I’ve moved to WordPress. This post can now be found at On The Differences Between Surface And TLT Datasets###################
OVERVIEWThe differences between surface temperature and lower troposphere temperature (TLT) anomalies are examined in this post. The globe is broken down into sectors in an effort to locate the area with the greatest difference between surface temperature and TLT anomalies. The responses of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea TLT to El Niño and La Niña events are also examined to see if they may cause part of the divergence between the surface temperature and TLT data after the 1997/98 El Nino. The post also presents animated maps of surface temperatures and TLT anomalies and animated maps of the correlations of NINO3.4 SST anomalies and global temperatures to further highlight the differences.
The differences between the infilled surface-based (GISS and NCDC) temperature anomaly datasets and the Lower Troposphere Temperature (RSS and UAH) anomaly datasets create a multitude of comments from both sides of the global climate change debate whenever the datasets are plotted together. While there may be biases created by surface station location, infilling method, Urban Heat Island (UHI) adjustments (or lack thereof), etc., let’s put the land-based discussions aside for this post and consider the possibility that Sea Surface Temperature (SST) might respond differently than the lower troposphere temperatures to El Niño and La Niña events, and that those differences in response might account for some of the divergence.
Satellite-based TLT data has been available since 1979, providing more than 3 decades of data for comparisons to surface data. Unfortunately, the surface temperatures and TLT between 1982 and 1995 are overwhelmed by the dips and rebounds caused by the volcanic eruptions of El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo. Accounting for these in the global data is relatively easy, but we’ll be dividing the globe into sectors in this post and having to account for the volcanic eruptions in each would add unnecessary complexity, so we’ll only look at the period from 1995 to present. Additionally, GISS Deletes Arctic And Southern Ocean Sea Surface Temperature Data in areas with seasonal sea ice and extends adjoining land surface temperature data (with its higher trend) out over the oceans. GISS does this to infill temperature data in the ocean areas with sea ice. The NCDC product does not take this step. To eliminate that difference, the data north of 60N and south of 60S have been excluded from this post.
So basically we’ll be examining the global land and sea surface temperature and lower troposphere temperature data minus the poles from 1995 to present. Figure 1 illustrates the average of the surface temperature datasets (GISTEMP and NCDC) and the average of the TLT datasets (RSS and UAH). We’ll use the averages initially to simplify the illustrations (and to eliminate discussions of any differences between the individual datasets). The TLT anomalies in Figure 1 have been scaled so that the rise in response to the 1997/98 El Niño is approximately the same as the surface data. (And for those wondering why the data ends in May 2010, I’ve used the KMNI Climate Explorer as the source of data for this post, and the latest RSS TLT anomaly data update there is May 2010.) Note also that the title block states that the surface data has been lagged 2 months. In other words, the surface data responded 2 months earlier to the 1997/98 El Niño than the TLT anomalies, so I’ve shifted the surface data back in time by two months. The linear trend of the surface data is more than twice that of the scaled TLT data. The surface data has a linear trend of approximately 1.1 deg C per Century but the trend of the scaled TLT data is only 0.4 deg C per Century. And much of this appears be caused by the failure of the surface data to respond as fully as the TLT data to the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña.
NOTE: The TLT scaling factors and surface data lags vary per subset in the following. The scaling factors and lags are noted in the title blocks.
If we subtract the scaled TLT anomalies from the surface data, Figure 2, we can see that there appears to be an upward shift in the surface data in 1998 that is not present in the TLT data. And after 1998, the surface data rises at a rate that is faster than the TLT anomalies.
LET’S DIVIDE THE GLOBE INTO THREE SECTORS
I’ve divided the globe (minus the poles) into three sectors for the comparisons that follow. The areas are split at 180, 78W, and 80E longitude. To simplify the discussion, I’ve identified them as “Far West”, “Near East and Near West,” and “Far East”, based on their proximity to zero longitude. Refer to Figure 3. The “Far West” data includes the Eastern Pacific and most of North America. The “Near East and Near West” includes the Atlantic and Western Indian Oceans and South America, Africa, Europe, and Western Asia. And the “Far East” data includes the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans and Eastern Asia and Australia.
FAR WEST COMPARISON
A time-series graph of the surface and TLT anomalies for the Far West sector is shown in Figure 4. These datasets capture the Eastern Pacific and most of North America. The surface temperatures have been lagged 5 months to align the leading edges of the responses to the 1997/98 El Niño. Note also that the TLT anomalies have not been scaled, which means the variations in TLT anomalies for the East Pacific and most of North America are comparable to the changes in surface temperature anomalies. Also note that this is the only one of these three sectors where the TLT anomalies are rising faster than the surface temperatures, though the difference in the trends is relatively small. And of course, the linear trends themselves are very small, with the TLT anomalies having a linear trend of less than 0.3 deg C per Century. This means that this sector of the globe does not contribute to the disparity between surface and TLT anomalies; in fact, this area would suppress the difference.
FAR EAST COMPARISON
The Far East data, Figure 5, represents the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans, along with Eastern Asia and Australia. For this part of the globe, the surface data needed to be advanced one month to align the rises of the responses to the 1997/98 El Niño. The surface data does not drop as far as the TLT data during the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña and remains elevated during the 2002/03 El Niño. The two datasets diverge again during the 2007/08 La Niña. These divergences cause the surface data to have a higher trend than the TLT anomalies. The difference in the linear trends, though, is only approximately 0.2 deg per Century. This accounts for little of the disparity in trends shown in Figure 1.
And that means much of the divergence in the two global datasets comes from the Near East-Near West sector, so we’ll concentrate on that sector for the rest of the post.
COMPARISON OF NEAR EAST AND NEAR WEST
For the Near East and Near West portion of the globe, Figure 6, the linear trend for the surface temperature data is approximately 1.9 deg C per Century, while the trend for the scaled TLT data is approximately 0.47 deg C per Century. The surface data has very little drop during the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña.
This is confirmed in Figure 7, which illustrates the difference between the scaled TLT and surface data for the Near East and Near West. Note the significant upward step in the latter half of 1998.
Animation 1 provides maps of the surface temperature and lower troposphere temperature anomalies of the Near East and Near West datasets used in this post. The surface datasets are on the left and the TLT datasets are on the right. The base years for anomalies (1979 to 2009) are the same for all. The maps provide 12-month average temperatures from July to June for the first five years being examined in this post: the ENSO-Neutral year 1996/1997, the El Niño year 1997/1998, and the three La Niña years of 1998/1999, 1999/2000, and 2000/2001. The period of July to June was used since ENSO events typically peak in November, December and January. The animation is provided to show the similarities and differences in the responses to El Niño and La Niña events between the surface-based and TLT datasets.
Figure 8 is the July 1998 to June 1999 cell from the animation. I’ve isolated it because much of the difference between the surface and TLT anomalies (Figure 7) occurs during this period. While there are some differences between land surface temperature and land TLT anomalies during the year from July 1998 to June 1999 in Figure 8, most of the additional warming appears to take place in the sea surface temperature data:
- In the Western North Atlantic,
- In the tropical Eastern South Atlantic in the Benguela and South Equatorial Currents, and
- In the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) south of South Africa and the western Indian Ocean.
NEAR EAST-NEAR WEST SEA SURFACE AND SEA TLT COMPARISON
So far we’ve compared the average of GISTEMP LOTI and NCDC combined surface data to the average of RSS and UAH TLT anomalies. Unfortunately, the RSS TLT data through the KNMI Climate Explorer is not divided into land and sea TLT subsets. Luckily, the UAH data is, so we’ll have to use it alone in the following comparison.
Figure 9 illustrates the Near East-Near West sea surface and scaled sea TLT data (UAH only) anomalies. The scaled sea TLT linear trend is only 0.27 deg C per Century, while the sea surface temperature (SST) trend is approximately 4 times higher at 1.1 deg C per Century. Much of the divergence occurs during the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña. Then, from 2001 to present, the SST anomalies have climbed higher while the sea TLT anomalies remained relatively flat.
Consider now that the Near East-Near West sea surface area represents approximately 63% of the total surface area for this part of the globe. The divergence between sea surface and sea TLT anomalies for this part of the globe, therefore, represents a significant portion of the overall global difference.
A DISCUSSION OF ENSO EVENTS
During an El Niño, warm water from the surface and from up to 300 meters below the surface of the Pacific Warm Pool sloshes to the east and spreads across the surface of the eastern tropical Pacific. This raises SST there. The rise in SST in the eastern Tropical Pacific causes more moisture than normal to be pumped into the atmosphere through evaporation, which is how the ocean releases most of its heat to the atmosphere. The warm and moist air rises in a process known as convection, and the air cools as it rises. The cooler air can’t hold as much water, so the moisture condenses and it rains, releasing the heat into the atmosphere. (During a La Niña, the waters in the eastern tropical Pacific are cooler than normal, and less heat than normal is released to the atmosphere.)
The warmed air is transported to the east and poleward by atmospheric circulation. This can be seen in the animations of TLT anomalies in the two right-hand cells of Animation 2.
Note: Each of the cells in this animation represents a 12-month average of the temperature anomalies. Again, the surface data are on the left and the TLT data are on the right. The first cell represents the period of Jun 1996 to May 1997. It is followed by the next 12-month period, July 1996 to June 1997, and so on, in sequence. The use of 12-month averages minimizes weather and seasonal noise. I’ve included the eastern Pacific (the Far West sector) in this animation to show the timing of the El Niño in the eastern tropical Pacific and the transition to La Niña. Last, the animation lasts for 36 frames, from the period of July 1996 - June 1997 to the period of June 1999 – May 2000. This captures the evolution and decay of the 1997/98 El Niño plus the first few months of the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña.
It is very apparent in the two left-hand cells of Animation 2 that sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic rise in response to the El Niño. For a detailed discussion of how this occurs, refer to Wang (2005), "ENSO, Atlantic Climate Variability, And The Walker And Hadley Circulation." Wang (2005) link:
Wang (2005) states, “The Walker and Hadley circulations can serve as a ‘tropospheric bridge’ for transferring the Pacific El Niño SST anomalies to the Atlantic sector and inducing the TNA SST anomalies just at the time of year when the warm pool is developing.”
The warm pool being discussed in Wang (2005) is the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool, which is made up of eastern North Pacific west of Central America, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the western tropical North Atlantic. The acronym TNA stands for Tropical North Atlantic.
Wang (2005) continues, “The Hadley weakening results in less subsidence over the subtropical North Atlantic, an associated breakdown of the anticyclone, and a weakening of the NE trades in the TNA. The wind weakening leads to less evaporative surface cooling and entrainment of colder water from below the shallow mixed layer, resulting in positive SST anomalies.”
In other words, an El Niño causes changes in atmospheric circulation which causes a weakening of the trade winds in the tropical North Atlantic. In turn, the weaker trade winds cause less evaporation, resulting in warmer SST. The weakening of the trade winds also causes less cool water from below the surface to be drawn to the surface.
Wang (2005) concludes that paragraph on page 27 with, “The opposite is presumed to occur during boreal winters with unusually cool SSTs in the equatorial Pacific,” meaning that it is assumed the opposite takes place during a La Niña.
Animation 2 shows the differences and similarities between the patterns of surface and TLT anomalies during the evolution and decay of an El Niño. The surface temperature anomalies are responding to changes in atmospheric circulation, while the TLT anomalies are responding to the heat released from the oceans.
For a further discussion of how these patterns are created, refer to Trenberth et al (2002) “Evolution of El Nino–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures":
Trenberth et al (2002) use a time sequence of correlation maps, their Figure 8, to illustrate the evolution of ENSO events. They write in paragraph 29, “To explore where the heat in the oceans and its effects on the atmosphere actually occur, we have computed correlation and regression maps for several fields at various lags, a subset of which are given here.” And they continue, “This sequence reveals the mean evolution of ENSO and is quite coherent and traceable from about -12- to +12-months lag with N3.4, but becomes quite weak at larger lags. The panels presented in Figure 8 and the [delta] 4-month sequence are chosen to illustrate the evolution in the fewest panels.”
CORRELATION MAP ANIMATIONS
Animating correlation maps of NINO3.4 SST anomalies with surface and TLT anomalies does help to illustrate the evolution and decay in global temperatures in response to ENSO. The areas where there are differences between the surface and TLT datasets also become apparent. And although we are discussing the Near East and Near West sector, we’ll start with an animation of global maps. Keep in mind that the RSS does not present data north of 82.5N or south of 70S, where GISS deletes SST data in these areas and extends land surface data out over the oceans.
Animation 3 shows maps of the correlation of December NINO3.4 SST anomalies with GISS LOTI global surface temperature anomalies in the left-hand cell and RSS global TLT anomalies on the right. GISS data was included because they use satellite-based Reynolds OI.v2 SST data during this period. December NINO3.4 SST anomalies were used because El Niño events normally peak in November-December-January. The animation starts with zero-month lag and continues monthly through a 12-month lag. Like the other animations, there are differences and similarities between the surface and TLT datasets. What caught my eye was the significant positive correlation in the North Atlantic during lags 10 through 12, where they did not appear in the TLT data.
Since the animation can’t be stopped, I’ve included the frames with the 10-, 11-, and 12-month lags as Figures 10 through 12.
I decided to take the animation of the correlation maps one step further. I’ve presented the Atlantic Ocean SST data only in Animation 4, using Reynolds OI.v2 SST data. The correlation maps also use 3-month averages of NINO3.4 and Atlantic SST data. I found the animation quite interesting. During the early lag months, warm waters created by the El Niño appear to migrate from the tropical South Atlantic to the tropical North Atlantic. The warm waters in the tropical North Atlantic then appear to follow ocean currents west into the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, before entering the Gulf Stream. Starting around the 9-month lag, warm waters migrate south from the southern tip of Greenland and the Davis Strait. Is that from glacial ice melt in Greenland and Arctic sea ice melt, with the melt caused by the El Niño? They're correlated with NINO3.4 SST anomalies.
That would be a good lead-in animation for a new post on the AMO.
A significant portion of the difference between global surface temperature and TLT anomalies occurs in the North Atlantic Ocean. And the additional warming that takes place appears to be caused by ocean processes correlated with ENSO. Why don’t the TLT anomalies respond to these additional ocean processes?
The data and maps presented in this post are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer:


Concubines are women living in quasi-matrimonial relationships; they live together with a married man but to whom they are not formally married. Concubines normally enjoy a lower social status than the man or the official wife or wives.
Having one or more concubines was quite common in imperial China -that is, if one could afford it.
Concubinage is often snickered at but such attitude ignores that there were very few life options available for women in China's imperial days. With a few exceptions, a woman could become a wife, a maid, a concubine or a prostitute.
Concubinage was in many cases the only way that a poor woman could achieve financial- and social security if she could not find a husband. And however undesirable, concubinage was still vastly safer than prostitution and with a lot less chance of attracting STD.
|Huang kuei-fei||≈||Imperial honored consort|
But contrary to its predecessor dynasties, and its subsequent Qing dynasty for that matter, the Ming dynasty did not appear to have had well regulated concubine titles or rank order.
The main designations of consorts during Ming were fei, pin and fu-jen; prefixes would in turn allow for subdivisions, albeit not a ranking per se. See sidebar for Ming consort subdivisions as also the insert box giving details on the well-ordered consort ranking and designations of the subsequent Qing dynasty.
Intrigues and bickering between concubines were rampant and ensured that daily life was far from a life of pleasant leisure.
The internal hierarchy was firm and inflexible and consorts would fiercely guard their unofficial ranking and do virtually anything to advance.
Spending a night with the emperor was hard to come by due to the high number of consorts available.
Even so, this was the best a consort could hope for since giving birth to an imperial offspring was the best, quickest and safest way to jump up high on the list.
In the later Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911), the ranking decided what a consort was entitled to. Her clothing, food, the color of bowls and plates, obligations, daily chores, and even her residence were all aligned with her status.
Whereas the Ming Emperor could have many consorts he would only have one empress. The mother of the Emperor would bear the title of empress dowager and his grandmother would be entitled grand empress dowager.
Becoming Empress was not a designation for life. On a few occasions the empress fell from favor and was demoted to a common consort. A typical reason for such demotion would be the failure to bear a son and heir.
Ministers, generals and officials offered their daughters as concubines to the court. If accepted as an imperial consort, the girl would at least lead a life of relative luxury compared to her sisters outside the Forbidden City.
The only consort known to have divorced an emperor in history is consort Wen Xiu, the last Qing Emperor Puyi's concubine.
She was expelled from the Forbidden City along with the emperor in 1924 and lived with him and his wife in Tianjin in the period 1924-31.
In 1931 she made the unusual demand of seeking and ultimately being granted a divorce from the now dethroned emperor -unprecedented for almost thirty centuries! He immediately issued an edict demoting her to a commoner.
She returned to Beijing and spent the rest of her life as a primary-school teacher. She died of illness in 1950 without ever remarrying.
Another way of becoming an imperial palace consort was as a gift from a foreign country, typically Mongolia and Korea.
If the consort of a Chinese family was promoted to the higher ranks then her family would be bestowed stipends or military ranks. If she made it to the highest ranks then her family would even be elevated to nobility. The latter was however made non-hereditary as per a decree in 1529 by the Ming Jiajing Emperor.
Becoming an imperial consort was not the same as a life sentence inasmuch as it was not impossible or even uncommon for a consort to return to her family.
While in the service of the palace no concubine was allowed to communicate with the outside world. Not in person and not even by mail.
This ban went so far as to not allow a doctor to enter the palace and see a sick, female palace patient. Her illness would be carefully described and prescriptions acquired and administered according to the doctor's advice.
But there were ways to leave the palace without your feet first. Just like the emperor could receive a consort as a gift from a foreign ruler, so could the emperor choose to present one of his concubines as a gift to a foreign ruler. It could however be argued that one prison had merely been replaced by another.
Some consorts were allowed to return to their families with an adequate pension after many years of meritorious service. The minimum period to serve was set at five years by the Hongwu Emperor in 1389.
Retired consorts were free to pursue a normal life, including marriage and establishing a family.
Many consorts too old to be of any further use for the imperial palace chose instead to become employed by the Imperial Laundry Service or pursue a life as a nun.
The Ming imperial consort tombs are located inside the imperial burial grounds of Shisanling north of Beijing along with the mausoleums of most Ming emperors. According to the official Ming Tombs web site there should be seven, excluding Siling, and I have been able to locate all seven albeit with some difficulty.
Most of the larger ones (marked on the map left) are located in the southwestern part of the overall area. Also Siling is found in this neighborhood.
Most of the sites are increasingly difficult to locate since the local farmers gradually have assimilated the burial sites into their cultivated land area and even dismantled the protecting tomb walls to use the excellent, large Ming bricks for own purposes.
The concubine tomb area at the top of this page is even completely enwalled but has even so long since been occupied by many farmers, who have built a small village complete with houses and streets within the cemetery walls. And they are using the tomb area itself for growing vegetables and corn (see picture with plinth ruins right).
One of the less glamorous parts of concubinage was the fact that the consorts were considered personal "property" of the man. They were his to do with as he pleased, including taking them with him to the afterlife.
In many older tombs of nobles we find the remains of several females of similar or slightly lower age buried close to a single man, a strong indicator of concubinage.
The imperial consorts were either executed by palace eunuchs or chose to commit suicide, normally by hanging themselves with a silk scarf or by taking poison.
In the first part of the Ming dynasty concubines were often immolated and buried in separate tombs near the deceased emperor. In a few cases, consorts were buried alive in a standing position -awaiting the arrival of the emperor in the afterlife.
Of course, those consorts who made it to empress were granted the ultimate honor of being buried together with the emperor in his mausoleum.
Immolation was discontinued after 1464 when the Tianshun Emperor in his will declared the practice uncivilized.
As an exception from all rules and practice, the last Ming Chongzhen Emperor was actually buried in the tomb of his favorite concubine and not the other way around.
In despair over having lost the empire, he committed suicide in Jingshan Park behind the Forbidden City on 25 April 1644. When the rebels found his body a few days later they unceremoniously dumped it in the already completed tomb for his consort. The Chongzhen Emperor still rests together with his beloved concubine, Honorable Consort Tian, in her tomb, Siling.
And while on exceptions, no concubines were buried with the 9th Ming Emperor Hongzhi since he was the only emperor who being a strict confucian never took a concubine.


Britain’s Mammals – A Concise Guide
ISBN: 978 1 873580 813
Publisher: Whittet Books
Authors: People’s Trust for Endangered Species
Format: 210 mm x 148 mm (A5)
Paperback with flaps
80 colour photographs + 80 maps
Publication: 24 November 2010
Mammals are among the most popular of all wild creatures. Otters, hedgehogs, dormice—everyone has a soft spot for them.
The experts at the People’s Trust for Endangered Species have compiled this introduction to the mammals in the UK and around its coast.. From timid shrews to commonly seen rabbits, red deer to minke whales, and including the wide range of bats, there are over 60 resident wild mammal species in the UK or around its coasts. The aim of this book is to provide a brief account of these and also of some that are no longer here. They represent a diverse and sometimes surprising group.
The essential illustrated guide for children and adults alike.
- Features 64 mammal species found in Britain and around its coast, along with some that are now extinct—one species per page
- Describes each species and gives key facts relating to size, lifespan, reproduction, diet, habitat and predators
- Includes notes on threats, status and conservation
- Colour photographs illustrate each mammal and its identifying features
- Individual maps show the distribution of each species in the British Isles
- Includes a mammal ‘family tree’ showing how the main mammal groups evolved and a guide to the tracks of foxes, badgers, rabbits and deer
Foreword by respected zoologist Pat Morris.
Mammal ‘family tree’
Shrews, moles and hedgehogs
Rodents – Squirrels, voles, mice, dormice, rats, beavers
Rabbits and hares
Carnivores – Foxes, pine martens, otters, badgers, wildcats, etc.
Deer and wild boar
Whales and dolphins
The People’s Trust for Endangered Species
Established for over 30 years, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species is a conservation charity working worldwide to ensure a future for endangered species. It has a special interest in protecting Britain’s wild mammals, runs wildlife events for people to enjoy our sometimes elusive mammals in their natural habitats and involves thousands of people nationwide in monitoring how they are doing.
‘Did you know that about half of the world’s grey seals live in British and Irish waters, or a pygmy shrew consumes 125 per cent of its bodyweight each day? This family-friendly book is packed full of fascinating facts about more than 60 species. Covering diet, habitat, predators, reproduction and conservation status, and with an evolutionary family tree and track-identification chart, Britain’s Mammals is great value for money.‘ – BBC Wildlife magazine, March 2011
‘This is essentially an introduction to the mammals of the UK and it is much more than an illustrated guide as it can also claim to be an up-to-date reference…One only has to think of the various deer species, mink, otter and mountain hare to realise the importance of up-to-date information. This is a book I have already consulted, as few others have current information about the species … The publishers and authors should be congratulated on this boost to the conservation of mammals at a time when many of them are in dire straights.’ – Ray Collier, Highland News Group, December 2010
‘Do not imagine that in Britain’s Mammals – A Concise Guide, succinctness means a lack of substance. The guide packs into each page an admirable range of information, all very clearly displayed, with a consistency that encourages and facilitates comparison in a most enlightening way.
‘The species pages are a rich delight to read. Facts present themselves wherever the reader looks – did you know there are no weasels in Ireland? Or that a lesser horseshoe bat with wings folded, is the size of a plum? This ranger didn’t. And there’s much more in the same vein. Nor are these facts listed out as a series of trivia. Each page is meticulously and thoroughly laid out to ensure that the species are dealt with in the same way, with no detail omitted. Though the diagrams and paragraphs are small, they are accurate. Even the Isle of Wight, about 1mm in size on these pages, is correctly depicted; showing that by contrast to the nearby mainland no mink, no grey squirrels, no deer and no otters live here. Other islands and inland distributions are equally carefully rendered. This is a work by people who know and appreciate the importance of such accuracy.
‘Britain’s Mammals – A Concise Guide is a fascinating and well-crafted volume, with a refreshingly crisp and contemporary interpretation of its subject. Too many plush coffee-table books on wildlife, and particularly mammals, fill the bottom shelves of charity shops, because their content is of little worth beyond some pretty photographs. The Concise Guide avoids this trap with ease, and will never share their fate. This book cannot fail to prove useful and interesting to any reader with the slightest interest in Britain’s mammals, and is strongly recommended. – The Ranger’s Blog, Naturenet, December 2010
‘Just a line to congratulate you on your new book which I have just purchased. It is really excellent… All in all a really nice book – thank you very much.’ – Mike Robinson, North West Birds, December 2010
‘Great book, beautifully produced. You have certainly filled a gap in the market!‘ – Laurie Campbell, Wildlife photographer, December 2010


A step-by-step tutorial on the continental knit stitch for beginners with everything you need to know to get started.
So, you are about to start your first knitting project, but you don’t know how to knit a stitch yet? Then you came to the right place! In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to knit the knit stitch as part of my free knitting school.
What you need:
- A yarn of your choice.
- Needles matching the bulk of your yarn (check the label). Beginners should start with single-pointed needles to prevent the stitches from slipping off from the other end. Take something with nice round tapers. Bamboo will be great. Read my knitting needle guide for more information.
The knit stitch is the most classic stitch of them all, very easy to learn, fast to knit, and very versatile.
Let’s show you how to knit it, eh?
ⓘ In knitting patterns, you’ll see “knit” or simply a “K” to indicate this stitch. So, when you see K4 it means you need to knit this stitch 4 times. Sometimes it also says “knit to the end of the row” or “Row 2: Knit”. This means you have to repeat this stitch over and over again until you reached the designated place.
Reading tip: Here’s my full guide to how to knit continental for beginners.
- Start by casting on however many stitches you need for your project. If you don't know how to do this, here is an easy guide to casting on your first stitches.
- Pick up the working needle with the cast-on stitches with your right hand. Then, wrap the working yarn around the pinky finger of your left hand clockwise two times.
Tip: Later on you can change the tension by wrapping it around just once or three times instead. For me, two times work best but we are all different, so toy around a bit.
- Bring the working yarn across the back of your hands and let it rest on the last knuckle of your index finger.
- Pick up the working needle with your left hand a bit like holding a knife, keeping your index finger almost straight. Change the angle of your index finger until there is a nice tension on the yarn. Pull the tail of the working yarn, if things are a bit too loose yet.
ⓘ The working yarn needs to be behind the needle for this stitch. The little "knot" of your cast-on edge needs to be under the needle. If it's on top, bring it to the bottom clockwise.
- Pick up the remaining needle with your right hand, again a bit like a knife. Keep the tension on the working yarn.
- Insert the right needle into the first loop on the left needle from the left to right. Wiggle the needle a bit around, if the loop is a bit too tight (but don't overdo).
- Wrap the right needle around the working yarn (the one around your index finger) from above (counter-clockwise).
- Pull the yarn through the cast-on loop. You can use the tip of your middle finger to prevent the yarn from slipping off from the left needle as you pull it through. Don't cramp your fingers, keep a nice tension on the yarn and things will be easier.
- Slip the first stitch from your left needle (I use my middle finger to push the work towards the tip and then pull the stitch off with the right needle).
And just like that, you knitted your first knit stitch.
- Now, insert the right needle into the second loop from the left and repeat steps 6-9 until you are at the end of the row.
Alternative: You can also wrap the working yarn around your index finger instead of the pinky finger. In fact, this is probably the more popular version. I prefer it around the pinky finger, however, as I can easily change the yarn tension slightly by changing the angle of the index finger. You can increase the tension further by weaving the yarn through your fingers as well. Toy around until you find a comfortable tension.
Continue knitting the same stitch into every loop on your needles. Then, turn the work, bring the yarn to the back again, and continue knitting.
Note: Check out this tutorial if you l learn how to knit faster.
If you knit every row of a project in this simple knit stitch, you’ll get a pattern that is called Garter Stitch (because it’s pretty elastic and apparently was used for garters in the day before rubber bands).
2. English Knitting/throwing
The most popular method to knit the knit stitch in the U.S. is called ‘throwing’. You’ll also hear English knitting or American knitting, but they all refer to the same way to knit.
For beginners, this method is actually quite a bit easier, as you don’t need any special yarn holding technique. A lot of people struggle with pulling the yarn through the loops at first. With the English method, this will be much easier, as you will quickly see. The tension on the yarn will be quite different, though.
It will usually result in a much looser final product and the knitting will be a lot slower. You also have to move your hands much more and thus put more strain on your joints.
Anyway, let’s show you this alternative, eh?
Step 1: Pick up the working needle with your cast-on stitches with your left hand. I recommend a long tail cast on for beginners.
Step 2: Insert the right needle through the first loop from the left and weave the working yarn through your fingers (I usually wrap it around the pinky finger.)
Step 3: Hold both needles with the left hand (they should form an X) and “throw” the yarn around the right needle clockwise creating a loop.
Note: Once you’ve got a couple of stitches on your needle, it will be quite a bit easier to prevent the needle from slipping off.
Step 4: Now you have to pull the right needle through the loop. Keep the tension on the working yarn with your fingers (some prefer thumb, others index finger) and the loop should slide through quite easily.
Step 5: Slide the first loop from your left needle and you have your first knit stitch on your right needle.
Step 6: Insert your right needle (with the one stitch on it) into the second loop, and repeat 3-5 until the end of your work.
As you can see, this method is quite less complicated and there is actually a rhyme to teach children knitting this technique. It goes like this:
In through the front door, (step 2)
Around the back (step 3)
Peep through the window, (step 4)
And off jumps Jack! (step 5)
The main problem with throwing is keeping a nice yarn tension. Your work will be pretty loose. Depending on your project, this can actually be an advantage, but sometimes it isn’t and it is quite a bit harder to adjust for it. You can pull the stitches tight after each throw, but this will result in a less uniform structure than continental knitting in my experience.
There is a solution to this problem, though. It’s called flicking.
When flicking, you wrap your working yarn around your right fingers (much like in continental style) and you throw the yarn around your right needle using just your index finger. As you’ll never let go of your needles, it will increase the knitting speed quite a lot and it lets you control your tension from start to end.
If you are working with very long needles, you can also fixate the right needle between your armpits. This leaves your hand free to do the throwing.
important things you should know about the knit stitch & common mistakes
The knit stitch is the most basic and simplest stitch there is. With it, you can already finish quite a lot of exciting projects. But you should definitely practice quite a bit to achieve an even appearance. Most importantly, you should learn the difference between a knit vs a purl stitch. Or rather, that they mirror images.
Still, here are some common mistakes and how to avoid them.
#1 Don’t knit the tail end
Often, there will be a rather long tail left after your cast on (read this tutorial on how to calculate yarn requirements for a cast on). Always double-check if you are not accidentally holding the tail in your hand when knitting the first stitches after the cast on. Might get you into trouble after the first, row.
I have a…uh…a..friend, yes, not me, certainly not, who often does that. 😉
#2 Always insert your needle from the front and the left.
This is very important because otherwise, you will twist the legs of your stitches creating an uneven and not so pretty structure. I don’t want to worry you, but you’ll be able to see a single wrong stitch from miles away in your finished work.
While knitting the garter stitch (meaning a project with just knit stitches), the loops always have to run from the back to the front. So, when you insert your knitting needle from the left and you pull it even further to the left, you should be able to see a “ladder”. If you don’t see this ladder, then you twisted your yarn somehow.
This often happens when you pick up a stitch (because you dropped it or your pattern requires it) or you inserted the needle from right to left.
How to fix this? Insert the right needle into the loop as you would knit, twist it in the opposite direction, and slip the loop onto your left needle again.
Pro tip: Some patterns actually require you to insert the needle from the right. This is called “ Knit through back loop“. This will twist the legs of your final stitch, which can be used to create elevated structures in a pattern.
#3 Dropping a stitch
You should always secure the stitches on your needle with your fingers. But sometimes you drop one and then the whole pattern will unravel. So, what can you do? Throw it into the garbage?
No, don’t panic. There are plenty of ways to fix it. But make sure to secure the dropped stitch right away with a spare needle or security pin.
a) If you didn’t pull on your work and there’s not too much tension on the yarn, you can often simply pick up the stitch again with your needles. Just make sure you don’t twist it that way.
b) If the stitch did unravel for a row or two, you can knit it back using a crochet needle. It’s basically a simple chain stitch, though you will have to alternate the sides for the garter stitch. So, take the crochet needle, insert it into the loop and then pull through the little connecting thread from the back. Continue until you reach your current row and slip it onto your working needle again. Here’s how to fix a dropped stitch in greater detail.
c) You can tink (reverse knit) your pattern. If you are working a very complicated pattern or using a very sensitive yarn, this is the preferred technique. It basically boils down to inserting your left needle into the loop BELOW the current loop on your right needle and then letting the top loop slide off the needle.
d) You can pull out your needles and unravel a row or two and then reinsert your needles into the remaining loops. The easiest way to do this is unraveling one stitch at a time and inserting your needle back into the dropped loops as you go.
Pro tip: If you notice a mistake in your knitting, this is also the way to fix it without unraveling. Simply unravel only that one stitch and then pick it up with a crochet needle again.
#4 Splitting the yarn
If you are using very sharp-pointed needles or fibers that aren’t twisted as much as regular 4 ply wool, you will end up splitting the yarn with your needles eventually (this is the reason why I recommend using round-tipped needles for beginners).
In this case, simply reverse knit the stitch and knit again. Otherwise, you will create little loops sticking out of your work you can’t properly cut away. It’ll also weaken your fabric.
If you notice those flimsy loops past the point where you want to unravel, you can try to hide them on the other side of your work by pulling them through with a crochet needle.
#5 Counting stitches
You may sometimes lose track and then you might be wondering how many rows you already knitted. This tutorial will show you how to count rows in knitting.
Next lesson: How to knit the purl stitch.


For our fourth day of Mental Health Awareness week, we're looking at how young people are affected by mental health issues.
A report by the Princes Trust showed that 17 per cent of young people in the North West experienced symptoms of mental illness as a direct result of unemployment.
- In the UK, there are 1 million young people struggling to find a job
- Of those 40% have had symptoms of mental illness, that's 400,000 young people
- 1-in-3 of long term young unemployed people have contemplated suicide
Steve was unemployed for eight years and developed mental health issues during this time.
He found help from the Prince's Trust and now works to help other young people who face unemployment.
"I was unemployed for eight years, and suffered from depression and anxiety on a daily basis. Being out of work knocked my confidence and made me feel like a failure. I felt I had nothing to offer, so I couldn’t see why anyone would ever want to employ me. The longer I was unemployed, the worse I felt about myself. Things got so bad that I rarely left the house."
For more information:
For our final day of Mental Health Awareness Week, we're looking at how mental health problems of a loved one affect friends and family.
For day three of Mental Health Awareness Week we are looking at dementia. We found out how it affects people's lives.
The symptoms of dementia can often be unnoticed at the start. Early diagnosis and finding the right support is important.


Reducing HIV Stigma, Zambia
In Zambia, nurses are partnering with other organisations to ensure women’s rights when it comes to the management and treatment of people with HIV/AIDS. An AIDS Integrated Program has been established by the Catholic Diocese of Ndola, Zambia. Within this programme, there is collaboration between nursing and medical care, socioeconomic support, human rights and legal support and psychological care. There are close partnerships with government and non-government organisations to provide care to the community. Within the nursing clinics and community settings, nurses are providing families with information about the transmission of HIV and TB and correcting misconceptions. They help raise awareness about the need for people living with HIV to receive love and support from their families and friends and as such seek to reduce stigmatisation.
As part of their work, they collaborate with legal institutions, human rights volunteers and other legal areas to provide legal protection against child abuse, violence against women and helping widows to protect their property from being seized by their deceased husband’s families. As a result of this work, women have come forward in greater numbers to receive the care and treatment they need. [i]
Programmes where HIV care is integrated into nurseled primary healthcare services have commenced in South Africa. Nurses in primary healthcare are providing first line antiretroviral therapy (ART), sexual health and other holistic care in their clinics. [ii] This has increased the number of women accessing treatment particularly after suffering sexual abuse. It is hoped that by improving access to ART in areas with limited access to medical care, that the transmission of HIV will be reduced.
[i] UNAIDS, HIV – Related Stigma, Discrimination and Human Rights Violations: Case studies of successful programs, UNAIDS, Editor. 2005: New York.
[ii] Uebel, K., et al., Integrating HIV care into nurseled primary health care services in South Africa: a synthesis of three linked qualitative studies. BMC health services research, 2013. 13(1): p. 1.« Go Back to Case Studies List


Latin Name: Galinsoga parviflora
Description: An annual herb. It grows to 75 cm high and has a spread of 50 cm. The stem is erect and much branched. The stem is rather weak. The leaves are oval and opposite. The leaves have leaf stalks are the leaves are toothed around the edge. The flowers are small and daisy like. They occur in small clusters and have white rays and a yellow disk. The flowers are produced in the axils of the upper leaves.
Edibility Rating out of 5: 2
Medicinal Rating out of 5: 1
Edible Uses: The leaves, stem and flowering shoots – raw or cooked and eaten as a potherb, or added to soups and stews. They can be dried and ground into a powder then used as a flavouring in soups etc. A bland but very acceptable food, it makes a fine salad either on its own or mixed with other leaves. The fresh juice can be mixed and drunk with tomato or vegetable juices.
Warnings: The plant is considered to be poisonous to goats.
Medicinal Uses: Astringent; Stings.
Medicinal Information: When rubbed onto the body, the plant is useful in treating nettle stings. The juice of the plant is applied to treat wounds, It helps to coagulate the blood of fresh cuts and wounds.


Challenges in Helping Youths Live Independently
T-HEHS-99-121: Published: May 13, 1999. Publicly Released: May 13, 1999.
- Full Report:
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Health and Human Services' Independent Living Program (ILP) and the needs of youths leaving the foster care system, focusing on: (1) the problems faced by foster care youths once they leave care; (2) what is known about the extent of services provided by ILP; and (3) what is known about the effectiveness of ILP.
GAO noted that: (1) the few available studies that track youths who have exited foster care reveal that many have a difficult time making the transition to living on their own; (2) the studies found that a substantial portion of these youths have not attained basic education goals, such as completing high school, and are dependent on public assistance; (3) in addition, many experience periods of homelessness after leaving care and have other difficulties that impede their progress toward self-sufficiency, such as being unemployed; (4) in an effort to help foster care youths become self-sufficient, state ILPs offer a wide array of independent living services, including education and employment assistance; training in daily living skills, such as managing money, housekeeping, and personal hygiene; and additional transitional services, such as supervised practice living; (5) however, program administrators acknowledge that independent living services fall short in key areas; (6) these administrators report that developing appropriate employment opportunities for foster care youths, providing supervised transitional housing arrangements, and developing program activities that provide opportunities to practice the skills learned or enhance youths' self-esteem has been difficult; and (7) moreover, there are few evaluations that link program objectives to outcomes, leaving questions concerning the effectiveness of the array of independent living services.


Sedna (Inuktitut: ᓴᓐᓇ, Sanna) is the goddess of the sea and marine animals in Inuit mythology, also known as the Mother of the Sea or Mistress of the Sea. The story of Sedna, which is a creation myth, describes how she came to rule over Adlivun, the Inuit underworld. Sedna is also known as Arnakuagsak or Arnaqquassaaq (Greenland) and Sassuma Arnaa ("Mother of the Deep", West Greenland) and Nerrivik ("Table", northern Greenland) or Nuliajuk (District of Keewatin, Northwest Territories, Canada). She is sometimes known by other names by different Inuit groups such as Arnapkapfaaluk ("Big Bad Woman") of the Copper Inuit from the Coronation Gulf area and Takánakapsâluk or Takannaaluk (Igloolik).
More than one version of the Sedna legend exists. In one legend Sedna is a giant, the daughter of the creator-god Anguta, with a great hunger that causes her to attack her parents. Angered, Anguta takes her out to sea and throws her over the side of his kayak. As she clings to the sides, he chops off her fingers and she sinks to the underworld, becoming the ruler of the monsters of the deep. Her huge fingers become the seals, walruses, and whales hunted by the Inuit.
In another version of the legend, she is dissatisfied with men found for her by her father and so marries a dog. Her father is so angry at this that he throws her into the sea and, when she tries to climb back into the boat, he cuts off her fingers. Her fingers become the first seals and she becomes a mighty sea goddess. When she is angered, the shaman travels to wash and comb her hair for her, after which she is placated and releases the animals to the hunters.
In the Netsilik region, the story states that Nuliayuk was a mistreated orphan. One day the people tried to get rid of her by attempting to drown her by chopping off her finger tips. But the fingertips would transform to seals and walruses. Eventually Nuliayuk marries a sculpin and lives in the sea controlling all sea mammals.
Other versions of the legend depict Sedna as a beautiful maiden who rejects marriage proposals from the hunters of her village. When an unknown hunter appears, Sedna's father agrees to give her to him as wife in return for fish. Sedna's father gives Sedna a sleeping potion and gives her to the hunter who takes her to a large nest on a cliff, revealing his true form: a great bird-spirit (variously described as a raven, a fulmar or a Kokksaut/petrel-spirit). She wakes surrounded by birds. Her father attempts to rescue her, but the bird-spirit becomes angry, causing a great storm. In desperation, Sedna's father throws her into the raging sea. Attempting to cling to the kayak, her hands freeze and her fingers fall off becoming the creatures of the sea. She falls to the bottom of the sea and grows a fish tail.
Sedna is kidnapped by a different bird creature in yet another version. Her father then leaves in his kayak to rescue her from the floating ice-island where she is imprisoned while the bird creature is away. The creature, enraged by her disappearance, calls to a spirit of the sea to help him. The sea spirit locates the kayak with the two humans aboard and creates huge waves to kill them. Her father throws Sedna overboard in the hope that this will appease the angry god. Sedna clings to the kayak but her father grabs a little axe and chops three of her fingers off before striking her on the head. The three fingers each become a different species of seal. The stroke to her head sends Sedna to the ocean floor where she resides, commanding the animals of the sea.
The varying legends each give different rationales for Sedna's death. Yet, in each version, her father takes her to sea in his kayak, chopping off her fingers. In each version she sinks to the bottom of the sea, worshiped by hunters who depend on her goodwill to supply food. She is generally considered a vengeful goddess, and hunters must placate and pray to her to release the sea animals from the ocean depths for their hunt.
In Popular Culture
Heather Dale's album The Road to Santiago includes a song called "Sedna", which relays a version of the myth.
In the Deep Dive Daredevils webcomic "Secret of the Beaufort Sea", Sedna appears as an Inuit goddess who has control over a werewhale. The crew of the Custer must create a perfume made from the ambergris of the werewale to satisfy Sedna and have her release the curse which is causing the werewhale to rampage.
- Osbourne, MaryJane. Romancing the Goddess. University of Illinois Press. 1998. ISBN 0-252-06655-3
- Tchana, Katrine. Changing Woman and her sisters: stories of goddesses from around the world. Holiday House. 2006. ISBN 978-0-8234-1999-9
- Moss, John George. ' Echoing silence: essays on Arctic narrative. University of Ottawa Press. 1997. ISBN 0-7766-0441-4
- Andrews, Tamra. Dictionary of Nature Myths. Oxford University Press. 2000. ISBN 0-19-513677-2


Memory, mental arithmetic and mathematics
|Alphabetical list of History Topics||History Topics Index|
All the mathematicians whose biographies are given in our archive exhibited extraordinary mental powers. In this article we look at a few mathematicians who have shown extraordinary powers of memory and calculating. We also look at a number of people who had no mathematical skills, usually no education, yet were able to display feats of mental arithmetical skills which astounded their contemporaries and today still astound us.
First we mention John Wallis whose calculating powers are described in :-
[Wallis] occupied himself in finding (mentally) the integral part of the square root of 3 × 1040; and several hours afterwards wrote down the result from memory. This fact having attracted notice, two months later he was challenged to extract the square root of a number of 53 digits; this he performed mentally, and a month later he dictated the answer which he had not meantime committed to writing.This, although quite remarkable, is rather typical of the feats we shall describe in this article. It is the combination of exceptional memory and calculating ability which seems to combine in many of those we consider. However, in one respect Wallis is very different from others we describe in that he was 53 years old when he performed the above feats. Most of the others we describe were at the height of their powers when young children, often around 10 years of age.
Having looked at a mathematician from an early period, let us next consider von Neumann whose feats of memory are described by Herman Goldstine in :-
As far as I could tell, von Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim; moreover he could do it years later without hesitation. He could also translate it at no diminution in speed from its original language into English. On one occasion I tested his ability by asking him to tell me how the 'Tale of Two Cities' started. Whereupon, without pause, he immediately began to recite the first chapter and continued until asked to stop after about ten or fifteen minutes.Von Neumann's ability to do mental arithmetic is the source of a large number of stories which no doubt have grown the more impressive with the telling. It is hard to decide between fact and fiction. However, it is clear that multiplying two eight digit numbers in his head was a task which he could accomplish with little effort. Again it would appear that von Neumann's 'almost perfect' memory played a large part in his ability to calculate.
Other mathematicians who have exhibited great powers in mental arithmetic include Ampere, Hamilton and Gauss. Only one mathematician has ever described in detail how he was able to perform incredible feats of memory and calculating. This is A C Aitken, see  ,  and , and we shall consider his methods later in this article. First, however, let us describe the feats of a number of calculating prodigies who had no mathematical training.
Zerah Colburn's powers in calculating are described in ,  and . He was born in Cabut, Vermont, U.S.A. in 1804 and he visited Europe in 1812, when only eight years old to demonstrate his skills:-
He could instantly give the product of two numbers each of four digits but hesitated if both numbers exceeded 10,000. Among questions asked him at this time were to raise 8 to the 16th power; in a few seconds he gave the answer 281,474,976,710,656 which is correct. ... he worked less quickly when asked to raise numbers of two digits like 37 or 59 to high powers. ... Asked for the factors of 247,483 he replied 941 and 263; asked for the factors of 171,395 he gave 5, 7, 59 and 83, asked for the factors of 36,083 he said there were none. He, however, found it difficult to answer questions about numbers higher than 1,000,000.Colburn is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly he influenced Hamilton to take up mathematics, secondly that he exhibited a common characteristic of most uneducated calculating prodigies, namely that his abilities diminished when he underwent education. This may be due to the simple fact that such calculating abilities require continual practice for many hours each day and education occupies too much time to allow this to continue. Colburn is also interesting in that he was able to give an idea of how he carried out the calculations, the main method being by factorising the numbers concerned:-
Asked for the square of 4,395 he hesitated but on the question being repeated he gave the correct answer, namely 19,316,025. Questioned as to the cause of his hesitation, he said he did not like to multiply four figures by four figures, but he said 'I found out another way; I multiplied 293 by 293 and then multiplied this product twice by 15'. On another occasion when asked for the product of 21,734 by 543 he immediately replied 11,801,562; and being questioned explained that he had arrived at this by multiplying 65,202 by 181.George Parker Bidder was born in 1806 at Moreton Hampstead in Devonshire, England. He was not one to lose his skills when educated and wrote an interesting account of his powers in . Again it is worth noting that other members of his family had exceptional powers of memory and calculating. One of his brothers knew the Bible by heart, another brother, who was an actuary, had the misfortune of having all his books destroyed in a fire. This was not the problem it might have been to an ordinary person since he was able, in the period of six months, to rewrite them from memory. One of Bidder's sons was able to multiply two numbers of 15 digits but he was slow, and less accurate, compared with his father. Bidder explained how the sound of numbers was much more important to him than their visual representation, something that Aitken was also to emphasise. Bidder wrote, see :-
... if I endeavour to get any number of figures that are represented on paper fixed in my memory, it takes me a much longer time and a very great deal more exertion than when they are expressed or enumerated verbally. ... if required to find the product of two numbers each of nine digits which were read to me, I should not require this to be done more than once; but if they were represented in the usual way, and put into my hands, it would probably take me four times to peruse them before it would be in my power to repeat them, and after all they would not be impressed so vividly on my imagination.The last non-mathematician whose feats we describe is Dase. He is of particular interest since his talents were investigated by Gauss, Encke and other mathematicians. As examples of Dase's calculating ability here is an example: 79532853 × 93758479 = 7456879327810587, time taken 54 seconds. He multiplied two 20 digit numbers in 6 minutes; two 40 digit numbers in 40 minutes; two 100 digit numbers in 8 hours 45 minutes. Gauss commented that he thought that someone skilled in calculation could have done the 100 digit example in about half that time with pencil and paper.
Although Dase had no mathematical education he offered to use his powers to help mathematics. He was shown how to use the formula
π/4 = tan-1(1/2) + tan-1(1/5) + tan-1(1/8)and, using this, he calculated π correctly to 200 places over a period of about two months. In his spare time, between 1844 and 1847, he calculated the natural logarithms of the first 1005000 numbers to 7 decimal places.
In the 19th century there seems to have been quite a popular entertainment watching extraordinarily gifted children perform calculations on stage. Of course since there was a market for such performances children who seemed gifted in this way were encouraged to practise hard so that they could earn money. Colburn, Bidder and Dase all gave stage performances.
Another type of lightning calculator was Trueman Henry Stafford from Royalton, Vermont in the United States. Stafford chose not to perform on stage although, as a ten year old, he had calculating abilities to rival any of the others. Had he performed on stage he might well have brought the crowds in according to the description given by H W Adams, see , :-
Multiply in your head 365,365,365,365,365,365 and 365,365,365,365,365,365. He flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!Stafford took a degree at Princeton and became a professional astronomer. His ability to perform mental calculations slowly departed as he grew older.
In many ways the most interesting of all these people was A C Aitken. The reason is that
did not exhibit his talent at a young age like most of those described above. Rather he developed the skill as he explained, see :-
Only at the age of 15 did I feel I might develop a real power and for some years about that time, without telling anyone, I practised mental calculation from memory like a Brahmin Yogi, a little extra here, a little extra there, until gradually what had been difficult at first became easier and easier...Aitken became an excellent professional mathematician holding the chair of mathematics in Edinburgh in Scotland. He put his memory to good use in many ways in his role as a mathematician. To give just one example, see :-
When he examined a new number of a mathematical journal he had only to scan it page by page, turning the pages over at a rate which the ordinary reader would record only half dozen lines or so. Subsequent discussion made it clear that he registered all the material. And, as he said, he never forgot what he had once seen.Aitken's life is described in , his mental abilities are recorded and analysed by himself in  and by an Edinburgh psychologist in . The most fascinating aspect of Aitken's ability to do mental calculation, to my [EFR] mind, is the way in which he was able to combine his calculating skill and extraordinary feats of memory with a deep understanding of the methods of numerical mathematics.
In  Hunter describes Aitken reciting the first 1000 digits of π to him:-
Sitting relaxed and still, he speaks the first 500 digits without error or hesitation. He then pauses, almost literally for breath. The total time taken is 150 sec. The rhythm and tempo of speech is obvious; about five digits per second separated by a pause of about 1/2 sec. The temporal regularity is almost mechanical; to illustrate, each successive block of fifty digits is spoken in exactly 15 sec.Then Aitken recited correctly the second 500 digits of π. Here however Hunter reports that Aitken hesitated and sometimes corrected himself. When asked why he found the second 500 much harder than the first 500 Aitken had an interesting answer. Partly he said it was due to tiredness since recall requires a great effort. More interesting however was his other reason:-
Before the days of computing machines there was a kind of competition (human, I mean) in seeing how far they could calculate π. In 1873, Shanks carried this to 707 decimals; but it was not until 1948 that it was discovered that the last 180 of these were wrong. Now, in 1927 I had memorised those 707 digits for an informal demonstration to a students society, and naturally I was rather chagrined, in 1948, to find that I had memorised something erroneous. When π was calculated to 1000 and indeed more decimals, I re-memorised it. But I had to suppress my earlier memory of those erroneous digits, 180 of them...So Aitken's problem was that he could not forget the incorrect 180 digits!
You can see the 1000 digits of the decimal expansion of π as Aitken recited them.
What about his ability to calculate? Firstly when presented with a number, Aitken instantly saw a variety of different ways of expressing it. For example
1961 = 37 × 53 = 442 + 52 = 402 + 192occurred to him instantly. In fact a number instantly appeared to him in a form particularly suitable for the required task. For example if asked for the decimal expansion of 1/851 he would think of 851 as 23 × 37, if asked for the square root of 851 then he thought of it as 292 + 10, if asked for the decimal expansion of 17/851 then he would think of it as almost 0.02.
Numbers filled Aitken's world. He said:-
If I go for a walk and if a motor car passes and it has the registration number 731, I cannot but observe it is 17 times 43. ... When I see a bus conductor with a number on his lapel, I square it ... this isn't deliberate, I just can't help it. ... [Given a number] is it a prime of the form 4n+1, and so expressible as the sum of two squares in one way only? Is it the numerator of a Bernoullian number, or one occurring in some continued fraction? And so on. Sometimes a number has almost no properties at all, like 811, and sometimes a number, like 41, is deeply involved in many theorems that you know.Aitken showed an ability divide, and thus to calculate decimal expansions of rationals, which other calculators could not do. It was always a rule at the calculating exhibitions of those described above that, when the audience was asked to suggest sums, division sums were banned. Aitken however was able to use certain tricks. On asked to compute the decimal expansion of 1/697 he explained his method. He saw immediately that 697 = 17 × 41. Then:-
I mentally worked out a 41st and divided it by 17 at the same time. I did two things. That's severe by the way. A double process is very severe. You see you've got to run one decimal and divide it at the same time by something else. You've got to alternate back and forward I've got to be aware that a 41st is point, 0, 2, 4, 3, 9, and be dividing by 17 along.However many divisions were carried out by Aitken using clever tricks. He explained how many decimal expansions could be carried out by short division. He said, see :-
One can divide by a number like 59, or 79, or 109, or 599, and so on, by short division. Take for example, 1/59, which is nearly 1/60. Set the division out thusWhen asked to explain exactly what he does when asked to multiply 123 by 456 Aitken replied:-
6 ) 1.0 1 6 9 4 9 1 5 2... ------------------------ 0.0 1 6 9 4 9 1 5 2 5...
Here we have the decimal for 1/59, obtained by dividing 1 by 60; as we obtain each digit we merely enter it in the dividend, one place later, and continue with the division. As another example, consider 5/23. Write it as 15/69. Then proceed
7 ) 15.2 1 7 3 9 1 3 0... ------------------------ 0.2 1 7 3 9 1 3 0 4...
In fact 5/23 = 0.2173913043478260869565, a recurring decimal with a period of 22 digits. One could equally well have written it as 65/299, then carrying out division by 3, two digits at a time, and entering in the dividend two places further along. There are other possibilities: For example, the mental calculator is, or should be, very familiar with the factorisation of numbers; he should know not merely that 23 time 13 is 299, but that 23 times 87 is 2001. For example 5/23 is equal to 435/2001; and if we note that 435 is the same as 434.999999999..., we have another method, in which, as we obtain the digits, we subtract them from the dividend, so many places later. Thus in the present case
2 ) 434 782 608 695 652 ... ------------------------- 217 391 304 347 ...
For example, 217 from 999 gives 782, which we then divide by 2, obtaining 391; this, subtracted from 999, gives 608; and so on. My aim has been to demonstrate, in these various rather simple examples, some part of the repertoire, the armoury of resource upon which a mental calculator may draw, and in regard to the choice of which he must make instantaneous decisions, and keep to them.
I see at once that 123 times 45 is 5535 and that 123 times 6 is 738; I hardly have to think. Then 5535 plus 738 gives 56088. Even at the moment of registering 56088, I have checked it by dividing it by 8, so 7011, and this by 9 gives 779. I recognise 779 as 41 by 19. And 41 by 3 is 123, while 19 by 24 is 456. A check, you see; and it passes by in about 1 sec.Why cannot we all then, having learned Aitken's tricks, perform rapid calculations as he could. Aitken, when asked what he believed made him more able to calculate than the average person, put it down to his ability to easily remember numbers. He said:-
I can put aside in storage for a future occasion a result that has already been obtained. I know I can bring it out correctly. .. [this] is what distinguishes the calculator from the man in the street. The man in the street forgets the stages in between.Some feats of memory are certainly visual in nature. The person concerned can 'see' the numbers of objects which have been committed to memory and in some sense read them off as if they had been written on paper. Aitken said that his memory could work that way but it slowed him down.
Seeing would put me off. If I were forced to visualise, I would be much slower.However, when asked to recite the digits of π backwards Aitken had, interestingly, no other option but to bring the numbers into a visual form and read them off backwards from his visual image. His 'much slower' comment may be true but the speed was still impressive. The last 50 digits of the expansion required 18 seconds for him to recite them forwards and 34 seconds to recite them backwards.
We end with two final illustrations of Aitken's memory. While serving in the Otago Company at Armentières during World War I, the platoon book was destroyed. Aitken recited the names and numbers of all the members of his platoon. The second illustration comes from the testing of Aitken's powers by the Psychology Department in Edinburgh. In the 1930's Aitken had been tested by the Department. One test involved 25 random words which were selected from a dictionary. These words were read to Aitken and he was able to repeat them. When Hunter interviewed Aitken in 1961 he had before him a record of the 1930's test and he asked Aitken if he remembered being asked to recite a random sequence of words. Indeed Aitken did and was still able to recite them correctly nearly 30 years later.
References (14 books/articles)
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson


Separate names with a comma.
Discussion in 'Training Tips & Coaching' started by hopper, Oct 7, 2007.
What is a Half Court / Full court press???
A very simple answer is that the half court press is when you only put pressure on your opponents when they are in your half and the full court press is when you put pressure on them all over the pitch. Ask if you want more details than that though.
yea its what Gk09 said but i thought it was only a basketball thing hence the court.
half court is when you lose the ball everyone legs it back and gets in a their position ready to defend and full court is when you put pressure on every player you can. for example putting pressure on the ball carrier but also marking any other player he could pass to.
But again i thought it was just a bball thing
It is a reference to basketball, where there are two main types of defence (sometimes the level of play dictates what can be used, i.e. young kids are not permitted to use a full-court press in some divisions and leagues but must fall back into half-court).
As it applies in field hockey, my understanding is that a full-court press involves a defending team setting up an aggressive "circle" on, for example, a 15m hit by their opposition and go hard after the ball (possibly by double-teaming). Half-court is the complete opposite, where the defending team will literally put all 11 players behind the centre line even as the opposition takes a free hit from back at their own 15m. The idea is to compress the structure vertically and close out that space so that attempts to play the ball in between the forwards and mids results in a turnover. Teams faced with a half-court defence often try to hit the long ball through into the mass of players, which plays right into defending team's hands.
I hope that helps.
They are the two extremes of different types of press that you can use in a game. I have a couple of doco's on it if anyone wants let me know and I'll send them to you, they are a bit big to put on here.
Also called Stand-off or Fall away Press.
A number of International teams use the Half Court press to about 60 - 75%, so not a half court press somewhere in between.
The whole idea really is to compress your defense and make it harder to enter that zone, give the opposition possesion in their own half. You can also use it to trap the opposition in a certain part of the field, using a combination of half court press and a rushing defence, e.g. to trap them on their left side, your forestick side, by putting pressure on the passes back accross when the ball has been moved into your zone.
If you want more info let me know and I'll send it to you.
Hey Turtle, Please send me docos on pressing, my email is in my profile. Cheers mate
I'll have those as well please turtle
In my view, full court press is pressuring the opposition in their defensive quarter/third of the field to get a turnover and attack the goal quickly. Half court press involves setting up your defence in the midfield (ie middle third) and drawing the opposition out of their defensive structure so that you can quickly turn them around and counter attack.
Statistically the top mens sides use a halfcourt to 3/4 court press.The Spanish men tend too take more risks than the germans,aussies & dutch to win possession.You can press anywhere as long as your capacity to manage the risk outweighs the opposing teams ability to counter attack effectively.
I recently coached in a tournament where teams were playing the half court press.The problem was there was little evidence to suggest they knew when to ambush ie to step towards a full press of some shape.
The result: We kept 80% of possession,made them shuffle from side to side,it was a bit like watching England field in the last two days on the test vs SAfrica recently.
Other consequence: We played the patience game better and when we did concede,they didnt have the legs to mount a serious counter.
What am I saying?
* This system is quite complex and requires more than a boardtalk.
* You can only chase ball for so long and then must change to an ambush or step up on some level
* Requires highly developed transition skills ie that is efficient movement(players & ball) post turnover
NB: You also need forwards with speed,advanced elimination and goalscoring skills
* Conserve energy by incorporating an element of zonal marking in the mid/half line(which ever is most appropriate in the circumstances)
The conditions will be a factor so expect plenty half court movement.
Great insights, Mo79. I know you're involved on the men's side of the game but do you think the same half-court tactics will be common on the women's side? Who is most likely to use it, and who is going to be most successful?
Patpat, you should know if you have watched your club or school i know as they both use half court, 3/4 court and full press.
Most teams have been caught out by playing a full court press and a 70 metre aerial has gone from left back to right wing, or a 30 metre aerial goes across the back line thus taking out 6-7 players with one pass.
Half court actually saves the legs of the players and in my experience is played in warmer climates. But others could have different experienced things differently. I normally have to change the front 2 or three.
The full press is very energy intensive and now i only use it coming up to half time, just after scoring or just after the opposition have scored.
It is difficult to sustain for a whole match.
All these need practice and i try and get my teams to knowwhen to use each one without me having to call it and that the areas in which we 'go for the ball' changes many times in a match. So each style of play probably has 3 different aspects to it.
Love half court have played complete tournaments and won using it. Bores the pants off the opposition and the crowd but the records only record results and not how you got that result.
What kinds of factors do into your decision-making (and that of your players) when you switch to a full-court press? Is it personnel (i.e. a particularly weak player receives the ball on the opposition), or a particular location on the pitch (deep left corner), or a particular spacing or formation issue that the opposition has gotten themselves into (i.e. due to ball movement and lack of work, the player in possession is isolated or maybe has only difficult to execute passing options)?
Miss control with the player facing the corner when trying to regain control of the ball, poor pass ( bobbling ), certain time of the game Just scored, just lost a goal. If their key player in a position is off the pitch. Injured player with a good aerial injured or resting.
Last 5 in a half, want the ball as far from my goal as possibe.
Umpire having a bad day get the ball away from them or to increase the pressure on them.
That's really helpful, Grumpy. I need to be able to anticipate these kinds of changes in tactics and it will improve my understanding of what the teams are trying to accomplish, help me anticipate the general movement of play and understand and be proactive about management issues. I've been getting a lot of coaching lately about being more aware of the time in the match (as you say, 5 min. to go) and personnel changes that change who key players are and how the team will try to compensate or their opposition exploit their presence. Thanks!
If anyone has more to offer on this, I'm/we're all ears.
When to trigger full press:
2. lack of pre-scan by intended receiver
3. intended receiver facing square(body position & eyes)
4. pre-identified areas ie typically when splitting centre halves & pass had been made to left half
5. coaches tend to just read the game;when your either up and playing with confidence or the opposition are not moving the ball with confidence.
1. A half court = energy saving if you use it zonally
or man to man (against teams that do not rotate vertically & horizontally) ie narrow forwards & midfield concept
***Make no mistake you still run in a half court.Play Germans,they don't mind keeping the ball for 5minutes and watching you run from side to side
2.Teams that throw those overheads seldom retain possession ie they have merely forced you back into your half-obviously if there is a real threat you retreat
3. The system is become more about having plenty space to work with post-turnover than merely a defensive ploy.
Keely, I think you might get a good idea of when the employ the full press by observing ice hockey tactics. Also, lacrosse is another sport that employs a full court press often. The examples of when to employ the full court press already given rely upon taking advantage of some mistake or error or vulnerable position the opposition has gotten themselves in to. I would like to think there is room for the offensive team to be proactive by making personnel changes, bringing on players that are more able to employ the full court press. I think ice hockey and lacrosse do this well.
Thanks Mo79 for your examples, that helps a great deal. I found this very interesting too:
So you're shifting the focus of the purpose of the tactic from what you want to happen in the backfield (congested spaces = turnover) to what you're trying to set up in the way of counter-attack. Cool.
I believe in cross pollination,so I watch football.Its a sport I love and probably the only reason i was able to start hockey in the first place.
If you want to watch classic zonal,half court press at its best; watch Seria A.
If you want to watch great counterattack football;watch the top premier league sides.


More Power to Poop in Colorado's Zoos
Photo via: J Hull
Poop power, err otherwise known as biomass energy, has been a part of the Treehugger vocabulary for awhile now, but especially over the past couple months. Renewable energy comes in many forms, but one of the least obvious would have had to be from the waste of animals. While farmers have been getting involved in the creation of biomass for awhile now, a new player has gotten involved in the process... the nation's zoos.The Potential for Colorado Zoo Poo
Zoo's offer many wonderful sites and sounds, but one of the least favorable sites is all the waste droppings. The Denver Zoo is certainly not the first to think of using its massive amount of animal waste to help subsidize their costs, but even more thankfully, they won't be the last. "We need to do something with this. We want to clean it—and if we can, we want to gain additional benefits from it," says George Pond, vice president of planning and capital projects at the Denver Zoo.
The zoo is very excited about its expected 15 percent reduction in utility bills over this next year. In addition, the new program will also reduce the many heavy and expensive trips to the landfill they used to have to make in order to unload the tons of animal dung. In all, the Denver Zoo has calculated that it should be able to save about $200,000 a year, not to mention a rather large reduction in its carbon footprint.
Of the many Denver Zoo creatures donating to this very worthy cause, one of the star players would have to be its Asian elephants, Mimi and Dolly. These lovely ladies weighing in at about 10,000 and 7,500 lbs respectively each unloads no less than about 75 to 100 pounds of potential biomass each and everyday. This waste mater is then processed and turned into energy, as well as a portion packaged to bring to researchers at UC Denver, where they are in the process of creating a means for future water treatment plants to one day double as power plants.
The Future of Poo
Currently the packaged liquid dung offered to UC Denver is only able to produce just enough electricity to power a few strands of holiday lights, but the future of biomass holds a much more potent future than we may realize. Biomass could one day offer the world a source of energy independence we'd never thought possible!


The combination of Australia’s warm climate and the presence of significant internal heat loads means that the operation of our commercial building stock is dominated by the need to provide cooling. While this can be mitigated to some extent, by architectural design, practically all commercial buildings are built with some form of mechanical cooling.
Mechanical cooling carries a range of potential environmental impacts, such as:
• Greenhouse gas emissions from energy use;
• Greenhouse gas emissions and ozone depletion from refrigerant leakage and disposal; and
• Toxic waste from treated condenser water.
There are methods of dealing with all of these, but most involve compromise of other parameters. In this article, some of the methods and trade offs for minimising these parameters are presented, with particular emphasis on the greenhouse issues. This covers some basic information that should be – but often is not – at the designer’s fingertips, plus some insights into innovations that offer the potential of significant advances upon the current status quo.


You are here
Concentrated Solar Power
Concentrated solar power systems (also called concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal and CSP) generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a small area. This concentrated energy is used to produce steam, heat up fluids, and activate turbines that produce electricity.Today, there are many types of CSP technologies: towers, dishes, linear mirrors and trots.
One major competitive advantage of CSP systems is that they closely resemble most of the current power plants. For example, much of the equipment now used for conventional, centralized power plants running on fossil fuels can also be used for concentrated solar power plants. CSP simply substitutes the use of concentrated solar power instead of combustible fossil fuels to produce electricity. This means that CSP can easily integrated into today’s electric utility grid, making this technology the most cost-effective solar option for large-scale electricity generation.
CSP is different from concentrated photovoltaics (CPV), where the concentrated sunlight is converted directly to electricity via the photovoltaic effect.
ARES is mainly involved in research and development of small scale concentrated solar power systems for stationary applications, starting from the modelling and design of innovative technology solutions, to the realization of real working prototypes, since the definition of dedicated and efficient energy management approaches.
ARES has a consolidated presence at International level as full member in EERA - Joint Programme Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and through selected network partnerships established during notable research project and collaborations in this specific sector.


Silver Olympic Medal received by Jack B. Yeats
Yeats Archive, presented by Anne Yeats, 1996
Jack B. Yeats (1871–1957) won this silver olympic medal for his painting ‘The Liffey Swim’ (NGI 941) in 1924. Art competitions formed part of the modern Olympic Games during its early years, from 1912 to 1948 and medals were awarded for works of art inspired by sport. Works were divided into five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture. The medals for the 1924 Olympic Games were designed by French medal artist André Adolphe Rivaud, (1892 – unknown).


Authorized in 1949 by the Trans-Canada Highway Act(1949), it was dedicated Sept.
, construction began the following year. The first province to complete its section was Saskatchewan, which did so in 1957. The full coast-to-coast highway was officially dedicated on September 3, 1962, at a ceremonyin
on Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park, southeastern British Columbia.Not
It was not until 1965, however, when a 200-mile (320-kilometre
km) stretch was completedin
on Newfoundland, that motorists weremotorists
able to drive thefully paved route between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts
route in its entirety, and construction actually continued in various locations until 1971. Since then, further improvements have been made, notably replacement of two-lane portions of the route with multiple-lane divided roadways. In addition, other routes through portions of Quebec and Ontario, a northwestward branch from southern Manitoba to Prince Rupert in western British Columbia (via Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and Edmonton, Alberta), and a spur from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island via a bridge across Northumberland Strait are also designated as part of the Trans-Canada Highway system.


There are many factors that can affect your dissolved oxygen meter measurements. In this series, we are focusing on the affects from temperature, salinity, barometric pressure and flow dependence.
Steady-state electrochemical sensors, Clark (Dr. Leland Clark pictured) polarographic and galvanic, consume oxygen during measurement and therefore require sample movement or the readings will be artificially low. This is commonly referred to as flow dependence since the sensor is dependent on flow or water movement across the membrane in order to obtain accurate readings.
Optical sensors (ProODO, ProDSS, EXO), however, use a non-consumptive method for dissolved oxygen measurements resulting in a sensing method with zero flow dependence or stirring requirement. However, YSI scientists have confirmed response times on optical sensors can be improved with flow. Accuracy doesn't change - just the amount of time to get to a reading which may be an advantage in the laboratory measuring many BODs.
The graphs below illustrate this advantage of the optical sensor. The first is a graph of data measured with a steady-state polarographic sensor in an air-saturated water sample where adequate sample movement was provided by a mechanical stir bar. When the stirring mechanism was turned off, the readings began to fall resulting in artificially low dissolved oxygen measurements.
The second is a graph of data measured with an optical sensor in the same air-saturated water sample where sample movement was provided by a stir bar. When the stirring mechanism was turned off for the optical measurements, the readings remained constant and accurate proving the optical sensor is not dependent on flow. This is a considerable advantage of the optical sensor especially for low flow applications or applications where probe stirring or sample movement is difficult such as down well.
For steady-state electrochemical sensors, the membrane material and thickness dictates the degree of the sensor’s flow dependence. For example, polyethylene membranes, frequently notated as PE, require less movement or flow than traditional Polytetrafluoroethylene (you know it as a more common name but we're not allowed to use it for legal reasons...) membranes as illustrated by the graph below.
In this graph, three different sensors were placed in fully aerated water with a stir bar. Once the stirring was ceased, the steady-state electrochemical readings began to fall. Notice how the Polytetrafluoroethylene covered sensor fell further and more rapidly then the PE covered sensor.
The stirring dependence of each sensor and membrane type, along with the recommended stirring rates, is listed in the Membrane Comparison Guide.
Additional Blog Posts of Interest:
What is Affecting Your Dissolved Oxygen Measurements? Part 3 of 4
What is Affecting Your Dissolved Oxygen Measurements? Part 2 of 4
What is Affecting Your Dissolved Oxygen Measurements? Part 1 of 4


Vegetables, Grains and Beans
Since we aren't pigeons or cows, we don't have a crop to digest cereals, nor 4 stomachs to gradually digest grasses or leaves. Cereals and vegetables contain many different substances inhibiting digestion and the uptake of nutrients, when eaten by humans. Humans therefore need to eat food that is appropriate for their digestive system. There is not a single nutrient in vegetables or cereals that fruits do not contain.
Only after introduction of agriculture was it possible to feed a large army. Logistically speaking, you simply cannot feed an army on fruits alone. Cities could only have evolved thanks to agriculture. Furthermore, to be able to feed 'the working class' at a low cost, one definitely needs agriculture. Health was never a concern here.
Why would we need a crop or 4 stomachs to digest cereals, beans or vegetables?
Just take a look at animals consuming plants only, like cattle, elephants, horses, koala bears, hippo's, gorilla's, etc.; what do they all have in common?
All plant eating animals have large bellies, because fibers can only be decomposed bacterially, causing gasses to originate. If one consumes lots of grains, vegetables or beans, one definitely can forget about having a flat belly (it's not just about fat!). Cereals and beans contain about 6-fold more fiber as fruit does on average (fiber also inhibits essential cholesterol absorption (1), which can cause depression and sleeplessness).
But it's not just the fiber. Fruit contains fruit-sugars or fats (and vitamins) to attract animals consuming these fruits, spreading their seeds. Contrarily, vegetables, grains and beans always contain substances that protect these plants against consumption:
Grains, beans, others [more]
Humans only started to eat plants after having discovered how to use fire to prepare them (with some exceptions). Unfortunately not all harmful substances are destroyed by heat. [more]
We were not meant to eat plants (i.e. vegetables, grains and beans), and are better off not doing so. We don't need anything from plants, because we can get all the necessary nutrients elsewhere. To assure maximum absorption of all required nutrients, one needs to consume easy-digestible raw food.
© 2000-2011 Copyright Artists Cooperative Groove Union U.A.
Abstracts of most sources can be found at the National Library of Medicine
) Cherbut, C. et al, Digestive and metabolic effects of potato and maize fibers in human subjects. Br. J. Nutr. 1997 / 77 (1) / 33-46., Dubois, C. et al, Effects of pea and soybean fibre on postprandial lipaemia and lipoproteins in healthy adults. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 1993 / 47 (7) / 508-520. , Cara, L. et al, Long-term wheat intake beneficially affects plasma lipids and lipoproteins in hypercholesterolemic human subjects. J. Nutr. 1992 / 122 (2) / 317-326., Cara, L. et al, Effects of oat bran, rice bran, wheat fiber and wheat germ on postprandial lipaemia in healthy adults. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 1992 / 55 (1) / 81-88.