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President Lincoln’s Dilemma Connection to Previous Learning: Students understand that slavery was a cause of the civil war. They also understand that opinions on slavery were many and varied. Connection to Future Learning: Students will learn about the Emancipation Proclamation and they will come to understand how this affected the Civil War and life in America. Student Performance Objectives: Ohio Standard(s): History Benchmark(s): Analyze causes and consequences of the American Civil Materials / Resources Needed: - Books containing information about the Missouri Compromise - Books that describe various sides of the slavery argument - Computers for research purposes *If students are capable, they may find these resources themselves. - Stovepipe Hat Time Estimate: 3 Class Periods Opening / Focus / Anticipatory Set: “Presidents rarely make decisions without consulting several members of their cabinet as well as outside resources. Who do you think that President Lincoln might have spoken to about the very controversial topic of slavery?” Make a list of student responses. “What positions do you think these people might have had regarding this topic?” Make a separate list of positions. Help students come to positions such as anti-slavery, pro-slavery, Missouri Compromise, etc. Teacher Modeling / Demonstration / Facilitation of Learning: Explain to students that they are going to be split into groups representing the various positions in their list. Tell them that each group will have to find reasons that their assigned position is the position that President Lincoln should take as his own. They should also know that they will have to present this information in a convincing manner at the end of the project. Let them know that they may or may not agree with the position they are asked to be part of but none the less they should do their best to take on that position for the purposes of this assignment. Check for Understanding: Ask the students if there is a part of the project that is confusing. Clarify any questions they may have and state that if additional questions arise they should first ask a teammate and if an answer cannot be found within their team they may come and ask you. Guided Practice or Activity: Give students their assigned position and pass out a web. Allow five or ten minutes for students to web information they already know about their position or arguments they feel their position may have. Group Activity: After webbing, students should meet as a group and share their ideas to help begin a discussion. Give students the rest of the period as well as the next class time to research their position and formulate their presentation for President Lincoln. On the third day, students should present their arguments to a teacher dressed in a stovepipe hat and beard representing President Lincoln. Following each presentation, “President Lincoln” should fill in a comparison chart that shows how each position feels about current slaves, future slaves, slave states, and other areas of concern. Students should make similar charts either as a part of their notes of the class or on a separate piece of paper. Closure of Lesson: “President Lincoln” should deliberate momentarily on what he plans to do. Then he should announce the Emancipation Proclamation. (This should help lead into future lessons on this topic.) Assessment of Learners’ Achievement: Assessment of student learning comes from the depth of their presentation, their participation in research, and their participation in the presentation. Struggling: These students are supported by their group members. Advanced: These students should be challenged to infer information they cannot directly find in books or on the internet.
BABEL, TOWER OF BABEL, TOWER OF, the edifice whose building is portrayed in Genesis 11:1–9 as the direct cause of the diversity of languages in the world and the dispersion of mankind over all the earth. According to the preceding narrative, mankind after the flood was descended from one common ancestor, Noah. The story of Babel thus explains how the descendants of this one man came to be so widely scattered and divided into separate nations speaking so many different languages. The story relates how, at the time when all men still spoke one language, there was a migration from the East to the plain of Shinar (Babylonia). At this site it was decided to build a "city and a tower with its top in the sky," so that the builders would be able to make a name for themselves and avoid being scattered over the entire world. However, their building project was frustrated by the Lord who confounded their language. As a result, mankind was distributed over the face of the earth. The unfinished tower was called Babel, a name which was explained by its resemblance to the Hebrew verb bll ("to confuse"), since here the Lord "confounded the speech of the whole earth." Scholars agree that the edifice referred to in Genesis 11 is clearly a ziqqurat, or Mesopotamian temple tower. The ziqqurat (from Akk. zaqāru, "to raise up," "elevate") was the central feature of the great temples which were built in all important Mesopotamian cities. Rising in progressively smaller, steplike levels from a massive base, these towers ranged from three or four stories to as many as seven and were ordinarily constructed of crude sun-dried bricks covered with kiln-fired bricks. Clearly, the writer of the account in Genesis 11 was familiar with the building techniques of Mesopotamia, since he is at pains to point out that bricks and bitumen were used in the construction; that is in contrast to the stone and clay which were the common building materials in Canaan. The particular ziqqurat described here was formerly identified with the tower of Ezida, the temple of the god Nebo (Nabû) in Borsippa, a city southwest of Babylon. However, the discovery at the end of the 19th century of Esagila, the great temple of Marduk in Babylon, has led most scholars to agree that it is the tower of this temple which inspired the writer of Genesis 11. This ziqqurat, which was called E-temen-anki, "house of the foundations of heaven and earth," rose to a height of about 300 feet, and contained two sanctuaries: one at its base, which was 300 feet square, and one at its summit. The tower was probably constructed at the time of Hammurapi, but was damaged or destroyed several times and repaired by Esarhaddon (seventh century B.C.E.) and Nebuchadnezzar II (sixth century B.C.E.), among others. It is interesting to note that the Babylonians believed that Esagila was built by the gods, thus making the statement in Genesis 11:5 "… which the sons of men had built," particularly meaningful, since it may be understood as a polemic against this belief. This tower, which was the object of such pride among the Babylonians, was the product of strictly human endeavor which can be quickly and easily destroyed in accordance with the Divine Will. In fact, it is quite likely that it was the sight of the ruins of Esagila (which was destroyed in the mid-16th century B.C.E with the destruction of Babylon by the Hittites) which inspired the creator of the Tower of Babel narrative. Although it is clear from the story that the work on the city and tower displeased the Lord, the specific sin of the builders is nowhere mentioned. Many scholars believe that it was the presumption of these men in thinking that they could build a tower with "its top in the sky," and their conceit in wanting "to make a name" for themselves, which incurred the wrath of the Lord. Others believe that their goal was to storm the heavens and that it was for this sin that mankind was punished. Modern scholars (already anticipated by R. Samuel ben Meir) have pointed out that the desire to remain together in one place was in direct conflict with the divine purpose as is expressed to Noah and his sons after the flood: "Be fertile and increase and fill up the earth" (Gen. 9:7) and was, therefore, an affront to God and so necessarily doomed to failure. It is hardly likely that the expressed wish to "make a name for ourselves" could be construed as sinful, since a similar phrase is used in connection with the divine promises to Abraham (Gen. 12:2). Further, Babylonian temple inscriptions A new link to an ultimate cuneiform background of the Tower of Babel narrative has been provided by a Sumerian literary work, no doubt composed during the third Dynasty of Ur, which states that originally mankind spoke the same language, until Enki, the Sumerian god of wisdom, confounded their speech. Though the reason for the confusion of tongues is not stated, Kramer has suggested that it may have been inspired by Enki's jealousy of another god, Enlil. Hence, in the Sumerian version it was a case of the rivalry between two gods, whereas in the Bible the rivalry was between God and man (see below, "The Meaning of the Story"). The etymology of the name Babel given in this narrative is a contrived one, used ironically. The Babylonians understood it to mean "the gate of the god" (bāb-ilim), thereby endowing the city with additional honor and importance. By a play on words, the Bible has given it a pejorative sense, making the pride in this city seem almost ludicrous. The Tower of Babel narrative is a turning point in history, as understood by the Bible, in that it signals the end of the era of universal monotheism which had existed since the beginning of time. Since the divine election of Abraham and his descendants immediately follows, it must be tacitly assumed that the incident led to the introduction of idolatry into the world. [Myra J. Siff] The Meaning of the Story The bridge which some modern writers have constructed between the single short clause "and fill the earth" in Genesis 1:28 (or 9:7) and the account of the vain attempt of an early generation of men to avoid dispersal in Genesis 11:1–9, is superior homiletics but (quite apart from the finding of source analysis that the one belongs to document P and the other to document J) unsound exegesis. Genesis 1:28 reads as follows: "God blessed them [namely, the human beings, male and female, whose creation has just been narrated in the preceding verse] and God said to them, 'Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that move about on earth.'" This purports to be, and is, not a command but a blessing; moreover "and fill the earth" is preceded by "be fertile and increase." It is absurd to read into it a wish of God that the human species shall spread over the earth otherwise than as, with increasing numbers, its own interests may dictate. And in 11:1–9 there is nothing to suggest that the human population has already attained such a figure that there is a need for a migration of colonists to realms beyond the confines of the plain of Shinar; and neither is there a word in 11:1–9 about that being the Deity's motive in bringing about the dispersal. Instead, there is an explicit declaration of an entirely different motive by no less an authority than the Lord himself, who explains to the divine beings, verses 6–7; "If this is what, as one people with one language common to all, they have been able to do as a beginning, nothing they may propose to do will be beyond their reach. Come, let us go down, etc." It takes a willful shutting of the mind to avoid hearing the same anxiety lest man should wrest complete equality with the divine beings (or worse) in these words as in the Lord's earlier explanation to the same audience, in 3:22, of his motive in driving man out of the Garden of Eden: "Now that man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad [i.e., in being intellectually mature, the first evidence of which was his newfound modesty], what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!" Once, to obviate the danger of further baleful results from cooperation between man and snake, the Lord set up a barrier of enmity between them (3:15); now, in order to eliminate the threat of disastrous consequences from the cooperation of men with each other, he is erecting among them barriers of language and distance. [Harold Louis Ginsberg] In the Aggadah The biblical account of the Tower of Babel is singularly brief and vague (Gen. R. 38). The prevailing opinion of the rabbis is that it was designed to serve the purposes of idolatry and constituted an act of rebellion against God (Sanh. 109a; Gen. R. 38:6; et al.), for which reason they also associated Nimrod ("the rebel") with its building (Ḥul. 89a). Many additional reasons are also suggested, among them the fear of a recurrence of the flood and the need to guard against such a recurrence by supporting the heavens or by splitting them so that waters would drain away slowly from the earth's surface (Ma'asim al Aseret ha-Dibberot; cf. Sanh. 109a). According to Josephus they were trying to dwell higher than the water level of the flood (Ant., I, IV). In this way the builders thought they would be spared, believing as they did that God had power over water alone (PdRE 24). At the same time the rabbis laud the unity and love of peace that prevailed among them (Gen. R. 38), as a result of which they were given an opportunity to repent, but they failed, however, to seize it (ibid.). Various opinions are expressed as to the punishment which the builders incurred (Tanḥ. B., 23). According to the Mishnah (Sanh. 10:3), they were excluded from a share in the world to come. In the view [Israel Moses Ta-Shma] In the Arts The biblical story of the tower of Babel appears repeatedly in medieval and Renaissance literature, treated as an historical incident with strong moral overtones. Some examples are the Chronicon of Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636 C.E.), the Weltchronik of Rudolf von Ems (1200–1254), and the Speculum humanae salvationis (c. 1324), a Dominican manual of devotion which was frequently copied. Giovanni Boccaccio wrote on the subject in his De casibus virorum illustrium (1355–60), as did an anonymous poet of Lyons in Le Triumphe de Haulte Folie (c. 1550). Two 17th-century Spanish works were entitled Torre de Babilonia: one was an auto sacramentale by the eminent dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca, the other by the Marrano author Antonio Enríquez Gómez. Modern treatments include Tower of Babel (1874) by the English poet Alfred Austin and Babel (1952), an apocalyptic work by the French poet Pierre Emmanuel (1916–1984). The subject appealed to medieval artists, appearing in 12th-century mosaics at Palermo and Monreale in Sicily and in the 13th-century Cathedral of St. Mark, Venice. There are representations in illuminated manuscripts from the 12th to the 14th centuries, including the German Hortus Deliciarum (Garden of Delights) and the Sarajevo Haggadah. Two 15th-century painters who used the theme were the Frenchman Jean Fouquet and the Italian Benozzo Gozzoli, who painted the fresco of Campo Santo, Pisa, now destroyed. With its landscape setting and the opportunities it offered for fantasy and close observation of the daily scene, the Tower was of considerable interest to the early Flemish painters. It was generally depicted either as a multistory structure, diminishing in size as it rose or, more often, as a square or circular building surrounded by a ramp. Some artists illustrated contemporary building methods, a fine example occurring in the Book of Hours of the Duke of Bedford (Paris, c. 1423), where the construction of the Tower proceeds at night under the stars. In Pieter Brueghel's Tower of Babel (1563), the building – leaning slightly – is shown in a vast landscape near the banks of a river, with a king arriving to inspect the progress of the work. Although the Babel story might appear to be a temptation to composers, since the confusion of tongues can be expressed most effectively in music, very few works have in fact been written on the theme. These are mainly oratorios including César Franck's La Tour de Babel (1865) and Anton Rubinstein's markedly unsuccessful Der Turm zu Babel (1858; revised as an opera, 1872). Two 20th-century works are La Tour de Babel (1932) by René Barbier and Igor Stravinsky's Babel, a cantata for narrator, men's chorus, and orchestra (1944, published in 1952). IN THE BIBLE: Abraham Ibn Ezra, Commentary to Gen. 11:1–9; M.D. Cassuto, Mi-No'aḥ ad Avraham (19593), 154–69; S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis (19042), 132–7; Kaufmann Y., Toledot, 2 (1960), 412–5; N.M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis (1967), 63–80 (incl. bibl.); J. Skinner, The Book of Genesis (ICC, 1930), 223–31; S.N. Kramer, in: JAOS, 88 (1968), 108–11. IN THE AGGADAH: Ginzberg, Legends, index; U. Cassuto, Commentary on the Book of Genesis, 2 (1964), 225–49; J. Gutmann, in: Oz le-David [Ben Gurion] (1964), 584–94. IN THE ARTS: H. Minkowski, Aus dem Nebel der Vergangenheit steigt der Turm zu Babel: Bilder aus 1000 Jahren (1960); LL. Réau, Iconographie de l'art chrétien, 2 pt. 1 (1957), 120–3, incl. bibl.; T. Ehrenstein, Das Alte Testament im Bilde (1923), 125–32; H. Gressmann, Tower of Babel (1928), 1–19. Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.
Plant growth is inhibited by very hot or cold water, but slightly improved by warmer water of room temperature in many varieties of plant. Low temperatures in general also inhibit plant growth, as does the amount of temperature differentiation between night and day.Continue Reading Extremes of both hot and cold stunt or completely inhibit plant growth. For example, bitterness in lettuce is usually caused by high temperatures. Ice cold water is particularly damaging to tropical plants. Water is best left to warm to room temperature before being applied to a plant, this is also useful because it allows harmful chemical additives often found in tap water to evaporate naturally before being administered to the plant.Learn more about Botany
Thalassemia Disease Hemoglobin What is Thalassemia and what does it do? Thalassemia is a disease first discovered by Dr. Thomas B. Cooley in 1925. It's an inherited genetic disorder that causes our bodies to produce fewer healthy red blood cells and hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a substance in red blood cells that carries oxygen all throughout our bodies. It also carries two chains called alpha globin chains and beta globin chains. Alpha globin chains are made with four genes. Alpha Thalassemia happens when two to four of those genes are missing. It can cause serious damage. Beta Globin chains are made with two genes and when one of the genes are also missing or changed, Beta Thalassemia occurs. Red blood cells will not perform properly when these chains are missing or altered. When red blood cells can't perform tasks and work, they die and your body doesn't function correctly, leading to serious consequences. Thalassemia can be diagnosed by taking blood tests, special hemoglobin tests, or having a complete blood count, otherwise known as CBC. CBC tests are used to provide information about the amount of hemoglobin and the different kinds of blood cells in a sample. Hemoglobin tests are used to measure the types of hemoglobin in a sample. It is usually diagnosed in early childhood due to the fact that signs and symptoms of this disease appear in the first two years of a human's life. Doctors also do tests on the amount of iron in the blood to find out if the Thalassemia occurred because of iron deficiency. Since Thalassemia is an inherited disorder, a simple way to diagnose it would be to conduct family genetic studies. This helps by looking at the history of family traits, similar to a pedigree. There are ways to tell if a person has Thalassemia. Symptoms can include slowed growth and delayed puberty in children and teens. Bone problems can make the bones become wider than normal because of expanding bone marrow, more fragile, and easy to break. These bone problems occur mainly in the face. More signs of Thalassemia can be an enlarged spleen. People with Thalassemia have hard-working spleens. In some cases when a spleen becomes too large, it must be removed. The heart and liver might grow bigger as well. Some people's appearance becomes pale and listless. They lose their appetites, have dark urine, and get jaundice as a result of Thalassemia. They might also feel tired and drowsy. Carriers of Thalassemia often show no signs of the disease. Unfortunately, because Thalassemia is passed on from parents to offspring, it cannot be prevented, however, it can be treated. Treatments for Thalassemia include Blood Transfusions, Iron Chelation Therapy, Folic Acid Supplements, Blood and Marrow Stem Cell Transplant, as well as treatments that researchers are still conducting experiments on. When given a blood transfusion, the patient receives new healthy red blood cells and more hemoglobin through a needle being inserted into their vein. Iron Chelation Therapy is needed and used to remove excess iron from the body using two medicines, Deferoxamine and Deferasirox. Deferoxamine is a liquid given under the skin with a pump, and Deferasirox is a pill that is taken daily for patients with Thalassemia. Both may cause side effects such as loss of hearing and vision, headaches, nausea, joint pain, fatigue, vomiting, and diarrhea. Thalassemia does not affect a person based on gender, but it is more common in some nationalities more than in others. For example, Alpha Thalassemia mostly occurs in people of the Southeast Asian, Indian Chinese, or Filipino origin, while Beta Thalassemia mainly occurs in people of the Mediterranean, Asian, or African origin. Even though it is more common in these nationalities, it does not mean that others are not at risk. It affects all people. People who live Thalassemia today go through daily treatments including taking folic acid supplements. Many people have been cured and blood screening have lowered the amount of infections in blood transfusions. Also new treatments are becoming available, and making it easier for people with this disease to take them. People who have Thalassemia are recommended to always wash their hands, avoid crowds during cold and flu season, keep skin around blood transfusion areas very clean, and to contact their doctors if a fever occurs. Need an essay? You can buy essay help from us today!
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 5: Students with Special Educational Needs/ADHD< Contemporary Educational Psychology \| Chapter 5: Students with Special Educational Needs Attention Deficit Hyperactivity DisorderEdit Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (or ADHD) is a problem with sustaining attention and controlling impulses. As students, almost all of us have these problems at one time or another, but a student with ADHD shows them much more frequently than usual, and often at home as well as at school. In the classroom, the student with ADHD may fidget and squirm a lot, or have trouble remaining seated, or continually get distracted and off task, or have trouble waiting for a turn, or blurt out answers and comments. The student may shift continually from one activity to another, or have trouble playing quietly, or talk excessively without listening to others. Or the student may misplace things and seem generally disorganized, or be inclined to try risky activities without enough thought to the consequences. Although the list of problem behaviors is obviously quite extensive, keep in mind that the student won’t do all of these things. It is just that over time, the student with ADHD is likely to several of them chronically or repeatedly, and in more than one setting (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). In the classroom , of course, the behaviors may annoy classmates and frustrate teachers. Differences in Perceptions: ADHD versus High ActivityEdit It’s important to note that classrooms are places that make heavy demands on not showing ADHD-like behaviors: students are often supposed to sit for long periods, avoid interrupting others, finish tasks after beginning them, and keep their minds (and materials) organized. Ironically, therefore, classroom life may sometimes aggravate ADHD without the teacher intending for it to do so. A student with only a mild or occasional tendency to be restless, for example, may fit in well outdoors playing soccer, but feel unusually restless indoor during class. It also should not be surprising that teachers sometimes mistake a student who is merely rather active for a student with ADHD, since any tendency to be physically active may contribute to problems with classroom management. The tendency to “overdiagnose” is more likely for boys than for girls, presumably because gender role expectations cause teachers to be especially alert to high activity in boys. Overdiagnosis is also especially likely for students who are culturally or linguistically non-Anglo (Chamberlain, 2005), presumably because cultural and language differences may sometimes lead teachers to misinterpret students’ behavior. To avoid misapplying making such mistakes, it is important to keep in mind that in true ADHD, restlessness, activity, and distractibility are widespread and sustained. A student who shows such problems at school but never at home, for example, may not have ADHD; he may simply not be getting along with his teacher or classmates. Causes of ADHDEdit Most psychologists and medical specialists agree that true ADHD, as opposed to “mere” intermittent distractibility or high activity, reflects a problem in how the nervous system functions, but they do not know the exact nature or causes of the problem (Rutter, 2004, 2005). Research shows that ADHD tends to run in families, with children—especially boys—of parents who had ADHD somewhat more likely than usual to experience the condition themselves. The association does not necessarily mean, though, that ADHD is inborn or genetic. Why? Because it is possible that parents who formerly had ADHD may raise their children more strictly in an effort to prevent their own condition in their children; yet their strictness, ironically, may trigger a bit more tendency, rather than less, toward the restless distractibility characteristic of ADHD. On the other hand (or is it “on the third hand”?), the parents’ strictness may also be a result, as well as a cause of, a child’s restlessness. The bottom line for teachers: sorting out causes from effects is confusing, if not impossible, and in any case may not help much to determine actual teaching strategies to help the students learn more effectively. Teaching Students with ADHDEdit Research also shows that ADHD can be reduced for many students if they take certain medications, of which the most common is methylphenidate, commonly known by the name Ritalin (Wilens, 2005; Olfson, 2003). This drug and others like it act by stimulating the nervous system, which reduces symptoms by helping a student pay better attention to the choices he or she makes and to the impact of actions on others. Unfortunately the medications do not work on all students with ADHD, especially after they reach adolescence, and in any case has certain practical problems. Drugs cost money, for one thing, which is a problem for a family without much money to begin with, or for a family lacking medical insurance that pays for medications—a particularly common situation in the United States. For another thing, drugs must be taken regularly in order to be effective, including on weekends. Keeping a regular schedule can be difficult if parents’ own schedules are irregular or simply differ from the child’s, for example because of night shifts at work or because parents are separated and share custody of the child. In any case, since teachers are not doctors and medications are not under teachers’ control, it may be more important simply to provide an environment where a student with ADHD can organize choices and actions easily and successfully. Clear rules and procedures, for example, can reduce the “noise” or chaotic quality in the child’s classroom life significantly. The rules and procedures can be generated jointly with the child; they do not have to be imposed arbitrarily, as if the student were incapable of thinking about them reasonably. Sometimes a classmate can be enlisted to model slower, more reflective styles of working, but in ways that do not imply undue criticism of the student with ADHD. The more reflective student can complete a set of math problems, for example, while explaining what he or she is thinking about while doing the work. Sometimes the teacher can help by making lists of tasks or of steps in long tasks. And it can help to divide focused work into small, short sessions rather than grouping it into single, longer sessions. Whatever the strategies that you use, they should be consistent, predictable, and generated by the student as much as possible. By having these qualities, the strategies can strengthen the student’s self-direction and ability to screen out the distractions of classroom life. The goal for teachers, in essence, is to build the student’s metacognitive capacity, while at the same time, of course, treating the student with respect. - American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, DSM-IV-TR (text revision). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association. - Chamberlain, S. (2005). Recognizing and responding to cultural differences in the education of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Intervention in School and Clinic, 40(4), 195-211. - Rutter, M. (2004). Pathways of genetic influences in psychopathology. European Review, 12, 19-33. - Rutter, M. (2005). Multiple meanings of a developmental perspective on psychopathology. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2(3), 221-252. - Wilens, T., McBurnett, K., Stein, M., Lerner, M., Spencer, T., & Wolraich, M. (2005). ADHD treatment with once-daily methylphenidate. Journal of American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 44(10), 1015-1023. - Olfson, M., Gameroff, M., Marcus, S., & Jensen, P. (2003). National trends in the treatment of ADHD. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 1071-1077.
The sense of identity, equalitarianism and self-sufficiency that Finnish immigrants brought to Canada was influenced by Finland’s history, geographical location and culture. As a first language, Finnish was spoken and sometimes Swedish. However, the Finnish language dominated. When Finns began arriving in North America they generally only communicated with other Finns primarily through their newspapers, music, drama, dances, sports clubs, congregations, temperance societies and other activities. Every Finnish community in Canada, no matter how small, built a hall to host activities that inevitably became known as a “Finn Hall”. By 1905, Finn halls could be found in both Fort William and Port Arthur. Inevitably, these converted buildings proved unsuitable for cultural needs of the Finnish community. By 1910, through the combined efforts of the Finnish-American Workers’ League Imatra #9 and the Finnish New Attempt Temperance Society, Finns at the Lakehead completed construction of the largest Finnish hall in Canada, the Finnish Labour Temple at 314 Bay Street in Port Arthur. The new building was designed to serve the needs of the Finnish community and featured offices, a library, a reading room and an auditorium for meetings, dances, theatrical productions and sporting events. The building later became known as the "Big Finn Hall" while the adjacent hall controlled by the Communist Party of Canada was known as the “Little Finn Hall”. The two halls were the focal points for the activities of Finnish workers and provided a centre for Finnish language and culture to thrive.
Glass, a versatile and fascinating material, has been a part of human history for thousands of years. Whether in the form of windows, art, or everyday objects, glass plays a crucial role in our lives. But have you ever wondered if hot glass looks the same as cold glass? In this article, we’ll explore the intriguing world of glass, its behavior at different temperatures, and the visual distinctions between hot and cold glass. The Nature of Glass To understand the differences between hot and cold glass, we need to delve into the nature of glass itself. Glass is an amorphous solid, which means it lacks the regular, repeating atomic structure found in crystalline solids. Instead, its atoms are arranged in a random fashion, resulting in a material with unique properties. Glass is primarily composed of silica, the main ingredient in sand, and is usually combined with various other elements to achieve specific characteristics. The production of glass involves heating raw materials to high temperatures, which leads to the formation of a molten glass that can be molded into various shapes. Hot Glass: The Liquid State When glass is in its hot, molten state, it behaves like a thick, viscous liquid. This molten glass is incredibly hot, often exceeding 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,093 degrees Celsius). At these high temperatures, it appears to be a glowing, semi-transparent or transparent material, depending on its composition. Hot glass can range in color from a fiery orange to a bright white, depending on its temperature and the specific elements or compounds present. It’s at this stage that glass artisans and glassblowers manipulate and shape the material into various forms, from sculptures to intricate glassware. Glassblowing: A Skillful Craft One of the most renowned forms of working with hot glass is glassblowing. This ancient art requires skill, precision, and a deep understanding of the material’s behavior at high temperatures. Glassblowers use long metal tubes to gather molten glass from a furnace and then blow air into the glass to shape it into exquisite pieces. The glass remains in a hot, malleable state throughout the entire process. As hot glass cools, it gradually transforms from a glowing, semi-liquid state to a solid one. The transition from hot to cold glass reveals intriguing visual differences. Cold Glass: The Solid State Cold glass, which is the familiar form we encounter daily, is the solid state of glass. It has cooled and solidified from its molten form. Unlike its hot counterpart, cold glass is rigid and maintains its shape without the need for external heat. At room temperature, cold glass appears transparent and can exhibit a wide range of colors, textures, and finishes. It is commonly used in architecture, art, windows, containers, and countless other applications. When you touch cold glass, it feels cool to the skin, which is a result of its heat-conducting properties. Visual Differences Between Hot and Cold Glass The visual distinctions between hot and cold glass are fascinating and can be quite striking. Here are some key differences to consider: Transparency and Clarity: Hot glass often appears translucent or semi-transparent due to the extreme heat and the way light interacts with the material at high temperatures. In contrast, cold glass is typically transparent or completely clear. Its amorphous structure allows it to transmit light effectively. The color of hot glass can vary widely based on the specific ingredients used in its composition, as well as its temperature. Hot glass can range from a fiery red-orange to a brilliant white, whereas cold glass exhibits its true coloration, which can include clear, green, blue, brown, and more. State of Matter: Perhaps the most significant visual difference is the state of matter. Hot glass is a liquid-like substance that flows and shifts, whereas cold glass is solid and maintains its shape without any visible movement. Texture and Finish: Hot glass may have a glossy or glowing appearance due to its high temperature. As it cools and solidifies, it takes on the texture and finish imparted during its creation. Cold glass can be smooth, textured, polished, frosted, or etched, depending on its intended use and artistic design. Conclusion: The Beauty of Glass in All Its States Glass, in both its hot and cold states, is a captivating and versatile material with unique visual properties. While hot glass radiates a fiery and semi-transparent allure, cold glass stands as a solid, transparent, and often brilliantly colored material. The process of transforming hot glass into cold glass is a testament to human creativity and craftsmanship, with skilled artisans harnessing the material’s diverse properties to create remarkable works of art and functional objects. Whether you appreciate the translucent glow of hot glass during its creation or the cool, transparent beauty of cold glass in your everyday life, there’s no denying that glass, in all its states, holds a special place in our world and continues to captivate our senses with its unique characteristics.
Climate change and its consequences Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more severe What is the impact of climate change on the risk? Sea ice and glaciers are melting, and the sea level is rising, currently at an average rate of around 3 mm per year. Higher temperatures result in greater evaporation, which adds to the energy content in the atmosphere. The probabilities for individual meteorological parameters and weather patterns are changing – something that is especially relevant from a risk perspective. If weather extremes become more frequent and/or more intense, losses will increase unless specific mitigation measures are implemented. These could include structural engineering measures or more stringent land-use regulations. There is scientific evidence for the influence of climate change on severe thunderstorms with hail in North America and Europe, on wildfires in California, and on heatwaves and droughts. In recent years, tropical storms (called hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones depending on the region where they occur) have been accompanied by increasingly extreme precipitation. There are also indications that the proportion of especially severe storms is rising. Individual loss events cannot be attributed to climate change alone. However, the analysis of long-term trends in meteorological data, in conjunction with underwriting and socio-economic data, provides important information on the changing risks emanating from weather hazards. Climate change and greenhouse gases – a simplified explanation of a complex process Decisive action required The insurance industry is directly affected by the consequences of climate change. Weather extremes result in higher levels of damage to buildings and infrastructure, as well as in crop shortfalls in agriculture. Essentially, there are two main challenges: Firstly, the crucial question to be answered is whether and how risks in insurance and investment are changing. The next step would then be to develop loss mitigation solutions in the form of risk transfer through insurance and portfolio management for investments. The importance of the Paris climate targets in the fight against climate change Climate change makes decisive action absolutely essential in order to limit global warming to significantly below 2 °C, and if at all possible to 1.5°C, compared with the pre-industrial global temperature level. This is also the goal of the international community and was thus enshrined in the Paris Agreement in 2015, under the auspices of the United Nations, in order to limit the negative impact of climate change. In many regions, increased warming of the atmosphere and oceans has serious consequences for the environment and society: stronger storms, droughts, floods, seal-level rise. Besides direct physical damage from natural disasters, these in turn also lead to long-term impacts on agriculture and species diversity. Projections from scientific climate models indicate that warming of 1.5 degrees will be reached or even exceeded in this decade or the next if no effective measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The last nine years were the nine warmest ever. And this despite the fact that the last three years (2020-2022) were characterised by a so-called La Niña phase – of the natural ENSO climate oscillation – which tends to have a cooling effect on global temperature. As the opposite effect – a so-called El Niño phase – is now expected for 2023, temperatures could now turn out be noticeably higher again. Curbing climate change New technologies in the fields of power generation, transport, energy storage and industrial production are needed to limit global warming. The focus for us therefore is on devising insurance solutions for these technologies in order to facilitate their market entry. Solutions for the assessment and management of risks
Technology is an important tool to help prepare students for the future. At WESM, we will introduce, encourage, and help students master technology, as it applies to school and the future. In addition, we will help teachers infuse this technology into classroom lessons. Technology at Washington Elementary is innovative because its focus is not on drill and practice like traditional computer programs. Rather, our emphasis is on innovative technology that teaches video and sound production, computer science concepts (coding) and programming, 3D Printing, and design, and digital citizenship. While computer science tends to be rigorous, student benefit from the combination of academics and fun-filled activities. It is our philosophy that children learn best by playing and in essence "Learn through play" is encouraged. While learning computer concepts, students create games; while learning to type and word processing, students create storyboards and animations; while learning math, students design and print in 3D space. Lessons carried out in the computer room are continued in their classrooms where each student has a Chromebook. This ties in the with the concept that technology is both supplementary and complementary in nature at WESM. In other words, Tech lab activities can be supplemented in individual classrooms and at the same time complemented with general academics. Video Production: Elementary techniques of editing and recording audio and video through green screening, weather, and book reports projects. Students learn to use software that allows audio and video editing. This exercise can be applied at a basic level in Chromebooks (SeeSaw) or with other advanced programs in the computer lab. Here is an example of a book report edited with iMovie. English and Language Arts with Storybird: With Storybird, students see the value of words and meaning. This web-based program allows students to create their own poems and picture books. Computer Science with CODE.org : A web-based program which allows students to learn computer science fundamentals such as looping, debugging, conditionals, sequences, algorithms, and variables. All grade levels (K-5) learn from this website and culminate the experience with the worldwide event "The Hour of Code" which has proudly put us on the world map in the past five years as a vanguard elementary school which teaches computer science. Coding with Scratch.mit : This web-based program allows students to code games which provides opportunities for creativity, problem-solving and collaboration. Students get to experience basic programming as they code in visual block language. Scratch introduces computer science as students learn to program their own codes. Linux Programming: This is a course offered in partnership with USC's School of Engineering STEM outreach where students learn to work with Linux PC's and use Python and Logo programming language. This is an advanced computer science class open to students who excel in other areas of our computer science curriculum. Other opportunities for students will arrive once we have developed support and curriculum for Raspberry Pi, Turing Table Programming, and Virtual Reality development with Unity Engine. Digital Citizenship with Interland: To make the most of the Internet, kids need to be prepared to make smart decisions. We use Interland to teach our students the fundamentals of digital citizenship and safety so they can explore the online world with confidence. Being kind and dealing with cyberbullying, sharing with care, the creation of strong passwords, avoiding click baits are some of the discussions that we target throughout the school year. 3-D Printing with Tinkercad.com: Students at Washington Elementary STEM have the opportunity to design projects and see their online creations come alive by using our 3-D printers. Incorporating 3D printers in lessons gives students the opportunity to get their hands on next-gen technology so they can use their creativity and collaboration skills to help them be prepared for the jobs of tomorrow. This is a class that is offered during and after school. We are proud to say that our school participates in the annual Pasadena Unified School District 3D printing challenge and has been extremely successful in the past four years. Creativity and Thinking Skills with Little Alchemy: This game most directly lends itself to the scientific and historical discussion of the classical elements (fire, water, earth, and air), the concept of fundamental elements, and, consequently, atomic theory. In a math classroom, the game may also be leveraged to teach prime factorization in a meaningful way. In science, Earth systems and natural phenomena can be discussed by making appropriate combinations. Careful attention has to be made since Little Alchemy can be whimsical and inaccurate. Technology Programs Used by Teachers: Typing.com is used to teach students proper typing techniques, speed, and accuracy strategies. This allows our elementary age students to use keyboards on devices such as Chromebooks, and classroom computers. Typing requirements are 5 words per minute times grade level (ex. 5 wpm X 4th Grade= 20wpm). Starfall.com teaches kindergarten students phonetic sounds, alphabet letters, opportunities for collaboration, learning to use the mouse, and play. ABCya.com engages students academically through play. Teachers and computer teacher communicate to target areas of academic reinforcement needed and used this website to help students learn. Google.com is used to teach web research, search for images as needed, and general browser navigation strategies. Students are also learning to use Google applications such as Slides to create slideshows and work cooperatively. The lessons, activities, programs, and websites listed above align with the Common Core State Standards and Technology and Skills Scope and Sequence.
A Statement of Intent for Science At Fairmead, we want our learners to foster a love of science and the natural world. Our intent is to give every student a broad and balanced science curriculum which enables learners to explore and discover with confidence what is around them in order to gain a deeper understanding of the world they live in. We want to embrace student’s sense of wonder in science by providing exciting, practical, hands-on experiences that guide them to become enquiry-based learners through exploratory and investigative experiences whilst developing their knowledge and use of scientific language and vocabulary. We want our learners to develop an understanding of the relevance, purpose and application, of science in everyday life and to use the knowledge they acquire to live safe, healthy lives beyond Fairmead. In addition, we hope to promote respect, care, appreciation and responsibility for their immediate surroundings and recognise the role they and their peers play in protecting the environment. We understand that our young people learn most effectively through first-hand experiences. Therefore, we take a very practical approach to introducing and exploring new ideas and concepts: students are thereby “working scientifically” to acquire and embed core scientific skills alongside the content knowledge they are learning. In this way, teachers can create a positive attitude to scientific learning within their classroom and reinforce an expectation that all learners are capable of achieving high standards in science. In the topics of study set out in our Long Term Plan up to the end of Key Stage 3, our focus has been placed on those areas of science that we believe will prove most relevant and therefore most beneficial to our students as they move towards Further Education and adulthood. Knowledge within these topics - and the ability to use and apply this knowledge - is built through all phases of the school thus providing the golden threads that allow our children and students to grow their understanding of science, and build upon their prior knowledge in order to embed information into their long-term memory. Science teaching at Fairmead involves adapting and extending the curriculum to match all pupils’ needs to ensure they are challenged appropriately and achieve success, regardless of their starting point. Alongside this, our curriculum is designed to promote a love of - and curiosity for - science by providing learners with engaging learning experiences and additional opportunities to engage with events such as focused trips and British Science Week. Across the school, science is delivered with a focus of finding practical ways to learn and retain knowledge; there is a heavy focus on exposing our learners to scientific vocabulary from the very beginning of their science learning journeys. Implementation of the Science Curriculum Science in our lower primary classes is taught as part of the ‘Understanding the World’ curriculum. It is introduced through continuous provision to promote curiosity for and engagement in science. Engaging learning opportunities are designed to encourage students to begin to notice, explore, problem-solve, observe, think, and communicate about what they have experienced. Through focused, hands-on learning opportunities woven into continuous provision, learners begin to develop the early skills of working scientifically, beginning to become increasingly inquisitive about the world around them. In upper primary, content objectives are introduced which are designed to build towards KS3 Learning Objectives. They have been adapted to be more relevant to our learners at this stage in their learning journey and more relevant to their futures. Learners are encouraged to start questioning, reasoning, classifying and grouping, and seeking answers. They are taught to use simple scientific equipment to carry out basic investigations and experiments as they continue to build their working scientifically skills. Teachers project their learning flightpaths, identifying aspirational outcomes from their current starting points based up on the knowledge they are able to acquire and use. In KS3, students have opportunity to experience the specially equipped science laboratory where they have access to scientific apparatus such as Bunsen burners, chemicals, electrical circuit equipment, force meters and dissection equipment. Students have opportunities to conduct frequent experiments that enable them to practise and build on the knowledge that they have acquired through primary science. Content taught over a two-year rolling programme, featuring a structured programme for overlearning, gives students the best opportunity to retain knowledge ready to continue their science journey in KS4. Students in KS3 start to plan experiments and consider how changing variables might affect the results. They start to use prior learning and experiences to inform thinking. They begin to apply their writing skills in instructing and explaining as they develop their method writing technique. They are encouraged to build their independence in collecting results through observations. Linking and applying scientific knowledge and understanding to everyday life is a feature of learning, for example understanding and investigating the various choices we make that can positively or negatively affect our health. Teachers monitor and assess each student’s progress and review their projected flight paths matching aspiration and achievability. In KS4, to ensure the highest aspirations for all are met, students follow the most appropriate flight path that has been determined on the basis of progress over time and the many factors that may have impacted this. As stated above, this may have been identified during Upper Primary phase based on their development to that point or it may have changed as their knowledge acquisition accelerated or slowed. Whatever the flight path, we have continued to pay attention to what is most relevant and valuable for our young people to learn in order to be prepared for their next step in education: Flightpath 1: AQA GCSE Combined Trilogy Science. Some KS4 students will sit this at the end of Year 11. Flightpath 2: OCR Entry Level Science. Students completing a qualification can work towards entry level 1, 2 or 3. This focuses on the topics of biology, chemistry, and physics. Students working towards OCR Entry Level are assessed by a short test paper which is taken at the end of every unit. Flightpath 3: Eduqas Science Today Entry Level. This provides students the opportunity to learn key life skills that are related to science. These topics include: health and safety, plant care, the human body, variation and adaptation, electrical circuits and food and health. Students on this flight path are assessed through objective related work completion. Each term, teachers work together alongside subject leaders to determine the learning journeys for the different phases from lower primary up to Key Stage 3. By building these journeys term on term we are able to ensure progression across phases and we are able to match learning experiences to the needs and interests of our current cohort of students.
When NASA’s Parker Solar Probe lifts off on top of a Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle in summer 2018, it will undergo both intense vibration from the physical forces of the rocket engines, as well as acoustic effects from the sound of the engines and the rocket going through the atmosphere. Verifying the spacecraft and its systems are ready for the rigors of launch is one of the most important parts of testing. On Nov. 3, Parker Solar Probe passed vibration testing at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, in Laurel, Maryland, where it was designed and built. On Nov. 14, the spacecraft successfully completed acoustic testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and is now being prepared for further environmental tests. Goddard’s Acoustic Test Chamber is a 42-foot-tall chamber that uses 6-foot-tall speakers –which can create sound levels of up to 150 decibels – to simulate the extreme noise levels of a rocket launch. While vibration testing focuses on how much the spacecraft will shake during launch, acoustic testing subjects the probe to intense sound forces, like those generated by the Delta IV Heavy. Each type of force affects the spacecraft differently, so both tests are necessary. “We’re launching on a very large and powerful vehicle, so we need to make sure that the spacecraft, its systems, and its instruments are going survive the launch environment,” said Shelly Conkey, a Parker Solar Probe structural analyst at APL, who led the acoustic test. “We use our data models to predict the forces that will be impacting Parker Solar Probe, and by comprehensive monitoring of the spacecraft during testing, we can ensure that we’re ready to move on to thermal vacuum testing.” Parker Solar Probe spacecraft will explore the Sun’s outer atmosphere and make critical observations that will answer decades-old questions about the physics of stars. The resulting data will also help improve how we forecast major eruptions on the Sun and subsequent space weather events that can impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space. The mission is named for Eugene N. Parker, whose profound insights into solar physics and processes have helped shape the field of heliophysics.
Washing Your Hands What’s more powerful than a speeding vaccine? Soap and water! Wash your hands, wash them well, and wash them often, and you’ll protect yourself from illness. Washing your hands often is the best way to avoid disease. And it’s much cheaper than drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that regular hand-washing with soap could save more lives than any vaccine or medical treatment. How so? As you go through your day, you touch people, surfaces, and objects hundreds of times. Each time, your hands pick up germs. As soon as you rub your eyes or scratch your nose, it’s off to the races for those germs. They’re now in your eyes, nose, or mouth, ready to make you sick. It’s impossible to keep your hands germ-free. But the best way to control bacteria, viruses, and other nasty microbes (tiny germs) is by washing your hands often with soap and water. When to wash - Before, during, and after preparing food, especially raw meat or poultry - Before eating - Before and after caring for someone who is sick - Before and after treating a cut or wound - Before putting in or taking out contact lenses - After using the toilet - After changing diapers or cleaning a child who has used the toilet - After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing - After touching an animal, or animal feed, toys, or waste - After touching garbage - After handling anything that could be germy, like a cleaning cloth or dirty shoes - Whenever your hands look dirty How to wash Don’t just rinse your hands under the faucet and call them clean. You need to scrub them with soap for at least 20 seconds. (If that seems like forever, think about being in bed for a week with the flu!) Follow these steps every time you wash: - Wet your hands with clean running water (warm or cold) and apply soap. - Lather and scrub well. Don’t forget the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails. - Keep scrubbing for at least 20 seconds. That’s about as long as it takes to hum the “Happy Birthday” song twice. - Rinse your hands well under running water. - Dry your hands using a clean towel, or air dry. If you don’t have soap and water, use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Antimicrobial wipes or swabs are another choice. Look for wipes with a high percentage of alcohol. Although these sanitizers can quickly lower the number of germs on your hands, they don’t get rid of all kinds of germs. Rub the sanitizer all over your hands and between your fingers until your hands are dry. Sanitizers can’t remove visible dirt. You need soap and water for that. And skip the antibacterial soap. It’s no better at killing germs than regular soap. It may even help grow bacteria that resist the product’s antimicrobial agents — making it harder to kill these germs in the future. Help kids stay healthier Regular hand washing with soap could save more lives than any vaccine or medical treatment. Remind your kids to wash their hands properly and often. Show them how it’s done by washing your hands together. Sing the “Happy Birthday” song twice while you’re at it. This keeps kids from rushing through the job. If your child can’t reach the sink on his own, keep a step stool handy. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are fine for children and teens, especially when soap and water aren’t handy. Show your child the right way to use the sanitizer. Remind her to make sure the sanitizer is dry before she touches anything. Store the container safely away after use. Hand-washing is extra important for kids in school or group child care. Make sure your child’s teacher or caregiver promotes frequent hand-washing. (Sanitizers are OK too.) Ask if kids are made to wash their hands several times a day — not just before meals. Also note whether diaper-changing areas are cleaned after each use, and whether eating and diaper-changing areas are kept a safe distance apart.
Spoofing is a specific type of cyber-attack in which someone attempts to use a computer, device, or network to trick other computer networks by masquerading as a legitimate entity. It's one of many tools that hackers use to gain access to computers to mine them for sensitive data, turn them into zombies (computers taken over for malicious use), or launch Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. Of the different types of spoofing, IP spoofing is the most common. IP spoofing, or IP address spoofing, refers to the creation of Internet Protocol (IP) packets with a false source IP address to impersonate another computer system. IP spoofing allows cybercriminals to carry out malicious actions, often without detection. This might include stealing your data, infecting your device with malware, or crashing your server. To learn more about what IP address is and how to protect it, watch this video on YouTube: Let’s start with some background: Data transmitted over the internet is first broken into multiple packets, and those packets are sent independently and reassembled at the end. Each packet has an IP (Internet Protocol) header that contains information about the packet, including the source IP address and the destination IP address. In IP spoofing, a hacker uses tools to modify the source address in the packet header to make the receiving computer system think the packet is from a trusted source, such as another computer on a legitimate network, and accept it. This occurs at the network level, so there are no external signs of tampering. In systems that rely on trust relationships among networked computers, IP spoofing can be used to bypass IP address authentication. A concept sometimes referred to as the ‘castle and moat’ defense, which is where those outside the network are considered threats, and those inside the ‘castle’ are trusted. Once a hacker breaches the network and makes it inside, it's easy to explore the system. Because of this vulnerability, using simple authentication as a defense strategy is increasingly being replaced by more robust security approaches, such as those with multi-step authentication. While cybercriminals often use IP spoofing to carry out online fraud and identity theft or shut down corporate websites and servers, there can also sometimes be legitimate uses. For example, organizations may use IP spoofing when testing websites before putting them live. This would involve creating thousands of virtual users to test the website to see if the site can handle a large volume of logins without being overwhelmed. IP spoofing is not illegal when used in this way. The three most common forms of IP spoof attacks are: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks In a DDoS attack, hackers use spoofed IP addresses to overwhelm computer servers with packets of data. This allows them to slow down or crash a website or network with large volumes of internet traffic while concealing their identity. Masking botnet devices IP spoofing can be used to obtain access to computers by masking botnets. A botnet is a network of computers that hacker’s control from a single source. Each computer runs a dedicated bot, which carries out malicious activity on the attacker’s behalf. IP spoofing allows the attacker to mask the botnet because each bot in the network has a spoof IP address, making the malicious actor challenging to trace. This can prolong the duration of an attack to maximize the payoff. Another malicious IP spoofing method uses a ‘man-in-the-middle’ attack to interrupt communication between two computers, alter the packets, and transmit them without the original sender or receiver knowing. If attackers spoof an IP address and obtain access to personal communication accounts, they can then track any aspect of that communication. From there, it’s possible to steal information, direct users to fake websites, and more. Over time, hackers collect a wealth of confidential information they can use or sell – which means man-in-the-middle attacks can be more lucrative than the others. One of the most frequently cited examples of an IP spoofing attack is GitHub’s DDoS attack in 2018. GitHub is a code hosting platform, and in February 2018, it was hit by what was believed to be the largest DDoS attack ever. Attackers spoofed GitHub’s IP address in a coordinated attack so large that it brought down the service for nearly 20 minutes. GitHub regained control by re-routing traffic through an intermediary partner and scrubbing data to block malicious parties. An earlier example took place in 2015 when Europol cracked down on a continent-wide man-in-the-middle attack. The attack involved hackers intercepting payment requests between businesses and their customers. The criminals used IP spoofing to obtain fraudulent access to organizations’ corporate email accounts. They then snooped on communications and intercepted requests for payments from customers – so they could trick those customers into sending payments to bank accounts they controlled. IP spoofing isn’t the only form of network spoofing – there are other types, including email spoofing, website spoofing, ARP spoofing, text message spoofing, and more. You can read Kaspersky's complete guide to different types of spoofing here. It is difficult for end-users to detect IP spoofing, which is what makes it so dangerous. This is because IP spoof attacks are carried out at the network layers – i.e., Layer 3 of the Open System Interconnection communications model. This doesn’t leave external signs of tampering – often, spoofed connection requests can appear legitimate from the outside. However, organizations can use network monitoring tools to analyze traffic at endpoints. Packet filtering is the most common way to do this. Packet filtering systems – which are often contained in routers and firewalls – detect inconsistencies between the packet’s IP address and desired IP addresses detailed on access control lists (ACLs). They also detect fraudulent packets. The two main types of packet filtering are ingress filtering and egress filtering: IP spoofing attacks are designed to conceal the attackers’ true identity, making them difficult to spot. However, some anti-spoofing steps can be taken to minimize risk. End-users can't prevent IP spoofing since it's the job of server-side teams to prevent IP spoofing as best they can. Most of the strategies used to avoid IP spoofing must be developed and deployed by IT specialists. The options to protect against IP spoofing include: Web designers are encouraged to migrate sites to IPv6, the newest Internet Protocol. It makes IP spoofing harder by including encryption and authentication steps. A high proportion of the world's internet traffic still uses the previous protocol, IPv4. End-users can't prevent IP spoofing. That said, practicing cyber hygiene will help to maximize your safety online. Sensible precautions include: Make sure your home network is set up securely This means changing the default usernames and passwords on your home router and all connected devices and ensuring you use strong passwords. A strong password avoids the obvious and contains at least 12 characters and a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. You can read Kaspersky’s full guide to setting up a secure home network here. Take care when using public Wi-Fi Avoid carrying out transactions such as shopping or banking on unsecured public Wi-Fi. If you do need to use public hotspots, maximize your safety by using a virtual private network or VPN. A VPN encrypts your internet connection to protect the private data you send and receive. Make sure the websites you visit are HTTPS Some websites don’t encrypt data. If they don’t have an up-to-date SSL certificate, they are more vulnerable to attacks. Websites whose URL starts with HTTP rather than HTTPS are not secure – which is a risk for users sharing sensitive information with that site. Ensure that you’re using HTTPS websites and look for the padlock icon in the URL address bar. Be vigilant when it comes to phishing attempts Be wary of phishing emails from attackers asking you to update your password or other login credentials or payment card data. Phishing emails are designed to look as though they come from reputable organizations but, in reality, have been sent by scammers. Avoid clicking on links or opening attachments in phishing emails. Use a comprehensive antivirus The best way to stay safe online is by using a high-quality antivirus to protect you from hackers, viruses, malware, and the latest online threats. It's also essential to keep your software up-to-date to ensure it has the latest security features.
Release captive-bred reptiles into the wild: Crocodilians Overall effectiveness category Awaiting assessment Number of studies: 4 Background information and definitions Captive breeding is normally used to provide individuals that can then be released into the wild (often called ‘reintroduction’) to either re-establish a population that has been lost, or to augment an existing population (‘restocking’). Release techniques vary considerably, from ‘hard releases’ involving the simple release of individuals into the wild to ‘soft releases’ which involve a variety of adaptation and acclimatisation techniques before release, or post-release feeding and care. This action includes studies describing the effects of release programmes for captive-bred reptiles that do not specifically test the effectiveness of specific release techniques. For studies that compare specific release techniques see Use holding pens or enclosures at release site prior to release of captive-bred reptiles; Use holding pens or enclosures at release site prior to release of wild reptiles and Release reptiles into burrows. Due to the number of studies found, this action has been split by species group, though no studies were found for amphisbaenians. See here for: Sea turtles; Tortoises, terrapins, side-necked & softshell turtles; Snakes & lizards or Tuatara. Supporting evidence from individual studies A review of worldwide reptile translocation projects during 1991–2006 (Germano & Bishop 2009) found that a third of the projects, that included some releases of captive-bred animals, were considered successful with substantial recruitment to the adult population. Of the 47 translocation projects reviewed (39 species), 32% were successful, 28% failed and long-term success was uncertain for the remaining 40%. Projects that translocated animals due to human-wildlife conflicts failed more often (63% of 8 projects) than those for conservation purposes (15% of 38) and those for research purposes (50% of 5). Success was independent of the life-stage translocated/released, number of animals released and geographic region (see paper for details). Releases of captive-bred animals made up 7% of the projects, and individuals involved were adults in 75% of cases, juveniles and sub-adults in 64% of cases and eggs in 4% of cases. The most common reported cause of failure was homing and migration with the second most common reported cause being insufficient numbers, human collection and food/nutrient limitation all equally reported. Success was defined as evidence of substantial recruitment to the adult population during monitoring over a period at least as long as it takes the species to reach maturity.Study and other actions tested A study in 1967–2009 along two rivers and associated floodplains in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Calverley & Downs 2014), found that after releasing captive-bred Nile crocodiles Crocodylus niloticus, the number of crocodiles counted in the wild increased over 30 years, but then began to decline. Results were not statistically tested. In the 1990s, thirty years after a programme to breed and release Nile crocodiles began, the crocodile population numbered 937–1066 individuals, compared to 344–351 individuals in the 1970s. In 2009, fifteen years later, the population numbered 128–846 individuals and the authors reported that it may have been declining after peaking in the 1990s. In January 1967–November 1974, a captive-breeding programme produced, reared and released 1,257 Nile crocodiles into a game reserve (10,000 ha). Crocodile abundance was monitored on two river systems using aerial surveys (carried out by helicopter or airplane) in 1971–1973, 1985–1986, 1989–1990, 1992–1994 and 2009. Results reported here were corrected for differences between survey methods (see original paper for details).Study and other actions tested A replicated study in 2006–2016 in an area of ponds and dense vegetation in Anhui Province, China (Manolis et al. 2016) found that after 10 years of releases of captive-bred Chinese alligators Alligator sinensis, alligators occupied over half of ponds in the area, and successful reproduction was occurring. Alligators were found in 28 of the 50 ponds (56%). Survivorship of released alligators was thought to be >85% (no formal analysis carried out). Successful reproduction was recorded two years after the first release (158 eggs, producing 80 hatchlings were discovered), though the full extent of nesting was unknown. Fifty ponds (30 ha total water area) were constructed in the release area, at a cost of around $US10,000 to construct and prepare the average-sized pond. Ponds were established with terrestrial (e.g. bamboo) and aquatic vegetation, and “seeded” with fish, amphibians, and snails. Prior to release, adult alligators were isolated for 3–4 months for health screening. In 2006–2016, eleven releases (during May–June) of 93 alligators were carried out (sex ratio 1 male:2 females). Population monitoring was carried out using spotlight surveys.Study and other actions tested A study in 2007–2016 in a wetland in Shanghai Province, China (Manolis et al. 2016) reported that some released captive-bred Chinese alligators Alligator sinensis survived for 1–9 years and successfully reproduced. Three of six alligators survived for 9 years, and a further six survived at least one year following release. Nesting was reported in four years following release. In 2016, the population consisted of nine adults (released individuals), at least four wild born adults (offspring of released alligators) and around five juveniles/sub-adults. In 2007, six captive-bred alligators were released into a wetland park. In 2015–2016 a further six were released.Study and other actions tested
How to understand protein carbs and fats. A valuable macronutrient guide Macronutrients have been front-page news for a while now. Great advice can be found almost everywhere on eating less or more, losing weight by keeping track of carbs, eating more fat, and getting enough protein… What does it all mean? Let’s break down the Macronutrients into what they are and how they work within the body for a healthier you. What are Carbohydrates? Carbohydrates are a diverse group of compounds produced mainly by plants: dietary fiber, starches, and simple sugars. Complex carbohydrates provide riboflavin, thiamine, niacin, folate, iron, protein, magnesium, and fiber. Grains, fruits, and vegetables are examples of Carbohydrates. Your diet should include 45-65% of carbohydrates daily for a balanced diet. Carbohydrates are our primary energy source, and our brain needs the glucose they provide. Glucose, also called “blood sugar,” is the most abundant carbohydrate in the body. The primary function of glucose is to provide energy to cells. What type of Carbohydrates to eat? Not all carbohydrates have the same effect on blood glucose levels. Some foods cause blood glucose levels to rise quickly and remain elevated, while others do not. The glycemic index is the rating system for the magnitude and duration of the rise in blood glucose. The reference is set at 100, reflecting a rapid and significant rise in blood glucose after consumption. Foods with glycemic indices significant than 70 (e.g., Bagels, are considered high GI foods. Using the GI food reference can help make healthier carbohydrate choices. Eating many high GI foods can harm your health by pushing the body to extremes. Foods with lower GI’s are associated with a lower risk of developing diseases. This is especially true for people who are overweight and sedentary. Eating mainly low GI carbohydrates that slowly filter glucose into your bloodstream keeps your energy levels balanced, allowing you to feel fuller for longer between meals. Other benefits of eating low GI foods include: helping in losing and managing weight, increasing the body’s sensitivity to insulin, improving diabetes management; reducing the risk of heart disease; improving blood cholesterol levels; prolonging physical endurance; and, and helping to refuel carbohydrate stores after exercise. The high end of GI – Fruit drinks, bagels, white bread, Sugar, White rice, Milk 2%, deli meats Generally high sugar and high-fat foods. (simple carbohydrates) The lower end of GI – Beans, Skim milk, Oat bran, almonds Proteins perform four primary functions in the body: they serve as a structural material in muscle, tissue, organs, and blood; they serve as the component for enzymes, hormones, and other chemicals; they maintain and repair tissues; and they serve as an energy source. Nearly half of the protein in the body is in the muscle – the rest is present in organs. Protein is continually broken down and rebuilt. Food sources of high-quality protein include animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs. Other good sources are beans, grains, and nuts. The average protein intake in the U.S. is 75 grams per day, exceeding the recommended amount of 56 grams for men and 46 grams for women daily. High protein consumption is usually due to how the media portrays fitness and building muscle with high protein intakes. Recommended daily intake is 10 to 35% of calories from protein. Fats, known as lipids, are required for every physiological system in the body. Lipids provide energy and transfer fat-soluble vitamins plus other healthy processes within the body. Although we associate fat with an unhealthy diet, getting enough of the right kind of fat is just as essential as cutting back on bad fats. Reducing meat, significantly red meat, can help reduce our fat intake. Being mindful of products that are high in saturated fat and have a high total fat count allows you to avoid increasing calories from fat. The recommended amount of calories per day from fat is 20 to 35%. Since almost all foods contain some fat, the average diet provides sufficient amounts of essential fat. Reducing trans fats, saturated fats, and cholesterol will help decrease fat intake without worrying about getting enough of the essentials.
Subtractive manufacturing can be performed manually by a machinist. More commonly it’s a highly complex process used by a CNC machine. It is a decades-old practice with a demonstrated history of effectiveness in the prototyping process and manufacturing products. The goal for your project will determine if it is the correct process for your needs. Subtractive manufacturing is like the process an artist uses to create a sculpture. The machinist or CNC programmer, like the artist, uses specialized tools to carve metal materials into the desired shape. The different techniques used by the craftsman or artist create the specific details requested by the client. If you want to understand subtractive manufacturing further and whether it aligns with your needs, consider Glenn Metalcraft Inc. They are an industry leader with a customer service focus. What is subtractive manufacturing? Subtractive manufacturing is aptly named since it involves removing or subtracting materials to produce the end product. One method of implementing subtractive manufacturing utilizes a computer numerically controlled or CNC machine. The process begins with a rough slab or bar of material. Then, a machinist removes the excess until it reaches the final shape of the prototype or product being manufactured. You can imagine it like a sculpture. Your piece begins as a rough block but takes on a more complex shape through detailed carving. Subtractive manufacturing can be further broken down by the machines and manufacturing technologies used. Conventional machining uses three-axis cutting tools so that the block does not need to be manually flipped or turned. Conventional lathes, milling machines, and drill presses produce basic geometric designs. Unconventional machining is ideal for working with brittle materials or producing more intricate and complex shapes. It uses a variety of processes to remove excess materials. This method can use a combination of mechanical, electric, thermal, or chemical methods to fashion the block into the desired shape. What is the difference between additive and subtractive manufacturing? The difference between additive and subtractive manufacturing is stated within their names. One method adds material; the other method subtracts material. Additive manufacturing involves adding material to create the desired part. Adding layers to the workpiece forms the designated object. Like a CNC machine, a 3D printer is programmed to create a 3d printed piece. The printer then builds up the shape from raw materials. Specific industries that utilize additive manufacturing include the medical and dental device industries. Subtractive manufacturing involves removing material from solid blocks to fashion the desired shape. Manufacturers can use it with many different metals, such as aluminum and brass. A machinist or CNC machine system will remove metal using drilling, milling, or turning. The process will clear away segment by segment until the result is your product or prototype. However, the two processes are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, many manufacturers use both together to take advantage of each process’s unique advantages. Advantages of subtractive manufacturing There are many advantages of subtractive manufacturing, so it has remained a popular production method after decades of use. Subtractive manufacturing usually results in much smoother surface finishes than the “stepped” surface, which results from using an additive manufacturing process. Why does the type of finish matter? If your product needs to slide, you will want the smooth finish that subtractive manufacturing provides. The texture matters if you use your prototype in your sales and marketing process. Your customers will be more likely to believe that your product is the right fit if it has the right feel. Computer numerically controlled systems are commonly utilized in the subtractive manufacturing process. First, the CNC software reads the design provided and instructs the CNC machine on creating the product. It then prescribes how to cut, drill, and channel your components. This level of automation means that larger-scale production can be handled with greater ease and less human involvement. The tools used in subtractive manufacturing are exact and can create intricate or tight geometric designs. These types of complex shapes may be otherwise difficult to mold or cast. Subtractive manufacturing techniques Many subtractive manufacturing techniques are used. However, the main approaches can be divided into three broad categories. Those are: - Machining, and Cutting involves using saws, blades, or other such tools to remove excess material. Machining is when tools move around or across the raw material to shape it. CNC machining involves turning, milling, or drilling the item. Finally, abrading is when the raw material is sanded down or polished using an abrasive substance. The type of process used is dependent on the type of material used. A manufacturer needs a deep knowledge of metals to apply those processes to create the right design effectively. Subtractive manufacturing examples Manufacturers can apply subtractive manufacturing in various industries, including medical, dental, automotive, aerospace, and agriculture. From gears in an airplane engine to garden tools, subtractive manufacturing can produce many products. This manufacturing technique can even make jewelry! Glenn Metalcraft Inc. uses its decades of industry experience to create items that might otherwise seem impossible! Subtractive manufacturing has earned its place as an effective fabrication process in most machine shops. Its long history has improved by adding automation and software to allow many additional applications. Moreover, its unique properties mean it can create tight geometric shapes with a smooth and polished finish. Hybrid Manufacturing, the Future of Subtractive Manufacturing For a long time, subtractive manufacturing has been the go-to for detail and finish work because it’s simply the best method. But today, additive manufacturing gives us new shapes and structures possibilities. The best of both worlds – additive and subtractive techniques combined on the same machine. This is what we call hybrid manufacturing. With this method, you can create a new part from scratch with 3D printing and then use CNC methods to finish it. With this technology, you can switch between methods as you please. For instance, start by 3D printing a layer of material, then use subtractive machining on it, and add another layer afterward. Why Glenn Metalcrafts Inc.? Glenn Metalcrafts Inc. specializes in assisting the OEM industry in creating prototypes and manufacturing the products that build your success. Our company brings to the table decades of experience, advanced equipment, and the advice of metal industry experts. We manufacture products others would not even consider. Glenn Metalcrafts Inc. builds solid relationships and grows alongside its customers. It is selective in its clientele to achieve the right fit. Reach out today to find out how Glenn Metalcrafts Inc. can make your manufacturing idea a reality.
All seven of the United States’ abalone species that live on the West Coast are listed as Critically Endangered or Endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, Red List of Threatened Species. This is the first global Red List assessment of the species. The West Coast listings were based on an abalones assessment led by Laura-Rogers Bennett of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, or CDFW, and University of California, Davis. Six species — red, white, black, green, pink and flat abalone — are listed by IUCN as critically endangered. The northern abalone, also known as threaded or pinto abalone, is listed as endangered. The IUCN Red List is considered the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of species. While the listing does not carry a legal requirement to aid imperiled species, it helps guide and inform global conservation and funding priorities. “We hope this listing will highlight the dire status of these species,” said Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the CDFW, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine’s Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, and Bodega Marine Laboratory. “I hope this assessment will trigger a real concern and investment in these species now before the population numbers get so low that they’re really hard to bring back from the brink of extinction.” Rogers-Bennett collaborated with Howard Peters of the Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, U.K., who led the global abalone assessment. They worked with researchers who contributed their data and reviewers who are species experts. Abalone conservation lessons Abalones have long provided nourishment, cultural significance and ecological benefits for people, wildlife and the environment. Red abalones have been a mainstay of West Coast shellfish aquaculture industry with a beloved recreational diving fishery in Northern California. But the world’s abalones are in decline through over-exploitation, disease and climate change. Along the West Coast, these giant sea snails with their iridescent shells have been hit particularly hard by overfishing, the decline of the kelp forest, warming ocean temperatures and other impacts. The UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, School of Veterinary Medicine and CDFW have been pioneering work to help protect abalones. This includes the federally endangered white abalone captive breeding program and several studies involving the red abalone, ocean acidification, climate change and aquaculture. “Let’s capitalize on what we’ve learned with the white abalone and get these programs up and running now,” said Rogers-Bennett. “These are things we could be preparing for now that could help protect these species in the future.” She notes that scientists have yet to learn how to successfully spawn the black abalone, which is federally listed as endangered. Having a collection of threatened abalone species could be a step toward establishing conservation programs for the future. Key impacts to West Coast abalone - White abalone: Overfished nearly to extinction, the Bodega Marine Laboratory leads a captive breeding program for the recovery of this federally endangered species. - Black abalone: Also federally endangered, overfishing and withering syndrome disease were key to their decline. A debris flow in January 2021 following the Dolan fire smothered thousands while rescue efforts successfully relocated 150 individuals. - Flat abalone: Their narrow geographic range used to stretch from Monterey, California, to the Oregon border but has shifted slightly north with ocean warming. That shift brought them into Oregon, where they were overfished. - Red abalone: The basis of a thriving recreational fishery until its closure in 2018. The closure followed a marine heatwave that set off a devastating chain reaction: loss of sea stars, an explosion of purple urchins and collapse of the kelp forest. - Green abalone: In low abundance, with some resurgence around Catalina Island. - Pink abalone: Once a major contributor to commercial fisheries, the species is now in low abundance in Southern California and Baja. - Northern/pinto/threaded: Commercial fisheries closed in the 1990s with only subsistence and personal-use fisheries open in Alaska and stable populations in northern British Columbia. Listed as endangered in the United States and Canada. Abalones need kelp Rogers-Bennett said restoring kelp forests and reducing climate impacts are key to helping abalone recover. Kelp is their main food source, and its decline is intricately linked with theirs. When weakened by starvation, species are more susceptible to environmental changes like landslides following fires, ocean acidification and increased storms. “These populations’ vulnerabilities have increased due to climate change, and that’s what’s pushed them into threatened categories on the IUCN Red List,” she said. *This article was updated Dec. 19, 2022 to note this was the first global Red List assessment of abalones. - Laura Rogers-Bennett, UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, 707-875-2035, [email protected] - Kat Kerlin, UC Davis News and Media Relations, 530-750-9195, [email protected]
By Blaise Jones Sharks are amazingly resilient to disease. Research has indicated that sharks may be the first vertebrate animals on our planet to have developed the modern immune system and thus have had hundreds of millions of years to perfect it in ways that are better than human resistance to diseases. Like other vertebrates including humans, sharks have an immune system that relies on many ingredients such as immunoglobulin, T-cell receptors, and lymphoid tissues that work together to fight off disease and infection in the body. However, sharks do not have any bones, just a cartilaginous skeleton attached to a spinal cord. In humans and other vertebrate mammals, important immune cells called lymphocytes are created and deployed from bone marrow. Since sharks do not have bones, they do not have bone marrow. Nor do they have lymph nodes. Instead sharks have unique lymphocyte producing tissues found in their esophagus and their gonads. Consequently, immune cells are always present in shark blood, whereas in other vertebrates (like humans) these cells are released in response to sickness. In other words, the blood of sharks is always ready to fight off any infection, unlike the blood of humans and other vertebrates that only deploys infection-fighting compounds after sustaining injury or infection. While the immune system of sharks is highly efficient, it’s not perfect. Sharks get sick just like every other animal on the planet. Diseases are caused by a wide variety of sources: viruses, bacteria, pollutants, parasite, fungi, and even algae. Sharks have very good defense mechanisms, but they are not immune from every possible contagion. Some common diseases found in sharks include viral dermatitis (a type of herpes), several types of Vibro bacteria (known to cause infections), Staphylococcus, and Pasteurella. In fact, some sharks are especially vulnerable to certain diseases. Fusarium solani is a type of fungus so common in bonnethead hammerhead sharks that it is known as the “bonnethead shark disease.” The fungus has been found in all species of hammerhead shark as well as in zebra sharks. Many of these sicknesses are caused by stress. Changes in water temperature, pH, and the addition of pollutants and chemicals have been noted to cause immunosuppression in sharks, leading to increased susceptibility to parasites and diseases. Cancerous tumors have been found in sharks for more than a century, the first being described in 1908. Since then tumors have been identified in more than 18 shark species. However, any cancer-specific research on sharks is difficult because the infected sharks often die before researchers are able to locate the individuals or fisherman simply discard the sick sharks since they cannot be sold. So why does the myth that sharks are immune to cancer persist? The shark cancer myth The myth that sharks cannot contract cancer started in the 1970s, when shark research was in its infancy. Henry Brem and Judah Folkman of the John Hopkins School of Medicine discovered that cartilage prevented the growth of new blood cells in tissue. As this blood vessel growth is a key part of the growth of cancerous tumors, the two speculated that perhaps cartilage could be used to treat cancer. Another researcher, Robert Langer, reasoned that sharks would be an easy source of cartilage and found that treating tumors with shark cartilage prevented blood vessel growth. Using this research, Carl Luer of Mote Marine Laboratories tested shark susceptibility to cancer by treating sharks with high levels of aflatoxin B1, a known carcinogen. Luer claimed that none of his sharks developed cancer. Many medical charlatans used Luer’s findings to claim that they had created medicine using shark cartilage to cure or prevent cancer. One noted fraud was Dr. I. William Lee – who is not a medical doctor, but rather earned a Ph.D. at Rutgers University for biochemistry – claimed such ridiculous medical positive results from his company’s shark pills that in 2004 the United States government banned his company’s false advertisements. Though Lee’s company may not profit in the U.S., the myth of shark cartilage helping to cure cancer spread throughout the world, especially in markets where governments didn’t block the false advertising that spread the rumors. So now that we know that sharks can get sick, the question is can we get sick from sharks? Unfortunately, sharks are carriers for many different zoonotic diseases (ones that can pass between humans and animals). The most commonly disease humans can catch from sharks is Giardia, a parasite that infects the intestines. It isn’t fatal, usually results in diarrhea, and is passed out of the body typically in two to six weeks. Other diseases humans can catch from sharks include Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumannii, Citrobacter braaki, Citrobacter freundii, Enterobacter cloacae, Leclercia adecarboxylata, Morganella morganii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas spp., Shewanella spp. and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Each of these diseases can be dangerous to humans, with side effects including blood-poisoning, infection, pneumonia, and sepsis. How does a human get a shark-borne disease? By being bitten by a shark. While shark bites are very rare, one of the chief concerns that rise from them is infection. Like with humans, the most infected place on the body for a shark is his mouth. Consequently, even though a shark bite may be small and non-threatening, the diseases present on their teeth and in their mouth can cause a great deal of long-term damage even after the would heals. Which is yet another reason to avoid getting bitten by a shark. - The Private Life of Sharks: The Truth Behind the Myth by Michael Bright - Fernando, N., Hui, S.-W., Tsang, C.-C., Leung, S.-Y., Ngan, A. H. Y., Leung, R. W. W., Groff, J. M., Lau, S. K. P. and Woo, P. C. Y. (2015), FatalFusarium solani species complex infections in elasmobranchs: the first case report for black spotted stingray (Taeniura melanopsila) and a literature review. Mycoses, 58: 422–431. doi:10.1111/myc.12342 - Borucinska, Joanna. “Opportunistic Infections in Elasmobranchs.” Ed. Christon J. Hurst.Advances in Environmental Microbiology3 (2016): 67-79. Web. - Bogomolni, Andrea L., Rebeccas J. Gast, Julie C. Ellis, Mark Dennett, Katie R. Pugliares, Betty J. Lentell, and Michael J. Moore. “Victims or vectors: a survey of marine vertebrate zoonoses from coastal waters of the Northwest Atlantic.”DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS81 (2008): 13-38. Web. - Lasek-Nesselquist, Erica, Andrea L. Bogomolni, Rebecca J. Gast, David Mark Welch, Julie C. Ellis, Mitchell L. Sogin, and Michael J. Moore. “Molecular characterization of Giardia intestinalis haplotypes in marine animals: variation and zoonotic potential.”DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS81 (2008): 39-51. Web. - Unger, Nathan R., Erich Ritter, Robert Borrego, and Olayemi O. Osiyemi. “Antibiotic Susceptibilities of Bacteria Isolated within the Oral Flora of Florida Blacktip Sharks: Guidance for Empiric Antibiotic Therapy.”Public Library of Science8 (2014): n. pag. Web. - Buck, J. D., Stephen Spotte, and Joseph Gadbaw. “Bacteriology of the teeth from a great white shark: Potential medical implications for shark bite victims.”Journal of Clinical Microbiology20 (1984): 849-51. Web. - Robbins, Rachel L., Barry Bruce, and Andrew Fox. “First reports of proliferative lesions in the great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias L., and bronze whaler shark, Carcharhinus brachyurus Günther.”Journal of Fish Diseases37 (2013): 997-1000. Web. #sharks #illness #cancer #TSF
The Lower School Library collection consists of almost 15,000 items and offers excellent choices in fiction and nonfiction titles (General and Judaic), and Hebrew Picture books. The library curriculum complements and reinforces many units studied in both general and judaic Classes. Students in all grades are taught the importance of handling books carefully; the usefulness of knowing the parts of a book; recognizing various authors and illustrators and are introduced to special award winners. Students are taught to identify characteristics of various literary genres, and encouraged to compare literature from different cultures, (fairy tales, folk tales, fables, myths, and tall tales). Students in all grades are taught the physical arrangement of the library. Students can distinguish between the alphabetic arrangement of fiction and numerical arrangement of nonfiction. The Dewey decimal classification system is introduced in the third grade and expanded in more detail in the fourth grade. Students are taught to use the online catalog (OPAC) with assistance in the lower grades and independently in the upper grades. General reference materials such as encyclopedias, atlases, dictionaries, thesauri are introduced in the third and fourth grade. Online encyclopedias and selected internet sites will be used for research assignments. The goal of the Computer Technology program in the Lower School is to provide students with skills to design, create, communicate, and solve problems by using computer technology. Coding skills are used to reinforce concepts in computational thinking, logical reasoning and sequencing skills, as well as language arts, math, and other curricular areas. Utilizing the computer lab and a class set of iPads, students gain confidence using desktop computers and tablets. They use a variety of applications to create a wide array of projects and build skills that enhance and strengthen the General and Judaic Studies curricula. Digital citizenship, including safeguarding privacy, proper care of hardware and software, cyberbullying, safe and effective searching, and respecting intellectual property are introduced in an age appropriate manner.
Physical habitat and its alteration: A common ground for exposure of amphibians to environmental stressors - More information: Publisher Index Page - Larger Work: This publication is Chapter 7 of Amphibian decline: An integrated analysis of multiple stressor effects - Download citation as: RIS \| Dublin Core Amphibians as a class of vertebrates have persisted for hundreds of millions of years (Stebbins and Cohen 1995), but they are currently threatened by a variety of stressors, many resulting from human-related alterations of the environment. Most species of amphibians live closely associated with moist environments throughout their life and have evolved specialized adaptations that conserve water and reduce desiccation (Stebbins and Cohen 1995; Henry 2000; Chapter 2A). Amphibians are ectotherms, so their body temperatures fluctuate with the local environment. Latitude, elevation, and habitat affect environmental temperature and have a strong influence on amphibian distributions. Despite these physiological and habitat constraints, the 4750 species of amphibians in the world today have exploited a wide variety of habitats that range from dry deserts to tropical rain forests and from sea level to elevations above 4000 m (McDairmid and Mitchell 2000). The direct loss of suitable habitat has had a profound effect on amphibian populations (Johnson 1992), as it has on nearly all species of wildlife. In the U.S., 53% of wetlands have been lost to human development in the last 200 years (Dahl 1990). Similar loss of wetlands has occurred throughout much of the world, especially in developing countries (Miller 1993). In many regions, deforestation has reduced or eliminated suitable terrestrial habitats, and this may prove to be the largest global threat to amphibian populations (Johnson 1992). Eight thousand years ago, forests covered approximately 40% of the world’s land (6 billion hectares), but by 1997, the world’s forests had been reduced to 3.5 billion hectares, a 42% loss worldwide (CIDA 2001). The effect of habitat loss is generally both obvious and predictable; with increasing restriction of suitable habitat, amphibian populations will probably not survive. The anthropogenic effects on the quality of the habitat that remains are often less obvious. Additional publication details \|Publication type\|\|Book chapter\| \|Publication Subtype\|\|Book Chapter\| \|Title\|\|Physical habitat and its alteration: A common ground for exposure of amphibians to environmental stressors\| \|Larger Work Type\|\|Book\| \|Larger Work Subtype\|\|Conference publication\| \|Larger Work Title\|\|Amphibian decline: An integrated analysis of multiple stressor effects (Proceedings from the workshop on the global decline of amphibian populations)\| \|Conference Title\|\|Workshop on the global decline of amphibian populations: An integrated analysis of multiple stressor effects\| \|Conference Location\|\|Racine, WI\| \|Conference Date\|\|August 18-23, 2001\|
You’ve likely heard the statistic that American’s spend an average of 90% of their time indoors. With so much time spent inside, it is important to improve the Indoor Air Quality in homes, office buildings, schools and more. But what exactly is IAQ, and what are the effects of poor air quality? Learn the basics with this ProTeam infographic. All facts sourced from the EPA. Facts About Indoor Air Quality: IAQ 101 What is IAQ? Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) refers to the air quality within and around buildings and structures, especially as it relates to the health and comfort of building occupants. Health effects from indoor air pollutants may be experienced soon after exposure or, possibly, years later. A single exposure to poor IAQ can lead to irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. Such immediate effects are usually short-term and treatable. Years of exposure to pollutants can lead to respiratory diseases, heart disease, and cancer. Sources of indoor pollution include tobacco products, building materials, cleaning supplies, central heating and cooling systems, and more. For further information, read the EPA’s article on Identifying Problems in the Indoor Environment here: https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/identifying-problems-indoor-environments Outdoor air can enter and leave a building through infiltration, natural ventilation, and mechanical ventilation. Poor ventilation can lead to health problems. According to the EPA, air may enter a home in several different ways, including: - through natural ventilation, such as through windows and doors - through mechanical means, such as through outdoor air intakes associated with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system - through infiltration, a process by which outdoor air flows into the house through openings, joints and cracks in walls, floors and ceilings, and around windows and doors. Cleaning for Health can improve indoor air quality, learn more in this video.
Colon cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States. It is also one of the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the country. Colon cancer is sometimes called colorectal cancer (CRC) which is a term that combines colon cancer and rectal cancer. It used to be an older person’s problem, but more young adults in their 20s and 30s are being diagnosed with the disease. 60% of colon cancer-related deaths can be prevented with regular screenings and early detection. Understanding the colon: The longest portion of the large intestine is called the colon. It is also referred to as the large bowel. The large intestine is a tube that about 5 to 6 feet in length and is the last part of the digestive tract. The first 5 feet make up the colon. It is divided into four parts, the ascending, transverse, descending and the sigmoid. The colon connects to the rectum and ends with the anus. Food reaches the colon around 3 to 8 hours after eating. By the time it gets there, the nutrients have been absorbed. What remains is a liquid waste product. One of the colon’s function is to change the liquid waste into a solid stool. It absorbs the water in order to accomplish that. The stool can spend any time between 10 hours to several days in the colon before being expelled through the anus. Colon cancer begins when cells grow in an uncontrolled way which ends up with a tumor forming. It is a malignant or cancerous tumor that grows in the walls of the colon. Most of colon tumors start when normal tissue in the colon wall forms an adenomatous polyp or a pre-cancerous growth. As the polyp grows larger, a tumor forms. This process can take many years, hence, there is ample time for early detection through screening tests. Cancer can sometimes start in the small bowel (small intestine), but small bowel cancer is more uncommon than large bowel cancer. Bowel cancer is a general term for cancer that begins in the large bowel. Depending on where cancer starts, bowel cancer is sometimes called colon or rectal cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, men and women should begin screening for colorectal cancer at age 45. However, the age at which such screening tests begin may depend largely upon the risk factors, especially a family history of colon and rectal cancers. There are many screening tests available, including some non-invasive and inexpensive tests that can be done at home. Regular colorectal screenings or examinations are very important as they help detect problems early. Colonoscopy is the best screening evaluation. Fecal occult blood tests, flexible sigmoidoscopy, barium enema and CT colonography (virtual colonoscopy) are some other screening options that a doctor can suggest to check for colon cancer. - Old Age - Family history of colon cancer - Inflammatory intestinal conditions - Inherited syndromes that may increase risk - Low-fiber, high-fat diet - Inactive lifestyle Signs and Symptoms: Colon cancer is one of the most lethal cancers that can send loud warning signs to indicate that something is wrong. 1. Change in bowel habits Changes in bowel movement or habits are one of the most common symptoms of colon cancer. It can mean changes in frequency, consistency or in the appearance of the stool. Sudden onset of constipation or diarrhea may also be experienced. Changes in the bowels that last more than a few days may be a sign of an underlying health issue. Occasional changes may occur due to dietary changes, viral or bacterial infection. However, if there are unexplained or new things experienced that lasts more than a couple of days, a trip to the doctor may be needed. And while colon cancer can be a cause for these changes, many other things can do the same thing. In fact, causes other than cancer is probably more frequent. This is why having this symptom checked by a doctor is important. 2. Rectal bleeding Rectal bleeding is the passing of blood through the anus. It is most likely due to a bleeding from the lower colon or rectum. This is a very common symptom of colon cancer. It is called rectal bleeding because the rectum lies immediately above the anus. Bright, red blood seen on the toilet paper or red or pink water in the toilet bowl after a bowel movement can be signs of a rectal bleeding. Hemorrhoids are often thought to be the main cause of rectal bleeding. This more often hinders early colon cancer diagnosis. Typically, hemorrhoids have symptoms that come and go with flare-ups, whereas rectal bleeding caused by colon cancer typically continues or worsens. It is also more likely to be accompanied by pain. However, there are cases wherein rectal bleeding may not be painful. The bleeding also may also be occult or not visible with the human eye. It is important to note that anyone experiencing bleeding from the rectum should see a doctor immediately. Most notably, people who are over 40 years old. If bleeding is not present but other symptoms are there, have it checked anyways. A physician will likely recommend tests such as a colonoscopy to rule out cancer. 3. Bloody and narrow stools The appearance of blood in the stool is another serious warning symptom of colon cancer. Sometimes the blood in the stool can be bright red, maroon or black and tarry in appearance. Black stools may signify the presence of dried blood. It may also be occult or not visible to the naked eye. The severity of this symptom depends on the advancement and the location of the disease. A fecal occult test can detect whether there is blood in the stool, and additional examinations can help doctors determine the source of the blood and the proper course of treatment. The appearance of narrow, pencil-thin stools is another noticeable change that may indicate colon cancer. If the stool appearance is narrow or stringy only once in a while, it’s no big deal. But if it happens often and comes with other symptoms, it may be a sign of something more serious like colon cancer. Obstruction of the colon is the most likely cause of these stools. 4. Abdominal pain and bloating Together with blood in stool and changes in bowel movement, vague abdominal pain is another hallmark symptom of colon cancer. Many people experience abdominal pain at some point in their lives. Like many other symptoms, abdominal pain is often thought of as harmless or not serious. After all, it is a common symptom of other noncancerous conditions, such as hemorrhoids and irritable bowel syndrome. In addition, occasional cramps or bloating are common digestive issues that can occur due to an upset stomach, gas, or eating certain foods. However, frequent severe, and unexplained cramps and bloating can be a sign of colon cancer. Since colon cancer occurs in the large intestine, bowel habits can be greatly affected. The changes can lead to severe and frequent cramping, bloating and abdominal pain. These could be a big red flag for colon cancer. Bloating, on the other hand, occurs when things are starting to get blocked and backed up in the colon. If there is a constant pain in the right side of the abdomen, that may mean the disease is in the later stages and has spread to the liver. 5. Shortness of breath This is one of the most overlooked symptom of colon cancer. Sometimes shortness of breath can happen rapidly, and can be quite frightening. Other times, it can be mild and bothersome when doing daily activities. Shortness of breath may include difficulty catching breath, noisy breathing or very fast and shallow breaths. The medical term for this is dyspnea. Cancer can drain the body of its energy. Breathing troubles are brought about by the body not getting enough oxygen because the body can’t get enough oxygen in the bloodstream. Also, shortness of breath can be another effect of a slow internal bleeding. In the absence of aggressive bleeding or vomiting blood, the body puts more plasma in the blood without making more iron or red blood cells. And while this prevents the body from losing blood in large volumes, it reduces the blood’s ability to carry oxygen. This results in shortness of breath. 6. Bowel doesn’t empty completely or urgent need to poop Tenesmus or the feeling of having to defecate without having stools is another symptom of colon cancer. This symptom makes a person feel an urgent need to use the restroom repeatedly and empty the bowels even though there is nothing left to expel. It is further described as having pain upon defecation, a feeling of being unable to empty the large bowel of stool, cramping rectal pain, and straining harder to produce only a small amount of stool during bowel movements. Pain can be present especially if there is cramping or other digestive symptoms. The symptoms can come and go, or they may persist long term. A growth that tuns into a blockage in the colon may cause this symptom. 7. Weakness or fatigue Cancer related fatigue is one of the most common symptoms reported by cancer patients. Cancer-related fatigue (also referred to as CRF) refers to tiredness or exhaustion brought about by cancer. It is easy to confuse fatigue with simply being tired. This type of fatigue impacts a person physically, emotionally, and mentally. It is not linked to any physical activity or exertion. CRF is also not easily alleviated by rest. Usually, it comes on suddenly. Colon cancer makes people feel constantly tired or weak. It is possibly due to the cancer cells using the body’s energy. In addition, the stress of bowel symptoms can further exacerbate it. 8. Unexplained weight loss Unexplained and unintentional weight loss is the loss of 10 pounds or more within six month or less. Colon cancer can cause this symptom in a variety of ways: The symptoms of appetite loss, weight loss, and fatigue in patients with colon cancer are usually related. Persistent diarrhea can also cause weight loss. Stomach pain and nausea can reduce appetite so that not enough food is consumed to maintain a healthy weight. Cancer cells also use up a lot of the body’s energy supply. The immune system also uses energy as it works hard to fight the disease. In addition, cancer cells release substances into the body that change the way food is converted to energy, which can contribute to the weight loss. Finally, when a tumor in the colon gets large enough, it could block the colon. This blockage can affect a person’s bowel habits, which can then lead to further unexplained weight loss. Anemia is defined as the lack of red blood cells that transport oxygen to body tissues. It can also be the lack of a protein called hemoglobin which is needed by red blood cells to transport oxygen. Anemia may be the first sign that there’s internal bleeding, even if any other colon cancer symptoms have not manifested yet. Bleeding is believed to be the main cause of anemia when the colon is involved. Tumors release certain chemicals that stimulate the formation of new blood vessels. As the tumor grows, these vessels burst which leads to the loss of red blood cells. In turn, the bleeding gives rise to iron deficiency. Even if there are enough supplies of iron in the blood, the surrounding inflammation can cause iron molecules to be trapped in immune cells. The continuation of the inflammation affects the availability of iron. It becomes less and less and results in the development of iron deficiency anemia. 10. Nausea and vomiting Nausea and vomiting are often seen as a single thing but they are separate physiological conditions. These symptoms may indicate numerous health conditions. However, if nausea and vomiting are accompanied with other symptoms such as constipation or pain, colon cancer could be the cause. When vomiting is a symptom of colon cancer, it is usually because a tumor is causing a bowel obstruction. Depending on the severity of the blockage, solids, liquids and even gas may be prevented from passing through the colon. Nausea and vomiting occur when the tumor is obstructing the bowel and hinders the passage of liquid or solid waste or gas.
This stress management lesson plan is based on a very short video explaining the sources of work-related stress, its impact on our health and the ways to handle it. Apart from learning words collocating with the word stress, students will also have a lot of discussion opportunities and learn how to cope with workplace stress. To kick off, your students need to complete a mind map which focuses on the word stress. They have to come up with ideas of words which can go with stress. There are just first letters of some words to make it easier to guess. Monitor your students’ work and help them with some clues, if necessary. The stress management lesson plan couldn’t go without a discussion about stressful situations your students might face at work. Therefore, we prepared a list of common situations and your students have to rank them from 1 to 10 (from the least stressful to most stressful ones). Additionally, when they finish, discuss their ranking and elicit from them some additional info about these situations or ask follow-up questions. VIDEO – LISTENING COMPREHENSION Next, before watching the video, students have to match halves of some phrases which then appear in the video. The idea behind this task is to prepare students for watching the video and to facilitate the whole process. Then, to check their answers, students have to watch the video for the first time. After that, they have to watch it again (up to 3:20) and answer some listening comprehension questions. DISCUSSION – STRESS MANAGEMENT Moreover, there is one more task connected with the video. The speakers presents three possible reactions to stressful situations: remove, change and accept. In this final task, students have to look at one stressful situation from the video (about salary) and possible solutions in the remove / change / accept framework. Then, they need to do a similar thing with other stressful situations provided. They have to complete the table for other situations, compare and discuss their answers in pairs. Alternatively, you can ask them to write down 3-4 things that cause stress for them to make this task more personal. This way you can actually use our stress management lesson plan to let your students discover a technique for handling stress. Subscribe to unlock these and many other Printable & Digital with the Premium planSubscribe
Dating methods in paleontology, relative dating The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early s was a huge advance. Often, the sedimentary basin is within rocks that are very different from the sediments that are being deposited, in which the lateral limits of the sedimentary layer will be marked by an abrupt change in rock type. It is true that radioisotope decay rates are stable today and are not largely affected by external conditions like change in temperature and pressure, but that does not mean that the rate has always been constant. This includes factoring in many variables, such as the amount of radiation the object was exposed to each year. Index fossils are fossils that are known to only occur within a very What is dating like in 2015 age range. Plants acquire it through photosynthesisand animals acquire it from consumption of plants and other animals. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. These rocks were dated at up to 3. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity. ABOUT THE MAGAZINE In this case, usually the half-life reported is the dominant longest for the entire chain, rather than just one step in the chain. Often, coarser-grained material can no longer be transported to an area because the transporting medium has insufficient energy to carry it to that location. The decay rate or half—life of the parent isotope has remained constant since the rock was formed. Zircon crystals in granite contain radioactive uranium, which decays into lead over time. Relative dating - Wikipedia These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything and clearly never willbut we know enough. The fission tracks produced by this process are recorded in the plastic film. Using an hourglass to tell time is much like using radiometric dating to tell the age of rocks. Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon methods and require radiometric dating. This causes induced fission of U, as opposed to the spontaneous fission of U Layers of rock are deposited sequentially. This uses radioactive minerals that occur in rocks and Dating methods in paleontology almost like a geological clock. For dates up to a few million years micastektites glass fragments from volcanic eruptionsand meteorites are best used. Geologists still use the following principles today as a means to provide information about geologic history and the timing of geologic events. Alternatively, if several different minerals can be dated from the same sample and are assumed to be formed by the same event and were in equilibrium with the reservoir when they formed, they should form an isochron. The whole-rock and separated mineral samples allow a method known as isochron dating to be done. The first radiometric dates, generated aboutshowed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Potassium has a half-life of 1. This principle allows sedimentary layers to be viewed as a form of vertical time line, a partial or complete record of the time elapsed from deposition of the lowest layer to deposition of the highest bed. Instead, layers that contain datable igneous rocks above or below a fossil-bearing layer are used to estimate the age of the fossil. Isochron dating is supposed to remove the assumption of initial conditions, but some different assumptions are necessary. But to use any trapped charge method, experts first need to calculate the rate at which the electrons were trapped. Faults Dating methods in paleontology younger than the rocks they cut; accordingly, if a fault is found that penetrates some formations but not those on top of it, then the formations that were cut are older than the fault, and the ones that are not cut must be younger than the fault. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites. Dating material drawn from the archaeological record can be made by a direct study of an artifactor may be deduced by association with materials found in the context the item is drawn from or inferred by its point of discovery in the sequence relative to datable contexts. Smith is known as the Father of English Geology. 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The Red Pony - Discussion by Section Language Arts, History Type of Activity Small Group, Individual, Full Class, Ongoing, Teacher-Led Discussion, Student-Led Discussion, Critical Analysis, Writing - Students will be able to fully understand each section of the novel and provide specific examples to support their own opinions. - Students will be able to discuss the novel and with 100% participation. - Students will take notes on all class discussions. - Students will listen to and comment on the opinions of others (including the teacher). - Post-discussion, students will write short papers on discussion topics. Class discussions are at the heart of any novel, especially The Red Pony. The page references here are from the 1992 edition of The Red Pony (Penguin Books). In other editions, page numbers may vary slightly. Discussions should, first and foremost, be interactive. The teacher should not “tell” students what a book means. The best teachers know that any book has a different meaning for each student, and each supported opinion is valid. The role of the teacher, here, is to facilitate and guide, as necessary, a lively discussion of the current reading assignment. - Generally, teachers should have some specific objectives/guidelines for the discussions—for example, in the opening section, discuss and identify figurative language, characterization methods, use of description, early conflicts, and so on. (Specific details will follow.) Teachers can also provide advance organizers or conversation maps to help students to prepare for discussions. - Encourage students to cite page numbers and read brief passages when discussing the novel. Other students will be able to follow along more easily. - All students should be taking notes during class discussions in their notebooks. Teachers should, as practical, spend the last five minutes of each literature period checking students’ notebooks. - Ideally, students are encouraged to listen to the comments of others and comment upon the comments of their fellow students. This is incredibly valuable in maintaining a lively discussion. - Teachers should require daily participation (up to two times daily, depending on the size of the class) and keep a record of participation each day. "Talking slips" or "chips" are one method that can help ensure that each student has participated. - Consider using the fishbowl method for group discussions. Fishbowls allow students to observe a conversation being modeled as well as participate. This is a creative, yet structured alternative to a traditional discussion. - Consider providing non-traditional roles for group discussions. These roles provide students with a specific focal point during a discussion. Similar to the Jigsaw method for challenging readings, providing specific "frames" or "Lenses" narrows the specific information a student is responsible for and can stimulate thoughtful discussions. - Consider allowing students the opportunity to rehearse or prepare their ideas prior to discussion. This can make students feel more comfortable about speaking to the class. - Teachers should emphasize that there are no “correct” or “set” answers in literature, and that all supported opinions are valid (unlike a subject such as math, where responses are uniform). For example, when asked, “Who is the most important character in The Red Pony?” there may be several valid responses. - Another successful (when teachers think students are ready) device is to have students lead/facilitate discussions. Let the class know that three students will be in front of the class asking questions about the previous reading. The students do not know who will be on the “panel,” so everyone in the class must be prepared with written questions to ask the class. Teachers should have a minimal role here. - Also, when students are ready, teachers may lead discussions in organic ways by opening up the discussions in a free-form style about whatever the students wish to discuss about the previous reading. For experienced and sophisticated classes, this is generally a rewarding experience. - Copies of The Red Pony - The Red Pony notebooks Lively discussions are ongoing throughout the course of the unit. The Red Pony is divided into four separate, but unified, stories. Activities found in this document can be integrated into teachers’ unit plans as appropriate. Students, as always, will need to take notes during all class discussions. During class discussions, students will also be expected to provide specific examples from the novel. For discussions about each story, sample quoted passages are included. As students become more at ease with the discussion process, they will be expected to come up with their own discussion questions and specific supporting quoted passages. Teachers should use this lesson in conjunction with Writing Prompts. Before discussion of the individual stories, use the following as general prompts that can apply to all stories. - Why is setting/characterization important to Steinbeck? Consider why he usually starts each section of the novel with a description of the setting or a main character. - What methods does Steinbeck use to help readers understand the personalities of the major characters? - What methods does Steinbeck use to help readers understand the appearance of the major characters? - There any many themes in each story. However, what is the major theme in the particular story being discussed? (See Plot and Theme.) Think about how theme affects plot and vice versa. - Examine Steinbeck’s clever use of foreshadowing in the story being discussed. Provide examples within the story that eventually foreshadow incidents later on. See Literary Terms. - What figurative language does Steinbeck use in the story being discussed and why? See Literary Terms. - What are the motifs used in the story being discussed? See Literary Terms. - Discuss, and provide examples of, the literary devices Steinbeck has introduced. - Discuss/analyze Steinbeck’s use of symbols in the story being discussed. “The Gift” (pp. 1-37) This first story introduces the main characters who will appear in each of the following three stories: Jody, the ten-year-old boy who learns valuable life lessons; Billy Buck, the wise ranch-hand who has a paternal relationship with Jody; Carl Tiflin, the owner of the ranch, and an often distant and stern father to Jody; Ruth Tiflin, the caring mother of Jody; and Gabilan, Jody’s beloved red pony for whom he takes great responsibility. Jody is delighted when his father and Billy Buck present him with a pony, which Jody quickly names Gabilan. Jody and Billy Buck work together to train Gabilan. Jody’s trust in Billy begins to wane as a quick series of events cause the pony to become ill. Billy does his best to cure the pony but to no avail. Gabilan eventually dies and is then unceremoniously attacked by the buzzards, ruthless scavengers. An inconsolable Jody, hurt, angry, and frustrated, has to be carried off in the arms of Billy. Some Areas on Which to Focus for a Class Discussion: - Focus on how Steinbeck uses a vivid description of Billy Buck to introduce the story. Ask students to identify passages that are particularly descriptive and why. Examples: - “He was a broad, bandy-legged little man with a walrus mustache, with square hands, puffed and muscled on the palms” (1). - “His eyes were a contemplative, watery gray and the hair which protruded from under his Stetson hat was spiky and weathered” (1). - Examine the relationship between Billy and Jody and between Carl and Jody. Provide examples of how both Carl and Billy treat Jody. Further, students should be able to identify why one man might be a better father figure for Jody. Examples: - “Jody did not ask where his father and Billy Buck were riding that day, but he wished he might go along. His father was a disciplinarian. Jody obeyed him in everything without questions of any kind” (3). - When Jody receives Gabilan, the first thing Carl says to him is, “He needs a good currying…and if I ever hear of you not feeding him or leaving his stall dirty, I’ll sell him off in a minute” (9). - Carl leaves the barn after giving Jody the pony. “Carl went out of the barn…to be by himself…but Billy Buck stayed. It was easier to talk with Billy Buck. Jody asked again—‘Mine?’” Then Billy says to Jody, “‘Sure! That is, if you look out for him and break him right. I’ll show you how’” (9-10). - Have students identify particularly successful uses of figurative language and why they are successful. Examples: - Steinbeck writes about Jody, “He was only a little boy…with hair like dusty yellow grass and with shy polite eyes… (simile and personification)” (2). - “When they (Carl and Billy) had disappeared over the crown of the ridge Jody walked up the hill… (metaphor)” (3). - Responsibility is a large theme in the story. Show examples of Jody’s responsibility or lack thereof. - Although she is not mad, Mrs. Tiflin has to remind Jody (who just received the pony) to do his chores. “‘There’s not a stick of wood in the house, and the chickens aren’t fed…well, after this do your chores first. Then you won’t forget’” (13). - Jody demonstrated his sense of responsibility with Gabilan. “Every morning, after Jody had curried and brushed the pony, he let down the barrier of the stall, and Gabilan thrust past him and raced down the barn and into the corral” (15). - True to his promise, discuss ways in which Billy Buck has helped Jody with the training of Gabilan. This is an important part of Jody’s maturation during the entire novel. - In the early going, Billy kept his promises and taught Jody many things about horses. For example, “Billy Buck kept his word. In the early fall the training began. First there was the halter-breaking…and then came the long halter… (which rapidly) approached perfection” (16-17). - Billy also explained “how horses love conversation…(and that) he (Jody) must talk to the pony all the time, and tell him the reasons for everything” (14). - However, Billy does eventually, at least in the eyes of Jody, make some mistakes in his evaluation about the weather, Gabilan, and its effect on him. Jody is visibly upset, and Billy is angry that he is indeed fallible. Point out some examples. - In short sequence, Billy tells Jody that it would not rain and that the pony would be fine. He also tells Jody that if it did rain, it would not harm Gabilan. Further, he also assured Jody that if it did indeed rain, he would try his best to put Gabilan back in the barn (21-22). - “Jody looked reproachfully at Billy Buck and Billy felt guilty. ‘You said it wouldn’t rain,’ Jody accused him. Billy looked away. ‘It’s hard to tell this time of year,’ he said, but his excuse was lame. He had no right to be fallible, and he knew it” (23). - Students should understand that Billy Buck truly tried his best to help Gabilan survive. Have students point out specific examples where Billy tried to save Gabilan. - For example, Billy tried to help Gabilan by keeping him warm, rubbing him down, applying a steam mixture, and cutting the poisonous lump (24-30). - Ask students which method Billy employed was probably the most drastic (and most graphically described). Most students will probably choose the scene in which Billy is forced to cut a hole in Gabilan’s windpipe so he can breathe. “Jody held the pony’s head up and the throat taut, while Billy felt up and down for the right place. Jody sobbed once as the bright knife point disappeared into the throat. The pony plunged weakly away and then stood still, trembling violently. The blood ran thickly over and up the knife and across Billy’s hand and into his shirtsleeve” (32). - Even though Carl Tiflin is clearly Billy Buck’s boss, Billy stands up to Carl (in defense of Jody) at least twice in this story. Ask students to point out examples where Billy does this and importantly why he risks doing this. - In the barn during the latter part of the story, Jody’s father tries to remove Jody from the presence of Billy and the seriously sick Gabilan. Billy is not happy with Carl’s suggestion: “Billy turned on him angrily. ‘Let him alone. It’s his pony, isn’t it?’ Carl Tiflin walked away without saying another word. His feelings were badly hurt” (33). - At the end of the story, Jody, in his frustration, has killed the buzzard that was picking at the already dead Gabilan. When Carl and Billy find Jody, Carl and Billy have a conflict. Billy pulls Jody off the buzzard and holds him. Carl tries to explain that it was not the buzzard that killed Jody. “It was Billy Buck who was angry…he turned back on Carl Tiflin. ‘Course he knows it,’ Billy said furiously. ‘Jesus Christ! Man, can’t you see how he’d feel about it?’” (14). - In the barn during the latter part of the story, Jody’s father tries to remove Jody from the presence of Billy and the seriously sick Gabilan. Billy is not happy with Carl’s suggestion: “Billy turned on him angrily. ‘Let him alone. It’s his pony, isn’t it?’ The Great Mountains (pp. 38-55) As the story opens, Jody is bored and has resorted to being cruel to animals. He has destroyed some swallows’ nests and, with his slingshot, killed a bird, and then dismembered and disemboweled it. Jody is very curious about The Great Mountains, but no one, including his father, his mother, and Billy Buck, can answer his questions to his satisfaction. Suddenly, an old man appears on the property. He explains to all that he is Gitano, was born in an adobe on this property, and has come back to die. Carl Tiflin, not happy with this development, allows Gitano to stay for one evening (he can no longer work), but no more. Jody takes an immediate interest in Gitano, asking him about The Great Mountains and the mysterious rapier Gitano carries. Gitano disappears without a word with Old Easter, the family horse put out to pasture, into the mountains. Jody’s sense of unfulfilled adventure now translates into a “nameless sorrow.” Some Areas on Which to Focus for a Class Discussion: - Ask students why Steinbeck begins the story with a rather graphic description of Jody’s cruelty toward animals (a carryover from “The Gift”). Also, asks students to explain how Jody’s cruelty toward animals might tie into Carl’s cruelty toward Gitano. - For example, “Jody felt mean then…he carefully raised the sling and aimed…down the little bird went with a broken head…Jody felt a little mean pain in his stomach…and cut off the bird’s head…then he disemboweled it” (39). - About Old Easter, Carl said, “Old things ought be to put out of their misery…one shot, a big noise, one big pain in the head maybe, and that’s all…Jody knew his father was probing for a place to hurt in Gitano” (48-49). - Ask students why Gitano feels he needs to be back at the ranch, claims that he was born there, and intends to stay until he dies. If necessary, briefly explain to students that Gitano is a paisano, part of the Mexican nation that used to own land in California (see also Land Grants and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and The Meaning of Place). - For example, Gitano tells Mrs. Tiflin, “‘Back at the rancho. I was born here, and my father, too.’” ‘Here?’ she demanded. This isn’t an old place.’ ‘No, there,’ he said, pointing to the western ridge. ‘On the other side there, in a house that is gone’” (44). - For example, Gitano tells Mrs. Tiflin, “‘Back at the rancho. I was born here, and my father, too.’” - Ask students to describe the relationship between Jody and Gitano. Jody seems to be very curious about Gitano, who represents for him adventure and a sense of the old West. Jody is so excited and asks the reticent Gitano many questions about The Great Mountains. Gitano is fairly reserved and is soon irritated by Jody. - “In his excitement, Jody had lost his shyness. ‘Don’t you remember anything about it [The Great Mountains]?’” (47). - “But now Gitano’s face became impatient. ‘No,’ he said in a tone that told Jody he didn’t want to talk about it any more. The boy was held by a curious fascination. He didn’t want to go away from Gitano. His shyness returned” (47). - Ask students to describe the relationship between Carl and Gitano. There are numerous examples to support this, as Carl’s feelings toward Gitano never waver from the moment he meets him until after Gitano has disappeared, just as Gitano’s calm demeanor never changes during that same time (45-55). - For example, Gitano says to Carl, “‘I am too old to work. I come back where I was born’” (45). Carl tells Gitano he was indeed not born on the property but Gitano insists he was born on the rancho before it was divided, long before the Tiflins bought the land. - Carl is angry. “‘I tell you, you won’t stay. I don’t need an old man. This isn’t a big ranch. You must have relatives and friends. Go to them. It is like begging to come to strangers.’ ‘I was born here,’ Gitano said patiently and inflexibly” (45-46). - Ask students to point out the parallels between Old Easter and Gitano. Gitano, himself, actually adds to these comparisons. - For example, Gitano says of Old Easter, “‘No good any more…Too old to work…just eats and dies’” (48). - Ask students why Gitano suddenly disappears into the mountains (seemingly with Old Easter) without a word (leaving his bag behind)? - This should make for an interesting discussion, given the sophistication level of a class. Steinbeck does not clearly answer this question and students must read between the lines. Was Gitano a thief? Why did he take Easter? Why was the rapier so significant? Did he leave the ranch to die? Why did he leave some of his belongings behind? Why was Jody so full of sorrow? “The Promise” (pp. 56-79) As the story opens, Steinbeck uses a fantasy sequence showing Jody in both a marching band and on an imaginary safari. “The Promise” has a lot in common with “The Gift,” as it is about Jody, along with Billy Buck, taking the responsibility for raising a horse. This time, both Carl and Billy agree that Jody is ready to raise a colt from birth, so the mare Nellie is bred with a local stallion. Jody must exhibit patience as the gestation period is at least a year; he is also charged with helping Billy take good care of Nellie. As time progresses, and Jody sees no sign of Nellie being pregnant, he begins to worry. Billy Buck, as he did in “The Gift,” reassures Jody that everything is fine. In a clear reference to the “The Gift” and the death of Gabilan, Billy explains what must happen in order for a safe birth. Even though Jody remains worried, everything seems fine as Nellie is finally ready to give birth. However, the colt is not aligned properly, and Billy has no choice but to kill Nellie to save the colt. Despite the promise kept, both Billy and Jody are haunted. Some Areas on Which to Focus for a Class Discussion: - Generally considered a realistic writer, ask students why does Steinbeck choose to open the story with a fantasy involving Jody with a marching band and on an imaginary safari? (56-58). This should prompt an interesting discussion, especially given that Steinbeck is not an author who writes randomly. Are there any indications in the previous two stories that would provide a reason for the fantasy scenes? - Steinbeck writes, “As the gray and silent army marched past, led by Jody…the gray army halted, bewildered and nervous. The army stood in long, uneasy ranks for a moment, and then, with a soft sigh of sorrow, rose up in the faint gray mist and disappeared…The brush along the road stirred restively under a new and unexpected population of gray tigers and gray bears” (57). - In a clear reference to the events in “The Gift,” after Nellie’s breeding, Jody begins to get worried when he notices no change in Nellie’s condition. Have students identify various times when Jody is expressing anxiety. His anxiety, eventually justified, increases during the course of the story. - For example, early on, Jody asked Billy, “‘Do you think she’s really going to have a colt?’” (65). Billy is relaxed and replies. “‘I told you you’d get tired waiting. It’ll be five months more before you can even see a sign, and it’ll be at least eight months more before she throws the colt…you’ll be an old man’” (66). - Later on, however, Jody’s concern grows. “When the end of the month arrived with no birth, Jody grew frantic…Jody was filled with terror and desolation” (74). - Ask students what foreshadowed Nellie’s death in “The Promise.” There are several examples. One appears early in the story when Billy is forthcoming about the nature of a colt’s birth. Jody asks Billy about how colts are born. Even though Billy is talking about the colt’s well being, his speech is also about the well being of the - Billy explains, “‘Sometimes you have to be there to help the mare. And sometimes if it’s wrong you have to—’” Jody is obviously concerned and Billy continues, “‘Have to tear the colt to pieces to get it out, or the mare’ll die’” (67). - Billy is increasingly defensive about his actions as the story progresses. Have students identify instances in which Billy is being defensive, especially with Jody. - For example, when Jody is in the barn, and asks Billy about the health of Nellie and asks him to promise to not let anything happen to Nellie, Billy explodes. “Billy growled down at him. ‘I told you I’d call you, and I will. Now you get back to bed and stop worrying that mare’…Jody cringed, for he had never heard Billy speak in such a tone” (75). - Ask students to compare (and contrast) “The Gift” with “The Promise.” This should make for a lively discussion, as the two stories have many similarities in theme, plot, and characters. Also, “The Promise” is the only story in The Red Pony which directly references (albeit briefly) Gabilan and “The Gift.” This could conceivably provide a discussion that will last close to an entire class period. Examples: - Students may discuss Jody’s responsibilities with both Gabilan and Nellie. - Students may discuss Billy Buck’s relationship with Jody in both stories. - Ask students about the symbols in this story. For example, the black cypress tree plays a huge role in this story. - Jody thought of Nellie as he walked. “Then suddenly he saw that he was under the black cypress, under the very singletree where the pigs were hung…It seemed to him an unlucky thing to be thinking of his colt in the very slaughter place, especially after what Billy had said” (69). - Given what happened in both “The Gift” and “The Promise,” ask students if Billy Buck is a failure. This discussion should also include the nature of mistakes, forgiveness, - Ask students to go beyond the text and discuss (for the brave and willing) failures, triumphs, and forgiveness they have experienced. - Kids can certainly change but can adults? - Discuss the nature of success vs. failure. “The Leader of the People” (pp.80-100) As the story opens, Jody suggests to Billy Buck that they could hunt for mice in the barn’s haystack. Next, a letter arrives announcing a visit from Jody’s grandfather, Mrs. Tiflin’s father. Carl Tiflin is not pleased as he complains that Grandfather constantly repeats stories from an older time, crossing the Great Plains to the West. Jody is fascinated with the stories, however, and Grandfather has also a mutual respect with Billy Buck. As with Gitano in “The Great Mountains,” Carl Tiflin has little patience with Grandfather and his stories. For the first time, Mrs. Tiflin actually stands up to Carl and chides him for the treatment of his father-in-law. Grandfather, sensing that his stories have lost their value, intends to leave the ranch. The idea of “westering” is done. Jody tries to cheer up his grandfather with an offer to mutually hunt the mice. His grandfather refuses, and the story ends with Jody trying one more time to cheer his grandfather by offering him some lemonade. Some Areas on Which to Focus for a Class Discussion: - Have students focus on similarities between “The Great Mountains” and “The Leader of the People.” - How are Gitano and Grandfather similar? - How are Gitano and Grandfather different? - How are Jody’s reactions to Gitano and Grandfather similar/different? - Have students focus on how Carl treats Gitano and Grandfather. - Ask students why the crossing of The Great Plains was so important to Grandfather (see also Westering). - Why does it no longer seem necessary for Grandfather to tell his stories? - What did Grandfather accomplish during the crossing? - Show how Mrs. Tiflin was angry at her husband for being mean to Grandfather. - For example, “She had caught Carl, caught him and entangled him in her soft tone…She tried to catch him again. ‘Well, it’s [the crossing] everything to him. You might be patient with him and pretend to listen’” (85). - Jody even encounters an enlightened moment of philosophy. Shortly before breakfast, he talks with Billy Buck about hunting the mice. “Jody changed his course and moved toward the house. He leaned his flail against the steps. ‘That’s to drive the mice out,’ he said. ‘I’ll bet they’re happy and fat. I’ll bet they don’t know what’s going to happen to them today.’ ‘No, nor you either,’ Billy remarked philosophically, ‘nor me, nor anyone’” (96). - What does Billy Buck mean? - How does Billy Buck’s statement relate to the other three stories? - Ask students how Steinbeck masterfully demonstrates how he “shows and not tells”. In other words, how does Steinbeck allow the readers to experience what the characters are feeling without being told what they are feeling? - Everyone is listening to Grandfather’s stories, told again and again, and everyone is bored. Steinbeck does not tell the reader the characters are bored; rather, he shows the reader such. Explain. - “In some manner a big moth got into the room and circled the hanging kerosene lamp. Billy got up and tried to clap his hands. Carl struck with a cupped palm and caught the moth and broke it. He walked to the window and dropped it out” (91). - Many students are puzzled by the closing lines of the story after Jody has asked for a lemonade to give his grandfather. After Mrs. Tiflin asks if Jody wants a lemonade too, he refuses. What is the significance of this scene? - “‘Jody! You’re sick!’ Then she stopped suddenly. ‘Take a lemon out of the cooler,’ she said softly. ‘Here, I’ll reach the squeezer down to you.’” (100). - Takeaways have been included above. - Teachers can have students write an evaluation of the project and what they have learned. - Students can write short papers based on discussions. Periodical tests/quizzes and short papers on each section would be useful. Common Core State Standards Met - Reading Standards for Literature 6-12 - Key Ideas and Details: 1, 2, 3 - Craft and Structure: 4, 5, 6 - Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: 7, 9 - Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity: 10 - Writing Standards 6-12 - Text Types and Purposes: 1, 2, 3 - Production and Distribution of Writing: 4, 5, 6 - Research to Build and Present Knowledge: 7, 9 - Range of Writing: 10 - Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12 - Comprehension and Collaboration: 1, 2, 3 - Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas: 4 - Language Standards 6-12 - Conventions of Standard English: 1 - Knowledge of Language: 3 - Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: 5, 6 - Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies 6-12 - Key Ideas and Details: 1, 2 - Craft and Structure: 4, 5, 6 - Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: 8 - Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity: 10 - Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects - Range of Writing: 10
The smooth plains appear to be the youngest terrain on Mercury, and they make up about 40 percent of the area photographed by Mariner 10. The photomosaic on page 102 from Mariner 10 is of the southern half of Mercury's Shakespeare quadrangle, named for the ancient Shakespeare crater located on the upper edge to the left of center. This portion of the quadrangle covers the Mercurian surface from 20° The chaos region antipodal to Caloris Basin may have been caused by the convergence of shock waves generated by the impact that formed the basin. Mercury's Shakespeare quadrangle, named for the ancient crater on the upper edge of the mosaic to the left of center, stretches from 20° to 45° north latitude and from 90° to 180° longitude. to 45° north latitude and from 90° to 180° longitude. Bright ejecta rays radiating away from craters cut across and are superimposed on all other surface features, indicating that the source craters are the youngest topographic features on the surface of Mercury. Other parts of this quadrangle are almost bare of craters.These plains could be the result of resurfacing by volcanic activity, since this is the most common process for creating smooth plains in the terrestrial planets. The action of water can create flat plains, such as those in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, which are thought to be the basin bottoms of oceans dried up long ago. Mercury's obvious lack of water and its immense temperatures courtesy of the Sun make volcanic activity the most likely resurfacing process. Though these are called young plains, they are only "young" in comparison to the ancient cratered areas.The better-known geologic history of the Moon and models of the early solar system show that there was a period of intense bombardment of the early planets, up to about 3.8 billion years ago. From studying the surfaces of other planets it is thought that even aside from the Late Heavy Bombardment, which was a particularly intense cratering period, cratering rates have subsided over time in the inner solar system (see the sidebar "The Late Heavy Bombardment," on page 103). Geologists who study cratering in images from other planets (often this discipline is called photogeology) have produced graphs of cratering rates versus time, as best they can without radiometric T here was a period of time early in solar system development when all the celestial bodies in the inner solar system were repeatedly impacted by large bolides. This high-activity period might be anticipated by thinking about how the planets formed, accreting from smaller bodies into larger and larger bodies, and so it may seem intuitive that there would be a time even after most of the planets formed when there was still enough material left over in the early solar system to continue bombarding and cratering the early planets. Beyond this theory, though, there is visible evidence on Mercury, the Moon, and Mars in the form of ancient surfaces that are far more heavily cratered than any fresher surface on the planet (Venus, on the other hand, has been resurfaced by volcanic activity, and plate tectonics and surface weathering have wiped out all record of early impacts on Earth). The giant basins on the Moon, filled with dark basalt and visible to the eye from Earth, are left over from that early period of heavy impacts, called the Late Heavy Bombardment. Dating rocks from the Moon using radioactive isotopes and carefully determining the age relationships of different craters' ejecta blankets indicate that the lunar Late Heavy Bombardment lasted until about 3.8 billion years ago. Some scientists believe that the Late Heavy Bombardment was a specific period of very heavy impact activity that lasted from about 4.2 to 3.8 billion years ago, after a pause in bombardment following initial planetary formation at about 4.56 billion years ago, while other scientists believe that the Late Heavy Bombardment was the tail end of a continuously decreasing rate of bombardment that began at the beginning of the solar system. In this continual bombardment model, the last giant impacts from 4.2 to 3.8 billion years ago simply erased the evidence of all the earlier bombardment. If, alternatively, the Late Heavy Bombardment was a discrete event, then some reason for the sudden invasion of the inner solar system by giant bolides must be discovered. Were they bodies perturbed from the outer solar system by the giant planets there? If they came from the outer solar system, then more of the material was likely to be water-rich cometary material. If as much as 25 percent of the Late Heavy Bombardment was cometary material, it would have contributed enough water to the Earth to create its oceans. If this model is correct for placing water on the Earth, then a further quandary must be solved: Why didn't Venus receive as much water, or if it did, where did the water go? dates for planetary surfaces other than the Moon's. These curves allow us to make estimates of the ages of terrain that has craters. Even the smooth young plains of Mercury have some craters, and judging from cratering rates, they were formed about 3.7 billion years ago. These are immensely aged when compared to surface materials on Earth, most of which are younger than 500 million years, but they are still a young feature on the very old surface of Mercury. The lava flows seem, from remote sensing, to contain only about 3 percent iron oxide, much less than in terrestrial lava flows. From years of laboratory experiments on how rocks melt, it is known that about the same amount of iron goes into the melt as stays behind in the rock.These experiments indicate, therefore, that Mercury's mantle contains only about 3 percent iron oxide, much less than the Earth's and especially less than Mars's mantle, which is thought to contain about 18 percent iron oxide. Mercury, the Earth, and Mars all formed in the inner solar system and should differ only slightly and systematically in bulk composition, so how can Mercury have so little iron in its silicate mantle? Mercury's large core may have left the mantle depleted in iron. The volcanic history of the planet remains uncertain, since better-resolved photos are needed to clearly determine the relationships among surface features, and the rest of the planet must also be photographed. What can be seen of Mercury in the existing photographs indicates that volcanism seems to have ended early in Mercury's history, leaving the very old, cratered surfaces pristine. These clean, old surfaces prove that Mercury's geologic activity ceased earlier than any other planet;Venus, Earth, and Mars have all had their crusts completely resurfaced by geologic activity, wiping away the cratering record of the early, violent solar system.Though the mechanism that caused the volcanic activity of Mercury is unknown, researchers have noted that these smooth young plains are much like the volcanic pools on the Moon, visible from the Earth as dark surfaces in impact basins.The volcanic activity on the two planets happened at about the same time, but even on the much better studied Moon, it is not agreed why the large volcanic flows, called mare basalts, occurred ("mare" means ocean, one of their first interpretations). All the other features on Mercury are cut across by Mercury's most predominant surface feature, called lobate scarps (curved cliffs that meet in relatively sharp angles, creating a scalloped shape).The scarps are between 12 and 300 miles (20 and 500 km) long, and each is hundred of yards in height: These are huge surface features.They can be sinuous when viewed from above, but generally they form smooth arcs.The scarps are approximately evenly distributed across the planet's surface and trend in all directions; they are not parallel or in sets. Analysis of three large scarps (which on Mercury are called "rupes")—Adventure Rupes, Resolution Rupes, and Discovery Rupes—indicate that they are formed by thrust faults. A thrust fault is one in which the land surface has been pressed together laterally, so that one side of the fault moves up and over the other. The scarps are therefore asymmetric in cross section, with a more shallowly sloping side and a steeper, cliff-like side. Discovery Rupes is 220 miles (350 km) long and has a maximum height of about two miles (3 km). The Michelangelo Quadrangle, which lies in Mercury's southern polar region, contains several large lobate scarps in the lower left side of the image in the figure below. The scarps here cut through existing Scarps from Planetary Shrinkage A planet with crust (thickness exaggerated) Planet shrinks from cooling (greatly exaggerated) Planet shrinks from cooling (greatly exaggerated) A planet with crust (thickness exaggerated) Brittle crust is forced to break along faults, creating curving fault scarps on the planet's surface Scarps (cliffs formed by moving along faults) may be created by planetary shrinkage, possibly the result of cooling. surface features, including several impact craters, indicating that the scarps formed after the features they cut. Thrust faults indicate that the surface of the planet was in compression, possibly caused when the planet's interior cooled and shrank, early in its history. The mechanism for forming thrust faults through planetary shrinkage is shown in the figure above. These scarps pass through both volcanic and cratered terrain, so they cannot be older than the volcanic plains, at about 3.7 billion years. Remember that the age of the solar system is about 4.56 billion years, so if cooling and shrinking caused these scarps, the planet was apparently still cooling and shrinking over a half billion years after its formation, according to the estimates made by examining the photographs of the surface. Measuring the scarps and adding their effect across the surface of the planet has led some researchers to state that the scarps represent a 0.5—1 percent shrinkage of the planet, which means that Mercury's radius shrank by one to two kilometers. Why the planet would relatively suddenly cool and shrink a half billion years after its initial formation is not well understood. Was this article helpful?
The majority of the genetic polymorphisms found in our species are found uniquely in Africans. Europeans, Asian and Native Americans carry only a small sample of the extraordinary diversity that can be found in any African village. — Spencer Wells, The Journey of Man, p. 39 Given its larger human populations and its greater continuity of occupation, Africa has probably always had more genetic and morphological variation than other parts of the inhabited world, giving greater opportunities for biological and behavioral innovations to both develop and be conserved. — Chris Stringer, Lone Survivors, p. 219 To revisit the parallels between the evolution of language and the evolution of DNA, the ancient “Click” languages spoken by the Khoisan people show a very high complexity, a complexity that mirrors the higher genetic diversity found in their DNA. “English, for example, has thirty-one distinguishable sounds used in everyday speech (two-thirds of the world’s languages have between twenty and forty), while the San !Xu language… has 141. While it is uncertain exactly which forces govern the acquisition of linguistic diversity, this figure is certainly suggestive of an ancient pedigree — in exactly the same way that genetic diversity accumulates to a greater extent over longer time periods.” (The Journey of Man, p. 56) Dr. Chris Stringer makes a similar point in his Lone Survivors. “Africa has the largest number and diversity of phonemes, and that number decreases as we move away from Africa.” (p. 218) The language essentially mirrors the DNA. But importantly, as various populations of our species migrated out of Africa they seem to have encountered their long-geographically separated cousins. Neanderthals and Denisovans were still to be found in the Caucasus, Europe and Siberia, and as it turned out they had a role to play in our narrative. As the DNA shows us… where populations met, they exchanged genes. Currently, three human species have had their DNA sequenced and the genome decoded; the Homo sapien genome was finalized in 2003, the Neanderthal genome was published in 2010 and the Denisovan in 2012. There may have been as many as 20 human species over the past two and half million years, but we have not yet retrieved DNA from other older species. What we have learned in the past half decade though is that today’s world population shows an eclectic mix of archaic admixtures, added to the genetic mix within the past 50,000 years. Anyone of European or Asian descent today averages 2-3% Neanderthal DNA, while Tibetan/Melanesian populations today may show Neanderthal DNA… and an additional 2-5% Denisovan DNA. It is interesting to note that in the case of Neanderthal DNA, the roughly 3% in my genome is not necessarily the same as your 3%, so we actually have different puzzle pieces buried in our DNA. If we were to compile together the DNA of everyone alive today, it is estimated that we could be able to reassemble roughly 30% of the entire Neanderthal genome. Almost one-third of the Neanderthal genome is still active and being passed down through human populations today. The former blanket statement that Neanderthals went extinct must be revisited; it is about as accurate as saying the dinosaurs went extinct while ignoring the bird singing at your window. Outnumbered 10 to one by modern humans, Neanderthals weren’t hunted to extinction by a supposedly superior species. They were bred out, genetically swamped. — PBS, Nova: Decoding Neanderthals, 2013 Broad swaths of the world’s population today carry a legacy of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA across the globe, to continents neither species ever saw or imagined, not unlike the lost luggage of a dead passenger traveling the globe from terminal to terminal long after his burial! Even the African continent retained pockets of archaic humans until relatively recently. And wherever populations met, population-mixing seems to have occurred. In the words of Chris Stringer, “sex happens.” From his 2012 book Lone Survivors: “[Current] African populations also contain about 2 per cent of ancient genetic material, and this was input some 35,000 years ago, not from Neanderthals or Denisovans but from an unknown archaic population within Africa itself, which might have been separate from the modern human lineage for some 700,000 years.” (p. 250, emphasis added) Whether heidelbergensis, erectus, or something more obscure or exotic within the pockets of isolation in Africa thousands of years ago, this finding just underscores the point that between Europe, Asia and Africa, gene pools separated by hundreds of thousands of years found a way to reconnect, even if only to re-establish a toehold. The truth is, though we are the last human species on earth today, there was never any one lineage that resulted in the “us” of today. The lines that lead to us were a porous, fluid and tangled tapestry; we are a mosaic of countless Homo and Australopith contributions. Some of these evolutionary experiments died out, others came together and interbred. The ebb and flow of these genes through these groups was probably so complex that we may have to give up hope of discovering a simple linear evolution. — PBS, Nova: Dawn of Humanity, 2015 There were probably no fewer than 20 Homo species in Africa over the past two million years, and it does seem likely that every one of them may have contributed at least a little bit to the bloodline we see today. There are more than seven billion humans in the world now, but over the course of our ancestral history Australopithecines and early Hominins existed in perilously low densities. We spent most of our history as an endangered species, not unlike gorilla populations today. Historically speaking, think of these early human species as living in small prides, very much like chimp and gorilla communities today; small isolated collectives with little interest in outsiders other than an occasional sexual encounter and exchange of genes. The smaller these isolated groups, the more any outsider DNA would impact the gene pool. The descent of Homo sapiens is not unlike someone’s genealogy of today, where despite your single surname there was no single line that made YOU; if you go back far enough, genealogical lines criss-cross, separate and actually merge again. There are multiple rivers that flow into the gene-pool of you, and the further back you trace the streams, the more their courses branch, split, reconnect, narrow and broaden in unexpected ways. Much like an all-female line resulting in the extinction of a surname, the “extinction of a species” is an arbitrary designation, because the DNA simply carries on, contributing to an individual or species no matter what “name” they hold. In this case, “extinction” simply juggles the proportions of the genetic mix. Minute genetic contributions of archaic humans live on within our species today. Homo sapiens may be “mostly derived” from Homo heidelbergenis in the same way that someone might be “mostly Irish” in heritage… the reality is more complicated. But geography and climate have played a role too, in reshaping the human form outside of Africa in the past 65,000 years, as pockets of Homo sapiens spread across the globe. If the gene pool is the hardware of DNA, then think of the genetic responses to geographic and climate change as the software patches. As populations of our species moved north their skin gradually lightened to filter in more necessary vitamin D, and conversely those who had been north for thousands of years and then headed south again (Polynesian populations, and Indigenous Americans — both North and South) began darkening once more. Different features arose in different regions and formed the physical and cultural distinctions we still see today. Genetic variation is geographically structured, as expected from the partial isolation of human populations during much of their history. The worldwide human species that we see today is merely a snapshot; but it’s a perfect test-case of 65,000 years of genetic drift and varying degrees of geographic isolation. Epicanthal eye folds, lactose-intolerance, skin tone and body stature; these are all just different evolutionary responses to different regional and cultural stimuli. Humanity has spread from one continent to six, and in the process the continents have reshaped humanity. My mom asked me once if evolution is over and I replied no; evolution never stops. As long as reproduction through sexual means continues, “descent with modification” is an inevitable result. After all, if each generation represents a single random twist of the Rubick’s Cube it’s only a matter of time before any two cubes would cease to look alike. Consider for a moment blue eyes, a cosmetic detail well under a thousand generations old. Blue eyes are a very recent adaptation; related to a distinct mutation located in the OCA2 gene that first appeared between 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, and we can actually pinpoint this mutation to the geography of the Black Sea region. “Blue-eyed Humans Have a Single, Common Ancestor” was a headline in January, 2008. Blue eyes are an example of a genetic variation recent enough to be caught in the act, as it were, between being a regional actor and global one, having played a prominent role in the theater of Europe and Scandanavia, but largely not yet introduced into indigenous populations of Africa, Asia or the Americas. It might be odd to think of the spread of blue eyes in the same way one might think of the spread of a sexually transmitted disease, but it’s not an entirely inaccurate analogy. Mutations are spread by sex. The reality is that any two unrelated people of Western heritage today will likely share a common ancestor by 600 years ago, but a same person of Western heritage and a person of East Asian heritage might not share a common ancestor before 40,000 years ago. So mutations like the one in gene OCA2 have lacked the opportunity or timetable to enter that larger worldwide population before the advent of air travel. Eye color, earlobes, toe lengths & wisdom teeth; these are all genetic features that are variable today. These are transitional mutations. The more variegated a species the more successful it is, and the more variegated the more variations it produces. Evolution is an accelerated cycle. Repetition leads to variation, and the larger the pool of repetition (i.e., the population) the more variations inevitably appear. In short, not only are we still evolving but that evolution is accelerating.
Gradually, they gain insight into why people do what they do, which aids social life but can also lead to annoying behavior and create difficulties. Delays can affect cognitive development and social relationships and can leave children isolated. The “Terrible Twos”, young children telling lies, teenagers’ heavy sarcasm – the list of different kinds of youthful behavior with which adults struggle is long. Other characteristics are more charming but sometimes mysterious – the way toddlers reveal themselves easily when playing hide and seek; the way young children thrill when shouting “He’s behind you”; their fascination with magic tricks. What’s going on in children’s minds? And how do these thoughts, beliefs and pieces of knowledge develop over time? Many of these events—the annoying, the charming, the dubious—reflect important steps in cognitive development. All reflect children’s emerging understandings of people’s minds. When children begin to lie, for example, it means they now understand others can have different beliefs —and minds—than they do. Consider this event involving a friend’s four-year-old son. He recently told his mom he was dressed for school and so was going outside to play. Then, through the window, she saw him playing in his pyjamas. This four-year-old understands: “I know I’m in my pyjamas, but she can think I’m dressed.” So mom’s beliefs can be manipulated; she can be deceived. Children’s growing awareness of other people’s thinking is called a “theory of mind”. Developing a personal theory of mind requires extended learning by a child and partial accomplishments, punctuated by important advances. How do children come to understand what is happening in people’s minds? Answers to this question can do more than soothe parental anxieties and resolve their curiosities. They also shed light on how such developments may affect, for example, children’s transition to school and their susceptibility to bullying. Theory of mind is a factor in their satisfying or unsatisfying friendships, their ability to accept feedback from teachers, and their ability to stand up for their own opinions, including arguing with, persuading, and negotiating with others. Here are three steps in the process of developing theory of mind that decidedly impact children’s lives (and the lives of others around them). Recognizing that people have different desires In a classic experiment, known as the “Broccoli-Goldfish” study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley showed how, even at 18 months, toddlers can understand adults’ desires and intentions and appreciate that these may be different from their own. The young children were offered two treats – a crown of broccoli or a Goldfish cracker (a much-loved childhood snack like Cheerios). The children almost always preferred the Goldfish crackers. Then they watched the treats being offered to an adult, who said “Oh, yummy” to the broccoli and “Ew, yuck” to the cracker. The children themselves then had the chance to give the adults a treat. If they were merely egocentric, the children might have offered a Goldfish cracker. Instead, they gave the adult broccoli. Even at this early age, children can understand diversity of desire and intentions among others. They know that everyone is not the same. “How do children come to understand what is happening in people’s minds?” In many ways the “Terrible Twos”—that explosion of expressed, wilful desire and intentions—reflects children’s exploration of such understanding, and a determination to do what they desire, rather than what adults want. When a two-year-old throws his shoes around the supermarket, or says no to every parental desire or command, mom or dad may be exasperated. But adults can feel some reassurance in that this behavior indicates healthy growth for the child. Beliefs differ and can be false Later, children gain additional understandings. They appreciate, crucially, that people’s actions are driven not only by desire and intention, but also by knowledge and beliefs. They understand that what people know or don’t know about the world—think and don’t think—is also important. Two levels of skill develop around the ages of three and four. First, children begin to understand diversity of knowing —they recognize they might know something but another person might not. Next, they learn that beliefs differ and can be false. When my son was around three and a half, he once told me: “Shut your eyes, Dad.” “OK, why?” I said. “I’m going to do something you don’t like.” So he understood some things about knowing, and how it can influence behaviour, but only partially to begin with. He understood that concealment could help him get what he wanted: I wouldn’t know so I wouldn’t object. That’s a good stratagem, driven by theory of mind. But he didn’t yet appreciate that I needed to remain ignorant for his approach to work. As you might now imagine, it’s only when children better understand some of these things about knowledge that they begin to improve at hide and seek. In contrast, at two and three years old, they will hide in plain sight or, within a few moments of hiding, shout out where they are, unable to foster ignorance about their whereabouts. The next level is for children to understand not just knowledge and ignorance, but belief, namely that beliefs differ for different people and from reality. So beliefs can be false. When he was three and again at five, my son revealed this skill around belief when he tried a classic test in my child laboratory at the University of Michigan. He was shown two boxes. One was a candy box, the other was plain white. When I asked him what was in the candy box, he said, “Candy!” But, when he opened the box, he found it was empty. Instead, the plain box was full of candy. I closed the boxes back up as Glenda, my research assistant, came in. “Glenda loves candy,” I told my son. Glenda nodded enthusiastically. Then I asked, “Where will Glenda look for candy?” At three, my son said, like almost all children at that age would, that Glenda would look for the candy in the plain box, because he knew that’s where the candy really was. He failed this false-belief task. At this age children can understand someone’s wants. But when it comes to understanding thoughts, they often figure that everyone shares the same thoughts. They know where the candy really is, so, of course, they reckon Glenda does too. But what about five-year-old children? Eighty per cent of them predict Glenda will look in the candy box. With a year and a half of additional development under their belts, children can now understand Glenda’s thinking. Her thoughts don’t just reflect the world. Instead, if she wants candy, she looks where she thinks it should be: in a candy box. They’ve figured out Glenda’s actions would be driven by her beliefs —in this case her false belief —rather than by where the candy really was. Understanding false belief enables children to recognise that people can lie, that they can tell a falsehood. Theory-of-mind research has confirmed this link. Although lying is usually something parents worry about and discourage, it reflects an important insight. When young children tell lies, they’re trying out this insight into what they have learned about themselves and other people’s minds. They are growing via exercising their new understanding. Understanding how people come to their beliefs and misbeliefs also allows children to communicate more effectively, to persuade and negotiate, and it predicts better relationships with their peers. Moreover, not all lies are dubious. We all appreciate “white” lies —we recognize that polite deceptions can aid positive relationships. Thus parents admire and encourage their children’s sophistication in telling grandma that she’s given them a wonderful Christmas present, even though they don’t actually like it. Learning how to lie appropriately reflects a big developmental step forward in understanding minds and in social skill. This same skill helps children make their transition to school. Experience shapes understanding of others Studies demonstrate that children’s understanding of their own, and of other minds, is not simply an unfolding of a predetermined, biological maturation. It springs out of their social and evidential experiences. As a result, the onset of the different levels can vary in time from child to child—earlier for some, later for others. Children who are quicker to achieve a more accomplished, fluent theory of mind also make a better transition to school. Theory-of-mind understanding aids children in school indirectly by developing their social skills and so fostering positive relationships with peers and teachers. It also directly affects school achievement by influencing how, and how much, children learn. Children who know more about the mind early on also know more about learning. They better recognize how the mind takes in information and how it acquires knowledge and beliefs. This helps them develop and use effective ways to learn. Teenage developments: sarcastic behavior and irony Understanding the minds of others doesn’t end with the transition to school. When children reach 13 or 14, they typically experiment with knowledge and beliefs in further, still more complicated, ways. A prime example is the understanding and use of sarcasm and irony. As much as the “terrible twos” can vex parents of younger children, incessant sarcasm can exasperate the parents of teens. Some teenagers seldom use a literal reply: “Time to wake up—Perfect! I love getting up in the dark.” “Eggs for breakfast again, my favorite.” A rainy day for a family outing: “Great, this couldn’t be better. What a fabulous day!” Some teens can be so sarcastic and archly ironic that you never know if they’re giving you a compliment or they’re ready to go ballistic. And among their peers, teenagers trade sarcasm with their friends. It’s part of bonding —it’s the coin of the realm. So are other ubiquitous forms of non-literal language: a really great song is “sick;” “sipping tea” means talking trash; “freakish” means great. It takes more than recognizing ignorance or false belief to understand and to communicate like this. If someone says (sarcastically) “What a great day” when it’s raining, that doesn’t mean they’re ignorant and don’t know what the weather is. It doesn’t mean that they’re deceived. Nor does it mean they’re lying and trying to deceive you. This is a non-literal way to point out truths about the world. A younger child might think such messages are lying or ignorance. Understanding sarcasm takes learning and development. And when that first comes, it gets exercised. These developing skills have implications for children’s lives. Kids who don’t get sarcasm and sick, freaky slang may be excluded, stigmatised and considered stupid. They may experience misunderstandings, confused interactions, or even depression and hostility. Theory-of-mind research confirms these links as well. “When young children tell lies, they’re trying out their insight into what they have learned about themselves and other people’s minds. They are growing by exercising this new understanding.” Groups with delayed development Among some groups of children, mind understanding is seriously delayed. The best-known case is children with autism. But a really informative case of delay is found in deaf children whose parents can hear normally. In their early years, these deaf children (though not those born of signing deaf parents) miss out on a lot of social interaction, which normally fosters understanding of differences in intentions, desires, knowledge and belief. Indeed, the results of their singular experiences demonstrate how the development of mind understanding is driven by social experience and is not simply a biological unfolding. They also demonstrate how social understanding and misunderstandings do indeed cause social delays and difficulties. What should parents and teachers do? What’s the big message for parents? It’s that development works. As children learn and know more, they get beyond the terrible twos, they learn polite deceptions, and they outgrow incessant sarcasm. They learn and grow. Adults can also talk about the mind with their children. Research shows that more “mental talk” —who likes what and who doesn’t, who knows or thinks what—leads children to better understand minds. And remember, better understanding of minds helps children have better friendships and better transitions to school, and, in the long run, be less prone to depression. Children are interested in these topics. They are distinctly interested in who does what and why. This helps explain why we adults become such inveterate gossipers. You can get a sense of this from children’s questions and their search for explanations. In everyday conversations with parents and others, children ask a lot of questions. Indeed, the myriad childhood “whys” can be as exasperating as incessant battles of will and sarcastic replies. The primary thing young children ask why about is why people do things: “Why do some people eat snails?”, “Why is buttface a bad word?” “Why do people kill cows?” Getting explanations rather than non-explanations helps children learn. In fact, asking children to provide their own explanations also helps. Educational researchers call this the self-explanation effect: Just asking children why 4 plus 4 equals 8 and not 5 helps them to learn and remember. The self-explanation effect appears for learning math, for learning science, for learning history, and for learning about people. The related message to educators is that sometimes teachers and schools focus too much on academic study. Be wary of increasing pressures for still more. Fostering social intelligence is also crucial: Learning is not all about facts and procedures. It requires social-communicative exchanges; it requires being receptive to teacher feedback; it benefits not just from being instructed but also from attempting to instruct others. It relies on theory-of-mind insights and advances. Enhanced theory of mind aids children in school indirectly and directly. The same points are good advice to policy makers: Fostering social intelligence — not just IQ and academic study — is crucial. Theory-of-mind understandings are key to promoting a crucial 21st century skill: social intelligence. Header photo: StarMama. Creative Commons.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongioform encephalopathy (BSE), is a prion disease. Prion diseases are a group of rare communicable diseases affecting both humans and animals. They are progressive degenerative diseases of the brain, characterized by the spongy texture of the brain (or holes in the brain) and dementia. Prion diseases have a long incubation period and are invariably fatal. The cause is infectious abnormal prion proteins in the brain and spinal cord, which are folded and distorted, and which can contaminate normal prion proteins, causing increasing damage to the brain. Besides BSE, prion diseases in animals include Chronic Wasting Disease (in deer and elk), Scrapie (in sheep and goats) and similar diseases in mink, felines and ungulates. Human prion diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease(CJD) and a variant of CJD, Gerstmann-Straussler-Jakob Syndrome, Kuru and Fatal Familial Insomnia. The disease can occur spontaneously for unknown reasons, it can be inherited (fatal familial insomnia) and it can be transmitted through the food chain when the brain or spinal tissue of an animal with mad cow disease is eaten by humans or by another animal (kuru.) Mad cow disease was first discovered in Britain in 1986 and it killed approximately 150 people and 184,000 cattle. It was caused by widespread use of meat and bonemeal cattle feed made from scrapie-infected sheep. People who died from the disease were probably exposed to it by eating processed beef contaminated with BSE. Since then the U. S., Europe and Canada have banned feeds produced with the meat and nerve tissue of animals, significantly reducing the transmission of BSE. How likely is it that any of us will contract prion disease from meat? The infectious protein isn’t found in muscle, just in brain and spinal cord tissue, so it’s likely that eating steaks, roasts and so forth is safe. Processed meat is slightly riskier as it is made from many varieties of meat, including tissue stripped from the spine by the processing machines. Current laws and meat processing procedures are designed to prevent the spread of BSE to animals or humans. So the question is whether you trust that everyone in the meat processing industry scrupulously follows the safest procedures. It’s highly unlikely, statistically speaking, that any one of us will get prion disease from eating contaminated meat. However, if you don’t want to be the first person in the U.S. to develop BSE from meat, the solution is to not eat beef, goat, sheep, elk or deer, and especially to not eat processed meat. Journal of the American Medical Association: Risk of transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans in the United States: report of the Council on Scientific Affairs The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery. Max, D. T. 2007
In Star Trek lore, transporter could move people and objects through space by converting matter into light and then into matter once more. A group of international scientist in the UK have brought such technology a considerable step out of science-fiction to scientific fact. The theory of converting light or photons into matter dates back to the 1930’s but at the time, physicists felt technological limitations would not allow them to prove their hypothesis experimentally. Now, over eighty years later, the UK based team, led by Professor Steve Rose, has found a way to empirically determine that photons smashed together will create electrons and positrons (aka matter). Their design involves using one high powered laser to create a beam of photons and another powerful laser aimed inside a gold hohlraum, a hollow cylindrical device used to create a thermal radiation zone, the second source of photons. Next they direct the photon stream at the photon concentrated zone within the hohlraum and, according to their predictions, the colliding photons should produce electrons and positrons.(Model of hohlraum photon collisions. Image Credit: Original Paper/BBC) While not quite transporter technology, it’s a discovery that could progress the physics light-years ahead.
It’s almost time to “spring forward” for Daylight Saving Time, but who came up with this bizarre practice? And why? If you just answered “Benjamin Franklin” and “to help farmers,” you should probably read this. Many Americans like to claim that Benjamin Franklin invented DST, but that’s not exactly true. Franklin did pen an essay suggesting Parisians should maximize their use of daylight hours in 1784, but it was satirical in nature and partially meant to poke fun at the French. Basically, he explained how they could save a ton of money on candles if everybody just woke up earlier and utilized the daylight more. Franklin didn’t mention anything about adjusting time itself. It was actually two Brits, scientist George Vernon Hudson and builder William Willett who almost simultaneously came up with the idea. Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society in 1895, suggesting a two-hour time shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March. They liked the idea, but it didn’t really catch on. Then, ten years later, Willett came up with a different take on the idea that was meant to increase the enjoyment of having more daylight hours (or what’s known as “British Summer Time”). He proposed setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes each Sunday in April, then reversing the process on Sundays in September. Come 1907, Willett published his paper The Waste of Daylight and began lobbying parliament to put it into practice. It didn’t quite take hold in Britain yet, but by 1908, residents of Ontario became the first to implement a form of DST, followed by several other locations in Canada. Then, during World War I, Germany and their ally Austria-Hungary popularized the concept by enacting the first official, country-wide DST policy on May 1, 1916. It was meant as an effort to save fuel and energy during the war. After that, Britain and the rest of Europe began to follow suit. In the U.S., DST would go into effect in March of 1918. Contrary to popular belief, it had nothing to do with farmers lobbying for more time to work their fields. They were actually opposed to the idea. Why? Because the sun dictated farming schedules, not the clock. All DST did was make things more confusing for farmers and made it more difficult to get their work done. In actuality, DST was implemented in the states for the same wartime fuel-saving reasons as Germany, and was lobbied for by recreational and retail entities. Think about it—if you have more daylight after you get off from work, you’re more likely to go out and shop or play golf. This is largely why we still have DST to this day. By 1919, the agricultural industry had won and national DST was repealed. It made a brief return during World War II, but all that did was make everything more confusing. Thing is—despite it being repealed, brought back, then taken away again—some states and cities had been using DST the whole time anyway. This led to decades of confusing time differences throughout the country. During certain times of the year, a 30-minute drive could move you through five to seven different time zones, leading to what Time magazine called “a chaos of clocks” in 1963. Fortunately, the Uniform Time Act fixed all of that in 1966. It standardized DST for the country, but allowed states to opt out if they wanted to stay on standard time. In the end, Arizona and Hawaii opted out and the rest of the country has to change their clocks twice a year.
Did you know that a flood, fire, national disaster, or the loss of power from high winds, snow, or ice could jeopardize the safety of your food? Knowing how to determine if food is safe and how to keep food safe will help minimize the potential loss of food and reduce the risk of foodborne illness. This information will help you make the right decisions for keeping your family safe during an emergency. All microorganisms must have an abundant supply of water to grow. Perishability of a food is related to the moisture content, and the water activity level. Microorganisms that need oxygen (air) to grow are called aerobic. Microorganisms grow and reproduce quickly between the temperatures of 41° and 135°F (5° to 57° c). This lesson presents a hypothetical situation using cartoon characters to explain the importance of time and temperature in keeping food safe. Read these tips about taking food home. Don't wait ... Rerigerate! This lesson focuses on the application of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles to prevent foodborne illness. You will be introduced to "Consumer Control Points," from purchase through use of leftovers, and work your way through the Consumer Control Point Kitchen. Are you planning a tailgate party? If you are, a few well-planned steps may mean the difference between a food-safety nightmare and sure success.
What is a liver sausage tree? The semi-desert makes up a large part of Kenya. There is almost no precipitation here and only plants that can cope with it can survive here. Acacias and various thorn bushes succeed in this. The flute acacia in particular is known for the semi-desert. In central and southern Kenya you will mainly find umbrella and flute acacias. A very special tree is also the baobab tree, which can reach a height of 20 meters and live for several hundred years. It can store huge amounts of water in order to survive in dry seasons. Another special tree is the liver sausage tree. It’s called that because its fruits actually look like liver sausages. Harsh conditions for plants Not that much grows in the natural landscape of Kenya because there is often a lack of water here. Plants that wanted to survive here had to adapt to the harsh conditions. Often the sun burns down on them for days and the drought troubles them. That is why they shed their leaves so that they do not need so much water. They develop thick, waxy leaves to store water, protect themselves with spines so that no one can nibble on them, and are often much more inconspicuous than their counterparts, the flowers. So they may not shine as brightly and colorfully, but are nature’s survival miracles. Mangroves and coconut on the coast Since Kenya has a long coastline, mangroves grow in the swamps on the coast and form large forests. There are also coconut palms, which are again very useful because you can get all sorts of things from their nuts. The rainforest in Kenya has declined significantly. These forests, which are always humid, show a great abundance of plants and trees. The rainforest trees, which form an almost closed roof and hardly allow any sunlight to penetrate, are particularly fascinating. Here trees grow up to 60 meters in height. But here too the flowers are reduced and the other plants that grow here usually remain slightly pale and fairly colorless. Orchids, ferns and mosses are among them. Mountain forests are more common because Kenya has some high mountains. In the Mount Kenya Mountains, for example, the mountain bamboo can be found. It needs a lot of rainfall to reach its height of up to 15 meters. You will find moorland above the tree line, i.e. where trees can no longer grow. Plants such as bluebells and composites and many different grasses still grow above 4500 meters. Lots of plants – from all over the world The flora of Kenya is extremely diverse. More than 11,000 types of plants have already been counted, including huge trees and tiny flowers. So everything grows in Kenya, but only where there is enough water. In the parks and also in the large hotel complexes in the country there is artificial irrigation. Many of the flowering plants do not originally come from Kenya, but were imported from other countries. This also includes the pink blooming bougainvilleas, which are native to South America. Roses and daisies come from Europe and the hibiscus from China. The economy in Kenya Economically, Kenya is doing much better than other countries in the southern Sahara. “Only” 34 out of 100 people live below the poverty line. The Kenyan economy is growing. Kenya has very little natural resources. Crude oil was discovered some time ago, but there is no certainty that it would be worthwhile in the long term. And in Kenya, too, the gap between rich and poor people is widening and the gap is growing. Flowers, coffee and tea Most people work in agriculture, 70 out of 100. Tea and coffee are primarily used for export. In addition, there is the export of flowers, which is also important for the Kenyan economy. But only a small part of the country – around 20 percent – can be used for agriculture at all. Much is not produced for export, but for own use. These include corn, wheat, sugar cane, beans, bananas, pineapples, and cotton. Cattle breeding also plays a certain role in Kenya. Meat and skins as well as butter are also exported. Overall, Kenya’s economy, which is based on agriculture, is heavily dependent on the climate. Beautiful beaches, wild animals and (almost) untouched nature According to threergroup, the tourism in Kenya is of great importance. Because of the beautiful landscapes, the coasts, the protected national parks and the fascinating wildlife of the country, many people come to get to know Kenya. Many Kenyans live on it. There are large hotel complexes along the coast and many people believe that Kenya’s beaches are among the most beautiful in the world. Others also go on safaris, spend the night in tents or lodges and want to get to know nature as freely as possible. As a travel destination, Kenya is far more geared towards tourists than other African countries.
Welcome to Rangeland Management 101 Welcome class. In this course you will learn the basics of rangeland management: 1. Rangelands are defined as largely native landscapes that are not timber producing and not used for farming. Their chief value is for the raising of livestock, producing food and fiber for human consumption. Like western water law, only uses directly benefiting humans and putting money in a pocket are valuable. Ecological services and things we merely like such as scenery, clean water, wildlife, fisheries, endangered species are not really values. 2. Ecological habitat types have an innate ecological productivity. This is the amount of vegetation they will grow in a year, typically expressed in pounds/acre/year on typical western landscapes. In more productive habitats the metric is more like tons/acre/year. Nature produces more vegetation than is needed to maintain healthy plants. This excess production is a harvestable surplus of vegetation that can be utilized by wildlife and livestock as forage. 3. Livestock and native plant eaters are divided into grazers and browsers. Grazers prefer herbaceous vegetation like grasses and forbs while browsers prefer shrub species. This may vary seasonally, but deer and sheep are generally browsers and cattle are primarily grazers. 4. There are two kinds of grazing animals. Nonselective grazers tend to eat whatever vegetation is in front of them, they are not particular about the species of plants they eat. Selective grazers show strong preferences for certain species of grass and forbs and will eat those selectively until they are gone before moving onto less desired species. American bison is an example of a nonselective grazer. Cattle are highly selective grazers. The cattle’s most preferred plants are the first to show grazing impact and the first to decline in abundance or disappear from the plant community entirely. 5. There are two kinds of plants. Grazing tolerant plants are plants that evolved with large herds of grazing ungulates. They are well adapted to defoliation by herbivores and recover quickly from grazing. Examples are the native grasses of the African savannah and native prairie regions of the United States. Grazing intolerant plants are adapted to habitats without large native herds of grazers. They are more sensitive to defoliation, especially in their growing season, and require much more time to recover from a heavy grazing. Examples are the more desired by cattle species of grasses native to the Great Basin, Colorado Plateau, and Hot Desert regions of the country. Native species of Stipa and bluebunch wheatgrass are examples of grazing intolerant species. They will be reduced in abundance and possibly be removed from the community under heavy spring grazing regimes. 6. In managing grazing, you can control: The species of grazing animals. The number of grazing animals. The season or dates of grazing. How frequently grazing occurs and length of rest periods. Congratulations, if you pass the quiz, you will have successfully completed Rangeland Management 101. If you plan on working in Rangeland Program for a federal land management agency; you will spend the rest of your career using loopholes and platitudes to escape these realities. Fake it until you make it. The Loop Holes and Platitudes 1. Forcing the landscape to produce the kind of vegetation you want is the very definition of farming. Removal of unwanted vegetation, preparing a seed bed, plowing, planting and mulching is farming, not rangeland management. This is especially true if the unwanted vegetation being removed is a native, ecological component of the site and the vegetation you are planting is a non-native selected for its usefulness as a forage plant. The loophole is to call your efforts anything but farming. Call it seeding, vegetation manipulation, fuels reduction, habitat enhancement, watershed improvement. Avoid the use of terms like, “chaining.” The term now has bad connotations associated with destruction, so avoid using it. The practice of chaining is still OK, just don’t call it by the bad name. Just like you refer to yourself as a rangeland management specialist rather than call yourself what you are, a farmer. 2. Plant production is not all available for livestock forage. Vegetative production going into wood, pine needles or unpalatable plants, like big sagebrush, is essentially wasted. The obvious fix is to remove the wasteful vegetation and replace it with plants cows like to eat. Voila, we can increase the forage per acre available to cows through the wonders of vegetation manipulation. All of the forage produced on a site is not exclusively available to cows. It must also provide for the wild ungulates like deer, elk, and bighorn sheep as well as rodents, rabbits, insects, sage grouse and everything else in the native fauna that depend on plants. In practice, we reserve forage for deer because they do not compete much for forage with cows. Elk are more problematic because they are grazers and do complete with cattle for food. All the rest of the primary consumers out there are just assumed to be able to get by regardless of how much of the plants are eaten or trampled by cattle. An exception of course is for the “no goods,” animals like prairie dogs and rabbits that consume forage a cow could eat. Consider removing no goods as a range improvement practice. Ecological productivity is limited. In most of the arid West, precipitation is the factor limiting how much can be grown. A native sagebrush loamy soil site, in a 14 inch precipitation zone, will produce 800 – 1200 pounds per acre per year. Convert the site into an irrigated field and it will produce four to 12 tons per acre per year. This is important because the West is drying and consequently ecological productivity is declining. When I moved to Price, Utah in 1979 it was in a semi-desert climate regime. Chainings, and crested wheatgrass seedings done in the 1960s through mid-1970s surround the town on three sides. Now our city is in the desert climate regime and below the average precipitation required to successfully establish crested wheatgrass. It is doubtful those chaining seeding projects of 40+ years ago would be successful under today’s climate. It is important to use production and range site data from at least 30 years ago to take advantage of the higher production numbers and favorable climate conditions rather than face today’s grim reality The other thing to love about 1960s data is how the AUM determinations (livestock numbers allowed on the land) still in use today are based on a 700 pound cow. Today, the average beef cow weighs almost 1,400 pounds. Using the 1960s AUM figures, you can support twice the cow biomass on the same amount of feed. Sure, this only works on paper but livestock grazing on public lands is not necessarily reality based. 3. We mentioned the diets of browsers and grazers may vary seasonally. No doubt about it, they do. In the spring, browsers like sheep and deer show a strong desire for the new growth of grasses and forbs. Cattle also show a preference for new spring growth of herbaceous plants. Conversely, grazers like elk and cattle up their browse consumption in the winter. This is because the buds and twigs of palatable shrubs and trees provide a needed source of protein, not available from dormant grasses. These patterns also apply to non-ungulate species. Sage grouse are almost entirely dependent on sagebrush in the winter months. In the spring, insects and forbs are critical in the diet, especially for newly hatched chicks and young birds of the year. It is a handy device to fall back on the general grazer/browser distinction and double down on it. Spring cattle grazing on sage grouse nesting areas is not a conflict because cows are grazers and sage brush composes 90% of a sage grouse’s diet. Therefore there is no conflict or competition for forage. Just ignore the fact chicks are highly dependent on insects and forbs. Same theory applies for early spring cattle grazing on deer winter and spring ranges. Winter and spring cattle grazing is also effective for reducing or eliminating the reproduction/establishment of riparian species like willow and cottonwood. When you see the loss of these woody riparian species under winter/spring cattle grazing, proclaim it a mystery and repeat your, “Cows are grazers” mantra. 4. The highly selective grazing habit of cattle is a challenge for rangeland managers in the West. For that reason, it is important not to talk about it while warping the science around this inconvenient truth. Your monitoring may show highly desired species being reduced in abundance and effectively removed from the plant community. The response is to label these species as “ice cream plants” and it is only to be expected for grazing to hammer them. Another response it adjust your monitoring so it does not focus on the most desirable plants. If blue bunch wheatgrass becomes locally extinct, no worries, squirrel tail will still feed the cows, so make squirrel tail the key species you are monitoring . You can always establish a lower ecological base line as range conditions decline under your grazing regime. Not all range improvement involves farming. If you find areas that are in good ecological condition because they are not being grazed by domestic livestock, artificial water developments and fencing can be used to “improve livestock distribution.” This of course is akin to spreading the cancer, so always refer to it as improving livestock distribution. 5. The greatest problem in the world for Christians is sin. Suffering is the essential problem for Buddhists. Selective grazing by cattle on grazing intolerant plants is the central problem for range managers operating in the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and hot desert regions. These plant communities have not seen extensive grazing by large animals since the Pleistocene. In all other realms, we are very concerned with the introduction of non-naïve species into native habitat types and ecosystems. The glaring exception is we see nothing wrong in bringing in 1,400 pound, non-native ungulates from Northern Europe and dumping them into a system that has never had herds of large ungulates. One solution we have discussed above is simply to ignore the problem, write off the native plant species as wimpy, ice cream plants. The other solution is to plant species of forage that are grazing tolerant. To find grazing tolerant plants, you have to go to areas that have been grazed for a long time, like the Eurasian steppes. Crested wheat grass is ideal for this purpose. It is highly grazing tolerant, cows like it and it greens up early in the spring. Crested wheatgrass can be grown on a farm and the seed harvested with a combine. Germination of those seeds can be around 90%. Native seed is typically gathered by hand on open range, a much more labor intensive, expensive process. The native seeds also have a much lower germination rate. So why plant native grass when 70% of those expensive native seeds won’t germinate, and the plant produced will be a wimpy, grazing intolerant plant? Of course, it is always good form to throw some native seeds in the seed mix. Then claim you are planting a “mixture with native seeds.” It makes the project sound so much better even though you know the native stuff is unlikely to germinate and/or survive. Fun fact – Some native grass species have a symbiotic relationship with native rodents. The germination rate Indian rice grass seed is typically less than 30%. That improves to better than 70% if the seeds spend some time in the cheek pouch of a heteromyid. Those are the kangaroo rats and kangaroo mice. It seems much of our native Indian rice grass plants were established out of rodent caches or seeds discarded by kangaroo rats. These cute little critters are among the long list of community members not considered in rangeland management. 6. Actually the federal range manager can do very little to control the species of grazing animal, number of animals, season of use and rest periods. There are lots of ranges that would benefit from a change from spring cattle use to winter sheep grazing. Horse or sheep grazing could benefit many riparian areas. The reality is, the rancher decides what kind of animal he wants to graze. Numbers and seasons are pretty well set and only minor tweaks allowed. You might delay a turnout date by a week or two, maybe reduce the numbers a bit in face of severe drought. Work the Paper Cut One of the best tools you have is the paper cut. It works like this: A rancher has a permit for 100 head of cattle but he has never put more than 50 on the range. This is because he knows, and you know, the animals would starve if he put out the full 100 head. He insists on keeping the full 100 head on the permit because it increases the market value of his ranch. In the face of a disaster like a drought or resource conflict like sage grouse, you can use the 100 number on the permit. Go forth and proudly declare grazing has been reduced by 50% to accommodate the sage grouse. In actuality, not a damn thing has changed, it is merely a paper cut. The rancher can express outrage to the local paper and his Congressional representative over the abuse and indignity of having his grazing cut. It’s a win-win. Good job, once again skilled rangeland management has avoided reality. Remember: There is no such thing as overgrazing, there is just improper grazing. What’s good for the cows is good for the range, the game (only wildlife worth talking about), watershed, riparian habitats….. If the cows are in good condition (not starving) the range must be in good condition. Grazing exclusion studies are wrong, biased and methodologically flawed. Grazing exclusion studies do not prove that proper grazing could not achieve the same or better results. Nature doesn’t know best. Fake it until you make it. Publisher’s note: Dennis Willis retired from a 35 year career in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) working in both the rangeland management and recreation programs. He has lived in Price, Utah for almost 40 years and is dedicated to the wondrous landscapes of southern Utah. His freelance consulting firm, Sustaining Landscapes LLC works on a variety of land use issues.
The parrot fever diagnosis determines whether a bird is infected with the bacteria causing parrot fever or not. The parrot fever diagnosis can only be performed on a blood sample. You will receive a certificate with the analysis results. About parrot fever Parrot fever (also called psittacosis or chlamydiosis) is caused by Chlamydophila psittaci bacteria. An infection with this bacterial species causes a loss of appetite, dehydration, diarrhea and conjunctivitis. If diagnosed in an early stage, parrot fever can effectively be treated with antibiotics. Parrot fever forms a health risk to humans as they may also be infected.
WHY STUDY ENGLISH? Studying English Language and English Literature provides students with the opportunity to extend their understanding of the need to communicate successfully in an increasingly media-oriented world and increases awareness of the world around them. Exploring and analysing the language of communication is an exciting part of English Language GCSE. Participating in speaking and listening activities which build students’ confidence is an integral part of English GCSE. English Language investigates how writers use narrative and descriptive techniques to engage readers as well exploring how different writers present similar topics over time. English Literature provides the opportunity to develop critical reading skills through the study of poetry, plays and a nineteenth century novel. You will be assessed through the use of regular mock exams with the final external examinations for literature and language in the summer of Year 11. Element of the course - English Language: English Language Examination 100% Element of the course –English Literature: English Literature Examination 100% THE RANGE OF ENGLISH GCSES AVAILABLE The course is separated into two elements – English Language and English Literature. Students will study English Language and English Literature as two year courses, which are assessed by external examination. For students who enjoy English and are likely to pursue English ‘A’ levels, studying English Language and Literature courses will furnish them with additional knowledge, understanding and skills that will prepare them for the study of either English Language or English Literature at ‘A’ level. For further details of this course see Miss Barker, Leader of English, or your English teacher.
So You Have Been Inspired to Make a Curriculum, But Is Your Curriculum Inspiring? How Fink’s Taxonomy Can Improve Your Curriculum Part Six: Caring Danielle T. Miller MD In the previous post So You Have Been Inspired to Make a Curriculum, But Is Your Curriculum Inspiring? I provided an introduction to Fink’s Taxonomy of Learning. L. Dee Fink proposed that learning only occurs when there is change, or what he refers to as “significant learning.” Significant learning occurs at the center of six domains of learning: - Foundational Knowledge - Human Dimension - Learning to Learn This post will discuss Caring and how to incorporate this domain into a curriculum. Let’s begin with a case. So you have been inspired to make a curriculum on diabetes management for medical students in their pre-clinical years. You would like to incorporate all six domains of Fink’s Taxonomy of Learning into the curriculum for your medical students to achieve significant learning. Today you are focusing on incorporating Caring into your curriculum. What is Caring? Caring is a learning domain in which learners develop new (1) feelings, (2) interests, or (3) values about a subject. In essence, learners become excited to learn new skills or new concepts because they develop a relationship with the material or understand why the material is important in a larger context. In a curriculum on diabetes management, having students download an application to track their diet and calculate insulin dosages for a week, would be an example of a learning activity that incorporates caring, as the goal of the exercise is to develop a relationship with the learning material and empathetic feelings about everyday diabetes management from an individual patient perspective. In addition to developing value for the subject topic, this is the domain in which learners develop a value for learning and success. Students set standards of learning and develop the sense of wanting to succeed in general. What questions can help formulate Caring learning goals and objectives for a curriculum? The general learning goal for students in this domain is: - By the end of this course, students should adopt new feelings, interests, or value on the topic. To aid in designing specific learning objectives for a curriculum, here are some questions that generate Caring learning objectives: - How will students find meaning in the learning topic? - How will students identify personal interests and enthusiasm in learning topic? - How will students learn to commit to personal and professional excellence? What are the types of learning strategies that incorporate Caring into a curriculum? There are many different learning strategies that can be used for Caring including: - Authentic projects involving the subject - Reflective writing - Role playing Keep the domain of Caring in mind when developing a curriculum. In the world of physician burnout and with the preclinical years often heavily memorization-based, Caring is the domain in which curriculum builders can incorporate learning activities to bring forth the meaning and value of medicine. This domain is tied closely to the final learning domain Learning to Learn, as often developing interest/value in a subject promotes willingness to learn. Caring is one of six learning domains in Fink’s Taxonomy. These learning domains are interactive. By incorporating all six domains into a curriculum, learners can experience significant and lasting learning. The next post will discuss the last learning domain Learning to Learn. Information about Learning Taxonomies: Application of Fink’s Taxonomy to Medical Education Jeremy Branzetti, Michael A. Gisondi, Laura R. Hopson & Linda Regan (2019) Aiming Beyond Competent: The Application of the Taxonomy of Significant Learning to Medical Education, Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 31:4, 466-478, DOI: 10.1080/10401334.2018.1561368 Follow us on Twitter Very exited for this! Great content being developed. My latest article in a 4 part series on emotional intelligence in medical education! @Med_Utopia Emotional Intel… t.co/4kDHwgOU8M Yayyy😍 I got the Global Leadership Award!!! Thank you @ACEP_IEM !!
How does the Internet work? Every so often, you get offered a behind-the-scenes look at the cogs and fan belts behind the action. Today is your lucky day. In this article we will usher you behind the scenes of one of the hottest technologies that you might already be familiar with: the World Wide Web. Cue theme music. This article covers the underlying technologies that power the World Wide Web: - Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) - Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) - Domain Name System (DNS) - Web servers and web browsers - Static and dynamic content While most of what is covered here will not help you to build a better website, it will give you the proper language to use when speaking with clients and with others about the Web. It is like a wise nun-turned-nanny once said in The Sound of Music: “When we read we begin with ABC. When we sing we begin with Do Re Mi.” In this article I will briefly look at how computers actually communicate, then go on to look at the different languages that work together to create the web pages that make up the Web. How do computers communicate via the Internet? Thankfully, we have kept things simple for computers. When it comes to the World Wide Web, most pages are written using the same language, HTML, which is passed around using a common protocol — HTTP. HTTP is the common internet language (dialect, or specification), allowing a Windows machine, for example, to sing in harmony with a machine running the latest and greatest version of Linux (Do Re Mi!). Through the use of a web browser, a special piece of software that interprets HTTP and renders HTML into a human-readable form, web pages authored in HTML on any type of computer can be read anywhere, including telephones, PDAs and even popular games consoles. Even though they are speaking the same language, the various devices accessing the web need to have some rules in place to be able to talk to one another — it is like learning to raise your hand to ask a question in class. HTTP lays out these ground rules for the Internet. Because of HTTP, a client machine (like your computer) knows that it has to be the one to initiate a request for a web page; it sends this request to a server. A server is a computer where websites reside — when you type a web address into your browser, a server receives your request, finds the web page you want, and sends it back to your computer to be displayed in your web browser. Dissecting a request/response cycle Now that we have looked at all the parts that allow computers to communicate across the Internet, let us look at the HTTP request/response cycle in more detail. There are some numbered steps below for you to work along with, so I can demonstrate some of the concepts to you more effectively. - Every request/response starts by typing a URL (commonly known as a web address) into the address bar of your web browser, something like http://www.apple.com. Open a browser now, and type this URL and press Enter/Return (or follow the above link) to go to the Apple homepage. Now, one thing you may not know is that web browsers actually do not use URLs to request websites from servers; they use Internet Protocol or IP addresses (which function like phone numbers or postal addresses, but identify servers, rather than phones or addresses). For example, the IP address of http://www.apple.com is 18.104.22.168 - Try opening a new browser tab or window, typing http://22.214.171.124/ into the address bar and hitting enter — you will get the same web page that you got to in step 1. http://www.apple.com is basically acting as an alias for http://126.96.36.199/, but why, and how? This is because people are better at remembering words than long strings of numbers. The system that makes this work is called DNS, which is a comprehensive automatic directory of all of the machines connected to the Internet. When you punch http://www.apple.com into your address bar and hit enter, that address is sent off to a name server that tries to associate it to its IP address. There are a literally millions of machines connected to the Internet, and not every DNS server has a listing for every machine online, so there is a system in place where your request will be referred on to another name server to fulfill your request, if the first one does not have the right information. So the DNS system looks up the Apple website, finds that it is located at 188.8.131.52, and sends this IP address back to your web browser. Your machine then sends a request to the machine at the IP address specified and waits to get a response back. If all goes well, the server sends a short message back to the client with a message saying that everything is okay (see Figure 1,) followed by the web page itself. This type of message is contained in an HTTP header. Figure 1: In this case, everything is fine, and the server returns the correct web page. If something goes wrong, for example you typed the URL incorrectly, you will get an HTTP error returned to your web browser instead — the infamous 404 “page not found” error is the most common example you will come across. - Try typing in http://www.joniscool.co.uk/jonlane/. The page does not exist, so you will get a 404 error returned. Try it with a few different fake page addresses and you will see a variety of different pages returned. This is because some web developers have just left the web server to return their default error pages, and others have coded custom error pages to appear when a non-existent page is returned. This is an advanced technique that will not be covered in this course, but Stuart Colville provides a good article on it at Adding meaning to your HTTP error pages!. Lastly, a note about URLs — usually the first URL you go to on a site does not have an actual file name at the end of it (eg http://www.mysite.com/), and then subsequent pages sometimes do and sometimes do not. You are always accessing actual files, but sometimes the web developer has set up the web server to not display the file names in the URL — this often makes for neater, easier to remember URLs, which leads to a better experience for the user of your website. We will not cover how to do this in this course, as again, it is quite advanced; we cover uploading files to a server and file/folder directory structures in Getting your content online, by Craig Grannell. Types of Content Now you’ll look at the different types of content you’ll expect to see on the Internet. They are grouped these into 4 types — plain text, web standards, server-side languages, and formats requiring other applications or plugins. In the really early days of the Internet, before any web standards or plugins came along, the Internet was mainly just images and plain text — files with an extension of .txt or similar. When a plain text file is encountered on the Internet, the browser will just display it as is, without any processing involved. You often still get plain text files on university sites. Hypertext Markup Language is actually a pretty good name as far as communicating it is purpose. HTML is what is used to divide up a document, specify its contents and structure, and define the meaning of each part (headings, paragraphs, bulleted lists, etc.) It uses elements to identify the different components of a page. Cascading Style Sheets give you complete control over how an element is styled and positioned. It is easy, using style declarations, to change all paragraphs to be double-spaced ( line-height: 2em;), or to make all second-level headings green ( color: green;). There are a ton of advantages to separating the structure from the style, and we will look at this in more detail [in the next article]. To demonstrate the power of HTML and CSS used together, Figure 2 shows some plain HTML on the left, with no formatting added to it at all, while on the right you can see exactly the same HTML with some CSS styles applied to it. Figure 2: Plain HTML on the left, HTML with CSS applied to it on the right. Sometimes, when browsing the Internet, you will come across web pages that do not have an .html extension—they might have a .php, .asp, .aspx, .jsp, or some other strange extension. These are all examples of server-side web technologies, which can be used to create web pages with sections that change depending on variable values given to the page on the server, before the page is sent to the web browser to be displayed. For example, a movie listings page could pull movie information from a database, and display different movie information for different days, weeks or months. We will cover these types of web pages further in the Static versus Dynamic pages section below. Formats requiring other applications or plugins Because web browsers are only equipped to interpret and display certain technologies like web standards, if you have requested a URL that points to a file format the browser is not able to interpret, or a web page containing a technology requiring plugins, it will either be downloaded to your computer or opened using a plugin if the browser has it installed. For example: - If you encounter a Word document, Excel file, PDF, compressed file (ZIP, or RAR), complex image file such as a Photoshop PSD, or another file that the browser does not understand, the browser will usually ask you if you want to download or open the file. Both of these usually have similar results, except that the latter will cause the file to be downloaded and then opened by an application that does understand it, if one is installed. - If you encounter a page containing a Flash movie, Java Applet, or music of video file that it does not understand, the browser will play it using an installed plugin, if one has been installed. If not, you will usually be given a link to install the required plugin, or the file will download and look for a desktop application to run it. Of course, there are some gray areas—for example some browsers will come with some plugins pre-installed, so you may not be aware that content is being displayed via a plugin and not natively within the browser. Static vs. Dynamic Websites So what are static and dynamic websites, and what is the difference between the two? Similar to a box of chocolates, it is all in the filling: A static website is a website where the content (eg the HTML and graphic content) is always static—it is served up to any visitor the same, unless the person who created the website decides to manually change the copy of it on the server—this is exactly what we have been looking at throughout most of this article. On a dynamic website, the content on the server is similar, but it also contains dynamic code instead of just HTML. Dynamic code may display different data depending on information such as the time of day, the user who is logged in, the date, and the search term it has been given to look for. Let us look at an example — navigate to www.amazon.com in your web browser, and search for 5 different products. Amazon has not sent you 5 different pages; it has sent you the same page 5 times, but with different dynamic information filled in each time. This different information is kept in a database, which pulls up the relevant information when requested, and gives it to the web server to insert into the dynamic page. Another thing to note is that special software must be installed on the server to create a dynamic website. Whereas normal static HTML files are saved with a file extension of .html and can just be run by the browser with no extra help, these files contain special dynamic code in addition to HTML, and are saved with special file extensions to tell the web server that they need extra processing before they are sent to the client (such as having the data inserted from the database). PHP files for example usually have a .php file extension. While the server for a dynamic website may be processing special dynamic code, it is still sending HTML to the client. The client does not need plugins for these special file extensions because the client is still getting what looks like an HTML file. There are many dynamic languages and frameworks to choose from — I have already mentioned PHP, and other examples include Python, Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET and Coldfusion. In the end, all of these technologies have pretty much the same capabilities, like talking to databases, validating information entered into forms, etc., but they do things slightly differently, and have some advantages and disadvantages. It all boils down to what suits you best. We will not be covering dynamic languages any further in this course, but I have provided a list of resources here in case you want to go and read up on them: - Rails: Fernandez, Obie. (2007), The Rails Way. Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series. - Rails screencasts - PHP: Powers, David (2006), PHP Solutions: Dynamic web development made easy, friends of ED. - PHP Online documentation - PHP The Right Way - The PHP League, a set of tested PHP packages using modern coding standards - ASP.NET: Lorenz, Patrick. (2003). ASP.NET 2.0 Revealed. Apress. - ASP.NET: [online ASP.NET documentation and tutorials.] - Backbone fundamentals - Provide a brief definition for HTML and HTTP and explain the difference between the two. - Explain the function of a web browser. - Have a look around the Internet for about 5–10 minutes and try to find some different types of content—plain text, images, HTML, dynamic pages such as PHP and .NET (.aspx) pages, PDFs, word documents, Flash movies etc. Access some of these and have a think about how your computer displays them to you. - What is the difference between a static page and a dynamic page? - Find a list of HTTP error codes, list 5 of them, and explain what each one means.
\|1.\|\|Any means of conveying or communicating ideas;\| \|2.\|\|The expression of ideas by writing, or any other instrumentality.\| \|3.\|\|The forms of speech, or the methods of expressing ideas, peculiar to a particular nation.\| \|4.\|\|The characteristic mode of arranging words, peculiar to an individual speaker or writer; manner of expression; style.\| \|5.\|\|The inarticulate sounds by which animals inferior to man express their feelings or their wants.\| \|6.\|\|The suggestion, by objects, actions, or conditions, of ideas associated therewith; \| \|7.\|\|The vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or department of knowledge; \| \|8.\|\|A race, as distinguished by its speech.\| \|9.\|\|Any system of symbols created for the purpose of communicating ideas, emotions, commands, etc., between sentient agents.\| \|10.\|\|(computers) Any set of symbols and the rules for combining them which are used to specify to a computer the actions that it is to take; also referred to as a \| \|v. t.\|\|1.\|\|To communicate by language; to express in language.\| \|Noun\|\|1.\|\|language - a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols; "he taught foreign languages"; "the language introduced is standard throughout the text"; "the speed with which a program can be executed depends on the language in which it is written"\| Synonyms: linguistic communication \|2.\|\|language - (language) communication by word of mouth; "his speech was garbled"; "he uttered harsh language"; "he recorded the spoken language of the streets"\| \|3.\|\|language - a system of words used in a particular discipline; "legal terminology"; "the language of sociology"\| \|4.\|\|language - the cognitive processes involved in producing and understanding linguistic communication; "he didn't have the language to express his feelings"\| Synonyms: linguistic process \|5.\|\|language - the mental faculty or power of vocal communication; "language sets homo sapiens apart from all other animals"\| \|6.\|\|language - the text of a popular song or musical-comedy number; "his compositions always started with the lyrics"; "he wrote both words and music"; "the song uses colloquial language"\| LANGUAGE. The faculty which men possess of communicating their perceptions and ideas to one another by means of articulate sounds. This is the definition of spoken language; but ideas and perceptions may be communicated without sound by writing, and this is called written language. By conventional usage certain sounds have a definite meaning in one country or in certain countries, and this is called the language of such country or countries, as the Greek, the Latin, the French or the English language. The law, too, has a peculiar language. Vide Eunom. Dial. 2; Technical. 2. On the subjugation of England by William the Conqueror, the French Norman language was substituted in all law proceedings for the ancient Saxon. This, according to Blackstone, vol. iii. p. 317, was the language of the records, writs and pleadings, until the time of Edward III. Mr. Stephen thinks Blackstone has fallen into an error, and says the record was, from the earliest period to which that document can be traced, in the Latin language. Plead. Appx. note 14. By the statute 36 Ed. III. st. 1, c. 15, it was enacted that for the future all pleas should be pleaded, shown, defended, answered, debated and judged in the English tongue; but be entered and enrolled in Latin. The Norman or law French, however, being more familiar as applied to the law, than any other language, the lawyers continued to employ it in making their notes of the trial of cases, which they afterwards published, in that barbarous dialect, under the name of Reports. After the enactment of this statute, on the introduction of paper pleadings, they followed in the language, as well as in other respects, the style of the records, which were drawn up in Latin. This technical language continued in use till the time of Cromwell, when by a statute the records were directed to be in English; but this act was repealed at the restoration, by Charles II., the lawyers finding it difficult to express themselves as well and as concisely in the vernacular as in the Latin tongue; and the language of the law continued as before till about the year 1730, when the statute of 4 Geo. II. c. 26, was passed. It provided that both the pleadings and the records should thenceforward be framed in English. The ancient terms and expressions which had been so long known in French and Latin were now literally translated into English. The translation of such terms and phrases were found to be exceedingly ridiculous. Such terms as nisi prius, habeas corpus, fieri facias, mandamus, and the like, are not capable of an English dress with any degree of seriousness. They are equally absurd in the manner they are employed in Latin, but use and the fact that they are in a foreign language has made the absurdity less apparent. 3. By statute of 6 Geo. II., c. 14, passed two years after the last mentioned statute, the use of technical words was allowed to continue in the usual language, which defeated almost every beneficial purpose of the former statute. In changing from one language to another, many words and technical expressions were retained in the new, which belonged to the more ancient language, and not seldom they partook of both; this, to the unlearned student, has given an air of confusion, and disfigured the language of the law. It has rendered essential also the study of the Latin and French languages. This perhaps is not to be regretted, as they are the keys which open to the ardent student vast stores of knowledge. In the United States, the records, pleadings, and all law proceedings are in the English language, except certain technical terms which retain their ancient French and Latin dress. 4. Agreements, contracts, wills and other instruments, may be made in any language, and will be enforced. Bac. Ab. Wills, D 1. And a slander spoken in a foreign language, if understood by those present, or a libel published in such language, will be punished as if spoken or written in the English language. Bac. Ab. Slander, D 3; 1 Roll. Ab. 74; 6 T. R. 163. For the construction of language, see articles Construction; Interpretation; and Jacob's Intr. to the Com. Law Max. 46. 5. Among diplomatists, the French language is the one commonly used. At an early period the Latin was the diplomatic language in use in Europe. Towards the end of the fifteenth century that of Spain gained the ascendancy, in consequence of the great influence which that country then exercised in Europe. The French, since the age of Louis XIV. has become the almost universal diplomatic idiom of the civilized world, though some states use their national language in treaties and diplomatic correspondence. It is usual in these cases to annex to the papers transmitted, a translation in the language of the opposite party; wherever it is understood this comity will be reciprocated. This is the usage of the Germanic confederation, of Spain, and of the Italian courts. When nations using a common language, as the United States and Great Britain, treat with each other, such language is used in their diplomatic intercourse. Vide, generally, 3 Bl. Com. 323; 1 Chit., Cr. Law, *415; 2 Rey, Institutions Judiciaires de l'Angleterre, 211, 212. \|1.\|\|(language, programming)\|\|language - programming language.\| \|2.\|\|(human language)\|\|language - natural language.\|
What do bed bugs do? Bed bugs like to feed on human blood. The blood is necessary to complete its life cycle which is split up into five nymph stages each stage requiring a blood meal. The need for a blood meal is also necessary for females to reproduce and lay eggs. The bed bugs like to stay near the hosts and will travel long distances to get to them. - Bed bugs (nymphs and adults) feed at night and hide in crevices during the day. - Common hiding places for bed bugs include: seams in mattresses and box springs, cracks in bed frames, under loose wallpaper, behind picture frames, and inside furniture and upholstery. Bed bugs like to hide during the day time hours in the smallest corners, cracks, crevices, and other holes. They usually congregate by day on rough dry surfaces in dark recesses of beds, bedding, clothing, and furniture. They are active at night and will crawl considerable distances to reach sleeping human hosts for a blood meal. Most people develop lumps or swellings when bitten, an allergic reaction to the saliva the bugs release as they feed. Bed bugs do not transmit diseases to humans. Bed bugs do not burrow under your skin to feed, but use piercing, sucking mouthparts to gain access to blood. When they feed, they inject their saliva into skin, causing allergic reactions and skin irritation, much like mosquitoes. However, their bites are often not felt at the time. - Bed bugs can survive without food for 80 to 140 days; older stages can survive longer without feeding than younger ones. - Adults have survived without food for as long as 550 days. - A bed bug can take six times its weight in human blood during a nighttime feeding, and feeding can take 3 to 10 minutes. Bed bugs are attracted to the heat, moisture, and carbon dioxide emitted from their chosen hosts. They feed every three to four days, and one feeding can take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. Bed bugs can survive a few months without food, remaining dormant until they find a host. While they are often associated with dirty places and disease, bed bugs have not been found to carry or transmit any diseases. Image source: citybugs.tamu.edu
BALTIMORE — Astronomers and astrophysicists have wrestled with the concept of dark matter for decades. This mysterious substance is believed to make up about 80% of the universe’s mass, but no one truly understands what it is and how it came to be. Now, a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University suggests another confounding detail about the mysterious substance: it may predate the Big Bang — when all normal matter in the universe first appeared. Researchers say the study presents a new idea regarding how dark matter was born in the first place, and how to identify it using astronomical observations. “The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too,” says lead author Tommi Tenkanen in a media release. What astronomers do know about dark matter is that it plays a large role in the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Dark matter is not directly visible, but astrophysicists know it exists by observing its gravitation effects on the movements of visible matter and the distribution of that matter in space. Up until now, the dominant believe among researchers was that dark matter must be a leftover substance from the Big Bang. Unfortunately, all experimental searches to actually find dark matter have been unsuccessful. “If dark matter were truly a remnant of the Big Bang, then in many cases researchers should have seen a direct signal of dark matter in different particle physics experiments already,” Tenkanen explains. The research team developed a new mathematical framework to try and understand more about dark matter. Their findings suggest that dark matter was actually produced before the Big Bang, during an era known as cosmic inflation, when space was expanding rapidly. This cosmic inflation period is already known to have produced particles called scalars. For reference, only one scalar particle has been discovered by scientists thus far, the famous Higgs boson, or “God” particle. “We do not know what dark matter is, but if it has anything to do with any scalar particles, it may be older than the Big Bang. With the proposed mathematical scenario, we don’t have to assume new types of interactions between visible and dark matter beyond gravity, which we already know is there,” comments Tenkanen. While it is true that other astronomers have already theorized that dark matter predates the Big Bang, this is the first study to produce concrete calculations that support the theory. In fact, if this study’s findings are indeed true, that would mean that researchers have been overlooking the simplest possible mathematical scenario that would explain dark matter’s origins. Additionally, the study also presents a way to test its findings; observe the signatures left by dark matter on other substances being distributed throughout the universe. The study’s research and conclusions may be verified or falsified once the Euclid satellite is launched in 2022. Euclid will observe astronomical movements in space. “It’s going to be very exciting to see what it will reveal about dark matter and if its findings can be used to peak into the times before the Big Bang,” Tenkanen adds. The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Within the dawn of the 18th century, men and women of the Caribbean combated the greatest European empires like British Spanish and French using their need of cannon velocity and angled projectiles. pirates fires their cannons with a large angle of 45 degrees to make it more efficient to raid military vessels like Man o' wars. the cannons had a constant acceleration of 9.81 m/s2 for the cannons eventually fall to the earth's surface or to the military ship. by doing so these pirates gain bounty to gain riches from these empires and also they use mortars to destroy enemy forts through their free fall rate from a fired initial velocity then takes a second rest to an acceleration rate of also 9.81m/s2 to hit the forts. by using these weapons, these men and women became the most feared humans at the 17th century like Blackbeard and Benjamin horniguld.
They are evergreen or deciduous shrubs or trees growing to 1-18 m in height and forming dense thickets, The largest, Tamarix aphylla, is an evergreen tree that can grow to 18 m tall. They usually grow on saline soils, tolerating up to 15,000 ppm soluble salt and can also tolerate alkali conditions. Tamarisks are characterized by slender branches and grey-green foliage. The bark of young branches is smooth and reddish-brown. As the plants age, the bark becomes brownish-purple, ridged and furrowed. The leaves are scale-like, 1-2 mm long, and overlap each other along the stem. They are often encrusted with salt secretions. The pink to white flowers appear in dense masses on 5-10 cm long spikes at branch tips from March to September, though some species (e.g. T. aphylla) tend to flower during the winter. Tamarix can spread both vegetatively, by adventitious roots or submerged stems, and sexually, by seeds. Each flower can produce thousands of tiny (1 mm diameter) seeds that are contained in a small capsule usually adorned with a tuft of hair that aids in wind dispersal. Seeds can also be dispersed by water. Seedlings require extended periods of soil saturation for establishment. Tamarix species are fire-adapted, and have long tap roots that allow them to intercept deep water tables and exploit natural water resources. They are able to limit competition from other plants by taking up salt from deep ground water, accumulating it in their foliage, and from there depositing it in the surface soil where it builds up concentrations temporarily detrimental to some plants. The salt is washed away during heavy rains. Tamarix trees are most often propagated by cuttings. It establishes in disturbed and undisturbed streams, waterways, bottom lands, banks and drainage washes of natural or artificial water bodies, moist rangelands and pastures, and other areas where seedlings can be exposed to extended periods of saturated soil for establishment. It is commonly believed that Tamarix disrupts the structure and stability of North American native plant communities and degrades native wildlife habitat by outcompeting and replacing native plant species, salinizing soils, monopolizing limited sources of moisture, and increasing the frequency, intensity and effect of fires and floods. While it has been shown that individual plants may not consume larger quantities of water than native species (Anderson, 1996,1998) it has also been shown that large dense stands of Tamarix do consume more water than equivalent stands of native cottonwoods (Sala 1996). There is an active and ongoing debate as to when Tamarix can out-compete native plants and if it is actively displacing native plants or it just taking advantage of disturbance by removal of natives by humans and changes in flood regimes . Research on competition between Tamarix seedlings and co-occurring native trees has found that the seedlings are not competitive over a range of environments , however stands of mature trees effectively prevent native species establishment in the understory, due to low light, elevated salinity, and possibly changes to the soil biota (e.g. and . Thus, anthropogenic activities that preferentially favor tamarisk (such as changes to flooding regimes) are associated with infestation . To date, Tamarix has taken over large sections of riparian ecosystems in the Western United States that were once home to native cottonwoods and willows , and are projected by some to spread well beyond the current range . Plans are being made for the tamarisk to play a role in anti-desertification programs in China., Saltcedars can be planted to mine salts, then be used in the production of fuel and fertilizer (although the latter will be somewhat salty).
What is SARS? - Download a print version of this document: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) (PDF: 33KB/3 pages) Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory illness that first emerged in China in November 2002, and later spread through international travel to 29 countries worldwide causing large outbreaks in Hong Kong; Taiwan; Singapore; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Toronto, Canada. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), from November 2002 to July 31, 2003, there were 8,098 cases of SARS; of these, 774 died. On October 1, 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reported that there were 164 probable and suspect SARS cases in the United States, of which only eight had laboratory evidence of SARS. There were no deaths due to SARS in the US. Most of the U.S. SARS cases were among travelers returning from other parts of the world with SARS. There were 11 suspect and probable SARS cases investigated by the Minnesota Department of Health; many of these individuals had an alternative diagnosis that could explain their symptoms. What causes SARS? SARS is caused by a virus called the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). It was first identified in April 2003 and is a member of the Coronaviridae family, which also includes many of the viruses that cause the common cold. Coronaviruses have been found in many different animal species including birds and mammals. SARS-CoV is thought to have passed from animals to humans through close contact, butchering or eating undercooked meat in parts of Southern China. How does SARS spread? - SARS is spread primarily by close person-to-person contact. In the context of SARS, close contact means having cared for or lived with someone with SARS or having direct contact with respiratory secretions or body fluids of a patient with SARS. - (Examples of close contact include kissing or hugging, sharing eating or drinking utensils, talking to someone within 3 feet, and touching someone directly. Close contact does not include activities like walking by a person or sitting across a waiting room or office for a brief time.) - The virus that causes SARS is transmitted by the spread of respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. - When a person coughs or sneezes, small amounts of fluid are propelled for about 3 feet through the air and land on the mouth, nose or eyes of persons who are near by. - The virus also can spread when a person touches a surface or object contaminated with these infectious droplets and then touches his or her mouth, nose, or eyes. - It is possible that the SARS virus might spread more broadly through the air (airborne spread) or by other ways that are not now known. Symptoms of SARS For a severe respiratory illness to be SARS, there has to be a history of travel to a SARS affected area or close personal contact with a person with SARS, within ten days before symptoms start, this is called the epidemiological link. In general, SARS begins with a high fever (temperature greater than 100.4°F [>38.0°C]). Other symptoms may include headache, an overall feeling of discomfort, and body aches. Some people also have mild respiratory symptoms at the outset. About 10% to 20% of patients have diarrhea. After 2 to 7 days, patients develop a dry cough, shortness of breath, and pneumonia. How is SARS diagnosed? Doctors suspect SARS if a patient has a fever of 38.0C or 100.4F, respiratory symptoms and history of travel to a SARS affected area or close contact with a known SARS patient within 10 days before the fever or respiratory symptoms started. Since the initial symptoms of SARS are similar to influenza or other respiratory illnesses, a high level of suspicion and an accurate history is needed to differentiate SARS from other illnesses. There are several laboratory tests used to detect SARS-CoV and other causes of respiratory illness. In some persons it may take as long as 28 days after the start of symptoms to have a definite laboratory diagnosis. How do we protect ourselves from SARS? If there are no known SARS cases in the world, we protect ourselves and others by following the usual infection control precautions. If you have a respiratory illness, with fever and cough, consider staying home, away from school or work to prevent giving it to others. If you are out in public, cover your mouth and nose with tissues when coughing or sneezing. Frequently wash your hands with soap or use alcohol hand sanitizers. If you are at a clinic or hospital inform the receptionist that you have a respiratory illness. Clinics may have a designated area for respiratory illness and may ask you to wear a mask to protect other patients and clinic staff. Talk to your doctor about a Flu shot which can protect you against influenza, another respiratory illness. If there is community transmission of SARS in any city in the world, the MDH will issue recommendations regarding precautions in Minnesota. We have learned that transmission of SARS was mainly among close personal contacts of ill persons and health care workers caring for them. It is unlikely that SARS can be acquired by walking or sitting across from a person with SARS. However, persons with SARS are advised to isolate themselves at home for 10 days after the resolution of fever, provided that their respiratory symptoms are improving. In caring for a SARS patient at home strict infection control precautions should be followed. - All persons in the household should carefully wash their hands frequently with soap or alcohol hand sanitizers, this should always be done after touching body fluids. - Gloves can be used for direct contact with the patient or body fluids but should not replace hand washing. - SARS patients should cover their mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing or if possible wear a surgical mask when in close contact with others. If the patient can not wear a mask, caretakers should wear a surgical mask or an N95 mask if available, when in close contact with the patient. - Sharing of eating utensils, towels and bedding between the SARS patients and others should be avoided. The items can be used by others after routine washing with soap and hot water. Surfaces soiled with body fluids should be cleaned with household disinfectants and gloves should be worn to clean these surfaces. Hands should be washed after removal and disposal of gloves. - Household waste soiled with body fluids of SARS patients, including masks and tissues, may be discarded as normal waste. - Household members and other close contacts of SARS patients should be watched for symptoms. Household members and other close contacts of SARS patients should measure their temperature twice daily. If fever or respiratory symptoms(cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing) develop they should seek medical care. Notify healthcare provider that a close contact of a SARS patient will be arriving for evaluation. Health care providers will need to make arrangements to prevent transmission to other patients and health care workers. - In the absence of fever or respiratory symptoms, household members or other close contacts of SARS patients need not limit their activities outside the home. If you have questions, please call MDH at 651-201-5414 (toll free 1-877-676-5414). This fact sheet gives information about SARS and important instructions for preventing its spread. Information may be updated periodically. SARS Information in Other Languages CDC fact sheets with information about SARS in other languages. Attention: Non-MDH web link
The nature of Reading ‘An estimated 122 million youth globally are illiterate, of which young women represent 60.7% .. 67.4 million children are out of school … deficient or non-existent basic education is the root cause of illiteracy’. (UNESCO) Imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t know how to read. Approximately only 80% of the world’s population is reported to be able to read (Grabe & Stoller, 2002). Reading is a fundamental skill for learners, not just for learning but for life (Traves 1994) with reading being defined as “…the ability to draw meaning from the printed page and interpret this information appropriately” (Grabe & Stoller, 2002, p. 9). Why we need to develop reading skills L1 literacy leads to L2 literacy development awareness. Reading itself builds on oral language levels and key factors that influence (L2) reading skill development include the ability to comprehend and use both listening and speaking skills because you need to: - Hear a word before you can say it - Say a word before you can read it - Read a word before you can write it (Linse 2005) What this tells us is that young learners need a firm foundation in auditory and oracy skills before they can become proficient readers and writers of ANY language. Learning to read and then to write means the young learner has to link what they have heard or spoken to what they can see (read) and produce (write). How to explore reading with young learners Early literacy strategies Phonemic awareness (grapho-phonics) Young learners of English need explicit instruction on the link between the symbols (letters) in English and the sounds they make. They need to be taught that there is a direct link between the phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters) in order to be able to start ‘blending’ or sounding out simple words, e.g. vowel consonant (VC), followed by consonant vowel consonant (VC). The UK National Literacy strategy ‘Letters and Sounds’ is a good place to start for ideas on not only the order of letters and sounds to be taught but also the methodology to be used. Once a young learner has mastered blending sounds together, they can be taught how to ‘segment’ the sounds in words they can say. These skills of putting together and separating sounds will help them with both ‘decoding’ and spelling. The whole point of human beings inventing symbols is to pass on information to each other. They have done this in many different ways, consider the Ancient Egyptians with their hieroglyphics, Chinese pictographs, Arabic text and Roman text to name a few. There are not just differences in symbols but also in directionality. These all have to be taught explicitly because they are man-made and not intuitive. Being able to ‘decode’ or read aloud is not useful on its own. The symbols carry meaning and so young learners need to be taught how to ‘encode’ the symbols and visuals in order to find out the message being shared. In the same way that every language has differences in symbols, so they have in the ‘nuts and bolts’ or arrangement of their symbols. The grammar or syntax of language is best ‘acquired’ in the Krashen sense, rather than ‘learnt’ explicitly. Acquisition will occur through multiple exposures to language usage in different contexts. Dissecting language is not very useful to a young learner, however, some simple metalanguage from the age of 10 years old upwards can be helpful, e.g. identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, articles, pronouns and word order. The reason being that there may be differences between the L1 and English and being helped to ‘notice’ these differences can help. A helpful publication to find out differences between 22 languages and English is edited by Swan and Smith (2001). You do not need access to a vast library or online literature to explore reading in your classroom. Techniques we have used, and ones learners have enjoyed are shared for you below. It is important to remember that activating background knowledge when needed may be key to a comprehensible reading activity as; “Our background knowledge is like a lens through which we understand what we read” and it “allows teachers to unlock vocabulary before reading” (Anderson, 1999, p. 11). Cameron (2001) gives a very useful list of ideas for creating a ‘literate environment in the classroom’ as this may be the only place young learners see print in the foreign language. This list includes: - Labels – labelling children’s trays, desks, coat hooks, as well as furniture and objects around the classroom and school. - Posters – colourful posters are especially eye-catching which could include a rhyme that is being learnt, advertising something, e.g. reading, cleaning teeth - Messages – for homework or ‘Don’t forget to bring …’ - Reading aloud – by teacher or older child Some other activities that will help to make reading ‘pleasurable’ (Arnold 2009) which is crucial for success in literacy, include: - Focusing on reading fluency may include timed repeated reading (Nation, 2009). - Running dictation (in pairs, so all learners are involved in reading). - Learners making their own story books (or comics) to share with each other (Wright, 1997, p.114-130). - Creating backstories for character in a puppet family and creating a class binder to refer back to when reading peers stories about the family. This can be developed over a semester with learners taking in turns in small groups to create dramas to share with the class in written form, so peers read, and can be followed through with role plays. - Motivation – ask your learners to bring in materials they enjoy reading – whether it is football results, recipes or song lyrics, use these as a springboard for discussion and reading. - Make it purposeful – if learning food lexis, bring in packets / tins of food, read where different kinds of food originate from, and classify them by country or by noun basis (countable/ uncountable). (Ellis & Brewster, 1991, p.57). - Extensive reading is where learners read a lot of easy material in the new language. They choose their own material and read it independently from the teacher. (Krashen, 1988). This develops confidence in their abilities and promotes an enjoyment of reading for pleasure. Reading is a rewarding process and can be enjoyed by learners and the teacher alike. Our last note is simply this, approach reading with the intention of having fun in the learning process and your intention will be mirrored by your learners. Happy reading! Anderson, N. (1999). Exploring second language reading: Issues and strategies. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Arnold W.H. (2009) ‘Ensuring reading is pleasurable for YL’ in Spring 2009 Children and Teenagers CATS. UK: IATEFL YLT SIG Cameron, L (2001) Teaching Languages to Young Learners. UK:Cambridge University Press Carrell, P., Pharis, B., & Liberto, J. (1989). Metacognitive strategy training for ESL reading. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 647-678. Ellis. G & Brewster. J. (1991). The storytelling handbook for Primary Teachers. UK:Penguin, p.57. Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from theory to practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grabe, W., & Stoller, F. L. (2002). Teaching and researching reading. Harlow, UK:Pearson Education. Krashen, S. (1988). Do we learn to read by reading? The relationship between free reading and reading ability. In D. Tannen (Ed.) Linguistics in context: Connecting observation and understanding (pp. 269-298). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Linse, C.T (2005) Young Learners. USA:McGraw Hill Nation, I. S. P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL reading and writing. New York:Routledge. Paris, S. G., Wasik, B. A., & Turner, J. C. (1991). The development of strategic readers. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 609-640). White Plains, NY: Longman. Swan, M and Smith, B (2001) (eds) Learner English. UK: Cambridge University Press Traves, P. (1994) Reading In S Brindley (Ed.) Teaching English. London: Routledge. UK National Literacy Strategy ‘Letters and Sounds’. Accessed 151015: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190599/Letters_and_Sounds_-_DFES-00281-2007.pdf Wimmer, H. & Goswami, U. (1994). The influence of orthographic consistency on reading development: Word recognition in English and German children. Cognition, 51, 91-103. Wright, A. (1997) Creating Stories with Children. Oxford:Oxford University Press. Wendy Arnold and Fiona Malcolm are both consultants with ELT Consultants. They have spent many years in the field of teaching English to young learners as teachers, teacher/trainer trainers, material developers and consultants to Ministries of Education.
Find non verbal communication lesson plans and teaching resources from esl non-verbal communication worksheets to non-verbal communications videos, quickly find teacher-reviewed educational resources. Verbal versus non-verbal communication january 7 technologies like phone and internet have allowed oral communication to take place without being in the same place or writing here, tone and volume of the spoken words or sound matter the most along with the words. An introduction to the importance of nonverbal communication in leadership 1,592 words the strengths and weaknesses of various methods of communication 622 words 1 page body language as a strong means of nonverbal communication essay writing blog. The communication process made of a message being sent and perceived by the others the message may be verbal or non-verbal communication. Nonverbal communication plays an important role in social interaction because: 1 it helps to express and interpret of communication 2 influences how individuals - especially those related to feelings, moods and attitudes. Most of the messages we send other people are nonverbal nonverbal communication includes our facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, posture communication, writing, university/college: a custom essay sample on non verbal communication. Nonverbal communication has three main aspects: the situation where it takes place thus, vocal sounds that are not words, such as a grunt, or singing a wordless note, are nonverbal sign languages and writing are understood as verbal communication. Observing and describing verbal and nonverbal communication communication, the act or process of using words, sounds signs or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc, to someone else. Title length color rating : rules of communication - communication communication is a process of imparting or transferring thoughts from one entity to another either through language or writing or some other signs (wrench, mccroskey & richmond, 2008. Introduction in nonverbal communication , communication is composed of two dimensions - verbal and nonverbal nonverbal communication has been defined as communication without words in writing this paper my primary interest was to gather useful knowledge for my own later reference. Nonverbal communication is the process of sending and receiving messages without using words identified six important ways that nonverbal communication directly affects our verbal discourse first the power of indirectness in speaking and writing the mudras. The three different types of communication are verbal, nonverbal and visual the two major forms of verbal communication are written (or typed) and oral the major type of nonverbal is body language, especially visual cues visual communication, such as using pictures, graphs and the like, is. Relatively little attention, however, has been given in language teaching to non-verbal communication as a complement to spoken language, though recent trends in neuro linguistic programming regard. View and download nonverbal communication essays examples also discover topics, titles, outlines, thesis statements, and conclusions for your nonverbal communication essay. The pertinence of communication to criminal justice cannot be understated, insofar as the effectivity of criminal justice can be said to rest upon proper communication practices and a clear transfer of information. Non verbal communication in interview's fetac communications non verbal communication communication has allowed us to grow, learn, build, and survive. 10 verbal communication skills worth mastering posted by todd smith by improving your verbal communication skills you will quickly connect and build rapport, earn respect the power of non-verbal communication. Potential problems with nonverbal communication can aid the employees and coworkers by explaining and ensuring that the employees understand the significance of nonverbal side of communication process get professional nonverbal communication essay writing help from our. Nonverbal communication is the single most powerful form of communication find out more about why and how you can interpret nonverbal communication. Get an answer for 'explain the difference between verbal and nonverbal communication' and find homework help for other social sciences questions at enotes. Principles of communication everyone needs reassurance that they are reading nonverbal communication correctly telephone contact--requires good verbal skills and an awareness of voice tones as nonverbal communication letter--requires writing skills e-mail informal. Nonverbal communication essay writing service, custom nonverbal communication papers, term papers, free nonverbal communication samples, research papers, help. What this handout is about this handout describes some steps for planning and writing papers in communication studies courses an interpersonal communication perspective could focus on the verbal and nonverbal differences and similarities you may reproduce it for non-commercial use. Non verbal communication showing top 8 worksheets in the category - non verbal communication once you find your worksheet, just click on the open in new window bar on the bottom of the worksheet to print or download. This handbook provides scholarly reviews of state-of-the-art knowledge in the areas of nonverbal communication and nonverbal behaviors. Direct teaching of non-verbal social communication skills ph toys and then to use of mr ph in drawing/reading/writing activities bubbles can be big and small a good activity to help asd children to begin to use the non-verbal communication.
Native to humid and dry forests of Northwest Columbia, this small tree-dwelling monkey is severely imperiled by habitat loss. Cotton-top tamarin behavior and facts - The cotton-top or cotton-headed tamarin is named for its striking crest of white hair. - Unlike other New World monkeys, tamarins and the closely-related marmosets have modified claws instead of nails on all digits except the big toe. This adaptation allows them to climb trees like squirrels. - They eat flowers, nectar, fruit and animal prey including arthropods, frogs, lizards and bird eggs. - Cotton-tops live in family groups of 2-9 individuals. Reproduction and life history - Cotton-top tamarins are squirrel-sized and weigh around one pound. - Like other tamarins and marmosets, cotton-tops typically give birth to twins. - After a gestation period of around 140 days, babies are born helpless and must be carried. They become independent after two months. - Typically, only one female per family group will breed during a breeding season. - Family groups raise their young cooperatively; males and other members of the family actively care for the young. IUCN Critically Endangered. Over the past two decades, cotton-top tamarins lost an estimated 75 percent of their original habitat in Columbia. The remaining population of roughly 6,000 individuals are threatened by continued deforestation, even in protected areas. The species also suffered a population loss during the late 1960's and early 1970's, when as many as 30,000 individuals were exported to the U.S. for biomedical research. Since 1985, Columbia-based Proyecto Tití has worked to protect cotton-top tamarins through field research, education and community programs. Cotton-top tamarins, the Oregon Zoo and you You can see cotton-top tamarins at the zoo's Amazon Flooded Forest exhibit.
Portfolio 1. Select five (5) problems from each chapter covered by this course (20 problems total) and work these problems using the math utilities in your word processor as a potential handout to your students. You should show the steps to answer the problem as if you would explain the problem to your students. Select your problems from the assessment section of the textbook or from MML. Add these handouts to your portfolio. 2. Select four (4) activities from each chapter covered by this course (16 activities total) and work them separately using the (math) utilities in your word processor as a potential handout to your students. You should answer all questions as an answer key. Select the activities from the Activities Manuals in the Activity Manuals Section of the LMS. Add these handouts to your portfolio. 3. Write an academic expository essay of at least three (3) pages (double-spaced, 12 point-type face) with a text processor and in standard research format about the “Father of Geometry,” Euclid of Alexandria, and his work “Elements”.
The atomic mass of the element concerned must be divided by the number of valence ions present in that element. The number of ions is calculated by multiplying the valence value of the element by the mass in milligrams of the element in question.Continue Reading Each element has its own valence value. Aluminum, for example, has a valence value of 3, often represented as Al 3+. Consulting a table of valence values assists in this process. To find the number of ions in 10mg of aluminum, 10mg is multiplied by the valence value of 3 to give an answer of 30 ions. The atomic mass of an element can be found by consulting the periodic table. In this example, the atomic mass of aluminum is 27. Calculate the milliequivalents by dividing the atomic number by the number of valence ions. Here, 27 divided by 30 gives 0.9 milliequivalents in 10mg of aluminum.
Bean beetles, also commonly called Mexican bean beetles (Epilachna varivestis), closely resemble ladybugs, with their shape and spots. Their bronze bodies feature 16 black spots and measure about 1/4 inch. Bean beetle larvae are orange or yellow spiky-looking, fat, oval-shaped grubs that measure about 1/3 inch. Adult bean beetles usually nest in leaves and garden debris, where they spend their winters before emerging in late spring to lay eggs. These garden pests destroy leaves of affected bean plants, potentially damaging and killing plants. Organic pest control measures minimize damaging outbreaks without contaminating crops. As Benjamin Franklin famously quipped, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Placing floating row covers over seedlings and young bean plants helps prevent bean beetles from laying eggs, preventing them from hatching and destroying crops later. Other easy ways to minimize infestations include planting resistant bean cultivars and planting beans as early as possible to harvest plants before July and August, peak times for bean beetle damage. It is also beneficial to remove foliage and debris after harvesting plants so bean beetles won't have places to nest for the winter. According to the University of California, gardeners can use aluminum foil mulch to repel many insects, including bean beetles. The mulch works by reflecting the sun's ultraviolet rays, which discourages flying pests from landing on the bean plants. Before planting beans, remove any existing weeds. Cover the planting area with aluminum-coated construction paper, burying the edges of each sheet to hold the mulch in place. Cut a 3- to 6-inch diameter hole in the mulch, planting seeds or transplanted bean plants in the hole. Interspersing bean plants with companion plants allows gardeners to take advantage of natural components in plants to either attract beneficial insects to the garden -- insects that destroy bean beetles -- or repel the pests, keeping them away from susceptible plants. Marigolds (Calendula) and rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) repel bean beetles. Try introducing parasitic wasps such as eulophid or pedio wasps to the garden. These natural enemies of insects such as aphids and bean beetles offer natural control measures. Select nectar-rich flowering plants such as daisies (Leucanthemum), sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) or yarrow (Achillea) to attract them. Trap and Destroy In small gardens, gardeners can hand-pick adult bean beetles and larvae off of plants, destroying the pests to prevent further infestation and additional generations. . Gardeners can also plant trap crops such as soybeans, destroying them after they become infested with bean beetle larvae. Organic pest control measures may also include treating plants with neem oil, a natural and nontoxic substance that comes from the seeds of the neem tree. Neem oil is harmless to beneficial insects, humans and pets and does not require using protective equipment to apply. The National Gardening Association recommends applying neem oil to deter feeding bean beetle adults. An organic insecticidal soap may aid gardeners in controlling and destroying beetle larvae. - National Gardening Association: Mexican Bean Beetle - University of California: How You Can Grow Food Organically - University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program: Aluminum Foil Mulch - Garden Toad: Companion Plant Guide - Weekend Gardener: Bean Beetle Control - I Grow Veg: Beneficial Bees and Parasitic Wasps in the Vegetable Garden - University of Florida: Mexican Bean Beetle - Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images
Tiny protein motors in cells can steer microtubules in the right direction through branching nerve cell structures, according to Penn State researchers who used laboratory experiments to test a model of how these cellular information highways stay organized in living cells. "We proposed a model of how it works in vivo, in the living cell," said Melissa Rolls, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. "But because of the complexity of the living cells, we couldn't tell if the model was possible." Rolls then collaborated with William O. Hancock, professor of biomedical engineering, who was already working on the tiny kinesin motors that move materials throughout the cell, to test the model in the laboratory, in vitro. "Kinesins are little machines that use chemical energy to generate mechanical forces sufficient to carry materials through the cell," said Hancock. Cells produce enzymes, proteins and signaling chemicals in the center of the cell, and these materials are then moved to other cell areas by kinesin motors. Dendrites in nerves cells are very long, and motors need to transport molecules relatively long distances on microtubules that are constantly forming and dissolving within the cell. Because dendrites branch, the researchers wondered how the microtubules themselves move in the right direction. For the complete news story, visit Penn State NEWS website
Please see my previous post here on the importance of bellworks at the beginning of class. It helps establish a routine and expectations as well as spark interesting discussions. Some get the students forming their own opinions before we begin a unit or topic, and others review information letting us as teachers know where they are in their thinking. Below are a few examples from my first grading period broken down by topic. First Question at the Beginning of the Year or For a New Student Write a paragraph about yourself, including anything you believe I should know about you. How can disagreements be settled so that they do not lead to arguments/war? What do you believe to be the most significant technology invention that impacted the Civil War and why? How did it impact the War? If you were a freed black slave, would you run towards the North, stay in the south and try to get a house and a paying job, or join the Union army? Why? If you were a rich, white southern plantation owner, what would be your reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation? How do you know? How do you think the attacks on September 11, 2001 and December 7, 1941 (to bring the US into World War II) compare to each other? Imagine you are President Lincoln and have just accepted the surrender of the Confederate army. What would be your punishment for the southern states that seceded? How does the Civil War still affect us today? Please write 3 or more sentences. What does it mean for a country to industrialize? What does it mean for a country to go through a revolution? If you had the money and power to own your own factory, how would you treat your workers? How would you determine their pay? Would you rather be a railroad, oil, or steel owner? Why? Which of the Robber Barons that we studied yesterday would you rather work for? Why? Progressivism and Social Change How would you handle a work situation where you felt that you were being paid unfairly and working too many hours? What if the conditions you were working in were dangerous? Who could you contact? Imagine you are moving to a new country. What feelings would you have? What would you expect the process to be like? Do you think it would be easy or difficult to find a place to live and work? What might be the benefits and drawbacks of having a political machine? Who do these types of systems hurt? Who do they help? Do you think a political machine and/or “pay to play” systems always lead to corruption? Why or why not? Describe the working conditions of the average worker during the early 1900s. Was this treatment fair? How do you think they could correct this treatment? Do you know of any organizations today that help people find housing and jobs? What are some of those organizations? How do you go about finding a place to live and work today? Come up with a list of how you can determine the importance of a person or industry (such as railroads or steel). How would you determine the impact that person or industry had on Florida? What would be the benefit for the United States in owning property all around the world? What would be a disadvantage? What makes you read a story or a news article? Which type of article or story grabs your attention? (studying yellow journalism) Why would countries welcome the United States’ influence into their lands? What would be their motivation? What could be their motivation to not want the US involved?
Black holes have long been beloved of science fiction writers for their destructive capabilities and peculiar ability to warp space time. Now a study led by researchers from The University of Nottingham reveals the awesome power of supermassive black holes -- the ability to strip massive galaxies of the cool gases required to form new stars, leaving ageing red giants to splutter out of existence with no stars to replace them.. The study, led by Asa Bluck in the School of Physics and Astronomy, used images of unprecedented depth and resolution from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to detect black holes in distant galaxies. Researchers looked for galaxies emitting high levels of radiation and x-rays -- a classic signature of black holes devouring gas and dust through accretion, or attracting matter gravitationally. As this matter swirls around the event horizon of a black hole it heats up and radiates energy -- as an accretion disc. The study, which was funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and NASA and was a collaboration between researchers at The University of Nottingham and Imperial College London, gleaned some startling results. In supermassive black holes this radiation can reach huge proportions, emitting X-ray radiation in far greater quantities then is emitted by the rest of the objects in the galaxy combined -- meaning that the black hole 'shines' far brighter than the entire galaxy it lies at the heart of. In fact, the amount of energy released is sufficient to strip the galaxy of gas at least 25 times over. Results have also shown that the vast majority of the X-ray radiation present in the universe is produced in these accretion discs surrounding supermassive black holes, with a small proportion produced by all other objects, including galaxies and neutron stars. The accretions discs surrounding supermassive black holes produce so much energy that they heat up the cold gases lying at the heart of massive galaxies. The accretion disc shines across all wavelengths -- from radio waves to gamma waves. This speeds up the random motions of the gas, making it rise in temperature and pushing it away from the galactic centre, where it becomes less dense. Gas needs to be cold and dense to collapse under gravity to form new stars, this resulting hot, low-density material must cool down before gravity will take effect -- a process which would take longer than the age of the universe to achieve. Old stars are therefore left to die out with no new stars replacing them, leaving the galaxy to grow dark and die. And by pushing gas away from the galactic centre, the accretion disc starves the supermassive black hole of new material to devour, leading to its eventual demise. "It's thought that black holes form inside their host galaxies and grow in proportion to them, forming an accretion disc which will eventually destroy the host. In this sense they can be described as viral in nature," said Asa Bluck, a PhD student at the University and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. "Massive galaxies are in the minority in our visible universe -- about one in a thousand galaxies is thought to be massive, but it may be much less. And at least a third of these have supermassive black holes at their centre. That's why it's so interesting that this type of black hole produces most of the X-ray light in the universe. They are the minority but they dominate energy output." Asa presented these results at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow on April 16. Cite This Page:
What is salmonella? Salmonella is a type of bacteria. It's usually found in poultry, eggs, unprocessed milk and in meat and water. It may also be carried by pets like turtles, rodents and birds. It usually causes food poisoning, but one type of salmonella bacteria is the cause of typhoid fever, although this is rare in the Western world. What kind of infection does salmonella cause? The salmonella bacteria attacks the stomach and intestines. In more serious cases, the bacteria may enter the lymph tracts, which carry water and protein to the blood, and the blood itself. The bacteria attack all age groups and both sexes. Children, the elderly and people who are already ill are much more likely to get a serious infection. What are the symptoms of salmonella poisoning? In the case of less serious infections, there are fewer symptoms – usually only diarrhoea two or three times a day for a couple of days. Most mild types of salmonella infection clear up in four to seven days without requiring any treatment other than rest and plenty of liquid. A more severe infection may cause excessive diarrhoea, stomach cramps and general health problems. In such cases, treatment with hospital admission for rehydration and possibly antibiotics may be needed. When is it necessary to contact a doctor? - If diarrhoea continues for more than 24 hours. - If the diarrhoea is frequent and intense. - If the patient has severe stomach cramps. - If there is blood in the faeces. - If the patient has fever of 38oC or higher. - If you work in the food or health industry. - If there are signs of jaundice – a yellowish discolouration of the skin or eyes. This may indicate problems with the liver or the bile ducts that take the bile from the liver to the stomach. What is the danger of dehydration? Frequent diarrhoea and vomiting may drain the body of fluids, salts and minerals. Dehydration occurs when the patient loses more liquid than they can take in. Cases of dehydration should always be checked by a doctor and can be very dangerous in babies and the elderly. Signs of dehydration are: - the tongue or the mucous membranes in the mouth are dry - dry, chapped skin - increased thirst - dark urine - lack of, or decreased, urine output How can salmonella infections be prevented? - Pay attention to cleanliness. - Make sure that all food is thoroughly cooked. What are the basic rules for preparing food hygienically? - Always wash your hands with soap after going to the toilet and before preparing food. Dry them on a dry towel. - Wash your hands when you switch from preparing one type of food to another, eg vegetables to meat. This helps prevent the exchange of bacteria between different ingredients. - Kitchen utensils must be properly washed with soap and water before use with another type of food. Again, this stops bacteria being exchanged. - Use different cutting boards and knives for preparing different foods. - Change the dishcloth every day. Wash dishcloths in water that is at least 60oC. - Store food in the refrigerator and store cooked food above uncooked, so juices from raw meat or fish cannot drip on to cooked food causing contamination. Meat, poultry and fish must not be left out of the fridge for long periods. How should food be cooked to avoid salmonella poisoning? The only effective way to kill salmonella bacteria is with heat. For this reason it is essential to cook food thoroughly. - Poultry must always be thoroughly cooked or boiled. - Minced meat must always be thoroughly cooked or boiled. - Never crack a raw egg on a bowl containing other foods - use a knife to crack the shell. - In most eggs, the salmonella bacteria exist only on the shell. Eggs should be scalded in boiling water for five seconds before use. Other people also read: Diarrhoea: what causes diarrhoea? Summer bugging: how to avoid getting food poisoning this summer. Viruses and bacteria: how to avoid infection. Now you're cooking: a guide to safer summer fare: barbecue rules.
2. The Straight Line Slope-Intercept Form of a Straight Line The slope-intercept form (otherwise known as "gradient, y-intercept" form) of a line is given by: y = mx + b This tells us the slope of the line is m and the y-intercept of the line is b. The line y = 2x + 4 has - slope `m = 2` and - y-intercept `b = 4`. We do not need to set up a table of values to sketch this line. Starting at the y-intercept (`y = 4`), we sketch our line by going up `2` units for each unit we go to the right (since the slope is `2` in this example). To find the x-intercept, we let `y = 0`. 2x + 4 = 0 `x = -2` We notice that this is a function. That is, each value of x that we have gives one corresponding value of y. See more on Functions and Graphs. Point-Slope Form of a Straight Line We need other forms of the straight line as well. A useful form is the point-slope form (or point - gradient form). We use this form when we need to find the equation of a line passing through a point (x1, y1) with slope m: y − y1 = m(x − x1) Find the equation of the line that passes through `(-2, 1)` with slope of `-3`. General Form of a Straight Line Need Graph Paper? Another form of the straight line which we come across is general form: Ax + By + C = 0 It can be useful for drawing lines by finding the y-intercept (put `x = 0`) and the x-intercept (put `y = 0`). We also use General Form when finding Perpendicular Distance from a Point to a Line. Draw the line 2x + 3y + 12 = 0. 1. What is the equation of the line perpendicular to the line joining (4, 2) and (3, -5) and passing through (4, 2)? [Need a reminder? See the section on Slopes of Perpendicular Lines.] 2. If `4x − ky = 6` and `6x + 3y + 2 = 0` are perpendicular, what is the value of `k`? Conic section: Straight line Each of the lines and curves in this chapter are conic sections, which means the curves are formed when we slice a cone at a certain angle. How can we obtain a straight line from slicing a cone? We start with a double cone (2 right circular cones placed apex to apex): If we slice the double cone by a plane just touching one edge of the double cone, the intersection is a straight line, as shown.
It has become commonplace recently to discuss quantitative easing in the context of a comparison between the rates of return on T-bills with the interest rate paid on excess reserves. Money, however, is defined vaguely and the comparison of reserves with T-bills is a limiting case considering the scope of open market purchases conducted by the Federal Reserve in recent years. In all of the discussion, however, there is a neglected aspect of analysis and that aspect is in regards to the price of money. Initially, it might seem odd to think about the “price of money.” Goods are priced in terms of money. So what is meant by the price of money? Often times, people think of the price of money as simply the reciprocal of the price of the good. In other words, if a banana costs 50 cents, then the price of a dollar is two bananas. Others see the price of hold money as an opportunity cost. In other words, by holding money, I am giving up some amount of rate of return. Thus, “the” interest rate is often considered the price of money. The interest rate, however, is not the price of money. The interest rate is the price of credit. So what is a meaningful definition of the price of money? Fortunately, the literature on monetary aggregation provides an answer to this question that is actually based on economic theory. To define the price of money, we first need to define what we mean by money. Money consists of a lot of different things. Currency is money, a checking account or a savings account is money, and some have argued that due to things like repurchase agreements, even T-bills can be considered money. So if all these things can be considered money, how can we begin to define the price of money. As it turns out, each different type of money has its own price and every definition of a monetary aggregate has a corresponding price index. Before getting to this, let’s first take a detour through monetary theory. Traditional courses on monetary theory often start with a discussion about fiat money. Why would anybody hold fiat currency? It is clearly dominated in rate of return. Thus, shouldn’t people hold something else, like capital? Monetary theory has a lot of different answers to this question. For example, currency is assumed to be more liquid than other assets (i.e. there are lower transaction costs associated with using currency than other assets) or individuals value the constant (zero) rate of return in comparison to a stochastic (perhaps negative) rate of return, etc. Regardless of the reason, the general theme is that there are characteristics that currency has and that other assets do not have. Those characteristics create a non-pecuniary yield. This is not only true of a comparison of say currency and capital, but also true of a comparison of currency with other types of things that we often consider “money”, such as a checking account or savings account, or a certificate of deposit. While these other forms of money might bear interest, some places refuse to accept checks, getting money out of a savings account might require a trip to the bank, withdrawing money from a certificate of deposit requires a transaction fee, etc. Thus, there is a trade-off between money and non-money, but there is also a trade-off between different forms of money. Less liquid forms of money yield higher rates of return, but the transactions costs associated with spending that money are higher. These characteristics of different types of money are important. The reason that they are important is because they highlight the fact that different types of money and different types of assets more generally are imperfect substitutes for one another, a characteristic that is important when thinking about monetary policy. In addition, consider the counterfactual. If all different types of money were perfect substitutes, then individuals would only hold the money asset with the highest rate of return. So what does this have to do with the price of money? When we think about money, it is important to think about money in the way that we think about durable goods. Money provides a flow of services over time. As a result, the proper way to think about the price of money is to think about money in terms of its user cost. As Barnett (1978) derived, the real user cost of a given monetary asset i at time t is given as where is the user cost of asset i at time t, is some benchmark rate of return, and is the rate of return of asset i. Thus, the user cost of holding a given type of money is the discounted present value of the opportunity cost of holding that asset rather than the benchmark asset that doesn’t provide any sort of monetary services. It is important to note that this captures the features of money describe above. An asset that is more liquid will have a lower rate of return and therefore a higher user cost. Nonetheless, individuals will be willing to hold assets with different user costs because the assets are imperfectly substitutable. The price of a monetary aggregate is then given by the share-weighted average of each of the components in a given monetary aggregate. So why is this important for monetary policy? A lot of the analysis of quantitative easing focuses on the fact that the Fed is now swapping an interest-bearing asset for another interest-bearing asset. From the perspective of a bank, reserves are more liquid than T-bills since banks can use reserves to settle payments, but not (directly) using T-bills. Thus, consider how monetary policy ordinarily works according to what Ben Bernanke refers to as the portfolio channel of monetary transmission. Suppose that we begin in equilibrium. A bank is holding a given amount of reserves and a given amount of T-bills. The Federal Reserve then purchases T-bills, reducing the supply of T-bills and the increasing the supply of reserves. Assuming that the bank was content with its allocation, it then decides to re-allocate its portfolio (i.e. get rid of the reserves by purchasing other stuff). This re-allocation then has real effects on the economy. Some have argued that with the Federal Reserve paying interest on reserves, however, banks have no incentive to do this. In other words, the bank receiving the reserves actually gets a marginal increase in liquidity without sacrificing the rate of return. Thus, there is no reason to re-allocate and no corresponding real effects. However, this ignores the fact that quantitative easing has taken a variety of forms. Not all rounds of quantitative easing has entailed buying T-bills. Nevertheless, some have claimed that buying 10-year Treasury bonds instead of T-bills has no effect other than to change the slope of the yield curve. Regardless of whether the critics of quantitative easing have been correct in the context of the argument above, there is one thing that hasn’t been discussed: the price of money. What effect do large scale purchases of MBS have on the price of money? Is the price of money more sensitive to the purchases of long term bonds or mortgage-backed securities? The counter-argument to the portfolio view espoused by Bernanke suggests quantities don’t matter because relative prices adjust without any corresponding real effects. However, even if we take that view as true, then it must be the case the price of money is changing. This would seem to matter since shocks to the price of money have been shown to have significant effects on real output. Anyway, just some food for thought.
Talking about the "Roman legion" is kind of talking about the "American transport network" - what do you mean? Rivers? Railroads? The interstate highway system? Or airliners? The term is static, but the reality was in constant flux. Still, it's possible to discuss such topics if you pick a well-defined window of time when certain things were constant; for the Roman legion, the time from its inception (5th C. BCE) to the Marian reforms of the 1st C. BCE works fairly well. The "original" legion, like the phalanx it replaced, was made up of conscripted citizens. In the early days, legions I-IV were raised (the Latin legio means "levy") in times of trouble, and disbanded with the fighting ended. This changed as Rome became embroiled in larger and larger conflicts, however - during the second Punic War (211 BCE), 23 legions were raised. We don't know for certain the exact size of these early legions, but they most likely consisted of 4,000-5,000 foot soldiers, with 200-300 The legion was divided into 3 parts, each consisting of 10 maniples; each maniple was further divided into two centuria (centuries). The first group was made up of hastati, young first-time soldiers; in a typical 4200-man legion there were 1200 hastati, meaning 120 per maniple. The hastati formed the first line. Behind them were the principes, men at the prime age and in good condition, in equal numbers. The third line was made up of triarii - older, experienced men, and veterans. There were only 600 triarii in a legion, no matter its size. The balance of the soldiers in a legion, equal in number to the hastati and principes (1200 in a standard unit) were velites, lightly-armed skirmishers made up of the youngest and poorest recruits. The velites were broken into 60 small groups, each of which was assigned to a century. The legion's cavalry wing (literally - Latin ala) was divided into ten squadrons (turmae), each divided into 3 decuriae - so called because each consisted of 10 men in a standard 300-man ala. Each sub-unit had its own officer and specialist corps. Each maniple had two centurions; the senior commanded the maniple as a whole and the century that deployed on the right. There was also a junior officer (optio) and a standard bearer (vexilarius) for each century. Every cavalry squadron had three decurions and three optiones, as well as its own standard-bearer. The soldiers of the three lines all wore armor of some sort. The poorest had only a "heart guard" (called a pectorale), a 20cm square breastplate; mail shirts were preferred, although they were heavy. Each soldier had a single greave on his left leg - the left was considered the soldier's weaker side, and was most the side usually exposed in battle - and a helmet. Every legionary carried a shield: a parma, or buckler, in the case of the velites. The heavy infantry had a scutum instead, a heavy shield made of wood faced with canvas and leather, with a metal boss and rim. Cavalrymen wore mail shirts and carried a horseman's parma. Weapons varied among the different infantry types, as well. Velites carried the hasta velitaris, a throwing spear suitable for their role as skirmishers. The hastati and principes carried a short sword called a gladius, as well as the pilum, a heavy throwing spear, designed to bend on impact to make it impossible for an enemy to throw it back at the legion. The triarii and the cavalry carried the hasta, a thrusting spear, which supports the suggestion that the triarii may have continued to deploy in a phalanx-like formation for some The legion deployed for battle in three lines, presenting a front 975 yards across and between 110 and 130 yards deep. The maniples of hastati deployed in front, with a maniple-wide space between them; the principes were similarly drawn up behind, with their line staggered so that their maniples covered the gaps between those of the hastati. The maniples of the front two lines initially deployed with one century standing behind the first, to make the formation more maneuverable. The triarii deployed in the rear, assuming the legion's commanding officer felt they would be necessary, and the cavalry was deployed on the wings of the battle line. The velites were deployed as a screen and intermixed with the cavalry to add to its strength. The tactics of this early legion were simple, as befits a non-standing army. Typically, after some skirmishing and missile fire by the cavalry and velites, the rear century of each maniple would move up and partially close the gaps in the first two lines, and the legion would advance. As each of the front ranks reached striking distance of the enemy, they would hurl their pila, before continuing to advance. The hastati would close with the enemy and engage them with their swords; the principes would move in to close gaps in the front line, or if the hastati were forced to retreat through the gaps in their line, they would provide covering fire before continuing the sword-fighting. The triarii would sometimes move up around the flanks of the main line, or they might remain behind to constitute a third line if the first two failed. The simplicity of these early tactics sometimes backfired - the Carthaginian general Hannibal was particularly adept at exploiting the Romans' predilection for the straightforward advance. At the battle of Cannae in 216 BCE he was able to defeat a numerically superior Roman force by pulling back the center of his lines while his wings and auxiliaries moved in to attack the Romans' flanks and rear. The surrounded Roman force, despite a fierce and stubborn resistance, was annihilated almost to a man. Nevertheless, the legion was a superlative fighting force, surpassing the feared Macedonian phalanx quite early on. It was flexible, durable, and maneuverable, capable of internal mutual support, and well-equipped, and Roman strategy made sure it was deployed in optimal conditions whenever possible. It was by far the finest military unit of its time, and the Romans would only improve on it in the years to I did most of the research for the paper this is condensed from using Michael Grant's History of Rome, Daniel Green's The Glory that was Rome, Harry Judson's Caesar's Army, Henry Parker's The Roman Legions, Edward Salman's Roman Colonization Under the Republic, and Livy's Ab Urbe Condita. Check 'em out.
Learn something new every day More Info... by email Fluorescence is an optical phenomenon that is manifested as glowing light. We observe it every day in the energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs that are used in many households and some types of glow sticks, but also in nightclubs as well. It is often referred to as “cold light,” because very little heat is emitted by most fluorescent substances. This is very different from incandescent light, the type of light that is found in traditional light bulbs that is emitted due to high temperatures. Another phenomenon that is very similar to fluorescence is phosphorescence. In both cases, cold light will be emitted when the light-emitting object is exposed to an external energy source. However, fluorescence differs from phosphorescence in that the fluorescent light ceases immediately after the energy source is removed, while a phosphorescent light will continue glowing for some time after. This phenomenon occurs when a high energy photon impacts the fluorescent material, or fluorophore, and excites the electrons that make up the atoms of the fluorophore. These electrons are driven to a high-energy state from which they eventually return to their normal, or ground state. During this process, the excess energy can be released as another photon that carries less energy than the one that originally impacted the fluorophore. This lower energy photon is what our eyes are able to pick up as fluorescent light. The emitted photon may be of a wavelength that is detectable by the naked eye, or it may be of shorter or longer wavelengths and only visible using certain filters. For a given fluorophore, the relationship between the exciting photon wavelength and the emitted photon wavelength is constant. This means that if a given fluorophore is observed under the microscope using a laser of constant power, the color seen through the eyepiece will remain the same. Fluorescence is used extensively in biochemical and molecular research, as well as in forensic science. For example, DNA can be visualized using a fluorescent compound known as ethidium bromide, which binds to certain types of DNA and allows them to be seen as orange bands under a UV light. Forensic scientists also use the fluorescent nature of certain bodily fluids such as blood, urine, and semen, to find them at a crime scene. These will glow under a UV light, even when they are invisible under natural light. It can also used in painting and other art, which use fluorescent materials and are shown under UV light to create otherworldly effects. Certain collectible items such as gemstones can be identified in this way. For example, some diamonds will glow blue when exposed to a UV light source. I always think of fireflies when I think of fluorescence. I spent many summer nights catching these in my hand, and at the time, I knew them as “lightning bugs.” They would flash a yellow-green light every few seconds. This is how I could follow them in the dark. The most magical thing was seeing a swarm of them in one place. I once saw hundreds of them on one tree, and they made it look like a lit Christmas tree! Fluorescence has such an intensity. I was always enchanted with glow sticks as a child because of how bright they appeared to be. The only thing in nature that rivaled their intensity was the sun itself. However, looking at the sun was painful and impossible to do for more than a second or so. I enjoyed being able to stare at glow sticks for a long time without damaging my eyes. One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK!
Should Brachiosaurus be called Giraffatitan? Brachiosaurus is one of the most popular dinosaurs with young dinosaur fans. It normally rates quite highly in the annual Everything Dinosaur most popular prehistoric animals survey. Brachiosaurus has not quite made the top ten yet, but it tends to be placed in the top twenty of children’s favourites. To read more about our annual survey: Top Ten most popular Prehistoric Animals 2007/8 However, researchers studying an ancient dinosaur skull found nearly 100 years ago, could challenge much of what we know about Brachiosaurus and their work may even result in a name change for some fossils of this dinosaur. Brachiosaurs were Sauropods (large, long-necked dinosaurs) that lived during the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous. The name Brachiosaur (pronounced brak-ee-oh-saw-us), means “arm lizard”, Brachiosaurs had front legs that were longer than their back legs. The back sloped downwards towards (by Sauropod standards), a relatively short tail. Brachiosaurs were the “giraffes” of the Mesozoic, their long stiff necks enabled them to reach high into the tops of trees to browse. This gave them access to a food supply that was out of reach of most other dinosaurs. Other Sauropods could have fed on the tops of conifers and such like too, but they could only have reached the uppermost branches by rearing up or simply bulldozing the trees to the ground with their massive bulk. A Typical Illustration of Brachiosaurus Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur Estimates of the maximum size of these huge creatures vary; with weights of between 15 and 78 tonnes being put forward by scientific authors. There is some consensus that the very largest specimens may have weighed between 50-70 tonnes, even at the lower end of the scale this is getting on for ten times the weight of an adult African elephant. Despite this animal’s great size, its fossils are relatively rare. Such big bones would have been difficult for scavengers to damage and remove from the rest of the carcase. Large bones such as the limb bones and vertebrae could have withstood considerable abrasion before finally getting the chance to be fossilised. A large Brachiosaurus, perhaps drowned in a flood event could float (large amount of gas in the digestive tract), and be transported many miles before finally coming to rest. With luck the body could become covered with sediments and the slow process of fossilisation could start. Of course this is just speculation, the fossil record for Brachiosaurus is particularly poor. Even the extremely fossil rich Morrison Formation of the western USA has provided only one or two fossils of Brachiosaurus. Perhaps these animals were less common than other Sauropods such as the Diplodocids, or perhaps they inhabited parts of the eco-system where the chance of fossilisation was much less. The result is that scientists have very little fossil material of Brachiosaurs to work on, despite these animals being one of the largest dinosaurs of all. Brachiosaurus was named and described in 1903, by the palaeontologist Elmer Riggs, following study of two partial skeletons discovered in the Grand River Valley of Colorado, USA. Although far from complete, these fossils indicated that this was a new type of dinosaur and so the Brachiosaurus genus came into being. For a number of years, scientists claimed that such large and heavy creatures could not possibly have been able to move around on land. This led to the Sauropods being depicted as semi-aquatic animals, spending much of their time in lakes and swamps where the water could help support their huge weight. This theory has now largely been dismissed and Sauropods are depicted as entirely terrestrial animals. The relatively high nostrils had convinced many scientists that these animals lived like giant hippopotami, peacefully feeding on soft, lush water plants away from predators. To read more about the problems with Sauropod nostrils: Where on Diplodocus was its nose? An Underwater Brachiosaurus Picture Credit: Lindahall.org The illustration above is typical of those found in dinosaur text books of the 1950′s-1980s with Brachiosaurs and other Sauropods being depicted as water dwellers. One of the reasons for this assumption can be traced back to studies of Sauropod trackways. Many of the fossil footprints had been made in soft mud, indicating that these animals were walking over wet ground, perhaps indicating that they were in a watery environment. Soft mud is an ideal medium for preservation of prints, the fact that these animals walked over dry land as well could not be proved as there were no footprints fossilised to show this. Bizarre logic, as prints are only preserved under exceptional conditions and are most unlikely to be preserved in dry conditions. The absence of any tail marks in the mud where these animals walked was also noticed. This added credence to the theory of the water living dinosaurs, as this was interpreted as the heavy tails being lifted clear of the ground and being buoyed up by the supporting water. The prints were thus interpreted as showing these heavy animals walking along the bottom of lakes and rivers. The best preserved and most complete fossils of Barchiosaurids have been found in Africa. Between 1909 and 1912 a German led expedition to the Tendaguru beds in what was to become Tanzania, uncovered a number of Brachiosaurid fossils. More than 30 individual Brachiosaurs were found and excavated over this period. Most of the fossils were shipped back to Germany and although some were destroyed in the Second World War, Brachiosaur fossils from these expeditions are still on display today. The huge, mounted skeleton of a Brachiosaur in the Humboldt Museum in Berlin is a composite reconstruction using fossils found during the Tendagura expeditions. This is one of the largest mounted dinosaur skeletons in the world. It is in fact made up from the remains of a least five individuals and has recently undergone something of a makeover as our knowledge of Brachiosaur anatomy has improved. The Brachiosaur Skeleton in the Humboldt Museum Picture Credit: Spiegel online To read more about the work undertaken to reconstruct the mounted skeleton of a Brachiosaur in the Humboldt museum: Humboldt Brachiosaur gets a Face Lift In 1988, palaeontologist and highly talented illustrator compared the anatomies of the African Brachiosaurs (Tendaguru remains) with those found in the western USA. He noted that there were a number of anatomical differences between the two fossil groups, although they supposedly represented the same species Brachiosaurus brancai. The African form seemed more gracile in appearance, it looked more lightly built than its American contemporaries. Another difference was noted in the size and proportion of some of the vertebrae. Paul reinterpreted the fossil evidence and suggested that the African Brachiosaur was sufficiently different from the American fossils to merit being put into its own sub-genus. During the late Jurassic, Africa and the Americas were joined together into a super-continent, the Atlantic ocean that separates these areas of land today had only just begun to form. It was possible to walk from what was to become Antarctica right up to the north of Canada. It had been thought that the genus Brachiosaurus covered both the American and African forms, but Paul’s work was supported by another palaeontologist George Olshevsky and slowly the idea of a separate Brachiosaurid genus for the African type began to take hold amongst some scientists. The African Brachiosaur was tentatively called Giraffatitan (the name is pronounced ji-raf-ah-ti-tan), it means “Titan Giraffe” very apt as the Brachiosaur was regarded as filling a similar environmental niche as modern Giraffes. The recent find of new American Brachiosaur material may help scientists to determine whether or not Giraffatitan is a valid genus, at the moment the classification of Brachiosaurid remains as Giraffatitan is still controversial, Giraffatitan is regarded as a synonym for Brachiosaurus by the majority of palaeontologists. In classification terms a synonym is simply another name for the same organism. There are senior and junior synonyms, in this case the name Brachiosaurus would be the senior synonym (first used in 1903) and Giraffatitan the junior synonym. The recent discovery of a new dinosaur bone bed in the Morrison Formation may provide more data on the American Brachiosaurs to aid comparison between the African and American animals. This discovery, announced earlier this week is a fossil “log jam” a series of dinosaur fossils trapped together with a whole host of other fossil remains after a flood, or series of flood events. To read more about this discovery: New Dinosaur “Log jam” discovered in the Morrison Formation It is believed that there are Brachiosaur fossils amongst the new finds, this may help provide more information and help to resolve this issue amongst palaeontologists. Ideally, more skull material would be found, this would enable further differences between the two species to be established and perhaps lead to many of the fossil specimens labelled Brachiosaurus in museum collections being relabelled as Giraffatitan. Other skull material is currently being studied, a partial North American Brachiosaurid skull found nearly 100 years ago has been studied by a number of researchers. This skull is more box-like and lacks the distinctive high-crested appearance of the B. brancai holotype. Skull material can prove to be very diagnostic and help determine differences between species. If this skull is confirmed as being from a Brachiosaur such as the North American B. altithorax this would aid weight to the argument for permitting the establishment of Giraffatitan as a separate and distinct genus. More Brachiosaur remains will be found in the future, both in the USA and Africa, so hopefully the taxonomy of these huge reptiles will one day be a little clearer.
When a piece of calcium is placed into a solution of hydrochloric acid, it undergoes two vigorous reactions. However, the reactions that occur when HCl is dissolved in water (H2O) form the basis for understanding the reactions that occur when calcium (Ca) is placed into a diluted solution of aqueous hydrochloric acid [i.e., 6M HCl (aq)]. Initial Dissociation or Acid-Base Reaction It is important to remember that hydrochloric acid is not simply a mixture of HCl and H2O. When HCl is dissolved in water this strong acid completely dissociates. When HCl is added to H2O, the dissociation reaction frees the H+ ion which bonds with H2O to form hydronium ions (H3O+) and leaves free Cl- ions in solution. This reaction eventually reaches an equilibrium, and the increase in H3O+ ions decreases pH, resulting in an acidic solution that can be verified with litmus paper. In diluted solutions such as 6M HCl, water molecules also remain. Formation of Calcium Hydroxide When calcium (Ca2+) is added to dilute 6M HCl solution, the Ca2+ reacts with H3O+ ions and water molecules (H2O) vigorously to form calcium hydroxide (CaOH2) and hydrogen gas (H2). This reaction generates heat and results in the release of bubbles of H2 gas. The CaOH2 will appear as a whitish film on the water. The formation of CaOh2 reduces the number of H3O+ ions in the solution and increases the pH of the solution--litmus paper tests verify this change in pH. Formation of Calcium Chloride When Ca is added to 6M HCl solution, the Ca also combines with free Cl- in the solution to form calcium chloride (CaCl2). This acid salt will precipitate to the bottom of the test beaker.
Antigens are substances that react with naive B cells when free-floating or with T cells when processed and displayed on cell surfaces along with MHC molecules. Both antigens and haptens (small molecules) can act as antigenic agents when faced with an active immune response in progress. But only antigens themselves can cause an immune response to begin; they are both antigenic and immunogenic. Anything that can start an immune response can react with an in-progess immune response, but some compounds cannot start an immune response (although we can make antibodies to them and an in-progress response will react with them). This is the difference between something that is immunogenic and antigenic. What makes something immunogenic (capable of creating a full immune response)? - heterogeneity (different amino acids, rather than synthetic monopolymers) - foreigness (must be different from host's proteins) - size (must be relatively large, e.g. 100 kDalton) Because of the nature of antibody molecules, proteins and polysaccharides are the most common humoral antigens. Proteins are broken down and presented with MHC molecules to produce the cell-mediated immune response, and lipids/glycolipids are similarly presented (although they are presented on CD1 at the cell surface). Leprosy and tuberculosis are presented to the T cells in this CD1/lipid manner. Immunogens are often given deliberately, as in the case of vaccines. Often they are complexed with adjuvants, compounds that enhance the vaccine. Adjuvants can include broken-up bacterial cell walls, oil (to slow the dispersion of the vaccine into the body), and water. The addition of bacterial cell wall components induces the innate immune system to actuate, enhancing the adaptive system due to a higher concentration of MHC-II receptors on the APCs, resulting in more activated B cells. Remember that epitopes are the parts of an antigen that elicit an immune response. It makes sense that B cell-recruiting epitopes are more likely to reside on the surface of foreign invaders, and these epitopes are likely to be hydrophilic. T cell epitopes are more likely to be larger peptides, cleaved and presented with MHC-I and MHC--II on the surface of body cells and APCs. Thus, the outer hydrophilic parts of an invader elicit B cell responses, and the relatively hydrophobic inner parts elicit T cell responses. Also, denatured proteins are less likely to create a B cell response, but T cells are used to interacting, via their CD4 and CD8 receptors and TCRs, with broken-up peptides (antigenic peptides). Haptens must join with carrier proteins in order to produce an immune response. Drug allergies are almost always caused by drugs that are, by themselves, too small to be immunogenic. Penicillin and other drugs will bind with nucleophilic sidechains on circulating body proteins, forming a hapten-carrier conjugate. This causes antibodies (IgE) to the drug to be produced, and an allergic reaction begins when IgE-receptors on mast cells are activated. Treatment with epinephrine will reverse the anaphylactic shock, diverting blood from the periphery and dilating the airways in a classical sympathetic response. For this reason, persons with life-threatening allergies will often carry epinephrine (adrenaline) injections with them in case of exposure to the hapten.
Brain abscesses are rare. The abscesses can occur from contiguous structures like sinuses or from distant sources. Thus, the brain abscesses can broadly be divided into two categories: contiguous abscesses and hematogenous abscesses (i.e. distant sources). The cases of contiguous foci-based abscesses are more common than that of from the distant sources. The contiguous abscesses include abscess that originate within nose, throat and ear. These abscesses affect the cortical area. Infection spreads directly or indirectly. If infection source is known, organisms causing the abscess can generally be predicted. For instance, frontal abscess due to sinusitis usually occurs because of streptococcus milleri. A wide range of antibiotics is administered up to six months for treating the abscess. Complete removal of the affected body part is also necessary. A brain abscess affecting the fontal lobe (cortical area) is generally secondary to the frontal sinuses’ symptoms(sinusitis). About 15% of brain abscesses are due to sinusitis. However, in developed nations, incidences of sinusitis related brain abscess have declined. Since the frontal lobe is generally neurologically silent, there may not be any signs indicating the abscess. Frontoethmoidal disorder is the main cause of the sinugenic brain abscesses, i.e. sinuses’ symptoms-induced abscess. A brain abscess may grow slowly or rapidly. If the abscess forms gradually, minimal constitutional signs appear. Especially in case of frontal abscesses, only subtle changes in the behavior or mood are seen. However, if surrounding part of the brain has notable edema, intracranial pressure may increase. And if the abscess breaks within the ventricular system, patient dies quickly. The abscess may also grow rapidly and the edema may lead to herniation of the uncus. A sinuses symptoms-induced brain abscess usually occurs in boys and men who are in their 20s and 30s. The infection may spread directly or indirectly. In case of direct source, the infection may spread via meninges, intervening bone and tissues. The indirect source of the infection is diploic veins’ retrograde thrombophlebitis. The brain abscess location depends on predisposing causes. For instance, sinusitis related abscesses occur in the brain’s cortical area. Common brain abscess symptoms Patients having brain abscess may have the following symptoms: Lack of attention (inattention) Generalized hemicranial headache Minor changes in behavior or mood Changes in mental status and reduced mental function Seizures may occur before abscess’ surgical draining. Increase in the intracranial pressure may cause vomiting and nausea.
By Niles Anderegg In our tours of President Lincoln’s Cottage we spend some time talking about Lincoln’s belief in what historian Gabor Boritt has called “the Right to Rise.” The idea here is that every person, employing his own talents and hard work, could rise up the economic ladder. This belief was fundamental to Lincoln’s opposition to slavery, and it also had a great impact on his economic policy and, in particular, a piece of legislation he championed: the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act allowed citizens to claim up to 160 acres of public land; in return, the claimant had to work the land for 5 years. The idea behind this legislation was that the nation would benefit more by giving people the chance to acquire their own land and grow crops than could be gained from the direct revenue that would result from the sale of public lands. Lincoln, being from and representing the West, saw the value of encouraging people to make their living from the land, especially the vast amount of good land in the West, which included the rich soil of the Great Plains. Lincoln saw the Homestead Act as giving people an opportunity to improve their economic condition while at the same time providing an economic benefit to the nation as a whole by growing valuable agricultural products. Another indication of the importance of this legislation to Lincoln is how he described the Homestead Act. In his 1863 message to Congress, Lincoln put the act in historical perspective. He argued that the settlement and cultivation of public land was one of the most important issues that the nation had faced up to that time, and he went further by claiming that the Homestead Act was the government’s “most signal and beneficent illustration” of federal land policy. Lincoln viewed the Homestead Act as a major accomplishment of his administration. While the act was beneficial to many groups of people, notably to new immigrants, it must be acknowledged that the act has been regarded with criticism based on its negative impact on indigenous peoples including further encroachment on their lands, as well as issues of fraud and abuse of the system. The homesteading issue was a significant part of Lincoln’s 1860 campaign both in the Republican nominating contest and in the general election. Lincoln sincerely believed in the economic value the Homestead Act could have for the nation, but at the same time he understood that there was a political reason for enacting this law: it addressed one of the main issues–the need for free land–for the people of the Old Northwest (states such as Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin), a region that would prove crucial to Lincoln’s election. What is more, these were the voters who were unlikely to be moved either way by the slavery issue. As one early 20th century historian put it, “there were men in the free states who cared not whether slavery was voted ‘up or down.'” By pushing for the Homestead Act, Lincoln could insure the votes of an otherwise undecided bloc of voters. The reasons for Lincoln to support of the Homestead Act vary from political considerations to economic interests, but most importantly Lincoln believed that the Homestead Act was about what this nation should be. America, in Lincoln’s understanding, should be a place where people are given the opportunity to make their place in the world, what Lincoln called an “open field” where through hard work and intelligence each individual had the ability to rise up the ladder of society.
Presentation on theme: "In schools the status quo persists!. ???? Why Rigor and Relevance ???? Changing Nature of Work --‐ ‑ Technology Global Competition --‐ ‑ It’s a Flat World."— Presentation transcript: ???? Why Rigor and Relevance ???? Changing Nature of Work --‐ ‑ Technology Global Competition --‐ ‑ It’s a Flat World Conceptual Age --‐ ‑ Requires Whole Brain Thinkers Youth Have Changed --‐ ‑ Digital Natives Next Generation Assessments Increased Accountability for Learning Multiple Achievement Gaps Poor Student Engagement Objective- To solve problems involving the Pythagorean Theorem. For Right Triangles Only! leg hypotenuse a b c Now draw diagonal lines across the blue rectangles, making four smaller blue triangles. Call those lines C. Do you see that you have made four blue right triangles, whose sides are A, B, and C? So now you have one square with area AxA (the big yellow one) and one square with area BxB (the little green one) and two rectangles with area AxB (the light blue ones). So the area of the whole square is (A+B) x (A+B) or the area is (AxA) + 2(AxB) + (BxB). Or you might say that (A+B) 2 = A 2 + 2AB + B 2 The area of all four triangles together is the same as the two blue rectangles you made them from, so that is 2AB. The area of the pink square in the middle is CxC or C 2. And the area of the whole big square is, as we have already seen, A 2 + 2AB + B 2 So A 2 + 2AB + B 2 = 2AB + C 2 We can subtract 2AB from both sides, so that gives (ta da!) A 2 + B 2 = C 2 Ladder Problem A ladder leans against a second-story window of a house. If the ladder is 25 meters long, and the base of the ladder is 7 meters from the house, how high is the window? B Ladder Problem Solution First draw a diagram that shows the sides of the right triangle. Label the sides: – Ladder is 25 m – Distance from house is 7 m Use a 2 + b 2 = c 2 to solve for the missing side. Distance from house: 7 meters B 20 miles A car drives 20 miles due east and then 45 miles due south. To the nearest hundredth of a mile, how far is the car from its starting point? 45 miles x In the accompanying diagram, triangle A is similar to triangle B. Find the value of n. 8 6 3 n + 2 C Rigor/Relevance Framework Remember… REALWORLDREALWORLD THOUGHT PROVOKING TEACHER WORKS STUDENT WORKS STUDENT THINKS STUDENT THINKS AND WORKS LOW HIGH LOW HIGH A B CD RIGOR/RELEVANCE FRAMEWORK RIGORRIGOR RELEVANCE Work in groups to place each card in its appropriate quadrant. Solutions Quadrant A Acquisition 16.Distinguish rational from irrational numbers. 27.Simplify, factor, and compute polynomials. 3.Solve and graph linear equations. 24.Create and solve factorial expressions for permutation problems. 17.Compute numbers with scientific notation. 22.Predict the probability of events using ratios. 12.Bisect line segments and angles. 10.Provide examples to illustrate properties of real numbers. Quadrant B Application 11.Draw Venn diagrams to represent a set of real conditions, e.g., common characteristics of students in class. 15.Find length of line segments without measuring. 2.Take measurements using calipers and micrometers. 6.Calculate measurement error in real observations. 21.Calculate frequency of vibration of various piano strings. 25.Calculate medical dosages for different weight animals. 9.Plot changes in temperature at different altitudes from a NASA space flight. Quadrant C Assimilation 19.Solve interdisciplinary problems with signed numbers, such as molecules with a charge of protons and electrons. 28.Identify congruence of shapes from expressions and truth statements. 20.Complete Euclidean proofs in geometry. 13.Construct truth tables as a shorthand method for discussing logical sentences. 4.Analyze factors in difference between theoretical empirical probability. 26.Select best measures of central tendency to support a particular point of view. 18.Solve quadratic equations and linear inequalities. Quadrant D Adaptation 1.Determine types of measurements/calculations involved in designing everyday items. 5. Make calculations of electrical load of appliances based on usage in homes in the community. 7. Examine the different elements, visual effects, and features found in a computer game and use mathematics to design some of these elements. 8. Create formulas to predict changes in stock market values. 14. Design support posts of different materials and size to handle stress load in a building. 29. Develop a sampling plan for a public opinion poll. 23. Design a roller coaster ride. Draw a Pig – On a blank piece of paper draw a pig. Do not to look at your neighbor's pig. It must be animal variety, any size any shape If the pig is drawn: Toward the top of the paper, you are positive and optimistic. Toward the middle, you are a realist. Toward the bottom, you are pessimistic, and have a tendency to behave negatively. Facing left, you believe in tradition, are friendly, and remember dates (birthdays, etc.) Facing right, you are innovative and active, but don't have a strong sense of family, nor do you remember dates. Facing front (looking at you), you are direct, enjoy playing devil's advocate and neither fear nor avoid discussions. With many details, you are analytical, cautious, and distrustful. With few details, you are emotional and naive, you care little for details and are a risk- taker. With less than 4 legs showing, you are insecure or are living through a period of major change. With 4 legs showing, you are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals. The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are. The bigger the better. And last but not least.. the longer the pig's tail you have drawn, the more satisfied you are with the quality of your sex life. Teaching for Rigor and Relevance We don’t have to teach in all four quadrants, just know they exist! – Elective teachers usually flow A-B-D – Academic teachers usually flow A-C-D We need to know that all levels of rigor and relevance exist, and that there are appropriate times for each. Where do you teach? Look at the verbs and products Think about some of your “favorite” or “best” lessons and decide where you already have strengths in teaching Awareness 1 Comprehension 2 Application 3 1 Knowledge in one discipline 2 Apply knowledge in one discipline A Acquisition Students gather and store bits of knowledge/information and are expected to remember or understand this acquired knowledge. Low-level Knowledge A Quadrant name label define select identify list memorize recite locate record definition worksheet list quiz test workbook true-false reproduction recitation Verbs Products Awareness 1 Comprehension 2 Application 3 B Application 3 Apply knowledge across disciplines 4 Apply to real- world predictable situation 5 Apply to real- world unpredictable situation Students use acquired knowledge to solve problems, design solutions, and complete work. High-level Application Application 3 Analysis 4 Synthesis 5 Evaluation 6 1 Knowledge in one discipline 2 Apply knowledge in one discipline C Assimilation Students extend and refine their knowledge so that they can use it automatically and routinely to analyze and solve problems and create solutions. High-level Knowledge 3 Apply knowledge across disciplines 4 Apply to real- world predictable situation 5 Apply to real- world unpredictable situation Application 3 Analysis 4 Synthesis 5 Evaluation 6 D Adaptation Students think in complex ways and apply acquired knowledge and skills, even when confronted with perplexing unknowns, to find creative solutions and take action that further develops their skills and knowledge. High-level Application High-level Knowledge D Quadrant evaluate validate justify rate referee infer rank dramatize argue conclude evaluation newspaper estimation trial editorial radio program play collage machine adaptation poem debate new game invention VerbsProducts Where do you teach? Look at the verbs and products Think about some of your “favorite” or “best” lessons and decide where you already have strengths in teaching Look at the Instructional Strategies list to find strategies that are stronger for the quadrants you don’t reach as much Instructional Strategies “ The appropriateness of a particular instructional strategy in a given situation can be determined by matching the characteristics of the strategy, the learner, and what needs to be learned.” Rigor and Relevance Handbook Quad D Moments Teaching in Quadrant D – with high rigor and relevance – does not have to mean large projects that take long periods of time. Adapt what you already do by adding a short “D Moment” An easy way to move your students to Quad D is to have them teach each other Key Elements of Quad D Anchor in the Standards Backward Design – Begin with the end (a performance task) in mind Align instruction and assessment Keep lessons Student –Centered Rigor and Relevance is naturally differentiated It takes a year to make Quadrant D a habit Math - Elementary C Find values in number sentences when represented by unknowns. D Develop formula for determining large quantity without counting, (e.g. beans in a jar.) A Memorize multiplication tables. B Collect outside temperatures for several days and make a graph of results. As a group, write down a Quadrant A activity. Pass the card to the next group. Write down a Quadrant B task, building on the Quadrant A question your group received. Pass the card to the next group. Write down a Quadrant C task, building on the Quadrant A & B tasks your group received. Pass the card to the next group. Write down a Quadrant D task, building on the Quadrant A, B & C tasks you received. 50 Where to begin with RR Don ’ t Forget Why and Relationships Analyze one of your tests Analyze the state test Think about the level of questions you ask students Identify and share a Quadrant D lesson Use strategies with high rigor/relevance Consider Standards in groups Create a Quadrant D performance for a unit 50 Next Steps Remember this is mental model/way of thinking, NOT A PROGRAM Successful Practices Network and Gold Seal Lessons Final Questions On your note card, write down any lessons for which you would like help developing a Quadrant D Activity. Questions?
Structure of Vessels (primarily mammalian) Home > Preview The flashcards below were created by user on FreezingBlue Flashcards. a. In closed systems: what are the vessels? arteries, veins, capillaries a. Wall of arteries and veins have same three layers - i. Innermost: tunica intima - ii. Tunica media - iii. Tunica adventitia Explain the tunica intima - endothelium (simple squamous) Explain the tunica media - 1. Smooth muscle and elastic connective tissue - a. Dense connective tissue that has a lot of elaborate fibers in it - 2. Thickest layer in the wall of an artery because that’s the layer responsible for vasoconstriction and vasodilation of that vessel (opening and closing of the lumen) 1. Connective tissue layer that anchors nerves and other blood vessels to that vessel and anchors that vessel to that organ True or False: Veins have same three layers and same composition in those layers with no differences - with some differences What is the first difference of the veins in the tunica intima? - i. In tunica intima of a vein, there are valves jutting from that layer - 1. Simple flaps that jut out into the lumen - 2. Prevent backflow What is a second difference between veins and arteries in tunica media? - it is not very thick in comparison to the comparable artery - 1. Lumens of veins are larger because wall is thinner What does comparable mean? - a. If you’re looking at the ulnar artery, look at the ulnar vein - If you’re looking at the vena cava, look at the aorta Why is the tunica media much thinner in the veins than the artery? a. Arteries are pumping under much harder pressure because its from the heart that they go to arteriesà capillary bed (has a large cross-sectional area, decreasing pressure, causing veins to operate under much lower pressure than arteries) WHat do the veins get help from? - a. Veins get help from the skeletal muscle that surrounds them - i. As the muscles contract, they help milk the blood; they help contract those vessels Where are the larger arteries found? - i. Generally speaking: arteries (bigà small)à capillary bedà veins (smallà large) - 1. Largest arteries and veins are found at or near heart - 2. As you get away from the heart, they get smaller Why is it Not just arteryà capillaryà vein? - its a capillary bed that has a large surface area Wall of capillary? Why? - 1. Just one layer: endothelium (simple squamous epithelium) - a. Why? - i. You don’t want anything but diffusion and filtration. Capillary beds and surface area? Result? - i. Capillary beds have a greater surface area than the vessel that gave the blood into the capillary bed and the vessel that takes it - 1. Therefore, pressure decreases as the blood flows through the capillaries due to higher surface area i. __ Pressure in B (HPB) is higher in __, decreases in __, and is low in __ What would you like to do? Home > Flashcards > Print Preview
THE CANADIAN SHEILD In the Canadian Shield there are lots of trees and rocks. It has rounded hills of rocks. The rocks in this region are old, they were formed millions of years ago. The Canadian shield is full of igneous rock, which later turned into metamorphic rock. The Canadian shield is well above sea level, as it is in a very mountainous area. The mountains have been slowly eroded over the years. Erosion of these mountains has deposited many materials. The Canadian shield is in the artic, taiga and boreal parts of Canada.It borders the Arctic Ocean to the north, where the cold dry arctic winds move southward making the temperatures very during the winter months .There are short cold winters that last about 6-8 months, and has long hot summers, warm gulf air and long hours of daylight produce very hot weather during the summer months. In the southern part of the Canadian shield there is lots of rain and snow each year, unlike the northern part which gets less rain and snow and get 45 centimeters of precipitation yearly. The vegetation in the Canadian Shield is different from the rest of Canada. It is mainly covered in Boreal and Taiga and mixed forests, which is made up of coniferous and deciduous trees and consisting mostly of pines, spruces and larches.For farming, growing seasons are short so crops don't usually survive. The soil is also very boggy and farming areas are isolated because of the poor soil (tundra soil). Mining is one of the biggest human activities in the Canadian Shield. It is linked to the physical geography of the region. In the Canadian Shield the minerals that are mined include iron, nickel, silver, titanium, uranium, copper, zinc, lead, diamonds and platinum. Winter activities such as snowboarding, skiing, snowshoeing,hockey is also very popular in the region. also hunting, fishing and canoeing .
Climate change is closely related to carbon emissions. Since a large portion of carbon emissions produced by humans is related to consumption of fossil fuels, research on alternative energy generation is also related to climate change. Microbial fuel cells are devices that can be used to convert the energy contained in organic matter into electricity through the activity of microbes. Some bacteria that live in the absence of oxygen are able to pass electrons that they extract from organic matter (food) to a solid electron acceptor outside the cell, such as an iron mineral. This is a form of anaerobic (oxygen-free) respiration. When an electrode is placed near this kind of microbe, it can act as the electron acceptor (anode). If the anode is connected to an electrode (cathode) placed in an aerobic environment (containing oxygen) and some H+, the electrons can be passed from the cathode to the oxygen, producing water. The current of electrons produced as they move from the anode to the cathode can be harnessed to do work. The process is shown below. Many organic carbon sources can be used to fuel the process. The inset picture shows a fuel cell made by an undergraduate researcher to generate energy from aquaculture waste. Other sources of cheap organic matter include feedlot, dairy farm, swine and human wastes. The fuel cell not only produces energy, but it reduces the amount of harmful oxygen demand in the waste making it easier to dispose, and reduces the energy requirement to treat the residual. This technology could significantly reduce the cost of waste treatment while reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. significantly reduce the cost of waste treatment while reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
Imagine you’re a scientist and you want to track the population of an endangered frog species in, say, the Puerto Rican rainforest. In the old days, you’d have to write a proposal, win a grant, put together a team, trek out into the field and spend a few weeks or months manually collecting and cataloging samples. A few years later, if you wanted to know whether the frog population had recovered or gotten even smaller, you’d have to go through the same process all over again. A new way of collecting this information, presented today by scientists from the University of Puerto Rico in the journal PeerJ, promises to make this process much easier, faster and more comprehensive. Their idea—a network of widely distributed microphones and web-based audio recognition software, which they call ARBIMON (for Automated Remote Biodiversity Monitoring Network)—could someday make it possible for us to eventually have real-time estimates on critical animal population levels in spots all over the world. The researchers designed the distributed hardware part of the system to be built from relatively inexpensive, widely available components—such and iPods and car batteries—along with waterproof cases and solar panels, which would enable the microphones, once placed, to last several years. The idea is that a network of such microphones, with one placed roughly 50 square meters, could act as remote ears listening in on the ecosystem: Every ten minutes, each microphone will record one minute of the local ecosystem’s sounds (amounting to 144 recordings per day) and send it via a radio antenna to a nearby base station. Each base station will then send the recordings on to a centralized server in Puerto Rico, from where they’ll be made public in near-real time at Arbimon.com. Simultaneously, software will analyze sounds from the recording to pick out the different noises made by different species. Using an existing bank of identified species calls, the software will assign particular sounds to particular birds, frogs and other creatures. Verified users—perhaps a biologist working on research on a particular species, or a member of the general public with a background in birding, for example—can contribute to the project by listening to the recordings and verifying whether the software is correctly identifying sounds and matching them to right species. Over time, input by users will train the software to become more accurate. Eventually, once the software is trained to identify each call, the researchers say it’ll be able to process more than 100,000 minute-long recordings in less than an hour. As a result, a biologist will be able access a constant stream of data on the levels of a specific species in spots around the world, or the fluctuating populations of various species in one ecosystem. Initially, biologists can index certain frequencies of a species’ calls to known populations of that species in each location—for example, 400 coqui chirps per hour means that 10 coquis are in the area. Later on, when the frequency of calls changes, this data can be extrapolated to infer fluctuations in the population present. In the published paper, the system’s capability was demonstrated by tracking populations of a number of birds, frog, insect and mammals species in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica over the past few years. At the Puerto Rico research site in the Sabana Seca wetland, the researchers focused on tracking populations of the Plains coqui frog, an endangered amphibian discovered in 2005 with a high-pitched, distinctive chirp. Listen to a clip of the Sabana Seca filled with coqui chirps: Microphones were first installed there in 2008, and over the subsequent few years, the researchers trained the software to become increasingly accurate at analyzing the various sounds picked up and determining which were the plains coqui’s chirp. Eventually, scientists charted variations in the chirp’s frequency on both daily and seasonal timescales and were able to match these with surveyed data on changes in the coqui population. One of the reasons these researchers are most excited about the new system is the way it’ll standardize and permanently store the audio samples indefinitely. 50 years from now, they say, if a conservation biologist wants to look back at the way populations of a species have fluctuated over time, he or she can simply access the recordings and have them analyzed. Not only will this help to track endangered populations, but could also pinpoint when invasive species began to dominate certain ecological niches. The next step, according to the researchers, is installing these microphone setups in all sorts of ecosystems—every place where there’s a species that merits attention.
THE MARKET SYSTEM AND THE CIRCULAR FLOW This chapter begins with a brief comparison of command and market system, followed by a more detailed description of the characteristics of a market system: private property, freedom of enterprise and choice, the role of self-interest, competition, markets and prices, the reliance on technology and capital goods, specialization, use of money, and the active, but limited role of The authors then introduce the Four Fundamental Questions faced by every economy, explain how a market economy answers each one, and why command systems have struggled to answer them in recent years. The chapter concludes by introducing the circular flow model, a graphical representation of a After completing this chapter, students should be able to: Highlight the main features of a market economy and a command economy. An economic system in which most property resources are owned by the government and economic decisions are made by a central government body. An economic system in which property resources are privately owned and markets and prices are used to direct and coordinate economic The Command System is also known as socialism or Communism. In Command, the gov’t owns most of the property resources. A central planning board selected by the formulates a central economic plan and makes nearly all decisions concerning resources, composition and distribution of output, and organization of production. All consumer goods and capital goods are divided according to the board’s long-term priorities for the system. The Market System is also known as Capitalism. It uses private ownership of resources as well as markets and prices to direct economic activity. Self-interest is key, and the system allows private ownership of capital. It also communicates through prices, and coordinates through places where buyers and sellers come together, i.e. markets. This results in competition and independent buyers and sellers, allowing economic decision-making to become widely dispersed and monetary rewards to create powerful incentives for existing industries to pioneer new products and processes, ultimately helping the economy grow. List and explain nine important characteristics of a market system. The right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other property. Property rights encourage investments, innovation, exchange, maintenance of property, and economic growth. They extend to intellectual property through
We got questions about how well cattle do on snow as a winter water source so we headed out to find some answers for you. This fact sheet from agricultural agencies in Canada provides some comparisons between cows with access to water and cows using snow as their water source. Researchers in Alberta expected that eating snow would increase energy use, so that cows would not maintain body condition, and their temperatures would be lower. But that’s not what they found at all. The differences in weight between water cows and snow cows was not significant, nor were body temperatures different. Researchers concluded that cows could eat enough snow to meet their water needs and they didn’t need any additional energy from their food to melt the snow and bring it to body temperature. But what about calves? Researchers checked that out too. They compared weights for 9 to 10 month old calves where one group drank water and the other relied on snow. At the end of the trial, the snow calves were 4 pounds lighter than the water calves, and their feed to gain ratio was slightly higher, but the difference wasn’t considered significant. But that doesn’t mean you can just send your stock out there and expect them to do well right off the bat. As this fact sheet notes, eating snow is a learned behavior: • It can take four to five days for all cows to become snow eaters. In the meantime, be prepared for restlessness and bellowing. Novice snow eaters will adapt faster if they are with animals who have become accustomed to snow. • If bellowing and restlessness persist after four to five days, investigate. The cows are trying to tell you something is not right. • Some changes in feeding and drinking patterns have been noted when cattle are not given access to water. The authors of the University of Alberta study outlined here observed that calves ate their daily feed at a slower rate than calves with access to water. They tended to eat more frequently throughout the day and alternated feeding and snow intake. Animals provided with water tended to drink only once or twice a day. Alternating feed and snow consumption may help minimize thermal stress. You also need to have clean snow, and an alternate water source in place in case conditions change and the snow on the ground is no longer adequate for your herd. It takes about 10 cm (4 inches) of snow to get 1 cm of water (1/2″) and ice-crusted, wind-blown or trampled snow sources are not adequate for your livestock. Please download the fact sheet for more information on how to manage your cattle for snow feed. And here’s another On Pasture article on the topic as well.
Also called: activity network diagram, network diagram, activity chart, node diagram, CPM (critical path method) chart Variation: PERT (program evaluation and review technique) chart The arrow diagram shows the required order of tasks in a project or process, the best schedule for the entire project, and potential scheduling and resource problems and their solutions. The arrow diagram lets you calculate the “critical path” of the project. This is the flow of critical steps where delays will affect the timing of the entire project and where addition of resources can speed up the project. When to Use an Arrow Diagram - When scheduling and monitoring tasks within a complex project or process with interrelated tasks and resources. - When you know the steps of the project or process, their sequence and how long each step takes, and. - When project schedule is critical, with serious consequences for completing the project late or significant advantage to completing the project early. Arrow Diagram Procedure Materials needed: Sticky notes or cards, marking pens, large writing surface (newsprint or flipchart pages) Drawing the Network - List all the necessary tasks in the project or process. One convenient method is to write each task on the top half of a card or sticky note. Across the middle of the card, draw a horizontal arrow pointing right. - Determine the correct sequence of the tasks. Do this by asking three questions for each task: It can be useful to create a table with four columns —prior tasks, this task, simultaneous tasks, following tasks. Diagram the network of tasks. If you are using notes or cards, arrange them in sequence on a large piece of paper. Time should flow from left to right and concurrent tasks should be vertically aligned. Leave space between the cards. Between each two tasks, draw circles for “events.” An event marks the beginning or end of a task. Thus, events are nodes that separate tasks. Look for three common problem situations and redraw them using “dummies” or extra events. A dummy is an arrow drawn with dotted lines used to separate tasks that would otherwise start and stop with the same events or to show logical sequence. Dummies are not real tasks. - Which tasks must happen before this one can begin? - Which tasks can be done at the same time as this one? - Which tasks should happen immediately after this one? - Two simultaneous tasks start and end at the same events. Solution: Use a dummy and an extra event to separate them. In Figure 1, event 2 and the dummy between 2 and 3 have been added to separate tasks A and B. - Task C cannot start until both tasks A and B are complete; a fourth task, D, cannot start until A is complete, but need not wait for B. (See Figure 2.) Solution: Use a dummy between the end of task A and the beginning of task C. - A second task can be started before part of a first task is done. Solution: Add an extra event where the second task can begin and use multiple arrows to break the first task into two subtasks. In Figure 3, event 2 was added, splitting task A. Figure 1: Dummy separating simultaneous tasks Figure 2: Dummy keeping sequence correct Figure 3: Using an extra event - When the network is correct, label all events in sequence with event numbers in the circles. It can be useful to label all tasks in sequence, using letters. Scheduling: Critical Path Method (CPM) - Determine task times—the best estimate of the time that each task should require. Use one measuring unit (hours, days or weeks) throughout, for consistency. Write the time on each task’s arrow. - Determine the “critical path,” the longest path from the beginning to the end of the project. Mark the critical path with a heavy line or color. Calculate the length of the critical path: the sum of all the task times on the path. - Calculate the earliest times each task can start and finish, based on how long preceding tasks take. These are called earliest start (ES) and earliest finish (EF). Start with the first task, where ES = 0, and work forward. Draw a square divided into four quadrants, as in Figure 4. Write the ES in the top left box and the EF in the top right. For each task: - Earliest start (ES) = the largest EF of the tasks leading into this one - Earliest finish (EF) = ES + task time for this task Figure 4: Arrow diagram time box LF Latest finish - Calculate the latest times each task can start and finish without upsetting the project schedule, based on how long later tasks will take. These are called latest start (LS) and latest finish (LF). Start from the last task, where the latest finish is the project deadline, and work backwards. Write the LS in the lower left box and the LF in the lower right box. Calculate slack times for each task and for the entire project. - Latest finish (LF) = the smallest LS of all tasks immediately following this one - Latest start (LS) = LF – task time for this task Total slack is the time a job could be postponed without delaying the project schedule. Total slack = LS – ES = LF – EF Free slack is the time a task could be postponed without affecting the early start of any job following it. Free slack = the earliest ES of all tasks immediately following this one – EF Example of a completed arrow diagram Excerpted from Nancy R. Tague’s The Quality Toolbox, Second Edition, ASQ Quality Press, 2004, pages 100-105.
Architectural acoustics (also known as room acoustics and building acoustics) is the science and engineering of achieving a good sound within a building and is a branch of acoustical engineering. The first application of modern scientific methods to architectural acoustics was carried out by Wallace Sabine in the Fogg Museum lecture room who then applied his new found knowledge to the design of Symphony Hall, Boston. Architectural acoustics can be about achieving good speech intelligibility in a theatre, restaurant or railway station, enhancing the quality of music in a concert hall or recording studio, or suppressing noise to make offices and homes more productive and pleasant places to work and live in. Architectural acoustic design is usually done by acoustic consultants. Building skin envelope This science analyzes noise transmission from building exterior envelope to interior and vice versa. The main noise paths are roofs, eaves, walls, windows, door and penetrations. Sufficient control ensures space functionality and is often required based on building use and local municipal codes. An example would be providing a suitable design for a home which is to be constructed close to a high volume roadway, or under the flight path of a major airport, or of the airport itself. Inter-space noise control The science of limiting and/or controlling noise transmission from one building space to another to ensure space functionality and speech privacy. The typical sound paths are ceilings, room partitions, acoustic ceiling panels (such as wood dropped ceiling panels), doors, windows, flanking, ducting and other penetrations. Technical solutions depend on the source of the noise and the path of acoustic transmission, for example noise by steps or noise by (air, water) flow vibrations. An example would be providing suitable party wall design in an apartment complex to minimize the mutual disturbance due to noise by residents in adjacent apartments. Interior space acoustics Diffusers which scatter sound are used in some rooms to improve the acoustics. This is the science of controlling a room’s surfaces based on sound absorbing and reflecting properties. Excessive reverberation time, which can be calculated, can lead to poor speech intelligibility. Sound reflections create standing waves that produce natural resonances that can be heard as a pleasant sensation or an annoying one. Reflective surfaces can be angled and coordinated to provide good coverage of sound for a listener in a concert hall or music recital space. To illustrate this concept consider the difference between a modern large office meeting room or lecture theater and a traditional classroom with all hard surfaces. Interior building surfaces can be constructed of many different materials and finishes. Ideal acoustical panels are those without a face or finish material that interferes with the acoustical infill or substrate. Fabric covered panels are one way to heighten acoustical absorption. Perforated metal also shows sound absorbing qualities. Finish material is used to cover over the acoustical substrate. Mineral fiber board, or Micore, is a commonly used acoustical substrate. Finish materials often consist of fabric, wood or acoustical tile. Fabric can be wrapped around substrates to create what is referred to as a “pre-fabricated panel” and often provides good noise absorption if laid onto a wall. There are three ways to improve workplace acoustics and solve workplace sound problems – the ABCs. A = Absorb (via drapes, carpets, ceiling tiles, etc.) B = Block (via panels, walls, floors, ceilings and layout) C = Cover-up (via sound masking)
About the Book First-grader Freddy Thresher has a problem. He wants to outshine his classmate Robbie, who is nearly King of Show-and-Tell. But what can Freddy bring to class that will get more oohs and ahhs than Robbie's cool alligator head? The solution emerges when Freddy finds a baby bird. Freddy manages to sneak the bird into class and share it at Show-and-Tell. Oohs and ahhs abound. Freddy is King of Show-and-Tell, at least for the day. Set the Stage Most students know what show-and-tell is, but ask a volunteer to explain it. What are some show-and-tell items youve brought to school? What were some comments made by your classmates? Explain that the main character of this book, Freddy, has a problem related to show-and-tell. Think back to when you prepared to bring an item to class. What might Freddys problem be? Brainstorm some possibilities. Use these questions to discuss the story with the class: - What was Freddy's original problem? - Who was King of Show-and-Tell at the beginning of the story? Who was at the end? What happened? - What risks did Freddy take to bring Winger to school? - How did Freddy know that he was King of Show-and-Tell at the end of the story? - Do you think Suzie was a good sister to Freddy? Why or why not? - How much time do you think has elapsed from the beginning of the story to the end? What makes you say that? - Which is your favorite chapter in the book? Favorite picture? Why? Most students love secret codes and messages. Students will enjoy applying symbol-to-letter correspondence to read a message extending the plot of the story. To extend students enjoyment of the book, try these: - Animal Classification: Have students make a list of kinds of animals in their neighborhood, including birds. Ask volunteers to illustrate each type, then place the pictures on the board. Ask students to sort the pictures by various criteria, such as how they move (fly, swim, crawl) or by habitat (pond, tree, underground). - Welcome: Invite a science expert or veterinarian to class to discuss what to do if someone finds an injured bird. Then have the class prepare a list of Do's and Dont's. Illustrate the list and read the guidelines to a younger class. - What's Right, What's Not?: Ask students to suggest specific items that would/would not be right for a show-and-tell event. (A tooth that fell out last night? An elephant?) - Our Show-and-Tell Memory Book: Throughout the year, take a photo or ask students to draw a picture of each child and an item he or she brought for Show-and-Tell. Place the pictures in a memory album and review it at the end of the year. Then present it as a Show-and-Tell item for another class.
(This article was orginally published in an ASCD brief. Ms. Greene’s contributions have the voice of a teacher, which are powerful! ) English Language Learners (ELLs) face the double challenge of learning academic content as well as the language in which it is presented. Teachers have traditionally treated language learning as a process of imparting words and structures or rules to students, separate from the process of teaching content knowledge. This approach has left ELLs especially unprepared to work with the complex texts and the academic types of language that are required to engage in content area practices, such as solving word problems in Mathematics, or deconstructing an author’s reasoning and evidence in English Language Arts. ELLs need to be given frequent, extended opportunities to speak about content material and work through complex texts in English with small groups of classmates. The new, widely-adopted Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards also call for all students, including ELLs, to master an array of academic language practices that are critical to achievement in content areas. Examples of these academic language practices include: argument from evidence, analysis of complex texts, and developing and using models. At Stanford’s Understanding Language, we have found that ELLs benefit from instructional approaches that treat language and content in an integrated way that is designed to help them build the language skills that they need to succeed in content classrooms, college and careers. Working closely with Denver Public Schools teachers Ms. Emily Park-Friend (Bruce Randolph School) and Ms. Katie Langlois (Morey Middle School), we’re glad we can show through this video series ways that these 7th grade ELA teachers prepare their learners by activating prior knowledge, scaffolding meaning making with complex texts, and developing ELLs’ discipline and academic language practices in ELA classrooms. The set of six video clips begin with this short overview by Understanding Language ELA work group members George Bunch (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Aída Walqui (WestEd). This overview video discusses the key shifts found in the Common Core for ELLs and the opportunities for ELLs to grow their disciplinary knowledge and English language skills in heterogeneous classrooms. Through the classroom videos, we see several key strategies for encouraging English Language Development: The classroom video series highlight how ELA teachers can take account of the language demands that ELLs face in content classrooms and help ELLs meet these demands with increasing autonomy over time. As discussed in this video, this means providing ELLs with strategic types of scaffolding, such as graphic organizers, visual aids, peer help, or home language help, and removing these supports as students’ skills develop. This way, ELLs can be given the opportunity and the necessary support to meet rigorous academic standards. Also, as this video explains, ELLs learn best when they are in heterogeneous classrooms. ELLs need to be given ample opportunities to have extended interaction (such as doing ‘jigsaw’-type activities) with peers of varying English proficiency levels, who can provide ELLs with a range of models for how to use English words or structures appropriately, as well as abundant, personalized feedback on ELLs’ own developing English use. It is best for ELLs if, within their classrooms, teachers sometimes group students heterogeneously according to English proficiency, and sometimes homogeneously, depending on the purpose of the task at hand. Another teaching technique (demonstrated here) that is beneficial for ELLs, is to provide them with relevant background knowledge about a topic to be discussed in class, or activate their existing knowledge of a topic. Besides increasing student interest, this allows students to focus more fully on the instructional goals, rather than being overwhelmed with too much new information at once. It also allows ELLs to bridge new knowledge to old knowledge, increasing understanding, and it helps some ELLs fill in contextual information (such as American political history or cultural details) that they may not have due to coming from different cultural backgrounds. Though teachers have generally attempted to teach ELLs difficult vocabulary before having them read texts, ELLs learn new vocabulary best through extended discussion with their classmates after reading or between multiple readings, as this video explains. Valuing Linguistic Differences Schools and teachers can help ELLs greatly by learning about ELLs’ home cultures and languages, treating cultural and linguistic differences as resources rather than obstacles, and reaching out to students’ homes and communities to build learning opportunities together. Here are more resources for teachers and administrators who are seeking to better support ELLs: - Understanding Language ELA and Mathematics resources - Understanding Language Key Principles for ELL Instruction - Framework for English Language Proﬁciency Development Standards corresponding to the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards Rebecca Greene has a Ph.D. in Linguistics, specializing in Sociolinguistics, from Stanford University, and a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language from the University of Kentucky. She has extensive and varied experience as an instructor. Most recently she taught Language and Culture at California State University-East Bay. She has been working as a consultant with Understanding Language for two years. She also works as a Senior Research Assistant for Stanford University and for NORC at the University of Chicago. Understanding Language aims to heighten educator awareness of the critical role that language plays in the new Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, and to improve education for English Language Learners.
World energy consumption is growing. Reliable forecasts say total energy consumption will increase by around 35–40% in the next 20 years, and coal will still be the major source of power generation globally. According the International Energy Agency, in 30 years’ time the volume of the international coal trade will increase by almost 1.5 times compared to current levels and trade flows will continue to move towards Asia. Continuous improvement in geological exploration and mining methods mean new coal resources continue to be found. Currently most conventional coal-fired power plants operate under sub-critical steam conditions, with a maximum efficiency of about 39%. New supercritical coal-powered plants can achieve efficiency above 40%, whilst ultra-supercritical plants can potentially boost efficiency to 50% or more. Globally 64% of coal power plants under construction now are supercritical or ultra-supercritical. With growing concerns over sustainability of the global power supply, the coal industry constantly works on improving all aspects of its activities. A one percentage point improvement in the efficiency of a conventional pulverised coal combustion plant results in a 2-3% reduction in CO2 emissions. Advanced cleaning and firing systems on coal-fired power plants have already helped to reduce the output of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), complex hydrocarbons, dust and heavy metals. Increased coal washing lowers ash content by more than 50% by removing extraneous rock and high ash coal, which means less waste is transported and less ash is disposed while the coal provides greater thermal efficiency. During underground mining, highly concentrated methane (CH4) can be captured and removed by extraction systems. Where practical, this gas is used to generate electricity or to heat mining facilities. Otherwise, it can be safely burned rather than discharged into the atmosphere. The result is reduced greenhouse gas emissions per tonne mined.
A democracy is a type of government where the creation, evolution and proposal of laws are made through the engagement of all eligible citizens. There are several types of democratic systems, such as direct and semi-direct, representative, parliamentary, presidential, constitutional and hybrid democracies.Continue Reading A democracy has four major pillars consisting of a law, the safeguard of human rights, participation of the citizens and fair elections to choose and replace the body of government. In a direct democracy, all eligible citizens directly participate in the political system by changing constitutional laws, suggesting or initiating laws and binding officials to their campaign promise by threat of dismissal or lawsuit. A representative democracy elects officials through a free and fair vote of popularity to represent the citizens and their interests. In a parliamentary democracy, representatives of the citizens can appoint and dismiss members of government if they don't live up to their standards. A presidential democracy is a type of government where a president is elected by the people in a free election and gains power over the state and government, effectively gaining the majority of executive powers. A constitutional democracy binds elected representatives to a constitution constraining the powers of officials. A hybrid democracy uses parts of representative and direct democracies to form participatory democracies. Examples include the U.S. states of California, Vermont, the New England region and the country of Switzerland. The first democracy was a direct democracy performed by the Greek people.Learn more about Types of Government
The objective of this tutorial is to introduce the basic functions of the free iPad App Daisy the Dinosaur. In this tutorial users will learn how the Daisy the Dinosaur iPad App can be used to introduce the students in grade K-3 to basic computer programming logic. Daisy the Dinosaur is a free iPad app that can be used to introduce young children to computer programming. Source: Introduction written by C. Selwocki screen captures are from the Daisy the Dinosaur iPad App This Slideshow will walk users through the Challenge Mode (tutorial mode). Source: Slideshow created By C. Selwocki all screen captures and videos came from the Daisy the Dinosaur App Attached is a lesson plan form that can be used to integrate Apps into lessons. Source: App Integration form was completed by C. Selwocki. The from was given out at the iTeach Academy Summer of 2013.
The nucleus of an atom contains positive protons and neutral neutrons, which are held together by the strong force. Protons and neutrons consist of even smaller particles called quarks, which are held together by gluons. Negative electrons constantly move around the nucleus because of the attraction of opposite electric charges. The number of protons in an atom is the atomic number, which is unique for each element. The number of protons plus neutrons is the mass number, which equals the atom’s mass in atomic mass units. - SCI.CA.8.PS.3.a; SCI.CA.8.PS.7.b; SCI.AC.8.IE.9.f - MCR.6-8.SCI.8.1; MCR.6-8.SCI.9.1 - AAAS.6-8.4.D.1, 2; AAAS.6-8.4.G.5; AAAS.6-8.11.B.1, 3; AAAS.6-8.11.D.3 - Compare and contrast protons, neutrons, and electrons. - Describe the forces that hold the particles of atoms together. - Define atomic number and mass number. - Describe ions and isotopes - Identify the particles called quarks. atomic mass unit (amu): SI unit for the mass of an atom, where 1 amu equals the mass of a proton (about 1.7 x 10-24 grams) atomic number: number of protons in an atom electron: negatively charged atomic particle that moves around the nucleus of the atom ion: positively or negatively charged particle that forms when an atom gains or loses electrons isotope: atom that differs in the number of its neutrons from other atoms of the same element mass number: number of protons plus neutrons in an atom; equal to the atom’s mass in atomic mass units (amu) neutron: electrically neutral atomic particle inside the nucleus of an atom nucleus: tiny region at the center of an atom that contains protons and neutrons and makes up almost all of the atom’s mass proton: positively charged atomic particle inside the nucleus of an atom quark: type of fundamental particle of matter that makes up protons and neutrons Introducing the Lesson Play a word association game with the class to introduce the lesson. Tell students to say whatever word first comes to mind when they hear the word “atom.” (Sample responses might include “matter,” “tiny,” “nucleus,” “molecule,” “electron,” and “particle.”) The activity will help students recall what they already know about atoms. Help students learn the parts of the atom with the Atoms Family worksheet and song at the first URL below. Divide the class into small groups and have each group complete the worksheet. Encourage students to sing the Atoms Family song. Finally, have groups complete the Atoms Family math challenge at the second URL. Building Science Skills Stress the importance of using models to study atoms because they are so small. Then have students create models of the atom using one or more ideas suggested at the following URL. Have students examine the periodic table .You can use the interactive periodic table at the following URL with a projector or TV screen. Focus on one element in the table, such as carbon. Point out its atomic number and atomic mass (atomic weight). Based on these two numbers, have students calculate the number of neutrons in the atom. Pair English language learners and native English speakers, and have partners make a cluster diagram centered on the atom. They should add surrounding circles for parts of the atom, atomic forces, atomic number and mass number, ions and isotopes, and quarks. Tell them to add important details to each circle. Ask students to make a word-search or criss-cross puzzle using lesson vocabulary terms. They can make the puzzle by hand or use the free puzzle maker at the URL below. Distribute copies of their puzzles for other students to solve. Divide the class into pairs and have partners explore the interactive “Build an Atom” simulation at the URL below. Students will build an atom with subatomic particles and observe how the element, charge, and mass of the atom change as they add the different particles. The URL below lists several common misconceptions that middle schoolers may have about atoms. Use some or all of the misconceptions to create a true-or-false quiz. For any misconceptions that students think are true, explain why they are false. Reinforce and Review Copy and distribute the lesson worksheets in the CK-12 Physical Science for Middle School Workbook. Ask students to complete the worksheets alone or in pairs to reinforce lesson content. Lesson Review Questions Have students answer the Review Questions listed at the end of the lesson in the FlexBook® student edition. Check students’ mastery of the lesson with Lesson 5.1 Quiz in CK-12 Physical Science for Middle School Quizzes and Tests. Points to Consider In this lesson, you saw several simple models of atoms. Models are useful for representing things that are very small. Scientists have used models to represent atoms for more than 200 years. In the next lesson, you’ll read about some of the earlier models. - How might scientists have modeled atoms before the particles inside atoms were discovered? - How do you think earlier models might have differed from the models in this lesson?
2 What is Simulation? A definition of simulation from Dictionary.com Imitation or representation, as of a potential situation or in experimental testing.The basic idea is to build an experimental device, or simulator, that will “act like” the system of interest … in a quick, cost-effective manner.Representation of the operation or features of one process or system through the use of another: computer simulation of an in-flight emergency.3 3 Simulation in Business Analysis Uses mathematical modelsProbabilistic (as opposed to deterministic)Uses the entire range of possible values of a variable in the modelImitates a system or situation (like a coin-flip, or how long a person might have to wait in a line at a restaurant) 4 Why Simulate? Safety – flight simulator Cost – easier to simulate adding a new runway and find out effects than to implement in reality and then find outTime – Boeing uses simulated manufacturing before the real thing, with tremendous savings in time and money – can discover parts that do not fit and fix them before actual production 5 How does it work? Simulation requires you to know What variable is to be simulatedIs the variable discrete or continuous?The distribution of the variable – values it can take on and the probabilities of those values occurring.Step 1: Generate a variable containing uniformly distributed random variables between 0 and 1 (the rand() function in Excel).Step 2: Create a rule to map the random numbers to values of the variable desired in the right proportion, and apply the rule. 6 Types of Variables in Simulation Models DiscreteUsed for simulating specific values or specific points.Example: Number of people in a waiting line (queue).ContinuousUsed for simulating any value (between specific points)Example: The amount of time a person spends in a queue.8 7 Discrete Example 1– coin toss Variable to be simulated is “Outcome of a coin toss”. It takes on values “Heads” and “Tails”, each with 0.5 probability.Generate 100 random numbers (100 tosses of coin).Make a rule like – if random number > 0.5, then “Heads”, else “Tails”. This will create the right distribution of outcomes. 8 Discrete Example 2: Machine Failures Simulate machine failures based on this historical dataNumber of Failures per monthFrequency(# of months this occurred)1233620Total60 9 Discrete Example 2: Machine Failures Create the following cumulative probability table.Number of Failures per monthFrequency(# of months this occurred)ProbabilityCumulative12336200.6000.3330.0500.0160.9330.9831.000Total601.00 10 Discrete Example 2: Machine Failures Now map the random numbers between 0 and 1 using the cumulative prob. Column as the cutoffs.Random numbers between 0 and 0.6 represent 0 failures, between 0.6 and represent 1 failure, and so on.0.600.930.980 failures1 failure23 failures 11 Discrete Example 2 Solution – Random Number Mapping The random numbers are now mapped to number of failures as follows.Random #Number ofFailures0.3450.0080.9850.87831 12 Continuous Example – arrival time Variable to be simulated is arrival time at a restaurant which can literally take on infinite individual valuesFor example someone could arrive at:12:09:3712:09:37:5212:09:37:52:14, etc. 13 Continuous Example – arrival time con’t To simulate this situation, we must specify intervalsAt the restaurant the intervals could be all people arriving between 11am and 12pm, 12pm and 1pm, or 1pm and 2pm.As with the coin toss, generate random numbers in Excel ( =RAND() )Make a rule – if random number:<=.333, then =11am-12pm>.333 up to =.666, then 12pm-1pm>.666 up to 1, then 1pm to 2pmeach category is equally likely 14 Continuous Example – arrival time con’t If the random number is.47, then this would fall in the 12pm to 1pm category,If the random number is .88, then this would fall in the 1pm to 2pm category, etc.Because each category is equally likely, if we run enough trials, each category will contain about the same number of random numbers, which will tell the restaurant owner that it is equally likely that a person will arrive at any of the three times. 15 Continuous Example – arrival time con’t The owner looks at historical information and says that on an average day, 225 people eat lunch at his restaurant , and that typically47 people arrive between 11am and 12pm112 people arrive between 12pm and 1pm66 people arrive between 1pm and 2pmHow do we map these numbers? 16 Continuous Example – arrival time con’t To complete the mapping, we need to make a cumulative distribution function (CDF) 17 Continuous Example – arrival time con’t Make a new rule – if random number:<=.21, then =11am-12pm>.21 up to =.71, then 12pm-1pm>.71 up to 1, then 1pm to 2pm 18 Note on Random Numbers in Excel Spreadsheets Once entered in a spreadsheet, a random number function remains “live.” A new random number is created whenever the spreadsheet is re-calculated. To re-calculate the spreadsheet, use the F9 key. Note, almost any change in the spreadsheet causes the spreadsheet to be recalculated!If you do not want the random number to change, you can freeze it by selecting: tools, options, calculations, and checking “manual.” 19 Evaluating ResultsSimulation measures the quality of a solution because it gives the probability of a certain event occurringSimulation also shows the variabilitySimulation does not necessarily give the best possible answer. It gives the most likely answer.6 20 AppendixSome useful information on very popular probability distribution function6 21 Probability Distributions A probability distribution defines the behavior of a variable by defining its limits, central tendency and natureMeanStandard DeviationUpper and Lower LimitsContinuous or DiscreteExamples are:Normal Distribution (continuous)Binomial (discrete)Poisson (discrete)Uniform (continuous or discrete)Custom (created to suit a specific purpose) 22 Uniform DistributionAll values between minimum and maximum occur with equal likelihoodConditionsMinimum Value is FixedMaximum Value is FixedAll values occur with equal likelihoodExcel function: RAND() – returns a uniformly distributed random number in the range (0,1) 23 Normal Distribution Conditions: Use when: Uncertain variable is symmetric about the meanUncertain variable is more likely to be in vicinity of the mean than far awayUse when:Distribution of x is normal (for any sample size)Distribution of x is not normal, but the distribution of sample means (x-bar) will be normally distributed with samples of size 30 or more (Central Limit Theorem)Excel function: NORMSDIST() – returns a random number from the cumulative standard normal distribution with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one [e.g., NORMSDIST(1) = .84] 25 DistributionsVariables to be simulated may be normal (e.g. height) or exponential (e.g. service time) or various other distributions.Task is to convert uniform distribution to the required distribution.Freq1Freqinfinity 26 Application - Queuing Systems A queuing system is any system where entities (people, trucks, jobs, etc.) wait in line for service (processing of some sort) –retail checkout lines, jobs on a network server, phone switchboard, airport runways, etc. 27 Queuing System InputsQueuing (waiting line) systems are characterized by:Number of servers / number of queuesSSSQ – Single Server Single QueueSSMQ – Single Server Multiple QueueMSSQ – Multiple Server Single QueueMSMQ - Multiple Server Multiple QueueArrival Rate (Arrival Intervals)Service Rate (Service Times) 28 Performance Variables (outcome) Performance of a queuing system is measured byAverage time waiting in queue/systemAverage number of entities in queue/systemTime in QueueService TimeArrival timeService BeginsService EndsTime in System 29 Distributions in Queuing Arrival Intervals (time between two consecutive arrivals) and Service Time (time to serve one customer) are exponentially distributed.Confirm it yourself by watching cars on a street! 30 Sample ProblemA loading dock (SSSQ) has trucks arriving every 36 minutes (0.6 hrs) on average, and the average service (loading / unloading) time is 30 minutes (0.5 hrs). A new conveyer belt system can reduce that to 15 minutes (0.25 hours). Simulate the arrival of 200 trucks to see how performance would be affected by the new system. 31 Simulating Exponential Distributions To convert the uniform distribution of the random numbers to an exponential distribution, take the negative natural log of the random numbers.This creates an exponential distribution with an average of 1.00.To get an average of 0.6 (to represent average arrival interval in hours), simply multiply result by 0.6.Thus, the conversion formula is:–ln(rand())*µwhere µ is the mean of the exponential distribution desired.
In our brains, upwards of one hundred billion neurons form a vast network of information pathways, intersecting at nearly one hundred trillion unique synapses. To put that number into context, consider New York City and its thousands of street crossings: the estimated number of intersections in this U.S. megalopolis still represent less than one millionth of the number of a brain's neural intersections. As students learn something new, electric or chemical signals move from neuron to neuron, traversing a route between locations in the brain. Like a tourist turning on unfamiliar city streets, these signals cross synapses to form a path that eventually connects the source to its destination. While identifying a route is slow going at first, students' brains eventually make these connections, and learning begins. Speeding Up Navigation of the Brain's Vast Learning Network Even after establishing a route, a student's development of an optimal pathway takes time. Aside from leading them along the same path over and over again, how can we speed up our students' navigation of neural pathways? What follows is a proposal for three actions that I believe can have a huge effect on accelerating student learning. 1. Create Cartographers When navigating a new city, many of us refer to a map to find the best route. Turn your students into mapmakers as they explore the farthest reaches of their own understanding. Encourage them to draw out the maps that describe the relationships they see between disparate ideas. As tools to describe understanding, Thinking Maps help learners put their mental maps "on paper." By drawing a Thinking Map, learners can identify the relationships between the ideas they are trying to connect. Some maps are more effective than others, depending on the relationship between the ideas -- parts of the whole, cause and effect, similarities and differences. When we force ourselves to record our current thinking of these relationships, we have put our neural pathway on paper. Modeling Instruction, a moderately recent development in science instruction, also promotes the creation of cerebral cartographers. Students engaged in Modeling Instruction design and apply tests of a model they have developed based on their belief about relationships between concepts. After collecting results, students use this evidence to revise their model of the concept. The practice has increased in popularity in physics classrooms across the world, largely due to its connection to how we learn. One important facet to remember -- while we are all on a journey together, each of us navigates his or her neural network individually. As such, we all need to draw our own map. In Writing as a Measure and Model for Thinking, John Antonetti highlights the need for all students to articulate their thinking in order to promote personal response for the individual learner. When each learner draws his or her own map, he or she has an opportunity to learn about where we currently stand and where we need to go as a result. 2. Be a Guide When it comes to our own understanding, we are navigating uncharted territory. It helps to find someone who has undergone a similar journey and learn from her path. Be a guide for your students as they explore the uncharted territory of their own minds. Shift your role in the classroom, and tell your stories as an "experienced learner" for students who are "novice navigators." To paraphrase Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick, stories drive action through simulation. When we hear the stories of those who have traveled a similar path -- when we hear about their successes, their challenges and their actions that led to resolution -- it informs our own path in the future. The CoderDojo movement embodies this concept of experts acting as guides for young people walking the path. From its inception in Ireland to its spread across the world, these spaces inspire young people who are looking to learn digital creativity -- writing code for websites, apps, programs or games. Adults in these spaces act as guides, using their own technical backgrounds to help the students find the next step in the path. As many teachers have an expert background in the content area they are helping students to learn, they may have a tendency to approach teaching from the position of "knowledge expert" as opposed to "experienced learner." Keep in mind that if our students do not have questions about their own learning paths, they are not likely going to learn from yours. Instead of starting the path by telling students what you think they should know, let them explore, and let them get lost. Once on the path, students will seek guidance, and your previous experience will take on a new level of importance. 3. Let Them Sleep I know, this sounds a little crazy: "I should let my students sleep in class?" That seems like a bit of a stretch, like the children in Aldous Huxley's 1962 novel Island who were taught to enter a trance state when completing complex math problems. What we can do, however, is build in time for processing and reflection during class, and use sleep as a tool to promote learning between classes. Sleep plays various roles in the health of the body. For starters, it acts as a "clean-up" process for the brain. According to a study from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, sleep weakens all synapses across the entirety of the brain. Those connections that go largely unused are downscaled during sleep, while those involved in learning stay strong. These researchers posit that sleep restores the brain for the next period of learning: "Without sleep, the brain reaches a saturation point that taxes its energy budget, its store of supplies, and its ability to learn further." Learning strengthens the synapses connecting neurons in the brain, and sleep tends to repair damage done to the brain over the course of a learning-filled day. What this means for us as educators is that we need to plan rich learning experiences, while also purposefully scheduling time between these learning experiences to allow sleep to do its job. Given the pressure that teachers feel to "cover" more and more information in accordance with national, state and local standards, it's easy to forget that the goal is not content taught but content learned. We need to plan for the periods between learning experiences to ensure time for processing if we expect students to deepen neural pathways. To Make a Deep Mental Path Henry David Thoreau summarized the development of neural superhighways as well as any neuroscientist I have read: As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. While creating cartographers, being guides, and promoting sleep can accelerate the learning process, the most important step is that we commit to leading our students to walk the path. As we learn to apply these lessons to our practices, we then commit to walking the path together.
why does greenland look so big on a map WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE MERCATOR MAP? As a result, shapes of world maps have typically been diverse, ranging from hearts to cones. But the diversity gradually faded away with one model, invented by Gerardus Mercator, surpassing the others. The familiar 'Mercator' projection gives the right shapes of land masses, but at the cost of distorting their sizes in favour of the wealthy lands to the north. For instance, in the Mercator projection, north America looks at least as big, if not slightly larger, than Africa. And Greenland also looks of comparable size. But in reality Africa is larger than both. In fact, you can fit north America into Africa and still have space for India, Argentina, Tunisia and some left over, notes Mr Wan. Greenland, meanwhile, is 1/14th the size of the continent as can be seen in Gall-Peters equal projection, which provides the correct proportion of land mass to the continents. The map suggests that Scandinavian countries are larger than India, whereas in reality India is three times the size of all Scandinavian countries put together. As well, as this, it seems the fact that our maps typically put north at the top is a mere convention but has been accepted as correct in most of the world. Looking back, the diversity of maps can reveal a history of the world. For instance, The БBe On Guard! Б map was created in 1921 when infant USSR was threatened with invasion, famine and social unrest. To counter this, designers such as Dimitri Moor were employed to create pro-Bolshevik propaganda. Using a map of European Russia and its neighbours, Moor's image of a heroic Bolshevik guard defeating the invading 'Whites' helped define the Soviet Union in the Russian popular imagination. An earlier map, called the Hinese Globe, created in 1623 reveals the ancient Chinese view of the world. Made for the Chinese Emperor, this is the earliest known Chinese terrestrial globe, and a fusion of East and Western cultures. The creators exaggerated the size of China and placed it in the middle of a world that otherwise consisted mainly of small offбshore islands. A century earlier, the 1507 Waldseemuller map named and envisaged America as a separate continent for the first time. Perhaps to emphasise the independent existence of the Americas, the map shows what we now know is the Pacific lapping the western coast of South America, though its existence was only confirmed years late. In 2005, Google Earth presented a world in which the area of most concern to the used could be at the centre, and which - with mapped content overlaid - can contain whatever you think is important. Almost for the first time, the ability to create an accurate map has been placed in the hands of everyone, and it has transformed the way we view the world. But it comes at a price. There are few, if any, agreed standards about what should be included, and the less populated and 'less important' regions get ignored. Today, billions of searches are made on Google Maps each day, helping people navigate their way around, streets, towns and countries. Google Maps claims that it is on a Бnever-ending quest for the perfect mapБ, but Jerry Brotton, historian of cartography and the author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps, isnБt so sure. He argues that all maps are of their time, their place and serve certain purposes. БNo world map is, or can be, a definitive, transparent depiction of its subject that offers a disembodied eye onto the world,Б he writes. БEach one is a continual negotiation between its makers and users, as their understanding of the world changes. It s because of the projection method used. Projection means flattening out the curved surface of the earth onto a flat surface. This can t be done without tearing or stretching (try it with an orange skin). The projection methods used for many maps end up keeping the equator the same size and stretching higher latitudes progressively more as you get closer to the poles. This is a bit like slicing the orange skin into sections starting from a point at the top and another at the bottom and then unpeeling it that way, but by stretching the skin instead of cutting it. As Greenland lies close to the north pole, it gets stretched a lot at the top and so looks much bigger than it is. The same goes for Canada and Russia, which both look a lot bigger on a map than they do on a globe. The effect is less noticeable in the southern hemisphere because there s not a lot of land there: the most visible stretching is in Australia and New Zealand, and they are not as far south as the countries I have already mentioned are north. South America is also stretched but because it tapers to a point, this is not as noticeable. - Views: 25 why does africa look smaller on maps why do two dimensional maps of earth have distortions why do we call the book of maps an atlas why do they call africa the dark continent why do we call the book of maps an atlas why do navigators measure speed in knots why is an atlas called an atlas
Researchers from Harvard have developed a group of robots inspired by termites which can autonomously build structures. TERMES robots have an arm for lifting brick modules and hooked wheels for ascending the existing structure to lay the next brick. The research was lead by Radhika Nagpal and funded by the WYSS Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The robots draw inspiration from termites in that they’re able to work together to build a structure considerably larger than themselves without means of communicating with one another or direct supervision. Instead the TERMES robots have sensors for reading their surroundings and determining their next task independently like termite insects who don’t have the capacity for direct communication. In nature, an 8 foot termite mound can be formed over the space of a year by progressive generations of termites, all while the mound itself is being eroded by the wind and rain as it is being built. “The key inspiration we took from termites is the idea that you can do something really complicated as a group, without a supervisor” – Radhika Nagpal TERMES robots feature hooked wheels which due to their curved arms end up being roughly circular. This allows smooth movement while the hooked ends enable the robot to grip and climb up the existing jagged brick structure as the video above demonstrates. The robots pick up the brick modules with a forklift arm and then rest the bricks against a pad above them. This system does of course require specially designed bricks but this would be easy for brick manufacturers to accommodate. The potential uses for robots in brick laying and general construction are huge. Groups could be sent to the moon, Mars or other planets to construct bases ahead of human settlement. As for applications closer to home, divisions could be sent into uninhabited regions of Australia and the US to construct entire cities from plans with minimal human interaction. Robots could also be used for building structures in hazardous conditions when there’s risk to human life. This could mean erecting flood defences, as well as bridges and other high structures without the need for scaffolding or other safety equipment. Some are already annoyed that developments like these will be the end of brick layer’s jobs but a change over to robotic building systems would likely be gradual giving the construction industry time to adapt. The cobb builders must have been livid when brick layers came along and people no longer mourn for them. This is called progress and as a result even the most basic social housing in the UK has amenities that the likes of Louis XVI could have only dreamt of. People no longer need to work long days in the fields for their sustenance and it’s because of incremental innovations like these termite-inspired brick laying robots that standards of living improve for all. Share this Post
Countries surrounding the Indian Ocean experienced widespread devastation on 26 December 2004, following an earthquake off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra. Striking at 6:58 am local time, the earthquake was caused by a massive slip between two of the rigid plates that make up the crust of the earth (see diagram on right). With a magnitude of 9.3 on the Richter scale1, vertical movement between the Indian and Burmese plates was about 13 m (43 ft) over an incredible 1,200-km (750-mile) rupture length. Like a giant underwater paddle, the movement of the ocean floor created a tsunami2 that spread in all directions. In the open ocean a tsunami generally goes unnoticed, even though it travels as fast as a jumbo jet. But when it reaches shallower water, it slows down and increases greatly in height. Estimates are conflicting, but the death toll from the disaster was about 300,000 people, with tens of thousands missing and over a million left homeless. In terms of lives lost, this would be the worst single tsunami in modern history. The previous worst was the 1703 tsunami at Awa, Japan, that killed over 100,000 people. In Banda Aceh, the city closest to the epicentre, the tsunami arrived about 20 minutes after the earthquake was felt.3 The shaking was severe, with residents reporting being unable to walk or even squat without being knocked to the ground. Many buildings withstood the earthquake but were destroyed by the tsunami waves. In Sri Lanka, 1,600 km away, the first wave began to impact the eastern coast about 100 minutes later. A secondary wave struck approximately 20 minutes after that. Scientific reports will continue to be published on what will be one of the most devastating earthquakes this century. Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, called the tsunami ‘an unprecedented disaster both in terms of human suffering and the physical damage wrought’.4 It was certainly the largest watery disaster in recent history, but was it unprecedented? No. A catastrophe some 4,500 years ago inundated more of the globe, killed more people, destroyed more homes and left a greater trail of geologic evidence. Only eight people on the entire planet survived that disaster—Noah and his family—together with a collection of animals and birds. The 2004 tsunami gives a tiny insight into the magnitude of the largest physical disaster in earth history. The earthquake that triggered the tsunami was just one quake, albeit with a magnitude of 9.3. At any location on the coast it took only a couple of hours for the water to rush in and flow back to sea. But after the water was gone, the devastation was horrific. Some parts of the coastline were radically uplifted, some stayed submerged and others were washed away. Compare this with the disaster documented in the Bible. Noah’s Flood would have begun with massive earthquakes when the fountains of the great deep burst open (Genesis 7:11). But Noah’s Flood also involved heavy rain (Genesis 7:12) and a continual increase in sea-level (Genesis 7:17–20). The disaster was not over in an hour or two, but continued to worsen day after day for five whole months (Genesis 7:24). Imagine the situation in the countries around the Indian Ocean if a second tsunami had followed the first a couple of hours later. Then a third two hours after that. And so on. How would the people respond when they realized that the hills on which they were sheltering were slowly disappearing into the sea? Imagine the panic as each new wave eroded the land away in huge chunks. Visualise this continuing into the night, and then the whole of the next day, and then the next, for five months. There would have been no chance to mount an international rescue effort. The focus on the ground would have moved, from helping the victims, to escaping the ongoing calamity. Whole communities would have moved to higher ground at first. Then what? There would be no time to build rafts or boats, and nowhere to get food or water for six months on the open sea. The tsunami of 2004 should make us question those who claim that Noah’s Flood never could have happened. Considering that our planet is two-thirds covered with water, 11 km (7 miles) deep in places, the tsunami demonstrates how a relatively small disturbance to the earth’s crust will inundate vast areas within hours. How much more devastation would have been caused by Noah’s Flood, which involved far more than a single tsunami wave? A wall of water Onlookers are taken by surprise as the tsunami breaks across the beach with awesome fury. With a death toll in the hundreds of thousands, cities and towns around the Indian Ocean were destroyed or severely damaged by the results of this single event. The later flooding effects of Hurricane Katrina in the USA once again gave a stark and deadly reminder of the awesome power and destructive force of large volumes of water. Noah’s Flood inundated the entire earth, leaving its mark in the world’s geology with sediments up to many kilometres thick. The remains of billions of dead creatures buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the world testify to this cataclysm. Sediments and eyewitness People today try to dismiss the Bible’s history of the world because they believe the rock layers are a more reliable testimony. However, rocks cannot talk about the past. People speak for them. Is the tsunami relevant to how geologists talk about rock layers? Yes, because the tsunami had eyewitnesses. That is why, in January 2005, teams of scientists visited the devastated areas to document its geological effects.1,2 They call it ‘ground truthing’. At Nalaveli Hotel in Sri Lanka, they found 20 cm (8 inches) of sand deposited in two beds on soil, consistent with eyewitness reports of two waves. The contact between the beds is identified by a darker mineral layer. In each layer the sand grades upward from coarse to fine—a graded bed. Graded beds are typical of a wave deposit. Sometimes marine animals are scattered on the surface. The lowest bed often contains rip-up clasts3 (pieces of the underlying material ripped up by the wave). Clearly, the bed of sediment does not represent a living environment. The tsunami collected the sediment, marine animals and other material from a number of environments and deposited them together.The lighter material, such as branches, bark and wood, was deposited elsewhere. If a scientist examined the fossils in the beds of sediment and said they showed how life evolved over a long period of time he would be wrong. References and notes - The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: initial findings from Sumatra: based on survey conducted January 20–29, 2005, Sumatra international survey team, USGS (US Geological Survey), walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/sumatra05. Return to text. - The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: initial findings on tsunami sand deposits, damage and inundation in Sri Lanka : based on survey conducted January 9–15, 2005, walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/srilanka05. Return to text. - Preliminary analysis of sedimentary deposits from the June 23, 2001 Peru tsunami, walrus.wr.usgs.gov/peru2/index.html. Return to text. Survived at sea The receding waters of the tsunami dragged people out to sea, including Malawati, a 23-year-old Indonesian woman. She survived for five days, badly sunburnt and bitten by fish, by clinging to a sago palm and eating its fruit and bark. She saw sharks all around but, incredibly, none attacked her. Rizal Shahputra, a 23-year-old Indonesian from Banda Aceh drifted in the open ocean for eight days. Along with scores of other people, he clung to floating planks of wood. Dead bodies were all around. One-by-one everyone but Rizal was swallowed by the sea, including his family members. The container vessel MV Durban Bridge rescued him 160 km (100 miles) west of Aceh. Emerging sunburnt and weak from a floating raft of trees and branches, Rizal had survived on rainwater and coconuts. To stay alive at sea for eight days is exceptional. But, without anyone to rescue them, the people in Noah’s day, people who managed to cling to floating vegetation would have perished of exposure and starvation in the months that followed. Their remains would never have been found. Warnings went unheeded Waverly Person of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center said that many people could have been saved if the countries most severely affected—including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India—had had a tsunami warning system, or even tide gauges.1 A tsunami is generated at the source of the underwater earthquake and so, depending on locality, there is usually 20 minutes to two hours for people to move to higher ground. Because tsunamis are extremely rare in the Indian Ocean, people had not been taught to escape disaster by fleeing inland after they felt the tremors of an earthquake. Victor Desosa, a former merchant seaman who had experienced a tsunami in Chile, saved the village of Galbokka in Sri Lanka . When the water receded (just before the tsunami arrived) he ran around telling his neighbours to run for it. They believed him and as a result, only one of several hundred inhabitants of his village was killed. Casualty rates in nearby villages were 70% to 90%.2 This also reminds us of the days of Noah. Because a global flood had never occurred before, people did not believe it would happen. Only Noah heeded the warning and only his family was saved. The Bible anticipates that people will deliberately forget that Noah’s Flood ever took place, and therefore will be unprepared for the future final global destruction by fire coming on the earth (2 Peter 3:3–7). References and notes - USGS: warnings could have saved thousands in Asia—26 December 2004, iri.columbia.edu/~lareef/tsunami. - 2004 Sumatra earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami, EERI power point presentation, www.eeri.org/cds_publications/catalog. The power of water During the worldwide Flood of Noah’s time, massive movements in the earth’s crust would have caused huge tsunamis and destruction on a global scale. The Indonesian quakes and resulting waves would have been tiny by comparison to the events at the time of the great Flood. Billions of creatures, including dinosaurs, were killed and buried in sediments as the entire earth became flooded. Fossils frequently show creatures suddenly killed and buried. References and notes - Early estimates were magnitude 9.0 but later analysis including longer-wavelength seismograms showed it was three times larger. See; Sieh, K., Aceh—Andaman earthquake: What happened and what’s next? Nature 434(7033):573–574, 2005; Richter magnitude is a logarithmic scale, so an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 has 10 times the displacement but over 30 times the energy of one of magnitude 8.0. Return to text. - Tsunami is Japanese for harbour wave. Return to text. - The great Sumatra earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004, EERI (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute), May 2005, www.eeri.org/lfe/pdf/india_srilanka_tsunami_eeri_socsci_report.pdf. Return to text. - Press conference by Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, 31 December 2004, europa.eu.int/comm/echo/whatsnew/statement_press_31-12-2004_en.htm. Return to text.
The Peace River Lowland is a gently rolling lowland without clearly defined outer boundaries, extending east of the Rocky Mountains on both sides of the Peace River, sloping downward to the north and east. Although it is often called a "lowland," the landform region is part of the high plains of western Alberta. The higher hills in the foothills east of the Rockies in northeastern British Columbia have elevations of about 1000 m and the plain west of Lake Athabasca is about 300 m above sea level. Local landform features are illustrated by several flat-topped, erosional-remnant hills that rise a few hundred metres above the broad, gently sloping valleys. In contrast, the Peace River and its immediate tributaries are deeply entrenched about 200 m into the lowland in the western section causing significant land-transportation obstacles. However, to the east the steep-sided banks of the Peace River floodplain have decreased in height to about 70 m west of Fort Vermilion. The lowland began to drained by the Peace River and its tributaries with the melting of a vast continental ice sheet and the formation of Glacial Lake Peace between 10 000-15 000 years ago.. Most of the Peace River Lowland was covered by an aspen-poplar forest when the area was occupied by the Dane-zaa First Nation prior to European exploration and settlement in the 19th century. Spruce trees grew on the upper slopes, which were underlain by less fertile grey-wooded soils. Many of the broad valleys, particularly in the western section, had tall, prairie grass vegetation cover and were underlain by more fertile and darker-coloured soils. Agricultural settlers who moved into the Peace River Country (or Peace Country) - as this area is more commonly known - early in the 20th century tended to occupy the grassy areas where less forest had to be removed prior to cultivation. The climate of the lowland is a little more favourable for agriculture than other parts of north-central Alberta. Because the Rocky Mountains are lower west of the region than elsewhere, Pacific air masses can cross over with less modification, resulting in about 350 to 600 mm of annual precipitation, more than in east-central Alberta. However, cold air masses from the northwest may cover the area at any time, causing the average annual frost-free season to vary greatly from year to year and from place to place. An average frost-free season between 115-125 days is recorded in the agricultural area between Grande Prairie and Peace River. Fur traders penetrated this forest environment at the end of the 18th century and encouraged the Native people to trap for furs. Fur-trading posts such as Fort Vermilion (1788), Dunvegan (1805) (see Historic Dunvegan) and Fort St. John (1806) were opened throughout the area. The traders and subsequent missionaries grew gardens, and by the early 1900s, Sheridan Lawrence was operating a large farm and ranch near Fort Vermilion. Encouraged by this, pioneer agricultural settlers began to arrive in the southern lowland as part of the general settling of the northern fringes of the prairies and parklands of the Canadian Interior Plains. Settlement accelerated after a Dominion Land Office was opened at Grouard in 1909, and surveyors began to subdivide the prairie lands into quarter-sections for homesteading. In 1915 the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway reached High Prairie at the eastern edge of the region, and arrived at Grande Prairie and Peace River in 1916. The settlers found a physical environment that compared favourably with that of the southern Canadian prairies. Despite high grain yields, the settlers were hampered by distant markets. Mixed farmland in the area now totals 25 000 km2 in Alberta and 9000 km2 in British Columbia. Much of the area remains under forest cover, some of which is being used for lumber and pulpwood, especially on the fringe areas. Underground resources of petroleum and natural gas are being more widely explored and exploited.
Lung Cancer and the Environment Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Lung cancer forms in the tissue of the lung, usually in the cells lining the air passages. Cigarette smoking is the single most crucial risk factor for, and leading cause of, lung cancer. Exposure to radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has identified the following substances as lung cancer-causing agents: - Bischloromethlyl ether - Polycyclic aromatic compounds - Vinyl chloride. A history of certain lung diseases also increases the risk for lung cancer. Diets low in fruits and vegetables might increase the risk of lung cancer in persons who smoke. Environmental tobacco smoke (also called secondhand smoke) is a well-established cause of lung cancer. Air pollution and diesel exhaust have also been shown to have a slight increase in lung cancer morbidity and/or mortality. However, the impact of outdoor air pollution on lung cancer needs further study. Exposure and Risk Cigarette smoking is the most common cause of lung cancer. It remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Even for nonsmokers, exposure to environmental tobacco smoke increases the risk for lung cancer. The 2006 Surgeon General's Report says the evidence suggests that secondhand smoke exposure can cause lung cancer in lifetime nonsmokers, regardless of where the exposure occurs (e.g., home, work, restaurants). Every year, about 3,000 nonsmokers in the United States die from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke. There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure. Studies also indicate that exposure to certain chemicals may increase the risk for lung cancer, especially among smokers. These chemicals include: - substances used or produced in foundries, and - substances produced by processing coal. Radon exposure is the second leading cause of lung cancer after tobacco smoke. Radon is a naturally occurring, colorless, odorless, tasteless, radioactive gas that can be found throughout the United States. It can infiltrate homes, offices, and schools and cause high indoor radon levels. The greatest exposure likely occurs in homes where most personal time is spent. Not smoking is the most effective way to reduce the risk for lung cancer. Limiting exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and testing homes for radon also reduce the risk for lung cancer. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables may also decrease risk, as well as help prevent other diseases. Also, workers in high risk jobs should follow appropriate health and safety rules, like wearing protective equipment. This symbol means you are leaving the CDC.gov Web site. For more information, please see CDC's Exit Notification and Disclaimer policy. Copyrighted images: Images on this website which are copyrighted were used with permission of the copyright holder and are not in the public domain. CDC has licensed these images for use in the materials provided on this website, and the materials in the form presented on this website may be used without seeking further permission. Any other use of copyrighted images requires permission from the copyright holder.
The most common natural method of concentration of gold is through the ancient action of hot fluid inside the Earth's crust. (Fluids deep in the crust are heated by the Earth's internal heat. As they move towards the surface they cool down.) The fluids moved through the rocks over a large area and "dissolved" the gold. When these fluids cooled or reacted with other rocks the dissolved gold precipitated (came out of the fluid) in cracks or fractures forming veins. If the fluids move over a large enough area, and dissolve the gold for a long enough period of time, gold can be concentrated in amounts in the parts per thousand or even greater. As well as gold, the fluids carried other dissolved minerals, such as quartz. This is why gold is often found with quartz. These are known as primary gold deposits and to extract the gold the rock containing the veins of gold has to be dug up (mined), crushed and processed. In Australia this concentration of gold took place in the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago in the eastern states, and thousands of millions of years ago in Western Australia. The rocks containing the gold veins have now been exposed on the surface and are eroding away. The gold that these rocks contained has been washed down into creeks to form alluvial gold deposits. Here, the gold is further concentrated by the action of water. Because gold is heavier than most of the material moved by a creek or river, it can become concentrated in hollows and trapped in the bed of the river. These are known as secondary gold deposits and they can be worked using a gold pan, cradle.
A service provider that enables data access on demand to users regardless of their geographic location. Also called Data as a Service (DaaS), data services are similar to Software as a Service (SaaS) in that the information is stored in the cloud and is accessible by a wide range of systems and devices. Data services can eliminate redundancy and streamline costs by housing critical data in one location, enabling the data to be accessed and/or updated by multiple users while ensuring a single point for updates. Potential drawbacks to data services include server downtime from the data service provider, data loss in the event of a disaster, and the security of the data, both in its stored location and in the transmission of the data among users. - data set (1) A named collection of data in an IBM mainframe operating system. A data set in an IBM mainframe is the equivalent of a file in other operating systems, such as Mac OS, Windows and UNIX, for PCs. (2) A deprecated term for modem. - Data Structure In programming, the term data structure refers to a scheme for organizing related pieces of information. The basic types of data structures include: files lists arrays records trees tables Each of these basic structures has many variations and allows different operations to be performed on the data. - Data Synchronization Data synchronization technologies are designed to synchronize a single set of data between two or more devices, automatically copying changes back and forth. For example, a user’s contact list on one mobile device can be synchronized with other mobile devices or computers. Data synchronization can be local synchronization where the device and computer are side-by-side […] - Data Transfer Rate The speed with which data can be transmitted from one device to another. Data rates are often measured in megabits (million bits) or megabytes (million bytes) per second. These are usually abbreviated as Mbps and MBps,respectively. Another term for data transfer rate is throughput. - Data Type In programming, classification of a particular type of information. It is easy for humans to distinguish between different types of data. We can usually tell at a glance whether a number is a percentage, a time, or an amount of money. We do this through special symbols — %, :, and $ — that indicate […]
Growth Hormone Deficiency Definition Growth hormone deficiency involves abnormally short stature with normal body proportions. Growth hormone deficiency can be categorized as either congenital (present at birth) or acquired. Growth hormone is also indicated in small for gestation age patients, Turner’s syndrome, chronic renal insufficiency, idiopathic short statue, Prader-Willi and Noonan’s syndrome, SHOX deficiency, as well as adult growth hormone deficiency Causes, incidence, and risk factors An abnormally short height or very slow growth rate (less than 5 cm/yr) in childhood may occur if the pituitary gland does not produce enough growth hormone . It can be caused by a variety of genetic mutations (such as Pit-1 gene, Prop-1 gene, growth hormone receptor gene, growth hormone gene), absence of the pituitary gland, or severe brain injury, but in many cases, no underlying cause of the deficiency is found. Growth retardation may become evident in infancy and persist throughout childhood. The child’s “growth curve,” which is usually plotted on a standardized growth chart by the pediatrician or primary care provider, may range from flat (no growth) to very shallow (minimal growth). Normal puberty may or may not occur, depending on the degree to which the pituitary can produce adequate hormone levels other than growth hormone. Growth hormone deficiency may be associated with deficiencies of other hormones, including the following: - Thyrotropins (control production of thyroid hormones) - Vasopressin (controls water balance in the body) - Gonadotropins (control production of male and female sex hormones) ACTH or adrenocorticotrophic hormone (controls the adrenal gland and its production of cortisol, DHEA, and other hormones) Physical defects of the face and skull can also be associated with abnormalities of the pituitary or pituitary function. A small percentage of infants with cleft lip and cleft palate have decreased growth hormone levels. - Slowed or absent increase in height - Slow growth velocity – less than 2 inches per year between age 2 and puberty - Short stature — below 5th percentile on a standardized growth chart, an adult less than 5 feet tall - Absent or delayed sexual development in an adolescent Signs and Tests A physical examination including weight, height, and body proportions will show signs of slowed growth rate and deviation from normal growth curves. Tests include the following: - A determination of bone age from hand x-ray is often recommended. - Measurement of growth hormone and associated binding protein levels (IGF-I and IGFBP-3) confirms that the disorder is caused by dysfunction of the pituitary gland. - Other hormone levels should be determined, as lack of growth hormone may not be an isolated problem. - An x-ray may show skull abnormalities such as small, enlarged, or empty sella or a space-occupying lesion. - An MRI scan of the head may be ordered to visualize the hypothalamus and pituitary glands. Synthetic growth hormone can be used for children with growth hormone deficiency. This treatment requires the assistance of a pediatric endocrinologist. Treatment with synthetic (recombinant) human growth hormone is generally considered to be safe, with rare side effects. If the deficiency is an isolated growth hormone deficiency, synthetic growth hormone is given alone. If the deficiency is not isolated, other hormone replacement preparations will be required as well. IGF1 or Increlex therapy is indicated for severe IGF1 deficiency. Calling your Health Provider Call your health care provider if your child seems abnormally short for his or her age. 21st Century Pharmacy 21st Century Pharmacy is your neighborhood drugstore ready to serve your medication and medical equipment needs. We invite you to shop at our pharmacy that is conveniently located for pick-up of prescriptions or for your health care supply needs.
On August 18, 2016, the United Nations Working Group on Experts of People of African Descent determined that the history of Black people’s enslavement in the United States justifies reparations for centuries of forced labor and racial terror. According to the Working Group, reparations could come in a variety of forms including an apology, health initiatives, debt cancellation, and financial support. Conterminously, Duke University economics professor William Darity has determined that monetary reparations for African Americans in the twenty-first century would amount to 1-6 trillion dollars One-hundred and fifty-two years ago, reparations for Black Americans were tepidly attempted by the federal government on January 16, 1865. After completing his march to the Georgia coast, General William T. Sherman issued Gen. Field Order No. 15, which reserved the Sea Islands and abandoned inland rice fields in coastal South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida for the ownership and occupancy of formerly enslaved Black Americans. Under Sherman’s order, Black men and women, who were heads of their household, received from five to forty acres of “abandoned land.” The Freedmen’s Bureau, established in March 1865, was charged with ensuring that these provisions were implemented. When President Andrew Johnson reversed the Order in early Spring 1865, formerly enslaved Black Americans in Georgia and other parts of the South still held on to the belief that the federal government would eventually honor their word and provide them forty acres of land and a mule as some sort of quantifiable and measurable compensation for enduring the oppression of American enslavement. The promise of forty acres and a mule died slow for former slaves and became embedded in the historical memory of their descendants through stories passed down within the Black community. In her early assessment of land redistribution and Black wealth, Lawanda Cox contends that land distribution would have had a negligible effect on alleviating African American poverty. However, Paul Cimbala has implied that only confiscation and land distribution would have guaranteed the freedom and well-being of former slaves. Historians must move beyond counterfactual analysis by examining the community-building actions African Americans initiated to secured land and achieve intra-racial autonomy in the absence of federal programs and lost opportunities. Federal land policies did fail; and opportunities to advance the material well-being of former slaves were lost; how then can historians reconceptualize the story of African American freedom? Local analyses that consider temporal and spatial distinctions provide the clearest window through which we can understand the achievements and aspirations of African Americans. Moreover, local histories of Black communities provide greater insights into the ways in which formerly enslaved men and women achieved economic and social freedom in spite of not receiving their promised forty acres. African Americans who received land under Sherman’s Field Order and who formed the all Black town of Burroughs, Georgia illustrate the ways in which Black people claimed their freedom in the absence of federal land policies. As economic and social oppression intensified in the late nineteenth century, the Burroughs community made a strong bid for their economic and social independence within the protective intra-racial confines of an all-Black community. In challenging their marginal status and building political coalitions in response to state disfranchisement, the community became the only incorporated Black town in Georgia in 1898. The town’s community building initiatives included the establishment of churches, businesses, Masonic lodges, and mutual aid and benevolent associations. Although Burroughs was a farming community, its population included skilled trades people and artisans. There were as many as 200 similarly self-sufficient intra-racial Black American towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As Eric Foner aptly concludes, the autonomy offered by land ownership, which provided the foundation for these communities, was “defensive rather than the springboard for sustained economic advancement.” 1 Land ownership shielded African Americans from the worst aspects of economic exploitation, however, the prospects for sustained economic development were limited without access to capital and credit. Andrew Johnson’s abrogation of the promise of “forty acres and a mule” inured African Americans to seek other means to secure land and economic independence in the South. The residents of Burroughs, Georgia accumulated the resources to purchase land and other forms of property through the region’s rural-urban economy. In some cases, pre-Civil War opportunities to accumulate cash and property had existed which placed freed men and women in a better position to acquire land. The formation of the town of Burroughs represented the apogee of African American resistance to political, economic, and social injustice. The town’s Charter of Incorporation in 1898 advanced the turn of the century principles of self-help, moral uplift, and racial solidarity through its governing body. Both the struggle and acquisition of land knit families and communities together. Some families had enough resources to pool them together passing on acquired land from one generation to the next. Few other rural communities in Georgia or elsewhere in the South enjoyed such amenities. In most plantation areas, sharecroppers had comparatively little control over their labor, their dwellings, or the future. During the first decade of the twentieth century, renowned historian, sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois traveled extensively to assess the historical and contemporary problems facing African Americans. He surveyed Dougherty County, which encompasses Albany, Georgia, and published his findings in The Souls of Black Folk; and he studied Black land ownership in coastal Georgia for the U.S. Labor Department in 1901. These two research reports illuminate some regional experiences of African Americans in the post-Civil War South and Reconstruction’s legacy. With a population of one million, Georgia was home to more Black Americans than any other state at the turn of the twentieth century. For Du Bois, one needed to only travel to Dougherty County to understand the race question in America. It was here that 80 percent of the Black population worked the same land they had once worked as slaves; where 66 percent of the Black population remained illiterate; and where slavery continued under a new form of capitalism. Conversely, in coastal Georgia, according to DuBois, freed men and women united and purchased land, holding 56,000 acres by 1909. 2 Nearly a decade earlier, Booker T. Washington in his “Atlanta Compromise” speech articulated a philosophy of separation and accommodation as the best strategy for Black advancement, which influenced the Black town movement in the South. The most prominent Black American town influenced by Booker T. Washington was Mound Bayou in the Mississippi Delta. Mound Bayou existed as an imperium in imperio a sovereignty within a sovereignty, which embraced the principles of economic advancement, racial solidarity, and self-help. In this context, the approaches used by historians to examine the economic plight of African Americans in the postwar South fall into four categories: economic politics, market analysis, racial exploitation and more recently property ownership. In the context of market analysis, Stephen DeCanio’s Agriculture in the Postbellum South and Robert Higgs, Competition and Coercion contend that despite violence and intimidation from native white southerners, African Americans made strident economic gains. “Their initial per capita income rose by 2.7 percent and their housing, diet, living standards, and material wealth rose significantly. Moreover, their real property ownership also increased.” 3 Comparatively, Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch developed a more cautious model of analysis. In their study One Kind of Freedom, Ransom and Sutch argue that the gains made by African Americans should be measured against the reality that they were “under constant attack by a dominant white society determined to preserve racial inequalities.” They argue further that “the economic institutions established in the postwar South effectively operated to keep former slaves as a landless agricultural labor force.” 4 The theme of racial exploitation is a topic expanded upon by scholars Johnathan Wiener and Jay R. Mandle. Labor historian William Cohen also views the post-emancipation era as exploitative in that it created a new kind of slavery through the sharecropping system, the institutionalization of the crop-lien system, convict-leasing, and the monopoly held by planters. While there is some truth to the interpretations of each of these scholars, they do not represent the full spectrum of the lived experiences of African Americans in the post-emancipation period. Loren Schweninger has argued that understanding Black economic reconstruction requires a systematic analysis of Black property ownership in the South before, during, and after the Civil War. In his seminal study Black Property Owners in the South, Schweninger demonstrates through state by state analysis the divergence in the African American experience and the diversity of regional growth and development in the Lower South. He cogently demonstrates that even in the hostile climate of the late nineteenth century, former slaves were able to achieve property owning status. The development of African American towns in the South represented a significant counterpoint in the story of African American freedom at the turn of the twentieth century. The existence of African American towns in the South depended on the extent to which African Americans could acquire land, exert control over their economic resources, and live free from land seizures by white southerners. It was not easy. In 1923, the majority Black town of Rosewood, Florida was destroyed by white mobs after a white woman falsely accused a Black male of assaulting her. In 1994, the Florida legislature passed a bill providing $150,000 in reparations to the Rosewood victims for loss of property. The Rosewood bill was the nation’s first compensation bill for African Americans who suffered racial injustice. African Americans managed to accumulate 15 million acres of land by dint of their own initiative during the post-emancipation years. Reparations are over a century overdue and the political prospects are dim for translating “forty acres and a mule” into tangible compensation for a history of slavery and racial terror. - Foner, Eric, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, (New York: Harper and Row, 1988) 109. ↩ - DuBois, W.E.B., “Georgia Negroes and Their Fifty Million of Savings,” The World’s Work 18 (May 1909): 11552; DuBois, “The Negro Landholder of Georgia,” Department of Labor Bulletin no. 35 (July 1901): 735. ↩ - Anderson, Eric and Alfred Moss, Jr., The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991)172. ↩ - Ibid. Ransom, Roger L. and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977) 198. ↩
As 2020 draws to a close, NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30 years of service by releasing 30 newly processed images of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae from the Caldwell catalogue, compiled by Sir Patrick Moore, a collection of 109 amateur-accessible targets not included in Charles Messier’s familiar list. Over Hubble’s three decades in space, starting with launch in April 1990, astronomers have observed 98 of the objects on the Caldwell list and the updated catalogue now includes processed images of 87 (several targets were imaged more than once). The new composite image below is a closeup of Caldwell 45, or NGC 5248, a beautiful spiral galaxy in the constellation Boötes, that was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. The glowing red clouds indicate regions where new stars are lighting up. Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories have performed an accurate census of the number of galaxies in the universe. The researchers came to the surprising conclusion that the observable universe contains at least two trillion galaxies. The results also help solve an ancient astronomical paradox — why is the sky dark at night?
Finding Earth's Age and Other Developments in Geochronology Finding Earth's Age and Other Developments in Geochronology The discovery of radioactivity and radioactive decay has helped to solve many problems that have plagued geologist for centuries, especially the question of absolute ages of rocks, fossils, and Earth itself. These answers have provided a more rigorous science of geology and have given scientists in a large variety of fields firm data upon which to base their studies and hypotheses. In addition, by giving a scientifically unassailable age for Earth, isotopic methods have been used by many to argue against a literal interpretation of the Bible, and it is not uncommon for practitioners of this science to be called upon to testify in legal cases involving the teaching of evolution or variants of creationism. For uncounted centuries, man either had no idea of the age of Earth or, based on a literal reading of religious works, felt Earth to have been created not more than a few thousand years ago. During the nineteenth century, as geologists gained a better understanding of geologic processes, most scientists became certain of Earth's antiquity, but still lacked any real knowledge as to what that meant. Estimates of Earth's age ranged from a few million years to many billions of years, all based on different methods of age determination. One of the driving factors behind efforts to determine this age was the introduction of (and controversy surrounding) evolutionary theory. Evolution required vast amounts of time for species to gradually form, die off, or transform one into another. The incredible variety of life found in the fossil record simply could not occur in an Earth of only a few million, or even a few tens of millions of years old. If Earth could be shown to be old, but "only" a few million years old, evolution might yet be shown false, and man might retain a special place in creation. The single most influential estimate of Earth's age was put forth by Lord Kelvin, William Thomson (1824-1907), the preeminent physicist of his day. Kelvin's estimates were all based to some extent on the amount of time it would take Earth to cool from an initially molten state to its current temperature. They ranged from a few tens of millions of years to nearly half a billion years. Because of Kelvin's prestige, few dared to challenge his calculations or the premise upon which they were based, even when it became apparent that Earth was, instead, much older. In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen (1845-1923) discovered x rays, and, in the following year, Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) discovered radioactivity in uranium. In the next few years, uranium was discovered to be present in trace amounts in virtually all rocks and soils on Earth. It was also quickly discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie (1867-1934 and 1859-1906) and others that uranium decays through a long series of radioactive elements to finally become lead, which is not radioactive. These radioactive intermediary nuclides include radium, radon, and thorium, all of which occur naturally. Work by, among others, Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) and Frederick Soddy (1877-1956) showed that heat was released during radioactive decay while Bertram Boltwood (1870-1927) noticed that all minerals containing uranium also contained lead and helium. These last two discoveries were of particular importance. If radioactive decay released heat, then this meant that the premise upon which all of Kelvin's calculations were based was incorrect because Earth would be cooling at a slower rate than otherwise. In addition, the invariable correlation between uranium, lead, and helium meant that uranium likely turned into helium and lead through radioactive decay. Since Rutherford had shown that the rate of radioactive decay changes predictably over time, this gave a way to construct a "clock" for determining the age of rocks. One of the first such age estimates, about 500 million years, was made by Rutherford and was based on the ratio of helium to uranium. Helium is given off during the decay of heavy elements in the form of alpha particles, which are simply the nuclei of helium atoms emitted from heavy, radioactive elements. However, Rutherford soon found his calculations to be in error because of the many alpha-emitting nuclides present in the uranium decay chains and because helium atoms escape mineral crystals with relative ease. It turned out that lead was a far better "end-point" to use for this dating. By the 1940s age estimates were converging on the current figure of 4.6 billion years of age for Earth. Later work dating meteorites indicated the solar system to be slightly older and, when the Apollo program returned with lunar rocks, we found that the Moon is a few hundred years younger. Over the next few decades, increasingly sophisticated isotopic dating methods were developed that used a variety of radioactive elements. Some of the more widely used of these are the rubidium-strontium method, the potassiumargon and argon-argon methods, but a number of other geochronometers have been developed for specific purposes. For example, examination of isotopes of iodine and xenon in meteorites tells us about the conditions leading to the formation of the solar system, while analyzing the ratio of neodymium and samarium isotopes can help us trace the geochemical history of mountain ranges. Today, the field of isotope geology and geochronology is far more advanced than in 1907. Geochemists routinely use mass spectroscopy equipment, including the latest advance, the tandem accelerator mass spectrometer (TAMS), to analyze isotope with an amazing degree of precision and accuracy. Since its inception, isotopic methods have had a profound impact in the scientific fields of geology, paleontology, evolutionary theory, biology, botany, and (using carbon-14 methods) in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and history. In addition, by providing a solid and scientific basis for determining the age of Earth and its inhabitants, isotope geology has also resolved the debate over the origin of Earth for all but a handful of biblical literalists. The chief scientific impact of isotopic dating methods has been to give an absolute timetable for events on Earth. The importance of this can scarcely be overstated. Do you want to know how long dinosaurs dominated Earth? Find the rocks with the first dinosaur fossils and the last fossils and date them. In a few days, you'll have a firm date telling you that they reigned for over 150 million years. How about determining when oxygen first appeared in the atmosphere? In this case, find the oldest rocks that can form only under conditions of low oxygen—their age tells you the last date the atmosphere could have been oxygendeficient. Geologic dating has told us how quickly life can evolve, exactly when the dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites, and other fossil species went extinct, when life first colonized the land, when the Gondwana supercontinent last broke up, when the Moon formed, and much more. Having this information is interesting from the standpoint of sheer intellectual curiosity. However, it is also important because it can give us some sort of framework upon which to hang our concept of geologic and evolutionary time. Imagine trying to go to class if you can only say with certainty that social studies comes sometime after home room but before gym and that you go home sometime after track practice, which comes after lunch and before dinner. Without a clock, we might know what happened on the early Earth, but we have no idea of how fast it might have happened or what might have happened at the same time in various parts of Earth. We can construct a history of Earth based only on relative dates (that is, what happened before what); it just isn't very interesting or very informative. Virtually every historical science depends to some greater or lesser extent on isotopic methods of dating past events, and those dating methods have given us, in effect, Earth's clock and calendar. In the social realm, isotopic dating methods have proven to be of some intrinsic interest as well as providing scientists with an outstanding tool to use in debates against those who believe in a literal interpretation of religious documents. The intrinsic interest of non-scientists in geologic dating has a great deal to do with the general interest that most people have in trying to better understand our world. As shown by the continuing popularity of natural history museums, newspaper and other media articles on scientific topics, and the popularity of books explaining science, a large portion of the population has some interest in learning more about the world in which they live. A large part of that understanding, as with scientists, is in finding out when significant events took place, even if the time scale is almost incomprehensible in magnitude. This is especially true regarding research on our own origins. However, it is likely that the most significant social impact of isotopic dating lies in its utility in the perennial debate over the origin of Earth and its inhabitants. So potent an argument, in fact, that virtually every court case involving the teaching of evolution versus creationism (or variants such as "scientific" creationism) at some point sees testimony by a prominent isotope geologist who explains the science behind isotopic dating methods and their results. P. ANDREW KARAM Dalrymple, G. Brent. The Age of the Earth. Stanford University Press, 1991. Faure, Gunter. Principles of Isotope Geology. John Wiley & Sons, 1986. Hallam, A. Great Geological Controversies. Oxford Science Publications, 1989. Hellman, Hal. Great Feuds in Science. John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
If you missed this month’s Walk With a Doc event, you don’t need to miss the talk that went with it. Vital information in regard to the California measles outbreak was offered by Dr. Jeff Penso, noted local pediatrician. Anyone who has not been vaccinated is at risk of getting measles. Early measles symptoms include high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes. 90 percent of people who are not immune to measles will contract the disease if exposed. Two doses of the measles vaccine are considered 99 percent effective in protecting against the disease. Last December, some visitors to “the happiest place on earth” left California’s Disneyland theme park with a souvenir they didn’t plan for — measles, also known as rubeola. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 102 cases of the airborne illness this year, and that number continues to rise. But even before the theme-park outbreak, 2014 was a record year for measles cases in the United States with 644 cases recorded in 27 states. During a recent CDC telebriefing on the outbreak, Anne Schuchat, MD, assistant surgeon general of the United States Public Health Service, said that each year about 20 million people get measles worldwide. Dr. Schuchat recommends that children, unless immunocompromised, get vaccinated and adults check with their doctor if they’re unsure about their status. The increase in U.S. measles cases is alarming, not only because the disease is highly contagious, but also because it can have serious complications. Here are 10 essential facts you need to know about measles: 1. Measles is highly contagious. The measles virus lives in the nose and throat mucus of an infected person, and can be spread through sneezing and coughing. The virus can remain active and contagious on a surface where the infected person sneezed or coughed for up to two hours. Transmission can begin four days before symptoms appear, and measles is so contagious that 90 percent of exposed people who are not immune will become infected, according to the CDC. 2. Early measles symptoms look like flu symptoms. Seven to 14 days after the person is infected, her symptoms will begin to develop: high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes. Two to three days after these symptoms appear, tiny white spots called Koplik might appear inside the mouth, according to the CDC. Three to five days after the initial symptoms, the red-spotted rash characteristic of measles breaks out, and the fever spikes. The rash and fever usually subside within a few days. 3. Measles can lead to severe complications. For every 1,000 people with measles, 1 to 3 will suffer from severe complications, some of which include pneumonia and swelling of the brain (encephalitis). These complications can lead to death. 4. There is no treatment for measles. Because measles is caused by a virus, there is no specific treatment. However, taking Vitamin A might make the illness milder, says Stephen Pelton, MD, chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Boston Medical Center. 5. The measles vaccine is highly effective. The current measles vaccine has led to a 99 percent reduction in measles cases compared to the pre-vaccine era. Before the vaccine was licensed in 1963, the CDC estimated 3 to 4 million measles cases occurred each year in the United States, with 500 deaths. By the 21st century, the number shrunk to 86 cases with no deaths. The measles vaccine is included in MMR, a combination vaccine that protects against measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles). 6. You probably won’t get infected if you’ve been vaccinated, and the risk is even lower if you’ve received both recommended doses. The first dose of the measles vaccine is usually given to infants aged 12 to 15 months, but it’s never too late to get vaccinated, even as an adult, says Johanna Goldfarb, MD, at the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital. The second dose can be given four weeks after the first, but is usually administered between the ages of 4 and 6 years, which is before a child typically starts kindergarten. The vaccine is considered to be 99 percent effective for people who have received both doses, compared to 95 percent for one dose. 7. Because of a thoroughly discredited report, many parents are wary of vaccinating their children. In 1998, British medical researcher Andrew Wakefield published a study in The Lancet claiming that the MMR vaccination caused children to show signs of “regressive autism.” The Lancet retracted the study in 2010, but the stigma against the MMR shot remains. “For the children who can’t get this vaccine to be protected, everyone else has to get vaccinated,” Dr. Goldfarb says. “It’s selfish of parents not to vaccinate their children based on bogus information.” 8. The Disneyland measles outbreak is related to the anti-vaccination movement. “Individual cases are not a result of the anti-vaccine movement. However, large outbreaks are always due to having a population of undervaccinated children who are then exposed,” Dr. Pelton says. Children, many of whom are unvaccinated immigrants, as well as people who travel to infected areas and become exposed, often bring the disease into the United States. Secondary cases occur in people who have not been vaccinated or are among the estimated 5 percent of people who don’t respond to a single dose of MMR. 9. Measles isn’t the only disease that’s spreading due to decreased vaccination rates. The vaccine for mumps is less effective than for measles and rubella. In addition to measles outbreaks, Pelton says, there have been large mumps outbreaks, including one reported this winter in NHL players. There are also pertussis (whooping cough) outbreaks nationwide due both to limited vaccine effectiveness and refusal to be vaccinated. 10. Measles could be eliminated completely. In the month of January, 14 states reported measles cases. However, health officials worldwide believe measles can be completely eradicated. All six member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) are committed to eliminating measles worldwide by the year 2020. “This is absolutely a realistic goal,” Goldfarb says. “This is a disease that could be eliminated worldwide if people vaccinated their children.” Walk With a Doc meets on the third Saturday of every month at Veterans Park at 8:45 am. A brief talk on health issues is followed by a brisk warm-up is led by Brandon Webb of the Culver Palms YMCA, and then an hour long walk through Culver City at an easy pace.
Big cats require big home ranges. In February 2016, a young male Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) walked from Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in western Thailand to Kayin state in Myanmar. After crossing mountains, rivers, roads and national borders over the course of its 170-kilometer (105-mile) journey, he ventured out of the forest into a wetland, where he was shot dead following conflict with people. The tragic tiger’s journey highlights how the arbitrary lines of national borders are nonexistent for wildlife. It also underscores that the fate of wildlife in the region ultimately depends on conservation actions on both sides of the border: in Thailand, where remaining tracts of natural forest are safeguarded through formalized protected areas; and in Myanmar, where a history of armed conflict and contested land rights have left many forested areas vulnerable and unprotected, and where a Feb. 1 military coup threw conservation plans further into question. Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, where the tiger’s ill-fated journey began, is part of Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM), a 1.87-million-hectare (4.62-million-acre) network of 17 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries that borders Myanmar. The complex harbors Southeast Asia’s largest breeding population of tigers as well as six other cat species, including Indochinese leopards (Panthera pardus delacouri) and clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa). It is a critical stronghold for big cats, from which individuals can disperse to replenish threatened populations in neighboring regions. Conservationists now recognize that large, wide-ranging species need more than isolated protected areas to maintain genetically viable breeding populations. Species like tigers require connected networks of safe forests that allow them to move and disperse across landscapes, maximizing populations’ genetic diversity and adaptability to climate change and other ecological disturbances. In other words, the long-term survival of tigers and other big cat species in Thailand and Myanmar depends on their ability to travel safely outside of breeding strongholds like WEFCOM. WEFCOM lies within a much larger forested ecoregion called the Dawna Tenasserim Landscape (DTL), which encompasses 18 million hectares (44.5 million acres) between Thailand and Myanmar. It is the intersection of four different biogeographic zones and consequently supports rich species diversity. According to WWF, six of the seven cat species present in WEFCOM were recorded in the Myanmar part of the DTL during mid-2019 camera-trapping studies. Maintaining forest connectivity throughout the DTL is a now primary conservation focus in the region. However, the remaining intact forests in the DTL are spread out on both sides of the border, and potential corridors that zigzag between them are being eroded by piecemeal infrastructure projects and land clearance for agriculture. Big cats also face the ever-present threat of poaching for the illegal wildlife trade and prey depletion by human hunting. According to Tim Redford, program director at Freeland, an NGO that has been studying big cats in the region for more than two decades, “the biodiversity of the Dawna Tenasserim Landscape is absolutely incredible.” He says that since tigers require vast expanses of intact forest, measures taken to protect tigers would also benefit countless other species. “The Indochinese tiger has been declining rapidly, having been lost in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam over the last couple of years or so,” Redford says. The Myanmar tiger population is vulnerable, and action is needed now to ensure that it doesn’t go extinct there too. Figures released by the Myanmar government in 2019 estimate the number of remaining tigers at 22 individuals, based on surveys in just 8% of potential tiger habitat across the country. Even though this figure is likely an underestimate of the total population, experts agree that the situation for Myanmar’s tigers is precarious. “In parts of Myanmar with no current breeding evidence of tigers, populations are on a knife-edge,” says Demelza Stokes, project manager at Wildlife Asia, an Australian NGO that coordinates the Karen Wildlife Conservation Initiative (KWCI). “If important forest corridors get severed, then the chances of tigers rebounding in these areas will plummet.” Dispersal from strongholds Work is now underway to understand and address the factors that limit the size of big cat populations and their dispersal out of strongholds like WEFCOM. A recent study in the Journal for Nature Conservation reported that tiger prey species — large wild ungulates such as sambar deer (Rusa unicolor) and banteng (Bos javanicus) and gaur (Bos gaurus) wild cattle — have been depleted by poaching and habitat fragmentation in WEFCOM. Occupancy models showed that gaur and sambar are present in just 28% and 50% of suitable habitat respectively, and banteng, in line with trends across Southeast Asia, have been extirpated from all areas outside of Huai Kha Khaeng World Heritage Site. The study suggests that even in areas of WEFCOM with well-protected intact forest, the tiger population can grow no further due to lack of prey. To boost big cat prey populations within WEFCOM, local NGOs are engaging communities to alleviate pressures on large ungulates, and the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) is piloting the reintroduction of banteng in several wildlife reserves. Poaching of big cats in Thailand’s protected areas is comparatively rare, according to Regan Pairojmahakij, Dawna Tenasserim transboundary landscape manager at WWF. She attributes this to the SMART patrol efforts of the DNP. “Thailand has done an excellent job with protected area complexes which allow the scope of land required for maintaining populations of big cats,” she says. Nonetheless, outside of Thailand’s formal protected areas, land has been widely converted from natural forest to agriculture, infrastructure and residences. Therefore, crucial habitat corridors between protected area complexes are fragmented, impeding dispersal of big cats out of breeding strongholds like WEFCOM into other intact forests. This can result in under-population of prime forest habitats. For example, Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex, home to Thailand’s largest national park, has very few tigers despite being just 75 km (47 mi) south of WEFCOM. Such intense land use outside of protected areas in Thailand means efforts to preserve forest connectivity can only go so far. In some cases, remaining safe forest corridors traverse the international border into Myanmar. A study published in Global Ecology and Conservation in December 2020 found that clouded leopard strongholds in Thailand’s protected areas — the Western Forest Complex, Kaeng Krachan National Park, and Khlong Saeng-Khao Sok Forest Complex — are only connected to one another via vulnerable forest corridors on the Myanmar side of the border. According to the authors, urgent action is required to improve Myanmar’s protected area networks so that such wildlife corridors are preserved. However, intact forest landscapes in Myanmar are disintegrating under the pressure of a development boom. Conservationists are particularly concerned about a slew of pipelines and roads, some of which are transboundary, that threaten to carve up the landscape. A primary concern is construction of a 138-km (86-mi) highway to link the special economic zone in southeast Myanmar’s port city of Dawei with southwest Thailand. The highway will bisect the important ecological corridor that connects WEFCOM with big cat habitats to the south, including Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex. “[The highway] will form a solid linear barrier that will be impossible for wildlife to cross,” says Redford from Freeland. “Gradually over the next two to three years as these roads are built, there will be just chunks of the Dawna Tenasserim left, and it’s well documented how fragmentation hastens extinction.” A 2019 report from WWF underscores what is at stake if the Dawei road bisects the ecological corridor without paying heed to mitigation measures. Camera-trap surveys recorded less wildlife near the highway route, where access road construction has begun, and picked up more encounters with hunters and dogs. The report suggests that “the road is likely to facilitate illegal hunting of wildlife by improving access to high-quality forest habitat.” According to WWF, prior work that outlined key wildlife crossing sites along the highway route to guide planning and mitigation measures has been incorporated into the road design. It remains to be seen whether the measures will be implemented. Forest corridors along the Myanmar-Thailand border are also rapidly being eroded by corn farming. “What we are seeing increasingly is the loss of connectivity between key tiger heartlands on either side of the border as maize production fragments these zones,” Pairojmahakij says. “Often it is core forest that is being lost.” Forests need better protection The need for effective forest protection in Myanmar is clear. Not only are the threats to long-term survival of big cat populations transboundary in nature, but dispersal routes into the DTL and between Thailand’s protected areas depend on forest continuity on both sides of the border. Nonetheless, while Thailand’s national forest policy calls for restoration — at least on paper — deforestation continues in Myanmar at one of the highest rates in Southeast Asia. Myanmar had around 40.1 million hectares (99 million acres) of natural forest in 2010, occupying 61% of its land area, according to Global Forest Watch. Between 2002 and 2019, more than 577,000 hectares (1.4 million acres) of primary forest were lost, primarily due to agriculture, logging and other human activities. This represents a 4% decrease in primary forest cover in 18 years. The protected area system in Myanmar lags behind those of neighboring countries. This is largely attributable to reduced institutional capacity following decades of armed conflict. Prior to the Feb. 1 military takeover, the civilian-led government had taken steps toward democratic reforms, but state-driven policies continued to suffer from lack of appropriate engagement with ethnic groups and civil society. The re-imposition of direct military rule threatens to complicate conservation efforts further. In southeast Myanmar, the regions bordering Thailand’s WEFCOM are populated largely by Karen Indigenous communities, hundreds of thousands of whom were displaced to camps along the Thai border during the civil war. Long-standing conflict rendered large tracts of Karen forests inaccessible for many years, providing refuge for diverse wildlife. Surveys by KWCI in Karen (Kayin) state in 2017 found 31 species of mammals, including tigers, Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), Phayre’s langurs (Trachypithecus phayrei) and dholes (Cuon alpinus). Community empowerment boosts forest protection If conservation in the Dawna Tenasserim Landscape is to succeed, the authorities need to be able to engage with communities living in the area, experts say. “Community empowerment is vitally important to implementing sustainable conservation projects,” says Stokes from Wildlife Asia. “Local communities are the best stewards of their environment when they are empowered and included in steering initiatives from the beginning. In Myanmar, access to and respect for basic human rights, including land rights, is just a starting point for protecting people and wildlife from exploitation and industrial expansion. The Salween Peace Park is an amazing example of this.” Launched in December 2018, the Salween Peace Park is a Karen-led protected area encompassing 546,000 hectares (1.35 million acres) of largely intact teak forest west of the Salween River in southeast Kayin state. It is the culmination of several decades of community-driven approaches to conservation, such as the establishment of community forests, the enforcement of fish conservation zones and the demarcation of Kaw (traditional Indigenous lands). A total of 348 villages are included, comprising 27 community forests and three wildlife sanctuaries that are managed through Indigenous practices. The peace park initiative is driven by the Forestry Department of the Karen National Union (KFD) together with local Karen communities and the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN). Paul Sein Twa, co-founder of KESAN, was recently awarded the 2020 Goldman Environmental Prize for his work to establish the park, which adjoins the Salween Forest Complex across the border in Thailand. “The long-term goal of the Salween Peace Park goes beyond just wildlife conservation to include preservation of culture and a vision for peace and self-determination of indigenous people over our territory,” he told Mongabay on Jan. 18, shortly before the coup. “We have to preserve our heritage for future generations.” KESAN supports communities in the Salween Peace Park to live in balance with nature in line with Karen animist beliefs. “Many endangered species, including tigers, are considered guardian spirits of the forest and are protected from hunting or killing by traditional taboos and prohibitions,” Sein Twa says. Raising awareness of such traditional hunting practices and cracking down on poaching through ranger patrols and community engagement are central to big cat protection in the park. Preliminary surveys confirm the presence of several big cat species within the park. According to Evan Greenspan, science and research manager at KWCI, there is “evidence of breeding leopard populations among a number of recently surveyed forested areas. Given their rarity and population declines throughout much of the rest of Southeast Asia, the Salween Peace Park may host one of the last remaining healthy populations anywhere in the world.” Now, the KFD and KWCI are mapping important big cat forest corridors that maintain connectivity between the park and protected areas in western Thailand to inform habitat protection plans that incorporate Karen customary land practices and beliefs. Sein Twa says he hopes the Salween Peace Park’s success will inspire a transition from top-down approaches to conservation. In the past, state-governed protected areas risked serious violations of Indigenous people’s rights; the Salween Peace Park offers a grassroots alternative that is garnering attention from like-minded communities in Myanmar. According to Sein Twa, the most effective way to protect and conserve big cats across the wider landscape between Myanmar and Thailand is a combination of approaches that span grassroots to governmental levels. The Indigenous-led conservation model showcased in the Salween Peace Park can be rolled out to neighboring areas to create continuity with state-governed protected areas in both countries. Advocates say they hope that tigers and other big cats can become a galvanizing force in this politically complex region. “Everybody has an interest in seeing the preservation of tigers in the landscape — nobody wants to lose them,” says WWF’s Pairojmahakij. “Whereas it would normally be difficult to bring stakeholders round the table to discuss issues such as transboundary conservation, tiger conservation could provide a catalyst to cooperation.” This article by Carolyn Cowan was first published on Mongabay.com on 3 February 2021. Lead Image: Indochinese tiger photographed by a camera trap in the Dawna Tenasserim landscape. Photo ©Freeland/DNP. What you can do Support ‘Fighting for Wildlife’ by donating as little as $1 – It only takes a minute. Thank you.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are institutions established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide post-secondary (high school) education to Black people. In the immediate post-Civil War period when only two predominantly white colleges, Oberlin (Ohio) and Berea (Kentucky), accepted black students, these institutions founded by African American churches, by Southern state governments, and in one instance, the federal government (Howard University) made it possible for African Americans to access higher education. The first HBCUs usually provided a mixture of high school and college training. With the passage of the second Morrill Land Act of 1890 and the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the “separate but equal” doctrine in 1896, most of these institutions were able to concentrate on developing post-secondary curricula. The first HBCU, the African Institute (today known as Cheyney University) was established in 1837 in Pennsylvania by Richard Humphreys, a white man from the British Virgin Islands. His goal was to create a place where free African Americans could learn the skills needed to be successful in society and the workforce. In 1851 Myrtilla Miner, a white woman from New York, established the Miner Normal School in Washington, D.C. Miner’s school targeted young Black girls but would lay the foundation for public education for African Americans in the District of Columbia. Lincoln University, also in Pennsylvania, was established by Rev. John Miller Dickey of the Presbyterian Church in 1854 and Wilberforce University in Ohio, was founded by Bishop Daniel Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1856. Shaw University, founded in 1865 in Raleigh, North Carolina was the first post-Civil War HBCU. By the time of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, there were 93 HBCUs across the eastern and southeastern part of the United States. Primarily Black Institutions (PBIs) were colleges and universities established after that date but which still provide higher education to Black people. Two examples Southern University at Shreveport founded in 1967 and Morehouse School of Medicine at Atlanta founded in 1975. PBIs are considered and counted when discussing HBCUs and Black education statistics. One notable statistic from the Department of Education, is that 75% of all Black doctors, 75% of Black military officers, and 80% of Black federal judges today (2021) received their undergraduate degrees from a HBCU. The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, is a graduate of Howard University. Today, there are 103 active HBCUs. Over time some have ceased to exist due to inadequate funding, lack of student interest in the institutions, and in some instances such as Bluefield State University in West Virginia, the student body has become predominantly white. Nonetheless, having institutions that showcase Black excellence in academics and that focus on educating Black students from mostly impoverished backgrounds remains a worthy goal of these institutions. Most of them have significant financial aid programs that make it possible for poor students to have access to higher education. Ironically although HBCUs were founded to serve African American students, 57 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, these institutions are usually the most racially diverse in the United States. Recent studies have shown that most HBCU’s have a 1 to 4 ratio of non-black students that attend them, including international students which is significantly higher than the ratio of non-white students at predominantly white institutions.
Unique planetary system located at a distance of 200 lightsYears of Earth host five exoplanets with orbits linked together in a repeating pattern, despite their different sizes and densities. This discovery challenges astronomers Concepts of the types of planetary systems that can exist and how they form. Five of the six exoplanets are in orbit around the star TOI-178 in an orbital resonance 18: 9: 6: 4: 3 with each other, according to the new Research Published today in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Therefore, for every 18 orbits created by the five closest exoplanets, the next planet along the chain will complete nine orbits during exactly the same period. The third will complete six orbits, and so on. The video below provides a demonstration of the process in progress. The innermost portion of the six outer planets (marked by a blue orbital path) does not correspond to the other planets, although it may have been in the past. In the above animation, the rhythmic patterns are represented by red beats and a ringing sound (On the pentagonal scale), Which are triggered when each exoplanet completes either a full or half-orbit. As seen in the video, two or more exoplanets often trigger resonance as a result of being in an orbital resonance. The new study was led by Adrien Leleu, CHEOPS Fellow at the University of Geneva. When Leleu, a dynamic (expert in celestial mechanics) and his colleagues first Noticing the TOI-178 system, they thought they saw two planets orbiting the host star in the same orbit, but this result was not conclusive. Scientists decided to make follow-up observations using tEuropean Space Agency CHEOPS satellite and ESPRESSO ground instrument at the European Southern Observatory Very large telescope, In addition to next one generation Crossing The survey And SPECULOOS ProjectsBoth are in Chile. Every tThese tools allowed the team to discover the six exoplanets and determine their orbits, which they did using the transit method (looking at Darkening of the host star when a planet passes in front) and by analogy The host star wobbled. All six exoplanets are located in close proximity to the central star, and it takes about two days for the nearest planet to make a full orbit The farthest in orbit About 20 days. None of it is within the habitable zone, the Goldilocks region around a star where liquid water (and thus life) would be possible. Five of the six exoplanets are trapped in perfect resonance, like some planets They come in alignment every few orbits. The 18: 9: 6: 4: 3 series is among the longest series ever discovered. Orbital resonance occurs when orbital bodies exert a periodic gravitational effect on one another. In our solar system, the moons of Jupiter Io, Europa, and Ganymede are in a 4: 2: 1 echo. TOI-178 is interesting for a number of reasons, as orbital resonance is a sign of prolonged stability. “From our understanding of planetary formations, a series of resonances often occur in the early stages of the formation of the planetary system, Lilio explained in an email that the star was still surrounded by a gas disk. “However, in the billions of years after formation, many things could happen and most systems would emerge from the echo. It could happen slowly because of [gravitational] Tidal effects for example, or violently, Due to instability and collision / ejection of the planet. “ He added that only five other star systems have resonant chains that include four or more planets, “that’s not much.” Astronomers consider these planetary systems to be rare and very recent. “What defines TOI-178 is not only this orbital formation, but also the planetary formation,” said Leleu. This thus poses a challenge to our understanding of how planets form and evolve. In fact, the size of the planets ranges between one and three tonsimes ground size But it has Its mass ranges from 1.5 to 30 times that of Earth. So, while their orbital formations are clean and tidy, their fixtures are not. For example, one planet is a super planet Earth, but its immediate neighbor is lowThe density of giant ice is comparable to Neptune. We don’t see that kind of thing here. According to Leleu, the theory suggests that planets should be of lower density the further away from their star. But this is not the case here. “In TOI-178, this is only true for rocky inner planets, but then the third planet from the star is very low in density, then Planets 4 and 5 are denser, and then Planet 6 becomes thinner again again,” he said. Astronomers will now have to figure out how the system was formed, including whether it was Some planets Formed farther out And slowly Aggravated inside. Interestingly, the TOI-178 can host more distant ones Planets however They were not discovered. Looking to the future, the ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope, which should be operational later this decade, may be able to learn more about this strange star system. “베이컨 닌자. 알코올 전문가. 자랑스러운 탐험가. 열렬한 대중 문화 애호가.”
Ancient Greek civilization—“the glory that was Greece,” in the words of Edgar Allan Poe—was short-lived and confined to a very small geographic area. Yet it has influenced the growth of Western civilization far out of proportion to its size and duration. In ancient times, Greece was not a country in the modern sense but a collection of several hundred independent cities, each with its surrounding countryside. Since these cities were independent political units, they are known as city-states. In Greek, the word for city-state is polis, and the English word politics comes from it. The Greece that Poe praised was primarily the city-state of Athens during its golden age in the 5th century bc. The English poet John Milton called Athens “the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence.” Athens was a city-state in which the arts, philosophy, and democracy flourished. It attracted those who wanted to work, speak, and think in an environment of freedom. In the rarefied atmosphere of Athens were born ideas about human nature and political society that are fundamental to the Western world today. Athens was not all of Greece, however. Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, and Thessalonica were but a few of the many other city-states that existed on the rocky and mountainous peninsula at the southern end of the Balkans. Each city-state vied with the others for power and wealth. These city-states planted Greek colonies in Asia Minor, on many islands in the Aegean Sea, and in southern Italy and Sicily. The story of ancient Greece began between 1900 and 1600 bc. At that time the Greeks—or Hellenes, as they called themselves—were simple nomadic herdsmen. Their language shows that they were a branch of the Indo-European-speaking peoples. They came from the grasslands east of the Caspian Sea, driving their flocks and herds before them. They entered the peninsula from the north, one small group after another. The first invaders were the fair-haired Achaeans of whom Homer wrote. The Dorians came perhaps three or four centuries later and subjugated their Achaean kinsmen. Other tribes, the Aeolians and the Ionians, found homes chiefly on the islands in the Aegean Sea and on the coast of Asia Minor. The land that these tribes invaded—the Aegean Basin—was the site of a well-developed civilization. The people who lived there had cities and palaces. They used gold and bronze and made pottery and paintings. The Greek invaders were still in the barbarian stage. They plundered and destroyed the Aegean cities. Gradually, as they settled and intermarried with the people they conquered, they absorbed some of the Aegean culture. Little is known of the earliest stages of Greek settlement. The invaders probably moved southward from their pasturelands along the Danube, bringing their families and primitive goods in rough oxcarts. Along the way they grazed their herds. In the spring they stopped long enough to plant and harvest a single crop. Gradually they settled down to form communities ruled by kings and elders. The background of the two great Greek epics—the Iliad and the Odyssey—is the background of the Age of Kings (see Homeric legend). These epics depict the simple, warlike life of the early Greeks. The Achaeans had excellent weapons and sang stirring songs. Such luxuries as they possessed, however—gorgeous robes, jewelry, elaborate metalwork—they bought from the Phoenician traders. The Iliad tells how Greeks from many city-states—among them, Sparta, Athens, Thebes, and Argos—joined forces to fight their common foe Troy in Asia Minor (see Trojan War). In historical times the Greek city-states were again able to combine when the power of Persia threatened them. However, ancient Greece never became a nation. The only patriotism the ancient Greek knew was loyalty to his city. This seems particularly strange today, as the cities were very small. Athens was probably the only Greek city-state with more than 20,000 citizens. The city-state was made possible by Mediterranean geography. Because of the mountainous and coastal landscape, every little fishing village had to be able to defend itself against attack from land or sea, because outside help could not reach it easily. A person was thus dependent on his community for physical as well as economic survival. Each city-state was an economic, cultural, and religious organization. Each was also a self-governing community capable of maintaining its independence by enlisting its men as soldiers. Some Greek city-states were separated by mountain ranges. In many cases, however, a single plain contained several city-states, each surrounding its acropolis, or citadel. These flattopped, inaccessible rocks or mounds are characteristic of Greece and were first used as places of refuge. From the Corinthian isthmus rose the lofty acrocorinthus, from Attica the Acropolis of Athens, from the plain of Argolis the mound of Tiryns, and, loftier still, the Larissa of Argos. On these rocks the Greek cities built their temples and their king’s palace, and their houses clustered about the base. Only in a few cases did a city-state push its holdings beyond very narrow limits. Athens held the whole plain of Attica, and most of the Attic villagers were Athenian citizens. Argos conquered the plain of Argolis. Sparta made a conquest of Laconia and part of the fertile plain of Messenia. The conquered people were subjects, not citizens. Thebes attempted to be the ruling city of Boeotia but never quite succeeded. Similar city-states were found all over the Greek world, which had early flung its outposts throughout the Aegean Basin and even beyond. There were Greeks in all the islands of the Aegean. Among these islands was Thasos, famous for its gold mines. Samothrace, Imbros, and Lemnos were long occupied by Athenian colonists. Other Aegean islands colonized by Greeks included Lesbos, the home of the poet Sappho; Scyros, the island of Achilles; and Chios, Samos, and Rhodes. Also settled by Greeks were the nearer-lying Cyclades—so called (from the Greek word for “circle”) because they encircled the sacred island of Delos—and the southern island of Crete. The western shores of Asia Minor were fringed with Greek colonies, reaching out past the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) and the Bosporus to the northern and southern shores of the Euxine, or Black, Sea. In Africa there were, among others, the colony of Cyrene, now the site of a town in Libya, and the trading post of Naucratis in Egypt. Sicily too was colonized by the Greeks, and there and in southern Italy so many colonies were planted that this region came to be known as Magna Graecia (Great Greece). Pressing farther still, the Greeks founded the city of Massilia, now Marseille, France. The mountainous terrain of ancient Greece made travel by land difficult, but the city-states were all located on or near the sea. Many were seafaring societies, sailing to nearby and distant coasts to establish new colonies and trading outposts. The Greek city-states traded with other city-states as well as Greek colonies and other entities along the Mediterranean and Black seas, including Phoenicia, Egypt, and Sicily. The Greeks did not have enough farmland suitable for growing grains, so they imported wheat, especially from what is now Ukraine, to feed their growing populations. Through trade they also obtained slaves, luxury goods, timber, metals, and medicinal plants. Grapes and olives flourished on Greek soil, so the city-states exported wine and olive oil as well as fine pottery, honey, textiles, and silver. Athens in particular conducted a busy trade, and its profits allowed it to build a great navy and formidable city walls. Separated by barriers of sea and mountain, by local pride and jealousy, the various independent city-states never conceived the idea of uniting the Greek-speaking world into a single political unit. They formed alliances only when some powerful city-state embarked on a career of conquest and attempted to make itself mistress of the rest. Many influences made for unity—a common language, a common religion, a common literature, similar customs, the religious leagues and festivals, the Olympic Games—but even in time of foreign invasion it was difficult to induce the cities to act together. The government of many city-states, notably Athens, passed through four stages from the time of Homer to historical times. During the 8th and 7th centuries bc the kings disappeared. Monarchy gave way to oligarchy—that is, rule by a few. The oligarchic successors of the kings were the wealthy landowning nobles, the “eupatridae,” or wellborn. However, the rivalry among these nobles and the discontent of the oppressed masses was so great that soon a third stage appeared. The third type of government was known as tyranny. Some eupatrid would seize absolute power, usually by promising the people to right the wrongs inflicted upon them by the other landholding eupatridae. He was known as a “tyrant.” Among the Greeks this was not a term of reproach but merely meant one who had seized kingly power without the qualification of royal descent. The tyrants of the 7th century were a stepping-stone to democracy, or the rule of the people, which was established nearly everywhere in the 6th and 5th centuries. It was the tyrants who taught the people their rights and power. By the beginning of the 5th century bc, Athens had gone through these stages and emerged as the first democracy in the history of the world. Between two and three centuries before this, the Athenian kings had made way for officials called “archons,” elected by the nobles. Thus an aristocratic form of government was established. About 621 bc an important step in the direction of democracy was taken, when the first written laws in Greece were compiled from the existing traditional laws. This reform was forced by the peasants to relieve them from the oppression of the nobles. The new code was so severe, however, that the adjective draconian, derived from the name of the code’s compiler, Draco, is still a synonym for “harsh.” Unfortunately, Draco’s code did not give the peasants sufficient relief. A revolution was averted only by the wise reforms of Solon, about a generation later. Solon’s reforms only delayed the overthrow of the aristocracy. About 561 bc Pisistratus, supported by the discontented populace, made himself tyrant. With two interruptions, Pisistratus ruled for more than 30 years, fostering commerce, agriculture, and the arts and laying the foundation for much of Athens’ future greatness. His sons Hippias and Hipparchus attempted to continue their father’s power. One of them was slain by two youths, Harmodius and Aristogiton, who lived on in Greek tradition as themes for sculptors and poets. By the reforms of Clisthenes, about 509 bc, the rule of the people was firmly established. Very different was the course of events in Sparta, which by this time had established itself as the most powerful military state in Greece. Under the strict laws of Lycurgus it had maintained its primitive monarchical form of government with little change. Nearly the whole of the Peloponnesus had been brought under its iron heel, and it was now jealously eyeing the rising power of its democratic rival in central Greece. During this period the intellectual and artistic culture of the Greeks centered among the Ionions of Asia Minor. Thales, called “the first Greek philosopher,” was a citizen of Miletus. He became famous for predicting an eclipse of the Sun in 585 bc. Suddenly there loomed in the east a power that threatened to sweep away the whole promising structure of the new European civilization. Persia, the great Asian empire of the day, had been awakened to the existence of the free peoples of Greece by the aid which the Athenians had sent to their oppressed kinsmen in Asia Minor. The Persian empire mobilized its gigantic resources in an effort to conquer the Greek city-states. The scanty forces of the Greeks succeeded in driving out the invaders (see Persian Wars). From this momentous conflict Athens emerged a blackened ruin yet the richest and most powerful city-state in Greece. It owed this position chiefly to the shrewd policies of the statesman Themistocles, who had seen that naval strength, not land strength, would in the future be the key to power. “Whoso can hold the sea has command of the situation,” he said. He persuaded his fellow Athenians to build a strong fleet—larger than the combined fleets of all the rest of Greece—and to fortify the harbor at Piraeus. The Athenian fleet became the instrument by which the Persians were finally defeated, at the battle of Salamis in 480 bc. The fleet also enabled Athens to dominate the Aegean area. Within three years after Salamis, Athens had united the Greek cities of the Asian coast and of the Aegean islands into a confederacy for defense against Persia. It was called the Delian League because the treasury was at first on the island of Delos. In another generation this confederacy became an Athenian empire. Almost at a stride Athens was transformed from a provincial city into an imperial capital. Wealth beyond the dreams of any other Greek state flowed into its coffers—tribute from subject and allied states, customs duties on the flood of commerce that poured through Piraeus, and revenues from the Attic silver mines. The population increased fourfold or more, as foreigners streamed in to share in the prosperity. The learning that had been the creation of a few “wise men” throughout the Greek world now became fashionable. Painters and sculptors vied in beautifying Athens with the works of their genius. Even today, battered and defaced by time and people, these art treasures remain among the greatest surviving achievements of human skill. The period in which Athens flourished, one of the most remarkable and brilliant in the world’s history, reached its culmination in the age of Pericles, 460–430 bc. Under the stimulus of wealth and power, with abundant leisure and free institutions, the citizen body of Athens attained a higher average of intellectual interests than any other society before or since. As the birthplace of democracy, Athens has served as an inspiration to numerous other societies—to other city-states in ancient Greece and later to countries throughout the world. The word democracy comes from Greek words meaning “rule by the people.” The city-state was a small enough unit for the establishment of a direct democracy, in which the people gathered together in an assembly to decide matters of policy and law themselves. This form of democracy is different from the representative democracy practiced in most places today, where the populations are much larger. In a representative democracy, the citizens choose a smaller group of people to represent them in the legislature and pass laws on their behalf. Rule by the people was a radical idea in the ancient Greek world. It is important to note, however, that only a small portion of Athens’s residents could actually take part in the democracy. Participation was limited to adult male citizens—perhaps about 12 percent of the population. Women, minors (children), slaves, and foreign residents were excluded from political life. There was no president or prime minister of Athens. In the democratic era, the chief officials known as archons were chosen by lot. The heart of the Athenian government was the Assembly (the Ecclesia), which met almost weekly on the Pnyx, a hill west of the Acropolis. It decided the city-state’s laws and policies. All adult male citizens of Athens could participate in the Assembly, though typically only about 5,000 of the 30,000 or so eligible men attended. After discussion that was open to all members, a vote was taken. As in many later assemblies, voting was by a show of hands. The votes of a majority of those present and voting prevailed; this practice would be adopted by many later democracies. The agenda of the Assembly was set by a body known as the Council of Five Hundred. Unlike the Assembly, it was composed of representatives. The 500 members of the Council were ordinary male citizens who were chosen by lot to represent their district for a one-year term. Each district was allotted a certain number of representatives in rough proportion to its population. The Council’s use of representatives (though chosen by lot rather than by election) foreshadowed the election of representatives in later democratic systems. Another important political institution in Athens was the popular courts. All male citizens over 30 years of age could be chosen to be jurors, who were selected by lot. The popular courts are a further illustration of the extent to which the ordinary citizens of Athens were expected to participate in the political life of the city. It must be remembered, however, that a very large part of the population was not free, that the Athenian state rested on a foundation of slavery. Two-fifths (some authorities say four-fifths) of the population were slaves. Slave labor produced much of the wealth that gave the citizens of Athens time and money to pursue art and learning and to serve the state. Slavery in Greece was a peculiar institution. When a city was conquered, its inhabitants were often sold as slaves. Kidnapping boys and men in “barbarian,” or non-Greek, lands and even in other Greek city-states was another steady source of supply. If a slave was well educated or could be trained to a craft, he was in great demand. An Athenian slave often had a chance to obtain his freedom, for quite frequently he was paid for his work, and this gave him a chance to save money. After he had bought his freedom or had been set free by a grateful master, he became a metic—a resident alien. Many of the slaves, however, had a miserable lot. They were sent in gangs to the silver mines at Laurium, working in narrow underground corridors by the dim light of little lamps. Although slavery freed the Athenians from drudgery, they led simple lives. They ate two meals a day, usually consisting of bread, vegetable broth, fruit, and wine. Olives, olive oil, and honey were common foods. Cheese was often eaten in place of meat. Fish was a delicacy. The two-story houses of the Athenians were made of sun-dried brick and stood on narrow, winding streets. Even in the cold months the houses were heated only with a brazier, or dish, of burning charcoal. The houses had no chimneys, only a hole in the roof to let out the smoke from the stove in the tiny kitchen. There were no windows on the first floor, but in the center of the house was a broad, open court, such as is found in Spanish and Chinese homes today. Clustered about the court were the men’s apartment, the women’s apartment, and tiny bedrooms. There was no plumbing. Refuse was thrown in the streets. The real life of the city went on outdoors. The men spent their time talking politics and philosophy in the agora, or marketplace. They exercised in the athletic fields, performed military duty, and took part in state festivals. Some sat in the Assembly or the Council of 500 or served on juries. There were 6,000 jurors on call at all times in Athens, for the allied cities were forced to bring cases to Athens for trial. Daily salaries were paid for jury service and service on the Council. These made up a considerable part of the income of the poorer citizens. The women stayed at home, spinning and weaving and doing household chores. They never acted as hostesses when their husbands had parties and were seen in public only at the theater—where they might attend tragedy but not comedy—and at certain religious festivals. The growth of Athenian power aroused the jealousy of Sparta and other independent Greek states and the discontent of Athens’s subject states. The result was a war that put an end to the power of Athens. The long struggle, called the Peloponnesian War, began in 431 bc. It was a contest between a great sea power, Athens and its empire, and a great land power, Sparta and the military coalition it led, called the Peloponnesian League. The plan of Pericles in the beginning was not to fight at all, but to let Corinth and Sparta spend their money and energies while Athens conserved both. He had all the inhabitants of Attica come inside the walls of Athens and let their enemies ravage the plain year after year, while Athens, without losses, harried their lands by sea. However, the bubonic plague broke out in besieged and overcrowded Athens. It killed one-fourth of the population, including Pericles, and left the rest without spirit and without a leader. The first phase of the Peloponnesian War ended with the outcome undecided. Almost before they knew it, the Athenians were whirled by the unscrupulous politician Alcibiades, a nephew of Pericles, into the second phase of the war (414–404 bc). Wishing for a brilliant military career, Alcibiades persuaded Athens to undertake a large-scale expedition against Syracuse, a Corinthian colony in Sicily. The Athenian armada was destroyed in 413 bc, and the captives were sold into slavery. This disaster sealed the fate of Athens. The allied Aegean cities that had remained faithful to Athens now deserted to Sparta, and the Spartan armies laid Athens under siege. In 405 bc the whole remaining Athenian fleet of 180 triremes (oar-powered three-decked warships) was captured in the Hellespont at the battle of Aegospotami. Besieged by land and powerless by sea, Athens could neither raise grain nor import it, and in 404 bc its empire came to an end. The fortifications and long walls connecting Athens with Piraeus were destroyed, and Athens became a vassal, or subject state, of triumphant Sparta. Sparta tried to maintain its supremacy by keeping garrisons in many of the Greek cities. This custom, together with Sparta’s hatred of democracy, made its domination unpopular. At the battle of Leuctra, in 371 bc, the Thebans under their gifted commander Epaminondas put an end to the power of Sparta. Theban leadership was short-lived, however, for it depended on the skill of Epaminondas. When he was killed in the battle of Mantinea, in 362 bc, Thebes had really suffered a defeat in spite of its apparent victory. The age of the powerful city-states was at an end, and a prostrated Greece had become easy prey for a would-be conqueror. Such a conqueror was found in the young and strong country of Macedon, which lay just to the north of Classical Greece. Its King Philip II, who came into power in 360 bc, had had a Greek education. Seeing the weakness of the disunited cities, he made up his mind to take possession of the Greek world. Demosthenes saw the danger that threatened and by a series of fiery speeches against Philip sought to unite the Greeks as they had once been united against Persia. The military might of Philip proved too strong for the disunited city-states, and at the battle of Chaeronea (338 bc) he established his leadership over Greece. Before he could carry his conquests to Asia Minor, however, he was killed and his power fell to his son Alexander, then not quite 20 years old. Alexander firmly entrenched his rule throughout Greece and then overthrew the vast power of Persia, building up an empire that embraced nearly the entire world known to the Mediterranean peoples. Alexander’s conquest of the Greek city-states spread Greek ideas and culture widely throughout the empire. The three centuries that followed the death of Alexander are known as the Hellenistic Age, for their products were no longer pure Greek, but Greek plus the characteristics of the conquered nations. The age was a time of great wealth and splendor. Art, science, and letters flourished and developed. The private citizen no longer lived crudely, but in a beautiful and comfortable house, and many cities adorned themselves with fine public buildings and sculptures. The Hellenistic Age came to an end with another conquest—that of Rome. On the field of Cynoscephalae (“dogs’ heads”), in Thessaly, the Romans defeated Macedonia in 197 bc and gave the Greek cities their freedom as allies. The Greeks caused Rome a great deal of trouble, and in 146 bc Corinth was burned. The Greeks became vassals of Rome. Athens alone was revered and given some freedom. To its schools went many Romans, Cicero among them. When the seat of the Roman Empire was transferred to the east, Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) became the center of culture and learning and Athens sank to the position of an unimportant country town (see Byzantine Empire). In the 4th century ad Greece was devastated by the Visigoths under Alaric; in the 6th century it was overrun by the Slavs; and in the 10th century it was raided by the Bulgars. In 1453 the Turks seized Constantinople, and within a few years practically all Greece was in their hands. Only in the 19th century, after a protracted struggle against their foreign rulers, did the Greeks finally regain their independence. The glorious culture of the Greeks had its beginnings before the rise of the city-states to wealth and power and survived long after the Greeks had lost their independence. The men of genius who left their stamp on the golden age of Greece seemed to live a life apart from the tumultuous politics and wars of their era. They sprang up everywhere, in scattered colonies as well as on the Greek peninsula. When the great creative age had passed its peak, Greek artists and philosophers were sought as teachers in other lands, where they spread the wisdom of their masters. What were these ideas for which the world reached out so eagerly? First was the determination to be guided by reason, to follow the truth wherever it led. In their sculpture and architecture, in their literature and philosophy, the Greeks were above all else reasonable. “Nothing to excess” (meden agan) was their central doctrine, a doctrine that the Roman poet Horace later interpreted as “the golden mean.” The art of the Greeks was singularly free from exaggeration. Virtue was for them a path between two extremes—only by temperance, they believed, could humankind attain happiness. Since this belief included maintaining a balanced life of the mind and body, they provided time for play as well as work (see Olympic Games). This many-sided culture seemed to spring into being almost full-grown. Before the rise of the Greek city-states, Babylon had made contributions to astronomy, and the rudiments of geometry and medicine had been developed in Egypt. The genius of the Greeks, however, owed little to these ancient civilizations. Greek culture had its beginnings in the settlements on the coast of Asia Minor. Here Homer sang of a joyous, conquering people and of their gods, who, far from being aloof and forbidding, were always ready to come down from Mount Olympus to play a part in the absorbing life of the people. Philosophy was also born in Asia Minor, where in the 6th and 5th centuries bc such men as Thales, Heracleitus, and Democritus speculated on the makeup of the world. Thales also contributed to the science of geometry, which was further advanced by the teacher and mathematician Pythagoras in the distant colony of Croton in southern Italy. In the 5th century bc, with the rise of Athens as a wealthy democratic state, the center of Greek culture passed to the peninsula. Here the Greeks reached the peak of their extraordinary creative energy. This was the great period of Greek literature, architecture, and sculpture, a period that reached its culmination in the age of Pericles. Philosophers now turned their thoughts from the study of matter to the study of humankind. Toward the end of the century Socrates ushered in what is considered to be the most brilliant period of Greek philosophy, passing on his wisdom to his pupil Plato. Plato in turn handed it on to “the master of those who know,” the great Aristotle. Alexander died in 323 bc. The spread of Greek learning that resulted from his conquests, however, laid the foundation for much of the cultural progress of the Hellenistic Age. Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander at the mouth of the Nile River in Egypt, became the intellectual capital of the world and a center of Greek scholarship. Its famous library, founded by Ptolemy I, was said to have contained 700,000 rolls of papyrus manuscripts. In literature and art the Hellenistic Age was imitative, looking to the masterpieces of earlier days for inspiration. In science, however, much brilliant and original work was done. Archimedes put mechanics on a sound footing, and Euclid established geometry as a science. Eratosthenes made maps and calculated Earth’s circumference. Aristarchus put forward the hypothesis that Earth revolves around the Sun. Ptolemy, or Claudius Ptolemaeus, believed all the heavenly bodies circled Earth, and his views prevailed throughout the Middle Ages. The Hellenistic Age ended with the establishment of the Roman Empire in 31 bc. The Romans borrowed from the art and science of the Greeks and drew upon their philosophy of Stoicism. As Christianity grew and spread, it was profoundly influenced by Greek thought. Throughout the period of the barbarian invasions, Greek learning was preserved by Christians in Constantinople and by Muslims in Cairo, Egypt. Its light shone again in the Middle Ages with the founding of the great universities in Italy, France, and England. During the Renaissance it provided an impetus for the rebirth of art and literature. Modern science rests on the Greek idea of humankind’s capacity to solve problems by rational methods. In almost every phase of life the quickening impulse of Greek thought can be seen among the peoples who inherited this priceless legacy. (See also ancient civilization; Greek and Roman art; Greek religion.)
The Ancient Hot Air Balloons of the Ocean 520 million years ago, the world's first superpredator, Anomalocaris, appeared in the Cambrian oceans. This creature, who's name means "weird shrimp" looked a little strange with long front appendages and undulating flaps over its body, but its hunting prowess was no joke. The creature could swim up and down, a new development in the biological arms race, and struck at bottom feeders from above. Such a move literally blindsided many creatures; they hadn't yet evolved eyes that could look up. Without any defenses, the early Cambrian was a buffet for Anomalocaris. New species had to evolve and fast if they wanted to keep pace with the sudden shift in predatory power. Above: A model of Anomalocaris Some creatures grew bigger or faster, others developed hard shells and spines, but the first cephalopods chose to follow in their predators foot steps and take to the new vertical dimension. It wouldn't be easy; their ancestors carried heavy shells made of calcium carbonate that could weigh them down. To get around this, the early cephalopods exploited physics to their advantage. By sectioning their shells off in sealed chambers, they could create hollow parts of their shell. A tube appendage called "siphuncle" ran through these chambers, diffusing and pumping the seawater out of the shell. Left behind was a light gas which caused the creature's shell to become buoyant, just like a hot air balloon! The most amazing part is that the water expelled from their shells allowed these cephalodpods to jet around the ocean, meaning the action propelled them up and away at the same time in a beautiful synthesis of evolution. The amazing shells are all we have left to study the early cephalopods, as their soft bodies aren't easy to fossilize. However, if you find an ammonite shell that's split open, you can actually see the chambering at work! Take a look at those beautiful and natural logarithmic spirals!
You probably know at this stage of your Spanish language learning, you aren’t going to launch into reading the first chapter of “Don Quijote” by Miguel de Cervantes just yet. (Cervantes was/is to Spanish literature as William Shakespeare was/is to English literature.) In fact your literary level may be more akin to Little Red Riding Hood. And that would be great. There are so many language learning resources available now that it only makes sense to tap into as many of these as possible. You have to swallow all that pride and go back to basics. The thing is that ‘basics’ in language learning can mean really basic. Would you not be thrilled if you could speak Spanish as well as a 3 year-old Spanish child? Your ultimate goal may be to speak a little better than that in the future, but at the moment that would be a fine goal. Children’s fairy-tales in bilingual texts are a great learning resource. A bilingual text usually means that the story or text is written in a target language, (in this example Spanish) and on the next page, usually visible, is the parallel text in (this case) English. An example of this could be this bilingual text of Little Red Riding Hood, which I found on Amazon, very cheaply. (Disclaimer: I have no connection with Amazon but simply want to provide an example of a bilingual text which could prove useful and fun.) The key would be to choose stories you are familiar with (we all know Little Red Riding Hood) and so half the battle of understanding is already won. The best way to use a story like this would be: - Read the text in both English and Spanish - Look up words you don’t know. - Notice the verbs of SER and ESTAR and when they are used. - Enjoy understanding the story, like a three-year-old would. Please let me know if this has helped. More next time…
A diminutive is a word which has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A diminutive form (abbreviated DIM) is a word-formation device used to express such meanings; in many languages, such forms can be translated as "little" and diminutives can also be formed as multi-word constructions such as "Tiny Tim". Diminutives are used frequently when speaking to small children or when expressing extreme tenderness and intimacy to an adult. As such, they are often employed for nicknames and pet names. The opposite of the diminutive form is the augmentative. In many languages, formation of diminutives by adding suffixes is a productive part of the language. A double diminutive is a diminutive form with two diminutive suffixes rather than one. While many languages apply a grammatical diminutive to nouns, a few—including Dutch, Latin, Polish, Macedonian and Russian—also use it for adjectives and even other parts of speech. In English the alteration of meaning is often conveyed through clipping, making the words shorter and more colloquial. Diminutives formed by adding affixes in other languages are often longer and not necessarily understood as colloquial. In some contexts, diminutives are also employed in a pejorative sense, to denote that someone or something is weak or childish. For example, one of the last of the Western Roman emperors was named Romulus Augustus, but this was diminuted to "Romulus Augustulus" to express his powerlessness. Notes and references \|Look up diminutive in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.\|
OSSU’s vision of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment is based on the following: - Student-Centered Learning - Proficiency Based Learning - Alignment to the Vermont Board of Education’s Education Quality Standards (EQS) - Alignment to Vermont state content standards - Alignment to School Board Ends Student Centered Learning - All students can and will learn when they feel included, respected, and valued by their learning community. - Students are known as individuals and learners, and they are supported in developing positive relationships with each other and with adults in the learning community. - The curriculum, classrooms, and structures of the school recognize and honor student identities and interests. - The district and school communities have systems and structures that engage and include all students, families, and the broader community in meaningful ways. - The district and school actively work to uncover and eliminate systemic inequities based on demographic groups and identity traits. - Students are empowered and engaged by choice in their learning experiences. - All learning pathways (courses, internships, extended learning opportunities, etc.) are aligned to a common set of competencies. - Learning in different ways and at varied paces is expected and planned for in all settings, requiring differentiation, student choice, and personalized learning options to meet common outcomes. - Students make important decisions about their learning experiences and how they will demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Proficiency Based Learning (PBL) Proficiency-based learning refers to systems of instruction, assessment, grading and academic reporting that are based on students demonstrating that they have learned the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn as they progress through their education. If students fail to meet expected learning standards, they typically receive additional instruction, practice time, and academic support to help them achieve proficiency or meet the expected standards. While the goal of proficiency-based learning is to ensure that more students learn what they are expected to learn, the approach can also provide educators with more detailed or fine-grained information about student learning progress, which can help them more precisely identify academic strengths and weakness, as well as the specific concepts and skills students have not yet mastered. Since academic progress is often tracked and reported by learning standards in proficiency-based courses and schools, educators and parents often know more precisely what specific knowledge and skills students have acquired or may be struggling with. For example, instead of receiving a letter grade on an assignment or test, each of which may address a variety of standards, students are graded on specific learning standards, each of which describes the knowledge and skills students are expected to acquire. Advocates of proficiency-based learning argue that the practice is a more equitable approach to public education, since it holds all students to the same high standards regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status, or whether they attend schools in poor or affluent communities. Establishing Standards/Proficiencies Best Practices - Learning outcomes are clearly articulated and consistently applied to all students, including those that are long-term (graduation competencies and performance indicators), short-term (learning targets), and habits of work. - A successful standards-based grading framework should establish clear categories and learning targets that properly assess and track student knowledge. - Rubrics are used and shared for each course’s learning goals and standards/indicators. Proficiency Based Grading (PBGR) Proficiency-based grading aims to improve student outcomes by changing the way teachers communicate and students demonstrate progress. Proficiency-based grading provides students, teachers, and parents with specific, actionable information regarding student mastery of specific concepts. Furthermore, the flexible time frames for completing tasks and the opportunities to relearn material help ensure that students learn foundational concepts before progressing to new content. The system’s core concept is that student grades should accurately reflect achievement levels. Accordingly, in a standards-based grading framework, students do not receive an overall grade that averages their work performance over time that may also include nonacademic factors such as behavior. Instead, they receive multiple grades that reflect their proficiency relative to specific expectations. Teachers also encourage students to practice a concept or skill until they can demonstrate full mastery of each standard. Grades and Reports Should Be Based on Clearly Specified Learning Goals and Performance Standards \|Evidence Used for Grading Should Be Valid\|\| Grading Should Be Based on Established Criteria (Rubrics), Not on Arbitrary Norms \|Not Everything Should be Included in Grades\|\| \|Avoid Grading Based on Averages\|\| Focus on Achievement, and Report Other Factors Separately - Student learning is enhanced by clear cycles of practice, feedback, assessment, and reflection. - All forms of assessment are aligned to a common set of competencies. - Assessment criteria and rubrics are shared with students in advance to help them understand standards and expectations. - Students are offered appropriate assessment choices. - Habits of work are assessed and reported separately from academic knowledge and skills. - The continual use of formative assessment provides opportunities for students to practice, self-assess, and give and receive feedback. - Summative assessments, evaluated against common scoring criteria, are used to evaluate a student’s level of achievement on competencies and performance indicators at a given point in time. - All forms of feedback (including grades) are used to adjust instruction and learning, to inform academic interventions, and to identify extensions of learning. - Students regularly reflect on their learning progress and are taught to evaluate and use feedback. - Students are provided with specific, clear feedback as early and often as possible. - Self-assessment and goal-setting are encouraged among students. - New evidence is allowed to replace old evidence in student assessments Developing Summative Assessment Strategies In developing summative assessments, teachers should distinguish between teaching activities through which students learn and practice, and summative assessments through which students demonstrate their knowledge. - Replace final exams with periodic, authentic summative assessments. - Require students to pass each summative assessment to complete a portion of the course. - Require students to pass all summative assessments to earn credit for the course. - Require students to complete alternate credit opportunities when they do not pass summative assessments. - Revise the summative grade, based on the most recent summative assessment results, especially for standards that appear multiple times over the course. This graphic, below, illustrates how different learning targets/indicators/proficiencies are scaffolded in a hierarchical, systematic fashion: Vermont State Board of Education – Education Quality Standards (EQS) OSSU graduation requirements, curriculum and course offerings are largely based on complying with state mandates, specifically the EQS: 2120.5. Curriculum Content. Each supervisory union board shall ensure the written and delivered curriculum within their supervisory union is aligned with the standards approved by the State Board of Education. Each school shall enable students to engage annually in rigorous, relevant and comprehensive learning opportunities that allows them to demonstrate proficiency in a. literacy (including critical thinking, language, reading, speaking and listening, and writing); b. mathematical content and practices (including numbers, operations, and the concepts of algebra and geometry by the end of grade 10); c. scientific inquiry and content knowledge (including the concepts of life sciences, physical sciences, earth and space sciences and engineering design); d. global citizenship (including the concepts of civics, economics, geography, world language, cultural studies and history); e. physical education and health education as defined in 16 V.S.A. §131; f. artistic expression (including visual, media and performing arts); and g. transferable skills (including communication, collaboration, creativity, innovation, inquiry, problem solving and the use of technology). Vermont State Content Standards OSSU Graduation Proficiencies and Performance Indicators are developed by OSSU educators and are aligned to recommended Vermont state standards, based on the following content-based resources: - ELA Common Core State standards - Math Common Core State standards - Next Generation Science standards - C3 Global Citizenship standards - National Core Art standards - ISTE Technology standards - Jump$tart Personal Finance standards - National Health Education standards - SHAPE Physical Education standards School Board Ends Each of OSSU's town school districts, union school districts or merged/unified districts has an elected school board that sets administrative policies for its school. At this point, all boards use Policy Governance to establish Ends, or goals and outcomes. Please navigate to individual school board web pages to review board Ends.

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