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BRILL – A sip of health!
Why BRILL has been included in the high quality mineral water category?
Let’s see what glittering pages you can impress with BRILL:
1. BRILL – Natural alkaline mineral water with pH 8.3 and high alkalizing capacity with harmonious mineral composition.
Theoretically, if the pH is higher than 7 then the medium can be considered alkaline. But in practice, it does not make sense to call alkaline water that has a pH less than 8.
PH is a logarithmic scale, all pH unit growths correspond to a 10-fold increase in hydroxide concentration (alkalinity increase). That is why pH = 8 is 10 times alkaline than pH 7. This particular feature of the pH scale is that it is sufficient to have a pH value of 8.3 and then this water has an alkalinity twice as high as pH 8.
The pH value is not the only parameter that ensures the alkalizing effect of water. Due to hydrocarbon and carbonate ions in mineral water, the mineral water buffer capacity increases. Buffer capacity shows how much acid should be added to a basic substance to reduce the pH to 1 unit. That is, how alkaline the water is. Buffer capacity is related to the so called all alkalinity measured in mineral water, with all the alkalinity being the hydrogen carbonate and carbonate ions concentration.
The total alkalinity in BRILL mineral water is 8.5 mmol / l, largely due to the 456 mg / l hydrogen carbonate concentration (see table below).
ATTENTION! Two parameters should be considered when talking about alkalinisation – the pH value and the hydrogen carbonate concentration!
When comparing alkaline mineral water with alkaline water produced from ionizing water from drinking water, let’s remember this important fact. Usually all salinity in drinking water is lower than in mineral water and it is used at levels of 250-350 mg / l. However, the concentration of hydrocarbonate ions in such water should not be higher than 200-250 mg / l, which is at least half of the hydrogen carbonate in the BRILL mineral water! That is, the alkalizing effect of the BRILL mineral water is at least twice as high as alkaline water produced by electrochemical ionizing water from drinking water, but with a pH value of “just 8.3”
BRILL has the highest pH value from the mineral water extracted from Hungarian sources (see Table).
The content of all minerals, pH and iodide content of non-carbonated mineral water marketed in Hungary:
|Mineral water name||Total minerals, mg / l||pH||Iodide, mg / l|
|Jodicium szénsavas||535||<7||0,100 dúsított|
|Jászok Kincse||700||8 ?||0,059 ?|
BRILL is a non-alkaline mineral water. Carbonated waters cause acidification in the body, albeit with alkaline agents that help restore the body’s acid-base balance. Non-carbonated waters have a very natural flavor. Carbonic acid greatly influences the taste of mineral water and a poor quality base water can also be enriched with delicious carbonic acid.
Non-carbonated waters can only be bottled under really sterile conditions because they do not contain preservatives such as carbonic acid. That is why there are not too many of the non-carbonated natural waters in the market.
There are even fewer grades of high quality carbon dioxide.
BRILL is a natural non-carbonated mineral water with a pleasant and harmonious composition!
More and more doctors and naturopathologists claim that many of our illnesses are the cause of excessive acidification in our body. Then we could talk about a healthy diet if we mostly drink alkaline foods – drink. Our nutrition is acidic due to the consumption of many carbohydrates. In the accidental organism, parasites are also more prolific, leading to illness. Since our foods do not usually outweigh the acidic effect, it is a consummate alkaline water, which also covers daily fluid intake.
BRILL is not guaranteed to contain any disinfectant and preservatives!
2. BRILL – natural iodine mineral water with 0.1 mg / l iodide concentration.
The majority of the Hungarian population can show the lack of goodwill. It has geological reasons. According to the data of the National Institute for Environmental Protection, the concentration of iodide in the wells in Hungary is only 0.00-0.025mg / l, which is very low (image). That is why there are few mineral water containing natural iodine in Hungary! Among our mineral waters there are only 4 non-carbonated natural mineral waters (table above), which have significant iodide content.
Brill mineral water is a certified, natural source of soft, alkaline and natural iodine, which can be consumed on a daily basis unlimited!
BRILL has an optimum iodide concentration of mineral water extracted from Hungarian sources (table above).
Loss of yeast can cause serious illnesses: thyroid dysfunction, headache, liver problems, fatigue, metabolic problems, developmental problems in children, developmental abnormalities in mothers, etc. Iodine plays a role in burning fatty acids and reducing serum cholesterol levels.
It is therefore important to continuously replace iodine, preferably from natural (iodide) sources.
The presence of iodine in an appropriate amount is essential for optimum physical and mental development and lifelong good performance. The daily minimum iodine intake is 0.1 to 0.25 mg for adults and 0.35 mg / day for mothers. The maximum intake may be 5 to 20 times the recommended dose, the WHO recommends 1 mg / day. It is worth noting that the Japanese – known for being healthy – consume 1.0 – 1.2 mg / day (due to the large number of seaweed).
So BRILL mineral water can be freely consumed, it can not cause any harm, it only helps the body’s hormone balance harmoniously.
3. BRILL – an optimal salt-rich, soft water.
A very important parameter for determining the quality of mineral waters is the type of minerals found in mineral water, the concentration of minerals and the ratio of minerals, that is, their relative concentration. Our mineral waters are the creatures of the EARTH and carry all the wonderful materials that make up our bodies.
BRILL natural mineral water comes from a Pannon-type aquifer layer, 350 m deep well, and contains a number of important minerals in our body.
BRILL mineral water main parameters:
|Total mineral content||713 mg/l|
|Metacovavic acid||30 mg/l (cell regenerating)|
|Hydrogen carbonate||463 mg/l|
|Total alkalinity||8,6 mmol/l|
Important ions of our blood include the following ions: Na +, K +, Ca2 +, Cl-, HCO3-. The standard concentration of these elements in the blood serum corresponds to the following values: Na + 150 mmol / l or 3450 mg / L, K + 5 mmol / l or 200 mg / l, Ca2 +2 mmol / l or 80 mg / mmol / l or 3550 mg / l, HCO3-25 mmol / l or 1525 mg / l. From these data it is apparent that the ratio of the most important ions in BRILL mineral water is almost equal – Na: K: Ca in blood serum 1: 0.07: 0.05, in BRILL mineral water 1: 0.06: 0.02. This shows that BRILL is not a foreign matter for the human body!
BRILL is not a human work – BRILL has been created by NATURE to the MAN!
The osmotic pressure of human blood corresponds to the osmotic pressure of a 0.9% NaCl solution. This solution corresponds to 9000 mg / l saline concentration. By comparing these values with ionic concentrations in mineral water, the total salinity of 713 mg / l is very low. That is, such water should be classified under the mineral water, rather than the soft water category, and it can be stated that BRILL mineral water can be consumed in unlimited quantities (of course it is stated on the basis of the concentration of ions and does not suggest the recommended daily water consumption).
If drinking mineral water with an osmotic pressure lower than our body’s body fluid, the water intake can dissolve dissolved solutes, rock formations accumulated in our body. This is clear for BRILL mineral water, that is, BRILL has a great impact on our body, helping the kidneys and liver function.
If our drinking water, soft drink, food concentrations are higher than the density of our cell membranes and their osmotic pressure, the water intake has no solubility and does not drain the cells. This can lead to imbalance of the cells and our kidneys become overloaded, unable to select the scavengers. The result: allergies, bowel disorders, hypertension, joint pains, calcification, deposition of stones, etc. Consuming clean water allows our body to detoxify, thus relieving our immune system and increasing our ability to resist.
Our organization does not need “lots of fluids”, but it needs many clean water like BRILL.
A small proportion of people consume enough fluid, even if an adult has an optimal daily intake of at least 2 liters. When your body suffers from water deficiency, it signals: fatigue, indigestion, headaches, etc. The role of water in our bodies is so fundamental that if there are 2 liters absent (about 4%), then we get into a severe water defect. Our organization needs at least 2.5 liters of water per day under optimal conditions. Our body’s water circulation averages the following figure:
Water absorption: drinking 1500ml, food 750ml, even more 250 ml of food degradation in our body. This is a total of 2500 ml.
Water Drop: 1600 ml in urine, fecal 100 ml, respiration and sweating 800 ml. Total: 2500 ml.
Use it with health! | <urn:uuid:29b54809-5b9b-4ab2-9add-a03762b67b75> | {
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The rotation of a planet's atmosphere independent of the surface rotation. It is very marked in the case of Venus, where the top layer of the atmosphere rotates in 4 days compare with the 243 days of the surface. The cause of super-rotation remains unclear but is probably linked to the fact that most of the Sun's heat is absorbed by the top of the atmosphere.
Related category ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA AND STRUCTURES
Home • About • Copyright © The Worlds of David Darling • Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy • Contact | <urn:uuid:3a6eea73-ba14-4b34-a004-2f55371c2ba3> | {
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- Buy the Book
- About 1/3 of the world’s population is infected with latent tuberculosis infection.
- Most TB-affected populations are concentrated in poorer regions of the worlds.
- New study explores whether substandard and falsified drugs may be exacerbating the problem of drug resistance.
- Curbing the manufacture & availability of falsified & substandard anti-TB drugs is necessary to protect public health.
Download PDF ABOUT A THIRD of the world's population is infected with latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI).1 Individuals with latent infection have a 10% lifetime risk of developing active TB, although the risk is greater for those whose immunity is impaired, often due to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).1 The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there were 8.8 million incident cases of TB and 1.5 million TB deaths in 2010.1 Most TB-affected populations are concentrated in poorer regions of the world, and fatalities occur disproportionately in Africa.1
Treatment for TB is long and complicated.2 The WHO recommends that new patients with pulmonary TB begin treatment with a daily 2-month intensive phase of isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RMP), ethambutol and pyrazinamide, followed by a 4-month continuation phase of INH and RMP.3 If treatment is stopped too soon or administered intermittently, or if insufficient anti-tuberculosis drugs are taken as monotherapies, the remaining bacilli can become drug-resistant. 4 In resource-limited settings, drug resistance arising from poor treatment adherence is compounded by irregular drug supplies, medicines of inferior quality, lax prescription drug laws and weak enforcement of those laws that allows for the ready availability of monotherapies and fi xed-dose combinations (FDCs).4 Treatment for multidrug-resistant (MDR-) and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is significantly longer and more difficult for patients to complete, taking up to 2 years and requiring patients to ingest large numbers of pills.5 MDR/XDR-TB can quickly become fatal, especially if a patient's immune system is compromised.6
Available data suggest that antimicrobials and antiparasitics are the two types of pharmaceutical products that are most counterfeited in developing countries. 7 Substandard and falsified anti-malarial drugs have been found to be readily available in low- and middle-income countries.8 Little research has been conducted to assess levels of falsified and substandard TB drugs in developing countries outside some research on the degradation of fi xed-dosed combination therapies.7,9–12 In a pilot study assessing the quality of INH and RMP samples collected from the private sector in two Indian cities, it was found that respectively 12% and 9% of samples failed either thin-layer chromatography (TLC) or a disintegration test, making them substandard.13 The present study analyzes the quality of anti-tuberculosis drugs in the private sector in 17 low- and middle-income countries, and explores whether substandard and falsified drugs may be exacerbating the problem of drug resistance.
Treatment packs of two first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs (n = 713) on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines,14 RMP and INH, were collected from 19 cities in 17 low- and middle-income countries. Following the methodology of previous studies, local nationals posing as customers purchased drugs from private sector pharmacies in middle-income areas of each city, selecting pharmacies on fi rst sight during an undirected walk within a single neighbourhood. 8,15,16 Such an approach is referred to as convenience sampling, with an attempt to reduce bias in the selection of pharmacies from which drugs were procured. The covert shoppers were not informed about the purpose of the collection. As the pharmacists selling the products were taking part in normal business practice, ethical review was not required for the study. All samples were monotherapies purchased without a prescription.
The purchased drugs were stored at ambient temperature with low humidity and no sunlight until testing. Tests were completed within 40 days of sample collection. The Minilab® (Global Pharma Health Fund, Giessen, Germany) was used to run semi-quantitative TLC on each sample to determine the presence and relative concentration of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), and whether it met internationally acceptable standards. In previous studies, TLC testing using the Minilab protocol yielded broadly similar results to high-performance liquid chromatography when used to analyze pharmaceuticals.17 Laserson et al. showed that TLC is an effective method of detecting substandard anti-tuberculosis drugs.10 The Minilab protocols award products a 'pass' for TLC if >80% of the API is present as mentioned on the label. Disintegration tests were conducted to see if samples disintegrated in water at 37°C in < 30 min. Products were labeled 'failures' if they did not pass the most basic requirements of API concentration and solubility. In other words, even products that passed may have been of poor quality.
Each drug brand was checked against the official list of authorized products in the country in which it was procured. Non-registered drugs are not necessarily inferior, but they are illegal, as they are not authorized to be sold in that country. Test results were broken down by registration status once testing was complete to eliminate potential bias. Failing products that contained at least 10% of API were recorded, as, in the absence of data, the authors estimated that these products were likely to contribute to drug resistance.
For the purpose of this study, 'falsified' is defined as drugs that appeared to be deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with regard to identity. Whereas the term 'counterfeit' has traditionally been used for this purpose, 'falsified' reflects the latest terminology, as 'counterfeit' is now more often used to refer specifically to products that display evidence of trademark infringement.18 Samples that appeared to be poorly manufactured or degraded were considered substandard.
The Table shows the number of failures by drug type and registration status. Registered drugs were those that were authorized by the relevant drug regulatory authority in the country in which the drug was sold. Overall, 9.1% (65/713) of the drugs sampled failed basic quality control tests. The failure rate was 16.6% in Africa, 10.1% in India and 3.9% in other middle-income countries. The failure rate was 28.6% for non-registered products and 4.4% for registered products. However, even registered products exhibited some quality problems in all of the regions studied.
The higher failure rate in Africa may be explained by the fact that fewer products are registered in Africa; consequently, more failures are caused by the greater number of illicit products on the market. Africa also has the highest percentage of failing products with non-trivial amounts of API (70.4%), compared to 51.9% in India and 27.3% in other middle-income countries. These products are most likely to be degraded or poorly manufactured (substandard) rather than falsified.
Of the 25 properly registered 'failures', 11 (44%) appeared to be falsified, as they either contained no API or had suspect packaging. Of the non-registered product failures, 7/40 (17.5%) appeared to be falsified. This figure is conservative, as other products with low levels of API (but >0%) may also have been falsified. As dissolution testing was not conducted in this study, these figures may in fact underestimate the problem, particularly for RMP, which often exhibits solubility problems when poorly manufactured.19
It is not always possible to discern why a drug fails quality control. None of the 'failures' had too much API. In addition to poorly formulated drugs, some of the under-dosed products may have been properly manufactured but lost API due to degradation in poor storage conditions.
Although it is impossible to be certain, it is likely that 44% of the properly registered 'failures' were falsified, as they contained no active ingredient or had suspect packaging. While product packaging was visually inspected for correctness, comparison with reference samples was not always feasible, as attempts to collect such samples from manufacturers were unsuccessful— some manufacturers will only share information with large customers and regulators. An additional 17.5% of non-registered 'failures' appeared to be falsified for the same reasons, and others with low levels of API may also have been falsified. These products can cause physical harm to patients and economic damage to the companies whose products they imitate. Even if they contain no active ingredient, they can cause increased resistance to the other drugs with which they are taken in combination.
Most of the 'failures' were not properly registered. By and large, even poor quality, non-registered products were made by legitimate manufacturers—which were often licensed in at least one country. Medicines produced by legitimate manufacturers with insufficient API or improper solubility constituted a proportionately larger share of drug failures than falsified samples. While these drugs may work in some cases, the insufficient API dose may prevent patients' chances of cure and contribute to drug resistance.
These results are limited to the private sector and did not include samples procured from National TB Programs. While TB is typically viewed as a public health issue, Wells et al. showed that large numbers of patients seek treatment for TB in the private sector. 20 Moreover, if drug resistance spreads as a result of poor quality anti-tuberculosis drugs in the private sector, both public and private sector patients will suffer.
There is a need for the WHO to conduct larger studies to determine the full extent of the availability of substandard and counterfeit anti-tuberculosis drugs and to provide clear, consistent and useful defi nitions of each of the above terms. Seear et al.'s definition for counterfeit drugs includes only those drugs with 0% API,21 which is too narrow, as some counterfeit manufacturers fake versions of drugs through a 'second shift' at what are otherwise legitimate manufacturing sites, with some—but intentionally insufficient— levels of API.22
Lessons from the malaria community
The malaria community started paying attention to the dangers of falsified and substandard drugs in the 1990s, and the TB community needs to catch up. Substandard or falsified antimalarial drugs may indirectly cause the death of a child within 48 h of disease onset.23 However, this tragic fact means that strains of malaria have less time and fewer opportunities to develop resistance. As TB is less acutely fatal than malaria, patients taking under-dosed anti-tuberculosis drugs may temporarily feel better, but if the drug does not eliminate the bacilli, resistance may develop. This may also extend the required treatment time, increasing both the cost of treatment and the risk of developing resistance.
In 2011, physicians in Mumbai made headlines when they reported multiple cases of TB for which they could identify no successful medicinal treatment. 24 As the drugs used to treat MDR/XDR-TB are more expensive and less effective than the first-line drugs,25 it is vital to preserve the efficacy of first-line treatment. We also need new anti-tuberculosis drugs that will reduce treatment duration and provide alternative treatments for patients with drug-resistant TB. A significantly shortened treatment regimen would reduce the risk of developing drug resistance.26
The Government of India pays close attention to ensuring that low-cost anti-tuberculosis drugs can be accessed by the poor, both in India and throughout the developing world. This is indeed important; treatment interruptions due to the inability to pay for drugs may be as damaging as providing patients with underdosed drugs, and may equally contribute to drug resistance. These two problems are not antagonistic to each other; they must be tackled simultaneously with all means available. Expanding access to anti- tuberculosis drugs without addressing quality concerns could create a massive drug resistance crisis. Increasing resistance will cause a small increase in patient deaths in the short term, but will be extremely deadly and costly to patients, and increase costs and complications for health providers alike in the long run.
In this preliminary analysis, 9.1% (65/713) of the INH and RMP samples tested failed quality control tests. Approximately half of these failing products (36/65, 55.4%), or 5% of the total, had API > 0%, making them likely to contribute to drug resistance.
The TB community needs to pay greater attention to preventing the proliferation of falsified and substandard anti-tuberculosis drugs. Governments—especially those with high TB burdens—should improve the regulators' capacity to remove drug manufacturers that repeatedly fail quality control testing from government tenders, and they should use law enforcement mechanisms, such as Interpol's Medical Product Counterfeiting and Pharmaceutical Crime Unit, to disrupt the illicit trade in falsified drugs. Curbing the manufacture and availability of falsified and substandard anti-tuberculosis drugs is necessary both to protect the public health and to safeguard the efficacy of existing drugs—above all the cheap, effective firstline drugs. | <urn:uuid:f1ff5200-de0c-48f0-959c-cf8694919209> | {
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Scientists from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences report that vitamin C and E supplements can interfere with cellular signaling and handicap the development of muscular endurance. Their report, published in The Journal of Physiology, hints that the blunting effect may be caused by a reduction of oxidative stress.
“Our results show that vitamin C and E supplements blunted the endurance training-induced increase of mitochondrial proteins, which are needed to improve muscular endurance,” said study leader Goran Paulsen. “As vitamin C and E supplements are widely used, understanding if they interfere with cellular and physiological adaptations to exercise is of interest to people exercising for health purposes as well as to athletes.”
In the 11-week trial, 54 young, healthy men and women were randomly allocated to receive either 1000mg vitamin C and 235mg vitamin E (consistent with amounts found in common supplements), or a placebo. Neither the subjects nor the investigators knew which participant received the vitamins or placebos.
The participants then completed an endurance training program (primarily running) of three to four sessions per week. Fitness tests, blood samples, and muscle biopsies were taken before and after the intervention.
Paulsen said that while the supplements did not affect maximal oxygen uptake or the results of a 20 meter shuttle test, the results showed that markers for the production of new muscle mitochondria – the power supply for cells – increased only in the group that did not take supplements.
“Our results indicate that high dosages of vitamin C and E – as commonly found in supplements – should be used with caution, especially if you are undertaking endurance training,” warned Paulsen.
Previous studies have shown that exercising increases muscle oxidant production, which is a part of the signaling process that leads to muscle adaption. Paulsen thinks it is possible that high doses of vitamins C and E act as antioxidants and take away some of this oxidative stress, hence blocking muscular endurance development.
“Future studies are needed to determine the underlying mechanisms of these results, but we assume that the vitamins interfered with cellular signaling and blunted expression of certain genes,” concluded Paulsen.
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Lactic Acid Not The Culprit In Muscle Fatigue | <urn:uuid:f29c1b86-35ee-46ac-abe7-bf4081f3c8fb> | {
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A pipe union is a secure and semi-permanent connection between two pipes. Most pipe unions consist of two pipes connected together via a third piece. All three are threaded to make a firm connection. While unions are similar to couplings, they are generally easier to take apart and allow pipes of different metals to come together safely. This joining method is common in household and commercial pipe systems.
At first glance, a pipe coupling and a pipe union seem very similar. They both connect two pipes together using a male and female threading system. The main difference between the systems comes from the actual method of joining. Two coupled pipes screw together directly, one inside the other. To take the pipes apart, every pipe that connects to the coupled pipe needs to turn. In a full pipe system, this would mean the entire system needs to come apart to remove one pipe.
With a pipe union, the two pipe ends don’t screw into one another—they each screw into a third piece. When one pipe needs to come apart from the other, the union piece simply screws onto one of the two pipes completely. If both ends of a pipe are attached using a union, the pipe may be removed on its own without unscrewing the other pipes in the system.
The second use for a pipe union is a protective system. These unions, often made of plastic, keep pipes made of different metals from touching each other. When two metals touch the same conductive material, it creates an effect called galvanic corrosion. Any conductive liquid, such as water, will cause electrons to move from one material to the other. This will cause one of the pipes to slowly dissolve and the other to accrete material.
These pipe unions generally create a physical separation between the two pipes. When one pipe screws into the union, there is a small plastic barrier that completely covers the metal. The second pipe screws into the system up to the barrier, and they are prevented from making physical contact. This type of pipe union will not completely halt galvanic corrosion, but it will slow it down dramatically.
Pipe unions are common in all sorts of basic plumbing situations. Houses and businesses typically use these pipe systems because they are easy to maintain and repair. On the downside, since they have more threaded parts, they are more likely to leak than standard couplings. As a result, dangerous or high-pressure liquids are often moved through pipes joined via other methods.
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! | <urn:uuid:1761cbc8-3cb6-4214-bb9c-a6072f036b38> | {
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One of our closest galactic neighbors shows its awesome beauty in this new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. M33, also known as the Triangulum Galaxy, is a member of what's known as our Local Group of galaxies. Along with our own Milky Way, this group travels together in the universe, as they are gravitationally bound. In fact, M33 is one of the few galaxies that is moving toward the Milky Way despite the fact that space itself is expanding, causing most galaxies in the universe to grow farther and farther apart.
When viewed with Spitzer's infrared eyes, this elegant spiral galaxy sparkles with color and detail. Stars appear as glistening blue gems (many of which are actually foreground stars in our own galaxy), while dust in the spiral disk of the galaxy glows pink and red. But not only is this new image beautiful, it also shows M33 to be surprising large—bigger than its visible-light appearance would suggest. With its ability to detect cold, dark dust, Spitzer can see emission from cooler material well beyond the visible range of M33's disk. Exactly how this cold material moved outward from the galaxy is still a mystery, but winds from giant stars or supernovas may be responsible.
M33 is located about 2.9 million light-years away in the constellation Triangulum. This composite image was taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. The color blue indicates infrared light of 3.6 microns, green shows 4.5-micron light, and red 8.0 microns. | <urn:uuid:62ea5567-1a0e-459a-aeae-a2142fc175db> | {
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Did all dinosaurs lay eggs?
How do we know? Were all dinosaurs reptiles, anyway?
Photo by He-ba-mue, wikipedia.org
Fossilized dinosaur eggs in the Museum of National History in Ulaanbaatar.
I have been getting your magazine for a while now and enjoy it immensely. But I have a question which I cannot seem to find the answer for. It’s about dinosaurs and this is it. Where does the idea come from that ALL of them lay eggs? People keep quoting to me from movies like “Jurassic Park” and other evolutionary sites which all seem to say that “they” lay eggs. But my argument is and has been that why do they have to lay eggs? Elephants don’t and hippos don’t and rhinos don’t. Can’t some dinosaurs or all of them for that matter be mammals? Every one assumes that because the evolutionists say they are reptiles … that is what they are. But are they all reptiles? I don’t recall anything about this in any of the articles, but that could be me having missed them, but I would sure love to know … were they all reptiles and in that case did they all lay eggs, or could there have been some that were mammals and had babies? I have looked at other web sites but that was a lost cause … so there you have it … can you help me out? Thank you in advance … (maybe you could put something in the mag for future reference I would appreciate that)
I guess it’s fair to say that there are many things about extinct animals we don’t know, but can make a very reasoned estimate about. For example, we wouldn’t know from bones alone that the extinct mammoth didn’t have totally different internal organs from other elephant-like creatures, but it is so highly unlikely, given the bony similarities, that we are not surprised when finding well-preserved frozen specimens that the prediction is borne out that the internal organs are like other elephants, indeed like other mammals.
In the same way, we don’t know that some dinosaurs did not suckle their young, for instance, but it is highly unlikely, since there are certain patterns in nature that are quite systematic (the evolutionist explains them by common ancestry, the creationist by common design from a God of order who is neither arbitrary nor capricious in his use of structures in living things). So again, we’re not surprised by the fact that repeatedly, one finds a fossilized egg, sometimes with the baby dino inside, corresponding to a particular type of adult dino. And when some of the internal organs of dinosaurs are found, they correspond to non-mammalian patterns.
Remember, too, that ‘dinosaurs’ is a man-made classification, and is based on certain bony characteristics that they all had in common. So given that the vast majority are known from fossils to have laid eggs, the chances that somehow there would be a radical departure from this in those where we don’t know this for sure is highly unlikely.
|viviparous:||giving birth to live young|
|ovoviviparous:||giving birth to live young that initially grew within eggs inside the mother|
Notice that ichthyosaurs, one of the marine creatures associated with the ‘age of dinosaurs’, although they would be properly classified as reptiles (they are not dinosaurs, nor are plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and so on), did in fact give birth to live young (we know this from the fossil record). But they nevertheless did this in a way similar to some living sharks–they laid the eggs inside themselves, and hatched them inside. So they were not viviparous, as mammals, or oviparous, as birds, but rather ovoviviparous.
Photo from Staatliche Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart
Fossil of an Ichthyosaur giving birth.
Even the classification of creatures as reptiles has an ‘arbitrary’ element to it, based more on the exclusion of characteristics than on something they have (see paper at the end). For example, although reptiles have scales, so do birds. So scales cannot be used to say something is a reptile. What feature does a reptile have that no other creature has? We can’t think of any offhand. Some have suggested that maybe dinosaurs should really not be referred to as reptiles, but rather seen as a group all their own. But to suggest that some were ‘mammals’ would mean that, by definition, they were not dinosaurs. This is because mammals are defined as a class all of their own, and have characteristic features in the fossils, not just soft anatomy. If you mean did some of them have similar features to mammals, that was answered earlier as highly unlikely, for the reasons given. One can never say ‘impossible’ of course, but it is just so very, very unlikely as to hardly warrant consideration.
Your question may of course have been triggered by the fact that in the Bible, the Hebrew word תנין tannîn (or תנים tannîm) is sometimes translated ‘dragons’. And in one case, it does refer to one such creature suckling its young (Lamentations 4:3—the word tannîn is here translated ‘sea monster’, and it may indeed have been whales that were being referred to, which do suckle their young.)
Could some of the dragons described in the Bible have been mammals? Yes. But could some of the dinosaurs have been mammals? By definition, no.
Now it is true that we believe that dinosaurs in the Bible would have likely been described using that word, but that does not mean that tannîn=dinosaur, period. Rather, the word tannîn would refer to a monster of some sort, which would include some (but not all) of the dinosaurs. I.e. a monster/dragon can be a dinosaur, but not exclusively—not all monsters/dragons were dinosaurs. And presumably, not all dinosaurs were monster/dragons in the Hebrew vernacular. The word tannîn does not imply some sort of reptilian characteristic, either. To demonstrate this, look at the description of Day 5 in Genesis, where the King James translates the word tannîn as ‘great whales’. Whales are mammals. But they are not dinosaurs. Hence, tannîn or ‘dragons’, can be certain dinosaurs, or certain mammals, but none of the dinosaurs can be mammals, by definition. Thus, if your question had been stated as ‘Could some of the dragons described in the Bible have been mammals?’ the answer would be, ‘Yes’. But to the question, were some dinosaurs mammals? The answer would be, ‘No’.
We hope this helps. Below please see also the full text of a paper we sometimes send out in response to general questions on dinosaur classification.
Carl Wieland and Andrew Lamb
Photo by Ghedo, wikipedia.org
Fossil of a juvenile individual of Scipionyx samniticus at the National History Museum in Milan, Italy. The fossil preserves in an exceptional way clear traces of soft tissues, a rather rare event.
There is considerable debate as to whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded or warm-blooded, and some of the ardent proponents of warm-bloodedness in dinosaurs may harbour notions of classifying them as something other than reptiles. If dinosaurs were not to be classed as reptiles, they would need to be put in their own unique class.
The reptile class is a class by exclusion. It has been said that reptiles are the only class of animal without any unique distinguishing feature, i.e. that there is nothing reptiles have that no other class has. For example, reptiles have scales, but birds also can have scales, for example on chicken legs. Reptiles have amniotic eggs, but so too do mammals. Unlike with other classes, there is no feature that automatically identifies a creature as being a reptile.
The issue of cold- versus warm-bloodedness in dinosaurs is still much debated among scientists. See Wikipedia’s entry on Physiology of dinosaurs: Metabolism.
Most think that dinosaurs were reptiles, and some think that they may have continued growing even after they had reached sexual maturity, but this is an assumption. We don’t know for certain what the growth cycles of the various dinosaur kinds were, but study of rings in some dino bones has revealed a growth pattern similar to that of birds and mammals. See How did dinosaurs grow so big? The topic of dinosaur growth is also touched upon in our article Thunder lizards It is also an assumption to conclude that the very large dinosaurs were ‘waning’ and no longer sexually capable. Many books and museum displays make assumptions like these in the information they present about dinosaurs.
There are many species of small dinosaurs of which large specimens have never been found, for example Compsognathus, which apparently never grew beyond the size of a hen. The average size of dinosaurs was about the size of a sheep.
The Linnaean classification system used today divides organisms into groups based largely upon morphology, and has little relationship to the classification scheme given in the Bible:
The animals which Adam named are specifically described in Genesis 2:20. They were the ‘cattle’, ‘the fowl of the air’ (birds), and ‘every beast of the field’. This classification has no correlation with today’s arbitrary system of manmade taxonomy (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects), but is a more natural system based on the relation of the animals to man’s interests. (From Naming the animals: all in a day’s work for Adam.)
A strict Biblical approach to the classification of living organisms can be found in the book Biblical Classification of Life: A Framework and Reference for Authentic Biblical Biology. See CMI’s review of this book: A rose by any other name.
Some years ago, some scientists attempted to construct a classification system based on the protein composition of organisms, but due to the lack of discernible patterns, this attempt lapsed. Now, the implications of DNA studies with respect to classification are being considered, but despite continuing zealous investigation, patterns in DNA that fit with evolutionary expectations are proving elusive. See Is the evolutionary tree turning into a creationist orchard?
Classification systems used to categorise living things into groups for easy reference are merely something constructed by humans. As human constructs such systems are subject to change and to scientific consensus. The prevailing Linnaean classification system has undergone major modifications in the past and will no doubt undergo changes in the future.
Scientists use strict morphological criteria for classifying animals into the various orders. Technically the word ‘dinosaur’ refers only to animals in the orders Saurischia and Ornithischia. Specific characteristics of the foot, limb, and hip bones are used to distinguish members of these two orders from other reptile orders. Probably the major visually distinguishing feature of dinosaurs is that they walk with ‘upright’ legs, rather than the ‘sideways’ legs of typical reptiles.
Differences in ear, jaw, hip, and limb bones are used to differentiate between reptiles and mammals. All known living reptiles are cold-blooded and have three-chambered hearts. There has been at least one four-chambered heart claim—see Fascinating four-chambered fossil find! However that evidence is equivocal.
If some dinosaurs were found to be warm-blooded, they would probably still be categorised as reptiles due to the bone differences mentioned previously. This brings to mind the situation with fish. The vast majority of fish are cold-blooded, but some are warm-blooded.
In general English the word ‘dinosaur’ is used rather loosely to refer to a much wider range of creatures than that specified by its taxonomic meaning. Plesiosaurs (marine reptiles) and pterosaurs (flying reptiles) are commonly referred to as dinosaurs, but never mammals such as the rhinoceros. Many extinct rhino-like creatures have been classified into their own mammalian order, Embrithopoda.
There are about 700 names of dinosaurs, but many of these are thought to be just different names for the same animals. There are perhaps only 55 different ‘kinds’ of dinosaurs. See Were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark? More information is available under the topic ‘Dinosaurs’ in our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ index. | <urn:uuid:32924ffe-7d04-4fd0-af8e-6ec96dded5a9> | {
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Water / Energy Nexus Study
Saving water also saves energy and vice versa...
Complete a water/energy nexus study for the Cornell campus and implement comprehensive strategies to monitor usage, conserve water, and reduce energy associated with treating potable and waste water.
Goal: Quantify energy use associated with the campus water delivery system, and implement measures to optimize the system and conserve both energy and water.
The source of Cornell’s water is the 125-square mile Fall Creek drainage area. Cornell’s Water Filtration Plant provides a population of about 34,000, including the campus community and residents of the adjacent Forest Home and Cornell Heights neighborhoods, with safe and reliable drinking water. In 2012, the plant produced 507,000,000 gallons of potable water: approximately 9% of this water was used to generate energy for campus, while 91% of the total supplied campus potable water and agricultural needs.
Water and energy are inherently linked, intersecting on both the supply side and the end use side. This intersection is commonly called the “water/ energy nexus.” Efficiency programs that save water will also save energy and vice-versa. To more precisely quantify the energy associated with Cornell’s water system, the Water Team is proposing a water/energy nexus study for the Ithaca campus. This study will quantify energy use associated with the current water delivery system as a basis for prioritizing and implementing infrastructure upgrades, such as pump replacements. The study will also provide a basis for implementing water conservation measures on campus, by linking these measures to reductions in energy use.
A preliminary analysis conducted in 2012 showed that approximately 4% of campus energy is used to treat and pump campus potable water, and 9% of campus water is used to generate energy. The next phase of the study will assess how much energy is used to treat campus wastewater at the Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Plant, and may also attempt to quantify the volume of water used to extract the natural gas used to generate campus electricity.
Approximately 15-20% of the water Cornell produces is currently unaccounted for. Metering all of the water produced would stabilize water rates and share costs equally among all customers. Utilities staff will continue to search for unmetered locations and install water meters as needed. In the longer term, water usage will also be added to the Cornell University Building Dashboard, so that colleges and units can track their usage and save money by adjusting their consumption.
- Complete the water/energy nexus study, including a cost-benefit analysis, evaluate the study recommendations, and present findings to campus Utilities staff.
- Find un-metered water on campus. Install sub meters at strategic locations to account for all water used on campus and stabilize water rates for all customers, including Town of Ithaca and City of Ithaca customers.
- Add water usage to the Cornell University Building Dashboard.
- Include water conservation in the college engagement campaign, Think Big, Live Green.
Collaborate on joint water and energy utility programs to maximize savings and share tracking, metering, and data evaluation responsibilities. | <urn:uuid:31d99e23-173d-4b0c-8a15-13d52d02e14d> | {
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“Alas, All Thinking,” Harry Bates, 1935 – A brilliant scientist is given a glimpse of humanity’s future as purely mental creatures. Only 36 humans remain, and they live in dusty cubicles, engaged in constant meditation. Three of them turn to look at him and their necks snap under the weight of their heads. Horrified at their “monster”-like bodies and useless lives, he eventually kills them all, leaving alive Pearl, the most “worldly” of the group, with whom he intends to create a “revised” race. Although Pearl never seems to forgive him for killing the “beautiful souls,” and she believes that thinking itself is beautiful and is therefore useful, she asks him to mate with her. They engage in an awkward courtship, during which she also asks him to woo her in “the manner of a twentieth century novel” (Bleiler). He attempts this, but she is drawn into an extended period of analysis whenever he makes an unfamiliar gesture. Eventually, she retreats into meditation completely. Using her time machine, he travels to the future to find her degenerating into a mushroom-like creature. At the conclusion, he kills her with the help of two friends.
Comments: Disturbing. Bleiler notes that the frame narrative begins in 1963. Read in Great Tales of SF.
Author: Wikipedia: “Harry Bates (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 9, 1900 – September 1981) was an American science fiction editor and writer. His 1940 short story “Farewell to the Master” was the basis of the well-known 1951 science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.” | <urn:uuid:810816fa-dc02-42b2-8c81-bab4f3639a16> | {
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ON THIS PAGE: You will find some basic information about this disease and the parts of the body it may affect. This is the first page of Cancer.Net’s Guide to Childhood Rhabdomyosarcoma. To see other pages, use the menu on the side of your screen. Think of that menu as a roadmap to this full guide.
Soft tissue sarcoma is a cancer that develops in the tissues that support and connect the body. It can occur in fat, muscle, nerves, tendons, joints, blood vessels, or lymph vessels. Cancer begins when normal cells change and grow uncontrollably, forming a mass called a tumor. A tumor can be cancerous or benign. A cancerous tumor is malignant, meaning it can spread to other parts of the body. A benign tumor means the tumor will not spread. In general, sarcoma is uncommon, accounting for about 1% of all cancers.
Rhabdomyosarcoma is a type of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) that begins in mesenchymal cells, which are immature cells that normally become muscle. This disease develops in a type of muscle called striated muscle. Striated muscles are the skeletal voluntary muscles, which are those muscles that people can control.
Rhabdomyosarcoma can occur anywhere in the body:
- Head and neck: about 39% of all rhabdomyosarcoma cases. This includes parameningeal sites, near the membranes covering the brain, 24%; eye socket, 8%; and other head and neck locations, 7%.
- Urinary or reproductive organs: about 29% of cases
- Arms or legs: about 15% of cases
- Other sites: about 17% of cases. This includes the trunk (torso), intrathoracic (inside the lung and/or chest), biliary tract, retroperitoneal, pelvic, and perineal sites (close to the anus, vagina, and urinary structures).
Types of rhabdomyosarcoma
Each rhabdomyosarcoma tumor is classified as either favorable or unfavorable based on its histology, which is what the cells look like under a microscope. The terms “favorable” and “unfavorable” refer to the appearance of the cancer cells. In general, the more cancer cells look like normal cells, the more “favorable” they are and the greater the chance that treatment will be successful.
Favorable histology tumors include the following:
- Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma.This is the most common type of rhabdomyosarcoma, frequently found in the head and neck and in the reproductive and urinary organs.
- Botryoid rhabdomyosarcoma. This is one subtype of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, found most often in hollow organs, such as the bladder or a girl’s vagina.
- Spindle rhabdomyosarcoma. This is another subtype of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, found most often in the area around a boy’s testicles.
Unfavorable histology tumors include the following:
- Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma. This is a more aggressive type of rhabdomyosarcoma, found most often in an arm, leg, or the trunk of the body.
- Pleomorphic and undifferentiated rhabdomyosarcoma. These are the rarest types of rhabdomyosarcoma, found most commonly in an arm, leg, or the body’s trunk.
Rhabdomyosarcoma is most often found in children and young adults. This section covers rhabdomyosarcoma diagnosed in children. Learn more about soft tissue sarcoma in adults.
Looking for More of an Overview?
If you would like additional introductory information, explore these related items. Please note these links take you to other sections on Cancer.Net:
- ASCO Answers Fact Sheet: Read a one-page fact sheet (available as a PDF) that offers an easy-to-print introduction to this type of cancer.
- Cancer.Net Patient Education Videos: View short videos on childhood cancer and sarcoma led by ASCO experts that provide basic information and areas of research.
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Kinesiology was developed by Dr. George Goodheart in 1964. It is a way of identifying imbalances someone may have by monitoring their ability to hold their muscles against light pressure. Each muscle is related to an organ or gland, and also to an energy pathway called a meridian.
Together the muscle, organ/gland and meridian form a “circuit”. Any bio-chemical, emotional, structural or electro-magnetic stresses affecting the circuit can be identified when a muscle tests weak or “spongy”.
Once an imbalance has been found, the kinesiologist uses further muscle tests to see what factors are aggravating the imbalance, and what will help to rebalance it.
Each time a relevant factor is introduced, the muscle response will change, a bit like a switch.
For example, if a muscle is spongy (or “switched off”), and then the person suddenly thinks of a specific emotional stress and the muscle then tests strong again, (i.e. “switches on”), this indicates that this specific emotion is linked to the imbalance. The same method is applied for bio-chemical, structural and electro-magnetic problems.
Based on this feedback, the kinesiologist and the client can investigate together which factors are relevant to the imbalance, and a bespoke treatment package is created. This may include nutritional supplements, techniques for emotional stress release, Bach flower remedies, acupressure, gentle structural realignment, chakra balancing, massage of reflex points, as well as lifestyle changes. The treatment you receive depends on the feedback your body gives through the muscle test and about what it needs to return to health.
Systematic Kinesiology practitioners are dedicated to prevention as well as to relieving the condition. They are able to help clients more effectively if the person is committed to improving their health through self-help and changes to their health regime. Taking control of your life and enjoying improved health and well-being is something that we can all do.
This usually depends on your complaint and how fully you participate in your own treatment including making the suggested lifestyle and dietary changes that often form part of your “homework”. Usually, however, most people feel an improvement in 2 to 4 visits. It is then recommended that you have routine balances 2 or 3 times per year for maintenance.
For children under 5 and for those with limited mobility we normally use a surrogate. This may be a family member or friend, and the surrogate may need to be balanced first.
Enquire with Isabelle today to find out if Systematic Kinesiology is right for you - with no obligation to book an appointment. | <urn:uuid:8c0763be-c54c-4357-9be2-11d484b06a1a> | {
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Diets high in fats, sugars and processed foods are lowering toddlers' IQs, a new study has suggested.
It found eating habits among three-year-olds shape brain performance as they get older.
A predominantly processed food diet at the age of three is directly associated with a lower IQ at the age of eight and a half, according to a Bristol-based study of thousands of British children.
Food packed with vitamins and nutrients notably did the opposite, helping boost mental performance as youngsters got older, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reports.
Researchers said toddlers' diets could change IQ levels later in childhood, even if eating habits improve with age.
"This suggests that any cognitive/behavioural effects relating to eating habits in early childhood may well persist into later childhood, despite any subsequent changes to dietary intake," the authors wrote. | <urn:uuid:e7bebb6f-c109-4cf4-b00c-2029fe1f0ef0> | {
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‘Junk’ DNA: evolutionary discards or God’s tools?
‘Junk’ DNA is thought by evolutionists to be useless DNA leftover from past evolutionary permutations. According to the selfish or parasitic DNA theory, this DNA persists only because of its ability to replicate itself, or perhaps because it has randomly mutated into a form advantageous to the cell. The types of junk DNA include introns, pseudogenes, and mobile and repetitive DNAs. But now many of the DNA sequences formerly relegated to the junk pile have begun to obtain new respect for their role in genome structure and function, gene regulation and rapid speciation. On the other hand, there are examples of what seem to be true junk DNAs, sequences that had lost their functions, either to mutational inactivation that could have occurred post-Fall, or by God-ordained time limits set on their functions.
Criteria are presented by which to identify legitimate junk DNA, and to try to decipher the genetic clues of how genomes function now and in the past, when rates of change of genomes may have been very different. The rapid, catastrophic changes in the earth caused by the Flood may also have been mirrored in genomes, as each species had to adapt to post-Flood conditions. A new creationist theory may explain how this rapid diversification came about by the changes caused by repetitive and mobile DNA sequences. The so-called ‘junk’ DNAs that have perplexed creationists and evolutionary scientists alike may be the very elements that can explain the mechanisms by which God is at work in His creation now and in the past.
* Terms marked with an asterisk are defined in the Glossary at the end of this article.
The last decade of the 20th century has seen an explosion in research into the structure and function of the DNA in genomes of a wide range of organisms. As of April 2000, the whole genomes, or full DNA complements of over 600 organisms have been sequenced or mapped.1
The sequence of the fruit fly genome, just completed, has over 130 million base pairs (bp) and is the largest genome sequenced so far.2 The first complete human chromosome has been sequenced,3 and the Human Genome Project expects to complete its work sometime in 2003, as does the Mouse Genome Project. Researchers in the new field of genomics—the comparison of the structures, functions and hypothetical evolutionary relationships of the world’s life-forms—are working furiously to deal with the huge inflow of data. Now more than ever, scientists can see at the most basic level the similarities and differences of organisms, and are seeking to understand how the blueprints of cells are decoded and regulated.
A major goal of genomic studies is to understand the role, if any, of the various classes of so-called ‘junk’ DNA. Junk or ‘selfish’ DNA is believed to be largely parasitic in nature, persisting in the genomes of higher organisms as ‘evolutionary remnants’ by their ability to reproduce and spread themselves, or perhaps because they have supposedly mutated into a function the cell can use.
Origin of the junk DNA hypothesis
The idea that a large portion of the genomes of eukaryotes*4 is made up of useless evolutionary remnants comes from the problem known as the ‘c-value paradox’, ‘c’ meaning the haploid* chromosomal DNA content. There is an extraordinary degree of variation in genome size between different eukaryotes, which does not correlate with organismal complexity or the numbers of genes that code for proteins. For instance, the newt Triturus cristatus has around six times as much DNA as humans, who have about 7.5 times as much as the pufferfish Fugu rubripes.5 The c-value between different frog species can differ by as much as 100-fold.6 Early DNA-RNA hybridisation* studies and recent genome sequencing results have confirmed that >90% of the DNA of vertebrates does not code for a product. Much of this variation is due to non-coding (i.e. not producing an RNA or protein product), often very simple, repeated sequences. With the discovery that many of these sequences seemed to have arisen from mobile DNAs which are able to reproduce themselves, the selfish or parasitic DNA hypothesis was born.7,8 This said that these sequences served no function in the host organism, but were simply carried on the genome by their ability to replicate or spread copies of themselves within and even between genomes.
Plasterk stated it this way when he wrote about transposons*, one of the ‘junk’ DNA types:
‘This ability to replicate is a sufficient raison d’etre for transposons; they have the same reason for living as, say, the readership of Cell: none. They exist not because they are good, pretty, or intelligent, but because they survive.’ 9
Just as Plasterk was wrong about our reason for living, he is wrong about the purposes of these DNA sequences. Recent research has begun to show that many of these useless-looking sequences do have a function, and that they may have played a role in intrabaraminic10 (‘within-kind’) diversification.
Types of junk DNA
There are four major kinds of junk DNA:
introns, internal segments in genes that are removed at the RNA level;
pseudogenes, genes inactivated by an insertion or deletion;
satellite sequences, tandem arrays of short repeats; and
interspersed repeats, which are longer repetitive sequences mostly derived from mobile DNA elements.
After most eukaryotic genes and a very few prokaryotic* (bacterial) genes are transcribed, or copied into RNA, there are segments that are cut out of the messenger RNA (mRNA) before it is used as a template to make a protein (Figure 1). Introns in fact form the majority of the sequence of most genes, as was seen when human chromosome 22 was sequenced (Table 1). Why are these RNA pieces present if they are only to be discarded? Evolutionary theory tries to explain these as vestigial sequences, or that they are useful only as sites at which recombination can safely take place to reshuffle exons (coding or protein making segments) into new proteins or new forms of these proteins. Their ubiquity in eukaryotes argues that they are not post-Fall aberrations, but designed features.
What then, could these throwaway segments be doing? There are several possibilities emerging from recent research. One general regulatory role may be to slow down the rate of translation*, as the splicing* process does take time. Alternative splicing allows greater diversity, as certain exons can be skipped and spliced out to allow a different protein to be made from the same mRNA, as is seen in some viruses and in the generation of diversity in antibodies. Another example is the CD6 gene, which is involved in T cell stimulation. Variable splicing of exons gives rise to at least five different forms of the protein, which allows regulation of its activity.11
Another observed mechanism by which introns can regulate gene activity is through the binding of the snipped-out intron RNA to DNA or RNA. There are now a few examples of the role of introns in regulating the genes they are in, as well as other genes. One interesting example is the lin-4 gene intron from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. A developmental control gene was found to reside in the intron of another gene (Figure 2).12,13 The small RNA encoded by lin-4 binds to the mRNA of another developmental gene, lin-14, blocking its ability to make protein. The binding site in lin-14 was in another supposedly useless stretch of RNA, the 3' untranslated region (3’UTR*) found after the last coding region. It was later found that lin-4 RNA also binds to the 3’UTR in another gene in the developmental pathway, lin-28.14 In fact, more and more cases of 3’UTRs performing gene regulatory activities have been observed.15,16
There are examples of protein-encoding genes within introns of other genes that have been recently discovered. For example, on human chromosome 22, the 61-kilobase (kb) TIMP3 gene, which is involved in macular degeneration, lies within a 268-kb intron of the large SYN3 gene, and the 8.5-kb HCF2 gene lies within a 27.5-kb intron of the PIK4CA gene.3
Some introns also play a role in mRNA editing, a process where the A (adenine) residues in the mRNA are changed to G (guanine).17 Self-complementary* or exon-complementary intron sequences, can bind to each other to form a hairpin loop structure, allowing the sequence of the RNA to be changed after transcription* from the DNA. Thus introns can cause new messages to arise from a gene without altering its DNA coding sequences.
The most general function of introns may be to stabilize closed chromatin* structures in, and around, genes and their associated regulatory DNA elements.18,19 An isochore* is an approximately 300-kb segment of DNA whose base pair composition is uniform above a 3-kb level, for example 67% A-T bp.20 The general ability of an isochore to be transcribed is dependent on the accessibility of its DNA, i.e. how tightly histones* and other DNA-binding proteins wrap up the DNA. This is seen as being at least partially dependent on the A-T or G-C bp content of a segment of DNA. Though this content can be skewed somewhat by the choice of triplet codons* used in the coding DNA (since the code is redundant21), exons are still constrained in their ability to vary the bp content. The presence of introns throughout genes allows the proper levels to be maintained, and indeed introns reflect the general isochore type much more closely than the coding regions. The presence of introns may well be a condition for at least some forms of sectorial repression like superrepression, where large sections of chromatin are altered to turn off groups of cell-type-specific genes or developmental genes. It was shown, for example, that the gene for rat growth hormone, when deprived of its introns, was no longer able to form its normal more condensed structure when reinserted back into cells.22
It is important to know whether the specific sequence of an intron is required for its function when constructing phylogenetic or family trees, or when determining baraminic* placement of an organism. In evolutionary studies, DNA sequence comparisons are used to try to build phylogenetic trees to trace ancestors to descendants. Since introns are generally believed to be free from the constraints of functionality when mutations cause changes in their sequence, introns in a particular gene are often compared between organisms, with the bp differences seen between their sequences supposedly indicating the degree and time of divergence since they last shared a common ancestor. In some instances, the assumption that an intron is likely to have mutated freely and extensively during the presumed millions of years of evolutionary history has proved wrong. Koop and Hood found that the DNA of the T cell receptor complex, a crucial immune system protein, is 71% identical between humans and mice over a stretch of 98-kb of DNA. This was an unexpected finding, as only 6% of the region encodes protein, while the rest consists of introns and non-coding regions around the gene.23 Does it follow then that we have a recent common ancestor with mice? Since this does not fit in with evolutionary theory, the authors conclude instead that the region must have specific functions that place constraints on the fixation of mutations. This illustrates that DNA sequence comparisons to establish evolutionary relationships are not the independent tests that they are claimed to be. If the data do not support the desired evolutionary theory, ad hoc explanations of altered rates of mutation, functional constraints, etc., can be brought in to explain away discrepancies.24
Another example of selective interpretation of DNA sequence comparison data using introns is the study of an intron in an important sperm maturation gene on the Y chromosome of humans.25,26 It was hoped that the ancestry of modern humans could be traced by sequencing this 729-bp intron from 38 different men from different ethnic groups. Surprisingly, all 38 men had exactly the same sequence, which was then interpreted as a ‘recent’ common ancestor (27,000–270,000 years ago) for the whole human race, or possibly that the intron had functional constraints on its mutability. This latter premise was rejected by the authors because the sequence of the same intron in chimp, gorilla and orangutan was progressively more different. These data would strongly support the biblical creationist view that there was a severe bottleneck in the human population when the Flood reduced the varieties of Y chromosomes to the one shared by Noah and his sons. Apes would not be expected to have exactly the same sequence as humans, as they are from separate created kind(s). The fact that they do have a similar intron argues for a function for this sequence, and the intron may have been originally created slightly different for proper function in an ape versus a human.
Thus evidence is mounting to support the important role of introns in gene regulation and chromosome structure, which would remove 8.15%27 of the junk DNA of the human genome from the trash heap.
Occasionally located near functional genes or gene families, there are sequences that very closely resemble other functional genes, but have been inactivated in someway. Some have a mobile element inserted in their open reading frames (ORFs*), others seem to be ‘processed’ genes, i.e. they look as though the RNA from another gene has been reverse transcribed (RNA used as a template to make DNA) and reinserted back into the DNA (Figure 3). A processed pseudogene* thus precisely lacks the introns, possesses 3'-terminal poly-(A) tracts*, and lacks the upstream promoter* sequence required for transcription of the corresponding parent gene. Pseudogenes are common in mammals, but virtually absent in Drosphila.28 Nineteen percent of the coding sequences identified in human chromosome 22 were designated as pseudogenes, because they had significant similarity to known genes or proteins but had disrupted protein coding reading frames. 82% appeared to be processed pseudogenes.3 Many pseudogenes have additional mutations in them, presumably because there is no functional constraint on their mutation. For example, the human beta-tubulin gene family consists of 15–20 members, of which five have these pseudogene hallmarks.29 Some pseudogenes affect gene activity by binding transcriptional factors that activate the normal gene. Whether this is intentional design or something the organism has simply adjusted to is difficult to say. Many pseudogenes do seem to fit the profile of true junk DNAs.
Repetitive DNA sequences, including mobile DNA sequences
Repetitive DNA sequences form a substantial fraction of the genomes of many eukaryotes (Table 1, Table 2).30,31 This class includes satellite DNA (very highly repetitive, tandemly repeated sequences), minisatellite and microsatellite sequences (moderately repetitive, tandemly repeated sequences), the new megasatellites (moderately repetitive, tandem repeats of larger size) and transposable or mobile elements (moderately repetitive, dispersed sequences that can move from site to site; see Table 2).
When first discovered, they did not seem to confer any benefit to the host organism, as their ability to move about the genome and/or cause recombination between different homologous copies has often resulted in deleterious mutation and disease. We now know that at least some of these sequences carry out important functions.
The functionality of a sequence of 2 or 3 bp repeated a thousand or so times is not immediately apparent. In addition, the lengths and compositions of these repetitions often vary wildly between species, between organisms of the same species, or even between cells of the same organism. But greater understanding has come as scientists realize how DNA acts not only as the information source for the cell, but also as the library in which it is housed.32 It is beginning to be seen that the dispensability of sequences is not an indicator of their non-functionality, and that in many cases, repetitive sequences tend to fill functions collectively rather than individually.
Satellite sequences vary in their repeat size and in their array size (Table 2). Microsatellites are the smallest, at a repeat size of as little as 2 bp, and the newly discovered megasatellite sequences, which actually can contain ORFs, are 4–10 kb long.33 The actual sequence repeated differs from species to species, and repeats can differ slightly from one another. The number in an array can vary between individuals, which is why forensic DNA fingerprinting techniques use mini- and microsatellite differences to identify individuals.
Functions of satellite sequences
The first recognised function of these types of sequences was in organising the centromeres, the constricted sites on each chromosome where the chromosomes attach to cellular tethers and are pulled apart during meiosis and mitosis. These sequences help condense the DNA region they are in into heterochromatin*.
One hypothesis of the collective functionality of repeat sequences is that long stretches of noncoding sequences act as tethers, permitting placement of groups of genes into different zones in the cell nucleus.19 Transcriptionally inactive heterochromatin and the heterochromatin-like telomeric sequences (sequences at the end of chromosomes), may associate their respective chromatin segments much of the time with the nuclear periphery. Very long runs of gene-poor, AT-rich isochores*, would be the tethers that permit the gene-rich, GC-rich isochores to distribute themselves into the appropriate nuclear zones for transcription and RNA processing.
The importance of the sequences of satellite DNA is reflected when these sequences are mutated. A mutation in a minisatellite just after the end of the Harvey ras gene (which encodes a growth regulatory protein) may contribute to as many as 10% of all cases of breast, colo-rectal and bladder cancer, and acute leukemia. The mutant minisatellites bind a transcriptional regulatory factor,34 which causes an abnormal increase in transcription of the Harvey ras gene (Figure 4).
These ‘class I mobile elements’ reproduce themselves through an RNA intermediate which, in a reversal of the usual DNA to RNA transcription, is reverse transcribed to DNA by the reverse transcriptase* enzyme encoded on intact elements. One of the remarkable findings of the human genome project is that a high percentage (35.40%) of human nuclear DNA consists of dispersed retroelements (Table 1).35 Short and long interspersed elements, SINEs and LINEs, make up the majority of this class of DNA, with Alu and LINE-1 (L1), respectively, being most abundant in humans.36 L1 elements encode their own reverse transcriptase, that probably is also responsible for the spread of SINEs, which lack this enzyme. HIV-1, the AIDS virus, human endogenous retroviruses* (HERVs), and solitary long terminal repeats (LTRs*) apparently derived from HERVs, are also part of this class of retroelements (Figure 3, Table 2).
Most eukaryotic retrotransposons* move only sporadically in the genome. An exception is the hybrid dysgenesis seen in Drosophila, where if flies containing a retrotransposon are mated to flies not containing the particular retrotransposon, the element transposes with a high frequency, resulting in death or mutation of many of the progeny. Host factors, many not well characterized as yet, seem to keep the transposition rate in check (see below).
Functions of retroelements
Do these abundant elements have functions, or have hapless eukaryotic genomes been parasitized by selfish DNA? There are more and more examples of these elements performing important functions. One example is the Alu family. This 300-bp sequence (named for the enzyme used to identify it) occurs almost a million times in the human genome, up to 3.5% of the total DNA (Table 2). It is estimated, and has been seen in many cloned genes, that there are 4 or 5 Alu elements in every gene. Despite their number, they have been generally considered parasitic DNA, with occasional deleterious effects on the genome when they exercise their ability to retrotranspose to sites in and near genes, or recombine with each other abnormally. Such disruptions have caused neurofibromatosis, or elephant man’s disease.16 Mutations in the Alu sequence also have been associated with cancer. Alu sequences have been found to affect the functions of at least 8 different genes (Table 2).37,38 Though Alu sequences do have internal promoters for RNA polymerase III (an enzyme which transcribes genes encoding RNAs needed for translation of mRNA into protein), normally very little RNA is produced from all these Alu sequences. However, under certain stressful conditions such as a viral infection, these transcripts increase dramatically and affect protein synthesis levels to help the cell deal with the stress.39 Thus, though individual Alu elements have a very weak effect, hundreds of thousands of them together can affect protein synthesis.
Epigenetic control mechanisms, or modifications of gene activity that are due to modifications of the DNA itself and not its sequence (see below), are associated with repeats. A repeat-induced process involving L1 retroelements has been hypothesised for X-chromosome inactivation, which is necessary to maintain proper gene dosage in females, who have two X chromosomes (Table 2).40
Endogenous retroviruses (that is, those that are obtained from inheritance rather than infection) can also affect gene expression. The LTRs of two such viruses provides the sequence signal for the polyadenylation* of the mRNA of two newly discovered human genes.41 An L1 repeat was found to provide the polyadenylation signal for the mouse thymidylate synthase gene. Retrotransposons were also seen to help in repairing chromosomal breaks in yeast. Retroelements modulate expression of many more genes.42
DNA transposons, or ‘class II transposable elements’, move from place to place by replicative transposition (that increases the copy number) or by a simple cut-and-paste mechanism. Though in general not as common or in as high a copy number as retroelements, they are still found in most organisms. Examples are the Drosophila P elements, bacterial transposons such as Tn10 and Tn7, the Mu phage, and the ubiquitous mariner/Tc1 superfamily of transposons. The mariner/Tc1 family is the most widespread, being found in most insects, flatworms, nematodes, arthropods, ciliated protozoa, fungi and many vertebrates, including zebra fish, trout and humans.43 Copy number varies from two copies in Drosophila sechellia, to 17,000 in the horn fly Haematobia irritans, accounting for 1% of the genome. The vast majority of them appear to have been inactivated by multiple mutations. The close homology between mariner/Tc1 elements found in species thought to have diverged 200 million years ago has fuelled the hypothesis that these elements can transfer horizontally (that is, not by normal inheritance) between different species, or even different phyla (see below). Again, the evolutionist gets to pick and choose from his smorgasbord of explanations when the data do not fit the evolutionary tree.
Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs)
A recently discovered third class of mobile elements is the miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs).44–46 They are very small (125–500 bp), and have short terminal inverted repeats. They were first found in plants, but have also been found in nematodes, humans, mosquitoes and zebrafish.47–50 They are found in the thousands and tens of thousands per genome, and have been given colourful names (e.g. Tourist, Stowaway, Alien and Bigfoot) to reflect their apparent ability to move about in the genome. Their mechanism of transposition is still unknown, but they appear to be DNA elements that cannot move about on their own (non-autonomous). Though none seem to be presently active, they are believed to have been mobile in the recent past because of the high levels of sequence similarity between elements in a particular family, and the differences in insertion sites seen in closely related species.51 MITEs are particularly interesting in terms of generating genetic variation in that they are preferentially associated with genes (see below).46,52
Effects of mobile and repetitive elements on gene expression
Mobile elements and repetitive elements can alter the structure and regulate expression of the genome in several different ways. As described earlier, transposition can disrupt genes by direct insertional mutagenesis and can adversely affect transcription. Many retrotransposons have strong constitutive (always on) promoters that can cause inappropriate expression of downstream genes. If the promoter is in the opposite direction of the gene, RNA complementary to the mRNA of the gene can be made that can act as antisense RNA* that binds up the mRNA, affecting translation.
Recombination between similar DNA strands is a necessary process for repair of DNA breaks and allele* shuffling between homologous chromosomes. But the presence of mobile and repetitive elements in inappropriate positions can result in recombination products that are deleterious, such as translocations*, inversions*, and other chromosomal rearrangements (Figure 5). For example, it was shown that a widespread chromosomal inversion commonly seen in Drosophila buzzatii is caused by the recombination between two copies of a transposable element in opposite orientations.53 There can even be an exchange of DNA between non-homologous chromosomes: such as was seen in maize, in this case mediated by the recombination of one complete and one partial copy of the Ac (Activator) transposable element.54
Target site selection in mobile DNA
Many of the retrotransposons and DNA transposons seem to have very little site-specificity in where they integrate.55 Integration sites for most mammalian and Drosophila retroelements appear to be distributed more or less randomly in the genome. Vertebrate retroviruses do have a general preference for insertion into regions with an open chromatin configuration.56
However, there are some specific ones that do show target selectivity.51 R2 is a non-LTR retrotransposon that inserts preferentially in the 28S ribosomal RNA genes of various insect species. Group II introns present in some yeast mitochondrial genes (genes carried in the energy-producing organelles in the cell), are mobile elements very similar to poly (A)-type retrotransposons. After copying themselves, they can reinsert precisely back into their spots between two exons. Their ability to move argues for their spread into various genes at some point in time. The yeast retrotransposons Tyl and Ty3, integrate preferentially upstream of genes transcribed by RNA polymerase III, which transcribes genes needed for protein synthesis.
Very recently, evidence has been found that certain P elements* containing regulatory sequences from developmental genes, showed a high frequency of reinserting at the parent gene (homing) and preferential insertion at another site containing regulatory genes.57
The first example known of a host using the movement of a retrotransposon to its advantage, was found in the telomere maintenance of Drosophila. The telomeres, or chromosomal ends of Drosophila, are maintained differently than any other known organism. Two retroposons, HeTA and TART, are present in multiple copies on the telomeres, and will retropose specifically to the end of the telomere and heal a frayed chromosome.58
Observed regulation of mobile DNA
Epigenetic mechanisms, or reversible but heritable changes in chromatin structure, are seen to play a role in regulating genes. Methylation of cytosine residues, modification of the DNA-binding histones, and production of antisense RNAs, are some of the mechanisms by which gene expression can be modified without permanent genetic change to the gene regulated.59 Methylation of the cytosine residues of DNA is used by the cell to turn off genes not currently needed. Cytosine methylation inactivates the promoters of most viruses and transposons (including retroviruses and Alu elements). In fact, transposons are so abundant, rich in CpG dinucleotides and heavily methylated, that we now know that the large majority of 5'-methylcytosine in the genome actually lies within these elements.60 This prevents the movement of the elements under normal circumstances. Thus transposable elements that integrate into promoters of genes can alter gene expression patterns by attracting methylation or chromatin modifications to regulate the modified promoter.53
Drosophila, in general, are very vulnerable to mutation by mobile element activity. From 50–85% of all spontaneous mutations seen in the fruit fly are due to transposon insertions.53 But Drosophila does have one type of host control in the recently identified gene named flamenco. Flamenco normally acts to keep the gypsy retrotransposon in check. When flamenco is mutated, gypsy transposes at a high frequency in germ line (reproductive) cells.50
Criteria for identifying junk DNA
There are several possible scenarios for the presence and function of the putative junk DNA sequences described above:
They all perform God-designed functions in present day organisms in their present form and location, though current research has not revealed what those are as yet. This is unlikely, as it seems clear that in some individuals and species, the placement or particular sequence of one of a family of non-coding DNAs can lead to deleterious effects such as cancer and genetic disease. This would contradict the Bible’s description of God’s original perfect creation.
All non-coding sequences could have been created with functions, but some have lost their functions due to God’s purposeful limitations, and/or accumulation of mutations post-Fall. This would fit in with our observation of the rest of creation, where, though the perfection of God’s design can be seen, it has become obscured by consequences of the Fall, allowing death and suffering to enter the world.
There is the possibility that some of the elements, such as the mobile elements in particular, have never had designed functions. Rather, they are pieces of degenerate DNA affected by the Fall that randomly move about and mutate genomes, causing only deleterious effects.
The ability of DNA sequences to rearrange and/or to move about in the genome or even between genomes, was originally a heretical idea for both evolutionist and creationist, but now is one that is strongly supported as being an integral part of gene regulation. Many systems utilizing similar recombination and rearrangement mechanisms are necessary for important cellular functions, such as the process of DNA repair, rearrangement of DNA segments to form the genes for the thousands of different antibodies, the yeast mating type switching system, the flagellar switching system of Salmonella, and the antigen switching system of the malaria parasite. Therefore, the second scenario seems the most likely.
A working list of criteria needs to be developed to attempt to identify DNA sequences that may actually fit the category of junk DNA. The presence of some junk DNA would be expected due to the fallen state of genomes. True junk DNA may have one or more of the following characteristics:
The DNA element is present within another gene, insertionally inactivating it.
The DNA element is not found at that location in other members within the same species.
The effects of the presence of the element, if known, are deleterious, e.g. lead to cancer, genetic disease, etc.
The element can be deleted without any observed ill effects on the organism or many generations of its descendants.
The sequence of the element closely matches that of a mobile element, or contains a mobile element sequence.
For example, pseudogenes have many of these junk DNA characteristics, though their transformation into junk DNA may in some cases have been intentionally arranged by God for the purpose of rapid diversification of created kinds.
The AGEing theory and diversification
There are, as described above, instances of functions for transposable DNAs, but until recently there has not been a particular purpose ascribed to repetitive and mobile elements as a group. A new hypothesis formulated by genomicist and creationist Wood addresses the past and present functions of mobile and repetitive DNA.61
Since these elements are capable of rapid change of the genome, and can even be transmitted horizontally between species, he proposes that God designed them to move about or recombine in the genomes of organisms to allow the rapid intrabaraminic diversification seen in the 500 years or so after the Flood. He sees their role as being designed to act for a limited period of time, after which they would be inactivated by mutation or repression by other regulatory elements. He proposes that such elements should be renamed Altruistic Genetic Elements (AGEs) to emphasize that their purpose is different than that proposed for ‘selfish’ DNA.
The AGEs are hypothesised to work by activating dormant genes or inactivating active genes, or by horizontally transferring genetic information between species or possibly baramins with AGEs in the form of mobile elements. The phenotypic changes would be primarily cosmetic, such as variations in size or coloration, or would involve activation of a complex of genes needed to utilize a new environmental niche, like the Arctic fox’s adaptation to cold. There is a need for creationists to explain how a holobaramin such as the cat family,62 could diversify into the many species of cats that were present even in Job’s time in just a few thousand years or possibly a few hundred years. Currently observed genetic mechanisms and natural selection are far too slow to explain this rapid speciation. A limited time period of AGE activity could explain how this rapid diversification could occur.
If, for example, the proposed AGEs were at work in the diversification of the equines, we have the testable predication that differences in size, morphology and coloration could be traced back to the genetic level by mobile or repetitive DNA elements located near genes controlling coloration. Pseudogenes and relic retroviral sequences could then be the result of the action of an AGE gone wrong after its designed activity began to fail. The AGEing theory could also solve the ‘founding pair’ problem—that is, when a rare macromutation occurs in an individual such that it cannot successfully hybridise with its parental species, this mutation is lost unless it can mate with another animal with the same mutation.
For this proposed AGEing process to work, at least three things must be observed in putative AGEs:
They must show site specificity in where they insert, or evidence that they had such specificity in the past.
Transmission of AGEs between organisms horizontally and into germline DNA is required.
We should see AGEs associated with genes affecting size, morphology, coloration, and specialised environmental adaptation rather than housekeeping genes.
As for the first requirement, though many mobile elements are not specific in their target sites, there are examples of those that are, as discussed above. Since AGE movement is supposed to have occurred largely in the past, we might expect to see only a few with the intact capability.
As for the second requirement, horizontal transmission*, the evidence for that occurring has become very strong,63 and in the case of the P and gypsy elements in Drosophila, such transmission has actually been observed occurring between species. Originally, no wild-caught D. melanogaster contained the P element and laboratory stocks collected 60 years ago reflected this. Then gradually, more and more wild-caught flies contained the element originally found in D. willistoni, until now all wild flies even in remote locations contain this element.64 Recently, it was also shown that the copia retrotransposon from D. melanogaster was transferred to D. willistoni (probably via a parasitic mite).65,66 There was also a report that gypsy-free fruit flies permissive for transposition of the gypsy retroposon could incorporate gypsy into their germline DNA when larvae were fed on extract of infected pupae.67 There is no obvious evidence pointing to a functional change mediated by these horizontal transfers, but the principle is there.
As for the third requirement, are there any examples known now of mobile or repetitive elements that can cause these types of phenotypic changes? In bacteria, there are many examples of transfers of antibiotic resistance mediated by transposons,68 and the horizontal transfer of genes, though in general prokaryotes have comparatively little ‘junk’ DNA. Some evolutionary researchers now propose that mobile elements may be involved in speciation. Mobility of a retroelement was activated in a cross between two wallaby species, though the hybridisation resulted in only sterile males.69 In maize, the original studies of Nobel Prize winner Barbara McClintock demonstrated that the activity of the transposons in different corn kernel cells could be followed by their effects on corn kernel coloration. In plants, there is additional strong evidence that movement of mobile elements in the past has altered gene expression. Although retrotransposon sequences, for example, are seldom found near genes in animals, recent analyses of plant mobile element insertion sites have revealed the presence of degenerate retrotransposon insertions adjacent to many normal plant genes that act as regulatory elements.70 In addition to retrotransposons, MITEs are also found adjacent to many plant genes, where they also often provide regulatory sequences necessary for transcription.71 Plants, as well as animals, would have had to adjust to the drastically-altered post-Flood world. Other, more dramatic examples may exist, and further research will hopefully reveal them.
AGEing activity during the Ark sojourn
Putting thousands of animals aboard the Ark could have had a dual purpose. Not only did it preserve their lives, but also it would probably allow transfer of genetic material and/or activation of latent genes simultaneously in all land animals. Under the relatively crowded Ark conditions, transfer of genetic material from one species to another through broad host range viruses, parasitic mites or fleas would be facilitated. This might have produced a distribution of AGEs in species in such a way as to defy evolutionary phylogeny, as is seen for the Tc1/mariner family and in the gypsy family of retrotransposons.72
Why debunk ‘junk’ DNA?
What is the relevance to creation science, and to Christians in general, of a better understanding of the function of these DNA elements? Because of the publicity surrounding the Human Genome Project, there is increasing general interest in how our genomes work, and what exactly they look like. There is more and more emphasis being placed on discovering our evolutionary history through DNA, not fossils.
The fact that functions are being found for junk DNAs fits in well with creation science, but was not predicted by evolutionary theory, though of course the theory is being adjusted again to accommodate the data. The intricate flexibility and specificity of these ‘junk’ DNA sequences are a strong testimony to a Creator who plans and provides for the future of his creation.
|Allele||one of several alternate forms of a gene occupying a given locus on a chromosome. Return to text.|
|Antisense RNA||RNA made by copying the other DNA strand in a coding segment in the opposite direction; this RNA will bind to the mRNA made from the coding or sense strand. Return to text.|
|Baramin||the creationist term for an original created kind as described in Genesis; not synonymous with species. Organisms within the same baramin may be of different species but can cross-hybridise, like the horse and the donkey. Return to text.|
|Complementary||two strands of DNA or RNA are said to be complementary when they can form base pairs (A-T, G-C) with each other, e.g. AATTCC and TTAAGG. Return to text.|
|Chromatin||the complex of DNA and protein in the nucleus of the interphase cell. Return to text.|
|Euchromatin||the less condensed chromatin in the nucleus that is more transcriptionally active than the heterochromatin. Return to text.|
|Eukaryote||an organism with an organized nucleus. Return to text .|
|Haploid||half the set of the chromosome pairs; contains one copy of each chromosome pair and one of the sex chromosomes; characteristic of gametes (sperm and egg cells). Return to text.|
|Heterochromatin||regions of the genome that are in a highly condensed state and are not usually transcribed. Constitutive hetereochromatin is always in this condensed, inactive state, contains no genes, and is usually found at the centromeres and teleomeres. Facultative heterochromatin is condensed only in certain cell types, or at certain developmental stages when the genes contained in it need to be turned off. Return to text.|
|Histones||a family of basic proteins found tightly associated with DNA in all eukaryotic nuclei; their binding forms a bead structure called a nucleosome. Return to text.|
|Horizontal transmission||when mobile elements or viruses are transferred between individuals by infection rather than by inheritance (vertical transmission). Return to text.|
|Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs)||retroviruses that have become part of the human genome in the past by insertion into the germline cells. Return to text .|
|Hybridisation||the pairing of single-stranded complementary RNA and/or DNA strands to give an RNA-DNA or DNA-DNA hybrid. Return to text.|
|Inversion||occurs when recombination between DNA segments causes the DNA between them to be flipped into the opposite orientation at the same chromosomal locus. Return to text.|
|Isochore||an approximately 300 kb segment of DNA whose bp composition is uniform above a 3 kb level, for example 67% A-T bp. This is believed to enable a certain level of co-regulation of all the DNA in the isochore. Return to text .|
|LTR||long terminal repeat; the longer, more complex repeated sequences at the ends of some mobile elements, which are required for them to transpose. Return to text.|
|ORF||open reading frame; a stretch of DNA or RNA that contains of series of triplet codons coding for amino acids, without any protein termination codons, that is potentially translatable into protein. Return to text.|
|P elements||DNA transposons found in fruit fly species that often have a high level of mobility. Return to text.|
|Promoter||a region of DNA involved in binding of RNA polymerase to initiate transcription. Return to text.|
|Poly-(A) tail||a sequence of adenine residues added to the 3’ end of a mRNA after transcription in the process called polyadenylation; believed to help stabilize mRNAs from being degraded. Return to text.|
|Pseudogene||a gene that has been inactivated in the past by an insertion or deletion of DNA. Return to text.|
|Prokaryote||an organism that lacks an organized nucleus, and has its DNA mostly in a single molecule; a bacterium. Return to text.|
|Processed pseudogene||a gene that has been apparently reverse-transcribed from its mRNA back into DNA and reinserted into a chromosome. It thus lacks its introns, has a poly-A tail, and often is bounded by the characteristic direct repeats associated with transposition. Return to text.|
|Retroelement||any sequence that transposes through an RNA intermediate. Return to text.|
mobile elements that encode reverse transcriptase. Transpose through an RNA intermediate.
Classed into LTR-containing and poly (A)- containing:
LTR-containing—similar to proviral form of vertebrate retroviruses and usually have 2 ORFs, gag and pol (protease, integrase, reverse transcriptase, RNase H), e.g. Gypsy and tom.
Poly (A)—containing retroelements or retroposons lack LTRs and have a 3’ A-rich region. Have 2 ORFs, gag and pol. Some elements such as L1 and the I Factor of Drosophila, contain a reverse transcriptase. L1 is found in yeast and humans. Return to text .
|Retrovirus||a virus using RNA as its information storage system rather than DNA, integrates into host DNA as part of its lifecycle in a way very similar to retrotransposons, but also has additional genes that code for its packaging into virus particles for infection of other hosts. Return to text.|
|Reverse transcriptase||an enzyme found in retroelements that will make a complementary DNA strand from an RNA template. Return to text.|
|Splicing||two exons, or coding regions on a messenger RNA, are joined together when the intron (non-coding segment) between them is removed. Return to text .|
|Translation||the synthesis of protein on the messenger RNA template. Return to text.|
|Translocation||of a chromosome describes a rearrangement in which part of a chromosome is detached by breakage and then becomes attached to some other chromosome. Return to text.|
|Transcription||synthesis of RNA on the DNA template. Return to text .|
|Transposase||the enzyme that cuts the target DNA and splices in the transposing sequence; called the integrase in retroelements.|
|Transposon||any DNA sequence that can move about the genome, either by replicating itself, or by a cut-and-paste mechanism. In its simplest form, it is a transposase gene (see above) surrounded by a sequence on either side repeated directly or in inverse form, e.g. ATTGCGC and CGCGTTA are inverted repeats. Return to text .|
|Triplet codon||three nucleotides in an RNA or DNA that signal the insertion of a particular amino acid or termination signal; e.g. AUG would be the ‘code word’ for methionine. Return to text.|
|UTR||untranslated region; the parts of a messenger RNA before the first exon (‘5 prime’ UTR) and after the last exon (‘3 prime’ UTR) that are not translated into protein (non-coding). Return to text.|
The author wishes to thank Dr. Todd C. Wood for providing unpublished information on his AGEing theory and his rice genome research. Thanks also to the editor for helpful discussions, information and patience with revisions.
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- Miller, K., Lynch, C., Martin, J., Herniou, E. and Tristem, M., Identification of multiple gypsy LTR-retrotransposon lineages in vertebrate genomes, J. Mol. Evol. 49(3):358–366,1999. | <urn:uuid:c341810f-c930-40c2-a23d-59dfcc9d3b37> | {
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"Blood must be avenged with blood, and accounts with the U.S. imperialists must be settled with, at all costs."
The relationship between the United States and North Korea has never been smooth. But to fully understand the fractured relationship between the two nations one must go back almost 70 years to the Sinchon Massacre.
This was a series of mass killings allegedly carried out by the United States military forces from Oct. 17 to Dec. 7, 1950, during the start of the Korean War. Over this 52-day window, it is speculated that more than 35,000 Korean civilians were murdered. But whether this was at the hands of U.S. soldiers or others is still contested.
There are conflicting accounts from multiple sides concerning the events, the death toll, and on whom to place the responsibility for the massacre.
The Background Behind The Sinchon Massacre
There were supposedly several mass slaughterings over two months at the end of 1950 which contributed to the overall death toll in Sinchon County.
One of the first of these slaughterings was on Oct. 18, 1950 at an air raid shelter in Sinchon. North Korean records state that American soldiers massacred some 900 people.
Another 520 lives, including 50 women and children, were lost two days later on Oct. 20, 1950, during an attack at the police station’s air raid shelter. This pattern of mass killings continued until the alleged final death toll of 35,383 was reached on Dec. 7.
Who Was Responsible?
It remains unclear whether the U.S. military, the South Korean military, or a North Korean communist guerilla unit were more responsible for the gruesome attack. Indeed, the conflict appears quite complicated.
The Sinchon massacre “cannot be understood simply as killings between the left and the right,” South Korean historian Han Sung Hoon alleges.
“It must be understood three-dimensionally, as the explosive result of the contradictions emanating from the colonial period after liberation, combined with the division and establishment of two separate states in the North and South, and eventual war, which exacerbated the internal problems of class, hierarchy, and religion.”
In Travis Jeppesen’s book See You Again in Pyongyang, Hoon said that when North Korean military units retreated from Sinchon and local communist guerrilla units took their place in the battle against South Korean and U.S. forces, the area became a “hotbed of both rightist and leftist aggression in the moments leading up to the massacre of late 1950.”
This could partially explain why it can be so difficult to place blame for the massacre.
Some sources claim that the massacre was carried out by the U.S. soldiers, other accounts say that the South Koreans were to blame. Some historians hold that while the attack was carried out by South Korea, they were acting under orders of the U.S. military.
A 1952 report, however, from a group of lawyers, judges, and professors from Britain, France, Austria, Italy, Belgium, China, Poland, and Brazil, investigated the claims of the massacre and presented evidence of guilt on behalf of the Americans.
But Dong-Choon Kim, a former Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for South Korea, disagrees with these findings. He holds that North Korean guerilla groups, or young communist factions, were to blame.
Regardless, the outcome of those murky events which took place in Sinchon amounted to the North Korean’s siding ever more fiercely against the U.S.
Fast forward to 2014, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities. Originally constructed in 1958, the museum had been revamped at the instruction of Kim Jong Un.
Some say that the museum is largely used by the North Korean leadership to fuel hatred of the United States, while Pyeongyang claims that it is merely evidence of the U.S.’s responsibility for the death of so many of their citizens. The museum’s 16 rooms are carefully crafted to display the horrid details of the massacre.
The rooms house artifacts and propaganda from the 52-day time period and feature exhibits containing letters from captured children, weapons and tools used for torture, evidence of American airstrikes and chemical warfare, and a bloodstained North Korean flag.
During his 2014 visit to the museum, Kim made his negative feelings towards Americans very clear. Kim has reported that no matter how much the “U.S. imperialists try to play tricks, the traces of blood left on this land cannot ever be erased.”
“Blood must be avenged with blood, and accounts with the U.S. imperialists must be settled with, at all costs,” he added. | <urn:uuid:0acce246-4c15-4c29-b01d-5af6aeacec1a> | {
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|Cyprus Table of Contents
The south's successful economy kept unemployment rates low. During the 1980s, unemployment rose above 3.3 percent only once, in 1987, when it reached 3.7 percent. In 1988 unemployment was 2.8 percent. Unemployment rates were also low in the years just before the Turkish invasion of 1974, averaging about 1 percent. The invasion and division of the island disrupted the economy, and in the government-controlled area unemployment averaged 16.2 percent in 1975 and 8.5 percent in 1976. During 1977 the rate fell to 3 percent, a rate typical for the south's economy during the 1980s.
The south's economy frequently had to contend with a shortage of workers and in some years was forced to import workers from abroad to meet the needs of various sectors, especially the tourist industry. This shortfall reflected the changing employment patterns of the economy as a whole. The only population group that consistently had difficulty finding employment was composed of university graduates. Their discontent sometimes resulted in demonstrations and demands that the civil service be expanded.
In 1973 about 37.5 percent of those gainfully employed were members of labor unions. Union membership increased greatly between 1974 and 1977, reaching 62 percent at the end of 1977. This trend continued, and in 1988 labor unions represented more than 80 percent of the work force.
The most prominent unions in the government-controlled area were the left-wing Pan-Cyprian Federation of Labor (Pankypria Ergatiki Omospondia--PEO) with about 70,000 members at the end of the 1980s, and the right-wing Cyprus Workers' Confederation (Synomospondia Ergaton Kyprou--SEK) with about 50,000 members. Third in importance was the civil servants' labor union, with a membership of about 13,000. Employers were organized in various associations represented in the Cyprus Employers' and Industrialists' Federation.
Terms and conditions of employment were negotiated either directly between employee and employer or through collective bargaining between trade unions and employers' organizations. The government's policy was to remain largely uninvolved in these negotiations unless a deadlock had been reached or its participation had been requested, when it acted through its Industrial Relations Section, a part of the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance. This section routinely acted to prevent laboremployer discord by providing both groups with guidance and information about good industrial relations. As a result, the number of working days lost to strikes was among the lowest in the Western world relative to the size of the work force.
In the 1980s, wages rose faster than prices. A part of the wage increase was brought about through wage indexation, with automatic quarterly wage increases equal to about half the inflation rate. Even at this rate, however, wage increases could be troublesome for the economy. In 1988, for example, average wages and salaries increased 4.5 percent in real terms, but exceeded the productivity gain of 3.5 percent. The relative scarcity of labor and rising labor costs affected the economy in the 1980s and were expected to continue to do in the 1990s.
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This is a course for first semester geography
graduate students. It is a course intended to help formulate knowledge
and understanding of geography, its research methods and an understanding
of the scientific method. Broad concepts underlying research and the development
of a thesis or major research project will be the focus of this course.
Students will be asked to develop a research topic and begin the process
of writing a review of literature and a begin developing a methodology
for their topic during the semester.
Geography 405 is designed as a seminar, not a lecture course. Critical
reading and discussion of a wide range of literature will be the major
focus of the semester. Active participation is absolutely essential to
your success in the course. Altogether, you will write one major paper,
complete an annotated bibliography and undertake a series of classroom
assignments. Your written work and classroom participation will always
be measured against the same standards; your ability to interpret assigned
readings critically; to argue your positions effectively; to relate ideas
and theory to practice; and to articulate a well-considered personal philosophy
of geography. Reading and assignments should be completed on schedule.
Classroom assignments and successful completion of the beginnings of a
research project will test your understanding of the primary issues raised
in the course. The assignments will permit you to pursue particular themes
at greater length. Your papers will be graded on both the quality of your
written expression and your progression towards a major research project.
This class will be using email, a listserv and the internet for many assignments.
You will be instructed on how to obtain the materials you need early in
the semester. Subsequently, it will be your responsibility to log onto
the system and access the materials needed for this class. We will be
using a variety of graphic and word processing programs on both the Macintosh
and PC platforms.
Each of the minor assignments you hand in will be graded on a scale of
1-3. These scores will be totaled at the end of the semester. In addition,
your class participation will be evaluated on a weekly basis. Your two
major assignments--an annotated bibliography and a review of literature,
will be graded on an A-F basis. Basically, your written papers will account
for approximately 50% of your grade and your class participation and weekly
assignments will make up the other 50%. Late papers will be penalized
5 points per day.
CLASS ASSIGNMENTS AND PARTICIAPTION
This seminar demands active participation in all discussions. This means
you must do more than remain up to date in your readings: you must express
and defend your findings in class. As was mentioned above, class participation
counts toward your final grade. Your participation will be rated each
week and the ratings averaged to determine your grade for class participation.
It is my policy to award unexcused absences with a grade of 0. The only
excused absences arise from family and medical emergencies. I will judge
these situations on a case-by-case basis.
It is my policy to penalize anyone who engages in academic dishonesty.
Academic dishonesty includes, among other offenses, plagiarism of the
writing of others, cheating on exams, and submitting the papers of others
as your own. As regards to plagiarism, I should note that it is quite
common in scholarly essays to refer to and quote from the writings of
others. Within limits, this is a good practice--as long as the original
author is credited by name and sources in your test, footnotes, and bibliography.
It is good practice, as well, to credit paraphrases and summaries you
derive from the writings of others. Academic honesty is fundamental to
the activities and principles of a university. All members of the academic
community must be confident that each person's work has been responsible
and honorable acquired, developed, and presented. Any effort to gain an
advantage not given to all students is dishonest whether or not the effort
is successful. The academic community regards academic dishonesty as an
expulsion. When in doubt about plagiarism, paraphrasing, quoting, or collaboration,
please consult with me.
If you have special needs as addressed by the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) and need assistance, please notify the Access Office or me immediately.
Reasonable effort will be made to accommodate your special needs. | <urn:uuid:034a7514-4fcf-4f58-8941-4ccc0335a131> | {
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is an isiZulu
word for any armed body of men. However, in English it is often used to refer to a Zulu regiment
, which is called an ibutho
. The first impis were formed by Zulu king Shaka
, who was then only the exiled illegitimate son of king Senzangakona
, but already showing much prowess as a general in the army of Mthethwa
in the Mthethwa-Ndwandwe
war in the early 1810s.
Impi warriors were trained as early as age six, joining the army as udibi
porters at first, being enrolled into same-age groups
). Until they were buta
'd, Zulu boys accompanied their fathers and brothers on campaign as servants. Eventually, they would go to the nearest ikhanda
(which literally means to drink directly from the udder), at which point they would become inkwebane
, or cadets. They would spend their time training until they were formally enlisted by the king. They would challenge each other to stick fights, which had to be accepted on pain of dishonor.
On being formally formed into regiments -ibutho
) after their 20th birthday, they would build their ikhanda
(often referred to as a 'homestead', and it was basically a stockaded group of huts surrounding a corral for cattle) which would be where they would come when mustered for active service. They would have to come for this muster until they married, which was a privilege the king bestowed. The amabutho were recruited on the basis of age rather than regional or tribal origin. The reason for this was to enhance the centralised power of the Zulu king at the expense of clan and tribal leaders. They swore loyalty to the king of the Zulu nation.
Every ibutho was a thousand warriors strong and originally contained warriors from the same intanga (this practice later changed as casualties suffered by the regiments made reinforcements necessary). Each ibutho had its own colors in colored shields, headdress and other ornaments. An impi - a force which contained several amabutho - was also accompanied by udibi, young boys who carried implements like cooking pots and sleeping mats and on occasion acted as scouts. Shaka insisted that troops wear no shoes—they could run faster and were not disabled by the loss of their sandals. Training for this was to stamp thorns into the ground with bare feet.
In wartime, the Zulu soldier went into battle minimally dressed, painting his upper body and face with chalk and red ochre, despite the popular conception of elaborately panoplied warriors. In Shaka's day, warriors often wore elaborate plumes and cow tail regalia, but by the Anglo-Zulu War
of 1879, many warriors wore only loin cloth into battle. As weapons he carried the iklwa
stabbing spear (losing one could result in execution) and knobkerrie
or cudgels) for beating an enemy in the manner of a mace
. He also carried shields, which were property of the king. The iklwa with its long (c. 25cm) tip was an invention of Shaka that superseded the older thrown assegai
(it was so named because of the sucking sound it made when withdrawn from a human body). It could theoretically be used both in melee and as a thrown weapon, but warriors were forbidden in Shaka's day from throwing it, which would disarm them and give their opponents something to throw back. Moreover, Shaka felt it discouraged warriors from closing into hand to hand combat. However, after the Zulus encountered the Boers and the British, who were armed with firearms, the Zulus re-introduced the throwing spear in an effort to counter their enemies' firepower. By the time of Zulu War
, king Cetshwayo
also equipped them with muskets
and they also used rifles
captured from the British. However, many of their weapons were obsolete or in bad condition and warriors were usually badly trained in their use.
Shaka used impis with a modified encircling tactic - impondo zankoma
('bull's horns'); Impi troops would divide into four groups. The main group (isifuba
, 'chest') would face the enemy, two wings (izimpondo
, 'horns') on two sides of the enemy and then force them towards the center. The fourth party (usually the veterans) remained as a reserve. They travelled light, and carried their own food or foraged along the way. The image of the Zulu warrior who could "run fifty miles and fight a battle at the end of it" is not at all true, but the barefooted Zulu warrior was swift, and could cover perhaps 25 miles a day. Thus tactics against their enemies (other African tribes, the Boers
, and the British) were surprise and overwhelming force, rather than siege or long campaigns. During the Anglo-Zulu War
, British commander Lord Chelmsford
complained that they did not 'fight fair'.
Against the Ndwandwe
, numerically superior northern neighbours who invaded Zulu territory to suppress them, Shaka
played hide-and-seek games, while laying waste to the land to prevent foraging. Shaka waited and only attacked when the Ndwandwe were divided or exhausted.
Impi were also famous for their custom 'washing of spears (in their enemy's blood)' in which they cut open the belly of killed (and allegedly sometimes still living) opponents. The Zulus believed that this meant the release of the opponent's spirit so it could not haunt the killer.
Complex ceremonies surrounded battles, and great honours were bestowed upon the courageous in battle. Cowards were dishonoured and occasionally executed. Wounds were crudely serviced, but the Zulus had an unusual rate of recovery. Overall, the Zulu army was versatile and all but invincible against other African armies. However, they faced tougher and technologically deadlier opposition when confronted with the Boers, from around 1830 and later the British. Although Zulu impis under Dingane had some early success against the Trek Boers, they suffered a bloody defeat when attacking a fortified laager at the battle of Blood River in 1838. Similarly, the Zulus scored a famous victory over the British at the battle of Isandlwana in 1879, but ultimately were no match for the Martini-Henry rifles and Gatling machine guns used against them by the British troops.They suffered successive defeats at the Battle of Rorke's Drift, battle of Kambula, battle of Gingindlovu and the battle of Ulundi, which led to the destruction of the Zulu Kingdom.
Rudyard Kipling refers to them in his poem "Fuzzy-Wuzzy":
- We took our chanst among the Khyber 'ills,
- The Boers knocked us silly at a mile,
- The Burman give us Irriwady Chills,
- 'An a Zulu Impi dished us up in style.
In the computer games Civilization 3, Civilization 4: Warlords and Civilization: Revolution, the Impi is the unique unit for the Zulu.
Impi is also the title of a very famous South Africa song by the band Juluka which has become something of an unofficial national anthem, especially at major international sports events and especially where the opponent is England.
- Ian Knight, Brave Men's Blood - the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879
- Ian Knight, The Zulus
- D.R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears | <urn:uuid:170c997e-8df2-4840-b770-e515bc628ffc> | {
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1 Answer | Add Yours
In a conversation with Amon Goethe, Oskar Schindler defines "mercy" as power because mercy elevates a person in the eyes of the one to whom he/she is demonstrating mercy. He also very wisely uses a story of a king who chooses not to execute a condemned servant to explain his concept to Geothe, thereby appealing to the man's sense of self-importance. I find this to be one of the most important moments in the film because it is so revealing of both Schindler's and Goethe's inner selves and is a great teaching opportunity to illustrate to students the subtlety of Schindler's influential finesse as well as the tremendous personal risks he was taking.
We’ve answered 319,816 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question | <urn:uuid:f930e8b7-341f-4557-ab83-e84aa1a61a43> | {
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Author: Roop Krishen BhatPublisher: National Council for Promotion of Urdu LanguageYear: 2005Language: UrduPages: 116ISBN/UPC (if available): 8175870622
National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Secondary & Higher Education, Govt of India, has been set up to promote, develop and propagate Urdu language. Urdu is one of the important national languages of India and is spoken throughout the country. There are large number of Indians who know the language, can speak it, but do not know he script. This text is intended primarily for use in distance-learning of Urdu courses focusing on teaching of reading and writing of the Urdu script. Each of the twenty lessons offered here is complemented by a corresponding lesson in the accompanying collection of Response Sheets. Together, the Response Sheets and this manual will provide the learner with a comprehensive knowledge of the basic rules governing the Urdu script.
ForewordIntroductionUrdu Alphabet and Roman TranscriptionLesson-1 - Lesson - 20Traditional order of Urdu alphabetPunctuation Marks, Abbreviations and Numerals | <urn:uuid:0957c0b6-7a65-4506-8801-77c6afc365ba> | {
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Cotton is an expensive crop to grow, but experts warn that planting fewer seeds per acre is not the way to reduce costs.
As with most crops, cotton varieties have been modified to develop or enhance desirable traits. Depending on the technology, fees to cover the research and development can account for two-thirds of the total cost of seed, or as much as a few hundred dollars per bag of seed.
“You're no longer simply buying a seed. Now you're buying a planting unit,” said Will McCarty, state program leader for agriculture and natural resources with Mississippi State University's Extension Service. “The embryonic cotton plant now may have superior yield potential and include the ability to resist certain herbicides and cotton insect pests.”
McCarty said cotton seed prices have gone from about $1,000 to $2,000 a ton at the start of his more than 20-year career to as much as $10,000 per ton today, depending on variety and associated traits.
Coinciding with the improved varieties is the availability of very accurate and precise planting equipment. As the price of “planting units” increased and technology gave producers full control over seeding rates, producers started planting fewer seeds per acre to cut cost.
But research indicates that lowering planting rates to cut costs is not the way to go. “If you look at population studies of the most common varieties in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2003, you will find that the optimum plant populations are the same from the 1960s to today,” McCarty said.
This research shows that a stand of 40,000 to 55,000 cotton plants per acre has consistently produced the highest yields for the last 40 years. On standard 38- to 40-inch rows, McCarty said, growers should have three or four living plants per foot. Producers must drop four or five seeds per foot to insure that survival rate.
With precise planters, many growers are tempted to drop one or two fewer seeds per foot to significantly reduce their overall seed costs.
“It may be false economy,” McCarty said. “For growers to plant the very minimum number of seed, if anything adverse happens in the field, they could face replanting. Planting one extra seed per foot is cheap insurance.”
McCarty encouraged growers to request of the seed companies the standard germination and vigor data for the seed lots they purchase. Plant the highest-germination, highest-vigor seeds first in the cooler soils. This data also should be used to adjust seeding rates to insure producers drop enough seed to get the desired final plant population.
“Long-term experience has shown that under most conditions, expected field survival will be very close to the vigor test value for that lot of seed,” McCarty said.
The Bureau of Plant Industry is authorized under the Mississippi Pure Seed Law to routinely sample seeds and to respond to inquiries about the quality and vigor of seed. Mike Tagert, director of the Bureau, said this work includes laboratory sampling of seeds and inspection of seed labels to see that the correct information is provided on them.
“The focus and only motivation is to insure Mississippi growers are getting good quality seed when they purchase it,” Tagert said.
Bonnie Coblentz writes for Mississippi State University Ag Communications. | <urn:uuid:427a620e-06ce-4298-b963-b0c7608fdbab> | {
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Under Pol Pot's leadership, and within days of overthrowing the government, the Khmer Rouge embarked on an organised mission: they ruthlessly imposed an extremist programme to reconstruct Cambodia (now under its Khmer name Kampuchea) on the communist model of Mao's China. The population must, they believed, be made to work as labourers in one huge federation of collective farms. Anyone in opposition - and all intellectuals and educated people were assumed to be - must be eliminated, together with all un-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society.
So, at short notice and under threat of death, the inhabitants of towns and cities were forced to leave them. The ill, disabled, old and very young were driven out as well, regardless of their physical condition: no-one was spared the exodus. People who refused to leave were killed; so were those who didn't leave fast enough, and those who wouldn't obey orders.
All political and civil rights were abolished. Children were taken from their parents and placed in separate forced labour camps. Factories, schools and universities were shut down; so were hospitals. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and professional people in any field (including the army) were murdered, together with their extended families. Religion was banned, all leading Buddhist monks were killed and almost all temples destroyed. Music and radio sets were also banned. It was possible for people to be shot simply for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, or crying. One Khmer slogan ran 'To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.'
People who escaped murder became unpaid labourers, working on minimum rations and for impossibly long hours. They slept and ate in uncomfortable communes deliberately chosen to be as far as possible from their old homes. Personal relationships were discouraged; so were expressions of affection. People soon became weak from overwork and starvation, and after that fell ill, for which there was no treatment except death.
Also targeted were minority groups, victims of the Khmer Rouge's racism. These included ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, and also Cambodians with Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai ancestry. Half the Cham Muslim population was murdered, and 8,000 Christians.
The imposition of a murderous regime always leaves its leaders afraid: afraid of losing power, failing to prevent vengeance, and facing betrayal by ambitious rivals. The Khmer Rouge repeatedly interrogated their own members, imprisoning and executing them on the slightest suspicion of treachery or sabotage.
Civilian deaths in this period, from executions, disease, exhaustion and starvation, have been estimated at well over 2m.
With macabre bureaucratic precision the Kmer Rouge photographed their victims before torturing and killing them. This picture is all that remains of a mother and child murdered in Tuol Sleng Prison sometime between 1975 and 1979. | <urn:uuid:a36cea50-c700-4564-9dcd-c912540dab47> | {
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Robots are fluent in their native language of 1 and 0 absolutes but struggle to grasp the nuances and imprecise nature of human language. While scientists are making slow, incremental progress in their quest to create a robot that responds to speech, gestures and body language, a more straightforward method of communication may help robots find their way into homes sooner.
A team of researchers led by Charlie Kemp, director of the Center for Healthcare Robotics in the Health Systems Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, have found a way to instruct a robot to find and deliver an item it may have never seen before using a more direct manner of communication — a laser pointer.
El-E (pronounced like the name Ellie), a robot designed to help users with limited mobility with everyday tasks, autonomously moves to an item selected with a green laser pointer, picks up the item and then delivers it to the user, another person or a selected location such as a table. El-E, named for her ability to elevate her arm and for the arm’s resemblance to an elephant trunk, can grasp and deliver several types of household items including towels, pill bottles and telephones from floors or tables.
To ensure that El-E will someday be ready to roll out of the lab and into the homes of patients who need assistance, the Georgia Tech and Emory research team includes Prof. Julie Jacko, an expert on human-computer interaction and assistive technologies, and Dr. Jonathan Glass, director of the Emory ALS Center at the Emory University School of Medicine. El-E’s creators are gathering input from ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) patients and doctors to prepare El-E to assist patients with severe mobility challenges.
The research was presented at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in Amsterdam on March 14 and an associated workshop on “Robotic Helpers” on March 12.
Charlie Kemp, director of the Healthcare Robotics Center at Georgia Tech and Emory University, accepts a towel from El-E, a robot designed to aid users with mobility impairment with everyday tasks.
The verbal instructions a person gives to help someone find a desired object are very difficult for a robot to use (the cup over near the couch or the brush next to the red toothbrush). These types of commands require the robot to understand everyday human language and the objects it describes at a level well beyond the state of the art in language recognition and object perception.
“We humans naturally point at things but we aren’t very accurate, so we use the context of the situation or verbal cues to clarify which object is important,” said Kemp, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. “Robots have some ability to retrieve specific, predefined objects, such as a soda can, but retrieving generic everyday objects has been a challenge for robots.”
The laser pointer interface and methods developed by Kemp’s team overcome this challenge by providing a direct way for people to communicate the location of interest to El-E and complimentary methods that enable El-E to pick up an object found at this location. Through these innovations, El-E can retrieve objects without understanding what the object is or what it’s called.
In addition to the laser pointer interface, El-E uses another approach to simplify its task. Indoors, objects are usually found on smooth, flat surfaces with uniform appearance, such as floors, tables, and shelves. Kemp’s team designed El-E to take advantage of this common structure.
Regardless of the height, El-E uses the same strategies to localize and pick up the object by elevating its arm and sensors to match the height of the object’s location. The robot’s ability to reach objects both from the floor and shelves is particularly important for patients with mobility impairments since these locations can be difficult to reach, Kemp said.
El-E uses a custom-built camera that is omni-directional to see most of the room. After the robot detects that a selection has been made with the laser pointer, the robot moves two cameras to look at the laser spot and triangulate its position in three-dimensional space.
Next, the robot estimates where the item is in relation to its body and travels to the location. If the location is above the floor, the robot finds the edge of the surface on which the object is sitting, such as the edge of a table.
Picking up the unknown object is a significant challenge El-E faces in completing its task. It uses a laser range finder that scans across the surface to initially locate the object. Then, after moving its hand above the object, it uses a camera in its hand to visually distinguish the object from the texture of the floor or table. After refining the hand’s position and orientation, it descends upon the object while using sensors in its hand to decide when to stop moving down and start closing its gripper. Finally, it closes its gripper upon the object until it has a secure grip.
Once the robot has picked up the item, the laser pointer can be used to guide the robot to another location to deposit the item or direct the robot to take the item to a person. El-E distinguishes between these two situations by looking for a face near the selected location.
If the robot detects a face, it carefully moves toward the person and presents the item to the user so it can be taken. It uses the location of the face and legs to determine where it will present the object.
If no face is detected near the location illuminated by the laser pointer, the robot decides whether the location is on a table or the floor. If it is on a table, El-E places the object on the table. If the location is on the floor El-E moves to the selected location on the floor.
After delivering the item, the robot returns to the user’s side, ready to handle the next request.
El-E’s power and computation is all on board (no tethers or hidden computers in the next room) and runs Ubuntu Linux on a Mac mini.
El-E’s laser pointer interface and methods for autonomous mobile manipulation represent an important step toward robotic assistants in the home.
“If you want a robot to cook a meal or brush your hair, you will probably want the robot to first fetch the items it will need, and for tasks such as cleaning up around the home, it is essential that the robot be able to pick up objects and move them to new locations. We see object fetching as a core capability for future robots in healthcare settings, such as the home,” Kemp said.
The Georgia Tech and Emory research team is now working to help El-E expand its capabilities to include switching lights on and off when the user selects a light switch and opening and closing doors when the user selects a door knob.
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LONDON – A Liberian woman who probably caught Ebola in 2014 may have infected three relatives a year after she first fell sick, doctors reported in a study published Monday.
There have been previous instances of men spreading Ebola to women via sexual transmission – the virus can survive in semen for more than a year – but the new case is the first time scientists have suggested that Ebola was spread from a woman after such a prolonged period.
The rare possibility of Ebola spreading long after infection highlights the importance of monitoring survivors, especially with the imminent end of the most recent flare-up of the disease in Congo. That country’s latest outbreak, announced in May, has so far recorded 38 confirmed cases, including 14 deaths. It is due to be declared contained on Wednesday, which will mark 42 days, or two incubation periods, since the last case was recorded.
“The Ebola virus hides in places where it can escape the antibodies from a body’s immune system, so there is a need for vigilance,” said Dr. David Heymann, a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was not linked to the new research.
The unusual cluster of cases in Liberia was identified after the woman’s 15-year-old son was diagnosed with Ebola in November 2015. Scientists then tested the rest of his family: the woman, her husband and their three younger sons.
The 15-year-old died a few days later. The father and an 8-year-old boy were positive for Ebola, but both recovered. The couple’s 5-year-old son wasn’t infected.
Doctors found Ebola antibodies in the mother, her breast milk and her 2-month-old baby, suggesting a previous infection and the possibility she passed on protection to her infant son through breastfeeding.
Researchers reported genetic similarities between the viruses taken from the father, the two boys and the strain circulating during the 2014-15 outbreak across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, which ultimately killed more than 11,000 people in the biggest Ebola epidemic in history.
Scientists discovered the woman had cared for her brother in July 2014, who died after suffering Ebola-like symptoms but before being tested for the disease. The woman later experienced a similar illness, but never sought care.
Several weeks after giving birth to a baby in September 2015, the woman developed problems including fatigue and breathing difficulties. Doctors say that because pregnancy lowers the body’s immune defenses, that may have allowed for the Ebola virus to re-emerge.
“The suspicious illness she had following delivery may have been a re-activation of Ebola, but we have no confirmatory tests,” said Dr. Emily Kainne Dokubo, who led the Ebola response in Liberia for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the study’s lead author.
Dokubo said it was possible the woman infected her husband and two older sons with Ebola when they took care of her – the disease is normally spread through contact with an infected patient’s blood or other bodily fluids. The case report was published online Monday in the journal Lancet.
“There isn’t complete evidence to reconstruct what happened, but this is the most likely scenario,” said Lorenzo Subissi, an epidemiologist at Sciensano, a Belgian research institute, who was not part of the study.
Dokubo said such cases of Ebola re-emergence are exceptional, with only two reported instances: a Scottish nurse who developed meningitis caused by Ebola hidden in her brain and an American physician who had lingering virus in his eye. In those two cases, the virus did not spread any further.
“We don’t want there to be a sense of complacency with people thinking that just because the outbreak is over, there’s nothing more to be done,” Dokubo said. “There is a risk of viral persistence and people should seek care immediately so that we can pick up any suspicious cases right away and stop a larger outbreak.”
The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | <urn:uuid:27ae2dc0-b0fb-4f3d-a671-40c77a075804> | {
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Last week I wrote about my favorite new papers on mountains and phenology after a summer of scientific reading. In the second half of my top ten list, I’m highlighting some plant mysteries and best practices of 2018.
“Plant mysteries” is a label that I’m using to lump together three plant papers that I can’t stop thinking about. They cover some of my favorite methodological quirks — historical field notes, herbarium digitization, citizen science — and two genera that I think are cool — Sibbaldia and Erythronium. The mysteries range from: Is this still here? to Why is this here in two colors? to Can I get this specimen to tell me what else grew here? without much thematic overlap, but all three papers tell gripping stories. If nothing else, they share a strong natural history foundation and well-executed scientific writing that made for lovely hammock-reading.
“Best practices” are just that — descriptions of how we can improve our science as individuals and collectively. We can design better spreadsheets for our data and we can support gender equity in our scientific societies. I strongly recommend that all ecologists read up on both.
I didn’t particularly notice [trophy collecting/associated taxa/pollen color polymorphism] before, but now I can’t not see it…
1. Sperduto, D.D., Jones, M.T. and Willey, L.L., 2018. Decline of Sibbaldia procumbens (Rosaceae) on Mount Washington, White Mountains, NH, USA. Rhodora, 120 (981), pp.65-75.
I love this deep dive into the history of snowbank community alpine plant that occurs in exactly one ravine in New England (though it’s globally widespread across Northern Hemisphere arctic-alpine habitats). Over the past four decades, surveys in Tuckerman’s Ravine have documented a continuous decline in the abundance of creeping sibbaldia, and recently researchers have been unable to find it at all. This would make creeping sibbaldia the first documented extirpation of an alpine vascular plant in New England. Dr. Daniel Sperduto and coauthors revisit the photographs and notes from contemporary surveys and find that mountain alders are encroaching on the creeping sibbaldia’s snowbank habitats. These notes also include anecdotes of local disturbances like turf slumping at the sites where creeping sibbaldia used to be found. In herbaria across New England, Sperduto and coauthors discovered sheets covered with dozens of specimens — this “trophy collection activity” in the 19th century led them to calculate that “there are more than three times as many plants with roots at the seven herbaria examined than the maximum number of plants counted in the field within the last 100 years.” I am obviously partial to New England alpine plants, and I got to see Sperduto present this research as a part of an engaging plenary session at the Northeast Alpine Stewardship Gathering in April, so you could write this off as a niche interest. Despite this, I see creeping sibbaldia as a lens for considering the universal mysteries of population decline and extirpation, and the challenges of tying extirpation to concrete cause-and-effect stories.
2. Pearson, K.D., 2018. Rapid enhancement of biodiversity occurrence records using unconventional specimen data. Biodiversity and Conservation, pp.1-12.
Leveraging herbarium data for plant research is so hot right now. But what if you could squeeze even more information from a specimen label? For example, many collectors note “associated taxa” along with the date and location of collection. The associated taxa are plants that were seen nearby, but not collected — a kind of ghostly palimpsest of the community that grew around the chosen specimen. Herbaria across the globe have spent the past decades digitizing specimens and uploading photographs of their pressed plants. In this process, the associated taxa on specimen labels are often stored in a ‘habitat’ database field. In this impressive single-author paper, Dr. Kaitlin Pearson extracts the associated taxa data from Florida State University’s Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium database with elegant code that can recognize abbreviated binomial names and identify misspellings. She then compared the county-level distributions of the associated taxa database with their known county-level distribution from floras and herbarium specimens. Incredibly “the cleaned associated taxon dataset contained 247 new county records for 217 Florida plant species when compared to the Atlas of Florida Plants.” There are plenty of caveats: the associated taxa can’t be evaluated for misidentification the way a specimen can, and lists of associated taxa are obviously subject to the same spatial biases as herbarium specimens. But this is clearly a clever study with a beautifully simple conclusion: “broadening our knowledge of species distributions and improving data- and specimen-collection practices may be as simple as examining the data we already have.”
3. Austen, E.J., Lin, S.Y. and Forrest, J.R., 2018. On the ecological significance of pollen color: a case study in American trout lily (Erythronium americanum). Ecology, 99(4), pp.926-937.
Did you read Gelman and Hill’s Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models in a seminar and think, this seems like an amazing resource but I’m an ecologist and examples about school children watching Sesame Street or election outcomes and incumbency for US congressional election races just don’t resonate with me? The ecological and evolutionary mystery of red/yellow pollen polymorphism is super interesting in its own right and Dr. Emily Austen and coauthors thoroughly attack this question. For me — and I’ve admitted here before that I am the kind of learner who benefits from repetition — Austen’s statistical methods are the star. Austen demonstrates glm best practices and brings stunningly clear plant ecology examples to the Gelman and Hill framework. I would probably teach this paper in a field botany course (trout lilies are charismatic! look at this fun map of pollen color polymorphism!), but I would absolutely prefer to assign it in a statistical methods course, especially as a supplement/set of alternative exercises to Gelman and Hill.
1. Potvin, D.A., Burdfield-Steel, E., Potvin, J.M. and Heap, S.M., 2018. Diversity begets diversity: A global perspective on gender equality in scientific society leadership. PloS one, 13(5), p.e0197280.
Gender equality in biology dramatically decreases as you look up the ladder in academia — compare the gender breakdown in the population of graduate students to tenured professors and gender disparity is stark. Leadership in our field is still heavily male skewed. Dr. Dominique Potvin and her coauthors asked, is this true in scientific societies too? Scientific societies are generally more open than academic departments, and there is more transparency in the process of electing governing boards and leadership positions. Potvin and coauthors leveraged these traits to ask: what is the role of scientific societies in rectifying gender inequity? why are some societies better than others at promoting women in leadership? After considering 202 societies in the zoological sciences, they found that the culture of the society — the age of the society age, size of its board and whether or not a it had an outward commitment or statement of equality — was the best predictor of equality in the gender ratio of society boards and leadership positions. This “outward commitment or statement of equality” covered anything published on the society website — a statement, committee, or other form of affirmative action program — that “implies that the society is dedicated to increasing diversity or improving gender equality.” Of the 202 societies they studied, only 39 (19.3%) had one of these visible commitments to equality. Whether societies with high proportions of female board members were more likely to draft and publish these statements, or whether societies that invested time and energy in producing such commitments attracted more women to leadership positions is a bit of a chicken-and-egg riddle. Societies looking to reflect on their own state of gender equality can take advantage of the resource presented in Table 6: “Health checklist for scientific societies aiming for gender equality.” Assessing gender equality is kind of a low hanging fruit — and the authors encourage societies to reflect on intersectionality and race, age, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and income level as well. Basically, if a scientific society is struggling to support white women in 2018, there’s an excellent chance it is failing its brown, LGTBQ, and first-generation members to a much greater extent.
2. Broman, K.W. and Woo, K.H., 2018. Data organization in spreadsheets. The American Statistician, 72(1), pp.2-10.
If I could send a paper in a time machine, I would immediately launch Broman and Woo’s set of principles for spreadsheet data entry and storage back to 2009, when I started my master’s project. Reading through this list of best practices made me realize how many lessons I learned the hard way — how many times have I violated the commandments to “be consistent”, “choose good names for things”, or “do not use font color or highlighting as data”? Way too many! Eventually, I pulled it together and developed a data entry system of spreadsheets that mostly conforms to the rules outlined in this paper. But, if I’d read this first, I would have skipped a lot of heartache and saved a lot of time. This is an invaluable resource for students as they prepare for field seasons and dissertation projects. Thank you Broman and Woo, for putting these simple rules together in one place with intuitive and memorable examples!
Happy Fall Reading!
Banner image: Ian Sane, creative commons | <urn:uuid:f008eded-0ff5-4cc8-8217-0b7f219ae9a9> | {
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Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
grounding (plural groundings)
- The return to a fully conscious state after a psychedelic experience.
- The collision of a ship with ground beneath the surface of the water.
- The permanence of aircraft on land because of government action.
- (electrical engineering) The interconnecting metal chassis/frame of a device, appliance, machine, or metal raceway via a designated conductor to earth at the Service Panel. The conductor may be bare or covered (with green plastic which may have a yellow stripe (US).) This conductor does NOT carry current in normal operation.
- The absorption of energy through visualized "roots" descending from oneself into the ground, using Qi.
- The act by which a child is grounded (forbidden from going out).
- Present participle of ground. | <urn:uuid:eb3fbf4a-fad2-44b6-8319-ca16cfaf3c31> | {
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Adding Unlike Fractions
Lesson 2 of 7
Objective: Students will be able to add and subtract fractions by using common denominators and equivalent fractions.
Language Objective: Students will talk about adding or subtracting using academic language: numerator, denominator, and equivalent. Students will be able to revise fractions to have common denominators.
Prior Knowledge: In 4th grade, students started working on adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators. Some will have knowledge of common denominators.
Math Blast is a quick, fun, fast-paced math game! It doesn't require a lot of materials - just the PowerPoint, music, white boards, and dry erase markers. I begin every day with a Number of the Day.
Math Blast is also a great place to work on Common Core skills, especially critical thinking skills, discourse and collaboration!
I usually play music while students are working (it is the "Blast" in Math Blast). They have to the end of the song to fill in their board.
In the beginning this is more time than most need, but they will use all of the time when the numbers get bigger. Math Blast is a great way to pre-teach a concept and is really good scaffolding, especially for those struggling learners. I like to add new concepts that will be learning in the near future into Math Blast. This way students are familiar with new concepts when I go to teach them. If they haven't figured out the work through Math Blast they will have at least seen the concept.
I allow table mates to support each other, this is also a good way to support struggling learners.
The basic content my Math Blast covers is:
- Begin with prior knowledge tasks, factoring GCF, LCM. In 5th grade this is really good to have understanding for going into fractions.
- I always add some rounding and estimation, good tools to know and it is pre-teaching our next lesson.
- I always like to end with a word problem to challenge and support students' skills in answering a problem with what the question is requesting them to do.
The closing piece of Math Blast is See, Think, and Wondering.
See, Think, Wondering
See, Think, Wonder is a real fun way to get your students to think deeper about a subject without them realizing that they are doing it.
The SEE part is pretty basic thinking, I see….
The THINK part gets them thinking a little deeper, This art makes me think about….
And the WONDER gets them really thinking deeper, This art makes me wonder if….
It is my way to get students' brains ready to think about math and I find that the transition is great. It is also a quick chance to expose my students to different types of art.
Note: I have included a separate version of See, Think, and Wondering just in case you want to do this separately. It is also included in the full version of Math Blast.
Note: You don’t have to use art; I use art because I am passionate about art. Use examples of things that ignite your passion!
The Elevator Speech
Concept: Being able to add fractions is as easy as remembering common factors to create equivalent fractions. Students will work you to make list of equivalent fractions. This lesson is addressing Common Core standard 5.NF.
Start out with the Equivalent Fractions powerpoint to start discussion about equivalent fractions. Talk about whether the two fractions bars shown are equivalent or not. The second slide shows unlike fractions - they have the same number of pieces (numerator) but different denominators.
Have a discussion why these are not alike even though the number of pieces is the same. The point of this is to get students to recognize 'size' when analyzing fractions. The third slide demonstrates that just because a fraction bars are different sizes, it doesn't mean that they are not equivalent. This is explicit and comprehensive for a reason - both of these slides cover areas of common misconception.
You may have to model, practice, and practice some more to help all of your students to understand. An important element in this practice is that students be able to model their thinking. Fraction strips or bars are great fraction models for students to use. Students need to be able to add fractions with unlike denominators and they also must be able to explain why it works. Knowing that fractions can be added together once they are the 'same size' is very important to their understanding.
Note: The most important part of the Equivalent Fractions powerpoint is that just because fraction bars are not the same size, it doesn't mean that they do not represent the same idea.
Work It Out
Have students (in teams) build equivalent fractions for:
½ , ¾ , 2/5 , 2/3 , ¼ (I cut slips of colored paper and assign the fractions by color.)
Don't do just one, see how many students can make. It is important to emphasize using numbers flexibly. Students need a lot of practice in manipulating numbers to understand that there is usually more than one way to solve a problem. That means they can pick a strategy that works for them!
Next, I demonstrate adding/subtracting fractions, using the equivalent fraction models students created (I have my own set).
Add ½ + ¼ and draw lines to the fractions that you created. Do more examples to help students see how to make the connection. (This I model with large strips on the white board.)
Give students the following fraction problems to solve using fraction strips or bars, which they can draw. The use of models is a requirement for these problems. I emphasize that showing their thinking is more important (right now) than the answer.
1/3 + 5/6 2/5 + 2/10 1/2 + 3/4 4/5 - 3/10
Have students put their thinking (paper) up on the white board. Bring students back to the carpet and have different groups (pre-chosen) to explain their thinking
Give them the following fraction problems and have them model their thinking
1/3 + 5/6 2/5 + 2/10 1/2 + 3/4 4/5 - 3/10
Students put their thinking (paper) up on the white board. Next, I bring my students back to the carpet and have different groups (pre-chosen) come to the board to explain their thinking.
*Another great way to showcase work is to have students make large posters explaining the process of adding fractions including a model. Have a gallery walk where 1/2 the students stand by their work and the other 1/2 walks around to see what they are learning!
If students finish early, have them make a list of 6 – 10 addition and subtraction problems with unlike denominators.
For those advanced students: I like to stack fractions just as we stacked whole numbers for addition. It makes room to do the equivalent fraction work!
Adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators is one of those things that take practice doing the work! To get students to do as many as possible, be creative and come up with fun ways they can work such as having them create problems and testing each other! I like to give students the opportunity to create their own equations, it give ownership and it also allows a chance to differentiate!
Make sure you are watching out for struggling learners. Having kids making their own problems and test each other will give you more time to work with those struggling kids, especially when it comes to making equivalent fractions.
Closing The Deal
The Closing It section of the lesson is very important. This opportunity allows you to bring the class back together and have them make the connection to the learning objective of the day. You should also make sure that you make a connection to the word of the day. This closing gives students the opportunity to make the connection to the launch and they work that they did. It is also another chance to give a quick formative assessment to check for understanding.
Talk about the struggles, check in for understanding, talk about stacking. This is a good place to bring misconceptions to class. I like to have the students lead this discussion as it allows me the opportunity to hear and listen to the students. An easy way to do this is to ask a blanket question of 'who was struggling with fractions' or 'did anyone struggle and want to share their success?' or 'can anyone give us an example of where you struggled so the class can help us work it out'
I also like to have students that were successful to share their thinking. These students I usually talk with during the work time and ask them if they are willing to share.
You can also write a new problem on the board and do a 'turn and talk' with partners (I always have students sitting with their table mates on the floor) and discuss how to solve the problems. Then I randomly call on students and ask them to explain what their partner told them, this holds students accountable for listening!
Not only is the close critical to student learning, it is also a great time to do a quick formative assessment -- checking for understanding.
The Post-It Poster 2/5 + 1/10, showing a model if time allows.
Look-Fors: 2/5 + 1/10 = 3/15 will be a common error. Another thing you'll notice is the math work and the model work not matching.
A correct model helps these students solve their own confusion. Students get a great deal out of the quick assessment, because it tells then whether they've come to an understanding. Of course, I also use these quick assessments to guide my lesson for the next day. It shows me which students need more support and informs the grouping. It also tells me what types of problems I need to tackle with the small groups. I also discover which students are ready for more challenging problems as well as who I can make a class expert.
The Quick Assessment is supposed to be quick and on the easy to medium difficulty level. You are checking to see if students understand the basic concept of the lesson. If you make the problem difficult, you are adding a different level of assessment. If you are teaching a higher level class, adding a difficult layer might be appropriate, but please note that I do not find it necessary to add this level. | <urn:uuid:2c36c46b-063e-4e5f-a19b-87feac11b908> | {
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Third Millennium Syria
The introduction of Mesopotamian culture into Syria coincided with the development of the cuneiform writing system, during the late fourth millennium and first half of the third millennium BC. During the next few hundred years, this writing system was adopted by the populations outside of Mesopotamia that were interacting regularly with Sumer and Babylonia primarily through trade. As the cuneiform system developed and spread, it was adapted to express non-Sumerian words, including personal names. In general, Akkadian and other languages adapted the cuneiform script by means of the same rebus principle used by Sumerian cuneiform to express grammatical affixes (Cooper 1996, 45).
The earliest examples of Semitic written in cuneiform come from Fara, and Abu Salabikh, located in the southern part of northern Babylonia, during this period (Biggs 1967). Late Early Dynastic texts from sites in Syria such as Mari, Tell Beydar, and Ebla also yield Semitic personal names and lexemes. The cuneiform writing system continued to be used and adapted to write many different Semitic dialects throughout the script’s history, yet cuneiform texts written in Semitic have been classified more often than not simply as Akkadian (although not infrequently as “peripheral Akkadian”), even though there is evidence that such a simplistic characterization is not appropriate.
This misinterpretation of the evidence is understandable, however: Semitic writing in Syria utilized a writing system that was invented in Babylonia, so it is logical that the orthographic tendencies of the Semitic language of Babylonia became the standard for writing all Semitic cuneiform (Cooper 1999, 69). There is even some evidence to suggest that there were periodic reformations in the cuneiform writing traditions of Syria to make it conform with the Babylonian standard: this evidence comes particularly from Mari, where the writing conventions of the Šakkanaku period were abruptly replaced with the Babylonian conventions (Durand 1985, 160ff.; 1992, 121ff.; cf. Cooper 1999, 69). This provides us with some interesting insights: since cuneiform was being adapted to write Semitic in Babylonia and in Syria simultaneously, the Babylonian writing system had to be sufficiently developed before the standards and reforms could be imposed (locally or further afield). Even if Babylonia were not initiating official reforms it is clear that they exercised varying degrees of influence over the Syrian city-states, depending on city and time period.
Therefore the adaptation and use of cuneiform into Syria provides an interesting case study for examining the how people interacted with logosyllabic and syllabic writing systems.
The preliminary evidence suggests that in the third millennium, particularly at sites further away from the control of the Mesopotamian core cities, scribes had more freedom to adapt cuneiform as they needed to. Based on the Sumerian we find in these same texts, we know that the scribes at each site were rigorously trained in how to read and write Sumerian cuneiform. However, there are clear deviations in the Akkadian syllabaries of Syria from normative Mesopotamian cuneiform, and also inconsistencies in the sign values and number of signs used syllabically across each of the sites investigated. This suggests, while there must have been a more prescriptive educational approach to learning the cuneiform signs themselves and their Sumerian values, that during this time period a prescribed method of writing and adapting cuneiform to write Akkadian was not included in the scribal curriculum.
This lead to different adaptations of the cuneiform script and to slight variations in the number, type, and value of syllabic signs used in the individual syllabaries from sites in Syria.
Bottero, J. and A. Finet. 1954. Repertoire Analytique Des Tomes I a V des Archives Royales de Mari. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
Conti, G. 1990. “Il Sillabario Della Quarta Fonte Della Lista Lessicale Bilingue Eblaita.” Miscellanea Eblaitica, 3. Firenze: Dipartimento Di Linguistica. Universit Di Firenze. 3-60.
Eidem, J. 1991(a). “The Tell Leilan Archives 1987”, RA 85, p. 109-135.
Eidem, J. 1991(b). “An Old-Assyrian Treaty from Tell Leilan”, Mel. Garelli, p. 185-207.
Eidem, J. 1988. “The Tell Leilan Tablets 1987 – A Preliminary Report”, AAAS 38-39, p. 110-127.
Gregoire, J.-P. 1996. Archives Administratives et Inscriptions Cuneiformes: Ashmolean Museum, Bodleian Collection, Oxford (Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner).
Hilgert, M. 2003. “New Perspectives in the Study of Third Millennium Akkadian.” Cuneiform Digital Library Journal. 2003:4.
Ismail, F., and M. Lebeau. 1996. Administrative Documents from Tell Beydar: (seasons 1993 - 1995). Turnhout: Brepols.
Krebernik, M. 2001. Tall Bi'a/Tuttul II: Die altorientalischen Schriftfunde. Saarbrucken: Saarbrcker Druckerei und Verlag.
Krebernik, M. 1982. “Zu Syllabar und Orthographie der lexikalischen Texte aus Ebla, Teil 1.” Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie 72. 178–236.
Loretz, O. 1969. “Texte aus Chagar Bazar und Tell Brak.” (Vol. 3). Butzon and Bercker. Maiocchi. 2009. Classical Sargonic tablets chiefly from Adab in the Cornell University collections. CDL Press: Bethesda, MD.
Michalowski, P. 1987. “Language, Literature and Writing at Ebla,” in L. Cagni, ed., Ebla: 1975-1985. Atti del convegno internazionale. Naples: Istituto universitario orientale, Dipartimento di studi asiatici, 165-175.
Milano, L. 2004. Third millennium cuneiform texts from Tell Beydar. Brepols.
Salomon, R. 2012. Some Principles and Patterns of Script Change. In The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change, by S.D. Houston (ed.) Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press. 119-133.
Van de Mieroop, M. 1994. ‘The Tell Leilan Tablets 1991: A Preliminary Report”, Orientalia 63, p. 305-344.
Whiting, R. 1990. “The Tell Leilan Tablets: A Preliminary Report”, in “1985 Excavations at Tell Leilan, Syria”, AJA 94, p. 568-579.
Wossink, A. 2009. Challenging Climate Change: Competition and Cooperation among Pastoralists and Agriculturalists in Northern Mesopotamia (c. 3000-1600 BC. Leiden: Sidestone. | <urn:uuid:abefc8b1-5ff6-4e47-8a8d-f7f6a491501a> | {
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Mark Shwartz, News Service (650) 723-9296; e-mail: [email protected]
Stanford launches Pacific Rim disaster initiative
Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and typhoons are an everyday threat to people living along the Pacific Ocean.
To prepare for the consequences of such natural disasters, Stanford and three other agencies have launched an international partnership known as "Crowding the Rim." The two-year initiative will develop strategies to deal with the economic and social repercussions that inevitably follow when a major catastrophe strikes the Pacific Rim -- a vast, geographical region that includes Australia, Japan, China, Korea, Russia, Canada, the United States and the Pacific nations of Latin America,
"Every year, somewhere on Earth at least 30 volcanoes erupt, an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or greater rips loose, and numerous typhoons and hurricanes crash onto our continents," said David Howell, co-chair of the initiative. "And every year the human population increases, people migrate to the coastal regions and our global economies become increasingly interwoven."
Howell, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), was one of several officials who attended a May 16 ceremony at Encina Hall during which representatives from Stanford, the American Red Cross, the USGS and the Circum-Pacific Council signed a memorandum of understanding committing their resources in support of "Crowding the Rim."
Noting that the Pacific Rim soon will have a population of 2 billion, Howell warned that "our societies are playing chicken with Mother Nature. We can't stop natural hazards, but if we work together, we can reduce their disastrous consequences."
Donald Kennedy, president emeritus of Stanford and co-chair of the initiative, announced that Stanford will host a three-day summit in August 2001 to be attended by more than 200 international disaster experts who will define the natural risks facing their regions and determine how they interconnect with other Pacific Rim countries. Once the risks have been determined, attendees will send letters to political leaders back home.
By Mark Shwartz | <urn:uuid:8ff4068f-3ef6-4224-bdc2-e90f93b29734> | {
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All about the...
ShoulderThe shoulder joint has three bones: the clavicle (collarbone), the scapula (shoulder blade), and the humerus (upper arm bone). The acromioclavicular (AC) joint is located between the acromion (part of the scapula that forms the 'shoulder cap') and the clavicle. The glenohumeral joint, commonly called the shoulder joint, is a ball-and- socket type joint that allows a wide range of motion. It is surrounded by the capsule, a soft but strong tissue that helps stabilize the joint. The labrum is a rim of cartilage that helps deepen the shallow socket and helps with shoulder stability.
There are many muscles used during motion of the shoulder joint. One of the most important, the rotator cuff, is a group of muscles and tendons that provide strength and stability to the ball and socket.
Common Shoulder InjuriesYour shoulder is a very mobile joint. Because it is so mobile, it is prone to specific types of injuries. These injuries can develop slowly over time, usually from repeated overhead movements or from a sudden injury. Learn more about the most common shoulder injuries - causes, symptoms and treatment.
|Rotator Cuff Tear||Shoulder Arthritis||Shoulder Dislocation||Shoulder Impingement|
|Shoulder Instability||Shoulder Separation||Shoulder Arthroscopy||Shoulder Exercises| | <urn:uuid:addb95fa-1eba-4760-a67d-3146ea918620> | {
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Cultural and economical activities, based on principles of mutual aid, which lead to:
- a world economy with ecological and social responsibility
- a free and manifold world culture
- the creation of a common future, based on work, knowledge and love.
"It is in our heart we know right from wrong - and there's much we see around us in our environment and the relations between people, both socially, economically and politically, where we feel: "this is not the right way for human beings to live - this is not the way we're supposed to relate to each other and our surroundings"
lørdag den 9. april 2011
For more information, links to charitable organizations, music for Libya and more:
We get inspired to do different things where we are located physically ---> building solidarity actions, signing petitions, fundraising for humanitarian assistance, put pressure on our respective governments, the UN, NATO and so on, influencing the way they act, both with regards to policing UNSC 1973, and how they handle the political process. | <urn:uuid:5dcec29b-8167-4923-ac1a-0eeaa36c25b0> | {
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Jun 21, 2001, 8:51 PM
Post #2 of 2
Check this out, it's called heredocs:
You have to assure that there are no extra whitespaces before the terminating END. This solution is best suited if you have long text.
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFF00" TEXT="#FF0000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#FF00FF">
For short text (like this one) you can also use the quoting operator qq:
There's another solution, but it's full of backslashes:
print qq(<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFF00" TEXT="#FF0000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#FF00FF">\n);
Anyway, if your script should output HTML, you should think of using the CGI modules. If you don't know them, type perldoc CGI at your shell / command prompt.
print "<BODY BGCOLOR=\"#FFFF00\" TEXT=\"#FF0000\" LINK=\"#0000FF\" VLINK=\"#FF00FF\">\n";
Hope this helps. | <urn:uuid:f0e3b4cb-6a77-4f60-b061-84e8ffff219a> | {
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Get ready to ring in 2017 with a brand new Periodic Table, because four more elements have officially been added to the seventh row: nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts), and oganesson (Og).The elements were already approved and added to the table with temporary names, as you can see in the picture below. But a new table should be available soon with the actual names. Stay tuned!
We’ve been hearing about these four new elements since January, but the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has finally announced that the names have been officially approved, so we’ve got the go-ahead to tear down all our posters and find some new ones.
To get to know our four new friends a little better, nihonium is derived from "Nihon", a Japanese word for Japan, and moscovium honours the Russian capital city, Moscow.
Tennessine is named after the state of Tennessee, known for its pioneering research in chemistry, and it marks the second US state to be honoured on the periodic table. The first was California, referenced by californium (element 98).
Oganesson is named after 83-year-old Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian, and this is only the second time a new element has been named for a living scientist.
|By DePiep [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons| | <urn:uuid:81ce4cae-2421-4ace-9053-9aecd6f1fdcf> | {
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Maningrida, Arnhem Land, AustraliaPosted: September 10, 2012
Maningrida is a small settlement of around 3000 people sitting on the edge of far northern, tropical Arnhem land and the Arafura Sea. Arnhem Land was declared an Aboriginal Reserve in 1931 and has been occupied by indigenous people for tens of thousands of years. Wikipedia tells me “it is the location of the oldest known stone axe, which scholars believe to be 35,500 years old.”
Maningrida is remote! A permit is needed to visit! 500 kms from Darwin, roads are closed for up to 5 months during the wet season; the barge delivery of groceries can take two weeks from order to arrival; the most common form of entry is in a small plane (3 seats wide,11 seats long) which takes one hour from Darwin.
The environment is as stunning as it is wild and dangerous. Long white beaches merge with scrub that turns into parched, red, dusty bushland, meeting billabongs and wide brown rivers edged with lush, green, broad leafed ferns and palms.
Tropical storms are common in the wet season and unpredictable. The area suffered Australia’s strongest cyclone, Cyclone Maria in 2006. Excursions into this landscape need to be carefully planned and thought about. Ants and snakes are the least concerning predators. Wild buffalo, dingo and crocodile encounters are not rare. The salted tanning hides at the Maningrida rangers office of two large salties remind us that these prehistoric style reptiles are fierce, killers and everywhere!
This land that can kill is also a generous benefactor! Rivers are teeming with Barramundi, billabongs filled with Mud Crabs. Rocky outcrops provide shelter, sunsets provide beauty. The variety of mammals and birds create diversity.
Socially the township of Maningrida still appears to be a hothouse in a clash of cultures – there is shrapnel on either side. Aboriginal traditional ceremonies and rites of passage are still a part of Aboriginal daily life and threads of many aspects of traditional culture struggle to survive. Yet much of the magic, mystique and phenomenal survival skills of the nomadic aboriginal seem all but lost.
Housing is provided and wanted but aboriginals just don’t use houses like “white” people! Its natural for them to sit together every night, outside on the ground, with their dogs, around their fire. Ownership and possessions are still foreign concepts to a tribal race who for many thousands of years carried very little, their home and livelihoods provided by mother earth and spread over vast expanses of country!
The Aboriginal concept of family, tribe and kinship is complex, resulting in “relatives” moving from house to house, outstation to outstation, stronger aboriginals taking from or “humbugging” on weaker “family” members, bickering and jealousies, pecking orders!
Many Aboriginals have been negatively effected by “white” man introductions. A tendency for addiction to substances, alcohol (which is strictly limited in this community) petrol, marijuana, and gambling create social problems and conflict.
We are told it is difficult to encourage individuals to turn up for work on a regular basis. Opportunities abound for local enterprises to bring wealth to the community. It is said that the Mud Crab industry alone could bring $25,000 a week. Yet, tribal bonds are the prime concern and full time employment is not a priority ……. it only takes a few hours work to earn money to “recharge” a mobile phone. This often seems to be enough with workers who arrived in the morning, disappearing by lunch time.
Childrens education is not seen as important or valued. The school bus traverses around the township every morning, screaming top 40 music through loud speakers attached to its roof in order to alert or perhaps, wake up sleepy children whose parents are not prodding them to get ready and attend school.
Basic health messages are not being heard or adhered to. Although cases of leprosy, still documented in the 1960’s, seem to have abated, children have beyond average amounts of ear and hearing problems through a lack of blowing noses; eye sight issues due to not washing flies from little faces; scabies in epidemic proportions due to lack of good washing facilities and the aboriginal liking to have almost a dog per person living with them.
Enter the Balanda (white people) riding in like the cavalry in their government issued 4 WD’s (a necessity if working further afield in outstations.) The Northern Territory government works closely with the Aboriginal Maningrida management group, Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation and places a continuous stream of “Balandas” in the community to provide a wide range of services.
Many “Balandas” just don’t make it. This government funded “white” community is not necessarily a cohesive group and conflict can occur through incompetence, self righteous ideals and a lack of complimenting skills, values and philosophies. An elderly desert aboriginal woman once quipped that “Balanda are like Toyotas. When one breaks down we just get a new one!” It is also quipped that the well paid positions vacant in Maningrida attract Missionaries, Mercenaries or Misfits.
Certainly there seems to be no lack of funds or resources put in to trying to resolve the issues of a misplaced race in an a white, affluent country. Each new Balanda brings a fresh faced enthusiasm; new projects and plans are drawn; funding is arranged and machinery is purchased, often only to lay rusting in a hot and dusty yard when that Balanda has lost enthusiasm and purpose in the face of overwhelming hurdles and problems. This and just becoming fed up with the lack of citystyle “niceties”, a good cafe, streets and sidewalks free of litter and marauding packs of dogs!
Our friends Bob and Sharon have taken up the challenge and together, are equipped to make the most of and contribute to Maningrida. Attracted by a job description requiring travel in 4 WD and light aircraft, Sharon is employed in a program to coordinate child safety services and is realistic and pragmatic about what can and will be achieved. Bob is retired and socializes and volunteers his way into the community seamlessly. It’s an adventurous learning curve, a unique and rich experience where supporting each other, and maintaining a sense of humor is vital.
Despite the issues, we loved our brief immersion into the tropical north and the opportunity to witness first hand the problems that are as old as white settlement. It was interesting and stimulating to observe and wonder! Aboriginals and Balanda each doing their best, each wanting whats best for two cultures widely separated by thousands of years of disparate genetic imprint. Conflict and struggle must exist. To me, its like trying to download Apple software into Microsoft computers. It cannot happen easily!
There is something captivating about life in Maningrida. Perhaps an unwieldy sense of hope, a lay back, hot, bare foot kind of place that embraces a old black pig and a big old black cow, and allows them to live free range and unhindered in their community.
Given time, maybe Dreamtime, cultures will merge, health will flourish, and the mystery and magic of an ancient tribal race may return. | <urn:uuid:3cef86d4-38bd-4051-937e-c32d9321291a> | {
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"RAÇO DI BIÒU"
"Biòu" is the Provençal name for bull; king of the Course Camarguaise (Camargue race). The presence of bovine in the Camargue has been noted since the Antiquity. Around 2 km upstream of the town of Arles, bones of bovine with horns in the form of lyre were found, mixed with skeletons of horses similar to those of Solutré (prehistorical site).
Shaped by the environment in which he lives, the Camargue bull is a rustic animal, he lives in herd called "manade", in semi-freedom on land unfit for cultivation on which grow only reeds, salicornes… Very often in winter, the breeder (the manadier) brings him hay in addition.
Under a shining black coat, this animal is imposing but relatively light, 1.40 m on average for males and 1.20 m for females, for 250 to 400 kg. Its horns are the most characteristic feature of the breed, they run vertically towards the sky generally taking the form of a lyre. The Camargue bull could never be domesticated and its combativity helped to preserve the breed. It is essentially raised for the Camargue race. Like the foal, the calf will be branded at 1 year old (ferrade), emblem of its manade.
First French bovine meat to be rewarded by a label since 1996, the AOP label “Bull of Camargue” owes its particular character to the herd breeding natural conditions.
The Camargue horse is a medium sized rustic saddle horse. It is recognizable in adulthood by its light gray coat. The foal is born bay brown and its coat clears at the age of 4-5 years. The Camargue horse, commonly called “le Camargue”, would be one of the oldest races in the world even if its origin remains a great mystery.
This breed is known to be one of the most robust since it is perfectly adapted to the Mediterranean harsh climate: violent winds, humidity, biting cold in winter, great heat and insects in summer; hence its nickname of a horse " Made of Mistral (wind name), salt and courage ". Its clear coat does not attract mosquitoes and its highly resistant skin protects him from insect bites.
The Camargue horses are raised in semi-freedom in manades (herds of bulls and horses in the open air) and are the exclusive mount of the guardians (manade keepers). The foals are born from April to July in full freedom without man intervention. He is a working companion of the guardians, he knows how to prove himself indispensable in the trials of cattle sorting. Courageous, lively and voluntary, it is particularly enduring.
"Camargue" is the official name of the breed according to the national stud since March 17, 1978; signed on the commune of Saint-Laurent d'Aigouze.
The story of the cross of Camargue
The Marquis Folco de Baroncelli is named as being is initiator .
From the twentieth century, the Marquis is working with others to reconquer the purebred Camargue, he participated in the codification of the nascent bull game. In 1909 he created the "Nacioun Gardiano" which aims to defend and maintain local traditions.
In 1924, he asked Paul Herman to design and draw the Camargue cross symbolizing the “Gardiane Nation”. The original cross is performed by Joseph Barbanson from the Saintes Maries de la Mer, a blacksmith artisan.
The cross, set on an anchor and equipped with tridents expresses three symbols:
- Faith with the cross
- Charity is represented by the central heart
- Hope with anchor ended with three ends of tridents
Abrivado - This is the moment when the bulls are led from their pastures to the bull-ring surrounded by horses around midday
Banbido - It's the reverse. The bulls are led back from the ring to the pastures surrounded by horses after the game in the evening.
Course de protection - Games organised with "raseteurs" beginners and young bulls
Encierro - Bulls wearing protections at the end of their horns run wild in some selected barricaded streets of the village
Ferrade - One year old bulls are selected , they are branded with the emblem of "la manade" and their birth year
Gardian - He is a sort of cowboy, riding horses, he takes care of the herd
Manade - A herd of bulls or of horses
Manadier - He is the owner of the herd of bulls or of horses
Taureau jeune / young bull - This bull has already been involved in games but not often, it has to confirm its qualities. It is 4, 5 or 6 years old
Taureau neuf / new bull - A bull that has never been in games before
Toril / Bull pen - Place in the bull-ring where the bulls are kept before the game. It has got two issues, one to embark and disembark the bulls and one opening into the bull-ring. At Saint-Laurent d’Aigouze the ring is listed a historic monument, because it was built leaning against the sacristy of the church
Trident - Spear ended by a three horned steel device, used to work with bulls
The Course Camarguaise
In this game, "les raseteurs" – men dressed in white – face the bull. Holding a multi-dented special hook, they try to shave off his attributes (strings, rosettes, tassels) tied round or between his horns. Every attribute torn off gets a reward.
In these games, bulls are the real heroes in Camargue; they usually race about 6 or 8 times a year. When famous bulls die, they are buried with honour
The Royale - Games with the six best bulls coming from the same herds
Course de tau - Games with non castrated bulls
Course de Ligue - Games with young bulls with trainees raseteurs
Trophee de l'avenir - Games that take place in different places throughout the season. "Raseteurs" who are beginners are graded when facing young bulls
Trophee des as - Games that take place in different places throughout the season . confirmed "Raseteurs" are graded when facing confirmed bulls
The votive festival at Saint-Laurent d'Aigouze
It always starts on the first week-end after August 15th and lasts for 10 days.
This festival is one of the most famous in the area because Saint-Laurent keeps alive and intact the Camarguais traditions.
Tous les jours : Animations avec des orchestres, manèges...
9 h 00 : déjeuner aux prés tiré du sac
12 h : abrivado jusqu'aux arènes
16 h : course camarguaise
19 h : bandido
Journée des enfants
Journée des ainés
journée à l'ancienne - La Journée à l'ancienne qui se déroule le vendredi de la fête est un rendez-vous à ne pas manquer
Elle commence comme tous les autres jours aux prés à 9 h pour le déjeuner | <urn:uuid:b64d077a-9133-40f1-8382-0746709bd641> | {
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Methods are the building block of any program, as they contain what we commonly think of as "code": the actual logic that makes up the functionality of a class.
Simply put, a method is a block of code that can be called from elsewhere within the project to perform its function.
Methods are Object Oriented Programming's logical replacement for the plain "procedures" and "functions" defined by basic Pascal. Because methods are such an important part of OOP languages, and because what we call something defines how we think of it, Oxygene introduced the new
method keyword back in 2004 to define methods.
Method Declaration Syntax
In its simplest form, a method declaration consists of the
method keyword, followed by a method name and an optional list of parameters that can be passed to the method, in parenthesis. Methods can also have an optional result type, separated from the rest of the method with a colon.
The method declaration can optionally be followed by a number of Modifiers, separated by semicolons. The most important modifiers will be covered in more detail, below.
method MyMethodName(aParameter: String; aNotherParameter: Integer): Boolean; virtual;
Method Implementation Syntax
Unless it is
external (more on those below), each method declaration needs to provide an implementation. The implantation can be provided right behind the declaration, suing what Oxygene refers to as Unified Class Syntax, or it can be provided below the type declaration in the
implementation section of the file.
If the implementation is provided separarely, the method declaration (minus any modifiers) is repeated, but expanded to include the type name in front of the method name:
method MyClass.MyMethodName(aParameter: String; aNotherParameter: Integer): Boolean; begin // code goes here end;
The method body must consist of at least a
end block that can contain the zero or more Statements that make up the method body. There can also optionally be a
require block at the beginning and an
ensure block at the end, both containing pre- and post-conditions to be checked before the method starts and after it ends. Pre- and post-conditions are covered in more detail, below.
For compatibility with legacy Pascal compilers such as Delphi, methods can also have an optional
var section at the start, where variables for use throughout the method can be declared. Use of a
var section is discouraged in favor of using
var Statements in the main body of the method body, as needed.
method MyClass.DoSomeWork(aData: String): String; var lCount: Integer; // not recommended begin lCount := aData.Length; //... end;
A method can take zero or more parameters, listed after the method name, and enclosed in parenthesis. Individual parameters are separated by semicolons, and each parameter must at the very least consist of a name and a type, separated by a colon.
Unlike other languages, including C# and Swift, an empty set of parenthesis is optional (and discouraged) for declaring methods that take no parameters.
method DoSomething(aParameter: String); method DoSomethingElse;
Optionally, a default value can be provided via the
:= operator. If a default is provided, callers can omit the parameter in question, and the default will be used instead:
method DoSomething(aParameter: String := 'Use this by default.');
'out' and 'var' Parameters
Parameters can also have a modifier of either
out. By default, parameters are passed into the method, but not back out. Inside the method, the parameter becomes a local variable, and any changes made to it inside the method are not propagated to the caller.
Parameters declared with
var will be passed into the method, and any changes made by the method will be passed back out when the method exits. Parameters declared with
out will start off as having their
default() value when the method starts, and any changes made to them will then be passed out when the method is finished.
method GetValues(var a: Integer; out b: Integer); begin a := a + 15; b := 10; end;
Note that when passing heap-based Classes, the
out modifiers apply to the reference, and not the data stored within the type. Changes made to a class passed in as regular "in-wards" parameter will still affect the caller, as it is holding as reference to the same class. Changing the parameter to a different instance will not propagate outwards. When a reference type is passed via
var, changes to the reference itself will propagate back, and the caller will have a reference to the new object.
method GetValues(a: SomeClass; var b: SomeClass); begin a.SomeValue := a.SomeValue+15; // affects the instance that the caller passed in a := new SomeClass(); // this change will not affewct ehe caller b := new SomeClass(); // this change will affect ehe caller end; GetValues(x, y); // x is changed, but still the same class. y is now a new class
'params' Method Parameters
params keyword can be used on the last parameter to capture all extra parameters in a single array. To use params, this parameter has to be a simple Dynamic Array.
method Write(a: String; params args: array of String); begin end; ... Write('hello', 'this', 'world'); // a is 'hello', args is ['this', 'world'] Write('hello', 'world'); // a is 'hello', args is ['world'] Write('hello'); // a is 'hello', args is (empty array)
If the method is defined to return a value, an implicit
result Variable is available in scope, within the method body. This variable is of the same type as the method's return type, and initialized to the
default() value of the type (typically
result variable can be both written and read, allowing you to use it to store an incremental status and be updated during the course of the method's execution. This is a significant improvement over other languages, including C, C# or Swift, where a return value can only be set in the same step as the method is exited.
Of course the
exit Statement can still exit the method and return a value in one go at any time. If
exit is called with a value, that value is used as result. If it is called without value, any previously set value in
result will be used, just as if the method terminated by reaching its end.
Multi-Part Method Names
In order to fit in well with the API conventions on the Cocoa platform, Oxygene has support for multi-part method names.
Multi-part method names are essentially the ability for a method's name to be split into separate parts, each followed by a distinct parameter. This is "required" on the Cocoa platform because all the platform's APIs follow this convention, and we wanted Oxygene to be able to both consume and implement methods alongside those conventions without resorting to awkward attributes or other adornments, and to feel at home on the Cocoa platform.
A multi-part method has parameter parts for each part, both when being declared:
method RunCommand(aString: String) Arguments(params aArguments: array of String): Boolean;
...and when being called:
myClass.RunCommand('ebuild') Arguments('MyProject.sln', '--configuration:Debug');
While the feature was created for Cocoa, multi-part method names are supported on all platforms, and considered a regular feature of the Oxygene language (and also compatible with C#, Swift and Java). We encourage to use and embrace them, as they are a great tool to make code more readable and understandable.
The method body is what makes up the bulk of a method, and provides its implementation. It starts with the
begin keyword and ends with a matching
end or – id a post-condition is provided –
The method body is made up of xero or more Statements, separated by semicolons (and, traditionally but optionally, a line break). Most (mut not all) Expressions can also be used as standalone statements. When doing so, the value of the expression is simply ignored.
Statements can be simple one-line constructs (such as a Method Call or a
var Declaration, or they can be more complex structures that might even contain their own sub-list of statements (such as a
Pre- and Post-Conditions
Methods can provide optional pre-conditions that will be checked before the main mody of the method starts executing, or post-conditions that will be checked after the method exits.
Both pre-conditions and post-conditions consist of a list of Boolean expressions, separated by semicolons. Each condition will be evaluated in row, and if any of them evaluates to
false, execution will be aborted with a fatal .
Pre-conditions are provided before the method body, in an optional
require section. Post-conditions are provided after the method body, in an optional
method MyClass.IncrementCount(aBy: Int32); require aBy > 0; begin fCount := fCount + aBy ensure fCount - aBy = old fCount; end;
ensure section, the can be used to refer to the original value a parameter or field had before the method started. This can be useful for checking the validity od the result compared to previous state. Note that for heap-based (except Strings such as Classes, which receive special handling), the
old operator only captures the old reference, but not the old state of the object it contains.
In both the
ensure section, an optional more detailed error message can be provided, to be included in the assertion when a check fails. This must be in the form of a constant String Literal, separated from the expression with a colon. (If the expression itself contains a colon, the whole expression needs to be wrapped in parenthesis).
method MyClass.IncrementCount(); require (SomeValue:SomeField = 0) : "SomeField may not be zero!"; begin ...
Note that pre- and post-conditions will only be compiled and executed if the "Enable Asserts" Compiler Option is on. By default, this option is off for Release builds, to optimize performance. It is important to not rely on pre- and-postconditions to execute for the regular operation of the project, and to avoid conditions with side effects.
Pre- and post-conditions should be used only for testing, not for general code flow.
Similar to Generic Types, individual methods can be declared to have one or more generic parameters. The type parameters are provided enclosed in angle brackets after the method name. These types are then used as placeholders for a more concrete type, allowing you to define methods that are, well, generic, and not tied down to working with a specific type as parameter or result.
method ArrayHelpers.FindIndexInArray<T>(list: array of T; item: T): Integer; begin for i: Integer := 0 to list.Length - 1 do begin if list[i] = item then exit i; exit -1; end;
For example, the
FindIndexInArray<T> method above can work with any type of array to find an item's index.
ArrayHelpers.FindIndexInArray<Int>([1,2,3], 2); ArrayHelpers.FindIndexInArray<String>(["One","Two","Three"], "Four");
method ArrayHelpers.SomeMethod<in T>(aSomeParaneter T); where T has constructor; begin ...
Please refer to the Generic Types topic for a more detailed discussion on generics, including many details that apply to generics in members, as well.
Like most type members, methods are by default defined on the instance – that means the method can be called on and will execute in the context of an instance of the class. A method can be marked as static by prefixing the method declaration with the
class keyword, or by applying the
static Member Modifier:
class method MyClassMethod: String; // static method on the class itself method MyOtherClassMethod: String; static; // static method on the class itself
method OverrideMe; virtual;
A number of other Member Modifiers can be applied to methods:
mapped to(See Mapped Members)
optional(Interface members only)
partial(See Partial Types)
unsafe(See on .NET)
where(see Generic Methods, above
For compatibility with legacy Pascal languages, the
function keywords can be used instead of
method, when Delphi Compatibility is turned on. Methods declared with
function must have a result type, while those declared with
procedure may not.
We discourage the use of
function and strongly encourage you to embrace the | <urn:uuid:d39835a4-b761-4b0f-8e6d-fe5a0db2baed> | {
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Tue April 1, 2014
Methane-Producing Microbes Caused 'The Great Dying'
Originally published on Tue April 1, 2014 8:23 am
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
And I'm David Greene. Good morning. The biggest extinction the Earth has ever seen took place 250 million years ago and it remains something of a mystery. Scientists suspected giant volcanoes or perhaps an asteroid caused it, but NPR's Christopher Joyce has seen new research suggesting the cause might not have been so cataclysmic - maybe something much more subtle.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: It's sometimes called the Great Dying. The Permian extinction, named after its geologic period, wiped out forests across the planet. Even insects died out. In the oceans, everything from giant sea-scorpions to crawling trilobites disappeared.
JON PAYNE: It was catastrophic - really, really awful. None of us would want to live in that world.
JOYCE: Jon Payne at Stanford University studies ancient life forms.
PAYNE: Clearly very large changes in climate, you know, warming of maybe as much as 5 or 10 degrees Celsius of the planet, major changes in vegetation.
JOYCE: The evidence for volcanoes or an asteroid doing this has not been convincing. There is a big clue, though: carbon. The chemistry of ancient rock and sediment shows that right about the time of the extinction there was a huge spike in the amount of carbon in the air and oceans. Really huge.
DANIEL ROTHMAN: If you added up all of the world's fossil fuels today, including coal, you wouldn't be able to still get that amount of carbon in the system.
JOYCE: Daniel Rothman is a geophysicist at MIT. He and his team there say they've got a novel idea about where that carbon came from: something very tiny at the bottom of the ocean - microorganisms. Here's how it might have happened. There was this common microbe that fed on organic junk in ocean sediments.
Then it mutated, possibly picking up a gene from another microbe. That increased its appetite incredibly fast. As it ate more, the basic mix of life in the ocean changed. Other microbes created yet more food for it.
ROTHMAN: You might think of it as a vicious cycle that feeds upon itself.
JOYCE: Now, that might not have been such a big deal, except this microbe created methane when it ate. And since there were uncountable numbers of them, that pumped lots of methane into the ocean and atmosphere. And that methane turned into carbon dioxide and that was bad. All that carbon dioxide warmed the planet and made the oceans acidic.
ROTHMAN: Greater than 90 percent of the species living at the time in the oceans went extinct.
JOYCE: Almost that many on land also are believed to have died out as well, probably from global warming. Rothman's team describes this hypothesis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They don't have direct evidence - say, actual remains of these super-microbes - but Rothman says it fits what they see in the fossil record. Looking back, though, there is an upside to this story. Stanford's Jon Payne points out that as bad as it was, the extinction kind of rebooted life on Earth.
PAYNE: In the very long run, these kinds of events may do as much to stimulate evolution as they do to damage biological diversity.
JOYCE: Easy enough to say, of course, if you're not a trilobite. Christopher Joyce, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:d2b97729-98cb-4c67-aaa8-b13eb89ae742> | {
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Ecosystem shows resilience to prolonged human modification
Cloud forests of Ecuadorian Andes not as pristine as previously thought
Nineteenth century explorers who visited the cloud forests of the Ecuadorian Andes regularly referred to the landscape as a ‘pristine’ wilderness. What they were, in fact, observing was the recovery on an environment that had previously been heavily cultivated and deforested by the indigenous population for hundreds of years. In an article published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, an international team of researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA), The Open University (UK) and the Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera – CSIC (Spain) throws new light on the resilience of biodiverse ecosystems to prolonged human modification.
The cloud forests of the Andes are some of the most biodiverse and endangered terrestrial environments on earth. ‘If we want to successfully conserve and restore these forests, it is essential to understand their history’, says palaeoecologist Will Gosling from the UvA’s Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED). ‘For our project, we reconstructed the last 1000 years of changing human impact on the cloud forests of Ecuador in the Quijos Valley, a vital trade route between the Incan Empire and the indigenous peoples of the Amazon region. The Quijos Valley was a route Spanish conquistadors took when travelling into the Amazon in search of gold, silver and cinnamon.’
Using a floating platform, the researchers extracted sediments from a lake, radiocarbon dated to cover the last 1000 years. Using pollen, fungal spores and charcoal preserved in the sediment the researchers reconstructed the historical landscape, comparing it to the modern environment and to a period before the first humans arrived in the Americas.
Prior to the arrival of European colonisers, the indigenous population intensively cultivated and managed the land. Their intensive land-use deforested the region to a greater extent than modern cattle farming, however, this ended abruptly around AD 1588 following the catastrophic decline of the indigenous peoples as result of European colonisation. ‘It subsequently took the cloud forest about 130 years to recover and return to the structural equivalent of a ‘pre-human arrival’ forest’, says Nicholas Loughlin, a researcher at The Open University who led the project as part of his PhD. ‘The 19th century explorers who described a ‘pristine’ wilderness were unknowingly observing a ‘shifted’ ecological baseline that was, in fact, influenced by centuries of previously unseen human activity.’
Hope for restoration
These findings offer hope that areas degraded by intensive agriculture can be restored as well as provide a unique insight into the culture of indigenous populations in the Americas. Gosling: ‘Our study focused exclusively on the Quijos Valley. A question that remains is how characteristic this region is of the Andes as a whole. Our aim is to expand the scope of our research across the eastern Andean cloud forests of Ecuador.’
Nicholas J.D. Loughlin, William D. Gosling, Patricia Mothes & Encarni Montoya: ‘Ecological Consequences of Post-Columbian Indigenous Depopulation in the Andean-Amazonian Corridor’, in: Nature Ecology and Evolution, 16 July 2018. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0602-7 | <urn:uuid:38702b8d-0b01-4357-abf1-7fc4a573eb44> | {
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Backyard Permaculture: A 12-Step Program
Permaculture promotes sustainability and self-reliance by creating managed ecosystems—modeled on natural ones—right in our backyards. It’s “garden farming,” says Peter Bane in The Permaculture Handbook. Think you don’t have enough room? Bane grew more than 150 species on less than 2,000 square feet. He identifies 12 principles to guide your permaculture project.
1. Observe and interact.
Learn the patterns of your land. Where does the rain run off? Where does the wind come from? What’s sunny and what’s in the shade?
2. Catch and store energy.
You get a gift of energy from the sun. Use it to replace the fossil energy that’s changing our climate.
3. Get a yield (or harvest).
Natural systems produce a surplus, representing the captured free energy from the sun. In a managed ecosystem, we can harvest that surplus. The harvest may be as direct as picking an apple or it may take several steps: grass makes hay to feed goats that produce both manure to feed more plants and meat for humans to eat.
4. Self-regulate and accept feedback.
Taking too much out will make the system break down. If your harvest is sparse, take it as a lesson: find a balance between yield and maintaining the soil.
5. Use and value nature’s gifts.
If we focus only on products, we can miss the bonuses that nature provides. Chickens, for instance, produce eggs and meat. At the same time they increase soil fertility and will do light tilling as they scratch for bugs and seeds.
6. Make no waste.
In nature, everything’s food for something else—there’s no “away” where waste can go. Use animals, worms, and composting to make food for the soil.
7. Design from pattern to details.
Nature has had billions of years to work out how to design systems. Follow natural patterns to make the movement of nutrients and the interactions between plants, animals, and humans as efficient as they are in nature.
8. Integrate, don’t segregate.
There’s no separate living space in a forest and nothing that serves a single purpose. Trees provide shade for plants on the forest floor, habitat for birds and animals, and an annual supply of food for plants, animals, and birds. Integrating living and growing spaces makes for more production and more comfort.
9. Choose small and slow solutions.
The fast pace of modern life is not the pace of nature. It also requires huge amounts of fossil energy. Use the simplest, lowest-energy tools and processes. It may take more time, but it’s sustainable.
10. Cultivate diversity.
In natural systems, there’s always a mix of plants and animals. Include native plants and a wide variety of cultivated ones. It’s more resilient, more productive, and more interesting.
11. Mind the margins and look to the edges.
Where different environments connect is where the most biological action is: the edges of swamps and rivers, the border between forest and meadow.
12. Cultivate vision and respond to change.
Once your ecosystem is in place, the richness of its life allows it to adapt to changing conditions. Your observation and interaction allow you to help with that adaptation.
Doug Pibel wrote this article for What Would Nature Do?, the Winter 2013 issue of YES! Magazine. Doug is managing editor of YES! The information in this article was sourced from The Permaculture Handbook by Peter Bane.
- 7 Ways to Find Your Wild Side (Start With a Nap)
Color like a butterfly, eat like an ancient healer, and other ways to rediscover your inner wildness.
- Robot Dogs and Other Weird Creatures Bring Nature to the City
How to create a world where people fly, salamanders text, and trash is useful.
- Invasive Species: If You Can't Beat 'em, Eat 'em
Species like green crabs, feral pigs, snakeheads, and zebra mussels cost $120 billion a year in damage. For a cheaper alternative, try eating them instead.
That means, we rely on support from our readers.
Independent. Nonprofit. Subscriber-supported. | <urn:uuid:a4ff34e6-1da8-4f16-ae66-c80e1bdd50e1> | {
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Efficiency gain through smart features
Explanation: For rooftop systems, static alignment to the sun, heat build-up and decontamination lead to a lower output than the one stated as theoretically possible at the location. Furthermore, the system does not constantly produce electricity throughout the day, for example in the afternoon when it is not required. This leads to the distinctly lower degree of self-utilization of a rooftop system and/or to the stated efficiency gain of smartflower POP.
(1) PVGIS: Photovoltaic Geographical Information System, https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/
(2) Degree of self-utilization: 60% for smartflower POP; 30% for rooftop systems is a statistical empirical value | <urn:uuid:067cd91a-5fe4-4e21-9921-434775fab17f> | {
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Earth Literacy Education: What, why and how?
Frans C. Verhagen, Executive Director
International Society of Ecological Educators
This short write-up of Earth literacy education proposes a new model of
grade, secondary and tertiary education that would be based upon Earth awareness and
Earth care, the two pillars of Earth literacy. This organizing concept of
Earth literacy is shown to be phase six in North American environmental education,
based as it is upon the emerging theory of bioregional environmentalism. The
article describes those six phases, the nature of Earth literacy and how
it can be accomplished. Persons interested in this model can get more
information from the International Society of Ecological Educators.
Environmental education has gone through many phases and shows a great
diversity even in specific cultures such as the North American one.
Learning and instruction about a community's physical and ecological
environment, both formal and informal, on both elementary, secondary and
adult levels is a mosaic of situations that reflects the cultural
diversity of a society at a particular time in history. In North America
we can distinguish at least half a dozen phases in environmental
education, which is culminating in an Earth literacy phase that includes
most of the foregoing phases with different emphases, and most
importantly, within a wellfounded theory of environmentalism.
The first phase was and, to some extent, is the Native American
transmission of attitudes, customs and practices that can be
characterized as living in unity and harmony with Nature. It is this
earliest of phases that has to be reincorporated into the Earth literacy
phase, changing the domination posture the early settlers and the cando
technical outlook of present-day society.
The second phase was one of Nature study with spokespersons such as
Thoreau, Muir, Emerson, Whitman, etc.
With the increase of industrialization, the need for conservation became
clear to individuals such as President Theodore Roosevelt and New York
State Governor Hill who around the turn of the century, respectively,
established the Presidential Commission on Conservation and preserved
regions in the Adirondacks and the Catskills.
Phase three--the emergence of camping education with the founding of the
Scouting movement by Lord Baden-Powell in 1910--and phase four--outdoor
education and school gardening--became part of the NYC school curriculum
when, as leading NYC ecological educator Kominski stated, "School
gardening may have been as important then as computer centers are to us
now." Rachel Carson's work in the 60s brought environmental education to
another level of sophistication by emphasizing the degradation and
disintegration of Earth systems, a veritable advance in environmental
education in this phase five. Present day environmental education that
includes strands of those earlier phases has to be pulled up to a higher
level of sophistication, an Earth literacy.
Phase six or Earth literacy education incorporates and is based upon the
theory of environmentalism that organizes societies according to the
premium values of sustainability and equity. Part of this political
theory is a value or ethical system that includes both ecological and
social equity as its guiding principles. Together, these form part of a
biocentric and holistic worldview or a cosmology that incorporates the
scientific breakthroughs in physics and astronomy at the beginning of
this century. A new universe story is emerging that, based as it is on
recent scientific achievements, can form the core of new myths by which
humanity can energize itself and find the core unity that is needed in
its ever increasing diversity.
Earth literacy education, therefore, includes not only learning and
instruction in attitudes, skills and knowledge in respect to mother
Earth, but also the development of a perspective or worldview that tells
the story of the universe, of Earth, life, and human species with the
Earth and life as central, not the human species. A major challenge of
this phase in environmental education is to repurpose education (i.e.,
change the purpose of education from human-centered or anthropocentric to
life-centered or biocentric learning and instruction).
This radical revision of education is already taking place through the
networking of those persons, organizations and institutions that are
implementing this Earth literacy model of education. An international
organization that is based upon this Earth literacy model of education
(the International Society of Ecological Educators [ISEE]), presently
works mostly with secondary education and will be available on NYCENET
(Telnet 188.8.131.52 or Metro1.nycenet.edu) and on Econet in the near
future. Its headquarters are located at 97-37 63rd Road, Suite 15E,
Forest Hills North, N.Y. 11374. Voice and fax:718-275-3932. v03/11/94 | <urn:uuid:0098586e-b150-4460-9594-294b13c63f3f> | {
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TheSage’s English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a free but comprehensive language reference system; it integrates a dictionary and thesaurus of the English language and it can look up words directly from almost any program (IE, Word, Firefox, Outlook, Thunderbird,… ).
The dictionary comprises: Multiple detailed definitions (+210,000). Examples of usage (+50,000). Phonetic transcriptions (+70,000). Encyclopedic information (geographical, historical, political…). Academic knowledge (medicine, biology…).
The thesaurus encompasses: Synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms, holonyms…, Approximately 1,400,000 relationships between definitions.
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- Second largest of the American Species.
- Weight 500 lbs.
- Length of head and body 71 - 98 inches
- Height to shoulder 29 - 47 inches
South America from Columbia and Venezuela south to Paraguay and Brazil
Wooded, grassy habitats; jungles; often swampy and always close to water source such as streams or lakes
Wild - Omnivorous; aquatic or low-growing forest vegetation and various fallen fruits; invertebrates as well as small mammals and birds
Zoo - Alfalfa, vegetables and fruit such as carrots, apples, potatoes, lettuce; grains
- Characterized by heavy bodies supported by stout legs; front feet have four toes, back feet only three toes. Small hoof. Head extends into a short, fleshy trunk which is actually a prolonged nose and upper lip.
- Carries a well-marked crest rising between the ears and extending onto the neck. This emphasizes the concave profile of the head.
- Dark brown to reddish above, paler below, short and bristly; low narrow mane.
- Swims well and will take freely to water when pressed by enemies. Bathing not only cools the animal, but also protects it from biting insects and from other parasites of the skin. Short mane, a crest of stiff hairs, protects nape from the jaguar's sharp teeth. Though skin is covered with sparse hair.
- Mainly nocturnal; sleeps much of the day; however can quickly become alert when disturbed.
- Apart from mothers with children, tapirs are usually solitary.
- Usually described as harmless, defenseless, and slow moving, tapirs can become serious antagonists when aroused, using their teeth with a devastating effect and exhibiting surprise speed and agility.
- Skilled climbers; can also squeeze through small spaces. Ears protrude -- have good hearing; sense of smell highly developed; small, deep set eyes are protected from brush and thorns; not particularly acute vision.
- Communicate with shrill, whistling sound and scent mark with urine.
- Mobile proboscis, slightly swollen at tip, allows tapir to sniff its way through foliage and acts as sensitive finger with which it can reach leaves, shoots, etc.
- Observation shows that the odd-toes ungulates which fed primarily on leaves have the largest and most moveable upper lips.
About 30 year life span
Related to horses and rhinos
Oldest living perissodactyle
Single birth -- any season. Gestation period is 13 months or 400 days. Young of all tapirs are handsomely marked with white or yellowish stripes and spots, which give way to adult coloration which is usually complete by six months. Attain sexual maturity at 3 - 4 years. Usually remain with mother 10 - 11 months. (Female tapir has single pair of mammae located in region of groin.)
Mainly jaguars; sometimes caiman attack young in water
CITES App. I; threatened: Suffer from loss of habitat and even though these giants are considered fatty and not very tasty, they are hunted every where in their habitat.
"World of Wildlife: Animals of South America," Orbis Publishing, London
"Grzimek's Animal Encyclopedia," Vol. 13, Mammals IV
"Management of Wild Mammals in Captivity," Lee S. Crandall | <urn:uuid:f5957c9d-6208-47af-9b68-43fbd9626a51> | {
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By adam thomas
College of Agriculture
and Natural Resources
For Delaware farms near the coast or close to brackish waters, dry seasons can hit hard in two ways. Not only are the farms deprived of fresh rainwater to help boost their crop yields, they also face the threat of farmland salinization.
Farmland salinization is exactly as it sounds: salt water seeps into farmland soils and spoils crops, and with sea levels rising in the First State, the problem doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.
“There’s probably acres that get flooded every year, so that’s a continual challenge,” says Cory Whaley, a Cooperative Extension agent at UD. “The salt levels just get so high that it becomes, in most cases, impossible to grow our normal grain crops, corn and soybeans.”
That’s a big problem for Delaware farmers, as the two most popular crops grown in the state—corn and soybeans—are sensitive to salt, although
Whaley does note that corn is slightly more salt tolerant than soybeans.
In 2008, Whaley saw the effects of farmland salinization firsthand in
areas around the Delaware Bay. A high tidal surge impacted thousands of acres, resulting in significant crop loss.
Not only did the tidal surge kill the crops for that season, but it also had lingering effects for future yields.
“The frustrating part is that it destroyed the crop that was there, but if you come back and replant, your chances of having salt injury on the replant is there, so it’s almost like you’re leaving it barren,” Whaley says, noting that this problem is largely dependent upon how long the salt water sat on the cropland and how much salt got absorbed into the soil.
When it comes to dry seasons, Whaley says the threat of farmland salinization is especially prevalent because “you’re relying on rainfall or irrigation to leach out the excess salts. So the more precipitation on the ground, the more salt you’re going to leach out.”
When there is big tidal flooding, like Whaley encountered in 2008, he says an option farmers have to deal with farmland salinization is to moldboard plow. This practice allows for a plow to go 10–12 inches into the earth and turn the soil over, taking the topsoil and putting it on the bottom. This helps the crop get going by having fresh soil on top and allowing the rain to leach out the salt from the bottom of the crop.
Whaley said that another thing they noticed was that when they did soil testing for salt concentrations, they found that as the salt water receded, the salt levels were higher the closer they got to where the water initially came up.
For farmers that grow in areas where salt levels are the highest, Whaley recommends growing crops that can handle higher salt levels such as wheat, barley or certain species of grass for hay. | <urn:uuid:c261be96-1d2a-4405-932f-6fd40c8bf502> | {
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Course Content and Outcome Guide for MUS 195A
- Course Number:
- MUS 195A
- Course Title:
- Symphonic Band
- Credit Hours:
- Lecture Hours:
- Lecture/Lab Hours:
- Lab Hours:
- Special Fee:
Course DescriptionProvides the opportunity to participate in a conducted symphonic band for brass, woodwind and percussion instrumentalists. Includes rehearsal and performance of repertoire from the 17th- 21st centuries. Available to students with previous high-school level band experience or equivalent.
Intended Outcomes for the courseUpon successful completion students should be able to:Use an understanding of elementary musicianship and performance etiquette to perform basic repertory to apublic audience as a member of a music ensemble.Use an understanding of elementary music literacy to prepare and rehearse basic repertory as a member of alarge music ensemble.Use an understanding of elementary rehearsal techniques and etiquette to follow a conductor, annotatemusic, and be a contributing member of a music large ensemble.Use an understanding of the stylistic differences in elementary repertory to accurately interpretinstrumental band music in performance.Use an elementary understanding of their primary instrument to continue to improve as a performer ofmusic.
Outcome Assessment Strategies
1. Qualitative and quantitative examination of assigned part(s) in solo or
2. Participation, attendance, attitude.
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
1. Rehearsal and performance of standard collegiate-level band repertoire
from the 17th century to the contemporary period.
2. Development of musical skills: articulation, dynamic control, phrasing,
good tone production, balance and sight-reading..
3. The conductor and the baton metric patterns and cues.
4. Performance etiquette.
5. Execute assigned part(s) as directed by the conductor.
6. Listen and respond to conductor, section leaders and ensemble.
7. Sight-read part at appropriate level as assigned by conductor. | <urn:uuid:fc199adf-cd17-4f7d-92ca-32b2a1283ad3> | {
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For many years I have kept a log of the plants I see in the district and when they flower. If I run my finger down the March/April column, however, flowering plants are few and far between. That said, two of my favourites flowering at this time both have tubular bell shaped flowers: the Native Cranberry and the Native Fuchsia.
Native Cranberry (Astroloma humifusum), from the Greek ‘astro’ meaning star and ‘loma’ meaning fringe, (see fringed flower pictured above) also known as Cranberry Heath, is a member of the Epacridaceae or heath family. It is a hardy ground cover found on the rocky slopes of our property. The leaves are pine-like and in autumn the flat bush is covered with tubular red flowers. Cranberry Heath is difficult to observe because it is often obscured by native grasses. After flowering, the plant develops green berries which gradually turn red; hence the reference to ‘cranberry’. The berries are sweet and can be used to make jams.
Native Fuchsia (Correa reflexa) or Common Correa is a small shrub that also has reddish-pink bell shaped flowers in autumn. On it there is nothing to eat for us humans, but the pollen is sought after by various birds, especially honeyeaters.
Though the flowers of both shrubs do not stand out in the bush setting as much as some of more vivid bottlebrushes and grevilleas, they are both well worth a look if you have the time and don’t mind getting your knees dirty. | <urn:uuid:b171ddb4-ec0b-43f1-858b-3fdd94d7f692> | {
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The beach was closed Aug. 8 after a 9-year old boy died from a suspected rare form of meningitis caused by a fresh water amoeba at Lily Lake.
Jerry Holt, Star Tribune
NAEGLERIA IS AN AMOEBA COMMONLY FOUND IN WARM FRESH WATER AND SOIL.
Only one species infects people, Naegleria fowleri. It causes a very rare but severe and usually fatal brain infection. It can't spread from person to person.
The amoeba enters the body through the nose, during swimming or diving.
Thirty-two cases were reported in the United States from 2002 through 2011.
The only previously confirmed case in Minnesota was in August 2010.
Source: CDC and Minnesota Department of Health
Mayor defends Lily Lake precautions
- Article by: KEVIN GILES
- Star Tribune
- August 28, 2012 - 11:52 AM
Stillwater residents peppered the mayor and three public health officials with questions Monday night about how two Stillwater children who swam in Lily Lake died two years apart of a rare brain infection.
The officials said the rare odds-defying scenario -- only 10 cases of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis have been reported nationwide in a decade -- left them searching for answers. The illness, a form of meningitis, killed 9-year-old Jack Ariola Erenberg on Aug. 7 and 7-year-old Annie Elizabeth Bahneman two years ago.
Both swam in Lily Lake before rapidly falling sick. Only one person out of 123 known infected persons in the United States from 1962 to 2011 has survived, the national Centers for Disease Control has said.
In the town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Kathy Lohmer, R-Lake Elmo, many of the written questions from the audience asked about the biology of the amoeba parasite. But an angry Stillwater resident, Lisa Nelson, confronted Mayor Ken Harycki over why the city hadn't closed the Lily Lake swimming beach after Annie's death in 2010.
"There is absolutely no reason this little boy should have died, who everybody loved so much," Nelson said. "You did him wrong; that's what I'm here to say."
Nelson persisted in her criticism of the mayor until Jack's mother, in tears, begged her to stop.
Harycki defended the city, saying the lake was closed to swimmers within 40 minutes of receiving notification of Jack's death. Neighbors were alerted and other measures were taken, he said.
"We hope to meet shortly with officials to see what the process should be going forward," said the mayor, who didn't address allegations that the city should have closed the beach after Annie's death. But he said he would work to find answers. "I think we did everything humanly possible to get the word out that night."
Annie's mother, Bridget Bahneman, said after the meeting that she favored closing the lake and had proposed it after her daughter's death. She said, however, that nobody should think that closing Lily Lake means other lakes are safe. "What I want is for people not to feel a false sense of security if they swim at another lake," she said.
Health officials confirmed the link with Lily Lake after testing her daughter's brain and her spinal fluid, she said.
Many Minnesota lakes have the parasite and it can come and go, said Jim Koppel, deputy commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Health. "It's not something that's quickly detectable and it's not something that's going to be consistent."
Jack had fallen ill and become dizzy while camping with his mother and other family members in the Grand Marais area, on the North Shore of Lake Superior. At first, the doctors thought it was flu, and Jack returned to camp. He became sicker, with a bad headache, and a medical helicopter flew the boy from Grand Marais to Duluth, where he died. Jack was to have begun fourth grade this year at Lily Lake Elementary in Stillwater.
Annie's death was the first in Minnesota from the meningitis and probably the first in a Northern state, the MHD said. She died at Children's Hospital in St. Paul four days after she fell sick with vomiting and a headache.
Infections are caused when water enters the nose, enabling the one-celled organism to crawl into the brain. The amoeba thrives in warm water and proliferates in prolonged heat waves. Most of cases have been in Southern states.
Lily Lake's beach has been closed for the rest of the warm-weather season. Over the winter, health officials will decide what needs to be done regarding public safety.
Koppel and county health manager Lowell Johnson said Monday night that they would work to determine a public policy and consider how to issue precautions.
Kevin Giles • 651-925-5037 Twitter: @stribgiles
© 2017 Star Tribune | <urn:uuid:8c2fd051-8ceb-41c5-88f9-5e382fc5d1c6> | {
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Stevens Seniors Develop Medical Device for Monitoring Surgery Patients under Anesthesia
Award-Winning TOF Clip Informs Physicians When It Is Safe To Remove A Breathing Tube
A prototype medical device for the effective monitoring of surgery patients under general anesthesia that was designed by a team of Stevens undergraduate students may be faster, more accurate, more practical and less expensive than in-market alternatives.
Mechanical Engineering major Edan Golomb and Biomedical Engineering majors Kyle Ripley, Derek Smith and Jen Trinh – an interdisciplinary team of seniors at Stevens nicknamed AcceleroMetrix – have designed the TOF Clip, an “independent neuromuscular blockade monitoring device,” for their capstone senior design project.
Sixteen million surgery patients are administered anesthesia every year. In each surgery, the anesthesiologist must constantly measure the level of neuromuscular blocking agents – drugs which temporarily paralyze muscles so the physician can insert the patient’s breathing tube, allowing the patient to breathe while unconscious.
"If the anesthesiologist removes the breathing tube when the drugs are still present in the patient’s system, the patient will not be able to breathe because his or her diaphragm muscles will still be paralyzed,” said Golomb.
This mistake, which occurs in approximately 2 percent of surgeries, is extremely costly to a patient’s health and pocket book. In the most severe cases, a patient may be subjected to an extended stay in an intensive care unit which can cost $10,000 per night.
“If you have the right device, these complications are certainly preventable,” said Ripley.
Traditionally, most anesthesiologists have monitored the level of neuromuscular blocking drugs subjectively, which can result in human error. Others use two separate but interfaced products to understand when it is safe to remove the breathing tube – a nerve stimulator and a muscle response sensor – which are expensive, bulky and difficult to use.
“There really aren’t any monitoring devices for the presence of these drugs that are cost-effective, quantitative and accurate,” said Trinh.
With the help of Stevens Professor of Biomedical Engineering Vikki Hazelwood, the team’s faculty advisor, AcceleroMetrix designed a prototype for a small thumb-clip device to solve these problems called the TOF Clip. TOF stands for “Train of Four,” a measurement of the force of a muscle twitch which is used in clinical practice as an indicator of the level of neuromuscular blockade.
AcceleroMetrix’s TOF Clip enables physicians to accurately, affordably and objectively measure the level of neuromuscular blockade in a patient – i.e. if the paralyzing drugs are still preventing a patient from breathing properly. Consisting of five major components – a thumb clip, an accelerometer (or sensor), circuitry, a data acquisition device and a computer – it reliably monitors and measures muscle twitches without input from an expensive nerve stimulator.
AcceleroMetrix has worked closely on the TOF Clip with industry representative Dr. Glen Atlas, a Stevens Class of 1982 alumnus, a board-certified anesthesiologist, and an electrical engineer from the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey (UMDNJ).
“Dr. Atlas has seen firsthand the need for a cheap but effective device like the TOF Clip that reduces the risks of surgery under anesthesia and solves an everyday problem faced by anesthesiologists,” said Golomb.
Atlas hopes to begin early stage human clinical trials on the TOF Clip this summer at UMDNJ. If the product succeeds, he’ll help the team bring the TOF Clip to market.
Ultimately, AcceleroMetrix hopes to affiliate with distributors that sell neuromuscular blockade monitoring drugs, nerve stimulators and monitors, and sell the TOF Clip through their distribution networks of hospitals, anesthesiologists, surgical clinics and other healthcare providers.
“I see a great future for the TOF Clip,” said Trinh. “It’s a great alternative to the current products on the market.”
AcceleroMetrix recently won first place in a student poster competition presenting the TOF Clip at the Northeast Bioengineering Conference (NEBEC), held April 5-7 at Syracuse University. The competition included nearly 60 student posters from more than 30 universities representing the top biomedical engineering programs in the region.
"We are proud of these engineering students who have embraced their senior design project and demonstrated its value,” said Hazelwood. “I fully expect them to carry their experience into their careers to make significant and worthy contributions to society, and I’m really looking forward to that."
AcceleroMetrix will next display their prototype at the Stevens Innovation Expo on April 24 alongside hundreds of other innovative technologies, products, services and businesses designed by Stevens seniors in a wide range of disciplines to meet an industry need. For more information and to register, visit www.stevens.edu/expo. | <urn:uuid:6f659e38-9503-4b48-8adb-8f1fcbd602b8> | {
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Modern communications systems rely on increased signal complexity to
pack more data into each symbol transmitted. These complex signals can
result in data dependent, high peak-to-average power ratios requiring
amplifiers and related components with large dynamic ranges.
Oscilloscopes can help designers of such systems evaluate dynamic range
requirements by providing a method to measure instantaneous power on
very long data records. Measurement parameters can read the average and
peak power levels directly from the instantaneous power waveform. The
following example illustrates the techniques that can be used to measure
Figure 1 shows the in-phase (I) and
quadrature (Q) components of a 16-state quadrature amplitude modulated
(16 QAM) baseband signal in the channel traces 1 and 2, respectively.
The X-Y display shows the state transition diagram for the signal. There
are distinct average power levels corresponding to the three possible
combinations of the I and Q voltage levels of 0.58 and 0.18 V
Figure 1: Trace 1 shows the in-phase (I) component and Trace 2 the
quadrature (Q) component of a 16 QAM signal. The state transitions are
shown in the X-Y diagram.
This article appears in its entirety on EDN. To continue reading, click here. | <urn:uuid:11d7e045-7782-4e23-a5c6-c7ab64d9079f> | {
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Explaining Virtual Reality
Virtual reality (VR) is one of the biggest hype in the gaming community due to its immense potential of bringing the future of gaming closer to the hands of consumers everywhere. However, not many people truly understand how revolutionary virtual reality is in terms of not only gaming, but also how it may change our way of life! Due to this, here a nice little article that will give you the basics of virtual reality so you can get hyped up about it as well.
To understand what “virtual reality” is, we will have to first take a look at the term itself. The “virtual” part of the term implies that something abstract and unreal, while the word “reality” indicates something that is based on and exists in real life. Technically, both words contradicts each other... how can something be both abstract yet real at the same time? That’s exactly how the term “virtual reality” is born. When combined, the words give the meaning that something that is in actuality unreal, but feels so real that it can fool your mind in thinking so.
Virtual reality can be produced via a variety of means and different ways of accessing virtual reality will provide varying quality of your VR experience. For instance, most the VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) that you have been hearing so much about are basically only a part of the entire virtual reality experience as it mainly interacts with your visual and aural (hearing) senses. True virtual reality though, which we are inching towards one baby step at a time, will involve the entire body and all the senses we, as humans, possess.
In other words, to experience true virtual reality, we will need a multisensory device. This means that in addition to goggles or helmets, we’ll have a full body, sensor-covered VR suit that will allow us to virtually feel pressure, heat (or the lack thereof) and pain that our skins are able to sense. There are even companies going about attempting to create smells in the form of aerosolized “perfumes” embedded in a possibly futuristic VR helmet that can interact with our nasal sensors for an even more immersive VR experience. Incredible isn’t it?
That being said, virtual reality isn’t something that the gaming community should get excited about. This is because VR is an amazing technology that can be applied to a wide variety of fields such as architecture, sports, healthcare, arts, entertainment, engineering, education and military. In fact, researchers have already started testing out virtual reality-based training simulators on future surgeons and pilots, and from the results obtained, things are looking up indeed!
Hopefully, you are all psyched up about virtual reality now and are eager to give it a whirl. If you truly are, well, in that case, you should really give Google Street View a try. With it, you can travel to locations you never dreamed of going (or are unable to go to due to whatever reasons), such as the famous Mount Everest. Although it is technically not virtual reality, it has enough of the 3D aspect to offer you a nice idea of how virtual reality could be used in a context other than gaming. However, if you’re more interested in the gaming aspect, well, you could check out our blog post entitled Introducing the Ghost in the Shell Virtual Reality Experience that features a 360-degree YouTube video which will allow you to give “semi-virtual reality” a go.
To sum it all up, virtual reality is definitely something that will be integrated into the lives of future humans, much like how the internet has “taken over” the world. It is still in its infancy (somewhat) and there are still a lot of improvements that need to be made. However, virtual reality is here to stay and we might as well embrace it with open arms, so we could learn how to truly utilize this incredible piece of technology to, not only to enhance our entertainment experiences, but also for the good of the human race! | <urn:uuid:1e87a391-a192-4ce4-b2b9-a084a40dd86c> | {
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Checksheets are simple tally sheets that are used to gather data. It is part of the seven basic quality tools that are used within the context of the plan-do-check-act cycle in solving quality-related issues within a particular project management plane.
This project management term is also known as tally sheets and is used to gather data and facts to facilitate effective collection of data concerning a potential problem. Checksheets are very effective in gathering data about the attributes of the project. Moreover, it is also used to inspect the project in order to identify different defects that may arise from the project. Data gathered using the checksheets are also used by other basic quality tools for more analysis. For instance, the tally sheets are often used together with the Pareto diagram which is a vertical bar chart used to identify the probability distribution of the data.
Creating a checksheet is important in order to determine the different problems that may arise for a particular project. It is also necessary to use this tool in order organize the collected data so that it can easily be identified by the parameters included in the checksheet.
This term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK. | <urn:uuid:1b00b22a-54ea-4a9c-b124-e7e27ed68124> | {
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Data from Huygens lander suggest prebiotic conditions on Titan
Although 11 years have passed since ESA’s Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan, the data collected by this spacecraft continue to amaze scientists. Recently, a team of researchers led by Martin Rahm of Cornell University has found a chemical trail indicating prebiotic conditions may exist on this moon.
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. It has a dense atmosphere and a real wealth of liquid hydrocarbon lakes on its surface. Due to this, it is an interesting target for scientists to study complex chemical processes beyond Earth.
The NASA/ESA Cassini mission, which is examining Saturn and its moons, is constantly providing crucial information about these celestial bodies. Moreover, when Cassini deployed the Huygens probe in January 2005 and it successfully landed on Titan’s frigid surface, it sent via Cassini a set of valuable scientific data that allowed researchers to peek into the real nature of this mysterious moon.
Now Rahm and his colleagues revealed new insights about Titan’s possible prebiotic chemistry in a paper published on July 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their main hypothesis states that when sunlight hits Titan’s atmosphere, which is filled with nitrogen and methane, it causes the production of hydrogen cyanide, which is a possible prebiotic chemical key.
“Studies of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and surface of Titan have been underway for many years, and was greatly accelerated by the Cassini-Huygens mission,” Rahm told Astrowatch.net. “The paper published July 4 does not provide new measurements from Titan, rather the team used what had been surmised earlier about this environment to argue for the potential importance of one model compound, and to speculate on its potential to allow for prebiotic chemistry.”
Measurements of the atmosphere and the surface of Titan suggest that hydrogen cyanide-based polymers may have formed on the moon from products of atmospheric chemistry. According to the paper, this makes Titan a valuable “natural laboratory” for exploring potential non-terrestrial forms of prebiotic chemistry.
In order to confirm this theory, scientists have used theoretical calculations to investigate the chain conformations of polyimine, a polymer identified as one major component of polymerized hydrogen cyanide in laboratory experiments.
Rahm noted that polyimine can exist as different structures and may be able to accomplish remarkable things at low temperatures, especially under Titan’s conditions.
The team’s research is another important step toward understanding Titan’s chemistry. However, more work is still needed to make breakthrough discoveries in this field as the chemical environment on this moon is considerably more complicated than was previously thought.
“We focused on the potential roles of one polymer made from hydrogen cyanide, as a model. The actual chemical environment on Titan is considerably more complicated,” Rahm said. “If future observations could show there is prebiotic chemistry in a place like Titan, it would be a major breakthrough. This paper is indicating that prerequisites for processes leading to a different kind of life could exist on Titan, but this only the first step.”
Sending another lander to Titan’s surface could aid in this research. A proposed mission would need to be able to do a careful chemical analysis of different places on the moon’s surface.
“It would need to be capable of characterizing chemical structures stable only at low temperatures, and to possibly observe chemical processes,” Rahm said.
If confirmed, prebiotic conditions on Titan could mean suitable conditions to harbor microbial life there. Hydrogen cyanide is present in comets and is presumed to be a key precursor to the origin of life.
Although there is currently no evidence for this, the paper provides indications that some chemistry may be going on, despite the cold temperature. According to Rahm, in principle, this may allow for prebiotic chemistry which in turn is necessary before there can be any kind of life.
If life were to exist in some form on the surface of Titan, it would need to be very different from that of Earth.
“There is no liquid water, and the temperature is extremely low. The low solar flux also puts limitations on the amount of energy available for metabolism,” Rahm said.
Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the premier astronomy and science-related blogs on the internet. Nowakowski reached out to SpaceFlight Insider in an effort to have the two space-related websites collaborate. Nowakowski's generous offer was gratefully received with the two organizations now working to better relay important developments as they pertain to space exploration. | <urn:uuid:7f7eb3d1-7705-4df8-a70d-2784f42ab66e> | {
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The Common Law Rule
The Common Law Rule.—Not until the latter part of the eighteenth century did courts develop a rule excluding coerced confessions from admission at trial; prior to that time, even confessions obtained by torture were admissible. As the rule developed in England and in early United States jurisprudence, the rationale was the unreliability of the confession's contents when induced by a promise of benefit or a threat of harm.266 In its first decision on the admissibility of confessions, the Court adopted the common-law rule, stressing that while a "voluntary confession of guilt is among the most effectual proofs in the law, from the very nature of such evidence it must be subjected to careful scrutiny and received with great caution." "[T]he presumption upon which weight is given to such evidence, namely, that one who is innocent will not imperil his safety or prejudice his interests by an untrue statement, ceases when the confession appears to have been made either in consequence of inducements of a temporal nature, held out by one in authority, touching the charge preferred, or because of a threat or promise by or in the presence of such person, which, operating upon the fears or hopes of the accused, in reference to the charge, deprives him of that freedom of will or self-control essential to make his confession voluntary within the meaning of the law."267 Subsequent cases followed essentially the same line of thought.268 Then, in Bram v. United States,269 the Court assimilated the common-law rule thus mentioned as a command of the Fifth Amendment and indicated that henceforth a broader standard for judging admissibility was to be applied.270 Though this rule271 and the case itself were subsequently approved in several cases,272 the Court could hold within a few years that a confession should not be excluded merely because the authorities had not warned a suspect of his right to remain silent,273 and more than once later Courts could doubt "whether involuntary confessions are excluded from federal criminal trials on the ground of a violation of the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination, or from a rule that forced confessions are untrustworthy…"274
266 3 J. WIGMORE, A TREATISE ON THE ANGLO-AMERICAN SYSTEM OF EVIDENCE § 823 (3d ed. 1940); Developments in the Law—Confessions, 79 HARV. L. REV. 935, 954-59 (1966).
268 Pierce v. United States, 160 U.S. 335 (1896); Sparf v. United States, 156 U.S. 51 (1895). In Wilson v. United States, 162 U.S. 613 (1896), failure to provide counsel or to warn the suspect of his right to remain silent was held to have no effect on the admissibility of a confession but was only to be considered in assessing its credibility.
269 168 U.S. 532 (1897). "[T]he generic language of the [Fifth] Amendment was but a crystallization of the doctrine as to confessions, well settled when the Amendment was adopted…" Id. at 543.
270 168 U.S. at 549.
271 Ziang Sun Wan v. United States, 266 U.S. 1, 14-15 (1924). This case first held that the circumstances of detention and interrogation were relevant and perhaps controlling on the question of admissibility of a confession.
273 Powers v. United States, 223 U.S. 303 (1912).
274 United States v. Carignan, 342 U.S. 36, 41 (1951). See also McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 346 (1943); Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 285 (1936); Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 191 n.35 (1953). | <urn:uuid:b70ef7cc-2106-4a3e-86f8-7d4d186f2676> | {
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Nevada Becomes First State To Approve Driver-less Cars
Today Nevada state legislators became the first to approve self-driving cars on their roadways.
That’s right. No drivers required.
Nevada lawmakers sought input from police, insurance carriers and automobile manufacturers before drafting legislation which would regulate these computer controlled, autonomous vehicles, but it passed with an overwhelming majority of support.
Just because we might have fleets of driverless cars on the road sooner than anyone thought possible is no reason for you to stop being a defensive driver, however. In fact, it’s likely an even better reason to drive defensively because you’ll soon be sharing the road with vehicles that simply don’t know any better.
Google, the company known for its near ubiquitous search engine, has been working on the technology to power autonomous vehicles for nearly a decade and they say the time is now to automate some transportation services. They envision a day when cars will drive themselves, thus reducing commuting times, cutting down on emissions and alleviating traffic congestion.
This also means that at least some vehicles will likely still have very real human drivers behind the wheel and that the two will need to find ways to coexist. It is a fact of life that technology is changing our world in ways which have never imagined, but it is no substitute for common sense and excellent driving skills.
So although computer driven cars will likely be joining human powered vehicles on the road sooner, rather than later, you still need to keep your driving skills sharp and your wits about you at all the time.
Remember, they might let a robot drive a car, but they will never require a robot to attend traffic school. At least, not until after they’ve been driving for a while. You, on the other hand, are free to improve your driving skills any time you feel the need.
Image: farconville / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</
Leave a Reply | <urn:uuid:2db54792-6c9d-4fd4-a686-16eb297a6fb7> | {
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Acid Generating Minerals
The first step in preventing or removing acid rock drainage problems is to identify the acid generating or neutralising minerals that may cause or mitigate acid rock drainage (ARD). SGS’s High Definition Mineralogy team has the expertise to address these points and provide you with objective, robust data you need to proactively manage this important environmental issue.
SGS experts use environmental mineralogy to characterise acid generating minerals or phases to:
- Determine the potential for future contamination
- Develop remediation plans including the treatment and processing of products and waste material
- Establish methods to control the redistribution of acid generating or acid neutralising minerals in the environment
- Create monitoring systems to ensure ongoing compliance
The characterisation of the acid-generation potential of ores is a vital component in the management of ARD and the prevention of long-term environmental liabilities. SGS can perform a full mineralogical characterisation of rocks, ore and tailings to determine their acid generating or acid neutralising potential. From such characterisations, acid generating minerals (e.g. pyrite, marcasite, pyrrhotite) and acid neutralising minerals (e.g. calcite, dolomite) are quantified.
The ratio of these acid generating or neutralising minerals and their locked or liberation characteristics will determine if a sample will be a net acid generator, thus assisting with environmental planning, closure planning, and rehabilitation projects. This type of fundamental data can then be used to determine project costs.
SGS is a global technical leader in the field of acid rock drainage (ARD, also known as acid mine drainage) characterisation and testing. We have years of experience globally, addressing the acid generating potential of mining projects and have earned the reputation as an organisation that truly understands the testing required to define acid rock drainage scenarios. Email us | <urn:uuid:04384d40-612d-4762-8e74-a290df15ff84> | {
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English The Easy Way
Everyone Can Have Perfect Documents!!!!!!!
Check For Run On Sentences
Proofreading Tips For Run On Sentences
Here are guidelines to help you check for check for run on sentences.
- Print out a hard copy of the document.
- Use a red or green pen (a pen that is a diffract color than the document) and mark the beginning and the end of each sentence.
- Check each sentence individually to see how many independent clauses it contains.
- Underline or highlight all the subjects in the sentence. This will make it easier for you to see, if you have to many subjects.
- In sentences that contain 2 or more subjects or a subject you may want to split the sentence into two separate sentences. | <urn:uuid:dee5c565-8b7d-4c19-b444-daeb97551f21> | {
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Department of Agriculture
Master of Science
Due to the relatively high value of dark tobacco compared with fertilizer costs, nitrogen is recommended at levels as high as 338 kg ha"1. Such rates of inorganic fertilizers increase the osmotic pressure of the soil solution and soil acidity, often causing reduced stands, Mn toxicity, Mo and Ca deficiencies, and reduced yield and quality of the cured leaf (Sims et al., 1984). Poultry litter utilized as a nutrient source is an inexpensive alternative to this dilemma due to its relatively neutral or alkaline composition. However, due the amount of chloride present in poultry litter, the University of Kentucky advises that application be limited to a maximum of 9 Mg ha"1 (Wells, 1996). Environmental concerns such as nitrate contamination of groundwater, P runoff into surface water, and accumulation of heavy metals in the soil are often related to excessive application of poultry litter. Studies were conducted at Western Kentucky University's Agricultural Research and Education Complex in Bowling Green, Kentucky and a farm in Owensboro, Kentucky to evaluate the influence of poultry litter on dark tobacco growth and soil nutrient concentrations. Results from these studies indicate that when applied at recommended rates, poultry litter in most cases can alleviate soil acidification often associated with the use of inorganic fertilizer sources. In general, poultry litter amendments increased soil pH, while inorganic fertilizers had the opposite effect. Data from the Rate Study suggests that rate of inorganic fertilizer and soil pH are negatively correlated. Due to the high nutrient content of poultry litter, its utilization could possibly lead to an accumulation of P2O5 and certain heavy metals, such as Cu and Zn. Data from the Bowling Green Timing Study indicated that poultry litter amendments increased postharvest soil P availability compared to inorganic fertilizer amendments. At the Owensboro location there were no differences in soil P availability among treatments. Results from the Rate Study suggest that soil P availability and poultry litter rate were positively correlated. Data from all studies indicate that in some cases, soil Cu availability was greater in poultry litter treated plots than in plots treated with inorganic fertilizers. With one exception, plots receiving poultry litter were higher in soil Zn availability than inorganic fertilizer plots at the Bowling Green Timing Study. Data from the Rate Study suggests that increasing the poultry litter rate increased soil Zn availability in poultry litter plots receiving a sidedress application. Data from the Owensboro Timing Study indicated that regardless of application timing, cured lamina tissue chloride concentration in poultry litter amended plots were greater than the tobacco industry standard of 1%. Chloride concentrations in the lamina and stem were higher in plots receiving poultry litter than plots treated with inorganic fertilizers. Despite these concentrations there were no noticeable differences in curing and USDA quality rating. Data from the Timing Studies indicated that total yields were equivalent in poultry litter and inorganic fertilizer treated plots, however yields of certain grades did vary. Plots receiving a source of fertilizer had higher total yields than the untreated control. Results from the Rate Study showed that total yields were quite variable, which may be attributed to poor water drainage from the study area. In the Rate Study, a general trend emerged in which increasing the rate of poultry litter in combination with a sidedress application increased trash, lug, and total yield, but decreased tip yield.
Agriculture | Agronomy and Crop Sciences | Plant Sciences
Simmons, Jason, "Influence of Poultry Litter on Dark Tobacco Growth and Soil Nutrient Availability" (2004). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 516. | <urn:uuid:cb2eca47-a086-4c83-ac93-5d3b85e9f9f6> | {
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– Click on the image to enlarge or purchase –
Tall Ironweed (Vernonia altissima) is a member of the Asteraceae or Aster family. Because of its size it also has a second Latin name, Vernonia gigantea. This is a 3- to 10-foot tall perennial which has mostly smooth stems. The leaves are thin, alternate and mostly toothed. They are smooth on the upper surface and hairy underneath, are lance shaped and grow from 4- to 12-inches long and 1- to 3-inches wide, gradually narrowing to the base. The heads are borne in loose open clusters and can have from 13 to 30 purplish disk flowers. There are a series of overlapping bracts at the base of each flower that are less than 0.3-inches high. This is a common wildflower that is usually found in moist or wet woodlands, pastures and meadows. It has a wide range from western New York and eastern New Brunswick south to Florida and west to Texas. It flowers from July to October. The genus name is in honor of William Vernon, an English botanist. | <urn:uuid:e86409eb-3286-4982-8b7f-eb3872d340d4> | {
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It is a compendium of un-adapted Latin texts, glossed and hyperlinked, by or about Roman women from all ranks and status groups, together with abundant illustrative images from the ancient world and brief essays that suggest the range of women´s activities, concerns, and social roles in ancient Rome. Beyond that it is a resource center supporting annotated print and digital bibliography entries on the topic of women, links to resources for enhancing the interpretation of texts, and shared materials for teaching about and the study of Roman women in Latin.
Online Companion was conceived as a collaborative website in December 2005, designed to accompany the book The Worlds of Roman Women (henceforth WRW; published March 2005), the first intermediate/advanced Latin text-commentary on Roman women. In the anthology the co-authors offered a wide variety of primary sources in Latin by and about women, from the earliest periods through the second century CE, thus allowing students of any academic grade to experience different Latin styles and diverse genres. We included authors not normally read in undergraduate courses and less familiar materials (e.g. inscriptions) to allow the voices of the non-elite and marginal inhabitants of the Roman world to be heard. Our over-arching goal was to identify and contextualize Latin texts of various types by and about women for the enjoyment of entry-level Latinists who would encounter the book as a course text or as supplementary reading. However, our research and ambitions far exceeded the compass of any textbook, leaving us with a number of important selections that could not be included. We turned to electronic publication as a way to accommodate our growing appetite for new texts, images, hyperlinked aids, and 21st century pedagogy.
While Online Companion may be used apart from WRW, the Focus text contains foundational essays that introduce principles of feminist classical studies, key themes, and the contexts for eight Worlds. In addition, with minimal exception, the 63 published selections have not been reproduced on the website. Furthermore, the print text has the advantages of any book in that it can be carried about, annotated, bookmarked, and handily browsed without hardware. Teachers considering adopting The Worlds of Roman Women as a course text may wish to browse the following reviewer assessments and the handout for the panel "Giving the Floor to the Silent Women of Rome" (October '06 meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States):
N.B. A list of Corrigenda to The Worlds of Roman Women is available on line, pending reprinting.
It seems obvious to say it, but say it we must: in ancient Rome, women were everywhere, except in formal political meetings and the men´s baths (before you add battlefields," consider Fulvia, Agrippina, and the ubiquitous camp followers). It requires saying because even today women are in great part absent from the Latin we study. When present they are rarely its focus, unless as examples of womanhood that are culturally appropriate (e.g. women who know their place" like Lucretia and Cornelia) or unacceptable (e.g. women who reject traditional gender roles, such as Tullia Minor and Julia, Augustus' daughter). Since the closing decades of the 20th century, feminist classical scholars have been discovering Roman women by searching for them in ancient artifacts (e.g. coins, inscriptions), minor" writings (letters, legal texts, fragments) and non-canonical writers (e.g. Statius, Gellius), and by using new theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches (see Companion Bibliography for McManus, 1997: 18-19). We are the beneficiaries of the original research and seminal publications of classicists such as Pomeroy, Foley, Hallett, Kampen, and Lefkowitz. Although Balme and Morwood´s On the Margin and Churchill, Brown, and Jeffrey´s Women Writing Latin include texts about women, those wishing to offer a Latin course on Roman women prior to the publication of WRW in 2005 had to rely for their sources mostly on web and text copying.
The homepage shows the site divided into two major sections: Worlds in Text and Image is accessed by clicking on the word Worlds below the statue of the Priestess on the right; Instructional Resources are accessed by clicking on the word Instruction beneath the statue of the Mother and daughter on the left. Recent Additions to the site are accessed by clicking directly on either of the two statues.
I. The Worlds in Text and Image
This page contains a hyperlinked schema of all ten Worlds (Class and Religion were added after the publication of WRW):
Scrolling to the bottom of the Worlds page takes you to the link for TextMap. All of the site's text-commentaries can be found here, arranged according to World and labeled by level of difficulty: Easy (E), Intermediate (I), and Challenging (C). Each World and text is hyperlinked, allowing you to browse, preview, and customize the order of selections for your own purposes. The selections are uniform in only one way: they concern or (rarely) are written by women. Otherwise some are brief (e.g. funerary inscriptions), some are fragmentary, some are quite long, some are poetry, others prose. Some texts are inscriptions on artifacts of a funerary, dedicatory, or honorary nature, appearing in stone, clay, silver, gold, bronze, or even in paint. The passages are fully identified by source and have been given simple Latin tags that suggest their focus. Authors, genres and time periods vary widely, invoking conventions and expectations that affect meaning and demand thoughtful consideration or even research on the part of the reader for full understanding. The TextMap is framed by the site's signature statues, below which are links to brief profiles of authors and women who appear in WRW and Companion; arranged alphabetically, each entry is identified by accomplishments and date and keyed to text(s) and World(s).
Each World opens on an ancient artifact together with a brief essay suggesting the nature and challenges of women´s lives in this World. Below the image and essay is a table: on the left are the hyperlinked Companion texts contained in this World; on the right, there is a column of WRW readings and links to glossed texts on other sites. At the bottom of each World page is an image archive containing links to objects and portraits of Roman women appropriate to that World. For example, the archive in State contains portraits of leading women of the Republic and Empire, arranged chronologically. Clicking on the image link opens a small window containing the image (it must be closed before moving to the next link).
Clicking on the text titles on the Worlds page opens a new window that contains an image of the inscription or monument which is the source of the text or of a related woman or item that illuminates it. Beside the image is a short essay about the woman who is the subject of the text, with reference to the author or work/artifact from which the selection was taken and links to information on other sites (e.g. poetic meter is identified and linked to a display and explanation of the scansion). For example, the introduction to the epitaph of Gnome Pierinis (Work), an ornatrix who lived during the mid-1st century CE, contains a link to a portrait bust of an elite Flavian woman whose elaborate hairstyle shows the need for at least one slave in her household to be an expert hairdresser.
Below the essay is the Latin passage, un-adapted except for punctuation and resolution of abbreviations (within brackets), which are added to clarify meaning, particularly in the case of inscriptions. When hyperlinked words and phrases in the Latin text are clicked on, a small window opens in the upper left corner of the screen, leaving the text visible. It contains a dictionary entry of the word and a context-sensitive definition, with perhaps aids to translation (e.g. suggested word order, brief translation hints, bracketed words that supply Latin that is omitted or understood), stylistic observations, or links to a relevant site. For example, clicking on a name that appears in the text may refer you to a webpage explaining the Roman practice of nomenclature. Some Latin passages contain small icons () in the right margin of the text which offer an illustration of the reference. For example, the beside the epitaph for Aurelia Nais (Work), who owned a fish shop near the Horrea Galbana, takes you to a webpage about the Emporium, with images of the warehouse area along the Tiber from the EUR model of Rome.
The Instructional Resources portion of the site is intended to be collaborative and to provide pedagogical support for the passages and images in the Worlds. It contains a selection of materials, divided into categories useful for teaching, research and translation (descriptions follow):
Guide to Using the Site:
You are here. Let us know if additional navagation information would be helpful.
The bibliography contains a selection of print and online publications as well as links to materials and other sites that were useful in the preparation of the Online Companion or that the authors consider valuable for interpreting and/or teaching texts and images in Worlds. It is an expanded version of the WRW bibliography, with the added benefit of hyperlinked theses, essays, articles, reviews, and primary sources. For example, an article on Plancia Magna is linked to her portrait statue in the Ankara Museum and to a webpage on Perge.
Syllabi and Lesson Plans:
Here you will find models of courses and units, taught in Latin and in translation by colleagues, for introducing Roman women into your curriculum.
Activities for the Classroom:
This has been a growth area, thanks to colleagues who contributed their own materials, developed beyond our general suggestions (see the handout for "Exploring the Worlds of Roman Women Through Text and Image," a presentation at the '07 meeting of the American Philological Association).
Resources for Translation and
It is our pedagogical bias that intermediate-level students can best master basic grammar and vocabulary and improve their understanding of the language by reading as much authentic Latin as possible. We have, therefore, not only been generous with our guidance in text glosses, but we have collected dependable sites for resources that can support student research and enhance reader comprehension of Worlds passages, such as online dictionaries, grammars, maps, timelines, and relevant theme, artifact and culture sites.
This area contains name, contact information, and credits for those contributing in some way to the development of the site. We are gratified to have received materials from high school and college colleagues as well as graduate students and undergraduates, overseen by their professors. We are fortunate in the technical assistance we have received that is so central to this project. The list of contributors is regularly updated as new volunteers join us.
We invite Latin teachers at all levels and advanced Latin students to join us in improving and expanding Online Companion, thereby producing not only a valuable resource for students of Latin but an online community of scholar-teachers who develop, publish and share materials, expertise and ideas.
Any and all of the following are welcome:
Please join us in furthering a project that is not only generative for
Latin teaching and research but enjoyable, contributing as it does to
professional and collegial interactivity.
To make suggestions or to volunteer, contact Ann R. Raia ([email protected]), Judith Lynn Sebesta ([email protected]).
We take pleasure in announcing our indebtedness to Barbara McManus, for
whose expertise, talent, and generosity as Online Companion's web
designer, rigorous first reader, and many varied contributions we are deeply
We are most appreciative of two particular websites on whose free access to their excellent resources Online Companion depends: Latin Library for its digital texts and VRoma for its images. | <urn:uuid:d8c0d12d-116f-4389-ba9b-f08c00cd252b> | {
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Who says money doesn't grow on trees? Coins mysteriously appear in trunks up and down the country
They say money doesn't grow on trees.
But it certainly appears to do so on the mysterious coin-studded trunks dotted around the UK's woodland.
The strange phenomenon of gnarled old trees with coins embedded all over their bark has been spotted on trails from the Peak District to the Scottish Highlands.
Tree-mendous: A money tree with copper and silver coins hammered into the wood near Ingleton, North Yorkshire
The coins are usually knocked into felled tree trunks using stones by passers-by, who hope it will bring them good fortune.
These fascinating spectacles often have coins from centuries ago buried deep in their bark and warped by the passage of time.
The tradition of making offerings to deities at wishing trees dates back hundreds of years, but this combination of the man-made and the natural is far more rare.
Tin and timber: The coins make tree trunk look almost like a heap of treasure
It used to be believed that divine spirits lived in trees, and they were often festooned with sweets and gifts - as is still done today at Christmas.
The act is reminiscent of tossing money into ponds for good luck, or the trend for couples to attach 'love padlocks' to bridges and fences to symbolise lasting romance.
Some pubs, such as the Punch Bowl in Askham, Cumbria, have old beams with splits in them into which coins are forced for luck.
Land of plenty: A lucky money tree in Tarn Hows, Cumbria
There are seven felled tree trunks with coins pushed into them in the picturesque village of Portmeirion, in Wales.
Meurig Jones, an estate manager at the tourist destination, told the BBC: 'We had no idea why it was being done when we first noticed the tree trunk was being filled with coins.
'I did some detective work and discovered that trees were sometimes used as "wishing trees" .
A stone's throw from you: Coins are hammered into trunks with rocks in the Lake District
'In Britain it dates back to the 1700s - there is one tree in Scotland somewhere which apparently has a florin stuck into it.'
He said that a sick person could press a coin into a tree and their illness would go away.
'If someone then takes the coin out though, it's said they then become ill.'
Woodland wonder: Trees are traditional sources of good luck as deities were thought to reside in them
'We haven't publicised it at all, it's just happened,' he added. 'It's
quite amazing really.'
In Scotland, there is also a legend about a kissing tree. If a young man could drive a nail into a tree with one blow, he earned a kiss from his sweetheart.
Yoko Ono has used wishing trees in her artwork, and in 1877 Queen Victoria wrote about visiting an oak tree with coins stuck in it in the Highlands.
The comments below have not been moderated.
The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
We are no longer accepting comments on this article. | <urn:uuid:2eab7a1b-6416-4f80-a106-1a7fe182f435> | {
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Why you have Rodents:
Mice and rats can live wherever humans live or store food products, or dispose of refuse. Rats are excellent climbers, jumpers and swimmers. Mice can fit through a hole the size of your finger tip. These rodents have a remarkable ability to adapt .Rodents enter buildings in search of food, water, and shelter or they may be transported in boats, trains, trucks or in freight and cargo. As temperatures cool in the fall, they seek out the same shelters that people use for home, or business, or transportation. Man has been plagued by rodent infestations for thousands of years.
Rodents contaminate food, damage buildings, and other property by constant gnawing and burrowing. They also can spread diseases to people and pets. Rodents, like mice and rats in commercial facilities can cause significant economic losses for a company and tarnish their professional reputation. For restaurants, hospitals, and similar establishments, these rodents are a pest control headache. Since rodents are so small and secretive, people are often unaware that they have these animals living within the wall voids, attic spaces, between floors, beneath the house, or behind a cabinet. People often discover rodent infestations by the tell-tale signs of rat or mouse droppings or gnawed food packages. Rodents can gnaw through just about anything, using their two large incisors to chew through electrical wires often causing accidental fires
Good sanitation will limit the number of rats or mice that can survive in around your dwelling or business. Proper storage and handling of food products, proper sanitation will not completely eliminate the possibility of a rat infestation, but will make your home less suitable for them to thrive. The most successful rat control procedure is to build them out and make their access to your living area virtually impossible. All small holes and opening should be sealed shut. | <urn:uuid:52e8e161-e629-4190-a631-42137ffb5146> | {
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The Wind Chill is a number meteorologists use to tell you how cold it actually feels outside in the winter.
Your skin is covered by a thin layer of warm, insulating air. When the wind blows across your exposed skin, it removes that warm layer of air, and replaces it with colder air, making you feel colder. Wind Chill applies only to warm-blooded creatures.
While pipes and thermometers may cool down faster when exposed to wind, they will never drop below the actual air temperature.
The formula for calculating Wind Chill:
Wind Chill (°F) = 35.74 + 0.6215T - 35.75(V^0.16) + 0.4275T(V^0.16)
where V is the wind speed in miles per hour and T is the actual air temperature in °F.
Since that is a little complex, here is a chart we use: | <urn:uuid:3af1deb4-6d0b-49a4-ba9a-f7f4dec337d0> | {
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Church of St Peter and St Paul
This little church at Bilsington is accessed via a farmyard opposite the Bilsington Monument, a 16m high obelisk erected in 1835 in memory of Sir William Cosway.
Views from the church itself are beautiful, extending across the Royal Military Canal and Romney Marsh. A church here was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086, possibly a Saxon building, but no evidence of this remains. The current building dates originally to the 12th century, there being a blocked Norman window over the south entrance, and an Early English chancel arch and chancel.
In the 16th century, the tower was added at the west end of the nave. It has 2 stages, set on a high plinth, and with the second stage clad with wood shingles. The shallow pyramid shaped spire, similar to a ‘Sussex Cap’, is roofed with plain tiles matching the nave and chancel roofs.
Internally, above the tower arch, is some re-used carved masonry dating to the 12th century.
The first picture in the gallery above is of the 12th century ‘weeping’ chancel seen through the Early English chancel arch. The triple lancet east window was installed in the restoration of 1883, to replace the three original single lancets. The centre section stained glass depicting Christ the Consoler was fitted in 1883, and the left and right lancet sections, depicting St Paul and St John respectively were glazed after 1920.
The second photograph shows the sedilia and piscina in the chancel south wall. They were restored in the 19th century.
The next picture shows the south wall of the nave with blocked doorways which led to the head and foot of the rood stairs pre-Reformation, and a blocked Early English nave window.
The first photograph in the gallery above shows the south entrance area. Above the doorway is a blocked Norman window with a small statue of St Augustine. To the east and adjacent to the door is a 14th century holy water stoup.
The next two photographs are of 14th century 2 light windows which are in the north nave wall. The top lights contain fragments of 14th century glass. The first shown has a sexfoil light with glass depicting the Virgin and Child, and the second has a quatrefoil light with glass depicting the Crucifixion.
The fourth picture is of the medieval octagonal font. It has an octagonal stem and base, and carvings on the bowl panels. The wooden font cover is modern, having been installed in 1956 in memory of former Sunday school teacher Hannah Edmunds.
The final photograph is of a 15th century bell which is hung outside of the church under a small, tiled gable roof. It was taken down from the belfry in the 1930s because of concerns that the timber bell frame could no longer support the weight of 2 bells. | <urn:uuid:1d80bee3-a066-451d-b17d-dcca4e83223f> | {
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slick_shoes passes on an article in the Guardian about the Blue Brain project in Switzerland that has developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column — the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains — of a two-week-old rat. (Here is the project site.) The model, running on an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer, simulates 10,000 neurons and all their interconnections. It behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. Thousands of such NCCs make up a rat's neocortex, and millions a human's. "Project director Henry Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain." | <urn:uuid:674c07fd-297a-4961-857c-9f7f323058d3> | {
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WITH a hibernation period of up to 100 million years, bacteria discovered on the Arctic sea floor may have longest life cycle of any known organism.
Casey Hubert from the Geosciences Group at Newcastle University, UK, and colleagues came across the bacteria while studying biological activity in sediment samples from the sea floor off the Norwegian island of Svalbard. What the team expected to find were organisms that flourish in the cold, but are killed at higher temperatures.
Sure enough there was a peak of microbial activity in the sediment at a warm 20 °C, but then the graph began to pick up again beyond 40 °C, and there was a second peak of biological activity at around 55 °C. A completely unexpected class of heat-loving microbes – thermophiles – had been embedded in the sediment as spores and only germinated as the temperature approached 50 °C.
A look at the genetic sequences of the heat-lovers revealed that they are most closely related to bacteria from ecosystems in the warm, oxygen-depleted depths of oceanic crust or subsurface petroleum reservoirs. So what were heat-loving organisms doing in the freezing sediment of the Arctic?
Hubert's theory, presented earlier this month at a Society for General Microbiology meeting in Nottingham, UK, proposes that rising currents thrust some cells out of their deep hot niche and into the cold Arctic seawater, where they lie dormant.
Sediment buries them until the temperature rises enough for them to germinate – but this could take up to a 100 million years. "It's like there's a seed bank in the sediment of diverse thermophiles," says Hubert. These spores can remain viable for millions of years, he says, and so might wait-out the burial period and long migration down into the warmer subsurface. "This could explain how thermophiles colonise these subsurface niches and populate the deep biosphere," he says.
Geomicrobiologist John Parkes of Cardiff University, UK, points out that there is an alternative explanation. "The entire ocean is circulated through deep oceanic crust about every million years," he says, "so buried sediments could be inoculated as this fluid flows through them on its return to the ocean."
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to. | <urn:uuid:ffef84df-c4e6-4d09-a11e-02c6a476b090> | {
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What should students be really focusing on? Somebody asked me this question recently – Imagine students who are in 2nd or 3rd year of their degree course right now. They’ll spend a few years finishing college, and a few years just learning the ropes at their first job. So it will really be about 5 years before their career really starts. What will the software technology world be like at that time, and what are the skills that students can work on acquiring right now to ensure that they are well positioned to thrive?
Of course, 5 years is a long time, and to quote Neils Bohr, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. Still I think some general trends are clear, and there are some other timeless skills that are worth looking at. Based on that I’m giving my list below.
Let me not bias your thoughts. Before you read my list, skip to the comments section below, and put down your list. Then read my list and critique it again in the comments. Hopefully we can have a good discussion that will benefit students.
So, here’s my list of areas students need to be thinking about:
- The next billion customers: The IT revolution has probably reached a billion people of the world so far. In the next 5 years, it will reach the next billion. These will be a very different set of people. Many of them will be illiterate – so you need to focus on non-text, non-English interfaces – video, animations, voice recognition. Search for “English Seekho” to get an idea of what I mean. Most won’t have money or electricity for computers, so mobile devices will rule – so you need to start playing with mobile platforms like Android. In general, search for the “the next billion” and you’ll find some interesting material put together by the likes of Nokia, and MIT giving you ideas on what to focus on.
- Usability: As IT touches the lives of more and more people, less and less of them will be “computer savvy”, and less and less of them will view computing devices as something that needs to be learnt. Consequently, the products that will succeed, will be the ones that are easy to use. And making something easy to use is rather difficult. It is a sub-discipline of computer science, and there is a lot of theory, and a bunch of well-defined algorithms and practices you can use to make things easy to use. The whole area is called HCI (Human Computer Interaction), and UCD (User Centered Design) is a part of it. It’s an area that you must be familiar with
- Computer Science Fundamentals: This will never go out of fashion, and yes, when I look at students coming out of our colleges, this appears to be a rather neglected area. Far too much emphasis on specific programming languages, and specific “technologies” is a mistake. Whatever the future holds, you will be well served by knowing the basic theory of computer sciences. Learn data-structures and algorithms. If you don’t have a favourite data-structure, and an algorithm that you find beautiful, then your computer science education is incomplete. If, after seeing an algorithm, your first thought is not about the complexity of the algorithm (O(n), O(log n), etc.), then you need to hit your books again. If you’ve only learned Java and C#, and you don’t really understand pointers, heaps, stacks, you will sooner or later be at a disadvantage. Understand the basics. And while you’re at it, also learn mathematics and statistics.
- Presentation skills: This is not a computer science skill, but this is one of the most important skills that computer science students are missing. You must treat presentation as equally important, or more important than your program, design, and algorithms. And you must spend as much time learning presentation (from books, in classes, and in practice) as you spent on programming languages, and computer science subjects. I’m sure you haven’t done that, hence this item in my list. You should know how to write well. Not just papers and documents, but much more importantly, emails, and blog posts, and facebook wall postings, and tweets. You must think about what the user/reader/client wants to know (instead of what you know and want to tell). And of course, you must know how to speak well. How to tell a story instead of listing some arcane facts about your work. How to leave out stuff that you find extremely interesting, but the listener doesn’t.
- Economics: Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert says: “When you have a working knowledge of economics, it’s like having a mild super power.” Basically, if you understand the fundamentals of economics, you can see and understand what drives people and technologies and success and failure a lot better than people who do not understand it. I hated the fact that I was made to study economics in IIT for my computer science course. It seemed like a complete waste of my time. Now, looking back, I think it was probably the most important course.
What do you think students should be focusing on?
(Note: I’m supposed to be participating in a panel discussion in MIT on Monday, 7th Sept, on this topic. Instead of going there and spewing my gyaan, I thought I would take this opportunity to have a larger discussion on this topic, and your comments will help me do a better job (or go there with a better list), so please leave comments. Thanks.)
(Update: Please note: Many comments on this article are by 12th std. students who want to know how to select an engineering college or branch. In response to all of those, I’ve written an article on how 12th std students should select an engineering college/branch. Please read that article, and ask your doubts there. I will be deleting any comments on this post that are related 12th std choices.) | <urn:uuid:482ab82b-4249-48e4-bf54-3d1ee1371055> | {
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Nearly 3/4 of US Youth Is Ineligible To Serve in the Military
Get started on your Homeland Security Degree at American Military University.
Of the 34 million youth aged 17 to 24 in the United States, only 29 percent could actually serve, according to a report from The Heritage Foundation. As the military relies on volunteers to fill ranks each year, it’s a crisis authors Thomas Spoehr and Bridget Handy say is not in the future; it’s here now.
“More and more young Americans do not qualify to enter the military due to lack of basic education, drug use, criminal background, or—the top reason—simply being too fat,” according to The Looming National Security Crisis: Young Americans Unable to Serve in the Military.
However, an individual could fall into more than a single category. Though the Army has the biggest problem, the report said it affects all services.
Most alarming, according to the report, is the instance of obesity, and the trend is increasing. A former recruiting commander estimates obesity rates at 50 percent by 2020, meaning only two out of 10 would qualify to join.
“[O]f the total number of those who attempt to joint the Armed Forces, approximately 15,000 are rejected every year because they are overweight,” the report stated. Other health contributors to ineligibility “include asthma, hearing and eyesight problems, and mental illness.”
In education, recruits must have graduated high school or earned General Equivalency Diploma (GED), but the combination of lower graduation standards and abysmal graduation rates renders a number of recruits ineligible.
“For those who do not complete high school, the military accepts a certain number of recruits who have received their GED, but these individuals rarely pass the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT),” the report stated, noting the AFQT measures skills such as math and reading. “Young Americans’ inability to meet education qualifications highlights underlying issues in America’s educational foundations, with national consequences.”
Criminal activity prevents about 10 percent of recruits from joining as well.
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Brown University professor Ashutosh Varshney has argued that India's current climate of high growth and rampant graft mirrors America's "Gilded Age," when so-called Robber Barons built untold fortunes through sweetheart deals related to the construction of the transcontinental railroad and other government projects. But there are some salient differences, too, Varshney writes in Friday's Indian Express.
As GlobalPost reported in 2011, just as during America's Gilded Age, when bankers and industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and John Pierpont Morgan amassed their enormous fortunes, India's celebrated entrepreneurs have capitalized on the country's rapid economic growth to rocket up the charts of the world's rich list over the past decade.
But as Forbes feted the rise of the self-made Indian billionaire and free market champions credited the decision to liberate the economy from government quotas for manufacturing in 1991, some vital features of the enormous increase in India's wealth were overlooked.
Taking into account family associations, India's BusinessWorld magazine's list of 2011's 10 richest Indians looks a great deal like the list one might have drawn up in the 1980s — featuring Tata, Birla and Ambani — only the sums are vastly larger. Despite claims that Indian business flourishes in spite of the state, virtually every name on the roster has reaped dramatic gains through accessing or taking over government-owned resources.
Meanwhile, ever greater wealth has increased their influence in politics and control over regulatory policy — raising concerns that the world's largest democracy is quietly becoming the world's largest oligarchy.
But not everything is the same in India as it was in America's Gilded Age, Varshney points out.
Point one: India already has a railroad. What it lacks is factories, and what's needed to build them is land. So that's where the politically connected are making their dosh.
"The US did not have a great scarcity of land when the Gilded Age was in full bloom," writes Varshney. "Today, India has four times as many people as the US, but only a third as much land. Land in India, in other words, is very scarce. Therefore, India’s politicians and businessmen end up buying land wherever they can, and then get the government to convert its use from agricultural to commercial. Such transformation of land-use raises the value of land by 10 to 20 times."
Point two: India's highly regulated economy--even with the reforms initiated in 1991--is what creates the largest opportunities for graft.
"If an economy is growing at an average of 8 per cent per annum, some sectors are likely to grow at 15-18 per cent. And if government regulations and permissions are required in such sectors, a government-business nexus is very likely to emerge. Rapid growth makes overnight millionaires, even overnight billionaires, possible." | <urn:uuid:9ea68137-db9a-45e1-a065-d75579861e87> | {
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Let’s just face it, Socratic seminars are either super rad or super sad. When the students stay focused and discuss using evidence from the text and their own lives, magic happens in the English classroom; but, when you get a class that is quiet, they just stare at each other and all you hear is “crickets”. However, the whole-class graded Socratic seminar is highly rigorous and will keep your students engaged for an entire 55 minute period whether they are extroverts or introverts – I promise!
First, I set my classroom up with three Socratic circles – from the center circle out, there should be a chair behind each student (as the students are going to rotate up and out).
Second, as the students come into class, I tell them to pick a circle to sit in: inner, middle, or outer and I give them a one word descriptor for each so they can decide to sit based on what they think is their strength in argument writing (i.e. inner – thesis, middle – evidence, outer – TOES (which I use as a short way to say: types of evidence (literature, current event, history, pop culture, personal anecdote, social observations, etc.).
Third, once the students have chosen their seats and I then hand out a class set of directions, similar to the below, and verbally talk them through the directions.
Of Mice and Men Satire
Graded Socratic Seminar
Whole-Class Essay Outline
1. Inner circle will be creating the thesis statement with two “prongs” (i.e. two body paragraphs) that will answer the following prompt (when finished, they will move out of the circle to the back circle, pair up, and will create full circle hook/closure options while circle 2 and 3 go): – 10 min.
After reading “Girl Moved to Tears by Of Mice and Men Cliffs Notes” and examining the satirical cartoon, outline an essay defending or refuting whether satire is an effective way to deliver a message.
2. Center circle will be choosing the (four) 4 pieces textual evidence ((two) 2 for each body paragraph) from the article/cartoon that help support the thesis statement chosen in circle 1. 15 min.
3. Outer circle will be coming up with (two) 2 TOES (types of evidence (literature, current event, history, pop culture, personal anecdote, social observations, etc.), USING YOUR PHONE if necessary, that will help support the thesis chosen and pair well with circle 2’s chosen evidence in the body paragraphs. 15 min.
Thus, at the end of the hour, the outline below (that I write for them on the front white board) should be completely filled.
Body 1: Reason
Body 2: Reason
Basically, I do not run Socratic seminar, the students do.
Here are some teacher pointers:
- At the end of the hour, I review the white board with their whole-class determined outline and I talk them through their strengths and weaknesses and then I score it on an AP 1-9 scale right in front of them. The entire class gets the same score in the grade book.
- Make sure each circle nominates a “scribe” to write their ideas down on the white board (they can still contribute to the discussion from the front of the room).
- I tell each circle when their time is up (and I literally time them on my phone, when I have not done this they run out of time) and they rotate up and out.
- I remind them that if they are not in the center circle at that moment then they must be silent and listening to their peers.
Post a comment with any questions, | <urn:uuid:faea3308-83af-421b-8e26-f8b5899ea2c4> | {
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If you want to lose weight and reduce your chances of having a heart attack, low-carb may be better than low-fat. In a new study, Tulane University researchers assigned 148 men and women to follow a low-carbohydrate or a low-fat diet.
After a year, people on the low-carb diet lost more weight and fat mass, and reduced their risk factors for heart disease, compared to those on the low-fat diet.
Cleveland Clinic Dietitian Julia Zumpano says low-carb can sometimes also be low-fat. As She explained, "carbohydrates carry fat such as potato chips, or cake, or cookies, or french fries, or even pasta with alfredo sauce. So, a lot of times by cutting out carbs or cutting down carbs you're also cutting down a significant amount of fat calories."
People in the low-carbohydrate group lost on average of almost 8 pounds more than those in the low-fat group and blood levels of certain fats, linked to heart disease, also decreased more in the low-carb group.
Complete findings for the study are in the journal "Annals of Internal Medicine.
Copyright 2015 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:c0241175-ad85-4bdd-8e26-192af6ec73ea> | {
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Microfracture is a surgical technique used to repair articular cartilage damage in the knee called chondral defects. Articular cartilage is a complex avascular (no blood supply) tissue which consists of cells called chondrocytes suspended in a collagenous matrix. It appears as a smooth, shiny, white tissue at the ends of the bones which come in contact with each other to form a joint. It reduces friction when the bones glide over each other and makes the movements smooth. Alternately, it acts as a shock-absorber and enables the joint to withstand weight. Articular cartilage is subjected to normal wear and tear from daily activities and when damaged due to injury it causes pain and impaired function. Because it has no blood supply, it is unable to repair itself and can progress to arthritis. As a result, several surgical methods have been devised to restore articular cartilage and help prevent progression to arthritis.
Microfracture is a common surgical technique used to repair damaged knee cartilage by drilling small holes into the knee joint to stimulate new cartilage growth.
The best candidates for Microfracture include:
Microfracture is not recommended for patients who have widespread arthritis of the knee, are inactive, and those are unwilling or unable to participate in a rehabilitation program after the procedure.
Your doctor will perform a physical examination to look for altered range of motion, swelling, and alignment of the bones. As cartilage is uncalcified it does not show up on X-rays. A high quality MRI is often required and arthroscopy is used as the final determination to what technique may be best.
The procedure is performed under local anesthetic (numbing at the site), spinal anesthetic, or general anesthetic. Microfracture can be performed using an arthroscope, a narrow tube with a tiny camera on the end to visualize the inside of your joint. Your surgeon will make a ¼ inch incision on your knee. An arthroscope is inserted through this incision. The camera attached to the arthroscope displays the image of the joint on the monitor. A sterile solution will be pumped into your knee in order to stretch the knee and provide a clear view and room to work. Another incision is made through which specially designed instruments are inserted.
Your surgeon prepares the area by removing any damaged cartilage. Multiple tiny holes called microfractures are then made into the subchondral bone (below the cartilage) with a sharp tool called an awl. This helps to bring blood supply from the deeper more vascular bone to the surface tissues. This technique creates a nourishing environment for tissue regeneration by using the body’s natural healing abilities to form new cartilage.
Following microfracture, your doctor will recommend physical therapy to help restore motion of the operative joint. Immediately after the surgery, most patients can begin physical therapy with a continuous passive motion machine or CPM. The CPM is used to gently exercise your operated leg for 6 to 8 hours per day for several weeks. You will be instructed on using crutches to avoid weight bearing activities for a few days. You will be allowed to return to sports or other intense activities 4 months after surgery.
As with any surgery, risks are involved. Risks associated with microfracture surgery include: | <urn:uuid:5a5b28b9-a464-4fd0-9ace-249ae793f0e0> | {
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TAP Microwave Link Budget Program
OBJECTIVE: To understand the basic operation of the TAP Microwave Link Budget program, including the creation of microwave facilities and the calculation of fade margin and reliability.
In this tutorial, you will select two microwave facilities and calculate a link budget analysis for the path between these two sites. All path calculations assume a clear line of sight path, including adequate clearance for the pertinent Fresnel zone(s) at the frequency under study. Any obstructions or diffraction effects are not considered by this program.
Partially obstructed paths can be examined by including the grazing or diffraction loss from the obstruction in one of the user-specified loss values in the Path Specifications tab folder of the link budget program. (SoftWright’s Bullington propagation program computes path obstruction loss based on Bullington, 1977). Note that unobstructed paths are always to be preferred. The outage times and percent reliability computed with this program for obstructed paths may not be dependable.
TAP will calculate a thermal fade margin based on the temperature, humidity, terrain and other factors described in this tutorial. TAP will also compute a composite fade margin based on thermal fade margin and other fade margins such as dispersive, adjacent channel interference, external interference, etc. These additional fade margins are particularly relevant in digital systems operating at 90 megabits per second and above. A value of zero (0) for each of these fade margins indicates that these fields will not be included in the fade margin calculations, and only the thermal fade margin will be computed. For more information about these composite fade margin calculations, see your TAP technical reference manual.
TAP will calculate a diversity improvement factor representing the improvement in the overall reliability of a microwave system that has incorporated space or frequency diversity in its design. Use space or diversity frequency as countermeasure against multipath fading due to cancellation in microwave systems. Incorporate space diversity by specifying a diversity receiver antenna center of radiation that differs from the antenna center of radiation of the primary receive antenna. Incorporate diversity frequency in your study by specifying a nonzero diversity frequency value for your transmitter facility record. The effect of space and frequency diversity will be demonstrated in this tutorial.
From the main menu of TAP, use your left mouse button to click on the Path menu, then on the Microwave Link Budget option to display the TAP Microwave Path Budget Study screen pictured below.
Your screen may or may not display previously entered site descriptions in the Sites tab depending on whether you have run any of the Path programs prior to this time. You will use TAP’s fixed facility lookup program to access two previously defined microwave sites.
As you can see, the default coordinates for the transmitter and receiver sites are identical. We will use the Fixed Facility Lookup button in BOTH the transmitter and receiver frames in order to access the facility lookup screen where you can view, edit and create new fixed facility data base records for use with this and other TAP programs (see the Fixed Facility Data Base tutorial for more information). When you close the lookup screen, site parameters stored in the current data base record will appear here in the Sites tab. Recording site parameters in the facility data base allows you to access site information from a centralized data base thereby reducing your data entry time when you use the same site in another TAP program.
We will use the Fixed Facility Lookup buttons to select transmitter and receiver microwave facilities from existing tutorial records in the fixed facility data base. Press the Fixed Facility Lookup button in the TRANSMITTER frame first.
Your Fixed Facility Lookup program may display the Blue Mountain facility as ours does below. This depends upon the extent to which you have added and deleted fixed facility records prior to running this tutorial. We will navigate to the transmitter record used in this tutorial.
Press the Find button at the bottom of the lookup screen.
Use your left mouse to pull down a list of facility descriptions in the Record Selection List. Select the Red Mountain Microwave Transmitter record with your left mouse as we have done. Then press the Select button to reposition the lookup screen to this record.
After confirming that the Red Mountain site is displayed in the facility lookup program, press Close to close the Find program. Your lookup should appear like ours below. Note that Red Mountain has a 13 GHz transmitter operating with a 68.78 dBm effective radiated power. Note also that this facility and the receiver facility that we will select in just a moment have predefined gains, losses and other fields set up for purposes of this tutorial.
Press the Close button in the lookup to transfer the Red Mountain site back to path budget screen pictured below. Now we will select a receiver facility.
Press the Fixed Facility Lookup button in the RECEIVER frame. As mentioned above, you may or may not initially view the same facility record (Blue Mountain) as we do below. If necessary, press the Find button to select Blue Mountain Microwave Receiver from the Record Selection List in the Find program.
Once the Blue Mountain facility is the current record in the facility lookup, press Close to transfer your receiver data to the path budget screen. As you can see below, TAP automatically calculates the azimuth and path length of the link that we will study.
Press Continue in the path budget study screen to access the Microwave Link Budget tab folders pictured below. If you have not previously run the link budget for this path, the following warning will be displayed before the link budget tab folders are displayed. Press OK - we will demonstrate the New button below.
TAP groups your link budget data fields into three major categories: TX Specifications, RX Specifications and Path Specifications. The transmitter and receiver specs folders display summary information about the facilities that form the endpoints of the link. These data fields are "read-only" - they may not be changed in this program. Use your Fixed Facility Lookup program or Fixed Facility Data Base Editor to make modifications to your facility records. The path specifications data fields, however, are not read-only. You will use this link budget program to edit your link budget data base in order to store information specifically related to the path between your facilities.
The ERP displayed in the Facility frame of the transmitter specs was calculated by TAP as a function of the transmitter power output (TPO), antenna gain and losses at the transmitter. Press the Print Transmitter Specifications Report button to view the various facility specs used in this calculation. Use the vertical scroll bar at the right of the Notepad window to view your transmitter information. You will see, for example, that line and circulator losses were assigned to the Red Mountain transmitter.
Press the Close button at the bottom of the text editor to return to the link budget program. When the text editor has disappeared, note the TX Diversity Frequency (MHz) field displayed in the TX Specifications folder. We have introduced frequency diversity into this microwave system by adding a diversity frequency of 13.2 GHz to the transmitter facility record. We will see the effect of frequency diversity on the overall reliability of the system later in this tutorial.
Now use your left mouse to select the RX Specifications tab. Note the Space Diversity field displayed in the receiver Facility frame. Because an antenna center of radiation for the diversity receiver (160 ft) differed from the center of radiation for the primary system (190 ft), space diversity (30 ft) was introduced into the microwave system. We will see the effect of space diversity on the overall reliability of the system later in this tutorial.
Press the Print Receiver Specifications Report button to view specifications for the Blue Mountain receiver like those displayed below.
TAP will calculate a required power for both the primary and diversity receiver systems as a function of the receiver thresholds and receiver gains and losses for the facility. Use the vertical scroll bar at the right of the Notepad window to view your receiver information. You will see, for example, that a 3 dB power amp gain was assigned to both the primary and diversity receivers. In addition, both systems have various connector, line, ether and splitter losses built into the Total Loss values displayed in the text editor and pictured below. When you scroll down to the bottom of the file, the required powers for both receiver systems appear.
Press the Close button at the bottom of the text editor to return to the link budget program. Now use your left mouse to select the Path Specifications tab. Many of the loss and reliability fields displayed in the path specifications tab folders are stored in your link budget data base. You may, for example, wish to contrast the overall reliability calculations of both an optimistic and pessimistic path configuration by creating and saving two link budget path records for the same link. When you enter the link budget program for the first time, your only Record Controls options are New and Cancel. We will use the New button to create and edit a new link budget record.
Press the New button to add a record to the link budget data base. The background color of the Description field becomes white indicating that it is editable.
Enter the description "TAP Microwave Tutorial" in the Path Record Description frame.
Press the Losses tab to view the Free Space Loss calculated by TAP and six miscellaneous loss fields. The Free Space Loss is a read only value computed as a function of frequency and path length. The Other Losses fields allow you to assign customized losses to this particular path.
Enter Ether Losses of 0.5 dB as we have done below. These and other losses added to your link budget record will be incorporated in the fade margin and reliability/outage calculations performed by TAP.
Press the Microwave tab to view the Attenuation and Reliability frames. This tab folder contains path losses and data specifically related to microwave design. Note the "Loss Mode:" labels that appear to the right of several fields. In these cases, you have the option to direct TAP to calculate these values or directly enter data. If TAP estimates a data field, the mode is designated as "Calc". If you directly enter data, the label "Spec" will appear.
Press the Calculate Loss button to the right of the Absorption Loss (dB) field. TAP will automatically insert a value representing water and vapor loss calculated as a function of frequency and path length.
Now press the Calculate Loss button for Rain Attenuation. The Rain Attenuation Lookup screen appears. You will see that losses were calculated for three different rain attenuation methods based upon default values for rain distance and rain rate supplied by TAP. We will modify these parameters below.
Rain Distance refers to the portion of the path affected by rain attenuation. Make the following modifications so that your rain attenuation lookup looks like ours pictured below:
Use your left mouse to change the Rain Distance units to miles (mi).
Enter a Rain Distance of 11.2 miles, approximately 50% of the path.
Assign a Rain Rate of 10.0 mm/hr. Tab or click off the Rain Rate units when you have assigned mm/hr. Your screen should look like ours.
In our case, all three models have generated estimated path losses due to rain attenuation over 50% of the path. In some cases, an error flag will appear for one or more of the models if, for example, your frequency is beyond the acceptable range for the model. For purposes of this tutorial, use your left mouse to select the 6.68 dB loss predicted by the Medhurst method. Press Close to return to the link budget program.
When the rain attenuation program disappears, you will notice that 6.68 dB has been assigned to the Rain Attenuation field. "Med" was assigned to the Loss Mode as a reminder that the Medhurst rain attenuation method was utilized.
You will notice several View Details buttons displayed in the Microwave tab folder. Use the view feature to remind you of the parameters used to generate the calculated values displayed in this screen. For example, press the View Details button to the right of the Calculate Loss button for Rain Attenuation to verify the Rain Distance and Rain Rate parameters that resulted in a rain attenuation of 6.68 dB. When you are ready, press the Close button on the Calculation Details screen pictured below to return to the microwave program.
Alignment loss refers to attenuation resulting from the improper orientation of the transmit and/or receive antennas. Enter a loss of 0.5 dB in the Alignment Loss (dB) field.
Now we will specify the terrain and climate factors used to predict system reliability. The Terrain(a) value refers to the terrain and humidity factor used in the reliability calculation discussed in Lenkurt (1970). Lenkurt suggests the following values:
4 for very smooth terrain, including over water
1 for average terrain, with some roughness
0.25 for mountainous, very rough, or very dry areas
In the alternative, TAP will calculate the Terrain factor as a function of the terrain roughness and local area humidity using Roelofs (1986). Position your cursor in the Terrain (a) field and press the Calculate button. The Reliability Factors Lookup program will appear with some default values inserted by TAP. Roughness (ft) refers to terrain roughness defined as the standard deviation of the path elevations taken at one mile intervals, not including the end points. Note that we could direct TAP to Calculate roughness using your TAP terrain data bases. We will not do that in this tutorial. When you experiment later with this feature, be sure that your topographic data paths are properly set up BEFORE you direct TAP to calculate roughness (see the TAP on line help topic for topographic data configuration).
Make sure that your Humidity factor is set to Average and enter a Roughness of 50.0 if another value appears there. The calculated Terrain (a) factor should display 1.000 as it does below. Press Close to return to the link budget program that will continue to display a terrain factor of 1.000.
Now we will address the climate factor. Lenkurt (1970) suggests the following values:
0.5 for gulf coast or similar hot, humid areas
0.25 for normal interior temperate or northern areas
0.125 for mountainous or very dry areas
In TAP, the default value for a new link budget record is 0.25 (normal interior temperate). This time, however, we will calculate a climate factor from annual temperature information that differs from the default. Press the Calculate button to the right of the Climate (b) field. Once again, the Reliability Factors Lookup program will appear with some default values. Make sure that the Average Annual Temperature is set to 55.0 and tab or click off the temperature field. The calculated Climate Factor should read 0.275 as ours does below.
Press Close in the climate factor lookup program to accept 0.275 and display this value in the link budget program.
Now press the Save button at the bottom of the link budget program to save these path parameters to the underlying link budget data base. The background colors of the microwave fields will turn gray to indicate that you are no longer editing a record. The next time you run the link budget program for this path, these path parameters will be available in your link budget data base.
Press the Fade Margin tab to view the received signal, fade margin, reliability and outage times calculated by TAP. Remember that in addition to the path attenuation values we have just specified, the gains, losses and other parameters defined for the transmitter and receiver facilities have been incorporated in the link budget calculations displayed on this screen.
Received Signal Level("RSL") refers to the power in dBm at the receiver input terminal calculated as the sum of Transmitter Power Output plus transmitter and receiver gains (including antenna gains) less transmitter, receiver and path losses. If you have specified vertical separation for the primary and diversity receive facility antennas, an RSL is displayed both with ("Div") and without ("Pri") space diversity.
A Thermal Fade Margin ("TFM") is calculated as the Received Signal Level less the primary receiver Threshold in dBm. If you employ space diversity, TFM is the greater of the fade margins calculated both with and without space diversity.
A Composite Fade Margin ("CFM") is computed as a function of Dispersive Fade Margin ("DFM"), Adjacent Channel Interference Fade Margin ("AIFM"), External Interference Fade Margin ("EIFM") and Thermal Fade Margin ("TFM"). DFM, AIFM and EIFM are all fixed facility data base fields which can be edited either in a Fixed Facility Lookup or in the Fixed Facility Data Base Editor. In our case, we entered a value of 0 for these specs resulting in a composite fade margin that is identical to the thermal fade margin value.
The reliability percentages displayed in the Fade Margin tab are calculated as a function of the Terrain/Humidity factor, the Climate factor, frequency, path length and the Thermal Fade Margin. The outages displayed refer to unreliability of the system expressed in seconds per year.
With space diversity, reliability is calculated using the greater of the two fade margins calculated both with and without space diversity. When space diversity is not employed, the Thermal Fade Margin displayed in the Fade Margin frame is used in the reliability calculation.
The overall reliability of the system generally can be improved by the use of space diversity and/or frequency diversity. A space diversity improvement factor Isd is calculated as a function of frequency, vertical spacing between the primary and diversity receive antennas, path length and fade margin. In this case, fade margin is the smaller of the fade margins calculated with and without space diversity. The Isd factor is used to calculate the overall reliability of the system. In our case, an improvement factor (Isd) of 18.5 is an indication of significant reliability improvements anticipated for a space diversity of 30 ft.
A frequency diversity improvement factor Ifd is calculated as a function of frequency, frequency spacing between the transmitter and diversity frequencies, and the composite fade margin. The Ifd factor is also used to calculate the overall reliability of the system. In our case, an improvement factor (Ifd) of 1.3 is an indication of slight reliability improvements anticipated for a frequency diversity of 13.2 GHz.
When both space and frequency diversity are employed, a combined improvement factor computed as the product of Isd and Ifd is used to calculate the overall reliability of the system. Together the space and frequency diversities combine for an improvement factor of 23.6. The estimated outage time improves to 135 seconds per year compared to nearly 3200 seconds when diversity is not employed.
This concludes the microwave link budget introduction. Consult your TAP technical reference manual for a more detailed discussion of microwave concepts and system equations used by TAP. You will also find there references to the microwave design literature used in the development of the TAP microwave path budget program. When you are ready to exit the link budget program, select the Close button in the Record Controls buttons at the bottom of this program.
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AFib and heart rhythm disorders
Heart rhythm disorders (arrhythmias) are caused by malfunctions in the electrical system of the heart. If you have a rhythm disorder, your heart beats too slowly, too quickly or erratically. Edward-Elmhurst Health offers innovative technology and comprehensive care for heart rhythm disorders.
Rhythm disorders we treat
Many common arrhythmias are harmless, but some arrhythmias are serious, significantly raising your risk of stroke and heart failure. Our highly-trained electrophysiologists are experts in treating rhythm disorders, including:
- Atrial fibrillation (AFib) – Rapid and irregular electrical impulses in the upper heart chambers
- Atrial flutter – Rapid electrical circuits in the upper chambers of the heart
- Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) – Rapid rhythms from the upper heart chambers
- Premature contractions – Early heart beats from the upper or lower heart chambers
- Bradycardia – Slow heart rate
- Ventricular tachycardia – Rapid rhythms from the lower heart chambers
- Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome – Congenital electrical disorder that can cause fast heart rhythms and sudden cardiac arrest
- Sudden cardiac arrest – Sudden death due to very rapid rhythms from the lower chambers of the heart
- Inherited conditions that increase the risk for arrhythmias and sudden cardiac arrest, including Long QT Syndrome, Brugada Syndrome, Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia, and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
Technology for improved AFib diagnosis
Elmhurst Hospital was the first hospital in Illinois to use cryoballoon ablation for AFib, now the first-line ablation technology for treatment of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Elmhurst Hospital was also the first hospital in Illinois to use Topera, a 3D heart-mapping system that pinpoints the exact source of electrical abnormalities that cause A-Fib, which allows our doctors to better target A-Fib treatments and achieve more effective results.
Innovative treatment of rhythm disorders
Edward-Elmhurst Health gives you access to the full range of treatment options, such as medication, cardioversion and ablation, including cryoablation and radiofrequency ablation.
Implantable devices include:
- Cardiac resynchronization therapy - defibrillator (CRT-D)
- Cardiac resynchronization therapy - pacemaker (CRT-P)
- Implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD)
- Loop recorder
We continually introduce new technology to treat rhythm disorders and take pride in our many firsts, including:
Watchman™ alternative to blood thinners
Edward was the first hospital to bring the Watchman device — a technology that provides an alternative to long-term use of blood thinners — to the Chicago area. Because AFib comes with a serious risk of stroke, many patients are placed on medication to prevent clots. The Watchman device eliminates the need for blood thinners by preventing harmful-size clots from exiting the heart and entering the bloodstream.
LINQ implantable cardiac monitor
Elmhurst Hospital was first to bring LINQ — the smallest wireless cardiac monitor available — to the western suburbs. During an outpatient procedure, the LINQ monitor is placed just beneath the skin where it’s nearly undetectable. The monitor can remain in place for up to three years, which increases the chances of detecting an abnormal rhythm. It transmits information to physicians on a daily basis so they can monitor changes in heart rhythms and intervene before issues become more serious.
Education and support for arrhythmia patients
If you’ve been diagnosed with a rhythm disorder, we’re here to help you learn to manage your health and reclaim your life.
Explore resources for a Healthy Driven life.
AFib Wellness Clinic
Following treatment for a rhythm disorder, it helps to have support as you begin to manage your condition. Our outpatient AFib Clinic is a one-stop location for all your needs.
We’ll provide medical monitoring and coordinate care with your primary doctor and cardiac specialist. Our team will work with you to modify your health habits, change your diet and reduce your stress—all factors associated with arrhythmia. A physician’s order is required to participate in the clinic. | <urn:uuid:2513c320-6843-4be9-a6db-42ee187ae691> | {
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Revolutionary for the time in encouraging children to think like children, the adventure of Princess Irene and Curdie, the boy miner, was to influence generations of writers, including Chesterton and Tolkien. Overflowing with fantastic ideas and images to delight the young and allegory to inspire their morality The Princess and the Goblin has remained one of the most exciting tales for over 100 years.
Irene lives in a castle on a mountain, under which there is a labyrinth of tunnels inhabited by Goblins. Also, within the hillsides, there is a group of miners digging for precious metals. When the Goblins try to kidnap the Princess and flood the mines, it is up to Curdie, the boy miner, and Irene’s great-great-great grandmother to use their wit and resources to defeat the wicked plan.
‘I for one can really testify to a book that has made a difference to my whole existence, which helped me to see things in a certain way from the start.... Of all the stories I have read, it remains the most real, the most realistic, in the exact sense of the phrase the most like life. It is called The Princess and the Goblin, and is by George MacDonald.‘
©2007 Assembled Stories (P)2007 Assembled Stories
A storyteller, reader, and writer (in that chronological order) since childhood, Audible helps me to bring all 3 together.
I don't normally read "chldren's literature, and was drawn to George MacDonald only because C.S. Lewis and Tolkien had expressed admiration for him. Now I see why: his rich, often offbeat, Celtic imagination, his charming story full of mythic symbols, the sense of invisible worlds being very real, but only to those who are open to them, and the lessons learned by the characters, all make this a truly exceptional tale. In my opinion, it's far superior to Harry Potter, for example. partly because of its profound moral and mythic insight. The characters in this story learn lessons in a way that is not at all didactic, and certainly not "Victorian." A total delight for (to borrow a phrase from Harold Bloom) intelligent children of all ages.
This is a great introduction to George McDonald's storytelling. My 9 yo son will hear this one again and again. I am glad I finally had the time to finish it as well. It kept a VERY energetic neighbor enthralled for our 2.5 hour car ride, and he was ready to listen to the end on the way home.
There are so many vivid word pictures and thought provoking moments, it would be hard to pick just one. The old woman hidden somewhere up in the castle will keep you scratching your head.
A memorable protection against Goblins.
If C.S.Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien found George McDonald's works to be inspirational, that is a good enough recommendation for me.
A great fantasy story with strong positive role models for both girls, boys and frankly adults should study the morals in this book as well.
The Princess is heroic and the Miner Boy is just as strong.
The story involves themes of trust, self sacrifice and respect for others based in their actions not their status.
If you like Narnia, The Hobbit or other fantasy stories you'll love this.
A wonderful tale that should be far more famous.
Absolutely! It is such a great illustration of all the reasons we struggling to truly have faith in the unseen.
It was reminiscent of the Chronicles of Narnia-written for children yet there are so many layers of meaning that you can't truly appreciate it until you are an adult.
When the Princess was with her grandmother-such a beautiful picture of the peace that comes when we are truly 'home."
When the Princess is trying to introduce Curdy to her grandmother and he cannot see her.
This is a powerful, beautiful story and highly entertaining. I plan to share it with my kids.
the princess meeting her grandmother
been meaning to download the sequel and listen to At the Back Of The North Wind again, wow what a wonderful production
Report Inappropriate Content
If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action. | <urn:uuid:39b74d2b-eb70-46c7-a711-eed0330937ec> | {
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Here is a picture of the city of Petion-Ville in Haiti.
The city of Petion Ville is located on the outskirts of the capital city, Port au Prince. The city, founded in 1831, was named after former president Alexandre Petion. Previously a suburban area to the east of Port au Prince, Petion Ville is now the centre of tourism and commerce in the area. Also a residential area especially for the affluent class of the society, it can be regarded as the wealthiest city in Haiti. Many international banks, hotels and embassies are located in Petion Ville. In 2010, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale hit the area, disrupting the progress of the city. The city has gradually recovered from the damage caused to the trade, commerce and infrastructure. The social life of Petion Ville is not far behind in any respect. Besides a very active night life in the presence of various bars and casinos, a number of top class restaurants, boutiques and art galleries can be found in here.
President Jean-Pierre Boyer had much on his plate in the early 1820s. Among them was the matter of unification between Haiti and Santo Domingo. At the time, while some in the Spanish country sought to align themselves with Gran Colombia, others, especially those who were former slaves, sought to ensure emancipation by siding instead with President Boyer. Answering the call, Boyer marched with 50,000 soldiers and took the keys to the city of Santo Domingo.
During the 1820s, six thousand black Americans were taken to Haiti as part of a migration scheme in which President Jean-Pierre Boyer had a heavy hand. It followed Haiti's establishment as a free black state and was an open invitation for black Americans to find freedom from slavery in Haiti. Many think the plan failed, but for different reasons, one was that thousands returned to the U.S., and the other was because the expectations of the prospect weren't considered met.
After defeating France, Boyer and the Haiti had to practically buy its independence from the European country at the sum of 150 million francs. The sum, which was to be paid within five years had to be reduced to 90 million francs years later, and the badly pauperized Haiti had to borrow the money from France itself. They had found themselves in an untenable situation as Boyer was eager to have the country declared independent. Productivity had fallen and the President attempted to implement a system of semi-feudal fermage to combat the change.
Jean-Pierre Boyer's contributions to the country as its president included his negotiations with the French that made Haiti an independent nation, and his promulgation of the Rural Code of 1826. The latter act was in an effort to stop the sliding economy from sinking further, after a revolt in the 1790s of black slaves against the French was successful. Under the Rural Code, peasant workers were tied to their plantations. They weren't allowed to leave the land to start farms of their own or enter the towns. The step, however, was not successful in stopping the economic decline.
Jean-Pierre Boyer became President of the Haitian Republic in 1818, following a succession arrangement for the transition with former, then dead President Petion. A revision of the constitution, done two years before, had allowed the president to name his replacement to protect Haiti from outside intrusion. But Boyer also had to contend with inside intrusion in the form of Henri Christophe and the northern Kingdom of Haiti. This opposition would take care of itself as Christophe would commit suicide after a rebellion by his soldiers, leaving Boyer free to peacefully reunite the country.
The government of Jean-Pierre Boyer implemented a policy called the Society for Promoting the Emigration of Free Persons of Color to Haiti.
During the government of Jean-Pierre Boyer, The Haitian government made an appeal to the Black American to come and settle in Haiti. The government offered incentive such as free trips and 10 pounds of coffee per family upon their arrival in Haiti. Additionally, the new immigrants would receive three acres of land and money. | <urn:uuid:cf0a5bb9-359d-4f16-ab54-f4b22b65c88c> | {
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Germany was always in favour of the UK joining the Common Market, in spite of French objections, because Britain — with its 'special relationship' to Washington — was seen as helping to bind the US to Europe, according to Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the longest-serving German foreign minister. Young Germans were inspired by Sir Winston Churchill's Zürich speech in 1946, calling for Germany to be part of a united continent, and Genscher saw Britain as the model of 'the new Europe'. But while a united Europe meant for Germany a return to the community of civilized nations, for Britain it meant 'the loss of empire'.
Although Margaret Thatcher, when prime minister, had a 'bogeyman image' of Germany, Genscher dismissed her opposition to German unification as unimportant, because she was never likely to disagree with the US on such an issue. President Mitterrand of France was never so fiercely opposed to unification. Germany and the UK were always close on economic policy and support for the common market, but the UK was 'mentally too far removed' to join France and Germany as part of a three-nation directorate leading Europe, he says. Genscher believes that Europe will solve the problems of the common currency, and make itself more attractive to Britain, especially thanks to the single market. The rise of Euroscepticism can be attributed to Europe’s failure to present itself as attractively as it ought to, and also to the 'cowardice' of politicians who agree to policies in Brussels, and then blame an anonymous power in Brussels if they prove unpopular. 'Europe is all of us,' he concludes. | <urn:uuid:dcefd337-ec77-453b-85f8-6c8e5b7aed43> | {
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En español | Serving sizes can be sneaky. You think you’re watching your calories by glancing at the nutrition information on the back of your favorite food or beverage, but beware: If you don’t read carefully, you could be taking in four or five times the calories you think you are.
Take, for example, that bag of Bear Naked Banana Nut granola that you like for breakfast. Pour yourself a medium bowlful and you could be eating as many calories and grams of fat as a McDonald’s double cheeseburger. That’s because the actual serving size is only 1/4 cup (a mere 4 tablespoons) and 140 calories. Pour a whole cup’s worth (which is easy to do) and you’re eating 560 calories and 28 grams of fat.
One tiny sliver
Or how about that big four-cheese DiGiorno thin crust frozen pizza you brought home for dinner? The serving size is one-fifth of a square pizza. But, really, who eats just one-fifth of a pizza? And let’s not even talk about trying to cut a square pizza into five equal portions.
Because of these kinds of problems interpreting the fat and calorie information on food labels, the Food and Drug Administration is trying to figure out how to make labels more useful and realistic. Among other things, it is debating whether or not to change serving-size guidelines.
Should it increase serving sizes to reflect how Americans really eat, no matter how unhealthy that might be? Or should it keep the serving amounts the same, but force food companies to do a better job showing how many calories are in that giant bag of chips that you’re consuming all by yourself?
FDA spokesperson Siobhan DeLancey says the government is considering changes to nutritional labeling in conjunction with first lady Michelle Obama’s initiative on childhood obesity.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will issue new federal dietary guidelines this year, which also may affect nutrition labeling.
“This is part of a greater nutritional initiative and a big focus for us,” DeLancey says. “FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg is very game to make packaging easier for people to read and understand and easier to use.” Among the issues she says the FDA currently is debating is, “If we increase the serving size, does that give people permission to eat more?”
Part of the problem, DeLancey notes, is that people don’t flip over the package and look at the nutrition facts. “That’s the key. If you want to eat it all, you just have to do the math.”
A 2008 FDA survey found that fewer than half of Americans check the label for calorie information, while 34 percent rarely or never check the calorie count. In addition, a recent Lempert Report survey of 1,305 supermarket shoppers found that nearly 80 percent find serving-size labeling information confusing.
This comes as no surprise to dietitian Bonnie Taub-Dix, a national spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “People would like to ignore serving size. Who wants to see that the serving size is only one cookie?”
She says she believes the problem isn’t with the numbers in the nutrition facts, but that people don’t multiply those numbers by how many servings they actually consume. | <urn:uuid:b0e3d492-c863-4170-a82b-7fccae329d79> | {
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A notorious chicken thief in cartoons and fairy tales, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) isn't as deceitful or cunning as its reputation suggests. Yes, this member of the wild dog family is an expert hunter who invades poultry yards, but its acute senses make it a chemical-free pest controller to farmers and gardeners. The red fox hears movement, even underground—prompting it to dig, capture, and eat numerous crop-destroying mammals, rodents, and insects.
Just the facts
About 3 feet long at maturity, and weighing between 10 and 15 pounds, the red fox is the largest of all foxes. Its large bushy tail takes over one-third of its entire body length.
Semiretractable claws means the red fox is quiet--it runs on the balls of its feet and can reach speeds up to 45 m.p.h.
Dog (male) and vixen (female) foxes are usually monogamous. A vixen mothers an average of five cubs in a burrowed den, while a dog hunts and gathers food for his cubs: mice, earthworms, squirrels, rabbits, bugs, even berries.
Although large dogs, coyotes, and wolves consider the red fox mouthwatering prey, the popularity of fur as fashion makes humans the red fox's prime predator. | <urn:uuid:0bb24199-ee8d-4d8e-ae92-47ab1cfa200f> | {
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The development of the FPQ took place in several stages.
Each student was instructed to give the FPQ to individuals from a certain ethnic background and within a certain age range to assure a sample with ethnic and age diversity.
Data analyses, including principal components factor analysis, were then performed, and the FPQ was revised.
We used the revised FPQ consisting of 134 items in 10 scales in the present study.
The current version of the FPQ (134 items, 10 scales) can be conceptualized as representing three more general domains of father presence.
The final scale included in the first domain of the FPQ assesses the adult child's perception of the mother's recognition of the father's importance.
The second domain of father presence measured by the FPQ, Beliefs about the Father, assesses other cognitive aspects of father presence.
The FPQ was administered to community samples in four cities located in the northeastern, southeastern, central plains, and northwestern regions of the United States.
These local faculty members in turn recruited students from their classes for a voluntary extra credit assignment and, as in the earlier study, instructed students to administer the FPQ to adults aged 18 and over.
Participants again filled out 3 x 5 cards with identifying information if they completed the FPQ and became eligible to enter a raffle to win $150.
In a few cases, individuals adopted in infancy filled out the FPQ and noted their adopted status.
The 134 items in the FPQ were divided into 10 scales. | <urn:uuid:fc1fa96b-f14d-41bf-a542-224fdf424854> | {
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Promising Cervical Cancer Vaccine
Defends Against Most Common Types of HPV
"At the moment, I think the important thing is to determine whether the vaccine works. Until you know the vaccine works, there's not much point in worrying about how to deliver it," says Ian Frazer, HPV researcher at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Nevertheless, he says, "All the data to date show that this is going to be an effective vaccine."
Even if it is a success and millions are immunized, it wouldn't be the end of HPV vaccine research. It would not help women who are already infected. What's more, other types of HPV cause 30% of all cervical cancers. This vaccine isn't designed to protect against those.
An ideal vaccine would cover the vast majority of HPV types and cure infection in addition to preventing it. Frazer is working to create such a vaccine, but because it must be far more complex than Villa's vaccine, the work has been going slowly.
Eventually, it would be good to vaccinate men, too. "It's doable, if people put money behind it," Villa says.
If all men and women were vaccinated, HPV could be wiped out. "In principle, although I suspect not in practice, this is a virus that could potentially be eliminated the same way as we have eliminated smallpox," Frazer says.
For now, HPV will remain a major threat to women's health. Doctors urge women to get yearly Pap smears -- a test that looks for cervical cells that aren't normal, signaling the presence of HPV. These abnormal cells don't always turn into cancer, but they should be watched closely. | <urn:uuid:7627febb-3250-44b0-abd1-02cd855689a1> | {
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NRS reserves span a north-to-south distance of 800 km (500 miles), and an east-to-west distance of 760 km (470 miles). The vast reach of the system enables researchers to compare species and conditions in one portion of the state with those of another, at a spatial magnitude relevant to entire ecosystems. For this reason, a number of major research projects involve transects featuring multiple NRS reserves.
Using next-generation remote sensing technologies, the California Heartbeat Initiative tracks the pulse of water through state wildlands. The project will correlate plant reactions to climate conditions, enabling scientists to monitor the water status of ecosystems on a landscape scale. The information can be used to produce forecasts of environmental health.
A platform for synthesizing past, current and future environmental change research, and for understanding and potentially mitigating future climate impacts, leveraging the UC Natural Reserve System as a biologically and geographically diverse laboratory; 24 reserves.
A project tracking the dates of life stage events (leaf out, flowering, etc.) in selected native plant species to observe the impact of climate change on natural communities; more than 100 sites monitored at eight reserves.
Replicate, high-precision climate station equipment using identical data collection protocols provides data to reserve users; 26 stations at 22 reserves.
Large-scale, integrated studies of the coastal ocean, rocky intertidal, and kelp forest ecosystems of the U.S. West Coast designed to obtain a comprehensive understanding of how these systems function; seven reserves. | <urn:uuid:908ef636-fe63-4827-932e-550eac41f03c> | {
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The Bramble Cay melomys has the distinction of being the first mammal to be driven to extinction by climate change.
The Bramble Cay melomys is, well was, a small rodent found on a single coral island in the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. When first recorded by Europeans there were many animals. Even in 1978 there were 'several hundred' but the melomys has not been seen since 2009 and is believed extinct.
According to a report by University of Queensland scientists the extinction was due to habitat loss caused by a combination of "severe meteorological events [and] anthropogenic climate change-driven
sea-level rise". Sea levels rose particularly fast in this area and the area of vegetation shrank from 2.2 ha in 2004 to 0.065 ha in 2014.
The authors commented that “Significantly, this probably represents the first recorded mammalian
extinction due to anthropogenic climate change”. | <urn:uuid:e53c4ebd-b66b-4439-89a4-e3141aeff875> | {
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Why are there no seat belts on school buses?
Ten years later, in response to a Congressional mandate, NHTSA promulgated Federal Motor Vehicle Standard 222 that provided for some of the proposed features. The 222 seat was better anchored, padded and designed for energy absorbing and was 4 inches higher than seats then in use.
When Standard 222 was implemented, children who were to ride on large school buses manufactured after that date, were promised, and subsequently have relied on, being safely compartmentalized between high-back, well-padded and anchored seats for crash protection. Since that time, agencies, departments and representatives of Federal, State and Local governments, school district officials, school bus manufacturers, pupil transportation directors, and the operators of school buses have confidently and persistently assured parents and children that compartmentalization provided the optimal school bus safety system by containing the child passengers within their seating compartment during accidents. Officials insisted that because of compartmentalization, crash forces would be effectively attenuated by the padded surroundings and injuries and fatalities would be mitigated. Parents and their children have accepted and placed their trust in this advice advanced by these transportation officials. (See attached 23 YEARS OF INSTITUTIONAL DISINFORMATION)
Unfortunately, the standard fell far short of the UCLA findings. NHTSA failed to include the all-important compartmentalizing side panel, and the lap belt; seat back height increase was eight inches lower than the engineers had recommended. As a result “compartmentalization” was significantly compromised, working fairly well for front-end crashes but providing no passenger protection in side impacts and bus rollovers.
Finally, as described in the 2002 Report, NHTSA did experimentally place seven, instrumented dummies on a school bus and test crash a 25,000 lb. cab-over truck at 45 mph. into the side of the bus. Curiously, none of the dummies were belted and there was no description of the path of motion and the points of traumatic contact of the dummies during the crash sequence. This failure to compare restraint use with non-restraint is especially significant for those seated away from the impact area, across the aisle on the opposite side of the bus, where in side impacts passengers are thrown violently from their seats and where belts are most effective in reducing injury.
Inexplicably, of the 7 dummies on the bus, only 2 were Side Impact Dummies. (Containing instruments to measure lateral chest and pelvic forces.) Even more troubling is the fact NHTSA chose to place both of these Side Impact Dummies adjacent to the impact sidewall. As a result they were not thrown across the bus by crash forces mitigating the effect of the side impact crash kinematics and profoundly compromising the data.
It is characteristic of front-end crash sled testing to show the 222 seat to its best advantage and to exhibit lap restraints at their most inefficient. Since the front-end accident configuration occurs only about one-third of the time, reasonable efforts to evaluate school bus safety must also include tests involving side, rear and rollover crash forces. NHTSA has never explained their rationale for failing to properly perform these tests.
Furthermore, testing only those circumstances where the seat will perform well leads to conclusions that serve to exaggerate the safety of school buses and to imply a level of safety that is invalid. By way of example, imagine a vehicle that has good steering but faulty brakes. If only the steering is tested the authorities are able to insist that the vehicle is safe. And no matter how many times the vehicle is tested, if only the steering is checked, the myth of safety continues. In the meanwhile, the inadequacy of the braking system continues to cause accident after accident.
Although from the inception, notice of the failure of the 222 seat to properly “compartmentalize” and to protect during side impact and roll-over accidents has been detailed by this writer to NHTSA in petitions, during public testimony before the Congress and at NHTSA forums, the Agency has persistently chosen to ignore the deficiency.
Identified Harm to
The Board went on to point out that passengers who were propelled from the “compartment” were the ones more likely to be injured during side impact and rollover collisions.
Re-review of major crashworthiness studies by the NTSB details that compartment failure occurred to unrestrained passengers in every lateral and rollover crash (See attached REVIEW OF MAJOR SCHOOL BUS CRASHWORTHINESS STUDIES BY THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD).
Contributing to compartmentalization failure are such factors as the slippery nature of the school bus seat covering, the reduced containment because of the smaller sizes of young children, and the effect of relative opening of the compartment for children seated on or closer to the aisle. In addition, school buses-- because of their high center of gravity are-- relatively unstable and are subject to frequent rollovers.
As the result of the NTSB’s strong recommendations, there was some hope that NHTSA might finally take action to provide belts for the buses.
NHTSA 2002 Report:
In preparing the current April 2002, “REPORT TO CONGRESS, School Bus Safety: Crashwothiness Research,” in order to assess crash outcomes, NHTSA analyzed 31 actual crashes. Just nine (29%) were front end. In spite of the fact that 7 out of 10 of these real world accidents were not frontal, NHTSA made no attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of “compartmentalization” in protecting the young passengers in all real world crash configurations. Had NHTSA chosen to evaluate the complete range of all accident possibilities, they would certainly have concluded, as did the NTSB, that “compartmentalization” was compromised and incomplete.
Clearly, NHTSA has demonstrated an all-consuming disinterest in the mechanics of the side impact school bus crash. The report devotes only 3 of the 54-page report to the side test. By contrast, the frontal sled tests were carefully evaluated based on different dummy sizes, seat configurations, and restraint systems. Detailed discussions of dummy kinematics for all variables were recorded. In the final analysis however, the information gathered in the frontal sled tests was little different from that developed in the aforementioned pre- and post-standard testing in the 1970s. On the other hand, the side impact test was programmed to produce so little information one must wonder why NHTSA chose to perform the crash at all and how, based on the paucity of data, they could conclude that restraints were not needed in large school buses.
Cost: On the very first page of the NHTSA Report, the Agency is careful to quote from a June 25, 1998 letter from Congressman James A. Traficant, Jr. admonishing NHTSA to consider the impact on school districts of requiring occupant restraint systems and design and seating capacity changes. While based on recent events the credibility of Mr. Traficant is questionable (at best), NHTSA’s first responsibility is to establish considerations of safety paramount to and above all concerns for the supposed inconvenience of the districts. As regards cost, school bus officials should consider the following costs of “compromised compartmentalization”:
NHTSA also argues that the installation of seat belts would cause a 17% loss of seating capacity resulting in substantial additional expenses to school districts. They allege that this is because three restraints cannot be fitted to a 39” seat. As those familiar with school transportation are fully aware, except for children in the earliest grades, no 39” seat can accommodate three students. For NHTSA to assume that all school buses are operating at full capacity with 3 to a seat does not represent reality in school transportation.
Conclusion: Once again NHTSA has failed miserably in addressing the problem of “compromised compartmentalization” in school bus side impact and rollover accidents. As a direct result, children will continue to be killed and injured in school bus accidents. Since NHTSA will not act, the responsibility to correct this well documented inadequacy now resides with the Congress.
As an officer of Physicians for Automotive Safety and the National Coalition for School Bus Safety, Dr. Yeager has been a leader in the enactment of two first in the nation laws in New Jersey, one to require use of seat belts on school buses and another to require use of bicycle helmets. In addition, he has been instrumental in passing legislation raising the drinking age to 21, requiring school buses to have high-back padded seats, roof hatches and crossing gates, child restraint laws, moped helmet use and providing for ice cream truck stop signs. Dr Yeager has been a recipient of the Certificate of Appreciation, US Department of Transportation, the Governor's Highway Safety Award, Johnson and Johnson/Safe Kids, New Jersey Honoree of the Year, and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Safety Leader Award. | <urn:uuid:3fc8c649-92ef-4ee2-819f-bddf33eda20f> | {
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This has for long
been an important interchange station, sandwiched in-between junctions for Dover
and Hastings to the east, and alternate routes to the capital to the west.
Serious proposals for building a railway between London and Dover were made in
1825, and in that year, surveys of the County of Kent were made. Further
surveying took place in 1832 and 1835, specifically the northern territories of
the county, but problems were soon brought to the fore. No support for the
scheme came from inhabitants of the towns within the northern parts of the
county, and fierce, universal opposition to the railway came from landowners. In
a ‘’General Statement of Projects’’ later published by the South Eastern Railway
in 1846, it was recounted that of the railway, the ‘’system was not understood
either in or out of Parliament. The powers of the Locomotive were little known,
and it appeared that, to obtain in that direction the gradient then considered
as the maximum surmountable by the engine, enormous expense must be incurred.
The capacity of a Railway to compete successfully with the parallel Steam
Navigation had not been brought to the test, and the results of such a
competition were distrusted.’’ [South Eastern Railway: General Statement of the
Position and Projects of the Company 1845 – 6].
The beginnings of the Dover trunk line lie with the London & Croydon Railway, formed by an Act of Parliament on 12th June 1835 to construct a line between its namesakes. This scheme met with little opposition, for the proposed route followed the course of a failed canal and did not make any incursion onto important private property. The line was subsequently built at a cost of £615,160 (£53,000,000 at 2008 prices), and was formally opened to traffic on 1st June 1839. For a matter of days, trains ran into the London & Greenwich Railway’s London Bridge station, until a dedicated terminus was provided on 5th June. The southern end of the route terminated at today’s West Croydon. Parliament decreed that only one railway should access London from the south, which meant that promoters of lines to Brighton and Dover had to use the L&CR as an outlet. The scenario was two-edged: firstly, sharing of one route by numerous companies would lead to obvious capacity problems and conflict of movements; secondly, however, much expense would be spared, for the first nine miles of line from London was already complete. Promoters of the South Eastern Railway, from London to Dover, first deposited a Bill in 1836 for a line which left the then proposed South Western Railway at Wandsworth. This would subsequently cut across south London to Croydon, where the existing line from London Bridge terminated. This was met with unwavering opposition from Parliament, which maintained that only a single rail outlet south of London was permitted. Thus, promoters revised their plans to begin the new Dover main line at Croydon, at the end of the L&CR.
A start point of Croydon naturally laid the foundations for a Weald of Kent main line. In contrast to the towns in the northern parts of the county, districts and influential landowners situated around the course of the proposed line strongly supported the railway. The line would cut through the central part of the county in a straight line, neatly positioned halfway between the Thames and English Channel. The line would also be characterised by shallow gradients, for the chosen route traversed the natural level. The ‘’South Eastern Railway Act’’ received Royal Assent on 21st June 1836. The company was authorised to raise a joint-stock capital of £1,400,000 (£110,000,000 at 2008 prices), and could take out loans totalling an additional £450,000 (£35,300,000 at 2008 prices). The SER Bill did not pass without competition, and two alternate independent railway schemes were also promoted at the same time. The first of these was the ‘’Central Kent Railway’’, which proposed a line from Deptford to Sandwich, passing over Cray, Darent, Medway, and Stour Rivers en route. The line was characterised by heavy earthworks and notable gradients, putting it at a distinct disadvantage to the SER scheme. A 4½-mile-long cutting, with average depth of 50-feet, was required at Wrotham; a second cutting, 3-miles and 16-chains in length and with an average depth of 21-feet, would have to be excavated at Charing. A lofty viaduct would be required over the Medway, and five heavy embankments were required, the latter of which were namely:
Sandwich Embankment: 5¾-miles in length, with an average height of 18-feet
Medway Embankment: 1-mile in length, with an average height of 55-feet
Aylesford Embankment: 3-miles in length, with an average height of 35-feet
Darent Embankment: 2-miles 5-furlongs in length, with an average height of 36-feet
North Cray Embankment: 1-mile 5-furlongs in length, with an average height of 58-feet
scheme was that of the ‘’North Kent Railway’’ (not to be confused with the later
‘’North Kent Line’’ of the SER), which proposed a line commencing nearby
Hungerford and Waterloo Bridges in London, to Dover, via Blackheath, Woolwich,
Gravesend, Rochester, Chatham, Sittingbourne, and Canterbury. Branches would
also be sprouted to Deal, Maidstone, Sheerness, Faversham Quays, and Chilham, in
addition to making a connection with an already authorised line to Ramsgate and
Construction of the Weald of Kent Line was slow to start, work finally commencing on 25th November 1837. The line began at Reigate, and the SER appointed William Cubitt as engineer. Works at Tunbridge commenced in the same month, and the first rails were delivered in May 1841. By 20th November of that year, three miles of finished line existed between Edenbridge and Tunbridge, and track laying between the latter and Staplehurst was also well-advanced. On 26th May 1842, through running between London Bridge and Tunbridge via Reigate commenced. Services were extended eastwards to Ashford on 1st December of the same year, and then on to a temporary station in Folkestone on 28th June 1843. On completion of Foord Viaduct, a permanent Folkestone station was brought into use on 18th December 1843 and, finally, through running to Dover began on 7th February of the following year.
The strategic importance of Tonbridge (as it is now known) is reflected by the fact that your author first needs to mention two more railway lines before the subject of the station itself is tackled. The first is the direct line to Hastings: Royal Assent was received for a branch from Tunbridge to Tunbridge Wells on 31st July 1845, a length of 4-miles 1-chain. A capital of £180,000 (£14,500,000 at 2008 prices) was authorised, with the option of taking out a further £60,000 (£4,840,000 at 2008 prices) in loans. The line was specified as single-track, but midway through construction, the decision was taken to double it throughout. On 18th June 1846, the SER received Parliamentary approval for two extensions of this line, the first being a 25¾-mile stretch from Tunbridge Wells to Hastings, authorised at a cost of £640,000 (£46,200,000 at 2008 prices), with the option of taking out loans of £213,000 (£15,400,000 at 2008 prices). The second line was from Hastings to Rye, 5¾-miles in length, of which £20,000 (£1,440,000 at 2008 prices) was the authorised capital, in addition to loans of up to £6,600 (£476,000 at 2008 prices). These sums also included the construction of a spur to Rye Harbour, 1¾-miles long.
An Ordnance Survey from 1895 shows the station before the southern bay platform was converted for through running. The
engine shed, to the right, is situated within the fork of the diverging Ashford and Hastings lines. To the left, the line through
Sevenoaks veers northwards, whilst that to Redhill continues on an east to west heading. Click the above for a larger version.
28th July 1949
''R'' Class No. 1703 (by this time BR No. 31703) was observed in the ''down'' platform loop at Tonbridge. The
engine was still wearing the last carnation of the Southern Railway livery, complete with an ''S'' prefix before
its number. The station canopy behind the locomotive dated from 1935 rebuilding work.
© David Glasspool Collection
28th July 1949
The fireman is seen refilling ''H'' Class 0-4-4 No. 31543 with water in the ''down'' platform loop. At this time,
the engine still wore Southern Railway livery with ''Sunshine'' lettering. Behind the engine can be seen the
distinctive end of an ex-SE&CR ''Birdcage'' carriage. © David Glasspool Collection
An Unrebuilt Bulleid Pacific rounds the curve at the west end of the station, fronting a named Victoria to
Dover boat train via Orpington. The engine retains a high-sided tender, and a couple of Blood and Custard
Bulleid-designed carriages can be seen trailing behind. The white signal posts just left of centre are on the
throat of Tonbridge West Yard, and the sturdy SR-built ''A'' box is on the right. The sidings behind the
Bulleid Pacific and in the immediate foreground can be seen holding ex-SE&CR ''Birdcage'' stock.
© David Glasspool Collection
Next: The History Continues >>
Return to the Kent Rail Homepage or alternatively, check for Updates.
Website & Copyright information - Links - Contact the Webmaster
All content is copyright © David Glasspool unless otherwise stated | <urn:uuid:8ee6af2c-6889-4e53-8686-acaee1c39bd8> | {
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Going, Going, Gone: The impact of land fragmentation
on Texas agriculture and wildlife
A New Breed of Landowner
For generations, land in Texas was a legacy. It was passed down from one generation of farmers or ranchers to the next. In today's world, however, traditional farming and ranching have become questionable propositions. Fewer and fewer people are willing to take on the challenges of a life on the land.
A new breed of landowners, excited about staking their claim to a bit of Texas, is eager to step in. Younger, more educated and more affluent, the newcomers are quite different from their predecessors. For them a "farm" or "ranch" is not a place to raise crops or cattle, but rather a weekend retreat from the city or a place to raise a family in the country.
Unlike previous owners, they don't need the large acreages of land required to make farming or ranching profitable. Instead, they merely want a place where they can hunt, fish and find a little solitude. Huge expanses of land aren't required for such things.
As a result, prices aren't driven by what the land can produce, but rather by its scenic and recreational value. Those natural amenities have become precious commodities. In many counties across Texas they have pushed prices for land to record levels.
The fragmentation study found that while the average agricultural value of farm and ranchland grew only 4 percent between 1992 and 2001, there were 25 counties where the development and recreational value of land increased between 86 percent and 292 percent. (Look at a map of this disparity between land values) The study found that such increases in "non-agricultural" values were a good early indicator that large farms and ranches would likely be divided into smaller ownerships. The study also revealed that this land fragmentation is often accompanied by changes in land use and fragmentation of wildlife habitats.
The researchers found that "mid-sized" family ranches of 500 to 2,000 acres were particularly susceptible to fragmentation. During the 1990s, these properties disappeared at a rate of a quarter-million acres a year because families who had lived and worked on those lands for generations sold them and moved on. (More information on the decline of mid-sized ranches)
The decision to sell is often a matter of simple, heartbreaking economics. With developers offering far more money than they can make from the land by farming or ranching, landowners accept the offers, often reluctantly, and move on. As they depart, a major piece of Texas' rural heritage disappears. Rural economies are often left in shambles as stockyards, grain elevators, farm implement dealers and other ranch-related enterprises close their doors.
Managing Director, Field Programs
1 Short Street, Suite 2
Northampton, MA 01060
(p) 800-370-4879 (f) 413-586-9332
Texas Regional home page | <urn:uuid:e36d8c46-2bf7-4ec9-ba87-b6184c56f907> | {
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Hey. I wasnt sure where to post this, since it isnt an actual question i need to complete for school, but it relates to it. When my year 11 physics class was solving the final temperature of an ice/steam mixture, my teacher kept talking about how energy is transferred too AND from the ice. Now, originally, i thought energy was transferred from a hotter substance to a colder substance, until their temperatures were equal. So in the ice/steam case, i would have thought that energy was only transferred from the steam to the ice. I tried getting him to explain the transfer of energy from the ice, but he just couldnt give me a straigh forward answer. He even referred to it as 'cold energy' at one stage. If anyone could bring shed some light on this topic, id greatly appreciate it. Thanks alot, Dan. | <urn:uuid:2be38be7-2c2d-4ec2-99c7-07e9e2386b5f> | {
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Hayagreeva Jayanti for 2019 is observed on August 15th. The significance of this incarnation of Sri Vishnu is the relevance of Vedas to human life and the fact that Vedas are the bringers of light to our world. When the Vedas were stolen, the Universe was deprived of light.
Hayagreeva and Knowledge
In Hayagreeva Upanishad, Sage Narada approaches Lord Brahma and asks for knowledge of Brahmam, that knowledge which destroys sins (inner failings, transgressions, etc) quickly. Brahma replies, “The one who masters the mantras for which Lord Hayagreeva is the master would know Sruthi (heard knowledge), Smrithi (memorized knowledge), Ithihasas (history) and Puranas (epics) and would be blessed with all types of wealth. The wealth with Sri Hayagreeva may give us is a wealth of knowledge, which when known, all else is known: that knowledge is that of very Brahmam, itself.
Gnanananda Mayam Devam
Nirmala Spatika Kruthim
Aadharam Sarva Vidyanam
Significance of Vedas:
The term Vedanta is generally used by many to indicate a school of philosophical thought. But Vedanta is only a special section of Vedic literature. All the Upanishadic texts form part of Vedanta. Vedanta is the consummation of Vedic thought. The Vedas themselves are invaluable guides towards the Highest. The rks or hymns of the Rig Veda are ecstatic effusions from the spirit of man extolling the delight derived while contemplating the orderliness and beauty of Nature outside them. The Sama Veda is the precious verbal treasure which enables man to praise the Creator and His Creation in song. The mystery of this world and of the worlds beyond is elaborated in the texts which are comprehensively called Attarvana Veda; the formulae for rites and ceremonials, either beneficial or merit-yielding or sacrificial, have been collated as the Yajur Veda.
The Vedic literature grouped into these four collections – each under a different name – has four more branches – the Mantras, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. The Mantra texts are also called Samhithas (collections); all sacred formulae are grouped together therein. The texts which describe the means and methods of utilising them and benefiting by their proper recital are known as Brahmanas. The word Brahma has many meanings. In the expression, Brahmanas, it means Mantra. The Brahmanas deal mostly with ceremonials and kindred external activities. The Aranyakas, however, deal with the inner significances and internal disciplines like withdrawal of the senses and the elimination of attachments. The Upanishads attempt, by philosophical analysis, to harmonise the two paths. They form the final phase of Vedic studies and are called Vedanta. They can be considered as even the essence of Vedic teachings. They are the cream of the entire Vedic scriptures. When the Vedas are assimilated by scholarship, these emerge as butter does when milk is churned.
All forms of Vedic literature mentioned thus far form the most ancient body of knowledge, Vidya. “Upa-ni-shad” – the word is formed by the root ‘sad’ getting two syllables ‘upa’ and ‘ni’ as prefixes, ‘Sad’ means ‘sitting.’ It has also another meaning, ‘destroying.’ ‘Ni’ means ‘steady’, ‘disciplined.’ ‘Upa’ means ‘near’. The pupil has to sit near the Guru (Acharya) or Preceptor, paying steady attention to what is being communicated to him. Then only can he learn the fund of knowledge and the skill of discrimination.
Hayagreeva Gayatri Mantra
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Although during the Middle Ages humanity had not lost its intellectual life, still the name of the Renaissance has been adopted to designate the revival of art and letters in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. The world, in fact, seemed to be born again. Princes and popes, nobles and monks, knights and burghers, seemed all seized with ardent thirst for knowledge and admiration of art. Scholars argued, poets sang, and in Germany Ulrich exclaimed, in allusion to this outburst of the higher curiosity, “How good it is to live!”
The sudden awakening was caused by a tempest that outwardly seemed little likely to benefit intellectual progress. Constantinople, which still guarded the precious treasures of antiquity, had fallen, in 1453, into the power of rude and ignorant conquerors. The Greeks fled from their enslaved country, and dispersed, carrying with them the books they no longer studied themselves, but which were joyfully welcomed in France and Italy. It was a world refound. The rich imagination, the brilliant language of the Greek writers, masters of every style, suddenly appeared, dazzling the learned, who until then had exhausted themselves in vain efforts to find perfection. Ancient Greek once more reconquered the West. At precisely the same date, Gutenberg succeeded in completing his invention of printing. In a few years it had become universal, and printing multiplied the works of the ancient as well as of the modern authors.
Alphonso the Magnanimous (1416-1458) had founded an academy at Naples, and in Rome Nicholas founded the Vatican Library, where he collected five thousand volumes. In Florence Cosmo de’ Medici (1389-1464) the merchant Pericles, who ruled a republic not less variable than the Athenian State, surpassed all other Princes by the enlightened taste with which he encouraged letters and art. His grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492), who transformed the purely moral authority wielded by Cosmo into a monarchical power, continued his liberality toward the learned in spite of this changed policy. He created an academy, and admired Plato so much that he revived a festival which his disciples had formerly celebrated in his honor. He founded the library that still bears his name, the Medico-Laurentian Library. The lesser Italian Princes had their court poets, philosophers and artists; for instance the house of Este at Ferrara, the Montefeltro at Urbino, the Gonzagas at Mantua, the Sforza at Milan, the Benti-voglio at Bologna, lastly, John de’ Medici, who became Pope under the name of Leo X, and united in his own person the glory of all these generous protectors of science and art. He deserved, through the incomparable greatness with which he pre-sided over the intellectual movement, to leave his name to a Century thus highly distinguished by its fertility in authors and artists.
The imitation of the antique furnished the forms and rules of poetry, but inspiration was chiefly derived from the chivalric poems of France, whereon the Middle Ages had lavished all the imagination of feudal and Christian society. After some attempts at epic poetry from Luigi Pulci, who recited the “Morgante Maggiore” at the table of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and from Boiardo, who wrote the “Orlando Innamorato,” Ariosto (1473-1500), the poet of the early part of the epoch, appeared. Taking up the legend of Roland, already disfigured by Boiardo (1434-1494), under another form, Ariosto composed and published his great work, “Orlando Furioso,” where his imagination reveled in fantastic palaces, marvelous adventures, golden lances and winged horses, but where he sketched profoundly human characters. Inspired by Homer, Virgil, and Ovid, he borrowed the arts of description and word painting from his great masters, while at the same time he retained the spirit of the “Chansons de Geste,” and animated his characters with Christian sentiments. His poem is the most vigorous expression of the society of that epoch, still enthusiastic for chivalry and religion in spite of a curious retrogression toward pagan idolatry. These characteristics are still more clearly seen in Tasso’s poem (1544-1595), “Jerusalem Delivered.” Following the plan of the “Iliad,” he glorified the Crusades at an epoch when they were not likely to recommence, and blended Christian miracles with chivalric leg-ends and gallantries. We find one sign of the new times in this poem : women are celebrated under the names of Armada, Clarinda, and Hermione; and the charm of the “Jerusalem Delivered” lies in the tenderness of the sentiment, though the extravagance of its conceits almost spoil it. Tasso’s work is well nigh the last epic poem, for this style, which appears spontaneously in young naive societies, was not suited to the rationalistic, studious spirit of the Sixteenth Century.
History and politics were more suited to the men of the Renaissance. Machiavelli (1469-1527), a disciple of Livy, educated in the schools of war and diplomacy of his time, joined the skill of the ancients to the penetration of the moderns. His discourse on the first “Books of Livy” analyzes the causes of the greatness of Rome. His political correspondence displays, together with sagacious observations of human conduct, thorough acquaintance with the interests of States. His “History of Florence” is one of the most literary, if not the most conscientious, models of the art of narration. Machiavellism has always existed, but it owes its name to the author of the “Prince.” He forms the subject of a sketch in the volume devoted to “Foreign Statesmen.”
Fighting for more than a half a Century in Italy, the French were dazzled by the civilization of the land which they invaded; they admired the cities from which they exacted ransom, the palaces they occupied as masters, the magnificent churches which they alone respected. The manuscripts, pictures and sculptures excited their curiosity and envy, even more than the rich materials and elegant furniture. Charles VIII and Louis XII employed Italian workmen. Francis I surrounded himself with scholars and artists.
Humanism then appeared in France to revive the studies that had become fruitless under the influence of scholasticism. Francis I encouraged learning, and Danes, Postel, Vatable, Turnèbe, and Budé adorned his court. Budé induced Francis I to create the College of France. Francis I wished that Hebrew, Greek, and Latin should have special chairs, to which he afterward added chairs of science. The monarch thus encouraged a new method of instruction by the side of scholastic teaching; a fertile innovation, giving an impulse to education, which was never afterward lost. Francis I endeavored to attract to his new college the most famous doctor of his age, Erasmus, born at Rotterdam, who traveled in every country, and had no home but the republic of letters. Erasmus (1465-1536) wrote in Latin, which he handled with con-summate ease; his biting satires against the monks and the abuses of the Church rendered him unwittingly one of the precursors of the Reformation; his aim was merely the diffusion of true learning. His “Praise of Folly” gives him a place among the observers of humanity and the keenest moralists, but his greatest work was perhaps his edition of the Greek Testament.
Spain at that date exercised intellectual as well as political ascendency. Her language, perhaps the finest of the Romance tongues, had been formed during the Middle Ages; more forcible and sonorous than Italian, it derived from the Arabs strength and a rich vocabulary. From the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries the Spaniards had their “Chansons de Geste,” “The Poem of the Cid.” Poets whose names are now lost, sprang up in Christian Spain, writers of stirring ballads, chiefly historical, relating in short, graceful verse the exploits and gallantries of the knights. This literature was continued by a succession of masterpieces which made the Spanish literature of that date well nigh the first in Europe. The cultured classes imitated the Italian poets, and even borrowed their meters. Boscan copied Petrarch. Garcilaso de la Vega, even while following Petrarch, Bembo, and Sannazaro, caught their full grace and sweetness, but unhappily introduced their conceits and affectation also.
Castillejo rebelled against the too frequent imitation of the Italians, and rejected a pastoral style, which he deemed unworthy of a warrior race. Hurtado de Mendoza (1503-1575), a learned ambassador, poet, novelist, and historian, initiated, in Spain the realistic novel, by his masterpiece, the first part of “Lazarillo de Tormes.”
Fernando de Herrera (1549-1623) revealed the beau-ties of the classic ode to Spain, and celebrated the exploits of a Christian hero, Don Juan of Austria. Fr. Luis Ponce de Leon (1528-1591) was the first of the great Spanish mystic writers. In fact, at this time the destruction of religious unity rekindled a more fervent faith in all Catholics, and Spain produced Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, and Saint Theresa, whose prose writings are admirable, and whose poems remind us of Blake in their dark doggerel gemmed with passages of inimitable beauty.
The writings of chivalry had not yet ended. The “Amadis de Gaul,” translated from old Celtic legends by Montalvo, obtained great success in Spain, and pastoral novels again became fashionable with Jorge de Monte-mayor. But these, particularly the romances of chivalry, soon encountered a terrible adversary in the famous Cervantes (1547-1616). This valiant soldier, who lost his left hand in the battle of Lepanto, and during his whole life was subject to the pressure of narrow means, was indignant with his countrymen for their liking for these romances, and their false extravagances. He found them an admirable subject for parody, and in his marvelous “History of Don Quixote de la Mancha,” he made a hero of a poor hidalgo, whose head had been turned by these writings. If the work of Cervantes had been merely a literary satire it would probably have been forgotten in spite of its merits; but Cervantes, to a biting wit, a vivid imagination and a rare talent for depicting landscapes and characters, added a depth of observation that has rendered his novel a mirror of humanity. Blended with curious episodes, the sole blot on the work, the burlesque, amusing adventures of Don Quixote and his companion, Sancho Panza, Cervantes introduced wise maxims, shrewd remarks upon the passions and vices not only of the society of his times, but of men of all ages. Walter Scott said that his book was one of the master works of the human mind.
Cervantes had endeavored to give the Spanish theater the form that his knowledge and intelligence pointed out as the ideal. But he ceased writing for the stage when he saw the wonderful success achieved by Lope de Vega (1562-1635). Gifted with marvelous imagination and inexhaustible fertility (for it is said that he wrote fifteen hundred plays), Lope de Vega, who was soldier, priest, and monk, added historical and religious dramas to come-dies of intrigues called “Cloak and Sword.” Although composed of a series of improbable adventures, these comedies attracted the crowd by the clearness of the plot, and the vivacious and natural dialogue. With regard to historical tragedies, Lope de Vega never attempted to bind himself by imitating the ancients. He introduced history into his plays, without troubling himself about unity of time or place. His school even in the Sixteenth Century added so much luster to Spanish literature that it strongly influenced the literature of other countries, particularly of France.
Portugal has only one great name, that of Camoens (1525-1579), who in “Os Lusiadas” (in English the “Lusiad”) celebrated the discoveries and exploits of the Portuguese. This work is at the same time a fine epic and a history dealing principally with Vasco da Gama’s expedition to India a narrative of Portuguese history being mingled with splendid poetic descriptions, and Christianity being interwoven with mythological fables. The “Lusiad” is an Iliad to the Portuguese Nation, whose lower classes learn and sing its stanzas. The poem is rich in patriotic feeling, which endears it to the singer’s countrymen; foreign critics place it high among epics of the lower order.
In England mental energy was kindled by the same rays that vivified Spain, France, and Italy. England from the earliest days of modern times had become a great power. The Nation had been formed from mingled Celtic, Saxon, Danish, and Norman elements; the language, which after the Norman conquest had been strongly impregnated with old French idioms, and consequently with Latin words, was of Germanic origin. The literature is marked by a greater variety and breadth, as well as beauty of style, than that of any other Teutonic tongue. In the Fourteenth Century appeared a great poet, Chaucer, who has never been excelled as a bright and cheerful painter in verse of the life of his contemporaries. The Classical and Pagan Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century, coinciding with the Reformation which completed the individuality of the English character, and also with the reign of Elizabeth, completed the conditions most favorable to the development of literature. From the Sixteenth Century English literature has shone with great brilliancy. Spenser (1552-1559) in his “Faerie Queen,” made even epic allegory beautiful, and for splendid, indeed almost excessive, richness of imagery has few rivals.
In the theater, after precursors like John Lyly and Marlowe who at any other epoch would have been supreme Shakespeare (1564-1616) appeared, the greatest dramatic genius of England, indeed, it is admitted, of the world. The son of a burgess of Stratford, he became both actor and author, comedian and manager of the theater; under him the drama regained, in the Sixteenth Century, the power and inspiration of the great poets of Greece, added to the vigor and free imagination of the poets of the Middle Ages. Cosmopolitan and yet deeply patriotic, the admirer of modern and ancient Italy, but still more the admirer of his own country, Shakespeare was alternately Italian in Romeo and Juliet and in Othello, Roman in Coriolanus and Casar, but above all English in his dramas founded on episodes in the national history like Henry V, Richard III, and Henry VIII, or Scotch legends like Macbeth. He was a genius who revived the past ages, clothing them with life, and was equally at home in violent scenes from the Italy of the Middle Ages, in the horrors of the War of the Roses, in semi-barbarous times, in depicting his contemporaries, or in weaving into his drama the delicate creations, the fairy glamour of poetic folk-lore. With a genius that breaks through all obstacles, he places an entire population upon the stage, carries history into the theater, and although he gives full play to his imagination, he is yet more true to history than many historians. Nothing can equal the movement and warmth of these complicated dramas, which unravel themselves now in a palace, now in a street, now on a battlefield, placing on the stage and in close proximity men of all ranks, and replacing the old chorus by a crowd. Shakespeare thus passes to every key, grave and gay, often jocular, sometimes coarse. He descends into the common jests of the populace with as much facility as he rises to the sublime, and of his best pieces the world will never tire.
But he has merited the admiration of posterity chiefly through his knowledge and description of the passions of humanity. The characters of his personages are even more true from a human than from an historical point of view. And, when he has had no model to draw from, he has created types of incontestable veracity. Macbeth, and his wife, Lady Macbeth, the types of criminal ambition; Othello, of jealousy; Desdemona, the gentle victim of the noble but deluded Moor; Juliet, the graceful incarnation of love; and, lastly, Hamlet, the philosophical dreamer, the man attacked by a melancholia unknown to antiquity, the precursor of thousands of tormented souls, possessed by the strange sadness that seems peculiar to modern times. Shakespeare had little knowledge of the ancients, but he is a true poet, touched with the imprint of the keen sensibility, the humor, and the weird fancy which are characteristic features of the Northern races. The Greeks and Romans admirably described the sadness produced by misfortune, but they would not have under-stood a vague melancholy and discontent with life in the flower of youth and manhood.
Great as were his contemporaries, Ben Jonson, Massinger, Fletcher, Webster, and Ford, England never produced a second dramatic poet who could rank with Shakespeare, and at that time her literature was only beginning to develop; though it afterward excelled in various other styles.
The age that produced the greatest dramatist produced the greatest essayist. Like Shakespeare, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was not appreciated by his contemporaries, but each Century has seen a widening of the circle of his admirers and they include the acutest intellects of every age. To be amusingly and simply selfish is ever the part of this charmingly egotistical man. His motto was Que sais-je? “What do I know?” and frankly the skeptic declared that the answer was nothing. Merely to live, merely to muse over the spectacle of the world, simply to feel even if the thing felt be agony, and to reflect on the pain and on how it may be best borne this is enough for Montaigne. Bacon’s essays appeared in England a few years later and won immediate popularity for their worldly wisdom. Bacon’s philosophical works belong to the Seventeenth Century and they have been discussed in the volume on the World’s Great Philosophers.
Aroused by the great geographical discoveries and the needs of navigation, the curiosity of the human mind was now directed to the observation of nature and the explanation of the system of the world. Science revived at the same time as literature. At first scientific men, like scholars, only devoted themselves to translations of and commentaries on the work of the Greek sages, which, although better known and better interpreted than formerly, could not, like the works of the poets, historians, and philosophers, satisfy the avidity of their readers, who were often discouraged by the small results obtained by their long labor. Meritorious as the works of the Greek mathematicians and astronomers undoubtedly were, particularly of the Alexandrian school, they had never reached any true explanation of the physical system of the universe, or of the movements of the planets and the stars. The glory of seeking and finding this solution belongs to the moderns. In literature they are the disciples of the ancients. In science they are masters and creators. Too much honor can hardly be paid to those men who, dispersing the darkness that had accumulated through the errors of the ancients, have in some degree replaced the world in its true orbit, and made the earth turn round the sun instead of the sun round the earth.
Already some astronomers had, like Nicolas de Cusa, timidly essayed to correct the errors of our senses. Already the knowledge of the sphericity of the earth, victoriously proved by the discoveries of Christopher Columbus, had pointed to the truth. But the great facts of the solar system were first perceived by an obscure Canon of Frauenberg, in Prussia. Copernicus (1473-1543) born at Thorn, in Poland, in his little town on the Vistula, profiting by the knowledge acquired in several journeys to Italy, consecrated his entire life to the observation of the stars and of calculations of their respective positions. It was not until the end of his career that he decided to publish a book on the “Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies,” which annihilated all the systems adopted, or rather imagined until then. The theory of Copernicus that the earth and the planets move round the sun, superseded the old Ptolemaic theory that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun, stars, and planets moved round the earth as center. The Copernican theory is the foundation of modern astronomy. It must, how-ever, be remembered that as early as the Third Century before Christ, Aristarchus of Samos had discovered not only that the earth moves, which was known to Pythagoras, but that it moves round the sun. This first explanation of the solar system was naturally very defective. Copernicus made many mistakes such as his idea that the earth, in her course round the sun, always turned the same side toward it but still he had at least glimpses of the truth and founded a new and correct system of astronomy, a century, before the invention of scientific telescopes, by force of unwearied observation, mental independence, and penetrative power of intellect. For a long time men refused to accept his discovery.
Astronomy made still further progress with Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) a Dane who, after erecting an observatory, Uranienborg, i. e. the City of the Heavens, on the small island of Hven, three leagues from Copenhagen, and passing twenty-five years there 4n profitable observations, was at last forced to leave it and placing himself under the protection of the Emperor Rudolph II, settled himself in the castle of Benatek, near Prague. His life work chiefly consisted in the vast array of facts stored up by his long and patient investigations for the use of those who followed after him.
The progress of astronomical science in the Sixteenth Century led to an important reform in the calendar. The Julian calendar was based on the tropical year (three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, or six hours), but there was a difference of eleven minutes too many on the exact year, which accumulating from century to century produced real disorder in the recurrence of the yearly festivals. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585), after consulting the celebrated astronomers of his time, ordered the suppression of ten days, from the fourth to the fifteenth of October, 1582. Still, as the Julian calendar, they retained one extra day inserted every four years, but it was arranged that certain leap years should be suppressed to maintain the quasi-perpetual equilibrium.
The progress of astronomy had been greatly aided by the advance in mathematics. Tartaglia, Cardan, Ferrari, and others resumed the work of the old Greek geometricians, and continued it with so much ardor that they sent each other solemn challenges for contests of figures, as the knights did for their combats in the tilt yard. They invited each other to solve problems and equations, and the learned world paid great attention to these pacific rivalries, which, however, were not always without bitterness, for the hot passions of the Sixteenth Century invaded even the sanctuaries of science. The French mathematicians rivaled the Italians, and through their noble emulations the science of geometry was built up. Pierre de la Ramée, called Ramus, the celebrated philosopher, secured a solid foundation for it by translating Euclid’s “Elements.” A jurisconsult, Vieta (1540-1603) created algebraic language. Until then numerals were always used for operations, the unknown and its quantities only being represented by abbreviations and signs. Vieta represented all quantities by letters. He thus developed geometry and trigonometry.
Medicine made a decisive step with Paracelsus (1493-1541) who rejected the Greek and Arab authors to devote himself to the direct observation of nature and a search for her remedies. Andreas Vesalius made it the basis of a serious study of anatomy and the human body. Religious respect for the dead had been carried to such a point that dissection of corpses had not been allowed. Vesalius (1514-1564), physician to Charles V and Philip II, braved this prejudice, and from that time the healing science began to develop. Ambroise Paré (1517-1590), surgeon to Charles IX and Henry III, deserves to be called one of the benefactors of humanity. He healed as much as possible, instead of always amputating. Yet medicine and surgery, like other sciences, were still in their infancy.
The efforts of true science were obstructed in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries by the obstinacy of the astrologers and sorcerers. It seems as though the chimerical sciences had doubled their propaganda, judging by the terrible cruelty used for their suppression by the Inquisition and the Princes. Sorcerers multiplied; in vain were they burnt by thousands, for in a few years there were 6,500 cases of sorcery in the electorate of Treves. The moral epidemic (for it was really that) spread everywhere. The horrible persecution only increased the evil which it was intended to cure. Besides, this tendency to persecute astrology and sorcery was a real hindrance to true science. Learned men dared not publish all their theories, and more than one great student perished a victim of his boldness because his works combated some popular errors. Human thought had not yet attained liberty, and even the century of the Reformation, far from being a century of free examination, was an age of persecution. The executions of the printer, Etienne Dolet, and of the learned de Berquin, in the reign of Francis I, and of a number of others in all. Centuries, the growing severity of the Inquisition in Spain, proved that in this society, outwardly so pagan, what was called religion still ruled the State, and many of its chiefs, blinded by ignorance, never realized how Christianity was distorted and dishonored by these cruelties.
Art had escaped from the fetters that in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries hindered the flight of the human mind. The true Renaissance was the revival of art. Architects, painters, and sculptors attained a perfection that has been the despair of later ages, although it has served as their model. There is, however, not much reason for astonishment, for in reality this Renaissance in Italy dated back to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. The epoch specially designated the Renaissance was only the epoch of its maturity: Italy had preceded other countries in the development of wealth, industry, commerce, and the social spirit which triumphed over civil disunion. For several centuries it had been elegant, cruel, polished, and barbarous. The streets of its cities were the scene of wars and assassinations, mingled with joyous festivals of rare magnificence. Its petty sovereigns, while encouraging the poets, employed assassins; the admiration of the antique was joined to a reckless, ferocious disposition; religious observances followed or preceded grave crimes. Under an outer dress of exquisite refinement, in halls peopled with Greek and Roman statues or adorned with valuable paintings, tragedies took place which rendered the history of the Italian principalities and republics full of sinister incidents. But this state of civil war, of ambuscades, leagues, and persecutions, preserved the mind in such continual activity that the arts profited by it. The most marked feature of the Renaissance is the many-sided culture, the versatility, the fullness of the life of its devotees. The power of the scholar, soldier, poet, theologian, and artist in more than one art were often united in one individual, as in Leonardo, da Vinci (1452-1519) painter, architect, sculptor, scientist, engineer and musician.
The real school of the Italian artists was antiquity at least, for architecture and for sculpture, since they had no examples of the painting of the ancients. To this love of antiquity they added religious inspiration, if not genuine, still forcible enough to produce masterpieces of art, for the churches were the chief works of the architects. The Pointed or Gothic style had hardly been acclimatized in Italy, where, in architecture, Byzantine influence had always predominated. At the end of the Thirteenth Century the study of the Roman monuments, the ruins of which were then being explored, inspired Arnolfo di Lapo, the architect of the cathedral of Florence. He designed the cathedral upon the plan of the primitive basilicas. Brunelleschi (1379-1446) completed Arnolfo’s work by adding the cupola, an octagonal arch on an eight-sided drum, the chief work of the Renaissance. This dome, which afterward inspired Barmante and Michael Angelo, was 358 feet high. From that time the Italians erected buildings in imitation of the antique, and architecture merited the name of classic. Rome was embellished with palaces, like the Massimi Palace, the object of study and admiration of all artists, with its Doric vestibules and courts; and the Farnese Palace. But the churches were the chief objects of emulation to the architects, Peruzzi, Antonio de San Gallo, Vignoles, and Jacques de la Porte. The monument which best represented the new art, which most majestically transmitted profane traditions and blended them with religious requirements, is the immense basilica of Saint Peter’s at Rome, commenced under Julius II from the plans of the celebrated Barmante (1444-1514), continued under Leo X and his successors, and only completed under Sixtus V. A series of illustrious artists after Bramante Giocondo, Julian de San Gallo, Raphael, Peruzzi, Antonio de San Gallo, and lastly Michael Angelo, labored upon this gigantic work, one of the wonders of modern times by its mass, by its extraordinary proportions (for it could contain several cathedrals), by the beauty of its marbles, stuccos, and mosaics, and by the boldness of its dome, which rises to nearly 420 feet above the pavement of the church. It is a triumph of science and art, of lines and curves, the perfection of magnificence in architecture, and the most wonderful monument ever raised to the Christian religion with the aid of pagan tradition; but it is wanting in the deeply religious sentiment that pervades the Gothic cathedrals. In the following century Bernini (1598-1680) placed a double semicircular colonnade in front of the porch of Saint Peter’s, worthy of this prodigious temple. St. Paul’s, in London, is the great specimen of the style of the Renaissance and of the employment of the dome in England; it was built by Sir Christopher Wren (1675-1710).
Sculpture had preceded architecture in Italy, and from the Thirteenth Century Nicholas of Pisa had carved the pulpits of Siena and Pisa, and the Tomb of Saint Dominic at Bologna. He was followed by Andrea de Pisa and Andrea Orcagna. In the Fifteenth Century Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) made himself famous by the bronze gates of the Baptistery at Florence, to which he devoted forty years’ labor. Donatello, Mino de Fiesola, Lucadella Robbia, and Sansovino ornamented the churches with numerous statues. Lastly, Michael Angelo (1475-1564) appeared, the universal artist, who, whilst yet quite young, opened his career by sculpture. He adorned the mausoleum of Lorenzo de’ Medici with magnificent statues of “Dawn,” “Twilight,” and “Night,” and decorated the churches of Rome with his masterpieces. Torreggiano merited the rank of Michael Angelo’s rival. Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1570)jeweler, engraver, goldsmith, chaser, sculptor, and artist has left some sculptures at Florence, but worked chiefly at Fontainebleau. The “Perseus” ornaments the Loggia de Lanzi at Florence.
The Byzantine painters, like the ancient Egyptians, had failed through conventionality and religious restrictions. Yet from the Thirteenth Century the progress of study in Italy and the mental ardor awakened in the West, placed Cimabue (1240-1302) in the way of true art, which emancipated itself under Giotto (1276-1337), in the Fourteenth Century. This little shepherd, whom Cimabue had noticed drawing his sheep on the sand, and who became painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, mosaic-worker, etc., really founded the Italian school. He observed nature, studied foreshortening and perspective, and gave his figures both life and expression. Painting was at this time treated in water colors, but, although its materials were imperfect, it made great progress. The Italian love of fresco decorations for churches and palaces gave birth to a great number of artists, and the walls of the civil or religious edifices were covered with vast pictures which time has, unfortunately, effaced. Andrea Orcagna (1329-1368) painted a grand fresco of “Hell” in Santa Maria Novella, of Florence, and an eccentric “Last Judgment,” inspired by Dante, for the Campo Santo, at Pisa. Fra Giovanno, surnamed Fra Angelico, was the most devotional of painters. Michael Angelo observed that “the good monk must have visited Paradise, and obtained permission to paint his models from there.” Masaccio (1401-1443), by his fresco and pictures, was one of the first restorers of painting. An old man’s head, painted on a canvas, and now preserved in the Museum of Florence, is a masterpiece of drawing and observation. The Florentine school was founded.
Religious feeling, which is so deeply imprinted on the works of the earliest Italian painters who lived almost in the Middle Ages, was still more fervent in the Northern countries, particularly in Flanders, where the Corporation of Artists, formed in imitation of the Drapers’ Guilds, worked with the ambitious desire to illuminate the churches like religious manuscripts. The wealth of the Flemish cities was not only displayed in the growing luxury of the houses belonging to the manufacturing burghers, but also in the Guildhalls and in the ornamentation of oratories and altars. The Dukes of Burgundy encouraged the first efforts of art, and an illustrated Bible, by Jehan of Bruges, who became famous toward 1372, is preserved in the Museum
of The Hague. This artist, the first Flemish painter, was employed by the Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V, to design the cartoons for the famous tapestries of the Apocalypse, which are preserved or, at least, some portion of them, in the Cathedral of Angers. In a short time nearly every town produced some artists, and the Renaissance commenced amongst the fogs of Flanders at the same time as under the beautiful Italian sun. In Flanders, the brothers Van Eyck, by the invention of oil colors and varnish, gave to painters the medium by which their compositions could be preserved practically forever. By this invention (discovered about 141o) Jan Van Eyck rendered to art the same service that Gutenberg rendered to literature by his discovery of printing.
Toward the middle of the Fifteenth Century an Italian, Antonello of Messina (1414-1493), came to Flanders, was initiated into the new method of painting, and carried it into his own country, where the artists gladly adopted it. Painting in oil was discovered at a favor-able moment, when the sudden impetus given to the studies of ancient art and literature aroused and excited the enthusiasm of the artists. The Renaissance of Painting was the result of the Renaissance of Letters. Fascinated by Dante and Petrarch, who had aided them to understand Homer, Virgil, and Horace, the painters evoked and presented in immortal pictures the immortal descriptions of the ancient and modern authors.
But although mythology and history greatly influenced the work of the Italian masters, the Christian religion had a yet larger share in its- development. From this point of view, the Italian painters are the followers of the sculptors in wood and the illuminators. Dramatic and touching histories from the Bible, the lives of the patriarchs and prophets, the Gospel parables, the impressive incidents of the Passion, legends of saints and martyrs, mysterious ecstacies of the faithful, all furnished subjects, which, with infinite variety in the combination of the natural and the supernatural, of heaven and earth; of men and angels, never seemed to have wearied admirers, in spite of their perpetual repetition. The artists transferred the adorations, prayers, and aspirations of the Christian world to the walls of their churches, or the pages of their illuminated manuscripts. But this does not imply that all these artists were imbued with the naive, ardent faith of the masons who built the cathedrals, the sculptors who ornamented their walls, and the artists who decorated the Bibles. What we know of the luxurious life, corruption, and skepticism of the Sixteenth Century removes all the illusions on that head, and we can hardly suppose that the artists who surrounded Julian II and Leo X were bet-ter Christians than the warrior Pope or his epicurean successor, whose elegant but dissolute court would have drawn upon him the anathemas of the Fathers of the Church. This state of society explains the curious fashion in which some of the Italian painters have often travestied, rather than idealized, Christian subjects. They treated them in the style of Greek art, using them only as a pretext for representing the human body in every posture, and for thus displaying their anatomical knowledge. As a rule, they have taken their subject from religion, their inspiration from antiquity; they have painted Christian figures like heathen Deities.
Masaccio (1401-1429), in the Fifteenth Century, founded the first school of painting at Florence, and its renown increased steadily until the end of the Sixteenth Century. Pietro Vanucci (1446-1524), called Perugino, gave a particularly graceful expression, a vivid coloring, and a golden tone to his religious pictures. He was worthy to be Raphael’s master. Near Florence, at the Castle da Vinci, in 1452, Leonardo was born. Like Michael Angelo, he was at the same time sculptor, painter, and architect, in addition to his great powers as a mechanic and engineer. Brought into France to be the ornament of the brilliant court of Francis I, his pictures are not numerous, for Leonardo allowed himself to be fascinated too much by scientific, to the detriment of artistic efforts, and some of his finest efforts, such as the “Last Supper,” a fresco in an old convent at Milan, quickly perished. He died at Amboise, in 1519. Leonardo, the first of the great masters, inspired by the monk Bartolommeo della Porta (1475-1517), known by the simple name of Frate, beautified his figures of saints with an elevated expression and a fine tone of color. Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) was distinguished by the purity of his drawing, the unity of his compositions, and the grace of the attitudes in which he placed his religious or profane person-ages. Florence produced Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), less known by his paintings than by his histories of the painters.
Although a native of Tuscany, Michael Angelo Bounarrotti (1475-1564) founded the school of Rome. For nearly a Century Michael Angelo lived and worked, the glory of every art, foremost in sculpture as well as in painting and architecture. Disdaining narrow frames, he delighted in vast surfaces, which he covered with grand compositions, reproducing on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel the Creation of the World, and Scripture History, interpreting scenes from the Bible, and making them live again before our eyes with a vigor that equaled the descriptions of Moses. Thoroughly master of anatomy, knowing every movement of the body, and how to vary the attitudes, exhausting all the resources and mechanism of the art of drawing, Michael Angelo was not afraid of handling even the subjects which had inspired Dante’s genius, and he painted the “Last Judgment,” a fresco which filled the whole wall of the Sistine Chapel, facing the entrance. A colossal composition, where 300 personages are rep-resented; a poem in color, cleverly arranged; a skillful combination of many scenes, harmoniously grouped this unique fresco compels admiration by the elevation of the subject, by the life that illumines the bodies of the elect and torments the condemned, by the contrast between the terrestrial and celestial groups.
Michael Angelo shut himself into the Sistine Chapel for nine years, working with enthusiasm, and no one else has attained such extraordinary power or such astonishing majesty.
Shorter, yet more productive in proportion to its duration, the career of Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) marked the highest point of the Christian yet pagan art of the Renaissance. In his frescoes and pictures, his portraits (Julius II, Leo X, and the Fornarina), and his Holy Families, Raphael, without apparent effort, attained perfection by his genius for composition, drawing, and painting. We admire the calm effect produced by a skill certain of its own powers, making no effort to express its thoughts, pious or secular, observing yet idealizing nature, and satisfied, when it had succeeded, in representing upon canvas the images by which it wished to please and touch the spectators. Raphael’s genius was essentially Greek. This not only because he made great use of mythology and history in his ‘works, but chiefly because he had caught anew the serenity and grace of the old ideals. The principal pictures by Raphael can be admired in museums, but in the Vatican is the Loggia, the external gallery of one of the palace courts. In the ceiling of each of the triforiums of these galleries Raphael has painted four pictures, and thus obtained a series of fifty-two subjects, comprising the principal scenes of sacred history a really grand work, in which the master employed his pupils’ services, chiefly those of Giulio Romano (1492-1546). In the same palace Raphael painted the chambers that is, four large halls where he arranged his vast compositions : The “Dispute of the Holy Sacrament” (also called “Theology”), and the “School of Athens” (or “Philosophy”), the “Parnassus” and “Jurisprudence,” the history of Heliodorus stabbed on the threshold of the temple of Jerusalem, the “Deliverance of Saint Peter,” the “Pope Saint Leo Stopping the Advance of Attila,” and the vast scenes wherein Raphael glorified Constantine, the protector of the Church. In these large compositions the arrangement is majestic and noble, the groups harmonize, the drawing is free, vigorous, correct, and elegant, the figures are graceful without affectation, and the whole picture is full of delicate sentiments which produce an undying charm. But the artist surpasses himself in the “Trans-figuration,” a picture which was exhibited at the head of the bed on which Raphael lay after death; it was carried in his funeral procession. Raphael, in spite of the eminent artists that have succeeded him, has remained incontestably the inimitable model and the educator of the painters who followed him.
Michael Angelo and Raphael had carried the secrets of the Florentine school to Rome, and had created the Roman school. But Italian genius for art is so pre-dominant that masters were found in most of the Italian cities. In the north, where Leonardo, who inhabited Milan for a long time, had also introduced Florentine methods, the so-called Lombardy School had boasted even before Leonardo’s appearance of Andrea Mantegna of Padua, and Bernardino Luini. Then alone, without seeing either Florence or Rome, and without any other inspiration than a single picture by Raphael (the “Saint Cecilia”), but which he felt awakened his genius, Antonio Allegri, called Correggio (1494-1534), almost rivaled the great masters. At Parma he painted the “Ascension” which decorates the dome of the church of San Giovanni, and the “Assumption” painted on the Doumo of Parma. Correggio was not only elegant and graceful, his painting is distinguished by a softness and suavity which none of his pupils have been able to equal. Caravaggio (1569-1609), an original painter, who only studied his own works and followed his own ideas, uncultivated, illiterate, disdaining the antique, affecting to despise Raphael and Correggio, recognized but one master, nature. But he only represented the trivial, common side of nature, out of harmony with his refined epoch, though full of energy and truth.
The clear sky of Venice reflected in the blue waters of the Adriatic seems to have given the painters of that city something of its color and luster. The Venetians are masters of color, and their artists lavished the most brilliant tints upon their pictures. The Bellini, two brothers, commenced that famous Venetian school afterward so seductive and so fertile. Giorgio Barbarelli (1439-1502), who died very young, decorated the Palaces of the Doges at Venice with his frescoes, remarkable for their warm tones. He left very few pictures, for which the European museums eagerly compete. Giorgio or Giorgione was Titian’s contemporary. Titian (1483-1520), like Michael Angelo, lived nearly a Century and occupied this long career with a quantity of works, decorating the Venetian churches and palaces, composing religious and secular pictures for Princes and for wealthy citizens, scarcely able, in spite of the great facility with which he worked, to satisfy his crowd of customers of bishops and Kings, and it is said that the most illustrious of them, the Emperor Charles V, condescended to pick up the great artist’s brush when he dropped it one day in the royal presence. With the greatest freedom he passed from sacred to heathen subjects, from saints to mythological divinities, from Holy Families to Venus and Adonis, giving them all life with his magic brush, even to the coldest allegories or the most untruthful apotheoses. Art with him was completely emancipated, and in religious subjects he was even less scrupulous than the other painters of the Renaissance. Titian allowed himself to be led away by his imagination, his tastes, his caprices. But he portrayed his most capricious ideas in such glowing colors, his painting is of such brilliant tone, that it is still dazzling after the lapse of several Centuries.
Titian, who was jealous in spite of his glory, had dismissed one of his pupils from his studio. This was the son of a dyer, who rendered the name of his trade famous by becoming Tintoretto (1518-1594). This artist endeavored to be original instead of merely a copyist, and to avoid one of Titian’s defects, for the latter was so much preoccupied with his color that he neglected his drawing, which Tintoretto studied under Michael Angelo. His reputation was so great that he was invited to fill the churches and palaces of Venice with his work. He decorated the ceiling of the Great Council Hall, in the Ducal Palace, with a vast composition sixty-four feet long by thirty feet wide: the “Glory of Paradise.” He seemed to have derived his spirit as well as his drawing from Michael Angelo, and was called the “Furious;” but he worked too quickly, and never attained the perfection of his master, although he succeeded in rivaling Titian by his brilliant coloring.
Paul Veronese (1528-1588), another of Titian’s rivals, was also one of the great magicians of art. He decorated the Hall of the Council of Ten, in the Ducal Palace, with the “Apotheosis of Venice.” He also painted the “Abduction of Europa,” and above all four “Meals of our Lord” for monastic refectories. Of these works, the “Marriage of Cana” is one of the finest ornaments of the Louvre Museum. Paul Veronese broke through the traditions of the Roman school : he did not seek for historical truth but dressed all his personages in the fashion of his own times, whatever epoch they may have lived in. His apostles are rich Venetians, feasting in palaces. His groups are so well arranged, his figures (which were all portraits) have so much nobility, so much life, his coloring is so bright and rich, that one never wearies of admiring his prodigious works. To this school we may also add Canaletto (1697-1768), who painted the canals, the buildings, and landscapes of his native city.
The city of Bologna filled a place in the schools of painting, chiefly through the Caracci Louis Caracci (1555-1619) and his two cousins, Augustine and Annibal. The last named, the boldest and most original, succeeded in religious pictures, but above all in landscapes, for which his works are the first fine examples of that style found in Italy. But the Bolognese school was particularly renowned in the Seventh Century through the pupils of the Caracci Domenichino, Guido Reni, and Albano.
The influence of Italy spread all over Europe, and every artist desired to emulate the great masters. The relations between Italy and Spain were so closely linked that Spain was one of the first to imbibe enthusiasm for Italian art, and the schools of Valencia, Toledo, Seville, and Madrid were formed. Yet, however great the merits of Alonzo Berruguete, Juan de Juanes, Luis de Morales, el Mudo surnamed the Spanish Titian or of Alonzo Sanchez Coello may have been, Spanish painting did not really flourish until the following Century. It required time before study could produce its fruits. In France Italian artists were instructors of the French.
Flanders in some measure anticipated Italy, but the Flemish artists, without losing their original characteristics, were influenced by the great Italian movement, and profited by the lessons of those to whom they had taught painting in oil. Roger Van der Weyden went to Italy at the moment when Masaccio at Florence, Bellini at Venice, and Fra Angelico at Rome, were restoring the art of painting. Hans Memling has left considerable and varied work, displaying scenes from the life and passion of Christ, in admirable landscapes, full of elegance, feeling, and charm. It would take too long to enumerate the artists who now appeared in all the Flemish cities, but we must not omit Quentin Matsys, the friend of Erasmus and of Sir Thomas More. The imitation of Italian painting was carried so far in the Sixteenth Century that entire colonies of Flemings settled in Florence and Rome. The taste for art aroused by wealth and luxury was so great that in 156o the city of Antwerp alone contained three hundred and sixty painters and sculptors. But this was only a beginning, and in the following Century Flemish genius attained a degree of excellence that quite equaled the Italian art of the Sixteenth Century.
The excellence of the Flemish painters aroused emulation in Germany. From the Rhine cities, the nearest to the Belgian provinces, art penetrated into Germany, and in the Sixteenth Century the country boasted of Holbein (1497-1543) from the school of Augsburg, who lived in Basle and England. His works, composed of historical pictures and portraits, are now in Hampton Court Palace. Basle contains his best designs and cartoons; amongst other things the famous “Dance Macabre,” or “Dance of Death.” Although his style was still naïve, we cannot but admire Holbein’s knowledge and correctness, and above all his brilliant coloring, which places him amongst the masters of the Renaissance.
At Dresden appeared Lucas Sunder or Lucas Kranch, friend of Luther’s who has left a portrait of the Reformer and his disciple Melanchthon. At the same time Albert Durer, (1471-1528) whose genius was universal, since he was sculptor, architect, painter, engraver, and author, unites in his pictures the Flemish method with Italian inspiration, but his art seems to belong to a much earlier period. His serious style is powerful, profound, and mystical. He was the last great German artist. The Reformation, in its hostility to images, turned Germany from the cultivation of the arts, which the long vicissitudes of the Thirty Years’ War also forcibly interrupted. Painting in Germany commenced and ended with Albert Durer and Holbein.
Art tended to embellish everything. Princes, nobles, and burghers prided themselves on a worthy use of their wealth; tapestries worked from designs furnished by the great painters were used to ornament the sumptuous dwellings which the architects built with so much taste and skill and the sculptors decorated so carefully. The old for-gotten art of ceramics now revived. From the Fifteenth Century, Luca della Robbia, (1400-1482) sculptor and painter, was seized with the idea of taking his earthen models and enveloping them in a vitrified unbreakable coating. His process was imitated, and the Italian majolicas, attributed to the Renaissance, were eagerly competed for. Francis of Medici himself owned workshops and furnaces; he ranked amongst the artists. Tuscany, the Marches, and Venetia, became covered with factories from whence issued an infinite number of varied and elegantly shaped vases. Italian artists went to France, Amboise, Lyons, Nantes, and Croisie, but Bernard Palissy, at first a common glazier, soon resolved to do better, to abandon the use of painting on the surface, and to discover enamel through fusion. Pursuing his idea with rare pertinacity, sacrificing his modest resources, burning even his furniture and the floors of his house to feed his furnace, sometimes wearied but still unconquered, Bernard Palissy (Circa 1505-1590) was one of those men who cannot be too highly honored, for he was one of those extraordinary inventors who triumphed over difficulties, and enriched the world with new sources of wealth and with masterpieces of art; in fact, Bernard Palissy succeeded in making enamel in encasing in unalterable colors, figures of animals or human faces upon his vases, dishes, and cups. Modern races had regained all that the ancients had acquired, they now possessed ceramics as well as sculpture, painting, and architecture.
We cannot judge the music of the ancients, but modern times are supreme in this art, or rather this language of the soul. The instruments of the middle ages, the rebecq, monochord, and spinet, were perfected; the rebecq became the violin. An Antwerp carpenter, Hans Buckers, improved the keyboard by giving it four octaves. From that time chants with different parts could be arranged for the masses, and religious music found a voice through Palestrina ( 1529-1594) , several of whose chants are still used in churches. Religious music opened the way to secular music, which in the following Centuries so successfully translated the sentiments of the heart. Such progress in the arts denotes the great power that the human mind acquired in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries; men learned to see and to aspire after the beautiful, a sublime pleasure which never wearies, but which raises man above the common passions of daily life. | <urn:uuid:27a0dd5c-0b58-4c04-bd3d-e9756a5a1a41> | {
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Do You Know Nutrition: Cow's milk No. 1 food allergen in country
I have an 11-year-old son who has respiratory problems, constipation and a lot of ear infections. I started him on chewable vitamins about a year ago thinking that may help, but now he is beginning to develop dental problems. I have him drinking cow's milk daily, and for the most part, we eat pretty healthy. What am I doing wrong? What are your recommendations?
Cow's milk is the No. 1 food allergen in the country (out of the top eight that include egg, peanut, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat) that account for 90 percent of food allergic reactions, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
No other mammal on Earth continues to drink someone else's milk after weaning-except humans. The problem with milk is the processing. During pasteurization, dozens of valuable enzymes are destroyed, including lactase for the assimilation of lactose (milk sugar), galactase for the assimilation of galactose, and phosphatase for the assimilation of calcium.
Because the calcium in cow's milk is pasteurized, and therefore inorganic, it is largely unusable in the human body. Without these enzymes in the stomach, it makes milk very difficult to digest and could be the cause of respiratory problems and ear infections.
Because milk is mucus forming, it slows the transit time of waste matter, which can lead to constipation. I would recommend a good whole food multivitamin (one that does not contain, soy, gluten, binders, filler, excipients, hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, dairy, sugar and preservatives) and toss the chewable vitamins.
Vitamins contain vitamin C, which is ascorbic acid and is best swallowed (with food) rather than chewed. The prolonged exposure to ascorbic acid can damage the tooth enamel. I would also encourage drinking more water, which is very important to re-hydrate the body, increase transit time of waste matter and is utilized by every organ, cell and tissue that make up the human body.
Healthier substitutes for cow's milk include, oat, almond, coconut and hemp non-dairy beverages.
If you would like to read more about milk that contains growth hormones, fat, cholesterol, allergenic proteins, antibiotics and bacteria, I would suggest you read "Milk: The Deadly Poison," by Robert Cohen; "Whitewash: The Disturbing Truth About Cow's Milk and Your Health," by Dr. Joseph Keon and "What's In Your Milk," by Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Thought for the week: "Life has not limitations, except the ones you make." - Les Brown
Phylis B. Canion is a doctor of naturopathic medicine and is a certified nutritional consultant, email her at [email protected]. This column is for nutritional information only and is not intended to treat, diagnose or cure. | <urn:uuid:581748af-6480-4428-9f4b-c5db55dd5e84> | {
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RECORD: Herbert, Sandra. 1995. From Charles Darwin's portfolio: An early essay on South American geology and species. Earth Sciences History 14, no. 1, pp. 23-36.
REVISION HISTORY: Offprint provided by Sandra Herbert, scanned by John van Wyhe and transcribed (double key) by AEL Data; corrections by van Wyhe 8.2007. RN3
NOTE: See images of the original manuscript CUL-DAR42 and here.
Reproduced with the kind permission of Sandra Herbert, Earth Sciences History, the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin.
FROM CHARLES DARWIN'S PORTFOLIO: AN EARLY ESSAY ON SOUTH AMERICAN GEOLOGY AND SPECIES
Department of History
University of Maryland Baltimore County
5401 Wilkens Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21228-5398
This work is an analysis and edition of a previously unpublished essay by Charles Darwin entitled "Reflection on reading my Geological notes." The original draft of the essay appears to have been written in 1834, that is, during Darwin's voyage on H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836). In the essay Darwin developed a theory of the geological formation of South America that included a narrative framework for the history of life on the continent. His treatment of the history of life is not yet transmutationist, but it is highly sequential.
One of the elements contributing to the magnitude of Charles Darwin's impact as a scientist was his methodical practice as a writer. During his travel aboard H.M.S. Beagle from the end of December 1831 through October 1836, he not only observed and collected in natural history, he also labelled specimens, recorded their date and place of collection in specimen books, and wrote up more general notes as to observations and specimens in two parallel series of notes, one geological, the other zoological.1 Occasionally, however, in addition to writing centered on objects, Darwin would pause to write at length in a more reflective vein. The document presented here is one such essay. Darwin entitled it "Reflection on reading my Geological notes." It is a piece from the portfolio of a young geologist.1
The document is presently filed under the label, written on a piece of paper in Darwin's own hand, "Scraps to end of Pampas chapter."2 Darwin's label identifies the essay as of potential use to him in writing a chapter on the Pampas for the third volume of his geology from the voyage.3 Among the other "scraps" in Darwin's file on the Pampas chapter are also to be found several excised pages from two of his notebooks (the "Red Notebook" and "Notebook A") and a note on geology and species dated "Feb 1835."4
Darwin's essay is significant, for it shows him developing a theory of the geological formation of South America that included a narrative framework for the history of life on the continent. His presentation of the history of life is not transmutationist, but it is highly sequential. For those familiar with Darwin primarily through the Origin of Species, his treatment of the subject of species in this essay is comparatively more focused on geological issues and more concrete, in that species figuring in the sequential history of life in Patagonia are referred to by name.5 For those who associate Darwin's work on the species question during the Beagle voyage with his visit to the Galápagos Islands in 1835, this essay will suggest the seriousness of his interest in the subject more than a year earlier.
Darwin's essay was not organized for rhetorical effect. Of its ten folios, the first and five and one half are diverse in subject matter and exploratory in tone. Half-way down folio 6 Darwin's tone changes to one of assertion. From this point on to the end of the folio 10 Darwin's logic is focused and sharp.
The essay opens with a discussion of the large extent of the "Tosca," a "red earthy clay" formation running for eleven hundred miles in a north-south line from the Río Colorado in the south to north of Asunción, and for seven hundred miles in an east-west direction. As he did frequently in this essay, Darwin considered questions of origins. In this case he speculated that the sea in which the Tosca was formed would have been a "little sheltered" by the ridge of the Andes and the mountains of Brazil. Also, characteristically, Darwin took up the question of fossils, in this case the geological limits of "Megatherium relics." (fol. 1v)
On folio 2 Darwin considers the sequence of deposition of several beds, and brings up the question of greatest interest, the relative age of the "vast numbers of fossil bones of very large quadrupeds." Folio 3 continues the subject with the question "Whether these animals existed after the final elevation of the Tosca plains…." Darwin then raised the obvious next question: "what country supported these numerous & vast animals…" One situation that particularly interested him was the "animal (of which I found skeleton nearly entire)" at Bahía Blanca that appeared to have lived "near about" to modern beds (fol. 3).6 He was then led
1 I wish to thank George Pember Darwin and the Syndics of Cambridge University Library for permission to publish the essay. I also wish to thank Sarah Lavelle of the Darwin Correspondence Project for checking my transcription.
Earth Sciences History, v. 14, no. 1, 1995, p. 23-36
to ask: "But then we have the puzzle how could these most sterile plains support such large animals: …" Eventually he was to draw the conclusion, and make it part of the core of his understanding of the history of life, that large quadrupeds did not necessarily require luxuriant vegetation in order to survive.7
Folio four through the beginning of the last paragraph on folio 6 treat three subjects. First, there is the question of the number of elevations undergone by the Pampas. (fol. 4) Then there is a question of ecology and deposition: whether in situations "where gypsum is dissolved in water shells do not flourish." (fol. 4) In the remaining long passage (fols. 4-6) Darwin considers the relative age and identity of certain beds. Of chief interest are the great Patagonian oyster shell bed and a gravel bed that included porphyry pebbles. He was prepared to adduce elevatory movements to explain the present position of the porphyry pebbles. (fol. 6)
In the last paragraph on folio six Darwin stood back to take the wider view: "Looking at this whole part of Eastern side of S America. we must considers [sic] it as one grand formation.—" Thereafter follows the most interesting passage in the essay (fol. 7):
We shall presently … run over the proofs of repeated elevations: … May we conjecture that these … began with greater strides, that rocks from seas too deep for life (… were rapidly elevated & that immediately when within a proper depth. life commenced.
Darwin concluded this passage on a cyclical note by suggesting that beds were now forming beneath the sea "ready when … compelled to give their evidence in the open day-light." (fol. 7)
Darwin then turned to consider possible structures of the earth that might have produced both the Andes and the plains he had observed during his travels in the southern part of South America. He began by considering the Andes as "Perhaps the first opening of the N. & S. crack in the crust of the globe. forming the Cordilleras." (fol. 7) He imagined the crack as part of "a swelling of the Globe." (fol. 8) The image does not quite suffice, however, and he sees the difficulties: "It becomes a problem. how much the Andes owes its height. to Volcanic matter pouring out?. — how much to horizontal strata tilted up.? how much to these horizontal elevations of the surface of continents?—" Despite uncertainty over their causation, Darwin is convinced of the importance of elevatory movements. In South America, as compared to Europe, he believes them to be "regular and simple." (fol. 9)
Darwin's last question in the essay is perhaps the most startling to the present-day reader for the condensed time-scale it implies. Nonetheless, the logic is valid, and became a familiar sort of argument for him as he considered the subject of temporal succession. He framed his question this way:
As Patagonia has risen from the waters in so late a period, it may be interesting to consider whence came its organized being [sic]. — I have conjectured the absence of trees in the fertile Pampas & rich valleys of B. Oriental. to be owing to no Creation having taken place subsequently to the formation of the superior Tosca beds: (fols. 9-10)
The observation on trees was his own and reappears in his account of the voyage.8 But here, while writing this essay, he was eager to test the general applicability of his hypothesis that Patagonia should have no or few recent indigenous species. To do so, he chose to look at larger animals as "being of easier knowledge." He also considered only animals from south of the Río de la Plata, so that the possibility of migration ("communication") from Brazil could be more easily discounted. In his survey he relied on his own observations and on the literature he had with him aboard ship including Edward Griffith's edition of Georges Cuvier's Animal Kingdom.9 His survey produced only "two good exceptions." (fol. 10) These were the Patagonian cavy and the armadillo called "pichiy." In a rough way, his hypothesis was viable.
Overall in this essay Darwin suggested a view of the formation of the eastern portion of southern South America that integrated a provisional understanding of the history of life in the region with speculation concerning the structure of the globe. These were strong views, and given Darwin's career, it is important to know their date.
To date this essay one must distinguish its original form from later additions. The original draft would appear to be the material on the rectos of the ten folios together with Darwin's own set of footnotes which he keyed into his text by alphabet letters. This original draft can be dated by considering it in the light of his itinerary and by comparing it with his other work from the voyage.
In 1832 and 1833 H.M.S. Beagle was engaged in surveying work along the eastern coastline of South America and in Tierra del Fuego. By June 1834 the ship was working its way up the western coast of South America. The sequence of dates for the end of 1833 and 1834 is as follows:
1833 Dec 6th. Sailed for last time from Rio Plata [23 December-4 January 1834. Port Desire.]
[1834 26 January. Strait of Magellan.]
[2 February. Port Famine.]
[5 March. Sailed from Tierra del Fuego.]
[10 March-7 April. East Falkland Island.]
[18 April-8 May. Expedition up the Santa Cruz river]
[1-8 June. Port Famine.]
1834 June 10th. Sailed for last time from Tierra del Fuego [Arrived west coast via Magdalen channel.]10
Port Desire is mentioned in Darwin's essay (fol. 6v). Port Famine in Tierra del Fuego and the Santa Cruz River in Patagonia are not. Possibly Darwin would not have referred to Port Famine, even if he had visited there before writing his essay; the subject matter of the essay would not have required it. However, Darwin's expedition up the Santa Cruz River was a major ex-
Figure 1. Alexander Caldcleugh's "Map of the Country between Buenos Ayres and the Pacific Ocean, with a Specification of the different Geological Formations." The five categories of geological formations listed in the legend include "Primitive" [pink], "a very new Stalactiform Limestone" [yellow], "Red Marl" [green], "Pebbles & Sand" [salmon], and "Clay" [blue]. This photograph is courtesy of the Oliveira Lima Library of the Catholic University of America. (See note 26.)
Figure 2. A map of the "Southern Portion of South America" from the narrative of the H.M.S. Beagle. (See note 7.) This photograph is courtesy of the Library of Congress. Nearly all the place names mentioned in Darwin's essay appear on this map.
cursion into Patagonia and would have been mentioned had it taken place before the essay was written. In a related essay by Darwin, entitled "Elevation of Patagonia," the Santa Cruz expedition figures prominently, and this essay has been dated to mid-1834.11 On the basis of place names mentioned, therefore, Darwin's essay "Reflection on reading my Geological notes" can be dated to the period during or after the stay in Port Desire, from 23 December-4 January 1834, and sometime before the expedition up the Santa Cruz River began on 18 April 1834.
Darwin's letter of March 1834 written from East Falkland Island to his Cambridge mentor John Stevens Henslow allows for a narrower dating. The letter and Darwin's essay overlap in content. Further, two works Darwin received while at East Falkland are mentioned only in the material added to the original draft of the essay.12 Thus the original draft of the essay was probably written before the Beagle arrived at East Falkland Island on 10 March 1834. Such a dating is consistent with the content of Darwin's zoological and geological notes from the voyage. In the zoology notes from Santa Cruz in accounting for the infertility of the region Darwin referred to "no creation having taken place since this country was elevated" though, with qualification now, "(I yet think this applies to the Northern parts):
Figure 3. An enlargement of a portion of the map that appears as Figure 2.
…"13 In his geological notes from Santa Cruz Darwin referred to the "concentric" elevation of the globe as an "enlargement of the curve of the world."14 This sentiment is similar to that expressed in "Reflection." (fol. 8) With respect to Darwin's work on the species question during the voyage, Darwin's approach in "Reflection" is clearly prior to his dated notes of February 1835. These notes play off the notion of life spans for species, an idea that in turn derived from Darwin's study of the grafting of apple trees at the island of Chiloé which he visited from 28 June-18 July 1834.15 In sum, all evidence suggests the early months of 1834 as the date for the composition of the essay.
What of Darwin's sources in writing the essay? Only three works are cited in the original draft. Yet they are significant since they are contemporary sources, relatively unknown, and suggest something of the context of Darwin's work. Two of the sources are works of travel by British authors of scientific interests; Alexander Caldcleugh (d. 1858, F.R.S. 1831) and John Miers (1789-1879, F.R.S. 1843). Both had business interests in mining, as well as in science. Caldcleugh served as
a private secretary to the British minster at Rio de Janeiro; he was also a promoter of the Anglo—Chilean Mining Company.16 Miers was a mining engineer who came to Chile to develop copper mines, at which he did not succeed.17 In 1835 Darwin stayed with Caldcleugh in Santiago and wrote of his host:
I staid also a week in St Iago, to rest after the Cordilleras, of which I stood in need & lived in the house of Mr Caldcleugh (the author of some bad travels in S. America): he is a very pleasant person & took an infinite degree of trouble for me. — It is quite surprising how kind & hospitable I have found all the English merchants.—8
However "bad" Caldcleugh's travels—by comparison with Darwin's own work in progress perhaps—Darwin did value Caldcleugh's geological map, as he indicated by his use of while writing his "Reflection." (See Figure 1 for a photographic reproduction of Caldcleugh's map.) Darwin also relied on Miers, as is suggested by the several references to his work in the essay.
The third source cited in the original draft of the essay is Edward Griffith's edition of Georges Cuvier's Animal Kingdom. This work was more than a simple translation of Cuvier and reflected the views of the editor Griffith (F.R.S., 1834), and in volumes 2 and 3 on mammals, of Major Charles Hamilton Smith (F.R.S., 1824) and of Edward Pigeon as well. While it is not known how many of the volumes of the set Darwin had with him on the voyage, from the evidence in the essay he does seem to have been in possession of volumes 2 and 3. (fol. 10) In part these volumes, both published in 1827, have the character of reference works and are useful for their representation of contemporary opinion on species. As perhaps befits an encyclopedic work, the volumes tend to come down on more than one side of a question—the phrase "climate of opinion" is an apt one—but, still, some passages are so striking as to deserve notice.
In volume 2, three ideas are broached with general relevance to the species question: universal descent, development, and the notion of secondary causation for the origin of new varieties. For the first idea, the question of descent arises in a discussion of the kinkajou, a native of South America. The suggestion is made that "there is a sort of circular chain which binds the numerous branches of the family of earth together, and indicates, perhaps, their universal descent from one common origin."19 The suggestion of development is taken up in the context of a discussion of dogs, and begins:
It has been conjectured that the Creator produced only the germs of existing beings, and that these have been conformed by surrounding influences, so as to produce the result we see before us. The development of these germs, it is said, is proportioned to the more or less favourable state of these influences, and animals of the most simple organization, as the Polypes, are in fact nearer the immediate work of the Creator than those less imperfect, as Man and the Mammalia.20
This suggestion is called back on the same page, however, with the assertion that "the tendency to variety seems almost exclusively confined to the more perfect animals, or at least is observed to prevail less as we descend in the scale of organization." The third notion derives from that of descent. The text argues from the existence of "intermediate genera" to the conclusion that "all the varieties of animated nature before us are not the result of distinct acts of original creation, but are, in fact, from time to time, springing up before our eyes."21
In volume 3 considerable interest is expressed in the subject of the fecundity of some species. There is a reference to the "mathematical ratio of ordinary increase" that has a Malthusian ring, though Malthus's name is not mentioned.22 In its treatment of the horse and the camel the text also states the sharply antitransmutationist opinion that "these species have never yet been converted into each other…. This fact is sufficient to overturn the system of some naturalists, that the diversity of species is owing to accidental causes, and that nature did not originally establish a separate type for each."23 In sum, Griffith's edition of Cuvier provided a rich pool of ideas that were present to Darwin as he scouted the text for examples relating to the geographical distribution of species, the subject that employed him on folio 10 of his essay.
If Caldcleugh, Miers, and Griffith's edition of Cuvier are the sum of Darwin's sources in the original draft of his essay, there were a larger number he would cite in his later additions. Among these the name of one author stands out: Charles Lyell. It is commonly held that Darwin's most serious intellectual engagement during his early career was with Lyell's Principles of Geology. Darwin's remarks in his annotations to "Reflection" support this view. He cited Lyell on a technical point regarding shells and gypsum. (fol. 9v, note 39) He planned to compare his own findings on Patagonian elevatory movements with a map on the European situation found in volume 2 of the Principles. (fol. 9v, note 40) He also challenged Lyell, first regarding the location of Tertiary deposits (fol. 10v, note 42) and second on what seemed to Darwin Lyell's methodical presumption. Darwin wrote:
Age of Pat: bed <<with respect to Europe>> can only be ascertained by relative proportion of recent shells. — This rests on the supposition. that species become extinct in same ratios over the whole world. (fol. 10v)
Darwin was taking aim at Lyell's uniformitarianism. Nonetheless, despite his criticism of various points, Darwin was working within a Lyellian context. The following is a citation from Lyell's third volume of the Principles of Geology, which Darwin read after returning from the Santa Cruz expedition. It suggests the geological orientation of Lyell's setting of the species question that is so apparent in Darwin's "Reflection." The passage from Lyell reads:
We endeavoured to show, in the last volume, that the hypothesis of the gradual extinction of certain animals and plants, and the successive introduction of new species, was quite consistent with all that is known of the existing economy of the animate world; and if it be found the only hypothesis which is reconcilable with
geological phenomena, we shall have strong grounds for conceiving that such is the order of nature.24
EDITORIAL POLICY AND PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE DOCUMENT
The essay is written on five large sheets of paper (438 mm x 314 mm). (The last dimension varies because the edges of the paper are feathered.) Each sheet has been folded in half, providing ten rectos and ten versos. The paper is cream-colored, chain-lined, and bears an incomplete watermark. The primary run of text on the ten rectos is written in brown ink, though some later additions are in pencil. Material on the versos is written in brown ink and in pencil. The first four sheets, folios 1-8 in Darwin's numbering, are presently stored in folios 49-52 of volume 42 of the Darwin papers at Cambridge University Library. The fifth sheet, folios 9-10 in Darwin's numbering, is stored in folio 73 of the same volume of Darwin papers.
In transcribing Darwin's text an attempt has been made to indicate the order of composition. The logical flow of the relatively brief text suggests that it was written out in a circumscribed period or periods of time, possibly over the course of a few days, or even a single day. This text appears on the ten rectos and in the alphabetically keyed footnotes on the versos. This material is represented by regular faced type. Deleted material is shown within single angled brackets. Inserted remarks that appear to have been contemporary with the surrounding text are indicated by doubled-angled brackets. Examples of insertions appear at the head of the first folio. From the physical appearance of the first folio it would seem that Darwin first wrote "(1)" and then "The Tosca…" He then changed the beginning of the first sentence to "We have seen" so that the sentence now reads "<<We have seen>> The Tosca." He also squeezed in a title for the essay above his original first line, and this has also been treated as an insertion. One could argue that this title line was a later addition, written after an interval of time had elapsed following the original composition of the essay. However, just as easily the title line might have been written as Darwin was finishing up his original draft. Either way, the case would be difficult to prove and, rather than draw a distinction where none might be warranted, the line has been represented as an insertion rather than an addition.
Also problematic is the text on the versos of the document that is not part of alphabetically lettered notes. Since Darwin's practice while writing the essay seems to have been to key in notes alphabetically, it would seem a proper inference that all other notes on the versos, not so alphabetically lettered, should be taken as later additions. These later additions have been indicated by bold-faced type in the transcription. The advantage of this method of representing the text is that it lifts out Darwin's original draft from later work. However, it should be borne in mind by the reader that entries in bold-faced type are a heterogeneous group with regard to date. Some seem from their content and physical appearance to have been written soon after the original draft of the essay; others date from much later. Among the bold-faced entries are some written in ink and some in pencil. The original draft of the manuscript was written in ink, as were all entries signified as insertions.
In transcribing Darwin's text his spelling has been followed. British spelling was then in flux. For example, the move from "z" to "s" in such words as "characterize/characterise" was not yet complete. This is clear from the Spanish-English dictionary that Darwin had with him aboard the Beagle.25 Thus at points Darwin's spelling may seem more in keeping with present-day American practice, which remained with early Victorian conventions in orthography, than with present-day British practice. On another point, in transcribing Darwin's text the vertical scorings that mark all but two passages of text have been omitted. Darwin scored passages to signal to himself that he had no further use of the material. The two passages not so marked include the sentence written sideways on the page on fol. 2v and the first paragraph on the top of fol. 10v. Darwin's horizontal lines indicating paragraphs have been retained. As a matter of convention his line breaks have been standardized into short, medium, and long.
|Symbols Used in the Transcription of the Text|
|< >||Darwin's deletion|
|<< >>||Darwin's insertion|
|bold type||Darwin's later annotation|
|[ ]||editorial remark|
(1) <<V. Caldcleugh. Geological Map.:26 Reflection on reading my Geological notes:__________________>>
<<We have seen>> The Tosca formation27 commences near the R. Colorado from conversations with individuals. It is said to <think it> extends to <many> <som> many miles north of Assumption in Paraguay. which gives about(a) 1100 miles in a N. & S. line. — I should not be surprised if it extended much further northward; keeping a mean distance from the Cordilleras, & being bounded to the East by the mountains of Brazil. — Miers Chili states that near S. Luis there is a ridge. with gypsum & I see in chart "los Gigantes". To the Westward there appears to be the Traversia. — 28The Banda oriental. Tosca. I think certainly is of same age with the great plains.— <Assuming this> We have then the greatest breadth of about 700 miles. This <great> <<immense>> formation is probably bounded on the S.S.W. WNW by the sandstone plains or Traversia. — (to the N. we know not its limit) to the NE. by the Mountains of Brazil. (Perhaps a line from the laguna de los Patos. in a NW line may mark the
separation). to the E & SE. — the ocean. = = The sea in which this was formed would <probably be partly [illeg.]< <<be a little>> sheltered by the ridge of the Andes.. & the mountains of Brazil: <the> <<its>> origin doubtless arises from <the> Volcanic agency of the Cordilleras. — its saline ingredient, <its> gypsum its calcareous nodules & : the uniformity of the red earthy clay (or Tosca) is problematical. I imagine from Miers Chili.29 there are such beds in the very mountains. — These are several points very curious with respect to these beds. — The very general
[verso of folio 1]
a. The actual limits in N & S line of Megatherium relics is 550 in E & W. — 300.
Vol I Azara p 55 All countries east of Parana nonsaliferous Salinas in Chaco on coast of Vermejo p. 56 ["p. 56" encircled] Bright coloured clays abundant towards confines of Brazil-30
[pencilled entry below scored in brown ink]
The Bajado bed would look like marine deposits: eventually covered by the old Plata. Alluvium or rather the site where marine & alluvial deposits alternated. —
absence of shells. — we see them in an <included> bed included in the Tosca. from <the Tosca> Colonies to Bajada in a N W. line (perhaps which turns more Western to Cordova): This from the <pebbles> <<particles>> of quartz. <<in the Limestone>> & pebbles of granite. in the red sandstone we may imagine to have been nearer to the old coast of Brazil mountains. — (The <greater> abundance of Lime here in pure form. may perhaps arise from springs percolating the granitic rocks. which to the North of Maldonado we see contain so much marble?—) Another point is the vast numbers of fossil bones of very large quadrupeds. — Their age with respect to the shells I cannot make up my mind; That the view. which I took. respecting the relation of these shells. with the Patagonians one is correct viz. that they existed a short time subsequently to the more Southern ones being destroyed by the Porphyry pebbles; but that now the greater numbers of these species do not exist; perhaps <destroyed> themselves perishing during the <elevation> deposition of the superior Tosca. <Those sp> It is certain that during & before the existence of these shells Tosca <in its> <<truest>> features. <precisely resembling> was deposited (∴ surrounding circumstances similar) but that the Tosca which contains in <some> <<many>> instances fossil bones was posterior to the shells. — I have already stated. that the Tosca (for instance) of the Salado) which contains bones is more closely allied to that inferior to the shells. but its real relation I cannot say. — I think we may be certain. that <during> <<before>> the deposition of the superior Tosca (with bones), the bottom of the
[verso of folio 2]
Compare the great extent of same mineralogical beds of Patagonia—with secondary of Europe: Here mineralogical evidence tells in this quarter of the globe (perhaps across the Andes) quite useless when compared to Europe. —
Would depression of Continent by covering up Salina bear comparison with the Salt of Europe.?
[the following written sideways on the page]
The passage of the Tosca to fossiliferous beds, by Tosca rock at Bajada important.—
sea. had undergone some elevations. I think this from the great denudation of the ferruginous sandstone in B. Oriental. — <There arises a question> Whether these animals existed after the final elevation of the Tosca plains, must remain doubtful; of the fossil remains certainly a small proportion, if any belong to alluvial formations subsequent to the <<superior>> Tosca. There arises a question. what country supported these numerous & vast animals: in the country. bordering on Brazil (or B. Oriental) it is obvious: but it is more difficult to answer. when we find skeletons, with their bones in groups in such situations as at the R. — Salado. — Where the whole country for 100s of miles belongs to the same formation & <near to where> for same distance there is no higher land.— I can only account for it on the principle of putrid Carcases floating. <<as>> mentioned in the grand Seco. — <<How vastly numerous must these animals have been for their bones to cover such an area>> At. B. Blanca. I suppose the animal (of which I found skeleton nearly entire) must have lived <previous> <<near about>> to <that late & trifling elevation> modern beds: It as well as the Cavies <<M. Hermoso>> <might have lived> & Megatheriums remains might have lived in the Tosca. rock plains. which I have supposed to be elevated before the deposition of these beds. — But then we have the puzzle how could these most sterile plains support such large animals: The very same puzzle & explanation of occurrence, refers to the bones at Port St. Julian
In the central Pampas. perfect uniformity in nature of bed (which is not the case at B. Blanca) & very little, but regular height above the sea. — cannot admit of many separate elevations, for upon the former of which animals resided.—
I may add with respect to absence of shells. as a conjecture, that where gypsum is dissolved in water shells do not flourish. at Port Desire, St. Julian & St Jose
above highly conchiferous strata. there was Gypsum but no shells. (excepting one vestige of a Univalve). (The Bajada. appears an exception. but I am not sure in which bed the Gypsum occurred. for what I <chiefly> saw (& was told) was at bottom of the cliff. — V English Geology. & Paris
With respect to the R. Negro. my views, I think are correct. I believe it essentially to be the same with the Patagonian Oyster bed. — Sand in this case (as it seems in so many formations) preventing the <cha> calcareous deposits being converted into organized shells. — The shells on the surface at Port St. Antonio. where in all probability the Sandstone extends. proves what I think. there can be no doubt. of that the sandstone was beneath the ocean & arose from it at same period with the Patagonian beds. —
The great oyster bed extends from 20 (or more) miles North of St. Joseph to [ ] in distance [ ] miles. — Some difference in the organic remains must be expected where we have so many degrees of Latitude. — The leading features are the same. the Ostreæ. & Pectens. & the Turitellae at Lax Bay & St. Julian. — It is remarkable to see(z) the great similarity of the beds at the extreme points; the conchiferous bed. <<covered by>> the aluminous beds. with gypsum. are universal & then again by Gravel. — We must attribute this to some change taking place in the Cordilleras some period of activity commencing: these superior beds. although evidently not favourable to life. yet permitted some few alternations of the shells. as seen at P. St. Julian. — But the great change. was effected at the pouring forth of the Porphyry pebbles. — I have never seen the Parent rock: the stream from the Southern parts. must (I think) have come from the NW. because. the Andes in these Parallels I believe to resemble Tierra del Fuego. — That they came in a <body> short period I think probable from their not being encrusted by stony small corallines. — (Which I always have noticed to be the case in these seas) They must have been already rounded at their source. — Were they lying in masses on the West foot beach of the Cordilleras & during
[verso of folio 5]
(Z) From the little I know about recent shells. I have not grounds enough to go on; but I have found one shell alive in Tierra del Fuego which is found in these beds <<perhaps some of the Pectens>>. — Again I do not believe the great Oysters are now alive; <[[illegible]]> so remarkable a shell could not escape observation.
an early & vigorous elevation. carried by the retreating waters to a deeper sea? — Whatever their origin. they mark a great change in the inhabitants of the ocean: during a succession of elevations. such shells as now exist — flourished on the successive lines of beach & were scattered over the bottom. —
Gravel [word appears on fol. 51v]
This gravel bed. <<(x)>> shows signs of force. filling up inequalities probably of its own making. its extent is very great from N. of the Colorado to a distance of miles: On the coast of Tierra del Fuego. (C Tres) there were many such Porphyry pebbles & even some small ones off Staten Land. which I believe to owe their origin to this bed. — though perhaps washed by currents to these distant points. —
Looking at this whole part of Eastern side of S America. we must considers it as one grand formation. — In the Northern parts it seems to repose on the Crystalline rocks, some of which in their lines of cleavages & elevation. & mineralogical nature are allied to the Transition formations of Falkland Isld. & Tierra del Fuego. — at. Port. Desire & Northern Parts of St. Georges <<Gulf>> <Bay>. there is much Porphyry.M) which from its mineralogical nature & included Conglomerates. I imagine to be secondary. —
[verso of folio 6]
(X:) This gravel in its Northern limits seems to mingle with another set of phenomena. — the formation of the great Tosca rock formations; it. &c <fills> follows the inequalities in Salinas in R. Negro Sandstone
(M). Secondary (?). the Quartz at C. Blano & N. of St. George. is most probably closely allied to Porphyries if so all Transition: N.B. Conglomerates at C. Remarkable in T. del. F
It may be doubted whether Porphyry of P Desire has any immediate connexion with the Andes.? V. those of Maldonado & still more of P. Alegre
V. Caldcleugh. for limits of Tosca31
Volcanic rocks (concealed) in M. Video. R. Negro Mem. supposed do. R. Grande Mr Fox32
But with this exception the hiatus (as compared to Europe) between the Crystalline & Tertiary beds: (Videlicit. B Oriental) is very remarkable. — We shall presently <mention the illeg.> run over the proofs of repeated elevations:
May we conjecture that these <have long been going [illegible], that for some.> began with greater(x) strides, that rocks from seas too deep for life (. <or if any> were rapidly elevated & that immediately when within a proper depth. life commenced. <(Port Desire rocks before this period>). & its signs are now present in the great oysters &c &c The elevations rapidly continued; land was produced. on which great quadrupeds lived: the former inhabitants of the sea perished (perhaps an effect of th <is> ese changes) <<& were scattered on
the surface on the new beaches>> the present ones appeared. — The present quadrupeds roamed about <the increased surface> <<on the new plains>>; fresh elevations destroyed, the continuity of this plain <<s>> & elevated (<V. Tierra del Fuego. I anticipate for the sake of connexion>) beds containing leaves of the present trees & inhabitants of the present deep: And such beds are doubtless now forming beneath the ocean. ready when <comm> compelled to give their evidence in the open day-light. —
[verso of folio 7]
(x) Perhaps the first opening of the N & S. crack in the crust of the globe. forming the Cordilleras
The study of this Geology is very instructive from the consideration of the greatness in extent. & perfect<(z)> horizontally, <of the> & number of the Elevations: We have nothing here like anticlinal tilting on each side the strata into highly inclined position: it rather a swelling of the Globe, on the largest & most regular manner. for an extent of latitude equal <<perhaps>> to 2000 miles. or even more. (& certainly <from> to the extent of 1000 miles <<but is narrow in proportion &>>. & that in this latter (& without doubt for all) within a period in which a. <<2 species>> Muscles & a Balanus has retained. exposed to the atmosphere <its> <<their proper>> colors:— The Andes have been supposed to be a <<longitudinal>> crack. would not this probably occur during an elevation of such <<an>> a longitud <e> inal enlargement.—
But after this crack was opened. the matter which came <out>. <<from the newly formed mountains>> was formed into beds & <<gain & again.>> elevated:
V X [letters appear on fol. 7v]
It becomes a problem. how much the Andes owes its height. to Volcanic matter pouring out?. — how much to horizontal strata tilted up.? how much to these horizontal elevations of the surface of continents? — Another problem is how long will shells exposed. as I have stated <<will>> retain <ed> their color? — (V other side of Page)
V. According to this crack from stretching. the beds ought not to be tilted up excepting on the edges. when near the flowing matter which would be produced by explosion of central metal & oxygen //: If otherwise plains would increase rapidly in height as approaching the Cordilleras:
[verso of folio 8]
(Z). There is one fact which appears to me preeminently curious the <<entire>> absence of all Quartz pebbles. on the Tosca rock plains surrounding lofty, but broken ridges of the Ventana. — It proves the extreme quietness with which these plains have been elevated. & shortly after their hardening. — Any few shells or gravel would be washed away with retreating water The degree of force (& perhaps number) of elevations has differed in different parts of the coast. the. sea-like low Pampas. — & the <plains> pieces of table land of different altitudes in St <Georges> Gulf. some reaching to 1500. feet-. at St Julian to 900.. yet all to the eye most truly horizontal. —
It may be remarked. that the increased elevation above the sea in these Southern Plains may partly be explained being near seat of violence (??) <&> <not>. at Mendoza & San Luis plains are said to be 3000. ft Miers Chili.33
When the Sierra Ventana plain was elevated any small pebbles &c lying on the surface would be carried away by the retreating waters
Dessalines. D'Orbigny has given account of Pampas: Where?34 Caldcleugh. has geological map of Pampas in Travels. — 35M. Bonpland. do —36
It is impossible not to be struck with the vast scale on which geological facts take place in S. America-Granitic <<rocks>> from the Orinoco to the Plate — (45° degrees of Latitude. —) with <<nearly the same>> cleavage not widely different.— Within this we have the 1 <0> 100 miles of Tosca. then [ ] of the great oyster formation, covered by the [ ] of Porphyry gravel: With the exception of the Granite. this vastness (is in comparison to other countries) more apparent than real. — In Europe. We have the chalk from Ireland to Poland &c &c &c. — The real difference. consists, perhaps. in what I have alluded to. a greater rapidity in the elevation. In Europe. they were slow; formation after formation paved the bottom of the ocean: <the> <<each>> raised land was has been exposed to a greater length of alluvial action. & to the denuding effects of coasts. — Moreover. many lines of elevation have crossed it—breaking & confusing the strata. — In this country all is regular & simple. — As Patagonia has risen from the waters in so late a period, it may be interesting to consider whence came its organized being. — I have conjectured the absence
[verso of folio 9]
Is not the Entomology similar to Northern Traversia. V Ann. des. Science37
Botany with Cordilleras & do.
Shells of rivers: S. Cruz. Negro. Sauce
Any Plants <of/> productions of whole Patagonia remarkably similar
Porph. pebbles. Falkland. Sound.— & <between> <<off>> Staten Land:— <<Pebbles owe their origin N. of S. Cruz. judging from numerous boulders in S. Cruz & Tierra del Fuego.->>
at S. Cruz. I have a Cat.— Capt King procured other <<sort>> from the Indians38
Strata without shells owing to Gypsum??? Yet at S Cruz. in close proximity.— ossiferous gypsum at Paris no shells: In Sicily Blue clay with do without shells Lyell. Vol. III. P. 64.— Crystals of selenite & some shells base of Etna. P 77.39
Compare the certain & recent Elevations of Patagonia with Mr. Lyell map. of under water parts of Europe.— <<for extent & size.—>>40
The gravel over R. Negro <<plain>> is one of the re-depositions after some elevations: therefore much posterior to Shingle bed & gr oyster: formation.— Tosca plain coeval with it.— Yet St. Fe limestone with similar shells.— shows perhaps. a quick succession of events & earlier death of same shells in Southern parts of hemisphere.—
I cannot quite see. how the Mastodon lived on Patagonian Plains?—(:is it Mastodon?.—
of trees in the fertile Pampas & rich valleys of B. Oriental. to be owing to no Creation having taken place subsequently to the formation of the superior Tosca bed: with respect to the Plants. I know nothing.— The <Insects are few probably> larger animals being of easier knowledge. best deserve observation. — We will consider only those animals South of the Plata.— (∴ less immediate communication with Brazil) It appears they <<nearly>> all are <more> characterized by a large Geographical range.— & therefore may easily have travelled from their Northern original homes.— For instance the Mephitis or Skunk The Canis jubatus (found at the R. Negro) <<otter>> & common Fox (tricolor?). Jaguar. Puma. Gato pajero. found at B. Blanca & B. Oriental (there are other Cats. but I do not know them) even to Sts of Magellan).— <Rats> Mice my knowledge is not sufficiently accurate. about. — Nutria. — Toco Toco (& that sort with line on incisors). Cavia Cobaya. — (that is if the R. Negro & St of Magellan species are same with B. Ayres. & Paraguay.). Biscatche. Chili. & Brazil. <Molina> (Azara). the Dasypus. hybridus villosus. unicinctus). — Pecari. (found at R. Negro) Guanaco. — Cervus Campestris. — The only two good exceptions. which I could not find out, or see in books to occur further N. than 37°. 30′.is the Cavia Patagon[ica]—& Dasypus pichiy: (Azara says Latitude between (35°-36°.)—41
[verso of folio 10]
The double Arg: Calc: white bed is seen single. at San Josè.— ; Non-occurrence of Shells owing to Gypsum?— state cases
Uniformity & extent of Porph. gravel bed is so modern formation.#-_____________
Tertiary formation of Patagonia not in Basin as supposed by Lyell to be generally the case but Attached to the Andes42
In Bengal. (Mouth of Ganges). red clay. with Calc. Concretion (Kun <c> kaer?)43 (Mastodons bones??)— Mem: La. Plata!.— in connection with present few banks & necessarily small epoch since the shells.— <<Andes line. South Part)..Brazil. gneiss red Clay:->>
Age of Pat: bed. <<with respect to Europe>> can only be as-certained by relative proportion of recent shells.— This rests on the supposition. that species become extinct in same ratios over the whole world44 Now. the Porph bed <seems> or rather the Arg beds seems to have destroyed them suddenly: though in the South allowing partial re-appearances: if not destroyed highly injurious. such a cause <would> acting for such an extent must produce great & sudden alterations.—
Mem: Report of Geolog: Paraguay Sandstone is said to be a Tertiary Molasse(?) (Nature? & Authority?)45 if so. continuation R. Negro.— Mendozan beds:-
Where the Salinas. grandes are. West of Ventana. does not Falkner there are Spiny bushes? if so. Sandstone.—
There is a probability from. Mastodons bones. in the low cliff, which I think must have been under water. when the three hundred was above that the Mastodon has lived within a period. in which shells. have not lost their color
B.Blanca.— Animal & (Megatherium?) prove same thing
1. Darwin's specimen books from the voyage are stored at Down House, his former home and now a museum in his honor in Kent. The major repository of his manuscripts is held by Cambridge University Library. See the Handlist of Darwin Papers at the University Library Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960). Zoological notes from the voyage are stored in volumes 30 and 31 (DAR 30 and DAR 31); geological notes in DAR 32-38. Some specimen lists are also in DAR 29. Also pertinent to the discussion is Sandra Herbert, "Charles Darwin as a Prospective Geological Author," British Journal for the History of Science, 1991, 24:159-192.
2. The essay is stored in DAR 42:49-52 + 73, Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library.
3. Charles Darwin, Geological Observations on South America. Being the Third Part of the Geology of the Voyage of the "Beagle," under the Command of Capt. FitzRoy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836 (London, 1846).
4. For the "Table of Location of Excised Pages" from Darwin's notebooks see Paul H. Barrett, Peter J. Gautrey, Sandra Herbert, David Kohn, and Sydney Smith, Charles Darwin's Notebooks, 1836-1844: Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical Enquiries, (London and Ithaca, New York: British Museum (Natural History) and Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 643-652. The "Feb 1835" note has been published by M. J. S. Hodge in "Darwin and the Laws of the Animate Part of the Terrestrial System (1835-1837): On the Lyellian Origins of His Zoonomical Explanatory Program," Studies in History of Biology, 1983, 6: 1-106, on pp. 19-20.
5. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London, 1859). Geology does not form part of the core of the theory as presented in the first four chapters of the book but enters the argument in chapter 9 entitled "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record" and in chapter 10 entitled "On the Geological Sucession of Organic Beings." The abstract diagram illustrating Darwin's conception of the descent of species faces p. 117.
6. The animal was later named the Scelidotherium leptocephalum by Richard Owen, "in allusion to the disproportionate size of the thigh-bone," in Charles Darwin, The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. "Beagle" under the Command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N. during the Years 1832-1836, 5 pts., (London, 1839-1843). Hereafter Zoology. Part I, Fossil Mammalia, by Richard Owen with a Geological Introduction by C. Darwin, (London: 1838 [sic]-1840), p. 73.
7. Robert FitzRoy, Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, 3 vols. + appendix, (London, 1839). Vol. 3 by Charles Darwin, Journal and Remarks: Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle … from 1832 to 1836, pp. 98-104. P. 98: "That large animals require a luxuriant vegetation, has been a general assumption, which has passed from one work to another. I do not hesitate, however, to say that it is completely false; and that it has vitiated the reasoning of geologists, on some points of great interest in the ancient history of the world." The map of the "Southern Portion of South America" that appears with this text was published in fold-out format as the last map in volume 3 of the Narrative. See Figures 2 and 3 for photographic reproductions of this map.
8. Darwin, Journal and Remarks, p. 53, "… we are therefore driven to the conclusion that herbaceous plants, instead of trees, were created to occupy that wide area, which within a period not very remote, has been raised above the waters of the sea."
9. Georges Cuvier, The Animal Kingdom Arranged in Conformity with Its Organization … with Additional Descriptions of All the Species Hitherto Named, and of Many Not before Noticed. By Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols., (Edinburgh, 1827-1835).
10. This listing is taken from Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 9+ vols., Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 541. Bracketed material is the contribution of the editors. Hereafter Correspondence.
11. On the content and dating of Darwin's essay "Elevation of Patagonia" see Herbert, "Darwin as a Geological Author," pp. 174-175.
12. Correspondence 1:370-371, 398-399. The two works are the report of the second meeting of the British Association (see note 43) and, in all probability, the third volume of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes now in Operation, 3 vols. (London, 1830-1833).
13. DAR 31.1:260v, Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library.
14. DAR 34.2:110v, Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library.
15. The "Feb 1835" note is published in Hodge, "Darwin and the Laws of the Animate Part of the Terrestrial System," pp. 19-20; Darwin's notes on apple trees appear in DAR 31.1:266-267, Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library.
16. Michael G. Mulhall, The English in South America (Buenos Aires and London: 1878), p. 459; Bernard Naylor, Accounts of Nineteenth-Century South America: An Annotated Checklist of Works by British and United States Observers (London: Athlone Press, 1969), p. 4.
17. Mulhall, The English in South America, pp. 446-447; Naylor, Accounts of Nineteenth-Century South America, p. 6.
18. Correspondence 1:446.
19. Cuvier, Animal Kingdom 2:264.
20. Cuvier, Animal Kingdom 2:320.
21. Cuvier, Animal Kingdom 2:444.
22. Cuvier, Animal Kingdom 3:111.
23. Cuvier, Animal Kingdom 3:438.
24. Lyell, Principles 3:30-31.
25. Correspondence 1:564 suggests that the dictionary in use on ship was probably: M. Seoane, ed., Neuman and Baretti's Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages, 2 vols. (London, 1831). (The Darwin Archive has volume 2 only.)
26. Alexander Caldcleugh, Travels in South America, during the Years 1819 … 21, 2 vols, Vol. 2 (London, 1825): foldout insert, "Map of the Country between Buenos Ayres and the Pacific Ocean, with a Specification of the different Geological Formations." The five categories of geological formations listed in the legend and colored on the map include "Primitive" [pink], "a very new Stalactiform Limestone" [yellow], "Red Marl" [green], "Pebbles & Sand" [salmon], and "Clay" [blue].
27. "Tosca" was the local name for a formation characteristic of the Pampas. Darwin noted its existence throughout his travel. He described its appearance at Buenos Aires in DAR 32.2:75, Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library, "The Tosca, as at B. Blanca, contains <<horizontal>> layers of concretionary nodules of white indurated marl; …" Also see Darwin, Geological Observations, p. 77, "For convenience sake, I will call the manly rock by the name given to it by the inhabitants, namely, Tosca-rock; and the reddish argillaceous earth, Pampean mud.… The plain on which Buenos Ayres stands is from thirty to forty feet in height. The Pampean mud is here of a rather pale colour, and includes small nearly white nodules, and other irregular strata of an unusually arenaceous variety of toscarock."
28. John Miens, Travels in Chile and La Plata, 2 vols., (London,
1826). As a frontispiece to vol. 1 there is placed a "Map of the Country between the Rio de la Plata and the Pacific Ocean between the Parallels of 29°45′ and 36° South Latitude by John Miers 1825." In the Provincia de San Luis there is a ridge "El Alto del Yeso" (literally, high ground of gypsum) that the text on p. 250 describes as "a little gypseous range which lies to the westward of San Luis." This range is also labelled on the map "Los Gigantes"—the giants, presumably referring to gigantic fossil bones. An area to the southwest of the range is designated on the map a "Travesia or Level Sandy Desert thinly covered with low Thorny Trees and Bushes."
29. Miers, Travels, Vol. 1, p. 195, "… the Tosca, which extends in a stratum of variable but considerable thickness throughout the province of Buenos Ayres."
30. Félix de Azara, Voyages dans l'Amérique méridionale … depuis 1781 jusqu'en 1801, 4 vols. & atlas, Vol. 1, (Paris, 1809), p. 55 refers to the area east of the Paraná River as "les pays privés de sel." Also pp. 55-56, "… dans tout le Chaco ou dans la partie située à l'ouest des rivières du Paraguay et du Paraná, et depuis la rivière de la Plata vers le sud. Dans tout ce pays, il n'y a ni ruisseau, ni lac, ni puits, qui ne soit saumâre, en été ou quand les pluies sont rares; car la pluie diminue nécessairement leur salure. Les rivières mêmes, telles que le Pilcomayo et le Vermejo se ressentent de cette salure, quand elles sont trèsbasses,…" On the bright color of clays towards Brazil, p. 51, "On rencontre en général des argiles de couleur vive, en beaucoup d'endroits; mais elles paraissent être plus abondantes vers la frontière du Brésil, et je doute qu'il y en ait au Chaco."
31. Caldcleugh, Travels, vol. 1, p. 145: "The upper soil round Buenos Ayres is chiefly of a light nature, approaching to marl, and covering a stiff clay subsoil, called by the inhabitants, tosca. As far as my observations went, this appearance did not extend many miles from the city."
32. The British diplomat Henry Stevens Fox (1791-1846), stationed in Buenos Aires (1831-1832) and Rio de Janeiro (1833-1836), corresponded on geological topics and exchanged geological specimens with Darwin during the Beagle voyage. In his letter to Darwin of 31 October 1833, Fox described the presence of greenstone on the island of Flores off Montevideo and of volcanic porphyry at Porto Alegre, where the "main fundamental rock of that Country is granite." Correspondence, 1:347. Fox suggested the province of Rio Grande in southern Brazil as of interest to geologists (p. 348), and Darwin apparently did ask for more details (p. 403), though Fox's reply, if he made one, has not been located. Greenstone is a "variety of trap [a volcanic rock], composed of hornblende and felspar." Lyell, Principles, 3:Glossary.
33. Miers, Travels, 1:223, "The town of Mendoza is situated at an elevation of 2600 feet above the level of the sea, upon the margin of a great travesia… which here presents a very gentle declivity, sloping both northward and eastward." Pp. 233-234, "It will be seen, on inspecting the map, that from Buenos Ayres, following the course of the Parana, as far as the Esquina, thence to San Luis, and thence to Mendoza, in a westerly direction, there extends a long way to the southward a vast extent of level country, void of trees, producing only coarse grass—a country distinguished by the name of Pampas: it is scarcely ever interrupted by perceptible undulations, and is covered with numerous lakes, drained underground through the sandy soil from one to another; the waters of which, proceeding from several rivers, are lost and absorbed in the level of these sandy plains."
34. Alcide Charles Victor Dessalines d'Orbigny, Voyages dans l'Amérique … pendant les annees 1826-1833. 7 vols. + atlas in 2 vols., (Paris, 1835-1847). From the tentative tone of Darwin's question it would seem likely that he was referring to the earliest published section of d'Orbigny's voyage, the first part of the historical narrative. For d'Orbigny's comments on the Pampas see vol. 1, pp. 77, 469, 471, 558. P. 77 provides a definition of the Pampas, "Le rivière de San-Juan sert, pour ainsi dire, de limite entre les terrains primitifs de la province de la Banda oriental, et le commencement de argile calcaire durcie, qui forme tout le fond du bassin proprement dit des Pampas.…" D'Orbigny's full treatment of the Pampas appeared in volume 3, part 3, devoted to geology, published in 1842. In his own later writing Darwin would range himself against d'Orbigny's interpretation of the origin of the Pampas. Thus Darwin, Geological Observations, pp. 98-99, "Three theories on the origin of the Pampean formation have been propounded:—First that of a great debacle by M. d'Orbigny;…A second theory, first suggested, I believe, by Sir W. Parish, is that the Pampean formation was thrown down on low and marshy plains by the rivers of this country before they assumed their present courses.… The third theory, of the truth of which I cannot entertain the smallest doubt, is that the Pampean formation was slowly accumulated at the mouth of the former estuary of the Plata and in the sea adjoining it." Also see Correspondence, 1:463, n. 4.
35. Caldcleugh, Travels, as cited in note 26.
36. No geological map of the Pampas by the team of Aimé Bonpland and Alexander von Humboldt has been identified. For a map of the Andes that indicates the location of the Pampas see "Esquisse Hypsomètrique des Noeuds de Montagnes et des Ramifications de la Cordillère des Andes … 1827-1831" in Alexander von Humboldt, Atlas Géographique et Physique des Régions Équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent (Paris, 1814-1834), p. 5. Darwin, Geological Observations, p. 94, in the chapter on the Pampean formation, contains the information that "Still farther north, near S. Anna, where the Parana makes a remarkable bend, M. Bonpland found some singular amygdaloidal rocks, which perhaps may belong to this same epoch." Darwin cited d'Orbigny, Voyage, vol. 3, pt. 3 , p. 29 on this point.
37. Jean Théodore Lacordaire, "Mémoire sur les habitudes des coléoptérees de l'Amérique méridionale," Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1830, 20:185-291; 1830, 21:149-194. Vol. 20, p. 216 emphasizes that the physical barrier of the Andes divides the South American continent into two geographical districts with regard to the distribution of insects, "… en Amérique, où la nature a travaillé sur un plan gigantesque, les Andes servent de séparation à deux régions presque entièrement différentes sous tous les rapports, et l'Orénoque, la rivière des Amazones et la Plata forment des espèces de mers dont chaque rive présente des différences spécifiques sensibles avec l'autre, tout en conservant une physionomie pareille." This passage appears on p. 33 of a separately paginated reprint in the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library. The reprint was probably given to Darwin by Frederick William Hope before the voyage. See Correspondence 1:349-350.
38. The cat would appear to be the specimen Darwin numbered as 2036 and which he described in DAR 29.1:17 as "Cat.— in a bushy valley: when encountered. did not run away but hissed.— S. Cruz [added in pencil: Patagonia]." Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library. The cat was fully described in the zoology from the voyage where it was identified by G. R. Waterhouse as Felis Pajeros, the Pampas cat. See Darwin, Zoology, pt. 2 Mammalia by G. R. Waterhouse with a notice of their habits and ranges by C. Darwin, pp. 18-19 + plate. Hereafter Mammalia. The cat procured by Capt. P. P. King on the Beagle's surveying voyage of 1826-1830 is also described as Felis pajeros in the published version of the voyage. See FitzRoy, Narrative, Vol. 1, Proceedings of the First Expedition, 1826-1830, by P. P. King, pp. 116-117, 530. (Manuscripts from the first voyage were available to Darwin on the Beagle's second
voyage. See Correspondence1:561.) There had been some uncertainty over the physical appearance of the Pampas cat. See Cuvier, Animal Kingdom 2:486-487 + plates.
39. Lyell, Principles 3:63-64 contains a description of the formations of Val di Noto, "a district which intervenes between Etna and the southern promontory of Sicily." The lowest formation in the district is said to comprise "Blue clay and gypsum, &c. without shells." (See diagram, p. 64) Pp. 76-77 suggest a connection between the formations of Val di Noto with those lying beneath the volcano of Etna. (Diagram, p. 76) Of the strata at the southern base of Etna Lyell commented (p. 77), "Crystals of selenite are dispersed through the clay, accompanied by a few shells, almost entirely of recent Mediterranean species."
40. Lyell, Principles, vol. 2, the map facing p. 304 described as "Shewing the extent of Surface in Europe which has been covered by Water since the Deposition of the older Tertiary Strata. (Strata of the Paris and London Basins, &c.)."
41. In compiling the above list of animals Darwin stated that he was relying on his own knowledge—what he could "find out"— and on "books." The following is Darwin's list together with suggestive references. Cuvier, Animal Kingdom, volume 5, is a synopsis of mammalian species, usually including mention of geographical ranges, and hence seems to have been particularly useful to Darwin in this survey.
Mephitis or Skunk Animal Kingdom 5:126-127.
Canis jubatus Animal Kingdom 5:144-145. [Red Wolf)
((otter)) Animal Kingdom 5:130.
common Fox Animal Kingdom 2:44, 367; 5:148.
Jaguar Animal Kingdom 2:452-459; 5:164.
Puma Animal Kingdom 2:436-440; 5:163.
Gato pajero See note 38. Also Animal Kingdom 2: 486-487; 5:170.
(Rats) Mice Mammalia, pp. 33-78. Correspondence 1:351.
Nutria Miers, Travels 1:217.
Toco Toco Darwin, Journal and Remarks, pp. 58-60; Mammalia, pp. 79-82; Azara, Voyages 1:324-326.
Cavis Cobaya Animal Kingdom 3:93, 234-237; 5:270-271; Mammalia 2:89 [Guinea Pig].
Biscatche [Viscache] Animal Kingdom 5:272-273; 3:230-232. On p. 230 Azara is cited as an authority. Also see Caldcleugh Travels 1:152.
Dasypus hybridus Animal Kingdom 5:276-277. villosus Animal Kingdom 5:278-279. unicinctus Animal Kingdom 5:277-278. (Under Dasypus Tatouay, the Twelve-banded Armadillo.)
Pecari Animal Kingdom 3:333-334; 5:289-290.
Guanaco Animal Kingdom 4:5-6; 5:299-300.
Cervus Campestris Animal Kingdom 5:317 [Guazuti Deer].
Cavia Patagon[ica?] Animal Kingdom 5:272, "Inhabits Patagonia." Also, 3:243-247 + plate; Mammalia, pp. 89-91 [Patagonian Cavy].
Dasypus pichiy Animal Kingdom 3:292-294. P. 292, "These Armadillos are not found in Paraguay, or north of the River Plate, and only in the open country. D'-Azara, in one excursion between thirty-five and thirty-six degrees of south latitude, found them by [the] thousands ...."
42. Lyell, Principles, 3:23. Chapter 3 under the heading "Different circumstances under which the secondary and tertiary formations may have originated" contains the sentence, "It is evident that large parts of Europe were simultaneously submerged beneath the sea when different portions of the secondary series were formed, because we find homogeneous mineral masses, including the remains of marine animals j referrible to the secondary period, extending over great areas; whereas the detached and isolated position of tertiary groups, in basin or depressions bounded by secondary and primary rocks, favours the hypothesis of a sea interrupted by extensive tracts of dry land."
43. William Daniel Conybeare, "Report on the Progress, Actual State, and Ulterior Prospects of Geological Science," Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Meetings at York, 1831, and Oxford, 1832), 1833, 7(^:364-414, on p. 396, "The soil throughout Bengal is often occupied by deposits of clay, containing concretionary lumps of limestone called Kun-kaer: this, which affords the principal supply of lime in India, is probably of very recent origin." On p. 395 reference is made to the presence on much of the Indian subcontinent of a "thin crust of laterite," "a [red] ferruginous clay."
44. Here Darwin is responding to the method of dating recent strata suggested in Lyell, Principles, 3:58, "We derive one great advantage from beginning our classification of formations by a comparison of the fossils of the more recent strata with the species now living, namely, the acquisition of a common point of departure in every region of the globe. Thus, for example, if strata should be discovered in India or South America, containing the same small proportion of recent shells as are found in the Paris basin, they also might be termed Eocene,.. . There might be no species common to the two groups; yet we might infer their synchronous origin from the common relation which they bear to the existing state of the animate creation." In his own copy of the Principles Darwin wrote beside this passage, "if the rate of change is everywhere the same." Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library.
45. Conybeare, "Report," p. 398, "As to South America, the completion of that part of Humboldt's Travels which relates to Peru is announced; while on the eastern side we have the works of Spix and Martius*,..." To this last point Conybeare added the footnote, "*These geologists describe a sandstone, considered by them as equivalent to the German keuper, as prevailing in the basin of the Amazons; and they assign the same formation, as the matrix of the diamond mines, a near approximation to the geological site of the Indian mines of this gem; the sandstone of the plains of Paraguay is however said to be tertiary molasse."
46. The Sierra de la Ventana is a mountain range in SW Buenos Aires province, Argentina. A foldout map in Thomas Falkner, A Description of Patagonia, and the Adjoining Parts of South America (London, 1774) shows "Salt Pitts" to the northwest of the area in which the mountain range exists, though the range is not labeled on Falkner's map. References to salt deposits abound in Falkner's text, as noted in Darwin, Geological Observations, p. 72. There is no reference in Falkner that corresponds exactly with Darwin's "Spiny bushes," but see p. 70 for reference to a "low, thorny tree" growing in an area nearer the east coast than the Sierra de la Ventana.
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Generating Rhymes: Developing Phonemic Awareness
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|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Two 30-minute sessions|
MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY
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|1.||Access the School Specialty Intervention Lesson Pack: Rhyming Pictures. Using the second worksheet (the one with the picture of a gate), cut out the rhyming word pairs (gate, plate, skate; car, jar, star; key, bee, tree; ring, king, swing; toe, bow, yo-yo). You may want to enlarge the pictures on a copier to make them easier to see. Glue each picture to an index card or copy the pictures onto card stock.
|2.||Using the third worksheet in the pack (the sheet with the picture of a book), cut out each picture and glue or tape it to an index card with the word written on the back. This will form the following 12 rhyming pairs:
|3.||Copy "Down by the Bay" onto chart paper, inserting the pictures with tape as noted on the handout. You may also want to write the word below the picture.
|4.||Photocopy a class set of the last worksheet (the one with a picture of a goat) from the lesson pack. | <urn:uuid:17464d22-5391-42b9-8836-ead187ff0196> | {
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A trip to one of Scotland’s many seabird colonies is an unforgettable experience. Whether viewing from a clifftop vantage point or out on a little boat bobbing alongside an island teeming with squawking, swooping seabirds, you can’t help but be impressed by the variety and sheer number of birds.
However, over the last 20 years, this remarkable wildlife spectacle has been diminishing. A visit can still inspire that sense of awe but when you start reading the statistics, a deeply troubling picture emerges. Some of our most amazing seabird species are in rapid decline, particularly in the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland.
Let’s start with Arctic terns- these birds are the jetsetters of the seabird world, undertaking mammoth migrations each season from their Antarctic wintering grounds, sometimes flying 70,000km in a lifetime. 2012 counts of Scotland’s “seabird cities” conducted by RSPB Scotland reveal a poor breeding season for these birds. Arctic terns experienced low productivity (low number of chicks raised successfully to fledging), even where numbers of adults at colonies were stable.
An Arctic tern taking a well-earned break. These birds complete the longest migration of any animal on Earth!
And it’s not just Arctic terns, kittiwakes were in the news this summer as their populations continue to plummet at our seabird colonies, particularly on the Orkney mainland where counts by RSPB Scotland and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee showed numbers have fallen from 10,932 adult birds on nests in 2000, to just 1,965 this year- that’s a crash of 82%.
Fulmars, graceful birds with an unpleasant defence mechanism that involves projectile vomiting oil, are also struggling- with populations from Shetland to Dunnet Head in Caithness, to Tiree in the Western Isles experiencing declining numbers and low productivity. At Dunnet Head alone, there were only 181 adult fulmars on nests, down from 205 in 2011.
Wouldn’t want to get in the middle of this argument- Fulmars are known to projectile vomit in defence!
Arctic skua have been hit hard as well. Scotland is home to the UK’s entire breeding population of these remarkable birds. At RSPB’s North Hill reserve on Orkney, a mere 22 pairs were counted down from just 44 in 2010. This is really a species on the edge in Scotland.
Arctic skua are becoming an increasingly rare sight in Scotland.
Guillemot numbers have increased at several colonies including at Marwick Head on Orkney, Dunnet Head on the mainland and at our Mull of Galloway reserve. However, this is against a backdrop of historic declines and numbers remain well below previous records, particularly at Marwick Head. Unfortunately, the overall guillemot population remains in decline, for instance, Fowlsheugh reserve in northeast Scotland reported a total of 44,920 guillemots this season- significantly less than the 50,556 recorded at the last whole colony count conducted in 2009.
So, what’s happening you ask? Evidence suggests that seabird declines are being driven by climate change, particularly the impact of warming seas on the marine food chain. This results in birds having less to eat and therefore producing fewer chicks.
That’s why we are fighting to ensure seabirds are given adequate protection on land and at sea. To date these fascinating species have been largely marginalised in the process of designating Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and we are left disappointed that ‘hotspots’ out at sea where seabirds congregate to feed will remain unprotected.
We need your help to give seabirds a fighting chance. Please take action by emailing Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, and telling him that you support Marine Protected Areas for seabirds now.
*All figures taken from RSPB Scotland Reserve Annual Reports and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee website.
Ross Watson, our Operations Team Leader at Abernethy nature reserve, is about to go on the trip of a lifetime. Find out about his journey to Malaysia for the World Youth Foundation Conference.
From Abernethy to the rainforest
This is something of a first for me - I have never written a blog before, despite sharing an office with the ‘Blog Oracle’ Richard Thaxton. I can only hope that some of his skill is in the room while he is out with a contractor.
Working with Richard, I am based at the Abernethy National Nature Reserve in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. I am the Operations Team Leader and am part of the team who carry out the practical elements of managing this large and diverse piece of ground. Work is interesting, challenging and busy and involves working with a range volunteers who come here to spend a week or two helping the team doing anything from heather burning to bog woodland restoration. However, I am about to leave this fantastic Caledonian forest for a few days and make my way to a very different forest- a rainforest.
This will not be the first time I have set foot inside a rainforest though. When on a study tour of Norway in June, I was transported via a number of ferries and a bumpy pickup ride to a small corner of a heavily wooded island in the south of Norway. This island proudly boasts sufficient rainfall to class its woodland a rainforest. No monkeys, forest elephants or such wildlife here, but a rainforest none the less. The rainforest I will be entering this time will be the monkey swinging, tiger hiding sort, in a little place called Malaysia.
The purpose of my trip to Malaysia is to work with an organisation called the World Youth Foundation (WYF) at a conference and workshop session they are running called ‘Healthy Environment for Healthy Youth’. The World Youth Foundation is an NGO with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is an extremely influential youth voice to the leaders of the world, and it’s a privilege for me to work with them.
My involvement with the WYF, and presenting at this conference, has come about because of the range of youth development work I have done whilst working for the RSPB since leaving High School. In addition to working, I chaired the Transport, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee of the Scottish Youth Parliament, worked with the European Youth Parliament, and was involved in youth and environment projects in countries such as Pakistan, Morocco and Belarus. Throughout this time, my aspiration was always to link youth development work with the conservation work I was doing at the RSPB. This conference allows me to do just that.
The conference will host speakers from global environmental bodies such as WWF, as well as organisations who are very active in South East Asia. I will be the sole speaker from outside the region, quite an honour really! I will be speaking about how young people, enthusiastic about nature, become involved in conservation land management through the RSPB and volunteering as part of accreditation schemes like the John Muir Award or the Duke of Edinburgh Award. This will be one presentation of eight that will showcase environment or health, and in my case, the benefits of both.
After the presentations, the young people will begin to take their ideas and thoughts away and turn them into actions that will form a conference Action Plan. I will be running this part of the conference and really look forward to it. One of the outcomes of this will be working towards setting up a new forest reserve in Malaysia that will be run by the WYF. Working on the project could result in an accreditation from a scheme similar to the John Muir Award, and will encourage youth involvement.
Not only will they have fun boosting the heath of the rainforest and biodiversity, they will also benefit their own health by being physically active through the important conservation work.
Additional benefits to this may be encouraging other people to get involved raise awareness for the rainforest habitat and, in time, could even result in a paid position.
And let’s not forget the other exciting benefits of attending this conference...the food! Malay cooking is world renowned and cooking classes will be a part of the conference for the global delegation. As well as that, there will be a ‘duck tour’ on the Straits of Melaka, which, working for the RSPB, I imagined a serene guided trip to observe some of the country’s rarities from the luxury of a cruiser while sipping some regional speciality. But no, it will be a duck shaped boat tearing up and down the straight between Malaysia and Sumatra at high speed in a thrill ride only found here.
After the conference is finished, I will spend a further three days exploring different parts of the rainforest to gain a feel for the place and the issues so I can be more informed when it comes to assisting the delegates in developing the project from the other side of the planet. One thing is for certain, the next few days will be full of fun, excitement and new experiences and if I can be a part of a fantastic project like this and gain all of that, I must be lucky indeed. | <urn:uuid:ae45827f-5f47-44e3-b712-88c75e692ad5> | {
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This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
1 Of this partition-wall separating Jews and Gentiles, with its pillars and inscription, see the description of the temples, ch. 15.
2 That these seditious Jews were the direct occasions of their own destruction, and of the conflagration of their city and temple, and that Titus earnestly and constantly labored to save both, is here and every where most evident in Josephus.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
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A pioneer in the the work done on the first hypertext system
in the 1960s and the creator of the term 'hypertext', Ted Nelson credited Bush as his main influence.
The developed hypertext system
(Shang, 2015) is composed of the following three main sections:
Automatic generation of hypertext system
repositories: a model driven approach.
While it has been responsible for a range of technologies and processes relating to defence applications, it is best known among geeks for developing computer networking, the hypertext system
and graphical user interface, things which have made modern computing and the internet a reality.
In the past decade many researchers have investigated the importance of the hypertext system
A hypertext system
works like a database that stores text-based learning materials.
People often confuse the hypertext system
, which makes it possible, through the digital medium, to link objects of different types, with the products (compositions?
Because the complex link and node structure awaiting users can lead them into becoming lost in hyperspace and cause them cognitive overload, navigating the hypertext system
is often not an easy task, especially for novices.
In the example systems above, the end-user mechanisms are so powerful and specialized that the application which provides them is the hypertext system
Our second pioneer, Ted Nelson, first began thinking about hypertext concepts around the time Vannevar Bush first wrote about them, and began designing a hypertext system
around 1960 [Nelson 1998].
I am arguing that each icon-event in a hypertext system
needs to be conceived in precisely this way, as a snapshot of the entire hypertext, and not just as a single isolated screen with simple links to other screens.
Now that the Web has taken over the world, it may seem to be the only hypertext system
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Baby Sign 3-9 Months
We often use gestures to communicate; think of your baby waving ‘bye bye’. Your baby is able to develop and use gestures quicker than they can actually speak, resulting in them being able to use gestures to let you now what they want before they can talk and tell your verbally.
Signing is about enhancing, not replacing language and may actually help your baby to talk (babycentre.co.uk).
During the 4 week course you will learn a wide range of signs with your baby and use them in singing and reading a story. We will also play with the parachute and musical instruments.
Victoria Dock Village Hall, Hull
6th – 20th November
09.45 – 10.45
3 week course £18.00 | <urn:uuid:4c39ccd8-98ff-4b21-ac6e-35187c13791f> | {
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The blockchain is a time-stamped series of a permanent record of data which is managed by a cluster of computers not owned by a single entity or central authority. As it’s an immutable and shared ledger. The information in it is publicly available and open for everyone. Each of these blocks of data is secured and bound to each other using cryptographic principles (i.e chain).
The past decade has been a great time for development of these decentralized technologies, but the Blockchain got the limelight after Satoshi Nakamoto bring Bitcoin into existence.
Blockchain has revolutionized many concepts such as creating digital identities, monitoring supply chains, tracking jewelry, etc. The tech giants like IBM and Samsung are working closely with Blockchain, as it could bring the next wave of tech innovation.
There will be no surprise if this technology grows in the future. According to Linkedin, Blockchain development is one of the most emerging jobs of 2018 with expected 33-fold growth. However, if you are planning to start but don’t have an idea of where to start, I am here to help.
Today, I will talk about some most important things you need to learn to become a blockchain developer. With this article, I’d like to target freshers and beginners but if you are experienced, don’t hesitate to share your experience in the comments section below.
5 Things You Should Learn to Become a Blockchain Developer
1. Data Structures
The very first thing required to become a Blockchain developer is a solid understanding of data structures. The Blockchain is quite complex. You might have only deal with tables till now. But here, the distributed ledger is like a network of replicated databases which stores information in blocks. These blocks are even secured by strong cryptographic techniques to ensure their integrity whenever a new block is added.
Thus, you need to have proper knowledge of data structures such as linked lists, binary search trees, hash maps, graphs, etc. It would be better if you learn data structures along with your favorite languages such as Python, Java, C++, etc.
2. Distributed Systems and Networking
Blockchain technology is powered by connected computers. So, understanding of distributed ledgers, peer-to-peer networks, topologies, and routing is very important.
Blockchain uses something called Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus for seamless recording and interchange of information between devices. It’s like a like key security feature of Blockchain. Lastly, you don’t need to know everything, the understanding of distributed systems is good enough.
Cryptography is what makes cryptocurrencies work. It’s the foundation of Blockchain. Taking the example of Bitcoin, it uses public-key cryptography to create digital signatures and hash functions. If you want to become a Blockchain developer, you have to be strong in Mathematics.
Then, learn about authenticated encryption, message integrity, block ciphers, and hash functions. These are some of the important features of Blockchain cryptography. Lastly, it doesn’t require knowledge of mathematics but you should also study RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) and ECDSA (elliptic curve cryptography).
As you know, cryptocurrencies don’t have any centralized banks to monitor the money supply or verify the transactions. So, to keep a check on crypto companies, it’s important to understand the economics around them.
First, you’ll need to understand the game theory, currency valuation and various monetary policies of cryptocurrency. You can refer to books like The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice and Application of the Next Internet Technology, Blockchain: Blueprint for the New Economy, etc.
5. Smart Contracts
A smart contract is a program that runs on the blockchain once a transaction is complete. Unlike other judicial systems, there’s no need for a lawyer to oversee a transaction. Smart contracts are automatically and impartially enforced to enhance blockchain’s capabilities.
The fact is currently there are not many developers who know or can properly audit smart contracts. As smart contracts get more complex, You need to be aware in every possible way that a smart contract is executed and working as expected.
That’s all for this article. I hope now you have a clear idea of things you need to know to become a Blockchain developer. Just remember its a fairly new technology and doesn’t have enough support forums. You have to start learning, asking queries, clearing your confusion and spend more time on practice. But if you start learning today, you’ll definitely become a skilled Blockchain developer in future and can also grab good opportunities.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. | <urn:uuid:1aca254a-c70e-4907-9081-c7112117ab9c> | {
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Biolab follows protocols for breath hydrogen and methane testing that are in line with current practice in Europe and America [1,2].
Normally the human small intestine contains fewer bacteria than the colon. Structural or functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract can lead to bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine, with colonic bacteria proliferating in the ileum and jejunum. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), as it is known, is characterized by steatorrhea and diarrhoea, together with vitamin deficiencies and carbohydrate malabsorption. The syndrome is difficult to diagnose with accuracy using blood tests.
The basis for breath testing in these circumstances is that bacteria in the intestine can break down carbohydrates to produce hydrogen and methane. The sole source of these gases in alveolar air is bacterial fermentation of carbohydrate in the gut, so estimation of hydrogen and methane in breath samples can be used to study the passage of carbohydrates through the gut and the presence of pathogenic bacteria in the gastro-intestinal lumen.
Breath tests can be helpful in the evaluation of bloating, diarrhoea, constipation and malabsorption. These tests are safe alternatives to more invasive procedures such as biopsy. According to research from the 1970s, which was repeated in 2006 , approximately 35% of healthy adult subjects are methane producers. It was also reported that, in 34% of lactose intolerant patients with a negative hydrogen breath test, the methane percentage increase after a lactose challenge was greater than 100%. In the same study, out of 13 subjects with a false negative breath hydrogen response to lactulose, 11 subjects had a methane percentage increase greater than 100%. Methanogenic bacteria are independent of hydrogen-producing bacteria; so methane determination along with the measurement of hydrogen is thus required in the study of lactose intolerance and in other carbohydrate breath tests.
Breath testing to aid in the diagnosis of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) may also provide a framework for the understanding of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) [6,7]. Recent work has demonstrated that among IBS subjects, methane production in the lactulose breath test is associated with constipation. Methane also appears to slow down the passage of food through the intestinal tract .
The patient should not have eaten slowly digesting foods such as beans and bran on the day before the test and should have fasted for 14 hours prior to the test, with only water to drink. Vigorous exercise, smoking or sleeping should be avoided immediately before, or at any time during the test.
The test will take 3 hours.
Home test kits are also available on request (payment required in advance).
Normally there is a peak in hydrogen production two hours after lactulose ingestion, reflecting the passage of this non-absorbable carbohydrate into the colon. With increased intestinal transit time, the appearance of the hydrogen peak may be delayed, as often occurs where there is significant methane production. In small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) there is also an earlier peak of hydrogen production, reflecting the breakdown of lactulose in the jejunum and ileum. Some subjects produce little or no hydrogen, but display a substantial output of methane, due to the particular metabolism of the species of bacteria proliferating in their gut.
A lactulose breath test for small SIBO is thus positive if there is a biphasic pattern of breath hydrogen or methane production. Two peaks of gas production are observed in a positive test:
a) an early increase of at least 20 ppm for the sum of the concentration of the two gases,
b) a larger increase (greater than 20 ppm) corresponding to the appearance of lactulose in the colon.
In cases of fast intestinal transit time the two peaks may merge as an early plateau of gas production.
In a negative lactulose test only the colonic peak in gas production is observed and there is no significant increment in gas production prior to 120 minutes post lactulose ingestion. The absence of normal colonic bacterial fermentation suggests that the patient has recently used antibiotics.
The lactulose breath test can also detect impaired intestinal transit time; transit time is normal if the physiological peak of colonic hydrogen and methane production (>20 ppm) is detected at 80 minutes, slow if the peak is detected at 100 minutes or later, or fast if the peak is detected at 60 minutes or earlier. Note that the presence of lactulose increases intestinal motility, so these times are not typical of the transit time of a normal meal.
In subjects who do not absorb lactose (a disaccharide which is normally broken down into glucose and galactose and then absorbed) there is abnormally high production of hydrogen and perhaps methane as this carbohydrate passes into the lower small intestine. A lactose breath test is positive if either the hydrogen peaks by >20 ppm compared to the basal sample or if the methane peaks by >12 ppm compared to the basal sample .
In subjects who do not absorb fructose (a monosaccharide normally present in food) there is high production of hydrogen and perhaps methane as this carbohydrate passes into the lower gut. A fructose breath test is positive if either the hydrogen peaks by >20 ppm compared to the basal sample or if the methane peaks by >12 ppm compared to the basal sample.
bhydro.pdf (Click to Download)
rep-breath-lactulose.pdf (Click to Download)
For the lactulose breath test the patient is given 10 gm of lactulose syrup with 200 ml of water; alveolar air samples are collected at baseline and then every 20 minutes for 3 hours (a total of 10 samples). If the result is equivocal, it is recommended that the test should be repeated using 40 gm of lactulose.
Home collection breath tubnes stable for at least 14 days after collection
Postal Samples Acceptable:
1. Drossman DA. The functional gastrointestinal disorders and the Rome III process. In: Drossman DA, Corazziari E, Delvaux M, Spiller R, Talley NJ, Thompson WG, et al., eds. Rome III: The Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders. 3rd ed. McLean, VA: Degnon Associates; 2006:1-30.
2. Drossman DA. The functional gastrointestinal disorders and the Rome III process. Gastroenterology. 2006;130:1377-1390.
3. Levitt MD, Furne JK, Kuskowski M, Ruddy J. Stability of human methanogenic flora over 35 years and a review of insights obtained from breath methane measurements. Clin Gastorenterolo Hepatol. 2006;2:123-129
4. Corazza GR, Benati G, Strocchi A, Malservisi S, Gasbarrini G. The possible role of breath methane measurement in detecting carbohydrate malabsorption. J Lab Clin Med. 1994;124:695-700.
5. Tormo R, Bertaccini A, Conde M, Infante D, Cura I. Methane and hydrogen exhalation in normal children and in lactose malabsorption. Early Hum Dev. 2001; 65 Suppl:165-172.
6. Kumar D, Wingate DL. The irritable bowel syndrome: a paroxysmal motor disorder. Lancet 1985; 2: 973-977.
7. Chatterjee S, Park S, Low K, Kong Y, Pimentel M. The degree of breath methane production in IBS correlates with the severity of constipation. Am J Gastroenterol 2007;102:1-5.
8. Bratten JR, Jones MP. Small intestinal motility. Curr Opin Gastroenterol. 2007;23:127-133.
For further details please contact the laboratory at: [email protected] | <urn:uuid:36c49851-d6a7-48e1-bc6f-a2709138bc9d> | {
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Issues: Environment & Climate
California’s rich and diverse soils, vast farm and ranch lands, climate, air, water, and native species must be protected and in many cases restored so that future generations can enjoy the same quality of life that we have. ROC believes that among several other key dynamics, the food system will not be sustainable until agriculture greatly reduce and/or eliminates its huge impacts on climate, air and water pollution. Roots of Change joins with farmers and ranchers, nonprofit organizations, public officials, entrepreneurs, and concerned citizens to ensure that stewardship incentives exist, that vital environmental research is funded, and that the knowledge gained is shared.
Learn more about how how agriculture can be a powerful tool to fight climate change and reduce nitrogen pollution, click here.
Check out our forum page on the environment & climate.
The movement for healthy food and agriculture began and has grown largely as a result of non-profit organizations. The non-profits we have highlighted here reflect the breadth of issues covered by the movement.
Roots of Change believes that abundant, safe, healthy, fresh, and affordable food is a foundation for a positive future for all Californians. In a market-based economy, powerful solutions must come from entrepreneurs who apply sustainable principles and practices in their businesses.
Roots of Change is working together with California’s farmers and ranchers to ensure that every aspect of our food—from the time it’s grown to the time it’s eaten—is healthy, safe, profitable, and fair for those who grow it and for the state where it’s grown. | <urn:uuid:9eb1ade2-5ef5-44bd-b6ac-e3005245bf85> | {
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The Convention's Chemical Review Committee based its recommendation on a review of national regulatory actions taken by Benin, Canada, European Union, Japan, New Zealand, and Norway to ban or restrict the use of chemicals that pose an unacceptable risk to human health and the environment.
"For the first time since the Convention entered into force in 2004, the Committee has recommended adding a severely hazardous pesticide formulation to the 'watch list', advancing our Parties' efforts to ensure that countries' rights to know and trade chemicals safely are respected," said FAO's Peter Kenmore, Co-Executive Secretary of the Rotterdam Convention.
Gramoxone Super is an herbicide containing paraquat dichloride, which is used to control weeds in cotton, rice and maize. Burkina Faso had proposed to include Gramoxone Super as a severely hazardous pesticide formulation (SHPF) into Annex III of the Convention due to the problems experienced caused by this pesticide formulation under conditions of use in its territory.
PentaBDE and octaBDE commercial mixtures are brominated flame retardants. Due to their toxicity and persistence, their industrial production is set to be eliminated under the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
"The recommendation to include these three industrial chemicals marks an acceleration in the rate of submission of industrial chemicals to the CRC for review of these substances known to harm human health and the environment. This is, as a result, in part, through the cooperative exchange of information from our sister scientific review committee under the Stockholm Convention," said Donald Cooper, Co-Executive Secretary of the Rotterdam Convention.
The recommendations will be forwarded to the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention in June 2011.
Jointly supported by FAO and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Rotterdam Convention prevents unwanted trade in the chemicals included in its legally binding prior informed consent (PIC) procedure.
The Rotterdam Convention does not introduce bans but fosters information exchange mechanisms to help improve decision making about the trade of hazardous chemicals. It enables member Governments to alert each other to potential dangers by exchanging information on chemicals and to take informed decisions with regard to whether they want to import such chemicals in the future.
The Convention makes the international trade in hazardous chemicals more transparent and less vulnerable to abuse through its export notification provisions and by encouraging harmonized labeling of chemicals. Exporting member Governments are responsible for ensuring that no exports leave their territory when an importing country has made the decision not to accept a PIC chemical.
In this way, the Rotterdam Convention helps member Governments to improve their national capacity for chemicals management, and to protect human health and the environment. It also encourages all stakeholders to identify and promote safer alternatives.
Greening the FAO
The Chemical Review Committee was the first meeting in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to be held completely paperless. A paperless meeting has the benefit of considerably reducing the carbon footprint of the meeting. | <urn:uuid:8a96056a-e8f9-4a3d-aa08-1a2901ea49c1> | {
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Harley's police motorcycles, such as the 1951 Harley-Davidson Police Special, not only came with a wide assortment of equipment specific to their duties, but were often available in colors not offered on civilian bikes. Before the war they were usually painted Police Blue, but many postwar models came in Police Silver.
Restoration of a police bike is more difficult due to the added equipment, which itself needs to be restored as reproductions are hard to find.
The leftside "saddlebag" is actually a two-way radio; a brass fire extinguisher resides on the right.
Not all police bikes were dressed in such a bright uniform. Many were almost devoid of chrome trim, having fork legs, wheels, and primary cases painted black.
Harley's first police bike was put in use by the city of Detroit, Michigan, in 1908.To learn more about Harley-Davidson and other classic motorcycles, see:
- Harley-Davidson Motorcycles
- How Harley-Davidson Works
- How Choppers Work
- Chopper Profiles
- Classic Motorcycles
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