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Combined with his equally radical organic design for the Chapel of Notre-Dame du-Haut at Ronchamp, this work propelled Corbusier in the first rank of postwar modern architects. Postwar modernism in the United States (1945–1985) The International Style of architecture had appeared in Europe, particularly in the Bauhaus movement, in the late 1920s. In 1932 it was recognized and given a name at an Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City organized by architect Philip Johnson and architectural critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Between 1937 and 1941, following the rise Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, most of the leaders of the German Bauhaus movement found a new home in the United States, and played an important part in the development of American modern architecture.
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Guggenheim Museum Frank Lloyd Wright was eighty years old in 1947; he had been present at the beginning of American modernism, and though he refused to accept that he belonged to any movement, continued to play a leading role almost to its end. One of his most original late projects was the campus of Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, begun in 1941 and completed in 1943. He designed nine new buildings in a style that he described as "The Child of the Sun". He wrote that he wanted the campus to "grow out of the ground and into the light, a child of the sun."
He completed several notable projects in the 1940s, including the Johnson Wax Headquarters and the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (1956). The building is unusual that it is supported by its central core of four elevator shafts; the rest of the building is cantilevered to this core, like the branches of a tree. Wright originally planned the structure for an apartment building in New York City. That project was cancelled because of the Great Depression, and he adapted the design for an oil pipeline and equipment company in Oklahoma. He wrote that in New York City his building would have been lost in a forest of tall buildings, but that in Oklahoma it stood alone.
The design is asymmetrical; each side is different. In 1943 he was commissioned by the art collector Solomon R. Guggenheim to design a museum for his collection of modern art. His design was entirely original; a bowl-shaped building with a spiral ramp inside that led museum visitors on an upward tour of the art of the 20th century. Work began in 1946 but it was not completed until 1959, the year that he died. Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, moved to England in 1934 and spent three years there before being invited to the United States by Walter Hudnut of the Harvard Graduate School of Design; Gropius became the head of the architecture faculty.
Marcel Breuer, who had worked with him at the Bauhaus, joined him and opened an office in Cambridge. The fame of Gropius and Breuer attracted many students, who themselves became famous architects, including Ieoh Ming Pei and Philip Johnson. They did not receive an important commission until 1941, when they designed housing for workers in Kensington, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh., In 1945 Gropius and Breuer associated with a group of younger architects under the name TAC (The Architects Collaborative). Their notable works included the building of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the U.S. Embassy in Athens (1956–57), and the headquarters of Pan American Airways in New York (1958–63).
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe described his architecture with the famous saying, "Less is more". As the director of the school of architecture of what is now called the Illinois Institute of Technology from 1939 to 1956, Mies (as he was commonly known) made Chicago the leading city for American modernism in the postwar years. He constructed new buildings for the Institute in modernist style, two high-rise apartment buildings on Lakeshore Drive (1948–51), which became models for high-rises across the country. Other major works included Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois (1945–1951), a simple horizontal glass box that had an enormous influence on American residential architecture.
The Chicago Convention Center (1952–54) and Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology (1950–56), and The Seagram Building in New York City (1954–58) also set a new standard for purity and elegance. Based on granite pillars, the smooth glass and steel walls were given a touch of color by the use of bronze-toned I-beams in the structure. He returned to Germany in 1962-68 to build the new Nationalgallerie in Berlin. His students and followers included Philip Johnson, and Eero Saarinen, whose work was substantially influenced by his ideas. Richard Neutra and Charles & Ray Eames Influential residential architects in the new style in the United States included Richard Neutra and Charles and Ray Eames.
The most celebrated work of the Eames was Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California, (1949) Charles Eames in collaboration with Eero Saarinen It is composed of two structures, an architects residence and his studio, joined in the form of an L. The house, influenced by Japanese architecture, is made of translucent and transparent panels organized in simple volumes, often using natural materials, supported on a steel framework. The frame of the house was assembled in sixteen hours by five workmen. He brightened up his buildings with panels of pure colors. Richard Neutra continued to build influential houses in Los Angeles, using the theme of the simple box.
Many of these houses erased the line distinction between indoor and outdoor spaces with walls of plate glass. Neutra's Constance Perkins House in Pasadena, California (1962) was re-examination of the modest single-family dwelling. It was built of inexpensive material–wood, plaster, and glass–and completed at a cost of just under $18,000. Neutra scaled the house to the physical dimensions of its owner, a small woman. It features a reflecting pool which meanders under of the glass walls of the house. One of Neutra's most unusual buildings was Shepherd's Grove in Garden Grove, California, which featured an adjoining parking lot where worshippers could follow the service without leaving their cars.
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Wallace K. Harrison Many of the notable modern buildings in the postwar years were produced by two architectural mega-agencies, which brought together large teams of designers for very complex projects. The firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was founded in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings, and joined in 1939 by engineer John Merrill, It soon went under the name of SOM. Its first big project was Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the gigantic government installation that produced plutonium for the first nuclear weapons. In 1964 the firm had eighteen "partner-owners", 54 "associate participants,"and 750 architects, technicians, designers, decorators, and landscape architects.
Their style was largely inspired by the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and their buildings soon had a large place in the New York skyline, including the Lever House (1951–52) and the Manufacturers Trust Company Building (1954). Later buildings by the firm include Beinecke Library at Yale University (1963), the Willis Tower, formerly Sears Tower in Chicago (1973) and One World Trade Center in New York City (2013), which replaced the building destroyed in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Wallace Harrison played a major part in the modern architectural history of New York; as the architectural advisor of the Rockefeller Family, he helped design Rockefeller Center, the major Art Deco architectural project of the 1930s.
He was supervising architect for the 1939 New York World's Fair, and, with his partner Max Abramowitz, was the builder and chief architect of the headquarters of the United Nations; Harrison headed a committee of international architects, which included Oscar Niemeyer (who produced the original plan approved by the committee) and Le Corbusier. Other landmark New York buildings designed by Harrison and his firm included Metropolitan Opera House, the master plan for Lincoln Center, and John F. Kennedy International Airport. Philip Johnson Philip Johnson (1906–2005) was one of the youngest and last major figures in American modern architecture. He trained at Harvard with Walter Gropius, then was director of the department of architecture and modern design at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1946 to 1954.
In 1947, he published a book about Mies van der Rohe, and in 1953 designed his own residence, the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut in a style modeled after Mies's Farnsworth House. Beginning in 1955 he began to go in his own direction, moving gradually toward expressionism with designs that increasingly departed from the orthodoxies of modern architecture. His final and decisive break with modern architecture was the AT&T Building (later known as the Sony Tower, and now the 550 Madison Avenue in New York City, (1979) an essentially modernist skyscraper completely altered by the addition of curved cap at the top of a piece of chippendale furniture.
This building is generally considered to mark the beginning of Postmodern architecture in the United States. Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (1910–1961) was the son of Eliel Saarinen, the most famous Finnish architect of the Art Nouveau period, who emigrated to the United States in 1923, when Eero was thirteen. He studied art and sculpture at the academy where his father taught, and then at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière Academy in Paris before studying architecture at Yale University. His architectural designs were more like enormous pieces of sculpture than traditional modern buildings; he broke away from the elegant boxes inspired by Mies van der Rohe and used instead sweeping curves and parabolas, like the wings of birds.
In 1948 he conceived the idea of a monument in St. Louis, Missouri in the form of a parabolic arch 192 meters high, made of stainless steel (1948). He then designed the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan (1949–55), a glass modernist box in the style of Mies van der Rohe, followed by the IBM Research Center in Yorktown, Virginia (1957–61). His next works were a major departure in style; he produced a particularly striking sculptural design for the Ingalls Rink in New Haven, Connecticut (1956–59, an ice skiing rink with a parabolic roof suspended from cables, which served as a preliminary model for next and most famous work, the TWA Terminal at JFK airport in New York (1956–1962).
His declared intention was to design a building that was distinctive and memorable, and also one that would capture the particular excitement of passengers before a journey. The structure is separated into four white concrete parabolic vaults, which together resemble a bird on the ground perched for flight. Each of the four curving roof vaults has two sides attached to columns in a Y form just outside the structure. One of the angles of each shell is lightly raised, and the other is attached to the center of the structure. The roof is connected with the ground by curtain walls of glass.
All of the details inside the building, including the benches, counters, escalators and clocks, were designed in the same style. Louis Kahn Louis Kahn (1901–74) was another American architect who moved away from the Mies van der Rohe model of the glass box, and other dogmas of the prevailing international style. He borrowed from a wide variety of styles, and idioms, including neoclassicism. He was professor of architecture at Yale University from 1947 to 1957, where his students included Eero Saarinen. From 1957 until his death he was professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His work and ideas influenced Philip Johnson, Minoru Yamasaki, and Edward Durell Stone as they moved toward a more neoclassical style.
Unlike Mies, he did not try to make his buildings look light; he constructed mainly with concrete and brick, and made his buildings look monumental and solid. He drew from a wide variety of different sources; the towers of Richards Medical Research Laboratories were inspired by the architecture of the Renaissance towns he had seen in Italy as a resident architect at the American Academy in Rome in 1950. Notable buildings by Kahn in the United States include the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York (1962); and the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (1966–72). Following the example of Le Corbusier and his design of the government buildings in Chandigarh, the capital city of the Haryana & Punjab State of India, Kahn designed the Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban (National Assembly Building) in Dhaka, Bangladesh (1962–74), when that country won independence from Pakistan.
It was Kahn's last work. I. M. Pei I. M. Pei (1917–2019) was a major figure in late modernism and the debut of Post-modern architecture. He was born in China and educated in the United States, studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While the architecture school there still trained in the Beaux-Arts architecture style, Pei discovered the writings of Le Corbusier, and a two-day visit by Le Corbusier to the campus in 1935 had a major impact on Pei's ideas of architecture. In the late 1930s he moved to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he studied with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer and became deeply involved in Modernism.
After the War he worked on large projects for the New York real estate developer William Zeckendorf, before breaking away and starting his own firm. One of the first buildings his own firm designed was the Green Building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While the clean modernist facade was admired, the building developed an unexpected problem; it created a wind-tunnel effect, and in strong winds the doors could not be opened. Pei was forced to construct a tunnel so visitors could enter the building during high winds. Between 1963 and 1967 Pei designed the Mesa Laboratory for the National Center for Atmospheric Research outside Boulder, Colorado, in an open area at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
The project differed from Pei's earlier urban work; it would rest in an open area in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. His design was a striking departure from traditional modernism; it looked as if it were carved out of the side of the mountain. In the late modernist area, art museums bypassed skyscrapers as the most prestigious architectural projects; they offered greater possibilities for innovation in form and more visibility. Pei established himself with his design for the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York (1973), which was praised for its imaginative use of a small space, and its respect for the landscape and other buildings around it.
This led to the commission for one of the most important museum projects of the period, the new East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, completed in 1978, and to another of Pei's most famous projects, the pyramid at the entrance of Louvre Museum in Paris (1983–89). Pei chose the pyramid as the form that best harmonized with the Renaissance and neoclassical forms of the historic Louvre., as well as for its associations with Napoleon and the Battle of the Pyramids. Each face of the pyramid is supported by 128 beams of stainless steel, supporting 675 panels of glass, each 2.9 by 1.9 meters.
Postwar modernism in Europe (1945–1975) In France, Le Corbusier remained the most prominent architect, though he built few buildings there. His most prominent late work was the convent of Sainte Marie de La Tourette in Evreaux-sur-l'Arbresle. The Convent, built of raw concrete, was austere and without ornament, inspired by the medieval monasteries he had visited on his first trip to Italy. In Britain, the major figures in modernism included Wells Coates (1895–1958), FRS Yorke (1906–1962), James Stirling (1926–1992) and Denys Lasdun (1914–2001). Lasdun's best-known work is the Royal National Theatre (1967–1976) on the south bank of the Thames. Its raw concrete and blockish form offended British traditionalists; Charles, Prince of Wales Prince Charles compared it with a nuclear power station.
In Belgium, a major figure was Charles Vandenhove (born 1927) who constructed an important series of buildings for the University Hospital Center in Liege. His later work ventured into colorful rethinking of historical styles, such as Palladian architecture. In Finland, the most influential architect was Alvar Aalto, who adapted his version of modernism to the Nordic landscape, light, and materials, particularly the use of wood. After World War II, he taught architecture in the United States. In Denmark, Arne Jacobsen was the best-known of the modernists, who designed furniture as well as carefully proportioned buildings. In Italy, the most prominent modernist was Gio Ponti, who worked often with the structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, a specialist in reinforced concrete.
Nervi created concrete beams of exceptional length, twenty-five meters, which allowed greater flexibility in forms and greater heights. Their best-known design was the Pirelli Building in Milan (1958–1960), which for decades was the tallest building in Italy. The most famous Spanish modernist was the Catalan architect Josep Lluis Sert, who worked with great success in Spain, France and the United States. In his early career he worked for a time under Le Corbusier, and designed the Spanish pavilion for the 1937 Paris Exposition. His notable later work included the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Provence, France (1964), and the Harvard Science Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He served as Dean of Architecture at the Harvard School of Design. Notable German modernists included Johannes Krahn, who played an important part in rebuilding German cities after World War II, and built several important museums and churches, notably St. Martin, Idstein, which artfully combined stone masonry, concrete and glass. Leading Austrian architects of the style included Gustav Peichl, whose later works included the Art and Exhibition Center of the German Federal Republic in Bonn, Germany (1989). Latin America Architectural historians sometimes label Latin American modernism as "tropical modernism." This reflects architects who adapted modernism to the tropical climate as well as the sociopolitical contexts of Latin America.
Brazil became a showcase of modern architecture in the late 1930s through the work of Lucio Costa (1902–1998) and Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012). Costa had the lead and Niemeyer collaborated on the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro (1936–43) and the Brazilian pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Following the war, Niemeyer, along with Le Corbusier, conceived the form of the United Nations Headquarters constructed by Walter Harrison. Lucio Costa also had overall responsibility for the plan of the most audacious modernist project in Brazil; the creation of a new capital, Brasilia, constructed between 1956 and 1961.
Costa made the general plan, laid out in the form of a cross, with the major government buildings in the center. Niemeyer was responsible for designing the government buildings, including the palace of the President;the National Assembly, composed of two towers for the two branches of the legislature and two meeting halls, one with a cupola and other with an inverted cupola. Niemeyer also built the cathedral, eighteen ministries, and giant blocks of housing, each designed for three thousand residents, each with its own school, shops, and chapel. Modernism was employed both as an architectural principle and as a guideline for organizing society, as explored in The Modernist City.''
Following a military coup d'état in Brazil in 1964, Niemeyer moved to France, where he designed the modernist headquarters of the French Communist Party in Paris (1965–1980), a miniature of his United Nations plan. Mexico also had a prominent modernist movement. Important figures included Félix Candela, born in Spain, who emigrated to Mexico in 1939; he specialized in concrete structures in unusual parabolic forms. Another important figure was Mario Pani, who designed the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City (1949), and the Torre Insignia (1988); Pani was also instrumental in the construction of the new University of Mexico City in the 1950s, alongside Juan O'Gorman, Eugenio Peschard, and Enrique del Moral.
The Torre Latinoamericana, designed by Augusto H. Alvarez, was one of the earliest modernist skyscrapers in Mexico City (1956); it successfully withstood the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which destroyed many other buildings in the city center. Pedro Ramirez Vasquez and Rafael Mijares designed the Olympic Stadium for the 1968 Olympics, and Antoni Peyri and Candela designed the Palace of Sports. Luis Barragan was another influential figure in Mexican modernism; his raw concrete residence and studio in Mexico City looks like a blockhouse on the outside, while inside it features great simplicity in form, pure colors, abundant natural light, and, one of is signatures, a stairway without a railing.
He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1980, and the house was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. Asia and the Pacific Japan, like Europe, had an enormous shortage of housing after the war, due to the bombing of many cities. 4.2 million housing units needed to be replaced. Japanese architects combined both traditional and styles and techniques. One of the foremost Japanese modernists was Kunio Maekawa (1905–1986), who had worked for Le Corbusier in Paris until 1930. His own house in Tokyo was an early landmark of Japanese modernism, combining traditional style with ideas he acquired working with Le Corbusier.
His notable buildings include concert halls in Tokyo and Kyoto and the International House of Japan in Tokyo, all in the pure modernist style. Kenzo Tange (1913–2005) worked in the studio of Kunio Maekawa from 1938 until 1945 before opening his own architectural firm. His first major commission was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum . He designed many notable office buildings and cultural centers. office buildings, as well as the Yoyogi National Gymnasium for the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The gymnasium, built of concrete, features a roof suspended over the stadium on steel cables. The Danish architect Jorn Utzon (1918-2008) worked briefly with Alvar Aalto, studied the work of Le Corbusier, and traveled to the United States to meet Frank Lloyd Wright.
In 1957 he designed one of the most recognizable modernist buildings in the world; the Sydney Opera House. He is known for the sculptural qualities of his buildings, and their relationship with the landscape. The five concrete shells of the structure resemble seashells by the beach. Begun in 1957, the project encountered considerable technical difficulties making the shells and getting the acoustics right. Utzon resigned in 1966, and the opera house was not finished until 1973, ten years after its scheduled completion. In India, modernist architecture was promoted by the postcolonial state under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, most notably by inviting Le Corbusier to design the city of Chandigarh.
Important Indian modernist architects include BV Doshi, Charles Correa, Raj Rewal, Achyut Kanvinde, and Habib Rahman. Much discussion around modernist architecture took place in the journal MARG. In Sri Lanka, Geoffrey Bawa pioneered tropical modernism. Minnette De Silva was an important Sri Lankan modernist architect. Preservation Several works or collections of modern architecture have been designated by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. In addition to the early experiments associated with Art Nouveau, these include a number of the structures mentioned above in this article: the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, the Bauhaus structures in Weimar and Dessau, the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates, the White City of Tel Aviv, the city of Asmara, the city of Brasilia, the Ciudad Universitaria of UNAM in Mexico City and the University City of Caracas in Venezuela, the Sydney Opera House, and the Centennial Hall in Wrocław.
Private organizations such as Docomomo International, the World Monuments Fund, and the Recent Past Preservation Network are working to safeguard and document imperiled Modern architecture. In 2006, the World Monuments Fund launched Modernism at Risk, an advocacy and conservation program. See also Modernisme Modern furniture Modern art Organic architecture Critical regionalism List of post-war Category A listed buildings in Scotland References Notes and citations Bibliography Colquhoun, Alan, Modern Architecture, Oxford history of art, Oxford University Press, 2002, Morgenthaler, Hans Rudolf, The Meaning of Modern Architecture: Its Inner Necessity and an Empathetic Reading, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2015, External links Six Building Designers Who Are Redefining Modern Architecture, an April 2011 radio and Internet report by the Special English service of the Voice of America.
Architecture and Modernism "Preservation of Modern Buildings" edition of AIA Architect Brussels50s60s.be, Overview of the architecture of the 1950s and 1960s in Brussels A Grand Design: The Toronto City Hall Design Competition Modernist designs from the 1958 international competition Category:Architectural history Category:Postmodern architecture Category:Architectural design Category:Architectural theory
The ancient Spartan melas zomos (μέλας ζωμός mélās zōmós), or black soup / black broth, was a staple soup made of boiled pigs' legs, blood, salt and vinegar. It is thought that the vinegar was used as an emulsifier to keep the blood from clotting during the cooking process. The armies of Sparta mainly ate this as part of their subsistence diet. According to legend, a man from Sybaris, a city in southern Italy infamous for its luxury and gluttony (which gave rise to the word sybarite), after tasting the Spartans' black soup remarked with disgust, "Now I do perceive why it is that Spartan soldiers encounter death so joyfully; dead men require no longer to eat; black broth is no longer a necessity."
In another story, it is said that Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, bought a slave who had been a Spartan cook and ordered him to prepare the broth for him, sparing no expense. When the king tasted it, he spat it out in disgust, whereupon the cook said, "Your Majesty, it is necessary to have exercised in the Spartan manner, and to have bathed in the Eurotas, in order to relish this broth." No recipe for the Spartan black soup has survived, but blood soups are still eaten in various countries today, such as Greece (particularly in Laconia and Mani), Italy, France and also Serbia.
See also Black pudding, a wide variety of sausages containing blood Maasai tribesmen also consume cow's blood, sometimes mixed with milk Svartsoppa, Swedish (Scanian) soup made with goose blood Czernina, Polish soup made with duck blood Dinuguan, Filipino stew made of pig's blood, pork, chili, and vinegar List of soups References Further reading Category:Greek soups Category:Culture of Sparta Category:Blood soups Category:Ancient Greek cuisine
KinderCare Learning Centers is an American operator of for-profit child care and early childhood education facilities founded in 1969 and currently owned by KinderCare Education based in Portland, Oregon. The company provides educational programs for children from six weeks to 12 years old. KinderCare is the third-largest privately held company headquartered in Oregon. In 39 states and the District of Columbia, some 200,000 children are enrolled in more than 1,600 early childhood education community centers, over 600 before-and-after school programs, and over 100 employer-sponsored centers. History Founding Perry Mendel, a real estate developer, founded Kinder-Care Nursery Schools after speculating that increasing numbers of women entering the workforce would increase demand for preschool child care.
The first facility was opened on July 14, 1969 accommodating 70 children. A second facility was opened in 1970, and the company changed its name to Kinder-Care Learning Centers, Inc. By 1971, 19 centers were in operation and the first infant care was offered. The firm went public in 1972; by 1974, the company had 60 centers located in 17 states and over 500 employees nationwide. The company's first major acquisition came in 1977, when it purchased the 15 facilities of Playcare. In 1979, it acquired Mini-Skools, Living and Learning, and American Pre-Schools. In 1985, the company opened its 1,000th center.
In 1987, it reported annual revenues of $900 million, and analysts were remarking on the company's rapid growth, observing that stock had soared from 12 cents a share to $20 at its high in mid-1987. During this time, Kinder-Care was expanding at the rate of one new center every three days. In 1987, Kinder-Care acquired Sylvan Learning Centers, a provider of supplemental instruction to children and adults, and the largest franchiser of its kind. In 1992, the company updated its bell tower logo and removed the hyphen in the spelling of Kinder-Care. KinderCare Education KinderCare uses low teacher-to-student ratios that allow teachers to focus on the individual learning styles and needs of each child.
Teacher-to-student ratios increase with each age group. For example, the teacher-to-student ratio in preschool classrooms is one teacher to twelve students, higher than other childcare facilities in the area. For example, La Petite Academy has a teacher-to-student ratio of one teacher to eight students in the preschool classroom. KinderCare offers a developmentally appropriate and comprehensive curriculum for children in each age groups. Each hour of the day is scheduled, even transitions from one activity to the next are laid out in the curriculum provided to the teachers. Two week units are built around themes that will interest the child. The lesson plans and activities support the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of the children.
Daily lesson plans are given to teachers to complete in the classroom with the children. The format of the lesson plans are rigid to ensure children receive the same education in order to achieve universal success. Activities are required to be displayed on boards that are expected to change each week. KinderCare offers programming for school-age children, as well. KinderCare provides door-to-door transportation for children to and from school. Full-day care for summer, winter, and fall break is offered for school-age children as well. School-aged children typically spend two hours before and after school at KinderCare centers. The KinderCare school-age curriculum focuses on social-emotional development in order to support children in becoming the kindest, most capable, and most resilient version of themselves.
Daily lesson plans and activities are expected to be completed, including STEM projects, creative arts projects, despite the limited hours. Bankruptcy In the 1980s, Kinder-Care acquired a wide variety of companies such as American Savings for $188 million. They also purchased photo studios, shoe stores and even invested in a foreign fertilizer manufacturer. Chief Executive Grassgreen, informed by Michael Milken, an investor from the firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert, led the company on an ill-conceived diversification plan in the late 1980s. As a result, the company's debt load increased from $10 million to about $620 million in 1988. The company found itself in deep financial trouble after the stock market crash in October 1987.
During this period, Tull Gearreald, an investment banker, took command of the company as president and CEO. Caught in a cash squeeze in January 1991, Kinder-Care stopped paying interest on its debt. Still faltering under its high debt load, KinderCare filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 10, 1992. The company continued operating, although, according to a 1988 Forbes article, less than half of Kinder-Care's sales and profits for the year were expected to come from its child care centers. In January 1993, in a move that helped their balance sheet, KinderCare sold off Sylvan Learning Centers for $8 million.
Post-2000 financial history KinderCare was acquired in 2005 by the Knowledge Learning Corporation (KLC) division of Michael Milken's privately held education services firm, Knowledge Universe. The deal, valued at over US$1 billion, made KLC the nation’s largest private child care and education provider. In 2012, company revenues were $1.45 billion, down from $1.6 billion in 2010. In July 2015, Partners Group, a Swiss enterprise, bought Knowledge Universe. Knowledge Universe renamed itself as KinderCare Education in January 2016. The parent company, KinderCare Education, also operates Knowledge Beginnings, Children’s Creative Learning Centers (CCLC), and Champions. COVID-19 response During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, KinderCare shut down 1100 of their approximately 1500 daycare centers, leaving the centers that have large proportions of first responders and healthcare workers.
Accreditation The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and other associations have accredited over 700 KLC centers. See also List of companies based in Oregon References External links KinderCare Learning Centers – Official Site Category:Child care companies Category:Education companies established in 1969 Category:Privately held companies based in Oregon Category:Early childhood education Category:1969 establishments in Alabama
Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is a hospital in New York City that specializes in orthopedic surgery and the treatment of rheumatologic conditions. Founded in 1863 by James Knight, HSS is the oldest orthopedic hospital in the United States and is consistently ranked as the top orthopedic hospital in the United States. Currently, HSS is ranked #1 in orthopedics, #3 in rheumatology and #22 in pediatric orthopedics by U.S. News & World Report. Bryan Kelly, M.D. serves as the medical director and surgeon-in-chief, and Louis Shapiro serves as its president and chief executive officer. Areas of expertise at HSS include joint replacement, orthopaedic trauma, hand and upper extremity surgery, limb lengthening, foot and ankle surgery, pediatric orthopedics, spine surgery and sports medicine.
The hospital performs the most knee replacement surgeries of any hospital in the United States. Trauma surgeons treat fractures and other acute injuries at HSS and work within an Orthopedic Trauma Service that also provides coverage at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center. HSS physicians with a subspecialty training in the field of spine surgery focus on patients who suffer from congenital or acute spinal disorders as well as from chronic back pain. The sports medicine services at HSS treat athletic injuries of the musculoskeletal system with a special focus on shoulder, elbow, and knee injuries. In addition, orthopedic surgeons at HSS perform limb lengthening, a procedure that uses the body's capacity to create new bone as well as the soft tissues, ligaments, blood vessels, and nerves that surround and support it.
HSS also offers professional medical education programs, including continuing medical education lecture series, conferences and symposia. Services are available in person at the New York facility and remotely worldwide through the Grand Rounds partnership "eConsult" platform. The hospital has 327 active medical staff. Research Current clinical trials focus on issues related to lupus and arthritis. In addition to clinical trials, HSS has several research programs that center on the prevention of musculoskeletal diseases. Basic and applied research conducted at the hospital addresses specific problems such as arthritis, injury, osteoporosis, scoliosis, autoimmune diseases such as lupus, and related musculoskeletal diseases as they affect children and adults.
Affiliations The Hospital for Special Surgery is affiliated with the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System through the hospital's affiliation with Weill Cornell Medical College. The hospital is also affiliated with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Rockefeller University. Location and facilities Located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, HSS is built over the Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) drive and partially located in the Belaire building at 535 East 70th Street. Currently HSS has 205 beds and 29 operating rooms. HSS recently completed the construction of a new, ninth floor that adds of new space and of re-engineered and re-designed space.
HSS has several specialized centers that focus on specific patients and joint problems, including: Institute for Cartilage Repair Children and Adolescent Hand and Arm (CHArm) Center Foster Center for Clinical Outcome Research Computer Assisted Surgery (CAS) Center Center for Hip Pain and Preservation Gosden Robinson Inflammatory Arthritis Center Integrative Care Center - Combining traditional medicine (Physiatry, with inter alia Chiropractic and Acupuncture) Institute for Limb Lengthening and Complex Reconstruction Mary Kirkland Center for Lupus Care Mary Kirkland Center for Lupus Research Musculoskeletal Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center The Center for Musculoskeletal Ultrasound and Nuclear Medicine Orthopedic Trauma Service Osteoporosis Prevention Center The Kathryn O. and Alan C. Greenberg Center for Skeletal Dysplasias Spine Care Institute Barbara Volcker Center for Women and Rheumatic Disease Women's Sports Medicine Center History HSS was founded in 1863 as the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled in the home of James Knight on Second Avenue, just south of 6th Street.
It opened its doors to the first patient, a four-year-old boy with paralysis, on May 1, 1863. There were 28 beds available, all for children. Adults were treated as outpatients. In 1870 it moved to a newly constructed 200-bed building on the corner of 42nd street and Lexington Avenue. There was no operating room until 1888 after a hospital fire. At the turn of the century, it became the target for efforts to expand Grand Central Terminal and negotiations were led by Cornelius Vanderbilt, II, a member of the Board of Managers of the hospital. In 1912, the hospital moved to a six-story building on 42nd Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue that is now the home of the Ford Foundation.
The hospital moved to its present location in 1955.
Surgeons-in-chief 1863 - James A. Knight 1887 - Virgil P. Gibney 1925 - William Bradley Coley 1933 - Eugene H. Pool 1935 - Philip D. Wilson 1955 - T. Campbell Thompson 1963 - Robert Lee Patterson, Jr. 1972 - Philip D. Wilson, Jr. 1990 - Andrew J. Weiland 1993 - Russell F. Warren 2003 - Thomas P. Sculco 2014 - Todd J. Albert Physicians-in-chief 1924 - R. Garfield Snyder 1944 - Richard Freyberg 1970 - Charles L. Christian 1995 - Stephen A. Paget 2010 - Mary K. Crow Notable alumni Notable alumni include: Oheneba Boachie-Adjei, M.D., attending orthopaedic surgeon, HSS Harlan C. Amstutz, M.D., associate scientist, director of bioengineering, and chief of prosthetics & orthotics, HSS Albert H Burstein, Ph.D., attending orthopaedic surgeon, associate scientist and director of the Department of Biomechanics, Research Division, HSS John Robert Cobb, known for the Cobb angle, head of the Margaret Caspary scoliosis clinic, HSS Struan H. Coleman, MD, PhD, resident in orthopedic surgery and fellow in sports medicine, HSS John Insall, M.D., attending orthopedic surgeon, HSS David B. Levine, M.D., director of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, HSS John L. Marshall, D.V.M., M.D., resident and fellow, director of the Laboratory for Comparative Orthopedics, chief of the Sports Medicine Service, and associate scientist, Research Department, HSS Paula J. Olsiewski, founder and director, Technology Development Office, HSS Leon Root, M.D., chief of pediatric orthopedics, HSS Thomas P. Sculco, M.D., surgeon-in-chief from 2003 to 2014, HSS Francisco Valero-Cuevas, assistant scientist (biomechanical engineer), HSS Peter S. Walker, Ph.D. Russell E. Warren, MD, surgeon-in-chief from 1993 to 2003, HSS Philip D. Wilson, Jr., M.D., surgeon-in-chief 1972-1989 References External links Official site U.S. News & World Report – 2018 Rankings – Orthopedics: https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings/orthopedics U.S. News & World Report – 2018 Rankings – Rheumatology: https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings/rheumatology U.S. News & World Report – 2018 Rankings – Children's Hospital: https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/ny/hospital-for-special-surgery-new-york-PA6212900 New York Magazine – 2006 Best Hospitals – http://nymag.com/health/besthospitals/24095/index3.html Category:Hospital buildings completed in 1870 Category:Hospitals in Manhattan Category:Teaching hospitals in New York City Category:NewYork–Presbyterian Healthcare System Category:Hospitals established in 1883
The Manzanares () is a river in central Spain, which flows from the Sierra de Guadarrama, passes through Madrid, and eventually empties into the Jarama river, which in turn is a tributary to the Tagus. In its urban section, the Manzanares River was modified to create a section of water several meters deep, in some parts navigable by canoes. This project of channeling and damming has been partially reversed in a re-naturalization project. Course The river Manzanares has its source near the Navacerrada mountain pass in the Guadarrama mountain range. The upper river basin is protected as the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, a nature reserve which is recognised as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO.
The Manzanares flows in a south-eastern direction from its source, and passes through the medieval town of Manzanares el Real where it is dammed to form the Santillana reservoir, one of the most important water supplies for the capital. The river then takes a southern direction and enters the Monte de El Pardo, an ecologically valuable area on the edge of Madrid. The river was canalised where it passes through the built-up areas of the city. In the 21st century the river was restored to provide biodiversity and facilities for Madrid residents. The Manzanares skims past the westernmost part of the city and further downstream serves as a dividing line between the old centre of the city and the Carabanchel and Usera neighbourhoods to the southwest.
It is along this stretch that it passes next to Atlético Madrid's former football ground, the Vicente Calderón. The river leaves the city at its southernmost tip. It makes a strong eastern turn which takes it past the village of Perales del Río and towards the river Jarama, into which it flows near the dormitory town of Arganda del Rey, ending its journey. Historical importance The river Manzanares, although small and relatively unimportant geographically, has had a great historical importance due to its close relation to the city of Madrid. The city was founded by the Moors as a citadel overlooking the river in the ninth century.
The river is also featured in many paintings of the late 18th to early 19th-century painter Francisco de Goya, which show traditionally dressed Madrileños in activities like dancing or having picnics next to the river. The Manzanares was also an important defence line for the Republican forces during the Siege of Madrid in the Spanish Civil War, and many bunkers can still be seen near the village of Perales del Río. The Bridge of the French was of crucial importance because of its strategic location. There, nationalist forces were repeatedly repelled and denied access to Madrid’s city center. See also List of rivers of Spain References Category:Rivers of Spain Category:Geography of Madrid Category:Tributaries of the Jarama Category:Rivers of the Community of Madrid
Fenestration may refer to: Fenestration (architecture), the design, construction, or presence of openings in a building Used in relation to fenestra in anatomy, medicine and biology Fenestration, holes in the rudder of a ship to reduce the work required to move it while preserving its ability to steer See also Defenestration, the act of throwing someone or something out of a window National Fenestration Rating Council, an organization which measures and compares the energy performance of fenestration products
The Kerala red rain phenomenon was a blood rain event that occurred from 25 July to 23 September 2001, when heavy downpours of red-coloured rain fell sporadically on the southern Indian state of Kerala, staining clothes pink. Yellow, green and black rain was also reported. Coloured rain was also reported in Kerala in 1896 and several times since, most recently in June 2012, and from 15 November 2012 to 27 December 2012 in eastern and north-central provinces of Sri Lanka. Following a light-microscopy examination in 2001, it was initially thought that the rains were coloured by fallout from a hypothetical meteor burst, but a study commissioned by the Government of India concluded that the rains had been coloured by airborne spores from a locally prolific terrestrial green alga from the genus Trentepohlia.
Occurrence The coloured rain of Kerala began falling on 25 July 2001, in the districts of Kottayam and Idukki in the southern part of the state. Yellow, green, and black rain was also reported. Many more occurrences of the red rain were reported over the following ten days, and then with diminishing frequency until late September. According to locals, the first coloured rain was preceded by a loud thunderclap and flash of light, and followed by groves of trees shedding shrivelled grey "burnt" leaves. Shriveled leaves and the disappearance and sudden formation of wells were also reported around the same time in the area.
It typically fell over small areas, no more than a few square kilometres in size, and was sometimes so localised that normal rain could be falling just a few meters away from the red rain. Red rainfalls typically lasted less than 20 minutes. Each millilitre of rain water contained about 9 million red particles. Extrapolating these figures to the total amount of red rain estimated to have fallen, it was estimated that of red particles had fallen on Kerala. Description of the particles The brownish-red solid separated from the red rain consisted of about 90% round red particles and the balance consisted of debris.
The particles in suspension in the rain water were responsible for the colour of the rain, which at times was strongly coloured red. A small percentage of particles were white or had light yellow, bluish grey and green tints. The particles were typically 4 to 10 µm across and spherical or oval. Electron microscope images showed the particles as having a depressed centre. At still higher magnification some particles showed internal structures. Chemical composition Some water samples were taken to the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) in India, where they separated the suspended particles by filtration. The pH of the water was found to be around 7 (neutral).
The electrical conductivity of the rainwater showed the absence of any dissolved salts. Sediment (red particles plus debris) was collected and analysed by the CESS using a combination of ion-coupled plasma mass spectrometry, atomic absorption spectrometry and wet chemical methods. The major elements found are listed below. The CESS analysis also showed significant amounts of heavy metals, including nickel (43 ppm), manganese (59 ppm), titanium (321 ppm), chromium (67ppm) and copper (55 ppm). Physicists Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar of the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, used energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis of the red solid and showed that the particles were composed of mostly carbon and oxygen, with trace amounts of silicon and iron.
A CHN analyser showed content of 43.03% carbon, 4.43% hydrogen, and 1.84% nitrogen. J. Thomas Brenna in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University conducted carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses using a scanning electron microscope with X-ray micro-analysis, an elemental analyser, and an isotope ratio (IR) mass spectrometer. The red particles collapsed when dried, which suggested that they were filled with fluid. The amino acids in the particles were analysed and seven were identified (in order of concentration): phenylalanine, glutamic acid/glutamine, serine, aspartic acid, threonine, and arginine. The results were consistent with a marine origin or a terrestrial plant that uses a C4 photosynthetic pathway.
Government report Initially, the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) stated that the likely cause of the red rain was an exploding meteor, which had dispersed about 1,000 kg (one ton) of material. A few days later, following a basic light microscopy evaluation, the CESS retracted this as they noticed the particles resembled spores, and because debris from a meteor would not have continued to fall from the stratosphere onto the same area while unaffected by wind. A sample was, therefore, handed over to the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) for microbiological studies, where the spores were allowed to grow in a medium suitable for growth of algae and fungi.
The inoculated Petri dishes and conical flasks were incubated for three to seven days and the cultures were observed under a microscope. In November 2001, commissioned by the Government of India's Department of Science & Technology, the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) and the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) issued a joint report, which concluded: The site was again visited on 16 August 2001 and it was found that almost all the trees, rocks and even lamp posts in the region were covered with Trentepohlia estimated to be in sufficient amounts to generate the quantity of spores seen in the rainwater.
Although red or orange, Trentepohlia is a chlorophyte green alga which can grow abundantly on tree bark or damp soil and rocks, but is also the photosynthetic symbiont or photobiont of many lichens, including some of those abundant on the trees in Changanassery area. The strong orange colour of the algae, which masks the green of the chlorophyll, is caused by the presence of large quantities of orange carotenoid pigments. A lichen is not a single organism, but the result of a partnership (symbiosis) between a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium. The report also stated that there was no meteoric, volcanic or desert dust origin present in the rainwater and that its colour was not due to any dissolved gases or pollutants.
The report concluded that heavy rains in Kerala – in the weeks preceding the red rains – could have caused the widespread growth of lichens, which had given rise to a large quantity of spores into the atmosphere. However, for these lichen to release their spores simultaneously, it is necessary for them to enter their reproductive phase at about the same time. The CESS report noted that while this may be a possibility, it is quite improbable. Also, they could find no satisfactory explanation for the apparently extraordinary dispersal, nor for the apparent uptake of the spores into clouds. CESS scientists noted that "While the cause of the colour in the rainfall has been identified, finding the answers to these questions is a challenge."
Attempting to explain the unusual spore proliferation and dispersal, researcher Ian Goddard proposed several local atmospheric models. Parts of the CESS/TBGRI report were supported by Milton Wainwright at the University of Sheffield, who, together with Chandra Wickramasinghe, has studied stratospheric spores. In March 2006 Wainwright said the particles were similar in appearance to spores of a rust fungus, later saying that he had confirmed the presence of DNA, and reported their similarity to algal spores, and found no evidence to suggest that the rain contained dust, sand, fat globules, or blood. In November 2012, Rajkumar Gangappa and Stuart Hogg from the University of Glamorgan, UK, confirmed that the red rain cells from Kerala contain DNA.
In February 2015, a team of scientists from India and Austria, also supported the identification of the algal spores as Trentepohlia annulata, however, they speculate that the spores from the 2011 incident were carried by winds from Europe to the Indian subcontinent. Alternative hypotheses History records many instances of unusual objects falling with the rain – in 2000, in an example of raining animals, a small waterspout in the North Sea sucked up a school of fish a mile off shore, depositing them shortly afterwards on Great Yarmouth in the United Kingdom. Coloured rain is by no means rare, and can often be explained by the airborne transport of rain dust from desert or other dry regions which is washed down by rain.
"Red Rains" have been frequently described in southern Europe, with increasing reports in recent years. One such case occurred in England in 1903, when dust was carried from the Sahara and fell with rain in February of that year. At first, the red rain in Kerala was attributed to the same effect, with dust from the deserts of Arabia initially the suspect. LIDAR observations had detected a cloud of dust in the atmosphere near Kerala in the days preceding the outbreak of the red rain. However, laboratory tests from all involved teams ruled out the particles were desert sand. K.K.
Sasidharan Pillai, a senior scientific assistant in the Indian Meteorological Department, proposed dust and acidic material from an eruption of Mayon Volcano in the Philippines as an explanation for the coloured rain and the "burnt" leaves. The volcano was erupting in June and July 2001 and Pillai calculated that the Eastern or Equatorial jet stream could have transported volcanic material to Kerala in 25–36 hours. The Equatorial jet stream is unusual in that it sometimes flows from east to west at about 10° N, approximately the same latitude as Kerala (8° N) and Mayon Volcano (13° N). This hypothesis was also ruled out as the particles were neither acidic nor of volcanic origin, but were spores.
A study has been published showing a correlation between historic reports of coloured rains and of meteors; the author of the paper, Patrick McCafferty, stated that sixty of these events (coloured rain), or 36%, were linked to meteoritic or cometary activity. But not always strongly. Sometimes the fall of red rain seems to have occurred after an air-burst, as from a meteor exploding in air; other times the odd rainfall is merely recorded in the same year as the appearance of a comet. Panspermia hypothesis In 2003 Godfrey Louis and Santhosh Kumar, physicists at the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala, posted an article entitled "Cometary panspermia explains the red rain of Kerala" in the non-peer reviewed arXiv web site.
While the CESS report said there was no apparent relationship between the loud sound (possibly a sonic boom) and flash of light which preceded the red rain, to Louis and Kumar it was a key piece of evidence. They proposed that a meteor (from a comet containing the red particles) caused the sound and flash and when it disintegrated over Kerala it released the red particles which slowly fell to the ground. However, they omitted an explanation on how debris from a meteor continued to fall in the same area over a period of two months while unaffected by winds.
Their work indicated that the particles were of biological origin (consistent with the CESS report), however, they invoked the panspermia hypothesis to explain the presence of cells in a supposed fall of meteoric material. Additionally, using ethidium bromide they were unable to detect DNA or RNA in the particles. Two months later they posted another paper on the same web site entitled "New biology of red rain extremophiles prove cometary panspermia" in which they reported that The microorganism isolated from the red rain of Kerala shows very extraordinary characteristics, like the ability to grow optimally at 300 °C (572 °F) and the capacity to metabolise a wide range of organic and inorganic materials.
These claims and data have yet to be verified and reported in any peer reviewed publication. In 2006 Louis and Kumar published a paper in Astrophysics and Space Science entitled "The red rain phenomenon of Kerala and its possible extraterrestrial origin" which reiterated their arguments that the red rain was biological matter from an extraterrestrial source but made no mention of their previous claims to having induced the cells to grow. The team also observed the cells using phase contrast fluorescence microscopy, and they concluded that: "The fluorescence behaviour of the red cells is shown to be in remarkable correspondence with the extended red emission observed in the Red Rectangle Nebula and other galactic and extragalactic dust clouds, suggesting, though not proving an extraterrestrial origin."
One of their conclusions was that if the red rain particles are biological cells and are of cometary origin, then this phenomenon can be a case of cometary panspermia. In August 2008 Louis and Kumar again presented their case in an astrobiology conference. The abstract for their paper states that The red cells found in the red rain in Kerala, India are now considered as a possible case of extraterrestrial life form. These cells can undergo rapid replication even at an extreme high temperature of 300 °C. They can also be cultured in diverse unconventional chemical substrates. The molecular composition of these cells is yet to be identified.
In September 2010 a similar paper was presented at a conference in California, USA Cosmic ancestry Researcher Chandra Wickramasinghe used Louis and Kumar's "extraterrestrial origin" claim to further support his panspermia hypothesis called cosmic ancestry. This hypothesis postulates that life is neither the product of supernatural creation, nor is it spontaneously generated through abiogenesis, but that it has always existed in the universe. Cosmic ancestry speculates that higher life forms, including intelligent life, descend ultimately from pre-existing life which was at least as advanced as the descendants. Criticism Louis and Kumar made their first publication of their finding on a web site in 2003, and have presented papers at conferences and in astrophysics magazines a number of times since.
The controversial conclusion of Louis et al. is the only hypothesis suggesting that these organisms are of extraterrestrial origin. Such reports have been popular in the media, with major news agencies like CNN repeating the panspermia theory without critique. The hypothesis' authors – G. Louis and Kumar – did not explain how debris from a meteor could have continued to fall on the same area over a period of two months, despite the changes in climatic conditions and wind pattern spanning over two months. Samples of the red particles were also sent for analysis to his collaborators Milton Wainwright at the University of Sheffield and Chandra Wickramasinghe at Cardiff University.
Louis then incorrectly reported on 29 August 2010 in the non-peer reviewed online physics archive "arxiv.org" that they were able to have these cells "reproduce" when incubated at high pressure saturated steam at 121 °C (autoclaved) for up to two hours. Their conclusion is that these cells reproduced, without DNA, at temperatures higher than any known life form on earth is able to. They claimed that the cells, however, were unable to reproduce at temperatures similar to known organisms. Regarding the "absence" of DNA, Louis admits he has no training in biology, and has not reported the use of any standard microbiology growth medium to culture and induce germination and growth of the spores, basing his claim of "biological growth" on light absorption measurements following aggregation by supercritical fluids, an inert physical observation.
Both his collaborators, Wickramasinghe and Milton Wainwright independently extracted and confirmed the presence of DNA from the spores. The absence of DNA was key to Louis and Kumar's hypothesis that the cells were of extraterrestrial origins. Louis' only reported attempt to stain the spores' DNA was by the use of malachite green, which is generally used to stain bacterial endospores, not algal spores, whose primary function of their cell wall and their impermeability is to ensure its own survival through periods of environmental stress. They are therefore resistant to ultraviolet and gamma radiation, desiccation, lysozyme, temperature, starvation and chemical disinfectants.
Visualizing algal spore DNA under a light microscope can be difficult due to the impermeability of the highly resistant spore wall to dyes and stains used in normal staining procedures. The spores' DNA is tightly packed, encapsulated and desiccated, therefore, the spores must first be cultured in suitable growth medium and temperature to first induce germination, then cell growth followed by reproduction before staining the DNA. Other researchers have noted recurring instances of red rainfalls in 1818, 1846, 1872, 1880, 1896, and 1950 and several times since then. Most recently, coloured rainfall occurred over Kerala during the summers of 2001, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2012; since 2001, the botanists have found the same Trentepohlia spores every time.
This supports the notion that the red rain is a seasonal local environmental feature caused by algal spores. In popular culture The science fiction film Red Rain was loosely based on the red rain in Kerala story. It was directed by Rahul Sadasivan and released in India on 6 December 2013. See also References External links Sampath, S., Abraham, T. K., Sasi Kumar, V., & Mohanan, C.N. (2001). Colored Rain: A Report on the Phenomenon. CESS-PR-114-2001, Center for Earth Science Studies and Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute.
"When aliens rained over India" by Hazel Muir in New Scientist "Searching for 'our alien origins'" by Andrew Thompson in BBC News "Fluorescence Mystery in Red Rain Cells of Kerala, India " Linda Moulton Howe Earthfiles "Home page of Dr A Santhosh Kumar" Category:2001 in India Category:2001 meteorology Category:Anomalous weather Category:Earth mysteries Category:Environment of Kerala Category:Panspermia Category:Pathological science Category:Weather events in India Category:Rain Category:Changanassery Category:Meteorological hypotheses
Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii. Infections with toxoplasmosis usually cause no obvious symptoms in adults. Occasionally, people may have a few weeks or months of mild, flu-like illness such as muscle aches and tender lymph nodes. In a small number of people, eye problems may develop. In those with a weak immune system, severe symptoms such as seizures and poor coordination may occur. If infected during pregnancy, a condition known as congenital toxoplasmosis may affect the child. Toxoplasmosis is usually spread by eating poorly cooked food that contains cysts, exposure to infected cat feces, and from an infected mother to her baby during pregnancy.
Rarely, the disease may be spread by blood transfusion. It is not otherwise spread between people. The parasite is known to reproduce sexually only in the cat family. However, it can infect most types of warm-blooded animals, including humans. Diagnosis is typically by testing blood for antibodies or by testing amniotic fluid for the parasite's DNA. Prevention is by properly preparing and cooking food. Pregnant women are also recommended not to clean cat litter boxes, or if they must to wear gloves and wash their hands afterwards. Treatment of otherwise healthy people is usually not needed. During pregnancy, spiramycin or pyrimethamine/sulfadiazine and folinic acid may be used for treatment.
Up to half of the world's population is infected by toxoplasmosis, but have no symptoms. In the United States, approximately 11% of people are infected, while in some areas of the world this is more than 60%. Approximately 200,000 cases of congenital toxoplasmosis occur a year. Charles Nicolle and Louis Manceaux first described the organism in 1908. In 1941, transmission during pregnancy from a mother to a baby was confirmed. There is tentative evidence that infection may affect people's behavior. Signs and symptoms Infection has three stages: Acute Acute toxoplasmosis is often asymptomatic in healthy adults. However, symptoms may manifest and are often influenza-like: swollen lymph nodes, headaches, fever, and fatigue, or muscle aches and pains that last for a month or more.
It is rare for a human with a fully functioning immune system to develop severe symptoms following infection. People with weakened immune systems are likely to experience headache, confusion, poor coordination, seizures, lung problems that may resemble tuberculosis or Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (a common opportunistic infection that occurs in people with AIDS), or blurred vision caused by severe inflammation of the retina (ocular toxoplasmosis). Young children and immunocompromised people, such as those with HIV/AIDS, those taking certain types of chemotherapy, or those who have recently received an organ transplant, may develop severe toxoplasmosis. This can cause damage to the brain (encephalitis) or the eyes (necrotizing retinochoroiditis).
Infants infected via placental transmission may be born with either of these problems, or with nasal malformations, although these complications are rare in newborns. The toxoplasmic trophozoites causing acute toxoplasmosis are referred to as tachyzoites, and are typically found in bodily fluids. Swollen lymph nodes are commonly found in the neck or under the chin, followed by the armpits and the groin. Swelling may occur at different times after the initial infection, persist, and recur for various times independently of antiparasitic treatment. It is usually found at single sites in adults, but in children, multiple sites may be more common.
Enlarged lymph nodes will resolve within 1–2 months in 60% of cases. However, a quarter of those affected take 2–4 months to return to normal, and 8% take 4–6 months. A substantial number (6%) do not return to normal until much later. Latent Due to the absence of obvious symptoms, hosts easily become infected with T. gondii and develop toxoplasmosis without knowing it. Although mild, flu-like symptoms occasionally occur during the first few weeks following exposure, infection with T. gondii produces no readily observable symptoms in healthy human adults. In most immunocompetent people, the infection enters a latent phase, during which only bradyzoites (in tissue cysts) are present; these tissue cysts and even lesions can occur in the retinas, alveolar lining of the lungs (where an acute infection may mimic a Pneumocystis jirovecii infection), heart, skeletal muscle, and the central nervous system (CNS), including the brain.
Cysts form in the CNS (brain tissue) upon infection with T. gondii and persist for the lifetime of the host. Most infants who are infected while in the womb have no symptoms at birth, but may develop symptoms later in life. Reviews of serological studies have estimated that 30–50% of the global population has been exposed to and may be chronically infected with latent toxoplasmosis, although infection rates differ significantly from country to country. This latent state of infection has recently been associated with numerous disease burdens, neural alterations, and subtle gender-dependent behavioral changes in immunocompetent humans, as well as a increased risk of motor vehicle collisions.
Skin While rare, skin lesions may occur in the acquired form of the disease, including roseola and erythema multiforme-like eruptions, prurigo-like nodules, urticaria, and maculopapular lesions. Newborns may have punctate macules, ecchymoses, or "blueberry muffin" lesions. Diagnosis of cutaneous toxoplasmosis is based on the tachyzoite form of T. gondii being found in the epidermis. It is found in all levels of the epidermis, is about 6 by 2 μm and bow-shaped, with the nucleus being one-third of its size. It can be identified by electron microscopy or by Giemsa staining tissue where the cytoplasm shows blue, the nucleus red. Cause Parasitology In its lifecycle, T. gondii adopts several forms.
Tachyzoites are responsible for acute infection; they divide rapidly and spread through the tissues of the body. Tachyzoites are also known as "tachyzoic merozoites", a descriptive term that conveys more precisely the parasitological nature of this stage. After proliferating, tachyzoites convert into bradyzoites, which are inside latent intracellular tissue cysts that form mainly in the muscles and brain. The formation of cysts is in part triggered by the pressure of the host immune system. The bradyzoites (also called "bradyzoic merozoites") are not responsive to antibiotics. Bradyzoites, once formed, can remain in the tissues for the lifespan of the host. In a healthy host, if some bradyzoites convert back into active tachyzoites, the immune system will quickly destroy them.
However, in immunocompromised individuals, or in fetuses, which lack a developed immune system, the tachyzoites can run rampant and cause significant neurological damage. The parasite's survival is dependent on a balance between host survival and parasite proliferation. T. gondii achieves this balance by manipulating the host's immune response, reducing the host's immune response, and enhancing the parasite's reproductive advantage. Once it infects a normal host cell, it resists damage caused by the host's immune system, and changes the host's immune processes. As it forces its way into the host cell, the parasite forms a parasitophorous vacuole (PV) membrane from the membrane of the host cell.
The PV encapsulates the parasite, and is both resistant to the activity of the endolysosomal system, and can take control of the host's mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum. When first invading the cell, the parasite releases ROP proteins from the bulb of the rhoptry organelle. These proteins translocate to the nucleus and the surface of the PV membrane where they can activate STAT pathways to modulate the expression of cytokines at the transcriptional level, bind and inactivate PV membrane destroying IRG proteins, among other possible effects. Additionally, certain strains of T. gondii can secrete a protein known as GRA15, activating the NF-κB pathway, which upregulates the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-12 in the early immune response, possibly leading to the parasite's latent phase.
The parasite's ability to secrete these proteins depends on its genotype and affects its virulence. The parasite also influences an anti-apoptotic mechanism, allowing the infected host cells to persist and replicate. One method of apoptosis resistance is by disrupting pro-apoptosis effector proteins, such as BAX and BAK. To disrupt these proteins, T. gondii causes conformational changes to the proteins, which prevent the proteins from being transported to various cellular compartments where they initiate apoptosis events. T. gondii does not, however, cause downregulation of the pro-apoptosis effector proteins. T. gondii also has the ability to initiate autophagy of the host's cells.
This leads to a decrease in healthy, uninfected cells, and consequently fewer host cells to attack the infected cells. Research by Wang et al finds that infected cells lead to higher levels of autophagosomes in normal and infected cells. Their research reveals that T. gondii causes host cell autophagy using a calcium-dependent pathway. Another study suggests that the parasite can directly affect calcium being released from calcium stores, which are important for the signalling processes of cells. The mechanisms above allow T. gondii to persist in a host. Some limiting factors for the toxoplasma is that its influence on the host cells is stronger in a weak immune system and is quantity-dependent, so a large number of T. gondii per host cell cause a more severe effect.