Why Does My Water Smell Like Rotten Eggs?
There’s nothing like going to wash your face after a long day and being hit with the smell of rotten eggs when you turn on your faucet. This “rotten egg smell” is actually a very common problem for homeowners, but one that also causes understandable panic. In almost all cases, this foul odor is an indication that hydrogen sulfide gas has gotten into your water system. Before we present the possible causes of how this happened, it is important that you know that hydrogen sulfide gas does not pose serious sanitary risks to your water. However, it needs be addressed nonetheless.
How Does Hydrogen Sulfide Enter a Home Water System?
The presence of hydrogen sulfide in your water can be traced back to the following sources: your groundwater (formed from decay of natural organic matter), sulfur bacteria coming in contact with sulfur compounds or sewage waste (rare cases when pollution has entered groundwater). However, one of the primary culprits to hydrogen sulfide gas is your water heater. Not only does the warm water of the tank promote bacteria growth, but its anodes also contain electrons that allow sulfate in the tank to covert into hydrogen sulfide gas.
To determine where your hydrogen sulfide is originating from, a plumbing professional may ask you the following questions:
- Is the smell coming from the hot water only? Or both?
- Is your water softened?
- Is the odor intermittent or persistent? Does the smell go away after the water has been running?
Once the source is located, one of our Metro Septic professionals can offer a solution. In most cases, the rotten egg smell can be eliminated in a quick, cost-effective manner. If your water is emitting an odor of any kind, don’t ignore it. Let us take a look to ensure your water system is safe and operating correctly.
Posted on Behalf of Metro Septic


Although it’s changing in today’s society, it was previously presumed that someone with a disability was completely dependent on others.
It’s quite common for people to think that because someone has a disability, they’re unable to complete daily tasks on their own. It’s this type of thinking that cultivates dependence on others. This can happen whether the disability is visible or invisible. For example, someone may assume that an individual in a wheelchair, which is a visible disability, cannot drive or get in or out of his or her car independently. When in reality, there are many individuals who use a wheelchair and drive on their own, as well as navigate a career, appointments and errands independently.
There is a similar assumption when someone has an invisible, but known disability, such as a brain injury. This often comes with an assumption that this individual may not be able to achieve daily tasks on their own. For example, someone with a brain injury may experience forgetfulness, and instead of doing tasks for them, it’s important to foster independence and help that individual with tools that may help them remember what they might otherwise forget. There are always tools that can be put in place to help foster independence for people with visible or invisible disabilities.
Being diagnosed with an invisible illness, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), can affect the ability to be fully independent. Honouring independence is incredibly important. There will be tasks that a patient can no longer do on their own, which makes the ones they can still do independently that much more precious.
By helping your loved one or friend with a task, instead of completing it for them, you are helping to foster their independence regardless of their invisible illness or their disability — and they’ll be extremely grateful.
Below are a few ways to help someone achieve a daily task or goal, as opposed to doing it for them:
Accompany a patient while running errands.
Sometimes patients need others to run errands for them, which is particularly true on physically painful days or on days where the fatigue is overwhelming. Other times, you could accompany your friend for their errands. By doing so, the patient still has the independence of selecting their preference of groceries, for example, without being left to do the heavy lifting or driving to and from.
Instead of making a meal for someone (which is usually appreciated by patients), suggest making it together in the comfort of the patient’s home. They can still contribute to the meal, but do not have to be solely responsible for preparing it and cleaning up, which can take a lot of energy. This also fosters an opportunity for quality time with your friend or loved one.
Offer to carry something, don’t take it.
Carrying things for a patient with an invisible illness, or for an individual with a disability is almost always appreciated. That being said, taking their things without asking whether or not they need assistance, is one of the quickest ways to undermine their ability to be independent. It is important to ask someone if they need assistance, as opposed to assuming they do.
Strategize or problem-solve together.
Instead of doing something for your loved one, spend time with them strategizing or problem-solving the best way to achieve what they want on their own.
For other ways to help foster independence in the life of someone you love with an invisible illness or disability, talk to the person you’re supporting. It is incredibly helpful to know that others want to assist, not to do it for you and by having this conversation, you are likely helping to maintain the person’s independence as long as possible.
Lung Disease News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.


George Higinbotham and Eureka is the biography of a man of liberal and democratic views who devoted his life to the goal of building the Colony of Victoria into a democratic nation within the British Empire. As a youth he had seen at close range the horrors of the famine of the late 1840s in his native Ireland, and as a journalist in Victoria he had borne witness to the causes of the dissatisfaction that culminated in the dawn attack on the Eureka stockade at Ballarat in December 1854. But as the grandson of an aide-de-camp of George Washington who had fought in the American War of Independence, Higinbotham was inspired by democratic principles. He became convinced that widespread reform of the system of government was essential in Victoria.
In the decades following Eureka, the Colony struggled with an undemocratic and barely workable constitution. During the interval between the gold rushes of the early 1850s in Victoria, and the Federation of the Australian colonies in 1901 Victoria suffered from recurrent constitutional deadlocks and crippling political instability. From his arrival in Victoria in 1854 until his death in 1892, Higinbotham ‘bore his part in the strife’, steadfastly promoting his democratic vision for the Colony against the opposition of the squatters, the Legislative Council, the Colonial Office in London and some sections of the press. He did so firstly as a journalist with the Melbourne Morning Herald and as editor of the Argus, then as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, next as Attorney-General and finally as Chief Justice of Victoria.
This site accompanies the book George Higinbotham and Eureka: The Struggle For Democracy in Colonial Victoria by Geraldine Moore. Here you will find additional information about some of the people, places and events described in the book.
Over the past century and a quarter a number of historians have researched and written about Higinbotham. Their opinions vary widely and are as much a part of the story as Higinbotham himself. Theirs has been a difficult task for Higinbotham insisted that, after his death, all of his personal papers were to be destroyed, and his family carried out his wish. The story of Higinbotham is therefore also the story of successive historians who have striven to reconstruct his life from the fragments that remain, to understand what motivated him, to assess his legacy and to find out why he was ‘the most loved and the most hated’ man of his day.


Data Generation is Growing – Start Storing Everything
The world is generating more data than ever before.
In 2013 IBM reported that 90% of the world’s data had been generated in the last two years, and this trend is continuing. So what is causing this explosion of data?
Several major factors have contributed. Chief among these is the changing way we interact with computers. The first generation of data capture involved rigorously-prepared data being hard-wired physically into the machine by the engineers. The second generation involved professionally trained computer operators who would feed data into the machines at our request. Software was designed to enforce restraints so the machine knew how to process the data. The third generation saw everyone getting access to enter their own data – Web 2.0, the interactive Web: people were given the freedom to capture whatever they wanted to capture, and the amount of data captured exploded. Now we are on a fourth generation of data capture – the Internet of Things, Machine to Machine communication. Gartner has projected that there will be 26Billion connected devices by 2020, and the number of sensors will be measured in the trillions.
The price of storing all the data we are generating has fallen dramatically. The first hard disk drive, IBM’s RAMAC 305 was launched in 1956 at a cost of $50,000, or $435,000 in today’s dollars – the drive stored 5Megabytes. To put that in context, it would cost $350Billion today to store 4 Terabytes of data using that technology, and it would take up a floor area of 2.5 times the area of Singapore. Of course, today, a 4Terabyte drive can be purchased for little more than a hundred dollars and can fit in the palm of a hand.
Since storage costs have been largely resolved, the biggest challenge remained around data processing and analysis. There are two issues here: firstly traditional database systems are designed to run on one machine. Larger databases implies scaling up to bigger machines, but the amount of data now available has outstripped our capacity to process it using traditional methods on one computer – the computers are just not powerful enough. Secondly data has become more structurally complex, and traditional database designs, which rely on the structure of the data being predefined during the design phase, no longer cope with the flexibility required when people and systems can evolve to use data in unpredictable ways.
Until the rise of next-generation database systems like MongoDB, these limitations resulted in a lot of data being thrown away: what’s the point of storing stuff if you cannot make sense of it? But MongoDB has helped change all that. MongoDB is inherently designed to work across many computers thus enabling it to handle vastly larger amounts of data. Furthermore, the structure of the data does not have to be defined in advance – MongoDB allows for the storage of anything, and yet patterns and sense can be gleaned regardless of the structure.
For example, in a database of customers, we may have access to store information about each customer that is highly specific to them as individuals – their pets, their hobbies and special interests, places they have visited, books they have read, companies where they have worked. We may not know what information we can glean, but with MongoDB we can store it today and make sense of it in the future.
Given tools now exist that can handle less structured and very large datasets, and storage costs have so dramatically reduced, it stands to reason to start storing everything. Businesses of the past were valued on their brand awareness; businesses of the future will be increasingly valued on how well they can make use of the data at their disposal to understand each customer, improve their efficiency and responsiveness, and make the best decisions.
Storing data today for use tomorrow makes a great deal of business sense. Once data has been collected, questions about how to use the data will naturally ensue. Without the data, people won’t even think about questions they could be asking, things like:
- What would be the optimum price for this product?
- How soon should we follow up a customer after they have purchased item X?
- What products act as good loss leaders?
- What are the signs that indicate a customer will churn?
- When a customer churns, who are the people most at risk of following them?
- What impact does the weather have on purchasing patterns?
MongoDB makes the perfect solution to store data. It has the flexibility to cope with unstructured and structured data, can scale to many petabytes with full replication, and has a great deal of support for analytics. Even if there is no current interest in analysing data, a business case will be much easier to make for analytical tools in the future if there is a large reservoir of data to use, rather than just an idea to grow from scratch.
The businesses who win in the future will be those that know how to harvest all the data available to them. The sooner they start storing and practising how to glean the most from their data, the sooner they can learn to pre-empt the customers’ needs, pre-empt the marketplace, learn to cope with the veritable deluge in a highly responsive manner and leave the less-informed competition behind.


Chip designers are under constant pressure to improve chip performance while minimizing costs simultaneously. One way to achieve this is to speed up the verification process – because verification is more than 70% of the entire chip design process, embracing tools and technology that results in faster verification is the requirement of hours.
Need for hardware assisted verification models
To meet the demands of the shortened development cycle, it is important for hardware and software on the chip which will be verified at the same time. Because software development cannot wait until the hardware aspects of the chip are developed, the design team needs to adopt a failed-safe way to verify the chip will function as intended as soon as the embedded software is run. It requires a design team to make work prototypes for software development as early as possible, and many before the end of the hardware design cycle.
Hardware Help Technology
Given time pressure to the market, the verification process has been far away. For many digital design engineers, there are several strong reasons for verifying hardware. Because performance is key, it is important for the verification system to provide the highest performance model and performance environment for SOC verification.
• Hardware acceleration techniques help overcome challenges meeting performance requirements for SOC verification.
• Writing SystemVerilog Testbench for certain designs can be very tiring, especially when testing the interactions between different blocks.
• By verifying hardware assisted, you don’t need to write testbench or worry about how the interface will be done.
• For example, to check whether the peripheral device functions as referred to, you can retrieve a physical or virtual peripheral device, connect it to the design and then use the device driver for the controller to do a function to see if the interface is functioning.
• As a number of vectors that can be run per second are substantial, you can ensure that the interaction between hardware and software as expected in a short time span
• Hardware accelerators allow you to use components like FPGA to build a hardware platform.
• Using embedded test benches, you can verify the help of hardware and environmental virtualization to speed up the verification process.
With the increasing size and complexity of the current SOC device, verification requires you to do a massive test that covers billions of cycles. Using advanced verification technology such as hardware assisted emulation systems, you can speed up the verification process and provide the highest performance:
• Modern emulation systems include a broad transactor portfolio and memory model that accelerates the development of the virtual system verification environment.
• The emulation system offers a comprehensive debug with full signal visibility and supports advanced use modes including power management verification and hybrid emulation
• With emulation, design-under-test (DUT) is usually represented in the emulator, while the chip environment can be provided by connections outside the emulator.
• By using a virtual bridge along with the virtual test environment, you can connect DUT via protocol-specific transactor to real device
• In addition, the system level debug component can also be used to understand high-level SOCS behavior.
Another way to improve the verification process is to use a physical prototype to meet time-to-market requirements.
• By utilizing the hardware-assisted system environment, prototyping allows the development of early software that is embedded, allowing hardware and software to droop away in front of the chip fabrication.
• You can shorten the design schedule and avoid expensive devices roll back through strict integrated use


Some gardening terms helpful.
Deciduous, herbaceous, & evergreen: These terms refer to what a plant does in winter. Evergreen plants hold on to their leaves in winter. Deciduous plants drop their leaves in winter. Herbaceous plants are soft-stemmed – they die to the ground in winter and come back the following spring.
WHAT'S IN A ZONE?
A lot. Hardiness zones are . . .
The greater Seattle area lies between USDA zone 7 and zone 8.
THERE'S MORE TO THE STORY
On Planting and Sun Exposure
Let Them Eat . . . Plant Food! Cake Isn't a Good Idea.
Dirt and Stuff
Give Your Plants a Good Home
The Garden Party Crashers
In addition to pest control measures, see our list of deer- and bunny-resistant plants.


We believe that it is important for all children to express themselves clearly and confidently in speech and that this has a strong impact on their learning across the curriculum. In the early Years we emphasise role-play, the learning of nursery rhymes and retelling of stories. We continue with role-play areas in Key Stage 1 and develop the use of drama in all age groups. As children grow older they develop skills with activities such as performing plays, presenting reports to camera and debating in school council. Throughout the curriculum there is an emphasis on giving oral explanations to show understanding.
Children also need to be able to listen with full concentration to adults in school and to each other. In the classroom and in assembly discussions children are encouraged to contribute their ideas and to listen and respond to the ideas of others. All Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 classrooms have Sound field systems to support partially hearing pupils and these make listening easier in whole class activities for all the children.
Reading at Yorke Mead builds from the children’s phonics skills. We use the Letters and Sounds programme to deliver phonics daily throughout the Early Years and Key Stage One. Children in Reception will bring home a pot of sounds and later a pot of words to support development of their phonics skills and sight vocabulary.
All children are encouraged to take home books to read or to share with an adult. Each class has a reading area with a library and access to the school reference library. Parents of children in Year 1 are invited into school each week to share a story sack with a group of children.
We use books from several different reading schemes that are organised according to the level of difficulty as well as non-scheme books. In Key Stage 1 the children have a home-school reading diary to share with an adult at home. Key Stage 2 children are expected to record their reading in their diaries themselves and to carry out regular book reviews. Each year we organise an author week and celebrate World Book Day, and there will be several book swap days throughout the year to enable children to have access to new books.
Children can also enjoy books using recorded versions on cassette or CD as well as interactive stories on the computer. Teachers and Teaching Assistants hear pupils read in groups and as individuals and every teacher reads stories to their class during the week. Years 1, 2 and 3 are paired with years 4, 5 and 6 for partner reading each Friday. We are also fortunate to have a well-established system of adult volunteer helpers who will hear children read.
We encourage children to write freely from the time they start Nursery, starting with emergent writing. Children use their phonics skills to learn to write the sounds they can hear in words. They will also be directly taught tricky words and common words. They learn how to write for different purposes including writing instructions, reports, letters, poems, diaries and imaginative stories. Sometimes work will be word-processed. Finished writing may be presented as a booklet, in a class book or as part of a display as well as in the children’s individual exercise books.
Handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation are taught as specific skills. Children are encouraged to write in a fluent, joined style from year 1 and there is a strong emphasis on using their phonics to support spelling. To encourage the children to develop neat joined handwriting we have a system of certificates that the children earn which lead to their ‘pen license’.
We encourage children to initially use emergent writing techniques to spell words, and as children become more confident formal spelling tests are introduced. This will usually be during Year 1 sometime.
Spellings are taught in line with the National Curriculum phonic and spelling expectations for the age group. Children may choose to tackle 5, 10 or 15 of these spellings each week depending on the level of challenge the spelling pattern presents to them.
In the Early Years children develop an understanding of Mathematics through a variety of planned group and individual activities. In Key Stages 1 and 2 we follow the National Curriculum, providing a structured daily Maths lesson for every class that caters for all abilities. All areas of Maths are covered: . Place value and numbers, fractions, measurement, shape, position, statistics. Children learn through practical activities working individually, in pairs or in groups as well as practis ing a variety of skills that gradually introduce them to the formal written methods. They learn number facts such as multiplication tables and extend their learning by carrying out Maths investigations.
A key aspect of learning mathematics at Yorke Mead is children being able to explain their methods of working in order to get the answer.
Knowing key facts is essential for the development of effective mathematical calculations and we encourage children to learn to instantly recall addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. Children initially focus on learning their number bonds moving onto times tables once they begin to develop the concerns of counting in groups and multiplication.
Each class studies science throughout the year, covering the National Curriculum strands, for instance; rocks, animals, plants, light, forces. These strands are taught through the ‘working scientifically’ strand. . We are fortunate in having extensive school grounds and excellent local study centres. Links with the DT curriculum enable the practical application of scientific knowledge and we use a variety of ICT resources including a digital microscope and data logger to support our science work.
In Key Stage 1 the emphasis is on direct experiences and discussion. For example, we handle and describe materials, test their absorbency then draw diagrams, fill in tables, compare results and draw conclusions about their characteristics and appropriate uses.
At Key Stage 2 children record data in increasingly more complex ways. They hypothesise, plan and carry out experiments, write up their results and draw conclusions. Topics include electricity, forces, seed dispersal and the human body.


Recently at a Cincinnati zoo a little 4 year old boy managed to get into the gorilla’s den. What followed next was subject to interpretation. The 400 pound gorilla was viewed as a threat to the boy and was subsequently shot and killed. However, after viewing the video many think that the ape was only trying to “protect” the boy from the other gorillas and that the boy was in no real harm. In one scene, you can see the ape drag the boy through the water rather forcefully. Other than that, it appeared as though the ape (whose name was Harambe) was merely trying to protect the boy from the other gorillas. If you would like to see the video and hear more of the story you can click (or copy and paste into your browser) the link below:
The question that seems to take front stage is “Was it justifiable and necessary to kill the animal?” That would be a difficult question to answer. I will say this much: The animal had been used to a mostly human habitat because it came in contact with humans ever day (whether through the zoo officials or just seeing humans watching them). Because of this, there was less of a chance of the gorilla feeling threatened by a human in his presence. However, having less of a chance doesn’t mean that the opportunity for danger was no longer present. Since the 400 pound gorilla didn’t know the fragile nature of the child there was the possibility that the child could have been killed while the gorilla exhibited “playful” behavior. Gorillas may realize the strength of their own young, but that doesn’t mean they can treat a human child in the same manner. Does anyone remember the movie story of King Kong? In that classic, Kong was taken out of his element and placed in captivity. The end result of that movie was that Kong had to be shot dead to protect others. In this case the gorilla had no more sense of being wrong than the child had for going into the den in the first place. I will say, however, that I think it would have been extremely important for zoo officials to have secured that area so well that even young toddlers would not have been able to gain entry. 4 year olds are not expected to know better. The parents also deserve blame because they should have realized that the child could have entered the gorilla’s den and they should have kept on eye on their kid. The only one here who was really without blame was the “biggest victim,” and that was Harambe the gorilla. Should the animal have been shot? If there was “any” potential danger to the boy, then all precautions needed to be taken to ensure that child’s safety. As unfortunate as the shooting was, if that child had gotten hurt or killed then zoo officials would been blamed for not taking the proper precautions. Unfortunately nothing can bring the gorilla back, but I only hope that a lesson can be learned from this. Exhibits at places like the zoo need to be designed to “keep the animals in” but also “keep the humans out.” I think that is the “best” way to ensure that something like this never happens again. Thank you for checking out my Daily Thought, and as always I wish you the very best that life has to offer.
Facetime: Elton jolly
Stephanie Mills and Brett Jolly


The Chagos Archipelago (/
Map of the Chagos Archipelago
|Major islands||Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos, Salomon Islands, Egmont Islands|
|British Indian Ocean Territory (UK)|
|Capital and largest settlement||Eclipse Point Town (3,000)|
|Outer Islands||Chagos Archipelago|
|Population||3,000 (as of 2014)|
The Chagos was home to the Chagossians, a Bourbonnais Creole-speaking people, for more than a century and a half until the United Kingdom evicted them between 1967 and 1973 to allow the United States to build a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands. Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia is inhabited, and only by military and civilian contracted personnel. Since being expelled, Chagossian natives have been prevented from returning to the islands.
The sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago is disputed between the United Kingdom and Mauritius. In 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence, the United Kingdom excised the archipelago from Mauritius and the islands of Aldabra, Farquhar and Desroches from the Seychelles to form the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). The islands were formally established as an overseas territory of the United Kingdom on 8 November 1965. On 23 June 1976, Aldabra, Farquhar and Desroches were returned to the Seychelles. On 22 June 2017, the UN General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius. On 25 February 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled that the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end to its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible. On 22 May 2019, the United Nations General Assembly debated and adopted a resolution that affirmed that the Chagos archipelago “forms an integral part of the territory of Mauritius.” The resolution demanded that the UK “withdraw its colonial administration … unconditionally within a period of no more than six months.” 116 states voted in favour of the resolution, 55 abstained and only 5 countries supported the UK. During the debate, the Mauritian Prime Minister described the expulsion of Chagossians as "akin to a crime against humanity." The resolution's immediate consequence is that the UN and other international organisations are now bound by UN law to support the decolonisation of the Chagos Islands. The United Kingdom claims that it has no doubt about its sovereignty over the archipelago.
- 1 Geography
- 2 History
- 3 Sovereignty dispute
- 4 Development
- 5 People and language
- 6 Ecology
- 7 Conservation efforts
- 8 See also
- 9 References
- 10 Further reading
- 11 External links
The archipelago is about 500 kilometres (310 mi) south of the Maldives, 1,880 kilometres (1,170 mi) east of the Seychelles, 1,680 kilometres (1,040 mi) north-east of Rodrigues island, 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi) west of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and 3,400 kilometres (2,100 mi) north of Amsterdam Island.
The land area of the islands is 56.13 km2 (21.7 sq. miles), the largest island, Diego Garcia, having an area of 32.5 km2. The total area, including lagoons within atolls, is more than 15,000 km2, of which 12,642 km2 are accounted by the Great Chagos Bank, the largest acknowledged atoll structure of the world (the completely submerged Saya de Malha Bank is larger, but its status as an atoll is uncertain). The shelf area is 20,607 km2, and the Exclusive Economic Zone, which borders the corresponding zone of the Maldive Islands in the north, has an area of 639,611 km2 (including territorial waters).
The Chagos group is a combination of different coralline rock structures topping a submarine ridge running southwards across the centre of the Indian Ocean, formed by volcanoes above the Réunion hotspot. Unlike the Maldives, there is no clearly discernible pattern in the atoll arrangement, which makes the whole archipelago look somewhat chaotic. Most of the coralline structures of the Chagos are submerged reefs.
The Chagos contain the world's largest coral atoll, The Great Chagos Bank, which supports half the total area of good quality reefs in the Indian Ocean. As a result, the ecosystems of the Chagos have so far proven resilient to climate change and environmental disruptions.
The largest individual islands are Diego Garcia (32.5 km2), Eagle (Great Chagos Bank, 3.1 km2), Île Pierre (Peros Banhos, 1.40 km2), Eastern Egmont (Egmont Islands, 2.17 km2), Île du Coin (Peros Banhos, 1.32 km2) and Île Boddam (Salomon Islands, 1.27 km2).
In addition to the seven atolls with dry land reaching at least the high-water mark, there are nine reefs and banks, most of which can be considered permanently submerged atoll structures. The number of atolls in the Chagos Archipelago is given as four or five in most sources, plus two island groups and two single islands, mainly because it is not recognised that the Great Chagos Bank is a huge atoll structure (including those two island groups and two single islands), and because Blenheim Reef, which has islets or cays above or just reaching the high-water mark, is not included. Features are listed in the table from north to south:
|0||unnamed bank||submerged bank||–||3||–|
|1||Colvocoresses Reef||submerged atoll||–||10||–|
|2||Speakers Bank||unvegetated atoll||0.001||582||1)|
|3||Blenheim Reef (Baixo Predassa)||unvegetated atoll||0.02||37||4|
|4||Benares Shoals||submerged reef||–||2|
|7||Victory Bank||submerged atoll||–||21||–|
|8a||Nelson Island||parts of mega-atoll
Great Chagos Bank
|8b||Three Brothers (Trois Frères)||0.53||3|
|10||Cauvin Bank||submerged atoll||–||12||–|
|11||Owen Bank||submerged bank||–||4||–|
|12||Pitt Bank||submerged atoll||–||1317||–|
|14||Ganges Bank||submerged atoll||–||30||–|
|Chagos Archipelago||Archipelago||56.13||15427||64||04°54' to 07°39'S |
70°14' to 72°37' E
|1) a number of drying sand cays|
|2) main island and three islets at the northern end|
The main natural resources of the area are coconuts and fish. The licensing of commercial fishing used to provide an annual income of about US$2 million for the British Indian Ocean Territory authorities, however licenses have not been given since October 2010; the last expired after the creation of the no-take marine reserve.
All economic activity is concentrated on the largest island of Diego Garcia, where joint UK–US military facilities are located. Construction projects and various services needed to support the military installations are done by military and contract employees from the UK, Mauritius, the Philippines, and the US. There are currently no industrial or agricultural activities on the islands. All the water, food and other essentials of daily life are shipped to the island. An independent feasibility study led to the conclusion that resettlement would be "costly and precarious". Another feasibility study, commissioned by organisations supporting resettlement, found that resettlement would be possible at a cost to the British taxpayer of £25 million. If the Chagossians return, they plan to re-establish copra production and fishing, and to begin the commercial development of the islands for tourism.
Until October 2010, Skipjack (Euthynnus pelamis) and yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) were fished for about two months of the year as their year-long migratory route takes them through Chagos waters. While the remoteness of the Chagos offers some protection from extractive activities, legal and illegal fishing have had an impact. There is considerable poaching of turtles and other marine life. Sharks, which play a vital role in balancing the food web of tropical reefs, have suffered sharp declines from illegal fishing for their fins and as bycatch in legal fisheries. Sea cucumbers, which cleanse sand, are poached to feed Asian markets.
The Chagos Archipelago has a tropical oceanic climate; hot and humid but moderated by trade winds. Climate is characterised by plenty of sunshine, warm temperatures, showers and light breezes. December through February is considered the rainy season (summer monsoon); typical weather conditions include light west-northwesterly winds and warmer temperatures with more rainfall. June to September is considered the drier season (winter), characterised by moderate south-easterly winds, slightly cooler temperatures and less rainfall. The annual mean rainfall is 2600 mm (100 inches), varying from 105 mm (4 inches) during August to 350 mm (14 inches) during January.
According to Southern Maldivian oral tradition, local traders and fishermen were occasionally lost at sea and became stranded in one of the islands of the Chagos. Eventually they were rescued and brought back home. However, these islands were judged to be too far away from the Maldives to be settled permanently by Maldivians. Thus for many centuries the Chagos were ignored by their northern neighbours.
In Maldivian lore the whole group is known as Fōlhavahi or Hollhavai (the latter name in the Southern Maldives Adduan dialect of Dhivehi). There are no separate names for the different atolls of the Chagos in the Maldivian oral tradition.
16th to 19th centuryEdit
Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to discover the archipelago. Although Portuguese navigator Pedro de Mascarenhas (1470 – 23 June 1555) is credited with having discovered the islands during his voyage of 1512–13, there is little corroborative evidence for this; cartographic analysis points to 1532 or later. Portuguese seafarers named the group as Bassas de Chagas, Portuguese: Chagas (wounds) referring to the Holy Wounds of the crucifixion of Jesus. They named as well some of the atolls, such as Diego Garcia and Peros Banhos Atoll, mentioned as Pedro dos Banhos in 1513 by Afonso de Albuquerque. Neglected by the Portuguese, this lonely and isolated group, economically and politically uninteresting, was never made part of the Portuguese Empire.
The earliest and most interesting description of the Chagos, before coconut trees grew widely on the islands, was written by Manoel Rangel, a castaway from the Portuguese ship Conceição which ran aground on the Peros Banhos reefs in 1556.
The French were the first to lay a claim on the Chagos after they settled Réunion (in 1665) and Isle de France (now Mauritius, in 1715). The French began issuing permits for companies to establish coconut oil plantations on the Chagos in the 1770s.
On 27 April 1786 the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia were claimed for Great Britain. However, the territory was ceded to Britain by treaty only after Napoleon's defeat, in 1814. The Chagos were governed from Mauritius, which was by that time also a British colony.
In 1793, when the first successful colony was founded on Diego Garcia, the largest island, coconut plantations were established on many of the atolls and isolated islands of the archipelago. Initially the workers were slaves, but after 1840 they were freemen, many of whom were descended from those earlier slaves. They formed an inter-island culture called Ilois (a French Creole word meaning Islanders).
Commander Robert Moresby made a survey of the Chagos on behalf of the British Admiralty in 1838. After Moresby took measurements of most of the atolls and reefs, the archipelago was charted with relative accuracy for the first time.
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In November 1965, the UK purchased the entire Chagos Archipelago from the then self-governing colony of Mauritius for £3 million to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), with the intent of ultimately closing the plantations to provide the British territory from which the United States would conduct its military activities in the region. On 30 December 1966, the United States and the United Kingdom executed an agreement through an Exchange of Notes which permit the United States Armed Forces to use any island of the BIOT for defence purposes for 50 years, until December 2016, followed by a 20-year optional extension (to 2036) to which both parties must agree by December 2014. As of 2010[update], only the atoll of Diego Garcia has been transformed into a military facility.
In 1967 the British Government bought the entire assets and real property of the Seychellois Chagos Agalega Company, which owned all the islands of the BIOT, for £660,000 and administered them as a government enterprise while awaiting US funding of its proposed facilities, with an interim objective of paying for the administrative expenses of the new territory. However, the plantations, both under their previous private ownership and under government administration, proved consistently unprofitable due to the introduction of new oils and lubricants in the international marketplace, and the establishment of vast coconut plantations in the East Indies and the Philippines.
Between 1967 and 1973, the entire population was removed from the islands and moved to Mauritius and the Seychelles to make way for a joint United States-United Kingdom military base on Diego Garcia. In March 1971, Seabees, United States naval construction battalions, arrived on Diego Garcia to begin the construction of the Communications Station and an airfield. To satisfy the terms of an agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States for an uninhabited island, the plantation on Diego Garcia was closed in October of that year.
The plantation workers and their families were initially moved to the plantations on Peros Banhos and Salomon atolls in the northwest of the archipelago; those who requested were transported to the Seychelles or Mauritius. In 1972, the United Kingdom decided to close all the remaining plantations throughout the Chagos, and deported the Ilois to the Seychelles or Mauritius. The then-independent Mauritian government refused to accept the islanders without payment, and in 1973, the United Kingdom gave the Mauritian government an additional £650,000 to resettle the islanders. However, despite this islanders often found themselves in woefully inadequate housing and living conditions.
In 2002 Diego Garcia was used twice for US rendition flights.
On 1 April 2010, the British government Cabinet established the Chagos Marine Protected Area as the world's largest marine reserve. At 640,000 km2, it is larger than France or the U.S. state of California. It doubled the total area of environmental no-take zones worldwide. On 18 March 2015, the Permanent Court of Arbitration unanimously held that the marine protected area (MPA) which the United Kingdom declared around the Chagos Archipelago in April 2010 violates international law. Anerood Jugnauth, Prime Minister of Mauritius, pointed out that it is the first time that the United Kingdom's conduct with regard to the Chagos Archipelago has been considered and condemned by any international court or tribunal.
Mauritius initiated on 20 December 2010 proceedings against the United Kingdom under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to challenge the legality of the Chagos Archipelago MPA.
The issue of compensation and repatriation of the former inhabitants of several of the archipelago's atolls, exiled since 1973, continues in litigation and as of 23 August 2010[update] has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights by a group of former residents.
Litigation continues as of 2012[update] regarding the right of return for the displaced islanders and Mauritian sovereignty claims. In addition, advocacy on the Chagossians' behalf continues both in the United States and in Europe. As of 2018[update], Mauritius has taken the matter to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion, against British objections.
In November 2016, the United Kingdom restated it would not permit Chagossians to return to their homeland.
The Chagos had been part of Mauritius since the 18th century when the French first settled the islands. All of the islands forming part of the French colonial territory of Isle de France (as Mauritius was then known) were ceded to the British in 1810 under the Act of Capitulation signed between the two countries. In 1965, prior to Mauritian independence, the UK split the archipelago from the territory of Mauritius to form the British Indian Ocean Territory.
United Nations' resolutions banned the break-up of colonial territories before independence. Mauritius has repeatedly asserted that the British claim that the Chagos Archipelago is one of its territories is a violation of law and of UN resolutions. The United Kingdom has stated that it has no doubt about its sovereignty over the Chagos, but has also said that the Chagos will be returned to Mauritius once the islands are no longer required for defence purposes.
The island nation of Mauritius claims the Chagos Archipelago (which is coterminous with the BIOT), including Diego Garcia. A subsidiary issue is the Mauritian opposition to the 1 April 2010 UK Government's declaration that the BIOT is a Marine Protected Area with fishing and extractive industry (including oil and gas exploration) prohibited.
On 16 November 2016, the UK Foreign Office maintained their ban on resettlement of the islands. In response to this decision, the Prime Minister of Mauritius expressed his country's plan to advance the sovereignty dispute to the International Court of Justice. The British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has sought Indian assistance for resolving the dispute involving the United Kingdom, the United States and Mauritius. India has maintained considerable influence in Mauritius through deep cultural and economic ties. India has maintained that the matter of whether or not to proceed with the UN General Assembly move is a decision for the Mauritian government to make.
On 23 June 2017, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted in favour of referring the territorial dispute between Mauritius and the United Kingdom to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in order to clarify the legal status of the Chagos Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The motion was approved by a majority vote with 94 voting for and 15 against.
On 25 February 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that placing the Archipelago under British administration in 1965 was not based upon the free expression of the inhabitants and that it thus advised that the United Kingdom should relinquish the archipelago, including the strategic United States military base, for the establishment of which approximately 1,500 inhabitants had been deported. The British government rejected any jurisdiction of the court to deliberate these matters.
On 22 May 2019, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted in favor of setting a six-month deadline for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the Chagos Archipelago, which would then be reunified with Mauritius. The motion was approved by a majority vote with 116 voting for and 6 against. Fifty-six states, including France and Germany, abstained.
Structures on the islands are located in the joint defence and Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, although the Plantation house and other structures left behind by the Ilois are still standing, however left abandoned and decaying. Other uninhabited islands, especially in the Salomon Atoll, are common stopping points for long-distance yachtsmen travelling from Southeast Asia to the Red Sea or the coast of Africa, although a permit is required to visit the outer islands.
People and languageEdit
The islanders were known as the Ilois (one French Creole word for "islanders") and they numbered about 1,000. They were of mixed African, South Indian, Portuguese, English, French and Malay descent and lived very simple, spartan lives in their isolated archipelago working in the coconut and sugar plantations, or in the fishing and small textile industries. Few remains of their culture have been left, although their language is still spoken by some of their descendants in Mauritius.
The tribes that inhabited the islands were forcibly removed by the US and British governments during the late 1960s and early 1970s—effectively turning the islands into a military base. While a number of islanders had petitioned for the return of their former homes, their efforts have not been accepted by the US and UK legal systems. Outside of the US, the main island of Diego Garcia is the world's largest military base.
Diego Garcia is currently the only inhabited island in the Chagos, all of which comprise the British Indian Ocean Territory, usually abbreviated as "BIOT". It is an Overseas territory of the United Kingdom, and the Government of the BIOT consists of Commissioner appointed by the Queen. The Commissioner is assisted by an Administrator and small staff, and is based in London and resident in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This administration is represented in the Territory by the Officer commanding British Forces on Diego Garcia, the "Brit Rep". Laws and regulations are promulgated by the Commissioner and enforced in the BIOT by Brit Rep.
There are no indigenous peoples living on the island, and the UK represents the Territory internationally. A local government as normally envisioned does not exist. Around 1,700 armed services personnel and 1,500 civilian contractors, mostly American, are stationed on Diego Garcia.
The Catholics are pastorally served by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Port-Louis, which includes the BIOT.
The Chagos forms a terrestrial ecoregion together with the Maldives and the Lakshadweep. The islands and their surrounding waters are a vast oceanic Environment Preservation and Protection Zone (EPPZ) (Fisheries Conservation and Management Zone (FCMZ) of 544,000 square kilometres (210,000 sq mi)), an area twice the size of the UK's land surface.
The deep oceanic waters around the Chagos Islands, out to the 200 nautical mile limit, include an exceptional diversity of undersea geological features (such as 6000 m deep trenches, oceanic ridges, and sea mounts). These areas almost certainly harbour many undiscovered and specially adapted species. Although the deepwater habitats surrounding the islands have not been explored or mapped in any detail, work elsewhere in the world has shown that high physical diversity of the sea floor is closely linked to a high diversity of species.
The biodiversity of the Chagos archipelago and its surrounding waters is one of the main reasons it is so special. As of 2010, 76 species that call Chagos home were listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The reefs host at least 371 species of coral including the endemic brain coral Ctenella chagius. Historically, the coral cover was dense and healthy even in deep water on the steep outer reef slopes. Thick stands of branching staghorn coral (Acropora sp) previously protected the low-lying islands from wave erosion. Despite the loss of much of the coral in a bleaching event in 1998 the recovery in the Chagos was remarkable and overall coral cover increased year on year to 2014. High water temperatures, however, caused coral bleaching in both 2015 and 2016 which resulted in the death of more than two thirds of corals.
The reefs are also home to at least 784 species of fish that stay near to the shores of the islands including the endemic Chagos clownfish (Amphiprion chagosensis) and many of the larger wrasse and grouper that have already been lost from over-fishing in other reefs in the region.
As well as the healthy communities of reef fish there are significant populations of pelagic fish such as manta rays (Manta birostris), whale sharks, normal sharks, and tuna. Shark numbers have dramatically declined as a result of illegal fishing boats that seek to remove their fins and also as accidental by-catch in the two tuna fisheries that used to operate seasonally in the Chagos.
Seventeen species of breeding seabirds can be found nesting in huge colonies on many of the islands in the archipelago, and 10 of the islands have received formal designation as Important Bird Areas, by BirdLife International. This means that Chagos has the most diverse breeding seabird community within this tropical region. Of particular interest are the large colonies of sooty terns (Sterna fuscata), brown and lesser noddies (Anous stolidus and Anous tenuirostris) wedge-tailed shearwaters (Puffinus pacificus) and red-footed boobies (Sula sula). Land bird fauna is poor and consists of introduced species and recent natural colonisers. Red fody had been introduced and now widespread.
Environments of Chagos Archipelago provides rich biodiversity and support varieties of cetacean species within the vicinity, such as three populations of blue whales and toothed whales (sperm, pilot, orca, pseudo-orca, risso's and other dolphins such as spinners, and so on). Dugongs, being locally extinct today, once thrived in the archipelago and the Sea Cow Island was named after the presences of the species. There are also donkeys roaming free on the island that were left behind when the Ilois were relocated.
The remote islands make perfect undisturbed nursery sites for nests of green (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) turtles. The populations of both species in Chagos are of global significance given the critically endangered status of hawksbills and the endangered status of green turtles on the IUCN Red List. Chagos turtles were heavily exploited during the previous two centuries, but they and their habitats are now well protected by the administration of the British Indian Ocean Territory and are recovering well.
The coconut crab (Birgus latro) is the world's largest terrestrial arthropod, reaching over one metre in leg span and 3.5-4 kilos in weight. As a juvenile it behaves like a hermit crab and uses empty coconut shells as protection, but as an adult this giant crab climbs trees and can crack through a coconut with its massive claws. Despite its wide global distribution, it is rare in most of the areas it is found. The coconut crabs on Chagos constitute one of the most undisturbed populations in the world. An important part of their biology is the long distances their young can travel as larvae. This means the Chagos coconut crabs are a vital source for replenishing other over-exploited populations in the Indian Ocean region.
A total of 113 species of insect have been recorded from the Chagos Islands.
The Chagos Islands have been colonised by plants since there was sufficient soil to support them—probably less than 4,000 years. Seeds and spores arrived on the emerging islands by wind and sea, or from passing seabirds. The native flora of the Chagos Islands is thought to comprise forty-one species of flowering plants and four ferns as well as a wide variety of mosses, liverworts, fungi and cyanobacteria.
Today, the status of the Chagos Islands’ native flora depends very much on past exploitation of particular islands. About 280 species of flowering plants and ferns have now been recorded on the islands, but this increase reflects the introduction of non-native plants by humans, either accidentally or deliberately. Because some of these non-native species have become invasive and pose a threat to the native ecosystems, plans are being developed to control them. On some islands, native forests were felled to plant coconut palms for the production of copra oil. Other islands remain unspoiled and support a wide range of habitats, including unique Pisonia forests and large clumps of the gigantic fish poison tree (Barringtonia asiatica). Unspoiled islands provide us with the biological information that we need to re-establish the native plant communities on heavily altered islands. These efforts will ultimately help to improve the biodiversity of the Chagos Islands.
Successive UK governments, both Labour and Conservative, have supported environmental conservation of the Chagos and have resisted attempts to allow the exiled Chagossians to return. They have committed to treat the whole area as a World Heritage site. In 2003, the UK government established an Environment (Protection and Preservation) Zone under Article 75 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This zone extends 200 nautical miles from the islands. On eastern Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos and the site of a UK–US military facility, Britain has designated the very large lagoon and the eastern arm of the atoll and seaward reefs as a "wetland of international importance" under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (the Ramsar Convention).
This followed an effort led by The Chagos Environment Network, a collaboration of nine leading conservation and scientific organisations seeking to protect the rich biodiversity of the Chagos Archipelago and its surrounding waters. The Chagos Environment Network cites several reasons for supporting a protected area:
On 1 April 2010, the British government Cabinet established the Chagos Archipelago as the world's largest marine reserve. At 640,000 km2, it is larger than France or the US state of California. It doubled the total area of environmental no-take zones worldwide. The protection of the marine reserve will be guaranteed for the next five years thanks to the financial support of the Bertarelli Foundation. The setting up of the Marine Reserve would appear to be an attempt to prevent any resettlement by the evicted natives in the 1960s and 1970s. Leaked US Cables have shown the FCO suggesting to the US counterparts that setting up a protected no-take zone would make it "difficult, if not impossible" for the islanders to return. The reserve was then created in 2010.
Permanent Court of Arbitration rulingEdit
On 18 March 2015, the Permanent Court of Arbitration unanimously held that the marine protected area (MPA) which the UK declared around the Chagos Archipelago in April 2010 violates international law. Anerood Jugnauth, Prime Minister of Mauritius, pointed out that it is the first time that the UK's conduct with regard to the Chagos Archipelago has been considered and condemned by any international court or tribunal. He qualified the ruling as an important milestone in the relentless struggle, at the political, diplomatic and other levels, of successive Governments over the years for the effective exercise by Mauritius of its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago. The tribunal considered in detail the undertakings given by the United Kingdom to the Mauritian Ministers at the Lancaster House talks in September 1965. The UK had argued that those undertakings were not binding and had no status in international law. The Tribunal firmly rejected that argument, holding that those undertakings became a binding international agreement upon the independence of Mauritius, and have bound the UK ever since. It found that the UK's commitments towards Mauritius in relation to fishing rights and oil and mineral rights in the Chagos Archipelago are legally binding. The Tribunal also found that the United Kingdom’s undertaking to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius when no longer needed for defence purposes is legally binding. This establishes that, in international law, Mauritius has real, firm and binding rights over the Chagos Archipelago, and that the United Kingdom must respect those rights. The Tribunal went on to hold that the United Kingdom had not respected Mauritius’ binding legal rights over the Chagos Archipelago. It considered the events from February 2009 to April 2010, during which time the MPA proposal came into being and was then imposed on Mauritius.
WikiLeaks cablegate disclosureEdit
"HMG would like to establish a marine park or reserve providing comprehensive environmental protection to the reefs and waters of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), a senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) official informed Polcouns on May 12. The official insisted that the establishment of a marine park—the world's largest—would in no way impinge on USG use of the BIOT, including Diego Garcia, for military purposes. He agreed that the UK and U.S. should carefully negotiate the details of the marine reserve to assure that U.S. interests were safeguarded and the strategic value of BIOT was upheld. He said that the BIOT's former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve."
- List of islands in Chagos Archipelago
- Chagos Archipelago sovereignty dispute
- Expulsion of the Chagossians
- Great Chagos Bank
- Chagos Marine Protected Area
- Depopulation of Diego Garcia
- Ile Takamaka
- List of island countries and territories in the Indian Ocean
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- Indian Ocean
- Scattered Islands
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- David Vine, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia. Princeton University Press 2009, ISBN 978-0-691-13869-5


Mike Bramble, a doctoral student in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, played a leading role on a Brown University research team that published the most detailed geological history to date for a region of Mars known as Northeast Syrtis Major, a spot high on NASA's list of potential landing sites for its next Mars rover to be launched in 2020.
The region is home to a striking mineral diversity, including deposits that indicate a variety of past environments that could have hosted life. Using the highest resolution images available from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the study maps the extent of those key mineral deposits across the surface and places them within the region's larger geological context.
"When we look at this in high resolution, we can see complicated geomorphic patterns and a diversity of minerals at the surface that I think is unlike anything we've ever seen on Mars," said Bramble, who led the study, which is published in the journal Icarus. "Within a few kilometers, there's a huge spectrum of things you can see and they change very quickly."
If NASA ultimately decides to land at Northeast Syrtis, the work would help in providing a roadmap for the rover's journey.
"This is a foundational paper for considering this part of the planet as a potential landing site for the Mars2020 rover," said Jack Mustard, a professor in Brown's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and a coauthor on the paper. "This represents an exceptional amount of work on Mike's part, really going into the key morphologic and spectroscopic datasets we need in order to understand what this region can tell us about the history of Mars if we explore it with a rover."
Read more of Kevin Stacey's article on the geological history of Northeast Syrtis on Mars.


The History of the Polish Orthodox Church to Repeat in Ukraine?
The autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church seems to be closer and closer, and for some this will be a victory, recognition of independence and a great advantage on the eve of the coming presidential elections. However, almost a century ago, in 1924, a similar situation took place in Poland, and it resulted in persecutions of the autocephaly-granted church and a greater division.
Why the Polish Orthodox Church wanted autocephaly
The history of the Orthodox Church in Poland begins in the 10th century when the first diocese was established in Slavic-populated areas in the east. As the Polish ruling elite was influenced by Catholics, for centuries Orthodoxy witnessed oppression and had to defend the indigenous faith by establishing new monasteries and brotherhoods. Following the divisions of Poland in the 18th century, the eastern regions acquired by the Russian Empire came under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the united Polish state was renovated in 1918, an attempt was made to establish the independent Polish Orthodox Church on the territories of Western Belarus and Ukraine's Volhynia region.
In 1923, the Metropolitan of the church became Dionizy (Valedinsky), whose primary goal was to defend the Orthodoxy in Poland against the background of the pressure of the authorities, which sought control over the church, and the tensions between the Soviet government and the Moscow Patriarchate, which could simply result in the latter's elimination. When Moscow Patriarch Tikhon was released from prison in November 1923, Dionizy addressed him with an appeal for autocephaly. Waiting for the answer, the Polish Synod decided to prepare myrrh during Lent in 1924. That caused a fierce reaction from Moscow, and strong objections were expressed. The Soviet government accused the Polish authorities of intervening in church affairs, and later Patriarch Tikhon refused to grant autocephaly. This made Dionizy turn to the See of Constantinople.
Constantinople Patriarch Gregory VII reviewed the appeal of the Polish Synod backed by Warsaw, striving for a non-Moscow-controlled Orthodox church, and on November 13th, 1924, bestowed the Tomos of autocephaly on the Orthodox Church in Poland, which since then bears the name of the "Polish Autocephalous Holy Orthodox Church".
Let's come back to the present day here and look at the case of Ukraine's autocephaly. We can easily draw parallels: the state seeks independence from Moscow, it turns to Constantinople and gets it, Moscow doesn't recognize it. Even the reason for the Ecumenical Patroarchate's decision seems to be the same – a hundred years ago, it claimed the transfer of the Kyivan Metropolia (part of which Poland was) under the jurisdiction of Moscow Patriarchate occurred contrary to canon law. Most likely, the Tomos for Ukraine will be based on the same grounds.
However, there are also some points that make the two cases different. First, the appeal for the Polish autocephaly was made in concord. Prior to it, three bishops who disagreed with the Synod's decision left the country, so there was no division among the faithful and hierarchs. Meanwhile, today's Ukraine is on the eve of an inter-Orthodox war between the laity of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of the Kyivan and Moscow Patriarchates. And to expell thousands of dissident clergy is unbelievable move nowadays. Second, the Polish Church hierarchs of 1924 had been canonically ordained unlike the Ukrainian clergy, who initiated the process of obtaining autocephaly. To add, there was no certain procedure of granting autocephaly in the early 20th century. But now it is agreed that no autocephaly can be proclaimed unilaturally.
Nevertheless, these facts don't disturb Constantinople.
Did Tomos yield results?
Not really. Instead, there were repercussions of Patriarch Gregory's decision. The autocephaly brought about violent repressions against Orthodoxy in Poland (although, the tensions had emerged in the country even before the autocephaly). Many Orthodox cathedrals and churches were captured by Catholics, dozens of them were even demolished. Would the same fate befall Ukraine?
It should be mentioned that in 1924 Patriarch Gregory's motives weren't only ecclesiastical. According to the archived documents, Polish diplomats presented generous gifts to the patriarch and some hierarchs to foster the bestowal of autocephaly. I don't want to make ungrounded allegations concerning Patriarch Bartholomew, but unfortunately money is the locomotive of politics, and for the official Kyiv (as for Warsaw a hundred years ago) the Tomos is pure politics.
Anyway, after years of violent struggle, Polish Orthodoxy returned under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. When the Soviet Union regained political control over Poland in 1948, the Polish Orthodox Church renounced the Tomos of 1924 and replaced it with the Tomos of autocephaly by Russian Patriarch.
So, what did the Polish Orthodox hierarchs achieve? They did get independence but it brought even more violence and actually caused discord in the already weary Orthodox world. Should Constantinople take this case as an example for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's autocephaly? Patriarch Bartholomew should really think twice as if Poland was a powder keg in 1924, modern Ukraine is an atomic bomb ready to go off any minute.
1. Archiwum Akt Nowych Ministerstwo Wyznań Religijnych i Oświacenia Publicznego Sygnatura 1001, кartka 97
NOTE: The opinions expressed in this article are solely the author's and do not represent those of the Lithuania Tribune or its staff.


Circle of Friends (CoF) is a school inclusion program for students
who experience social isolation due to disability or other challenges.
Through weekly lunches and meaningful activities students develop
compassion and the understanding that they are more alike than different.
CoF promotes a culture of acceptance and genuine friendship.
Circle of Friends:
Addresses the social-emotional needs and safety of each student.
Provides strategies and support to help teachers connect with their students.
Inspires compassion and self-advocacy to create student-led change.
Improves student engagement, teacher morale, and school climate.


Some 300m below the ocean surface it is always twilight, and cold… The water is barely above zero. Fast-moving squid hide here from predatory fish which stay near the surface; at this depth, their nerves would be so slowed by the cold that their eyes could no longer see for them to hunt effectively.
But there are exceptions; a stealthy predator dives into this semi darkness. Whilst the swordfish’s body temperature matches that of the water, its eyes and brain, crucially, stay toasty warm at around 23⁰C.
Why do swordfish have warm eyes?
A fish’s body temperature usually matches that of the water, meaning they are ‘cold blooded’ (poikilothermic). Swordfish nerves, like ours and those of other vertebrates, operate only within narrow temperature limits. The squid is also ‘cold-blooded’, but their elongated nerve cell axons however, are unusually wide, around 0.5mm diameter, and operate well in the cold, allowing them to maintain their fast movements and escape predators.
A few fish species, however, have evolved methods to generate heat in some of their tissues. Under the chilly, low light conditions of the deep sea, the warm eyes of the swordfish keep its optical nerve signals rapid. This allows it to register more visual signals per second than can other vertebrate predators. This fast image resolution ‘slows down’ apparent time and amplifies details, allowing these stealthy hunters to discern the brief flashes of silver that reveal the fleeting movements of small fish and squid.
This prompts some key evolutionary questions;
– How is the swordfish’s eye heat generated?
– How does the swordfish keep the heat localised to its eyes and brain?
– How does keeping body parts at different temperatures adapt swordfish for survival?
How is the swordfish’s eye heat generated?
Swordfish eye muscles contain many brown-coloured cells that produce heat without shivering (non-shivering thermogenesis). They have a high metabolism (respiration rate) and contain many of the organelles known as mitochondria.
Mitochondria are formerly free-living bacteria found inside nearly all animal, plant and fungal cells. They ‘breathe’ for their cell, converting sugars and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water. This releases energy, which they use to pump hydrogen ions (H+, protons) from the internal matrix into their inter-membrane space. They use the chemical energy gradient this creates to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), life’s energy storage compound. These cellular energy factories are found in all animals and plants.
Humans and other mammals have brown adipose cells, also called ‘brown fat’. The mitochondria in these cells make very little ATP. Instead, ‘uncoupling proteins’ rearrange negatively charged fatty acids in the mitochondrial inner membranes to face into the inter-membrane space. These associate with the positively charged protons, then ‘flip-flop’, carrying them back into the matrix and dissipating the energy gradient as heat.
How does the swordfish keep the heat localised to its eyes and brain?
When our bodies generate heat in a cold environment, this sets up an energy gradient; the bigger the differences between our internal and external temperature, the faster we cool. Warm bodies in a cold environment lose heat quickly, unless insulated. Birds use feathers, most mammals use fur and whales have blubber.
Fatty insulation over the swordfish’s skull retains heat, and helps keep its eyes and brain at a near constant temperature. These tissues are homeothermic (maintaining a stable temperature), whilst the rest of its body is poikilothermic (allowing temperatures to vary with the environment). Blood vessels supplying oxygen to the swordfish’s eye muscles are also arranged to retain heat. These vessels run in parallel, allowing outgoing veins to warm incoming arteries (this is known as a ‘counter-current’ heat exchange system).
Insulation (fur, feathers or fat), combined with a blood supply arranged to allow counter-current heat exchange, are found in many cold-adapted animals. Lowering surface temperatures reduces the energy difference between a body and its surroundings, so minimising heat loss. Warm-bodied migrating species such as wolves and many birds from polar regions use a counter-current exchange to reduce the temperatures of their legs and feet. This means that their body parts in contact with snow or ice remain at just above zero.
How does keeping body parts at different temperatures adapt swordfish for survival?
Keeping your body at a different temperature from your environment requires a lot of energy. The swordfish’s ‘dual temperature’ body isolates the heat and keeps it in one well-insulated region; this is the most energy efficient way for these ‘wait and sprint’ hunters to survive in this environment. Tuna are another example of a fish with warm and cool tissues. Their red muscles along their spine are warm, and sustain constant ‘slow’ strokes of the tail during their long distance migrations.
When we sweat, water evaporates and cools our skin surfaces. Dogs and many other mammals pant to evaporate water from their tongue and mouth cavity. Elephants lack both sweat glands and a panting reflex; these are possible remnants of their aquatic ancestry.
In very high temperatures they enter a whole-body heterothermic state. They slow their metabolism, lowering their morning body temperature. They then absorb daytime heat, raising their temperature above 36.7⁰C, and radiate this ‘stored’ heat at night.
Varying the temperature at times like elephants, or in certain tissues like swordfish, is known as heterothermy.
Text copyright © 2015 Mags Leighton. All rights reserved.
Carey, F.G. (1982) A brain heater in the swordfish. Science 216, 1327-1329.
Fritsches, K.A. et al. (2005) Warm eyes provide superior vision in swordfishes. Current Biology 15, 55-58.
Guderley, H. et al. (2005) Why are some mitochondria more powerful than others; insights from comparisons of muscle mitochondria from three terrestrial vertebrates. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, B 142, 172-180.
Hulbert, A.J. et al. (2006) How might you compare mitochondria from different tissues and different species? Journal of Comparative Physiology, B 176, 93-105.
Kowaltowski, A.J. (2000) Alternative mitochondrial functions in cell physiopathology; beyond ATP production. Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research 33, 241-250.
Nespolo, R.F. et al. (2011) Using new tools to solve an old problem; the evolution of endothermy in vertebrates. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26, 414-423.
Warrand, E.J. and Locket, N.A. (2004) Vision in the deep sea. Biological Reviews 79, 671-712.
Weissenbrock, N.M. et al. (2012) Taking the heat; thermoregulation in Asian elephants under different climatic conditions. Journal of Comparative Physiology, B 182, 311-319.


August 19, 2010
Protein Brings Light To Addictive Properties Of Cocaine
Scientists have identified a protein that may bring light to the addictive impact of cocaine on the brain.
Researchers said a protein known as methyl CpG binding protein 2 (MeCP2) mixes with a genetic material known as microRNA, which controls a person's motivation to take cocaine.
The researchers from the Scripps Research Institute in Florida looked at the expression of MeCP2 in the brain being exposed to cocaine. During the study, they found the expression was increased in animals given extended access to the drug. The researchers used a virus to disrupt the expression of MeCP2, leading them to find that rats consumed less and less cocaine.
"The study shows that MeCP2 blunts the amount by which microRNA-212 is increased in response to cocaine," Paul Kenny, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Therapeutics at Scripps Florida, was quoted as saying.
"We have previously shown that miR-212 is very protective against cocaine addiction. Therefore, the conclusion is that MeCP2 may regulate vulnerability to addiction in some people through its inhibitory influence on miR-212. Without this influence, the expression of miR-212 would be far greater in response to cocaine use, and the risk of addiction would likely be far lower."
The scientists also discovered that in addition to MeCP2 blunting miR-212 expression, the opposite was true in that miR-212 could decrease levels of MeCP2.
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Repairing shoe soles can prolong the life of your favorite pair of shoes, saving you the discomfort of having to break in a new pair of shoes — or the expense of buying new ones. Sole wear is determined by a number of factors: the type of sole (leather wears much more quickly than rubber), type of walking surface, each person’s individual biomechanics, and temperature and humidity, just to name a few. To repair rubber-soled shoes, you can use silicone, crepe, or polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a type of plastic. Manufacturers often use an assortment of materials when creating soles.
Inspect the sole for any cracks, holes, or delaminated spots. Delamination occurs when parts of the sole become detached from the shoe. Twist the shoe to determine the size of the damaged areas and note of the location of the damage. You may want to mark small damage spots with a piece of masking tape to ensure that you don’t miss any of the damaged areas.
Remove any debris or dirt from in between the cracks or from under any delaminated areas of the sole using a nail file and wipe the damaged areas with a clean towel. You may want to lightly sand the edges of the cracks using the nail file to prepare the sole for adhesion to the silicone.
Put on rubber gloves and pull the edges of the damaged areas apart and squeeze the silicone tube carefully, applying small beads along the edges of the damaged areas. The silicone dries very quickly, so be careful not to apply too much.
Press the damaged edges together and wipe up the excess silicone with a paper towel. Turn the shoe upside down and let dry for three to four hours. You can also apply a clamp to exert more pressure on the repaired area. For delaminated spots on the sole, you may want to place a heavy object on top of the shoe when letting the silicone dry.


MS Thesis Project
Channel stability has long been considered integral for maintaining healthy biotic communities, although empirical evidence of that relationship is limited (Maul et al. 2004; Sullivan et al. 2004). It is suspected that unstable banks can deliver excess sediment to streams and exacerbate conditions leading to water quality degradation and federal 303d listing for total suspended solids (TSS), turbidity, low dissolved oxygen, temperature, and impaired biota.
My project is to assess whether or not physical indicators of channel stability could be used to predict biotic communities using an Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) for fish and macroinvertebrates. If a strong relationship between stream stability and biota is demonstrated, physical indicators of channel condition could be useful for water quality managers involved in assessing the hydrologic stability and physical integrity of streams for biological monitoring, reference stream selection, and TMDL problem investigations.
- Does channel stability influence aquatic community health?
- Does channel stability or habitat quality better predict biotic community health?
- Are fish or macroinvertebrates more sensitive to conditions of channel instability?
- Biotic communities will respond to a gradient in channel stability; stable channels will derive higher IBI scores than unstable channels.
- Channel stability will be a better predictor of aquatic health than habitat quality.
- Macroinvertebrates will be more sensitive to gradients in channel stability than fish.
Materials and Methods
Two river basins in Minnesota were selected for this study: the Redwood River Basin in the southwest and the Snake River Basin in the northeast. These two basins were chosen based on differences in ecoregion and land use.
Initial site selection criteria included:1) Selecting sites which would cover a range in IBI scores previously collected by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), 2) cover a range in gradient and sinuosity, 3) both natural and channelized stream conditions, 4) wadable, and 5) accessible in terms of both landowner permission and distance from access point to site.
Field Data Collection
University of Minnesota (UMN) field teams collected Geomorphology and Biology data from 28 stream reaches in 2005 and 2006; supplemental biology data was also collected by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) in 2001, 2003 and 2006.
In summers 2005, two teams were employed for data collection: the biology team collected fish community, chemistry, and habitat data, and the geomorphology team collected channel dimensions, longitudinal profile, water gradient, pebble counts, and channel stability assessments. Channel dimensions include: bankfull width and mean bankfull depth, entrenchment ratio (flood plain width to bankfull width). Channel stability assessments included Pfankuch’s (1975) Stream Reach Inventory and Channel Stability Evaluation (Pfankuch Assessment). Channel Evolution stages were determined in the field and validated with cross-sectional dimensions. Channel dimensions, water gradient, and mean substrate size (D50) were used to classify streams using the Rosgen Classification system (Rosgen 1996). Additional data was also collected in 2006 to increase the sample size in each basin (n=14) and validate field indicators of bankfull as determined by regional hydraulic curves.
To investigate the relationship between stream stability and biota.
- Assess stream stability state using commonly applied methods (Rosgen Stream Assessment (1996); Stream Reach Inventory and Channel Stability Evaluation (Pfankuch, 1975); and the Channel Evolution Model (CEM; Schumm et al. 1984).
- Sample fish and macroinvertebrate communities using protocols employed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (Barbour et al. 1999, MPCA 2002).
- Test the relationship between Pfankuch Assessment Inverse score and IBI using Spearman Correlation. Additionally, test individual metrics comprising the Pfankuch Assessment and IBI for relationships using Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling (NMS).
To determine whether or not aquatic habitat or stream stability state is a better predictor of biotic health as measured with the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) for fish and macroinvertebrates in low gradient Midwestern streams in each study basin.
- Complete habitat assessments during sampling visits using a modified Qualitative Habitat Assessment Index (QHEI) for fish and the Habitat Assessment for Low Gradient Streams (HA-LG; Barbour et al. 1999) for macroinvertebrates.
- Use fish and macroinvertebrate data collected to compute IBI scores using metrics developed specifically for each basin and drainage area size class (Chirhart 2003, Niemela and Fiest 2000).
- Use habitat and channel stability scores as predictor variables and test with IBI scores for fish and macroinvertebrates using Spearman Correlation. Additionally, test individual metrics comprising the Pfankuch Assessment and IBI for relationships using Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling (NMS).
To determine whether or not fish or macroinvertebrates appear to be more responsive to gradients in stream stability.
- Use IBI scores for fish and macroinvertebrates; compare results from objective 1.
Barbour, M.T., J. Gerritsen, B.D. Snyder, and J.B. Stribling. 1999. Rapid Bioassessment Protocols for Use in Streams and Wadeable Rivers: Periphyton, Benthic Macroinvertebrates and Fish, Second Edition. EPA 841-B-99-002. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Office of Water; Washington, D.C.
Chirhart, J. 2003. Development of a Macroinvertebrate Index of Biological Integrity (MIBI) for Rivers and Streams of the St. Croix River Basin in Minnesota. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Biological Program. St. Paul, MN.
Maul, J. D., J. L. Farris, C. D. Milam, C. M. Cooper, S. Testa III, and D. L. Feldman. 2004. The influence of stream habitat and water quality on macroinvertebrate communities in degraded streams of northwest Mississippi. Hydrobiologia. 518: 79-94.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). 2002. Fish Community Sampling Protocol for Steam Monitoring Sites. Biological Monitoring Program. St. Paul, MN. Revised 2002.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). 2001b. Physical Habitat and Water Chemistry Assessment Protocol for Wadeable Stream Monitoring Sites. Biological Monitoring Program. Revised 2002. St. Paul, MN.
Niemela, S. and M. Fiest. 2000. Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) Guidance for Coolwater Rivers and Streams of the St. Croix River Basin in Minnesota. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Biological Monitoring Program. St. Paul, MN
Pfankuch, D. J. 1975. Stream Reach Inventory and Channel Stability Evaluation. USDA Forest Service, R1-75-002, U.S. Government Printing Office #696-260-200, Washington, D.C.: 26 pp.
Rosgen, D. L. 1996. Applied River Morphology. Wildland Hydrology, Fort Collins, CO.
Schumm, S. A., M. D. Harvey and C. C. Watson. 1984. Incised channels: morphology, dynamics and control. Water Resources Publications, Littleton, Colorado.
Sullivan, P., M. C. Watzin and W. C. Hession. 2004. Understanding Stream Geomorphic State in Relation to Ecological Integrity: Evidence Using Habitat Assessments and Macroinvertebrates. Environmental Management. 34(5): 669-683.


Let's explore what it takes to generate a pose from an animation for a game character. A
Pose is a hierarchy of
Transform objects. This hierarchy acts like a skeleton for the character. When an animation clip is sampled, it reutrns a
Pose. The returned pose is a snapshot of the skeleton at a specific time of the animation clip.
An animation clip is made up of animation tracks. Every animated joint in a skeleton (every
Transform in the resulting pose) can be animated by a track. Each track is made up of several frames. A frame contains a time, a value as well as incoming and outgoing tangents. The tangents are needed to build curves out of Cubic Hermite Splines. The image below shows the relationship between each component required to generate a pose.
The most important part of pose generation is the animation tracks. Digital Content Creation (DCC) tools like Maya, 3DS Max or Blender allow animators to author animation by defining tracks. Unity's Animation View is a great example of an animation curve editor. These tracks express change over time using curves. An animation track often looks similar to this:
An animator usually animated characters in a DCC tool using curves similar to what is shown in the above picture. In the early 2000's, most game animation pipelines would use an offline tool which evaluates the animation curves at set intervals and stores the values.
At playback time, the game would linearly interpolate between the sampled values. This sampled animation method is faster, but it takes more memory. The approximated curve is generally close enough to be indiscernible at playback time. A comparison of a cubic hermite spline and it’s sampled counterpart is shown in the image below
When defining an animation curve, generally, it follows one of three interpolation methods: Constant, Linear or Cubic. Cubic curves can be expressed using any cubic equation like Bézier (what Blender does) or Hermite splines (what Maya does). We’re going to use Hermite splines to represent cubic curves.
A constant curve keeps its value the same until the next keyframe, sometimes this type of curve is called a step curve. Visually, a constant curve looks like this:
A linear curve interpolates between two frames in a linear fashion (a straight line). If the samples of a linear track are close enough it can start to approximate other types of curves. A linear curve looks like this:
With cubic curves, we can express complex curves using very little data. A cubic curve looks like this (tangents are the lines coming out of the keyframes):
Interpolation type granularityThe granularity of the interpolation type is up to you to decide. The animation system built in Hands-On C++ Game Animation Programming defines the interpolation type per track. This means a vector track will use the same interpolation for all it's components.