Somatostatin (SS) was first discovered in hypothalamic extracts. It is defined as a polypeptide hormone that inhibited secretion of other hormones, especially growth hormone, glucagons, insulin, thyrotropin, gastrin, and etc, depending on physiologic situation. Besides hypothalamus, it is found to be secreted by many other tissues such as pancreas, intestinal tract, and regions of the central nervous system outside the hypothalamus. Regardless where it is found, the synthesis and structure appears to be identical. Also, no matter where it is found, the action of it is always inhibitory.
Link to the website:
Structure and SynthesisEdit
Somatostatin is synthesized as a 116 amino acid preprohormone that is subsequently cleaved to two forms. The two forms are SS-14 and SS-28 amino acid coupounds. They reflect their amino acid length. Both forms of somatostatin are produced by proteolytic cleavage of prosomatostatin, which itself is derived from preprosomatostatin. Two cysteine residules in SS-14 allow the peptide to form an internal disulfide bond.
Fig. 1: Shows the formation of SS-14 and SS-28
The production amount of the two forms, SS-14 and SS-28, depends upon the tissue they are being secreted in. SS-14 is the predominates in the hypothalamus and endocrine pancreas. SS-28 is more abundant in the GI tract. The two forms also can have the different biological potencies.
Receptors and Mechanism of ActionEdit
Somatostatin acts by both endocrine and paracrine pathways to affect its target cells. There are all together five stomatostatin receptors that are recognized and characterized. All of them five belong to G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. Each of the receptors activates different signaling mechanisms within cells. However, all inhibit adenylyl cyclase. It is found that four of the five receptors do not differentiate SS-14 from SS-28.
Effects on the Pituitary GlandEdit
Fig. 2: Pituitary GH and hepatic IGF-1 secretion in the hypothalamic-pituitary feedback system.
Growth hormones is produced in the pituitary and it is stimulated by hypothalamic growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH). The growth hormone secretion is controlled by the interaction of somatostatin and growth hormone. The figure above shows the feedback system how the inhibition takes place.
Effects on the PancreasEdit
Fig. 3: Shows the pancreatic islet and what is secreted in it.
The diagram shows cells within pancreatic islets secrete insulin, glucagon and somatostatin. Somatostatin appears to act primarily in a paracrine manner to inhibit the secretion of both insulin and glucagon. It also has the effect in suppressing pancreatic exocrine secretions, by inhibiting cholecystokinin-stimulated enzyme secretion and secretin-stimulated bicarbonate secretion.
Effects on the Gastrointestinal TractEdit
Somatostatin is secreted by scattered cells in the GI epithelium. Somatostatin shows the inhibition of many GI hormones such as gastrin, cholecystokinin, secretin, and so on. It also suppresses the secretion of gastric and pepsin which lowers the rate of gastric emptying and reduces smooth muscle contractions and blood flow within the intestine. Overall, these effects tend to decrease the rate of nutrient absorption.
Effects on the Nervous SystemEdit
Somatostatin is also produced in the nervous system. It has neuromodulatory activity within the central nervous sytem. It has a variety of complex effects on neural transmission. For example, injection of somatostatin into the brain of rodents leads to such things as increased arousal and decreased sleep, and impairment of some motor responses.
Somatostatin and its synthetic analogs are used clinically due to its ability to inhibit certain hormones secretion. It is used to treat a variety of neoplasms such as giantism and acromegaly.
Somatostatin Analogs for Diagnosis and Staging of TumorsEdit
This article is a case presentation of a 49 year old female who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma stage IIIA in 1983. After successful chemotherapy, the cancer went into remission. However, in 1990 a recurrence was detected using a gallium-67 scintigraphy which suggested that the tumor was an indolent tumor. Since most human tumors originating from somatostatin target tissue have conserved their somatostatin receptors, a somatostatin analog, octreotide, was given to the patient and traced inside her body. This analog has all of the same pharmaceutical properties as somatostatin, except that it stays in the body much longer. Using in vitro audiography with 25-I-Tyr-3-Octreotide, the somatostatin receptor’s status was evaluated in the tumor cells. It showed that the high grade lymphomas expressed a very high density of receptors. The low to intermediate grade lymphomas also expressed a moderate density of receptors.
This relates to the course because it shows that the hormone somatostatin is still present on tumor cells. It has some functionality in the regulation of the tumor because the tumor cells exhibit different densities of somatostatin receptors at different stages of the cancer.
This article gives a summary of somatostatin and its regulation and effects on different organs or glands in the body. Somatostatin has two polypeptide forms, a 14 amino acid chain (SS-14) and a 28 amino acid chain (SS-28). These are both generated by the cleavage of prosomatostatin. The effects of somatostatin can be summarized in that it inhibits the secretion of many other hormones.
Specifically, somatostatin affects the pituitary gland in that it causes inhibition of secretion of growth hormone which is vital to cells in growth and metabolism. In the pancreas, somatostatin inhibits the secretion of insulin and glucagon which play an important role in glucose regulation in the body.
Somatostatin affects the gastrointestinal tract (GI) by inhibiting the secretion of gastrin, cholecystokinin, secretin and vasoactive intestinal peptide. Finally, injection of somatostatin into the nervous system of rodents can cause increased arousal, decreased sleep, and an impairment of some motor responses.
This article relates to the course because it talks about somatostatin’s role in the pancreas in which it affects insulin and glucagon. Insulin and glucagon regulate the body’s glucose levels. The regulation of these hormones were studied in-depth, but without much talk on somatostatin. This article shows that somatostatin has a regulation effect on these hormones.
Can somatostatin control acute bleeding from oesophageal varices in Schistosoma mansoni patients?Edit
This article deals with a proposed study on subjects infected with Schistosoma mansoni. People infected by the parasite suffer from fibrosis, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, haematemesis, varices, portal hypertension, ascites formation and eventually can lead to death. Portal hypertension can lead to the formation of gastro-oesophageal varices. Due to their fragility, these gastro-oesophageal varices are prone to bleed and can lead to death. So far, treatments such as praziquantel are effective against the worm stages of the parasite but they are not effective against the bleeding. The neuropeptide, somatostatin, has been proposed to be able to reduce bleeding in Schistosoma mansoni infected subjects. A research study is to be put underway in which adolescent subjects, age range varying from 12–17 years, will be chosen who are infected with the parasite and will be split into two groups. One group will be given praziquantel and somatostatin, while the other will be given praziquantel and propanolol. The results of this have not been included in the article. However it is believed that the patients who are given somatostatin will stop bleeding immediately and delay rebleeding and mortality.
Even though this article talks about medical uses of somatostatin, which was not covered in the course, it still has relations to the course. This article gives a medical use of somatostatin, a hormone, which is involved in regulation of growth and metabolism of cells. In many of the chapters studied, biochemistry has been linked with medicine.
A pilot study of a long acting somatostatin analogue for the treatment of refractory rheumatoid arthritisEdit
This article deals with a study for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with long acting somatostatin. Chronic inflammation, which is caused by this arthritis, can lead to development of a pannus, which causes progressive destruction of the joints. In vitro studies of somatostatin have shown to inhibit the proliferation of human lymphocytes, the production of immunoglobulins by B lymphocytes, and neutrophilchemotaxis. Activated T lymphocytes, macrophages, B cells and the cytokines they produce are involved in the aggravated inflammatory tissue which develops into the pannus. From this past research, researches set out to test the effect of a somatostatin analogue on patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Ten patients (all of whom were women age 18-70) with longstanding rheumatoid arthritis who had no reaction to multiple disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) were chosen for this experiment. These patients were treated with monthly injections of 20 mg Sandostatin-Lar, which contains an analogue of somatostatin, for three months. The results showed that six patients responded achieving an ACR 20 response. This concluded that treatment of somatostatin on patients with active, refractory rheumatoid arthritis led to significant clinical improvements that were also safe.
This article relates to the class because, like the Schistosomiosis paper, it relates biochemistry to medicine and how the hormone somatostatin can play a part in medicinal purposes.
Oxidative Phosphorylation & Molecular Oxygen RegulationEdit
Somatostatin has been proven to be incapable of affecting changes of O2 consumption (ΔO2) that had been stimulated by mitochondrial fuels. It was once assumed that somatotstatin is produced during alterations in respiratory control of oxidative phosphorylation. Findings indicated that the hormone directly inhibits oxidative phosphorylation at a step prior to the TCA cycle.
An 8-CPT stable membrane permeable cAMP analog has been proven to not inhibit ΔO2 by somatostatin, which removed the possibility of reduced levels of cytosolic cAMP being involved in this inhibition. However, the molecular target(s) for this inhibition remain unknown.
The inhibition of ΔO2 by the somatostatin receptor type- (sstr) selective analogs is in support of the effects of somatostatin developing exclusively through binding to sstr5. This sstr5 is responsible for mediating activation of the KATP channel, and inhibiting the secretion of insulin in mice, rats, and men.
O2 reduction can occur via the mitochondrial electron transport chain, or NAD(P)H oxidase activity and superoxide production. A range of NAD(P)H oxidase isoforms have been identified as being expressed within pancreatic islet tissue. The p47PHOX isoform has been discovered to be predominantly expressed in pancreatic beta-cells, at the plasma membrane. Somatostatin was discovered to inhibit ΔO2 without mechanisms involving NAD(P)H oxidase activity. Furthermore, the inhibition of the mitochondrial reduction of O2 by azides was proven to nullify the effect of somatostatin on ΔO2. This indicates that azides have no effect on the oxidase activity of NAD(P)H. Overall, the role of NAD(P)H oxidases in the effect of somatostatin on ΔO2 is still undetermined.
Link to article:
Glossary of terms:Edit
Scintigraphy: A diagnostic technique in which a two-dimensional picture of a bodily radiation source is obtained by the use of radioisotopes.
Octreotide: A potent, long-acting somatostatin octapeptide analog which has a wide range of physiological actions.
Mediastinal: Of or pertaining to a space in the thoracic cavity behind the sternum and in between the two pleural sacs (containing the lungs).
Indolent tumor: Causing little or no pain; inactive or relatively benign.
Astrocytoma: A neuro-ectodermal tumor arising from astrocytes (The largest and most numerous neuroglial cells found in the brain and spinal cord).
Prosomatostatin: Precursor to somatostatin.
Pancreatic islets: Groups of cells found within the pancreas.
Cholecystokinin: A 33-amino acid peptide secreted by the upper intestinal mucosa and also found in the central nervous system. It causes gallbladder contraction, release of pancreatic exocrine (or digestive) enzymes, and affects other gastrointestinal functions.
Enteric nervous system: Local nervous system of the digestive tract.
Pepsin: Principal proteases in gastric secretions of adult mammals.
Gastrin: A major physiological regulator of gastric acid secretion.
Paracrine: Form of signaling in which the target cell is close to the signal releasing cell.
Oesophageal varices: Abnormal dilation of the veins in the oesophagus that occurs as the result of cirrhotic liver disease. Oesophageal varices are prone to bleed due to their fragility.
Portal hypertension: Any increase in the portal vein (in the liver) pressure due to anatomic or functional obstruction (for example alcoholic cirrhosis) to blood flow in the portal venous system.
Schistosomiosis: Disease caused by digenetic trematode worms of the genus Schistosoma, the adults of which live in the urinary or mesenteric blood vessels.
Fibrosis: The formation of fibrous tissue, fibroid or fibrous degeneration.
Oesophageal varices: Abnormal dilation of the veins in the oesophagus that occurs as the result of cirrhotic liver disease.
Rheumatoid arthritis: Chronic, multisystem autoimmune disease characterized by persistent synovitis.
Synovitis: Inflammation of a synovial membrane (a membrane which secretes a transparent, viscid, lubricating fluid which contains mucin.
Human lymphocytes: White blood cell, with two main classes: T lymphocytes and B lymphocytes.
Pannus: An aggressive inflammatory tissue where activated T lymphocytes, macrophages, B cells and the cytokines they produce, as well as active angiogenesis play a major part in the progressive destruction of the joints.
ACR 20: The criteria for improvement in rheumatoid arthritis according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).
Endocrine action: the hormone is distributed in blood and binds to distant target cells.
Paracrine action: the hormone acts locally by diffusing from its source to target cells in the neighborhood.
Online dictionary: http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/omd/


You may be wondering what feet have to do with poetry. That’s fair, it does seem super odd at first. I suppose the word “feet” has a double meaning if we look at it metaphorically (which, of course, we’re going to do, because we’re poetry lovers). Syllables in poetry stand on feet, in a way. And feet are the basis of measurement for meters in poetry.
So what is a metrical foot? It is the foundational unit of measurement when we talk about meter! A foot has two or more syllables and typically contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable.
Naturally, since we’re talking about English and English is a ridiculous language, there is a huge variety of types of feet. They all have different rules and they all can be used and studied and analyzed. One can ask themselves, why did this poet used dactyls when they could have used iambs?
Why does this even matter?
Using different feet affects the sounds in poetry, and can evoke different thoughts or feelings when reading.
Here’s a handy, alphabetized list of metrical feet in English poetry. I’ve broken it down into names, definitions, examples, and their point (or why it matters).
|Name||Definition||Example||Why We Care|
|Iamb||An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable||delay, Noel, insist, arise, destroy||Iambs mimic typical English speaking patterns so they’re pretty important if you want naturally flowing poems.|
|Trochee||A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.||happy, forest, apple, mango, dragon||Trochaic meter often gives poetry a punch. It’s a stronger sounding meter, thus stronger sounding poems.|
|Dactyl||A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.||carefully, tenderly, buffalo, scorpion, parable||Dactylic poetry has a softer sound to it as the stress tapers off.|
|Anapest||Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.||understand, interrupt, anapest, contradict||First of all, the word “anapest” is an anapest, which is dope.|
|Spondee||Two stressed syllables.||football, heartbreak, drop-dead, breakdown, love song||Spondaic poetry often is reminiscent of galloping. It’s quick, staccato poetry that runs like a horse.|
|Pyrrhic||Two unstressed syllables.||“to a,” “in a,” “is to,” etc.||This one isn’t as common, so do we care? Debatable. They mainly attach to other feet and rely on those. Poor pyrrhic meter. 😦|
Feet are important! They hold up the poem.
Also, my name (Hannah Renea) is a combination of an iamb and a trochee, so that’s pretty cool. Up, down, down, up!
Poetry 101 is a series where I teach readers a thing or two about poetry, which is probably a bad idea since I am an amateur and learning as I go. If I ever make a mistake, please head over to the contact section, let me know, and promptly ridicule me. Thank you.
Categories: Poetry 101


- Computing & Information Technology
- Telecommunications and remote sensing
- Telecommunications network security
Telecommunications network security
Wheeler, David M. Group Architecture, Wireless Communications, and Computing Group, Intel Corporation, Chandler, Arizona.
- Conflicting objectives
- General security concerns
- Classification of attacks and threats
- General network vulnerabilities
- Motivations for an attack
- Internet mitigation techniques
- Additional Readings
A telecommunications network is a collection of communication devices interconnected in some fashion. In general, a network includes the terminal equipment (such as telephone handsets, Ethernet access devices, and 802.11 Wi-Fi cards) and the network routing equipment and control infrastructure (such as switches, routers, and billing servers). The logical structure and the physical equipment of a network have a profound effect on security, either lending to greater security or creating specific vulnerabilities. See also: Wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi)
The content above is only an excerpt.
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Doesn’t it seem like teens live on their smartphones? Research says that the average teen spends almost 41 days a year mesmerized by their smartphone, or two hours and 40 minutes a day. But perhaps this isn’t all that bad when you consider how teens are now depending more and more on technology.
Take, for example, 14-year-old Tyler Frank. Tyler, her mother, and three brothers live in Houston, Texas. On August 27 after Hurricane Harvey made landfall, their home quickly filled up with water. The family tried to call 911 and other emergency services but were unable to get help due to the high volume of other emergencies.
Tyler even tried going on Facebook and pleaded for help. No one responded.
Then, she had an idea on how she could get immediate assistance for herself and her family.
She asked Siri for help and Siri delivered.
“I was like, Siri’s smart enough! Let me ask her!” That’s when Tyler prompted Siri to call the Coast Guard.
The next morning, a helicopter arrived and Tyler and her family were picked up. As if being stranded by the flooding wasn’t enough, Tyler was fighting a 103-degree fever and was taken to Texas Children’s Hospital.
For all the times that Siri may have let you down, this time she came through and Tyler and her family are now safe.
If you haven’t contributed yet to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey, please do so now.
Click here to make a donation via The Kim Komando Show. Every dollar counts. Thank you!


July 1, 2011
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner oversaw the largest increase in the national debt of any Treasury secretary in American history, presiding over a $3.7 trillion increase in the debt.
According to data from the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Public Debt, the national debt has increased$3,723,575,990,130.10 from Jan. 26, 2009 until June 30, 2011, Geithner’s entire tenure to date as Treasury secretary.
When Geithner took office the total national debt stood at $10.6 trillion. As of June 30, 2011, it had risen to $14.3 trillion.
In fact, the debt accrued under Geithner is greater than all federal debt accrued in the first 204 years of the nation’s history. The national debt did not reach $3.7 trillion until October 1991, according to historical Treasurydata that reaches back to 1791.
This article was posted: Friday, July 1, 2011 at 3:41 am


By now most of us know that the quality of air we breathe (or lack thereof) has an impact on a child’s asthma, but now studies are showing that fast food consumption is linked to asthma as well.
Researchers studied more than 500,000 kids in 50-plus countries and say they see a clear link between fast food and severe asthma, hay fever and eczema.
“Asthma, eczema and hay fever are all results of the body’s immune system over reacting to things it should ignore,” said Dr. John Sweet, an immunologist with Fairview Lakes Medical Center.
The good news? Eating three servings of fruit and veggies a day can cut down on the negative impact of eating fast food (thanks to the anti-oxidants).
This news thus makes me wonder if those three servings of earthy foods can also help minimize the negative impacts of breathing bad air? The primary problem with breathing polluted air is the inflammatory response this bad air triggers in our bodies — and inflammation can be tamed by anti-oxidants.
Furthermore, could that mean that skipping fast food on bad air days AND eating three servings of fruits and veggies gives little bodies a little extra protection? And if this is true for little bodies is it also true for big bodies?
Finally, I find myself asking, is it extra wise then to skip fast food on bad air days (obviously, it is wise to skip fast food period, but most of us have resorted to a drive-thru now and then) AND offer your loved ones extra fruits and veggies high in anti-oxidants?
All good questions, worth pondering — especially as we all squirm uncomfortably within our current dirty air bubble.


That's not a typo in the title. Emergy is a term coined by famed energy and ecology researcher Howard Odum. An analysis underpinned by the emergy concept explains why importers of Canada's natural resources such as crude oil, natural gas, unfinished wood, grains and metal ores are getting a bargain as much of Canada's emergy endowment is given away for free.
Canada has long been a major exporter of natural resources. Blessed with large forests, massive mineral and hydrocarbon deposits, and fertile prairies, Canada's small population hasn't needed all that it can produce. And so, much of its natural wealth has been exported to other nations hungry for raw materials, energy and food. All of this has helped to make Canada a rich, developed country with an enviable standard of living and a wide array of well-funded public services for its citizens including universal health care.
So great is Canada's natural endowment that it has more than made up for the fact that the country and its people have been giving away a substantial portion of the value of their resources to foreign customers for free. And, the country is planning to expand that giveaway as it gears up for much larger exports of synthetic crude oil and bitumen from its huge tar sands mining operations in Alberta.
To understand this giveaway, one needs to understand emergy, a concept invented by energy researcher Howard Odum. Emergy is the "available energy of one kind that has to be used directly or indirectly to make a product or service." Emergy is something close to "embodied energy" though the way that term is used today often leaves out nature's energetic contribution. Odum discerned something which is not obvious to even the professionally trained observer of international trade: Much of the value of natural resources comes through nature from the soil, the sun and geologic processes. These processes represent substantial inputs of energy. Buyers of such resources pay little more than the costs of extraction (or growing, in the case of crops) plus transportation. Therefore, they pay almost nothing for the free services nature provides.
This wouldn't be so injurious to Canada if it processed and transformed most of these natural resources itself. But it does so only on a limited basis. Much of the harvest from its farm fields and forests and the output from its mines and wells is shipped to other countries for processing. When some of this comes back in finished form, Canadians pay a hefty premium for that processing since unlike nature's services, human processing cannot be provided free of charge. Odum would say that the emergy balance in the exchange is negative. More emergy value goes out than returns.
But Canada has a substantial manufacturing and service economy. It, too, imports some raw and partially finished goods to produce finished goods for export--in some cases back to countries that provided the raw materials. So, Canada has benefitted to a certain extent from the uneven terms of trade that emergy-blind trade arrangements assure.
Not so well-off as Canada are many developing countries which have little or no manufacturing and processing capability, but a large resource base, either agricultural or mineral or both. These countries are forced to export many of their resources rather than process them at home. The agricultural and mineral exports from several Central and South American countries and many African countries come to mind.
An emergy analysis explains in part why many developing countries remain so impoverished despite their abundant natural resources. While there are often other problems in such countries involving governance and geopolitical instability, understanding the uneven terms of trade that an emergy analysis would reveal can go a long way in explaining the economic difficulties they suffer.
Where the decision has been made to process more of a country's natural wealth at home, there is a better chance for economic success. The valuable free emergy supplied by nature provides more jobs and value to the home country if it can process the resources which embody that emergy.
And, just as this is becoming apparent to many resource-rich developing countries, some developed countries such as Canada--when it comes to the tar sands--and the United States--when it comes to U. S. grain and timber exports--are regressing to a policy that increases giveaways of their natural wealth. All this is done in the name of a free trade ideology that is devoid of any appreciation of nature's role in providing us with so much of what we need on a daily basis.
Howard Odum's book "A Prosperous Way Down" (summarized here in a reprinted presentation by Odum) provides a clear and concise explanation of emergy and how emergy exchanges affect the economies of countries through trade. Below is a table from the book that though dated provides an idea of how developed and developing countries rank in their emergy exchanges. Undoubtedly, China has improved its emergy ratio in trade since it now has a huge industrial base. But the relative position of other countries may not have changed that much. Andrew Nikiforuk's "Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent" provides a revealing window into Canada's tar sands development strategy including its foolish and excessive export of unrefined oil products to the United States even as Canada continues to import large quantities of oil to the eastern part of the country from abroad for want of an east-west pipeline.
Balance of Traded Wealth Evaluated with Emergy
Various numbers from the 1980s
|Nation||Emergy from Within %||Ratio of Emergy Received to Emergy Exported|
|U. S. A.||77||2.2|
|Former Soviet Union||97||0.23|
Source: "A Prosperous Way Down" by Howard T. Odum and Elisabeth C. Odum


For the first time, it has been shown that the hippocampus of the brain, which is usually associated with memory, has an active role to play in suppressing pain during times of stress. The work was carried out by researchers in Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the Centre for Pain Research at the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science, NUI Galway.
Dr David Finn, Co-Director of the Centre for Pain Research at NUI Galway
In times of immense stress or fear, pain transmission and perception can be suppressed potently in humans and other animals. This important survival response can help us cope with, or escape from, potentially life-threatening situations. An increased understanding of the biological mechanisms involved in this so-called fear-induced analgesia is important from a fundamental physiological perspective and may also advance the search for new therapeutic approaches to the treatment of pain.
Dr David Finn, Co-Director of the Centre for Pain Research at NUI Galway, and study leader, says: “The body can suppress pain when under extreme stress, in part through the action of marijuana-like substances produced in the brain. What we have now identified for the first time, is that the brain’s hippocampus is an important site of action of these endocannabinoids during the potent suppression of pain by fear. This research, which was funded by a grant from Science Foundation Ireland, advances our fundamental understanding of the neurobiology of pain and may facilitate the identification of new therapeutic targets for the treatment of pain and anxiety disorders.”
Working with Dr Finn, first author Dr Gemma Ford was able to demonstrate that inhibition of the enzyme that breaks down one of these endogenous marijuana-like substances in the hippocampus, had the effect of enhancing stress-induced pain suppression. Further experimentation revealed that these effects were mediated by the cannabinoid CB1 receptor and were likely to be mediated by stress-induced increases in levels of endocannabinoids in the hippocampus.
Author: Marketing and Communications Office, NUI Galway


“The United States is THE WORLD’S BEST HOPE … Beware…for if we stumble & fall, freedom & civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.”
-U.S. Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, 1919 “Done…the SEVENTEENTH DAY of SEPTEMBER, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven.” This is the last line of the U.S. Constitution.
Signer of the Constitution James McHenry noted in a diary entry (published in the American Historical Review, 1906), that after Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, he was asked by Mrs. Elizabeth Powel of Philadelphia:
“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defined “REPUBLIC“: “exercise of the SOVEREIGN POWER is lodged in representatives elected by THE PEOPLE.”
In other words, a REPUBLIC is where THE PEOPLE are KING, ruling through their representatives.
The Pledge of Allegiance is to the Flag “and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands.”
When someone dishonor the flag, what they are saying is, they no longer want to be king.
Yale President Ezra Stiles, stated in 1788:
“All the forms of CIVIL POLITY have been tried by mankind, EXCEPT ONE: and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America …
Most states of all ages … have been founded in rapacity, usurpation & injustice.”
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, stated September 8, 1777:
“The Americans are the first people whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon, and choosing the forms of government under which they should live. All other constitutions have derived their existence from violence or accidental circumstances.”
James Wilson, who signed the Declaration and Constitution and was appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington, remarked at Pennsylvania’s ratifying convention, November 26, 1787:
“Governments, in general, have been the result of force, of fraud, and accident. After a period of 6,000 years has elapsed since the creation, the United States exhibit to the world the first instance…of a nation…assembling voluntarily… and deciding calmly concerning that system of government under which they would wish that they and their posterity should live.
Click here to see full article: http://bit.ly/2d3bhv6


When considering attending a college or other postsecondary educational institution, it is important to know if the time, money and effort expended will result in a quality education. The process of college accreditation is the best way to ensure that the education given by a particular institution is of a high quality.
There are a number of accreditation standards and agencies. The most common is called "Regional Accreditation." There are also a number of state accreditation agencies.
There are a number of regional accreditation agencies that are recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Attending schools accredited by these agencies ensures a very high standard of educational quality.
Some states offer accreditation for vocational and other postsecondary education institutions. Although state accreditation is good, it is not considered as good as regional accreditation.
Risks of Attending a Non-Accredited Institution
A number of non-accredited educational institutions offer courses and degrees. Although these schools may be fine, there is no independent verification of quality. Also, credits for classes completed at a non-accredited school may not be accepted if you transfer to an accredited school.
- Photo: Sanja Gjenero, stock.xchng


China’s one-child policy has led to some horrible abuses, such as women being rounded up, handcuffed, and forcibly taken to have their pregnancies terminated, writes journalist Mei Fong in her book One Child.
'One Child' describes such incidents in chilling detail. But it also looks at the long-term harm that the policy has caused to Chinese society.
The book is especially timely, given the recent announcement that Chinese couples will now be allowed to have two children. As the author, Fong notes, the policy had already been relaxed in recent years to allow, for example, a husband and wife who have no siblings to have a second child.
But when and where the policy was strictly enforced, draconian measures were taken, says Fong. In some cases, families were held hostage until a pregnant woman surrendered to the family planning authorities, personal possessions were confiscated, or enormous fines were levied.
Some of these actions were illegal but, as Fong notes, family planning officials and party leaders at all levels knew that their jobs depended on not allowing birth quotas to be exceeded.
The policy was implemented in 1980 with the promise that a less-crowded China would lead to a better standard of living. Fong makes a convincing argument that the number of births prevented by the policy – while great – is not as large as the Chinese government says, and that China’s economic success in recent decades cannot be attributed to the slower population growth. Also, the trend toward smaller families had already begun before the policy was implemented, Fong argues.
The author is a Malaysian-born ethnic Chinese journalist who shared a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting from China for The Wall Street Journal.
In this book, she relates her own story of seeking treatment to conceive while covering China’s attempts to prevent its citizens from doing so. This first-person account sometimes distracts from the more compelling narrative.
One of the more dramatic sections of the book is the story of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which 8,000 couples lost their only child. Fong describes traveling on a jam-packed train from Beijing with a migrant worker couple – desperate to get home to their isolated village to find out the fate of their only child, a teenage girl.
Some of the book's language seems a bit flippant, such as when Fong writes that the sound of this migrant woman screaming upon learning of her daughter’s death meant “game over.”
For parents of other girls, the one-child policy often led to infanticide or the abandonment of a baby girl – in order to try for a son to carry on the family line. Thousands of the unwanted girls were adopted by foreigners although, Fong reports, some of these adoptees had actually been abducted by Chinese and sold to orphanages.
The preference for baby boys has led to a tremendous gender imbalance in China, and "One Child" delves into many aspects of how this will affect society.
Similarly, a nation of one-child households may soon find itself without enough young workers to support and take care of hundreds of millions of retirees.
The children born to these one-child couples have been nicknamed “Little Emperors” because their parents and grandparents spoil them. Fong offers examples of such over-indulgence, but also notes that those children are their families’ only hope for the future, and thus come under enormous pressure.
China’s social safety net has a lot of holes in it, and the elderly often rely more on their families than on government help. Fong notes that China has few nursing homes and hospice facilities, and explains why it is actually harder for an elderly person who has no children to be accepted into one.
In the book, we see not only the shattered dreams of couples who wanted more children, but also the poignant regrets of some officials who participated in abusive action to enforce the one-child policy.
As China prospered, some families could afford a fine for a second child, but an illegal birth could also mean that the child could not be registered for public schools or health care if the parents were not permanent residents of that city.
The author says that many urban Chinese support the government’s family-planning policies, and only a tenth of those who were already eligible to have a second child chose to do so. Some 60 percent of one-child couples said the one-child policy had nothing to do with their decision not to have more children.
But even those who admit the need for family planning are highly critical of the tactics used by China’s population police.
“Force is never justified. Those people are real evil,” one woman told the author.


Death and Grief for Teens
If someone close to you has died, you probably feel overwhelmed with grief. Read about some things that might help you cope.
My Pet Died. How Can I Feel Better? for Teens
Even if you're having a bad day, you don't feel popular, or you're having trouble at school, your pet loves you. So losing a pet can be heartbreaking. This article outlines some ways to cope.
Love and Romance for Teens
Loving and being loved adds richness to our lives. When people feel close to others they are happier and even healthier. But what makes a good relationship? Find out here.
Cutting for Parents
Cutting isn't new, but this form of self-injury has been in the spotlight more in recent years. Learn more about it and ways to help a teen who cuts.
Helping Teens Who Cut for Parents
Cutting isn't new, but this form of self-injury has been in the spotlight more in recent years. Learn more how to help a teen who cuts.
Answer Key: Depression (Grades 3 to 5) for Educators
This answer key is part of the Teacher's Guide on Depression for grades 3 to 5.
Teacher's Guide: Feeling Sad (Grades 3 to 5) for Educators
The activities in this Teacher’s Guide will help your students learn ways to feel better when they’re feeling down.


The purpose of this curriculum is to educate young fathers about the importance of their involvement in their children's lives. Specifically, the program is intended to help them gain awareness of how their own childhoods may affect them as fathers, increase their knowledge of various types of discipline, gain awareness of various childhood developmental stages and the typical behaviors thereof, and gain confidence in their ability as fathers. The curriculum consists of five 1½-hour sessions presented to the young fathers themselves in a group setting. The basis for the curriculum was created through a thorough examination of literature and research articles exploring juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy and parenthood and the combination thereof, as well as the effects of father absence and the effectiveness of parenting education programs. Limitations of the curriculum, implications for social work practice and advocacy, and implications for future curriculums were also addressed.
|Advisor:||Pasztor, Eileen Mayers|
|School:||California State University, Long Beach|
|School Location:||United States -- California|
|Source:||MAI 49/02M, Masters Abstracts International|
|Subjects:||Home economics education, Social work, Criminology|
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Breast Cancer and Cannabis Oil Treatment
The causes of breast cancer are unclear.
Doctors know that breast cancer arises when some breast cells grow abnormally. These cells divide more rapidly than the healthy cells do and continue to accumulate. This results in a lump or a mass of cancerous cells called a tumor. The cells might spread through the breast to the lymph nodes or to other parts of the body.
Breast cancer usually begins in cells in the milk-producing ducts. Breast cancer can also begin in the glandular tissue called lobules, or in other cells or tissues that form part of the breast.
Researchers have identified hormonal, environmental and lifestyle factors that can increase the risk of getting breast cancer. It is unclear, however, why some people with no risk factors still develop the cancer, yet other people with a few risk factors never do. It is likely that breast cancer is caused by a complex interaction of genetic makeup and environment.
Signs and symptoms of breast cancer include:
- Redness or pitting of the skin over the breast, like the skin of an orange
- Change in the size, appearance or shape of the breast
- A breast lump or thickening that feels unlike the surrounding tissue
- A newly inverted nipple
- Changes to the skin over the breast, for instance dimpling
- Peeling, flaking or scaling of the pigmented area of skin surrounding the nipple or breast skin
A doctor will determine the breast cancer treatment options based on the type of breast cancer, its stage and size, grade, and whether or not the cancer cells are sensitive to hormones. The doctor will also take into consideration the patient’s overall health and own preferences.
Unfortunately, surgery leaves women scarred both mentally and physically. Types of surgery include:
- Removing the breast cancer (lumpectomy). During lumpectomy, the surgeon removes the tumour along with a small margin of neighbouring healthy tissue. Lumpectomy is generally reserved for smaller tumours.
- Removing the entire breast (mastectomy). Mastectomy is an operation to remove all the breast tissue, usually including the nipple, except in cases of skin-sparing mastectomies, where the breast skin and often the nipple is left intact. This is done in order to improve reconstruction and appearance.
- Other types of surgery include:
- Removing a limited number of lymph nodes (sentinel node biopsy).
- Removing several lymph nodes (axillary lymph node dissection).
- Removing both breasts.


Creating better innovations with the Ethics Canvas framework
Just because it’s innovative is it actually good? The landscape of technological innovation is rapidly changing and most of the time ethical considerations are not even on the checklist. Currently, ethics in research and innovation is a very top-down process that relies on compliance.
The Ethics Canvas framework was created by academics at ADAPT Research Centre Dublin, to reflect on the potential impact of innovation on society.
“Ethics is not simply about compliance but requires active reflection during the design process.
Technological innovations are changing the world faster than ever. At the same time, people are increasingly concerned about the ethical impacts of technologies.
This has led to a damaged image of the tech-sector and rising concerns for policymakers.” says Dave Lewis, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin.
Building the Ethics Canvas in collaboration
Your contribution is needed to create a free tool which can help to build a better society and better quality of life for all of us.
The Ethics Canvas provides a tool that can be part of the solution to the problems that ethics in research and innovation faces. It allows researchers and innovators to reflect on the ethical impacts of their work.
This is a free open source material which was designed as an intuitive tool that helps innovators to:
- Brainstorm about the ethical implications of a project and represent them in a canvas.
- Analyse the ethical concerns of a project considering all stakeholders and find suitable solutions that reflect on shared values.
- Learn from similar use cases and share your experiences
The Ethics Canvas is an easy to use collaborative tool that assists in the identification of ethical impacts of research and innovation projects and incentivises actions towards tackling these impacts.
The Ethics Canvas distinguishes 6 main types of ethical impacts that innovation can have:
- individual behaviour (changing habits, patterns)
- relations (friends, family, professional life)
- worldviews (political, religious, scientific)
- social conflicts (inequality, lack of justice)
- resource use (climate change, toxics)
- product or service failure (fallout, safety)
It offers guidance for thinking about ethical impacts of technology in a holistic way. For this purpose, it has revisited the ‘building blocks’ of the Business Model Canvas by answering three basic questions:
Who might be affected by the technology? What are the potential ethical impacts on these people and groups? How can we address these ethical impacts?
Who can use this framework best?
Researchers: For discussing ethical impact of their research and innovation projects.
Entrepreneurs: For creating innovative products, services in an ethical and responsible way.
Policymakers: For better understanding ethical impacts and finding policies to solve them.
Teachers: For teaching engineering and business students about ethics.
How to use it?
1 – Identifying relevant stakeholders:
Who might be affected by the technology in question? Think not just about your users but anyone who can be affected – individuals, groups.
2 – Explore ethical impacts:
How might people’s behaviour or relations change because of your product or service? Considering individual and social perspectives in relation to worldviews, value conflicts.
What are the potential negative impacts of required resources relating to your project? What happens with technical errors, security failures, end of life products, etc.?
3 – Discussing remedial actions:
What are the most important ethical impacts you found? How can you address these by changing your design, organisation, or by proposing broader changes?
As a result, you will have gained a better understanding of the potential ethical impacts of your innovation and some first ways to address these.
How can you contribute?
Take these very easy steps to become part of the solution:
- Start using the online Ethics Canvas or download the pdf format: www.ethicscanvas.org
- Send your feedback with ideas, suggestions on how to make it better! Contact us here!
- Share this open call for the contribution!


Say: in-suh-lin ree-zis-tents
Kids who are starting to get type 2 diabetes are still able to make insulin, but the insulin can't work the way it should. Even though the pancreas is still making insulin, the body doesn't let insulin do its job as well and it's harder for glucose to get into the cells. This is called insulin resistance. People who have insulin resistance may or may not develop type 2 diabetes.
Note: All information is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
© 1995-2016 The Nemours Foundation/KidsHealth. All rights reserved.


85 Years Before 9-11 ... Manhattan Was Blasted in a Now Forgotten Act of TerrorismNews at Home
Since September 11, 2001 -- when the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed by Al-Qaida terrorists -- tourists have been barred from climbing to Lady Liberty’s crown. Since July 30, 1916, visitors to Liberty Island have been barred from climbing into the Lady’s torch. At about two o’clock on that Sunday morning, an explosion of such severity rocked adjacent Black Tom Island that Philadelphians felt the shock wave. The Statue of Liberty sustained 100,000 1916-dollars worth of damage from a shotgun-blast of shrapnel. One long-term result was the closing of her torch to tourist traffic, according to a U.S. Park Service Officer. “Another,” he adds, “was the founding of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Black Tom Island, today comprising a portion of Liberty State Park’s south side, was connected to Jersey City by a long pier used by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company and the National Dock and Storage Corporation as a munitions depot for trans-shipment to the allies on the Western Front. The night Black Tom blew, its warehouses held more than two million pounds (1000 tons) of TNT, gunpowder, dynamite, and shrapnel. One vessel, Johnson Barge Number 17, alone accounted for 100,000 pounds of TNT. As with the airliners high-jacked by Al-Qaida three years ago, the railroad and barges on and around Black Tom were poorly guarded. The U.S. was still formally “neutral” in 1916, albeit British control of the Atlantic shipping lanes insured that the allies were America’s main customers for our munitions production. Germany resolved to do something about that.
Accident or Act of Terror?
The park officer, who took this writer on a tour of Ellis Island recently, says the main blast damaged neighboring Ellis Island, where he leads tours, to the tune of $500,000 or “half the one million dollars it cost the government to build the facility.” In the immediate aftermath of the Black Tom disaster, spontaneous combustion was suspected. Guards spotted several small fires and ran for their lives. One watchman had the mental presence to pull the alarm that alerted the Jersey City Fire Department… but too late. The fires set off a series of shrapnel shells. As if part of a nuclear chain reaction, the small explosions culminated in a giant blast. And as if to record the blast for history, a chunk of metal hit the Jersey Journal’s clock tower, stopping it at exactly 2:12 a.m.
Readers of the Journal were told in two-inch headlines later that morning that damage amounted to $75,000,000. Damage estimates vary, but windows were shattered within a ten-mile radius; the vast, vaulted concrete ceiling of Ellis Island’s main hall collapsed; and "the shock wave set off burglar and fire alarms all over Manhattan," according to my guide. In sharp contrast to the thousands killed in the Nine-Eleven tragedy, the Black Tom death toll was mercifully low… 50 at most. Fortunately, no immigrants were in the Ellis Island great hall at that early hour; ultimately all those in transit at the time had to be evacuated to Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan.
Since spontaneous combustion was the initial suspect, the first defendants brought to trial were not terrorists. Rather they were corporate officials charged with “criminal and gross negligence.” And civil litigation concerning who should shoulder the losses dragged on through both World War I and World War II, including a 1941 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
However, local police actually apprehended a suspected saboteur shortly after the disaster. His name was Michael Kristoff (sometimes identified as Krisoff in court records). Aged 23 in 1916, he boarded with a distant relative, the elderly Anna Rushnak, a Czechoslovak who ran a half-dollar-a-night boarding house in Bayonne. According to an article published in American Legion Magazine in August 1964, Mrs. Rushnak -- tossed from her bed like so many others in the path of the Black Tom shock wave -- subsequently encountered Kristoff seated on the edge of his bed, mumbling “What I do? What I do?”
After consulting with her daughter, Mrs. Lulu Chapman, who also had boarded Kristoff for a time and who found his comings and goings mysterious, the elder landlady approached a friend, Captain John J. Rigney of the Bayonne P.D. Kristoff was arrested, and questioned. A Slovakian subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- Germany’s chief ally in the Great War -- he had emigrated in 1899 and was employed at the Tidewater Oil Refinery near Black Tom shortly before the explosion. All the same, he was released, viewed by the authorities as “insane but harmless.”
Kristoff actually enlisted in the U.S. Army after America joined the allied cause in April 1917. He and the Black Tom disaster were temporarily forgotten, their celebrity eclipsed by the war news from “over there.” But after the November 11, 1918 Armistice ended the “war to end all wars,” the Lehigh Valley Railroad -- itself buffeted by multiple civil suits, similar to the owners and operators of the Trade Center today -- wanted to recoup its losses and, if possible, shift the blame onto other shoulders.
The railroad's chance came due to the occurrence of other alleged acts of sabotage in the years immediately before America's entry into the war. For example, on New Year's Day, 1915, a fire had damaged Trenton's Roebling Steel Foundry. And on January 11, 1917, the Canadian Car and Foundry plant in Kingsland had suffered an act of arson. Congress finally acted to address these claims in 1922 by passing the Settlement of War Claims Act. The statute established a "German special deposit account" and a Mixed Claims Commission.
The Mixed Claims Commission
The commission's creation and the assertion of the Black Tom claim brought Michael Kristoff back into the judicial spotlight. Located in an Albany jail, serving time for theft, Kristoff admitted to being employed "for a few weeks" by Germany back in 1916. Released before this tantalizing but inconclusive statement could be followed up, he was fitfully pursued, until in 1928 he turned up in a potter's field on Staten Island. Even after exhumation of the corpse, however, Kristoff remained an enigma. The body carried papers identifying it as Kristoff's, but its teeth failed to match dental records purported to be the suspect's.
Consequently, in the words of one of many federal judges to consider aspects of the railroad's claim over more than two decades of litigation, District Judge Goddard of the Southern District of New York, sitting in Manhattan, "[A]fter extensive investigation by Lehigh, Federal, State and local agencies, evidence was obtained tending to show that the explosions had been caused by one Krisoff. Although it was suspected that Krisoff was acting as an agent of the German Government,... Lehigh did not have the evidence to establish the fact...."
A former German agent, Lothar Witzke, was trailed to South America and then to China. Interviewed when he was beyond the reach of the U.S. law's long arm, and therefore voluble, he said, "yes" he "did the work in New Jersey with (an accomplice, Kurt Jahnke) when the munitions barges were blown up and the pier wrecked."
Despite such evidence, the commission dismissed the Black Tom claims in 1930. Attorneys for Lehigh Valley Railroad and its co-claimants moved to reopen the case, contending that the commissioners had been misled by "fraudulent, incomplete, collusive and false evidence" provided by Germany's witnesses. The motion was heard by the commission's umpire, Justice Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court, who decided in December 1933 that "while the Commission was without power to reopen a case merely for the presentation of after-discovered evidence, the Commission was still sitting as a court and did have power to consider the charge that it had been misled by fraud and collusion...."
After that the commission, comprised of its umpire, plus one American and one German commissioner, reopened the Black Tom case. Proceedings dragged on into 1939 and became so contentious that the German commissioner ultimately withdrew, and the German Ambassador challenged the commission's continuing jurisdiction in the absence of its member. The American commissioner contended that the tribunal enjoyed jurisdiction to determine the claim, even if reduced to a duet. Mr. Justice Roberts, as umpire, asserted his power to resolve the jurisdictional disagreement. He then held that, the commission having agreed six years earlier to retain jurisdiction and reopen the hearings, and having heard evidence establishing fraud by the German side, was obliged to render an award.
Following subsequent proceedings, Roberts ruled that the claims had been accurately calculated and, at a hearing boycotted by the Germans, he joined the American commissioner in an order awarding $50 million to the Lehigh Valley Railroad and its co-claimants.
The award was immediately certified by Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, and almost as quickly challenged by the holder of an earlier commission award. Z. & F. Assets Realization Corporation challenged the cabinet members' decision to sanction the huge award, realizing that its payment would so deplete the fund that plaintiff's own award would not be completely covered. Z. & F. lost its case all the way up the judicial ladder. On January 6, 1941, in a decision penned by Chief Justice Hughes, and supported by the concurring opinion of Justices Douglas and Black, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial and appellate courts, holding that Lehigh Valley's award should stand.
But even this seeming-swan song by the "Supremes" did not put the claim completely to rest. An attorney named Lewis A. McGowan sued Lehigh Valley Railroad for a contingent fee, based on his efforts to implicate the German government in Michael Kristoff's misdeeds. McGowan finally lost his case in 1944, District Judge Goddard of the federal court in Manhattan holding that the lawyer's contract with the defendant railroad required that plaintiff actually prove Germany's complicity in order to qualify for a fee. Since the defendant had succeeded in establishing German culpability by other evidence, after Justice Roberts reopened the claim, McGowan was out of luck. And, at last, the long saga that started on July 30, 1916, ended.
Lasting Legacy of Black Tom Island
The Black Tom blast and related acts of German terrorism resulted in the passage of the federal Espionage Act in June 1917. The statute went beyond its principal purpose of curtailing Teutonic terrorists. Section 2 embargoed from the U.S. mails "every letter, writing, circular, postal card, picture, print, engraving, photograph, newspaper, pamphlet, book or other publication... containing any advocating or urging of treason, insurrection, or forcible resistance to any law of the United States," and subjected the authors to a $5,000 fine and five years imprisonment. A potent precedent favoring the Constitutionally-questionable provisions of the United States Patriot Act, passed shortly after the Nine-Eleven attacks, the 1917 law was given the Supreme Court seal of approval in Schenk v. United States, where no less a civil-libertarian than Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for the high court majority, "When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its efforts that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight...."
Additionally, the U.S. Justice Department was given a Bureau of Investigation, which would soon be re-christened the FBI. Shortly after the 1918 Armistice, the new agency launched the now-notorious Palmer Raids against suspected-communists and other "subversives," initiating the nation's first Red Scare,. Immigrants deemed to be pro-communist or else Anarchists -- including Sacco and Vanzetti, now viewed by many civil-libertarians as martyrs to an hysterical attack on First Amendment free speech and free association -- were targeted for deportation and worse.
Lingering Traces of Manhattan's First Terrorist Attack
Walk the south side of Liberty State Park today and you'll find a marker memorializing the Black Tom terrorist attack of July 30, 1916. A circle of American flags compliment the plaque, which stands just a bit east of the visitor's center.
Says my Ellis Island tour guide, "People have pretty much forgotten the Black Tom explosion. They don't know that, as bad as the Twin Towers tragedy was, it wasn't the first time terrorists attacked lower Manhattan."
He adds that to this day, Black Tom stands as one of the three worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, the other two being the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh and Terry McNichol and the Nine-Eleven attacks.
comments powered by Disqus
Peter K. Clarke - 10/9/2007
As best can be determined from this convoluted and inconsistent article (plaintiff and defendant both arguing for German government culpability, etc.), there is no conclusive proof that the explosion was deliberate, that it was an act of terrorism rather than sabotage, and that it was a motivation for the formation of the FBI or the Palmer raids. Better that it remain "forgotten" than that it be "remembered" in such a hopelessly muddled fashion.
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Here we propose developing a spectrometer where the light is separated and channelized by an photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and is then detected by an energy-resolving superconducting detector. The instrument would be a radical new type of high resolution spectrograph applicable for both multi-object and integral field unit (IFU) spectroscopy and other fiber-fed light applications. Our goal is to create a high resolution multi-object spectrograph (HRMOS) by marrying two breakthrough technologies, ultra-low loss arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) and Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors, or MKIDs. MKIDs can determine the energy of each arriving photon without read noise or dark current, and with high temporal resolution. The AWG allows us to disperse light from the telescope, in a compact way and to position the dispersed light into numerous output channels which we can advantageously position (i.e. dispersed not just by the angle at which it diffracts off a prism or grating). The MKID allows us to distinguish between the orders in the disperse light contained within the channels, eliminated the need for a cross-disperser. In other words, the energy resolution of the MKID allows us to determine which echelle order the photon came from.
The most promising application for the High Resolution Photonic MKIDS Spectrograph is for High Dispersion Coronagraphy (HDC) for the detection and characterization of exoplanets. Having many fibers in a high resolution spectrograph instead of one allows HDC to go from being a follow-up technique only to an incredibly powerful tool for both detection and characterization. Another science application is looking at resolved stellar populations with adaptive optics across the local group, but increasing the observational efficiency by 100×.
The development of broadband high-resolution visible wavelengths spectrometers find increasing applications in the life sciences and medical field, including spectral tissue sensing and optical coherence tomography. By developing a high-performance and low CSWAP spectrometer we expect a broad adoption of the integrated photonic thechnology in such fields.


10 African Proverbs about WoodAll African Proverbs | Proverbs about Wood
1. Wood already touched by fire is not hard to set alight.
2. One piece of green wood is enough to stop the others from burning.
3. The wind helps those without an axe to cut wood.
4. One rind is enough to tie a thousand pieces of wood.
5. A razor may be sharper than an ax, but it cannot cut wood.
6. Chop your own firewood and it will warm you twice.
7. Firewood yields ash.
8. He who brings firewood infected with maggots in his house should not complain when lizards start visiting him.
9. If a bachelor who uses firewood for cooking runs away in the morning to avoid removing the ash; he will have to deal with it when he comes back.
10. One with more firewood than you, has more ash than you.
Proverbs about Wood
Quotes related to Wood by Power Quotations


Radiation Can Be a Problem For Space Travel
There isn't, by definition, much of anything in space. For the most part, it is this emptiness that causes problems for space travel. Lack of oxygen, lack of resources, lack of options for rescue or resupply if any number of things were to go wrong. Radiation, however, is one of the things that there isn't a lack of, and this in turn causes its own problems for anyone looking to live and work in space. Astronauts, either aboard the International Space Station (ISS) or any possible future space travel that takes us even further from our home planet, will have to contend with the problems caused by radiation in space. There is of course a concern about the general health effects of the increased exposure to radiation, and whether it is possible to effectively protect astronauts from this exposure, and thereby extend the boundaries of how far we can safely travel from Earth.
The ISS docked with the shuttle Endeavor
In an effort to solve these problems, or at least accumulate more information about the dangers inherent from radiation in space, Mirion Technologies took part in the ESA Active Dosimetry (or EuCPAD (European Crew Personal Active Dosimeter)) program, headed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and with contributions from companies across Europe. Below we'll provide more information on the nature of the problems, the solution that was developed, its results so far, and what it may mean for the future.
What exactly is the problem?
Natural sources of radiation are generally categorized as being either terrestrial (coming from Earth) or cosmic (originating in space). Terrestrial radiation, usually from the decay of radioactive material in the Earth's crust, is generally in the form of alpha, beta, or gamma radiation, which are generally more well understood than cosmic radiation. Cosmic radiation consists of high energy particles made up of atoms that have had their electrons stripped away by their extremely high velocity.
The concern for space travel is, naturally, cosmic radiation. However, it doesn't take space travel for elevation to start making a difference in the amount of radiation exposure that a person may get. Someone living at a higher altitude, such as Denver, CO, will receive a dose of about 0.5 mSv (50 mrem) from cosmic radiation in a year, contrasted with 0.25 mSv for the average person in the US. The average airline crew member will get an additional 2.2 mSv (220 mrem) in a year. For perspective, the average dose to someone in the US, from all sources, is 3.6 mSv (360) mrem) in a year, so these don't make for major increases, but still notable.
The Earth’s magnetic field diverts cosmic radiation towards the magnetic poles. As the radiation hits the upper atmosphere, the friction causes light to be emitted. This results in oval rings around the North Pole and the South Pole called Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis, respectively.
The Earth, in general, is protected from most cosmic radiation by its magnetic field, which diverts a large portion of the energetic particles travelling through space past the Earth. For astronauts in space, however, there is still an increased risk of exposure. The difficulty inherent in accurately gauging radiation exposure in space has always been compounded by not having a live reading of individual exposure. This is further compounded by the fact that different craft, or even different portions of the ISS, are composed of different materials and thus shield differently from radiation. This makes traditional passive measurements, that need to be read after the fact, even harder to effectively interpret. This information is very important, because based on data gathered by NASA's Curiosity rover, a round trip voyage to Mars and back would involve an increased exposure of 0.6 Sv (66 rem). As it is generally held that a dose of about 1 Sv (100 rem) correlated roughly to a 5% increase in the likelihood of contracting cancer at some point in life, this is obviously a cause for concern for any long-term human space travel. Providing more accurate data on the how and when that radiation exposure occurs is an important first step in determining how to minimize the risks.
An Apollo 17 astronaut driving the lunar rover on the surface of the Moon. The lunar missions provided some of the earliest information available about radiation exposure on long voyages.
For more context, Apollo missions 11-17, in which astronauts landed on the moon, averaged about ten days per mission with an average of 2 days per mission on the surface of the moon. The astronauts on these missions received an average dose of 500 millirad (dose equivalent measures such as Sievert or rem had not been adopted at the time). While still relatively low doses in themselves, they are still much higher than typically seen on Earth. On longer voyages, especially without any effective intelligence on how to minimize exposure, that increased dose accumulation will quickly exceed safe limits.
The Engineered Solution
In order to explore a solution to the issue of real-time tracking of radiation dose exposure to astronauts, the European Space Agency started the ESA Active Dosimetry project. ESA, along with a team of various European companies with expertise in the field of radiation detection, including the Mirion Technologies team in Turku, Finland, was tasked to design and build an electronic dosimeter that would be able to provide a live reading of radiation dose, and be sensitive enough to measure the high-energies of cosmic radiation.
The ESA Active Dosimetry Mobile Unit.
The developments provided by the consortium delivered the Mobile Unit (MU), a small electronic device to be worn by the astronaut, with four separate detector elements that cover a wide range of energies and a digital readout allowing for live readings by the wearer. One of those detector elements is a direct-ion-storage (DIS) detector provided by Mirion and also found in Mirion's Instadose® dosimeter. This combination of detectors provides the MU with excellent detection sensitivity across a wide range of energies and radiation types, including the high energy cosmic particles which can be hard to test for on Earth outside of some particle accelerators at research labs.
The ESA Active Dosimetry Personal Storage Device.
Complementing the MU is a Personal Storage Device (PSD), which functions as a charging station and data storage terminal for the MU. This allows data from multiple MUs to be compiled for further analysis and study. In addition to the DIS detector element on the MU, Mirion also provided the manufacturing and assembly of both the MU and PSD, consolidating the contributions from the various companies and teams from across Europe.
Test Results and Next Steps
A Soyuz Rocket similar to the one that carried the first ESA Active Dosimetry test units to the ISS lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
In the fall of 2015, the ESA Active Dosimetry system underwent its first real operational test, launching with astronauts from ESA on a Russian Soyuz rocket, and spending time aboard the ISS. The Mobile Unit measured the radiation exposure from liftoff into space, making the ESA Active Dosimetry system the first ever personnel dosimetry application to measure real time doses in space, and underwent a series of tests aboard the Space Station.
An example of the data recorded by the ESA Active Dosimetry tests aboard the ISS, showing count rate measurements over a twelve hour period. The two large spikes are due to the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) crossings of the ISS, an area where particles trapped in the Earth magnetic field are able to penetrate further into the atmosphere rather than be deflected back into space.
Further tests are planned for the ESA Active Dosimetry system during European missions to the ISS in 2016 and 2017, hopefully providing a wealth of new information about the radioactive environment in space and how to mitigate the threat of exposure. With increased interest in recent years in space travel and the options available for longer voyages, it may prove to be information of enormous value. Having information about where or when increases in exposure occur can prove instrumental in planning longer missions to space so that the risks from cosmic radiation can be mitigated. Even learning which modules in the International Space Station provide better shielding from different types of radiation can prove helpful in the development of future spacecraft. If humans hope to eventually travel even further than they already have, perhaps to visit Mars or other planets, it is crucial that there be a solution to the problem of protecting astronauts from the harmful effects of radiation in space. Mirion Technologies is happy to have played a part in the search for a solution to this problem.


EMIL BISTTRAM (1895-1976)
Hungarian born, Emil Bisttram became one of the Southwest's leading painters and teachers. He was a founder of the Transcendental Art movement in New Mexico, devoted to themes exploring and promoting universal meaning that included idealistic forms and colors that suggested sounds.
Best known as an abstract painter, his style ranged from the classic regionalism of the 1930s, to abstractions based on the dynamic symmetry theories he learned from Jay Hambidge, utilizing Roerich's Russian mysticism. Bisttram would often speak of his association with Nicholas Roerich at the Master Institute in New York City, citing a story where the Russian master handed him a handful of wider brushes for his birthday thus indicating that he should employ broader strokes in his paintings.
He received his artistic training in New York at the National Academy of Design, Cooper Union, and the Art Students League and with Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera. In 1930, Bisttram first traveled to Taos, New Mexico, but found himself frustrated by the grandeur and limitless space of the scenery. Initially he directed his attention to watercolor depictions of Southwest Indian ceremonial dances.
He went for several months to Mexico to study mural painting with Diego Rivera, taught briefly in Phoenix, Arizona, and in 1931, settled in Taos. There he established the Taos School of Art and frequently lectured on comparisons of modern and representational art and promoted the theories of Kandinsky and Mondrian. He also started the Heptagon Gallery in Taos.
He co-founded with Raymond Jonson the Transcendental Painting Group that promoted non-objective painting, and for a period devoted himself to painting symphonic rhythms. However, he also focused on realistic subjects believing that artists should never limit their style to one particular focus.
His murals can be found in the courthouses in Taos and Roswell, New Mexico and the lobby of the Department of Justice Building in Washington DC.


Until the allied landing of Salerno in September 1943 (operation AVALANCHE), the only special flights to Italy were intended to parachute secret agents and to supply allied Prisoners Of War (POW) behind enemy lines .
The four-engined heavy bombers used in special missions were the American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator, as well as the British Handley Page Halifax and Short Stirling. They flew alone, at night, in absolute radio silence and without any escort, often in very adverse weather conditions. The success of the mission depended solely on the skill and on the technical training of the crew, added to some amount of luck.
Some of the target areas were located in the most mountainous regions of Europe. From the point of view of the ground reception parties, it was preferable for the dropping zones to be protected by mountainous walls along all sides. These characteristics, which facilitated the task of those who were to receive the launches, were also deadly traps for any aircrew who had not received adequate training. The pilots had to learn to lead their aircrafts at low altitude and low speed. The B-17 and B-24, when they come close to the target area, had to slow down to speeds between 120 mph (193 km/h) and 130 mph (209 km/h), dangerously close to the stall limit.
In the area above the target the pilots had also to lower to altitudes between 400 ft (122 m) and 800 ft (244 m), often flying well below the quotes of the peaks of the surrounding mountains. If in an emergency, they still had to be able to regain height very quickly in order to safely carry out the airplane . The maneuver was not easy at all, especially for a B-24 Liberator, known for its limited agility.
The average payload to launch was about 6,200 lbs (2,812 kg), plus any agents.
The crews had to be able to promptly recognize ground light signals, prepared ashore with fires or with flashlights and arranged in such a way as to form coded signs and to be clearly visible. The instructions for Italian partisans were to set three ignition lights placed at 330 feet (100 meters) from each other, in a straight line following the direction of the wind. In addition to fixed lights there was a flashing light source (often an Aldis lamp) that continuously transmitted a recognition letter in Morse code , . The letter was the first one from the final confirmation message that had previously been agreed between partisans and Allied commands and which was broadcast by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) a few hours before the mission. In other cases some fixed lights would be arranged to form predetermined letters (often a T, X or L); fixed signaling was ever accompanied by an intermittent code .
Airplanes carrying supplies and traveling at night were very difficult to spot, but they could be easily heard by anyone. Near the dropping zones Northeast of Udine, for example, it often happened that the Germans, the Cossacks and their collaborators, but sometimes also the Slovene partisans of IX Korpus and even local people, turned on fake fires and alternative signals to confuse allied crew and to try to grab the supplies. Due to this, the droppings were sometimes launched far outside the target and the supplies were promptly stolen to their designated recipients , , , .
Supply flights were characterized by very special procedures.
Immediately after their departure by night, aircraft lights were turned on and the weapons could be used. As long as the airplane was flying above the sea, the tail gunner had to take measurements of the drift due to the wind. He did that dropping illuminating flares which fell and floated on the water and observing their trajectory through his specially modified viewfinder; to this aim, the B-24 was equipped with a special tube, mounted under the fuselage. The observed trajectory data were communicated to navigator as he could in this way correct the route, comparing the information found with those provided by weather forecasting ,.
The navigator, who worked in a compartment which was illuminated but overshadowed outwards and towards the rest of the airplane, had to be an expert in Dead Reckoning (DR) and in celestial navigation and had to be very skilled in the use of the sextant , .
Navigation lights were on from the take-off until the aircraft reached a predefined point over the sea. From that moment on the lights were switched off and it was no longer possible to use the flares.
The bomber, uncomfortably lodged in the lower part of the front nose, became then the eye of the entire crew. He had to carefully observe the territory sliding under him and to recognize, as far as possible, mountains, rivers, towns and any other point of reference on the ground that could have been useful for navigation. When the aircraft reached the target, the bomber had also to operate the command to release the containers which were loaded in the bomb bay; in the meantime he had to transmit the launch signal to the waist gunners, who in this special additional task became ‘dispatchers’ as well, to manually drop the bulk packages away at the right time and to relay the signal to any agents, assisting them in their jump .
Once the aircraft had reached the target, the crew carried out the launch in two or three (sometimes four) rounds on the dropping zone, in order to obtain the best possible accuracy and to avoid to disperse the supplies . The practice of multiple passages extended the permanence of the aircraft in the area and it was considered dangerous by allied liaison officers on the ground , both because it endangered the airplane and its crew and because it revealed to the enemy the exact position of the receiving ground patrols.
Absolute radio silence had to be maintained during the entire mission, except in case of emergency. Only after setting the return route, generally at the time of crossing the coast and getting offshore, a short code number was transmitted to indicate the airplane identification number, the time and the outcome of the mission .
Adverse weather conditions were a major cause of failure. Airplanes that departed from bases in southern Italy to targets in the North had to take an average radius of about 500 miles (805 km). The latitude gap was such that they had to go through three different weather bands. The pilots could start experiencing the most favorable conditions in the first two weather zones only to find out that it was impossible to continue when they reached the most northernmost one.
Especially during the 1944-1945 winter, very poor weather conditions had made Italy the most difficult country to supply in the whole MTO (Mediterranean Theatre of Operations).
North Italy, 15 February 1945. T/Sgt. Charles J. Locasto and S/Sgt. John Padgett of the 885th BS attack constraint ropes to packages before an airdrop from a B-24 Liberator during a special mission .
Bad weather was the major source of concern for the crews. In addition to the usual dangerous phenomena such as extreme turbulence and the formation of ice on the aircraft, at night there was the complication that the cloud formations could not be promptly identified and the center of a storm was not easily identifiable. Common night weather effects, moreover, were the electrical phenomena called ‘St. Elmo’s fire’ , which sprayed sparks from the edges of the wings, lit the propellers as pyrotechnic pinwheels and lit up the nose of the airplane as a neon tube .
The duration of a single missions could get even to twelve hours .
Setting of the USAAF special flights was slightly different from the one of the RAF, although the two air forces cooperated closely. The British, in fact, supplied their Halifaxes and Stirlings with the only fuel needed to carry out the planned route and return to base, with emphasis on lightness and agility of their aircrafts. The Americans, on the other hand, preferred to load all the available fuel on their B-24s and B-17s to ensure the longest possible range, that could prove valuable in the event of unforeseen circumstances; this, of course, loaded the bombers and further limited their already modest maneuverability .
North Italy, 15 February 1945. A B-24 Liberator of the 885th BS drops supplies to the partisans behind enemy lines .
Launching and ground receiving techniques used in special missions were initially approximate to the point that often the supplies were lost or they fell into enemy hands, and many agents were captured. Inadequate identification and inaccurate localization of the Dropping Zones were the determining factor in the failure of many operations. Also the lack of technical preparation of reception teams on the ground and their lack of discipline were the cause of mishaps .
North Italy, 15 February 1945. Some just dropped containers and packages fall after the passage of the B-24 .
As an evidence of how the problem of ineffective reception was serious among the partisans, a note from the general command of the CLN (‘Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale’, the Italian National Liberation Committee), CVL (‘Corpo Volontari della Libertà’ or Volunteer for freedom Corps), issued a form letter which reads:
«… the supplies that we receive from the Allies are significantly below our requirements, and, if we seek the causes, we cannot overlook the fact that we do not observe almost any instruction prescribed by them.
[…] it often happens, and this is more serious, that after receiving the supply we do not take care to notify the Allies, so they carefully avoid to intensify launches as we are conversely continuously asking» .
The situation considerably improved when allied liaison officers began to be parachuted behind enemy lines to directly train partisan troops. However, some problems persisted. Thomas Macpherson from his Coolant mission in Friuli writes to Commander Francesco de Gregori (codenamed ‘Bolla’) on 23 January 1945:
«… it is a pity that the drops of the 20th and 21st were not successful. On the 20th the aircraft came early and it turned around from 18,20 to 20,30 without finding the ground. This drop will be repeated again when the weather will be fine, because, among other things, it will bring us some essential radio spares. We hope to recover the most part of the supplies from the drop of the 18th» .
Even after the end of hostilities in Italy, which occurred on 2 May 1945, the special air squadrons continued to receive requests to supply partisan units that were still cut off from other supply channels. Special operations in Italy did actually finish on 7 May 1945 .
 Warren (1947), p. 107.
 MacCloskey (1966), p. 40.
 Lettera circolare (1944), CVL – CNL.
 MacCloskey (1966), p. 40.
 Brown (1987), p. 6.
 Angeli [a cura di] (2002).
 Piffer (2010), p. 136.
 MacPherson, Report on COOLANT mission (1945), p. 57.
 Peterson et al. [ed.] (1963), p. 7.
 MacCloskey (1966), p. 32.
 Collier (2003).
 Peterson et al. [ed.] (1963), p. 8.
 MacCloskey (1966), p. 36.
 MacPherson (1945), p. 58.
 Peterson et al. [ed.] (1963), p. 10.
 Condit (1954), p. 23.
 The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, RG 18, E 342 FH, B 100, image #3A-24535.
 Fish (1990), p. 203.
 MacCloskey (1966), p. 39.
 Schwab (1996), p. 46.
 Peterson et al. [ed.] (1963), p. 10.
 The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington: RG 18, E 342 FH, B 100, image #3A-24536.
 Piffer (2010), p. 96.
 The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington: RG 18, E 342 FH, B 100, image #3A-24537.
 Lettera circolare (1944), CVL – CNL.
 Macpherson (1945). The original document is written in Italian.
 Warren (1947), p. 112.


We are hoping to dramatically grow our Kestrel Nest Box program. Program director Frank Nicoletti would like to eventually have a 100-box route, but would like to add at least 20 new boxes this winter.
Kestrels are declining nationwide, and the reasons are unclear. One big reason may be the increase of pesticide/herbicide use by agriculture. Another reason is the fact that Starlings can usurp natural nest cavities. Frank hopes to not only provide the Bog’s abundant Kestrels with more cavities to nest in, but also to band the nestlings to find out more about their site fidelity and migration patterns.
You can help us by building Kestrel nest boxes using our simple plans here.
**Use cedar instead of pine (last much longer in the field)
**Make a hinged lid (as shown in the plans) so Frank can access the nestlings and easily band them…Side-opening nest boxes allow the possibility that the nestlings will escape when he tries to band them.
Simply drop the completed boxes off at the Welcome Center…or if we aren’t around just leave it on the west side of the building. If you need a tax form so you can deduct your donation, just email us at email@example.com.
KESTREL NEST BOX REPORT 2016
In response to declining populations of American Kestrels in parts of their range (including northern Minnesota), Friends of Sax-Zim Bog put up 14 nest boxes in 2015. The boxes mimic kestrels natural nesting sites in tree cavities, providing suitable nesting sites for the population of kestrels that breed in the bog. The goal of the project is to gather data on nesting success, number of chicks hatched and fledged, and make notes on species competing for similar nesting sites. And, of course, to encourage kestrels to breed in the Sax-Zim Bog!
This year, 13 of the 14 original boxes were up for kestrels to nest in. One had fallen during spring and never put back up. Volunteers monitored the boxes during five monitoring periods to check if the boxes were occupied and to note any breeding behaviors observed. Monitors observed kestrels at or near nine boxes during the season and recorded copulation at four of the boxes. We also made notes on other species present, general kestrel behavior, and foraging. When observing one of the boxes, Eliza Grames watched the male kestrel leave the wire and hunt over an adjacent field, where he caught a snake and proceeded to eat it on the wire above the nest box.
Last year, three boxes were occupied by kestrels and two had starlings nesting in them. This year, seven boxes were occupied by kestrels and there was only one box with starlings! Occasionally, other kestrel nest box sites have had species like Northern Flickers, Great crested Flycatcher or even flying squirrels nesting in them, but there were none this year in the bog boxes.
The chicks were banded on July 6, 2016 by Frank Nicoletti, Miranda Durbin, Peter Yokel, and myself. We drove to each nest box, climbed the ladder to peer inside the box and see if there were young, and then carried the young out and down to the road to band them.
We arrived at the first box and prepared for “jumpers” (chicks old enough to try to jump out of the box when approached). Frank placed a t-shirt over the top of the bucket to keep chicks from escaping, and Peter was ready to cover the hole of the nest box when he got to the top of the ladder to prevent chicks from jumping. To our surprise, when Peter opened the box, he found two chicks that were still completely covered in white, fuzzy down feathers. They weren’t even old enough to determine the sex, which is based on plumage. Luckily, they were old enough to have fully formed legs, so we were able to band them. Each chick got a band from the Bird Banding Laboratory with a unique 9-digit number.
Another box had five chicks, all female, that were close to fledging and others had chicks that were partly downy but starting to grow flight feathers. The reason for the differences in ages is that some boxes likely failed the first time and the kestrel pair occupying the box tried over. We know this because kestrels typically lay 4-5 eggs the first time, and only 2-3 the second time because of the energy required to produce an egg, incubate the eggs, and raise young. This explains why the box with the female chicks that were close to fledging had five young, but the ones that were still downy and recently hatched only had 2-3 chicks per box. There are a number of reasons a box could fail the first time – we suspect predation or cold weather during the incubation period were probably the reasons for nest failure in the bog.
In all, we banded 21 chicks (12 females, 3 males, 6 unknown) from seven boxes. This bodes well for the future of kestrels in northern Minnesota. The boxes will be monitored again next year and we hope to increased the number of boxes to 50. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed to have even more chicks in 2017!
Thanks to Clinton Nienhaus for coordinating the monitoring and volunteers, Amy Johnson, Mary Gabrys, Sally Grames, and myself for monitoring the boxes, Frank Nicoletti, Miranda Durbin, Peter Yokel and myself for banding the chicks, and Sparky Stensaas for his work supporting the project through Friends of Sax-Zim Bog.
submitted by Eliza Grames and Frank Nicoletti
Kestrel nestlings ready to be banded. Photo by Miranda Durbin
Eliza Grames banding Kestrel chicks. Photo by Miranda Durbin


We love to hear from teachers!
This guest blog post is by Maria Walther, a first grade teacher at at Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School in Aurora, IL. Learn more about Maria Walther at www.mariawalther.com and on Twitter @mariapwalther.
“I love Benny and Penny books, do we have any more?” It was January when I finally heard those words from Noah, one of my most reluctant first-grade readers. Luckily, I was able to answer, “Yes!” and we rushed right over to the graphic novel basket to gather the other books in the series. A graphic novel basket? In first grade? YES! and YES! Since I discovered that TOON comic books that are perfect for my primary-grade learners, I’ve hooked many readers who gravitate toward this genre. So, like all of the other genres I share with my students, I teach them what they need to know to successfully, and joyfully, read these books.
- Look carefully at the illustrations before and after reading the text.
- Integrate the visual information with the text to make meaning.
- Infer how a character is feeling by looking carefully at their face and body.
- Predict or “think ahead” as you read. Confirm or revise your predictions based on the clues.
- Distinguish between speech bubbles and thought bubbles.
- Notice and use ending punctuation, bold print, and other creative convention clues (words written in all capital letters, colored print, and so on) to read fluently with expression.
- Reread or review the illustrations when meaning breaks down.
When I introduce these books and/or highlight the strategies above, I project the book using a document camera so that the kids and I can interact with the text as I read aloud. An interactive read aloud of the book Benny and Penny in the Toy Breaker (Hayes, 2010) might begin this way:
Before Reading: “Today we’re going to read a different kind of book. It’s called a comic or graphic novel. Has anyone ever heard or read this type of book before? As we’re reading, I’m going to show you some strategies that will help you to better understand what is happening in the story. Let’s get started!”
Cover: “Let’s look at the cover. What do you notice?” [Draw students’ attention to the title and the illustration where all of the toys are broken and Benny’s looking at them with a magnifying glass.] “Can you figure out which character is Benny and which is Penny? What is Benny looking at with that magnifying glass? Who do you think Benny is talking about when he says, ‘He is back!’? Think about the title of the book. Hmmmm! I guess we better read on to answer those questions.”
Page. 5: “Wow! This page looks a little different. What do you notice? Where do I start reading?” [Invite readers to come up and point to the title, discuss the speech bubbles, and so on.] “I notice when I’m reading I have to pay careful attention to the ending marks (or signals to readers), so I know how to read what Benny and Penny are saying. Listen to how my voice changes when I read the sentence that ends with a period, compared to those that end with a question mark or exclamation mark.” [Reread page.]