Oxley is a new gin just launched in NYC, SF, LA, and Vegas. The interesting thing about this product is that it's made through "cold distillation." The theory is that the high temperatures used in traditional gin distillation to boil alcohol (to separate it from water and the infused botanicals in the still) can impart 'cooked' notes or lose desirable flavors in gin.
However, the press release didn't go into what cold distillation is. One option could be freeze distillation, where you put out a jug of wine outside your front door in the winter to let it freeze. You scrape off the frozen part (the water) and keep the rest (the alcohol). After a few times you get a higher-proof drink than what you began with.
The other way to achieve cold distillation is by lowering the pressure by creating a vacuum in order to lower the boiling point of liquids. It turns out that's how they produce Oxley:
The boiling point of all liquids alters with the pressure change; the lower the pressure, the lower the temperature required to achieve boiling. It is for this very reason that water boils at a lower temperature at the top of a mountain than at sea level.
Cold Distillation uses a vacuum to reduce the pressure in the still and as a result lowers the temperature to approximately -5C, causing the macerated spirit in the still to ‘boil’ and turn to vapour. At this point the natural flavours from the botanicals are captured, resulting in a spirit that is reminiscent of the natural ingredients used to create it.
The reduced pressure within the still means that the molecules in the macerated spirit are no longer forced together by pressure, and instead start to separate, reducing the kinetic energy required to boil and changing from liquid to vapour (but without the use of heat). When this was observed during the development of OXLEY, it was discovered that the natural essences from the botanicals were captured and preserved in the vapour transferring to the final distilled spirit.
The Cold Distillation process occurs at approximately -5C and the resulting vapour is condensed at a temperature of -100C. As a result, the botanical flavours and aromas are not altered as they often are during traditional distillation methods. During other distillation methods botanicals are exposed to temperatures of 80C or greater. Cold Distillation, by contrast leaves the structure of the botanical molecules unchanged, thus preserving their original intensity. As a result, harsh and cooked notes, tops and tails and ‘spirit safes’ become a thing of the past. All the spirit distilled for OXLEY is of such high quality that everything produced goes into the final bottle and nothing is discarded.
The first part is interesting, but the last few sentences are very interesting. During distillation usually the first vapor that comes off the still is both yucky tasting and poisonous. The last vapor off is yucky and potentially watery. Thus much of the art in distilling is choosing the center cut- the heart- while not wasting too much of the spirit from the heads or tails. (This waste alcohol is often redistilled in a new batch or recycled into industrial alcohol) The folks at Oxley are saying that they've eliminated this alcohol waste entirely through this high-pressure, high-tech distillation. Very cool.
Anyway, the stuff costs fifty bucks a bottle. How does it taste?
Largely it tastes like gin. The nose is lemon zest and juniper, and on the palate more citrus comes into play as do almond notes that the press kit says comes from meadowsweet. To my mouth, the most unique aspect of this gin is the finish- I don't get a lot of the oiliness that reminds me of dried juniper berries usually found in gin, but in its stead I get a metallic dryness, like aluminum or stainless steel. (I wonder what the still is made of...) Other palates may just identify it as just dry or non-oily. I have not tried the drink in anything beyond a G&T and a Gin Sour, in which the aftertaste is still very dry.
Oxley Gin is interesting and high-tech stuff, but ultimately you'll have to decide whether or not you like it on your own.


Improved agricultural productivity can help developing countries reduce their reliance on international emergency food relief following natural disasters. This is one of the conclusions of a team of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) scientists who visited cyclone-devastated Myanmar in August.
Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar's Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawaddy) Delta area on 2-3 May, leaving more than 140,000 people dead or missing and causing an estimated 1.2–million-ton drop (6%) in rice production, jeopardizing the country's food security and exports.
On 26 and 28 August, IRRI scientists T.P. Tuong, David Johnson, Abdelbagi Ismail, Grant Singleton, and Ruben Lampayan met in Yangon with representatives from the United Nations Development Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the Myanma Agriculture Service (MAS) to discuss how IRRI can help develop plans to increase rice production during the coming dry-season crop and the 2009 wet-season crop. On 27 August, the team visited two townships (Kun Yangon of Yangon Division and Daedaye of Ayeyarwaddy Division) in Nargis-affected areas.
"While a disaster of Nargis's scale will hurt any country, a robust and efficient agricultural sector—which, in a country with Myanmar's area of farmland, means food self-sufficiency and exports—helps people get back on their feet faster and with less need for emergency aid," said Dr. Tuong. "Emergency relief is like helping people who have fallen over a cliff; longer term agricultural development provides a fence that stops people from falling in the first place."
U San Nyunt, general manager of MAS Seed Division, said that the key needs of Myanmar are more fertilizer for high-yielding varieties, improved production of high-quality seed, and fruit tree seedlings and vegetable seeds to be supplied to affected communities. The government of Myanmar has asked IRRI for seeds of salt-tolerant rice varieties, and the MAS Seed Division needs equipment to monitor salinity levels in farmers' fields and on seed farms.
Dr. Ismail emphasized that salt-tolerant high-yielding varieties will be important, particularly to replace the low-yielding traditional varieties being grown in coastal areas. "IRRI has more than 800 salt-tolerant breeding lines and can provide a subset of these with a set of specifications for MAS to test," he said.
Over the whole Ayeyarwaddy Delta, the area planted was 6% less than previous years. In hard-hit areas closer to the coast, planted area was down 25% because of a lack of labor, infrastructure, equipment, and draft animals.
Salinity brought inland by Nargis had already been washed out, with very low water salinity at the two sites visited by the team. IRRI will also continue supplying and testing flood-tolerant rice varieties in flood-prone areas of the delta. However, there are concerns that salinity will occur during the next dry season in irrigated areas where protective embankments were breached by the typhoon. Farmers reported failures of crop establishment following direct seeding after the storm, probably because of high salinity levels.
Dr. Johnson stressed that IRRI, through the Irrigated Rice Research Consortium (IRRC) and the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments (CURE), can provide guidance on best-management options. "We need to consider new technologies for resource management to complement the use of good-quality seed and to sustain increases in the production of rice," he said, adding that CURE also has a breadth of knowledge on new stress-tolerant varieties for different situations.
Even though the IRRI team was unable to visit the worst-hit coastal townships, the devastation appeared overwhelming. In Daedaye, for example, 80% of the houses collapsed, 3,800 people died, and stored dry-season rice, draft animals, and farm equipment were lost. Four months after the cyclone, shattered trees and tidal surge flood marks more than 3.5 meters high on trees and buildings served as grim reminders.
"We are impressed by the resilience of the Myanma people in the affected regions," said Dr. Tuong. "IRRI can help spread the message that more access to fertilizer is needed, and the IRRC can help with recommendations on efficient fertilizer use." He highlighted that IRRI can support Myanmar's work to improve seed storage and can help farmers save irrigation fuel costs through the use of water-saving technologies.
Dr. Singleton's concern was that pests and diseases could be a major problem in the current wet season given the staggering of planting and, consequently, maturation. Conditions that favor pests and diseases will thus be lengthened, and the situation is complicated by the planting of high-yielding varieties in the wet season to generate seed for the dry season.
"We need to be vigilant and to capture what is happening so that Myanmar's Plant Protection Department and MAS are better prepared in the future—proactive rather than reactive—when planting is staggered in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta," explained Dr. Singleton. "Through the IRRC, we have an ongoing partnership with MAS colleagues on improved crop and natural resource management. These improved practices have been validated over the past 2 years and are ready to be scaled out in Ayeyarwaddy and Yangon divisions to help achieve environmentally sustainable increases in production."
Source: International Rice Research Institute
Explore further: Unexplained gap in global emissions of potent greenhouse gases resolved


Songs of Sam Lucas by Sandra Jean Graham is an open-access resource that streams recordings of 12 songs attributed to Lucas (ca. 1840–1916), one of the most celebrated entertainers of his generation, supplemented by a background essay, extensive liner notes, and illustrations.
Lucas created a significant body of black popular song that serves as an important window into the post-Civil War era. His songs illustrate a range of strategies: conformity to minstrel stereotypes, an attempt to recuperate the dignity of black traditional song, and ultimately liberation from minstrelsy through the adoption of white popular song style.
Recordings of Lucas’s songs are extremely rare; this site gives the public a chance to become acquainted with the music of this performer whose career spanned minstrelsy, variety, vaudeville, theater, and silent film.
Above, a newspaper photograph of Lucas from 1911; the full article is here.


How safe from hazardous waste spills, pollution, and wildfire are you?
As energy shortages, poverty, and social unrest force increasing localization, with less energy and resources to maintain or clean up hazardous wastes, fight wildfires, go after polluters, and so on, you may want to consider what hazards are in your area and move to a safer location if need be.
Releases of toxic substances will happen for many reasons such as holding pond failures, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, explosions, volcanoes, and so on.
Nuclear Waste Sites. Worldwide waste sites. Also here. Because there are no safe repositories, nuclear waste is stored at every nuclear power plant, vulnerable to natural disaster, terrorists, and so on, each waste site a potential source of fuel for a nuclear or dirty bomb, and life-threatening if plutonium waste is inhaled. Each site a hazard for tens of thousands of years.
Water Polluter Map (New York Times).
Animal Waste Map. Almost two trillion pounds of animal waste are produced per year mainly by intensive livestock operations. Their treatment practices are often inadequate to protect our drinking water and environment, posing one of America’s serious pollution problems.
EPA Enforcement of 2009 Criminal, Air, Water, and Land violations (select radiobuttons on the side for the locations to appear)
Wildfire Assessment Map: To see the potential for wildfire in your area Click here to download the WFAS Google Earth Map Data file in KMZ format
Other kinds of waste that exist but the maps are hard to navigate, or understand, or drill down to a local level:
Ground water or aquifer pollution, arsenic in water, Mercury, Electronic Waste (some of the worst superfund sites in the USA are where computer chips used to be made in Santa Clara county, CA), Industrial Waste, Construction & Demolition Materials, Cement Kiln Dust, Crude Oil and Natural Gas, Mineral Processing Mining Waste, Medical Waste


At its core, sustainable food systems are characterized as practices that keep the environment healthy and food production economically and socially viable. It includes a production system that is good for the environment and people, humanely treats animals and farm/food workers, and supports rural and urban communities. Sustainable food is produced using techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare.
To shop and eat sustainably is more than just how the food is produced. It also means avoiding heavily packaged and processed foods, reducing food waste, and taking into account how food production, especially meat, impacts global warming. For individuals, it is how and what we shop for, how we cook, and the actions we take to support local farmers and suppliers.
At FoodCon 2017 we will explore the myriad aspects of food sustainability in keynotes, panel discussions and by sampling locally sourced food and beverages during the conference.
Profitable has two meanings: An enterprise that is profitable makes money; things can also be profitable if they are beneficial in other ways. Profitable in sustainable food systems means more than financial success—it extends to the ability of a business to provide value for all stakeholders including owners, suppliers, employees, and consumers. All businesses strive to be profitable in the financial sense, but a profitable and sustainable food system is one that is good for everyone along the value chain.
At FoodCon 2017, we will explore how businesses involved in the sustainable food industry can be profitable by both definitions.
Accessible defined as the extent to which a consumer can obtain a good or service at the time it is needed. Accessibility is currently a part of the broader topic of food security. Food accessibility refers to both physical and economic access to food in a local area.
Consumer choices about food spending and diet are influenced by the accessibility and affordability of food retailers—travel time to shopping, availability of healthy foods, and food prices. Some people and places, especially those with low income, may face greater barriers in accessing healthy and affordable food retailers, which may negatively affect diet and food security.
Concerns about insufficient food access, despite adequate food supplies, has prompted greater policy focus on incomes, expenditure, markets and prices in achieving food security objectives.
FoodCon 2017 will explore how local food producers and government can influence food accessibility in our region.


|Part of a series on|
|Jewish religious movements|
|Jewish life cycle|
|Religious buildings & institutions|
|Jewish prayers and services|
|Judaism & other religions|
Brit milah is the Jewish ritual circumcision ceremony performed on eight-day-old male babies. The foreskin is cut off from the end of the penis. The operation is carried out by a person called a mohel, a ritual circumciser, who has been trained and qualified for this task.This ceremony is important for many Jewish people as it is a symbol of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Abraham is a patriach.
References[change | change source]
- "A Guide to Brit Milah/Bris Milah". milah.net. Retrieved 8 December 2010.


PANET, JEAN-CLAUDE, notary, lawyer, and judge; b., probably late in December 1719, in the parish of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois in Paris, France, eldest son of Jean-Nicolas Panet, a clerk with the treasurers-general of the Marine, and Marie-Madeleine-Françoise Foucher; d. 28 Feb. 1778 in Quebec.
Jean-Claude Panet had seven brothers and sisters. One of them, Nicolas-Gabriel, became clerk of the parlement of Paris; another, Pierre-Méru*, emigrated to New France some years after his brother, was also a notary, lawyer, and judge, and began the Montreal branch of the Panet family during the period when Jean-Claude was beginning a branch in Quebec.
Jean-Claude Panet arrived in Canada at 20 years of age as a soldier in the colonial regular troops. He had sailed from La Rochelle on 10 June 1740 aboard the Rubis and landed at Quebec on 12 August, having escaped the epidemic which caused the deaths of many of the crew and passengers, including Bishop François-Louis de Pourroy* de Lauberivière. Panet had certainly received a fairly advanced education, for eight months after his arrival he was working as a legal practitioner, and a little later as an attorney. He was well thought of; Intendant Hocquart considered him “intelligent and prudent” and Governor Charles de Beauharnois* praised his “good conduct.” Despite a request made by his father in Paris, he was unable to obtain the post of notary in Quebec which had been left vacant when Jean de Latour returned to France in the autumn of 1741. The appointment of Nicolas Boisseau as chief clerk of the Conseil Supérieur, however, created a vacancy enabling Panet to become royal notary in the provost court of Quebec on 22 Dec. 1744. His father having paid the required 150 livres, Jean-Claude Panet had obtained discharge from the armed forces at the beginning of the previous year. Although he held a number of other posts over the years, Panet was to practise continuously as a notary from 1745 until 1775, and his register records more than 5,860 acts.
On 8 Aug. 1759, during the siege of Quebec, a British fire-ball fell on Jean-Claude Panet’s house in Lower Town, causing a fire that destroyed 166 other houses. Panet recounted the particulars in a diary entitled “Précis de ce qui s’est passé au Canada depuis la nouvelle de la flotte de M. Canon [Jacques Kanon*],” which accurately and in detail relates events of the period from 10 May to 8 September 1759. The last section of the manuscript, containing the account of the final days of the siege, has unfortunately disappeared. On 25 July 1759 Panet had been named clerk of a commission charged with suppressing looting by sailors, soldiers, and militiamen. The ordinance of 19 July creating the commission had authorized François Daine*, the lieutenant general for civil and criminal affairs of the provost court of Quebec, to sentence to death and have executed the same day looters caught in the act. Panet is supposed to have recommended this drastic measure to Daine. His diary reports that Daine had two men arrested and hanged on 31 July. After the defeat on the Plains of Abraham on 13 September, Panet, as deputy for king’s attorney Jean-Baptiste-Ignace Perthuis*, was one of 25 leading citizens who signed the request for capitulation addressed to the king’s lieutenant, Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas-Roch de Ramezay.
The military régime, from 1760 to 1763, made little change in the daily life of New France. In the interests of efficiency the British administration had to be in a position both to understand and to be understood by the Canadians, and the services of French speaking persons, such as Jacques de Lafontaine* de Belcour and François-Joseph Cugnet, were called upon. When James Murray, the new governor, set up a court of final appeal for the District of Quebec, which he called the “superior council,” he named Jean-Claude Panet its chief clerk on 2 Nov. 1760. At the same period Panet’s brother Pierre-Méru was appointed court clerk in the District of Montreal. When civil government was restored, Canadians qualified in the legal field were not affected by the theoretical obligation of important civil servants to take the oath under the Test Act, and they retained their offices. In 1765 Murray asked Jean-Claude Panet to examine the registers of the Conseil Supérieur of New France and make an inventory of the lands incorporated in the Domaine d’Occident under the French régime. The governor emphasized that only a French speaking jurist could accomplish this task and that Panet was to have free access to the documents.
In February 1765 Jean-Claude Panet, along with William Kluck, became clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, which replaced the council created by Murray. At the same time Panet and Kluck were appointed depositaries of the minutes of deceased notaries in the District of Quebec. But the following year Panet quit his post and went to France in the hope of obtaining recompense for his services under the French régime and a better post. He presented a statement to the minister of the Marine, the Duc de Choiseul, who forwarded it with a favourable recommendation to the comptroller general of finance. Panet’s request apparently was rejected, for he returned to Quebec and on 6 Oct. 1767 obtained a commission as a lawyer. He had practised law for several years, had been an assessor to the Conseil Supérieur of New France in 1751 and deputy king’s attorney from 1755 to 1759, and had even signed as a lawyer in 1764; so he had had a lengthy training for this profession. On his appointment, Panet withdrew into a private career as a notary and lawyer until 1775.
It was only when the Quebec Act, which was to establish a new judicial organization, came into effect that Jean-Claude Panet again held office. On 26 April 1775, Governor Guy Carleton* reappointed judges Thomas Dunn*, John Fraser, Adam Mabane, and John Marteilhe; at the same time he appointed René-Ovide Hertel de Rouville and Panet “keepers of the peace” and commissioners, Hertel for the District of Montreal and Panet for the District of Quebec, appointments equivalent to judgeships. They thus became the first French speaking and Catholic judges under the British régime. On 13 July 1776, after the American troops had withdrawn, Dunn, Mabane, and Panet were appointed commissioners to assess damage done during the American invasion of the province. Ten days later Carleton appointed them “judges of a Court with Civil Jurisdiction within the District of Quebec.” In August Panet became a justice of the peace, and on 6 March 1777 a judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
Jean-Claude Panet did not hold these various posts long. He died on 28 Feb. 1778 in the afternoon, at 58 years of age. Could his death have been due to alcoholism? An anonymous letter written in Quebec on 9 Nov. 1775 commented on “the appointment as judges of Mr. de Rouville in Montreal and Claude Panet in Quebec (who has his nip every day before noon) with salaries, it is said, of 700 louis a year; in short, the audacity exercised in proliferating jobs for intimate friends and sycophants by whom the governor is continually surrounded . . . has inspired universal and profound disgust.”
On 23 Oct. 1747, Jean-Claude Panet had married Marie-Louise, daughter of notary Claude Barolet*, in Quebec. In 1796 Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, obtained an annual pension for Mme Panet of £80 (four-fifths of her husband’s salary when he was clerk of the Court of Common Pleas), which she received until her death in 1803. Fourteen children were born between 1749 and 1764, 12 of whom were still living at the time of their father’s death. Three daughters entered the Ursuline order; one left it two years later but the other two spent more than 50 years in holy orders. Two sons chose the priesthood; Bernard-Claude* became bishop of Quebec, and Jacques* was parish priest of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours at L’Islet from 1779 to 1829. Jean-Baptiste became a notary and died in 1808. A notary, lawyer, and judge like his father, Jean-Antoine* was speaker of the House of Assembly and one of the outstanding political figures of his time.
AMA, SHA, Al, 3540, ff.84–842, 90–906 (mfm. at PAC). AN, Col., B, 76/1, pp.233–35; 77, p.15; 97, p.138; 125, pp.20–21 (PAC transcripts); C11A, 73, pp.3–7, 46–49; 76; 77, pp.312–17. ANQ-Q, AP-P-1565. ASQ, Doc. Faribault, no.149; Lettres, M, 98; Polygraphie, II, 3; XXVII, 25; Séminaire, 14/5, no.41; Université, carton 96, no.71. PAC, RG 4, A1, 12, pp.4659–60, 5726; RG 68, 89, pp.59–60; 90, pp.11–12, 22–24, 36–40, 51–52, 84–85. PAC Rapport, 1905, I, vie partie. Doc. relatifs à la monnaie sous le Régime français (Shortt), II, 978. Doc. relatifs à l’hist. constitutionnelle, 1759–91 (Shortt et Doughty; 1921). Invasion du Canada (Verreau). J.-C. Panet, “Siège de Québec en 1759,” Literary and Hist. Soc. of Quebec, Hist. Docs., 4th ser. (1875), 1–31. Quebec Gazette, 5 March 1778.
P.-G. Roy, Les avocats de la région de Québec; Inv. jug. et délib., 1717–60, IV, V, VI; Inv. ord. int., III, 65; Les juges de la prov. de Québec. Tanguay, Dictionnaire. Vachon, “Inv. critique des notaires royaux,” RHAF, IX, 551–52; XI, 405. Lanctot, Le Canada et la Révolution américaine. J.-E. Roy, Hist. du notariat, I, II. P.-G. Roy, La famille Panet (Lévis, Qué., 1906). Wade, Les Canadiens français (1966), I.


A backchannel communication, in an educational context, is a secondary electronic conversation that takes place at or near the same time as a lecture, instructor-led learning activity, or conference session.
Instructors are finding that using a backchannel can increase student engagement because backchannels allow students to engage in a digital conversation alongside the activity. This is beneficial because a backchannel can provide introverted students with a place to ask questions or make comments without speaking up. Additionally, instructors can share supporting resources such as videos, links to websites and photos through a backchannel. Instructors can ask questions and watch the response of students to determine if they really understand the concepts being discussed. Students can search the backchannel for notes and resources without having to scribble personal notes on paper.
If this blog post has piqued your interest, you can find additional information about backchannels at these links:
- Using a Backchannel to Engage Students
- A Teacher's Guide to Classroom Backchannels & Informal Assessment
- Professors Use Twitter to Increase Student Engagement and Grades
- TodaysMeet: The Beauty of the Backchannel
- Backchannel in the Classroom


For more than 40 years, the prevailing explanation of why we get old has been tied to what is called oxidative stress. This theory postulates that when molecules like free radicals, oxygen ions and peroxides build up in cells, they overwhelm the cells' ability to repair the damage they cause, and the cells age.
An industry of "alternative" antioxidant therapies -- such as Vitamin E or CoQ10 supplements in megadose format --has sprung up as the result of this theory. However, clinical trials have not shown that these treatments have statistically significant effects.
And now researchers at McGill University, in a study published in the February issue of the journal PLoS Genetics, are calling the entire oxidative stress theory into question. Their results show that some organisms actually live longer when their ability to clean themselves of this toxic molecule buildup is partially disabled. Collectively, these molecules are known as reactive oxygen species, or ROS for short.
Dr. Siegfried Hekimi of McGill's Department of Biology, said most of the evidence for the oxidative stress theory is circumstantial, meaning oxidative stress could just as easily be a result of aging as its cause.
"The problem with the theory is that it's been based purely on correlative data, on the weight of evidence," explained Hekimi, McGill's Strathcona Chair of Zoology and Robert Archibald & Catherine Louise Campbell Chair in Developmental Biology. "It is true that the more an organism appears aged, whether in terms of disease, or appearance or anything you care to measure, the more it seems to be suffering from oxidative stress".
"This has really entrenched the theory," he continued, "because people think correlation is causation. But now this theory really is in the way of progress."
Hekimi and postdoctoral fellow Jeremy Van Raamsdonk studied mutant Caenorhabditis elegans worms. They progressively disabled five genes responsible for producing a group of proteins called superoxide dismutases (SODs), which detoxify one of the main ROS. Earlier studies seemed to show that decreased SOD production shortened an organism's lifespan, but Hekimi and Van Raamsdonk did not observe this. In fact, they found quite the opposite.
None of their mutant worms showed decreased lifespan compared to wild-type worms, even though oxidative stress was clearly raised. In fact, one variety actually displayed increased lifespan, the researchers said.
"The mutation that increases longevity affects the main SOD found in mitochondria inside the animals' cells," said Hekimi. "This is consistent with earlier findings that mitochondria are crucial to the aging process. It seems that reducing mitochondrial activity by damaging it with ROS will actually make worms live longer."
The researchers hasten to point out that they are not suggesting that oxidative stress is good for you.
"ROS undoubtedly cause damage to the body," Hekimi said. "However, they do not appear to be responsible for aging."


This Hilliard, Florida, aquaponics farm is growing produce in a fraction of the space and time using fish and the water they naturally fertilize.
Above: Traders Hill Farms set up its first aquaponics barn in this retrofitted chicken barn in Hilliard, Florida. The goal was to show that - by simply adding some clear paneling to the roof - the barn could be re-purposed for a different type of farming.
HILLIARD, Florida--Angela TenBroeck is a farmer in every sense of the word, but she doesn’t need a tractor. In fact, she doesn’t even need dirt.
Instead, she and her team at Traders Hill Farm in Hilliard, Florida, are pioneers in aquaponics, a brilliant technique that uses a symbiotic relationship between fish and plants to produce more crops in a fraction of the space a traditional farm would use.
“In a barn that’s only 14,400 square feet, I can grow 32,500 plants. That’s the linear equivalent of 5 miles of rows,” Angela said. “Ask any farmer about that, and they’ll tell you that’s pretty substantial.”
Surveying a row of bright green lettuce leaves sprouting in one of her barns, which are retrofitted with clear-roof paneling to allow light in, Angela said her crops go from seed to harvest in just 30 days. Her team harvests her top crop - a spring mix of lettuce - five days a week, cutting about 300 lbs. before noon each day.
As much a scientist and activist as she is a farmer, Angela created Traders Hill Farm with the backing of landowner Richard Blaudow, CEO and cofounder of Advanced Technology Services Inc., to experiment with aquaponics and educate others about it.
Blaudow added to the challenge, asking her to design and manage the sustainable farm while showing how to put old structures back to work. Specifically, in Northeast Florida, he wanted her to show what could be done to repurpose old chicken barns. The region is littered with them because Tyson Foods closed its Jacksonville plant in 2003, putting more than 300 local chicken barns out of business.
Blaudow bought one of the old chicken farms - part of a large tract he uses for a getaway home near the St. Marys River - and the barn became Angela’s first lab, of sorts.
She began her work in 2013, setting up a system that takes the process from fish tanks to plants and back again, all within a repurposed, 400-by-37-foot chicken barn. Here’s how it works:
Traders Hill raises tilapia in low-density, 800-gallon tanks.
The water becomes enriched with fish waste - “fish poo,” as Angela calls it - and is processed through a moving bed bioreactor that removes solids from the water by “swirling the nitrogen” out. It’s like a fast-moving composting system.
The water, rich with the remaining nutrients from the fish waste, is transferred to the plants.
While absorbing nutrients, the plants also serve as a natural filter, prepping the water to return to the fish tanks, where the cycle begins all over again.
Crops like lettuce, basil, swiss chard, peppers and even eggplant thrive on floating foam rafts, their roots dangling in the water below. And those solids that were removed from the water? They also serve a purpose, creating a rich sludge that is used in outdoor gardening and landscaping.
The process results in multiple sources of income:
Produce grown without pesticides or herbicide (Angela is pursuing certification to designate it organic).
Market-quality tilapia. The process works with many other breeds of fish, too.
The sludge made from fish waste solids.
Emulsion, the fertilized water used on the farm.
And, for Angela, an ever-refined process that can be sold to other farmers wanting to get started in aquaponics.
Angela said Traders Hill’s produce, pampered with nutrients as it grows, has a better taste than its counterparts grown in dirt. She said it also lasts longer; for example, the farm’s salad greens have an advertised shelf life of two weeks.
Its fish, raised in stages in tanks from birth to a ready-for-market 2-pound size, produce a soft, white meat. They’re fed a high-quality diet of lettuce, pellets and duckweed.
“There’s not a license for organic fish, but if there was, they would be organic,” Angela said.
And the farm, itself, is a testimony to the value of the emulsion and sludge. In addition to growing the indoor produce, Angela uses the emulsion and sludge to enrich plants throughout the property, including outdoor gardens, peach and pecan orchards and a deer food plot she planted so the Blaudows would see wildlife on their walks on the property.
The first year of operation on the farm was such a success, Angela opened a second barn in 2014. A third came online in 2015. The new barns show how a larger farm could operate with aquaponics. One building houses 4,000-gallon fish tanks lit with low-energy LED lamps. Their water is processed and pumped to a separate, second building where the plants grow. Covering about a fourth of an acre of land, the two new barns are capable of producing 1,000 lbs. of fish and 4,000 lbs. of lettuce a month. The indoor operation can continue operating year-round, producing a harvest equal to that of 10 acres of farmland in a year. Angela said temperatures stay warm enough for the process during the winter because of the volume of the water involved and because of geothermal advantages from the sunlight. The floors of the barns are black, further assisting in the absorption of sunlight.
The new barns at Traders Hill Farms are capable of producing 1,000 lbs. of fish and 4,000 lbs. of lettuce per-month on a quarter of an acre of land.
As Traders Hill continues to experiment to show what can be done with aquaponics (Angela’s is now testing a crop of beer hops), other business leaders are taking notice. Native Sun, a natural foods store in Jacksonville, and White Oak Plantation, a conservation and conference center, are two of the farm’s largest produce buyers. Jacksonville’s Omni Amelia Island Plantation, a high end resort community on the coast of Amelia Island, hired Angela to build an aquaponics greenhouse for its chef. And she is beginning plans to build a facility on Florida State College Jacksonville’s downtown campus. The college is also working with Tarders Hill on their rainwater harvesting process, which plays a major role in the sustainable farming method.
Nevertheless, there are doubters. Angela has come across traditional farmers who won’t sign up to try aquaponics on their own farms, even if they have empty chicken barns. She said that’s more about tradition and wariness of change than it is a testimony about how well the process works. And many of those same farmers who don’t want to use aquaponics are on a waiting list for the coveted sludge and emulsions Traders Hill produces.
TenBroeck surveys 40,000-gallon tanks of tilapia at Traders Hill Farms.
Traders Hill Farms sells not only its products, but also its system, building the aquaponics facility and training the farmer who wants to use it. Angela said the first year’s cost, including both equipment and expenses, would be about $150,000. Angela said a farmer would only need three employees to operate the farm.
Despite all the income potential for Traders Hill, the company is also very much focused on giving back to the community. Traders Hill works hand-in-hand with a nonprofit Angela founded, the Center for Sustainable Agricultural Excellence in Conservation, to offer training, apprenticeships and even full scholarships to those who want to work in the industry. During a recent walk through the farm, Angela pointed out a recent high school graduate who was working his final shift at Traders Hill Farms before leaving for college. His reward for working on the farm throughout high school? A full ride to study in a related field. There are also adults who work on the farm, learning how to manage each task in the hopes of eventually establishing their own aquaponics farms.
Traders Hill also works with community groups and organizations. For example, excess produce is provided to Meals on Wheels.
Though it’s admittedly a major change from traditional farming, Angela said aquaponics is based on a method of farming - using fish emulsion to grow produce - that has been used for centuries. It’s just cleaner (for example, you have to walk through a footbath before entering the barns) and more high tech in the Traders Hill System. The resulting dynamics just make sense, so much so that Angela envisions aquaponics changing the way farming is done nationwide, and thus changing the “hunger landscape” of the entire United States.
Traders Hill uses its fish emulsion in outdoor gardening, too, like for the tomato plants shown to the left. The farm is currently testing aquaponics with beer hops, shown in the foreground.
“It’s a long range, low cost system. I can grow plants faster, that taste better and last longer, in a smaller space. There are no chemicals, no pesticides. And it only requires two pumps,” she said, referring to the water and air pump that - coupled with gravity - keep the system going.
Angela says aquaponics could also be the industry that revives struggling, infertile nations.
“I can find all the items I need (for aquaponics) in a third world country,” she said. “Plants don’t need soil - they need nutrients. And with this system, everything is recycled. You waste nothing.”
All photos by Bella Blue Photography of Hilliard, Florida.
Traders Hill Farms' lettuce crops grow from seed to harvest in about 30 days.


Solar engineers create solar cells that collect and store the sun's rays. They work with clients to design, plan and implement solar energy projects for cities, businesses, and homeowners.
What Do Solar Engineers Do?
Solar engineers plan, design, and implement solar energy projects. They may manage anything from large-scale municipal projects to home rooftop installations. The engineer typically begins with a client consultation, site assessment, and financial assessment, which help him or her understand the project's context. The engineer then designs an appropriate plan that takes all relevant factors into account. He or she may also oversee or manage implementation of the plan. Solar engineers may also need to report on the efficiency, cost, and safety of the project. The engineer may also be on call to deal with outages, emergencies, and system maintenance.
Solar engineers may also conduct financial reviews, ensure regulatory compliance, inspect installation sites, and write technical reports. Computer skills are essential for creating designs and testing photovoltaic systems.
Where Does a Solar Engineer Work?
Most solar engineers work in offices, but may also travel frequently to different work sites, including overseas locations. They often must climb ladders onto rooftops to inspect installations, and may need to carry heavy loads for short distances.
According to the Solar Foundation, California is by far the leading state for solar jobs in general, with over 10,000 solar jobs as of 2013. New Mexico offers the second highest number of solar jobs. New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are also home to relatively high numbers of jobs in the solar industry.
What Is a Typical Solar Engineer's Salary?
The average salary listed in nationwide job postings for solar engineers was $82,000 in December 2014. This is 42% higher than average salaries for all job postings nationwide.
|State||Total Employment||Bottom 25%||Median Salary||Top 75%|
|District of Columbia||2,950||$106,040||$129,760||$148,510|
Table data taken from BLS (http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172199.htm)
What Is the Job Demand for Solar Engineers?
While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not have projections for solar engineers, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions reports that worldwide solar energy generation capacity averaged 40% annual growth from 2000 to 2011. The continued rapid expansion and adoption of solar panel installation is expected to continue creating new jobs in the United States and elsewhere. BLS predicts that job growth for solar installers will grow 24% between 2012 and 2022, which is much faster than average.
Getting a Solar Engineering Degree
A bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering is typically required for solar engineering positions. In some areas, more advanced certification could be required. Degrees in industrial engineering, chemical engineering, and computer software engineering may also be helpful.
Many jobs require Professional Engineer (PE) or Engineer in Training (EIT) licensure. Licensure generally requires:
- A degree from an ABET-accredited engineering program
- A passing score on the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam
- Relevant work experience, typically at least 4 years
- A passing score on the Professional Engineering (PE) exam
College graduates may take the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam immediately. Engineers who pass this exam are called engineers in training (EITs) or engineer interns (EIs). After gaining four years of work experience, EITs and EIs can go on to take the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam to qualify for licensure.
Several states require engineers to participate in professional development activities in order to keep their licenses. Most states recognize licensure from other states, as long as that state's requirements meet or exceed their own licensure requirements.
More complex jobs may require a master's or doctoral degree. Engineers are expected to participate in professional development to keep up with technological developments. They should also be familiar with AutoCAD, a computer-aided design program widely used in engineering. Within solar engineering, AutoCAD is used for photovoltaic system layout. Some firms may also use Google SketchUp.
Because solar engineers must consult with clients, create technical reports, and write emails, they should also have good communication skills.
Solar Engineering Related Degrees
What Kind of Societies and Professional Organizations Do Solar Engineers Have?
- The American Solar Energy Society (ASES) (http://www.ases.org/) is the foremost association of solar professionals and advocates. The society aims to speed the transition to a sustainable energy economy. ASES publishes Solar Today magazine, holds a national conference, and offers other networking opportunities through regional chapters, student chapters, and technical divisions.
- The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (http://www.nabcep.org/) is primarily a professional certification organization. It also runs company accreditation programs and offers continuing education.
- The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) (http://www.seia.org/) provides information on solar training opportunities, certifications, and training program accreditation. It also offers a job board, as well as networking opportunities through chapters and a LinkedIn group.


A Last Stand for Oregon's Coast Range
Suggested Citation: Kerr, Andy. 1980. Last Stand for Oregon's Coast Range. Not Man Apart. Vol. 10, No. 1. January. 7.
By Andy Kerr
In Oregon's Coast Range the moist marine air and fertile soil have combined to produce the fastest growing conifers in the world. These mountains are rich with Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce, and western red cedar. Non-conifers such as red alder, bigleaf maple, and Oregon white oak also thrive here.
The timber industry has long recognized this region's wealth: it now owns about half the Coast Range. The rest is controlled by the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management. Regardless of ownership, the forests have been extensively logged. The private land is now mostly bare, the public's land is scarred with clearcuts.
The untouched areas remain so not because of their outstanding natural values, but because of their unsuitability for timber exploitation. The slopes are steep, the soils unstable, and the more accessible trees often of relatively little value as timber. But as our supply of prime timberland dwindles and the value of timber climbs, the loggers turn their attention increasingly to these less attractive areas.
The timber companies are most interested in logging the small amounts of old growth that remains in the Coast Range. Here, old-growth forest is generally defined as stands of trees that are more than 200 years old, with large diameter trunks and upper limbs, scaly bark, and broken tops. These trees are particularly valuable as timber: each tree may yield as much as 5,000 board-feet of timber (one board-foot equals 1"x1"x12") and be worth more than $3,000.
Old-growth forest not only has a special grandeur, it is also important wildlife habitat. The northern spotted owl, a reclusive bird, needs trees with broken tops and sturdy upper limbs to support its nest. The two-story canopy (old growth overstory and young growth understory) provides habitat for the northern flying squirrel and the red tree vole, on which the spotted owl feeds. These animals won't be able to adapt to the young Douglas-fir monoculture plantations now taking over the Coast Range. If present cutting and reforestation trends continue, the spotted owl will soon have to be classified as an endangered species.
Anadromous fish—those that are born in fresh water, live in the ocean, and return to their birthplace to spawn—are in serious trouble because of poor logging practices. Every year, the salmon return from the ocean, each trying to return to its place of birth to spawn. Rivers through logged areas pose often insurmountable problems for the returning fish. The river may be too muddy for the fish to see their way. As they approach their birthplace of two to six years earlier, they might encounter logging debris blocking the stream. If they do reach their birthplace, the gravel on the stream bottom in which they lay their eggs may be covered with silt from clearcut hillsides. The silt will suffocate the eggs. Logging may have changed the stream characteristics such that the gravels in which they were hatched are now scoured away by higher velocity water. Furthermore, removing trees along the shade corridor of streams raises the water's temperature, increasing the fish's susceptibility to disease.
These problems can sometimes be mitigated by proper logging techniques, but they cannot be eliminated. Partial solutions are not enough here. If we are to preserve the remaining fish runs of the Coast Range, its last wilderness and wild rivers must be preserved. The spotted owl and many other creatures which inhabit the old-growth forest will survive only as long as we preserve enough forest to support them.
Six wild areas remain in Oregon's Coast Range. They are:
• Drift Creek Wilderness (proposed 14,500 acres)
The best example of what the interior Coast Range forest used to look like. Towering Douglas-fir and western hemlock abound, with occasional giant Sitka spruce and red cedar. Georgia-Pacific has clear cut several square miles upstream from the wilderness area, but the salmon still run Drift Creek, shaded by huge moss-covered maples.
• Mount Hebo Wilderness (proposed 31,609 acres)
This area surrounds the second highest point in the Coast Range. The area was burned at the turn of the century and not a stick of old growth remains. A vast stand of alder and mixed conifers has taken the place of the original forest. Alder is often the successional species following a fire since it does well in disturbed areas.
• Windy Peak Wilderness (proposed 5,100 acres)
This proposal contains the watersheds of Raleigh Creek and Bear Creek, habitat for bears, eagles, deer, elk, woodpeckers, hawks, and bobcats.
• Coast Creeks Wilderness (proposed 15,929 acres)
This area includes the last undeveloped coastal streams in Oregon. Cummins, Little Cummins, Bob, and Rock Creeks begin about six miles inland and then rush to the sea. They pass under US Highway 101 just before they spill into the sea, but are otherwise pristine. Coast Creeks is the home of many species of wildlife, including the Roosevelt elk. Large Sitka spruce are common in the lower stretches, giving way to alder and Douglas-fir as the land rises.
• Wassen Creek Wilderness (proposed 21,000 acres)
This country is incredibly steep and the trees get pretty big. There is a spectacular falls downstream from Wassen Lake, Devils Staircase, but very few have seen it.
• Oregon Dunes Wilderness (proposed 32,000 acres)
Oregon's coast offers a unique opportunity to include oceanside sand dunes in the wilderness system. Ocean, sand, wind, and forest blend beautifully here. The snowy plover nests on the beach, but off-road vehicles are contributing to a decline in the bird's population.
Conservationists have drafted the Oregon Coast Range Wilderness Act and have asked members of the Oregon delegation to introduce the bill in Congress. Les AuCoin, whose district contains most of the Oregon Coast Range, is reluctant to introduce the Act. He feels these areas "really don't have wilderness characteristics." This is not spectacular alpine terrain, but it is our most threatened type of wilderness: low elevation forest.


This module will discuss aspects of the perovskite structure (CaTiO3). It will describe structural and electronic properties, give historical background, list commonly occuring substances, and describe several technological applications of this structure.
Formally, the definition of the perovskite structure was one that has the same configuration as calcium titanate (CaTiO3). Although most perovskites have orthorhombic unit cells; or a rectangular prism structure with a rectangular base of volume axbxc, some exhibit cubic or tetrahedral geometries. Perovskites are stable at an extremely wide range of conditions and have unique chemical and physical properties, which make them an ideal material for many technological applications.
The perovskite family is a double-oxide type, mixed Ca(II)/Ti(IV) oxide with the abbreviation ABO3, where A=Ca, and B=Ti. The term "mixed" refers to the distributed nature of the oxygen ions in the unit cell, and even though the name suggests the presence of [TiO3]-2 ion, CaTiO3 does not contain it. In a unit cell, the calcium ion is located in the center of the lattice, coordinated with 12 oxygen ions, and the titanium ions are located at the corners, coordinated with six oxygen atoms. The A and B ions in the perovskite lattice are not limited to just calcium and titanium, they can be many different elements, but need to be a certain size to fit in the crystal lattice. Other requirements include that A>B, A must have an oxidation state of II, and B needs to have an oxidation state of IV. Slight variations in the relative size or oxidation state of the A or B atoms can lead to deformations, which will be discussed later. Although CaTiO3 is referred to as the "founding father" of perovskites, CaTiO3 has not been widely studied. That is probably because other perovskites such as BiTiO3, and SrTiO3 are more promising in terms of their technological applications.
The perovskite structure is versatile and robust. It can be cubic, tetrahedral, or orthorhombic at STP (standard temperature and pressure). Figure 1 depicts a typical material with orthorhombic geometry. The orthorhombic and tetrahedral geometries differ from the cubic geometry because the dimensions of the unit cell are not equal. Suprisingly, in addition to being observed at STP, the orthorhombic post-perovskite phase of MgSiO3 is found in the lower mantle, deep within the earth. This phase is stable at pressures of over 120 GPa, and at temperatures of over 2500 K. This type of perovskite is probably most abundant on earth, and might hold secrets of the geophysics of the interior of earth.
Figure 1: Distorted perovskite with orthorhombic symmetry (http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/Perovskite)
The first perovskite type material was discovered in the Ural mountains of Russia by Gustav Rose (1839). It was later named after a Russian minerologist L.A. Perovski, who first characterized the structure. The crystal structure of a CaTiO3 type orthorhombic perovskite was first published in 1945 by Helen Dick McGaw. Research on perovskites did not catch on until the mid-40s, when there was a dramatic increase in solid-state research, especially focusing on ferroelectric materials like perovskites. Since the 1940s, perovskite materials have been a hot topic of research, and will remain a promising research frontier far into the future.
Perovskites are found naturally as kimberlites, carbonatites, and calcareous skarns (CaTiO3). More specifically, some examples of materials with perovskite structure include: CaTiO3, MgSiO3, SrFeO3, BaTiO3, SrZrO3, and the non-oxide KMgF3. These materials are commonly found in the Ural Mountains in Russia, Magnet Cove in the US, Mt.Vesuvius, Sweden, Germany and deep within the earth.
Perovskites have a wide range of applications in technology, especially in solid-state ionics. Perovskites are currently used in sensors, memory devices (RAM), amplifiers, fuel cells, superconductors, and electroptical devices. Orthorhombic perovskites such as BaZrO3 and SrZrO3 are currently being developed as the electrolyte material for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Perovskites have an unusually high tolerance for oxygen ion vacancies, which makes it an ideal electrolyte or cathode material for fuel cells. Oxygen vacancies can be created in the material by doping with rare earth elements such as Y(III) or Yb(III), which replace the B atom, and create one oxygen vacancy in order to maintain charge neutrality. These randomly distributed oxygen vacancies can significantly change the conductivity of the material and make it a very efficient electrolyte.
Another current area of research involving perovskites is high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs). The cuprate-perovskite type is a specific kind of superconducting material that could have the capacity to operate under STP in the future. Cuprate-perovskites are related to CaTiO3 type perovskites, but differ in that the B atoms have eight-fold coordination with the oxygens. Starting from the CaTiO3 prototype and going to YBa2Cu3O7, Ba and Y substitute for Ca, while Cu substitutes for Ti. Some cuprate-perovskite ceramic HTSCs currently have an operating temperature of 90 K, which is significantly higher than most other superconducting materials. However, much work needs to be done before a superconductor can operate at 273 K. Figure 2 shows the idealized orthorhombic unit cell of Sr2RuO4. In reality, the octahedra composed of Ru and O would be slightly tilted with respect to each other.
Figure 2: Superconducting Sr2RuO4 (http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/Perovskite)
Some other unique properties that sets perovskites apart and makes them ideal for technological applications include: it is the only crystal structure that is ferroelectric (spontaneous alingment of the electric dipoles caused by interactions between them) not because of an external magnetic field but due to its crystal structure, its ferro-, pyro-, and piezo-electric properties, and structural properties such as durability and chemical flexibility.
Animation of the structure of Perovskite:
Q: What are some properties that make the perovskite structure unique?
A: Ferro- and Piezo-electric properties, and high oxygen ion vacancy tolerance.
Q: List 2-3 modern applications of the perovskite structure.
A: SOFCs, RAM devices and HTSCs.
Q: Why are perovskite type materials especially useful in SOFCs (solid oxide fuel cells)?
A: High tolerance for oxygen ion deficiencies raises conductivity.
Q: What is the difference between cubic and orthorhombic perovskite?
A: The dimensions of the orthorhombic unit cell are unequal.
Q: Given that perovskites in an orthorhombic configuration have lattice constants of roughly a=5.4338, b=5.4886, and c=7.6841 angstroms(A), and using the figures above, determine the density. Each calcium ion is located at the center of the octahedra and has 12-fold coordination with the oxygen, and the titanium ions are located at the corners and has six-fold coordination with oxygen.
A: The orthorhombic configuration, which is the most common configuration in perovskite materials, has lattice constants of a=5.4338, b=5.4886, and c=7.6841 angstroms. One orthorhombic unit cell contains four A's, which are the calciums for example, four B's and 12 O's. For the case of CaTiO3, using the lattice constants and the number of atoms per cell listed previously, the density of orthorhombic CaTiO3 is 3.944 g/cm3. A sample calculation is provided below.
Volume(cell) = 5.4338*5.4886*7.6841 = 229.17 A3 = 2.292*10-22 cm3
Mass(cell) = 4*MW(Ca)+4*MW(Ti)+12*MW(O) = 542.92 g/mol = 9.0322*10-22 g/#
An NSF funded Project


PCR Biological Method Overview
PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, is a method to amplify a segment of DNA for analysis. Because it is such a powerful technique, there are a HUGE number of situations where PCR may be used. Some common reasons for using it are:
- Microbiology: You need to know if your bacteria was transformed properly with your plasmid
- Oncology: You need to know if a particular gene exists in your cancerous cells
- Forensics: You need to know if a certain criminal’s DNA was present at the crime scene
The basic steps of PCR include:
- Designing primers to designate a target DNA sequence to amplify
- Mixing together the primers with the target DNA strand, polymerase enzyme, and deoxynucleotides
- Running a thermocycler multiple times in “cycles” to repeatedly:
- Separate DNA strands
- Allow primers to anneal
- Allow the polymerase to attach and synthesize a new DNA chain
- Sequencing or Electrophoresis to prove that the PCR worked
In a nutshell, here is what Step 3, above, looks like:
Note: If you’re writing research papers, I highly recommend Grammarly – it’s a free grammar check plugin for Chrome. Try it out here…
Ingredients in a PCR mixture – What every component does
In general, a PCR tube will contain the following items:
|dNTPs (or deoxynucleotide triphosphates):||Single bases A, T, C, and G which are used by the polymerase while replicating the DNA. As the polymerase adds base pairs onto the new DNA strand, one base pair is used at a time.|
|MgCl2:||An essential cofactor for the polymerase enzyme|
|Primers:||Short segments of single-stranded DNA used to frame the DNA region that needs to be amplified. They are complementary to the template DNA strand only at defined locations around the target sequence.|
|Target DNA:||The DNA “template” that you want to make copies of. This can be a full DNA chain or a part of a longer chain.|
|Taq Polymerase:||An enzyme from Thermis aquaticus that uses dNTPs and replicates DNA starting from the 3′ end of a template strand towards the 5′ end. Taq is used in PCR specifically because it is resistant to the high temperatures used for separating DNA strands during Step 3a above .|
Complete Step-By-Step PCR Protocol
PCR temperature Cycler
10 mM Tris-HCl, 50 mM KCl, and 1.5 mM MgCl2, pH 8.3
Note: Grammarly is a free grammar check plugin for Chrome. I used it for this article and really like it! Try it out here…
- For each PCR tube set up the following mixture of materials up to a 50 ul total volume on ice
200 uM for each dNTP
Less than 1000 ng
1.25 units per tube
Nuclease Free Water
Q.s up to 50 ul
Add a little bit on top of each tube if you don’t have a heated lid on the temperature cycler
- Pipette each tube up and down several times, gently, so as not to add bubbles
- Centrifuge each tube down for 1-2 seconds at 100 rcf to bring all contents to the bottom
- Heat up the temperature cycler to 95oC
- Quickly transfer tubes from ice to the temperature cycler and begin thermocycling
- Typical thermocycle procedure:
1 minute per kilobase of target DNA
- Repeat the above “cycle” steps 35-45 times.
- Make sure to keep the samples on ice while you are not using them. The infinite hold sequence allows you the flexibility of leaving your samples in the temperature cycler while you are busy with other lab work.
Notes on this PCR Methodology
- Note 1. It is important to design your PCR primers to be specific to only the regions flanking the target sequence. Typically, specific primers are ~30-40 bases in length.
- Note 2. The Tm (melting temperature) of the primers affect the temperature in Step 3b and the “Cycle priming” step.
- Note 3. For greater accuracy/fidelity while copying DNA, a Pfu polymerase (from Pyrococcus Furiosus) may also be used.
- Note 4. With 35 cycles, the target DNA is amplified 236 times its initial concentration. For times when you have very little target DNA, you can amplify 45 times or more.
- Note 5. For Primer design, you can use tools such as Primer 3. Tools are also available for calculating the Tm of your primers such as this Tm calculator.
- Note 6. G-C rich sequences will need longer denaturation times (typically up to 5 minutes) because of the additional hydrogen bonding. Any template with more than 60% G-C bases is considered G-C rich.


1819 pages, Illus
Following in the tradition of the "System of Mineralogy" introduced by Wiley in 1837, this one-of-a-kind reference brings mineralogy into the 21st century. It describes all of the over 3700 recognized mineral species. New features include emphasis on mineral structure, presenting descriptions of all the important species. New specially commissioned structure diagrams describe all the important mineral groups. All homologous species are classified and all polymorphic forms identified. Compact and convenient in one volume, it offers exceptional coverage on where minerals can be found and accurate, up-to-date references.
There are currently no reviews for this product. Be the first to review this product!


A team of researchers led by Arizona State University (ASU) School of Earth and Space Exploration professor Lindy Elkins-Tanton has provided the first ever direct evidence that extensive coal burning in Siberia is a cause of the Permo-Triassic Extinction, the Earth's most severe extinction event. The results of their study have been recently published in the journal Geology.
For this study, the international team led by Elkins-Tanton focused on the volcaniclastic rocks (rocks created by explosive volcanic eruptions) of the Siberian Traps, a region of volcanic rock in Russia. The massive eruptive event that formed the traps is one of the largest known volcanic events in the last 500 million years. The eruptions continued for roughly two million years and spanned the Permian-Triassic boundary. Today, the area is covered by about three million square miles of basaltic rock.
This is ideal ground for researchers seeking an understanding of the Permo-Triassic extinction event, which affected all life on Earth approximately 252 million years ago. During this event, up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species became extinct.
Calculations of sea water temperature indicate that at the peak of the extinction, the Earth underwent lethally hot global warming, in which equatorial ocean temperatures exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It took millions of years for ecosystems to be re-established and for species to recover.
Among the possible causes of this extinction event, and one of the most long-hypothesized, is that massive burning coal led to catastrophic global warming, which in turn was devastating to life. To search for evidence to support this hypothesis, Elkins-Tanton and her team began looking at the Siberian Traps region, where it was known that the magmas and lavas from volcanic events burned a combination of vegetation and coal.
While samples of volcaniclastics in the region were initially difficult to find, the team eventually discovered a scientific paper describing outcrops near the Angara River. "We found towering river cliffs of nothing but volcaniclastics, lining the river for hundreds of miles. It was geologically astounding," says Elkins-Tanton.
Over six years, the team repeatedly returned to Siberia for field work. They flew to remote towns and were dropped by helicopter either to float down rivers collecting rocks, or to hike across the forests. They ultimately collected over 1,000 pounds of samples, which were shared with a team of 30 scientists from eight different countries.
As the samples were analyzed, the team began seeing strange fragments in the volcaniclastics that seemed like burnt wood, and in some cases, burnt coal. Further field work turned up even more sites with charcoal, coal, and even some sticky organic-rich blobs in the rocks.
Elkins-Tanton then collaborated with fellow researcher and co-author Steve Grasby of the Geological Survey of Canada, who had previously found microscopic remains of burnt coal on a Canadian arctic island. Those remains dated to the end-Permian and were thought to have wafted to Canada from Siberia as coal burned in Siberia. Grasby found that the Siberian Traps samples collected by Elkins-Tanton had the same evidence of burnt coal.
"Our study shows that Siberian Traps magmas intruded into and incorporated coal and organic material," says Elkins-Tanton. "That gives us direct evidence that the magmas also combusted large quantities of coal and organic matter during eruption."
And the changes at the end-Permian extinction bear remarkable parallels to what is happening on Earth today, including burning hydrocarbons and coal, acid rain from sulfur, and even ozone-destroying halocarbons.
"Seeing these similarities gives us extra impetus to take action now, and also to further understand how the Earth responds to changes like these in the longer term," says Elkins-Tanton.
Additional study co-authors include Benjamin Black of City College of New York, Roman Veselovskiy of the Institute of Physics of the Earth (Russia), Omid Haeri Ardakani of the Geological Survey of Canada, and Fariborz Goodarzi of FG & Partners Ltd.


Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes) > Perciformes
(Perch-likes) > Sciaenidae
(Drums or croakers)
Etymology: Pseudotolithus: Greek, pseudes = false + greek, otos = ear + Greek, lithos = stone (Ref. 45335). More on author: Valenciennes.
Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range
Marine; demersal; depth range 0 - 70 m (Ref. 3593). Tropical; 27°N - 22°S
Eastern Atlantic: west coast of Africa, from Morocco to Angola, but rare north of Senegal (Ref. 57396). Also reported from Namibia (Ref. 3593).
Length at first maturity / Size / Weight / Age
Maturity: Lm 35.0, range 28 - ? cm
Max length : 114 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 40637); common length : 50.0 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 3593); max. published weight: 12.0 kg (Ref. 40637)
soft rays: 7. Diagnosis: large fish, elongate and compressed (Ref. 57396). Eyes small (Ref. 57396, 81656), 5.7-6.4 times in HL, but this character is difficult to use for identification because of allometry (Ref. 81656). Snout short; mouth large and oblique; lower jaw prominent; both jaws with bands of villiform teeth (upper jaw with teeth in outer row larger and sharper, including a pair of large median canines, lower jaw with teeth in inner row larger and sharper); 6 pores on chin and 5 marginal pores on snout (Ref. 57396). 9-12/1/4-6 (total 12-18) gill rakers on 1st gill arch; gill rakers short, about as long as gill filament at angle between lower and upper part of gill arch (Ref. 81656). Dorsal fin long and deeply notched (Ref. 57396), with 10 spines in the first part and 1 spine and 28-33 soft fin rays in second part (Ref. 81656). Second anal fin spine rather short and slender, attaining about 2/3 of the length of 1st soft ray and comprised over 3 times in head length; caudal fin pointed; scales weakly ctenoid on body, cycloid on snout and suborbital region; lateral line extending to end of caudal fin; swim bladder carrot-shaped, its front end with a pair of appendices subdividing into an anterior group of short branches and 2 posterior groups of long, slender tubules, one of them ventral, the other dorso-lateral and longer, bordering the bladder throughout its length (Ref. 57396).
Coloration: silvery grey, with series of small dark spots following scale rows, oblique on anterior part of back and sides, horizontal posteriorly; black spot at tip of spinous part of dorsal fin; pelvics and anal fin more or less dark yellowish; caudal fin dark; inside of gill cover black (Ref. 57396).
Found in coastal waters over muddy, sandy or rocky bottoms. Smaller individuals found in shallow waters, but rarely entering estuaries. Feed on fish (fry of the long-finned herring in Ref. 114789), shrimps and crabs (Ref. 28587). Spawn from November to March in waters of 22 to 25°C in the Gulf of Guinea. Most economically important demersal fish in West African waters.
Life cycle and mating behavior
Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae
Chao, L.N. and E. Trewavas, 1990. Sciaenidae. p. 813-826. In J.C. Quero, J.C. Hureau, C. Karrer, A. Post and L. Saldanha (eds.) Check-list of the fishes the eastern tropical Atlantic (CLOFETA). JNICT, Lisbon; SEI, Paris; and UNESCO, Paris. Vol. 2. (Ref. 3593)
IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 120744)
CITES (Ref. 118484)
Threat to humans
Fisheries: minor commercial; gamefish: yes
ReferencesAquacultureAquaculture profileStrainsGeneticsAllele frequenciesHeritabilityDiseasesProcessingMass conversion
Estimates based on models
Preferred temperature (Ref. 115969
): 22.7 - 27.9, mean 26.3 (based on 82 cells).
Phylogenetic diversity index (Ref. 82805
= 0.5156 [Uniqueness, from 0.5 = low to 2.0 = high].
Trophic Level (Ref. 69278
): 3.8 ±0.71 se; Based on food items.
Resilience (Ref. 120179
): Medium, minimum population doubling time 1.4 - 4.4 years (K=0.33; tmax=8; assuming tm=2).
Prior r = 0.54, 95% CL = 0.36 - 0.82, Based on 1 stock assessment.
Vulnerability (Ref. 59153
): Moderate vulnerability (42 of 100) .


In this lesson we learn how to view HTML using the free Developer Tools in our browser.
Before we begin building our own websites let’s look at the HTML that websites are already sending us.
Doing this helps us to ‘demystify’ HTML and to realise that websites aren’t magic – we can understand them and learn to build them ourselves!
Use the buttons below to navigate through the lesson
All modern browsers – for example Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer – have built in tools that let us look at the HTML sent to us from a web server.
Let’s try using these tools now.
I’m going to use the Free Online Training Courses lesson “What is HTTP” (https://www.free-online-training-courses.com/what-is-http/) as my example. But you can use the current lesson.
Each browser is slightly different. In my example I’m using Google Chrome, so what you see might be different.
First I see the webpage I’m looking at:
In order to see the HTML that this page is made up of I PRESS F12. This works in Google Chrome and in modern versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer. If this doesn’t work for you you might want to try upgrading your browser or installing another one.
Pressing F12 brings up the Developer Tools, which looks like this.
I have highlighted the Developer Tools in red. Let’s take a closer look at it.
We can see there are many tabs we can click, each of which shows different information about the webpage we’re looking at (again if you’re in a different browser this may look different for you – be brave, click and explore the Developer Tools until you can find the HTML! ).
For now, we’re only interested in the “Elements” tab – we want to see the HTML elements that make up this page.
Because my “Console” tab is selected at the bottom I have to press ESCAPE to hide it. Now I can see the Elements tab more clearly:
Hopefully you can recognise that we’re looking at some HTML tags like the ones we learned about in the previous lesson.
You can see that the HTML here is more complex than our previous examples, but they are still the same principle: elements made up of tags that have attributes and contents.
Take some time to explore the HTML of a few of your favourite websites. It’s ok if you don’t understand it – for now we just want to get used to what HTML looks like, and to become familiar with using Developer Tools to view HTML that our browser is displaying.


Together with the epistle to Titus, these letters are called ‘Pastoral’ because they deal primarily with the concerns of members of the Churches. Traditionally, it has been held that after Paul was released from prison in Rome he continued his evangelistic ministry in Crete, where he was rearrested (cf. Titus 1: 5). In this event, Paul’s theology and ethical teaching had developed since writing to the Corinthians. But is this plausible? Fathers from the time of Irenaeus regard the epistles as authentically Pauline, it is true, but arguments against this view are strong: the heresy denounced is more Gnostic than anything otherwise known in Paul’s lifetime, but early in the 2nd cent. such teaching was common. The organization of the Church had become a dominant issue, requiring much advice in the epistles. The vocabulary and literary style of the epistles seem, even in translation, to be different from Paul’s. However, the majority view is that the epistles were written later in the 1st or early in the 2nd cent. by a pseudonymous author, who sincerely believed that he was writing what would have been Paul’s own words in the new situation.
The letters consist of a charge to Timothy (2: 1–6: 19) outlining the essential qualities for Church leadership and deploring excessive asceticism, as proposed by heretics. The second epistle commends the experience of suffering as being evidence of true vocation (2 Tim. 1: 8–2: 26).


Ideas for Healthy Eating with your Children
As a child I was a VERY fussy eater and I don't want my children to follow in my footsteps. When I was younger my Mum took to 'hiding' vegetables in food so that I wouldn't know I was eating them until I said "that was yummy" and only then would she list off everything I had just eaten! Because of this I am introducing as many different foods now to my 2 girls as I possibly can!
I know problems will arise as she gets older and I hope to use tips and ideas from my friends to make it as less stressful as I can for all concerned! Whilst still encouraging them to eat a wide variety of foods.
My philosophy is to teach children right from the start that food (and cooking/baking) is great fun. If they are involved in making choices, learning where food comes from and preparing their meals right from the start then they will have a better relationship with food.
Children need to learn where their food comes from for them to have an interest in what they are eating. So many times as a Nursery Manager I heard children saying that milk came from Tesco and sausages from Sainsbury! When you go to the supermarket give your child their own shopping list, visit farms-see fresh eggs and watch a cow being milked.
Cooking from fresh is definitely the healthiest option for all of us and getting our children to eat the same as we do is the easiest option, this way your home will feel less like a cafe at meal times! Healthy eating is the same for us as it is for our children; we need a balanced diet, a balance of taste, fun and goodness! To be realistic in this day and age I think we need to have a balanced diet over the week rather than over the day, that way if you are out for a day at the weekend or in the holidays it doesn't matter if you have a couple of treats as long as a conscious effort is made over the rest of the week to 'be good'.
It can be very difficult to know what size portions should be for children, this guide shows what a 'balanced diet' is and portion sizes for children.
Carbohydrates: 3-5 portions a day
One portion for example would be: 1 slice of bread, 6 tablespoons of cereal, pasta, rice or couscous oats, 2 tablespoons of sweet potato.
Protein: 2-3 portions a day
One portion for example would be: 2 slices of cooked meat, 1 chicken breast, 1 fillet of fish, 1 cup of lentils or four fish fingers)
Dairy and Milk: 3 portions a day
One portion for example would be: one glass of milk, one pot of yoghurt or fromage frais or a tablespoon size of cheese)
Fruit and Vegetables: 5 portions a day
One portion for example would be: one apple, banana, pear, 2 plums, kiwi, handful of cherries or grapes, dessert bowl of salad, 3 heaped tablespoons of vegetables.
Fats and Sugars: limit items from this group. These give a lot of energy but not many nutrients.
These foods include margarine, butter, chocolate, crisps, pastries, biscuits, cooking oils and sugary drinks.
Preparing healthy meals quickly and cheaply.
This is what we all want, right? As a working mum trying to do this can sometimes feel like a mammoth task, but its not when you can organise yourself. And if you get it right, more often than not cooking a yummy healthy meal from scratch is quicker than a microwave meal. Planning and preparation are the key. I have now even taken to making a menu for 3 weeks in a row! I never thought I would be the menu kind of person, but it has really helped me. I just have a look through the freezer and try to think of a few new meals to try, I always put in the favourites too, and then I don't have to worry about what I'm going to cook each night! Whatever my husband and I are eating the girls will have for their tea the following evening if we are unable to eat together due to other commitments. We always eat together as a family at weekends and as much as we can during the week.
Meals like stir-fry's and mince dishes are a great way of getting portions of vegetables into meals and for encouraging children to try different foods. Meal times need to be fun and relaxed, fussy eaters make this very hard! If you are dealing with a fussy eater then don't spend too long preparing each meal-the longer you spend the more frustrated you will be if they don't touch it and it all ends up in the bin!
Prepare meals with your children; make it an opportunity to have fun and spending time together! Hopefully it will help them enjoy their food more.
One of the easiest ways to get lots of different vegetables into your children is homemade vegetable soup.
Ria has 2 girls and previously worked in nurseries for over 15 years and left managing a day nursery when her eldest was born. She now works for Raring2go! as our Digital Content and Strategy Manager
If you are interested in writing for Raring2go! or featuring on our site please email Ria.
Introducing celebrity chef Annabel Karmel
Splat Cooking, a leading family cookery school, founded by tv cook, food writer and mother of 3, Beverley Glock, specialises in helping children to cook up some fun!
Annabel Karmel Introduces Quick and Easy Cookbook Series for Busy Families
Annabel Karmel launches a new series of handy handbag-sized recipe books to inspire mums on the supermarket run.
Cooking with children
Cooking with children
Join Explore Learning and save £50
Since 2001 over 200,000 children have excelled academically, reached their potential and achieved the best possible results with Explore Learning. Mapped to the school curriculum, we ensure children progress academically and develop socially, changing their attitude towards learning.
Win with Raring2go!
Everyone likes to receive goodies in the post don't they?! With our regular competitions you are always in with a great chance of winning (as long as you enter of course!) Head on over to our competitions page and see what is on offer this month-you need to be a member, but that's free and easy to do! Go on, what are you waiting for?! Get winning!


Public-school education includes more than math and science
Every parent wants what's best for his or her children. They are ready to invest themselves and their money to ensure that their children receive the best education. But what is "best"?
As a ninth-grader at Oakland Technical High School (and graduate of Oakland middle and elementary schools), I experience the adventure that is public school every day. I have had both extremely good and extremely bad teachers.
My good teachers provided a well-managed classroom, where rigorous academic learning flourishes. My not-so-good teachers introduced me to the stereotypical chaotic classroom, where kids throw erasers and toss blown-up condoms. All of these experiences have been a part of my education.
The diverse and sometimes chaotic experience that is public education is important for learning empathy for others, perspectives different from my own, and developing skills for navigating our diverse and sometimes chaotic world.
By diversity in school, I mean the integration of different races, cultures and social classes into an academic environment. A public school may have less rigorous course work and bigger classes, but it provides an inclusive and diverse environment for students. Diversity in a classroom means a student is learning not only about math and science, but also about the lives of others. One mother at Emerson Elementary School recounted how her daughter had been going to an all-white, Jewish preschool, where she saw an extremely limited variety of people. After attending Emerson for less than a year, her daughter "started including different skin colors in her drawings." In our increasingly segregated communities, school is an important place to experience those different from ourselves. Lack of exposure to the outside world, and its diversity, can lead to narrow-minded views, and pictures of an all-white world.
Private schools often offer amazing academics with top-notch instruction, but little diversity. Parents send their children to private schools because they think the schools will be more beneficial to their children, with academic learning as their priority. Many of my classmates attended private schools for middle and elementary school. Two classmates who attended private Catholic schools described them as having "more discipline" but no diversity ("not even a little bit;" "maybe two African American kids and five Asian kids"). When asked about the transition from private school to Oakland Tech, one student bluntly described it as "culture shock."
Sending your child to your neighborhood public school not only benefits them but helps the school to have one more supportive mom or dad. When a parent sends his or her child to a neighborhood school, "everyone wins," noted Jody London, a member of the Oakland Unified School District school board.
Oakland public schools are improving significantly, but when many parents look at schools for their child, all they see is the low academic test scores. It's time to look past that and see the rainbow of children playing on the blacktop as a learning opportunity for your child. Sending your child to public school can teach your child to walk in someone else's shoes and embrace the differences.
Sophie Schafer is a freshman at Oakland Technical High School. She used a social studies assignment to "take action in her community" to do something about education - "something I am passionate about and experience daily." She volunteers to work on school fundraisers.


A number of symptoms are associated with heart failure, but none is specific for the condition. Perhaps the best known symptom is short of breath (called dyspnea). In heart failure, this may result from excess fluid in the lungs. The breathing difficulties may occur at rest or during exercise. In some cases, congestion may be severe enough to interrupt or prevent you from sleeping.
-Fatigue or easy tiring is another common symptom. As the heart’s pumping capacity decreases, muscles and other tissues receive less oxygen and nutrition, which are carried in the blood. Without proper fuel (oxygen from the blood) provided by our engine (the heart), the body cannot perform as much work as it use to do (just like going from in shape to out of shape in time). The ending line is this will result into fatigue.
-Fluid accumulation will cause swelling in the feet, ankles, legs, and occasionally the abdomen (if the fluid building up in the body gets severe), what we medically call edema. Through gravity the blood goes backwards and our body allows water to transfer in the skin to allow the fluid to go somewhere other than the bloodstream to decrease fluid overload to the heart by compensating. It body compensates since the blood is going backwards from the heart causing fluid back up. Excess fluid retained by the body will result into weight gain, which sometimes occurs fairly quickly (if you have CHF already you should always call your M.D. if you weight gain is 3lbs or more in a week, odds are high this is due to fluid building up).
-Persistent coughing is another common sign, especially coughing that regularly produces mucus or pink, blood-tinged sputum. Some people develop raspy breathing or wheezing.
-Heart failure usually goes through a slow development process, the symptoms may not appear until the condition has progressed over the years. This happens because the heart first compensates by making adjustments with the heart that delay or slow down but do not prevent, the eventual loss in pumping capacity. In time failure happens, just like a car in when it gets older over several years is starts showing one problem after another and is exchanged for a newer car; same principle with the heart in that you show signs and symptoms as your heart starts to slow down to failure and its either treat the problem or get a transplant of the organ (which is unlikely to happen). The heart first hides the underlying process but compensates by doing this to your heart:
1- Enlargement to the muscle of the heart (causing “dilatation”) which allows more blood into the heart.
2- Thickening of muscle fibers (causing “hypertrophy”) to strengthen the heart muscle, which allows the heart to contract more forcefully and pump more blood.
3- More frequent contraction, which increases circulation.
By making these adjustments, or compensating, the heart can temporarily make up for losses in pumping ability, sometimes for years. However, compensation of the organ can only last so long, not forever (like anything in life the living thing or an object will go through a ending life process to termination). Eventually the heart cannot offset the lost ability to pump blood, and the signs of heart failure appear.
In many cases, physicians diagnose heart failure during a simple physical examination. Readily identifiable signs are shortness of breath, fatigue, and swollen ankles and feet. The physician also will check for the presence of risk factors, such as hypertension, obesity and a history of heart problems.
Using a stethoscope, the physician can listen to a patient breathe and identify the sounds of lung congestion. The stethoscope also picks up the abnormal heart sounds indicative of heart failure.
If one or not both symptoms or the patient’s history point to a clear cut diagnosis, the physician may recommend any of a variety of laboratory tests, including, initially, an electrocardiogram (EKG), which uses recording devices placed on the chest to evaluate the electrical activity of a patient’s heartbeat which will be affected by CHF.
Echocardiography is another means of evaluating heart function from outside the body. This works through sound waves that bounce off the heart are recorded and translated into images. The pictures can reveal abnormal heart sizes, shape, and movement. Echocardiography also can be used to calculate a patient’s ejection fraction which is a measurement of the amount of blood pumped when the heart contracts.
Another possible test is the chest x-ray, which also determines the heart’s size and shape, as well as the presence of congestion in the lungs.
Tests help rule out other possible causes of symptoms. The symptoms of heart failure can result when the heart is made to work too hard, instead of from damaged muscle (like in a heart attack). Conditions that overload the heart occur rarely and include severe anemia and thyrotoxicosis (a disease resulting from an overactive thyroid gland).
Prevention of CHF:
-If not diagnosed yet your already possibly ahead. Without this diagnosis you can get started on making yourself further away from being diagnosed with this disease. How to reach this goal is through living a routine life through healthy habits practiced, healthy dieting over all, and balancing rest with exercise during the week 30-40 minutes a day or 1 hour to 1.5 hours 3 times a week and not being obese. They all would benefit the heart in not stressing it out making the heart’s function harder in doing its function. When the heart stresses out it is at risk for lacking oxygen putting it at potential for angina (heart pain) to a heart attack with over time leading toward failure of the heart. Need to learn more about what is and how to get your weight in therapeutic body mass index range through dieting of all 4 food groups, balancing exercise/rest, and knowing how the body works with all ingredients in foods including portion sizes (fats, calories, starches, carbohydrates, proteins with vitamins and minerals) to understanding how all this information takes effect in how your metabolism operates in being beneficial or against you? Well than go to healthyusa.tsfl.com and take a peek at what we offer at such a reasonable price and more of a reachable goal with having Dr. Anderson through access of his book “Dr. A’s healthy habits” with me as your personal coach and if you want foods to eat in helping you lose weight if needed I’m there to help you with any questions you may have and even for support. To take a peek go to healthyusa.tsfl.com and see what we offer for no price and with no hacking. Join me and so many others in attempting to reach this goal. So far I have lost 22lbs. and hope to lose more.


Maps have always had an impact on reality and shaping the future—and still do. Columbus’ new world quest was influenced by the maps of medieval Jewish cartographers, Abraham and Yehuda Cresques. Their “Catalan Atlas” also put Islam on the world map in a new way by depicting Mecca as a marvelous city of Muslim piety.
In today’s GPS era, technology has shrunk the globe to fit in the palm of your hand—but alas accuracy is still not guaranteed—not when it comes to Israel. It shouldn’t come as a shock that 96% of Palestinian textbooks omit any map of their Jewish neighbor or that Arab nations who still don’t recognize the Jewish state are reluctant to even list it among the nations of the world. But here’s a sampler of disturbing incidents in western democracies. A few years ago, British BMI Airlines omitted the Jewish state from an in-flight map of their London-Tel Aviv flight. The alumni magazine of The London School of Economics forgot to include it. German car giants, BMW and Mercedes, also left out Israel. BMI and BMW eventually apologized—but not Mercedes.
Now, the important US publisher, Scholastic, has apologized and corrected a children’s book in its Geronimo Stilton series that included a Mideast map omitting Israel.
Even the cartographers from our State Department got creative when, on the eve of President Obama’s visit this year, they posted a map of the Holy Land seemingly placing Jerusalem as part of the West Bank.
How to account for the geographical amnesia that removes Jerusalem from Israel and omits Israel from the Mideast?
While some incidents may have been an accidental slip of the mapmaker’s pen due to Israel’s tiny geographical footprint, many omissions reflect campaigns in the real world to delegitimize Israel.
In academic circles, there are those who describe Israel as an illegitimate offspring of colonial powers in the wake of World War II. Many of these same intellectuals see Israel as a colossal historic mistake and depict the Jewish state itself as a colonial occupying power.
Christian Churches on both sides of the Atlantic, including traditionally pro-Israel Evangelicals, are being targeted by Palestinians and their supporters who invoke the theologically and politically charged Palestine Kairos Document. It says in effect that Christian support of Zionism and Israel is a theological sin because Judaism has been “superseded.”
And then there is the high-profile Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS) Movement that poisons the well against the Jewish state among trade unionists and high-profile cultural and entertainment figures.
Ostensibly, BDS just wants to end “Israeli occupation”—and Palestinian humiliation. In fact, its true vision is a zero sum game in which a Palestinian state supplants the Jewish one—not joining it as a peaceful neighbor. As Omar Barghouti, the mastermind of the highly influential, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), has said: “If the refugees were to return, you would not have a two state solution, you’d have a Palestine next to a Palestine. . . . If you don’t leash the mad dog, it will bite everyone.”
Barghouti was born in Qatar, grew up in Egypt, and later moved to Ramallah as an adult after receiving a Master’s degree in engineering from Columbia University. He then exploited academic freedom offered by Tel Aviv University to pursue an advanced degree while comparing Israelis to “mad dogs.” He views all Israeli academics as members of an “occupation reserve army” who should be boycotted en masse, not just as individuals.
There is also disturbing evidence that the BDS Movement’s animus extends beyond border issues to anything associated with the Jewish people and its traditions. Three dozen British celebrities, including actress Emma Thompson, followed by 2012 protest demonstrations, tried unsuccessfully to force a cancellation at London’s Old Globe Theater of a Hebrew language performance of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice by Israel’s Habima Theater—allegedly because “Habima has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Of course, the protestors had no difficulty, despite brutal Chinese repression in Tibet, accepting an official performance of Richard III in Mandarin. Around the same time, “Beethovians for Boycotting Israel” sang their own version of the Ode to Joy repeatedly during a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
There is a certain hateful logic in the refusal of BDS supporter, African American novelist Alice Walker, to have her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple, translated into Hebrew.
We shouldn’t be shocked by “accidental behavior” by corporations as well as governments and politicians to color Israel or its capital invisible. But friends of peace—not just Jews—must draw the line at Israel denial—successor to Holocaust denial—and protest every insidious attempt to create a new Judenrein geography of hate in the Holy land.


Ayers the bat recovers from surgery
Published October 28, 2009
Thanks to the help of the Aquarium’s veterinary staff and Dr. Anne Minihan, a surgical specialist from Chesapeake Veterinary Surgery Specialty, Ayers, a grey-headed flying fox, or fruit bat, is now recovering from a broken wing.
Ayers is a 7 year old flying fox that lives in the Aquarium's Australia exhibit. In mid-August, he suffered a distal humerus fracture. Ayers’ skin was torn open allowing his humerus bone to protrude through. This type of injury is difficult to stabilize and put Ayers at risk for developing an infection. In bats, the humerus bone is surrounded by tissue that creates the flying surface of the wing, so a cast was not an option.
The best chance Ayers had to regain full function of his wing was to bring in Anne Minihan to complete a surgical fixation. Surgery was performed the day after the fracture occurred, and it went very well but the recovery process is a slow one. There are several pins in place to stabilize the bone as it heals. Ayers has been using his wing and thumb regularly now and is scheduled for another check by the orthopedic surgeon in the next few weeks. Even though Ayers is not fully recovered, the aviculturists in the Australia exhibits have said he is acting like his batty self again!
Bats are commonly associated with Halloween and tend to frighten many people! Contrary to common believe, bats have no intention of bringing harm to humans. In fact, they do more for us than you may think. Insect-eating bats protect our crops, keeping costs down at the market. Fruit-eating bats help with pollination and seed dispersal, thus providing us with many commercial products and medicines. Survival efforts are imperative worldwide because bats are such a vital part of our ecosystem. This halloween, celebrate bats!
Published November 16, 2017
Published November 08, 2017
Explore the Blog