A common belief about the Middle East was that it was carved up by England and France during World War I with the 1916 Sykes-Picot Treaty. The reality is much more complicated. One example is the creation of the Iraq-Saudi-Kuwait border. That was literally a straight line drawn by the British, but was only a rough demarcation, which took decades to define.
Ibn Saud of Najid with Sir Percy Cox British High Commissioner for Iraq during the Mandate period (Cricistan)
In November 1922, Sir Percy Cox the British High Commissioner for Iraq called a meeting in the Saudi desert to decide the borders between Iraq, Kuwait and Najid located in what would become central Saudi Arabia. All three were under England’s influence, which gave Cox the authority to convene such a meeting. Kuwait was represented by Major J.C. More the United Kingdom’s agent there, Iraq’s Communications Minister Sabih Beg was present, and Ibn Saud ruler of Najid. Iraq was a mandate run by Cox, so he couldn’t both represent it and mediate the gathering leading to Beg’s appointment. Kuwait was a protectorate of England, which was why More was there. Najid was the only independent country at the time, and Saud its king
Kingdom of Najd would become the basis for Saudi Arabia, which was declared in 1925 (GeoCurrents)
After five days of talks things were going nowhere. The countries were deeply divided, and made huge demands on the land. One example of the disputes between them was that Beg laid claim to the Arabian desert all the way to Riyadh, which would have taken much of eastern Najid. Ibn Saud on the other hand, wanted territory up to the Euphrates in southern Iraq. On the sixth day, Cox told the parties he was frustrated with the lack of progress. He held a private meeting with Ibn Saud. Cox criticized Saud for his demands, and said he would make the borders himself to end the negotiations. Ibn Saud was taken aback and apologized to the High Commissioner saying he would go along with whatever he wanted. Cox obviously thought this would be easier than it was. All the parties were taking advantage of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and laying their eyes on a wide breadth of territory, which they believed was up for grabs.
At the next meeting, Cox took matters into his own hands. He took out a pencil and drew a line from the Persian Gulf to Transjordan. That gave Iraq part of northern Najid. In compensation, two-thirds of Kuwait was given to Najid. He added the Kuwait-Najid and Iraq-Najid Neutral Zones, which would remain undeclared regions. Needless to say, no one was happy. This was an actual occasion when a European imperial power made a straight-line border dividing three countries.
Iraq-Saudi and Kuwait-Saudi neutral zones created by Sir Cox, which would later be divided up between the nations (NY Times)
Ibn Saud and Ibn Sabah later met with Cox to voice their complaints. Saud said if Cox wanted to take part of his country and give it to Iraq he should have taken it all. Saud began to cry and Cox had to console him. Cox told Saud he had given him most of Kuwait as consolation. Ibn Sabah then met with the Commissioner asking how he could give away his country without asking him. Cox said that Saud was more powerful and would have seized the land by force eventually. Taken aback, Sabah asked if in the future he became more powerful could he seize land from Najid. Cox said yes, and the British wouldn’t stop him. That went a small way to assuage Sabah. The two rulers had aligned themselves with England to ensure their hold over their emerging countries in opposition to the Ottomans. The price they had to pay was for Cox to later determine what areas they would rule.
The 1922 agreement was far from definitive. In 1923 Major More would try to mark the Iraq-Kuwait border by putting up signs by landmarks such as a palm grove. In the 1940s, the British tried to find where these were, but because the environment had changed they were never found. That led to subsequent treaties in 1923 and 1925 between Iraq and Najid and then Saudi Arabia to try to be more precise about the frontier, and then talks in 1974 and 1975. In July 1975 for instance, the two finally agreed to divide the neutral zone between them in half. Cox’s decision was just the first step then, in a long process of creating future relations between the three countries.
Conventional wisdom is that European imperial powers created the modern Middle East after World War I. This is in part true. Iraq was put together from three Ottoman provinces by the British. However, the lines in the sand were anything but definitive, and there were arguments, disputes, negotiations, and treaties lasting for decades to demarcate the borders between the new nations. Sir Cox tried to create the Iraq-Saudi border in 1922, but it wasn’t until 1975 that it was finally settled. Iraq and Kuwait didn’t come to an agreement until after the 1991 Gulf War, which was in part justified by Saddam Hussein who claimed Kuwait as part of Iraq. These examples showed that while it was the Europeans who set the precedent for these countries to come into being, it was also the individual governments that formalized the border and made the region what it is today.
Draper, Theodore, “The Gulf War Reconsidered,” New York Review of Books, 1/16/92
Hassan, Hamadi, the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, Religion, Identity and Otherness in the Analysis of War and Conflict, London, Sterling: Pluto Press, 1999
Khadduri, Majid, Socialist Iraq: A study in Iraqi politics since 1968, Washington D.C.: Middle East Institute, 1978
Stansfield, Gareth, Iraq: People, History, Politics, Malden: Polity Press, 2007


Thursday, 6 September 2007
Eye Access Cues
* eyes up and to your left. This is when something you have seen before and hence you remembered it -- visual remembered (VR).
* eyes up and to your right. This is a when something that I assume you have not seen before and hence you constructed this picture - visual constructed (VC).
* eyes on the horizontal plane to your left. This is when something you have heard before - auditory remembered (AR).
* eyes on the horizontal plane to your right. This is something you have not heard before - auditory constructed (AC).
* eyes down and to the left. When its about your self talk - auditory digital (Ad).
* eyes down and to the right. This is when you talk about your feelings- kinesthetic (K).
Read full article (link)


AT 101: Understanding Laptop Displays & How We Test Themby Brett Howse on July 10, 2018 8:00 AM EST
Building the Transistors
As we briefly touched on when going over the display technologies, the basic operation of a LCD display is that voltage is applied to the liquid crystal, which either twists or rotates it, allowing polarized light from the backlight through to the different subpixels which provide the red, green, and blue colors. In case you hadn’t noticed yet from all this discussion on color, what most of us are taught in elementary school on what the primary colors are is – while not entirely incorrect – not applicable to displays. Red, green, and blue are the primary colors for emissive (additive) light to give the widest range of color combinations, which is why subpixels are that color. If you were looking at subtractive colors, such as printing on white paper, you'd use cyan, magenta, and yellow.
Thin-Film Transistor Construction - Source: Cepheiden
The basic function of an LCD is to twist an appropriate amount to provide varying levels of light through in order to combine red, green, and blue to make all of the colors you see on your display. To move the liquid crystal, voltage is required, and that voltage is provided through at least one transistor. Since transistors are semiconductors, manufacturers are somewhat limited in what they can use to build the matrix out of, and since you must shine a backlight through it, preferably the transistor will not block all of the backlighting.
Displays leverage a thin-film transistor, or TFT, to provide the matrix of transistors which control all of the subpixels. Traditionally, TFTs were generally made out of amorphous silicon (a-Si) which can be made much thinner than the more traditional crystalline silicon (c-Si) you’d find in an integrated circuit. This allows the backlight to shine through the TFT without being attenuated as drastically as it would be on a c-Si TFT.
While a-Si has served us well for a long, long time, as displays move up in pixel density, the amount of light blocked by the TFT gets to be a higher percentage, since you need more transistors in a given area to control the increased number of pixels. To combat this, manufacturers are developing new TFT materials which provide increased aperture for the backlight.
This is likely to be an ever-expanding list of materials, but materials which provide a higher aperture than a-Si are low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) and indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO). Sharp has been manufacturing IGZO displays for several years now, and LTPS is used in both laptops and smartphones.
An image of the crystaline structure of IGZO - Source: Sharp
Of course, the major reason for the push to these technologies is to improve power efficiency. When you’re powered by a battery, any increases to the efficiency of the display can be dramatic, since the display backlight is often the highest power draw component of a laptop at idle (and laptops like to be idle). As an example, a Surface Book 2 15 with the display set to 100% brightness draws 7.65 W of power at idle. Of that, the display constitutes an amazing 6.22 W, or 81.3% of the power draw. By allowing more light through – via creating a thinner TFT – the net result is a reduction in power required for a backlight, improving its overall efficiency and generally providing a major benefit to a laptop's battery life.
There’s a lot of confusion here, and a common question you may see is if an IGZO or an IPS display is better, but IGZO is the TFT material, and IPS is the LCD type.
Lighting the Display
As far as backlighting goes, all modern laptop LCDs require a backlight. Laptops in turn generally rely on white LED backlighting, where the LEDs are located at the edges of the display, and the lighting from those LEDs is shone through a diffuser plate behind the display to provide a uniform backlight. This is most commonly referred to as an edge-lit display.
On larger displays where power draw isn’t as much of a concern, such as televisions, some manufacturers have moved to a full-array backlight, which puts the LEDs directly behind the display. This allows the individual LEDs to be dimmed to provide local dimming, which improves black levels quite dramatically, however it’s unlikely laptops will adopt this due to the extra thickness and power required. On high-end computer monitors, you may find a backlight made up of RGB lighting as well, but for the same reasons, laptops are unlikely to leverage this design.
The only display that doesn’t require a backlight is Organic Light Emitting Diode, or OLED, since the individual OLED subpixels emit their own light.
Backlighting brightness is typically controlled by using pulse-width modulation (PWM). A voltage is applied through a transistor that turns on and off quickly, and depending on how much time is spent in the on versus off position, various average voltage levels are achieved. This is called the duty cycle. A 50% duty cycle will have the voltage on for 50% of the time, and off for 50% of the time, and the average voltage will be half of the maximum.
The downside to PWM is that some people can be susceptible to the flickering that can occur, especially if the PWM frequency is too low. If a manufacturer is trying to save costs, they may utilize a cheaper PWM controller which operates at a frequency that is far too low. This can be more noticeable when the display is dimmed, since the amount of time the backlight is on in the duty cycle is much less. Laptops with a PWM frequency in the low hundreds of Hz can have a noticeable flicker, but quality controllers should operate at frequencies around 10 KHz or so, as to not make it noticeable to the human eye.


16 Sterling Drive
Craftsbury Common, VT
Connect to the environment through making. Learn smithing and carving to sustainably build tools that every new American farmstead needs. In this course, students will practice foundational skills for working with both metal and wood, such as fire management, materials selection, shaping techniques, heat-treating, and sharpening edge tools. They will also explore how these time-honored crafts connect to and reinforce each other. Over five intensive days, students will both use and build hand tools that require no electricity. Each student will leave the course with at least one complete tool of their own making. Depending on the collective skill levels, group interest, and pace of student production, we will practice skills to create tools such as straight knives, crooked knives, froes, mallets, hewing hatchets, punches, and drifts. Beyond the physical manifestation of new skills, students will also learn to source and create with common materials available near their homes. Outside of class time, students will have access to the Sterling College Forge, providing further opportunity to hone skills between sessions. A small class size ensures that the students will have ample one-on-one attention from the instructor. The course aims to help students cultivate “making” confidence and curiosity. Armed with the knowledge that they can supply many necessities for themselves, their families, and their communities, most students will be motivated to further develop skills in blacksmithing and green woodworking.


In Diamonds, light that enters gets trapped within due to total internal reflection, defined as: Total internal reflection is an optical phenomenon that occurs when a ray of light strikes a medium boundary at an angle larger than the critical angle with respect to the normal to the surface. If the refractive index is lower on the other side of the boundary no light can pass through, so effectively all of the light is reflected. The critical angle is the angle of incidence above which the total internal reflection occurs. Diamonds have one of the highest index of refractions there is at a whopping n = 2.41. I'm curious to know if there is a material or apparatus that can achieve the same effect as a diamond, but for sound waves instead of light.


Reuters on MSNBC.com
Brain chemical is key for keeping aggression in check, study finds
LONDON – Serotonin, the brain chemical linked to mood, plays a key role in regulating emotions such as aggression, British researchers said on Thursday.
Serotonin, the nerve-signaling chemical targeted by many antidepressants, appears to keep aggressive social responses in check, Molly Crockett, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge and colleagues reported in the journal Science.
The chemical’s precise role in impulse control has been controversial but this study is one of the first to actually show a causal link, Crockett said.
“Because we directly manipulated serotonin levels and observed an effect on behavior we can say there is a causal link between serotonin and aggressive responses,” Crockett said in a telephone interview.
Their research also helps explain why some people become combative or aggressive when hungry because the essential amino acid needed for the body to create serotonin is only obtained through diet.
The team used this knowledge to manipulate serotonin levels in 20 healthy volunteers who were then asked to play a situation game that tested their responses to fair and unfair offers of money.
People with lower serotonin levels were far more likely to deprive other players of money, even though they lost out as well, as a way to punish the person who made the offer, the researchers said.
“It is an anger-driven response,” Crockett said.
This knowledge could help doctors treat people with depression and anxiety disorders by teaching them ways to regulate emotions during decision making, especially in social situations, she added.


Closing the Achievement Gap by Closing the Cognitive Gap: A Matter of Equity
As educators and education policymakers seek to understand and remedy the achievement gaps, much attention is paid to the concept of equity. A variety of inequities have been identified as impediments to students having the opportunity to achieve their potential. Disparities in per-pupil spending, teacher experience, and technology and other resources are well-documented and top of mind. A less visible disparity, and one that connects directly to student learning is highlighted by contemporary neuroscience research—cognitive development.
3 Keys to Building Individual Learning Capacity
A lot of attention has been paid to building learning capacity for organizations. Indeed, a Google search for “building learning capacity” yields over 8 million results, the first few pages


Potato Nutrition Handbook: a comprehensive review of nutrition research as it pertains to the potato, along with healthy recipe suggestions, a potato type primer and other interesting potato industry information.
SCIENCE-BASED NUTRITION HANDOUTS: Downloadable, copy-ready information and recommendations for a healthy lifestyle.
RESEARCH: Presented research and published manuscripts
- Vegetable Cost Metrics Show That Potatoes and Beans Provide Most Nutrients Per Penny
- Effects of Potato Consumption on Oxidative Stress, Inflammatory Damage and Immune Response in Humans
- Glycemic Index of Potatoes Commonly Consumed in North America
PRINTABLE RECIPE CARDS & Brochures: Healthy potato recipes to showcase how nutritious potatoes can stay
- Teacher’s Briefing: Explanation of the nutrition lesson plan
- Dig This Classroom Poster: Colorful and entertaining poster to use as a visual aid in teaching students how to read a nutrition label (Click here to order the printed poster)
- How to Read a Nutrition Label: How to Read a Nutrition Label: Student lesson and activity handout


This page was updated on 23 Nov 2012 to include the disclaimer below. No other content in this article was affected.
Users are warned that historic issues of this publication may contain language or views which, reflecting the authors' attitudes or that of the period in which the item was written, may be considered to be inappropriate or offensive today.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN AUSTRALIA
This article has been contributed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - written by Graeme O'Neill.
Several lines of evidence indicate that by 60,000 years ago, a coastal culture from the Indonesian archipelago developed a sailing craft capable of undertaking short ocean voyages. From this culture came the ancestors of Australia's Aboriginals. Uniquely, the colonisation of Australia demanded the use of maritime technology - the world's other inhabited continents were all colonised via overland routes. No direct overland connection has ever existed between Australia and the Indonesian archipelago; the smallest gap even at times of low sea level was at least 70 kilometres. Thus, the presence of humans in Australia some 50-60,000 years ago can only be explained by their use of boats or rafts.
In time, these early marine technologists made a successful transition to a hunter-gatherer existence, and developed a unique hunting weapon, the boomerang, with aerodynamic principles that anticipated the curved aerofoil wing that millennia later would permit man himself to take to the air. Aboriginal technologists also developed the woomera, a mechanical throwing device based on the lever, which enabled a spear to be thrown with much greater force and accuracy than by the human arm alone. They also developed tools for making fire at will, and employed fire to modify the environments in which they hunted, and as an aid to hunting itself. And although Aboriginal cultures never studied their environments in a scientific sense, they understood the world around them with an intimacy that has not yet been achieved by formal scientific study.
Australia's geographic isolation and harsh environment demand innovation; the technological achievements of the continent's original colonisers were an impressive response to adversity. It cannot be claimed that innovation began with the arrival of the continent's first European colonists 200 years ago; the scientific and technological achievements of Australians during those two centuries must be seen as part of a 60,000 - year continuum of human progress, impelled by isolation and environmental adversity.
Indeed, the efforts of Australia's first British colonists to transplant agricultural systems evolved for temperate Europe's climate and fertile soil proved a failure in the warmer, drier climate and poor soils of the Hawkesbury region. English winter wheats were poorly adapted to such conditions and susceptible to disease, and yields were poor. The wheat industry, which today dominates Australian agriculture, limped on throughout the greater part of the 19th century. It took an historic confluence between a scientific revolution and a scientific genius in the 1880s to establish it as a major force in the Australian economy. Amid scepticism from his peers and the community, William Farrer, former Oxford mathematics wrangler, showed that systematic breeding principles could be applied to improving and adapting wheat to Australian conditions. Farrer bred rust-resistant varieties, but his more important achievement was to develop earlier-maturing varieties like 'Federation' which, by avoiding the worst heat of summer, enabled the wheat industry to expand out of the cooler, wetter highlands into the broad, drier plains of the inland. By the second decade of the 20th century, the wheat industry was booming. Although the genetic legacy of Farrer's wheats has been diluted, the systematic, scientific approach to breeding, which he was among the first in the world to exploit, remains his monument. It set a pattern for wheat breeding that is still used in Australia's wheat breeding institutions today.
Australia's other great agricultural industry, wool-growing, had its genesis soon after the founding of the colony. Captain John Macarthur, the Reverend Samuel Marsden, William Cox and Alexander Riley imported a number of Spanish Merino sheep. Macarthur and Marsden were probably the most prominent figures in developing an improved merino strain yielding an exceptionally fine, high-quality wool. The wool industry boomed. By the early 1890s, sheep numbers had reached a peak of 100 million but then went into sharp decline, particularly in drier regions, due to the impact of overgrazing on native pastures, drought and competition from introduced rabbits. Australian scientists have continued to grapple with these problems during the 20th century with mixed success.
Innovation in Australia during the 19th century was largely the domain of the individual; given the central importance of agriculture, grazing and minerals - chiefly gold - to the colony's economy, it was in these areas that Australians displayed their greatest inventiveness.
Some inventions were bizarre, others highly practical. The stump-jump plough, invented by Robert and Clarence Smith in 1876, enabled cultivation of mallee lands that had previously proved untillable because of the huge sub-surface mallee roots left after surface growth had been removed.
In 1877, Frederick Wolseley patented on the world's first mechanical shearing equipment, whose basic design still endures in modern shearing sheds. Another durable invention was James Alston's unique Australian windmill, used to pump artesian water for livestock in arid areas.
In 1884, 19 year old Hugh McKay demonstrated a prototype of his wheat stripper - harvester, which became the first commercially successful machine capable of stripping, threshing, cleaning and bagging wheat in one continuous operation. By 1902 McKay was exporting harvesters, mainly to Argentina.
In the 1890s, Christian Koerstz developed a cheap wool press which could be operated by two men, allowing even small graziers to build their own wool sheds, where previously they had taken their sheep to large landholders for shearing.
The same year saw Australian veterinary scientists develop a vaccine against anthrax after a successful visit by one of Louis Pasteur's staff - an early example of the extensive international exchanges that have so benefited 20th century Australian science and technology.
Australian research during the 19th century was focused on the natural sciences. The richness of Australia's unique flora and fauna was hinted at by the first formal collections of plants, animals and insects by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, naturalists with Captain James Cook's Endeavour expedition to the east coast in 1770. This was confirmed by a succession of explorer-naturalists and botanists, chiefly of British origin. Robert Brown, naturalist on Mathew Flinders Investigator, during its Admiralty expedition to Australia in 1801, collected more than 3,000 plant specimens. The first part of his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van-Dieman, published in 1801, revolutionised botanical classification, and its insights into the anatomy, physiology and function of Australia's plants stimulated interest in the new science of geography. John Gould studied and painted many of Australia's birds and animals in 1838-40 and Joseph Hooker investigated the flora of Tasmania and in his Flora Tasmania, published in 1859, discussed its biogeography in terms of the new theory of natural selection propounded by Charles Darwin. Darwin himself had visited Australia in 1836 as the Beagle made its way home from its voyage to South America and the Galapagos Isles.
German-born botanist Baron Ferdinand yon Mueller, who was appointed Victorian Government botanist in 1853, travelled throughout south-eastern Australia developing a formidable collection and knowledge of Australia's flora. He published 800 papers and many books and was left embittered when the task of writing the first Flora Australiensis went to eminent British botanist George Bentham. Bentham drew heavily on von Mueller's data, but never visited Australia himself.
Astronomy, the science which was ultimately responsible for Australia's colonisation (the Endeavour had journeyed to Tahiti to allow scientific observations of the transit of Venus across the face of the sun in 1796), was also a significant research activity in Australia. Southerly latitudes and clear skies offered a much richer vista of the universe. Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales in 1821 and who in the same year became president of the Philosophical Society (forerunner of the Royal Society of New South Wales), was a keen amateur astronomer. He brought with him the best available astronomical instruments and two expert astronomers, Carl Rumker and James Dunlop. Brisbane built a small observatory at Government House in Parramatta which rapidly gained an international reputation. Among its achievements was the first observation of Encke's comet in 1822.
John Tebbutt's astronomical observations from 1854 onwards led to the discovery of several more comets, as well as several double stars and variable stars, and several new satellites of Jupiter. From such beginnings, Australia developed a reputation in international astronomy which has been continued in modern times by the achievements of its optical and radio astronomers.
One of Australia's most brilliant scientists, but one who received little recognition in his time, was British-born Lawrence Hargrave, inventor of the box kite, who developed a theory of aeronautics based upon his experiments with kites and model aircraft. He discovered that wings with curved surfaces gave twice the lift of flat wings, and that a tail plane gave added stability to his model aeroplanes. Both principles were of fundamental importance to the development of flight. Hargrave also developed a workable radial rotary airscrew engine which formed the basis for the first engines used in European aircraft in the 20th century.
Henry Sutton, a music shop proprietor, designed a continuous current dynamo as early as 1870, constructed as many as 20 different types of telephone at the same time that Alexander Graham Bell was achieving recognition for his invention of the telephone in America. During the 1870s, Sutton carried out experiments with heavier-than-air materials for flight.
Australia's first university, the University of Sydney, had been founded in 1850, but did not establish a separate science faculty until 1879. Melbourne University was founded in 1853, Adelaide University in 1874, and the University of Tasmania in 1889.
By the late 19th century, Australian science had developed considerable momentum. Royal Societies or Philosophical Societies existed in all the eastern States by 1884, and university researchers were making important contributions to international science and technology, principally in the area of fundamental studies. Horace Lamb, who became the first Professor of Mathematics at Adelaide University a year after it was established in 1874, was later elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for outstanding research into the motion and properties of fluids. Melbourne University chemist, Professor David Masson, was also elected to the Royal Society for his fundamental work on the constitution of atoms and his theory of the dissociation of electrolytes in water.
The steady expansion of agriculture in Australia confronted the industry with a range of environmental and agronomic problems. Additionally, crops and animals that had been selected for northern hemisphere conditions performed relatively poorly in Australia. The need for scientific study of agriculture was realised, and in 1885, Roseworthy Agricultural College was founded in South Australia to teach the principles of agriculture and to investigate its problems. Victoria's Dookie Agricultural College was founded a year later. N.S.W's Hawkesbury Agricultural College was rounded in 1891; that same year a horticultural college was founded in Victoria.
Australia's geology was very different from that of other countries; there was lively debate over the age of the continent, and the discovery of major mineral deposits during the 1800s provided economic incentive for geological research and exploration. The State governments sponsored geological and mineralogical surveys which, in addition to discovering mineral deposits, also yielded geological, mineralogical and topographical maps upon which renewed mineral exploration in the 20th century was based.
Australia's minerals industry traces its beginnings to the 1797 discovery of coal on the banks of the Hunter River, as well as at Coalcliff 65 km south of Sydney. The mining technology of the day was inadequate to extract the coal; Australia's distinctive geology has continued to pose special problems for mining operations, and throughout the 1800s required the development of innovative mining techniques for important minerals. By the late 1800s, gold, tin, copper, silver, lead and zinc orebodies were being mined, often at considerable depth, where hazards to miners were great. Australia was the world's largest producer of gold, and at Bendigo, novel deep-drilling techniques had been developed which permitted recovery of ore from considerable depths, at a time when most gold mines were still extracting gold from basically alluvial sources. Research for safer and more efficient mining techniques continues today.
Mineral extraction techniques evolved; the bromo-cyanide process for gold extraction was first demonstrated at Kalgoorlie to recover gold from telluride ores in 1899 and the world's most important mineral extraction and separation technique, the flotation process, was first developed on a commercial scale in Australia by Charles Potter, a Melbourne brewer and chemist. Potter's process, patented in 1901, employed a late 18th century discovery that powdered mineral ores particles could be brought to the surface and suspended by attaching to bubbles passed through ore-charged liquids. First used at Broken Hill in 1901, Potter's flotation process initially yielded a collective aggregate of silver, lead and zinc, but later developments, some of them arising from fundamental studies, saw the flotation process progressively refined to the point where lead, zinc and many other commercially important minerals could be floated out selectively.
Science and technology in 20th century Australia
With Federation in 1901, and with the Australian economy evolving rapidly in diversity and complexity, the administration and funding of science in Australia took on a more systematic pattern, chiefly because of the increasing involvement of the new Commonwealth Government. In time, it would become the major sponsor of Australian science and technology, giving it the cohesion and direction that had been absent in the previous century. Australia's traditional reliance upon agricultural and mineral exports saw both government and private industry research focused in these areas, a pattern which was to predominate until recent times.
Australia's fifth university, the University of Queensland, was the first university established in the 20th century, in 1910; Western Australia became the last State to establish a university, the University of Western Australia, in 1913. By the 1980s, Australia had 19 universities - Sydney and Melbourne each have three, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth each have two, Hobart has one and there are universities in the Australian capital, Canberra, and the major provincial centres of Geelong, Armidale, Townsville, Newcastle and Wollongong.
Australia's universities have made important contributions to international science and technology. In 1907, Professor O. U. Vonwiller of Sydney University showed that amorphous selenium would conduct electricity induced by light, anticipating the development of the modern photocopier. In 1928, E. J. Hartung of Melbourne University showed that the photographic paper darkened when exposed to light because silver chloride decomposed, giving off chlorine and precipitating silver.
In the first half of the 20th century, universities concentrated on their educational role. Their links with industry were oriented mainly towards agriculture and mining, and interaction with manufacturing industry was at a low level.
In 1926, the Commonwealth established the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), progenitor of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. CSIR's early work focused on research for agriculture which, as the economic impetus of great gold rushes of the latter half of the 19th century ebbed, had become the mainstay of the economy. Agriculture was centred on wheat and grazing; wool had been established as a major export the previous century, and after a faltering start, the wheat industry was prospering from the legacy of breeders such as Farrer.
CSIR's early work was constrained by limited resources but gradually it built up individual research programs, and then specialised research divisions, studying animal health and nutrition, soils, economically-significant plants, fisheries, food preservation and transport. No until 1936 did the Australian Government decide to extend CSIR's activities into secondary industry. It proved a timely decision, providing a springboard for the development of industries that strengthened Australia's effort during World War 11.
During the War three new divisions were formed, dealing with dairy research, radiophysics, and lubricants and bearings - the latter became the Division of Tribophysics (surface physics). Some of CSIRO's most significant achievements, even to the modern day, trace back to the wartime establishment of these divisions.
One of the most important developments in CSIR was the establishment of a National Standards Laboratory in 1939 to administer and refine standards of measurement, as well as to calibrate the measurement tools of Australian industry. It underpinned the contribution of manufacturing industry to the war effort.
In the same year, CSIR began a top-secret radar project in a laboratory at Sydney University, which later allowed the deployment of a transportable radar system in the Pacific war theatre.
In 1947, man-made rain fell for the first time in Australia, and probably in the world, when a CSIR aircraft seeded clouds over the Blue Mountains with silver iodide. Research into rainmaking was finally discontinued in 1981 after it was concluded that no useful increase in rain could be produced by cloud seeding, a finding which itself produced controversy.
In the years immediately after the War, a debate arose over potential conflict between CSIR's need for scientific freedom, and the preservation of national security. The Science and Industry Research Act of 1949, which formally established the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), resolved the issue by specifically precluding its involvement in secret or classified research of a military nature.
CSIRO's management was now conducted by a small Executive, instead of the council that had guided CSIR. The Executive's first chairman was lan Clunies Ross (later Sir lan), whose vision of the potential contribution of scientific research to Australia's development, alloyed with his exceptional skills as an advocate and lobbyist for science, was primary responsible for a remarkable decade of expansion and diversification of the Organisation from 1949 to 1959.
In 1945, CSIR had established a Division of Radiophysics to study the sun. By the 1950s, CSIRO led the world in radioastronomy, and in 1961 began studies of the radio universe with one of the world's largest radiotelescopes at Parkes, New South Wales. The instrument, which in enhanced form is still in use today, has yielded important discoveries about the evolution of the universe. Among other things, it has located half of the known pulsars - rapidly rotating remnants of stars destroyed by supernovas - and has identified complex organic molecules in space which could have been building blocks for life. From the mid - 1960s, it served as a powerful primary receiver for transmissions from US spacecraft, relaying Mans' first words from the moon, and playing major roles in the dramatic rescue of the astronauts aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission and the tracking of the Giotto space probe to Halley's Comet in 1986. CSIRO's new Australia Telescope, an array of radio antennae incorporating the Parkes radiotelescope, is due to be completed during 1988. It will have equivalent power to a radiotelescope 300 km in diameter, and will be capable of mapping the furthest reaches of the universe.
The Division of Radiophysics has made two outstanding contributions to air navigation technology; firstly with the development of the Distance Measuring Equipment system, based on triangulation with radio beacons, and secondly, with Interscan, a microwave-based landing system that allows aircraft to locate their position in three-dimensional space with great precision under all weather conditions. Interscan allows a choice of widely-varying landing approaches to be chosen, helping to minimise noise pollution and greatly increasing the flexibility and safety of air traffic control. In 1978 the International Civil Aviation Organisation selected Interscan as the international standard for aviation landing systems to serve into the 21st century.
The three decades after World War 11 saw CSIRO establish a reputation for excellence in research in many fields. A huge rabbit plague had developed during the war years, and was having a disastrous effect on the productivity of grazing land. CSIRO imported a virus for the rabbit disease myxomatosis, which after initial failure, took hold in Victoria in 1950 and killed millions of rabbits.
In 1952 CSIRO scientist Alan Walsh developed the atomic absorption spectrometer, a device capable of rapidly analysing the chemical constituents of materials as diverse as mineral samples, human blood or polluted water. Described as the greatest advance in chemical analysis this century, the atomic absorption spectrometer has saved mineral exploration companies millions of dollars by performing in minutes complex chemical analyses that had once taken many days.
So extensive and diverse are CSIRO's research activities that any account of its achievements is necessarily eclectic. Other significant advances in the post-war decades include:
- Partially-stabilized zirconia (PSZ), described as the world's toughest ceramic.;
- A new generation of safe, potent insecticides called insecticidal esters, based upon fundamental studies of the interaction of chemical molecules with insect nerve membranes. Insecticidal esters will not persist in the environment and have very low toxicity to other animals;
- Biological control of skeleton weed during the 1960s, and sirex wood wasp in pine plantations in the 1970s. More recently, a highly successful biological control program against the world's worst water weed, the floating fern Salvinia, in Australia, Papua New Guinea and several Asian and African nations. Salvinia is expected to be reduced to an insignificant economic problem around the world by the 1990s;
- SIROTEM, a new electromagnetic device which allows hidden sub-surface orebodies to be detected at depths up to 300 m;
- Advanced satellite image-analysis techniques, which have revolutionised strategic exploration for minerals, allowed large-scale mapping of Australia's environments, and permitted monitoring of the development of crops;
- A computerised system for managing cotton and its pests, based on an understanding of how the crop develops and of the life cycles of pests and their natural predators;
- Several advanced methods of purifying water, based on ion-exchange resins or tiny magnetic beads which selectively remove salts and other impurities;
- Genetically engineered animals. CSIRO produced Australia's first genetically-engineered sheep in 1986. The technique ultimately promises sheep which will grow faster and larger under the influence of an extra growth hormone gene in their cells;
- A vaccine which promotes twin births in sheep, accelerating productivity for the fat lamb industry;
- Genetic engineering of plants. CSIRO produced Australia's first genetically engineered plant in 1985, and is now working to produce genetically engineered cereals;
Other Commonwealth instrumentalities, universities and other education institutions, medical research centres, State research bodies and, to a lesser extent, private industry, have provided the warp to CSIRO's weft in the fabric of Australian science and technology. Some of their achievements in recent decades include:
- A technology for custom-designing computer chips containing more than 100,000 transistors. The technology allows research institutions and industry to design chips for specialised applications in scientific devices or high-technology manufactured goods;
- Development of a new high-efficiency solar cell by the University of NSW, employing a simpler metal-insulator semiconductor system;
- Melbourne University's 'bionic ear', an implant for the totally deaf, which analyses sound and encodes it for detection by the brain;
- A new process for producing ethanol by fermentation, using the bacterium Zymomonas mobilis, instead of yeast, developed by the University of NSW;
- The identification and isolation by the Australian Institute of Marine Science of a natural agent that protects corals from damaging ultra-violet radiation. The compound has potential uses in commercial sunscreens, and in weathering-resistant paints and plastics;
- Commercial development and release by a private company, Biotechnology Australia, in 1986 of Australia's first genetically-engineered vaccine for use against lethal diarrhoea in piglets;
- Development by Comalco of a highly durable lightweight aluminium alloy, called 3HA, suitable for use without steel liners in alloy engine blocks, as well as in diverse applications involving high strength aluminium castings;
- A new type of automotive engine, employing an orbital motion, developed by the Perth-based private inventor, entrepreneur and engineer, Ralph Sarich, and developed by his company. The new engine has considerably fewer moving parts than any existing automotive engine, and delivers equivalent power from a much smaller size. Sarich has also developed a revolutionary new fuel injection system; both inventions are approaching commercial release;
- The Jindalee over-the-horizon radar system, developed by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, which bounces transmission off the ionosphere, allowing targets hundreds of kilometres off Australia's north-west coast to be detected;
Medical science in the 20th century
At the time of Federation, the States ceded many functions to the Commonwealth, but preserved their responsibility for the health of their communities. As a result, many of Australia's medical research institutions are administered by their respective States, or in conjunction with the Commonwealth. However, most derive a significant part of their research funding from the Commonwealth, principally from the National Health and Medical Research Council, or from various private foundations such as the National Heart Foundation and the various State Anti-Cancer Councils. Under this system, medical research has flourished and Australia enjoys an international reputation for excellence in many fields. Some of the important achievements of Australian medical research include:
- Synroc, a synthetic composite mineral for the safe, long-term immobilisation and storage of radioactive wastes, developed by the Australian National University;
- Australian researcher Priscilla Kincaid Smith was one of the first to recognise the link between indiscriminate use of analgesics and a high incidence of kidney damage;
- Although the first birth resulting from in-vitro fertilisation occurred in England, Australia has become pre-eminent in the treatment of human infertility and has a higher success rate than any other country in the world, due largely to the pioneering work of Professor Carl Wood and his associates at Monash University;
- Researchers from Melbourne University and the Royal Children's Hospital in the early 1970s established that rotaviruses were the most important single agent responsible for infantile diarrhoea in both developed and developing nations. Research is in progress to develop a genetically engineered vaccine;
- In collaboration with the Australian National University, CSIRO has determined the structure of one of the key proteins of the influenza virus, and is working with ANU to develop a drug to treat influenza, as well as a synthetic vaccine;
- The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's recent development of a prototype vaccine against malaria, from basic studies of the antigenic components of the protein coat of the malaria parasite. An estimated 300 million people around the world suffer from malaria, and an effective vaccine would represent one of the most important developments of 20th century medical science;
- Adelaide University's development, via genetic engineering, of a prototype oral vaccine against cholera and typhoid, two other major diseases in developing nations;
The future of Australian science and technology
The future of Australian science and technology appears bright. The nation has no shortage of original thinkers, as attested to by the volume of Australian research papers contributed to the international scientific literature, particularly in areas of fundamental knowledge. That very strength, however, hints at a chronic problem - the low rate at which original ideas are translated into practical applications, or into marketable products or processes that can be marketed within Australia and overseas.
The underlying reasons are historic; most Australian companies were small by overseas standards and could not sustain their own in-house research programs. In the post-War years, Commonwealth Governments actively encouraged multi-national companies to establish subsidiaries in Australia, as a means of diversifying the economy and providing employment, but a penalty in this approach was that such companies were able to rely upon imported technology and ideas from their overseas parents. Some even absorbed progressive local companies, with adverse effect on the level of private research and development.
In the past three decades, the level of privately sponsored research and development declined to one of the lowest levels of any Western nation. There has been little economic pressure to innovate or to maintain technological parity with overseas manufacturers. As a consequence, privately sponsored research stagnated and declined. Until quite recently, Australia's need for foreign exchange has been satisfied by international markets for wheat, wool and minerals, and manufacturing industry fell behind its counterparts in Europe and the United States - not only in its level of involvement in export markets, but in the production technologies it was employing, so that its efficiency declined as well. By the late 1970s, with international export markets for agricultural produce and raw materials declining, and dominated increasingly by manufactured, high-technology goods, the imbalance in Australia's economy was increasingly apparent, and the need to restructure and reorient science and technology towards the task of improving manufacturing industry's performance had become imperative.
Historians may argue that Australia failed to heed the first major warning of the vulnerability of its economy to changes in the marketplace. In the 1950s a new generation of synthetic fibres began to erode markets that had traditionally been dominated by wool. In an intensive research effort from that time onwards, CSIRO studied the biological, biochemical and physical properties of wool and produced innovations in wool processing and wool treatment, such as permanent-pleat wool garments, shrinkproof wool fabrics, and Self-twist spinning - a faster and more economical spinning technique which revolutionised wool spinning around the world. CSIRO also developed cheaper methods of processing wool and evolved a marketing system based on objective measurement of wool's properties, which had traditionally been assessed by eye and hand. This intensive and comprehensive research and development program maintained wool's reputation as the premier fashion fibre in world markets, where the industry might easily have foundered in the 1960s, with disastrous effect upon the Australian economy.
In the past few years Australian research institutions have begun to pay increasing attention to the commercialisation of their research. CSIRO, a number of universities, and private medical research centres have individually or jointly established their own commercial companies. Medicine, veterinary science and agriculture, the historical strengths in Australian research, seem destined to play an important role in Australia's economic future.
Australian scientists and technologists are contributing to the spectacular international growth of information technology, through the development of innovative computer hardware and software, networking systems, and advanced information storage and retrieval systems. Information technology is a growth industry that provides marketable commodities in its own right, but its greater contribution may be as a catalyst for the advancement of existing industries in Australia, which are showing encouraging signs of exploiting technology to improve their production efficiency, and to develop innovative products for local and export markets. It also provides a means of gaining access to a vast pool of information and ideas held in international data bases and overseas laboratories. Australia's substantial and continuing contribution to this pool has given it reciprocal rights to employ the information to its own advantage; the nation's prosperity during the next two centuries will be rounded on the sharing of information with the international community, its own continuing intellectual vigour and a resurgence of the enterprise and industrial dynamism that characterised its earlier years.
- A synthetic human growth hormone, developed by Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, the University of N.S.W. School of Biotechnology, and California Biotechnology, which could provide a safe treatment for hereditary dwarfism.
This page last updated 23 November 2012


Teachers and students visited the Tech & Learning forum to tell us what innovative projects they would do with an HP xw4550 workstation. Judges chose Melinda Sprinkle, a teacher at Bedford County Public Schools in Virginia, for her winning ideas. Here are Melinda’s top 10 things she said would do if she “had the power:”
10. I could collaborate with other educators seamlessly.
9. Blogging with students and teachers would be easier.
8. Students could create podcasts.
7. I would create “studycasts” that would allow my students to listen to History reviews from their MP3 players or online.
6. I would create professional videos for learning about topics like the Spanish American War, World War I, and The Civil Rights Movement.
5. Students would participate in VoiceThreads, a multimedia slideshow that can hold photos, documents, and video.
4. I would create interactive, online lessons and activities.
3. Each child would be given individual work time at the computer.
2. I would be able to model the strength of technology in today’s world.
1. If I Had the Power, the kids would have access to a computer, and this, in itself, creates student excitement about learning.
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Decommissioning is a growing industry in the North Sea. Exploration and Production to satisfy global demand has resulted in the ongoing operation of thousands of offshore structures and the continued establishment of new infrastructure in the marine environment (e.g. Todd et al., 2020d). Of these, 7,500 marine offshore O&G installations across jurisdictions of 53 countries are expected to become obsolete in the near future (Parente et al., 2006; Fowler et al., 2018). According to a 2019 estimate, Oil & Gas UK predicted that the cost of decommissioning infrastructure on the UK continental shelf will be £51 billion.
Offshore decommissioning is a complicated, multi-disciplinary, costly, and energy-consuming process, involving activities such as installation preparation, well plugging and abandonment, conductor removal, mobilisation and demobilisation of derrick barges, installation removal, pipeline and power cable decommissioning, materials disposal and site. All these activities generate underwater noise, which has potential to impact marine mammals such as seals, whales, dolphins, porpoises, and sirenians (manatees and dugongs).
Regardless of decommissioning project location, there are laws protecting marine mammals. In the UK for example, marine mammals are protected by law under the UK Wildlife & Countryside Act (1981). Other agreements/rules/statutes etc. apply such as the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans in the Baltic & North Seas, ASCOBANS (1992), European Habitats & Species Directive (1992), Offshore Marine Conservation Regulations (2007 & amendments) – beyond 12 nm, Offshore Petroleum Activities (Conservation of Habitats) Regulations (2001), and Conservation of Habitats & Species Regulations (2010) – within territorial waters.
Ocean Science Consulting work worldwide, but the UK has taken the lead concerning decommissioning and marine mammals, and many countries are adopting these measures. In the UK, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) provides regulatory guidance on decommissioning and marine mammals. It is then very important to design an appropriate Marine Mammal Mitigation Plan (MMMP) prior to starting a project. This assesses whether marine mammals are likely to be present near the structure, considers any species’ seasonal trends, such as breeding, calving/pupping, and migration. A good MMMP also investigates likelihood of injury or disturbance from specific activities, applying a mitigation procedure that protects marine mammals, but also follows Best Available Technique Not Entailing Excessive Cost (BATNEEC). This ensures that the whole project is feasible operationally, without breaching regulatory procedures, or worst, contravening law.
If your project involves explosives, cutting, or any activity that generates excessive underwater noise, then regardless of project location, it is advisable to plan the work at a time of least disturbance. This is often not possible operationally, so minimum requirement is to use trained and experienced Marine Mammal Observers (MMOs) and in the UK, to follow Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) guidelines to ensure the mitigation zone (500-1,000 m in the UK) is clear of marine mammals. Prior to cutting, for example, the use of Acoustic Deterrent Devices (ADDs) and potentially Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) equipment, and PAM Operators is advised. In sensitive areas (such as Special Areas of Conservation, SACs), real-time monitoring of underwater noise is prudent. In Germany, if the project is inshore, Double Big Bubble Curtains (DBBC) are used, with mixed success, but the underwater noise guidelines are very strict. Offshore, this is impractical, and OSC has been working together with their German clients to find feasible (and acceptable) noise reduction measures.
In the UK, the JNCC stipulate that in areas of ecological importance to marine mammals, or if daylight shifts are likely to exceed 12 hours (which in the Norther hemisphere corresponds to north of 57° N between April 1st and October 1st), a minimum of two MMOs are required.
In periods of poor visibility and/or bad weather, or if your operations are likely to continue into the night, the use of PAM is recommended. Most operations in the world today use PAM, regardless of project sensitivity.
Ocean Science Consulting’s core research programme is to provide a solid evidence base to support converting offshore oil and gas drilling rigs and production platforms into artificial reefs for wildlife. Over a decade of research on measuring and modelling underwater noise and monitoring harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) and their prey around offshore O&G installations has shown marine mammals use rigs and platforms as feeding stations, and these structures are diverse habitats in themselves (Todd et al., 2009a; Todd et al., 2009b; Todd, 2013; Todd et al., 2016; Todd et al., 2018; Todd et al., 2020a; Todd et al., 2020b; Todd et al., 2020c; Todd et al., 2020d) – see our publications page for more information. This alternative decommissioning solution has been implemented in several areas globally, including the Gulf of Mexico, but not yet adopted in the North Sea. We are aiming to provide a robust evidence base to inform future decommissioning of North Sea offshore infrastructure.
Fowler, A.M., Jørgensen, A.-M., Svendsen, J.C., Macreadie, P.I., Jones, D.O., Boon, A.R., Booth, D.J., Brabant, R., Callahan, E., Claisse, J.T., Dahlgren, T.G., Degraer, S., Dokken, Q.R., Gill, A.B., Johns, D.G., Leewis, R.J., Lindeboom, H.J., Linden, O., May, R., Murk, A.J., Ottersen, G., Schroeder, D.M., Shastri, S.M., Teilmann, J., Todd, V.L.G., Van Hoey, G., Vanaverbeke, J., and Coolen, J.W. (2018): Environmental benefits of leaving offshore infrastructure in the ocean. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 16, 571-578.
Parente, V., Ferreira, D., Moutinho dos Santos, E., and Luczynski, E. (2006): Offshore decommissioning issues: Deductibility and transferability. Energy Policy 34, 1992-2001.
Todd, V.L.G., Pearse, W.D., Tregenza, N.C., and Todd, I.B. (2009a): Diel echolocation activity of harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) around North Sea offshore gas installations. ICES Journal of Marine Science 66, 734 – 745.
Todd, V.L.G., Todd, I.B., Lepper, P.A., and Tregenza, N.C. (2009b): Echolocation activity of harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) around an offshore gas production platform-drilling rig complex. Fifth International Conference on Bio-Acoustics, 31 March – 2 April 2009, 31st March – 2nd April 2009, Holywell Park, Loughborough University, UK, pp. 8.
Todd, V.L.G. (2013): Rigs – to decommission or not to decommission? Marine Scientist 43, 22-25.
Todd, V.L.G., Warley, J.C., and Todd, I.B. (2016): Meals on wheels? A decade of megafaunal visual and real-time Passive Acoustic Monitoring detections from on-tow and stationary offshore oil and gas rigs and platforms in the North and Irish Seas. PLoS ONE 11, 25.
Todd, V.L.G., Lavallin, E.W., and Macreadie, P.I. (2018): Quantitative analysis of fish and invertebrate assemblage dynamics in association with a North Sea oil and gas installation complex. Marine Environmental Research 142, 69-79.
Todd, V.L.G., Lazar, L., Williamson, L.D., Peters, I., Cox, S.E., Todd, I.B., Macreadie, P.I., and McLean, D.L. (2020a): Underwater visual records of marine megafauna around offshore anthropogenic structures. Frontiers in Marine Science 7, 230.
Todd, V.L.G., Ruffert, M., Williamson, L.D., Jiang, J., Cox, S.E., and Todd, I.B. (2020b): Proximate underwater soundscape of an offshore petroleum-exploration jack-up drilling-rig: relevance to harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America In Review, 20.
Todd, V.L.G., Susini, I., Williamson, L.D., Cox, S.E., Todd, I.B., McLean, D.L., and Macreadie, P.I. (2020c): Characterising the second wave of fish and invertebrate colonisation and production potential of an offshore petroleum platform. ICES Jounal of Marine Science In Review, 12.
Todd, V.L.G., Williamson, L.D., Cox, S.E., Todd, I.B., and Macreadie, P.I. (2020d): Characterising the first wave of fish and invertebrate colonisation on a new offshore petroleum platform. ICES Journal of Marine Science 77, 1127-1136.


To many parents, text messaging is an enigma – a practice their children engage in when they could just make a phone call or walk down the street to their friends' houses. It seems to be a strange but harmless means of communication.
What most don't know is that too much texting can actually be detrimental to their teens' health. That's because new technologies, such as cell phones and social networking sites, give teenagers easy access to their friends 24 hours a day.
“The more technology we develop, the more we rely on technology,” said Dr. Myrza Perez, a pediatric pulmonologist at Capital Allergy & Respiratory Disease Centers in Roseville and Folsom. A specialist in sleep disorders, she says “before technology, we went to sleep when the sun went down. Now, with all these distractions, teenagers alone in their rooms stay up to extremely late hours on their cell phones and computers. Their parents have no idea.”
The trend of sleep deprivation is leading to many daytime problems for teenagers, including headaches, impaired concentration, weakened immune systems, crankiness, increased use of nicotine or caffeine and hyperactive behavior often misconstrued as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
These symptoms are often interpreted by doctors as problems meriting medication, when in fact the best cure might be to turn off their cell phones at night.
Mikaela Espinoza, 17, always used to sleep with her phone at her bedside, just in case a friend called or text-messaged her in the middle of the night. Sometimes, she said, she would receive calls or messages as late as 3 a.m. – and she would wake right up to call or text right back.
“Whenever I'd hear my phone ring, I would just, like, wake up and answer it,” Espinoza said. “I think a whole bunch of kids text like all night long.”
Espinoza soon found herself suffering from near-debilitating migraine headaches throughout the day. She couldn't concentrate in school, she couldn't go out with her friends, she couldn't be herself, she said.
Her primary physician's first instinct was to check her eyes. When that yielded no solutions, he sent her in for a CAT scan. It came back clear.
Eventually, Espinoza was diagnosed with a condition growing more and more common among teenagers: too much texting.
“After they realized I wasn't getting enough sleep, they told me I needed to turn off my phone or have it taken away from me at night,” she said. “My mom was real mad at me.”
Cell phones are not the only culprits of sleep deprivation, Perez added. Video games and computers contribute to teenagers' inclination to stay up all night.
“Cell phones, computer screens and even televisions emit light rays that keep you awake,” Perez said. “Light automatically stimulates the retinas. Before bed, people should turn off those devices and switch to a quieter, healthier activity, like reading.”
Dr. Amer Khan, a pediatric neurologist who practices at Sutter Roseville Medical Center and Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, said part of the problem lies in an all-around ignorance of sleep disorders, one of his specialties.
“Sleep problems are often masked and hidden behind daytime problems,” Khan said. “The patients don't realize it's a sleep problem, and their physicians don't realize it's a sleep problem, so they get treated and diagnosed as daytime problems when that's not the case.”
Marvin Green, 19, suffers from sleep apnea, a condition characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep. He was not diagnosed until he was 17 years old.
Sleep problems, like sleep apnea, are often misdiagnosed in young patients because the symptoms that manifest during the day can be misleading.
“Kids manifest a lack of sleep with hyperactivity,” Perez said. “A lot of people in the sleep field would know that should at least prompt a sleep assessment. But most people don't go to a pediatrician saying they're having trouble sleeping, and there's always so much ground to cover in one general health checkup that sleep problems just get overlooked.”
Green said he was put on medication for other conditions and never thought much about the quality of sleep he was receiving.
Part of the problem, experts say, is that individuals are not sleep-conscious and are never taught how to maintain healthy sleep habits like going to sleep and waking up at a consistent time every day, not eating or exercising right before bed and turning off noise – and light-emitting devices including televisions, computers and cell phones.
“I learned about the birds and the bees in school, but sleep was never really a high priority,” Green said. “There is no education about sleep problems. It's not like we don't know these problems exist, we're just never taught about them and were never really told how important sleep is to your all-around health.”


100,000 charges of workplace discrimination are filed every year. Workplace discrimination is the unfair or illegal treatment of a person based on their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability. Discrimination amongst employees can contribute to a hostile work environment and negative company culture, leading to lower efficiency and high employee turnover. This course raises awareness by discussing the civil rights laws protecting people from discrimination, the types of discrimination, and how discrimination can affect the workplace.
- Civil rights laws
- Discriminatory practices
- Types of workplace discrimination
- The impact of discrimination on the workplace
- Recognizing and dealing with discrimination
- Penalties and discipline for discrimination
24 Minutes (15 min. video + 9 min. test)
PLEASE NOTE: All DVDs include a link printed on the inside cover for customers to download printable tests and other documents.


The rings of Saturn span a distance of about 185,000 miles yet they are only about 1/2 mile thick. When the path of the earth crosses the plain of Saturn's rings (every fifteen years) the rings seem to disappear to all but the most powerful telescopes. It's described as 'like looking at the edge of a razor blade in the dark.' It is thought that the rings are the result of a moon of Saturn that crossed the Roche limit and the gravitational pull of Saturn pulled it apart.
Saturn is a gas giant, (97% Hydrogen and 3% Helium) the second largest planet in our solar system with a diameter of about 75,000 miles. It's rotating so fast that a Saturn day is only about 10.5 hours. The rotation causes the planet's shape to be slightly flat at it's poles and extended at it's equator (roughly a 10% difference). One Saturn year is equal to 29.5 earth years. The wind near the equator is estimated to reach speeds of 1,100 miles per hour or 'supersonic' speeds. The nearer the poles, the more the wind speed falls off. Recently discovered is a perpetual giant storm on Saturn that has an 'eye' similarly as does Jupiter.
Some observers believe that the Star of Bethlehem was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.
In ancient times, Dec. 25 was the date of the lavish Roman festival of Saturnalia. It was during this pagan festival that people celebrated by decorating their homes and buildings and exchanging gifts. Some believe that early Christians chose December 25 as the time that they could celebrate Christs birth and blend in to escape persecution. In the fourth century AD the Roman Emperor Constantine made December 25th the official day to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Others will point out that Saturn was one of the names of Nimrod, (Genesis 10) whose Egyptian name was Osirus, (the god of the underworld) and note the similarity between the name of the planet Saturn and 'Satan'. In Roman myth he was one of the Titans and the god of agriculture.
photo from the Cassini Spacecraft/NASA/JPL


Margaret M. Perlis, Contributor
I write about Excellence in practice, people, places & product.
Page 2 of 2
1. Fortitude. Mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation courageously; the strength of mind along with physical and moral courage to persevere in the face of adversity
2. Temperance/Responsibility. Self-discipline to control passions and appetites; being accountable, pursuing excellence, exercising self-restraint in action, statement; self-control
3. Prudence. Practical wisdom and the ability to make the right choice in specific situations
4. Justice/Fairness. Honesty, lawfulness, keeping promises; adherence to a balanced standard of justice without relevance to one’s own feelings or inclinations
5. Trustworthiness. Deserving of trust or confidence, dependable, reliable; honesty, integrity, loyalty; refraining from deception
6. Respect. Behavior toward others; civility, courtesy, decency, dignity, autonomy, tolerance, and acceptance; the prohibition of humiliation, manipulation, and exploitation
7. Caring. Honest expressions of benevolence and altruism
8. Citizenship. The state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties behavior in terms of the duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen
I think that these cover it, but I have grappled with the importance of resilience, grace, and humor. What do you think?
Here is a list of ten people, in various fields, who I believe exemplify strong character. They are hard to argue against unless you know something I don’t. Of course it is impossible to limit it to ten, but who would be at the top of your list and why? More often than not, people with great character are unsung, so feel free to get personal.


The architecture for the Intel 48-core Single Chip Cloud Computer (SCC) processor is "arbitrarily scalable," said Intel researcher Timothy Mattson, during a talk at the Supercomputer 2010 conference being held this week in New Orleans.
"This is an architecture that could, in principle, scale to 1,000 cores," he said. " I can just keep adding, adding, adding cores."
Only after 1,000 cores or so, the diameter of the mesh, or the on-chip network connecting the many cores, will grow to such an extent that it would negatively impact performance, Mattson said.
Intel remains adamant that the future progress of microprocessors will depend on packing ever more cores onto a chip. As more cores are added, however, Intel designers must confront the problem of scalability.
Initial multicore chip architectures depended on a set of protocols that assures that each core has the same view of the system's memory, a technique called cache coherency.
As more cores are added to chips, this approach becomes problematic insofar that "the protocol overhead per core grows with the number of cores, leading to a 'coherency wall' beyond which the overhead exceeds the value of adding cores," the paper accompanying Mattson's talk noted.
Mattson has argued that a better approach would be to eliminate cache coherency and instead allow cores to pass messages among one another.
The recent work of the design team has centered on developing message-passing techniques for the chip that would scale as more cores are added.
Designed by Intel's TeraScale Research Program over the past several years, the chip itself is an experimental one and is not on the Intel product road map, Mattson said. A limited number of copies have been distributed to researchers and developers so they can build development tools for the design.
The chip, first fabricated with a 45-nanometer process at Intel facilities about a year ago, is actually a six-by-four array of tiles, each tile containing two cores. It has more than 1.3 billion transistors and consumes from 25 to 125 watts.
For simplicity's sake, the team used an off-the-shelf 1994-era Pentium processor design for the cores themselves. "Performance on this chip is not interesting," Mattson said. It uses a standard x86 instruction set.
The novelty of this processor is in its tiled architecture and the network and address infrastructure. Each core has a "mesh interface component" that packages data into packets and connects to an on-board router. Each tile also has a "message-passing buffer," with 16 kilobytes of random access memory.
The team has tried various approaches to streamline the ability of the processor to pass messages among the many cores.
By installing the TCP/IP protocol on the data link layer, the team was able to run a separate Linux-based operating system on each core. Mattson noted that while it would be possible to run a 48-node Linux cluster on the chip, it "would be boring."
"To make this interesting, I would have to ask, how would the programming models map onto the unique features of this chip," he said.
The team also developed a small API (application programming interface) library for message passing among the cores, called RCCE, and which Mattson pronounced as "Rocky."
In tests, the team showed that message passing among the cores could be just as speedy using RCCE as with TCP/IP-based Linux cluster. And both approaches bode well for the message-passing approach for inter-core communication.
"Our preliminary work has demonstrated that the SCC processor and its native message passing API provide an effective software development platform," the paper concludes. "The expected difficulties due to the lack of asynchronous message passing have so far not materialized."
In addition to talking about the chip's message-passing capabilities, Mattson also elaborated on SCC's power-saving capabilities. The frequency of each tile can be varied. Hooks are provided for programmers that would allow their programs to adjust the frequency speed and even the voltage of the cores they are running upon. This feature will, however, create a new challenge for programmers, he warned.


In 2008, state-specific teenage birth rates varied widely, from less than 25.0 per 1,000 15-19 year olds to more than 60.0. Rates for non-Hispanic white and Hispanic teenagers were uniformly higher in the Southeast and lower in the Northeast and California. The highest rates for non-Hispanic black teenagers were reported in the upper Midwest and in the Southeast. The race and Hispanic origin-specific birth rates by state as well as the population composition of states by race and Hispanic origin contribute to state variations in overall teenage birth rates.
All material appearing in this report is in the public domain and may be reproduced or copied without permission; citation as to source, however, is appreciated.


Americans produce 25 percent more household waste during the holiday season—that's an extra 1.2 million tons of trash per week from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. Plastics Make it Possible offers some simple tips on how plastics and recycled plastics can help reduce waste by allowing consumers to do more with less-during the holidays and in the new year.
"The holidays often involve traditions that live on for generations, so why not make it a tradition to seek ways to create less waste?" says Steve Russell, vp of plastics for the American Chemistry Council, which sponsors the Plastics Make it Possible initiative. "That's a tradition that can be carried on throughout the year. For example, waste-saving plastic packaging and reusable containers can result in less food and packaging waste from meals and entertaining, during the holidays and year round."
Here are some examples of how consumers can do more with less this holiday season and beyond:
• Recycle More Plastics: Plastics recycling is growing rapidly, so make certain everyone in your household and your guests know what plastics are recycled-both at curbside and at in-store collection bins. Nearly all Americans today have access to plastic bottle recycling, and many communities also collect other plastic containers and even bottle caps and lids. Separately, flexible plastics, such as bags and product wraps, can be returned to many grocery and retail stores for recycling. Check with your municipality or type in your zip code at Earth911.com to find out what's collected and where in your community.
Recycling results in less plastic in the garbage bin—and these plastics can live a new life as holiday gifts, clothing, cooking tools, garden planters, building products, packaging or even carpeting for your home. Click here for tips and info on recycling more plastics.
• Look for Recycled Plastic Kitchen Tools: Recycled plastics from beverage bottles, yogurt containers, and milk jugs are used to make a variety of handy kitchen tools, such as cutting boards, mixing bowls, cooking utensils and storage containers. Seeking out products made with recycled plastics helps create another use for plastic packaging and keeps valuable materials out of landfills.
• Reduce Food Waste: Choosing the right packaging is really an investment in protecting our food-up to 10 times more resources are used to make and distribute food than to make the packaging that protects it. Reusable, airtight and shatter-resistant plastic containers help keep holiday leftovers fresh in the refrigerator after those big meals, which helps reduce food waste. And freezing leftovers in various sized plastic containers lets you enjoy your favorite holiday dishes throughout the winter in pre-portioned servings. Plastic containers labeled for use in both the freezer and microwave means you can freeze, heat and even serve food from the same container, which saves time and energy. And if you end up with more food than you need after your holiday meals, lightweight plastic zipper bags are great for sending leftovers home with guests so food doesn't go to waste. These bags can be washed and reused and eventually recycled (if clean and dry) with plastic bags and wraps at participating stores.
• Look for Innovative Packaging: Seek out meals, entrees, side dishes, snacks and ingredients packaged in lightweight, re-sealable plastic pouches that allow you to use only the amount you need and then store the rest for later, which leads to less food waste. And that lightweight plastic packaging also saves on fuel needed to transport food and drinks to grocery stores, which results in less energy use and fewer truck engine emissions. A recent study found that using alternatives to six widely used types of plastic packaging would require 80 percent more energy demand-on an annual basis, that's equivalent to the energy from more than 3,800 oil supertankers.
Source: Plastics Make it Possible


High Energy Density Science Division (HEDS)
SLAC scientists find a new way to explain how a black hole’s plasma jets boost particles to the highest energies observed in the universe. The results could also prove useful for fusion and accelerator research on Earth.
Their work will deepen our understanding of matter in extreme conditions and fundamental particle physics.
SLAC’s high-speed ‘electron camera’ shows for the first time the coexistence of solid and liquid in laser-heated gold, providing new clues for designing materials that can withstand extreme conditions.
A new way to observe this deformation as it happens can help study a wide range of phenomena, from meteor impacts to high-performance ceramics used in armor, as well as how to protect spacecraft from high-speed dust impacts.
SLAC’s X-ray laser and Matter in Extreme Conditions instrument allow researchers to examine the exotic precipitation in real time as it materializes in the laboratory.
Tripling the energy and refining the shape of optical laser pulses at LCLS’s Matter in Extreme Conditions instrument allows researchers to recreate higher-pressure conditions and explore unsolved questions relevant to fusion energy, plasma physics and materials science.
Zeeshan Ahmed, Frederico Fiuza and Emilio Nanni will each receive about $2.5 million over five years to pursue cutting-edge research into cosmic inflation, plasma acceleration and using terahertz waves to accelerate particles.
Frederico Fiuza and his team are conducting thorough investigations of plasma physics to discern the fundamental processes that accelerate particles.
Read about how SLAC professor Siegfried Glenzer creates extreme conditions like those in the cores of planets and studies nuclear fusion.
Join us for five days of ultrafast science from April 17 to 21.


Maimonides and 1001 Lies?
Maimonides should be celebrated. But should this important Jewish philosopher be associated with the 1001 Inventions exhibit that is touring the nation? The exhibit purports to give the real story behind 1001 things allegedly invented by Muslims.
The problem is that the exhibit is not based on fact. It is revisionist history. As one example, algebra is not an Islamic invention:
Algebra may have been named after a book by al-Khwarizmi titled Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, but the origins of algebra itself can be traced to the ancient Babylonians who were able to do calculations in an algorithmic fashion. Having something named after what popularised or refined it by no means makes it the inventor, and by doing so you would have to discount the works of mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria (200 and 214 AD–284 and 298 AD) who authored a series of books called "Arithmetica" and is commonly referred to as "the father of algebra".
Paul Vallely begrudgingly admits that the system of numbering in use all round the world is 'probably' Indian in origin, yet the title of the supposed Islamic invention still remains "The system of numbering". The first known use of numbers dates back to around 30,000 BC, but it is universally accepted that the system of numbering we use today (the digits 0 to 9) was invented in India.The reason why they are referred to as "Arabic" numerals in the West is due to them being introduced to the Europeans through the Arabs, who in the same way had earlier received them from the Hindus. Likewise, the Arabs themselves commonly refer to them as "Hindu numerals".
The use of zero as a number is found in many ancient Indian texts. The concept of negative numbers was recognised between 100–50 BC by the Chinese. Greek and Indian mathematicians studied the theory of rational numbers. (The best known of these works is Euclid's Elements, dated 300 BC. Euclid is also often referred to as the "Father of Geometry".) The earliest use of irrational numbers is in the Indian Sulba Sutras (800–500 BC). The first results concerning transcendental numbers were made by Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1761. The earliest known conception of mathematical infinity appears in the Hindu text Yajur Veda (1,400 and 1,000 BC). The earliest reference to square roots of negative numbers were made by Greek mathematician and inventor Heron of Alexandria (10–70 AD). Prime numbers have been studied throughout recorded history. The mathematical branch of Trigonometry has been studied by the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, but it was the ancient Greeks who proved theorems that are equivalent to modern trigonometric formulae. And finally, the earliest known algorithms were developed by ancient Babylonians (1600 BC).
As for al-Kindi, while he is thought to be the earliest to describe frequency analysis, the technique itself may not have been discovered by al-Kindi as claimed. Nobody knows who actually discovered/invented/realized that the frequencies of letters could be used to break ciphers, and cryptology itself can be traced back to the time of Julius Caesar.
So why are the JCRC and the AJC partnering in allowing Moses Maimonides to be associated with such a mendacious exhibit? And shouldn't Maimonides be celebrated on his own? Let's learn actual history rather than using history as a tool to ameliorate the feelings of others who need their morale built up at the expense of others.
Is it really in the best interests of the Jewish community to put interfaith dialogue ahead of the truth? We don't think so. The only worthwhile dialogue is honest dialogue and of course, education is only worthwhile if it is based on truth.


Steven Pinker: Promoting a New Global Optimism
In showing that the world has never been less violent, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker is at the forefront of the new outbreak of global optimism.
- In showing that the world has never been less violent, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker is at the forefront of the new outbreak of global optimism.
- Pinker is delighted to point out that, according to Wikipedia, “smallpox was” – using in the past tense – “a serious infectious disease.”
- IQ scores have risen worldwide by three points in a decade. The number of people using mobile phones exceeds 5 billion out of a global population of 7.6 billion.
- Whether by their actions (or omissions), humans sometimes create problems so complex that they are incapable of solving them.
- In the debate between optimism and pessimism it is important not to downplay realism.
“The best of all possible worlds” is a simplistic expression stemming from the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s complex 1710 “Essays of Theodicy.” Voltaire lampooned it in his “Candide,” when he had his character Pangloss declare that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.”
This is the background of the concerted effort that is now underway to promote a new optimism, armed with data and also backed by philosophy.
It was around the year 2000, at the height of the post-Cold War era and the rise of globalization, when the optimists first staged a comeback. However, the momentum they had hoped for did not materialize.
Jihadist terrorism, notably on 11 September 2001, and the economic and financial crisis following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, 10 years ago this fall, stood in their way.
One voice at the forefront of the new outbreak of optimism, accompanied by publications of serious academic quality, is the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. In 2011, his book “The Better Angels of Our Nature” focused on using data to show that the world has never been less violent.
Now, he has gone further with a new book, “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.” Now, the claim extends to many other milestones humanity has reached. These range from life expectancy at birth (which, measured on a worldwide basis, has risen from 30 years at the time of the Enlightenment to 71 today) to health.
Pinker is delighted to point out that, according to Wikipedia, “smallpox was” – using in the past tense – “a serious infectious disease.”
This portrait of humanity is also supported by “Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think,” by the late Swedish physician Hans Rosling, written in conjunction with Anna and Ola Rosling.
When simple questions are posed about global trends – such as what percentage of the world’s population lives in poverty? How many girls complete their schooling? – Rosling argues that both laypeople and the elites at the Davos Forum consistently come up with the wrong answers.
Rosling the possibilist
They are so wrong, he claims, that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random would reliably outperform the gurus, journalists, Nobel Prize winners and investment bankers. He sets out the “fight against devastating global ignorance” as a mission of overriding importance. He billed himself not as an optimist but a “possibilist.”
IQ scores have risen worldwide by three points in a decade. The number of people using mobile phones exceeds 5 billion out of a global population of 7.6 billion. Naturally, there is still a long way to go, and the pressing need to meet the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 proves it.
Pinker sets out 15 ways of measuring progress in human welfare, and he documents them. He does not discount the idea that humans are destroying the Earth and that therefore progress is not sustainable. He just thinks that solutions will be sought and found.
Pinker argues that “reason is non-negotiable,” which does not mean that human beings are perfectly rational. He possibly errs on the side of utilitarianism and positivity.
And his idea of the Enlightenment, while based on Kant, is ultimately not particularly Kantian because of the lack of centrality given to critical rationality and the sense of “maturity” favored by the philosopher from Königsberg (nowadays the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad).
In his new book, Pinker gives more weight to this critique, and to what it entails: That reason, science and humanism drive progress and that this is real, albeit not inexorable. He continues to reject fatalism outright, whether in terms of coexistence among humans or between humans and new machines, which hold no fears for him.
The romantic green movement
Pinker identifies some things that run counter to the Enlightenment, essentially religious faith (he is a “secular humanist,” as John Gray would say), the idea that people are the “replaceable cells of a superorganism” (collectivism and communitarianism), what he terms the “romantic green movement,” which “subordinates human interests to a transcendent entity,” a focus on the “decline” of civilization, and opposition to science on the grounds that it undermines some of the preceding elements.
Pinker also includes populist movements – he acknowledges that the book was written essentially before Trump’s victory in his home country – the emergence of authoritarianism, global warming and the return of the nuclear issue.
The general direction of the Enlightenment has drifted off course. Pinker’s attempt to restore it is much to be welcomed, although not everything is as solvable as presented by the author, who thinks some problems will solve themselves.
Whether by their actions (or omissions), humans sometimes create problems so complex that they are incapable of solving them. Many critics of his new book agree that he continues seeing the glass as half full, rather than half empty.
Whereas Pinker highlights the global coming together of societies in terms of wealth, the “great convergence” that is revolutionizing the world, he underestimates or rejects one of the major preoccupations of our age: Inequality within societies, which has particularly grown since the 1980s, on the grounds that it is not “a fundamental component of wellbeing.”
Criticizing the progressives
Pinker is more interested in poverty reduction. He criticizes those intellectuals who are labelled “progressives” but who, he claims, actually “hate” progress. Pinker believes in progress.
Voltaire’s Candide, of course, ended up concluding that optimism was nothing but a mania for insisting that “everything goes well, when things are going badly.” Pinker, however, allows us to realize that many things are going much better, even though we are not in the best of all possible worlds.
As he himself puts it, “the problems faced by the whole planet are formidable.” He is not in radical disagreement with Voltaire. He thinks that nothing is guaranteed in this unstable world, but that many things have improved. Setting out from this recognition, Pinker believes they can and should be improved much more.
Mario Benedetti, the Uruguayan journalist, novelist and poet, famously said that “a pessimist is a well-informed optimist.” Pinker would beg to differ, with data. In any event, in the debate between optimism and pessimism it is important not to downplay realism.