, given the difficulties I have had to overcome to get back to this point.
I dare to dream that I will have a storming run tomorrow on Day 10, but I have to be realistic and admit that it is unlikely I will crack 6 hours. For this reason I will be taking the early start at 7:30am with a handful of other runners (supporters welcome!), so as to have time to complete the course and change in time for the various ceremonies at 3:30pm.
Brathay is now buzzing with runners who have arrived for tomorrow's annual Windermere Marathon, along with their friends and families. It was nice to be stopped by a few people who recognised me from the blogs and videos — and to chat with them about this amazing event.
Despite the excitement and the buzz, I am not doing this for curiosity or for entertainment. I am doing it to help kids who otherwise will have nobody to give them the respect they deserve. As Paul Foster put it perfectly in his Day 8 interview — running 10 marathons is the easy part; putting your hand in your pocket is harder, but you can do it, and the time is now! Thank you for your support!
Finish Time — 06:31:17
Average Pace — 14:56 per mile
Steps Taken — 60,605
Mantra of the Day — "You can, you can do it!"
Once again, this morning I took the early start. My thoughts were full of the inspirational video from Class 4. If you haven't watched this yet, you really should!
Grey day again today, but without the rain this time, which makes it marginally easier.
It was good to have Stuart's company for a while, and then Toks and Davey. At the cypress stand before Devil's Gallop I was warmed up, and decided to crank up the same slow but steady rhythm that I have been running at for the last two days.
Despite being so prudent, these early miles were tough for some reason. Reaching mile 10 ahead of schedule was a surprise, and I took my foot off the gas. Could I have continued at a 5:30 finish pace? Maybe, but today was too early to try it. I still wanted to give my ankle more time to recover, and my muscles more time to ease back into a higher pace.
As it turned out, my decision was the right one, and even the few miles I had run harder were quickly taking their toll. From Newby Bridge onwards, I had to fight for every mile. Not just physically — mentally as well. The doubts came crowding in, and the demons hid in the shadows whispering at me that I am not good enough for this challenge.
Arriving at Bowness I did a time-check and realised that I was in a position to match my Day 2 finish time. So I decided to go for it, and finished strong through Ambleside and up the Brathay driveway. The finish itself was intense, and hard to describe. Let's just say it would be difficult to give that much every time…
As it turns out I bettered my Day 2 time by just 7 seconds, scoring my second best time of the event, and putting me at less than a minute from Davey on accumulated time since the beginning of the challenge. High drama in store at the back of the pack!
Brathay 10-in-10 is an extraordinary roller-coaster that swings you violently from pain, to elation, to despair, to amazing camaraderie — and back again. The ride leaves you with emotions as raw as if you had been skinned alive.
Today was hard, very hard. My finish time made me happy. But I am still very afraid of what the next two days hold. Many people here are talking about how Day 9 is the last "real" marathon, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and so on. Personally I cannot listen to any of this. The first 8 days have shown me that this course demands absolute, total respect. The physical and mental control required to get round are huge, bigger than anything I could have imagined. "Just" two days at Windermere is not something I take lightly, even with 8 already under my belt!
Finish Time — 06:42:41
Average Pace — 15:22 per mile
Steps Taken — 58,290
Mantra of the Day — "Listen to your body"
Day 7 started much greyer and damper than yesterday's splendid spring morning. But this is the Lake District after all, and I think we have been lucky with the weather so far. So, on with the rain gear and don't let the spirit be dampened!
Morning therapy at Body Rehab went well, as I realised when someone commented how quiet it was (I have a reputation for being noisy on the table) and when I got out twenty minutes faster than usual.
Opting again for the early start, I caught up with Davey and Toks around mile 3. By this time I was already warmed up and in a similar rhythm to yesterday, so I chugged on into the drizzling rain.
I quickly realised that my ankle pain had almost completely subsided, so despite the dismal weather I was on something of a high. For a mile or two I debated how to play today's run, and decided to opt for a slow and steady pace. The idea being to maximise my physical recovery, and give myself the absolute best chance of a cracking run on Saturday or Sunday.
And so my day unfolded much like yesterday, except that my aches and pains were now "normal" runner's afflictions rather than acute injury. This, I know how to deal with. I settled into the meditative state that makes me enjoy endurance running so much… You relax into the pain, don't fight it, let it absorb you, look at it "from the inside", and perceive it not as an alarm signal but rather as a measure of your capacity and state of fitness.
Apart from a couple of walk and chat breaks with various supporters around the course, this approach got me all the way to Ice Cream Mountain at mile 22, before the relaxed focus started to deteriorate somewhat, due to fatigue and busy traffic. The last 4 miles were a little tougher, but when you are so close to home the finish line calls out and you just run to reach it.
End result — a very satisfying "discipline run", confirming that my injury is clearing and that I have this event under control. I am also very pleased see the principles of active recovery and minimalist running working so well in an event that is highly taxing by any standards. This in itself is a psychological boost!
As always, I would like to thank everyone who has donated to my fund-raising goal of £5,000. Please help me again by sharing this story with your friends and colleagues, and encouraging them to support the amazing work of Brathay Trust. Thank you!
Nothing I add can possibly do justice to this extraordinary video.
Thank you, Class 4. Keep pushing, we are nearly there!
Finish Time — 06:34:14
Average Pace — 15:03 per mile
Steps Taken — 62,880
Mantra of the Day — "Courage cannot be beaten"
In the same way that Day 4's problems dragged me down at the start of Day 5, so my stronger finish on Day 5 carried over into a more positive outlook this morning. In addition we were treated to a spectacularly beautiful Lake District morning, that would have lifted the spirits of the worst curmudgeon.
Breakfast filled my belly, Body Rehab ninjas worked their magic, and I was almost impatient to get out on the road. What a difference from yesterday's dismal start…
Not wanting to overdo things I started with the same walk-run routine as yesterday so that I could warm up gently. After the first drink station I felt that I could handle a full run, so off I trotted. Amazingly the ankle felt fine, and everything about the spring morning relaxed me and gave me huge confidence for the day. I jogged past the black pig snuffling in his field, I jogged past Randy Crag, I jogged past Hawkshead — and marvel of marvels I jogged up Devil's Gallop. Steepest hill on the whole course, and the first time since Day 1 that I had taken this one at a run.
I settled into my rhythm and went back to the basics of minimalist running. Focus on centre of gravity, weight distribution, feedback from the body, and foot placement. Count the steps, count the breaths. Adjust, fine-tune all the time. And suddenly I was at Newby Bridge, having marked a regular pace on almost every single mile since the start.
Best of all I felt strong, and capable of carrying on at the same pace all day. Mile 14 went by, then mile 16 where Aly had written a message of encouragement on my banana! MIle 18, tick. Mile 20 and I'm in Bowness dodging Japanese tourists and bad drivers. Mile 22, Ice Cream Mountain where I chat briefly to a couple of guys biking Lands End to John O'Groats. Mile 24 and I'm *still* clocking the miles at the exact same pace. The last two miles were a treat. Smooth and easy, no pain to speak of, just looking forward to reaching the finish line.
Today's run, although one of my slower performances, will go down in my personal records as one of my strongest runs ever — psychologically for sure, and also physically given the trials of the last couple of days. Any time you run a full marathon at the same steady pace, mile after mile, you know that you are in control. And it feels good!
I'm curious to see what happens tomorrow. I am on a high from today's performance (almost two hours faster than yesterday) and I will have to rein myself in so as to continue my recovery and be on full form at the weekend. This journey is taking twists and turns that I could never have anticipated…
Finish Time — 08:25:21
Average Pace — 19:17 per mile
Steps Taken — 63,270
Mantra of the Day — "I may feel pain but I will not fail"
Today I decided early on that I had to adopt a strategy that will get me through to the end of this event — not just to the end of the day. The worst part of yesterday's 8-hour ordeal was to feel everything deteriorate the more miles I covered. Psychologically this leaves you on a negative note at the finish line, and it is all too easy for this negativity to carry into the next day.
Sure enough, I woke up this morning feeling awful, and very unsure about my ability to complete the whole event. Roxy from Body Rehab was brilliant – during my morning physio session she sat next to me and helped me talk through it, so I was feeling a little more confident when I actually got out on the course.
My strategy, then, was to walk as far as I needed in order to preserve my ankle and give it a chance to heal. If it took me nine hours to finish, so be it. But more than anything I want to be running again by the end of the week!
The first nine or ten miles were very tough, but after another chat with Aly by the side of the road, I managed to toughen up a little bit. I took a leaf out of Stuart's book and started alternating — 100 paces walking, 50 paces running. 100 paces walking, 50 paces running. Rinse and repeat. This was my entire focus until mile 16 or thereabouts, at which point I found the walking too long and the running too short. So I switched the count… and a mile or two later I dispensed with the walking altogether.
The net result of this was that after taking 4:42 to get to Newby Bridge, I made it back to Brathay in just 3:43. Painfully slow, but a massive negative split nonetheless.
I don't want to jinx anything by getting excited too quickly, but in my body I feel that things are back under control, my ankle injury is healing (thanks again to Body Rehab!) and I may actually get back to the full running experience before the end of this event.
We'll see how everything goes tomorrow, but this may just be the day I turn things around.
And in any case I have now completed 5 consecutive marathons, I am halfway through this adventure, and I finished my day believing again that I will complete it!
Thank you again to everyone for your messages of encouragement on my blog and Twitter and Facebook and email — I cannot begin to describe what a difference your support makes in the dark moments!
Finish Time — 8:17:40
Average Pace — 18:59 per mile
Steps Taken — 69,460
Mantra of the Day — "Embrace your fear"
This morning I woke up to bad thoughts of not finishing today's marathon, and worse, to thoughts of what would happen if I could not start. My left ankle was still swollen and inflamed, painful from the first step of the day. I didn't feel much like walking down to the main house, let alone going out for another 26.2 miles around the lake.
Still, we are not here to give up so easily. At breakfast I chose my mantra of the day from Class 4's card — "embrace your fear" — and lodged it firmly in my mind. Then I headed for Body Rehab where Maria, Tracy and Tamara did some amazing work to get me back on my feet. Against all expectations I took to the road at 8:30am, feeling that I might actually make it to the finish line.
The outward stretch to Newby Bridge was tough, but manageable. I walked the uphills and jogged the descents, trying to preserve my ankle and minimise any further damage — while also trying not to over-compensate which could cause problems elsewhere in the body. Above all I forced myself to think in terms of a 7-day strategy that would get me to Sunday's finish line, not just today's.
After making the turn at the foot of the lake, the ankle was starting to make its presence felt. Matt cruised past me, then Sally and Keith and the other front-runners of the main pack. It's good to see your friends after 3 or more hours grinding it out on your own…
From mile 14 onwards the task became progressively more difficult. Although I was running certain stretches, my biggest goal was to avoid additional damage to the ankle. Not easy when you have to take thousands of steps on it to complete the course!
Aly and Mac and Andrea were incredibly supportive up this back stretch, as were the rest of my 10-in-10 friends who stopped and chatted as they came by. The weather turned nasty after Bowness, but having anticipated a long day with changeable weather, I was wearing full protective gear so managed to stay warm and dry.
After a long, long time I finally made it back to Brathay and was actually able to run most of the last two miles. With the help of the miracle workers at Body Rehab, I am hoping that I might actually begin to improve over the next few days and actually enjoy a couple of the remaining runs rather than having to endure them!
I had a lot of time today to think about why I am doing this event in the first place. So many young lives will be changed for the better by the funds we raise; and when you focus on this, it suddenly becomes easier to get through the tough moments. Then too I remembered the day's mantra, and on more than a couple of occasions I literally put my arms out to embrace the shadows and doubts that were dragging me down, and said "No way you're stopping me, you're coming all the way back to Brathay with me". Sounds weird, I know, but after a couple of bad days in an event like this, I think you get into place in your mind that is very intense and primal.
A special mention goes to Howard, who interrupts his pre-race routine to come and cheer me off at the early start (as well as scolding me to get to bed earlier!); and also to Foxy, who popped out of the bushes today at mile 24. He had finished his race, then came back to run the last couple of miles with me. True 10-in-10 spirit! His timing was perfect, I was beginning to flag even though the end was in sight. I hope that before the end of the week I will be able to repay the favour or pay it forward to someone else who needs the support.
To end on a positive note, I have now covered 104.8 miles so triple digits are in the bag, tomorrow marks the halfway point, and I still believe that I can finish this challenge!
Oh, a little challenge for Class 4 and anyone else who wants to play — see if you can guess why I have chosen today's picture… If you think you know then leave your comment below!
Finish Time — 7:01:14
Average Pace — 16:04 per mile
Steps Taken — 63,940
Mantra of the Day — "With a spring in my step and a smile on my face"
Because of my long and difficult day yesterday, I decided to join Toks and take an early start today at 8am, instead of the main field start at 10:30am. Physio treatment went on a little longer than planned, so I did not get on the road until 8:10am, but it was definitely the right decision.
The daily routine at Brathay is somewhat frenetic — breakfast; balance and proprioception testing; pre-run physio treatment; run a marathon; post-run stretching; protein intake; lunch; balance and proprioception testing again; ice bath; shower; prepare next day's drinks and fuel; laundry; dinner; post-run physio treatment. In some ways the marathon itself is the calmest time of the day!
Running early means there are no drink & food stops between mile 6 and mile 18, so fuel and fluid strategy is completely different because you are carrying everything you need for almost half the race. No problem though – I much prefer to deal with this in return for arriving back at Brathay with a couple of extra hours in hand!
Last night I slept longer and better, so I started today's run feeling calm and re-energised. In fact I made it as far as Newby Bridge (13 miles) before feeling any real fatigue, and even then it was nothing out of the ordinary. My running stayed strong all the way past Bowness (mile 20) and I was on pace to finish in about 5:50, about 40 minutes faster than yesterday.
Then suddenly from nowhere came a really disagreeable pain in the front of my ankle, that basically made me run so slowly that I was able to power-walk faster than I could run.
Within a couple of minutes I made the tough decision not to run any more at all, but rather to walk the last 5 miles and give Roxy's miracle workers at Body Rehab the best chance of putting me back together.
In the end I finished in just over 7 hours. Absolutely infuriating after making what I thought was a strong comeback from yesterday's performance. Still, I finished — if not with quite such a spring in my step, then at least with a smile on my face!
At physio tonight I was treated to poking and prodding and ice and laser treatment that hopefully should get my leg back in shape by tomorrow morning. With a bit of luck all I will have to deal with is the traditional Lakeland weather that has now rolled in from the hills…
This event is gruelling by any standards, and demands respect. At all times you have to listen carefully to your body and be prepared to make tough decisions in the field based on getting through several more days, not just today. Most of all, you must never forget that even on a day that starts well, anything can happen and probably will!
If you're following this adventure and would like to support me in my fund-raising for Brathay Trust, then please make a donation at www.justgiving.com/robruns10in10.


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Review: Heterogeneous studies show that Echinacea may be effective for preventing and treating the common cold
ACP J Club. 1999 July-Aug;131:19. doi:10.7326/ACPJC-1999-131-1-019
Source Citation
Melchart D, Linde K, Fischer P, Kaesmayr J. Echinacea for the prevention and treatment of the common cold. Cochrane Review, latest version 16 November 1998. In: The Cochrane Library. Oxford: Update Software.
Are Echinacea extracts effective for preventing and treating the common cold?
Data sources
Studies were identified by searching MEDLINE (1966 to 1998), EMBASE/Excerpta Medica (1991 to 1998), the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Review Group and Complementary Medicine Field databases, and Phytodok (Munich) with the truncated term Echinac; bibliographies of relevant articles; and proceedings of phytomedicine congresses. Manufacturers and researchers in the field were contacted.
Study selection
Studies were selected if they were randomized or quasi-randomized trials of Echinacea extracts for preventing or treating unspecific viral upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs).
Data extraction
Independent reviewers assessed the quality of study methods and extracted data on participants, methods, interventions, outcomes, results, dropouts, and side effects. Authors and manufacturers were contacted to obtain additional information.
Main results
16 studies (n = 3396) met the inclusion criteria. 5 heterogeneous, placebo-controlled prevention studies (n = 1272) with acceptable methodologic quality compared different Echinacea preparations with placebo. 2 of these studies showed a lower incidence of infection for Echinacea than for placebo (relative risk reductions [RRRs] 33%, 95% CI 3% to 54%; and 49%, CI 22% to 67%), and 3 showed a trend in favor of the treatment group (RRRs 12%, CI -13% to 32%; 14%, CI -2% to 28%; and 16%, CI -18% to 41%). 3 additional prevention studies with a no-treatment control group and quasi-random allocation (n = 1139) showed that Echinacea combined with other herbs led to a greater reduction in URTI in children than did no treatment (weighted RRR 42%, CI 19% to 58% { P < 0.001}*). 8 heterogeneous treatment studies (n = 985) compared different Echinacea preparations with placebo; only 1 study had a clearly predefined main outcome measure. In 5 of these trials, Echinacea was more effective than placebo for reducing the duration of illness, improving symptom scores, or reducing the incidence of running nose. 1 trial had statistically significant results for a subgroup only, and 2 trials found no difference between Echinacea and placebo.
Heterogeneous studies used different preparations of Echinacea extracts and show that Echinacea may be effective for treating and preventing the common cold. More rigorous studies are needed to determine which preparations are most effective.
Sources of funding: Karl und Veronica Carstens Foundation; National Institute for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases; Erich Rothenfusser Foundation.
For correspondence: Dr. K. Linde, Münchener Modell—Centre for Complementary Medicine Research, Technical University/Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Kaiserstrasse. 9, Munich 80801, Germany. FAX 49-89-393484.
* P value calculated from data in article.
The common cold is the most common viral infection and is the main cause of absence from work or school. In the United States, the incidence in children and adults is 6 to 8 and 2 to 3 infections per person-year, respectively (1). Bacterial infections (mainly otitis media or sinusitis) may complicate about 3% to 4% of cases (1). An effective cure would therefore be of great importance.
Patients with a common cold do not usually consult family physicians until they have been ill for ≥ 3 days, which is when they may have possible bacterial complications or need sick leave. Most nonantibiotic medications, such as zinc lozenges, ipratropium, colostrum, and Echinacea preparations, are provided over the counter.
Melchart and colleagues' meta-analysis evaluates the effect of Echinacea preparations. Most of the available studies report positive results for prevention or reduction of illness duration, symptom scores, or running nose. However, the studies have several methodologic weaknesses: They are heterogeneous, they do not define disease, and the outcome measures lack validity and reliability. Moreover, Echinacea products on the market differ more in their biochemical composition than do other plant extracts because different Echinacea species, plant parts, and extraction methods are used. Thus, the results from the trials may not apply to the product that a person receives. Publication bias may also exist.
In 4 of the 5 placebo-controlled prevention studies, participants used Echinacea daily for 8 to 12 weeks. The 5th study was a combination of prevention and treatment because therapy with the medication began at the onset of symptoms. The prevention studies in children showed a 23% absolute reduction in incidence with daily use for 6 weeks, which results in a number needed to treat of 5. Side effects were similar for Echinacea and placebo.
What would I recommend to patients? I would say that Echinacea might have a moderate effect in the treatment of the common cold. It may shorten the duration of illness by 1 to 3 days and may reduce symptoms. 5 patients must use Echinacea for several weeks to prevent 1 additional episode of the common cold. Medication is probably most effective when therapy is started at symptom onset.
Morten Lindbaek, MD, PhD
University of OsloOslo, Norway
1. Gwaltney JM Jr. Rhinoviruses. In: Evans AS, Kalow RA, eds. Viral Infections of Humans: Epidemiology and Control. 4th ed. New York: Plenum; 1997.

subset: commoncrawl


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Officially. It's here. SPRING!
Normally, I would be a little tickled to look at my calendar and notice those little words typed at the bottom of the date telling me that the day had finally arrived. But, today I am truly puffed up with excitement at the arrival of this wondrous new season. Spring could not have arrived in grander style.
At the moment the thermometer is showing me a double digit temperature - 20 degrees. *sigh* The sun is shining brilliantly. Best of all - I have the day off work. Honestly, could it be better. Not likely.
All week I have been witnessing the arrival of old dear friends and their absence has truly made my heart grow fonder. Robins, song sparrows, and even those silly grackles that devour all the bird seed and screech their presence. I have missed you all and welcome you back.
Poking about in my gardens this morning I saw the first shoots of chives appearing among last year's browned, dried out matter. And lo' did I spy tips of tulips and daffodils and croci, oh my! Convinced I was that the newly planted bulbs had become a squirrel buffet throughout the winter, I was more than overjoyed to push aside some of the insulating autumn leaves and find fresh sprouts of growth. How I long for those cheery yellow blooms.
To make the most of the new season, I made a hasty jaunt to the still-bare garden centres and stocked up with (not enough) potting soil. The first of my container veggies are planted and the fresh taste of spring will in the near future be dancing across my winter-weary palette.
Welcome spring, and thank you March for being such a lamb.
In this season of rejuvenation, my etsy shop is also going through a period of revival. Currently all items are 50% off. Follow the link here - stringmealong on etsy - and use coupon code FLING50 to receive your discount.


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I don't know if this will be released for iOS or not. (I'll update it soon after I know it) So far, its only planned to be released for PC, MAC, Linux, PS 3 and XBOX Live. There're three chapters, and the first chapter will be released on July, 2013. You can start your pre-order here. However, you must be wonder why I decided to put this game here since it's not for iOS (Let's wish this coming to iOS too). Because.... I just amazed by prologue of the game which I played few hours ago on my iPad, and since it's made by indie too. That's not fault to put it here ;)
The Raven Prologue is available in 2 languages on AppStore, Deutsch and English. Since, I don't understand Deutsch, I played the English one. I know that the game is a prologue only. Only one screenshot showed in AppStore. However, no doubt I began downloading....
Played in the first time, I start amazed caused by the silhouette artworks. Basically, this is point and click adventure, but since this only prologue, you won't interact with many things.
Let's start the story here, You'll help Inspector Nicolas Legrand to apprehend the Raven. Who is the Raven?
Raven is a master thief who uses raven mask. If you think that Raven will give the thing which he has stolen to the poor folks. Definitely, you're wrong. Raven loves to make all polices looks fool. Looks like he enjoys it a lot.
Actually, Legrand got a letter from Raven. Raven make him to include in his game. Legrand know something. Unfortunately, no one believes this. People just think that Legrand has big obsession with the Raven..
Until... he got a clue from the one who bring a Raven's letter, and in the same day, Legrand want to finished all of this, he went to the museum and short story, he succeed to kill the Raven... Really?
The Raven series will comes with beautiful 3D graphics, so different with this prologue. The prologue uses silhouette arts. However, don't think cheap on this one... The music, vocal actors are well deserved. You just need about 15-20 minutes to finished the prologue. Try the game, and you won't be disappointed..
Here some screenshot from the actual Raven Game


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OverviewThe company was established as Headgate Studios in California in 1992 by Vance Cook. Headgate was entirely focused on golf simulations with Front Page Sports: Golf, PGA Championship Golf '99 and PGA Championship Golf 2000. In April 1996 the studio was acquired by Sierra.
In 2000 Headgate Studios teamed up with Electronic Arts to further develop the Tiger Woods PGA Tour franchise. They developed the Windows versions of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001 up to 2006.
In November 2006 the company was acquired by Electronic Arts and renamed EA Salt Lake. EA miscalculated the success of the Wii and when this became apparent, they immediately turned their Salt Lake studio exclusively to Wii development. The studio has since released casual-oriented games for the EA Play label such as NERF: N-Strike (2008) and the sequel NERF: N-Strike - Elite (2009), as well as the Littlest Pet Shop franchise - all under license of Hasbro.
On 21st July 2010 a new office was officially opened in the heart of Salt Lake City. Previously the team worked out of Bountiful, Utah.
Also Known As
- Headgate Studios Inc. (from 1992 to Nov 29, 2006)
[add name]
There is no trivia on file. If you have any interesting trivia about this company, please add it.
Related Web Sites
- EA Salt Lake (official website)
[add site]
Logo from 1992 to Nov 30, 2006
[add logo]
Top Games
Most popular games as rated by MobyGames users.
|Madden NFL 08
|Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005
|Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
|The Simpsons Game
|Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001
|Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
|The Godfather: The Game
|Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004
|Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003


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Chris Maple has decided to start his own business, which is his own Condo complex, and he's letting you stay. There's a pool, a kitchen, several floors of rooms, a reading area, and when you decided to live there, you can do whatever you want. Just no over usage of swearing, character bashing, and the likes. Have fun. Also, any style can join. Not just JUMP, I mean Advanced, Genesis, custom, all that.
Setting Up Shop(or Room in this case) -Copa
February 8th, 2012, 11:55 pm
Author's Comments:
Reply copafire, February 8th, 2012, 11:52 pm
Thought this place would need an update, enjoy my awesomeness! XD
Reply Advertisement, May 19th, 2019, 10:29 pm
User's Comments:
Reply Inxerene, February 9th, 2012, 1:23 am
It's a shame that this comic barely updates.. I wouldn't mind joining. <:3c
Reply Kirbysmith [DJ], February 9th, 2012, 1:37 am
An inter dimensional door? What, ANOTHER ONE?!?!
Reply Chaos The Hedgehog4444, February 9th, 2012, 9:17 am
... Have you seen my room?
Reply godmoderncommander, February 9th, 2012, 12:31 pm
*Having arms healed at the moment*
Reply copafire, February 9th, 2012, 2:45 pm
Reply Kirbysmith [DJ], February 9th, 2012, 3:59 pm
@copafire: "IT'S ONLY A FLESH WOUND."
Reply Martin Prower, June 19th, 2013, 7:48 am
@senalcoolage: Banner died ages ago, y u so slow?
Post A Comment


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Silver nanowires could be key to printable electronics
March 3, 2017
Every smart phone, computer and electronic device relies on conducting circuits: loops of material that funnel electrons through a device. As electronics get more sophisticated, however, engineers are looking for new ways to make circuits that are more flexible and that can work on different surfaces.
Circuits can now be produced with an ink jet printer. Nanoparticles of silver dissolved in water make a sort of ink that conducts electricity. Now researchers from Duke University have found that by changing the shape of the nanoparticles, they can make a highly conductive ink that can be used on almost any surface.
When a metal is broken down into nanoparticles—when either its length, width or height are thinner than one-hundredth of a percent of a millimeter—some of its properties change, including its ability to conduct electricity.
Silver by itself is a great electrical conductor. However, Duke chemistry professor Benjamin Wiley, senior author of this study, says that electricity moves more slowly through a collection of nanoparticles because electrons have trouble jumping from one nanoparticle to another. This is a property of circuits that physicists call "contact resistance."
The researchers experimented with several different nanoparticle shapes to see how the nanoparticle shapes affected electrical conductivity. So they did a side-by-side comparison of nanoparticle shapes—one of the first comparisons of its kind in published science—in which they tightly controlled the amount of silver and added ingredients in the ink, so the only variable was the shape of the nanoparticles.
Ian Stewart, lead author of the study and Duke graduate student, made granular and flake-shaped nanoparticles, as well as long and short nanowires. He created inks by dissolving the particles in distilled water and deposited equal amounts of each ink on glass surfaces. After heating the ink, the researchers measured the electrical resistance—how much a material limits charges from flowing through it—in each ink.
The long nanowires conducted electricity up to 4,000 times better than the other nanoparticle shapes. The electrons were able to quickly travel a relatively long distance along one before having to jump to another. In fact, a solid silver wire was only 10 times more conductive than the long nanowires, which may sound like a big difference but is remarkably small for a printable conductor.
The long nanowires have a few further advantages over the other shapes. First, silver nanoparticles found in some of today's printable electronics need to be sintered, a process that involves heating a powder just enough for the grains to fuse together without completely melting. You can see a video of sintering silver nanoparticles here. Sintering the silver decreases the number of jumps the electrons have to make as they run through the nanoparticles, but it often requires heating the material to more than 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit). Plenty of materials like heavy plastics can take the heat. New DVDs, for example, have circuits printed on the back to prevent theft. The high temperature required for these, however, limits the materials that can hold a printable circuit.
The long nanowires, however, do their best conducting with only enough heat to dry the ink. In fact, they were more conductive on their own than the granular nanoparticles were after sintering. That opens up lighter plastics and even paper as materials for printable circuits. Paper and plastic circuits could allow for smart packaging, more inexpensive solar cell electronics and touchscreens. In the medical field, an increased selection of materials could even open the door to printed electronics implanted in the body.
There is also an economic upside to the long nanowires. Because they perform better than the other shapes using the same amount of silver, there is an opportunity to get the same performance as current printed circuits using less silver. Given that silver is not a cheap material, this could present meaningful savings over millions of circuits. The researchers think they might even be able to find further savings by using silver-plated copper nanowires, but more research would be needed to determine whether those cheaper wires could conduct as well.
Electronics are becoming an increasingly dominant part of daily life. Studies like this one broaden the scope of what electronics can be, where they can go and how well they can work. The study was published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
—Daniel Lane
Daniel Lane covers science, medicine, engineering and the environment in North Carolina.


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First, I want to thank you all so much for your caring emails! And those of you that have sent/are sending cards...THANK YOU sooo much!!! I am so deeply touched by the love and concern you have shown us!! We have just recently returned from Seattle and are so grateful to be home! I apologize for not returning all of your emails yet...I am working on it though! Many of you have asked if I am o.k. as it is not "like me" to not post for so long. Again, I can't tell you how amazing you all are...thank you so much for your concern! I have to tell you...my DH is absolutely AMAZED that people we haven't even met have shown so much support and care...I just keep telling him that stampers really are just wonderful people!!!
A couple of weeks ago, Alison's (our 12 year old daughter) pediatrician found a mass in her brain that they first believed to be a tumor. We were sent to Seattle Children's hospital where a team of Neurosurgeons (they call them the Pediatric Tumor Team) ran more tests and determined that the mass they saw was blood. After even more tests (what they call "brain mapping"), they were able to rule out some of the really dangerous stuff...but weren't able to see what was behind/caused the blood. They believe that there is either a small, slow-growing tumor or a cluster of abnormal blood vessels that is cause of all of this, but cannot be sure until the swelling/blood goes down. We were able to come home for a while...and will go back in January for more tests. There is still a chance that she could hemorrhage again...but the risks of immediate surgery were greater than the risk of her bleeding again. Although it is a bit nerve wracking being so far away from the doctors, we are grateful to be able to spend the Holidays at home!
We believe so strongly in the power of prayer, and have experienced God's loving hand upon us. Thank you all SO much for your prayers, love, and concern!
I will be taking pictures of the beautiful cards we have received, and posting some each day (and I will even probably have something that I made to share with you as well...because there isn't any better therapy than stampin!!).
Hugs, Laurie


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not new music tuesdays
John Cale - Fear (1974, Island)
It must have been a shocking day in 1970 when 'the weird guy' from the Velvet Underground released his first solo album, Vintage Violence. It was a pretty damn straight-forward pop album for a guy that had worked with La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, produced both the Stooges debut and Nico's 'The Marble Index,' AND played that fucking organ on Sister Ray.
In the years between Vintage Violence and the featured album, Fear, Cale kept himself busy releasing the mostly instrumental albums Church of Anthrax (with Terry Riley) and The Academy in Peril, as well as his baroque pop 'masterpiece' Paris 1919 (I have NEVER been able to get into this record!). During this time he also managed to produce a few records, including Nico's Desertshore and The End, the Modern Lovers demos that ended up being their first record, and Patti Smith's Horses, among others.
1974's Fear marked the beginning of the most focused and creative era in Cale's solo career. His trilogy of albums for Island in 1974-75 (Fear, Slow Dazzle, Helen of Troy) and his accompanying tours defined his recording/live persona for nearly the next decade. Fear finds Cale paired up with not only Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), but also with Eno, who would become a long-time friend and collaborator.


text: Collectively, the three capital cities of the Baltic region serve up a tantalising spread of period architecture, modern history and feisty Euro culture. Estonia's Tallinn, Latvia's Riga and Lithuania's Vilnius all have Old Towns that showcase exquisite medieval buildings, and there's plenty of enjoyment to be had from sampling the region's long-standing culinary specialities, but the trio also have a distinctly forward-facing feel, with confident arts scenes, on-trend bars and some classy accommodation options. All three have undergone huge social evolutions over the last century, and they offer far more than their lazy reputations as stag magnets would suggest.


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Akash Mittal
Aakash Mittal has worked as a performing artist, teaching artist, and composer since 2002. His primary ensemble, the award winning Aakash Mittal Quartet, has released four critically acclaimed recordings and continues to tour both nationally and internationally. As a composer and improviser, Mittal employs colorful dissonances, meditative silences, and angular rhythms to express environments and spaces from the American west to the dense streets of Kolkata.
Related stream posts
From Tradition to Innovation
Indian Classical Music has touched and influenced people from around the world. <b>Brooklyn Raga Massive</b> takes you on a raga-music journey, presenting pure classical ragas from India to contemporary adaptations in America, which have taken various shapes as a result of pivotal musical collaborations. A deeply diverse collective, Brooklyn Raga Massive artists are rooted in traditions ranging from Carnatic to African to jazz. While honoring pioneers like Ravi Shankar, John Coltrane and others, the collective also presents original visions of raga music, reflective of their ties to various communities, cultures, and experiences as artists in today's world.
In "C"
Indian classical music is usually a soloistic, lonely affair. Hindustani ensembles rarely number more than 3 or 4 and usually it is just 2 (melody and percussion). As our community grew past critical mass, BRM co-founder Neel Murgai was excited about the possibility of creating a super group of musicians, the Brooklyn Raga Massive All Stars: an orchestra with sitar, sarod, bansuri, violin, dilruba, harmonium, tabla, vocals, violin, cello, bass, guitar, vibes and more. He realized that Terry Riley's seminal minimalist composition "In C" would be a special way to achieve that. A work that is written for any number of any kind of instrument, "In C" consists of 53 small cells of music and a set of directions that allow each performer to move through the music at their own pace.
View all posts >>


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Just listen to this while you read the rest of this post. It'll make you smile.
We don't have a lot of cute Easter pictures, because our Easter wasn't super cute. No vignettes of ceramic bunnies, no egg dyeing, I didn't even get the girls to pose in their Easter dresses. Hailey, Robin, Summer and I were all sick, and so we kind of coasted through the long weekend. It all seems like a blur to me, and I felt like I was in a haze through most of it. It's a wonder we were even organized enough to get an egg hunt set up for Sunday morning.
|Hailey putting an egg into Robin's bag, how cute is that? Yes, our Easter baskets are also our grocery bags.
My mom and I took Hailey and Robin to the agriculture museum Friday for our celebration of new life: baby animals were on display, and the girls loved it all. They were indiscriminate in their love for both the gulls flying around, and the magnificent Clydesdale horses, just the same. I think they liked the pigs the best, though. And snack time.
So, that's kind of it. A big blur of plastic eggs, cellophane-wrapped chocolate bunnies, farm scenes and a lot of blankets and pillows on couches. Like, a lot. But that's what happens when almost everyone is sick and wants to rest.
You know what else happened this weekend, though? Our village totally rose to the occasion. Nobody chastised us for forgetting cards at Easter dinner, or only staying for an hour and a half, or for our lack of visible enthusiasm over, well, anything. Instead, people came and helped us. Helped play with Abby when she felt better but no one else did, helped bring food, helped make tea, tuck me in, and let me sleep while household tasks were attended to. I almost felt guilty. Because, if we were up North, our northern family would help us out too and we would have done the same for them, but I would have felt guilty accepting help. But this is home, and this is our family. Of course they help us. They are most definitely the village required for raising a big family.
Happy Earth Day to you! I thought of compiling a list of ways we try to be green, reduce waste, etc. But I don't know, it felt a little, brag-y and presumptuous. We do our best, and we do what's easiest in most cases. Let's leave it at that!


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Are you fond of naughty babes? Slutty Riley looks very hot when she sucks her ice-cream... This smiling babe is just eager to savor a delicious cock, so don't miss the inciting blowjob. See this horny lady taing off her bikini and exposing her yummy cunt.
- dtr76ed
- : 6min 54sec
- : 14 Aug 2015
- Exclusive video
- : Riley Reid


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Fun, creative and sometimes silly family portrait photography for Bayside, Melbourne and Beyond.
Hey! Thanks for dropping by and checking out my photography. I'm located in the fun bayside suburbs of Melbourne and also spend heaps of time photographing families in Tasmania.
Photobat is all taking fun, creative, crazy and loving families and capturing them and turning the image into eye catching artwork to suit your home. That's what we have done for hundreds of families for the last 15 years.
The Photobat Portrait Experience - 4 Simple Steps
Portrait Style Guide
Everyone is different, so why not have some fun and make your session in the style you will love? Some decide to stay close to home, others head to their favourite park or beach and others just look for somewhere different like a city or country adventure.


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here you can find the latest jobs
Digital Media Jobs
Programmatic DirectorUK Media Agency - London
Programmatic Director role at full service media agency, covering all elements of running a digital media trading desk across multiple DSPs for a range of clients. Take your biddable media skills to the next level now!
Ref: 2420
Programmatic Director
Programmatic Director role at full service media agency, covering all elements of running a digital media trading desk across multiple DSPs for a range of clients. Take your biddable media skills to the next level now!
The company
Top class media agency – fully integrated offering all possible media planning and buying services to a wide range of advertisers
Interesting and diverse client list representing all major advertiser categories.
They cover both UK and International media planning and are part of a global network
The role
This role will be responsible for growing programmatic billings, the management of junior employees, and supporting the Senior members of the Company with programmatic strategy. Key Responsibilities:
• Educating teams and communicating the benefits of programmatic buying.
• Representing the benefits of programmatic buying to key clients and articulating the USP's of the Company's programmatic proposition.
• Managing the consistent delivery and presentation of high quality campaign reporting and insights from the Programmatic Engagement team.
• Line management of junior programmatic team members and supporting them in day to day client queries and requests.
• Promoting programmatic buying and its capabilities throughout the Company.
• Growing share of plan across all clients.
The candidate
The ideal candidate will have around four years' experience in a media agency, working directly with clients across digital media channels. Key Skills:
• A proven track record of growing display/VOD/Mobile spend across clients.
• Excellent understanding of DSP's, programmatic platforms and how automation can be applied to media buying.
• Demonstrable history of managing multiple stakeholders and inputs.
• Thorough knowledge of ad-server technology.
• Trading experience in a DSP preferable, experience with MediaMath T1 or AppNexus Console is a significant benefit.
Why dotgap?
dotgap are ex-agency people now working in recruitment. We understand you, your industry and will not give you the hard sell…. we listen!
For a full brief or to apply for this role, please click the "Apply" button below.


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Story Mexican Fisherman and American MBA
- A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them. The fisherman said… Not very long. Well, then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more? Because this is sufficient to meet my needs and those of my family. But what do you do with the rest of your time? Read More


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- Who We Are
- What We Do
- What We Care About
- What You Can Do
Integrating Rapid Re-Housing and Employment offers program and policy recommendations of how access to jobs can be incorporated into rapid re-housing interventions. The report provides in-depth suggestions and step-by-step instructions about how housing and employment providers can work together to enrich rapid re-housing programs and ensure that jobs are included as an integral aspect of the services being provided to individuals and families. The report summarizes the role that employment and supportive services play in helping families to successfully graduate from a rapid re-housing program.
This report was developed and published by the Heartland Alliance National Initiatives on Poverty & Economic Opportunity.
Click here to read the report.


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We are Vandfald. An indie rock band based out of Oregon, USA trying to make a living out what we love to do, music. For every CD, T-shirt, vinyl, and/or other merchandise bought from our store helps our band stay on its feet. So we want to thank you a head of time, because without your support, we are simply nothing.
Vandfald <3
Matt, Josh, John, Ryan


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Kent is known the world over as "The Garden of England". And with good reason. It may have originated because of the vast areas of fruit orchards, but it's also a county with an enviable array of beautiful gardens, of all shapes, styles, and sizes.
Large formal gardens, such as those at Hever Castle, are breathtaking in their intricacy. Large parkland gardens, like those at Leeds Castle and Quex House, and wonderful for walking, and continually offer something different as the seasons change. There are smaller gardens set in already picturesque surroundings, perfectly demonstrated by the Vita Sackville-West designed marvel at Sissinghurst Castle. And of course, there are new horticultural marvels still being brought into being by enthusiastic plantsmen - you only have to take a trip to Tom Hart-Dyke's renowned "World Garden", at Lullingstone Castle, to witness this.
But the real joy can often be found away from the large estates and well-to-do stately homes. Kent is a county of gardeners, and this is best seen in the late spring when countless villages and small towns host "garden safaris". A single ticket will give you a rare opportunity to wander into everyday back gardens of the villagers, all usually a mass of colour, and immaculately tended. From council houses to cottages, you will witness some beautiful designs, and come away with not just some great ideas and inspiration for your own garden, but usually some new friends too!
Lastly, don't forget the many public parks and gardens that adorn the towns and villages of Kent. Even here, you'll be delighted at how many hidden gems you can discover, and of course these also have another advantage - they're free!
You can also visit the website for the National Gardens Scheme, which lists private gardens in Kent that can be visited and any donations go to various charities including The Macmillan Trust and Marie Curie Cancer Care.


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Variable Stars Near the Galactic Center
I'll try to make it through this post without making any snide or snarky remarks about how boring stars are and how they're really just point particles and how caring about any one in particular is just stamp collecting.
So apparently the majority of the papers I have first authored at this point in my career are about stars. I've even published an entire paper on just two stars (or one, depending on how you count ... the idea that "a binary star" is really two stars hasn't fully infiltrated the nomenclature, it seems). It took a lot of doing while writing this paper to figure out just why anyone would care about a bunch of variable stars; for the paper I wrote about dust structures at other galactic center, the explanation of why the topic is interesting was much easier to sink my teeth into (though "centers of galaxies are interesting because I get to look at pretty galaxies" is apparently not a sound argument).
This paper is about "variable stars near the Galactic center," where "near" is defined as within about 2 pc (about 6.5 lightyears) of the supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, at the Milky Way's center. I've put a completely gratuitous picture of the field below; the yellow X marks where Sgr A* is, the dots are on variable stars, and the cyan dots are the stars I actually talk about in the paper. The bar denoting how much 30'' is corresponds to 3.6 lightyears. This field of view (i.e., how much we can see) is larger than many of the stellar variability studies near the Galactic center, but still small enough that we can basically assume that all of the stars we are looking at are pretty close to Sgr A*. The metric I usually keep in mind is that the size of a resolution element when looking at nearby galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope is 1–15 pc. In other words, this entire field of view would look like just a few bright pixels if it were in another galaxy.
Or, it would look like a few dark pixels, if we were looking at the galaxy edge on. And, because we are in the disk of the Milky Way, we are looking at the Milky Way edge on. This is why things like exactly where the center of the Galaxy is and the fact that the Milky Way is a barred galaxy weren't known until recently. Spiral galaxies like the Milky Way have lots of gas and dust in them between all of the stars (so it is called the "interstellar medium," or ISM). This dust absorbs light, so it is very difficult to see stars near the center of the Galaxy (which is thought to be about 7600 pc away these days). Because dust absorbs more blue light than red light, something sitting behind a whole bunch of dust looks redder than it intrinsically is. This is why absorption due to dust is referred to as "reddening," and why we have to look at infrared wavelengths to be able to see stars near the Galactic center.
The paper is essentially just a list of the 110 variable stars we identified; about 90 of these are new (depending on how you count). "Look, here's a list of variable stars and their light curves" doesn't make for all that interesting a paper—even if most of the list is new—so I put a decent amount of effort into trying to cross-correlate our catalog with known sources (known variable stars, of course, but also X-ray and radio catalogs) at the Galactic center. Many of our variables that matched up to other sources are fairly well-known, and even have names. One of these stars was IRS 16SW, which we wrote a paper on last fall, but I think the most interesting of the previously-known objects in our catalog is IRS 10*. This is our light curve for IRS 10*; the vertical axis is the K-band magnitude (remember, smaller numbers means brighter!) and the horizontal axis is in days. What makes this object actually interesting isn't that its brightness changed so much, but that by poking around in the literature (literally—remember that big pile of papers?), I found that there are several stellar masers and a bright X-ray source sitting at pretty much the same location. When I started this project, I definitely didn't know anything about masers, so here's pretty much all you need to know: (1) they are like lasers, except at radio frequencies, and they actually amplify light instead of merely letting it coherently oscillate; and (2) masers associated with stars are generally associated with stars with lots of gunk around them (the stuff actually doing the masing); these stars are usually "asymptotic giant branch" (AGB) stars, which are basically old stars that are busy shedding their outer envelopes. The idea that IRS 10* is an AGB star isn't all that exciting; what is exciting is that AGB stars are not bright X-ray sources, so if the nearby X-ray source actually is associated with IRS 10*, then it probably means that IRS 10* has some dead companion (like a white dwarf) which is accreting mass from the AGB star. (If the X-ray source isn't associated with IRS 10*, the question then becomes: what can cause such a bright X-ray flux and not vary at these wavelengths?)
When astronomers hear about a new catalog of variable stars, the first thing they almost always ask is, "how many periodics?" I spend a lot of time in the paper talking about two "enigmatic" variables with periods of about 42 days; basically after a page or so of babble I get around to saying we don't know what the hell these things are, except that they're interesting and we'd like to know, and that someone needs to try to take more data to figure out what they are. These are their light curves to the left; H and K are the names of the two filters our data are in. (When people started naming their filters back in the day, they gave them sensible names like "b" for the one that let through blue light and "r" for the one that let through red light. The filter just redder of the r-band filter is "i," for infrared, so when the filters started getting further into the infrared they just kept going to j, H, K, L, etc. So K band is redder than H band. And, please, don't think too hard about how the alphabet works right there.) The left-hand panels of the light curves are in days, like the light curve of IRS 10* above; the right-hand panels are phased according the period P so you can see what the light curve is "really" doing.
And just to completely fulfill the promise of this post's title, here are some of my favorite (read: prettiest) light curves from the paper ... for all of these, K band is on top and H band is on the bottom and such, just like before...


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Contact Fast Freddie
I'd love to hear from you!
About Freddie
Music here
Videos here
Mind the Gap!
On The Radio
Contact Freddie
You can now speak with me directly on my new Facebook artist page which I check into regularly. This can be found here:
Fast Freddie's Facebook Artist Page
If you are not a Facebook user or would rather drop me a personal message then please feel free to send one over using the screen below. This will get straight to me personally and I'd love to hear from you!
Message to Freddie:
Your First Name:
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text:
Morbidmuch_ wrote:I'm listening to a full bootleg of this cast on the train for the first time, and can I just say how much I dislike Karis Jack's Éponine? I honestly struggle to find anything I like about her.
Olivia_y wrote:Killian/Thaxton doing the confrontation here: http://olivia-y113.tumblr.com/post/170833782939/
deHavilland wrote:Well, it's just footage of the show with a different cast. It's not like they're going to add jet packs and bears or anything.
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Old BearBook - 2008
When Old Bear falls asleep for the winter, he has a dream that he is a cub again, enjoying each of the four seasons.
Publisher: New York : Greenwillow Books, c2008
Characteristics: 1 v. (unpaged) : ill. ; 26 cm
Edition: 1st ed
ISBN: 9780061552052 (trade bdg.)
9780061552069 (lib. bdg.)
9780061552069 (lib. bdg.)
Call Number: E FICTION HENKES
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kim_W Feb 14, 2018
This imaginative and beautifully illustrated picture book reminds us that spring is coming, even as winter seems deepest. This is a great way to introduce the changing seasons to our little ones. Available in large Board Book format as well.
BAIR Apr 09, 2014
Follow the story of a bear and he dreams his way through the 4 seasons of the year. ISimple story with beautiful illustrations.
mvkramer Feb 13, 2014
One of my favorite authors and one of my favorite books! A simple story about the seasons, very well illustrated. Great for younger kids.
RockCastle Aug 15, 2009
If you like Henkes's work, don't miss 'Old Bear'
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Cute story about a penguin who gets lost. Easy read of young elementary and great book to read to very little ones before bed.
This book should be for ALL AGES! This story is about a little penguin who gets lost as he drifts farther from home.In the end, we learn that home is being with your family, no matter where you are.
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We've had Shadow for thirteen years (got her on Bethany's 10th birthday). She was stone deaf for about a year, going blind, but basically still doing good until a week ago. She got very sick, didn't eat for the whole week and we finally had to bring her in to the vet yesterday and have her put down. We will miss her a lot!!!
She LOVED to go camping. She was great friends with the chipmunks at Boot Lake!!
She was a Christian dog. Here she is ministering in her favorite way...cleaning up the gym floor at the church after lunch. (Actually she is helping us get ready for Bethany's wedding here.)
She sat in on a few Senior Picture photo shoots (for Brooke & Brennan, anyway...what's up with that? She was supposed to be Bethany's dog).
She HATED water in general, and getting a bath in particular.
She didn't quite understand the family picture thing...just look at her face!!
She made Scott believe that she enjoyed all the things he did to her. Not so sure about that...
...but she did enjoy Scott.
Lots of good times!!!!


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Staff Selection Board (SSB)is an Administration which is set up by the Ministry of Defence . Service Selection Board is the Association that schedule, organize and conduct the SSB Interview of the candidates applying for Indian Military Forces. SSB Interview to evaluate prospective candidates for recruitment in the Army, Navy and Air Force. The gauges on which the candidates are assessed include intelligence, personality, compatibility and potential. The Career in defence Services is the proper way to move ahead.
Only unmarried Candidate are selected Unmarried graduates who clear the Combined Defense Services Examination conducted by the UPSC are selected for the SSB Interview.For Males:
Born on or later 2 January 1991 and not later 1 January 1996 . In case of Air Force Academy, someone should be born on or after 2 January 1992 and on or earlier than 1st January 1996
Candidates applying for the Army/Navy/Naval Academy and Air Force have to keeping the minimum qualifying marks separately in written test & Officer Potentiality Test.
Candidates applying for the Air Force, they also have to qualify the Computerized Pilot Selection System (CPSS) & Pilot Aptitude Battery Test (PABT) separately.
PABT Test is applicable for the candidates those First liking is Air Force. PABT is also organized for all SSB qualified candidates with one of the choices as Air Force.
Pilot Aptitude Battery Test (PABT) is a unique test. Its aim to assess a candidate's aptitude to be trained as a pilot. Candidates can only take PABT once in a lifetime. PABT consist of three tests, i.e. Instrument Battery Test (INSB), Control Velocity Test (CVT) and Sensory Motor Apparatus Test (SMA).
SSB Interview procedure consists of two stage selection Process Stage I & II. Candidate those are qualify stage I only they are allow to appear for stage II.
1. Screening:-In this process some intelligence students are selected by some activities Verbal and Non- Verbal Test and Picture Perception and Discussion Test (PPDT. In PPDT candidate write a story on shown picture in 30 sec.
The Officer can take your personal Interview. In this task candidate face the SSB Interview Questions. . Interviewing Officers in the SSB is the major anxiety because one wrong answer move dimness your image and decrease your chances to get recommend.
The conference is just to decide whether you recommend as an officer in Indian defence forces or not. Candidates are required to come before the complete Board of Examiners, which is consisted of President, Deputy President, all the GTOs, all the psychologists and Technical Officer.


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Mystical Medicine
TEACH Services, Incorporated, Jul 1, 2012 - Health & Fitness - 122 pages
Today many people are becoming aware of the relationship that exists between the mind, body, and spirit for achieving total health. As a Christian physician with many years of traditional, humanistic, medical and surgical training, I began to awaken to the concept of the "whole man." I started to study books authored by Hans Selye, M.D., Nathan Pritikin, O. Carl Simonton, M.D., Rene Dubos, Norman Cousins and James Lynch. I even "dabbled" for the first time into Christian books like Ministry of Healing and Medical Ministry. I perceived a common thread of world brotherhood and min expansion which could solve the tension I felt in my materialistic and technocratic surgical world. Perhaps the practice of surgery did hold more challenge than just another bypass operation which, I knew from experience, merely postponed death, but did little to change the cause of the underlying disease condition.
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Alcala de Henares - The city
Spanish in Spain in the city of Alcalá de Henares. Escuela Internacional has
Spanish language schools designed to help students learn to speak Spanish in a
realistic environment such as this beautiful city.
This Escuela Internacional Spanish language school is located in the heart of the
charming and historic university city of Alcalá de Henares. Alcalá is a peaceful
and enjoyable city for Spanish studies. Learn to speak Spanish in this beautiful
city. With a population of 170,000 people,
Alcalá is a very comfortable, safe, and walkable city. Living in Alcalá's
pleasant surroundings with the school just a short walk from your
accommodations allows for a relaxing daily schedule. E.I. students
enjoy meeting with friends after class in the popular Plaza de Cervantes.
Surrounded by historical buildings and landscaped gardens, this plaza is the
true social center of the city. With numerous shops, boutiques, cafes and
restaurants in the area, Calle Mayor's the perfect place to take an afternoon stroll or gather with friends at an outdoor café on a warm
sunny day. The
friendly and peaceful atmosphere of the city, its beautiful Spanish Renaissance
architecture and the hospitality of the local Alcalaínos create the perfect
environment for immersing yourself in the Spanish language and culture. Don't miss the
population of storks who make their home among the
steeples, towers and rooftops of the city center.
Alcalá de Henares was named a "Cultural Heritage
City" by UNESCO for its historical university, cultural and literary tradition.
The peoples and cultures who mark the history of this place are evident in the
many fine examples of architecture and cultural events which take place in the city throughout
the year. Besides the many theatrical and musical representations year round in
the theaters, in April you can enjoy a book fair and presentation of the Cervantes Award for
Literature by
the King of Spain, in August the Feria de Santos
Niños and the local festival of San Bartolomé, and a medieval marketplace during the Semana Cervantina in October with street theater, music, typical foods and
crafts, the film festival in November, and the annual outdoor theater presentation of "Don
Juan Tenorio" on November 1 and 2.
Alcalá, within the Community of Madrid, offers the advantage of being very near
Madrid capital city. It is
located 25 kilometers northeast of Madrid, and is conveniently connected by way of commuter trains and buses
which brings all that the capital has to offer into easy reach. Madrid's
nightlife, its theatre, flamenco shows, restaurants and discos, as well as
its museums, monuments and shopping centers, will surely draw students to
discover the capital on the weekends. Alcalá's central location and
connections by train and bus lines are perfect for students who wish to
explore other regions of Spain. Toledo, Segovia, Ávila, Aranjuez or El Escorial
are interesting places to visit for a day or weekend and are just a short trip
away from Alcalá de Henares. Escuela Internacional's Spanish language school in
this fine city provides a great environment to learn Spanish.
"I like the school because the lessons
are well divided. In the
morning, grammar, and after a
break, composition and
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20 years old,


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The teaser for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now up at Yahoo!, for those who are interested. It should be attached to movies beginning this weekend.
One good thing about a movie like this is that you don't have to worry about the trailer spoiling the movie, because the story is already familiar to most people. If you go through the teaser frame by frame, you can match up pretty much everything with events from Roald Dahl's book. That's not to say there aren't some surprises in the movie, though.
Thanks to reader Steve for pointing out the link.


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Unleashing Innovation: Advancing a Creative, Productive and Competitive Workforce
Unleashing Innovation: Advancing a Creative, Productive and Competitive Workforce
Innovation is emerging as the essential element of success for any organization, whether a business, government agency or philanthropy. Our panel will examine the tools leaders can use to foster innovation and remain competitive and relevant. The themes and questions our panelists will address are:
What can be done to ingrain not only the process of innovation, but the spirit of it -- motivation, curiosity and the hunger for lifelong learning -- into a culture?
What are some promising technologies that our panelists are using to promote new ideas and further workforce education?
How are leaders addressing constant technologic disruption and empowering workforces to respond to change?
How do leaders nurture collaboration; whether inside organizations, across borders, or between organizations?
Amy Wilkinson, CEO and Founder, Ingenuity; Lecturer, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Government of Canada
Krishna Nathan, Chief Information Officer, S&P Global
Scott Neal, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Gulfstream
Hilton Romanski, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Cisco
Jeff Wong, Global Chief Innovation Officer, EY


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Leigh Griffiths was presented with the match ball after recording his first hat-trick in senior football as Hibs progressed to the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup.
The teams had drawn 2-2 in the league at Easter Road on the Wednesday night leading up to this match, and for much of this game were evenly matched. But together Griffiths' opportunism and the home defenders' ineptitude ensured that Hibs became the fourth away team to emerge victorious from the four quarter-finals.
Hibs boss Pat Fenlon made only one change to the team which had begun that 2-2 draw, bringing David Wotherspoon into midfield in place of Paul Cairney.
It was the visitors' defence who had more to do in the opening stages as Killie, unchanged from four days earlier, tried to take the game to them.
A harmless shot which Griffiths sent wide was the first real effort on goal by either side, with almost ten minutes on the clock. It was an uncharacteristically tame effort, but the prolific striker reverted to form five minutes later when he fired his team into the lead. A clearance out of the Kilmarnock box had seemed secure enough, and was about to cross the halfway line when Wotherspoon headed it back upfield. With Jeroen Tesselaar wrongfooted, Griffiths seized on the loose ball, ran on unopposed into the box, and stroked it under Cammy Bell and into the net.
The home team's response was fairly quick though. William Gros did the damage with a low shot which Ben Williams could only push out as far as James Dayton, and with the goalkeeper covering his near post, the winger cleverly shot high into the net.
Undaunted by the equaliser, Hibs pressed on, and were soon in front again, thanks to some atrocious work by the Kilmarnock defence. Bell put Mo Sissoko in difficulty with a pass inside the box, and the centre-half returned the compliment by thumping the ball back to his goalkeeper.
Apparently unaware that Griffiths was closing him down, Bell took a touch in a bid to control the ball before clearing. Griffiths was too quick for the keeper, however, and got a touch into the path of Matt Done just before Bell brought him down. Done shot into the empty net to register his first goal for Hibs, and Bell was booked for the foul on Griffiths.
Kilmarnock pressed hard in the first 20 minutes after the restart, but they barely got a sniff of a direct scoring chance. It was no surprise, then, when home manager Kenny Shiels made the first substitution of the afternoon, introducing Cillian Sheridan in place of Rory McKeown.
Shiels' team had become over-elaborate in their attempts to get the equaliser, but when it came, it was pretty similar to the move which had produced their first goal. This time it was a shot by Dayton which Williams pushed clear, into the path of Paul Heffernan. Before the striker could pull the trigger, however, he was impeded by Lewis Stevenson. The referee pointed to the penalty spot, and Heffernan netted.
After so much hard work to get back on terms, Kilmarnock were then their own undoing when Griffiths got the better of Sissoko in a race for a through ball. Bell came out, collided with Sissoko, and got a touch on the deck. Griffiths also fell over, but showed the presence of mind to spin round while on the ground and hook the ball into the empty net.
More Kilmarnock madness followed minutes later when Ross Barbour was sent off for pulling Griffiths back just outside the box as the striker again threatened to break free. Gros handled the resultant free-kick hand just inside the box to concede a penalty.
The Frenchman was booked, and Griffiths took the penalty, slamming the ball into the right corner of the net.
Hibs: Williams, Maybury, McPake, McGivern, Stevenson, Claros, Taiwo, Done, Robertson, Wotherspoon, Griffiths.


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Splendid lakedews review consumer complaints solved
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I finally took the plunge and bought some starter strobe lights. There was definitely a learning curve. I had no idea how to use them and if you have ever used lights you know there are things you should know. For instance: I didn't know about the shutter/flash speed. I had searched and searched on line looking for answers. What I found was a lot of people that want to tell you that you should know how to use them before you buy them. What's wrong with people these days?
So if you find yourself using lights and you have a black bar on the image your shutter speed is too fast. On my camera I can't set it faster than 1/250. Once I found that piece of information, I could start experimenting.
I shoot my niece's for my first photo shoot. I should mention here that I prefer shooting landscapes. I'm not so good at still life or portraits but I want to volunteer for NILMDTS and to do that I have to learn how to do portraits. Here are the results of my first photo shoot with my lights.
Not bad. I think with some practice I might actually get the hang of this.


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Sci-Fi writer, Short story scriber, journalist, bear wrestler. All rolled up into one sexy beast.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
The Huey Lewis and the News Greatest Hits Album is the Greatest, er, Greatest Hits Album Ever
(Image taken from: familyfriendly.wordpress.com)
If you've ever bought a greatest hits album before, there are like, four or five (Or six or seven, if you're lucky) great songs on it that are immediately familiar or awesome to you. And then...there are the other songs. These songs are typically tracks that nobody's heard unless they've actually bought the group's whole albums before, and if that's the case, then why the hell would that person want to buy a Greatest Hits album in the first place? Sure, some of these songs may have been played once or twice on some college radio somewhere, but for the most part, a song like "Family Man," by Hall and Oates wasn't getting the same kind of airplay that say, "Maneater," was getting on the major stations. Granted, some singles are beefier than others, but when I buy an album that's called Hall and Oates Greatest Hits, I'm expecting the GREATEST HITS, not the MODERATE, YOU MIGHT HAVE HEARD THESE HITS BEFORE.
(Image taken from: rapidshare-download-by-zul.blogspot.com)
Most of the time, these Greatest Hits albums are just plain long when they should be leaner and meaner.
And then, there's Huey Lewis and the News Greatest Hits, which is, I think, the greatest assortment of songs to ever be compiled together in history.
I don't know if they were just an excellent group overall, but even the lesser known songs like "Jacob's Ladder."
Or "Trouble in Paradise"
are just as, if not better than, "The Power of Love," or "I Need a New Drug."
I'm serious. And I love those songs.
Even the crummier songs, like, "Couple Days Off," or "Back in Time," are listenable if you're just driving in your car. Sure, I'd skip these songs 9 times out of 10, but for that 1 time that I do listen to them, I realize that they're really not that bad at all.
Overall, this Greatest Hits album is the closest one that I would call near-perfect. Get it on iTunes. I think it's only like, eight dollars or something like that. It's a steal!
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28 Nov 2014
We congratulate On Day of the First President!
Almaty International Airport JSC sincerely congratulates the staff and all the people of Kazakhstan with the national holiday - the Day of the First President!
During the years of Independence Kazakhstan passed the difficult but glorious way of formation of statehood, strengthening of unity of the nation and creation of market economy. We have the national holidays which are widely celebrated throughout the country. This year, we celebrate the second time a special holiday – Day of the First President, which differs from others for its versatility. It is the day ofunity of the historicalchoice andthe day of nationalunityand reconciliationKazakhstan.
Establishment of the 1st December as celebration day of the specified holiday is not random. On this dayin 1991, were held thefirstdirectelections of the Presidentin our Republic in which was elected Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. He is the founder of the new independent state, ensured its unity, protection of the Constitution, the rights and freedoms of the person and citizen. Thanks to the wise and verified policy of the Head of state, the Republic of Kazakhstan holds a high position on the international scene.
Congratulations to you on the Day of the First President! We wish you family welfare, good health and happiness.
We wish our country to develop, get stronger and prosper! We hope that all of our initiatives will be successful, and the future will be bright!


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Transsiberian (2008)
★★★ / ★★★★
Snow is everywhere in pretty much every scene and it made me feel cold just watching it. Half-way through the picture, I realized that the weather is not just a tool to establish a mood. When I look back on it, it's really neat how much influence the ice has over the characters. I also liked that it took its time to establish the main characters and the fact there's no archetype villain in the film. As a result, the characters are that much more complex and interesting. They're just being themselves but their interests happen to collide and that's when the conflict starts. The show-stopper here is Emily Mortimer. Like in most of her movies, she's a seemingly timid woman who possesses a silent power which helps to carry her through with whatever is thrown at her. One minute she's having fun and the next minute she's totally mortified with what's going on. And that observation reflected this film. Brad Anderson, who also directed "The Machinist," has a talent with shifting the mood from one side of the spectrum to another in a matter of seconds. Not only does it make the picture thrilling, it also makes it unpredictable. Woody Harrelson, Kate Mara, and Eduardo Noriega are pretty good in their roles but I thought they were a bit underdeveloped, especially the latter two. But maybe the point is to know as little about them because the film makes a commentary regarding strangers in a different country where one does not speak the language. But the one actor that arguably matched Mortimer is Ben Kingsley. He's such a mystery from the first scene to the last and I craved to know more about him. His methods are highly questionable, every word of Russian he speaks sounded like a threat, and the way he would look at Mortimer suggests he knows more than he's letting on. For a film that's almost two hours long, I was glad that there's a lot of dynamics at work but at the same time I feel like some characters were not explored enough. I think we could do without the little stops of the train during the first forty minutes, but that's a really minor complaint. Otherwise, pretty much everything about this thriller worked for me because it made me think not only while it was playing but after as well.


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The agricultural industry is changing all the time and it is essential those of us within the business can predict, pre-empt and maximise the opportunities a shifting environment presents.
By looking to the future and anticipating what lies ahead, Roston's is ideally placed to work with the agricultural community to ensure a healthy future for agriculture in the North West.
Contact Tony Rimmer at Rostons 01829 773000