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Feynman’s Tips on Physics is a delightful collection of Richard P. Feynman’s insights and an essential companion to his legendary Feynman Lectures on Physics.
With characteristic flair, insight, and humor, Feynman discusses topics physics students often struggle with and offers valuable tips on addressing them. Included here are three lectures on problem-solving and a lecture on inertial guidance omitted from The Feynman Lectures on Physics. An enlightening memoir by Matthew Sands and oral history interviews with Feynman and his Caltech colleagues provide firsthand accounts of the origins of Feynman’s landmark lecture series. Also included are incisive and illuminating exercises originally developed to supplement The Feynman Lectures on Physics, by Robert B. Leighton and Rochus E. Vogt.
Feynman’s Tips on Physics was co-authored by Michael A. Gottlieb and Ralph Leighton to provide students, teachers, and enthusiasts alike an opportunity to learn physics from some of its greatest teachers, the creators of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. | <urn:uuid:962382e3-f803-4069-b54c-d4eca0bf8882> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://ralphleighton.wordpress.com/feynman/tips/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141733120.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20201204010410-20201204040410-00020.warc.gz | en | 0.914368 | 226 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Dec. 17, 2006
Poem: "Chocolates" by Louis Simpson from The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001. © BOA Editions. Reprinted with permission.
Once some people were visiting Chekhov.
While they made remarks about his genius
the Master fidgeted. Finally
he said, "Do you like chocolates?"
They were astonished, and silent.
He repeated the question,
whereupon one lady plucked up her courage
and murmured shyly, "Yes."
"Tell me," he said, leaning forward,
light glinting from his spectacles,
"what kind? The light, sweet chocolate
or the dark, bitter kind?"
The conversation became general
They spoke of cherry centers,
of almonds and Brazil nuts.
Losing their inhibitions
they interrupted one another.
For people may not know what they think
about politics in the Balkans,
or the vexed question of men and women,
but everyone has a definite opinion
about the flavor of shredded coconut.
Finally someone spoke of chocolates filled with liqueur,
and everyone, even the author of Uncle Vanya,
was at a loss for words.
As they were leaving he stood by the door
and took their hands.
In the coach returning to Petersburg
they agreed that it had been a most
Literary and Historical Notes:
Nobody is sure exactly when Ludwig van Beethoven was born, but he was baptized on this day in the city of Bonn, which would eventually become part of Germany (1770). His father was inspired by the example of Mozart to try to turn Beethoven into a musical prodigy at a young age. Beethoven managed to publish his first piece of music when he was just 12.
He became known as one of the greatest pianists of the age, and it was his fame at the piano that led him to the aristocratic circles in Vienna. At the time, the Viennese aristocracy were obsessed with music, and Beethoven began performing in their drawing rooms and ballrooms, demonstrating his genius for improvisation.
But then, in 1798, just three years after his first public appearance as a pianist in Vienna, Beethoven began to hear a persistent ringing in his ears. No one knows exactly what caused it. It could have been typhus or possibly syphilis. But whatever the reason, as his hearing got worse, he realized that he would soon lose the ability to play the piano. At the time, he considered taking his life, but he later said, "Only Art held [me] back; for it seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce."
So Beethoven threw himself into composing. He continued to perform occasionally on the piano for more than a decade, but he gradually became more famous for his compositions than for his performances. He did most of his composing between the months of May and October, when he retired to one of the rural villages outside of Vienna, and most of his ideas came to him on long walks through the countryside.
Just before he turned 40, a small group of princes and archdukes agreed to give him an annual salary with no conditions attached. The arrangement made Beethoven more independent than almost any composer before him. At that point he'd already completed his famous Eroica Symphony and his Fifth Symphony.
Some critics believe his masterpiece was the Ninth Symphony. When it premiered in Vienna on May 7, 1824, Beethoven was completely deaf.
On this day in 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright took off on the world's first airplane flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. This day in 1903 began with gray skies and sharp wind. Orville said years later that he should have realized it was much too dangerous to fly in that weather. But they had already waited several days for the right flying conditions, and they wanted to get home before Christmas.
Orville went first and he got about 10 feet off the ground, and landed almost immediately. The brothers made two more attempts, and still they barely got anywhere. Then Wilbur tried again, and suddenly, he took off into the air. He flew straight into the wind for nearly a full minute, covering 852 feet. When he landed, the rudder frame was cracked, which would take months to repair, but they had made their first successful flight.
No journalists attended the event. The Wright Brothers hired an amateur photographer to take a single photograph that day, which he did while the plane was only 10 feet off the ground. When it leaked to the press, most major newspapers refused to run the story, assuming that it was a hoax. It wasn't until Wilbur flew a plane over Manhattan six years later that most people finally accepted the fact that the Wright Brothers really had invented the first airplane.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | <urn:uuid:22cd8837-e4b8-4344-820b-93dcc3bb3fc7> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2006/12/17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438042988065.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728002308-00292-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989812 | 1,036 | 2.625 | 3 |
Sidney Fire Chief Chad Hollinger was recently asked by a citizen, “Why do you send fire trucks with ambulances to emergency medical services (EMS) calls?” This is a question he is asked fairly regularly.
When a citizen calls 911 to report an EMS incident, dispatchers are trained in Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) and based upon the information shared by the reporting party the dispatcher will determine whether the EMS incident is a basic life support (BLS) or advanced life support (ALS) incident. Once this determination is made, the dispatcher assigns a call type (BLS or ALS) to the incident and transmits the alarm to the stations. If for example, the caller reports that they have fallen down and are not injured the call type assigned would be BLS. On the other hand, if the caller reports that someone is having a heart attack, an ALS call type is assigned. The more serious the nature of the call, the more people will be necessary to care for the ill or injured person.
Many departments, like Sidney, have chosen to place additional personnel on a fire apparatus to respond with the ambulance. This allows the department to maintain a state of readiness. Simply put, the department can clear the EMS incident and respond to another call with sufficient resources. By placing the additional personnel on a fire apparatus instead of on the ambulance, they are able to handle the next call quicker. Currently, the department has eleven personnel per shift with a minimum daily staffing of eight personnel. State law requires a minimum number of certified personnel and the Sidney department standard is to place at least one EMT-Paramedic (trained in ALS) on every EMS call.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) provides standards for fire and EMS services. NFPA Standard 1710 states that four personnel (with two being EMT-Paramedics as a minimum) should arrive on the scene of an ALS incident within eight minutes or less. This requirement is backed up by a 2015 University of Washington Medicine study that demonstrated when seven to eight providers are on the scene of a cardiac arrest, patient survivability chances improved by 35% as compared to only five or six providers. It is proposed that with more providers on scene to rotate through key tasks, errors and fatigue are decreased and the patients receive life-saving interventions in a timelier manner.
“By placing additional providers in a fire apparatus to respond with the ambulance, we are insuring that our patients have the best chance of a positive outcome. Additionally, we are prepared to respond to additional calls for service,” said Chief Chad Hollinger.
Currently in 2022 the Sidney department has multiple calls occurring 29% of the time. This simply means that for nearly one-third of the calls the department responds to there is at least one other incident happening simultaneously. The ability to remain flexible with staffing deployed to field is a key element in the response model. As the department is able to increase their daily staffing, they draw closer to meeting national standards and industry best practices.
“I appreciate the community support that our organization has received over the years. I assure you that we are constantly seeking out ways to improve our effectiveness and efficiency. In my role as Fire Chief, it is my responsibility to wisely allocate the tax dollars that are entrusted to our department to provide fire and EMS services. We have to make the best use of the finite funds we have to work with,” said Hollinger. | <urn:uuid:83784f37-1c3b-4197-a47c-1870bb66bca4> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://www.sidneydailynews.com/2022/09/20/why-do-fire-engines-also-respond-to-ems-calls/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233510214.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20230926143354-20230926173354-00763.warc.gz | en | 0.956434 | 706 | 2.578125 | 3 |
U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis
Joint Implementation (JI): Agreements made between two or more nations under the auspices of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) whereby a developed country can receive "emissions reduction units" when it helps to finance projects that reduce net emissions in another developed country (including countries with economies in transition).
Joule (J): The meter-kilogram-second unit of work or energy, equal to the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves through a distance of one meter in the direction of the force; equivalent to 107 ergs and one watt-second.
Joule's Law: The rate of heat production by a steady current in any part of an electrical circuit that is proportional to the resistance and to the square of the current, or, the internal energy of an ideal gas depends only on its temperature.
Junction: A region of transition between semiconductor layers, such as a p/n junction, which goes from a region that has a high concentration of acceptors (p-type) to one that has a high concentration of donors (n-type). | <urn:uuid:01abe70c-5e14-4715-99b7-d230f8177713> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.cfm?id=J | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413507446323.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017005726-00070-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919325 | 247 | 2.75 | 3 |
Panel Report Pursuant to Article 6 of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer Under the Auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Aquatic ecosystems contribute more biomass (104 Gt/a) than all terrestrial ecosystems (100 Gt/a) combined. Recent work on UV-B effects has concentrated on inhibition mechanisms and field studies in the subpolar waters of Antarctica, because of its high productivity and the occurrence of the ozone hole over this region.
Phytoplankton organisms orient within the water column using external factors. However, mobility and orientation mechanisms are impaired by UV-B radiation. Because most organisms do not possess UV-B receptors, they cannot avoid deleterious wavelength radiation that (according to new measurements) penetrates deeper into the water column than what has been previously measured. New action spectra indicate that, in addition to DNA, other targets absorb UV-B radiation including intrinsic proteins of the photoreceptor and photosynthetic apparatus.
The inability to adjust their position within the water column causes massive inhibition of photosynthesis, measured both in field and laboratory studies. Only in a few cases have potential UV-B-inducible screening pigments been identified.
A large share of the nitrogen consumed by higher plants is made available by bacterial microorganisms, which have been found to be very sensitive to UV-B radiation. Losses in nitrogen fixation could be compensated by additional nitrogen fertilization. However, such actions could stress the capabilities of developing nations.
The role of DMS, released from plankton and macroalgae as aerosol and cloud nuclei, is of major concern. Most importantly, a UV-B-induced decrease in phytoplankton populations may have an impact on cloud patterns and concomitant global climate changes.
An increased understanding of Antarctic trophic dynamics suggests that the likelihood of direct UV-B radiation effects on consumers is small. Rather, it is the possibility of indirect effects that may significantly affect the Antarctic trophic structure, such as different species sensitivities to UV-B radiation, or decreases in total available primary production. Because more than 30% of the world's animal protein for human consumption comes from the sea, the human populations may also be affected by the direct and indirect consequences of increased solar UV-B radiation on aquatic food webs.
Another potential consequence of a decrease in marine primary productivity would be a reduction in the capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide. A hypothetical loss of 10% of the marine phytoplankton would reduce the oceanic annual uptake of carbon dioxide by about 5 Gt (an amount equal to the annual emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel consumption). Uncertainties regarding the magnitude of increased levels of UV-B radiation on aquatic systems still remain, including problems of extrapolating laboratory findings to the open sea, and the nearly complete absence of data on long-term effects and ecosystem responses. Uncertainties and future research needs include adaptive strategies and the effects of cumulative UV-B radiative doses. Additional information is needed in several areas before a more reliable assessment of risks is possible.
Current data suggest that predicted increases in UV-B radiation could have important negative effects on the marine environment. However, uncertainties regarding the magnitude of these effects still remain, including problems of extrapolating laboratory findings to the open ocean, and the nearly complete absence of data on long-term effects and ecosystem responses.
Planktonic marine organisms account for over half of the total global amount of carbon fixed annually (10 tons). Any reduction in this productivity will undoubtedly affect global food supply and global climate. Both primary production and subsequent steps in biological food webs are sensitive to current UV-B levels, and are potentially endangered by expected increases in UV-B radiation.
UV-B radiation affects 1) adaptive strategies (e.g., motility, orientation), 2) impairs important physiological functions, (i.e., photosynthesis and enzymatic reactions), and 3) threatens marine organisms during their developmental stages (e.g., the young of finfish, shrimp larvae, crab larvae). In addition to DNA damage, UV-B radiation affects enzymes and other proteins, eliciting photodynamic responses. These effects can have a number of possible consequences for aquatic ecosystems:
However, additional information is needed before more reliable assessments of the UV-B radiative risks posed to the marine environment will be possible.
Since the release of the UNEP Environmental Effects Panel Report of 1989 [UNEP, 1989], UV-B aquatic research has concentrated on phytoplankton and the Antarctic ecosystem. It is estimated that phytoplankton convert 104 billion tons of carbon into organic material annually, which is slightly more than the 100 billion tons from all terrestrial ecosystems combined [Houghton and Woodwell, 1989] (Figure 4.1). Phytoplankton, at the base of the aquatic food chain/trophic structure, serve as food for primary consumers (e.g., larvae of fish and shrimp), which in turn are consumed by secondary and tertiary consumers (e.g., fish). The final consumers of this trophic web are large fish, birds, and mammals, including man. Thus, any changes in the size and composition of phytoplankton communities will directly affect man's marine food sources.
A decrease in springtime concentrations of stratospheric ozone of over 50% have been clearly documented in the Antarctic. Within the Antarctic ecosystem, biomass is concentrated as an aquatic component, as opposed to the terrestrial environment. Concentrations of phytoplankton in subpolar waters may be 10 to 10 times greater than concentrations of phytoplankton found in tropical and subtropical seas [Jeffery and Humphrey, 1975]. Any significant increase in UV-B radiation, due to thinning of the ozone layer, could well diminish growth and productivity of phytoplankton, subsequently affecting all higher trophic levels in the aquatic food web. Therefore, it is not surprising that a majority of recent research has looked at the effects of increased UV-B radiation in Antarctic waters. Ongoing research activities include investigations of both direct (physiological and behavioral) and indirect effects (trophic implications).
Because of their requirement for solar energy, phytoplankton dwell in the top layers of the water column, the photic zone [Ignatiades, 1990]. Their position within the column is maintained by precise orientation strategies using light, gravity, and other external factors as guides. Phytoplankton, in the photic zone, would be exposed to any increase in solar ultraviolet radiation. Most phytoplankton organisms (studied up to now) do not have UV-B photoreceptors to guide them away from harmful radiation, a situation similar to humans. Previous work demonstrated that mobility/orientation mechanisms in response to light are impaired by solar ultraviolet radiation [Häder and Worrest, 1991] penetrating deep into the photic zone [Baker and Smith, 1982]. The ability of phytoplankton to adjust their position within the water column, in response to constantly changing conditions, may be affected at even ambient UV-B levels. In fact, ambient UV-B fluxes may cause damage to some species of phytoplankton. However, it should be emphasized that there are uncertainties regarding the magnitude of these effects, including problems of extrapolating laboratory findings to the open sea, and the nearly complete absence of data on long-term effects and ecosystem responses. Likewise, there is a need to investigate adaptation mechanisms. Before effects of exposure to solar UV-B radiation can be predicted, information is required on seasonal abundances and vertical distributions of marine organisms, vertical mixing, and the penetration of UV-B radiation into appropriate water columns.
In their natural habitats, organisms are exposed to a wide range of UV-B radiative doses. This radiation has been shown to affect growth, photosynthesis, nitrogen incorporation, and enzyme activity [Döhler and Alt, 1989; Döhler, 1990]. Even a small increase in global UV-B radiation would intensify maximal irradiation levels, as well as increase long-term exposure doses.
Recent results indicate that orientation mechanisms responsive to both light and gravity are affected by solar ultraviolet radiation in a number of ecologically significant phytoplankton groups [Häder and Liu, 1991]. Action spectra inhibitory effects are different from the DNA absorption spectrum and the action spectra calculated for higher plants, indicating that UV radiation affects these organisms by a totally different mechanism (Figure 4.2). Recent data indicate that proteins essential for specific functions in orientation and photosynthesis are the primary targets of UV-B radiation.
Biochemical analyses, conducted to reveal the molecular targets of UV-B inhibition, show that specific photoreceptor proteins are degraded by ultraviolet radiation. Simultaneously, photosynthetic pigments (responsible for converting solar energy) are bleached and destroyed by radiation. The results of these biochemical studies are further supported by spectroscopic investigations showing losses in pigmentation.
In order to evaluate the effects of enhanced ultraviolet radiation, the vertical movement of natural phytoplankton was analyzed in 3-m long Plexiglas columns [Eggersdorfer and Häder, 1991]. Most organisms moved to the surface during daytime hours, although some species avoided periods of intense ultraviolet radiation during the midday hours by moving slightly down in the water column. However, this avoidance response is not sufficient to protect organisms under conditions of increased UV-B irradiation [UNEP, 1989; Yoder and Bishop, 1990].
The UV-B irradiance in Antarctic waters drastically increased during the occurrence of the ozone hole [Bidigare, 1989; Lubin et al., 1989; Karentz and Lutze, 1990]. However, changes in marine productivity accompanying UV flux changes have not been determined. Recent measurements show that UV-B penetrates 65 meters deep in clear Antarctic waters [Gieskes and Kraay, 1990]. Consequently, measurements of photosynthetic biomass production in Antarctic waters under the ozone hole show a pronounced decrease of productivity by up to 25% [Holm-Hansen, 1990]. ATP content of Antarctic phytoplankton cells (a reflection of energetic state), significantly decreased in the presence of the ozone hole [Vosjan et al., 1990; Karentz et al., 1991a].
Field studies indicate that photosynthesis is impaired first, followed by decreases in protein concentration and changes in pigment composition. As a result, a dramatic decrease in photosynthetic oxygen production can be measured after exposure to solar radiation [Smith et al., 1980; Zündorf and Häder, 1991]. It should be mentioned that other spectral bands, such as UV-A and visible radiation, may contribute to photosynthetic inhibition [Smith et al., 1980; Mitchell, 1990]. Likewise, photosynthetic inhibition has been detected in macroalgae at their natural depth [Bittersmann et al., 1988; Nultsch et al., 1990].
Higher plants are known to produce UV-B absorbing substances when exposed to ultraviolet radiation, thus protecting them from solar short-wavelength radiation [UNEP, 1989]. Recently, UV-absorbing substances have been isolated from phytoplankton, as well as from a number of primary and secondary feeders [Carretto et al., 1990; Karentz et al., 1991b]. However, all of these mycosporine-like amino acids have maxima in the UV-A range and only secondary peaks in the UV-B. In addition, it is not clear whether the production of these potentially screening substances can be induced by exposing organisms to ultraviolet radiation [Raven, 1991]. One exception is cyanobacteria where a UV-B inducible pigment has been found within the slime sheath surrounding the organisms, which absorbs up to 88% of the UV-B radiation [Garcia-Pichel and Castenholz, 1991].
Some planktonic bacteria have the capability to incorporate atmospheric nitrogen into a form accessible to higher plants. Higher plants cannot assimilate atmospheric nitrogen themselves and are therefore restricted to using nitrogen in the form of nitrate, nitrite, or ammonia. A large share of the nitrogen consumed by higher plants is made available by bacterial microorganisms, (e.g., in tropical rice paddies) [Kumar and Kumar, 1988]. However, these microorganisms are highly sensitive to solar UV-B radiation. Consequently, losses in nitrogen fixation due to increases in UV-B radiation may need to be compensated for by artificial nitrogen fertilization. Cyanobacteria alone are estimated to produce 35 million tons of nitrogen annually.
Furthermore, many algal groups are known to produce dimethylsulphonio-propionate as an antifreeze and osmotic regulator. From this substance, dimethylsulphide (DMS) is cleaved enzymatically and emitted into the surrounding water [Karsten et al., 1990]. From there it is released into the atmosphere where it undergoes photochemical oxidation to sulphate and methane sulphonate. These substances are thought to act as nuclei in aerosol formation and cloud condensation. Forty million tons of sulphur are released by this mechanism annually, equaling about 50% of the sulphur emissions from anthropogenic sources. Therefore, there are concerns that a reduction in the phytoplankton could have an effect on global climate changes [Andreae, 1986].
Recently, little work has been conducted on the direct effects of UV-B radiation on zooplankton. Over the last few years, however, a greater understanding of Antarctic trophic dynamics has developed. Furthermore, there is a growing appreciation for microorganisms (especially diatoms) found in the sea ice [Garrison et al., 1986]. This community may be a significant factor for productivity in Antarctic waters, contributing to biomass and serving as an inoculum for spring phytoplankton blooms [Voytek, 1990].
Figure 4.3 illustrates the nature of the Antarctic aquatic food web. Voytek suggests that it is inadequate to look only at primary production, but rather, the effects of increased UV-B radiation on each trophic component must be investigated. In general, direct effects from radiation on consumers is small, however, indirect effects (such as changes in the composition of phytoplankton assemblages) may significantly affect the Antarctic trophic structure. This effect is the result of species-specific sensitivity to UV-B radiation or decreases in total available primary production.
Human populations may also be affected by direct and indirect consequences of increased solar UV-B radiation on aquatic food webs. Because more than 30% of the world's animal protein for human consumption comes from the sea (in many developing countries this percentage is even larger), a substantial decrease in biomass production would diminish fishery resources in the face of growing world populations.
Another important consequence of a potential decrease in marine phytoplankton productivity would be the reduced ability of the ocean to serve as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Phytoplankton not only produce more than half of the biomass on our planet, but also absorb and fix more than half of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Hypothetically, a loss of only 10% of the phytoplankton would prevent about 5 gigatons of carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) from being removed from the atmosphere annually (which is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted currently by fossil fuel utilization). Ten to twenty percent of the gross primary production from the oceans is estimated to occur in southern regions [Voytek, 1990]. Because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, a reduction in oceanic carbon dioxide stores is an important consideration. UV-B-derived reductions in phytoplankton biomass are not presently incorporated into global climate change models.
Any sizable reduction in the population of nitrogen-fixing organisms may diminish the availability of nitrogen for higher plants (both naturally occurring species and crop plants). As a result, artificial nitrogen fertilization may be needed. However, such needs may stress the capabilities of developing countries.
A number of marine systems, particularly some fisheries (which are severely depleted due to over-harvesting and pollution), are presently stressed by anthropogenic factors. Coral reefs (important to both fisheries and tourism) are under stress and are experiencing declines from sedimentation, pollution, and perhaps temperature increases. Increased UV-B radiation may push some populations past their threshold by decreasing larval fish survival or increasing coral bleaching events.
Researchers continue to investigate UV-B penetration into the water column and through ice. Basic physical information could then be used in both laboratory and field research to determine their effects on phytoplankton and zooplankton. Adaptive strategies utilized by these communities, as well as the effects of interactive stresses (temperature, salinity, and cumulative doses received over the lifetime of the organisms, etc.) need to be studied over extended periods of time. As a result, plankton effects can be modeled into broader ecosystem dynamic patterns and can be fed into models of global carbon and nitrogen cycling.
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Karsten, U., C. Wiencke, and G.O. Kirst, The effect of light intensity and daylength on the ß-dimethylsulphonio-propionate (DMSP) content of marine green macroalgae from Antarctica, Plant Cell Environm., 12, 989-993, 1990.
Kumar, A. and H.D. Kumar, Nitrogen fixation by blue-green algae, pp. 85-103 in Plant Physiology Research, S.P. Seu (ed.), Society for Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, 1st International Congress of Plant Physiology, New Dehli, India, Feb., 15-22, 1988.
Lubin, D., J.E. Fredrick, C.R. Booth, T. Lucas, and D. Neuschuler, Measurements of enhanced springtime ultraviolet radiation at Palmer Station, Antarctica, Geophys. Res. Lett., 16, 783-785, 1989.
Mitchell, B.G., Action spectra of ultraviolet photoinhibition of Antarctic phytoplankton and a model of spectral diffuse attenuation coefficients, Appendix G., pp. 1-15 in Proceedings of Workshop on "Responses of Marine Phytoplankton to Natural Variations in UV-B Flux," Scripps Institution of Oceanography, May 1990.
Nultsch, W., J. Pfan, and K. Huppertz, Photoinhibition of photosynthetic oxygen production and its recovery in the subtidal red data Polyneura hilliae, Bot. Acta, 103, 62-67, 1990.
Raven, J.A., Responses of aquatic photosynthetic organisms to increased solar UV-B, J. Photochem. Photobiol. B: Biol., 9, 239-244, 1991.
Smith, R.C., K.S. Baker, O. Holm-Hansen, and R. Olson, Photoinhibition of photosynthesis in natural waters, Photochem. Photobiol., 31, 585-592, 1980.
Vosjan, J.H., G. Döhler, and G. Nieuwland, Effect of UV-B irradiance on the ATP content of microorganisms of the Weddell Sea Antarctica, Neth. J. Sea Res., 25, 391-394, 1990.
Voytek, M.A., Addressing the biological effects of decreasing ozone in the Antarctic environment, Ambio, 19(2), 52-61, 1990.
Yoder, J.A. and S.S. Bishop, Effects of the mixing-induced irradiance fluctuations on photosynthesis of natural assemblages of coastal phytoplankton, Mar. Biol., 90, 87-93, 1990.
Zundorf, I. and D.-P. Häder, Biochemical and spectroscopic analysis of UV effects on the marine flagellate, Cryptomonas maculata, Arch. Microbiol., in press, 1991.
UNEP, Environmental Effects Panel Report, J.C. van der Leun and M. Tevini, (eds.), United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya, 1989. | <urn:uuid:fb07980a-904d-4902-a46c-401c108b18b5> | CC-MAIN-2015-35 | http://ciesin.org/docs/011-558/011-558.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-35/segments/1440645208021.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20150827031328-00304-ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89157 | 5,453 | 3.5625 | 4 |
The Hunter’s Road - followed on maps
To those unfamiliar with the term ‘the Hunter’s Road’ a brief explanation for an expression which is often used in historical articles but rarely explained. Today’s railways require easy gradients and often follow the watersheds that were in times past were frequented by travellers using carts or ox-wagons, on foot or on horseback. These trails had often started as old elephant paths or native trails and in the sandy regions they were broad tracks across the veld as travellers followed the wheel ruts left by previous trekkers.
All traveller’s going into and out of Matabeleland between 1864 – 1890 were forced to use The Hunter’s Road except trusted individual’s given permission to use a different route. All visitors were forced to wait at Makobi’s kraal, later at Umvolulu until the King gave his permission; “given the road.” The King required a gift for trading, hunting or travelling in his territory; it could be a salted horse, musket, ammunition, pistols, furniture, a uniform – anything that was valuable, useful or pleasing. The gift paid for one season only, but it usually brought freedom from competition as hunting parties were assigned an area.
Certain agreements were renewed over several hunting seasons; hunters were given familiar guides and allotted the same hunting areas until the wildlife was exhausted. Lobengula wished his own hunters to acquire as much ivory as possible, but still wanted the hunters gifts and raised the price above what Mzilikazi received – George Wood gave a salted horse worth £100 in 1870. The guides such as Inyoka described were spies for the King; to control the amaNdebele servants, to see they did not trespass outside their assigned hunting areas, prospect actively for gold, kill animals that were protected such as crocodiles,[i] sell firearms to the Mashona, but also had orders to also look after them. Frank Oates’ guide selected healthy sleeping spots for him which were relatively malaria-free.[ii]
For the reasons explained below, the Hunter’s Road became the safest and most direct route into Matabeleland and Mashonaland – it became a well-travelled path marked out by wagon wheel tracks and familiar to all the native guides and wagon-drivers who trekked the route. The 1896 Stanford map refers to the ‘Hartley Hill Road’ as do some earlier travellers.
Travelling into the far interior before 1871
Potential travellers glancing at a map might be forgiven for thinking that any of the three rivers flowing east from Zimbabwe into the Indian Ocean; the Limpopo, Save (or Sabi) and the Zambezi rivers might have provided a navigable waterway into the interior of what was called Zambesia in the nineteenth century. However, the Limpopo and Save are navigable only for short distances from the coast and both have sandbars which prevent all but the smallest boats from crossing except at high tide. Similarly the Zambezi river has a sandbar at its delta, but it is navigable for 650 kms to shallow craft although river levels are low during the dry season. During his expedition of 1858 – 59 David Livingstone discovered that the Zambezi river was navigable only as far as the Kebrabassa [Cahora Bassa] rapids. [See the article Thomas Baines’ disastrous 1858-59 Zambezi Expedition with David Livingstone under Matabeleland North on the website www.zimfieldguide.com] Even if the Zambezi river had proved navigable the Portuguese would probably have hampered any future trade for political and economic reasons.
The only route then available was from the south. Two alternative routes were available for travellers into the interior by ox-wagon from the south and led from either Port Elizabeth or from Durban; both converged at Shoshong, the entrepôt for trade with the interior and a place of considerable importance to early explorers and traders in south-central Africa. The ox-wagons carried into the interior trade goods and supplies for the hunters, traders, prospectors and missionaries with the return cargoes consisting of ostrich feathers, ivory, hides, riems and a little gold.
Port Elizabeth in the Cape Colony was the earliest route; the journey to Shoshong being about 1,460 kms (907 miles) The route was through Graaff-Reinet and Colesberg and across the Orange and Vaal rivers to Kuruman, the mission station founded by Robert Moffat of the London Missionary Society in 1821. From there the celebrated missionary road ran north passing through Sechele’s town, Molepolole – beyond water was scarce and the route ran through deep sands which made heavy going for the oxen – in all, this route took about two months to travel to Shoshong.
The later alternative route ran from Durban – it was shorter with the distance to Shoshong being about 1,180 kms (735 miles) and took between five to six weeks of constant trekking.[iii] Once the Boers overcame their resistance to penetration of the interior by the British this became the preferred route. Climbing the Van Reenen’s Pass was a major obstacle and the oxen needed to recover before reaching Harrismith in the Free State, a town named after Sir Harry Smith a nineteenth century British Governor and High Commissioner of the Cape Colony. Food in Natal was obtainable at farmhouses and inns, but in the Free State there were fewer inhabitants and firewood was scarce. Some Boer farmers might refer to the British sportsmen and amateur naturalists passing through as verdoemde Engelseman and blomsoekers (flower hunters) whilst others were hospitable and friendly. From Potchefstroom, travellers had choices; travel to Rustenburg and then on to the Limpopo river, or to Zeerust and follow the Marico or Notwani rivers to the Limpopo – both routes then went to Shoshong through sandy wastes with little water.
Another route began at Walvis Bay to Damaraland crossing the Kalahari desert to Lake Ngami and then skirted south of the Makgadikgadi salt pans before travelling down to Shoshong; a distance of 2,090 kms (1,300 miles) although this route was longer, drier and more dangerous than those routes from Port Elizabeth and Durban.[iv]
Travel to the far interior from 1871
Klerksdorp gradually replaced Kuruman and rivalled Potchefstroom as a base for travel from 1871 for two reasons; first, it was fifty kilometres nearer to the diamond fields and secondly, in 1865 James Taylor opened a store at Klerksdorp which Thomas Leask later joined as a partner;[v] here hunters and traders, especially British ones, were made welcome.
Klerksdorp, Rustenburg, Zeerust, Potchefstroom and Shoshong served as bases to outfit travellers on their inward journey and for hunters and traders to sell their produce on their return from the far interior; here servants might be recruited and teams of oxen purchased. After what might have been an arduous and dangerous journey of perhaps two years in the interior most old hands went on a prolonged drinking session at Klerksdorp to celebrate their safe return. In 1873 Klerksdorp which was located on the Schoon spruit consisted of one street of twenty-five houses each of which had a garden, orchard and separating hedges. Potchefstroom was far larger with a population of four thousand including a landdrost (magistrate) and Portuguese consul. The white-washed houses had flat roofs or Cape gables that were surrounded by gardens, orchards and flower beds. Tree-lined streets crossed at right angles to form squares, the largest of which was the market-place and there were several schools and churches. Grain, meal, meat and tobacco were sent to the diamond fields; products from the interior included ostrich feathers, hides and ivory that were sent to Durban.
In 1874 Shoshong was the largest native town between the Drakensberg mountains and the Zambezi river with about 30,000 inhabitants and was the capital of the Bamangwato people (more correctly BagammaNgwato, also BaNgwato) The town was partially surrounded by the high and rocky Mangwato Hills rising from 215 – 245 metres (700 – 800 feet) above the surrounding plain which had given the town’s inhabitants access to strong defensive positions when attacked by Boers or amaNdebele. The town was located at the southern end of a valley which narrowed towards its northern end into a pass just fifty metres wide where a small stream, the Shoshon, flowed through the hills as an intermittent tributary of the Limpopo river.
Shoshong was initially a station of the Hermannsburg Lutheran Missionary Society, but in 1862 the London Missionary Society (LMS) became firmly established and the Scottish missionary John Mackenzie (1835–99), who lived at Shoshong from 1862–76, "believed that the Ngwato and other African peoples with whom he worked were threatened by Boer freebooters encroaching on their territory from the south", and campaigned "for the establishment of what became the Bechuanaland Protectorate, to be ruled directly from Britain."[vi]
The mission station was sited at the narrow northern end of the pass near the water supply and by 1879 the LMS missionary James Hepburn and his wife had built a compact settlement comprising of a brick house with corrugated iron roof, a church and school and some huts.
The large profits to be earned from the ivory trade induced several traders to settle permanently in Shoshong but like the missionaries they built a short distance outside the town and formed a small community of self-contained stores and brick houses. William Francis and Richard Clarke were established at Shoshong just after Khama became Chief in 1872; other prominent traders included Edward Chapman and James Cruickshank. [See the article on the Wood-Chapman-Francis syndicate of concession seekers under Bulawayo on the website www.zimfieldguide.com]
By 1878 there were nine trading stores in Shoshong and the Europeans comprised twenty-three men, six women and thirteen children, usually taking cattle, sheep and goats in exchange for their wares, but the commodity that really counted was ivory and ostrich feathers and Shoshong was where these commodities were traded. The country at the time was called ‘Khama’s country’ and the Chobe region supplied the bulk of the ivory.[vii] Khama needed to trade in ivory because he was badly in need of firearms to deal with the threats posed by the amaNdebele and the Boers.
The ivory trade grew and like his father Chief Sekgoma I Khama retained complete control over the ivory trade and ensured all ox-wagons came through Shoshong. In 1878 around 75 tons of ivory (68,000 kgs) from thousands of killed elephants were exported through Shoshong. In the following year the ivory trade was estimated to be worth £30,000. This wealth resulted in Shoshong becoming the largest and most wealthy town defended by Khama’s army of 3,000 men.[viii]
However in time the elephant retreated into the most remote areas and became harder to hunt and the old ivory trade declined in importance. Alfred Musson, a Shoshong trader, commented in the 1870s that: “The old trade in ivory, feathers and pelts, in exchange for beads and brass wire, was declining. Instead in accordance with their changing tastes and demands, we stocked roughly-made clothing such as shirts, trousers, guns and ammunition, ploughs and their spare parts (the plough trade soon developed into one of considerable importance) and assorted groceries.”[ix]
In the dry season all the water had to be brought by the women from a fountain in the gorge behind the town – the lack of water was Shoshong’s greatest disadvantage.
Tabler states that under Chief Macheng Shoshong was the haunt of all sorts of adventurers including: “white riffraff, renegade Matabele, vagabond Makalanga and Bechuana and Matabele spies; natives and traders cheated and abused each other and caroused indiscriminately.”[x] This all changed once Chief Khama was established as the tribal leader.
The rise of Khama III (1837 - 1923)
Young Khama was well-travelled and spoke Afrikaans, the common language between native speakers whose languages were different. In his early twenties he was baptised into the Lutheran Church but his beliefs brought him into conflict with his father Chief Sekgoma I that ultimately resulted in a botched assassination attempt and the installation of Sekgoma’s brother Macheng as the new chief of the tribe after Sekgoma left into exile.
Soon Macheng and Khama clashed leading to another botched assassination attempt before Khama overthrew Macheng and was appointed Chief of the Bamangwato in 1875. Khama banned alcohol from his territories and sought the protection of the British from the combined incursions of the amaNdebele in the east, German colonists from the west and Boer trekkers from the south who all hoped to seize his territories. In 1885 the British government declared the territory south of the Molopo river to be the colony of British Bechuanaland, whilst territory to the north of the river became the Bechuanaland Protectorate.
The capital moves from Shoshong to Palapye
The establishment of a British Protectorate gave the Bamangwato people greater security and Chief Khama III moved his capital from Shoshong to Palapye 60 miles (95 kms) to the north-east where the water supply was better. Later the capital moved to Serowe to the north-west of Palapye. From 1874 to 1884 the population at Shoshong fell to one-tenth of its peak of 30,000.
The roads to the north of Shoshong
Two routes led north from Shoshong; one led to Lake Ngami, the other to the Zambesi river via Pandamatenga, now Mpandamatenga, which had been established by the trader George Westbeech in 1871. The name means: “the tree from where trade is done” but crucially the trading settlement was just outside the tsetse-fly belt, that region so fatal to domestic animals.
The road from Shoshong split at Tlabala Wells, the Lake Ngami road following the Botletle river to the lake and then going west for over 1,100 kms to Walvis Bay across the semi-arid sandy savannah of the Kalahari. The road to Pandamatenga and the Victoria Falls skirted the eastern edge of the Makgadikgadi salt pans and crossed the Nata or Amanzamnyama river at Madsiara drift and then entered the mopane forest. At Nwasha Pan, a perennial source of water, the Westbeech road from Tati (opened from about 1871) joined the road to Pandamatenga. Because of tsetse-fly north of Pandamatenga travellers were forced to walk across the headwaters of the Matetsi river to the Victoria Falls and the road continued to the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi rivers, the gateway to Barotseland at modern-day Kazungula.
The Hunter’s Road to the west of Shoshong
Because the route to Matabeleland from the south across the Limpopo river was largely closed due to the prevalence of tsetse-fly, the Hunters’ Road was the best and most direct route into Matabeleland and well-marked by the paths of ox-wagon wheels. The section between Shoshong and Tati was 154 miles long (248 kms) and free from tsetse-fly and malaria fever except in the rainy season near Tati. The grass was sufficient for oxen except in the driest months and wandering bands of Khoisan hunter-gatherers and scattered groups of Tswana herdsmen posed no threat to travellers. The water essential for the oxen drawing the wagons was usually available at pools in the many tributaries of the Limpopo except in winter, but even then it could usually be found by digging into the sandy riverbeds.
The heavy rainy seasons created swiftly rushing run-off which cut deep channels in the riverbeds so the road crossed these streams at drifts which were either natural causeways or cut into the stream banks to create easy roadways for the ox-wagons. The sand made heavy work for the oxen and alternated with level stony ground covered by thorny bushes and occasional low granite kopjes. The sand was remembered and cursed by all; the scenery was mostly unvarying and many travellers found the journey from Shoshong to Tati uninteresting and hot and were constantly anxious about water supplies.
The first significant penetration of Matabeleland by Europeans 1854 – 58
On 18 May 1854 two young Englishmen, Samuel Edwards and James Chapman who had outfitted to travel upcountry met Robert Moffat at Kuruman to persuade him to trek with them as they knew he was a friend of Mzilikazi. Moffat agreed to accompany them as he wished to renew his friendship and prepare the way for new missions and also because he wished to get some news of his son-in-law David Livingstone from whom nothing had been heard for over a year. The fifty-nine year old missionary got on well with his younger companions whom he found agreeable and cheerful.[xi] They left in three ox-wagons on 22 May visiting Sechele at Old Molepolole and then left for Shoshong. They met with Chief Sekgoma who wanted traders and travellers to go no further than his town so he could monopolize the ivory trade with his own tribesman hunting the elephants and profit on the sale of their tusks.
Sekgoma ordered his tribesman and the Khoisan hunter-gatherers not to help the party and Chapman at this time left for Lake Ngami. Moffat and Edwards left Shoshong on 21 June but travel was slow without guides to point out the watering holes and drifts over rivers. They found the tribesmen would not be hired as guides for fear of displeasing Sekgoma, but for a little tobacco or meat they pointed out the way!
In early July after losing their way and much chopping down of trees and bushes and making drifts they arrived at the Shashi river.
A detailed description of the journey
The road ran initially along the base of the Mangwato Hills before turning north-east once the end of the range was cleared passing through sandy bushveld until after 40 kms the Mhalapshwe river was reached. If the pools in the wide dry stream bed were dry there was almost always water under the sand. The Mita river 6 kms further and the Towani river another 11 kms on, both tributaries of the Mhalapshwe, usually also had water. A trek of 16 kms over a sandy plain brought the wagons to Chakane pan, a pretty pool dotted with water lilies and shaded by surrounding trees when water was present, but just filthy mud before the rains. Springs to the south-east lay in a belt of tsetse-fly – an agonising choice in the dry season.
The next stage of 12 kms to Limone was through mopane forest and the following 16 kms to the Lotsane river were heavy going with deep sand as far as the rocky drift near the present railway station of Palapye Road. This area was notorious for aggressive lions before 1876. The Matswapong people living at the western end of the Chwapong Hills were well-known as ironsmiths.
8 kms from the drift were deep permanent pools of water but the presence of tsetse-fly during the day meant oxen were always watered here after dark. Many travellers were not informed of the presence of these pools by the local Khoisan hunter-gatherers ordered by the Bamangwato to keep them secret to handicap amaNdebele raiders. The route continued through another 11 kms of heavy sand to the Dikabia spruit which usually contained water. The water in the Seruli river 34 kms further on was salty, but drinkable and in the early days often frequented by lions, rhinos and giraffe.
A long stretch of 40 kms crossed the Chokana river and the western end of a range of granite hills before reaching the Khokwi river where the first baobab trees (Adansonia digitata) were encountered. The direction of travel thus far had been northeast, but here it swung northwest for 16 kms passing more baobabs and stunted mopane trees before reaching the drift of the Sedibi river shortly before it reached the much larger Maklautsi river, a short distance below the drift.
Another 11 kms brought the wagons to the Motloutsie or Maklautsi, the later recognised boundary between the Bamangwato and the amaNdebele whose broad watercourse of 100 metres comprised deep sand and large boulders. The next stage of 34 kms was often on rocky surfaces and twisted often to avoid sandy stretches and travelled through dense bush and groves of mopane trees before descending to the Shashe river, a major tributary of the Limpopo.
Although the riverbed was wide and sandy the drift was comparatively easy to cross; a kilometre below the drift was a deep permanent pool of water big enough for crocodiles to inhabit. A short trek of 11 kms through rocky hills brought travellers to Tati and completion of the ten day trek from Shoshong.
The land bordering to the south of the Tati district between the Shashe and Motloutsie rivers was claimed by both the amaNdebele and the Bamangwato and was in effect a ‘no-man’s land’ and called in later years the “Disputed Territory.”[xii] It was an area where the amaNdebele used to hunt and Khama’s people grazed their cattle, but in general they avoided each other.[xiii] After the granting of the first mining concession in 1870 which gave the Tati concession-holders the right to dig for gold, but did not confer land rights, one of the stipulations of the agreement was that Lobengula agreed to prevent his amaNdebele warriours from raiding in the area and to let the Europeans rule themselves with little formal law or laid-down procedures.
Reasons for the existence of Tati
The Bakalanga prior to the arrival of Europeans mined surface outcrops of quartz veins for their gold along the Tati River using an open-stope form of mining. The first European to follow up reports on the gold diggings was Henry Hartley who hunted in the region during each winter season with his family before returning to his farm in the Magaliesberg range. In 1866 and 1867 Hartley brought the young German geologist and explorer Karl Mauch with him to examine the gold workings. It was Mauch’s enthusiastic accounts to the Transvaal Argus stating he believed this area was the Ophir of the Bible and the El Dorado of the ancients that excited readers – this story was repeated in the newspapers in Europe, America and Australia.
His reports led to the first European gold rush in Southern Africa as prospectors all over the world packed their bags for South Africa and having arrived enquired about the road to the north. Sir John Swinburne arrived at the same time as Thomas Baines in Potchefstroom. The town was booming as prospectors and miners stocked up with all the essentials necessary for the long journey to the Tati goldfields – around 250 miners and prospectors were active in the area.[xiv] In 1870 Lobengula granted Swinburne’s London and Limpopo Mining Company a mining concession and the company worked its claims under Captain Arthur Levert bringing stamp mills and steam engines to Tati, but by 1880 the concession had been revoked for failure to pay the £60 annual fee and the concession was granted to Northern Light Mining Company, a syndicate formed by Daniel Francis, Sam Edwards and others.
Daniel Francis had first arrived in 1869 but the gold was difficult to extract without machinery and most gold miners soon left for the Kimberley diamond fields. Francis had returned in 1880 and obtained his mining concession from King Lobengula; when the railway arrived in 1897 Francistown was named after Francis who owned most of the land by then. There followed an upsurge of mining activity; between 1866 to 1963; it has been estimated over 200,000 oz of gold (6,220 kgs) were produced from 60 mines in the area - some of the historic mines being the Mupane, Signal Hill, Vermaak, Jim’s Luck, Blue Jacket (the pre-European workings were 28 metres deep) New Zealand (reputed to have reached a depth of 360 metres) and Golden Eagle.[xv]
Until the gold rush of 1868 the Tati river was just another stream to be crossed on the road to Matabeleland, but once the settlement was formed it rivalled Shoshong as a base for travel to Matabeleland and the Victoria Falls as it was closer to these objectives and controlled by Europeans which made it a good place to rest and where the few Bakalanga natives made no trouble. Houses and stores were built on the slopes of two low hills on the northern bank and either side of the road from the drift. Soon the slopes of the hills around the settlement were dotted with spoil heaps as prospectors tested the quartz reefs.
Before Old Tati was established the surrounding countryside had been home to elephant, rhino and giraffe; early residents of Old Tati were forced to erect thick thorn barricades around their huts to keep out the lions and protect their stock. Lions often roamed at night; but a lioness was killed at noon once in Old Tati and a native labourer mauled near the steam engine. Hunts were organised by the residents to keep down lion numbers.
The Tati river was generally dry across its 200 metre sandy bed with pools below the drift and water could be found by digging. When the rains began the river flowed quickly; on 21 December 1877 the river rose 3.7 metres (12 feet) in eight hours and generally flowed freely during January and February in most years.
When Thomas Baines first arrived in December 1870 most miners had departed for the diamond fields and he found some of the buildings in ruins and others burned down. The London and Limpopo Mining Company continued operations on a small scale under a Swede named Nelson until work was suspended in 1874. Alexander Brown, a Scotsman, kept a store at Old Tati in the 1870’s and the Boer hunter Piet Jacobs appropriated a house for his family; he and Brown were the longest staying residents of Old Tati.[xvi]
After the gold boom the settlement became locally important as a road junction and convenient base for operations and the seasonal home for traders and hunters although by 1871 most of the game in the area had been shot. Old Tati is 46 kms south-east of Francistown as measured on Google Earth.
A small cemetery at Tati commemorates the first Jesuit missionaries here. The two, Father Charles Fuchs SJ (1839-1880) and Father Anthony De Wit SJ (1823-1882) are buried in the cemetery with six unmarked graves and one inscribed with the words, ‘IN MEMORY OF JAMES TAYLOR OF KLERKSDORP TRANSVAAL. BORN IN ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND, DIED 23 MARCH 1878 AGED 40 YEARS’.
The Jesuits arrived at Tati on 17 August 1879 where they were well received by the traders; Father Depelchin decided to start a mission here at Tati, the first mission of their province, named the Good Hope Mission and later Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Plans were afoot to build a chapel, school and establish an orphanage. However, the missionaries faced many challenges including malaria fever, lack of funds and transport and manpower which were responsible for the mission lasting only for a period of six years to 1885.
In June 1874 Lobengula imposed what were quarantine restrictions against redwater, a tick-borne cattle disease that became widespread amongst cattle from the Transvaal and Natal. Trekkers were forced to leave their span of oxen at Tati and change them for local oxen which local traders kept for the purpose before going on. A guard of amaNdebele enforced the restrictions greatly annoying the Europeans and plundering any Bakalanga returning from the diamond fields with newly acquired guns and ammunition.
The Hunter’s Road into Matabeleland and beyond
Below a map shows the Hunter’s Road through Matabeleland and Mashonaland to its end on the Hunyani, now Manyame river.
Tati to the Ramaquabane river
After passing through the hills north of Tati the road crossed the valley of the Blue Jacket reef before skirting Signal Hill and continued through alternating belts of Mopane and thick thorn bush, the Afrikaans wacht-en-beetje (wait-a-bit thorn) to Mopane Pan. This was a small reedy vlei but a popular camp-site because the Mopane trees offered shade and the road from here ran straight to the Ramaquabane river. Distances were 10 kms (6 miles) to the Blue Jacket spruit, 10 kms (6 miles) to Mopane Pan and 14 kms (9 miles) to the Ramaquabane.
Moffat and Edwards in 1854 had to coax their reluctant guides to take them further than the Shashe. The descent down the river-bank was steep and the ox-wagon crossed the sandy bed of 75 metres. Next day saw them at the Ramaquabane river and the oxen were rested before their attempt to cross the 275 metres of deep sand into which the ox-wagon wheels sank. An axle on Edward’s wagon broke and they spent a day fitting a new axle from acacia wood.
Their guides were persuaded to go on for payment of two knives, two tinderboxes, two snuffboxes and some beads and they trekked with the Ramaquabane on their left. [note the Hunter’s Road was established later on the other side of the river] but their guides left next day from fear of Sekgoma and the amaNdebele.
Ramaquabane river to Makobi’s kraal
For most of the year there was little water in the Ramaquabane unless travellers dug below the sands or found a hole dug out by elephants. Wagons often stuck in the sand crossing the river which was about 90 metres wide. The Umpakwe river was 15 kms (9.5 miles) from the Ramaquabane drift and the countryside was becoming dotted with granite kopjes made up of piled-up and scattered boulders or the bare ‘whalebacks’ with piles of rocks at their base and densely packed with euphorbia, aloe, wild fig, wild rubber and other trees and shrubs.
The Umpakwe usually had pools of water along its course with a difficult drift to cross. 150 metres to the right of the road and on the south side of the Umpakwe was a ruined dry-stone wall with a chevron pattern at its base. Three circular raised platforms of clay - previously hut bases, were inside the wall. Here George ‘Elephant’ Phillips found a copper bar and a pipe of fireclay. This and the presence of iron slag caused Phillips, Oates and Selous to speculate that the ruins had once housed a gold or copper smelter and that the platforms were ‘roasting platforms.’
It was an 18 kms (11 mile) trek to the Ingwesi river through picturesque granite hills and the road crossed a number of small streams in narrow valleys. The perennial streams were looked on with delight after the dry and dusty haul from Shoshong to Tati. About 400 metres beyond the Ingwesi drift was Makobi’s kraal occupied by Bakalanga, a people linked with Mapungubwe, Khami and the Rozvi Empire. A huge baobab was a notable feature in this deep valley between hills. Although Makobi was Chief, he was outranked by an amaNdebele induna named Manyami who was stationed at this point to ensure no outsider entered Matabeleland without permission from King Mzilikazi.
Visitors were forced to wait until Manyami had sent a message to the King and received a reply telling him they were admitted or turned away. This was main function of Makobi’s kraal until March 1863 when the amaNdebele destroyed the kraal and killed Makobi and most of his people for an alleged treasonable offence. For the next ten years the new reporting kraal was then established 64 kms (40 miles) further down the Hunter’s Road. In 1873 – 4 a new outpost was re-established at the site of Makobi’s kraal and Manyami returned to his old post.
Moffat and Edwards trekked on using a compass and climbing small hills to get sights and proceeded up the riverbank of the Ingwesi noting the countryside was devoid of people and wildlife. Eventually they met some Bakalanga who initially ran away thinking they were Boers but relaxed after being given wildebeest meat. They stopped short of Makobi’s kraal and Manyami soon came down to meet them. Once Manyami learnt Moffat was one of the travellers they were escorted to the kraal.
About twelve Bakalanga families lived here with four amaNdebele women who had been banished for witchcraft where they cultivated the lands and tendered some of Mzilikazi’s cattle. They were hungry for meat so Edwards killed eight zebra. Whilst the oxen rested for two days Manyami sent word to the King to announce Moffat’s presence. They set off on the 13 July with Makobi in charge of the escort.
Frank Oates wrote:[xvii] “Old Manyami is the man who used to stop all wagons coming into the country til the King had given them leave to proceed and he stopped me when I first came myself as I daresay I told you at the time. This is done at a different kraal now – the first one passed by any wagons going from here to Gubulawayo about forty miles north-east of Tati. In the meantime I remained on the Ramaqueban [Ramaquabane] my ally riding over to Tati once or twice.
Whilst I was here a trader by the name of Horn[xviii] passed and had to wait when he was a few miles on the road to ask leave to proceed as all wagons on the road are now stopped for fear of the disease and Horn had to explain who he was and where he came from. Horn, I think, is the man who opened the Zambesi trade but is at present trading with the Matabele. A lion killed one of his oxen on the Inkwesi [Ingwesi] one night whilst he was waiting here and a dozen of them took fright and ran away.”
The disease which forced Horn to stop was an outbreak of redwater among the cattle in the Cape Colony. Lobengula put a complete ban on trek oxen of all travellers into Matabeleland until he was satisfied the outbreak was controlled.[xix]
Thomas Baines wrote: “We now left the quartzose country and passed through ranges of picturesque granite hills with forests at their base and huge rocks bearing often a grotesque resemblance to animals or other familiar objects. Crossing their summits we reached Manyama’s kraal on a spruit of the Shashani when Mr Lee explained to him the general purpose of my visit and desired him at once to send forward special messengers to announce my arrival and to call together the council of the nation to hear the contents of His Excellency’s letter.[xx] We remained here from 16 June ‘til the beginning of July when two petty chiefs were sent by order of Um Nombata from Umbeko’s kraal. They showed much curiosity respecting my business and the contents of the letter. I desired Mr Watson, my interpreter to tell them that the letter could be read to no one but the chief or chiefs in council of their nation, but that I recognised the name of Um Nombata as the great and venerable councillor of the late king…”[xxi]
Makobi’s kraal to Mangwe Pass
After the Ingwesi river Bakalanga villages became more frequent and the road was lined with cultivated fields protected by fences of sticks and hedges. If horses or oxen broke into the field damages were usually paid in trade goods such as beads or copper wire. After 32 kms (20 miles) trekkers reached Sawpit Spruit a rivulet feeding the Mangwe river and the spot where Thomas Baines later made a sketch. This spot was John Lee’s first cattle post and 6 kms (3.5 miles) further on the Mangwe, a perennial river was reached.
John Lee hunted elephant in Matabeleland with the permission of King Mzilikazi and after five years was granted a farm in the Mangwe valley. He became the ‘customs and immigration’ agent for both Mzilikazi and Lobengula in their dealings with Europeans and gained great influence with the amaNdebele. His farm was 97 kms (60 miles) from Tati in a valley with numerous rivulets to the Mangwe river and he grew vegetables and fruit trees in gardens. However his main business was oxen which were often bought as replacements by passing travellers. His farmhouse was spacious and comfortable, the chairs covered in leopard skins and Baines even left a painting that showed Lee hunting elephants.
Before 1870 his farmhouse was south of the Mangwe beside a small tributary, but in November 1870 he built a new farmhouse just north of the Mangwe drift where a trader named Elstob had started a store.[xxii] The new house measuring 15 x 5 metres (50 x 16 feet) with walls of mopane logs and a thatched roof had verandas front and back and was divided into a hall, dining room and two bedrooms. It was within sight of two prominent granite landmarks: Lee’s Rock and Lee’s Castle.
Baines writes: “We crossed the Ramoqueban, the Impaque, the Umkwesi and a small branch (afterwards called Sawpit Spruit) of the Mangwe river. Here Mr Hartley introduced us to Mr Lee, who not only perfectly understood the language and customs of the Matabili but was privileged to hunt and reside in the south western district, had long enjoyed the confidence of the late chieftain Umselekatze and was generally regarded as his agent in all business affairs with white men.”[xxiii]
From Lee’s house the road continued over several sharp rises, the hollows containing feeder streams to the Mangwe river and then entered a range of granite hills through the Mangwe pass; sometimes called Tiger Port. The view through the pass revealed a sea of jagged kopjes that stretched away into the Matobo.
Moffat and Edwards cut a path through the trees making good progress with their escort and slept at the Mangwe river.
Mangwe Pass to Umvolulu kraal
The Semokwe river, another perennial stream, was reached after leaving the Mangwe pass and was 10 kms (6.5 miles) from Lees and after 7 kms (4.5 miles) the road reached Umvolulu, a Bakalanga kraal governed by Manyami the induna who guarded the entrance to Matabeleland between 1863 – 1873 before moving back to the site of Makobi’s kraal. Sited near the headwaters of the Shashani river travellers were offered honey, grain and vegetables for barter when the villagers had a surplus.[xxiv]
Next day Moffat and Edwards crossed the Semokwe and outspanned at the Shashani which had some water. The following day they reached Umvolulu kraal where they waited for runners to return from Mzilikazi. Mzilikazi doubtful that his friend ‘Moshete’ had really come at last told the guides to detain him for three days whilst the visitor was positively identified. AmaNdebele who had known Moffat as boys quietly examined him at a distance and assured Mzilikazi he was genuine. Martinus Swartz, a Boer hunter was camped at Umvolulu waiting for permission to proceed. On the evening of the 18 July two messengers arrived from Mzilikazi sending extravagant compliments of welcome to Moffat. The next day when Moffat suggested they leave in the afternoon to give the messengers a rest, they declared they would not rest until Moffat was with the King and insisted on leaving immediately.
Umvolulu kraal to Khami river
The countryside here was well wooded but comparatively easy going and flat with numerous Bakalanga villages with planted gardens along the headstreams of the watershed. At the ‘top of the hill’ the headstreams of the Tuli drainage system were on the right-hand side and those of the Gwaai on the left; the road kept to the Tuli side of the watershed. About 8 kms (5 miles) from Umvolulu kraal at Tiger Bush[xxv] the road took a more northerly route crossing the headwaters of the Gwaai river and now keeping to the northern side of the watershed. The Khami river was reached 56 kms (35 miles) from Umvolulu kraal and consisted of long deep pools; in Lobengula’s time there was a regimental kraal at the Khami drift and the countryside around had been gradually deforested.
Baines writes: “We crossed the Shashani and climbed to the ‘top of the hill’ or watershed between the Limpopo and Zambesi systems. Brooklets trickling to the former on our right and to the latter on our left while proteas of considerable dimensions bordered our path. We crossed the Kumalo [Khami] or Royal River (a principal source of the Gwali [Gwaai] which I had visited near its junction with the Zambesi in 1862) and after we had outspanned were met by Captain Levert’s wagon coming from Sir John Swinburne at Inyati and bound to Natal for machinery. Here on account of the exhausted condition of the oxen I found it necessary to leave Jewell and Watson with one wagon ‘en cache’ under the protection of the young Prince Lo Bengula while I with Mr Nelson and Mr Lee proceeded with the other. We crossed the Umthlambo Boloi (the Bath of Majesty) on the Um Kosi or King river and spanning out at night on a waterless flat were aroused by the attack of a lion on our cattle. Of course every one sleeps outside to spring up fully armed at the first alarm. The cattle in terror were already breaking out of the kraal when I heard them and drove them back. My companions stood to their posts to guard the horses or other points of attack. Little Jack barked as lustily as if his small voice were backed by the power of a wolf hound. The lion circled round to the bivouac of our guides and they igniting the grass they had used for their bedding tossed it up high overhead filling the air with scattered sparks and flame and firing on the lion when the light revealed him…The horses strayed in the morning but were brought back by the people of the next village. Mr Nelson while out looking for them saw the lion but being armed only with a revolver did not fire on him.
At the military kraal of the Twong Endaba Regiment numbering perhaps 800 men and entrusted with the care of some thousands of the national cattle we saw Umbeko and as Mr Lee insisted on reading the letter to none but the great chief of the land, or to all the chiefs in council, it was at length decided that the Regent Um Nombata was in his own person sufficiently empowered to hear it and consider my application.”[xxvi]
Nombata agreed to let Baines continue as long as he promised to return by the same route and tell him if he had found gold.
Moffat and Edwards left with their escort on 19 July 1854 crossing the watershed and the headwaters of the Gwaai and after crossing the Khami river went to a kraal headed by Willem the Griqua who lived with the amaNdebele. Here they saw the rotted hulk of a wagon with broken chests, plates and rusted guns the Cape Government had presented to Mzilikazi after the signing of the Anglo-Matabele treaty of 1836; the local people swarmed from their kraal to view Moffat.
The route descended to the east, the old grass was being burnt off and the smoke from fires hung like an “extended, dense thundercloud.” Another of Mzilikazi’s messengers arrived telling them to “beat the oxen and hasten.” That night an ox was driven in from the King so they could prepare themselves for an early start next day. Moffat thought it “kindly intended, but not according to our way of doing things.”
Khami river to King Lobengula’s kraal
Amandebele capitals moved approximately every six to ten years; the soil around might be exhausted, the trees cut down for firewood and kraal construction, the grass and water supplies might be exhausted by increasing cattle numbers or because of the death of a favourite wife of the King.
For instance, Mahlokohloko which was visited by Robert Moffat in 1854 appears to have been on the right bank of the Intembeni river a tributary of the Umguza river, but by 1857 it was just north of the Inkwekwesi river west of Inyati, but by 1859 it had moved 500 metres from the previous site. Prior to this in 1840 Mahlokohloko was said to have been sited near Ntaba Zinduna.
In 1863 Mzilikazi built a new capital, Mhlahlandlela south of the Khami river. The Hunter’s Road passed close by the kraal. During the latter half of Lobengula’s reign all travellers stopped at Umvutcha or ‘white man’s camp’ where a number of traders including Fairbairn and Dawson built stores and homes. All Europeans called on Mzilikazi and later Lobengula to pay respects and to present the King with gifts.
Old Gubulawayo founded by King Lobengula and inhabited during the 1870’s was on the southern side of the watershed and sited near a tributary of the Umzingwane river which flows into the Limpopo. From the Hunter’s Road a road led from the Khami drift and towards its source and south-east towards Gubulawayo. The kraal was 74 kms (46 miles) from Umvolulu and had a brick house built by John ‘Mubi’ Halyet who may have jumped ship at Cape Town. By 1877 a number of resident traders has established stores here and in 1879 the Jesuits received permission from Lobengula to establish a mission a kilometre away with Fathers Depelchin and Croonenberghs the first residents. [See the article Old Jesuit Mission under Bulawayo on the website www.zimfieldguide.com] In August-September 1881 Lobengula transferred his capital to the present site of Government House near Umvutcha and the kraal at Gubulawayo was burnt to the ground.
From Gubulawayo the eastern arm of the Hunter’s Road went to the London Missionary Society’s Hope Fountain Mission founded in 1870, the second oldest in the country after Inyati. [For an account of the remarkable friendship between Robert Moffat and Mzilikazi and details of Hope Fountain Mission see the article under Bulawayo on the website www.zimfieldguide.com ] The road then crossed the little Umguza river and the Umguza river passing Ntaba Zinduna hill on the right and going north over the Khoce[xxvii] before the eastern and western versions of the Hunter’s road merged at Induba near the Zwangendaba kraal.
As the Moffat and Edwards’ wagons approached Mahlokohloko [Gubulawayo] on 22 July 1854 they were met by small groups of amaNdebele who urged them on. They were taken to a fenced enclosure used for public audiences around which sat fifty izinDuna and Mzilikazi, his feet crippled, sat in a small doorway in the far side of the fence. The King repeated “Moshete” over and over and threw his kaross over his head to hide his tears. Then he began telling Nombata about his happiness.
His weeping surprised Edwards who had heard about Mzilikazi’s savagery. Mzilikazi’s feet had dropsy, the old-fashioned term for oedema and were painful and he hoped his old friend may be able to cure him. Moffat presented Mzilikazi with two armchairs and basins and a water jug from Mary Moffat. Edwards gave him a shawl, cloth and beads.
Moffat and Edwards stayed a month at Mahlokohloko. The missionary rubbed the King’s feet with ointments and told him to stay off beer and on 26 July the King walked unaided to the wagons. He visited the wagons parked in the royal cattle kraal every day and his mood improved with his health. He was happy to be in Moffat’s presence and as an interpreter they used Willem the Griqua.
Moffat spent some time correcting the proofs on his Sechuana Old Testament, repaired some guns and made tin spoons and plates. Edwards did some hunting and saw to the camp work. Edwards thought highly of the King; his generosity, good manners and friendship and the King declared that Edwards was his son and that he admired him as much as Moffat.
Edwards bought 900 kgs (2,000lbs) of ivory from the King, but was not allowed to hunt elephant which was the King’s monopoly. Willem the Griqua told Moffat that he and his wife named Truey wished to go home to Griqualand and urged Moffat to ask the King for his release.
Nombata, an old man in 1854 who lived another seventeen years, was a friend of Moffat. The amaNdebele were kind and considerate to their guests and gave information about Mashonaland and the Zambezi; they were shown Tower muskets bought on the lower Save river that the King insisted were from Englishmen. However, whenever the topic of religion came up the King changed the subject, closed the conversation or merely agreed politely and avoided the Sunday services held at the wagons.
Umvutcha to Inyati Mission
The distance from the Khami river to Inyati was 85 kms (53 miles) or about three days trekking. Umganen spruit was 10 kms (6 miles) from the Khami river; the Umguza river was a further 19 kms (12 miles) and from the river the road ran northwards through heavy sand. A number of small streams were then crossed including the Khoce and the road passed various amaNdebele kraals before reaching the large kraal of the Zwangendaba regiment just south of the Bembesi river at Induba.
The steep banks of the drift at the Bembesi was difficult to negotiate although the river was dry for much of the year. The Inkwekwesi river was reached 14 kms (9 miles) after travelling over a succession of small ridges and valleys; its sandy bed was wider than the Bembesi and usually contained water. Just north of the drift was the Emhlangeni kraal of the Inyati (Buffalo) regiment and Inyati, now Inyathi Mission was reached 1.5 kms (1 mile) further on.
Inyati Mission was the most distant station of the London Missionary Society and the first Christian mission in Matabeleland and was established through Robert Moffat’s long-term friendship with Mzilikazi. Founded in December 1859 at a small but perennial tributary of the Inkwekwesi river the earliest missionaries included William Sykes and Thomas Morgan Thomas, although Thomas moved from Inyati and established a new mission 30 kms to the south-west at Shiloh in 1874.
Shiloh at a height of 1,200 metres was situated on the Tegwani a small tributary of the Khoce which flowed into the Umguza river. Thus it was a comfortable climate with fertile soils and plentiful water; the garden and orchard were always praised by visitors. The road to Shiloh left the Hunter’s Road 6 kms (3.5 miles) from the Khoce in a northerly direction, a distance of 21 kms (13 miles)
In early July 1866 there were twenty-two Europeans at the King’s kraal, now on the Umguza river; a fact that alarmed Mzilikazi and his izinDuna’s. They had spent some time at Umvolulu kraal, but with Mzilikazi weak and near death Manyami was beginning to disregard the custom of awaiting approval from the King and let them continue their journey for two pounds of beads. Henry Hartley’s group comprised; Henry Hartley, his sons Tom and Fred, son-in-law Thomas Maloney, Christian Harmse, an experienced old Boer elephant hunter and Karl Mauch. Hartley had seen shafts and open-stopes in Mashonaland which he suspected were evidence of abandoned gold-mining efforts – this was confirmed by local Mashona and Mauch was his expert to confirm these discoveries. William Finaughty and the other party comprising George Phillips, James Gifford, Thomas Leask, Phil Smith, J. Fenwick Wilkinson, and their driver Frank, an Englishmen notorious for dishonesty and untruthfulness made a total of five ox-wagons and twenty-four horses. They left for the Hunter’s Road on 11 July and were accompanied by Inyoka (snake) a minor inDuna assigned to this large hunting party by Mzilikazi with instructions to be strict and keep a careful watch on them.
Finaughty was tired of trading and wanted to take up elephant hunting again and left his wagon and span of oxen at Inyati with Reverend Sykes. Leask described the missionaries as “honest, hard-working and conscientious.” They left behind the last of the amaNdebele kraals and trekked through the territories occupied by Mashona under amaNdebele rule.
Inyati to the Shangani river
The Hunyani, now the Manyame river in Mashonaland was the ultimate destination and end of the Hunter’s Road – it was 327 kms (203 miles) from Inyati Mission to the Hunyani river or about eighteen days trekking by ox-wagon.[xxviii] The route kept mostly to the north of the watershed (i.e. on the Zambesi side of the divide) and mostly on the highveld as can be seen from map 4 thus avoiding the worst of the malaria and the belts of tsetse-fly; the first often fatal to humans and the second fatal to oxen.
The road crossed the Longwe river drift before skirting the northern edge of the Mambo Hills and going north-east across the Nsangu river and then the Shangani river. Water was limited in the fifteen kms between Inyati and the Longwe river but streams were plentiful in the vicinity of the Mambo Hills. The rivers were the best milestones for travellers who measured the progress in terms of days’ travel rather than distances and their names were known to the drivers and herders.
The Intembin was the last of the amaNdebele kraals to be passed and the Shangani river, the largest river, was for most of the year dry but the deep sand of the riverbed proved a major obstacle for the ox-wagons.
Baines reported that Nelson had found several large quartz reefs which in his opinion might be gold bearing. “He [Nelson] washed gravel and sand in the Changani and M’Nyami rivers and readily found several specks of gold in every part proving that considerable quantities of fine gold had been washed down from the upper parts of the rivers.” [xxix]
Shangani river to Ngwenya
The Vungu river 75 metres wide was 21 kms (13 miles) beyond the Shangani and usually had pools of water fringed with reeds – some 6 kms upstream were deeper pools that sheltered hippos.
The 21 kms (13 miles) journey to the Gwelo, now Gweru river involved a long pull over thickly wooded red-sand and then a long descent to the Gweru river drift which was 8 kms (5 miles) above its junction with the Ngwenya river. The Gweru river 110 metres wide between its banks usually had at least a trickle of water even in the worst of the dry season.
The Ngwenya (crocodile) river was a further 7 kms (4.5 miles) and several small Mashona kraals were visible from where vegetables could be bartered. The road kept clear of the tsetse-fly belt which began at varying distances of sixteen to eighty kms from the wagon road and at the Ngwenya river travellers noted that the road went east to stay out of the tsetse-fly belt; travelling in darkness and the early morning was a common practice for many travellers that meant that the oxen became less fatigued and the tsetse-fly were believed to be active only during daylight hours.
Baines wrote: “On the 6 August 1869 Mr Nelson and I with one wagon trekked northward across country with wild hills composed of immense blocks of granite on either side. We struck the Hunter’s Road west of the Umbanga river and hills and met Mr Samuel Edwards coming out to fetch supplies for Sir John Swinburne who was in advance of us. We held onto the eastward, turning gradually more north and crossed the Um Vung, the U’Gwelo, the Gwailo and the Ingwainya or Crocodile river and taking a road which carried us too far north, had to turn south-east again and join the main one at the Quaequae river, near which we found extensive slate and schistous rocks striking north by west and south by east with numerous quartz reefs, some of which Mr Nelson found to be hold bearing. The country was park-like and beautiful, the graceful matchabela which in its young leaf presents a rich yet delicate crimson tint changing by various graduations into green as its foliage is matured; the leghondi which buds forth in golden yellow and the mimosa, acacias, aloes and occasional euphorbias added an ever-varying charm to the scene; while the higher lands were adorned with large white flowering proteas and other plants suited to their altitude.”[xxx]
Ngwenya to Kwekwe river
16 kms (10 miles) after the Ngwenya the road crossed the headwaters of the Jumani river and then over open country before passing through a wooded pass in a line of foothills and turning north to cross the Que Que, now Kwekwe river. The river was perennial, its steep banks and stony bed made it difficult to cross and was recorded as flowing strongly even in May to August. Tabler says most travellers caught the use of the repeated syllable and used their own method of writing it. Various versions included QuaeQuae, Inquinquince, Hwahwa, Sekhoiwhoi, Ukwekwe and Sewhuewhue.
Thomas Baines cut 13 kms (8 miles) off the Hunter’s Road in 1869 - 70 by using a shorter route between the Gwelo and Que Que drifts, but the cut-off was not used much until after 1880 when the tsetse-fly spread up the Jumani river and forced travellers further south.
Kwekwe river to Sebakwe river
This from Justin Seymour-Smith whose family lived on Iwaba Ranch just north of the Sebakwe river:
“We must remember when thinking about the route of the Hunter’s Road that they were looking for the easiest route for the ox drawn waggons – avoiding too many river crossings, thick woodlands, black cotton soils and soft sand.
My guess is the Hunter’s Road went from the Kwekwe river crossing swinging east towards Gado siding – roughly following the present road to Cactus Poort from the main road to avoid the heavy clay soils that stretch up to the Redcliff turnoff - roughly along the railway line to the Gado area. From the Gado area just north of east towards the Bembezaan missing the small river that the Mvuma Rd crosses near the Igogo Rd junction. From the Bembezaan to the Sebakwe drift would have been fairly easy going.
The country would have been heavily wooded at that time prior to the development of all the gold mines. None of the early explorer mention any human settlement in all that area so one has to assume their livestock was at risk to tsetse fly north of the present day Hunter’s Road area – the range of the fly governed by the range of sufficient wildlife to support it.”
The Bembezaan drift was 22 kms (13.5 miles) north-east of the Kwekwe river and reached after crossing the Mlexwe, a small tributary of the Kwekwe river and crossing the pass of a small range of hills running north-south and into a wide level valley in which the Bembezaan flowed. The river usually had water; recorded as 60 cms and 23 metres wide in July 1866 with the river-bed covered in mud and stones and fringed by reeds and much frequented by buffalo.
The Sebakwe river was a further 8 kms ( 5 miles) beyond the Bembezaan was considered by most travellers to be the finest stream so far encountered and was forded at a small island. In July its wide bed was knee-deep with clear water though it was dry by October. Buffalo were abundant and they attracted lion, but most feared were the tsetse-fly that existed a short way downstream.
Justin Seymour-Smith sent me this quote[xxxi] from Selous: “In the afternoon we trekked on to the Sebakwe river, which is only about eight miles distant from the Bembees, and into which it empties itself a few miles below the drift. At daylight on September 5, we crossed the Sebakwe, and after a four hours’ trek reached a gully with some waterholes in it. In the evening, after in spanning I rode on ahead of the waggons and shot a tsessebe antelope.”
The Hartley party crossed the Bembezaan and Que Que rivers on 21 July 1866. Wilkinson on his only trip to Mashonaland was favourably impressed and reported the river banks lined with “crystals” and other minerals. They forded the Sebakwe river on the 24 July and continued on to the Umniati, now the Munyati where they shot some elephant and then rode on to the Ngezi river.
Baines wrote: “We crossed the Bembesi River and the Sebaque near the junction of which eight or ten miles north many apparently rich quartz reefs exist which were subsequently visited by Mr Nelson and myself. Mr Nelson tried the river and found a trace of gold and I remarked galena in several specimens of the quartz.”
Sebakwe river to Ngezi river
Justin Seymour Smith writes: “The Hunter’s Road was still visible in places on our old property, Iwaba Ranch up until we left in 2006. The early aerial photographs done in the late ‘50s showed it clearly in places if you knew where to look.”
Justin wrote out this Baines[xxxii] extract: “Hitherto the chief features of the country had been granite ; but to the north-west of our course greenstone schist was found, and beyond that a dark slate formation, striking north and south, and upright enough to enclose the stream between high bluffs. Mr Nelson found alluvial gold in two places in the river ; but it was very fine, and not enough to warrant him in calling it payable. We observed the first palm-tree at Sebaque. Here the country is chiefly fine-grained granite, intersected by green stone. On our right, or south-east, appear the ridges of the Thaba Euzimba, and the other highlands, forming the watershed between the Zambesian tributaries we were daily crossing, and between those of the Limpopo and Sabea, flowing from their south and eastern slopes.
The drift of the Munyati, or Buffalo, was guarded, as it were, by castellated granite hills, among which a small baobab or two, and the beautiful coral-blossomed erithrina kaffra, mingled with the acacias and mimosa, while cranes and waterfowl waded on the sandy beaches, or sported in the pools, and the hippopotamus and crocodile occupied the deeper reaches below. The Umgesi [Ngezi] a few miles onward was a bleak unsheltered mountain river rushing and babbling over accumulated rocks and stones, clear and cols as we experienced when we waded knee-deep across it.”
Justin sent me this quote[xxxiii] from Selous: “In December I returned to Matabililand in company with Mr. H.C. Collison, Cornelis van Rooyen, and Mr. James Dawson of Bulawayo, who had come to Mashunaland with an empty waggon in order to help me out with the large number of natural history specimens I had collected, which amounted altogether to more than a load for one waggon. I remember one incident of our return journey, which I think is worth relating.
One night we had outspanned at the head of a lovely grassy glade, between the Umniati and Sebakwi rivers, down the centre of which ran a nice little stream of water. Just at daylight the next morning the cattle were all unloosed to get a bit of feed before being inspanned for the morning’s trek, and soon spread out over the open valley which lay in front of our bivouac. I was drinking a cup of coffee, seated in the front part of my own waggon, when I saw a fine sable antelope bull come out of the forest that skirted the open ground and advance towards the cattle, which he kept examining enquiringly, standing still for a few seconds at a time and then coming slowly forwards again. Before long he had come quite close up to some of the foremost oxen and was then not more than one hundred and fifty yards or so from Van Rooyen’s waggon, which was some distance in advance of mine. My friend had all this time been watching the sable antelope as well as I, and at this juncture he fired at and wounded it, shooting from the inside of his waggon. Directly the shot was fired every dog rushed out from beneath the particular waggon to which he or she belonged, and the whole motley pack, about twenty in number, were soon streaming out down the valley. The foremost dogs soon caught sight of the sable antelope, which, badly wounded by Van Rooyen’s bullet, was making off slowly towards the stream which ran down the centre of the open ground. As it disappeared down the steep bank the foremost dogs were almost up to it. Van Rooyen, Dawson, and myself were now running as hard as we could to call the pack off and dispatch the wounded antelope before any of our valuable dogs were killed; for we knew from experience what havoc a wounded sable antelope can make amongst a pack with its long curved horns. Just as we were nearing the water two of my own dogs came howling up the bank, both badly wounded, and the loud barking of the rest of the pack, coupled with the defiant snorts of the sable antelope, which proceeded from the bed of the stream, let us know that the brave beast was still making a gallant fight and doing his utmost to sell his life dearly. A moment later we dispatched him with two bullets through the head and neck, and not a moment too soon. Four of our best dogs lay dead around their quarry, one of which, a kind of mongrel deer-hound, Van Rooyen would not have parted with at any price. Besides the four that were killed outright, four more were badly wounded, one of which subsequently died. My old bitch Ruby had one more very narrow escape. She had been struck right through the throat by the sharp horn of the sable antelope, which, however, had only pierced through between the skin and the windpipe. She must, I fancy, have been swung up into the air, and then twisted off with such violence that the skin had torn; so that a great piece of it as large as the palm of my hand hung down under her jaw. This piece of loose skin, however, I sewed in its place again, and the wound soon healed up.”
The drift across the Umniati was 800 metres (0.5 mile) above the Umniati / Ngezi river confluence with steep banks and hippos in many of its deep pools.
The Umniati flows around the southern end of the Mwenezi Hills[xxxiv] to the east; the Ngezi flows around the northern end with its headwaters near Featherstone. From the Umniati the Ngezi river was 6 kms (4 miles) distant – the Ngezi ran swift and clear all year round with long quiet pools that concealed both hippos and crocodiles.
Justin sent another quote[xxxv] by Selous on the Munyati river: “Laer always was a most lucky boy for coming across lions. I remember in 1882 I sent him out to Matabililand, in the early part of the hunting season, with some of the skins of the antelopes I had already preserved, as I saw I was getting so many that I should never have been able to have carried them all at once, on y one wagon, at the end of the hunting season. Laer travelled with the small wagon I had made by taking the wheels off my big buck wagon and then putting in a short lang wagen. He only had a double-barrelled shot gun with him with which to shoot guinea-fowls along the road, as I had no spare rifle to lend him. One night he was camped at the Umniati river, the ten oxen being tied, two by two, to the yokes as usual. Laer and the two boys who were with him were lying inside a fence which they had built behind them, and which ran out at right angles from the hind wheel of the wagon. A large fire was burning at their feet, which cast a good light for some distance round it. Suddenly Laer heard a commotion amongst the cattle, and jumping up simultaneously with the two Kafir boys, they all saw a large lion emerge swiftly from the gloom of the night, advance rapidly, and seize one of the two oxen that were standing just in front of the two tied to the disselboom. The grim beast stood in the full light of the fire, with one paw over the shoulder of the ox, and the other holding the poor animal by the muzzle, the lion’s hind feet being planted firmly on the ground all the time. Laer then very pluckily fired a charge of shot into him at less than ten yards’ distance. He told me, in relating the adventure, that the lion, on being hit, gave a loud roar, and instantly quitting the ox, bounded off into the darkness, and did not return. The ox that had been attacked had to be driven loose from the Umniati river to Matabililand, and eventually died from the effect of the bites he had received in the back of the neck.”
Ngezi to Umsweswe river
The next trek of 21 kms (13 miles) took the ox-wagons to the drift on the Umsweswe river that travellers described as a beautiful small stream of clean water flowing over sand and rocks. Trees lined the banks and at the drift the river channel divided into two after a very steep approach down the southern bank.
By 31 July the Hartley party were over the Umsweswe, now Msweswe where they camped. Henry Hartley told marvellous hunting tales – nobody could tell bigger or better ones, though they all thought Christian Harmse came in a good second for story-telling. For two weeks they made short hunting trips from their stand place. Some men remained in camp whilst the others searched the surrounding countryside for wildlife.
Finaughty left for Matabeleland on 7 August. He was so successful at hunting that the Hartley’s became jealous and made him feel uncomfortable. The hunting tactics of the Hartley’s were criticised by Finaughty who stated that when they found an elephant kept together and fired at the same animal until it fell; so elephants were killed one at a time. This resulted in a smaller bag than if each hunted independently although the “Oud Baas” is still credited with over 1,000 elephants in his lifetime. Since he had left his wagon at Inyati he had to leave his ivory for the others to bring out and on his way back to Inyati killed eight more cow elephants and had to ask a man also returning to let his servants carry the tusks.
Those remaining at the Umsweswe had some difficulties with Inyoka who exacted tribute from their Mashona guides. The oxen were inspanned on 13 August and the combined party moved on to the south bank of the Umfuli, now Mupfure river, an easy trek of just a day and a half following native paths.
Baines writes: “At Umgesana [Gwazana?] we found the brothers Jennings[xxxvi] with Mr Saunders[xxxvii] and Mr Gilliewie[xxxviii] outspanned by a clump of trees and dwarf palms and received valuable information from them. And at the drift of the Umzwezwie (beautifully overshadowed by bold groups of forest trees) Mr Nelson found gold among the stones and sand in the broad bed which only the flooded river could fill.”[xxxix]
Umsweswe to Hartley Hills
Baines continues: “The hills[xl] of the watershed upon our right sweeping round like a vast amphitheatre from east to north forced us still more in that direction and camping in a soft wood grove near Zizena or Mud Spruit we lost an ox from weakness and exhaustion and here, saddling up my horse – kept only for great emergencies – I rode on to overtake Mr Hartley. Crossing the Zinbindasi [Chirundazi] rivulet and the broad and sandy Um Vuli [Umfuli now Mupfure] river I reached the Sarua [Serui] and halted for the night. I observed the glare upon the clouds from fires in the direction of Sir John Swinburne’s camp, three or four miles south west of me [at Hartley Hills] Next day I crossed much quartz ore and well-wooded country, intersected by several rivulets and during the forenoon reached the wagons of Mr Hartley, the brothers Wood[xli] and Mr McMaster.[xlii] The hunters were absent, but Mrs McMaster and the other ladies welcomed me and spread upon the skin that did duty for a breakfast table, so may little delicacies created from the rough materials at their command that I seemed to have fallen into the very lap of luxury. A train of Matabili and Mashonas arrived loaded with ivory and elephant’s flesh and as the camp was shortly to be moved I rode back early next morning to hasten on the wagon. I met it at the Sarua river in which Nelson found a little gold.”[xliii]
The road travelled on the western side of the Rutala Hills before swinging east to the Chirundazi stream and following it down on its western side to the confluence with the Umfuli, now Mupfure river. Tabler states the first drift was 0.5 mile west of the confluence – the level of the river is now artificially raised by a series of weirs, but 600 metres west is a small island still visible and drifts were often sited where a river divided into two channels. Thomas Baines named this Hartley’s drift and his son is buried somewhere near the Chirundazi confluence although all trace of his grave has been lost. [See the article The search for Willie Hartley’s grave under Mashonaland West on the website www.zimfieldguide.com]
Typically as on the Ngwenya to Kwekwe river stretch of the Hunter’s Road (Map 14) Thomas Baines disregarded custom and cut a new section of road that avoided the turn to the Chirundazi stream and went straight on to the Umfuli. This shortened the distance and became the preferred route with the new Umfuli drift a mile further downstream. There is a small island above the water 1.3 kms downstream and this may have been where the drift crossed the river.
At both drifts there were old campsites sheltering under the shade of sausage trees (Kigelia Africana) and marked by stockades of thorns to protect the oxen and horses from lion which were common in the area. From the northern bank of the Umfuli the Hunter’s Road led off in a north-westerly direction for 5 kms to reach the fabled Hartley Hills – the scene that Thomas Baines painted of the elephant that Henry Hartley shot and fell dead on a pre-European gold working. [See the article Thomas Baines and the Hartley Hills goldfield under Mashonaland West on the website www.zimfieldguide.com]
The Hartley Hills are marked by a short string of kopjes stretching south for a kilometre from the drift over the Chimbo stream which shortly after joins the Umfuli river. On the north bank of the Chimbo stream was Constitution Hill that Thomas Leask advised his friends to climb each day to quicken their recovery from malaria fever! The north bank of the Mupfure was generally clear of tsetse-fly, but malaria was prevalent.
Vegetables could be bartered locally from the Mashona. Both Chief Lomagundi to the north-east and Chief Umtigeza recognised amaNdebele sovereignty at the time and paid tribute. The amaNdebele raided east of the Mupfure river from time to time although it was often recognised as the physical boundary line.
The Hartley party found ruined kraals and gardens and followed a Mashona man to a kopje whose natural defences had been augmented with dry-stone walling. The fears of the inhabitants who had been subjected to an amaNdebele raid not long before were calmed when they bought grain and spent the night at the kraal. One of the Mashona was hired as a gun-bearer and to find elephant. Trips after elephant were carried out on horseback, the wagons being left at the Umfuli and usually lasted four or five days. They rode into the valley of the Hunyani river but did not reach it on this occasion.
Because they spotted tsetse-fly at the Umfuli they pulled the wagons back towards the Ngezi river and the next day Phillips left to return to Matabeleland. After some days of rest trekking began again on the 27 August towards the south-east and the Mwenezi range and to the headwaters of the Umsweswe river. In their search for elephant they reached the source of one of the tributaries of the Ngezi.
The wagons started on the return journey on 8 September taking a path that intersected with the Hunter’s Road. They crossed the Bembezaan on 19 September reaching Inyati in ten days and were at Mzilikazi’s kraal by 3 October 1866. Most of their horses died of dikkop, an African horse disease, but these losses were offset by the twenty-eight elephant killed by the Hartley party and the thirty elephant shot by the others, including Finaughty.
Hartley reached his home Thorndale farm by 10 January 1867 and Leask reached Potchefstroom in early February. Karl Mauch had to be very circumspect in his search for gold as Inyoka was extremely suspicious. Mauch possessed a pocket compass but did not have a sextant and did little mapping. His peculiarities were talked about by hunters long after he left Africa, but Hartley gave him what help he could and paid a Mashona named Makhombo to point out old gold-workings at the Sebakwe and Bembezaan rivers where Mauch spotted visible gold in the quartz seams. He was inconspicuous in his searches though; Leask only mentions Mauch twice in his diary and once was when he was forced by five lions to spend the night in a tree.
From Hartley Hills to the Hunyani now Manyame river
The Hunter’s Road ended at the Chimbo stream drift but a trail continued north-west for 8 kms (5 miles) and crossed an easy drift over the shallow but swiftly flowing Serui river.[xliv] Another 21 kms (13 miles) north-west the road crossed the Biri (rock rabbit) river where the road turned north for 14 kms (8.5 miles) to the Msengezi river which had a steep sandy drift.
The Hunyani now Manyame[xlv] was reached 19 kms (12 miles) in a north easterly direction over wooded and undulating grounds near to present-day Kutama Mission and College and below the junction of the Gwebi and Manyame rivers. Between the Mupfure and the Manyame travellers took the trail on horseback and left their ox-wagons parked in the shade of the Msasa trees at Hartley Hills where there was good grass and water for the oxen to recover.
Much of the narrative for this article comes from the doyen of pre-occupation history - Edward C. Tabler’s The Far Interior; a classic account of pioneering in the Matabele and Mashona countries during the period 1847 – 1879 and the premier author of this period. His account is supplemented with the accounts by Robert Moffat and Sam Edwards to Gubulawayo and then by Thomas Leask’s account of the large hunting party that travelled under Henry Hartley to Mashonaland.
For The Far Interior Tabler relied on numerous historical sources. For example for the section from Makobi’s kraal where Manyami was located (Map 6) he used descriptions from Moffat (1854) Mackenzie (1863) Leask (1866) M’intosh (1869) Baines (1869, 1870, 1871) Selous (1872) Oates (1873) Anderson (1877) Rudd (1888) Mathers (1891) and Decle (1892) but of all of them he considered Thomas Baines’ surveys and measurements the most accurate; Baines was an excellent cartographer as well and his maps were the best for another 30 years.
Justin Seymour-Smith whose family lived on Iwaba Ranch north of the Sebakwe river was a great help in directing me towards the likely route of the Hunter’s Road from the Kwekwe river and across the Sebakwe as far as the Munyati river and kindly copied out the quotes in the article from F.C. Selous and T. Baines and let me use his family photographs. Thanks Justin!
J. Knight. Shoshong; a short history. Online pdf. Kwangu, Gaborone, Botswana. May 2014
E.C. Tabler. The Far Interior; Chronicles of pioneering in the Matabele and Mashona countries, 1847 – 1879. A.A. Balkema, Cape Town, 1955
Frank Oates. Matabeleland and the Victoria Falls; the Letters and Journals of Frank Oates, 1873-1875
R. Sampson. White Induna; George Westbeech and the Barotse People. Xlibris Corporation, 2008
T. Baines. The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa. Books of Rhodesia Volume 1, Bulawayo, 1968
F.C. Selous. A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa, London, Richard Bentley & Son, 1881
F.C. Selous. Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa, London, Rowland Ward and Co, 1885
[i] It was believed by the amaNdebele that the liver, heart and gall bladder of reptiles could be used by sorcerers to kill humans at a distance
[ii] The Far Interior P164
[iii] Thomas Baines measured this distance in 1869
[iv] Walvis Bay to Lake Ngami was measured by Baines and Chapman with a trocheameter
[v] Roots web re Thomas Leask
[vi] Wikipedia. Shoshong
[vii] Sunday Standard Botswana. 10 June 2019. The Elephants of the Khama Dynasty article by Richard Moleofe
[viii] Shoshong, a short history
[ix] Shoshong, a short history
[x] The Far Interior P20
[xi] Ibid P213
[xii] Tabler states that Moffat, Mackenzie, Baines, Holub and Decle state that the Maklautsi river was the Bamangwato – amaNdebele border, but Moffat and Oates declared the Shashe river to be the border. Tabler thinks the amaNdebele ruled as far as the Shashi but by their 1863 raid on Shoshong they effectively extended their rule to the Maklautsi river.
[xiii] G.S. Quick. Early European involvement in the Tati District. Botswana Notes and Records. Vol. 33 (2001) Botswana Society.
[xiv] Botswana Daily News. Old Tati; Bechuanaland’s ancient commercial centre by P. Kedidimetse on 25.10.2017
[xv] IAMGOLD technical report on Mupane gold mine dated May 2011
[xvi] Selous, Oates and Holub mention them as long-standing residents of Tati
[xvii] Frank Oates. Matabeleland and the Victoria Falls; the Letters and Journals of Frank Oates, 1873-1875, P208
[xviii] William Horn, hunter and trader
[xix] White Induna, P11
[xx] The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa, P19. The letter of introduction was from the Governor of Natal Sir Robert William Keate (1867 – 1872) in which he asked for leave for Baines to travel and explore and establish if gold actually existed in Mashonaland so that the Governor might make laws to regulate the conduct of Europeans. If there was no gold, he wished to advise travellers not to make the journey.
[xxi] Um Nombata or Nombata had been the regent of the amaNdebele nation after Mzilikazi’s death on the 9 September 1868
[xxii] Baines noted Lee’s house south of the Mangwe river in 1869, but north of the river by November 1871
[xxiii] The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa, P19
[xxiv] Umvolulu kraal is not mentioned by travellers before 1869
[xxv] Top of the Hill was named by Baines where the climb through the Mangwe Pass finished and where travellers emerged onto the plain. He also named Tiger Bush.
[xxvi] The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa, P21
[xxvii] The Khoce river was called the Olienhout or Wild Olive Tree river by the Boers
[xxviii] Baines gives the distance as 327 kms (203.3 miles) Thomas Leask covered the distance in 1866 in fourteen days of actual trekking.
[xxix] The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa, P23
[xxx] Ibid, P24
[xxxi] A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa, P327
[xxxii] The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa, P24
[xxxiii] Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa, P190-1
[xxxiv] The Mwenezi Hills or Thabas Inzimbi were often confused with Iron Mine Hill which is further south. William Hartley, the seventeen year old so of Henry Hartley and his companion James O’Donnell who had been hunting in the Mwenezi Hills and both died of malaria fever on 29 May 1870 despite Thomas Leask’s best efforts and were buried near the confluence of the Chirundazi and the Umfuli rivers.
[xxxv] Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa, P127
[xxxvi] George and James Jennings – hunters and traders
[xxxvii] William Saunders – hunter and trader
[xxxviii] Henry McGillewie, younger brother of Patrick – hunter and trader, died of fever at the Serui river in May 1870.
[xxxix] The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa, P25
[xl] Rutara Hills, part of the Great Dyke
[xli] George and Swithin Wood. George married McMaster’s sister but in April 1870 in the Mwenezi Range his wife and child and Jebe died of malaria.
[xlii] Thomas McMaster – hunter and trader whose sister married George Wood.
[xliii] The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa, P25
[xliv] The Serui river was called the Mopane by Englishmen and Sterkstroom (Strong stream) by Boers
[xlv] Early travellers noted that name Manyame was used by Mashona at the time. Thomas Leask and early travellers called it the Kanyani river. | <urn:uuid:91c567c4-840a-4c00-b9a7-7f56391f4525> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://zimfieldguide.com/mashonaland-west/hunter%E2%80%99s-road-followed-maps | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046154486.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20210803222541-20210804012541-00528.warc.gz | en | 0.975055 | 19,744 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Against All Odds: Developed by UNHCR, this interactive game was designed to teach players about the plight of refugees. Players take on the role of a refugee and play through twelve stages – depicting the individual’s persecution and flight from their native country, through to eventual integration into a foreign country as an asylum seeker.
UNHCR Operational Data Portal: The web portal displays the latest emergency data, maps, population statistics, demographic graphs, UNHCR and partner reports and fact sheets, operational highlights and situation reports, plus quick links to a variety of partner web sites.
Teaching about Refugees — Curriculum Units & Lessons: A website put together by Georgetown Professor, Rochelle Davis, containing various lesson plan ideas for teaching about refugees.
I am Syria: A collection of lesson plans and video clips designed to quickly introduce the Syrian Refugee Crisis to students.
How the Refugee Vetting Process Really Works: A description of the refugee vetting process in the United States, put together by the International Rescue Committee
Based on the firsthand testimonies of Somalis living in Europe, Meet the Somalis is a graphic novel assembled by the Open Society Institute containing 14 illustrated stories depicting the real life experiences of Somalis in seven cities in Europe: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Leicester, London, Malmö, and Oslo. The stories allow readers a unique insight into what everyday life is like as a Somali in Europe.
Clouds Over Sidra: an immersive experience that was created for the United Nations using the Samsung Gear Virtual Reality 360-degree platform. In this 8 minute groundbreaking film, a young Syrian refugee girl takes you on a virtual reality journey through the Za’atari camp in Jordan.
The UNHCR YouTube Channel: A collection of over 1,000 video clips describing the stories of refugees around the world. The collection is searchable by keyword, and the page also offers playlists related to different topics.
The UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (Full text available)
Jon Bauer and Anna Cabot. “An Overview of Asylum and U.S. Immigration Law.” Chapter from ASYLUM PRACTICE MANUAL used by students in the UConn Law School Asylum and Human Rights Clinic. Last updated July 2016 | <urn:uuid:1dc49e52-eb94-477a-ba2e-67527811c037> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://teachbeyondborders.uconn.edu/refugees/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662545326.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20220522094818-20220522124818-00480.warc.gz | en | 0.87388 | 473 | 2.609375 | 3 |
If there are methods to boost your memory, would they be appealing for your needs? Below are a few simple tricks will exercise your memory skills and improve your memory and recall abilities. From the below article, you’ll learn some excellent information on saving your memory.
Exercising offers benefits both for your whole body and your mind. The increased blood and oxygen flow to your brain will assist you to maintain your brain healthy. Memory is centered in your brain and looking after good health is important to boosting your maximum brain function. Training will likely keep diseases including diabetes at bay. Diabetes have got a negative affect on memory functions.
If this is true for yourself, the best way to remedy the situation is to take a short break once every hour approximately. This lets your mind unwind a little. You can just let your mind absorb more details by doing this.
For memory improvement, eliminate unpleasant or negative thoughts. Scientific study has shown those plagued by negativity or who have quite a lot of stress with their lives have lower memory function compared to those that do not share those afflictions. Discuss stress-relieving methods along with your physician.
While studying, a good way to further improve your brain’s memory retention is always to switch your studying environment. Altering your environment refreshes the mind, plus it makes long-term memory a lot more effective. You may jog the human brain awake once it notices where you are change, and when awake, the human brain should be able to more efficiently process information into memories.
Purchase some sticky pads should you be forgetful! Position them in conspicuous locations that you simply frequent, like on your computer system monitor or near your cellular phone. These stickies be sure you won’t forget essential things.
One effective way to memorize and remember anything is always to make a connection in between the new information and something you remember easily. Creating these ties can greatly enhance your new intelligence being committed to your personal long term memory. These relational exercises should help you develop a better memorization process.
One excellent tip that may start improving memory is to ensure that you start regular exercise. Exercising on a daily basis can assist you out immensely with the efforts.
A great way of strengthening your memory power is to work as a teacher. As an example, in case the information about teaching each of your grandchildren the way to swim are getting to be fuzzy, it helps to share with as numerous people as possible concerning the event. Telling other folks about events helps strengthen your memory from the event, to ensure you’re unlikely to forget it.
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Meditation can help many people improve brain elasticity and also memory function, overall health and levels of stress. Allow yourself to spend several moments breathing deeply and stepping into a relaxed state as a way to meditate. Try and meditate for around 30 minutes every day to be certain your brain gets the exercise it deserves.
It had been stated that these particular tips would help you to recall the info that is certainly with your memory if you want it. Hopefully these guidelines will help you to find the best way to just do that. It is going to make things in your lifetime less difficult and less frustrating than it absolutely was whenever you forgot all this. | <urn:uuid:f60869cc-9096-4b70-9dac-3f5dcf04a637> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://donnyhced.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376831933.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20181219090209-20181219112209-00249.warc.gz | en | 0.960645 | 696 | 2.765625 | 3 |
There has been a rising cases of natural disaster hitting many places where people lives without any signs and therefore leading to high humanitarian assistance during such times. The concern however is the planning on how to deal with such problems as when they occur and this is why there ha been a high concern on how preparedness everyone should be. The governments as well as the charitable organizations are the entities that usually are there to assist those who may be hit by such a problem, for instance, some top charities specially for disaster relief. It is good to have a disaster prepared plan so that if anything happens as such disaster will not hit when expected and therefore the need to prepare for anything that may happen anytime.
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Although many people ignore such warnings it is always important to ensure that you follow the instruction that is given since this may only be the only way that you can be able to survive a deadly disaster. You should not try to rely more on electricity and look for spotlights and battery powered radio so that you can be able to know what is happening even if the electricity distribution is affected. It is always good to have medication in the house for any emergency need. This is a good way to ensure that you can be able to deal with any ailment and accident that may happen in the process. Without such medicine and first aid box there can be loss of life or severe conditions during such periods.
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i3D Movies you can touch.
The lion (Panthera leo) is a species in the cat family (Felidae); it is a muscular, deep-chested cat with a short, rounded head, a reduced neck and round ears, and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. The lion is sexually dimorphic; males are larger than females with a typical weight range of 150 to 250 kg (331 to 551 lb) for the former and 120 to 182 kg (265 to 401 lb) for the latter. Male lions have a prominent mane, which is the most recognizable feature of the species.
A lion pride consists of a few adult males, related females and cubs.
Groups of female lions typically hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. The species is an apex and keystone predator, although they scavenge when opportunities occur. Some lions have been known to hunt humans, although the species typically does not. Typically, the lion inhabits grasslands and savannas but is absent in dense forests. It is usually more diurnal than other big cats, but when persecuted it adapts to being active at night and at twilight.
In the Pleistocene, the lion ranged throughout Eurasia, Africa and the Americas from the Yukon to Peru but today it has been reduced to fragmented populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and one critically endangered population in western India. It has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1996 because populations in African countries have declined by about 43% since the early 1990s.
Lion populations are untenable outside designated protected areas. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes for concern.
One of the most widely recognized animal symbols in human culture, the lion has been extensively depicted in sculptures and paintings, on national flags, and in contemporary films and literature. Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire and have been a key species sought for exhibition in zoological gardens across the world since the late 18th century.
Cultural depictions of lions were prominent in the Upper Paleolithic period; carvings and paintings from the Lascaux and Chauvet Caves in France have been dated to 17,000 years ago, and depictions have occurred in virtually all ancient and medieval cultures that coincided with the lion’s former and current ranges.
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This material is protected by copyright and has been copied by and solely for the advertising purposes of 3dmovies.com Inc. under license. You may not sell, alter or further reproduce or distribute any part of this coursepack/material to any other person. Where provided to you in electronic format, you may only print from it for your own private study and research. Failure to comply with the terms of this warning may expose you to legal action for copyright infringement and/or disciplinary action by 3DMovies.com LLC. For rights to use any of our pictures, video clips or movies please use our contact form. Most pictures are 6k resolution and almost all of our movies are filmed in 6k resolution and up to 12k 3D always. | <urn:uuid:a3be612c-aee3-48f2-949f-8e0f3a92a59d> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | http://3dmoviesyoucantouch.com/2016/05/10/hello-world/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655882634.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20200703153451-20200703183451-00487.warc.gz | en | 0.945339 | 730 | 2.953125 | 3 |
|Scavenging on a beach in Dorset, England|
|Carrion Crow range|
Taxonomy and systematics
The Carrion Crow was one of the many species originally described by Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae and it still bears its original name of Corvus corone. The binomial name is derived from the Latin Corvus, "Raven", and Greek korone/κορωνη, "crow".
As well as the subspecies of the Hooded Crow being split off as a separate species, there is some discussion whether the Eastern Carrion Crow (C. c. orientalis) is distinct enough to warrant specific status; the two taxa are well separated, and it has been proposed they could have evolved independently in the wetter, maritime regions at the opposite ends of the Eurasian landmass.
The plumage of Carrion Crow is black with a green or purple sheen, much greener than the gloss of the Rook. The bill, legs and feet are also black. It can be distinguished from the Common Raven by its size (48–52 cm or 18 to 21 inches in length) and from the Hooded Crow by its black plumage, but there is frequent confusion between it and the Rook. The beak of the Crow is stouter and in consequence looks shorter, and whereas in the adult Rook the nostrils are bare, those of the Crow are covered at all ages with bristle-like feathers.
Distribution and habitat
This species breeds in western and central Europe, with an allied form or race C. c. orientalis (50–56 cm or 19 to 22 inches in length) occurring in eastern Asia. The separation of these two populations is now believed to have taken place during the last ice age, with the closely allied Hooded Crow (now given species status) filling the gap between. Fertile hybrids occur along the boundary between these two forms indicating their close genetic relationship. This is an example of the parapatric speciation model described by Ernst Mayr. The range of this hybrid of these two species appears to be moving to the northwest.
Behaviour and ecology
The Rook is generally gregarious and the Crow solitary, but Rooks occasionally nest in isolated trees, and Crows may feed with Rooks; moreover, Crows are often sociable in winter roosts. The most distinctive feature is the voice. The rook has a high-pitched kaaa, but the Crow's guttural, slightly vibrant, deeper croaked kraa is distinct from any note of the rook.
The Carrion Crow is noisy, perching on the top of a tree and calling three or four times in quick succession, with a slight pause between each series of croaks. The wing-beats are slower, more deliberate than those of the Rook.
Though an eater of carrion of all kinds, the Carrion Crow will eat insects, earthworms, grain, small mammals, scraps and will also steal eggs. Crows are scavengers by nature, which is why they tend to frequent sites inhabited by humans in order to feed on their household waste. Crows will also harass birds of prey or even foxes for their kills. Crows actively hunt and occasionally co-operate with other crows to make kills.
Crows have become highly skilled at adapting to urban environments. In a Japanese city, carrion crows have discovered how to eat nuts that they usually find too hard to tackle. One method is to drop the nuts from height on to a hard road in the hope of cracking it. Some nuts are particularly tough, so the crows drop the nuts among the traffic. That leaves the problem of eating the bits without getting run over, so some birds wait by pedestrian crossings and collect the cracked nuts when the lights turn red.
The bulky stick nest is usually placed in a tall tree, but cliff ledges, old buildings and pylons may be used as well. Nests are also occasionally placed on or near the ground. The nest resembles that of the Common Raven, but is less bulky. The 3 to 4 brown-speckled blue or greenish eggs are incubated for 18–20 days by the female alone, who is fed by the male. The young fledge after 29–30 days.
It is not uncommon for an offspring from the previous years to stay around and help rear the new hatchlings. Instead of seeking out a mate, it looks for food and assists the parents in feeding the young.
- BirdLife International (2012). "Corvus corone". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
- (Latin) Linnaeus, C (1758). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata.. Holmiae. (Laurentii Salvii). p. 105. "C. atro-caerulescens, cauda rotundata: rectricibus acutis."
- "Corvus". Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved 2008-02-04.
- Liddell & Scott (1980). Greek-English Lexicon, Abridged Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-910207-4.
- Madge, Steve & Burn, Hilary (1994): Crows and jays: a guide to the crows, jays and magpies of the world. A&C Black, London. ISBN 0-7136-3999-7
- Parkin, David T. (2003). "Birding and DNA: species for the new millennium". Bird Study 50 (3): 223–242. doi:10.1080/00063650309461316.
- Prior H. et al. (2008). "Mirror-Induced Behavior in the Magpie (Pica pica): Evidence of Self-Recognition". In De Waal, Frans. PLoS Biology (Public Library of Science) 6 (8): e202. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060202. PMC 2517622. PMID 18715117. Retrieved 2008-08-21.
- "Red Light Runners". BBC. 2007.
- British Trust for Ornithology (2005) Nest Record Scheme data.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Corvus corone.|
- Carrion Crow call.
- Carrion Crow videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection.
- Photo of profile.
- Image of the skull.
- Ageing and sexing (PDF; 3.4 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze.
- HOME of the corvus corone corone. | <urn:uuid:6b06904d-ea9e-4ac0-b2d9-42f2345d9231> | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrion_Crow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-15/segments/1397609537754.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20140416005217-00309-ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.863982 | 1,479 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Depression, Anxiety in Girls Linked Higher Body Mass Index in Women
Depression and Anxiety
Depression and anxiety disorders during childhood may be associated with a higher body mass index (BMI) into adulthood for women but not men, according to a study in the March issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The increasing prevalence of obesity among children and adults is becoming a public health crisis, according to background information in the article. Understanding the social and psychological conditions that are associated with obesity could help predict which children and adolescents are likely to become obese adults, helping physicians target treatment and prevention efforts. Previous evidence suggests that psychological disorders may be one factor associated with weight gain, but studies in the area have been limited, the authors report.
Sarah E. Anderson, M.S., Tufts University, Boston, and colleagues evaluated the association between anxiety disorders and depression and weight gain from childhood into adulthood. They analyzed existing data from 820 individuals (403 women and 417 men) from two counties in New York, who were assessed four times between 1983 and 2003. The participants ranged in age from 9 to 18 years at the beginning of the study, and were 28 to 40 years old at the most recent assessment. At each assessment, the researchers interviewed the individuals to determine whether they met clinical criteria for anxiety disorders or depression. The authors calculated BMI-for-age (BMI z scores) by dividing weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters and adjusting it for age and gender based on national reference data. BMI z scores correspond to growth chart percentiles and allow for tracking a child's relative weight through adolescence.
During the study, 310 participants (119 men and 191 women) had anxiety disorders and 148 (50 men and 98 women) were depressed. Women with anxiety disorders had significantly higher BMI z scores than women of the same age and socioeconomic status without the condition. Women with a history of depression were heavier and experienced a greater yearly increase in their BMI z scores than women without depression. Women who were younger when they developed depression had higher weights in adulthood than women who developed depression later.
In women, anxiety disorders were associated with higher weight, with average BMI z scores of .13 to .18 units higher than women without anxiety disorders. For example, an adult woman with history of an anxiety disorder who had an average height (64 inches) would weigh between 6 to 12 pounds more than a woman without anxiety. "Although these average weight differences are not large, obesity results from incremental increases in weight, and successful prevention is likely to require interventions targeted toward many factors, no one of which, alone, is sufficient to prevent obesity," the authors write. An average-height woman diagnosed with depression at age 14 would weigh about 10 to 16 pounds more than a non-depressed woman by the time both reached age 30 years.
Depression during childhood was associated with an initially lower BMI among boys, but over time, the weight difference in depressed and non-depressed men disappeared. Anxiety disorders did not appear to be linked to men's BMIs at any point throughout the study.
The authors suggest that treating anxiety and depression in girls and women may be one strategy in the battle against obesity, the authors conclude. "Our results suggest that efforts to improve mental health in populations may also help prevent female obesity; consideration of the potential for psychological antecedents and correlates of obesity could improve prevention and treatment," they write. (Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006;160:285-291) | <urn:uuid:02cccee7-349c-414a-99aa-c33e9ec6a4a6> | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | https://www.emaxhealth.com/25/4733.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-51/segments/1544376829140.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20181218102019-20181218124019-00004.warc.gz | en | 0.961122 | 721 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Before grabbing the closest tire, take heed: Steel-belted radials will not work for your swan planter project unless you are Superman — the steel belts are impervious to any cutting tool. If you want to make a swan tire planter, your best bet is an inexpensive tire from a recreational vehicle, such as a four-wheeler or from a scooter. These tires are much easier to cut and shape. You will be cutting the tire, turning it inside out and shaping it into a swan while still allowing an adequate space in the center to drop in a small to medium plastic planter, depending on the tire size.
Hold the tire in front of you and carefully cut a "V" across the top of the tire from sidewall to sidewall.
Cut 2/3 to 3/4 of the circumference of the right side of the tire, between the tread and the sidewall. Do the same on the left side of the tire. The effect is similar to pealing a banana. This will be the swan's neck. You have to cut enough length to be able to turn the tire inside out.
Turn the tire inside out. This is difficult, so you might need some assistance.
Cut several horizontal slits along the center length of the floppy part of the tire that you just cut. You will be threading heavy gauge wire through these slits to hold the swan's neck upright. You can also straighten a wire hangar and use this as a low-cost alternative.
Cut a 2-inch slice on each side of the "V" you initially cut; this is the swan's tail. This step is not mandatory; you only need to cut these slits if you want the tail to stick up higher.
Thread the wire through the slits, going in and out until the neck stays in place; bend as needed.
Place the tire swan on the ground. Cut a small hole in the base where it touches the ground, for drainage. The swan will fall over if you let it go, so you can either stake it to the ground with metal stakes or put a planter filled with dirt in the center of the swan body to hold it upright.
Paint the entire swan white using outdoor acrylic gloss paint. When dry, locate the "V" at the end of the flexible strip of tire designated as the neck. Paint two 1-inch diameter black circles for the eyes and an orange "V" for the beak. This step is not mandatory; you can also leave the tire swan black.
Things You Will Need
- Tire, such as 25-8-12 or 25-10-12
- Sharp cutting tool such as box cutter
- Wire or wire hangar
- 2 metal stakes
- Medium-size planter
- Potting soil
- White, black and orange outdoor paint
- Use extreme caution when cutting the tire to prevent loss of fingers. | <urn:uuid:722bb59e-5405-4b18-866d-01a8479feec6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://homeguides.sfgate.com/swan-tire-planters-instructions-49872.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00429-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929985 | 611 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Discover the new books that you can offer to children who use your library! Hear about books published in Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 that will be popular with children ages 0-12. These include board books, picture books, easy readers, transitional fiction, genre fiction for middle grades, graphic novels, poetry, nonfiction, and more!
Learn about books you can offer to teachers who are seeking materials that relate to the Common Core, especially the hard-to-find informational books for primary grades. Hear about books that will appeal to the “reluctant reader,” and books that will have popularity with a wide audience of children, including much-needed children’s books with multicultural characters. | <urn:uuid:50f5c6f6-28af-4216-9081-0c907d410ba0> | CC-MAIN-2014-42 | http://www.georgialibraries.org/events/node/29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-42/segments/1413507443062.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20141017005723-00244-ip-10-16-133-185.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951953 | 144 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Online Journalism Courses Overview
Online journalism courses and classes can be found in undergraduate and master's degree programs in journalism. Programs are available at public universities as well as private four-year institutions and typically utilize a class website for lectures and assignments.
Online Courses in Journalism
The following list contains a few examples of commonly offered online journalism courses:
Digital & Media Literacy: This course explores the impact of digital media on contemporary society. Students will come to understand how media messages are created and distributed, and how they influence both individuals and society as a whole.
Ethics in Journalism: Students in this course will study the major ethical and moral issues that are associated with a career in journalism. The course also introduces the foundational principles and standards upon which journalism rests.
Global Journalism: With the advent of the internet, modern society is more globalized than ever, and this change has dramatically altered the world of journalism as well. This course examines global issues and how to cover them, along with social and political considerations that may factor into an international news market.
Journalism & Politics: This course introduces students to the close and often complex relationship that journalism shares with politics. Students will analyze political journalism theory and practice, and attempt to explain how journalism affects public policy and opinion.
Newswriting and Reporting: In this courses, students learn about the fundamental activities required for effective newswriting and reporting, including conducting interviews, searching public records, and verifying facts. Usually, these courses include extensive writing requirements.
Opinion Writing: This course helps aspiring journalists build their skills in writing editorial content and columns. Students learn to evaluate political and social policies and write in a persuasive way.
Students interested in distance learning journalism coursework can find options at the bachelor's and master's levels. These online programs come in different forms and could allow students to specialize in various areas of journalism. Students may communicate with their professor and classmates via email, online discussion boards, or instant messaging.
Undergraduate programs provide a solid foundation in general education and journalism studies, which prepare students to enter this career field. Schools offering online bachelor's programs may require applicants to have already earned a certain number of college credits. If so, his could allow students to complete the four-year program in less time. Typically taking around two years of full-time study, master's programs are usually designed for experienced communications or journalism professionals seeking advanced skills. Prospective students need a bachelor's degree and could be required to have a minimum amount of relevant work experience.
Aspiring journalists can take introductory and advanced courses in the field, many of which include a lot of reading and writing practice. Basic reporting, opinion pieces, journalism ethics, and digital media journalism are among the topics covered by online courses. | <urn:uuid:8b94c70d-137a-420b-857f-69d2dcfd13af> | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | https://study.com/online_journalism_courses.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-30/segments/1563195526536.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20190720153215-20190720175215-00555.warc.gz | en | 0.943778 | 559 | 2.78125 | 3 |
What Is a Sports Physical?
In the sports medicine field, the sports physical exam is known as a preparticipation physical examination (PPE). The exam helps determine whether it’s safe for you to participate in a particular sport. Most states actually require that kids and teens have a sports physical before they can start a new sport or begin a new competitive season. But even if a PPE isn’t required, doctors still highly recommend getting one.
The two main parts to a sports physical are the medical history and the physical exam.
This part of the exam includes questions about:
- serious illnesses among other family members
- illnesses that you had when you were younger or may have now, such as asthma, diabetes, or epilepsy
- previous hospitalizations or surgeries
- allergies (to insect bites, for example)
- past injuries (including concussions, sprains, or bone fractures)
- whether you’ve ever passed out, felt dizzy, had chest pain, or had trouble breathing during exercise
- any medications that you are on (including over-the-counter medications, herbal supplements, and prescription medications)
The medical history questions are usually on a form that you can bring home, so ask your parents to help you fill in the answers. If possible, ask both parents about family medical history.
Looking at patterns of illness in your family is a very good indicator of any potential conditions you may have. Most sports medicine doctors believe the medical history is the most important part of the sports physical exam, so take time to answer the questions carefully. It’s unlikely that any health conditions you have will prevent you from playing sports completely.
Answer the questions as well as you can. Try not to guess the answers or give answers you think your doctor wants.
During the physical part of the exam, the doctor will usually:
- record your height and weight
- take a blood pressure and pulse (heart rate and rhythm) reading
- test your vision
- check your heart, lungs, abdomen, ears, nose, and throat
- evaluate your posture, joints, strength, and flexibility
Although most aspects of the exam will be the same for males and females, if a person has started or already gone through puberty, the doctor may ask girls and guys different questions. For example, if a girl is heavily involved in a lot of active sports, the doctor may ask her about her period and diet to make sure she doesn’t have something like female athlete triad.
A doctor will also ask questions about use of drugs, alcohol, or dietary supplements, including steroids or other “performance enhancers” and weight-loss supplements, because these can affect a person’s health.
At the end of your exam, the doctor will either fill out and sign a form if everything checks out OK or, in some cases, recommend a follow-up exam, additional tests, or specific treatment for medical problems.
Why Is a Sports Physical Important?
A sports physical can help you find out about and deal with health problems that might interfere with your participation in a sport. For example, if you have frequent asthma attacks but are a starting forward in soccer, a doctor might be able to prescribe a different type of inhaler or adjust the dosage so that you can breathe more easily when you run.
Your doctor may even have some good training tips and be able to give you some ideas for avoiding injuries. For example, he or she may recommend specific exercises, like certain stretching or strengthening activities, that help prevent injuries. A doctor also can identify risk factors that are linked to specific sports. Advice like this will make you a better, stronger athlete.
When & Where Should I Go for a Sports Physical?
Some people go to their own doctor for a sports physical; others have one at school. During school physicals, you may go to half a dozen or so “stations” set up in the gym; each one is staffed by a medical professional who gives you a specific part of the physical exam.
If your school offers the exam, it’s convenient to get it done there. But even if you have a PPE at school, it’s a good idea to see your regular doctor for an exam as well. Your doctor knows you — and your health history — better than anyone you talk to briefly in a gym.
If your state requires sports physicals, you’ll probably have to start getting them when you’re in seventh grade. Even if PPEs aren’t required by your school or state, it’s still smart to get them if you participate in school sports. And if you compete regularly in a sport before ninth grade, you should begin getting these exams even earlier.
Getting a sports physical once a year is usually adequate. If you’re healing from a major injury, like a broken wrist or ankle, however, get checked out after it’s healed before you start practicing or playing again.
You should have your physical about 6 weeks before your sports season begins so there’s enough time to follow up on something, if necessary. Neither you nor your doctor will be very happy if your PPE is the day before baseball practice starts and it turns out there’s something that needs to be taken of care before you can suit up.
What If There’s a Problem?
What happens if you don’t get the OK from your own doctor and have to see a specialist? Does that mean you won’t ever be able to letter in softball or hockey? Don’t worry if your doctor asks you to have other tests or go for a follow-up exam — it could be something as simple as rechecking your blood pressure a week or two after the physical.
Your doctor’s referral to a specialist may help your athletic performance. For example, if you want to try out for your school’s track team but get a slight pain in your knee every time you run, an orthopedist or sports medicine specialist can help you figure out what’s going on. Perhaps the pain comes from previous overtraining or poor running technique. Maybe you injured the knee a long time ago and it never totally healed. Or perhaps the problem is as simple as running shoes that don’t offer enough support. Chances are, a doctor will be able to help you run without the risk of further injury to the knee by giving you suggestions or treatment before the sports season begins.
It’s very unlikely that you’ll be disqualified from playing sports. The ultimate goal of the sports physical is to ensure safe participation in sports, not to disqualify the participants. Most of the time, a specialist won’t find anything serious enough to prevent you from playing your sport. In fact, fewer than 1% of students have conditions that might limit sports participation, and most of these conditions are known before the PPE takes place.
Do I Still Have to Get a Regular Physical?
In a word, yes. It may seem like overkill, but a sports physical is different from a standard physical.
The sports physical focuses on your well-being as it relates to playing a sport. It’s more limited than a regular physical, but it’s a lot more specific about athletic issues. During a regular physical, however, your doctor will address your overall well-being, which may include things that are unrelated to sports. You can ask your doctor to give you both types of exams during one visit; just be aware that you’ll need to set aside more time.
Even if your sports physical exam doesn’t reveal any problems, it’s always wise to monitor yourself when you play sports. If you notice changes in your physical condition — even if you think they’re small, such as muscle pain or shortness of breath — be sure to mention them to a parent or coach. You should also inform your phys-ed teacher or coach if your health needs have changed in any way or if you’re taking a new medication.
Just as professional sports stars need medical care to keep them playing their best, so do teenage athletes. You can give yourself the same edge as the pros by making sure you have your sports physical. | <urn:uuid:c2e1e044-3888-45d0-95b8-ebaca92eddeb> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | https://2ndtimesportscolo.com/sports-physicals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891816370.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20180225110552-20180225130552-00632.warc.gz | en | 0.952408 | 1,719 | 3.515625 | 4 |
MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin utility regulators removed references to climate change from their website months before state environmental officials altered global warming language on their own site.
the Public Service Commission eliminated a web page about global warming sometime after May 1 of last year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Friday (http://bit.ly/2j8WPp6 ). The page for years had featured material devoted to climate change, including strategies for reducing Wisconsin’s reliance on coal. It included links to wind turbine development on the Great Lakes and to a report from a global warming task force that former Gov. Jim Doyle convened.
A PSC spokeswoman, Elise Nelson, said the page was recommended for removal in 2014 along with 98 other pages as part of a long-term website cleanup.
The Department of Natural Resources removed language from its website last month that stated human activity is causing climate change, even though the vast majority of scientists agree that’s the case. DNR officials said this week it made the revisions after a northern Wisconsin newspaper asked whether the agency should be posting information stating that human activities have contributed to global warming.
The two agencies are the most influential in state government on climate change because they both regulate coal-fired power plants, a major source of carbon emissions.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker controls both agencies and combatting global warming hasn’t been a priority under his administration. Each agency has filed comments with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency objecting to higher energy costs under President Barack Obama’s administration’s climate change regulations.
Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com | <urn:uuid:3e261099-312e-4e45-98b6-6fcf3a5eb802> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bcdemocrat.com/2017/01/13/wi-xgr-climate-change/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00202-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936731 | 334 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Hydrogen and fluorine react explosively on meeting. The reaction is instantaneous. According to school textbooks this happens even when the gases are mixed at very low temperatures in the dark.
H2 + F2 –> 2HF
Hydrogen will also react explosively with oxygen, but this reaction is very unlikely to occur spontaneously. To get these two gases to react some energy needs to be supplied, typically in the form of a spark or a small flame, as in the hydrogen ‘pop’ test. Once started however, hydrogen and oxygen react just as rapidly as do hydrogen and fluorine.
2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O
That hydrogen and fluorine react spontaneously on mixing, whilst hydrogen and oxygen do not, perhaps suggests something in particular about the reactivity of fluorine.
A chemical reaction can be seen as a rearrangement of the order in which the atoms are bonded together in the reactants to form products.
For a reaction to occur the molecules involved in the reaction must first meet; they must collide. This is quite easy to imagine for gases. Gases mix immediately and in all proportions. Their molecules are moving around at random and at relatively high speeds. Many collisions take place. But not all collisions between molecules lead to chemical reactions, for a collision to be successful and result in a reaction the molecules must collide with enough energy and in the correct orientation (that is, in the right way).
The sequence of events by which certain bonds in the reactants are broken and new bonds in the products are formed is described as the reaction mechanism. And without knowing what the actual chain of events for the reaction between hydrogen and fluorine is, by comparing the relative strengths of the bonds in the reactants and products, we can still get some idea as to why this reaction is both spontaneous and explosive.
Table of some bond energies
F-F 159 kJ mol–1
The covalent bond in fluorine has a lower value than the other bond energies in the table. This means a smaller amount of energy needs to be put in to break the fluorine fluorine bond, than the bonds in hydrogen or oxygen. Indeed fluorine is a very reactive gas that reacts with just about everything it comes into contact with and cannot be used in schools.
When molecules of fluorine collide with molecules of hydrogen less energy is needed to initiate a reaction during the collision, compared to the energy required for molecules of hydrogen and oxygen to react. It would appear that the energy needed to start the reaction between hydrogen and fluorine, the so-called activation energy, is particularly low.
Part of the answer to the question I asked last time as to why hydrogen and fluorine react so readily, is because the covalent bond in fluorine is so weak and easy to break. The reaction between hydrogen and fluorine is explosive and gives out energy. It is exothermic. It gives out energy because the product molecules (hydrogen fluoride) are more stable than the reactant molecules (hydrogen and fluorine). Can you calculate a value for the energy change for this reaction (the enthalpy change of reaction) using the bond energies in the table?
And why does a small spark or flame provide enough energy to initiate an explosive reaction between hydrogen and oxygen?
Another spontaneous reaction that is commonly encountered at school is the reaction between ammonia and hydrogen chloride. Even though this reaction is not explosive it does provide some interesting insights into the nature of chemical reactions and the way we describe them as chemists.What is the product formed when ammonia reacts with hydrogen chloride? | <urn:uuid:522ade9b-675f-45e6-bc62-e5fc3f9ebafd> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://chemlegin.wordpress.com/2013/09/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247491141.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20190219183054-20190219205054-00370.warc.gz | en | 0.960239 | 733 | 4.15625 | 4 |
Seven Foods That Help Fight Seasonal Allergies
Did you know there are foods you can eat that will help you battle your seasonal allergies? Some items contain natural antihistamines and have anti-inflammatory properties which naturally help to reduce the symptoms of your allergies. While over-the-counter allergy medications can leave you feeling groggy and out of it and suffering through your allergies isn’t really an option, natural remedies are an excellent choice. These foods not only help boost your immune system but also help to rid you of the symptoms of seasonal allergies.
- Sauerkraut or Kimchi –is a fermented cabbage product which contains probiotics. Probiotics help to enhance your body’s immune response and can help reduce the symptoms of seasonal allergies.
- Local Honey – Eating raw honey produced locally at the start of allergy season can help reduce your allergies. The concept is that ingesting honey made from local pollen can help prepare your body for the coming allergy season.
- Onions – Onions contain a flavonoid known as quercetin which has high levels of antioxidants that also acts as a natural antihistamine. It works to block the production and release of histamines and inhibits other compounds related to allergies and inflammation.
- Oranges – Oranges are full of vitamin C, another natural antihistamine. Having low vitamin C levels often result in higher histamine levels and adding vitamin C supplements helps to reduce the histamine levels.
- Pineapple – Pineapples are the best source of bromelain, which is an anti-inflammatory enzyme. It also is able to reduce swelling in the nose, making breathing easier. It has also been shown to inhibit the development of diseases such as asthma.
- Salmon – Salmon contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are known for their anti-inflammatory properties. They help to block the production of chemicals that cause allergic reactions. Studies have shown that individuals who had high levels of EPA, which is an omega-3 fat found in many fish, suffered from fewer allergies than those with lower levels.
- Turmeric – Turmeric contains an anti-inflammatory compound known as curcumin. It prevents the release of histamines, helping to reduce any allergic responses from your body, and also increase the airflow in your nose and support your immune response.
If you suffer from seasonal allergies, you aren’t alone, and it helps to learn what you can do naturally to help overcome the symptoms. Learning how foods affect your body and help manage the symptoms of illnesses and allergies is just one of the many things you will learn when you enroll in a program at the Edison Institute of Nutrition and earn a holistic nutritionist degree. We strive to provide you with the knowledge to live well and stay healthy. | <urn:uuid:df59e222-e583-4e2f-8e57-0a4872746737> | CC-MAIN-2019-51 | https://www.edisoninst.com/foods-that-help-fight-seasonal-allergies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-51/segments/1575540518882.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20191209121316-20191209145316-00558.warc.gz | en | 0.94647 | 565 | 2.53125 | 3 |
What are transfats and how do they affect your diet and your health? Transfats are either mono- or poly-unsaturated fats with trans-isomer fatty acids. Although some transfats naturally exist in meat and dairy products, 90 percent or more of transfats consumed today are created by the food industry by hydrogenating unsaturated plant fats. The food industry discovered that by hydrogenating these unsaturated plant fats, they could create pleasant tasting fats with a long shelf life for very little cost. This led to transfats becoming widely used, and you can find them in many products. Margarine and shortening both contain high amounts of artificial transfats, and many processed foods contain hydrogenized oils.
For awhile these transfats were even considered to be a healthy alternative for animal fats due to transfats being unsaturated. However, these notions have changed drastically over time. Now it has become clear that transfats, and artificial transfats in particular, can be very harmful to both your diet and your health. Governments around the world are trying to reduce the amount of transfats used in products for human consumption.
Let’s take a look at five health and diet risks of transfats:
1.Heart Disease and Cholesterol
The number one reason why transfats are so detrimental to your health is the effect they have on your cholesterol levels. Like saturated fats, transfats raise your bad, or LDL, cholesterol levels. However, unlike saturated fat, transfat also reduce the levels of good, or HDL, cholesterol in your blood. It’s easy to see how this mechanism affects your LDL/HDL ratio badly from both sides. This effect on your cholesterol levels greatly increases your risk of heart disease. Studies have indicated that in the united states alone, 30,000 to as many as 100,000 people a year die of heart disease that can be linked to transfat consumption.
Not only do transfats and their effect on your cholesterol levels increase your risk of heart disease, they also raise your chances of having a stroke. Research has shown a 30 percent increase of strokes among people with high transfat intake compared to people with low transfat consumption.
Studies have shown that transfat consumption will increase your risk of developing diabetes. Some of this is explained by transfat increasing your triglyceride levels and causing inflammation, which are risk factors for developing diabetes.
4. Other Linked Diseases
Although more research is necessary to confirm the relationship, transfat consumption has been linked to a wide range of illnesses. Among these are: cancer, liver dysfunction, infertility and Alzheimer’s disease.
5. Obesity and Empty Calories
Transfats are non essential fats that have no value whatsoever as building blocks for your body, while being loaded with calories. However, it’s not only the calories that put you at risk for gaining weight. A study with monkeys seems to suggest that transfats increase your weight gain and accumulation of belly fat even more than other fats do. The monkeys that were fed with the transfats had a weight increase of more than 7 percent, while the unsaturated fat fed monkeys were only less than 2 percent heavier. | <urn:uuid:019bfecf-151a-4e38-b1e7-e9d3d9efe187> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | https://www.3fatchicks.com/5-health-and-diet-risks-of-transfats/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676594675.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20180722233159-20180723013159-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.955005 | 642 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Not Your Ordinary Textbook
Jesus read the Bible. Have you considered this fact before? When you think of the earthly ministry and life of Jesus, you probably think of His teachings and miracles—and you likely haven’t reflected on the fact that Jesus read the Scriptures. We can safely assume that Jesus was faithfully taught the Scriptures by Mary and Joseph as He “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52). Also, it was Jesus’ custom to attend temple worship and read the Scriptures (Luke 4:26). And clearly Jesus read the Bible if He taught His disciples all about it (Luke 24:27). Today, in seminary and Bible college classes, it is not unusual to be assigned a book on the survey of the Old Testament. While there are many great textbooks available for surveying the Old Testament, this book focuses distinctly on Jesus’ version of the Old Testament. Isn’t that the one we should be studying? Of course, Jesus read the same Old Testament that we have today, but it was organized in a different order. Considering that fact, our study of the survey of the Old Testament should conform to the order in which it was originally organized. That’s one of the many things that this textbook accomplishes. This is not your ordinary Bible survey textbook. Not only does it focus on the Bible that Jesus Himself used, but it focuses on what really mattered to the authors of the many books of the Old Testament. What did they really care about? What was near to their hearts? DeRouchie answers these questions and more in his marvelous work, What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible.
Each chapter is broken down into a manageable and easy-to-read way. First, each chapter begins with some introductory information about the Old Testament book(s) that will be discussed within that chapter. In only a few paragraphs, organized neatly on the page, the author answers the basic fundamental questions of purpose, authorship, and date by asking Who? When? Where? , and Why? Second, each chapter of the book begins with a section titled, “Carefully Crafted Verses from (the Book(s) Being Studied).” Found in this section are powerfully packed verses found in the book that is being surveyed. There is also a helpful chart on the first page of every chapter with bullet points that summarize the theological convictions that lay behind the author’s pen of every book in the Old Testament. These theological convictions are then unpacked in detail throughout the rest of the chapter in individual sections.
Also, pasted throughout the chapters of the book, there are striking historical images pertaining to the culture, practices, and history of that particular book being surveyed. Similarly, there are small text boxes scattered throughout the chapters that offer insightful reflections on the concepts being discussed. Additionally there are charts that provide good visual aids to capture the outline of the book(s), the chronology of certain events, and more. The chapters usually end with a summary of the concepts discussed in that chapter. That is followed by a “Key Words and Concepts” section that identifies some of the important terms and ideas discussed in the chapter. Finally, the chapter concludes with a suggested reading section that displays the names of commentaries, scholarly works, and other books that will help with studying the particular book(s) discussed in that chapter.
Strengths and Weaknesses
There are many strengths within this book, and it is safe to say that there are far more strengths to this work than there are weaknesses. First of all, one strength to this book is the range of scholarship employed. This theological survey of the Old Testament was not compiled DeRouchie himself or a few other authors. This book was compiled by seventeen scholars and professors of the Old Testament from some of the world’s leading seminaries and Bible colleges. Another great strength in this book is its visual aids. Everyone can benefit through the visual aids in DeRouchie’s book. The charts and icons that are found throughout this book help the reader to grasp the concepts that are being discussed. While the visual aids are descriptive and informatory, some of the charts could be expounded on a little better. Some of the figures (like on pages 182-183, and 236) are in need of better explanation. This book is intended to be a simple, practical help for students and some further explanation on some charts and figures would serve to that purpose. Also, study or reflection questions at the end of each chapter probably wouldn’t hurt. I understand that this book isn’t written as a normal theological survey of the Old Testament, but regardless a few questions to test your knowledge would aid the student—and that is lacking from DeRouchie’s book.
The Best Survey Textbook on the Old Testament
What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About is the most manageable, user-friendly survey of the Old Testament that a student or layperson can read. The various authors will cause you to ponder on the greatness of God’s glory revealed in the Old Testament for the good and satisfaction of His people. With the compelling visuals, clearly outlined theological concepts, and the other great resources offered in this book—you will find yourself soaking in the rich theology of the Old Testament. Still, the paramount concept that sets this survey apart from hundreds of others is that it is a survey of Jesus’ Bible—and if this book is read correctly, your mind will be informed and you will be drawn closer to the glorious God of the Old Testament. | <urn:uuid:c2b7a2d3-15ad-4121-a88d-da7fc6feb6d4> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://brandonsdesk.com/2014/11/23/a-review-what-the-old-testament-authors-really-cared-about-by-jason-s-derouchie/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202199.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20190320024206-20190320050206-00459.warc.gz | en | 0.954501 | 1,165 | 2.671875 | 3 |
San Diego Museum Of Man’s Instruments Of Torture
Is There A Time For Torture?
Friday, December 7, 2012
The Instruments of Torture exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man wants us to consider if there is a time for torture. [WARNING: Some material is disturbing.]
Today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a time when the United States was under attack. The U.S. also fell under attack on 9/11. During such times the tolerance for considering torture as a tool goes up, something raised in the upcoming film "Zero Dark Thirty." The Instruments of Torture exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Man wants us to consider if there is a time for torture. [WARNING: SOme material is disturbing.]
The San Diego Museum of Man's Instruments of Torture features such iconic implements from the last four centuries as the Iron Maiden, the Rack, and the Guillotine. All of the artifacts come from the Museum of Torture in Italy. The two museums previously collaborated on a similar exhibit more than a decade ago says Rex Garniewicz.
"I think that our perspective on torture has changed significantly since the exhibit was brought here in 2000 and part of that has been the effect of the terrorist attack on America on 9/11 and we wanted to talk in this particular version of the exhibit about our capacity to torture other people."
Garniewicz is the chief operating officer for programs and collections. He points out that the exhibit's title does not merely refer to the artifacts on display.
"We're the instruments of torture, we were in the middle ages and we are today," he says.
The museum has a mission to inspire human connections by exploring the human experience, and torture is a dark part of the human experience but an important aspect to explore. Garniewicz says the medieval instruments of torture are not merely relics from the past.
"I originally started talking about these Medieval instruments as a slice in time but I realized they are not a slice in time that some of these techniques of torture have continued to today and so torture globally is not that much different from the middle ages."
Kathi Anderson is executive director of Survivors of Torture International.
"The latest report by Amnesty International notes that a hundred and one countries currently use torture on a systematic basis, and that there are survivors from having been tortured. Some do remain in their countries but many have to flee for their own safety and they go to countries of safe haven such as the United States and specifically to San Diego."
Garniewicz says, "I had no idea there were so many survivors of torture in San Diego, over 11,000 survivors of torture in San Diego County is actually about the same number of torture survivors as homeless people so you see the homeless all the time and they are visible but survivors of torture are invisible."
So the museum wanted to place the exhibit in a contemporary context for visitors.
"When they walk into the exhibit," states Garniewicz, "the first panel shows the bombing of the twin towers and it elicits an emotional response from people we've been attacked and the reason for doing that is we want to explore our capacity as individuals to torture other people. We say that we won't torture but if we are put in the right situation we do torture and being attacked as a country I think made us feel like we would do anything to prevent this from happening again."
And so you get The Ticking Time Bomb scenario that's played out in the media and in shows such as "24."
"The Ticking Time Bomb," Garniewicz explains, "is where you have this limited amount of time, you have a terrorist suspect in custody, would you torture that person to save the lives of 10,000 other people? And that sort of moral dilemma that you are faced with makes you sort of emotional decision, like yes I would torture that person to save all these other people."
Anderson adds, "Prior to 9/11 we as Americans always said torture is horrible and that is not a value of our country, it is not part of who we are, it's not our character. We're always proud of that. But then 9/11 happened and there were conversations, hmm, I wonder if torture is okay or not?... We as an organization, our clients, we always say torture is never, ever okay."
The exhibit highlights instruments of torture like the Spanish Inquisition's Interrogation Chair that was designed to elicit information from victims. But Garniewicz says the exhibit dispels the myth that torture is mainly used to gain information.
"In ninety percent of the cases of torture," Garniewicz says, "they don't want any information from the people at all, they just want to instill fear."
And to use fear to control people. Devices like Scold's bridle were used specifically on women says Garniewicz, "They were used to keep women in domestic servitude in the middle ages. So if you spoke up against authority or took a stand against an issue you could actually be subjected to some of these really horrible tortures that you see in the middle ages. But again all of these are used to control populations and to keep people from speaking up. And I think it's important for us to reflect upon that and see that that happened in the past in order to prevent it from happening in the present, and sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking we are better now. And I think we have to always been on guard against that."
By allowing people to see some of these real devices makes an impact that photos and videos simply can't convey. Garniewicz felt that emotional impact firsthand: "This is actually the object that I find the most disturbing out of this entire exhibit, they are saws that were used to saw people in half and that seems like it's bad enough in and of itself but when you read the stories people were hung upside down so that blood would remain in their heads and they'd remain conscious for a longer period of time. So the amount of thought that went into some of these forms of torture and cruelty was really unbelievable to me."
Anderson says, "People are genuinely interested in this topic. And they want to know more so I'm really glad the museum has chosen to have the exhibit here in San Diego to continue the dialogue."
But Garniewicz states, "What we wanted to do is at the end of the exhibit allow people to see some light at the end of the tunnel so these are some things people can do to stand up against torture we look at the bystander effect and how we tend to be bystanders and how we can be upstanders. And some of the upstanders that are highlighted on that panel are ordinary people."
And that's the message the museum wants people to leave with, that we all have the ability to stand up against torture.
Here is a list of films that deal with torture in various ways:
"The Stoning of Saroya S."
"Death and the Maiden"
And the "torture porn" franchises "Saw" and "Hostel."
And torture is used in the early scenes of "Zero Dark Thirty." Here's the trailer for the film that opens December 19th.
Please stay on topic and be as concise as possible. Leaving a comment means you agree to our Community Discussion Rules. We like civilized discourse. We don't like spam, lying, profanity, harassment or personal attacks. | <urn:uuid:b86cea79-149d-4b95-9005-f6a20953ee07> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/dec/07/san-diego-museum-mans-instruments-torture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802764809.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075244-00124-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976358 | 1,522 | 2.625 | 3 |
The primary purpose of the Indian railways is to transport people from the upper and lower middle class from one part to another part of the country. When we compare the Indian railway ticket prices, they are the best and economical modes of transport. Since the start of the Indian railways in 1853, it has served significantly in the socio-economic development of the country. Being one of the most labor-intensive industries, Indian railways possess over 13.6 million employees. With huge workforce demand, the Indian railways are also responsible for providing jobs for the unemployed in the country, making it a significant employment generation core.
Just like road transport, railway transport also possesses favorable characteristics. The railways are also fours time cheaper than the roadways and six times more energy efficient to roadways. When the concern is for the social damage, the railways produce low pollution, and hence it can be considered as one of the best modes of transport. The production cost of the Indian railways is also low when we compare it to the roadways on different levels of comparison. The production cost of the construction of railways is six times cheaper than the roadways. The railways are the only mode of transport which can utilize one of the original forms of energy.
The railway line of the whole country is headquartered by one of the main branches or the central branch situated in New Delhi. The Indian railways are owned by the Indian government, which possesses the ministry of railways. The Indian railways also have over one lakh kilometers of railway tracks spread over 65,000 kilometers covering 7,500 railway stations. Indian railways are also fourth on the countdown of the world’s most extensive railway lines after United States, Russia, and China.
The significant help to the Indian railway to the Indian economy
The service sector of every country plays a crucial role in the development of the Indian economy. The Indian railways being one of the largest service sectors in the Indian economy, either directly or indirectly, towards the nation’s economy. The capacity building of the Indian railways is also helping to build new freight routes and passenger traveling services. | <urn:uuid:11291534-7812-45da-b270-3a492ca7abc6> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://www.leighfisher-globaloutlook.com/the-role-of-indian-railways-in-the-indian-economy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347439019.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20200604032435-20200604062435-00511.warc.gz | en | 0.945938 | 419 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Over holiday breaks from school, use books to introduce your child to something new or broaden your interests as a family. Here are some ideas:
"Mummy Mazes" (Workman, 2010) is a book of 28 poster-size ancient Egyptian mazes to decipher and color. Elizabeth Carpenter, the author and illustrator, is founder of Mazeology, a games and toy company. Geared for children ages 9 to 12, the book leads kids on hunts through mummies, monuments, murals and masks.
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Hint: Buy a set of colored pencils to go with the maze book, which is compact enough for traveling.
"10-Minute Puppets" (Workman Publishing, 2010) by Noel MacNeal, a puppeteer who has been a performer on "Sesame Street" for more than 20 years. He includes step-by-step instructions on 30 puppets, including how to turn an envelope into a talking bird, make a spider out of a glove, a snake out of sock, or a bunny or ghost out of a cloth napkin. Just as "Sesame Street" puppets have lots of lessons to teach, parents can use them to teach their kids.
Hint: Begin a collection of socks that have lost their mates, worn-out gloves, pipe cleaners, buttons, bags, Mr. Potato Head pieces and fabric remnants to make all kinds of puppets. Recycle boxes to make stages.
"Do Something! A Handbook for Young Activists" (Workman Publishing, 2010) by Nancy Lublin, CEO of www.dosomething.org, an Internet-based youth-service organization. There are 41 projects for kids ages 9 and up.
The spiral-bound paperback, created like a colorful journal, starts with questions to help kids "find their thing." Then they can create a manageable project: Petitioning for healthier lunches at school, holding a coat drive for a homeless shelter, or running a poster campaign against animal cruelty. The book, also helpful for kids learning to write research-based papers, shows how to map out problems, track down information and interview experts.
Hint: Kids who need community-service hours also will find good ideas.
For short science projects using everyday materials, one choice is "365 Science Experiments" (Hinkler Books, 2010), written and tested by teachers, for children ages 4 to 12. For example, your child can learn how magnets work through objects such as little toy cars, paper clips and a track built out of cardboard, or have fun with the static electricity of balloons.
Hint: Give your child a scrapbook to record results, and magnets, a mirror and a flashlight to draw him or her into the experiments. | <urn:uuid:e025986f-a3cf-4de8-becc-675795909c4d> | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | https://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/health-family/moms/moms-columns-blogs/article9049112.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-04/segments/1547584332824.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20190123130602-20190123152602-00590.warc.gz | en | 0.939283 | 583 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Toothbrush with horn handle, England, 1870-1900
Since 1800, the toothbrush has been the most popular way to clean teeth. Made from horn and nickel-plated brass, the head of this toothbrush is made from felt. Felt headed toothbrushes were advertised as softer toothbrushes than those made with animal bristles. Modern toothbrush heads are made from nylon.
Related Themes and Topics
There are 823 related objects. View all related objects
Techniques and Technologies:
The science of health and how to maintain it. A condition or practice which promotes good health. The definition varies widely and differs across cultures.
Small brushes, with long handles, for cleaning the teeth. A variety of oral hygiene measures have been used since before recorded history. This has been verified by various excavations done all over the world, in which tree twigs, bird feathers, animal bones and porcupine quills that had been used to clean or brush ones teeth were recovered.
The study, treatment and management of diseases affecting the mouth, jaws, gums, teeth and their supporting tissues. | <urn:uuid:78d46519-975b-49e2-9c1b-3cf5349393c6> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=4425&image=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443737940789.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001221900-00081-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957309 | 228 | 2.71875 | 3 |
A Rare Pink Dolphin Has Given Birth To A Pink Calf
Pinky, a rare pink dolphin, has recently given birth to a pink calf. Pinky was first spotted by Captain Erik Rue, while she was swimming with other dolphins in the Calcasieu River in Louisiana.
Captain Erik noted that Pinky had reddish eyes, with smooth and flawless pink skin, which was not affected by the environmental influences at all. Unlike other dolphins, Pinky tended to stay under water longer.
A video of her and her pink baby was shared on Pinky`s Facebook website. It is considered that the pink coloring of Pinky is derived from an extremely rare genetic mutation.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the pink dolphin is one of the endangered species.
However, it is thought that the birth of the pink calf can help double their population. | <urn:uuid:cdcac457-1fec-4f45-b047-4c4b9a2e4e5c> | CC-MAIN-2023-40 | https://resourcefulenvironment.com/pink-dolphin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-40/segments/1695233506339.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20230922070214-20230922100214-00664.warc.gz | en | 0.974601 | 177 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The plastic bags and bottles that litter streets, rivers and beaches create an eyesore and a threat to wildlife that may ingest or become entangled in them. But increasingly, scientists around the region, and the globe, wonder whether tiny bits of plastic that go unseen may pose an equal or even greater threat.
Much of the concern about plastic marine debris has stemmed from emotionally charged photos of birds wrapped in plastic fishing line or tangled in six-pack plastic rings, or reports of plastic bags found in the guts of turtles.
But plastic doesn't easily go away. Over time, it typically breaks down into smaller and smaller particles known as microplastics, eventually becoming invisible to the human eye.
Now, scientists are worried that the growing concentrations of those unseen particles in the nation's waterways may be consumed by filter-feeding fish and oysters, or by tiny zooplankton, which form the base of the aquatic food chain.
"The smaller they are, the greater the population of critters" that can consume them, noted Robert Hale, a professor in the Department of Environmental and Aquatic Animal Health at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
There is reason to suspect that portions of waterways and the oceans are becoming a soup of microplastic particles. Despite the increased global production of plastics, the amount of floating plastics observed in the North Atlantic over the last two decades has not notably changed, "indicating that loss through fragmentation, sedimentation, ingestion and deposition may be significant and should be quantified," said a report from a 2010 workshop on microplastics sponsored by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program.
But the issue is so new — and has received so little study — that scientists are at a loss to estimate the level of risk posed by tiny bits of plastic. "There was high uncertainty surrounding many of the potential sources, stressors, effects and impacts," the 2010 report summed up.
Water-sampling equipment often uses nets with a mesh that is too large to capture microplastics. When they are caught, they are often discarded as debris. But in the few places where scientists have looked at microplastics over the years, they see an increasing trend.
Studies in Puget Sound by the University of Washington-Tacoma have found that as much as 10 percent of the total mass of suspended solids in water samples consists of microplastics, with the average being about 1.8 percent — and those samples don't include the smallest particles. The study indicated that limited work in the Chesapeake had similar results.
Interest about the impact of plastics on aquatic environments has grown in recent years since the discovery of large plastic-filled "garbage patches" in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans — areas where currents sweep together huge accumulations of plastics that wash off the continents and into the sea. The patches are a vivid reminder of how long plastics stay in the environment.
The qualities that make plastics useful —durability, light weight and long life — make them dangerous when they end up in the water, where they can last for decades, perhaps centuries.
To address those problems, manufacturers often design things like bags to degrade. But that doesn't mean the plastic goes away — it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. "From a chemical toxicology standpoint, maybe you traded one problem for another," Hale said.
Depending on their size and composition, as they break into particles plastics may release previously bound-up chemicals into the water. At the same time, limited research suggests the changing composition of the smaller plastic bits may make it easier for them to absorb other chemicals in the water. Tests have shown that some small plastic particles readily take up PCBs and DDT.
When something comes along and eats the plastic bit, Hale said, "they have basically ingested a pill of chemicals."
No one knows how long small plastic particles may stay afloat in a place like the Chesapeake. The particles might be flushed out of the Bay quickly, or they may attract a biological film that weighs them down and causes them to bind with other particles and sink. They might be buried by sediments, possibly releasing "microbursts" of chemicals, or continually be re-suspended in the water over time by waves and wind, Hale said.
There are two main sources for microplastics in aquatic systems. The first is from plastic trash which finds its way into waterways, where it gradually breaks down into smaller particles.
The second source is tiny plastic beads which are increasingly found in many personal care products such as scrubs, shampoos, soap, toothpaste, lip gloss, deodorants and sunblocks. People who never think of themselves as litterbugs may be washing plastic microbeads down the drain every time they wash their hair or take a shower. (Unilever, which manufactures such brands as Ponds and Axe, recently announced it would phase out the use of plastic microbeads in its products.) Microbeads are particularly difficult to measure because they are typically less than 0.3 millimeters (less than 1/80th of an inch).
"They were designed to go down the drain. All of our plankton tow nets are too big," said Kirk Havens, assistant director of the Center for Coastal Resources Management at VIMS. "Once they're in the system, you can't get them out."
Limited studies in other places have found accumulations of microbeads in the guts of mussels, and microplastics in some fish and even whales. Their ingestion could introduce toxins into the food chain; but even if chemicals were not a problem, the materials can create obstructions that keep the organisms from taking in enough food, leading to malnutrition or starvation, the studies suggested.
VIMS scientists are partnering with the Hampton Roads (VA) Sanitation District to determine whether microbeads could be made of a plant-based substance, polyhydroxyalkanoate, which rapidly biodegrades in the marine environment.
But for the most part, out of sight has meant out of mind, Hale said. "To the general public, the idea of microplastics is not sexy. It is like another invisible threat," he said. "But from the scientific standpoint, I think it is something that needs to be evaluated to establish how big a problem it really is." | <urn:uuid:0fa6c504-c17e-44ed-8785-e2baf78a2372> | CC-MAIN-2018-17 | https://www.bayjournal.com/article/plastics_invisible_microplastics_a_threat_to_bottom_of_marine_food_web | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-17/segments/1524125945637.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20180422174026-20180422194026-00394.warc.gz | en | 0.964681 | 1,299 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Advice on animal and public health risks of insects reared on former foodstuffs as raw material for animal feed
BuRO was asked by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) to assess the animal and public health risks of insects reared on former foodstuffs as raw material for animal feed. Based on the outcome of this risk assessment, the Minister of LNV will then be able to propose to the European Commission (EC) to make a further adjustment in the legislation that applies to the rearing of insects and the use of insects as raw material for animal feed.
Download "Advice on animal and public health risks of insects reared on former foodstuffs as raw material for animal feed"
BuRO advises the Dutch Minister of LNV to propose to the EC to make a further adjustment in the legislation that applies to the use of insects as raw material for animal feed and the substrates for rearing the insects. This can allow that a number of insect species can be used as raw material for animal feed for all non-ruminant farm animals and that adequate germreducing treatments other than those currently prescribed in the ABP Regulation may be used. Moreover, BuRO sees opportunities to allow insects to be reared on former foodstuffs containing meat from non-ruminant farm animals, fish, crustaceans and shellfish under the condition that the proteins in the former foodstuffs are not derived from the same animal species that is fed with the animal feed consisting of insects.
BuRO also gives the Inspector-General of the NVWA three recommendations. First to ensure specifically that the insect-based products used as raw material for animal feed comply with the microbiological safety standards applicable to processed animal proteins and other feed materials derived from animal by-products. Second to ensure the traceability of the animal species in former foodstuffs. Third to monitor developments in the insect sector to maintain a good overview of potential new risks arising from the introduction of multiple types of insects and production methods.
In the coming decades, there is expected to be a sharply increased demand for dietary proteins for humans and animals. As a result, there is an increasing focus on reared insects as a new source of protein. According to the Ministry of LNV, the use of food chain residual flows such as former foodstuffs as a rearing ground (substrate) for insects, which are subsequently used as the raw material for animal feed for food-producing animals, is a sustainable and innovative development that must be further explored. However, this development may entail risks to animal and public health.
The issued advice only assesses the chemical and microbiological animal and public health risks associated with the use of feed for food-producing farm animals produced from insects reared on former foodstuffs. This concerns four insect species. | <urn:uuid:b8437fe1-7df2-4d84-86a6-03283d176197> | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | https://english.nvwa.nl/documents/consumers/food/safety/documents/advice-on-animal-and-public-health-risks-of-insects-reared-on-former-foodstuffs-as-raw-material-for-animal-feed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-04/segments/1610703515075.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20210118154332-20210118184332-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.961435 | 575 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Not by Fire but by Ice
THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!
Discover What Killed the Dinosaurs . . . and Why it Could Soon Kill Us
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11 Jan 10 - Also Snowiest on Record in North America. Also Second Snowiest on Record in the Northern Hemisphere.
According to the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, last month had the second greatest December Northern Hemisphere snow cover since records were started in 1966. North America set a record December extent at 15.98 million sq. km, and the US also set a December record at 4.16 million sq. km.
This is not an isolated event. Seventeen of the last twenty-one Decembers have had above normal snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere.
October, 2009 was the snowiest October on record in the US, and sixth snowiest in the Northern Hemisphere. Twelve of the last fifteen Octobers have had above normal snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, similar to the pattern of the 1970s.
January, 2008 was the second snowiest January on record, and six out of the last eight Januaries have had above normal snow.
See entire article, including several graphs:
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|Order Book I Q & A I Book Reviews I Plant Hardiness Zone Maps I Radio Interviews I Table of Contents I Excerpts I Author Photo I Pacemaker of the Ice Ages I Extent of Previous Glaciation I Crane Buried in Antarctic Ice Sheet I Ice Ages and Magnetic Reversals I It's Ocean Warming I E-Mail Robert at [email protected] l Expanding Glaciers| | <urn:uuid:fffcacd0-2660-4fca-85b7-c2cd9470fd7d> | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | http://www.iceagenow.com/Dec_2009-Snowiest_on_Record_in_the_US.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-41/segments/1412037663637.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20140930004103-00355-ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939816 | 341 | 2.90625 | 3 |
DO NOT USE wheat flour, wholemeal flour, oatmeal, rye flour, strong flour, semolina, barley flour, self raising flour, spelt flour, triticale, couscous.
DO NOT USE products made from these flours such as semolina.
DO NOT USE pastas such as spaghetti, macaroni, lasagne.
DO NOT USE products that are just labelled starch, food starch, edible starch or modified starch.
BEWARE of any products that may use starch as a filler such as mustard powder and white pepper.
BEWARE of any products that contain unspecified sweeteners and stabilisers. These may be chemically modified wheat flour.
A thickening agent made from seaweed. It dissolves in hot water to form a liquid that sets when it is cold.
The tiny seeds of this plant are sprouted and used in salads or casseroles. The sprouted seeds contain 20% protein, vitamins C and B12 and small amounts of other vitamins and minerals.
Allspice, Pimenta dioica
Allspice is ground from the sun-dried berries of a tropical evergreen tree. It is best purchased as the whole dried spice and ground immediately before use. It is used in marinades, pickles, mulled wine and to flavour both sweet and savoury dishes. It was originally used by the Mayans as a flavouring with chocolate.
Almond, Prunus dulcis, var. dulcis
The sweet almond produces a nut inside a hard shell. The nut is eaten whole or ground into a flour for use in baking and confectionery. The almond has 17% protein, 54% oil and high levels of calcium and other minerals as well as vitamins from the E and B groups. Large amounts of almond, more than 8 oz, should not be eaten in one sitting. It should not be confused with the nut of the bitter almond which is poisonous.
Amaranth, Amaranthus leucocarpus, Amaranthus caudatus, Amaranthus cruentus
Amaranth has been cultivated for over 7000 years in Mexico. The Aztec civilisation stored over 20 000 tons of the grain, keeping it for 5 to 10 years as a reserve against times of famine. It is now grown in northern India and Nepal as well as Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. Most of the grain in English shops comes from the USA.
Amaranth is 15% protein, 7% fat and 63% carbohydrate. It has good lycine and calcium levels. It is also easily digested.
It adds a good flavour but does not stick together well when cooked on its own.
It should be used to make cakes, biscuits and pancakes in combination with other flours.
Amaranth flour does not keep well unless in the deep freeze. It is best purchased as grain and put through a grain mill just before use.
Amaranth can be grown in a frost free garden where it forms bold red spikes of flowers up to 1m high. It must be started early in the spring if it is to produce a good crop of grain. When threshed, by rubbing the ripe seed from the seed heads, a small husk remains mixed with the seed and this is best removed by sieving.
Amaranth spinach, Amaranthus tricolor
A highly nutritious leafy vegetable which should only be cooked briefly by steaming or stir frying. It is much richer in vitamins, especially vitamin A, than cabbage or lettuce
Aniseed, Pimpinella anisum
Aniseed or Anise are the small seeds of a tender annual that is a native of the Eastern Mediterranean countries. The seed should be grey green when purchased, going grey when stale. It should be ground immediately before use. It can be used to flavour bread, cakes and biscuits as well as drinks and sweets.
Anise, Star, Illucium verum
The seeds of this tree are used ground into a spice in many savoury dishes of China and South East Asia.
Annatto, Bixa orellana
Annatto is the red seed of a tropical shrub. It has a slightly sweet, peppery taste but is mostly used to give its colour to the food. The seeds can be fried gently in oil for one minute. One teaspoon ( 5ml ) of seeds is enough for most dishes. The seeds are then discarded and the oil used. A few seeds can also be boiled with rice or to colour a stock.
Apple, Malus spp.
Fruit of a hardy tree, fresh or dried apple can be used as an ingredient in baking where it imparts a moist texture and helps to bind the dough together. Apple mixes well with other fruits in sweet dishes.
Apricot, Prunus armeniaca
These fruit are rich in vitamin A, iron and potassium. The dried fruit can be eaten raw or used in cakes, or reconstituted by soaking in water.
Hunza dried apricots are whole sun-dried apricots with the stone still inside. Sulphurated dried apricots are a bright orange but the untreated dried fruit are darker in colour. Bright and shiny dried fruit may have been treated with the mineral oil, liquid paraffin. All dried fruit should be stored in a cool dry place.
Apricot jam goes well with pastry or cakes.
Arrow root, Maranta arundinacea This is a fine grained starch prepared from the rhizomes of the herbaceous tropical perennial. It is easily digested and is excellent for thickening sauces. The sauce should not be overcooked.
Artichoke- Globe, Cynara scolymus
The flower heads of this herbaceous perennial can be boiled, baked or fried. The fleshy base of the scales and the base of the flower are the parts that are eaten.
Artichoke- Jerusalem, Helianthus tuberosus
The tubers of this sunflower are eaten boiled, baked or fried. They have an unusually sweet flavour from the sugar called inulin that they contain but this can cause indigestion.
Asparagus, Asparagus officinalis
The young shoots are cooked by poaching in the minimum quantity of water and served with butter. Their flavour is easily overwhelmed by any other sauce.
Aubergine, Solanum melongena
This fruit is always cooked as a vegetable. The fruit should be shiny, firm and heavy.There is a tendency towards bitterness which can be removed by rolling slices in salt and then leaving to stand for half an hour. The salt should then be washed off before use.
Aubergines mix well with onion, tomato, garlic and olive oil. They can be sliced and fried, baked or stuffed with savoury mixtures.
Avocado, Persea americana
This is the fruit of a tropical tree. It is unusual in that the fruit does not start to ripen until it is picked. Buy them rock hard several days before use and ripen on a warm shelf. The fruit is 15% fat but contains no cholesterol. It is also rich in vitamins E, B6 and folic acid, has good levels of vitamin C and potassium and supplies other B vitamins and minerals. Avocado is best eaten raw, mixed with shellfish, fish, citrus fruit, eggs or salads. It can also be added to soups at the end of cooking.
Azuki Bean, Aduki, Phaseolus angularis
These beans are used to make sweet fillings for pies, buns and pastries. They should be cooked by boiling in slightly salted water. They are a good source of protein, iron and B group vitamins.
Banana, Musa spp.
The fruit of this giant herbaceous plant are easily digested and have a high nutritional value, with good levels of vitamin C , B6, folic acid and potassium.
Banana flour is produced by freeze drying puréed banana. It is a very fine powder with a low density. It is very useful for its moisture absorbing and holding properties, making pancakes, bread, scones and cakes much moister, lighter and more open in texture. It should not be used in greater proportions than ¼ of a flour mixture as, on its own, it produces a sticky banana paste. If you cannot obtain banana flour put dried banana chips through a liquidiser. This produces a coarser flour but it is just as useful. Fresh banana can be substituted, by using double the weight of the dried banana and reducing the quantity of any added liquid.
Banana chips may have added coconut oil, honey and sugar.
Basil, Ocinum basilicum
A herb used to flavour savoury dishes. The young fresh leaves have the best flavour.
Bay leaves, Laurus nobilis
Bay leaves are picked from the hardy shrub. It can be used fresh or dried when it should still retain its green colour. It is used to flavour soups, stews, casseroles, marinades and pickles as well as fish and meat dishes.
Most beans are an excellent source of protein, calcium, iron and the vitamins B1 and niacin. Dried beans contain no vitamin C but this is produced by the process of sprouting. Good sprouting beans are Aduki, whole Lentils, Mung beans and Chick peas.
Beans should never be eaten raw because they contain poisons that are destroyed by soaking and cooking.
Blackeye bean, Cow pea, Kafir-bean, Yard bean
These are quick to cook with a creamy texture. They contain 23% protein and are an excellent source of iron and vitamins B2, B1 and niacin.
Scarlet Runner Bean, Phaseolus coccineus
A vigorous climber. The fresh bean pods should be picked before they have reached full size.
Butter Bean or Lima Bean. Phaseolus lunatus
The dried bean should be soaked overnight before use. Cook by simmering until tender. This bean is good with strong flavoured dishes. These contain 20% protein and are a good source of calcium, iron, vitamins A, niacin, B1 and a small amount of vitamin C.
Mung Bean or Green Gram. Phaseolus aureus
These have the highest vitamin A content of any bean. They contain 24% protein and are a rich source of iron, calcium and the vitamins B1, niacin, B2 and in the sprouted bean vitamin C. They are excellent ground to produce Gram flour, germinated in the dark to produce bean sprouts or used whole in soups and stews. They are a very easily digested bean.
French, Kidney, Haricot Beans, Phaseolus vulgaris
The dried ripe seeds can be stored for long periods. They should be soaked in water overnight before cooking by boiling vigorously for ten minutes and then simmering until tender when they can be added to a sauce or meat dish. They are an excellent source of protein, iron, potassium, zinc and B vitamins.
Fresh bean pods should be picked before they have grown to their full size.
Broad Bean, Vicia faba
One of the hardiest bean crops, it is picked when almost fully grown and the beans shelled from the pods.
Beetroot, Beta Vulgaris
This beet should not be cut before boiling. It is peeled when soft and eaten hot or cold, with vinegar or a sauce. It is also used puréed in soups.
Send your comment to the author | <urn:uuid:2f66bab8-e75f-4b8d-85c2-cefb74222682> | CC-MAIN-2021-21 | https://peter-thomson.com/gluten-free-information/food-from-plants.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-21/segments/1620243988953.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20210509002206-20210509032206-00044.warc.gz | en | 0.931863 | 2,422 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Marriage is most auspicious moment of our life but it takes a lot of time and money, if you are looking for hazel free, fast (usually 1-2 hours) and less costly marriage then Arya Samaj Marriage is for you.
Marriage which follows rules of Arya Samaj (founded by swami dayanand in 1875) is a Arya Samaj Marriage. Arya Samaj Marriage undertakes the Hindu wedding ceremony. So both individuals must be Hindu in order to perform marriage ceremonies. In case one or both individual are not Hindu then they can change their religion to accept Hinduism and Arya Samaj will help them to convert with their consent and free will, if do not want to change religion then one should opt for Court Marriage or specifically Special Marriage in which two individuals of any cast or country can marry under Special Marriage Act of 1954.
Arya Samaj Marriage has many components and it is quite beautiful, specific and filled with chanting but it is more simpler than a Hindu marriage as Arya Samajis do not believe in idol worship but an important aspect of the Hindu ceremony is preserved which is to light a sacred fire. The highlight is the ‘Seven Steps’. It is the role of the Hindu priest or ‘Pandit ji’ to lead a couple and their families through the rituals of marriage. However, an interfaith minister can be called upon by Hindu brides and grooms, to incorporated some of the rites into non-denominational, interfaith or multi-faith ceremonies.
Arya Samaj Marriage is valid under Arya Samaj Marriage Validation Act, 1937 with provisions of Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. An Arya Samaj Marriage can be registered under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 or under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
Divorce or dissolving an Arya Samaj Marriage is done under the act it was registered under as, if the marriage was registered under Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 then it is dissolved by it and if marriage is registered under Special Marriage Act of 1954 then its dissolved under it.
- Passport Size Photographs – four each of Marrying Persons.
- Residential Proof (Voter Card / Passport / Ration Card / Driving License / Bank Passbook / Lease Deed / Rent Deed) of Marrying Persons.
- Date of Birth Proof (Municipal Corporation Certificate, X th or XII th Examination Certificate, Passport, PAN Card) of Marrying Persons. If any party is divorcee Certified copy of Decree of Divorce granted by the Court. If any party is widow / widower Death Documents required for the Performance & Registration of court Marriage.
- 2-4 witnesses with ID & Address proof along with 2 passport size photographs.
Arya Samaj requires very less fee for registration and the complete marriage process as well. It can be completed in few hours if required it can be planned in half an hour and completed in an hour. Any witness is accepted be it parents, siblings, friends etc.
If you are interested in arya samaj marriage fill contact form we will call you or you can call us. | <urn:uuid:f4e9d3f1-b9cd-4b35-acbc-3d6a32f80b05> | CC-MAIN-2019-47 | https://www.aryasamajmandirindelhi.com/how-to-do-arya-samaj-marriage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-47/segments/1573496669755.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20191118104047-20191118132047-00457.warc.gz | en | 0.930658 | 652 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The main concern of this thesis was to investigate the possibility of implementing a Western Classical music listening programme for teacher training through integrated arts in Early Childhood Development (ECD). The outcome of this thesis suggests that it is possible to train musically untrained teachers at a one-day practical workshop how to introduce young learners in an acceptable and enjoyable way to Western Classical music. At these workshops, teachers had to dress up in homemade fantasy outfits to depict different characters in stories to music which they had to dramatize. The costumes turned the listening activity into a fun-filled experience which ensured the success of the training. The teachers were mostly generalists without any previous specialized music training. These teachers needed knowledge and skills to integrate the arts in the Early Childhood learning programme. In this programme, a selection of Western Classical music pieces is vividly brought to life through storytelling, dramatization, creative dance movements, instrumental play and the visual arts. Example lessons from the proposed listening programme were implemented during a pilot study in Mauritius with Creole and French speaking ECD teachers who were unfamiliar with Western Classical music. It became evident through the main research study that took place in underprivileged areas in Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa that most black African teachers were also unfamiliar with this music style. Both the pilot study and the main research showed that the methodology of the proposed listening programme is suitable for the training of ECD teachers from different cultures and language groups. Teachers in remote areas made it their responsibility to look for, find or fabricate resources for costumes they could not afford. It has proved to be an effective method that can be implemented at grass-roots level in underprivileged areas and used as a guideline for the integration of the arts throughout South Africa and other countries. The study concludes with recommendations to implement the proposed listening programme at all primary schools in South Africa. | <urn:uuid:981a357c-929c-47f5-95b0-ae1aa09040ba> | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | http://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/26878 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-30/segments/1500549425254.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170725142515-20170725162515-00206.warc.gz | en | 0.966827 | 381 | 2.6875 | 3 |
No-Nonsense Algebra Practice Workbook
The Perfect Companion to the No-Nonsense Algebra TextCheck out our new companion title, No-Nonsense Algebra Practice Workbook Perfect to use along with the text for extra practice.Thousand of practice problemsProvides the practice necessary to ensure that students retain what they have learnedIncludes a final reviewPerfect for students who struggleExcellent test preparation for SATIncludes a handy Algebra Resource CenterSolutions for every problemTo become good at anything, practice is necessary. This applies to learning how to play an instrument, becoming good at a sport, and a multitude of various other skills. This book will provide the practice that is necessary to become successful in Algebra. Each leson in the book provides practice for the corresponding lesson in theNo-Nonsense Algebra text.For maximum learning it is recommended that students use this workbook in combination with the original text,No-Nonsense Algebra, where detailed examples as well as online video tutorials are available. | <urn:uuid:2d7c82ef-aa14-435d-8fc8-6cf0ba226404> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://www.mathessentials.net/product-page/no-nonsense-algebra-practice-workbook | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046154099.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20210731172305-20210731202305-00385.warc.gz | en | 0.907436 | 204 | 2.625 | 3 |
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A panel created by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to look into New York’s rollout of the Common Core curriculum recommended Monday banning standardized tests for the youngest students and capping the amount of instructional time that can be used for test prep.
Cuomo created the panel last month amid widespread complaints by parents and teachers that New York rushed the rollout of the tougher standards. Teachers argue they will be unfairly punished if students do poorly under the new assessments and others question whether the standards will really elevate student achievement.
The panel called for the ban of standardized “bubble tests” for students through second grade, saying it would protect them from anxiety and “developmentally inappropriate” testing.
Another recommendation apparently aimed at the practice of “teaching to the test” would limit the amount of class time that can be used for standardized tests and test preparation. The panel also wants to make sure results of English and math Common Core tests for grades 3-8 do not appear on students’ permanent records.
“It is in everyone’s best interest to have high, real world standards for learning and to support the Common Core curriculum, but we need to make sure that our students are not unfairly harmed by its implementation,” Cuomo said in a prepared release. “The recommendations released by the Common Core Implementation Panel today seek to achieve this goal.”
State lawmakers have said they would consider the panel’s recommendations.
The panel, headed by Stanley Litow, president of the IBM International Foundation, also recommended halting the state’s relationship with Atlanta-based service provider InBloom. The state had planned to transfer students’ grades, test scores and attendance records to InBloom this year, but postponed it amid concerns about privacy and security.
The K-12 educational benchmarks have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia to improve student readiness for college and careers.
New York’s education policy setting Board of Regents approved some changes to implementing Common Core last month but backed off on a plan to delay a teacher evaluation measure.
The Cuomo panel’s report came out a day before the state Legislature is scheduled to vote on whether to reappoint four members of the Board of Regents. Lawmakers facing elections also have been critical of the board and the vote is expected to be contentious. | <urn:uuid:8e523f88-b895-40ab-bb9d-b3dfb181bcac> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://wivb.com/2014/03/10/common-core-panel-says-limit-time-teaching-to-test/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719564.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00338-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951164 | 490 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Image Source: Pixabay
We’re used to Health & Safety policies at work. We follow procedure, undergo training, and practice escaping the premises in the event of an emergency. However, few people think seriously about what to do in case of emergency at home. For example, in the event of a fire or flood, etc. Putting a simple plan in place for you and your family could be the difference between life and death.
The National Fire Protection Association has put together some invaluable notes on fire escape planning. It’s important that everyone in your home is aware of the plan and what to do in case of emergency. This should be shared with the whole family, including your kids. Make sure kids are aware of the emergency 911 number and that they have memorized this.
First, walk around your home and assess each room. You’re looking for exits and escape routes. Keep these areas clear and free from clutter at all times. If windows or doors are locked for security reasons, ensure the key can be located quickly.
Allocate a meeting area that is a safe distance away from the house. This is where you will meet the rest of your family once you have exited the building.
If you have very young children, older relatives, or occupants with mobility issues, they may need assistance to leave. Make sure you allocate a member of the family who can help them to safety.
Image Source: Pixabay
Once you have a plan in place, test it. Practice this twice a year and keep a note of how long it takes everyone to reach safety. Go over any areas that require improvement.
Of course, it’s not just fires that create emergencies. Disaster can strike in many forms including, home intrusion, accidents, illness, floods, etc. All of these instances will require their own plan. Keep an emergency box in place which includes a flashlight with spare batteries, first-aid kit, emergency phone numbers, etc. This will make it easier in a tough situation when chaos often ensues and people panic. Only stop to retrieve these items if it is safe to do so.
The way to tackle emergency situations is through prevention. The following are some simple steps to take to prevent accidents and emergencies and to protect your family:
- Take steps to protect water tanks and pipes, etc. Installing a heating cable will provide steady heat and prevent pipes from freezing in cold conditions. Frozen pipes can lead to bursts and flooding.
- Instal smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and test them on a monthly basis.
- Inspect electrical cables and replace any that appear worn or damaged.
- Switch off as many electrical devices as possible when they are not in use.
- Never leave candles or food cooking on the stove unattended.
- Ensure that any sources of heat have adequate space around them.
- Learn some basic first aid skills and encourage the whole family to get involved.
- Keep your home clean and free from clutter. This makes escaping in the dark much easier. It also provides fewer materials to feed a fire.
No-one wants to imagine their family being harmed or in danger, but sometimes accidents happen. Setting up a few simple safety procedures and establishing a disaster plan can save valuable minutes and seconds during an emergency. Is your plan in place? | <urn:uuid:9ada9a0b-42f1-40d6-a4a1-55cc390d81b1> | CC-MAIN-2017-43 | http://ritareviews.net/2017/02/when-disaster-strikes-dealing-with-an-emergency-at-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-43/segments/1508187823282.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20171019103222-20171019123222-00603.warc.gz | en | 0.951364 | 678 | 2.953125 | 3 |
“So ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it. Don’t make the mistake of reading it quickly. Imagine luxuriating on a Wi-Fi-equipped desert island with Mr. Gleick’s book, a search engine and no distractions. The Information is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)
In the beginning was the word, according to John. We are the species that named itself Homo sapiens, the one who knows—and then, after reflection, amended that to Homo sapiens sapiens. The greatest gift of Prometheus to humanity was not fire after all: “Numbers, too, chiefest of sciences, I invented for them, and the combining of letters, creative mother of the Muses’ arts, with which to hold all things in memory.” The alphabet was a founding technology of information. The telephone, the fax machine, the calculator, and, ultimately, the computer are only the latest innovations devised for saving, manipulating, and communicating knowledge. Our culture has absorbed a working vocabulary for these useful inventions. We speak of compressing data, aware that this is quite different from compressing a gas. We know about streaming information, parsing it, sorting it, matching it, and filtering it. Our furniture includes iPods and plasma displays, our skills include texting and Googling, we are endowed, we are expert, so we see information in the foreground. But it has always been there. | <urn:uuid:fc503d18-a981-4d92-a6c4-45a8b9772db0> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://around.com/published-today-the-information/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514576965.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20190923125729-20190923151729-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.947333 | 335 | 2.578125 | 3 |
SLM-1 or Skylab 2 had the first of three crews to inhabit the orbiting space station.
Since the Skylab was first launched as an unmanned Orbital Workshop, NASA officially listed this first manned mission as Skylab 1.
This was the first three-man crew to stay in space for 28 days; the first repairs were made on an orbiting space station; the first occupancy of a U. S. space station and operation of its scientific instruments and life-support systems (including obtaining extensive physiological measurement data).
On the 28th day, the crew re-entered the Command Module, undocked and returned to Earth, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean southwest of California.
Launch Date: May 25, 1973 at 9:00 AM EDT
Launch Vehicle: Saturn 1B
Crew: Commander: Charles "Pete" Conrad, Science Pilot: Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin (First medical doctor in space.), Pilot: Paul J. Weitz | <urn:uuid:a6dbb902-5a07-4b15-8178-062ecfc3f1e2> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://space.abemblem.com/products/skylab-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202433.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20190320150106-20190320172106-00530.warc.gz | en | 0.944845 | 196 | 3.375 | 3 |
Published on April 10th, 2012 | by Thomas Gerke22
Renewable Electricity Supply to be Cheaper by 2030
April 10th, 2012 by Thomas Gerke
An increasing number of countries have formulated policies to introduce renewable energy sources into their electricity supply in order to combat global warming or to decrease their dependency on imported fossil fuels. A positive side effect of this development has been the macro-economic benefits gained by each society that starts this transition to a solar- and wind-powered economy. Green jobs and regional value creation, better air quality and health benefits, and many more positive results can be observed all over the world.
Of course, the transformation of the energy system isn’t free. Investment is needed to introduce new technologies and build the infrastructure that suits the requirements of renewable energy sources. Governments all over the world have developed different kinds of incentives to encourage the private investments that are needed to reap these climatic and economic benefits. While there are many approaches to the issue, the most successful and cost-effective method to date is a feed-in tariff system.
Over the course of more than 20 years, Germany has experimented with all sorts of policy incentives — tax credits, quota systems, loan programs, and, for several years starting in the year 1991, there was a primitive feed-in tariff system in place. These programs worked somewhat, but the results were rather mediocre.
The real breakthrough came with the “Renewable Energy Sources Act” and the comprehensive feed-in tariff system in included. It created the necessary investment environment for new participants and has allowed them to create entire new industries and exponential growth in renewable energy generation ever since.
Micro-Economic Benefits Too?
The macro-economic benefits of this successful law are obvious. More than 375,000 jobs in what is now called the “renewable energy industry sector,” a reduction of energy imports and environmental damage worth several billion euros, and a significant reduction of CO2 emissions. Due to the way renewables are being integrated into the conventional energy system, they have actually lowered the price of electricity at the European Energy Exchange.
However, the micro-economic effect of this successful policy — the down-side, if you will — is increased end-consumer electricity prices due to a surcharge that pays for the feed-in tariff. Today, the mix of all renewable energy sources paid for by the feed-in tariff produces electricity for approximately 16 ct/kWh. Compared to the average 6ct/kWh required for electricity generated by the mix of conventional steam-powered power plants, it’s no surprise that investing in such a system must seem like economic non-sense, especially in our current culture of tunnel vision economics that has taken root in the minds of our political elite.
It’s About Tomorrow, Stupid!
The typical result of this tunnel vision, is that most critics of renewables are totally ignorant of the fact that it’s beyond stupid to compare building blocks of a new system with the results of a system that has been established and subsidized for over a century.
Most nuclear reactors are reaching the end of their lifetime, powerlines are becoming outdated, and many fossil fuel power stations are approaching closure. That means that, over the course of the next few decades, almost the entire conventional energy system has to be replaced simply because of old age. Since this is a long-term process, it’s important to look at the long-term trends. And, boy, it doesn’t look good for the conventional energy sources. Across the board, a combination of necessary new standards and rising fuel costs increase the cost of electricity generation of new conventional power plants.
With renewable energy sources, it’s the other way around. Technologies to harness renewable energy are getting cheaper to install every year. PV solar prices fell by more than 60% within just a few years and wind power is now cheaper than new coal or nuclear. The trends are very clear.
So, What about 2030?
Now, a recent study commissioned by the German Ministry of the Environment has come to the conclusion that the transition to renewable energy sources will lead to cheaper electricity prices over the course of the next two decades.
Some of the leading German research institutes were asked to analyse the feasibility of the renewable energy goals of the German government and the economic implications of this transition. Among the institutes was the German space agency DLR and the famous “Fraunhofer Institute for Wind & Energy Systems” (IWES).
Using learning curves for renewable technologies based on experience of similar technologies and recent developments, the study tried to look into the future. Based on experience and the probable mix of renewables in the years to come, they simulated the price per kWh.
With the rate of introduction of renewables continuous till 2030, and the goals being met, the average price of electricity generated from a mix of renewable energy sources will be at an average of 7.6 cents per kWh by 2030. The trend at that time will continue to be downward. At the same time, the price of “conventional” fossil-fuel-powered electricity generation will already be at approximately 9.0 cents per kWh. That means that renewable electricity supply will be cheaper by 2030 or earlier.
Even though the numbers are the result of computer simulations and countless hours of work, it has to be noted that predictions of the future in terms of facts and figures are the modern-day equivalent of looking into a crystal ball. But where do you think prices and the wider national economy (macro economics) would be headed if we stuck with a dying conventional energy system that will only get more expensive over time? 2030 is just 18 years in the future, so most of us will be around to see how it turns out.
One thing is certain: Beginning the inevitable transformation of the energy system at conventional energy costs of 6 cents per kWh is definitely cheaper than starting at 9, 12 or 15 cents per kWh.
Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter. | <urn:uuid:6a168a85-ee14-45e8-9e56-518a2825c430> | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/10/renewable-electricity-supply-to-be-cheaper-by-2030/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931003959.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155643-00095-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950576 | 1,277 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Poverty & Healthcare
Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital acts as the main referral and teaching centre for medical treatment, with other provincial hospitals taking referrals from their districts.
In rural areas, services are provided by health centres and dispensing clinics, though these often lack facilities and trained staff.
With many health professionals leaving Kenya to find posts abroad, there is a severe shortage of medical workers across the country. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Kenya has just one doctor and only 12 nurses/midwives for every 10,000 people.
PovertyPovertyIn this video… No clean water, no sanitation and the constant threat of disease - one woman talks about what life is like for her and her child living in one of Africa’s largest slums, Kibera
Because medicines are not available free, poor families often go without treatment when they are ill.
With its many water sources, Kenya has a high rate of water-borne and mosquito-carried diseases. Malaria strikes over 8 million people each year. Other diseases such as schistosomiasis - see Diseases in Health, Rift Valley fever and Chikungunya (similar to Dengue fever) are also a problem.
However, the leading cause of mortality among Kenyans is HIV/AIDS, which kills around 80,000 people each year. The disease has left an estimated 1.2 million children without one or both parents.
With higher awareness of HIV/AIDS, the epidemic has stabilised in Kenya, with around 6% of adults infected in 2009 (compared to 8% in 2001).
Today, around 1.5 million Kenyans live with HIV, though more than half are not receiving anti-retroviral therapy (according to the WHO 2010 guidelines for treatment).
Medical centreMedical CentreIn this video... One mother is glad to visit a free medical centre when her child has a cut foot. Like many poor Kenyans, she does not have the money to afford healthcare or medicines.
Childhood health affects adulthood
With high unemployment, the number of Kenyans living in poverty is rising and some 4 million now rely on food aid.
Around a third of children under five are stunted, with more than 15% underweight.
Common diseases also take their toll on the health of children, lowering their ability to do well in school and make a living later on.
One recent trial in Kenya showed that children who received de-worming pills for two years, giving a boost to their levels of nutrition, had higher earnings as adults. | <urn:uuid:afc26100-c789-4c1e-8228-5ada6de3cb87> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://www.our-africa.org/kenya/poverty-healthcare | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917121216.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031201-00000-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965271 | 531 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Legal Minimum Marriage Age; Past and Present
There is a lot of criticism on marriage age in Islam. Some allege that Muslim marriage law allows marriage of minors. However, Quran indicates at least on one place that there is definite age which can be termed as age of marriage:
“Make trial of orphans until they reach the age of marriage; if then ye find sound judgment in them, release their property to them; but consume it not wastefully, nor in haste against their growing up.”
(Quran 4: 6 Abdullah Yusufali)
The Muslim jurists agree that the ‘age of marriage’ mentioned here is age of puberty. Shafis alone declare that age of 15 years should be taken as age of marriage. Other branches of Islam don’t give any specific age but agree that age of marriage can be different in different regions depending upon the age of puberty. Furthermore, consent of a Muslim marriage partner is not recognized unless she reaches to the age of puberty.
Different societies have been accepting different levels of age as marriage age in different times. When Quran was revealed the world society was passing through dark ages. Slavery was institution of the day. Women were treated like any other commodity. Islam not only revolted
against these social evils but also allowed the women to enter into marriage contract with their free consent. Quran seems the first book ever that talks about age of marriage.
But marriage age was not a problem till the dawn of 20th century…
English Common Law had allowed a male at the age of 14 and female at the age of 12 years to marry with consent of their parents. The English Marriage Act of 1753 abolished English Common Law but still permitted previously established marriage age. In 1927, the English legislature raised the marriage age to 16 years for the both sexes.
The U.S society followed the English Common law initially and allowed the male of 14 and female of 12 to enter into a marriage contract. However, the law continued changing and today the marriage age for both sexes is different in different states of the United States. The marriages with consent of parents are allowed much earlier than fixed by statutory provisions in different countries and states of the United States.
In 1962 the UNO adopted a ‘Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages’ and stated that men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. The article 2 of the resolution states that parties to the Convention shall take legislative action to specify a minimum age for marriage. No marriage shall be legally entered into by any person under this age, except where a competent authority has granted a dispensation as to age, for serious reasons, in the interest of the intending spouses.
The states who have not fixed the marriage age, whether signatories or not, have legislated differently for age of marriage. This list includes most of countries and states of the United States for minimum legal marriage age for men and women. However, different countries have lower bar for male and female to marry with consent of their parents. The Muslim living in these countries are bound to follow the coded marriage age.
Male 22, Female 20
Puerto Rico, Philippines, Singapore,
Male 21, Female 18
Algeria, Bangladesh, India,
Male 21, Female 17
Male 16, Female 16
Hong Kong (without parent consent it is 21 for both genders), SAR of China,
Senegal, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand,
Male 20, Female 17
Male 20, Female 15
Male 19, Female 17
Ethiopia, Morocco, Chile, Peru, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Venezuela, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherland, Norway, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine
Male 18, Female 17
Indiana, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Uzbekistan, Northern Ireland,
Male 18, Female 16
Pakistan, Egypt, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Indonesia, Poland, Portugal, England and Wales, Jersey, Australia, New Zealand,
Male 18, Female 15
Tanzania, Georgia, Hawai, Missouri,
Male 18, Female 14
Male 17, Female 14
Kenya, Maldives, Scotland,
Male 16, Female 16
Male 16, Female 14
Male 15, Female 13
16th Century Marriage Customs and their Influence on Modern World Did you know that many of the marriage customs that we practice originated in the 16th century? Many 16th century
The Engagement, Henna and Nikah in Afghan Marriage Customs Engagement is an essential part of Afghan marriage customs. The groom’s family members and elders visit the home of the bride
African Wedding Traditions and Influences of West and Islam Today’s African wedding traditions date back to thousands of years. It has never been a marriage between two persons but a
Chinese Wedding Traditions Before Wedding Ceremony Specific Chinese wedding traditions vary in detail across the length and breadth of China. However, all Chinese marriages have six basic rituals known as
Marriages were Arranged in Elizabethan Wedding Customs but No formal invitation was made to Guests! In Elizabethan wedding customs, the woman and the man had no say in their marriages | <urn:uuid:a6eda7e4-25e9-4bcf-9129-bad4cf46eab0> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://muslim-marriage-guide.com/2021/10/04/legal-minimum-marriage-age-past-and-present/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662531779.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220520093441-20220520123441-00585.warc.gz | en | 0.939648 | 1,298 | 2.84375 | 3 |
More Americans are in debt today than ever before, whether that’s the one in five people whose credit card debt outweighs their entire savings, the average college student with $37,172 in loans, or anyone else who has taken out borrowed money.
That’s led to some problems. In 2014, one in every three Americans had at least some debt turned over to a collection agency, according to a study from the Urban Institute.
You can’t be locked up for not being able to pay your debts. Although “debtors prison” were common from the middle ages up to the early 1800s, they were outlawed by Congress in 1833.
More than a century later, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the decision in a 1983 case out of Georgia, with justice Sandra Day O’Connor writing that jailing someone for not bring able to pay a fine “would be little more than punishing a person for his poverty.”
But according to the American Civil Liberties Union, some debt collection companies have been using the court system to secure arrest warrants for their debtors, effectively criminalizing late debt payments.
Here’s how the organization says it works:
Depending on the type of debt, a collection agency can sue in small claims court to recover the money a debtor owes.
The debtor, who the ACLU says usually doesn’t have a lawyer and, in fact, often doesn’t even know they’re being sued, is ruled against by a judge.
People are required to be notified when they’re being sued, but the ACLU says they often aren’t. Notices are sometimes reported delivered when they never were, or are sent to wrong addresses and never followed up on, the organization wrote.
After the court rules , the collector can ask to have the debtor’s paycheck garnished or assets like a car or property seized.
At that point, the creditor can again ask courts to require the debtor to attend another court session and answer questions about finances and assets.
Once again, the ACLU says, defendants sometimes don’t show up because of work, children, sickness - or just because they weren’t told they had a court date. When they don’t show, the court can then issue an arrest warrant - not for failure to pay debt, but for failure to appear in court.
“Once arrested, debtors may languish in jail for days until they can arrange to pay the bail. In some cases, people were jailed for as long as two weeks,” the ACLU wrote. “Judges sometimes set bail at the exact amount of the judgment. And the bail money often is turned over to the debt collector or creditor as payment against the judgment.”
The ACLU pointed to several cases, including a woman who was arrested in her pajamas after she was unable to pay debts for cancer treatment and another woman who, after having been homeless while court orders were issued and never knowing she was being sued, was arrested years later while caring for her dying mother.
Those arrested are not charged criminally, but Jennifer Turner with the ACLU told NBC News they “still lose their liberty.”
It’s a system that’s been fought in court before with some success. In 2016, Biloxi, Miss., settled with the ACLU for $75,000 after it was accused of routinely jailing people for nonpayment of fines.
A year earlier, a lawsuit was filed in a city near Ferguson, Mo,. on similar accusations. The city settled for nearly $5 million in 2016, reported the Washington Post.
Now the ACLU says it wants to step up efforts to reduce the ability of people to be jailed for failure to appear in debt collection proceedings by pressuring attorneys general, state court rules committees, district attorney’s offices and government rulemakers to create protections for debtors.
“These abusive practices raise grave due process, equal protection, and human rights concerns, yet they remain largely unchecked because there is minimal government oversight and scant protection for debtors under federal and state laws,” the ACLU wrote.
“But there’s much that can be done by state attorneys general, state courts, legislatures, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Congress to protect consumers against these forms of intimidation and threats.” | <urn:uuid:e87d5187-4a2c-438d-8277-b0074b8eb2ea> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article201535674.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514574532.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20190921145904-20190921171904-00022.warc.gz | en | 0.975158 | 906 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Asthma and hay fever
Spring is no picnic for people with asthma.
Tips to better control and manage asthma and hay fever
- Ensure you have an asthma action plan and follow it at all the time.
- Carry your reliever medication with you at all times, even when you are feeling well.
- If you have hay fever, talk with your doctor about the most effective treatment for you.
- Call the Asthma Helpline on free call 1800 ASTHMA (1800 278 462) to speak to a trained health professional for information and support.
- What is asthma?
- Symptoms of asthma
- First Aid for asthma
- When is it an asthma emergency?
- Asthma medication
- Asthma triggers
- Asthma and allergy
Asthma is a chronic, generally reversible disease of the airways. People with asthma have sensitive airways which can react to particles in the air. The tiny airways in the lungs constrict, the lining of these airways become swollen and mucus is produced.
Common asthma symptoms include;
- Wheezing – a continuous, high pitched sound coming from the chest while breathing
- Shortness of breath – a feeling of not being able to get enough air
- A feeling of tightness in the chest
You do not have to have all of the above symptoms to be diagnosed with asthma. If you suspect that you may have asthma, it is important that you visit your Doctor (GP). Only a doctor can make a diagnosis of asthma and prescribe the right medication. Most importantly, your doctor will provide you with a personalised asthma action plan that includes information on your asthma medication and what to do in an asthma emergency.
Signs you are having an asthma attack
- You have increasing wheezing, cough, chest tightness or shortness of breath
- You are waking often at night with asthma symptoms
- You need to use your reliever again within 3 hours
Visit the National Asthma Council Australia for the four steps of asthma first aid.
- Your symptoms get worse very quickly
- You have severe shortness of breath, can’t speak comfortably or lips look blue
- You get little or no relief from your reliever inhaler
CALL AN AMBULANCE IN AN ASTHMA EMERGENCY BY DIALLING 000.
Your doctor may prescribe you asthma medication which can be a reliever plus or minus a preventer. Ensure that you use your medicines correctly – ask your doctor, clinic nurse or pharmacist to demonstrate. Regardless of the medication make sure you have an up-to-date asthma action plan.
Asthma triggers can be different from one person to another. Common triggers include;
- Viral infections – colds and flu
- House dust mites
- Animal dander
- Pollen from grasses, trees and flowers – high pollen counts can make asthma worse
- Cold air
- Physical activity
- Some medicines
- Cigarette smoke
- Air pollution and work-related chemicals.
Allergy occurs when a person's immune system reacts to substances in the environment that are harmless for most people. These substances are known as allergens and are found in house dust mites, pets, pollen, moulds, foods and some medicines.
Asthma and allergies are closely linked. Allergens can cause inflammation of the airways and trigger asthma symptoms. More than 8 in 10 people with asthma are affected by allergy.
Many people with asthma also have hay fever. Hay fever is the common name for allergic rhinitis.
- Watery, itchy eyes
- Sneezing and blocked nose.
Symptoms occur when the person is exposed to environmental allergens, such as pollens, house dust mites, mould and animal dander.
For some people these symptoms occur all year round because they may be caused by allergens that are present in the home or at work (house dust mites, animal dander or occupationally-related allergens).
Some people have only seasonal hay fever, in spring and summer, often when pollen concentrations (from grasses, trees and weeds) are very high.
For many people with asthma, having hay fever can worsen their asthma.
Remember, higher pollen counts can also make asthma worse.
It is important to treat hay fever effectively to ensure overall good asthma control.
- In the past, many people considered hay fever to be a nuisance, with no effective treatment
- Hay fever can now be effectively treated in many cases.
- This requires a step by step approach dependant on the severity of symptoms
- Talk to your GP to ensure you are on the most effective treatment for you
- If you live in metropolitan Adelaide, you can check the daily pollen count on the Asthma SA pollen count website.
- If you have an allergy to pollens, stay indoors during thunderstorms in the pollen season. | <urn:uuid:7e34bcd8-62a4-42b4-981b-f42d06f054e6> | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | http://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/health+topics/health+conditions+prevention+and+treatment/asthma+and+hay+fever/asthma+and+hay+fever | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-13/segments/1521257651007.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20180324210433-20180324230433-00300.warc.gz | en | 0.92723 | 1,008 | 2.75 | 3 |
Allergic reactions are relatively common. They may range from minor reactions to life-threatening anaphylactic reactions.
Clinical features of mild to moderate allergic reactions:
(1) absence of fever (afebrile)
(2) one or more of the findings in the table below
(3) reduction in symptoms after therapy with an allergy medications
urticaria, pruritic rash, flushing, angioedema
cough, wheezing, stridor, dyspnea, chest tightness, chest pain, hoarseness
nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea
tachycardia, cardiac arrhythmias
• A patient may experience more than one type of transfusion reaction at one time (mixed reaction).
(1) allergic reaction to a concurrent medication
(2) allergic reaction to a chemical used to sterilize tubing
(4) febrile transfusion reaction
To read more or access our algorithms and calculators, please log in or register.
Specialty: Clinical Laboratory | <urn:uuid:55ef997a-ffd7-4e4e-ae37-3cdab401b2bc> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.medicalalgorithms.com/clinical-features-of-a-nonanaphylactic-allergic-transfusion-reaction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334620.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925225000-20220926015000-00723.warc.gz | en | 0.774963 | 256 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Clinical Information For the Treatment Of Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
What Is Multiple Sclerosis (MS)?
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) - Basics
Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system that is characterized by the progressive breakdown in communication between the brain and the rest of the body. MS is most likely the result of an auto immune abnormality, which causes the body to attack myelin, a fatty substance that covers and insulates the nerve cell fibers in the brain and spinal cord. Myelin aids in the smooth, efficient transmission of messages between the brain and spinal cord, and the rest of the body. When it becomes damaged or lost, the messages are delayed or become blocked, leading to reduced function in affected areas.
Early symptoms of MS typically present between ages 20 and 40, and include prickling sensation or numbness in the extremities (paresthesia), impaired vision, and coordination problems. As the disease progresses, other symptoms may include muscle weakness, impaired balance, difficulty concentrating, impaired judgment, urinary incontinence, constipation, vertigo, tremor, and others. These symptoms occur in episodes, which vary in duration and severity, and are separated by periods of remission.
Below are alternative and natural treatment options for multiple sclerosis (MS). Within this section you will find commonly used acupuncture and acupressure points, appropriate herbal formulas and a variety of information from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) perspectives to aid in the treatment of MS.
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Which Acupuncture Point Protocols May Be Applied For Multiple Sclerosis (MS)?
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) - Acupuncture Protocols
The treatment of conditions with acupuncture can be a complicated endeavor that should only be undertaken by individuals with a deep understanding of the underlying Chinese Medicine theory (and/or whatever system being used for treatment). There are many approaches, but generally speaking few viable approaches are involved on a point to condition basis. Rather using proper diagnostic procedures the patients diagnostic pattern is ascertained and that is what is treated. The protocols listed here exemplify some of these clinical approaches.
The following acupuncture treatment protocols may be used with multiple sclerosis (ms):
Which Tam Healing and Tongren Therapy Protocols Apply To Multiple Sclerosis (MS)?
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) - Tam Healing and Tongren Therapy Protocols
Tong Ren Therapy is the energy healing/medical qi gong aspect of the Tam Healing System. The areas of focus for multiple sclerosis (ms) that we would use in Tong Ren techniques form the basis for our acupuncture treatments as well. Generally you would mix these primary points with points specific to the patients underlying TCM pattern and then our tuina (medical massage) would be largely focused on these points as well.
The following Tam healing and tong ren therapy protocols may be used with multiple sclerosis (ms):
4 Points Are Empirically Important For Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Formulas and Products @ Our Store Associated With Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
The Following (1)Formula TCM Herbal Formulas May Be Useful For Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Bu Yang Huan Wu Wan (Tonify Yang To Restore Five Tenths Decoction)
- Post-stroke recovery when stasis is from qi and yang deficiency - post-stroke symptoms, paralysis, atrophy of the limbs, drooling, slurred speech, etc.
- Other potential uses with the correct underlying diagnosis in any blood stasis patients - MS, raynauds, ALS, etc.
- Avoid in pregnancy. See staff clinician notes for more details on proper usage.
Where Do I Go Next?
Recent Questions From Our Forum...
Have questions about multiple sclerosis (ms)? Or want to discuss treatment techniques? You may reach us and our community of practitioners by using our forums | <urn:uuid:7c27a9e5-589c-4134-b848-3ee862e3c88a> | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | https://theory.yinyanghouse.com/conditions-treated/alternative-natural-options-for-multiple-sclerosis-ms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-09/segments/1550247481111.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20190216190407-20190216212407-00089.warc.gz | en | 0.871781 | 969 | 3.375 | 3 |
1 Cordoba rivals Rosario de Santa Fe for the title of Argentina's second city but slightly outnumbers it in terms of population. Rosario has seen more of a boom in recent times, however, and likes to think of itself as Argentina's number two city. The jury is still out.
2 The site was inhabited long before the arrival of the Spanish by native tribes known collectively as the Comechingones. They resisted the European presence for many decades before the Jesuits dominated the land through a series of estancias (farmsteads), where native peoples where employed as effectively slaves, though the colonizers liked to think of themselves as educating civilizers. These estancias, fine examples of colonial architecture, are now preserved as museums and like the Jesuit buildings in the city itself enjoy UNESCO World Heritage status.
3 Cordoba has a long tradition as a tourist centre and the nearby mountains and valleys, of outstanding beauty, are home to some of the country's most venerable resorts. These include loud and brash Villa Carlos Paz, curled around a reservoir, Germanic Villa General Belgrano, famed for its tearooms, and genteel La Cumbre, still the most aristocratic of all holiday resorts.
4 The people of Cordoba can often come across as a rough and ready bunch, with a noteworthy working class supported by heavy industry – several international automobile companies have factories here, which have been given a new lease of life thanks to the national economic boom. Yet the mix of Italian immigrants with communities from all over Europe and the Middle East have resulted in a vibrant society, known for its elegance and cultural prowess.
5 Another special feature of the Cordobeses, as locals are called, is their wicked sense of humour, based on sarcasm and exchanges of politically incorrect insults. Extra spice is provided by the characteristic lilting accent, with drawling vowels and a rollercoaster intonation – the letter r is often slurred, resulting in speech that can often be incomprehensible to the outsider.
6 Climate: Cordoba enjoys four seasons, with a hot and sultry summer broken by frequent thunderstorms in normal years. Fall is a mix of warm and noticeably cooler weather, as days grow shorter and cold breezes blow from the southern plains and the surrounding mountains, where snow is not infrequent in the sharp winters (it can get bitterly cold at night in Cordoba in July and August). In the spring trees jump back to life – the central Plaza San Martin is ablaze with the pink and white blossom of native trees and bougainvilleas.
7 City transport is somewhat antiquated but one special feature is the use of trolley-buses along major routes – they are all driven by women (whereas buses tend to have male drivers).
8 The nation's third largest airport, Ingeniero Ambrosio L.V. Taravella, is located in Pajas Blancas, 9 km (5.6 miles) northwest of the city centre. There are frequent flights to Buenos Aires, Salta and other destinations, as far away as Brazil.
9 A long-distance railway passenger service run by Ferrocentral takes people twice weekly overnight to Retiro station in the capital. Plans – currently frozen – have been laid to build a high-speed rail link to Buenos Aires via Rosario, cutting the journey time by more than half (to only three hours or so).
10 On December 10, 2007 it was announced that a consortium of companies would build a multimillion dollar metro system in Cordoba, the country's second such network. The works, however, are currently on hold.
11 Cordoba has a very strong sporting tradition, with focus on soccer, basketball, hockey, rugby and tennis (David Nalbandian is a native). The main football teams are Talleres, Belgrano and Instituto.
12 The most traditional music in Cordoba is the cuarteto – several venues around the city regularly feature local bands playing this upbeat sound, a mixture of Spanish and Italian genres.
13 The nearby mountains are known for their pure air – Che Guevara's family spent many summers in nearby Alta Gracia in the hope of curing his chronic asthma. There is a museum dedicated to the revolutionary hero in the town.
14 In the 1960s Cordoba was a hotbed of student unrest and working class turmoil, as protests against the military regimes saw conflicts with the police and army that resulted in much loss of life. The Cordobazo – big Cordoba event, literally – is still commemorated. Cordoba is also at the cutting edge of post-junta reconciliation , with several centers dedicated to human rights, stable democracy and the abolition of the death penalty around the world (the death penalty was abolished in Argentina decades ago).
15 For such a large city Cordoba is lacking in really good hotels and restaurants, though this is being put right. There is one good boutique hotel, several excellent hostels and a growing crop of top notch restaurants. | <urn:uuid:07283208-40f5-4da6-9f58-a148b88c6c81> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.trippy.com/facts/Cordoba-Argentina | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662658761.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220527142854-20220527172854-00763.warc.gz | en | 0.966872 | 1,035 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Transpose matrix online calculator
Transpose of the matrix is the operations with changes rows of matrix with its columns and vice versa.
Suppose we have matrix A with n rows and m columns.
Matrix AT which is called transpose matrix of matrix A
will have m rows and n columns.
Input matrix dimension | <urn:uuid:73244885-302e-4093-8d8e-033ccd2d9e7e> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | http://www.mathforyou.net/en/online/matrices/transpose/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541322.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00027-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905306 | 65 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Once In A Blue Moon: August Will Bring Two Full Moons
In astronomical terms, a blue moon really doesn't denote that long a time span. In fact, a blue moon happens once every 2.7 years on average.
Still, it's a special event that, at least using its modern definition, happens when there are two full moons in a single month.
Today (Aug. 1) we'll see a full-moon and that is a prelude to the blue moon of Aug. 31. As Space.com reports, the Aug. 31 moon will reach its full phase during the day.
"Night sky observers won't have a chance to see two full moons in a single month again until July 2015," says Space.com.
T he Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang gives us some blue moon trivia:
"In 1999, you may recall we had two full moons in January and March. And February had no full moons at all.
"In 2018, we'll enjoy double blue moons again in January and March – and once again February is devoid of official lunar plump. Odenwald – the author of 'The Astronomy Café,' 'Back to The Astronomy Café,' and 'Patterns in the Void' – explains on his website that the lunar month is 29.53 days long. The largest number of days in February is 29 days, so February will never see a blue moon."
Earthsky.org, by the way, has a great explanation on what a blue moon used to be and why it changed. In short, the Farmer's Almanac used to define a blue moon as the third full moon of a four-full-moon season. But a 1946 Sky and Telescope magazine piece simplified it as the second full moon in a calendar month and that stuck.
If you go by the old-school definition, however, you'd have to wait until August of 2013 for a blue moon.
(Oh and the moon won't actually be blue.)
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | <urn:uuid:d14843bc-bfea-4a25-8ea6-922cea0cdc6d> | CC-MAIN-2020-45 | https://www.wfae.org/2012-08-01/once-in-a-blue-moon-august-will-bring-two-full-moons | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107894426.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20201027170516-20201027200516-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.958257 | 427 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Common Types of Vaginal Infections
Burning, itching, and an unpleasant odor are just some of the common symptoms of vaginal infections. But treatments vary by condition, so it's important to know which type of vaginal infection you have.
Vaginal infections and vaginitis, or inflammation of the vagina, are very common — so much so that most women will experience one or the other, and likely both, during their lifetime.
While some vaginal infections are caused by sexually transmitted diseases, other very common ones are not.
Some women seem to be more prone to vaginal infections than others for reasons that are not entirely obvious, says Gregory R. Moore, MD, MPH, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Stamps Health Services at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
What Upsets the Normal Vaginal Ecosystem
A normal, healthy vagina contains bacteria and sometimes yeast without necessarily having an infection. But certain things can change the environment in the vagina, enabling bacterial or yeast overgrowth and causing symptoms. These include:
- Douching, or rinsing the vagina with water or other liquid
- Female hormone level changes
- Taking antibiotics
- Vaginal intercourse
- Pregnancy and breastfeeding
While not all of these can be avoided, douching is unnecessary and potentially harmful.
RELATED: 8 Rules for a Healthy Vagina
The Most Common Types of Vaginal Infections
There are three very common types of vaginal infections, says Cynthia Krause, MD, assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City: yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, and trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted infection.
The most common type of vaginitis, a yeast infection is caused by one of the many types of fungus known as candida. According to Dr. Krause, “There are many species of yeast, or candida — Candida albicans is the most common.”
Normally, candida live harmlessly in your body in small numbers, including in the vagina. But under certain conditions, an overgrowth of candida can occur, causing a vaginal infection.
Those conditions might include hormone level changes due to pregnancy, birth control pills, or menstruation. Some other conditions that raise the risk of vaginal yeast infections include having frequent or chronic high blood sugar and having lowered immunity because of a medical condition such as HIV or AIDS.
Symptoms of a vaginal yeast infection include a thick, white discharge that some women describe as resembling cottage cheese. Yeast infections also can cause vaginal itching and redness of the vulva (the lips of the external female genital area) and vagina.
Along with yeast, “friendly” bacteria called lactobacilli live in the vagina. When the number of lactobacilli gets too low, it can trigger a condition called bacterial vaginosis (BV).
Why bacteria levels change is not known, but the normal lactobacilli can be replaced by other, infection-causing bacteria.
“Gardnerella is the bacteria most often associated with bacterial vaginosis,” Krause says. “It is the lack of lactobacilli and overgrowth with these other bacteria that cause the symptoms of infection.”
With bacterial vaginosis, a woman may see a thick or whitish discharge or one that is slippery and clear. It is not likely to itch or burn. A fishy odor may be noticeable, especially during intercourse.
“Of the three most common vaginal infections, trichomonas vaginitis, also called trichomoniasis, is the only one that is a true sexually transmitted infection,” Krause says.
The symptoms of trichomoniasis are similar to other vaginal infections: burning, irritation, redness, and swelling of the vulva, with a yellow-gray or greenish vaginal discharge, possibly with a fishy odor. Some women also experience pain during urination.
Other Conditions That Affect the Vagina
Other common vaginal infections and causes of vaginal itching include:
Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause inflammation of the vagina. Some women will have a discharge with chlamydia and some will not. If the infection spreads beyond the vagina and cervix, women may experience bleeding between periods or after vaginal intercourse, according to Planned Parenthood.
“Sexually active women up to age 26 should be tested annually for chlamydia because it so often comes without symptoms and can linger and do a fair amount of damage to fertility,” Dr. Moore says.
Gonorrhea is another, highly contagious sexually transmitted infection that often doesn’t cause any symptoms but can cause vaginal discharge, pain during urination, and pain during vaginal sex.
Women who have gonorrhea often also have chlamydia, so a woman who tests positive for one of these bacterial infections will often also be treated for the other.
Noninfectious vaginitis occurs when the skin around the vagina becomes sensitive to an irritant, such as scented tampons, perfumed soaps, or fabric softeners. This is not an infection, and the solution is simple: “Not to be exposed to whatever you are having a reaction to,” Moore says.
Another form of noninfectious vaginitis is called atrophic vaginitis, and it typically occurs when female hormone levels decrease around the time of menopause, and the vaginal walls become thinner, drier, and less flexible.
Vulvodynia: Persistent Pain of the Vulva
In vulvodynia women have chronic pain or discomfort of the vulva without a known cause. The symptoms are similar to vaginal infections: burning, stinging, rawness, soreness, and swelling. Symptoms may be constant or occasional.
Viruses also can cause vaginal infections. Most viruses that directly affect the vagina are spread through sexual contact.
“The herpes simplex virus is a common cause of viral vaginosis,” Moore says. Symptoms include pain in the genital area from lesions or sores. Most of the time, you can see the sores on the vulva or vagina, but they can also be hidden and seen only during an examination by your gynecologist.
Treatment for Vaginal Infections
All of these conditions can be treated, but it’s important to know which type of infection or other condition you have so it can be treated correctly.
“Yeast medication is available over the counter if you are certain that it is a yeast infection,” Krause says, but “sometimes women think they have a yeast infection and it is actually something else. If you try over-the-counter medications and they don’t work, you should see a doctor.”
Additional reporting by Ingrid Strauch. | <urn:uuid:854a91c7-1ab4-4147-b5eb-bb795db6bee9> | CC-MAIN-2020-45 | https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/vaginal-infection-types/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-45/segments/1603107898499.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20201028103215-20201028133215-00085.warc.gz | en | 0.936648 | 1,422 | 2.875 | 3 |
At Brandeis we are engaged in an ongoing debate – sometimes creative, sometimes controversial – about the role of art in our time. Throughout history, the arts have been humankind’s greatest expression of beauty. Instinctively we are drawn to works of art that inspire us with wonder and awe at the magnificence of the human spirit. This glorious exaltation needs no justification or explanation. As Pablo Picasso stated, "Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life."
The great German playwright Bertolt Brecht had a radically different notion, however. "Art is not a mirror held up to reality," he asserted, "but a hammer with which to shape it." In today’s global society, which is increasingly more demographically segmented and technology driven, are the arts really a viable tool for social transformation? Does the artist as citizen have the ability, or perhaps even the responsibility, to repair the world? What function does art have in influencing social justice – a core value of the university named for Louis Brandeis?
Most of us would agree that the arts have some ability to influence thought, but when does art cross the line from creative expression to didactic propaganda? If art is an expression of personal truth, whose truth should we believe?
Most learning is cognitive. Our brains learn to recognize the color blue, or a fact from history, or mathematic formulas that are consistent throughout time. Art does the opposite – it constantly reminds us that some things are infinitely, splendidly unknowable and paradoxical. How can one "understand" the experience of a Mozart symphony? How can one "define" the essence of a painting by Jackson Pollack? Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet" more than 400 years ago, and yet we still don’t know why the Prince of Denmark has such difficulty seeking justice for his father’s murder. We still don’t know if it is better to be or not to be. Each new production of "Hamlet" reminds us that no single interpretation is correct or definitive. We must continually relearn and re-evaluate the play’s themes and ideas for their unique personal and social relevance.
This process of revelation is a powerful antidote to social structures that encourage us to see the world in absolute terms – good or evil, American or un-American, Conservative Right or Liberal Left, red state or blue state. Art reminds us there are so many colors in between. By reminding us that humanity is changeable and unknowable, the arts can stimulate choices that are inclusive, empathetic, and yes, even hopeful.
Theater, music and the visual arts allow us to see beyond categories – to experience dimensions that defy economic, racial, political and geographical boundaries. They illuminate the emotions and psychology behind complex social issues, transcending sound bites, polemic rhetoric and Internet hyperbole. The arts invite us to unlock our ethical imagination.
But can socially-engaged art also exemplify the highest aesthetic values? As artists and arts patrons, must we choose between beauty and justice? Or can they somehow coexist in a creative moment which simply and profoundly human?
The Brandeis arts community invites you to consider such questions. We are dedicated to "nurturing the union of the imagination and the intellect in the pursuit of personal truth, social justice and artistic freedom." I’ve come to believe that these three ideals are not only compatible, but inseparable.
Director, Office of the Arts | <urn:uuid:44898b27-5695-4bac-90f2-2fe1485c02bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | http://www.brandeis.edu/arts/office/creativeresources/justice.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-48/segments/1386164007111/warc/CC-MAIN-20131204133327-00002-ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940235 | 715 | 3.3125 | 3 |
The Economic Boom of the 1920s was driven by the Assembly line and the mass production of consumer goods such as the Ford Model T Automobile and luxury labor saving devices and access to easy credit on installment plans.
Their could be an emerging global economic boom for the 2020s. 5 to 6% annual GDP growth could be possible. McKinsey has projected up to a 2% annual boost from the benefits of artificial intelligence. Accenture also believes AI could double growth rates.
There will a shift to the self driving electric ride sharing cars for all new cars before 2029.
The cost of car operation with self driving ride sharing could drop to less than half the current operating cost of cars and trucks.
Delphi Automotive Plc, which is changing its name to Aptiv, wants to cut the cost of self-driving cars by more than 90 percent to around $5,000 by 2025, according to Chief Executive Officer Kevin Clark.
While current estimates for the cost of a self-driving hardware and software package range from $70,000 to $150,000, “the cost of that autonomous driving stack by 2025 will come down to about $5,000 because of technology developments and (higher) volume,” Clark said in an interview.
One of the biggest opportunities for cutting costs, Clark said, will come as automakers, working with companies such as Delphi/Aptiv, begin to re-engineer their basic vehicle platforms specifically to accommodate electric motors, batteries and self-driving sensors.
Dropping the cost for transporting people and goods would be massive economic stimulus. It will also boost the demand for transportation and increase the efficiency of the economy and will be a boost trade.
The massive growth of electric cars will result in the creation of the equivalent of 100 Giga battery factories. There will also be a continued surge in solar power.
Batteries and solar can be used to provide power to a billion people currently without power. They use that as a first step to get lifted out of poverty.
21st century mass production could see a boost from vastly improved robotic automation and reinvention of factory operations (Elon Musk has plans to double the production at his factories every two years).
Blockchain identity and Fintech innovations will enable billions without usable identification or credit history to qualify for loans and financial services. | <urn:uuid:c7c27e8a-a603-43a6-a663-8a17f4902488> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/a-second-roaring-twenties.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514573323.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20190918172932-20190918194932-00170.warc.gz | en | 0.962525 | 480 | 2.5625 | 3 |
What is “personalisation”? We all agree it matters. My definition: personalisation is any connection between subject matter and individuals’ interests and characteristics.
A very talented District colleague recently did me the favour of Twarguing with me. She posted a picture of a bicycle with some Spanish sentences explaining the value of riding a bike, thus:
For the non-Spanish-speakers, the sentences include “puts a big smile on your face” and “reduces the risks of heart attack,” etc. These are all about the advantages of riding a bicycle regularly. I would never use this with kids, cos like O.M.G. it’s boring, LULZ but anyway.
When I saw this, I looked at a few words from the picture Wiktionary’s Spanish frequency lists. Most of that picture is low-frequency vocabulary (i.e. not in the top 1500 most-used Spanish words). So, I responded with the following question:
“How is low-frequency vocabulary “important”? If your reference is to grammar (e.g. 3rd person verbs), this better taught w/ high-frequency vocab.”
Shauna here is suggesting that students investigate their own interests and use language pertaining thereto. In other areas, we have suggestions about using project based learning and genius hour in the language classroom (with excellent rebuttals (especially for genius hour proposals) from Sarah E. Cottrell).
We are here getting into a classic traditional-methods-vs-comprehensible-input teachers’ argument: do we make language class interesting– and personalised– for students by
a) recycling high-frequency vocabulary, or
b) by allowing students to choose their own vocabulary for activities?
A general note: while we all take some interest in what others do/like etc, there are limits. Walk into a Joshua Tree fire circle, and if you’re not a rock-climber, you’ll be baffled and bored within minutes, because “it’s slammer left-facing hands on 2s to a sidepull and then a mantle over a crappy blue Alien and a slab runout” is basically irrelevant to you. In any social situation, there is a balancing act between interest in others’ stuff and being bored. So it is in a classroom.
Textbook personalisation suggestions have a number of basic problems, one of which is keeping kids interested. Why should Johnny want to listen to/read the vocab about ordering dinner, or recycling, or bargaining for fruit in a French market, over and over? It’s not that these activities and words are boring per se, but when was the last time you spent three weeks using forty words and one grammar device to discuss the same topic? Never– because that’s boring. So the simple answer– for teachers who do not use stories– is, let the kids pick and choose their vocab. T.P.R.S. and A.I.M. teachers, as we shall see, don’t have many challenges keeping kids interested.
But if students choose their own vocab for class activities or projects, there are five big problems.
First, there is the problem of usable frequency. If we want to build functional fluency in any language, our first priority is make sure students acquire the most-used words before the less-used. Obviously, there will be exceptions: “communicative” teachers typically like to make sure kids know all the words for school things such as pencil, desk etc, while we comprehensible input people like animals etc for our stories. Now, a student may be into activities that use high-frequency words. But much more often, the opposite is the case.
If Johnny is into, say, bicycle racing, and Sheila likes wrestling, great. But how often is Johnny going to hear/read cycling-related– and Sheila wrestling-related– words? The answer: in most language communities, especially ones to which people in their first five years of language acquisition belong, not very often. This means they are putting effort into something which has limited communicative value for them and for others in their class.
Second, we have the problem of shared interest. As I noted above, if Baninder likes Call of Duty and Maricela likes chess, what– as relative beginners– are they going to talk about? Maricela is probably not going to be especially interested in hearing about shooting people, team missions, ammunition etc, and Baninder is not going to want to hear about endgame strategies and Sicilian openings, etc.
In the “real” world (probably online), Baninder can find his own C.o.D. crew in French and Maricela can play chess with French speakers, but in class– where realistically 95% of language acquisition happens for our students– how are we going to get each kid– not to mention the rest of the class– to “buy into” hearing and reading others’ specialist vocab?
(As an English teacher, my first great reading realisation years ago came from my brilliant colleague Louise Hazemi, who in Surrey pioneered the use of literature circles for novel reading. We used to have a “novel a year” system, where kids were assigned To Kill A Mockingbird in 10th grade, Lord of the Flies in 11th, etc. The problem? Most kids hated these books (either because they were “too hard,” or simply because they had been assigned), didn’t read them, cheated on tests and essays, etc. So, at our school, we asked the kids what books they would like (and asked teachers) and for each grade bought 10 copies of 8 novels. Now, the kids in each grade pick a novel to read (yes; we still offer Mockingbird and L.o.t.F.) and BOOM! all the kids read at least one novel, and all the kids report enjoying their reading (they still do essays, discussions etc about their chosen novel).
It is much the same with silent reading. I start each English and Social Justice class with 20 minutes of silent reading. There are three silent reading rules:
- You must read a book (no newspapers or magazines) and not talk, listen to music, or use your phone.
- You must not read anything from any class during silent reading.
- Your book must not suck. If it does, get another one.
How does it work? Brilliantly. While my less-literate boys grumble at the start of the year, after a week every kid reads and every kid likes reading. Probably two-thirds of kids read young adult novels, while another third prefer things like biographies, how-to books, various factual genres, self-help, etc. This is because they choose things that are interesting (and readable) to them and because there is no “accountability piece.” No “book report” marks, reading logs, etc. As long as they are reading and enjoying their reading, I am happy.
Now at this point I can see Madame Nero (and any other person who shares her view about how to personalise the language class) saying “Exactly! Let language kids do the same thing! Let them decide!” However, the key here is that nobody is forcing the kids to learn/acquire things which they are not interested in. Kids like free reading because it’s free: they aren’t forced into something they don’t care about.)
Third, there is the quantity of input problem. We know that what people acquire is a function of how much comprehensible input they get. They need to hear the words or structures a lot to first recognise them automatically, and even more to be able to automatically say them. So if we are going to run our class around student-identified student interests, how do we deliver 30 different sets of vocab often enough that the kids– even if they want to, which we are not guaranteed– pick them up?
Say each kid gets to decide 5 words germane to their interests which they want to have incorporated into class activities. That’s 150 words. That’s half of a year’s recommended vocab load right there! As we very well know, it’s simple math: the greater a variety of vocab we use, the less time we have on each word which means poorer acquisition of each word. As the great Terry Waltz recently noted, if you want the kids to acquire more words, teach fewer words. There is also the challenge of integrating specialist vocabulary into teacher-planned activity.
Fourth, we have the output problem. In many traditional classes, it is assumed– wrongly– that if kids “learn” vocab (and grammar) and present it in some way, they are picking it up. This is simply wrong, as the research shows. And, learners by definition generate error-filled and impoverished (two-dimensional) output. I do not see the point of making other learners listen to that. As Terry Waltz has famously said– with Stephen Krashen agreeing– “peer to peer communication is the McDonalds of language teaching.”
This is what is supposed to happen in a “communicative classroom (here, two Vietnamese speakers are learning English):
Thanh: Where Michael today? He here?
Vien: Where is Michael today? He is not here.
Thanh: Ahh, yes, where is Michael today? He is not here.
Here, Vien– who is also learning English– is supposed to notice Thanh’s error, “remodel it” properly, so Thanh can fix his output. Now, here is what would actually happen:
Thanh: Where Michael today? He here?
Vien: Michael home. He not here.
Thanh: Ah, yes, Michael home.
Even though Vien and Thanh want to learn English, and are working away at it, they will inevitably produce poor output (for a variety of reasons). So the ideal situation described above generally does not happen with two learners. If Thanh’s interlocutor was a native (or very competent) English speaker, this communicative activity would probably work.
Fifth, there is the dictionary/Internet problem. As soon as the kids want to generate their own vocab, we know what they do: they fire it into Google translate, and we know the results. So it becomes the teacher’s job to edit word lists, activities, presentations, rehearsed dialogues, etc. I don’t know about you, but that’s boring and often I am myself scrambling to figure out how to say _____ in Spanish.
So, if our goal is to deliver a ton of compelling and multidimensional high-frequency language, and to repeat that language over and over so students hear it often enough that it gets wired in, the “choose your own topic” idea won’t work. But the question remains, how do we personalise vocabulary and maintain student interest?
One answer involves using the world’s oldest and most-proven teaching method; stories. Everybody likes a story, because we naturally find people and their hopes, problems etc more interesting than things or ideas, and because suspense– what happens to ____?— is another universal hook. Stories are always more interesting than any other kind of input. Everyone can relate to basic human questions such as wanting to have ___, being scared of ____, liking/disliking someone, etc.
In T.P.R.S., our use of parallel characters and parallel problems allows us tremendous room for personalisation. If we’re working on esperaba que ____ le explicara… (“s/he hoped that _____ would explain…”), say, I can have a boy who wants to have the mysteries of talking to girls explained to him (great topic for all teens: boys want info, girls will think it’s hilarious) and a girl who wants to have say Call of Duty explained to her. (Stereotypes are great to play around with). This works even better when we know students, and we can throw a kid (and their interests, from say our start-of-year questionnaire) into a story. If we know Breleigh likes dogs, hates cats and looooves Ashton Kutcher, well, Breleigh eseperaba que Ashton Kutcher le explicara por qué no le gustaban los gatos. Any half-decent storyteller can get the audience to empathise with or at least be interested in a character who is a bit different than they are.
Another answer involves recycling high-frequency vocabulary in a way that ackowledges student interests and preferences. For a rank beginner, something like owning a specific kind of pet, or liking or disliking any kind of thing or activity is a great start. In my first story, Los Gatos Azules, a boy wants to own ten blue cats. So, we personalise by asking the students the same questions we ask our actors:
Here’s an example from my Level 1 class:
Me: Ace, ¿tienes un perro? Do you have a dog?
Me: ¿Tienes un gato? Do you have a cat?
Ace: No tengo gato. I don’t have a cat.
Me: ¿Te gustan los gatos o los perros? A mí (pointing at myself), me gustan MUCHO los gatos. Do you like cats or dogs? Me, I REALLY like cats.
Ace: Me gustan los gatos. I like cats.
Me: Clase, levanta las manos si te gustan los gatos. (half of class raises hands, so I point at a kid who didn’t). Mandeep, ¿te gustan los gatos? Mandeep, do you like cats?
Me: What did I just ask you?
Mandeep: Do you like cats?
Me: Mandeep, los gatos– ¿Son simpáticos, o no son simpáticos? Cats– are they nice, or not nice?
Me: ¿Los gatos no son simpáticos? Cats aren’t nice?
Me: Class, what did Mandeep just say?
Class: Cats aren’t nice.
So, here we have some personalisation: the kids are explaining their opinion about cats and dogs. This is basic stuff. (Note: I am not expecting any output other than y/n here (though if the students want to say more, they can). My only aims are that they understand what is being said and that they can connect the vocab to their selves or interests.
Here is a level 2 example of personalisation. In the story we are doing, a Dad is chewing his kids out for not having done homework and chores. So we are acquiring what did you do? and I prefered, etc. In the story, Dad asks his kid “What did you do last night?” and she says “I went to Cabo San Lucas and talked for 9 hours with Dave Franco.” Dad asks “Did you do your homework?” and she says “No, I didn’t, Dave did it.”
All we have to do in P.Q.A.– personalised questions and answers– is ask kids in class the same questions we ask our actors.
Me: Breleigh, ¿que hiciste anoche? What did you do last night?
Breleigh: No hice nada porque tenía que estudiar. I didn’t do anything cos I had to study
M: ¿Qué estudiaste anoche? What did you study last night?
B: Estudié la biología. I studied bio.
M: ¿Qué querías hacer anoche: estudiar, o bailar? What did you want to do last night: study, or dance?
B: Quería bailar. I wanted to dance.
M: John, ¿qué prefieres hacer tú– bailar, o jugar Call of Duty? What do you prefer to do: dance, or play C.o.D.?
J: Prefiero jugar C.o.D. porque es más interesante. I prefer to play C.o.D. cos it’s more interesting.
We can get an immense amount of mileage out of a fairly limited range of vocab, as you can see. If we throw in some weird stuff, we can get a zillion more miles. For example, I could ask Breleigh if she likes elephants (free cognate) more than cats. If she says yes, we’re off: do you own an elephant? what is a good name for an elephant? etc etc. These details can serve in stories, and they are great for random “review” P.Q.A.
Now, these are simple examples, and I hope you’re seeing the point: we can personalise without getting into specialist vocab. Not every kid is into Call of Duty (or chess, or ballet, or gangster rap, or Peruvian food, or French culture), but a teacher who is willing to listen to kids will figure out what people have opinions about and get them to express those.
The teacher’s job in part is to explore student interests, but also to make the language classroom functional (comprehensible and interesting) for everyone, so sometimes you have to say “sorry, Johnny, that’s too complicated” or “nobody else is interested in that, sorry.”
Personalisation: people basically want their interests and selves acknowledged. If Johnny says “I prefer C.o.D. to ballet” and Suzy “God, I hate cats,” that is good personalisation. We acknowledge their interests and views, and we give them what they need: an ocean of repetition on limited vocab, varied by context, cognates and sometimes wacky fun stuff.
So, in a nutshell, to personalise properly:
- avoid having students generate lists of words
- avoid making students listen to/read low-frequency specialist vocabulary
- connect students with high-frequency vocab by soliciting their opinions, or info about them
- use stories and ask students the same questions as you ask actors
- integrate students– or info about their real (or imagined) selves– into stories
NOTE: Teachers in an immersion environment are going to be able to use more vocab than the rest of us, and there is therefore going to be more finely-tuned personalisation, and at serior Immersion levels there will be way more room for vocab personalisation. But for most of us…keep it simple is the way to go. | <urn:uuid:797e40fd-e006-44ee-a4c6-20f82be949aa> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://tprsquestionsandanswers.wordpress.com/2015/08/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912201922.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20190319073140-20190319095140-00141.warc.gz | en | 0.94035 | 4,052 | 3 | 3 |
Engineering Science Undergraduates Present Design Projects to CERN
For two terms work in Oxford ran in parallel with CERN’s ongoing developments in this area, with frequent progress updates between engineers and scientists in the field at CERN. The Department’s close partnership with Dr Raymond Veness, from CERN, with additional technical input from Dr Ralph Steinhagen, Paolo Magagnin and Anna Miarnau Marin, played a major part in the success of this project.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN circulates and collides proton beams with energies of up to 7 TeV, with a stored energy of 360 MJ per beam. LHC has been ramping up in performance, whilst providing new discoveries in particle physics such as the Higgs Boson in 2012. Efforts are now focusing on maximising performance of the existing machine.
Group photo taken at a decommissioned bubble chamber on display at the Microcosm Museum at CERN.One promising concept under study at CERN is to adjust the beam orientation in the vicinity of the collision points, using a new device called the “Long-Range Beam-Beam Compensator” (BBLR). This device will compensate for electromagnetic forces that proton beams exert on each other, thereby increasing the probability of head-on collisions of incoming beams, important for the discovery of new sub-atomic particles.
The third year undergraduates were presented with the challenge to develop innovative conceptual designs for the BBLR device, taking into account multiple physical, operational and spatial constraints specified by CERN. The students worked in teams of four, each team developing a unique concept for the BBLR. After undertaking two full terms of detailed engineering design and simulation work, three different concepts were finally presented to CERN.
A practical design of a BBLR requires the generation of very strong electric fields in an ultra-high vacuum environment. To this end, the first team introduced the concept of multiple-wire correctors, which are positioned precisely a few millimetres from the highly energetic circulating proton beam for effective compensation.
The second concept involved the application of a pair of capacitor plates for cancellation of long-range electromagnetic interactions.
The third concept featured the implementation of an innovative electron lens compensation system compact enough for integration into the LHC.
In their presentations, the students addressed many of the key engineering challenges associated with each design concept, and answered technical questions from the experts at CERN.
Students visiting the CERN machining workshops, materials and metrology laboratories with Dr Ray Veness acting as guide. | <urn:uuid:889125de-8941-4690-a05c-a07e0f24a045> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | http://www.eng.ox.ac.uk/about/news/engineering-science-undergraduates-present-design-projects-to-cern | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698542323.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170902-00160-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923932 | 535 | 2.703125 | 3 |
USB (Universal Serial Bus) is a hardware specification that allows a connection to be established between a source device and a peripheral device. Most modern electronic devices include at least one built-in USB port and can use USB technology to connect to other devices, such as keyboards, mice, cameras, flash drives, external hard drives, printers, media players, wireless network adapters, game consoles, and cell phones. USB technology allows devices to share data and is widely used to transfer files to an external storage device. Additionally, USB technology can supply power to external devices, allowing many USB devices to not require their own power source. Likewise, USB technology can even be used to charge some USB devices such as iPods, digital cameras, and smartphones.
What is Ethernet?
Ethernet is a networking standard for local area networks that allows users to connect Internet enabled devices such as personal computers, routers, modems, and gateways to each other via an Ethernet cable over a short distance. While Ethernet technology is not the only method of networking Internet enabled devices via a physical connection, it is the most popular and is implemented in most Internet enabled devices. Additionally, while Ethernet technology is primarily used for establishing an Internet connection between an access point and a computer, it can also be used to transfer data between two devices.
What is a USB to Ethernet Adapter?
A USB to Ethernet adapter is a device that is capable of connecting a USB port to an Ethernet cable. USB to Ethernet adapters allow users to connect multiple devices together via an Ethernet cable rather than using a USB cable, which is generally shorter and less reliable. USB to Ethernet adapters rely on Plug-and-Play technology that allows a user to simply plug the device into any USB port and then connect an Ethernet cable to it. The user then connects the other side of the Ethernet cable to a separate device in order to transfer files, share an Internet connection, or communicate via application data.
USB to Ethernet adapters have several applications. For example, Ethernet cables can be much longer than USB cables and can be connected directly between two devices, allowing data to be shared between them. For example, if a user has a computer that is directly connected to a wall-based Ethernet port and wishes to connect a second computer to that same Internet connection, he/she can use a USB to Ethernet adapter to bridge an Internet connection between the two computers via the primary computer’s USB port. | <urn:uuid:05cfaa20-5e9a-4129-9a12-3f6d47105fd0> | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | https://www.tech-faq.com/usb-to-ethernet-adapter.html?replytocom=115728 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-40/segments/1600400210616.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20200923081833-20200923111833-00023.warc.gz | en | 0.917911 | 490 | 3.390625 | 3 |
In the northern parts of the United States and other cold regions of the world, one of the major concerns among biodiesel users is its unfavorable cold flow properties. In cold climates, it can be a challenge to fuel vehicles with high blends of biodiesel because biodiesel tends to gel (freeze) at higher temperatures than does conventional diesel. The actual temperature at which biodiesel freezes depends on the type of oil or fat from which it is made.
A diesel fuel’s cold-weather characteristics are measured by the cloud point (CP), the cold filter plugging point (CFPP), and the pour point (PP). The cloud point is the temperature of the fuel at which small, solid crystals can be observed as the fuel cools. The cold filter plugging point is the temperature at which a fuel filter plugs due to fuel components that have crystallized or gelled. The pour point refers to the lowest temperature at which there is movement of the fuel when the container is tipped.
Compared to petro-diesel, biodiesel tends to have a much narrower range of temperatures between the cloud point and the pour point. Those who are used to dealing with petro-diesel may be surprised at this narrow range. While there may be a 20-degree difference between the cloud point and the pour point of petroleum diesel, biodiesel may have a difference of only a few degrees.
The tests for cloud point and pour point are relatively quick and easy, so they are used to estimate the cold filter plugging point, which is the actual temperature above which a fuel can be used. It is possible to test a fuel for its cold filter plugging point, but the test is expensive and tedious. Therefore, most people use the cloud point and pour point to bracket the temperature at which the fuel will start to fail. A fuel may still work in an engine even if the temperature is below the cloud point. However, the fuel will definitely not work below the pour point (after it has gelled).
It would be expected that the cloud point would always be higher than the pour point. However, because the cloud point and pour point of biodiesel can be very close, and because of the way the cloud point and pour point are reported, it is possible that the pour point could be higher than the cloud point. The cloud point is reported at intervals of 1°C, and the pour point is reported at intervals of 3°C. As the fuel is cooled, it is checked every three degrees to see if the surface of the fuel moves when the container is tipped. When no movement is detected, then three degrees are added to the temperature to get the lowest temperature at which the fuel will pour. Therefore, for a fuel that starts to cloud at -1°C and that gels at -2°C, the cloud point would be reported as -1°C, and the pour point at 0°C.
The cloud point of soybean biodiesel is about 34°F (1°C), whereas the cloud point for No. 1 diesel is about - 40°F (-40°C) and for No. 2 diesel between -18°F (-28°C) and +20°F (-7°C). Usually, when biodiesel nears the cloud point temperature, changes must be made to the fuel, such as the addition of anti-gel additives or No. 1 diesel fuel, to prevent filters from clogging. However, it should be kept in mind that fuel additives recommended for diesel may not be effective for biodiesel. For more information about anti-gel additives and biodiesel, see Impact of additives on cold flow properties of biodiesel
Low blends of biodiesel tend to perform the same as diesel fuel in cold weather. Studies funded by the National Biodiesel Board indicate that blends of B2 or B5 have minimal or no effect on cold-flow properties of diesel blends.
For higher blends, the cloud point of the blend can be estimated by multiplying the percentage of each fuel with that fuel's cloud point and then adding the answers. For example, soy biodiesel has a cloud point of 1°C, and No. 1 diesel has a cloud point of -40°C. A B20 blend of soy biodiesel and No. 1 diesel would therefore have a cloud point of -31.8°C (20% x 1°C = .20°C; 80% x -40°C = -32°C; -32°C + .20°C = -31.8°C).
Although biodiesel can be made from any oil feedstock that allows ASTM D6751 standards in the United States or EN14214 standards in Europe to be met, all properties of biodiesel are not the same. Biodiesel made from various crop oils have unique cold-weather characteristics that can vary up or down by as much as 15 degrees Celsius (see table below).
ASTM D6751 does not specify the required cloud point for biodiesel, but requires that the cloud point be reported to the customer. If a customer is not careful to select an appropriate biodiesel feedstock, the fuel may gel unexpectedly in cold weather. While about 80% of biodiesel in the United States is soy biodiesel, which has a cloud point of about 1°C, some U.S. biodiesel is made from animal fat (tallow) or waste oils and could have a significantly higher cloud point.
|Biodiesel Feedstock||Cloud Point
Sources: Moser (2008), Vyas et al. (2009), Mittelbach and Remschmidt (2005).
Biodiesel performance in cold weather can be enhanced by using fuel-line heaters or in-tank fuel heaters, by insulating fuel filters and fuel lines, and by storing the diesel-powered equipment in heated buildings.
In addition, some additives and processing methods can lower the cloud point and pour point of the fuel itself.
"Winterization" is the process of removing saturated methyl esters by cooling the fuel to cause crystallization and then separating the high melting components by filtration. Lee et al. (1996) found that the CP of a common soybean biodiesel could be reduced to -7.1°C through winterization. However, because a portion of the biodiesel is separated, there is a yield loss of 26%. Davis et al. (2007) used soybean methyl ester fractionation by urea and methanol for producing modified biodiesel with a CP as low as -45°C. The process takes advantage of clathrates which form between urea and long-chain saturated methyl esters. In either case, a significant amount of high CP biodiesel is removed.
Winterization is generally not an efficient way of improving cold flow properties because of the high yield loss. It is also not practical in many cases to store the high CP fraction which was separated for summer use or to transport it to a warmer climate region, so it must be used as a lower-value fuel.
The CP of biodiesel can also be reduced by using a branched-chain alcohol instead of methanol during processing. Isopropyl and 2-butyl esters of normal soybean oil crystallized 7° to 11° and 12° to 14°C lower, respectively, than the corresponding methyl esters (Lee et al., 1995). However, use of isopropyl alcohol is more expensive, and the reaction is harder to complete than with methanol.
A variety of fuel additives for diesel and biodiesel are commercially available to improve the cold flow properties. Dunn et al. (1996) studied the effects of 12 cold flow additives for petroleum diesel on the cold flow behavior of biodiesel. They concluded that the additives significantly improved the PP of diesel/biodiesel blends but did not affect the CP greatly. Many additives contain some proprietary components such as copolymers of ethylene, vinyl acetate, or other olefin-ester copolymers. Because of these proprietary compounds, the impact of cold flow additives on biodiesel from different types of feedstock such as canola, mustard, and used vegetable oil needs to be determined experimentally.
University of Idaho scientists studied the effects of four commercially available cold flow additives on biodiesel made from soy oil, mustard oil, and used vegetable oil. Of these three types of biodiesel, mustard biodiesel responded best to the additives. Still, the researchers found that the additives did not work as well for biodiesel as for petro-diesel. The average reduction in CP and PP for 100% mustard biodiesel was 0.3°C and 7.2°C, respectively. However, the additives reduced the PP of petroleum diesel by at least 16°C, to below -36°C in all cases studied (Shrestha et al., 2008).
Another way to improve the cold temperature performance of biodiesel is to blend it with another biodiesel with a lower cloud point. This has been shown to be an effective technique for reducing the cloud point of palm oil. Moser (2008) was able to obtain CFPP values for palm oil at or less than 0°C through blending with other methyl esters.
ASTM (2003a) Standard test method for cloud point of petroleum products D 2500-02. In: Annual Book of ASTM Standards. American Society for Testing and Materials, West Conshohocken, PA. pp. 886-889.
ASTM (2003b) Standard test method for pour point of petroleum products D97 - 02. In: Annual Book of ASTM Standards. American Society for Testing and Materials, West Conshohocken, PA. pp. 87-94.
Brice, J.C. (1973) Growth kinetics. In: The Growth of Crystals from Liquid. American Elsevier, New York. pp. 78-127.
Chandler, J.E., Horneck, F.G., and Brown, G.I. (1992) The effect of cold flow additives on low temperature operability of diesel fuels. In: Proceedings of SAE International Fuels and Lubricants Meeting and Exposition, Warrendale, PA.
Chiu, C.W., Schumacher, L.G., and Suppes, G.J. (2004) Impact of cold flow improvers on soybean biodiesel blend. Biomass & Bioenergy 27(5):485-491.
Davis, R.A., Mohtar, S., and Tao, B.Y. (2007) Production of low-temp biodiesel through urea clathration. In: Proceedings of ASABE, St. Joseph, MO.
DeMan, J.M. (2000) Relationship among chemical, physical and textural properties of fats. In: Physical Properties of Fats, Oils and Emulsifiers. AOCS, Champaign, IL, pp. 79-95.
Dunn, R.O. and Bagby, M.O. (1995) Low-temperature properties of triglyceride-based diesel fuels: Transesterified methyl-esters and petroleum middle distillate/ester blends. Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society 72(8):895-904.
Dunn, R.O., Shockley, M.W., and Bagby, M.O. (1996) Improving the low-temperature properties of alternative diesel fuels: Vegetable oil-derived methyl esters. Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society 73(12):1719-1728.
Lee, I., Johnson, L.A., and Hammond, E.G. (1995) Use of branched-chain esters to reduce the crystallization temperature of biodiesel. Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society 72(10):1155-1160.
Lee, I., Johnson, L.A., and Hammond, E.G. (1996) Reducing the crystallization temperature of biodiesel by winterizing methyl soyate. Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society 73(5):631-636.
Mittelbach, M., and Remschmidt, C. (2005) Biodiesel the Comprehensive Handbook, Second Edition. Boersedruck Ges. m.b.H, Vienna.
Moser, B.R. (2008) Influence of blending canola, palm, soybean, and sunflower oil methyl esters on fuel properties of biodiesel. Energy & Fuels 22(6):4301-4306.
O'Connor, R.T. (1960) X-ray defraction and polymorphism. In: Fatty Acids: Their Chemistry, Properties and Uses (Part I). Interscience Publication, New York. pp. 285-378.
Peterson, C.L., Reece, D.L., Hammond, B.L., Thompson, J.C., and Beck, Sidney M. (1997) Processing, characterization, and performance of eight fuels from lipids. Applied Engineering in Agriculture 13(1):71-79.
Shrestha, D.S., Van Gerpen, J., and Thompson, J. (2008) Effectiveness of cold flow additives on various biodiesels, diesel, and their blends. Transactions of the ASABE 51(4):1365-1370.
Vyas, Amish P., Subrahmanyam, N., and Patel, Payal A. (2009) Production of biodiesel through transesterification of Jatropha oil using KNO3/Al2O3 solid catalyst. Fuel 88(4):625-628. | <urn:uuid:8c5c5b26-9c24-4350-b044-1cca0aea726a> | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | http://www.extension.org/pages/26611/biodiesel-cloud-point-and-cold-weather-issues | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-32/segments/1438042988250.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20150728002308-00171-ip-10-236-191-2.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.88468 | 2,826 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Many cold climate gardeners know they can extend their veggie growing season into the autumn months, but did you know you can also keep many crops going all winter long?
As mentioned in Fall Vegetable Gardening 101, the basics for successful veggie growing are the same at any time of year and growing throughout the winter months requires just a few adaptations.
I'll walk you through the basics and show you how I manage my winter veggie garden here in Canada.
A healthy garden thrives with good soil, appropriate sun exposure, and water.
A winter veggie garden is no exception.
Enrich your soil year-round and ensure your winter veggie beds are positioned to receive optimum sun.
An insulated cold frame (with a lid) will protect your cold-loving veggies through the winter months.
It's ideal to place the cold frame in a location that receives at least 6 hours of direct sun per day. More is better.
You could also place straw bales around the cold frame to further insulate it.
See more cold frames here: Cold Weather Veggie Garden Resources.
Have your snow boots ready!
The good news is, when the weather is really severe, there's not much to do.
The cold frames are kept closed, protecting the veggies from dampness and wind.
On warmer days, when it’s dry and the temperatures are above freezing (0C /32F), I open the cold frame lids to let more sun and fresh air in.
Generally, by late afternoon, the sun is fading, things cool off, and it’s often time to close the lids again.
Occasionally, during winter warm spells, I water the crops (lightly) to be sure they won't dry out.
Remember, everything grows slower in the cold so don't expect growth spurts.
The cold frame keeps the plants from freezing and protects them until things warm up and growth can resume.
I grow a variety of salad greens and there's plenty of veggies can be harvested throughout the season.
Simply clip off enough greens for your dinner salads and, gradually over time, the leaves will regrow to provide more.
Winter vegetable gardening is an added task (and it helps if you enjoy being outside in the cold weather), but the ability to have fresh, homegrown veggies available when the supermarkets are limited to expensive, imported crops, is very nice indeed.
Original article and pictures take http://www.ebay.com/gds/6-Tips-For-Growing-Winter-Veggies-/10000000178910483/g.html?roken2=ti.pTWVsaXNzYSBXaWxs site | <urn:uuid:a0a67cb3-4524-4cdf-8850-7f56fb359d60> | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | http://gardenaccessorieseoutdoor.blogspot.com/2015/11/6-tips-for-growing-winter-veggies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-34/segments/1502886104612.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170818063421-20170818083421-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.934672 | 560 | 2.75 | 3 |
A note on Chinese Medicine research -
Chinese Medicine (usually Acupuncture and herbs) has been used for thousands of years to assist women with their health, from puberty to pregnancy to menopause and beyond. It is an amazing system of medicine that has spread across the globe and helped millions of people. While Chinese Medicine isn't the answer for all people for all conditions, a growing body of research is confirming the efficacy of Chinese Medicine! It isn't always smooth sailing though.
Obtaining large volumes of Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine high-quality data can be tricky for three reasons:
- Chinese Medicine individualises its treatments according to the patients presenting symptoms. The beauty of it is that you’re receiving personalised care. This doesnt fit very well into a scientific trial where everything needs to be standardised in order to ‘prove’ that something works.
- Its hard to rule out the placebo effect. Excellent studies have a group comparing the treatment to a ‘fake treatment’ to see which is better. Its hard to do ‘fake Acupuncture’. Given theres more than 300 Acupuncture points on the body, even when researchers choose an Acupuncture point away from the other Acupuncture points, it may be very close to another point thats having a positive effect on the body, which confuses results.
While its very important to prove that Acupuncture works better than doing nothing, better than the standard of care treatments AND better than placebo, its important to know that placebo effects play a role in any kind of medicine/trial and is often hard to rule out. Eg feeling better after seeing a doctor or taking a tablet.
- While there is some excellent research coming out across the globe from universities and other institutions, big research projects cost lots of money and that kind of funding isnt always easily accessible for Chinese Medicine research.
Some useful jargon to know:
The most conclusive form of research available is a Systematic Review. This reviews many Randomized Control Trials (RCT’s – subjects don't know which treatment they are getting) and takes into consideration how good the methodology of the studies are. A systematic review may say there isn't much proof if some studies aren't well conducted, don't contain a big enough sample size or if some study results contradict other study results - so finding systematic reviews 'proving' a finding can be challenging in all fields of science and there may well be positive evidence but just not enough.
Pre birth Acupuncture -
Acupuncture is increasingly being recommended as a pre birthing treatment and is currently used routinely in hospitals in Germany and by trained Midwives in New Zealand. It involves the use of specific Acupuncture points mostly located on the legs that help prepare the cervix and pelvis for labour and other customised points are chosen that may help alleviate other symptoms (eg pain) you have at the time. Acupressure points are also taught during these sessions.
The recommended time to commence Pre-birth Acupuncture is 36/37 weeks, with once a week treatments until 40 weeks. This is based on classical treatments and positive research papers, of which you can see more of here. Acupuncture is done in conjunction with regular testing and monitoring from Midwives and Obstetricians to ensure safety for mother and baby. Acupuncture can be done before this time to help alleviate other health symptoms but would not be specifically Pre-Birth Acupuncture.
Though more rigorous scientific trials are needed in this area, and while this study does not meet the gold standard of systematic reviews of randomised control trials, this observational study had positive findings. The study was conducted by midwives over 4 months in New Zealand in 2004 with 169 pregnant women taking part. It found results supported the findings of earlier studies by Zeisler et al in 1998 and concluded the number of women who had Pre-Birth Acupuncture going into labour without intervention was higher, labour time was shorter and the epidural rate was lower.
Every pregnancy is different and there is no one size fits all approach. If you have any questions or would like to find out more about how we would address your unique situation, please contact us directly.
Turning breech babies -
The use of moxibustion (moxa) applied to the little toe has been used in Chinese hospitals to treat breech presentations for decades, however the research to date, although promising, is not yet sufficient for this method to be incorporated into clinical practice guidelines for obstetricians in Australia, although the New Zealand clinical practice guidelines do recommend it.
The latest Cochrane systematic review on this was 2012 and found “limited evidence”.
Though other studies, haven't found a conclusive positive benefit, the Vas et al 2012 study published in the British Medical Journal found; “Moxibustion at acupuncture point BL67 is effective and safe to correct non-vertex presentation when used between 33 and 35 weeks of gestation. We believe that moxibustion represents a treatment option that should be considered." | <urn:uuid:c396f8ff-601d-49fb-9a2e-62e1d95d7d6c> | CC-MAIN-2019-39 | https://www.embraceacupuncture.com.au/acupuncture-pregnancy-research | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-39/segments/1568514573173.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20190918003832-20190918025832-00372.warc.gz | en | 0.953531 | 1,027 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Verified By: Dr. Donald John Babu (MBBS, MS, FCPS, MCh – Surgical Oncology, MRCS (UK), FICS)
Table of Contents
What is a Lung Cancer?
Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer worldwide which starts in the lungs. Your lungs are two spongy organs in your chest which helps you inhale oxygen and release carbon dioxide when you exhale.
What are the Lung Cancer Types?
There are 2 types of lung cancer. The most common type of lung cancer is non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
- Small Cell Lung Cancer: Small cell lung cancer occurs in heavy smokers. The small cell lung cancer (SCLC) grows and spreads faster than NSCLC and this responds to chemotherapy.
- Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: The non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) usually forms in the outer part of the lungs (adenocarcinomas). This type is not aggressive and does not invade the surrounding tissue. Non-small cell lung cancers include squamous cell carcinoma and large cell carcinoma.
- Tobacco smoke contains over 50 carcinogenic chemicals. The chemicals in cigarette smoke cause genetic damage that could initiate cancer in pregnant women and their fetuses.
- The Encyclopædia Britannica states that tobacco smoke is “believed to account for 90% of all cases of lung cancer.
- Researchers in Japan have found out the good effect of vitamin A in the prevention of lung cancer.
What are the Causes and Risk Factors of Lung Cancer?
- Smoking – Cigarette smoking is the major cause of cancer about 90% of those who get Lung cancer would not get it if they did not smoke. A smoker’s heart works harder than a non-smoker’s. The heart averages eight to ten more beats per minute during the day and three to five more beats during sleep.
- Exposure to secondhand smoke – Apart from cigarettes, cigar and pipe smoking, breathing the smoke of other smokers will also increase the risk of lung cancer.
- Tobacco products contain more than 6,000 chemicals, of which at least 60 are known to cause cancer.
- Previous Radiotherapy – If you have undergone Radiotherapy to the chest earlier, then you may have an increased risk of developing lung cancer.
- Family History of Lung Cancer – Inherited genetic mutations may make you more likely to develop lung cancer.
- Exposure to radon, a naturally existing radioactive gas increases the risk of Lung cancer, for eg. uranium miners are exposed to radon.
- Asbestos exposure – It has been noted that asbestos workers are more prone to lung cancer and an otherwise rare chest tumor called mesothelioma (A type of lung cancer). The disease develops due to years of exposure to asbestos fibres.
Other substances that can cause lung cancer are:
- Some petroleum products
What are the Lung Cancer Symptoms?
The symptoms of non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer may include:
- Lingering or worsening cough
- Coughing up phlegm or blood
- Chest pain worsens when you breathe deeply, laugh, or cough
- Shortness of breath
- Muscle weakness and fatigue
- Loss of appetite and weight loss
- Recurrent respiratory infections like pneumonia, bronchitis etc.
- Tumors at the top of the lungs will affect facial nerves, and lead to drooping of one eyelid. These symptoms are called Horner syndrome and it can also cause shoulder pain.
- Tumors could press on the large vein that transports blood between the head, arms, and heart. This causes swelling of the face, neck, upper chest, and arms.
Back pain could be due to the pressure of large tumors growing in the lungs. It can also mean that cancer has spread to your spine or ribs. As it grows, a cancerous tumor could cause compression of the spinal cord which can lead to neurologic deterioration causing the following:
- The weakness of the arms and legs
- Numbness in the legs and feet
- Urinary and bowel incontinence
- Interference with the spinal blood supply
However, Back pain may improve if treatment such as surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy can successfully remove or shrink the tumor.
Do you think you have any of the above symptoms?
How is Lung cancer Diagnosed?
After a physical examination, your physician will instruct you to prepare for specific tests, such as:
- Imaging tests: An abnormal mass and smaller lesion can be seen on X-ray, MRI, CT, and PET scans.
- Sputum cytology: If you produce phlegm when you cough, microscopic examination will determine if cancer cells are present.
- Biopsy: A biopsy can determine if the tumor cells are cancerous or not. A tissue sample could be obtained by:
- Bronchoscopy: under sedation, a lighted tube is passed down your throat and into your lungs, for closer examination.
Mediastinoscopy: The physician makes an incision at the base of the neck and surgical tools are used to take samples from the lymph nodes. This is generally performed under general anesthesia.
Needle: Using imaging tests as a guide, a needle is inserted through the chest wall and into the suspected lung tissue. Needle biopsy could also be used to test lymph nodes.
Tissue samples are sent for analysis and if the result is positive for cancer, further testing, such as a bone scan, can help to determine the stage of the cancer and the spread of cancer.
What are the Stages of Lung Cancer?
Non-small cell lung cancer has four main stages:
Stage 1: Cancer is found inside the lung and not outside the lung.
Stage 2: Cancer is found in the lung and near the lymph nodes.
Stage 3: Cancer is found in the lung and lymph nodes in the center of the chest.
Stage 3A: Cancer is found on the same side of the chest in the lymph nodes.
Stage 3B: Cancer has spread to lymph nodes on the opposite side of the chest or to lymph nodes that are above the collarbone.
Stage 4: Cancer has spread to both lungs and the surrounding area around the lungs, or to the distant organs.
Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) has two main stages which are limited stage and extensive stage.
- Limited Stage: Cancer is found in only one lung or near the lymph nodes on the same side of the chest.
- Extensive stage: Cancer may spread throughout one lung, to the opposite lung, to the lymph nodes on the opposite side, to the fluid around the lung, to the bone marrow and to the distant organs.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What are the Causes of Lung Cancer?
Smoking causes the majority of lung cancers, but lung cancer also occurs in people who have prolonged exposure to secondhand smokers.
What are the Symptoms of Lung Cancer?
A cough that worsens and sputum (spit or phlegm) produces blood and chest pain worsens with deep breathing, coughing, or laughing. They may have shortness of breath that occurs suddenly during everyday activities, unexplained weight loss, loss of appetite, Lung infections such as bronchitis, pneumonia that won’t go away, Hoarseness.
How can we differentiate between a common cough and the cough of Lung Cancer?
- The cough of lung cancer does not go away and it gets worse whereas the common cough fades away.
- The sputum (spit or phlegm) of a lung cancer patient contains blood whereas the sputum of a common cough does not involve blood.
- The chest pain of a lung cancer patient gets worse with deep breathing, coughing, or laughing whereas the chest pain of a common cough is not painful.
What tests can detect Lung Cancer?
- X-ray image of the lungs may reveal an abnormal mass or nodule and a CT scan can reveal small lesions in your lungs that might not be detected on an x-ray.
- Sputum cytology – The sputum will be examined under the microscope and to check the presence of lung cancer cells.
- A tissue sample (biopsy).
What are the Stages of Lung Cancer?
There are 3 stages of lung cancer.
Stage 1: Cancer is found in the lung, but it has not spread outside the lung.
Stage 2: Cancer is found in the lung and nearby lymph nodes.
Stage 3: Cancer is in the lung and lymph nodes in the middle of the chest.
Is Lung Cancer Curable?
The Lung Cancer treatment may utmost help you relieve your symptoms and control the growth of those cancer cells. However, with the right mentality, proper medication and a few lifestyle changes you can have a better quality of life. | <urn:uuid:d2a97fc8-0c7e-4f9f-8bc4-e45152be6980> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://treatmentpossible.com/lung-cancer-symptoms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100308.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20231201215122-20231202005122-00800.warc.gz | en | 0.928881 | 1,851 | 3.40625 | 3 |
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A variety of symptoms appear in a person experiencing shock:
The skin may appear pale or gray, and is cool and clammy to the touch.
The heartbeat is weak and rapid, and breathing is slow and shallow. The blood pressure is reduced.
The eyes lack shine and seem to stare. Sometimes the pupils are dilated.
The person may be conscious or unconscious. If conscious, the person may faint or be very weak or confused. On the other hand, shock sometimes causes a person to become overly excited and anxious.
Treating for Shock
Even if a person seems normal after an injury, take precautions and treat the person for shock by following these steps:
Get the person to lie down on his or her back and elevate the feet higher than the person's head. Keep the person from moving unnecessarily
Keep the person warm and comfortable. Loosen tight clothing and cover the person with a blanket. Do not give the person anything to drink
If the person is vomiting or bleeding from the mouth, place the person on his or her side to prevent choking
Treat any injuries appropriately (bleeding, broken bones, etc.)
Summon emergency medical assistance immediately
Mouth to Mouth Resuscitation
First Aid Kit
Cuts & Scrapes
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Slideshow Right Arrow | <urn:uuid:e2ec2c24-5bea-4c40-874a-f267772002a8> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://mn-roseville.civicplus.com/498/Shock | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818689874.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170924044206-20170924064206-00440.warc.gz | en | 0.879003 | 278 | 2.9375 | 3 |
A few Twitter posts got me thinking, as I am wont to do, about the history of Western civilization and ethnic separation.
You see, around the birth of Christ, or not long after, China and Rome were mirror images of one another. Both were multi-ethnic Empires that were in the process of uniting into a single ethnic state. Indeed, China’s own historical records contain a dim awareness of what they called Da Qin, the opposite-China on the other side of the world. In typical Eastern philosophical tradition, they considered this quite natural, that the world would be balanced by two great civilized Empires on either side of it.
Rome brought together the previously disparate cultures of the Mediterranean under one banner, sending out colonia to gradually assimilate the native populations. It replaced the old Celtic traditions of Gaul and Iberia. It assimilated all of Italy. It was somewhat less successful in the East, where Greek continued to predominate. But, among the Romans, Greece was considered a sort of second Rome (more literally so later, in the form of Constantinople or New Rome), near enough to be considered a part of the same cultural stew. Most educated Romans also spoke Greek, and most educated Greeks also spoke Latin.
In history, Rome stands out as the only time the Mediterranean was unified under a single banner. It is a dream that has motivated many since, from Justinian to Charlemagne to Napoleon, all trying to bring together the feet of clay and iron once more. According to the Bible, this will never happen, though it may seem to almost happen, from time-to-time.
Whether or not you believe the prophecy, that has held true. Rome has not been reunited. But why?
There are many reasons, but in my own long research into the topic, a few notable items stand out.
2. The Germanic notions of freedom.
3. Assimilation was incomplete.
For the first, we can see that in the Third Century, both China and Rome suffered depredations from barbarians, driven off the steppes. By the Fifth Century, both China and Rome had subsequently fragmented into multiple states, some ruled by the barbarians, others ruled by native dynasties.
What happened next was, again, a fascinating mirror image. China was reunified under native rule by the Sui dynasty, and Rome was reunified under native rule by Justinian the Great. For that one moment, the impossible was very nearly achieved.
China went on, under the Tang dynasty, to consolidate the gains and restore its Imperial hegemony. Rome, however, found itself facing a bolt from the blue that no one could have foreseen: Islam.
Islam sundered the unity of the Mediterranean, leaving the successors of Rome in the West to fend for themselves. Even the distant Franks had considered themselves notionally “Roman” in some vague sense, before the advent of Islam. Afterward, everything changed. Trade halted because of Islamic piracy. Bastions of ancient civilization, like Syria, Egypt, Carthage, and Iberia vanished in the flood. Islam, for a brief moment, consumed those cultures and economies in what revisionist historians call “the Islamic Golden Age.”
And then they were gone forever, and the unity of the Mediterranean with it.
China never had to contend with something as civilization-destroying as Islam. Even the Mongols could not compare.
Nonetheless, a dim cultural memory remained. The monuments of Ancient Rome continued to fascinate the inhabitants of Europe. The Catholic Church remained, the last remaining Roman institution, planted on the grave of the old Empire. Latin and Greek continued as the languages of learning. France and Spain were at once the same, and yet different, such that one can speak of “Western” civilization, and yet know that the French are not the Germans, and neither are the Spanish or the Italians.
Da Qin never unified quite the way Qin did, but remained the opposite end of the civilized world even so.
The second reason can be attributed to the Germans. Contrary to today’s image of the Germans as an industrial people, engineering marvels fascinated with order (terribly so during the time of the Nazis), the Germanic ancestors of Scandinavia, Germany, etc… were actually obsessed with notions of freedom, so much so that the Romans found them more or less unconquerable. Various attempts to bring them into the Roman fold failed.
Germans loved their freedom too much.
When the German tribes were pushed into Rome by the marauding Huns, they brought their notions of democracy with them. These were not the “enlightened” notions of the Athenians, but rather a more rough-and-tough affair. German tribal Kings were not elected in any sort of fashion you or I would recognize as such, but any King which did not have the support of the warbands would not be King for long. They would simply assassinate him, or follow another King instead.
We speak of Goths, or Vandals, or Lombards, but ethnic boundaries among them were thin. A Gothic lord may switch to following a Vandal King, or a Lombard. They voted with their feet.
They had long lived on the borders of Rome, however, and had absorbed much influence from it. Contrary to the images presented by High School textbooks, these “barbarians” were Christian and reasonably civilized, in their own rough-and-tough sort of way. But they could not abide the Roman Imperial institutions, at least not without being forced to do so.
Combined with the guilds, price controls and manorial lifestyle already pioneered by Diocletian and Constantine, this set the stage for the Middle Ages, in which there was little in the way of clear boundaries between one nation and the next. Indeed, Kings were valued more for who followed them than for the territory nominally under their control. Feudalism was “voting with your feet” taken to an extreme.
Had Roman Imperial authority not been broken by the Muslims, it is possible the Germans would have been slowly integrated into Roman political life. Instead, they were cast off from the dying Empire, left to fend for themselves over the remnants of the old Roman system.
The combination produced an interesting contradiction in Western European culture. The earliest German successor states, like Ostrogothic Italy, Visigothic Spain and Frankish Gaul all shared a common trait. The Germans were ruled by one group of laws, the predecessor of the type of law we call common law, which is governed mostly by tradition: i.e. what was ruled on previously, and the Romans were ruled under the old Imperial system, created over time by the rulings and dictates of government (later codified by Justinian).
Westerners simultaneously worship the Germanic notions of freedom, almost in a tribal-like capacity, while still yearning for the next Caesar to come along and “make them great.” This produced bizarre class and cultural divisions that persist to this day. Even today it is possible to perceive the remnants of this division in any Western nation-state.
Where Roman culture was stronger, the Imperial law tended to become the dominant system (in France, for instance) and in areas where the German culture was stronger, Common Law or similar systems prevailed (Britain is a good example). But the divisions in the people remained.
To this day, there is a sort of “us vs. them” mentality in Western socio-economic classes. Indeed, the Slavic/Eastern-European world suffers the same, since they also shared a similar experience from the dying Byzantine Empire.
So the assimilation of the invaders never happened in the Roman world, like it did in the Chinese world, which absorbed Huns, Mongols and Manchus with impunity.
Rome partly assimilated Germans and Slavs, respectively, but never finished the job, leaving the old Roman world under a sort of meta-culture which persists to this day, but in a perpetually divided state.
The Iron and the Clay do not cleave.
And, ultimately, the blame for this lies at the feet of Islam. Both Western and Eastern European cultures ought to understand one thing: Islam is their enemy. It has been, and always will be. And furthermore, the importing of Third Worlders is diluting the old Roman world once more. All this will accomplish is further division, more war.
No Multi-Ethnic Empire has ever survived in the long run. Rome. Ottoman Turkey. Austria-Hungary… they all fall. Americans should take note. | <urn:uuid:9be086f2-a14e-4cce-98be-c5da2aa4a9c0> | CC-MAIN-2020-29 | https://thedeclination.com/rome-and-meta-culture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-29/segments/1593655891884.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20200707080206-20200707110206-00554.warc.gz | en | 0.972851 | 1,784 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Electronic cigarettes exist in a limbo world of laws, even as use of the battery-powered nicotine vaporizer grows across the nation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to regulate e-cigarettes the way it does cigarettes or tobacco, leaving states and cities to come up with their own ordinances on how to restrict their sale and use.
Los Angeles is the most recent city to ban the use of e-cigarettes (or "vaping") in public places. The councilmembers who voted on the law lamented the lack of scientific evidence for two seemingly opposing claims: that e-cigarettes can either help smokers quit their cigarette addiction, and that e-cigarettes are essentially a gateway for teens to cigarette smoking.
But evidence on these claims is slowly emerging. A study published today (March 6) in JAMA Pediatrics shows that e-cigarette use has doubled among teens between 2011 and 2012, with 3.1 percent of teens saying they had ever tried an e-cigarette and 1.1 percent being current e-cigarette users in 2011, compared with 6.5 percent of teens ever trying an e-cigarette and 2 percent of teens being current users in 2012. The study also establishes a link between vaping and smoking; teens who smoked e-cigarettes (even just once) were more likely to have experimented with conventional cigarettes.
The study was supported by the National Cancer Institute and surveyed tens of thousands of middle and high school students; 17,323 in 2011 and 22,529 in 2012. It's the first study to examine e-cigarette use and tobacco cigarette use in teens at the same time, and its also one of the few studies that uses a nationally representative sample.
The study also provided some insights on e-cigarettes supposed role in quitting smoking. "We saw that kids who used e-cigarettes were less likely to have stopped smoking and were more likely to be planning to quit," said lead researcher Lauren Dutra, ScD, a postdoctoral scholar at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
Dutra argues that this finding challenges the e-cigarette industry's claims that vaping could lead to quitting.
The study is cross-sectional, which means that it cannot show that vaping caused smoking, or vice versa. Despite that limitation, Dutra and co-author Stanton Glantz, Ph.D., write that their study suggests e-cigarettes are not discouraging the use of conventional cigarettes, and that they could actually contribute to nicotine addiction.
But David Abrams, Ph.D., the executive director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at the anti-smoking advocacy group Legacy, disputes Dutra's conclusion and says the study doesn't hold up.
"We need balance and the rationality of science to dominate over biased ideology," Abrams said to The Huffington Post. "There is absolutely no evidence that using e-cigarettes makes [teens] more likely to use cigarettes."
The problem with Dutra's conclusion, said Abrams, is that causality could run the other way; kids who smoke (because of genetics, or parents who smoke) could simply be more likely to engage in other risky behaviors as well, such as alcohol, marijuana or e-cigarettes.
"One does not lead to the other [in this study]," said Abrams. "The behaviors just travel together in vulnerable kids." The only way to establish causality is a rigorous longitudinal study that follows a large number of people over a long period of time -- something that would take decades. In the mean time, said Abrams, "the science doesn't support panic or fear [of e-cigarettes] -- yet."
Best known for its "Truth Campaign" ads, Legacy's vision is a society free of the death and disease caused by tobacco. And according to Abrams, e-cigarettes could be the key to achieving that society. "They are the first product in 100 years that might make cigarettes obsolete," said Abrams. "That would literally wipe out the death cause to 5.6 million kids alive today, as well as 480,000 adults every year."
To be clear, Abrams isn't pro-vaping; it's just that absent any data that proves using e-cigarettes lead to tobacco cigarette addiction, a known killer, he's reluctant to label them bad and dangerous. (However, it should be noted that in 2009, the FDA found toxic chemicals in leading e-cigarette brands.) Like Dutra, Abrams supports the FDA regulation of e-cigarettes, as well as a ban on vaping in public places and sales and marketing targeted at minors. Even Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Association, an e-cigarettes trade organization, agrees that the devices should not be marketed to minors.
"[E-cigarettes] should not be targeted to kids in any shape or form, and no kid should be exposed or easily able to use any nicotine or tobacco product, including e-cigarettes," said Abrams. As for the teens surveyed in Dutra's study, Abrams says it's no surprise that there are a few teens who will always find ways to use a variety of tobacco products, despite the laws in place.
Dutra doesn't deny that a longitudinal study is needed to truly assess causation, but she did point out that her study also found that 20 percent of the middle schoolers who had used e-cigarettes had never tried a tobacco cigarette. For high schoolers, that number was 7 percent.
JAMA Pediatrics published an editorial alongside Dutra's study, and it points out that her findings highlight both exciting and discouraging possibilities for e-cigarettes and their potential to make people want to quit smoking. However, empirical data on the success of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool is "mixed at best" so far, writes health economist Frank Chaloupka, Ph.D. of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Instead, he writes, the high use of both e-cigarettes and cigarettes among smokers suggests that they're simply vaping to get their hit of nicotine in places where they aren't allowed to smoke.
But if the nationwide trend of banning e-cigarette use in public places continues to pick up steam, vapers will soon have to resort to puffing away outside the club, along with the smokers. | <urn:uuid:e3423cc1-f975-4b33-b815-8895c00206ed> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | https://www.huffpost.com/entry/e-cigarette-use-teens_n_4908986 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780053657.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20210916145123-20210916175123-00245.warc.gz | en | 0.962825 | 1,263 | 3.046875 | 3 |
An “allergy” is your immune system’s sensitivity to an otherwise harmless substance. Symptoms such as sneezing, an itchy nose, a runny or stuffy nose, and watery eyes, are examples of your body’s attempts to eliminate an allergen. Typically, allergens can include substances like pollen, dust mites, pet dander, and mold. Seasonal allergies appear during different times of the year and peak in the spring, when most plants are blooming and releasing more pollen. Pollen can be a very difficult allergen to manage, due to its ubiquitous presence in our environment.
Call us at 678-515-0688. | <urn:uuid:7118c1d1-2949-4dbe-a3aa-c40265fcb9d3> | CC-MAIN-2018-30 | https://buckheadprimarycare.com/services/primary-care/allergy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-30/segments/1531676589172.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20180716021858-20180716041858-00101.warc.gz | en | 0.917361 | 144 | 2.890625 | 3 |
by GWEN CLINKSCALES
What Is the Issue?
What Is the W. Haywood Burns School?
What Are Some Examples of Shared Leadership and Learner Centered Teacher Accountability Systems?
What Does the Union Say About Teacher Accountability Systems?
What Is a Major Obstacle to Shared Leadership and Peer Support/Review?
How Can Policy Makers Assist in Overcoming a Major Obstacle to Shared Decision and Peer Support /Review?
What Are Some of the Unanswered Questions
WHAT IS THE ISSUE?
Learning is an active, dynamic, constructive process. (John Dewey, 1938;Constance
Kamii, 1990). It is built upon making best sense of information by comparing real live experiences to new experiences. Teachers know that the key to students learning is their own learning. Teachers know that to increase their learning it takes time to study, plan, to work collaboratively, to try new ideas and to get feed back from peers. However, when a school district demands that all of the allotted professional development time be spent on standardized test sophistication plans, teachers miss precious opportunities to learn how to provide continuous sound educational experiences to all students. Although Teachers well understand the political reality of the current American Education bandwagon is "let's get higher test scores", this focus is taking us away from our primary mission of providing students with educational experiences from which all students can learn.
Teachers realize that it takes a different kind of district/school governance structure from the top down model that demands a prescribed teacher accountability system, to make teacher learning a long term commitment. Policy makers need to work on enabling communities to make changes in districts and schools governance structures so that teacher accountability systems reflect the particular needs of its school. These changes should include:
- School autonomy in governance, budgeting, hiring, curriculum development, and professional development in exchange for accountability.
- School autonomy in the creation of small school communities with a shared vision of learning and teaching that increases opportunities for communication and trust.
- Compensation for collaborative teaching planning time outside of the school day.
- Provide non-contact teaching time for teacher leader and team responsibilities.
- Provide for multiple measures accountability system that demonstrates student achievement through performance assessment; standardize exams, attendance and progress reports.
The W. Haywood Burns School is currently in need of such changes in its district governance structure to enact its professional development teacher accountability plan.
WHAT IS THE W. HAYWOOD BURNS SCHOOL?
The W. Haywood Burns School is a NYC, Board of Education parent/faculty collaborative, public school of choice. Families elect to send their children to the school. The newly built structure opened in September, 1996 in response to group of parents advocating for a school that responded to the needs of their children, (learner centered). The building houses three smaller schools with a combined population of about 650 students. The three schools share a philosophy that all students will have a "rigorous interdisciplinary, academic curriculum by emphasizing intellectual achievement, personal values, essential skills, active learning and the excitement of ideas". The school is a member of two networks; Center for Collaborative Education
(CCE) of the Coalition of Essential Schools and New Visions for Public Schools. Both networks are guided by the principle that all students thrive in small, academically rigorous environments where they can receive personalized attention while learning through direct experience and cooperative exploration. The networks are working to revitalize public education by continuing to create and restructure schools by nurturing the development of mutually supportive schools that have agreed to establish common accountability criteria. (New Visions for Public Schools)
The student body of W. Haywood Burns School, which represents a collaboration of two networks, is 70% Latino; 17%White; 12% African-American, 3% Asian/Pacific Islander. The faculty is 57% White, 29% Latino, 12% African American and 2% Asian American. The school located in Washington
Heights/Inwood section of Manhattan in part of a district that has the "highest rate of poverty in the city Ð 40% of its families have incomes under $10,000. The 34th Police precinct has one of the highest levels of drug activity and other crimes, including murder in NYC. In addition, teen age pregnancy is the norm Ð two out of every three new babies in the community are born to a mother between fifteen and nineteen years old. The District has the highest number of students with limited English proficiency of any in the state " (New Visions Proposal, 1995). According to District Superintendent, " school utilization is at 116 - 120% capacity. The District has the largest bilingual population in the State of New York and the fourth largest in the United States, a large proportion of who are immigrants with extreme needs". A parent of two W. Haywood Burns students writes in an article, "Parents, administrators and faculty confront difficult social problems that inhibit student learning and recognize that educational objectives cannot be addressed without taking into consideration the larger social realities."
The school district the W. Haywood Burns School resides in is an example of other urban districts in the United States. Linda Darling-Hammond, 1989 points out "the U.S. is entering a period of labor shortage while the number of older Americans is growing. In the 1950's the ratio of active workers to Social Security beneficiaries was 10 to 1. Soon that ratio will be 3 to 1. School drop out rates are about 25% for all U.S. students and about 50% for minority youth in central cities. Unemployment rates for the same reach almost as high. Lack of education is linked to crime and delinquency. More than half the adult prison population is functionally illiterate, and nearly 40 percent of adjudicated juvenile delinquents have treatable learning disabilities that were not diagnosed in school. The United Sates cannot maintain its democratic foundations or its standard of living unless all students are much better educated. This consensus creates a new mission for schools and teachers and entirely new approaches to accountability."
The mission of the W. Haywood Burns School reflects this consensus. The school's mission it provide a coherent and educational framework in which our kindergarten through eight grade organization will allow students, faculty and parents to collaborate over nine years to graduate students who demonstrate academic competency, community responsibility and an awareness of their personal goals and interest.
WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF SHARED LEADERSHIP AND LEARNER CENTERED TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS?
To help enact this mission the faculty at the W. Haywood Burns School is developing a system of teacher accountability by reviewing how teachers are held accountable for their work in other schools successfully serving like populations. One such example is the International High School at LaGuardia Community College in
LIC, NY. The faculty developed a model teacher accountability system supported by a school governance structure of shared leadership. Under this system a faculty personnel committee responsible for the recruitment and selection of new applicants was established; a peer support and evaluation process to formalize that commitment was created and a system involving the whole school for peer review and assessment was established.
The faculty at International High School points out "that since they were given the opportunity to redefine the way the school would work, they feel a sense of ownership toward the school. They have created a dynamic and vibrant learning community for the benefit of the limited English proficient students it serves. The results of these innovative initiatives, as well as the process by which it has been achieved, holds promise for policy makers committed to empowering students as effective learners by transforming our schools into centers of teaching excellence".
Encouraged by the International High School model of shared leadership and professional accountability system; the W. Haywood Burns School developed a dynamic system of school governance and teacher support based on our community's particular needs. Our governance structure includes a representative body consisting of the Principal, Teacher-Leaders/Directors, the United Federation of Teachers, the Parents Association, Custodial Staff, School Aides and Dinning Room Staff, that meet weekly to allow for coordination of efforts, awareness of each small school's progress and policy decisions effecting the entire school. The entire school staff meets monthly and on an as needed basis. The agenda for these meetings are developed collaboratively, reflecting school, district and community interest as they relate to the teaching and learning process. Additionally, the three small schools meet as separate faculties. The Principal is a member of each of these faculties. She functions as a support for the development of each of the smaller schools within the larger school.
Each of the smaller schools is creating a teacher accountability system of peer support and review. One of the smaller schools is further along in its development of such a system. This smaller school describes the peer support system as Triads. "Triads were developed as a way of improving an individual teacher's practice, by posing a critical question and investigating that question with the help of two colleagues. Inquiry into a given question is facilitated by inter visitations, documentation using descriptive processes, readings, and collaborative meetings. The triad system is a way of opening up classroom practice to one another in constructive and supportive ways."
This smaller school within the W. Haywood Burns School describes its review system as follows. "All first year staff members will automatically be probationary employees of the school and go through the staff review process. Veteran staff members will be reviewed during their third or fourth year. The staff review process will begin within the first semester of the school year. January letters containing recommendations made to individual probationary staff members will be sent; progress made towards implementing those recommendations will be taken into account and included in subsequent staff reviews procedures. Expectations for staff review will focus on the work with students, colleagues, families, evidence of continued professional development, and potential for growth. All staff members are invited to use a narrative instrument to comment on any practitioner under review. Comments are based on direct, documented peer observations in order for the process to be valid. All writings must be stated in descriptive not evaluative terms and substantiated with evidence/specific and concrete examples. All written materials are reviewed by the staff review committee of three, which is chosen by a nomination process. The practitioner under review will be invited to address the committee in order to clarify any questions/issues contained in the evaluation summary. The school review committee offer written recommendation to the Teacher-Director and Principal for action.
This is the W. Haywood Burns School first year of operation and many kinks within our system need to be ironed out. But, by going through the process of dialoging, reading, visiting other schools, trying out new things, a mutual excitement has been built. We have sustained a lively interest over the past year resulting in collegial relationships that promote teacher learning.
WHAT DOES THE UNION SAY ABOUT TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS?
Teacher unions also believe that systems of teacher accountability that include peer support and review promote teacher learning. The 1995 -2000 year contract agreement between NYC Board of Education and the United Federation of Teachers addresses the issue under article eight J, Education Reform and Evaluation/Observations System. It states "The first model, known as annual Performance Options offers an individual teacher, in consultation with his/her supervisor, the opportunity to set yearly goals and objectives and to choose the methods for demonstrating professional growth". National Education Association President, Bob Chase this year stated (as per Ed. Week, 2/12/97), "the nation is now engaged in a furious debate about what students learning standards should be, how we should measure them, and what kinds of rewards and consequences should be attached to meeting or failing to meet them. But, by and large, teachers have been absent from this debate. Unions need to begin to advocate and enforce standards for learning and standards for teaching. And unions need to back up these standards with adequate training, professional development, and strong peer review systems. In the few places that have adopted it, peer review is probably the most powerful demonstration of teacher knowledge of practice and commitment to high professional standards. Peer review requires teachers to define good teaching, to develop ways to measure and support it and to engage in means to ensure that where quality standards are not met, those teachers are no longer in the classroom."
WHAT IS A MAJOR OBSTACLE TO SHARED LEADERSHIP AND PEER SUPPORT/REVIEW?
Teacher union support is one response to creating a climate in school districts that encourages teacher accountability systems of peer support and review and the
"Annenberg Challenge" is another response. According to Ed. Week, 6/25/97, the
"Annenberg Challenge" is that by giving money to reformers on the ground, rather than to the school bureaucracy, the challenge could make public education work for poor and minority students and deepen existing grassroots efforts. But that initial premise of circumventing district red tape by creating groups of schools and educators has proven unrealistic. NYC schools Chancellor balked at the creation of a separate district operating; outside of his control."
The Director of New York Networks for School Renewal points outs "that the creation of a parallel system under this Chancellor is not going to happen. The concept of a "Learning Zone" as envisioned by the NYC schools Chancellor would remain part of the larger system. According to the chancellor high performing schools and community districts will be given greater autonomy". I believe schools need autonomy not as a reward but as a way to address their own particular needs. District and school governance structures need to support teacher autonomy by encouraging teacher accountability systems in which teachers are held accountable for meeting the individual needs of their students. Peer support and review is a teacher accountability system through which individual students needs can be met.
HOW CAN POLICY MAKERS ASSIST IN OVERCOMING A MAJOR OBSTACLE TO SHARED DECISION AND PEER SUPPORT/REVIEW?
One way (as suggested by Joe Nathan, 1996), in which school policy makers can assist in the creating and maintenance of "high performing schools" meeting individual students needs is by influencing school legislation in New York that provides:
- non-sectarian public schools of choice for families;
The school will not charge tuition or have admission test. They would be open to all kinds of students. They will follow health and safety procedures.
- schools responsible for improved student achievement;
For example, each school will negotiate a 3-5 year contract with the sponsoring agency, specifying areas in which students will learn more and how that learning will be measured. The sponsor will close schools who do not achieve their contract.
- up front waiver to develop multiple measures accountability system that demonstrates student achievement;
For example, performance based assessment will count equally as standardize exams.
- schools that are a discrete entity; schools in which full per pupil allocation moves with the student;
The school is a legal entity, with its own elected board. Teachers can organize and bargain collectively.
- schools where participating teachers will be protected and given new opportunities.
The state will permit teachers to take a leave from their public school systems and retain their seniority. Teachers can stay in local or state retirement systems. Teachers can choose to be employees, organize a cooperative or choose another method of organization available to non- sectarian groups.
Nationwide, nearly 500 such schools are up and running, 27 states including the District of Columbia have these laws on the books. Teacher unions are interested in these schools as long as collective bargaining rights are respected. In 1996, the St. Paul Minnesota, school Board voted 7-0 to renew one of its schools charter because many youngsters not succeeding in larger, traditional schools were flourishing in the school's smaller, intensive program. Other charters, like New Visions, in Minneapolis, Vaughn in Next Century Charter in LA, Bowling Green Charter in Sacramento and Academy Charter in Castle Rock, Colorado, also have produced achievement gains. Many charter schools serve low and middle-income students. A 1995 survey of 110 charter schools in seven states found that most charters were designed at least in part to serve "at risk" students. A review by Louisiana State University analyst, Louann
Bierlen, states that of six states with the most charter schools found that minority youngsters comprise 40 percent of charter school enrollments although the same minorities make up just 31 percent of pupils in the regular public schools in those states.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS?
This movement is still new. It faces some unanswered questions about valid methods of assessing student achievement; how much of an impact such schools will have on existing public schools, will policy makers be willing to adopt laws permitting groups other than local school boards to sponsor charter schools, can universities prepare people to start up and operate such schools. These are questions that researchers can help us to understand what are the best ways to establish these schools and what are the mistakes to avoid. This movement does allow for the elimination of large top down school district bureaucracies. The movement allows for a school governance structure of shared leadership in which teachers can perform at the highest level by being a part of an accountability system that fosters continuous learning. When teachers are learning, students are learning.
- Applebome, Peter. Who's Minding the Schools. New York Times, 12-22-96.
- AFT. Charter School Laws Do They Measure Up. 1966.
- Center for Collaborative Education of Coalition for Essential Schools. 1996.
- Darling-Hammond. Authentic Assessment in Practice. New York,
NCREST, Teachers College, Columbia University. 1993.
- Darling- Hammond. Creating Learner-Centered Accountability. New York,
NCREST, Teachers College, Columbia University. 1993.
- Darling-Hammond. Creating Accountability in Big City School Systems. New York,
NCREST, Teachers College , Columbia University.
- Dewey, J.(1964). The Child and the Curriculum. John Dewey on Education: Selected Writing. New York, 1902.
- Feldman, Sandra. Charter Schools The Way We See Them, New York Teacher, 11-25-96.
Bierlein, Manno. Charter Schools in Action. Hudson Institute Educational Excellence Network, Wash. DC., 1996.
- International High Schools. Partnerships Realizing the International Schools Model. 1994.
- Jacobson, Linda. Under the Microscope, Charter Schools Do They Work? Education Week. 11-6-96.
- Kamii, Constance. Achievement Testing in the Early Grades.
- Landmark High School Personnel Committee. Teaching Criteria. 1995.
Hatcher. Promoting Career Development through CADRE. Educational Leadership. March, 1996.
- Muscota New School. Structure for Peer Review. 1996.
- Nathan, Joe. Early Lessons from the Charter Movement. Center for Educational Innovation, 1996.
- NYC Board of Education Meeting on Chancellor's Learning Zone; Building Capacity for Sustained Innovation Trough System Reform. 12-4-96.
- New Visions for Public Schools. New Visions for Public Schools. NY, NY, 1996.
- Ponessa Jeanne. Star Potential. Education Week. 11-13-96.
- Purdy Matthew, Political Networking Caused Shift in NYC School Governance. NY Time 12-23-96.
- Unknown. High Standards Demanded for Charter Schools. NY Teacher. 11-11-96. | <urn:uuid:e68538d0-9b81-4e7b-b7a4-0242c0d127c7> | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/research/change/clink.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-40/segments/1443736682947.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20151001215802-00046-ip-10-137-6-227.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953776 | 3,977 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Lesson Twenty Eight
HOW WE LOVE OTHERS
The past two lessons have covered the commandments that pertain to God. We now move to the second stone tablet with six additional commandments that relate to how we treat others. In short, we should treat our parents well, respect life, honor marriage, not take what doesn’t belong to us, tell the truth, and not yearn for something that is not ours. Keeping these will lead toward a happy, contented life. While all six are important, I would like to focus on one in a way you may not have considered.
Two quick stories about my youngest daughter. First, she is tall and always has been. I knew that if I didn’t help her early on to see the value of height, she might become self-conscious rounding her shoulders and slouching in an attempt to make herself “small” like her friends. At about three years of age, I began to tell her, “You will be a beautifully tall young woman one day.” She would smile having no idea what I was talking about but taking it as the compliment it was. As often as I could I would repeat this to her, until the day I dreaded arrived—sixth grade. She had the growth spurt I anticipated and she now towered over her shorter friends. But she carried herself tall and proud. Straight back, shoulders even, like a model. Why? Because she saw herself, in spite of the Middle School awkwardness, what had been prophesied—she was tall and beautiful.
She saw herself, in spite of the Middle School awkwardness, what had been prophesied—she was tall and beautiful.
Same daughter, different story. She had hit a challenging phase in her development. I don’t remember the age, but I do remember the behavior—argumentative, uncooperative, and, if honest, not particularly likeable. That always comes as a surprise when parents face the fact that truth be told, they aren’t especially enamored with what their child has become even when they know it will pass. I was reaching a place of exasperation when I decided to do something. Every day at some opportune moment I would say to her, “You know what I like about you . . .?” Her face would brighten, and she would say, “What?” And then I would respond (if you try this, make sure you have an answer!) After several days of this, I recognized something. I no longer saw my daughter’s behavior as a trial because I was looking for something to say. I was looking for the good and didn’t see the “bad.”
The sixth commandment says, “You shall not murder” or in other translations, “kill.” We typically think of this as taking a life. But Jesus expanded it to include anger and dislike (Matt. 5:21, 22). John later added “hatred” (1 John 3:14, 15). We must be careful of our words. Words can injure another in ways that are almost worse than taking their life. When you “kill” the spirit of another, you wound them in ways that are far-reaching and many never recover.
When you “kill” the spirit of another, you wound them in ways that are far-reaching and many never recover.
Watch your words. Find ways to use them to build up your children (no matter how old they are), your spouse, and those around you. Kind words can water the soul, nurture the spirit, and when used effectively bring renewal not only to ourselves, but to others.
The tenth commandment is an interesting one. Where all the others are actions to be done or to be avoided, the last commandment actually speaks to motive or thought. To covet someone else’s possessions is to think about what they have that is better than yours and then take the step of wanting it for yourself. It is the last commandment that will lead you to break number 8, which can lead to breaking number 9. Of course, if you break 8, 9, and 10, you will have dishonored God in the process breaking the first three. And so it goes.
Remember the words of God to Samuel that man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. We must be careful of becoming discontented. Where our hearts are can lead us in the wrong direction.
Making it Real
The very first commandment after those that honor God is one that honors our parents. Parents represent God to their children. Good parenting reflects well on Him; poor parenting can have disastrous effects. Not all are blessed with parents that have taught them well and treated them kindly.
If you were blessed to have such parents and they are still alive, call them now and spend some time with them. Or buy a card or write a letter of appreciation and thanks.
If you struggled with your parents, and perhaps there is distance between you, is there something you can do to reach out to them? Is there a way you can represent the kindness of Jesus to them in spite of the broken relationship?
If your parents have passed, be thankful for the memories that you have. Maybe spend some time looking at an old photo album. Tell some stories to your children. Demonstrate to them how to “honor parents.”
Respond & Share
Something I learned from my parents that taught me about God is . . .
Please share with us in the comments!
Merle Poirier writes from Silver Spring, Maryland, where she works as the operation manager for Adventist Review and Adventist World magazines as well as the designer for KidsView, a magazine for 8-12-year-olds. She enjoys spending time with her family including being the grandmother of two active little boys, who greatly enjoy Starting With Jesus.
Coming next week:
Exodus 20:3, Exodus 24, 32,34;
Patriarch and Prophets: pp. 309-342; 363-373;
The Story of Redemption: pp. 142-150;
The Bible Story, vol. 2, pp. 157-176 | <urn:uuid:d74270eb-eb5d-40ae-9f04-5c0922da9da8> | CC-MAIN-2023-06 | https://startingwithjesus.com/lesson-28-how-we-love-others/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-06/segments/1674764500042.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20230203024018-20230203054018-00805.warc.gz | en | 0.976661 | 1,329 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The Retreat from Moscow
In the autumn of 1812 Napoleon, having again quarrelled with the Czar, marched into Russia with his grand army. At the beginning of the campaign he had four hundred thousand troops at his disposal.
As he advanced the Russian army fell back, destroying the towns through which they passed and burning the villages, so that the French might find neither shelter nor food awaiting them on their march.
At length, in the month of September, after many skirmishes had taken place and Smolensk had been reduced to ashes, the French found their enemy near a village named Borodino. Here a great battle, lasting twelve hours, was fought, both sides suffering enormous losses. Not fewer than seventy thousand men were killed or wounded.
But the Russian generals were not discouraged. They knew that winter was drawing near, and that erelong snow and frost would fight for them against the invaders. The army was therefore ordered to withdraw and leave Napoleon free to march on to Moscow.
When at length the French entered the capital they found it strangely deserted. They had toiled along in hope of food and shelter in the Holy City, and when it came in sight they had shouted for joy, "Moscow! Moscow!" But when they entered it, it was silent as a city of the dead. Only the wounded, the aged, the prisoners, had remained to receive the enemy.
Before the French had been in the city more than an hour or two, fire broke out in different parts of the town. The Russians had destroyed the fire-engines before they left, so that the French found it wellnigh impossible to put out the flames.
In spite of disappointment and discomfort the French troops found that the forsaken houses held much that they might plunder.
They spread themselves over the city, ransacking ward-robes and cupboards. Little food was to be found, but there were plenty of gay garments in which the excited soldiers clad themselves.
In the cellars, too, there was a plentiful supply of wine, and so they feasted and drank until at length they were worn out and fell fast asleep.
As they slept the cry of fire arose once more. A strong wind was now blowing, and as most of the buildings were of wood the flames soon spread in every direction, and it was plain that the city was doomed.
For two days Napoleon watched the flames, and only when urged by his officers to forsake so dangerous a place would he leave his quarters.
The Russian campaign had as yet brought little glory to Napoleon. He had, it is true, won some victories, but he had paid for them dearly in the loss of men.
And now, as he watched Moscow being burned to the ground, the great general began to feel that his plans were going awry.
Winter was coming on, the Russian army refused to fight, so Napoleon wrote to the Czar to propose terms of peace favourable to Russia.
The Emperor Alexander refused to listen. He believed that he had but to wait, and soon snow and frost would drive the invader out of his land, and with heavier loss than the French deemed possible.
It was already October when Napoleon determined to order the retreat from Moscow.
For Russia the winter was meanwhile unusually mild, and at first the French army struggled along bravely, although the country through which it had to march was utterly desolate and little or no food was anywhere to be found.
The army had set out laden with the spoils that it had gathered at Moscow, but as the weather grew colder and colder, and as it grew weak for want of food, the road was strewn with the treasures the soldiers dropped by the way.
By November the army was within three days' march of Smolensk, where it hoped to find shelter and provisions.
But now the snow began to fall in great blinding flakes, while the wind rose whirling them hither and thither, so that soon the soldiers' eyes grew dazzled. Before them stretched naught save an endless desert of snow.
Shivering with cold, without so much as a crust of black bread, many of the men fell by the way. Nor did their comrades dare to linger by their side, lest they too should share their fate and perish in the storm.
To add to the horror of the march, the enemy now began to hang upon the rear of the French army, or to fall upon those who had wandered from the road.
Fierce dogs, too, prowled about, feeding on the bodies of those who had fallen, yelping hungrily for more victims when their horrid meal was ended.
Onward, still onward, pressed the miserable army. Reaching Smolensk, it rested for a few days before pushing on toward the river Dnieper, which at length loomed into sight. Across its frozen waters the soldiers marched, those who crossed last, however, being attacked by the Russians.
Encouraged by General Ney, one of Napoleon's bravest officers, the rearguard, in spite of its weakness, fought its way through the enemy's ranks and succeeded in rejoining Napoleon, who was with the main body of the army.
Before the French reached the next river, the ice had begun to thaw. The Beresina was usually a small, harmless stream, but now it was in flood, blocked, too, with half-thawed ice.
When Napoleon reached the bank, it was to find that the bridge by which he had counted on crossing the river was in the hands of the Russians.
Despair gripped the hearts of the wretched soldiers and showed upon their faces, but the emperor's face was immovable, his will as iron.
Orders were given that two light bridges should be built and thrown across the Beresina. The men worked desperately, the bridges being their one hope of escape, and soon they were ready and safely placed in position.
On 26th November a large number of soldiers crossed the hastily made bridges in safety. But on the following day the Russian army arrived at the bank of the river and placed its cannon so as to command the bridges.
In despair, those miserable soldiers who were still on the farther side of the river, hampered now by desperate stragglers and camp-followers, attempted to cross the bridges, only to be slain by the fast-flying shot and shell of the enemy.
So great was the rush for the bridges that at length one of them gave way. Then terrible cries arose from those who were plunged into the icy waters beneath, to be drowned or shot by the enemy.
When it was seen that one bridge was gone, a general stampede was made for the other.
Many finding it impossible to reach the bridge, threw themselves into the water to try to swim to the other side. But there were few who were not crushed to death by the ice-floes or frozen to death by the cold.
On the 29th, while still many of the French remained on the farther bank, the order was given to set fire to the bridge, that the enemy might not be able to cross the river.
Then those French folk who were left helpless on the other side, uttering piercing cries, threw themselves into the river, while the Russians from the banks shot, without ceasing, at the struggling mass. It was a miserable remnant of Napoleon's grand army that at length reached a town in Poland, where it could have food and shelter. From twenty to twenty-five thousand had lost their lives at the river of Beresina. Thus ended the terrible retreat from Moscow. | <urn:uuid:28196c93-d525-459a-952e-e8b00b163fb0> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=macgregor&book=france&story=retreat | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662675072.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220527174336-20220527204336-00709.warc.gz | en | 0.989921 | 1,593 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Beta vulgaris ‘Detroit Dark Red’ Family: Chenopodiaceae
(bee-TAY vul-GAR-is) Common name: Detroit Dark Red beet; Detroit Early Dark Red; Early Detroit; Early Dark Red; Detroit Blood; Detroit Blood Turnip; Detroit Dark Red Turnip; Detroit Dark Red Beetroot
Zone: 5 – 10
Height: 8 – 12 in (20-30.5 cm) Spread: 4 in (10 cm)
Aspect: full sun; partial shade
Soil: fertile; friable; moist
Water: regular; needs 1 inch (2.5 cm) per week
Days to maturity: 55 – 70
Description: A biennial, early to mid-season beet variety with uniformly round 3 inch (7.5 cm) roots. Colour is a deep dark red throughout.
Special Notes: Heirloom, open-pollinated variety. Original selections were made sometime before 1774 by a Mr. Reeves of Port Hope, ON from the ‘Early Blood Turnip’ (syn. ‘Early Blood Red’), a European variety dating back almost 75 years earlier. Further improvements were made to this beet by D. M. Ferry and Co. – the first to list this beet in their 1892 catalogue as ‘Detroit Dark Red Turnip’.
How to Grow: Direct sow seeds in the garden when soil temperature is a minimum of 4.5 °C (40 °F). Optimum soil temperature range is 10 °C to 29.5 °C (50-85 °F). Sow seeds one inch (2.5 cm) apart and a half inch (1.25 cm) deep. Space rows 12 – 18 inches (30.5 – 45.5 cm) apart. Seeds will germinate in 5 – 24 days, depending on soil temperature. Ideal germination temperature range seems to be 15.5 – 18 °C (60 – 65 °F).
Sow successive crops every 2 – 3 weeks until the weather turns hot. Provide one inch (2.5 cm) of water per week otherwise roots may become tough or crack. Beets benefit from a side dressing of compost halfway through the growing period or apply compost tea or liquid seaweed every two weeks.
Beets prefer a soil pH of between 6.0 and 7.0. Work some Dolomite lime into acidic soils about two weeks before seeding. Adding peat to alkaline soils will lower the pH.
Working some Complete Organic Fertilizer into the row before seeding is a good soil amendment. It contains the necessary nutrients and some lime to adjust the soil pH. Find the recipe here.
Seeds of this beet variety are actually a cluster of 4 seeds. All four usually germinate which dictates some judicious thinning once the seedlings are two inches (5 cm) tall, allowing 4-6 inches (10-15 cm) between. Harvest when roots are one to three inches (2.5 – 7.5 cm) in diameter for best flavour. Late sowing of beets can reliably be left in the ground in Zone 7 gardens or warmer if mulched well with a four inch (10 cm) layer of straw or leaves.
Flea beetles can also be a problem. Covering the row with spun-cotton floating row cover will deter them.
Aphids may also be a problem as they can transmit viral diseases such as Virus Yellows disease, in particular – beet yellows virus (BYV), as well as beet mosaic virus (BtMV). Control aphid infestations with a strong jet of water to dislodge them. Repeat spraying with water every week to ten days to catch any strays. Usually takes only one or two repetitions but keep a close watch for a further infestation.
Downy mildew fungus, Peronospora farinosa, causes red-rimmed spots on beet leaves. It is caused when the plants are growing too slowly or when the roots dry out. Will spread quickly during hot and humid weather conditions. This fungus usually just affects the leaves but can also spread to the crown and top of the root.
Powdery mildew, Erysiphe betae, has similar symptoms to downy mildew. Warm, dry weather conditions usually are the instigators of an infection. Can also affect the root crown as well as the leaves.
Posted on February 28, 2014 | <urn:uuid:ed30a51f-44e4-49ad-a291-31f93fc944d3> | CC-MAIN-2017-39 | http://duchessofdirt.ca/beta-vulgaris-detroit-dark-red/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-39/segments/1505818689373.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170922220838-20170923000838-00505.warc.gz | en | 0.916134 | 921 | 2.8125 | 3 |
When somebody steals your identity online they use your personal information to pretend to be you or assume your identity when transacting so that they can gain access into your resources, obtain credit under your name, or other services. If you are a victim of online identity theft you can lose all the resources that you have worked so hard for and you may also suffer the consequences of the actions done by the cybercriminal who stole your identity.
How do cyber thieves obtain your personal information?
Here are the most common ways that are used by cyber thieves when they want to gather personal or confidential information for online identity theft:
- Some steal your personal information using malicious software or breaches in your browser security
- Large scale online identity theft happens when someone manages to hack into computer networks and company database. This allows the hacker to acquire the personal information of clients, use it to steal their identity or sell the personal information for a profit.
- Email phishing or sending emails or links which masks them as legitimate companies that will ask you to enter confidential information such as your credit card or social security number.
- Getting personal information from published posts in social media sites.
- Gaining access to victim’s emails and diverting the incoming emails to gain access into your personal and financial information. This is also done to divert bank or credit card statements of accounts that you are not aware of and delay your discovery of the unauthorized activity.
- Gaining your trust and befriending you or somebody in your family through social media sites to trick you into giving out your personal and financial information.
How can you protect yourself now from online identity theft?
The ease at which people can now have access to the internet is increasing the chances of criminals to gain access to personal information to steal their identities. But there are ways for you to protect yourself from online identity theft. You should always be wary of sites that ask for personal information especially for your credit card and social security numbers. When purchasing online make sure that you only transact with legitimate sites to ensure the security of the information you provide. Monitor your bills, bank statements, and credit score for anything unusual. These things will surely give you a clue that somebody is possibly posing as you.
When using public internet connection from a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, it is a good idea to secure your connection with a VPN. A VPN is a virtual private network. It will protect the data you are transmitting through your WiFi connection.
Identity theft is a serious matter and you may lose all the things that you have worked for as well as the integrity of your name so ensure that you and members of your family are being smart when using online services and social media sites. | <urn:uuid:03e254a7-7013-4175-8996-2ae81c1fb4d3> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://atcenternetwork.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500822560.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021342-00449-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936516 | 546 | 2.71875 | 3 |
When it comes to knowledge of its own relationship using the person among modern philosophers and the character of the overall, you will find excellent arguments that return to the conversations of historic and ancient thinkers. One of the contemporary oriented philosophers that are positivist, habits that are nominalist is extremely typical. They genuinely believe that particular typical organizations to tangible space time objects’ inclusion don’t clarify something. In the same period, they contemplate it suitable to make use of common conditions, a lot of that are theoretical, that’s, they’re section of ideas. Consequently, realists (they’re known as Platonists) accuse the nominalists of underestimating the particular information of the most popular, within energy to turn common conditions into minor phrases. Evidently, the unity of the jobs of the disputants of realizing the truth of the most popular and its own shortening within the person on the road can be done.
Therefore, the thought of the standard is of vital significance for contemporary technology. Conflicts of realists and nominalists don’t eliminate this reality. The discussions’ logical meaning is just a further knowledge of the general’s character.
Then your person is of a particular one when the standard centers around the visit a normative one. Lastly, the connection between the standard and also the person mediates the specific. Let us evaluate numerous conditions: guy – Euro – Euro from Moscow – resident, who lives in Moscow. Below the conditions that are severe convey the person and also the overall, correspondingly, and also the two conditions that are imply repair the specific. All understanding takes an obvious alignment within the percentage of the common (common), the specific and also the person.
The person and also the overall, obtained not their interconnection, but although in remoteness from one another, are named correspondingly the trend and also the substance. Substance is known here like a oneness of variety. Therefore, in technology what the law states may be the substance of phenomena that are solitary. By what is crucial, more substantial than different events if, nevertheless, the overall is known whilst the likeness of personal phenomena, a number of their aspect, subsequently usually the idea of substance can be used, but about crucial. The particular may also be thought to be important. Important isn’t fundamentally a one that is typical.
Philosophers particularly regularly attempted to comprehend their education of breaking of trend and substance and also the character of the relationship with one another. Hegel pressured the oneness of trend and substance. The substance is, the trend is substantial. Hegel’s substance is energetic, it exhibits itself. Protests were triggered by this attribution of the substance of the caliber of exercise. Dialectical materialists (Marx) and credited the home of exercise to personal phenomena: primary particles, creatures, people impact one another. The system doesn’t affect. Hence, physical phenomena don’t affect. | <urn:uuid:9906faf6-0156-4545-b8e4-766f62ba0fd1> | CC-MAIN-2018-39 | http://easierwithpractice.com/the-nature-of-philosophy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267159165.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20180923075529-20180923095929-00263.warc.gz | en | 0.949381 | 603 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Individuals and social groups have always been cyborgs because we have always existed in tandem with technology. Today, with the vast proliferation and diffusion of new technologies throughout society, techno-human syntheses occur in more aspects of our lives than ever before. Advances in medicine augment our bodies with technology (e.g., pills, pacemakers, IUDs, breast implants, Viagra, contact lenses). Communication is increasingly technologically mediated (e.g., radio, television, the web). We are experiencing a proliferation of personal devices like the smart phone, which is, essentially, a computer we carry with us wherever we go, often sleeping with them at our bedsides and using them check our profiles and messages first thing in the morning. It is not difficult to imagine a future where we begin to look like the cyborgs found in movies; however, our definition goes far beyond the half-human, half-robots propelled into the popular imaginary by science fiction and cyberpunk because technology is about more than electronics. The layout of a prison or a school is a technology of discipline; language is a technology of thought and communication; cultural norms themselves are technologies of social organization—in every instance, technology is the product of a particular historical moment and it becomes integrated into the social life of that period.
Our focus is as broad as these examples suggest, but we most often focus on new technologies. Today, the reality is that both the digital and the material constantly augment one another to create a social landscape ripe for new ideas. As Cyborgologists, we consider both the promise and the perils of living in constant contact with technology.
Cyborgology was created by Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey. Visit the Editors & Authors page to learn more about the entire Cyborgology crew. Logo and header by Ned Drummond. Society Pages site design by Jon Smajda. | <urn:uuid:c3ebb5e7-193c-4c9f-9db6-f7be67f9123d> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/about/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662573189.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220524173011-20220524203011-00257.warc.gz | en | 0.94064 | 385 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Overcoming Obstacles to Innovative State Regulatory Programs
GAO-02-268: Published: Jan 31, 2002. Publicly Released: Mar 4, 2002.
- Accessible Text:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues regulations that states, localities, and private companies must comply with under the existing federal approach to environmental protection. This approach has been widely criticized for being costly, inflexible, and ineffective in addressing some of the nation's most pressing environmental problems. The states have used several methods to obtain EPA approval for innovative approaches to environmental protection. Among the primary approaches cited by the state environmental officials GAO interviewed are EPA's Project XL and the Joint EPA/State Agreement to Pursue Regulatory Innovation. Officials in most states told GAO that they faced significant challenges in submitting proposals to EPA, including resistance from within the state environmental agency and a lack of adequate resources to pursue innovative approaches. EPA recognizes that it needs to do more to encourage innovative environmental approaches by states and other entities. As a result, EPA has (1) issued a broad-based draft strategy entitled "Innovating for Better Environmental Results" and (2) adopted the recommendations of an internal task force, which advocated the consideration of innovative alternatives as new regulations are developed. | <urn:uuid:b9f6eb29-a310-4765-842d-aa7c4fea95b0> | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-268 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-35/segments/1408500823169.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20140820021343-00248-ip-10-180-136-8.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944505 | 255 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The Pneumatic Institution (also referred to as Pneumatic Institute) was a medical research facility in Bristol, England, in 1799–1802. It was established by physician and science writer Thomas Beddoes to study the medical effects of the gases that had recently been discovered. Humphry Davy headed the Institution's laboratory, examining the effects of laughing gas on himself and others, and James Watt designed much of the lab's equipment.
After Lavoisier had established the role of oxygen in animal respiration, members of the Lunar Society, such as Joseph Priestley (who had co-discovered oxygen), originated pneumatic chemistry, which eventually led to the establishment of the Pneumatic Institution.
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was unusually educated about Chemistry, visited Thomas Beddoes in his laboratory in Hope Square, Bristol, in December 1793. He had set it up earlier that year to study possible medical uses of the recently discovered gases. During her second, extended, visit, "the idea of replacing the existing outpatient facility with a hospital—a Medical Pneumatic Institution—was first formulated." In 1794, she tried to persuade Sir Joseph Banks, who was President of the Royal Society of London at the time, to lend support to Beddoes' efforts. Sir Joseph refused, citing scientific objections in addition to his political concerns about Beddoes' sympathising with the French revolution. Even a supporting request from Watt did not change Banks' mind.
Beddoes had moved from Oxford in 1793 and established himself as a physician. He moved near to the Hotwells area of Bristol where many sufferers from tuberculosis were gathered in the hope of a cure. By 1794 Beddoes had arranged for the manufacture of suitable apparatus by the firm of Boulton and Watt and the first of the "pneumatic patients" was a Mr Knight of Painswick, whom Beddoes treated with "unrespirable airs" for a deep-seated ulcer of the pelvis. By 5 March 1795 Beddoes was reporting successful treatment of paralytic patients and ordering an apparatus and oxygen for a Mr Gladwell in Clifton.
Between 1792 and 1798, Beddoes had collected and published many "case histories" sent to him by other sympathetic physicians, from many parts of the country, and principally concerning the inhalation of oxygen and hydrogen.
In November 1798, Beddoes rented two buildings at 6 and 7 Dowry Square, in Hotwells, and in March 1799 the laboratory was moved into the smaller one and the Institution was publicly announced. Beddoes anticipated that scientific investigations and medical treatment would be carried out side by side.
Humphry Davy's experiments
In March 1798, the curiosity of Humphry Davy was aroused by dramatic statements made in Samuel Latham Mitchell's Remarks on the gaseous oxyd of nitrogen and its effects (1795) that nitrous oxide had disastrous effects whether inhaled or in contact with the skin, that it was indeed the very "principle of contagion".
Davy joined the Pneumatic Institution in 1798 as the laboratory operator, largely through the recommendation of Davies Giddy, and it was here that he undertook experiments that included himself inhaling nitrous oxide, which he called laughing gas for its effects. Davy was to describe his work at the Institution in his Researches, chemical and philosophical, chiefly concerning nitrous oxide, or dephlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration (London, Murray, 1800).
This and other gases were administered, without charge, to willing subjects, particularly those with diseases considered to be incurable at the time. Although the initial aim had been to treat patients with tuberculosis, most of the patients treated suffered from some form of paralysis.
James Watt's involvement
James Watt supported the Institution because conventional methods had failed to help against his son's pulmonary tuberculosis (known as consumption at the time), which had previously claimed his daughter Jessie.
In the last days of Jessie Watt's illness, on the advice of Erasmus Darwin, Beddoes had been called in to administer his new respiritory treatment and, although lacking suitable apparatus, had arranged for the girl to breathe "fixt air" (carbon dioxide). The treatment, not surprisingly, had no beneficial effect and Watt's daughter died.
Watt designed many of the apparatuses and techniques necessary to produce and administer various gases.
Disestablishment and legacy
The Pneumatic Institution was converted into a normal hospital when typhus broke out in Bristol in 1800. Davy left in 1801 to join Sir Joseph at the Royal Institution. The Bristol Pneumatic Institution closed down in 1802. Many of the techniques and tools developed by Watt for the Pneumatic Institution are still used in modern medicine.
- Duncum, Barbara M. (1946). "Ether Anaesthesia 1842–1900". Postgrad Med J. 22 (252): 280–281. doi:10.1136/pgmj.22.252.280. PMC . PMID 20276652.
- Bergman, Norman A. (1998). "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Princess Diana: a parallel". J R Soc Med. 91 (4): 217–219. PMC . PMID 9659313.
- Stansfield, Dorothy A., Stansfield, Ronald G. (1986). "Dr. Thomas Beddoes and James Watt: Preparatory Work 1794–96 for the Bristol Pneumatic Institute". Medical History. 30 (3): 276–302. doi:10.1017/s0025727300045713. PMC . PMID 3523076.
- Cartwright, F. F. (1950). "Humphry Davy's Contribution to Anæsthesia". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 43 (7): 571–578. PMC . PMID 15440782.
- Pearce, David (2008). "Utopian Surgery. Early arguments against anaesthesia in surgery, dentistry and childbirth". Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- Martin, Lawrence. "Oxygen Therapy: The First 150 Years". Retrieved 5 April 2011.
- "James Watt biography — Science Hall of fame — National Library of Scotland". National Library of Scotland. 2009. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- Grainge, C. (2004). "Breath of life: the evolution of oxygen therapy". J R Soc Med. 97 (10): 489–93. doi:10.1258/jrsm.97.10.489. PMC . PMID 15459264.
- Jay, Mike (2009). The Atmosphere of Heaven: The Unnatural Experiments of Dr Beddoes and His Sons of Genius. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12439-2.
- Stansfield, Dorothy A. (1984). Thomas Beddoes M.D., 1760–1808. Chemist, Physician, Democrat. D. Reidel Publishing Co. pp. 145–174. ISBN 978-90-277-1686-6. | <urn:uuid:5f084ddc-99e7-40f5-b70b-fa9dab3a5bf8> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_Institution | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917120878.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031200-00547-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940821 | 1,499 | 3.34375 | 3 |
ARCAS Wildlife Trafficking Enforcement
Awareness raising and enforcement
Although it emphasizes the importance of environmental education, ARCAS also recognizes the need to enforce existing national and international laws and works together with its governmental counterparts the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP) and the Guatemalan green police (DIPRONA) to strengthen the enforcement of wildlife laws in Guatemala, offering training courses, supporting anti-trafficking patrols and carrying out awareness-raising campaigns. Some of these wildlife trafficking enforcement activities have been supported by the Humane Society International, USAID and the US State Department.
Although we can receive confiscated animals at any time of the year, the wildlife trafficking season in Guatemala is April-August, which is the beginning of the rainy season and also the breeding season for most of the animals of the Peten region.
During this season, we receive 20 – 80 animals per week, usually brought to us in battered cardboard boxes. 90% of these are the result of confiscations by police or customs officials at roadblocks or in local markets. 80% of the animals received at the Rescue Center are parrots and macaws, and 90% are juveniles needing constant care. Please see the inventories of animals in the Annual Reports on the publications section of the website. These inventories include animals received in Guatemala City and in Hawaii as well as Peten.
ARCAS receives 300-600 animals per year, between mammals, birds and reptiles. Volunteers at the Rescue Center in Peten can help rescue, rehabilitate and release into the wild these animals.
The sea turtle nesting season in Hawaii on the Pacific coast is July-December, with peaks in August and September. Volunteers are needed to take part in nightly patrols, collect research data and release of hatchlings on the beach. Confiscated iguanas, crocodiles and parrots are also received at the Hawaii Park.
Email ARCAS at [email protected] and join our team of volunteers who come to help us from all over the world. | <urn:uuid:1b879fbd-4b2b-44f1-b2fc-5f36df6cfd89> | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | https://arcasguatemala.org/what-we-do/wildlife-trafficking-enforcement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-31/segments/1627046153966.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20210730091645-20210730121645-00417.warc.gz | en | 0.947413 | 409 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Tips for Reaching Your Goal
Maybe you intend to lose thirty pounds. Or perhaps you want to finish writing the next Great American Novel, clean out the garage so you can get the car inside, or chart your family tree. Whatever your goal is, here are a few tips to help you reach it.
Think about your goal as an end product. Then think about the process of achieving that product. Now you can change your thinking from reaching the end result goal to working your way along the process.
Divide the procedural path toward your goal into several smaller subgoals or intermediate endpoints along the path. Create a map that follows your process path and gets you to the final goal. Write it or print it out and post it where you will see it often.
Make a To Do list of tasks along the path to each subgoal from the prior subgoal or from your starting point. Put those items into your daily calendar. Check them off as you do them each day. You are trying to establish these actions as habits.
Think of appropriate rewards. These can be tiny for accomplishing your daily To Do. Maybe sitting quietly and listening to one song by your favorite artist after you have filled one trash bag of discards from the garage. Rewards can also be more substantial for reaching an intermediate goal point. How about downloading a new novel for your e-reader once you have written and edited three more chapters? Rewards should not interfere with your progress. If your goal is weight loss, don’t reward yourself with a candy bar.
Find your motivators and use them. This can be inviting a friend to exercise with you every day on Zoom. It could be attaching your goal to a cause, such as choosing a charity to support as you use your treadmill. It could be posting your progress on Facebook or magneting a snapshot of yourself in a swimsuit to the refrigerator door.
Allow yourself some flexibility. Things happen, situations change, and you may need to adjust your subgoals or even your goal. Remember, some progress is better than none.
How Healthy is Your Breakfast Cereal?
An easy way to find the answer to that question is to ignore the advertising and the appealing messages on the front of the box and look at the nutrition label.
First, how much fiber is in a serving of that cereal? Never purchase a cereal with less than 3 grams of fiber per serving. Five or more grams of fiber is even better. Undigestible fiber helps regulate your blood sugar and your feelings of hunger. Dietary fiber is an important aid to preventing many diseases.
Second, check the calories per serving. Healthy types of breakfast cereals serve up less than 120 calories per serving. (While you are at it, look at the serving size. You may need a smaller bowl at breakfast to limit those calories!)
Finally, look at the added sugar. Your serving of cereal should have less than 13 grams of sugar. Don’t even think of sprinkling on more. In addition to weight gain and tooth decay, excess sugar in your diet increases your risk of heart disease and other health issues.
Saturday, February 27, 2021
February 28 is Rare Disease Day
February is Heart Health Month, but there are other important dates in the month. Feb 28 (or Feb 29, if available) is Rare Disease Day.
Did you know that 1 in 20 people will live with a rare disease at some point in their life? Over 6,000 rare diseases have been identified. Unfortunately, there is no cure for the majority of rare diseases and the causes of many are unknown.
You can learn more about rare diseases in Second Life. At 10am SLT (Pacific time), Gentle Heron will present information about Rare Disease Day at the Research Pavilion on Virtual Ability’s Healthinfo Island. Join us here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Healthinfo%20Island/135/198/30.
At noon SLT, Community Virtual Library and Conrado F. Asenjo Library at the University of Puerto Rico will share awareness information about rare diseases here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cookie/184/226/21.
EURODIS (Rare Diseases Europe) is the organization that began Rare Disease Day awareness events in 2008. They are holding a fundraiser all day with DJs and music at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tainted%20Island/155/209/2004.
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Things to Do - Healthinfo Island Exhibits and Displays for February 2021
|Heart Healthy Month - Keep Your Heart Pink and Healthy!|
February is Heart Health Month!
You can teleport to any of the eight displays and exhibits using the SLURLs in this notecard. Click on the poster with the same name as the title of the poster set, and you will get a notecard that contains all the text of the posters plus descriptions of the images.
If you click each poster, you will get a message with additional information and live links.
Central Pavilion of Healthinfo Island
Heart Health Awareness Month
Alcohol and Your Heart
Signs of Heart Disease That You May Not Recognize
Surprising Heart Facts (a quiz!)
Things You Didn't Know About Cholesterol
How We Damage Our Hearts
Preventing Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) | <urn:uuid:4a0a7be8-2ecf-4850-8fb5-9500d5820bc1> | CC-MAIN-2023-23 | https://blog.virtualability.org/2021/02/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-23/segments/1685224655092.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20230608172023-20230608202023-00761.warc.gz | en | 0.923739 | 1,351 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Northwestern investigators have discovered that dopamine signaling in the brain’s dorsomedial striatum promotes the development of compulsive behaviors in animal models, according to findings published in Current Biology. Talia Lerner, PhD, assistant professor of Neuroscience, was senior author of the study.
Corticostriatal circuits are neural circuits connecting the brain’s cerebral cortex to the striatum, a cluster of neurons within the basal ganglia that are responsible for controlling movement and reward-seeking behaviors. Prior research suggested these circuits control the expression of compulsive behaviors commonly observed in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and substance misuse disorders.
While corticostriatal circuits were thought be involved, the precise mechanisms that cause compulsive behaviors to emerge have remained unclear. Lerner and colleagues hypothesized that dopamine activity, which regulates the plasticity of corticostriatal circuits, played a crucial role in this process.
For the current study, the investigators studied dopamine activity in two regions of the brain’s striatum, the dorsomedial striatum and the dorsolateral striatum, which are involved in different types of reward learning: the dorsomedial striatum is involved with goal-oriented learning behaviors, while the dorsolateral stratum is involved with habitual behaviors.
Although it was previously thought that habit played a role in compulsion, to their surprise, the team found that dopamine signaling activity was actually upregulated in the mice’s dorsomedial striatum, where it predicted the development of compulsive reward seeking behavior.
“If compulsion looks like habit, we might have expected that the dorsolateral stratum would be more involved, but that wasn’t what we saw,” said Jillian Seiler, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lerner laboratory and first author of the study.
The investigators then utilized excitatory and inhibitory optogenetics — using light to change the activity of neurons — to manipulate the activity of dopamine neurons innervating the dorsomedial striatum. They found that stimulating dopamine signaling in the dorsomedial striatum increased compulsive reward seeking and inhibiting dopamine signaling in the dorsomedial striatum decreased compulsive reward seeking, confirming that the associations they had observed were causal.
The findings improve the understanding of the root causes behind compulsive behaviors, which may help providers better determine which management strategies will work best for individual patients, as well as improve the design of management strategies overall.
According to Lerner, the study also highlights an opportunity to further study individual variability with compulsive behaviors.
“We saw this wide span in how likely the mice were to naturally become compulsive. Neurobiological variability is an interesting thing to take advantage of to understand how psychiatric illnesses might result from being on the tail ends of distributions, and looking what circuits control that variability in animal models will be really important for understanding human variability,” Lerner said.
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health K99/R00 Award R00MH109569, a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and National Institutes of Health Diversity Supplement R00MH109569-04S1. | <urn:uuid:dc1c2f1f-10e9-46eb-b92e-b11bf0f7934c> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2022/02/study-finds-dopamine-signaling-promotes-compulsive-behavior/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662533972.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220520160139-20220520190139-00682.warc.gz | en | 0.930573 | 653 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Takfir: Its Dangers & Rules
Takfir – accusing a fellow Muslim of apostasy; of having left the fold of Islam and being a disbeliever (kafir) – is indeed a grave affair in Islam. It is a fitnah, or “sedition,” whose flames were historically put out by the defeat of the Kharijites (khawarij), only to be set alight again in our times, on a global scale, by a highly-politicised reading of Islam. It is one of the worst fitnahs of our age, continuing to ensnare into its ghastly traps many a well-intended Muslim. But, as one piece of ancient wisdom goes, wa kam min muridin li’l-khayr lan yusibahu – ‘How many people intend good, but never reach it.’1
What follows is an elaboration of the basic rules and guidelines concerning the matter of takfir – of declaring another Muslim a kafir. For the purpose of clarity, the discussion has been divided into ten points or rules:
RULE ONE: Imam al-Shawkani (d.1250H/1834CE) sets the tone about the huge danger of rushing into making takfir, saying: ‘Know that judging a Muslim to have left the fold of Islam and entered into disbelief is something no Muslim who believes in Allah and the Last Day would proceed to do, except with a proof more evident than even the day time sun. It is confirmed in the authentic hadiths, related by a group of Companions, that: “Whoever says to his brother, ‘O disbeliever,’ it returns to one of them.”2 Its like occurs in the Sahih. And in another wording in the Two Sahihs and others: “Whoever accuses someone of disbelief, or of being an enemy of Allah, while he is not like that, it will return back to him.”3 In one of the Sahihs, the wording is: “It returns to one of the two.” So there are in these hadiths, and their like, the severest reprimand and greatest warning against hastening to make takfir.’4
RULE TWO: In terms of “stepping outside” the fold of Islam, the rule in this respect is: la yakhruju’l-‘abd min al-iman illa bi juhudi ma adkhalahu fihi – ‘A person does not step outside of belief, except by rejecting what brought him into it.’5 Classical law manuals will usually contain a chapter on apostasy and what necessitates it. Thus, for instance, Ibn Qudamah’s (d.641H/1267CE) authoratative fiqh manual, al-Kafi, states:
‘Apostasy (riddah) occurs by retracting the two shahadahs, or any one of them; vilifying Allah, Exalted and Holy is He, or His Prophet, upon whom be peace; falsely impugning the honour of the Prophet’s mother; rejecting any part of the Book of Allah; [rejecting] one of His prophets, or one of His books; rejecting a clear-cut agreed upon obligation, like the five [pillars of] worship; making lawful a well-known agreed upon prohibition, like wine, pork, carrion, blood, illicit intercourse or the like.
‘If this happens due to the person’s ignorance, or him being a recent convert to Islam, or his awakening from insanity and the like – he does not become a disbeliever, but is apprised of the law [on these issues] and of its proof. But if he persists, he does become a disbeliever, because the proofs of these clear-cut matters are evident in the Book of Allah and in the Sunnah of His Prophet. The rejection [of these matters] does not stem save from a person who gives the lie to Allah’s Book and to the Sunnah of His Prophet, peace be upon him.’6
RULE THREE: It is vital to understand at this point that denial (juhud), and “giving the lie to” (takdhib), are radically different from the act of just committing a sin (ma‘siyah). To clarify the point: A Muslim who drinks alcohol or eats pork, believing it to be sinful or forbidden – not intending to mock, deny or reject the shari‘ah – is still a Muslim (though a sinful one); who is required to repent and refrain from such sin. If, however, he believes it lawful to consume alcohol or pork, rejecting or shrugging-off the Qur’an’s prohibition, he denies a clear-cut Islamic edict and rejects an explicit divinely-revealed ruling; thus nullifying his faith and leaving the fold of Islam. That is to say, he becomes an apostate (murtadd) – God forbid!
The same goes for one who considers lawful stealing, murder, illicit intercourse – be it hetrosexual or homosexual – or any other prohibition which is clear and agreed upon. The same rule holds in the case of one who rejects or denies an established obligation such as the five daily prayers, the fast of Ramadan, zakat, or ensuring lawful income.
RULE FOUR: A common problem is that some people today, when they read in a book of Islamic law, or theology, phrases like: ‘Whoever does such and such has disbelieved,’ or: ‘Whoever believes such and such is a disbeliever,’ they jump to the conclusion that Muslims they know or have heard of, who hold such views, are kafirs. In their zealotry, or folly, these people have failed to uphold the distinction between a general charge of disbelief (takfir ‘amm), and between the charge of disbelief upon a particular individual (takfir mu‘ayyan). Ibn Taymiyyah (d.728H/1328CE) stated: ‘They have not given proper consideration that making takfir has certain conditions (shurut) and impediments (mawani‘) that must be actualised if it is to be applied to a specific individual. Because a general declaration of takfir doesn’t imply takfir upon a specific individual – unless if the conditions are fulfilled and the impediments lifted.’7
Ibn Taymiyyah reitterates the same principle that: laysa kullu man waqa‘a fi’l-kufr sara kafir – ‘Not everyone who falls into disbelief, becomes a disbeliever [because of it].’ He writes elsewhere: ‘It does not necessary follow that if a statement is disbelief, all those who said it – perhaps out of ignorance or misinterpretation – are disbelievers. Since affirming that a specific Muslim has become a disbeliever is like affirming the textual threat will be applied to him in the Hereafter. And this, as we explained elsewhere, has conditions that need fulfilling and impediments that need removing.’8
Again, from a slightly different angle, he says: ‘The textual threats which occur in the Book and the Sunnah, or words where the Imams make takfir or declare a person to be a reprobate (tafsiq), or the like, doesn’t necessitate it applies to a specific individual: except if the conditions are present and the impediments absent.’9
RULE FIVE: Just what are these conditions and impediments which need actualising, before a particular charge of takfir can be levied against a specific individual?
Essentially, there are three condition and impediments: (i) ‘Ilm: the person must have knowledge of the prohibition and not be ignorant (jahl) of it – to be discussed in more detail below. (ii) Qasd: it must be deliberate, intentional; not ghayr qasid, unintended. (iii) Ikhtiyar: the person must have freely chosen to do it, not being under compulsion (jabr): Whoever disbelieves in Allah after he has believed – except he who was forced, while his heart remained secure in faith – but those who open their breast to disbelief, upon them will be anger from Allah, and there awaits them a formidable torment. [16:106] 10
RULE SIX: As for knowledge (‘ilm), then careful juristic consideration shows it to be of three categories: Firstly, matters of Islam which everyone knows – whether scholar or layman, young or old. Such matters are technically referred to as al-ma‘lum min al-din bi’l-darurah – “Necessarily known to be part of the religion”. Secondly, issues which not everybody knows. Thirdly, matters differed upon by the scholars.11
RULE SEVEN: Denying anything of the first category of knowledge amounts to clear and manifest disbelief, for there is no excuse not to know these things in the lands of Islam except for someone who is a recent convert, or was raised in the wilderness or in a place where ignorance of the religion was rife and widespread. In this case, such people are treated like those from the second category.
Al-Nawawi (d.676H/1277CE) wrote: ‘Whoever denies something necessarily known to be of the religion of Islam is declared an apostate and disbeliever; unless he is a recent convert, or grew up in the wilderness, or for some similar reason was unable to learn his religion properly. He must be apprised of the truth. But if he continues as before, he is judged to be a non-Muslim. This is the same as with any Muslim who believes it lawful to commit adultery, drink wine, kill, or commit other acts that are necessarily known to be unlawful.’12
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: ‘Many people are born and raised in places and times where much of the prophetic teaching has been extinguished, to the extent that nothing remains of what Allah sent His Prophet with of the Book and the Wisdom. Such people cannot be charged with disbelief. This is why the Imams are agreed that someone who is born and raised in the desert regions, far from the people of learning and faith, or is a recent convert to Islam, and he denies any of the manifest clear-cut rulings, must not be judged a disbeliever until he learns about what the Prophet came with.’13
RULE EIGHT: Denying something of the second category – issues of the faith that not everyone knows – is only disbelief if one persists in denying it after he is made to understand that it is part of what Allah sent His Prophet, peace be upon him, with as religion. Before this he is excused for not knowing, because of it being inaccessible to him, or it is beyond what he is reasonably expected to know. The Qur’an states: We burden not any soul beyond its scope. [6:152] And: Nor do We punish until We have sent a Messenger. [17:15]
Also, Jabir relates: A donkey that had been branded on the face passed by the Prophet, upon whom be peace, and he said: ‘Is there anyone among you who has not heard that I have cursed those who brand or strike an animal’s face?’14 That is, whosoever has not heard it – i.e. does not know it – is not culpable of it, even if he did it.
RULE NINE: As for the third category – matters which scholars differ about – then such issues cannot be used as a yardstick to cast aspersions on someone’s orthodoxy; let alone charge them with disbelief!
This is the case provided it is a legitimate scholarly position – one which stems from a scholar qualified to make ijtihad or “juristic inference”; that the view not contradict a text which is qat‘i al-thubut and qat‘i al-dalalah – that is, “unquestionably established in its authenticity” and “incontestable in its meaning”; that it not oppose an ijma‘ or “juristic consensus”; and that it not be shadhdh; “irregular” or “anomalous” according to the canons of Islamic law.15
RULE TEN: Given the depth and subtleties involved in charging a particular Muslim with disbelief or apostasy; given also the immense enormity of doing so without due precaution or the prerequisite knowledge, such takfir must be left to the qualified and seasoned God-fearing scholars; and none else.
Indeed, no one should be desirous for a fellow Muslim to be expelled from the fold of the religion. The Prophet’s example – after all, it is he who is our exemplar – teaches us the utmost concern a Muslim must have for the guidance and welfare of others. One hadith states: ‘My example and yours may be likened to a man who kindled a fire, and when it had lit up its surroundings, flies and moths started falling into it. And although he tried to prevent them, they got the better of him and flew into it. In a like manner, I am holding you around your waists, pulling you away from the Fire, but you are trying to get free and rush head long into it.’16
Thus, a highly cautious and restrained Ibn Taymiyyah remarks that: ‘I am always – as those who sit with me know from me – from the strictest of people in forbidding that a specific person be accused of disbelief, iniquity (fisq) or sinfulness till the proof has been established to him, such that the one contravening it is, at times, a disbeliever; at times, a reprobate; and at other times, a sinner. And I affirm that Allah excuses this ummah its mistakes, whether it be in matters of beliefs or actions.’17
And Allah knows best.
1. These are the words of the famous Companion ‘Abd Allah b. Mas‘ud, as recorded by al-Darimi, Sunan (Karachi: Qadami Kutub Khanah, n.d.), 1:78-9, no.204.
2. Muslim, Sahih, no.60.
3. ibid., no.61.
4. Al-Sayl al-Jarrar (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, 1985), 4:578.
5. Cf. The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi (USA: Zaytuna Institute, 2007), §.79
6. Al-Kafi (Riyadh: Dar Hajr, 1997), 5:319-20.
7. Majmu‘ Fatawa (Riyadh: Dar ‘Alam al-Kutub, 1991), 12:487-8.
8. Minhaj al-Sunnah (Riyadh: Jami‘ah Muhammad b. Sa‘ud, 1986), 5:240.
9. Majmu‘ Fatawa, 10:372. Also cf. 35:165-6.
10. Consult: al-Bassam, Nayl al-Ma’arib fi Tahdhib Sharh ‘Umdat al-Talib (Riyadh: Dar al-Mayman, 2005), 4:357-60; al-Jibrin, Dawabit Takfir al-Mu‘ayyan (Riyadh: Maktabah al-Rushd, 2005); 10-25. I thank Shaykh Salim al-Amri for gifting me this last treatise.
11. Consult: al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, al-Faqih wa’l-Mutafaqqih (Dammam: Dar Ibn al-Jawzi, 1996), 1:434.
12. Sharh Sahih Muslim (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, 1995), 1:134.
13. Majmu‘ Fatawa, 11:407.
14. Abu Dawud, Sunan, no.2564.
15. See: al-Zarkashi, al-Manthur fi’l-Qawa’id (Kuwait: Wizarat al-Awqaf wa’l-Shu‘un al-Islamiyyah, 1985), 2:140; al-Shinqiti, Nathr al-Wurud ‘ala Maraqi al-Su‘ud (Jeddah: Dar al-Manarah, 1999), 636-8.
16. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, no.6483; Muslim, Sahih, no.2284.
17. Majmu‘ Fatawa, 3:229. | <urn:uuid:96f3f09f-069b-477f-8176-3449f2b2c898> | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | https://thehumblei.com/2013/04/03/takfir-its-dangers-rules/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-36/segments/1471982298875.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160823195818-00083-ip-10-153-172-175.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935416 | 3,667 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Psalms for Families: Devotions for All Ages, Introduction
Psalms for Families, by Robert J. Keeley and Laura Keeley, is a devotional book for the entire family designed to help parents explore the riches of the book of Psalms with their children and teens. These devotionals will help parents learn more about the psalms as they teach their children about praise, prayer, and lament. This book contains four devotionals on each of our selected psalms as well as notes for adults that provide additional information and background.
Why Read Psalms to Kids?
The psalms have served as the prayer book of God’s people for thousands of years. This book of poems and songs contains many beloved passages of Scripture, such as “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23) or “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psalm 51) or “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118). People turn to these words in their thoughts and in their prayers.
Perhaps we also love the psalms because of the emotions they express. Those emotions run the gamut from joy to sorrow, from praise to lament, and from pleading to thanksgiving. Psalms show us how we can respond to God, and they remind us that God knows us just as we are and hears us, even when our words are harsh. This is one reason why children and teens can benefit from knowing the psalms. When children are only exposed to the “feel-good” aspects of Christianity they may think that people of faith should not feel sad or angry. They may think that praise is the only attitude to have when addressing God and that they’re being “bad Christians” if they are hurting or have questions. The psalms reassure us that all these emotions are part of the human experience. It is important for children to know that they don’t always have to be happy to come to God. It is important that they learn how to tell God they’re sorry. It is important for them to learn how to ask God to help them. The psalms demonstrate all these things.
The psalms, though, are not children’s literature. They contain raw emotion and grown-up ideas that are sometimes difficult for children to grasp. Consequently there are some significant challenges to making psalms accessible to kids. Learning about the psalms together through family devotions is a great way to help children and teens understand them because it allows caring adults to explain and extend difficult concepts. There is no substitute for the good things that can happen when people of different ages study God’s Word together.
We intend this to be a family study, and we imagine adults, teens, and children gathered together, perhaps around a dinner table or before bed. These devotionals are kid-friendly and short enough to read at one sitting so that younger listeners stay engaged. They’re designed so that you will spend five or six days with one psalm. Working with the same psalm for a number of days is a variation of the ancient practice of lectio divina: read, meditate, pray, and contemplate. As you are working with a psalm, consider memorizing all or part of it together.
Here is a suggested weekly pattern for using these devotionals with your family.
Day 1: Read the entire psalm, followed by the suggested prayer. You’ll notice that some parts of the psalm are in bold print. To encourage more participation, ask one person to read the words in regular print and another person to read the words in bold. Children may also respond to the reading by drawing or doodling their impressions.
Days 2-5: Read a devotional each day for the next four days. Each devotional includes a reading of part or all of that week’s psalm. After the devotional, pray the prayer from the first day or create your own prayer based on the psalm. Each devotional is followed by a section called “Enter the Psalm,” which contains a suggestion for how your family can respond to the psalm in a more personal or active way. At the end of the four devotionals there is a section called “More.” It’s intended for adults and offers additional background about the psalm. You might want to read that section before you go through the psalm devotionals with your family.
Day 6: Read the psalm again. Talk about how your understanding of this psalm has changed over the week. How is it the same, and how is it different?
We tried to address each psalm as a whole. Some of the psalms are quite long though, too long for children and also too long to be read all at once by a family. We do, therefore, occasionally look at a psalm in small pieces, but we have tried to make sure that our reflection on each piece fits into the overall message of the psalm.
A number of the psalms begin with a superscription that explains the origin of the psalm. These superscripts often mention David. Sometimes they simply say “A psalm of David,” and sometimes they explain what was going on in David’s life when the psalm was written. Authorship is a relatively recent concept; at the time the psalms were written, people weren’t precise about who wrote which psalm. Noting that a psalm is “of David” might indicate that it was written in David’s honor or in David’s style. There is also general agreement by scholars that these notes were added to the psalms a long time after they were written, perhaps when the psalms were collected into one book. Since we are writing for families where children may be present, we want to make the devotionals as concrete as possible. So, for our purposes, in the devotionals we just accept the superscription at face value and assume that certain psalms were written by David.
To use these devotionals all you need is time together. It is our prayer that as you learn more about the psalms you will find your voice and your thoughts echoing the words and thoughts of the psalmist.
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Join Garrick Chow for an in-depth discussion in this video Understanding applications, part of Computer Literacy for Mac.
- Applications are the programs your computer runs and in which you'll spend most of your time when you're on your computer. Generally an application is any piece of software used to accomplish a task, whether that task is writing a paper, composing music, printing a digital photo, playing a video game, browsing the web, or checking your email. There are countless applications for countless purposes. Some applications come preinstalled on your Mac, like the web browser Safari, the music management software iTunes, or the Calendar app for keeping track of your schedule.
You acquire other applications either by purchasing them on an installation disk at a traditional store, or more and more these days you can buy and download applications over the web from software companies websites or through the Mac app store. Once you've purchased your applications from a store or downloaded them over the internet you'll follow instructions to install the software on your Mac. Unless you choose to install your applications in a different location for some reason, the applications you install should all end up in your Applications folder by default. Which you can get to by choosing the Go menu from the Finder and selecting Applications.
Notice you can also press shift + cmd + a. So you can see I have quite a few applications installed on my Mac. To run an application just double-click its icon. For example, I'll open up iTunes. So iTunes is now running. I can tell it's running because I can see it's name in the upper left-hand corner of the menu bar. It's icon has also appeared in my dock and I see this little dot under it's icon. On Macs all running applications appear in the dock making it easy for you to switch among the different applications. So I could switch over to TextEdit to bring that to the front. Notice it says TextEdit up here now. I could switch over to Safari and it says Safari there now.
So while you can have multiple applications running simultaneously, in order to actively use any particular application it has to be the front most, or active application. When you click an application's icon you bring it to the front of all the other applications and when you see its name in the menu bar you know it's the active application. For the most part Mac OS X is very good at managing multiple applications at once, but if you're done working in a particular application you might just want to quit it, so it's no longer running and taking up any attention from your computer. In just about all applications, you can click the application's name and chose Quit or press cmd + q.
Now many Apple applications, like Safari and TextEdit will automatically quit if you close all of their active windows. So for example, notice TextEdit is running, I can see it's icon here in the dock and there's a dot underneath it telling me that it's running. If I close this window it's still the front most application, but now if I click the iTunes window notice that the TextEdit application has automatically quit on its own. So some applications will quit when you close all their active windows, others will continue to run until you actually choose quit from their menu.
Now if you do find you use some applications more than others, and that's gonna be the case for anyone, it's convenient to add the applications icons to your dock. That way you'll have quick access so you don't have to open the Applications folder every time you want to run a program. So for example, if I did want to keep TextEdit in my dock I could go back to my Applications folder, find TextEdit, and just drag it anywhere to the left side of this dividing line here in the dock. As I pointed out in a previous chapter, applications go to the left of this line and folders go to the right. So if I drag TextEdit down into there notice icons start making room so I can place this where ever I like.
And when I release my mouse it's been added to the dock. So now whenever I want to run this application I just click its icon, which immediately launches it and I can start using the application as soon as it completely starts up. Now when I close this window and leave TextEdit, you can see the dot disappears underneath it, telling me it's quit, but it's icon is still here so I can quickly start it up. Now iTunes was not in my dock when I started it up and it's currently running. If you want to add an application to your dock while it's running, simply move it. Just the act of moving the icon to another place adds it to your dock.
So if I Quit iTunes, notice its icon stays there so I no longer have to go into my Applications folder to open it each time. Now I also suggest adding your entire Applications folder to the dock as well. To do so with the Application folder already open like it is here, just click on the little icon at the top of the window. The trick here is to hold down your mouse button without moving the mouse for just the split second you need until you see the folder icon turn dark. Then you can drag the icon, in this case to the right side of the dock. Notice nothing happens if I drag it to the left, but if I drag it to the right it makes room.
So now I'll close the Application window and now when I click on the folder down here in the dock I have immediate access to all of my applications. And this way I don't have to go hunting down my Applications folder every time I want to open an application. Now I do wanna show you how to customize these icons as well because notice this is the Home folder that I added previously, but it currently has the A icon which might confuse me into thinking this is the Applications folder. But that's just showing me the contents of this folder, the first of which is Applications. So combining some of the techniques we've looked at already, I'm gonna right-click on that folder to bring up some options here.
I'm gonna choose to Display this Home folder as a Folder, rather than a Stack and notice that gives me the default icon for the folder. So that makes it a little bit more easier to identify what this folder actually is. If I right-click on it again I can choose how the contents are displayed. I can choose Fan, which looks like that. I'll right-click again. I can choose Grid, which is what we saw by default. Or I could right-click again and choose List, which looks like that. And that gives me sort of a hierarchy of folders I can browse through.
And I can do the same thing with the Applications folder. I'll right-click and change that to a Folder appearance. And because I have a lot of applications, maybe I want to turn this into a List. So now when I click it I can easily scroll through all my applications this way. Alright, so there's your (mumbling) on what applications are, where to find them, and a couple of tips for being more efficient when comes to locating and running your applications.
Note: This course was recorded on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. To upgrade to Yosemite before you begin, watch "Installing and running Mac OS X 10.10 for the first time."
- Working with a laptop versus a desktop computer
- Understanding the five traits almost all applications share in Mac OS X
- Printing on a Mac computer
- Setting up a scanner
- Connecting to the Internet
- Sending and receiving email
- Searching the Internet
- Importing and editing images from a digital camera
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‘It is the intellectual and experimental challenge of our lifetime’
Flying low along a mountain ridge in central Argentina, Clayton Eveland slaloms right and left, steering the plane through one cloud after another, each one turning the cockpit windshield briefly white. Reaching the end of the range, he wheels around and takes a lower pass, the plane’s sensors sampling the air between the clouds and their shadows on the patchwork farmland below.
A former bush pilot now working for the Department of Energy, Eveland has flown through just about every type of cloud the planet has to offer: sprawling stratus decks above the Alaskan tundra, atmospheric rivers flowing toward the coast of California, low ocean haze in the Azores, and orange pyrocumulus plumes sent up by firestorms in Washington state (which he describes as a “hoot”). Eveland likens skimming along the Argentine mountains to surfing, though every time he says something like that, he’s quick to boast about his caution. “This isn’t like Twister. We don’t just drive around looking for bad stuff to happen,” he says in his Arkansan twang. “Our sensors have sensors.” Laughing, he gestures to a plastic hula girl suctioned to the cockpit dashboard. “And when she falls off, it’s time to go home.”
Eveland is part of a team of about 60 people who have come to Argentina’s Córdoba province to chase the clouds. In the back of the plane are four scientists who enjoy the flights somewhat less than Eveland does; staring at instrument displays as the plane pitches and rolls, someone always throws up. On the ground, other researchers are readying weather balloons and preparing heavy blue trucks mounted with radar dishes. If all goes according to plan, later today, they will capture a high-fidelity picture of the birth, life, and death of a cloud.
Climate change has made gathering such data an urgent matter. Clouds play a profound role in the climate system: some types block sunlight, cooling the Earth, while others act as greenhouse gasses and heat it. Yet no one knows exactly how the clouds will behave as the climate warms. Ever since scientists started running climate models in the late 1960s, clouds have remained the largest single source of uncertainty about just how hot the Earth will get in response to carbon dioxide. They are a major part of the reason why scientists give predictions about the future climate as a range: about 3 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit if carbon dioxide concentrations rise to twice their preindustrial levels, which is a point we are on track to reach by mid-century. It’s a margin of error that runs from bad to catastrophic — the difference between billions more people subjected to deadly heat, between damaged coral reefs and the end of them, between the inundation of not just Miami but of Osaka, Shanghai, and Kolkata as well.
There are signs that clouds hide even more dangerous tripwires. Earlier this year, Tapio Schneider at the California Institute of Technology simulated the sprawling banks of stratocumulus clouds that currently blanket the oceans. When he tripled the level of carbon dioxide, the clouds abruptly disintegrated. Global temperature shot up 14 degrees, reaching a point last seen 55 million years ago, when crocodiles swam in the Arctic. “It was shocking, my God,” Schneider says. “There are unknown unknowns, things that people didn’t think could happen because climate models don’t capture it, but in reality they might happen. We need to get these models better fast.”
The cloud problem has remained unsolved in part because clouds are astonishingly complex, made up of trillions of microscopic droplets swirling about chaotically. Modeling even a single one at high resolution requires the fastest supercomputers in the world; modeling a planet’s worth will be beyond our capabilities for decades. We would get the answer too late. Dave Randall, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University, calls it an “infinite problem,” like trying to simulate a human being down to the individual cells. It is “the Higgs Boson of the theory of climate, and climate change,” The World Climate Research Programme wrote in a call for cloud research. “It is the intellectual and experimental challenge of our lifetime.”
Not only are clouds complex, but there isn’t much data on them. Useful satellite records go back only to the 1970s, and even then, they only provide a view of the cloud tops, not what’s happening beneath them. Gathering the necessary data requires airplanes, balloons, and all manner of radars and lasers, as well as solving a more basic problem: if clouds defy prediction, how do you know where and when to set everything up?
The scientists in Argentina have been becalmed for days, waiting for something to happen. As bored people often do, they passed the time by chatting about the weather, periodically gazing out the windows of the hotel where they had set up their headquarters and confirming that the weather was still, regrettably, nice: blue skies, 80s, a bit muggy in the afternoons. Picking over the breakfast buffet, they lamented the layer of hot, dry air that was preventing storms from forming and talked wistfully about a zone of low pressure spinning off the coast of Chile, which the forecaster has given the Godzilla-like moniker “Mega Trough.”
Today, it is expected to approach the coast. At the morning briefing, the mission’s forecaster tells the scientists that there is a high likelihood of lightning, hail, and flooding. There are murmurs of excitement across the hotel conference room. As Eveland flies laps through the clouds overhead, the researchers hurry to get ready for the storm.
There are 10 basic types of clouds, according to the International Cloud Atlas, which can be further subdivided into 15 species. Each of the scientists in Argentina has their favorite. Lenticularis, a lens-like cloud formed by air passing over mountains and often mistaken for flying saucers, is a popular one, as are mammatus, the orb-like protrusions that form beneath powerful storm clouds. But the favorite by far is the cumulonimbus, the thunderhead, the tallest and most violent cloud, flinger of hail, shooter of lightning, spawner of tornadoes, and the origin of the phrase “cloud nine,” for the page it filled in an early edition of the Cloud Atlas, and because it can touch the heavens. The thunderhead is what they are here to chase.
A cumulonimbus is a convective cloud, forming when hot air rises and the moisture in it condenses onto dust and organic matter floating in the air. Imagine a boiling pot, one of the researchers in Argentina explained. Instead of the burner, you have the sun heating the ground. The rising bubbles are the clouds. The first to appear is the cumulus, the archetypal benign puffball cloud of cartoons. Often, it will simply hang there until it evaporates, but if the air is hot and humid, the cloud will keep bubbling upward to the tropopause, the lid about 10 miles up beneath which most of our weather occurs. The cloud splashes against this limit, forming a cumulonimbus’s characteristic “anvil.” To continue the cooking analogy, it’s now reached a roiling boil. Lightning flashes, and cloud droplets swept aloft by immense updrafts freeze and fuse into hailstones. The process can be as powerful as an atomic bomb.
And this sparsely populated stretch of riverside resorts and cattle ranches on the Argentine Pampas has some of the best cumulonimbus in the world. Steve Nesbitt, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois and one of the co-leaders of the mission, has been eyeing the region since he was in graduate school 20 years ago, when he watched his adviser pore over satellite imagery in search of the most intense storms on Earth. Some confluence of atmospheric currents and geography causes puffy cumulus clouds to form and explode into ferocious storms with unusual frequency. And what storms! Cloud tops that touch the stratosphere, lightning flashing more than a hundred times a second, hail the size of cantaloupes, Nesbitt says.
The hail in particular was notorious for wrecking buildings, cars, and crops. Days before, hail had bashed in the nose cone of a passing airline on its way to Santiago. (When I rented a car to follow the storm chasers, the clerk offered insurance for all manner of destruction except, he emphasized, hail.) A storm in 2015 lasted only 45 minutes, but it was seared into the memory of a local weather watcher: a calm morning, cool air, and then a sudden deluge of ice. “The town was divided in two,” he says. “It was a total disaster. More than 300 cars destroyed. Flooding because hail clogged the street drains and made blocks of ice. The roofs of houses were collapsing under the weight.”
Nesbitt, who grew up enraptured by lake effect snow in upstate New York and still has a boyish enthusiasm for extreme weather, knew he had to get here.
Like Nesbitt and many others on the mission, Adam Varble, a scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the campaign’s other co-leader, has been entranced by storms from a young age. In his case, it was watching thunderstorms roll across the plains in southeast Wisconsin. But where Nesbitt’s enthusiasm comes off as languidly awestruck, Varble is all meticulous intensity. For him, the appeal of Córdoba’s storms is not their violence, but their dependability — that the spot is a “natural cloud laboratory.”
The challenging thing about clouds is that they are both very large and very small. Clouds cover two-thirds of the planet, but if they all fell to Earth, they would form a puddle no deeper than a human hair. Varble is preoccupied with clouds at the smallest scale, a realm that is paradoxical and poorly understood. Explaining a process as seemingly simple as rain sends him off on spiraling caveats: about the way cloud droplets can remain liquid at temperatures far colder than freezing, how they can suddenly freeze and explode, how their shards interact chaotically with neighboring droplets, and how it all gets very, very complicated. These small-scale processes determine much of cloud behavior, which, in turn, has a profound influence on the climate system.
Most models used to predict future climate, however, work by dividing the Earth into grids of 100 kilometers to a side. Capturing small-scale cloud processes would require computers billions of times more powerful than anything available today, so researchers around the world are racing to find other ways to bring down the resolution: nesting fine-grained cloud models inside coarser global ones, simulating clouds with machine learning, and searching for new rules and patterns in cloud behavior. For any approach, more data on clouds is needed, but measuring floating, always-changing clouds presents challenges of its own.
The sheer variety of instruments shipped in for the Argentina mission is a testament to its difficulty. There’s the plane, festooned with sensors, its wings hanging with golden prongs, razor-sharp to capture frozen cloud droplets without shattering those nearby. But the plane can only capture a narrow slice of the cloud, Varble says, and it must turn back if hail begins to form. A satellite will target the area during the operation, but it can only see the cloud tops.
High on a desolate ridge to the west, the scientists have built a fortress of sensors and shipping containers: a white volleyball radar housing, lasers pointing straight up, an upturned trapezoid emitting digital chirps measuring windspeed, a rifle-like turret tracking the Sun, a thin metal chimney sucking in air and sampling the particles floating in it, a camera that photographs individual falling raindrops, a mirrored dome measuring the portion of the sky covered in clouds. When I visited the site with Varble the day before, it felt like stepping onto a moonbase, all the devices swiveling and chirping, each one measuring a different aspect of the clouds but, Varble lamented, none giving a full picture.
The researchers also have a convoy of mobile radars and other vehicles with which to catch their cloud. They stayed up the night before figuring out a plan, moving their units around satellite maps like pieces on a game board. Along the highway in front of the ridge where models said a storm might form, they placed pickup trucks with mast-like weather sensors on their hoods. Behind them, they stationed three heavy-duty flatbeds with spinning Doppler radar dishes. Other teams will scatter sensors in ditches and fields, completing the net. Finally, three teams armed with weather balloons will take measurements of the air. If a storm forms, the hope is that one will be close enough to chase it and throw a balloon into the cloud itself.
Varble will stay in the hotel conference room with a dozen other scientists, watching satellite feeds and helping direct the operation over WhatsApp. Nesbitt, after weeks of managing logistics from the hotel, will take a turn in the field, leading one of the balloon teams.
The sky is still blue as the vans, trucks, and radars file out of the field behind the hotel where they had been parked. Their truck loaded up with helium tanks and balloons, Nesbitt and three grad students start driving south. The mood is tense. Any moment could bring an update saying a storm had formed at the wrong place or time and the mission is scrapped, or that they have to race to salvage it. To break the tension, Nesbitt drops a song into the operation’s WhatsApp group: AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”
Eveland is flying laps along the ridge, diving in and out of the building clouds, which have grown from stray puffs to cotton candy plumes.
Weather prediction is cyborg work. Computer models are invaluable, but they must be weighed against other models and trued by people with experience of how they’ve performed. Sensors provide important information about what the atmosphere is doing, but they must be supplemented with simple visual observation, and few clues are as important as clouds.
Eveland is self-deprecating about his knowledge of clouds, saying he never knew they went by so many names until he started flying the scientists. But he knows what to look for.
“I always thought there were just fluffy, nice clouds and mean, angry clouds,” he jokes. Mean, angry ones look like a fist with knuckles, their crispness a sign of their power. He gives those a wide berth; they mark updrafts that can flip a plane and fling hailstones for 20 miles.
The clouds to his south, back by the airport, were looking angry. He’d been watching them grow taller all morning, and now he could see the hazy white splash of a cumulonimbus’s anvil high in the atmosphere. Varble had been watching the storm, too, from the satellite feed on his laptop back at the command center. Fearing the plane would be cut off, he tells Eveland to head for home.
As Eveland speeds back toward the airport, clouds unfurl around him, and the sky takes on a sepia tint. The plane starts bucking even more than usual. He comes in to land, noting the ripples in the fields below indicating that the wind had begun to shift ahead of the storm. He hits the tarmac and makes for the hanger. Hail peppers the runway not long after.
But back in the operation zone to the north, the sky is still blue. The researchers have driven their radar trucks into position, anchored them with steel struts, and pointed their dishes at the ridge where they expect a storm will form. Now, there is nothing to do but wait.
Nesbitt’s truck is parked in a field along the side of a two-lane highway, in front of a large, unassembled radar that was shipped in the week before. When I drive up, he is lounging in the shade beneath the bed of his truck, watching the clouds through mirrored sunglasses. Insects whir, and the field shimmers with heat.
Days of weather simulations have brought the researchers to this point, but cloud droplets are too small to be picked up by radar, and models can’t predict exactly where and when a cloud will form and grow into a storm. From here onward, they will have to rely on their eyes.
“The clouds are like fingerprints,” Nesbitt says, pointing to the clouds along the ridge. “You can read them and instantly see what’s happening in the atmosphere.”
To him, the static scene is full of action: clouds “pop” and “bubble,” signs of tremendous energy and continent-scale atmospheric flows. Hot, wet air rising off the ridge is ripe for development into a powerful storm, but it’s being blocked by a layer of warm, dry air aloft. It needs a push. Maybe that will come as the sun continues to beat down and heat the ground, or maybe it will come from the approaching line of innocuous-looking cloud puffs to the south. Those clouds, Nesbitt says, are the result of the storm Eveland had just dodged, now visible as a sprawling white flying saucer in the distance. Its falling rain and hail have cooled the air beneath it, creating what’s called a “cold pool” — that blast of chilled wind that hits you before a storm. The cold pool is sliding north along the ground, pushing hot air up to form that line of clouds, and maybe, Nesbitt says, it will trigger a storm somewhere this afternoon.
This is a process not captured by current models, the way one storm can cause others dozens of miles away, so researchers have to fill in the gaps. “Most meteorologists who are any good have this kind of sixth sense about this,” Nesbitt says.
The researchers are also aided by locals who, like people everywhere, have their own weather lore. On a farm 50 miles to the south is a 28-year-old farmer’s son named Matías Lenardón who became obsessed with cloud formations and storms after lightning struck his house when he was five. In high school, he grew so frustrated with the lack of local weather data that he built a weather station and recorded its observations for the next 10 years without missing a single day. The radio station in Córdoba now calls on him for morning forecasts before his shift at the granary, and he helped the researchers place their sensors on his family’s farm. Nesbitt says Lenardón reminded him of himself as a kid.
Lenardón uses models and satellite data, but it’s the decade he spent watching the weather that gives him his edge. He knows, for instance, that if the models show a possibility of a storm in the afternoon, fog in the morning and clouds with a greenish tint mean it will be a strong one, and that lately they have been getting stronger, and forming faster, and coming from the mountains in the north rather than the plains to the south, as they used to.
People have used clouds this way for millennia, developing rules and rhymes about what they foretell about future weather. Think of “red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” or the dappled cloudlets of a “mackerel sky” signaling rain.
It’s not a far leap from there, especially for people whose livelihoods are closely tied to the weather, to seeing in the clouds not just meteorological signs but divine ones. It’s a quality that cuts across history and cultures: clouds acting as the tools of deities from Zeus to Indra, leading the Jews out of Egypt in Exodus, ubiquitous in Christian art as the abode of God and saints. Today, this role is given a secular revision in various conspiracy theories, from weather modification to airplane contrails. (As often happens, the theorists are part right and completely wrong: we are changing the weather, and clouds play a major part, even contrails, which have a significant warming effect.) Varble encounters theories like these wherever he’s working, and he always tries to do lots of community outreach in part to forestall rumors that something nefarious is happening with the US Department of Energy trucks that are parked on remote roads at odd hours, monitoring the clouds. In Colorado, park rangers told him to turn off a laser because it was turning the clouds green and freaking people out. Here in Argentina, as soon as the researchers arrived, they received an email with dozens of photos alleging the region’s strange clouds are the work of aliens.
It’s fitting, then, that we’re now looking to the clouds to see what the future holds, and maybe it’s these prophetic associations that make news of their changes so eerie. This summer saw thunderstorms near the North Pole and outbreaks of a rare type of shimmering nighttime cloud over Europe and the United States. Whether these noctilucent clouds have an impact on climate is unclear, but they are linked to increasing emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, making them a stark reminder that the changes underway extend to the upper atmosphere, and will be as inescapable as the clouds.
Other clouds appear to be changing in ways that are subtler but more ominous where climate is concerned. Since the 1980s, they have been migrating toward the poles where they will reflect less sunlight and amplify warming. They also appear to be moving higher in the atmosphere, which will worsen warming, too. The low stratus clouds that drift into California from the Pacific have been growing sparser since the 1970s, likely worsening droughts and wildfires.
“Clouds were kind of our last hope,” says Kate Marvel from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. They were the only real contender for a protective mechanism that might kick in and dampen the effects of climate change. But the more we learn, the more it looks like they could make things worse. “Nobody’s coming to save us,” Marvel says. “The Earth isn’t going to save itself. It’s really up to us.”
It is almost three in the afternoon, right around when the models said a storm would form. Conditions seem right for something to happen: the air is getting hotter and more humid, and the cold pool is sliding in from the south. Then the radars pick up a strange signal: a cloud of something flying toward them, too uniform in size to be precipitation. “It has to be biological,” says one of the radar operators. It is, in fact, biological: a swarm of locusts riding the northerly jet out of the Amazon. The enormous insects started appearing several days before, and the bored researchers had taken to measuring them with their hail rulers. They represented another bit of weather lore: locals said their arrival signaled a coming storm. The question was where it would form.
In the hotel conference room, Varble notices the clouds above the sensor site on the ridge are rapidly growing thicker. He switches over to the site’s cameras and sees clouds flowing in from the ridgetop, sliding across the blue sky like a stadium roof.
At the same time, the satellite shows the line of clouds 50 miles to the southeast, triggered by the airport storm, deepening. Either spot seems ripe for a storm.
Karen Kosiba is coordinating the operation. A scientist with the Center for Severe Weather Research, she’d chased tornadoes and ridden out hurricanes atop levees long after everyone else evacuated, and here in Argentina, she’d studied the roads and fields that would now become the redoubts and escape routes for the researchers. There’s a game-like quality to managing a campaign, she says, and now it was time to start putting her pieces in play.
Russ Schumacher, an upbeat atmospheric science professor from Colorado State University, had been waiting in a dusty field, sending weather balloons up every hour. Kosiba tells his crew to head south toward the line of clouds. Their mission is to get a weather balloon into an updraft, the rising hot air that gives storms their power. It’s a difficult task: you have to get under a storm and throw the balloon so that it catches the air currents and gets sucked into the cloud, all without getting hit by hail. Schumacher had boasted earlier that the two graduate students with him were some of the best updraft hunters around. Time to prove it. The three of them hop in their van and drive out of the parched field, dust devils eddying in their wake, toward the road that will take them south.
Nesbitt’s mission had been to take balloon readings in the cold pool behind the line of clouds, but he’s taken a break on his way south and is eating ice cream at a gas station in the town of Río Tercero. With Schumacher still 40 minutes away, Kosiba sees a chance to grab an updraft sample. She gives Nesbitt a new mission: stop eating ice cream, and throw a balloon into one of the deepening clouds heading his way.
Nesbitt’s team piles into the truck and heads west. He has goosebumps and tells himself to slow down as he drives through the sun-bleached pastel shops of Río Tercero. As they leave town, they see that the clouds ahead of them have grown tall enough to block the sun, casting shifting shadows on the fields. “Target in sight,” Nesbitt relays over WhatsApp.
The road begins to curve away from the clouds, and Nesbitt pulls onto the shoulder. It isn’t an ideal spot — there is a barbed wire fence and power lines, which could snare his balloon — but the clouds are floating north and will soon be out of range. Nesbitt’s team inflates the balloon as gusts ripple across the field.
When the balloon reaches the size of an exercise ball, Nesbitt unhooks it, walks to the fence, and shoves it clear of the powerlines. Its sensor swinging, the balloon drifts up and then curves sharply north, caught in the updraft, and is sucked into the underbelly of the darkening cloud.
Huddling around their laptop, the team watches as the readings for humidity and temperature converge: they’d made it into the cloud. Their detour a success, Nesbitt’s team jumps back in their truck and hurries south before the storm can break.
Back at the hotel, Varble watches the cameras at the hilltop site. He sees one cloud along the ridge bubble upward then subside, only to have another one appear two miles east, as if it had teleported.
At first, the scientists think this cloud, too, will fade. But it shoots upward and keeps going. Its top freezes and grows hazy, forming an anvil. Varble alerts the field teams that a storm has formed not on the plains, as they had expected, but farther north along the ridge. Kosiba tells the radars to start scanning the area.
It’s bad luck for Schumacher, who had just driven under that cloud on his way south. Kosiba tells him to turn around and try to get ahead of it. As he passes under the cloud once more, hail clatters off his windshield.
As Schumacher is driving, the storm explodes upward with such force that it punches through the tropopause and forms a white dome in the stratosphere. The researchers in the ops center watch the satellite feed as the cloud pushes into the jet stream, sending out a frozen wake like a rock in a fast-flowing river. A few researchers leave their desks and run to the hotel’s rooftop deck, where the cloud is now visible over the mountains as a bright white cliff. It has taken only 20 minutes to go from a benign cumulus to a “supercell,” an extremely powerful thunderstorm that can move in unpredictable ways.
Now north of the storm, Schumacher pulls onto a dirt road and starts inflating a balloon, but the storm lurches east. His team jumps back in the van and gives chase. They bounce down the rutted road as the storm churns ahead of them, drawing up twisting ropes of dust. Kosiba alerts them that it has begun to show tornado-like rotation.
“We’re trying our best to catch it,” Schumacher replies. “Not sure we’ll be able to.”
He comes to a stop once more. His students start inflating the balloon. One of them unhooks it from the nozzle and runs to the middle of the road, holding the balloon over his head with both hands as it pulls and distends in the wind. He lets go, but once again, the storm jumps away, and the balloon sails north into a sky that is already patched with blue.
But in veering away from Schumacher, the storm flies directly through the line of radar trucks that have been waiting since the morning. The researchers inside secure their doors as it approaches and triple-check their radars. Hovering above the plain, the storm looks like a dark jellyfish, the sky around it blue, but everything beneath it is hazy with hail and dust and lit by strobes of lightning. The radars are in the perfect position to scan its heart as it passes over, pelting the trucks with dirt and vegetation. As it cuts between the two southernmost radars, baseball-sized hail hammers the new radar Nesbitt had lounged in front of two hours earlier, bashing craters into its pristine shell.
And like that, the storm is gone, churning east, leaving tattered scud clouds drifting along the ground, and dark shapes keeling at odd angles in the sky. The air is cooler and smells of copper and cut grass.
“That thing was generating the biggest dust storm/haboob I’ve ever seen,” Schumacher writes in WhatsApp.
Nesbitt drives north and runs into Schumacher, and the two teams head back toward headquarters, watching new clouds build and darken and move off the mountains to their west. The scientists at the hotel direct the drivers to pause, then drive, then pause, as they frogger through the drifting storms. A lowering funnel cloud appears to their left and Nesbitt considers giving chase, but the message comes back from headquarters to return home: they’d gotten everything they need.
Back at the hotel, the researchers marvel at their luck, replaying the satellite feed and congratulating the field teams filing in, dusty, exhausted, and smiling. Schumacher’s updraft balloons had missed, but Nesbitt had scored a lucky hit during his detour earlier in the afternoon. Luckier still, the storm had formed right above the hilltop site, in range of its dozens of sensors. It then traveled through the center of the mobile radar network. It might be one of the best recorded supercells ever, Nesbitt says. “PhD theses will be written about this storm for decades.”
They could slice the cloud any number of ways. At its peak, it was about 25 miles across and poured down 1.6 million gallons of water per minute, more than enough to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. Floating above the plains, it contained 10 trillion drops of water and ice, including hailstones the size of tennis balls, thrown six miles above the Earth by 90 mile-per-hour updrafts. Once they checked the radar, the researchers could see that the swirls of dust they had witnessed were created by vortices just shy of meeting the windspeed definition of a tornado. (Still unclear to the researchers: why did it teleport off the mountain? What, ultimately, caused this cloud and not the others to grow into a storm?) There were, in total, about 10 terabytes of data on its brief life, too much to simply upload. It would have to be put on a hard drive, carried by hand onto a plane, and taken back to the lab where, the hope was, other scientists would use it to untangle the mysteries of cloud behavior or train their models to mimic it.
At his most ambitious, Varble’s hopes for what this research might accomplish can seem modest. “If we could help someone bring down the uncertainty by half a degree, help people adapt a bit, that would be worthwhile,” he says.
Climate change has always been bedeviled by uncertainty: after the established fact that carbon dioxide warms the Earth, that persistent margin of 5 or so degrees. This uncertainty has long been used as an alibi for not curtailing carbon emissions, most blatantly in attempts to undermine the science or downplay the danger, but also by creating an anesthetic haze where a more definite threat might be galvanizing.
This is an odd role for uncertainty to play, because it is one of the most frightening things about climate change. There is nothing comforting about the idea that it takes tremendous scientific effort, taxing supercomputers not yet in existence, to predict how systems that have remained largely stable since before the invention of writing are going to behave. While we’ve known the basics of climate change for decades, the largest uncertainties exist at the local level, which, Varble says, is what matters most to people: emergency workers in California wondering what will happen with wildfires, or farmers in the Midwest trying to plan around untethered weather. Climate change will reveal itself as a list of certainties we can no longer take for granted: the dependability of the seasons, the height of the tides, what grows where, that the future will look like the past.
As these elements of the natural world change, so will their meanings. Glaciers are becoming more explosive than timelessly slow, summer heat tinged with foreboding. The clouds, however, may not have to travel so far. It’s appropriate that clouds, so long associated with both omens and obscurity, would be the locus of so much that’s unknown about the changes we are setting in motion.
That storm was the first of many. It broke the seal on the heat and humidity that had been building for weeks, and a new pattern set in. Through the night and the next day, cloud after cloud spins off the mountain and sails over the plains below. As the sun sets, the storms begin to merge into something larger, and the radar trucks file out again for an overnight mission. By midnight the storms join into a single 100-mile system and begin to roll toward the command center, where researchers watch infrared satellite scans of their roiling cloud tops, impressed. Lightning flashes not just within the storms but between them.
“The cells are talking to each other,” says a resident lightning expert, rapturously.
“I hope we don’t lose power,” Varble says.
Then, at around one in the morning, the researchers cave to temptation and go upstairs to the roof deck to watch the storm arrive.
Videos made available by Steve Nesbitt, Russ Schumacher, Tristan Abbott, and the US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility.
GOES-16 satellite imagery courtesy of National Center for Atmospheric Research/Earth Observing Laboratory. | <urn:uuid:16ecbc60-467d-41e4-8e7f-cf5a7d4fd77e> | CC-MAIN-2020-24 | https://techamigo.net/actions/preview/1295927 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-24/segments/1590347417746.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20200601113849-20200601143849-00239.warc.gz | en | 0.95779 | 7,577 | 2.953125 | 3 |
July 22, 2016, by Tim Radford
Reduction of the Amazon rainforest’s canopy is contributing to climate change.
Image: Phil Blackburn via Flickr
Serious tree loss and stunted growth caused by repeated droughts in the Amazon Basin have damaged the rainforest’s vital ability to store atmospheric carbon.
LONDON, 22 July, 2016 – Researchers have confirmed once again that if the Amazon rainforest is one of the planet’s “green lungs”, it may be running short of breath.
Repeated drought and tree loss mean that there is increasing risk that the forest may one day cease to be a “sink” for atmospheric carbon released by the combustion of fossil fuels.
But even as climate scientists shake their heads in distress, plant taxonomists may be holding their heads in despair. They have just been told that so rich and various are the trees of the great Brazilian rainforest that another three centuries may pass before they can all be identified.
Both reports are the product of prolonged and careful study by generations of botanists, ecologists and foresters.
Scientists who monitor the Amazon Basin have for years been pointing out that loss of tree canopy is contributing to imminent climate disaster, and that extreme weather events associated with climate change can only make things worse.
They have also explained that the forest’s role as a carbon sink that right now holds 100 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of roots, wood and foliage is not just threatened. In a severe and prolonged drought, the forest is actually likely to release more carbon into the atmosphere, to stoke up further warming.
So the latest study, published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles journal is just another confirmation of some alarming portents.
Researchers looked at two dramatic droughts, in 2005 and 2010. They gathered measurements across nearly 100 locations and observed that, while both severe droughts killed trees, the second of the two slowed the growth rates of the survivors in the years that followed. The implication is that what didn’t kill trees made them weaker.
“The Amazon has been providing a tremendous
service, taking up hundreds of millions more
tonnes of carbon every year in tree growth
than it loses through tree death”
Study leader Ted Feldpausch, senior lecturer in geography at of the University of Exeter in the UK, says: “The first large-scale, direct demonstration of tropical drought slowing tree growth is extremely important. It tells us that climate changes not only increase the rate of loss of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, by killing trees, but also slow down the rate of uptake.
“And yet the Amazon clearly has resilience, because in the years between the droughts the whole system returned to being a carbon sink, with growth outstripping mortality.”
His co-author, Oliver Phillips, professor in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds in the UK, says that “the Amazon has been providing a tremendous service, taking up hundreds of millions more tonnes of carbon every year in tree growth than it loses through tree death. But both the 2005 and 2010 droughts eliminated those gains.”
Scientists have now been observing measured plots of primary forest in the region for decades, but the sheer richness and variety of the forest remains a puzzle.
An international team of scientists write in Scientific Reports journal that they examined all the tree data from the region – more than half a million inventories made in Amazonia between the years 1707 and 2015 – and began a species count.
Altogether they arrived at a checklist of 11,676 species of tree grouped into 1,225 different genera and 150 families.
New tree species
But the best estimates of those plant species more than 10cm in thickness at breast height – a rough and ready definition of a tree – in the whole region is now 16,000. That means that around 4,000 species remain to be discovered and identified.
One of the report’s authors, Nigel Pitman, senior conservation ecologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, says: “Since 1900, between 50 and 250 new trees have been discovered in the Amazon every year. Our analysis suggests we won’t be done discovering new tree species for three more centuries.”
Research such as this may be essentially academic – it is based on available data assembled in university and research laboratory libraries over centuries – but it has practical value.
People who wish to conserve forests have to begin with a better understanding of why some species are rare and some well-represented, and how the population patterns of tree species change with distance and time.
“We’re trying to give people tools so they are not just labouring in the dark,” says the study’s lead author, Hans ter Steege, biodiversity dynamics group leader at the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in the Netherlands, who has been mapping the rates of loss in the forest.
“The checklist gives scientists a better idea of what’s actually growing in the Amazon Basin, and that helps conservation efforts.” – Climate News Network
Tim Radford, a founding editor of Climate News Network, worked for The Guardian for 32 years, for most of that time as science editor. He has been covering climate change since 1988. | <urn:uuid:1862095b-ec4d-49ed-9916-35d044f72255> | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | http://climatenewsnetwork.net/drought-dries-up-amazons-green-lungs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-26/segments/1498128320887.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170627013832-20170627033832-00685.warc.gz | en | 0.949538 | 1,102 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Dutch Fork Wetlands
The Dutch Fork Wetlands’ diverse ecosystem is home to six pools, a meadow, observation deck and shelter house, as well as a variety of plants, birds, insects and mammals.
This area is a restored 70-acre wetland/grassland ecosystem. Historically, this was part of a larger wetland system in central Ohio. Over time, the original wetlands vanished as land uses changed and habitats were altered because of modern agricultural practices.
Considered a successful mitigation site, this ecological restoration project was brought to us by the Ohio Department of Transportation. | <urn:uuid:ac20fb31-7e71-4cdc-add2-ac8a717fa186> | CC-MAIN-2017-47 | http://dawesarb.org/explore/dutch-fork-wetlands/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-47/segments/1510934807044.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20171123233821-20171124013821-00130.warc.gz | en | 0.952796 | 119 | 3.078125 | 3 |
5 interesting facts about the Singapore River clean-up
Published on Jul 5, 2014 6:00 AM
The heavily polluted Ganges River made headlines recently, but this time for the right reasons. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised a clean-up of the river - and the rest of the country - by the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth in 2019.
Nearly four decades ago, our very own Singapore River was in need of an extreme makeover. Back in the 1970s, squatters, hawkers and manufacturing industries crowded the banks of the river, leading to severe pollution. The Government eventually mounted a large-scale clean-up, with enhancements over the years, forming the vibrant waterway that we know today.
We pick out five facts you should know about the Singapore River clean-up and improvements made to it over the years.
1. It was then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who called for the clean up of Singapore's rivers in 1977
Mr Lee said in February that year: “It should be a way of life to keep the water clean. To keep every stream, culvert and rivulet, free from pollution."
"The Ministry of Environment should make it a target: In 10 years let us have fishing in the Singapore River and Kallang River. It can be done," he added.
2. The Singapore River clean-up took 10 years and cost the Government $170 million
The clean-up involved a massive relocation of about 4,000 squatters, along with hawkers and vegetable sellers, whose daily waste flowed into the river. Public housing was found for the squatters, while street hawkers were persuaded to move to hawker centres.
Hundreds of bumboats ferrying goods from warehouses along the river to cargo ships out at sea were moved to a new lighter anchorage at Pasir Panjang by the Port of Singapore Authority.
Foul-smelling mud also had to be dredged from the banks and the bottom of the river, and debris and other rubbish cleared.
3. The clean-up was spearheaded by the former chairman of the Public Utilities Board and then Environment Ministry Permanent Secretary Lee Ek Tieng
The 81-year-old civil engineer and his team were handed the task of ensuring fishing and other recreational activities would be possible along the Singapore River and Kallang Basin in 10 years’ time. The Kallang Basin was being polluted by nearby pig and duck farms and cottage industries. Mr Lee's successful completion of the project within the deadline earned him a gold medal in 1987, and an acknowledgement from Lee Kuan Yew himself in his personal memoir.
4. The Government started the Clean Rivers Education Programme in 1987
The programme's goal was to raise awareness of the negative effects of dumping waste into Singapore's waterways, and to encourage people to keep the waterways clean. The programme was previously administered by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC). Current education programmes aimed at keeping the country's waterways clean are run by the Waterways Watch Society (WWS), a local non-profit, non-governmental organisation.
5. The Marina Barrage, a new addition to the Singapore River, was completed in 2008
The Barrage is a dam across the Marina Channel, used to control floods and create the reservoir. It has nine gates and seven pumps which pump sea water out to the sea, while keeping rainwater in. Costing $226 million, the dam was also a visionary idea for the river from Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. | <urn:uuid:5dc30186-6b4a-44fc-94c8-27b34842e558> | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/5-interesting-facts-about-the-singapore-river-clean-2014 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-22/segments/1432207928907.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20150521113208-00271-ip-10-180-206-219.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96544 | 726 | 2.796875 | 3 |
A straight-line rip saw is a heavy-duty machine that can make your lumber ripping work very efficient. Two of the best manufacturers to consider for high-quality woodworking equipment are Powermatic and Grizzly. In his review, we compare the Powermatic SLR12 and the Grizzly G0524 to see how they measure up in terms of many of the main features you need in a good rip saw. We also discuss important information about these types of machines and how they work.
What Is a Straight Line Rip Saw Used for?
A straight line rip saw wood saw that can make a straight cut parallel to the wood grain direction. This machine is commonly used in professional woodworking and sawmills. It is also known as a gang rip saw. This is a circular blade machine and usually has a radial design. Many woodworkers use straight line rip saws to rip random-width materials.
What Is the Difference Between a Crosscut Saw and Rip Saw?
The difference between these two types of wood saws lies in the kind of cuts they make in relation to the wood grain. A cross-cut saw makes cross-cuts, which are cuts across the grain. A rip saw, on the other hand, makes rip cuts, which are cuts along the grain. Cross-cutting is more difficult than rip-cutting as there are more fibers to cut across.
For this reason, you need a saw with much smaller teeth when you want to make cross-cuts. For a rip saw, it is common to have much larger teeth in the saw. Ripping is more commonly done with a 10-inch blade that has about 24-30 teeth in it. Another frequently used option is a 12-inch blade that has 40 teeth or fewer.
What Stroke Is the Rip Saw Designed to Cut on?
Rip saws cut wood on the push stroke for the American design. This means that as the saw is pushed through the wood, the cut is made. With this method, you can achieve a clean cut along the grain. Interestingly, the Japanese rip saw design cuts wood on the pull stroke.
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Straight Line Rip Saw
There are some advantages and disadvantages of a straight line saw that are worth looking at.
- Highly versatile with a range of varying workpiece widths
- Provide an excellent glue-line quality rip, meaning that it’s easy to cut straight lines
- Great for ripping random-width material
- Flexibility to rip around material defects
- Reduce waste and increase yields
- Limited production output per machine
- A highly manual process requiring operator handling
Features of the Best Line Rip Saws:
In this section, we are going to be looking at some of the most important features you should think about when you are looking for a line rip saw. As a professional, you need a machine that can meet the demand of your work and deliver reliable results.
Here are some things to consider regardless of the model you go with:
- The blade length or blade diameter is something to think about because it affects what kind of rips or cuts your saw can make with your chosen power tool.
- The cutting thickness or depth of cut capacity is an important specification on a straight line rip saw. If you want to cut thick wood workpieces, then you should look out for a wider cutting thickness.
- Feed speed also matters because various workpieces may require faster or slower cutting speeds. Ideally, you want a saw with variable speed settings.
- Motor horsepower affects how much work the machine is able to do. You should, therefore, look at the motor horsepower for both the feed motor and the main motor.
- Brand reputation is important, and there is no getting away from the value that a well-known brand name can bring. Some power tool manufacturers are known for their consistently high-quality products.
- The durability and quality of a machine are important. The construction should be reliable and should also provide stability when the machine is in use. There must be specific features and controls to protect the motor, blade, and conveyor from failing too soon. It is also important to look at what the warranty length, terms, and conditions are.
- Ease of use is always important because you do not want the operator to struggle with the settings. When a machine is too complex, this can lead to inefficiency and may also risk safety.
- Safety features are essential in a large and powerful piece of equipment like a rip saw. There is a lot of fast-moving and sharp parts in this product. A range of safety measures is needed, including auto-shut off switches and anti-kickback devices.
- The size of the machine is also important to consider because, depending on the size of your workshop or mill, you might not have as much space available. In general, these machines are quite large, so this is something to think about. You want to place the machine in a location where the operator and people who need to get near it can easily access it.
Powermatic SLR12 vs Grizzly G0524
We have covered some of the most important features to look for when you are choosing a straight line rip saw for your work. It’s now time to get into a full comparison review of two popular models: the Powermatic SLR12 and the Grizzly G0524. Looking at how these two machines stack up against each other in specifications, function, and everything in between can help you make the right decision.
To simplify the comparison, we have prepared a side-by-side look at the product information. After that, we summarize some of the key findings to help you decide which product is better for your use.
Powermatic SLR12, Grizzly G0524
Item Dimensions (L x W x H):
41 x 56 x 62 inches, 59 x 46 x 64 inches
2530 pounds, 2243 pounds
12 inches, 12 inches
Alloy speed, not available
Blade/ Spindle Speed:
4,500 rpm, 4,500 rpm
Maximum Cutting Thickness (Depth of Cut Capacity):
3-7/8 inches, 3-7/8 inches
Minimum Cutting Length (Maximum Ripping Width):
18 inches, 8 inches
Variable 30- 120 FPM, variable 30-112 FPM
2HP, 3-phase, 230/460V (the machine is prewired for 230V), 1 HP 220V/440V 3-phase (the machine is prewired for 220V)
15 HP 3-phase 230/460V, 15 HP 3-phase 220V/440V
Table Material, Floor to Table Height, and Table Size:
Cast iron, 32 inches, 55 inches x 35 inches vs cast iron, 32-1/4 inches, 53 inches x 37 inches
Dust Port Diameter:
4 inches 4 inches
1 year, 1 year
Higher price point, more affordable
Additional Features of the Powermatic SLR12:
- There are seven pressure rollers with anti-kickback. This safety feature helps to prevent stock discharge.
- The main blade is sand heat-treated arbor to improve the support and rigidity.
- Different types of stock can be accommodated with variable feed speeds.
- This straight-line rip saw has an auto oiler with shut-off. This setup extends the conveyor chain life.
- It is easy for the operator to adjust the position of the control box for added convenience.
- The dust collection port is an efficient system to keep the machine clean.
Additional Features of the Grizzly G0524:
- The conveyor table has a dual-bearing driveline.
- There is an exclusive 6-inch wide chain feeding conveyor table for smooth operation.
- With the dual-spindle lock, there is no risk of the spindle dropping while running.
- You can adjust the auto-lube system for precise lubrication intervals.
After looking at all the main features and specifications of these two straight-line rip saws, a number of key takeaways can be made. Each model has a lot to offer, so it really depends on what price you are willing to pay and what kind of operations you want to carry out at your sawmill or workshop. If your application requirements can be met by the more affordable Grizzly G0524, then it is an excellent equipment choice.
The main and feed motors of both of these straight line rip saws are comparable, as are the cutting thickness, the ground tables’ information, and the feed speed. We did, however, notice that the Powermatic straight line rip saws had more than double the ripping width of the alternative straight line rip saw. This point is worth noting if you have longer lumber, boards, or planks to cut through. The Powermatic also had a higher horsepower for the feed motor. This means that this particular machine may be more suitable for high production requirements. As far as size, it is slightly heavier and with a slightly lower volume than the Grizzly G0524.
As far as the additional features of each of the two machines looked at in this review, they both have some extra settings that can help the operator get better control of the machine. Both machines, for example, have a feature to allow automatic lubrication or oiling of the conveyor. This fact is very critical because it comes done the routine maintenance requirements of the machine. Lubrication is essential for a machine to work well, but people forget to do so more times than most people want to admit. A machine that is regularly maintained and lubricated is likely to break down less and last longer.
The Powermatic also has some standout additional features. The anti-kickback feature is an important safety feature. The Grizzly, on the other hand, offers smooth conveyor operation through several unique features that it has.
Other Top Straight Line Rip Saws
If you are looking for additional recommendations about brands and products in this category, here are some additional recommendations for when you need an excellent straight-line rip saw. You can also consider a table saw if you are not working with very large workpieces.
Both the Powermatic and Grizzly series have several other great options to look at, including some small and affordable table saws. Other manufacturers to look at, including Oliver and DeWalt.
In this review, we looked at some essential information about straight-line rip saws in general. We answered some of the top questions about what the machine is, how it works, and what info you need when you need a quality machine for your operations. After that, we went into an in-depth comparison of two top options, the Powermatic SLR12, and the Grizzly G0524. Each product has many great features, and although the two power tools have a lot of shared specifications, the better item depends on what kind of woodworking job you want the saw to do. | <urn:uuid:994462d0-6bbf-4aba-b441-3d1fccdf006b> | CC-MAIN-2021-39 | https://handyman.guide/best-straight-line-rip-saw/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2021-39/segments/1631780057427.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20210923165408-20210923195408-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.943758 | 2,268 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The name for the pomegranate fruit is derived from Latin and literally means "seeded apple." Only the seeds are edible and are found inside this large, hexagonal-shaped red fruit. An average pomegranate contains about 600 juicy seeds, also known as arils, which are encapsulated in white pith. The pomegranate fruit is low in calories, high in fiber, high in vitamins and high in phytochemicals that may promote heart health and help to prevent cancer.
- Natural Aphrodisiac
In many cultures, pomegranates have been associated with fertility and abundance for centuries because of their many, many seeds, but in recent years, headlines are even raving about pomegranate’s viagra effect. A study by Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh found that consumption of pure pomegranate juice significantly increased salivary testosterone levels (average of 24 percent) in addition to positive effects on blood pressure and mood. Elevated testosterone can lead to heightened moods and increased sexual desire.
- Aids Weight Management
As with many fruits, pomegranate seeds are low in calories and rich in fiber.
- Reduce Arthritis & Joint Pain
Arthritis is an inflammation of one or more joints, causing pain and stiffness that can worsen with age. Pomegranates make the list for natural arthritis treatments since they’re a source of antioxidants called flavonols, which act as anti-inflammatory agents in the body.
- Provides Vitamins C and K
Pomegranate seeds are a good source of two essential vitamins, C and K. Vitamin C aids in immune system function, wound healing, promotion of healthy gums and the manufacture of collagen and elastin. Vitamin C also enhances iron absorption. Vitamin K is important for maintaining strong, healthy bones as well as proper blood clotting.
- Fight Cancer
When it comes to cancer, more and more research shows that pomegranate seeds are a potent cancer-fighting food. Pomegranate has been shown to exert antitumor effects on various types of cancer cells.
Multiple studies show that pomegranate extracts inhibit the proliferation of breast cancer cells and even stimulate the programmed cell death of breast cancer cells. Pomegranate seed oil contains punicic acid, an omega-5 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid that has been shown to inhibit breast cancer proliferation.
- Lower Blood Pressure
The juice of pomegranate seeds contains different types of antioxidants and bioactive polyphenols that have been reported to promote cardiovascular health, including healthy blood pressure levels, through several mechanisms.
A 2013 study concluded that consumption of pomegranate juice should be considered in the context of both dietary and pharmacological interventions for hypertension (high blood pressure). Another study published in Phytotherapy Research also found that pomegranate juice is a beneficial cardioprotective supplement for hypertensive subjects and lowered blood pressure naturally after just two weeks of daily intake.
- Fight Bacterial Infections
Pomegranates contain hundreds of different bioactive compounds, including ellagic acid, ellagitannins, punicic acid, flavonoids, anthocyanidins, anthocyanins, estrogenic flavonols and flavones, which appear to be the most therapeutically beneficial pomegranate components. Pomegranate extracts have been used since ancient times to treat several conditions, including parasitic and microbial infections, diarrhea, ulcers, aphthae, hemorrhage and respiratory complications.
- Improve Memory
Studies have reported memory and other cognitive benefits of polyphenols, which are found abundantly in pomegranate seeds and their juice. One study published in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine generated intriguing data suggesting that pomegranate polyphenols may provide long-lasting protection from heart surgery-induced memory retention deficits.
One serving (87 grams) of pomegranate seeds contains:
Recommended Daily Intake of Grape Seed Extract Tablet :
|Which contains 100 g of pomegranate:|
|dieTary fiber||4.0 g|
|ToTal sugars||13.67 g|
|ViTamin C||10.2 mg|
|ViTamin B6||0.075 mg|
|ViTamin B12||0 μg|
|ViTamin A||0 universal uniT|
|ViTamin E (alpha-Tocopherol)||0.60 mg|
|viTamin D||0 universal uniT|
|ViTamin K||16.4 mg| | <urn:uuid:00b0ecd3-4345-486e-9091-552fa26b22f2> | CC-MAIN-2020-50 | https://www.turkattar.com.tr/pomegranate-seeds-extract-300-mg-60-capsules | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2020-50/segments/1606141177607.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20201124224124-20201125014124-00568.warc.gz | en | 0.892219 | 954 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Boreman, Arthur Ingram, 1823–96, first governor of West Virginia (1863–69), b. Waynesburg, Pa. A member (1855–61) of the Virginia house of delegates, Boreman opposed secession and presided over the Wheeling Convention of June, 1861, which set up the loyal government of Virginia with Francis H. Pierpont as governor. It was this government that consented to the partition of Virginia, and on June 20, 1863, Boreman was inaugurated as governor of the new state of West Virginia. Reelected governor in 1864 and 1866, he was elected in 1869 to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1875.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:ae9a655b-a898-4a7d-8642-7c1408ba328d> | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/people/boreman-arthur-ingram.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-50/segments/1480698541697.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20161202170901-00172-ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965006 | 168 | 3.15625 | 3 |
- Last updated:
- 08 Mar 2019
What is Trichodesmium?
Our subtropical climate on the Sunshine Coast provides warm and sunny conditions. These conditions can assist Trichodesmium to bloom in our waters. Trichodesmium are Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that appear naturally in tropical and subtropical ocean waters and are commonly known as sea sawdust, whale sperm, whale food and sea scum.
However during extended calm periods gas vacuoles cause it to rise to the water surface. Once at the surface it forms clumps which on close inspection appear to consist of little brown bundles of threads.
These bundles are just visible to the naked eye, appearing like tiny flecks of sawdust floating on or near the surface. The combination of calm conditions, northerly currents and warm water temperatures causes increased growth, with cell density often becoming great enough to colour the water creating a bloom.
Trichodesmium bloom - what to look for!
Trichodesmium blooms are often visible in the waterways and surrounding ocean of the Sunshine Coast region. The blooms can occur throughout the year but are most common between August and January when they can form very large slicks. Blooms are typically a rusty-brown colour, however some variations in colour may occur with grey, green and purple streaks being observed.
Are they toxic?
In most cases the blooms are harmless but if they deplete the oxygen content of the water, they can cause death to aquatic animals. If allowed to stagnate, Trichodesmium can release a clear, water soluble toxin. This is indicated by a change in colour of the Trichodesmium filaments from a rusty brown colour to a green colour accompanied by the release of a pigment which will colour the water pink. It is this pink colour in the algae that reportedly gave the Red Sea its name.
Generally the concentration of this toxin in natural systems is not sufficiently high enough to pose a threat to human health. Trichodesmium can be easily washed off the skin by rinsing with water. Under certain conditions these blooms or slicks may become beached.
This beaching can result in a putrid, almost ‘fishy’ smell along the beach.
These blooms, beached or free floating, usually disappear in a few days. Please remember if you have come in contact with Trichodesmium it can easily be rinsed off the skin.
Want to find out more or require some assistance?
Contact council's customer service centre on 07 54757272 for further information regarding Trichodesmium and waterways. | <urn:uuid:c42fd717-4075-478c-897a-eedf2fa37a89> | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | https://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/Environment/Education-Resources-and-Events/Environment-Resources-and-Publications/Coast-and-Marine/Algae-Blooms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-43/segments/1570986649232.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20191014052140-20191014075140-00300.warc.gz | en | 0.94046 | 551 | 3.3125 | 3 |
1851 (undated) 12.5 x 16.5 in (31.75 x 41.91 cm)
A fine example of Adam and Charles Black's 1851 map of China. The map covers China from the Chinese Tartary to Hainan and from Assam in India to Korea (Corea), inclusive of Formosa or Taiwan. Four inset maps detail Amoy, Hong Kong, ZhouShan and Hainan. The Great Wall of China is identified. Taiwan or Formosa is mapped vaguely, representing the poor knowledge of the region prior to the Japanese invasion and subsequent survey work in 1895. The map identifies both Hong Kong and Macao.
During this time in history, this region was dominated by China's last Imperial Dynasty, the Qing. As this map went to press, in 1851, the region was about to dissolved into one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing, lasing from 1851 and 1862, cost more than 20 million lives. Around the same time Second Opium War or the Arrow War, from 1856 to 1860, resulted in China concession of Tientsin and Hong Kong to the British.
Throughout, the map identifies various cities, towns, rivers, mountain passes and an assortment of additional topographical details. Map is hand colored in pink, green, blue and yellow pastels to define provincial boundaries. The map is engraved by W. Hughes and issued as plate no. 55 in the 1851 edition of Black's General Atlas.
Charles and Adam Black (fl. 1807 - present) were map and book publishers based in Edinburgh. Charles and his uncle, Adam, both of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded their publishing firm in 1807. They published a series of maps and atlases throughout the 19th century. In addition to an array of atlases, the Black firm is known for their editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1817 - 1826) and the first publishing of Sir Walter Scott's novels in 1854. In 1889 the A. & C. Black publishing house moved to London where it remains in operation to this day.
Black, A. and C., General Atlas Of The World, (Edinburgh) 1851.
Very good. Blank on verso. Original platemark visible.
Rumsey 2305.065 (1854 edition). Philips (atlases) 4334. | <urn:uuid:7c0a88b8-f2e7-4e5a-b306-84ea1048575c> | CC-MAIN-2018-47 | https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/china-black-1851 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-47/segments/1542039742567.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20181115054518-20181115080518-00378.warc.gz | en | 0.923441 | 494 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester by John Nicholls, Volume II, part II, and published in 1798 gives some fascinating stories about the Gartree Hundred area of South Leicestershire and several detailed accounts of the Kibworths. Copies can be found in local libraries.
The church on Church Hill in Kibworth Beauchamp is dedicated to Wilfrid. Who was he, and why is our church dedicated to a Romish saint?
Wilfrid was born a Northumbrian noble in 634. He lived for 75 years after entering the religious life as a 14 year old, studying at Lindisfarne and Canterbury before travelling to Rome in 654. On his return in 660 he became the abbot of a new monastery at Ripon and later oversaw the building of the original Abbey. His major contribution to the Christian life of England was at the Synod of Whitby in 664, when he championed the cause of Rome over the Celtic tradition of Christianity, and convinced everyone to adopt the continental method for calculating the date of Easter. Twelve years later he quarrelled with Ecgfrith, the King of Northumbria, who expelled him and he travelled to Rome again to plead his case to the Pope. He won his case but the King refused to honour the decree, so Wilfrid spent some time in Sussex , until Aldfrith, the new King, allowed him to return.
In 691, after a disagreement with King Aldfrith, he was again expelled from Northumbria and appointed Bishop of Mercia, which included Leicester , so he would have visited this area. He appealed to Pope Sergius I, during a third visit to Rome , and was successful again, and after Eadwulf, a new King came to the throne, he was appointed Bishop of Hexham and Ripon in 706. He died during a visit to Oundle on 24th April, 709. Historians see him mainly as a champion of Roman customs against the customs of the Celtic British and Irish churches.
As the site of St. Wilfrid’s is on a hill, it is a likely location for a religious temple or early church. Signs of it being important during the Romano-British period were found when excavating the foundations for one of the previous Rectories in the 18th century. The door frames of the priest’s door and Sacristy in the chancel are the earliest of the church, showing signs of 13th century stone work.
Many of the Rectors of Kibworth during the first 300 years from the start of our church’s records in 1220, were absentees or pluralists - that is they often resided elsewhere and looked after several parishes. The people of Kibworth were given pastoral oversight by curates or vicars appointed by the absentee-Rectors who were themselves appointed, or presented, by various patrons. In 1220 it is recorded that Hugo de Mortuomari, the Rector of Kibworth Beauchamp until 1239, was assisted by a vicar instituted by Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln. The patron of St Wilfrid’s in 1220 was Walter de Beauchamp and the patronage remained in the de Beauchamp (or Earls of Warwick) possession until at least 1435, which included the time of the Black Death in the 1350s, but there are few records over this period until the early 16th century.
There was a free chapel in Kibworth Harcourt from the mid 13th century until the early 16th century after which it was never used again and the site has now completely vanished, with its position possibly somewhere around the orchard of the Old House or Beech Tree Close. St Wilfrid’s Church has a list of chaplains for this chapel from 1262 to 1509.
Although the list of Rectors for the Kibworth benefice are recorded from 1220 starting with H. de Mortuomari, very little is known about the early incumbents as, like many other parishes, the Rectors were absentees and lived elsewhere, leaving the day to day running of the parish to others e.g. curates, while they benefitted from the living raised from the parish.
We begin to know a bit more about the Rectors from Walter Lucas (1510-1534) who was Rector at some stage of the suppression of churches during Henry VIII's reign, and it is recorded that the church was in ruins in 1526 possibly as the result of fire. The Crown, i.e. Henry VIII, took over the patronage in 1542 after Richard Pates (1534-1541) forfeited his benefice and was attainted (or "outlawed"). It is recorded this was because he failed to "accommodate himself to the varying beliefs of those in authority". In 1554, the second year of Mary I’s reign, the Rector, William Watkyn (1545-1554), was imprisoned and deprived of the benefice because of his failure to comply with Mary’s Catholicism. Edward Gregory (1554-1565) was Rector until well into Elizabeth I’s reign. Four members of the Berridge family took turns at being Rector and Patron between 1565 and 1641. There is a monumental brass to John Berridge in the sanctuary dated 1632.
William Hunt (1641-1645) was presented as Rector of Kibworth by King Charles I, but as a Royalist supporter, he was sequestered (i.e. separated or ejected from the parish) during the Civil War around 1645. In 1647 the Committee for Plundered Ministers established John Yaxley (1647-1660), a scholar of St John’s College, Cambridge and described as a sincere, plain-hearted, humble, pious and "very communicative" man.
In those days the timber-framed parsonage with two fishponds stood near the site of the old railway station (Isabel Lane). It is rumoured (strongly!) that King Charles I stayed overnight on the eve of the Battle of Naseby in 1645 and is believed to have expressed his gratitude by giving William Hunt an ornate silver snuff box. This was later sold to an aristocratic family by James Beresford (Rector, 1812-1841) to help raise money for the repair of the fallen spire in the 19th century. This same gift can now be seen on display in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
In the 16th and 17th centuries the Kibworth parish was a very valuable living for both incumbent and patrons alike. Three Berridges had been Rectors between 1565 and 1641 (William from 1565 to 1601, his son John between 1602 and 1632 purchased the patronage himself, and finally John’s son, William, 1632 to 1641) and they were absentee incumbents leaving the parish duties to their curates. In 1641 the son of the second William Berridge, also confusingly called William, as an ardent Royalist, gave the patronage to King Charles I who then presented William Hunt as Rector. In 1647, the Rev. John Yaxley, a graduate of St John’s College, Cambridge, and a Captain in Cromwell’s Model Army, forcibly took possession of the Rectory and the living, after ejecting Hunt, but was not officially granted possession until 1654. During his ministry the 14th century font, with trefoiled arcading, was removed as being too superstitious and ornate, and used as a horse-trough by a friend before being buried in a field until 1863 (see later). It was replaced with a plain font.
After the Civil War and the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II, William Berridge reported Yaxley’s treasonable preaching. Accordingly on August 17 1660, Berridge and his friends took the law into their own hands and forcibly ejected Yaxley and his family and had him arraigned for preaching that "Hell is broke loose; the Devil and his instruments are coming in, to prosecute the Saints and godly party" (meaning the King and his supporters would prosecute Cromwellian supporters).
John Yaxley took his case to Parliament and a full transcript of his defence and the reply from the local Justice, Sir John Prettyman, are both given in the History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester Vol. II, part 2, published in 1798 by John Nicholls.
According to Yaxley: William Berridge, with his two colleagues, Richard Clark and John Brian, broke into the parsonage and with drawn pistols and swords roused John Yaxley, his wife and maids from their beds. While Yaxley was watched by Clark, Berridge verbally abused Mrs Yaxley and thrust her tumbling down the stairs at sword point dressed only in her petticoat. After ejecting John Yaxley, the three men bolted the doors and took possession of the parsonage. Mrs Yaxley borrowed a waistcoat from her sister’s maid and returned to the Rectory. She saw Berridge, Clark and Brian in the parlour through the hall window and asked if she could be let back in to retrieve her clothes. She was refused admittance, but then noticing one of her grand-children still in a cradle and surrounded by soldiers, she shouted "You villains, will you kill my child?". Clark then fired at her through the window and the shattered glass went into her face and blinded both eyes. Yaxley commented later that she looked "more like a monster than a woman" and that she later died at a neighbour’s house never having regained her sight.
In his reply, Sir John Prettyman played down the actions of Berridge and his colleagues and stated that Mrs Yaxley had returned to the Rectory with several soldiers and after throwing stones and verbally abusing Clark and his soldiers, calling them "cavalier dogs and rogues", she told them that "if they would not depart they would fire the house on them". At this point Clark discharged his pistol, containing only powder, and caused some minor injury. The rest of Sir John’s reply emphasised that Yaxley had never been properly entitled to the incumbency and that during and after the Civil War he along with 36 other Leicestershire ministers had constantly petitioned that Charles I be tried for treason and had given thanks when he had been executed.
Yaxley was unable to prove his title and never regained possession of Kibworth Parish nor the living. He lived out the rest of his life near West Smithfield in London preaching into his late 70s.
There are two more articles about the history of St Wilfrid's Church incumbents - parts 2 (1660-1902) and part 3 (1902-present) | <urn:uuid:c9c993f0-9a25-4ee9-bba3-da2c0e33e012> | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | https://www.kibworthvillage.co.uk/itemlist/tag/early%20years.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-09/segments/1518891813608.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20180221103712-20180221123712-00428.warc.gz | en | 0.984135 | 2,286 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Hives are red, with itchy bumps on the skin that are pigmented and elevated. They can happen anywhere on the body. Hives are usually triggered by something, both allergic and non-allergic. While hive symptoms can be quite uncomfortable, there are numerous ways to treat, soothe, and eliminate them.
Here are some of the many ways that Lamas Medical Allergy. Immunology suggests you do:
- Use cool, moist compresses. Cool, moist bandages or dressings applied to the affected area might help soothe the skin and reduce scratching.
- Baths with oatmeal and baking soda might soothe and minimize inflammation. Another excellent home cure is to add witch hazel to a bath.
- Dress in loose-fitting, smooth-textured cotton. Avoid wearing clothing that is rough, tight, scratchy, or made of wool. This will assist you in avoiding skin irritation.
- Avoid irritants like perfumes, scented soaps, or moisturizers, and keep out of the sun.
- Aloe Vera’s soothing powers may help to soothe and decrease hives. However, it is best to conduct allergy testing before administering Aloe Vera to the entire affected area.
- Go to an allergy treatment facility and ask your doctor to prescribe allergy medicine such as antihistamines, which relieve itching, swelling, and other allergy symptoms.
While hives are unpleasant, they are usually harmless and go away within minutes or hours. They can stay for a few days at a time. If you develop hives around your eyes or in your mouth, or if you have difficulty breathing, wheezing, or dizziness, contact your allergy treatment center in Miami, Florida right once.
To minimize more complications, you should look into allergy services in Florida. In addition, we provide immunology services. Do you require assistance in overcoming allergies and improving your immune system? Schedule an appointment now! | <urn:uuid:6e95fb9e-18ba-43b3-9cb8-e30a1f979182> | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | https://www.lamasallergy.com/how-do-i-get-rid-of-hives | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-21/segments/1652662572800.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20220524110236-20220524140236-00590.warc.gz | en | 0.930164 | 399 | 2.71875 | 3 |
A component can be separated from a mixture if it selectively adsorbs onto a solid surface. This is the basis of the adsorption unit process. Adsorbents are usually porous solids, and adsorption occurs mainly on the pore walls "inside" particles. Examples of adsorbents include:
Ideally, one would be able to construct a continuous countercurrent system, but moving solids is tricky. Instead, most commercial applications use small particles of adsorbent in a fixed bed. Fluid passes down through the bed (down instead of up to avoid fluidization) and components adsorb onto the solid. The steps can be summarized:
Ion exchange is a similar process; however, in this case ions create complexes with the solid instead of adsorbing.
When a bed nears saturation, the flow is stopped and the bed is regenerated to cause desorption. The adsorbate can thus be recovered and the adsorbent reused. Regeneration can be accomplished in several ways, and these lead to the "cycle type":
Adsorption equilibrium data is typically plotted in the form of an adsorption isotherm (i.e. at constant temperature) with the mass adsorbed on the y-axis and the mass in the fluid on the x-axis. The shape of the curve is significant and factors heavily into design. "Favorable" isotherms permit higher solid loadings at lower solution concentrations. These tend to start out steep and level out. Isotherms which start out flat are "unfavorable", since they only work well at high concentrations of solute. Usually, as temperature increases the amount adsorbed decreases (permitting thermal regeneration).
Several fits have been proposed for isotherms. A linear isotherm seems to work for very dilute solutions, but not for many others. The Freundlich isotherm describes physical adsorption from liquids and can also be used for the adsorption of hydrocarbon gases on activated carbon. It is a two parameter model, of the form
Adsorption is a transient process. The amount of material adsorbed within a bed depends both on position and time. Consider the time dependence. As fluid enters the bed, it comes in contact with the first few layers of absorbent. Solute adsorbs, filling up some of the available sites. Soon, the adsorbent near the entrance is saturated and the fluid penetrates farther into the bed before all solute is removed. Thus the active region shifts down through the bed as time goes on.
The fluid emerging from the bed will have little or no solute remaining -- at least until the bulk of the bed becomes saturated. The break point occurs when the concentration of the fluid leaving the bed spikes as unadsorbed solute begins to emerge. The bed has become ineffective. Usually, a breakpoint composition is set to be the maximum amount of solute that can be acceptably lost, typically something between 1 and 5 percent.
As the concentration wave moves through the bed, most of the mass transfer is occurring in a fairly small region. This mass transfer zone moves down the bed until it "breaks through". The shape of the mass transfer zone depends on the adsorption isotherm (equilibrium expression), flow rate, and the diffusion characteristics. Usually, the shape must be determined experimentally.
The wave front may change shape as it moves through the bed, and the mass transfer zone may broaden or diminish. Unfavorable and linear isotherms tend to broaden. Favorable Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms may broaden at first, but quickly achieve a constant pattern front, an asymptotic shape. This means that the mass transfer zone is constant with respect to both position and time. When dealing with a constant pattern front, one can make measurements on a small scale apparatus and scale-up the results to a full-size adsorber bed.
When scaling up an adsorber, the key design parameter is the length of the bed. The total length is split into the "required length" of an "ideal" fixed bed process and a segment of "unused bed" that is the length leftover at breakthrough. By adding these together, you obtain a bed that can achieve the needed removal, but not waste solute.
The diameter of the bed is calculated from the fluid flow rate and the desired cycle time. Usually, superficial velocities on the order of 0.15 to 0.45 m/s are targeted.
Capacity calculations are made based on plots of the composition vs. time (usually near the exit of the bed). Curves are integrated (analytically, numerically, or graphically) to obtain capacities (measured in time units, or how long a bed can run).
The time required for a bed to become totally saturated is obtained by integrating as time goes to infinity:
The capacity times are directly related to bed length:
Copyright 2002, 2003 by R.M. Price -- All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:4651436e-95a8-4d6b-94af-b7ece4de4e38> | CC-MAIN-2015-14 | http://facstaff.cbu.edu/~rprice/lectures/adsorb.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2015-14/segments/1427131298889.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20150323172138-00260-ip-10-168-14-71.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929872 | 1,040 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Muscicapidae - Old World birdlife Flycatchers. For information about the birdlife global status fact and. With stunning images of featured species some recordings of their birdlife songs , calls . In the Ingula Partnership was established between Eskom BirdLife South Africa the Middelpunt Wetland Trust with a common conservation objective of managing the Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme as a sustainable conservation robin site. Black robin birdlife species fact sheet. The Ingula Partnership. Rufous- backed Robin, Black - capped Gnatcatcher.
When you walk down to the dam, you’ ll soon find yourself surrounded by robin dragonflies with black- tipped wings. Filmed at Faneromeni Lesvos Greece on 3rd May with a Canon PowerShot SX50 sheet HS. fact New Zealand robin/ toutouwai. Black- Cockatoos. Highlights are bound to include fact species such as Hooded Parrot Purple- crowned Fairy- wren, Chestnut- backed birdlife Buttonquail, Pictorella Mannikin , Long- tailed , a plethora of fact exotic finches that include Masked, Yellow Chat, White- quilled Rock Pigeon, Black- tailed Treecreeper, Buff- sided Robin, Star the magnificent Gouldian. The black robin robin is a small, sparrow- sized bird measuring 10– 15 cm ( 4– 6 in). Black billed gull/ tarāpuka. fact BirdLife Species Factsheet " Black robin recovery plan" ( PDF). BirdLife birdlife Species fact Account. Chatham Islands black robin. The Hooded Robin gets its name from species the male of the species whose neat black- robin ,- white plumage includes a dark ‘ hood’ which covers the bird’ s head, extending down onto the upper breast back. Justification fact of Red List category This species has a very large range sheet hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the. For detailed species information,. Explore Learn Discover fact Enjoy.
The female by contrast, is drab species having largely brownish- grey plumage. Besides the many endemic bird species we will focus on finding large numbers of migratory Amur Falcons , Sugarbirds, including two near- endemic bird families: Rockjumpers Lesser Kestrels in the country’ s highland grasslands. The Black Robin or Chatham Island Robin. Oriental black Magpie Robin Copsychus saularis three species of species bulbuls namely Red-. South- eastern Hooded fact Robin sheet Terrestrial Dry sclerophyll woodland/ forest Near. BirdLife International. The RSPB is a member of BirdLife International. It has a black head neck grey- birdlife brown back.
These are Banded Groundlings sheet robin they are following you sheet in the hope that you’ ll disturb birdlife smaller insects for them to birdlife catch. Black- faced Spoonbill In the early 1990s, birdlife sheet the Black- faced Spoonbill Platalea minor sheet was a little known waterbird with a population estimated at just a few hundred birds. 10 Banded Groundlings. Black robin birdlife species fact sheet. For more information on The Ingula Partnership please contact Robin Colyn ator robin.
Department of black Conservation Wellington . Its plumage is almost entirely brownish- black with a black bill brownish- black yellow- soled feet. Black- throated sheet Robin. Also fact known as Rufous- tailed Scrub- robin ( Erythopygia galactotes). Miombo Scrub Robin Cercotrichas barbata Black Scrub Robin Cercotrichas podobe Rufous- tailed. birdlife Thanks to concerted conservation efforts birdlife 000 individuals , the population now exceeds 2 the species has become one of black the best known conservation stories in eastern Asia.
Robin colouring in sheet. Species fact sheet: Pycnonotus
Mkhaya is home to some spectacular birdlife. Along the forested rivers, including Stone Camp, special features include seven species of Robin- chat & scrub- robin, Purple- crested Touraco, Crested Guinea Fowl, Narina Trogan, Green- & Pink- Throated Twinspots and Yellow Nicator. Wildscreen' s Arkive project was launched in and grew to become the world' s biggest encyclopaedia of life on Earth. With the help of over 7, 000 of the world’ s best wildlife filmmakers and photographers, conservationists and scientists, Arkive. org featured multi- media fact- files for more than 16, 000 endangered species. Lyrebird Tales September 5 A flock of over 65 Galahs came in for a drink; several trying to perch together on a small rock in the water.
black robin birdlife species fact sheet
Identification: Long- tailed, glossy black and white bird with black bill See more: Seychelles Bird of Pride Established on a ' New' Island. default Seychelles Magpie Robin Species Action Plan ( 66 KB) Species Fact Sheet on BirdLife Data Zone. BirdLife Australia - see Table 1), which. | <urn:uuid:e2d17d9c-c8ca-4b92-a128-287e7f06b3e8> | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | http://knweb.tk/black-robin-birdlife-species-fact-sheet.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-22/segments/1558232256184.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20190521002106-20190521024106-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.866644 | 1,082 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Throughout United States history, only two Jewish women have ever been elected governors. The first, Madeleine Kunin, became Vermont’s governor in 1985. In late 2002 the second, Linda Lingle, was sworn into office in Hawaii—a state with a Jewish population of less than one percent. (The United States currently has one other Jewish governor, Ed Rendell, of Pennsylvania.)
Linda Cutter was born in St. Louis, Missouri on June 4, 1953, the second of three children. While Cutter was in junior high school, her family moved to southern California; her parents divorced in 1965, soon after the move, and for a time she lived with her grandparents. She attended Birmingham High School, a public school in Van Nuys, and then went on to California State University Northridge, where she graduated with a cum laude journalism degree in 1975. While at Cal State Northridge she met her first husband, Charles Lingle, whom she divorced after three years of marriage. Lingle then followed her father, a former pharmacist who had joined his brother’s car dealership, to Hawaii. She began working as a public information officer for the Teamsters and Hotel Workers Union in Honolulu before moving to Molokai. On her new home island she founded a community newspaper, the Molokai Free Press.
In 1980 Lingle closed the newspaper and commenced her political career when she became a member of the Maui County Council. She served there for ten years before her upset election as mayor of Maui County in 1990; she was re-elected four years later. Running for governor in 1998, Lingle came within a percentage point of victory. She took over as head of Hawaii’s Republican Party the following year, seeking to create a centrist image for the GOP in a state with a huge Democratic majority. (Examples of her moderate stances include support of abortion rights and opposition to the death penalty.)
Success in the governor’s race came in 2002, when Lingle defeated Democrat Mazie K. Hirono to become the state of Hawaii’s sixth governor (and the first woman). She ran on a platform that emphasized economic growth through deregulation and opposition to corruption. Her most ambitious and controversial proposal has been to restructure the state’s public education system. However, Lingle’s attempt to decentralize control of the schools has been stymied by the Democrat-controlled legislature.
Lingle’s status as a Jew is open and publicly honored in Hawaii. Each Monday, Lingle begins her week with a study session with the local Chabad rabbi, Itchel Krasnjansky, and each Friday a fresh challah is delivered to the statehouse. Her religion has not led to much political controversy other than crankish, conspiratorial hate mail and websites that Lingle herself publicized in order to contrast them with Hawaii’s tradition of ethnic tolerance. Yet few Hawaiians know much about Judaism, so Lingle does attract attention when she holds a seder at the governor’s mansion or lights a public Hanukkah menorah.
In her youth, Lingle attended Reform services and Sunday school, deposited dimes in Jewish National Fund “pushkes” and learned from her paternal grandmother about older forms of antisemitism. Even after moving to California, her social world was almost exclusively Jewish, at least until she arrived at college.
Lingle’s Jewish connections have helped her in the political arena, at the very least in the realm of finances. When she won the governor’s race in 2002, it was with the aid of the largest campaign warchest ever assembled in Hawaii history. A significant portion of the money came from outside the state, with organizations such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) helping to attract funds. In turn, Lingle has been outspoken in her support of Israel and in 2004 led a well-publicized delegation to the Jewish state.
Married and divorced a second time—from attorney William Crockett in 1997—Lingle has no children. Her volunteer public service has included working as a reading tutor, as well as involvement with the Girl Scouts and the YWCA.
How to cite this page
Johnston, Robert D.. "Linda Lingle." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on December 20, 2014) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lingle-linda>. | <urn:uuid:f6aab66c-60cb-407b-bcc0-49bab498557b> | CC-MAIN-2014-52 | http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lingle-linda | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-52/segments/1418802770557.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20141217075250-00162-ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975112 | 934 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Tooth removal, also known as tooth extraction, is a common dental procedure that involves the removal of a tooth from its socket in the jawbone. Although it may sound daunting, tooth extraction is often necessary to maintain oral health and prevent further complications. From understanding the causes and symptoms to exploring treatment options and preventive measures, this article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of tooth removal. Whether you are experiencing tooth pain or simply curious about the topic, read on to discover valuable insights into this essential dental procedure.
1. "Understanding Tooth Removal: Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis"
Tooth removal, also known as dental extraction, is a common dental procedure that involves the removal of a tooth from its socket in the jawbone. While dental professionals always strive to preserve natural teeth, there are certain situations where tooth removal becomes necessary. Understanding the causes, symptoms, and diagnosis of tooth extraction can help individuals make informed decisions about their dental health.
There are several reasons why a tooth may need to be extracted. One common cause is severe tooth decay or damage that cannot be restored through other dental treatments such as fillings or crowns. In such cases, extraction may be the best option to prevent the spread of infection or further damage to adjacent teeth.
Another common reason for tooth removal is overcrowding. When there is insufficient space in the mouth to accommodate all the teeth, extraction may be necessary to create room for proper alignment through orthodontic treatment, such as braces.
Gum disease, also known as periodontal disease, can lead to tooth loss if left untreated. In advanced stages, the disease can damage the supporting structures of the teeth, necessitating their removal.
Impacted wisdom teeth are also commonly extracted. These are the third molars that typically emerge in late teenage years or early adulthood. When wisdom teeth do not have enough space to fully erupt or grow in the correct position, they can cause pain, infection, or damage to adjacent teeth. In such cases, extraction is often recommended.
The diagnosis of tooth extraction generally begins with a thorough examination by a dentist. The dentist may review the patient’s dental history, ask about any symptoms or concerns, and perform a visual inspection of the affected area. X-rays or other imaging tests may also be conducted to assess the condition of the tooth and surrounding structures.
Symptoms that may indicate the need for tooth removal can vary depending on the underlying cause. Common signs include persistent toothache or pain, swelling or redness around the affected tooth or gums, difficulty chewing or biting, and sensitivity
2. "Exploring Treatment Options for Tooth Extraction: What to Expect"
When it comes to tooth extraction, understanding the treatment options and what to expect can help alleviate any anxiety or concerns you may have. Whether it is due to severe decay, infection, crowding, or trauma, tooth extraction is sometimes necessary to maintain oral health and prevent further complications.
Before the extraction procedure, your dentist or oral surgeon will conduct a thorough examination to determine the best course of action. This may involve taking dental X-rays and discussing your dental and medical history. These steps help the dental professional understand the specific condition of your tooth and consider any potential complications.
Once the decision to proceed with tooth extraction is made, your dentist will explain the treatment process and what you can expect during and after the procedure. Depending on the complexity of the extraction, you may receive local anesthesia to numb the area around the tooth or sedation to help you relax if necessary.
During the extraction, the dentist or oral surgeon will carefully loosen the tooth from its socket using specialized instruments. In some cases, a tooth may need to be sectioned into smaller pieces to facilitate its removal. While this may sound intimidating, it is important to remember that you will be under the care of a trained professional who will prioritize your comfort and safety throughout the procedure.
After the tooth is successfully extracted, your dentist will provide you with post-operative instructions to ensure proper healing. This typically includes guidelines on oral hygiene, pain management, and diet restrictions. Following these instructions diligently will aid in the healing process and minimize the risk of complications such as infection or dry socket.
It is normal to experience some discomfort, swelling, and bleeding immediately after the extraction. However, if you notice excessive bleeding or severe pain that persists beyond a few days, it is important to contact your dentist or oral surgeon for further evaluation.
Tooth extraction does not necessarily mean the end of a healthy smile. Depending on the location and function of the extracted tooth, your dentist may discuss options for tooth replacement, such as dental implants,
3. "Preventing Tooth Extraction: Tips for Maintaining Dental Health"
Maintaining dental health is crucial in preventing the need for tooth extraction. By following a few simple tips, you can significantly reduce the risk of dental issues that may lead to extraction. Here are some essential practices to incorporate into your daily routine:
1. Regular brushing and flossing: Brushing your teeth at least twice a day and flossing once a day are essential for maintaining good oral hygiene. This helps remove plaque and food debris that can lead to tooth decay and gum disease. Use a soft-bristled toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste to clean your teeth thoroughly, and don’t forget to clean along the gumline. Flossing helps reach areas that a toothbrush cannot, ensuring all plaque is removed.
2. Adopt a balanced diet: A nutritious diet plays a vital role in overall dental health. Limit your consumption of sugary and acidic foods and beverages, as they contribute to tooth decay. Instead, focus on a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and dairy products. These foods provide essential nutrients that strengthen teeth and promote healthy gums.
3. Regular dental check-ups: Regular visits to your dentist are crucial for maintaining dental health and preventing tooth extraction. Dentists can detect early signs of decay, gum disease, or other dental issues before they become significant problems. Aim for biannual check-ups and cleanings, or as recommended by your dentist. These visits allow for professional cleaning, examination, and early intervention if necessary.
4. Avoid tobacco and excessive alcohol consumption: Tobacco use and excessive alcohol consumption can have detrimental effects on oral health. Both can contribute to gum disease, oral cancer, and tooth decay. By avoiding these habits, you can significantly reduce the risk of dental issues that may lead to tooth extraction.
5. Protect your teeth during physical activities: If you participate in contact sports or activities with a risk of dental injury, wear a mouthguard. A mouthguard acts as a protective barrier, | <urn:uuid:9ad77235-d6fa-4fb7-a94d-e6b06cd7df52> | CC-MAIN-2023-50 | https://biomedicinahigienista.com/the-complete-guide-to-tooth-removal-causes-symptoms-diagnosis-and-treatment-options | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2023-50/segments/1700679100550.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20231205073336-20231205103336-00509.warc.gz | en | 0.941578 | 1,366 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The second world war
A military conflict that went on from 1939 to 1945 and was the most devastating war the world had seen, in terms of human lives and material destruction. It broke out in 1939 mostly under the form of European conflict opposing mainly the Germans and the anglo-french coalition, but quickly grew into a world wide conflict becoming so widespread, implicating almost all the nations in the globe. When the war ends in 1945, the world is endowed with a new equilibre, which was dominated by the United States and by the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republicans (USSR)
World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict between 1939 and 1945, which involved most of the world's nations, including all great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.
Within three years, Germany and the Axis powers had occupied most of Europe, and most of Northern Africa, East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. However, with the reversal of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Allies gained the upper hand from 1942 onwards. By 1945, Allied armies had invaded German-held Europe from all sides. Nazi forces, engaged in numerous violent acts during the war, including the systematic murder of as many as 17 million civilians, an estimated six million of whom were Jews targeted in the Holocaust.
Nazism (National Socialism), denotes the totalitarian ideology and practice of the Nazi Party, and of Adolf Hitler’s government of Nazi Germany from1933 to 45. Nazism is a variety of fascism that incorporated policies, tactics, and philosophic tenets from Left- and Right-wing ideologies
After the First World War (1914–18) in Weimar Germany (1919–33), the Nazis were among various right-wing political parties who called their ideologies National Socialism, and themselves as National Socialists. In 1920, the Nazi Party published the National Socialist Program — the key tenets were:
anti-parliamentarism, Pan-Germanism, racism, collectivism, Social Darwinism, eugenics, anti-Semitism, anti-Communism, totalitarianism, and opposition to economic and political liberalism.
Despite such intellectual bases, by the 1930s, Nazism was not an ideology, but a conflation of ideas, concepts, and philosophy meant to realise the mythic Großdeutschland ( The Greater Germany).
Nowadays in the Federal Republic of Germany, the ideology, and literature of Nazism are outlawed. However there exists a native Neo-Nazism, with subscribers world-wide where ancient traces like the Swastika, SS runes, uniforms, are still use by white supremacist racist followers in Europe and North America.
The ressemblances between Hitler and Hynkel:
On the poster below ( on the left), we can observe Charles Chaplin embodying Hynkel, dictator of Tomania, with an aggressive expression on the face. His mustache reminds us of that of Hitler, his uniform that of the Nazis, the double cross on its armband and on his helmet, like that of the swastika. The red color of the flag behind him reminds us of the war, the violence, the blood, but also the color surrounding the swastika. We suppose that he is making a speech because there is a microphone on his right. He is raising his fist in the direction of the people, the sign of strength and encouragement, alienation in the style of Hitler.
To finish, we notice that the characters used for "Charlie Chaplin" And those of the "Dictator" are different:
Those used to write "Charlie Chaplin" are written with a soft color and round characters, letting us feel his humor, while those used for "Dictator" are red like Nazi colors with straight characters, showing the harshness of this regime. In the film we can also notice a few more things:
Hitler becomes « Hynkel »
Hermann Göring becomes « Herriche » who is the military adviser
Goebbels becomes « Garbitssch »
Mussolini becomes « Napoléoni » | <urn:uuid:045434b6-e870-462a-8f35-49de2b120fbe> | CC-MAIN-2017-09 | http://thegreatdictator.e-monsite.com/pages/ressemblances/2nd-world-war-hynkel-hitler.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501171629.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104611-00501-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951126 | 858 | 3.671875 | 4 |
The red ring is inside the blue ring in this picture. Can you rearrange the rings in different ways? Perhaps you can overlap them or put one outside another?
This problem is intended to get children to look really hard at something they will see many times in the next few months.
Investigate these hexagons drawn from different sized equilateral triangles.
Are all the possible combinations of two shapes included in this set of 27 cards? How do you know?
Arrange the shapes in a line so that you change either colour or shape in the next piece along. Can you find several ways to start with a blue triangle and end with a red circle?
These pictures were made by starting with a square, finding the half-way point on each side and joining those points up. You could investigate your own starting shape.
Can you sketch triangles that fit in the cells in this grid? Which ones are impossible? How do you know?
An activity making various patterns with 2 x 1 rectangular tiles.
Cut four triangles from a square as shown in the picture. How many different shapes can you make by fitting the four triangles back together?
This challenge invites you to create your own picture using just straight lines. Can you identify shapes with the same number of sides and decorate them in the same way?
What do you think is the same about these two Logic Blocks? What others do you think go with them in the set?
This interactivity allows you to sort logic blocks by dragging their images.
Look at the mathematics that is all around us - this circular window is a wonderful example.
Shapes are added to other shapes. Can you see what is happening? What is the rule?
These rectangles have been torn. How many squares did each one have inside it before it was ripped?
Look at some of the patterns in the Olympic Opening ceremonies and see what shapes you can spot.
Here is a selection of different shapes. Can you work out which ones are triangles, and why?
How many trapeziums, of various sizes, are hidden in this picture?
What shaped overlaps can you make with two circles which are the same size? What shapes are 'left over'? What shapes can you make when the circles are different sizes?
Are these statements relating to calculation and properties of shapes always true, sometimes true or never true?
Can you spot circles, spirals and other types of curves in these photos?
Can you make a rectangle with just 2 dominoes? What about 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...?
Use the isometric grid paper to find the different polygons.
Find out what a "fault-free" rectangle is and try to make some of your own.
Can you help the children in Mrs Trimmer's class make different shapes out of a loop of string?
If these balls are put on a line with each ball touching the one in front and the one behind, which arrangement makes the shortest line of balls?
What shape is made when you fold using this crease pattern? Can you make a ring design?
What shape is the overlap when you slide one of these shapes half way across another? Can you picture it in your head? Use the interactivity to check your visualisation.
How can these shapes be cut in half to make two shapes the same shape and size? Can you find more than one way to do it?
Use the interactivity to make this Islamic star and cross design. Can you produce a tessellation of regular octagons with two different types of triangle?
Arrange any number of counters from these 18 on the grid to make a rectangle. What numbers of counters make rectangles? How many different rectangles can you make with each number of counters?
This activity challenges you to make collections of shapes. Can you give your collection a name?
Explore patterns based on a rhombus. How can you enlarge the pattern - or explode it?
The challenge is to produce elegant solutions. Elegance here implies simplicity. The focus is on rhombi, in particular those formed by jointing two equilateral triangles along an edge.
What mathematical words can be used to describe this floor covering? How many different shapes can you see inside this photograph?
Choose the size of your pegboard and the shapes you can make. Can you work out the strategies needed to block your opponent?
Read about David Hilbert who proved that any polygon could be cut up into a certain number of pieces that could be put back together to form any other polygon of equal area.
The computer has made a rectangle and will tell you the number of spots it uses in total. Can you find out where the rectangle is?
Have you ever noticed the patterns in car wheel trims? These questions will make you look at car wheels in a different way!
Learn how to draw circles using Logo. Wait a minute! Are they really circles? If not what are they?
Can you each work out what shape you have part of on your card? What will the rest of it look like?
'What Shape?' activity for adult and child. Can you ask good questions so you can work out which shape your partner has chosen?
Read all about the number pi and the mathematicians who have tried to find out its value as accurately as possible.
The image in this problem is part of a piece of equipment found in the playground of a school. How would you describe it to someone over the phone?
This article describes investigations that offer opportunities for children to think differently, and pose their own questions, about shapes.
This task develops spatial reasoning skills. By framing and asking questions a member of the team has to find out what mathematical object they have chosen.
This article for pupils gives some examples of how circles have featured in people's lives for centuries.
A cheap and simple toy with lots of mathematics. Can you interpret the images that are produced? Can you predict the pattern that will be produced using different wheels? | <urn:uuid:f2978938-49a5-4bae-8ada-a33531217a25> | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | https://nrich.maths.org/public/leg.php?code=97&cl=1&cldcmpid=7551 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-18/segments/1555578582584.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20190422195208-20190422221208-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.955618 | 1,237 | 3.984375 | 4 |
Published: August 25,2017
Hurricane Harvey underwent rapid intensification from late Wednesday into Thursday and continued to quickly strengthen as it churned through the Gulf of Mexico.
Harvey regenerated as a tropical depression, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph at 10 a.m. CDT Wednesday. Twelve hours later, Harvey reached tropical storm strength, with winds of 40 mph.
(MORE: Hurricane Central)
Thursday morning, Harvey's strengthening accelerated and its maximum sustained winds increased to 65 mph by 11 a.m. Harvey continued to intensify and became a hurricane Thursday at 1 p.m. with winds of 80 mph. This increase from 35 mph on Wednesday night to 80 mph early Thursday afternoon exceeded the qualifications for Harvey having undergone rapid intensification.
Rapid intensification is defined as taking place when a tropical cyclone increases its maximum sustained winds by at least 35 mph in 24 hours or less.
(MORE: Hurricane Harvey's Forecast)
Satellite images of Harvey from Wednesday night, August 23 through Friday morning, August 25, showing its transformation from a tropical depression to a hurricane.
Satellite images of Harvey from Wednesday night, Aug. 23 through Friday morning, Aug. 25, showing its transformation from a tropical depression to a hurricane.
Maximum sustained winds remained at 85 mph from Thursday afternoon until 1 a.m. Friday, when maximum sustained winds reached 100 mph. Steady strengthening persisted with winds climbing to 110 mph Friday morning.
In addition to the remarkable increase in winds, Harvey's central pressure drop was also impressive. Harvey's minimum pressure was 1002 millibars on Wednesday at 10 p.m., and 24 hours later, its pressure had dropped to 973 millibars – a difference of nearly 30 millibars. Even more striking was how Harvey's pressure plunged to 947 millibars by 10 a.m. on Friday – a 26-millibar drop in just 12 hours.
(MORE: Four Things To Know About Harvey)
The combination of low vertical wind shear and very warm water temperatures helped to create ideal conditions for this explosive development.
Harvey, upgraded Friday afternoon to a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, will remain in a favorable environment for further strengthening up to landfall.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM. | <urn:uuid:3e4f6906-4c87-4f4f-ac89-0a1fbc01cb55> | CC-MAIN-2018-39 | http://weatherfanatics.blogspot.com/2017/08/satellite-images-show-harveys.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2018-39/segments/1537267162385.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20180925202648-20180925223048-00240.warc.gz | en | 0.936145 | 510 | 2.5625 | 3 |
WikipediaRead full entry
Corallorhiza maculata, or spotted coralroot, is a North American coralroot orchid flower. Varieties are also known as western coralroot and summer coralroot. It is widespread through Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, St. Pierre & Miquelon, and much of the Western and northern United States (though generally absent from the Great Plains and from the lowland parts of the Southeast). It grows mostly in montane woodlands.
Corallorhiza maculata is a myco-heterotroph; it lacks chlorophyll and gets food by parasitizing the mycelium of fungi in the family Russulaceae. The rhizome and lower stem are often knotted into branched coral shapes. The stem is usually red or brown in color, but occasionally comes in a light yellow or cream color. There are no leaves and no photosynthetic green tissues. The stems bear dark red scales and intricate orchid flowers.
Corallorhiza maculata flowers are small and emerge regularly from all sides of the stem. The sepals are dark red or brown tinged with purple, long and pointed. The side petals are reddish, and the lip petal is bright clean white with deep red spots. It is usually lobed or toothed on the side and 7–10 mm. In some varieties, the lip is plain white without spots.
Several Native American groups historically used the orchid's stems dried and brewed as a tea for such maladies as colds, pneumonia, and skin irritation.
Corallorhiza macluata is also the topic of the poem On Going Unnoticed by Robert Frost.
- Taylor, D.L. & T.D. Bruns. (1997). Independent, specialized invasions of ectomycorrhizal mutualism by two nonphotosynthetic orchids. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA vol. 94 pp. 4510–4515. | <urn:uuid:0da9324f-aada-4838-9847-25f63320339d> | CC-MAIN-2014-23 | http://eol.org/pages/1092008/overview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-23/segments/1406510273766.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20140728011753-00141-ip-10-146-231-18.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893685 | 415 | 3.3125 | 3 |
It's Your Health
Help on accessing alternative formats, such as Portable Document Format (PDF), Microsoft Word and PowerPoint (PPT) files, can be obtained in the alternate format help section.
Food additives are chemicals that manufacturers or processors add to foods for various reasons, such as to preserve foods or improve their appearance. Although food additives have been used for many years, some people have become concerned about their safety and want to minimize the amount of food additives they consume.
Generally speaking, a food additive is any chemical substance added to a food during manufacturing or processing that becomes a part of the food or affects the food's characteristics, such as its colour or texture. Some food additives are derived from natural sources. Others are made synthetically.
The Government of Canada controls the use of food additives under the Food and Drugs Act and the Food and Drug Regulations. The Regulations list the food additives that may be used in Canada. They also specify in which foods the additives may be used, and the maximum amounts that may be used.
Food additives may be used for a variety of reasons, including:
Some specific examples of food additives and their functions include:
The following substances are not regulated as food additives:
Health Canada works to ensure that the food additives allowed in Canada do not pose a health hazard when used according to the established Regulations. Health Canada evaluates the safety of new food additives before they are listed in the Regulations. If new information raises concerns about a currently permitted food additive, the information is assessed. When necessary, Health Canada can either change the conditions under which a food additive can be used, or remove the food additive from the Regulations so it is no longer permitted.
Food additives allow manufacturers to provide a wide variety of convenient and enjoyable foods. However, if you want to limit additives in your diet, follow these steps.
Maintaining the safety of Canada's food supply is a shared responsibility among government, industry, and consumers. The Government of Canada is committed to doing its part to ensure Canada's food supply is safe.
Together, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) administer the Food and Drugs Act and Food and Drug Regulations. The Health Products and Food Branch of Health Canada is responsible for evaluating and approving new food additives. The CFIA enforces Canada's food labelling laws and the food safety standards set by Health Canada.
For more information on food additives, check out these sources:
Health Canada's Food Additive Dictionary lists food additives that are allowed in Canada. The "Definition of Codes" describes the general purposes of various classes of additives.
The Bureau of Chemical Safety is responsible for policy, standard setting, risk assessment, research, and evaluation activities related to non-agricultural chemicals in foods in Canada.
Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate
Health Products and Food Branch, Health Canada
Sir Frederick G. Banting Research Centre
251 Sir Frederick Banting Driveway
Postal Locator 2203G2
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0L2
For information about food labelling, go to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's Fair Labelling Practices Program
For information on Eating Well with Canada's Food Guide, My Food Guide and food recalls go to the Healthy Canadians Web site
For additional articles on health and safety issues go to the It's Your Health Web section
You can also call toll free at 1-866-225-0709 or TTY at 1-800-465-7735*
Original: December 2007
ęHer Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Health, 2007 | <urn:uuid:76e55a8c-5460-4ceb-a804-10fcad145d6b> | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/food-aliment/food_add_aliment-eng.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-22/segments/1464051165777.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160524005245-00001-ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942951 | 736 | 3.625 | 4 |
The United States Bowling Congress (USBC) has wrapped up a major two-year study of bowling ball motion and how high-tech equipment may influence lane conditions and scoring. The USBC Bowling Ball Specifications Task Force is now analyzing research results and plans to meet this month to discuss the data further. USBC expects to release complete research results to the public this spring.
USBC's goal is to gather data about the complex dynamics and inner motion characteristics of today's advanced bowling balls. USBC performed tests on how balls with different properties and characteristics act together, then used this and other information obtained from ball manufacturers and other industry leaders to set performance-based specifications for bowling balls used in competition.
As the sport's governing body, USBC undertook the research by working cooperatively with bowling manufacturers. One impetus for the study is that over the past 20 years, bowling's credibility has been compromised in part due to technological advancements that have greatly affected scoring in the sport, according to USBC.
The testing process officially began in summer 2006 after the formation of the USBC task force. A total of 59 particle and reactive resin bowling balls were used for the study conducted in the USBC testing center, Greendale, Wis., which includes eight lanes in a climate-controlled building. USBC's robotic ball thrower, nicknamed “Harry,” was used to roll the test balls. The data was measured using “Super C.A.T.S.” (computer aided tracking system) to record the velocity of the bowling balls as they were rolled down the lane. The system is made up of 23 small electronic sensors installed on the lanes.
USBC is launching a reevaluation of all components of the “System of Bowling,” which includes lane surfaces and conditions, bowling balls, and pins. USBC also has formed task forces to deal with issues and standardization of lane surfaces and lane conditioners/cleaners. For more information, visit www.bowl.com. | <urn:uuid:dadb0ffd-1b94-4714-9e41-b1b9b301e6f2> | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | http://machinedesign.com/print/archive/bowling-research-strikes-skill-and-technology-balance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-49/segments/1416931010166.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20141125155650-00135-ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958867 | 407 | 2.796875 | 3 |
SAN DIEGO -What do a rain forest and a crowded city have in common? More than meets the eye, according to a lecture here Thursday named for leading researcher and epidemiologist Edward H. Kass.
The lecture, delivered by Dr. James Hughes of Emory University, focused on the growing understanding that recognizing links between human health, animal health and ecosystems is critical to preventing, detecting and controlling increasingly consequential emerging infectious diseases.
And what a rain forest and a city of more than one million people have in common, Dr. Hughes said, is that both are considered “hot spots” for emerging infectious diseases that pose global threats.
The recognition of animal, human and ecosystem health as components of “One Health” is not new, Dr. Hughes noted; Hippocrates noted the links between the well-being of people and their environments. In the 20th century, Dr. Hughes said, veterinary medicine as part of public health was promoted by Dr. James Steele, and the term “One Medicine” was coined by Dr. Calvin Schwabbe. But cross-discipline responses lagged until population growth, an accelerating increase of meat consumption, global travel and urbanization multiplied the links between distant places and species during the last half century.
In 1992, Dr. Hughes noted, an Institute of Medicine report on factors contributing to the emergence of Infectious Diseases highlighted the impacts of demographics and human behavior, technology and industry, economics and land use, international travel and commerce, microbial adaptations, and breakdowns in public health responses.
Then, in 2002, a virus causing severe acute respiratory syndrome — or SARS — made the jump, apparently from bats to humans in southern China, and its spread was accelerated in a Guangdong province marketplace. It wasn’t until 2003, however, when a physician who had treated patients in the province, checked into a Hong Kong hotel — exposing an international range of associates and guests there to the virus, that the importance of an illness affecting animals in a remote rural region to people in capital cities worldwide was recognized with responses.
The global outbreak that followed, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing nearly 800 drove revisions to International Health Regulations, and the formal recognition of outbreaks with global implications as PHEICs — or Public Health Emergencies of International Concern. Of the four PHEICs recognized since — the 2009 emergence of the H1N1 virus, 2014 resurgences of polio, the 2014 West Africa Ebola crisis, and, in 2016 the spread of Zika and its neurological impacts — Dr. Hughes noted, three are vector-borne or zoonotic. | <urn:uuid:82c44a99-222b-4865-851a-bc7606eaa31e> | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | https://sciencespeaksblog.org/2017/10/09/emerging-infections-build-one-health-urgency/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2019-13/segments/1552912202688.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20190322180106-20190322202106-00306.warc.gz | en | 0.947697 | 537 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Cataracts develop as part of the natural aging process within the eye. Currently, there are no medications, eye drops or exercises that can prevent a cataract from forming. Cataract surgery is the only way to remove a cataract that is causing visual problems. When cataracts become visually significant and begin to interfere with your normal daily tasks, cataract surgery may be considered.
Prior to surgery, a series of eye drops are instilled to dilate the pupil. A local anesthetic is used to numb the eye. Also, a mild sedative is administered intravenously to make the patient more relaxed and comfortable during surgery.
IOL in placeDuring cataract surgery, a small incision is made near the outer edge of the cornea. A small instrument is used to remove the front portion of the capsule to access the cataract. An ultrasonic probe is used to break up the cataract using ultrasonic waves. This technique is referred to as phacoemulsification. Once the cataract is broken up into tiny lens fragments, these fragments are suctioned out of the capsule and removed from the eye. In most cases, an intraocular lens is then oriented into the empty lens capsule. This lens has special arms that hold it in place.
In most cases, the surgical wound is so small that it does not require the use of stitches, but sutures are placed if needed for safety. After surgery, a patch is placed over the operative eye. The patch will remain in place until it is removed in the office the day after surgery. At that time, a postoperative eye drop regimen will be initiated.
Risks of Cataract Surgery
Although cataract surgery is considered one of the safest and most effective surgical procedures performed in the United States, there are still risks involved. For this reason, cataract surgery should not be considered lightly. It is up to the patient and surgeon to determine when cataract surgery is appropriate. For most people this is when the level of vision is interfering with day-to-day activities and the benefits of surgery outweigh the risks.
In order for a patient to decide whether or not to proceed with cataract surgery, it is important to understand the risks and benefits of surgery. Fortunately, cataract surgery has a very high success rate with the vast majority of patients experiencing no complications at all. That being said, there are risks associated with any surgical procedure. In rare cases, there can be the need for additional surgery or permanent loss of vision as a result of complications due to cataract surgery. Below you will find a list of risks of cataract surgery that happen rarely, but can occur, and include but are not limited to:
- Damage to a structure in or around the eye that may lead to additional surgery
- Bleeding that can cause loss of vision (this may be temporary or permanent)
- Detachment of the retina or a retinal tear
- Infection that may require additional medicines and treatments
- Swelling of the front of the eye (corneal edema) that can result in discomfort, decreased vision and may necessitate additional surgery, medicines (such as eye drops or ointments) or treatments
- Macular edema (swelling of the macula) that may require additional medicines (such as eye drops) or treatments
- Chronic eye inflammation (iritis/uveitis) that may necessitate additional treatments or medications
- Increased intraocular pressure that may lead to glaucoma and the need for eye drops, additional treatments, and in rare cases, surgery
- Diplopia (double vision), treatable with special glasses lenses in most cases
- Anisometropia (asymmetrical vision) or astigmatism
- Dislocation of the natural crystalline lens or dislocation of the intraocular lens which may result in additional surgery
- Ptosis (droopy eyelid) that may be only temporary after surgery, or can be constant; chronic ptosis can be surgically repaired
- Anisocoria (difference in pupil size) or misshapen pupils
- Unsatisfactory outcome due to a preexisting ocular condition (such as macular degeneration or amblyopia)
- Vision loss, blindness or loss of the eye | <urn:uuid:ae2cd2c4-c711-4691-8a21-fa4ef6bf1a50> | CC-MAIN-2022-49 | https://ocvermont.com/cataract-surgery/what-is-cataract-surgery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-49/segments/1669446706291.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20221126112341-20221126142341-00715.warc.gz | en | 0.934806 | 892 | 2.671875 | 3 |
For years consumers have struggled to fit the large round fruit in their refrigerators.
And then there was the problem of trying to cut the fruit when it kept rolling around.
But, 20 years ago a forward-thinking farmer on Japan's south-western island of Shikoku solved the problem.
The farmer, from Zentsuji, in Kagawa prefecture, came up with the idea of making a cube-shaped watermelon which could easily be packed and stored.
To make it happen, farmers grew the melons in glass boxes and the fruit then naturally assumed the same shape.
Today, the cuboid watermelons are hand-picked and shipped all over Japan.
But the fruit, on sale in a selection of department stores and up-market supermarkets, appeals mainly to the wealthy and fashion-conscious of Tokyo and Osaka, Japan's two major cities.
Each melon sells for 10,000 yen, equivalent to about $83.
It is almost double, or even triple than of a normal watermelon.
The pomegranate is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and was cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times.
The LA Times recently labelled pomegranate as ‘one of the most trendiest and versatile fruit on the market', and it could be good for you (another fruit sold for its ‘medical values'). Packed with antioxidants, pomegranate juice is now on the red carpet, and even the stars at the Oscars drink the dark red liquid.
A pitaya is the fruit of several cactus species, most importantly of the genus Hylocereus (sweet pitayas).
These fruit are commonly known as dragon fruit.
The fruit can weigh from 150 to 600 grams.
To prepare a pitaya for consumption, the fruit is cut open to expose the flesh.
The fruit's texture is sometimes likened to that of the kiwifruit due to the presence of black crunchy seeds.
The flesh, which is eaten raw, is mildly sweet and low in calories; dragon fruit should not be used to accompany strong-tasting food – except to "clean the palate" between dishes. The seeds are eaten together with the flesh, but they are indigestible unless chewed.
The fruit is also converted into juice or wine, or used to flavour other beverages.
The flowers can be eaten or steeped as tea.
The horned melon (Cucumis metuliferus) , also called African horned cucumber or kiwano, is an annual vine in the cucumber and melon family
Often known by its nickname in the southeast of the United States - blowfish fruit - it is grown for its fruit, which looks like an oval melon with horn-like spines.
The fruit of this plant is edible, but it is used as often for decoration as for food.
When ripe, it has a yellow-orange skin and a lime green jelly-like flesh.
The horned melon is native to Africa, and it is now grown in California, Chile, Australia and New Zealand as well.
The star fruit or carambola is a tropical fruit that is gaining popularity in the United States. This fruit acquired its name from the five pointed star shape when cut across the middle of the fruit. It has a waxy, golden yellow to green color skin with a complicated flavour combination that includes plums, pineapples, and lemons.
This is the strangest looking fruit ever.
Rambutan in Malay, Indonesian, and Filipino literally means hairy, caused by the 'hair' that covers this fruit.
On the outside it's magenta with green hairy legs all over it.
From the outside you'd have no idea what to expect on the inside.
Inside it's similar to a lychee fruit. It looks sort of clear and gummy.
It's very watery and has a huge seed in the centre.
It tastes pretty decent, but it's the look of the rambutan that puts it in the top
Ackee is Jamaica's national fruit.
The fruit was imported to Jamaica from West Africa (probably on a slave ship) before 1778.
Since then, it has become a major feature of various Caribbean cuisine, and is also cultivated in tropical and subtropical areas elsewhere around the world.
The fruit of the ackee is not edible in its entirety.
Only the inner, fleshy yellow arils are consumed.
It is extremely poisonous in the very centre if you eat the red bits.
Called ‘mangkut', these are the ‘queen of Thai fruits' with their elegant, segmented white–flesh inside a thick large purple peel.
They grow in the South and the season lasts just a few months of the year, mainly from May to September.
If you are here in Thailand at that time be sure to enjoy this delicious and luxurious sweet fruit.
Ever heard of a Fingered Citron?
How about a Buddha's Hand?
It's a weird -looking citrus that has green or rich yellow tapering fingers or segments attached to a base – the appearance is not unlike a curled, arthritic hand, only there are usually many more than 5 fingers!
But what on earth do you do with a Buddha's Hand?
Do you eat it?
Well, yes, and no. Its thick, lemony rind and pith (the white part) is often candied into a delicious citrus delicacy, infused with spirits or made into liqueurs.
However, the small amount of inside flesh is quite sour and rarely used in food.
The Buddha's Hand and other members of the Citron family are also prized for their aromatic citrus oils and used in perfumes and sometimes kept in homes as a natural air deodorizer.
You can count on finding the Urucu plant (Bixa orellana) around every rural household in the Amazon.
Achiote (Bixa orellana) is a shrub or small tree from the tropical region of the Americas.
It is cultivated there and in Southeast Asia, where it was introduced by the Spanish in the 17th century.
It is best known as the source of the natural pigment annatto, produced from the fruit.
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- ▼ August (45) | <urn:uuid:9807d23f-42bb-48d4-82c6-e128b3eb916a> | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | http://akhanisatyamg.blogspot.com/2010/08/ten-most-exotic-fruits.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-17/segments/1492917122621.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170423031202-00603-ip-10-145-167-34.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947506 | 1,494 | 2.78125 | 3 |
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