Biophotons are single quanta which are permanently and continuously emitted by all living systems. They are subjects of quantum physics and display a universal phenomenon attributed to all living systems…
Theoretical physicist David Bohm proposed a new hidden variables theory of Quantum mechanics. He assumes the wave function does not represent just a set of probabilities: it represents an actual field. This field exists and acts upon particles the same way a classical potential does, thus it is a quantum potential which is associated to this field and is a function of the wave function. It is postulated here that the quantum potential is active as a field in living cells and organisms and acts
The equation Bohm used to represent this quantum potential is given:
the quantum potential
U = -sum k(hbar 2/2mk) (partial k2 R / R ), (1)
Research reveals that Bohmian quantum potential is still used, but that it may only represent a means to extend quantum theory into a realistic theory of particles and fields.
It resolves the dilemma of the appearance, in one and the same phenomenon, of both particle and wave properties in a rather straightforward manner: Bohmian mechanics is a theory of motion describing a particle (or particles) guided by a wave. This guiding wave is usually attributed to atomic particles, but might be more insightfully seen as a traveling soliton or vortex.
Bohmian mechanics is manifestly nonlocal, and the velocity may depend upon the positions of other, even distant particles whenever the wave function of the system is entangled. The behavior of the particle is determined by the particle’s position and momentum, the wave field and the sub-quantum fluctuations.
“Bohm's quantum potential binds the entire universe together into what
he liked to call a seamless "unbroken wholeness." Every particle in the universe is connected by the quantum potential to every other particle. He likened the cosmos to a hologram in which each point on the film carries information about the entire picture. Bohm's GWT, far more sophisticated than de Broglie's crude version, is a "holistic" vision in which all parts of the universe are joined to every other part.
"Interconnectedness" was one of Bohm's favorite words. He saw the
universe as resembling the unity of a living organism, a kind of pantheism not unlike Spinoza's--a pantheism Einstein himself favored.” (2)
Bohm referred the holomovement as the basic reality. The pattern formed on a photographic plate by light waves that interfere and create a hologram. This pattern is the interaction or interference pattern of two parts of a laser light (coherent light). One beam reflects off an object, the other off a mirror. In addition, any portion of the holographic plate contains information on the whole object.
Every cell in the human body contains nuclear DNA, information on the whole body, much like a hologram, only the cells can go through a process of division and reproduction (mitosis).
In quantum holography, things are spookier still. While holograms are typically constructed with interfering beams of light, in quantum holography the researchers measure the simultaneous arrivals of an illuminating photon that is sent into a chamber and a companion photon in the other entangled beam. (2)
Wave Genetics Inc. and the Moscow Institute of Control Sciences are exploring a new concept of the genetic code that asserts:
1) That the evolution of biosystems has created genetic "texts", similar to natural context dependent texts in human languages, shaping the text of these speech-like patterns.
2) That the chromosome apparatus acts simultaneously both as a source and receiver of these genetic texts, respectively decoding and encoding them, and
3) That the chromosome continuum of multicellular organisms is analogous to a static-dynamical multiplex time-space holographic grating, which comprises the space-time of an organism in a convoluted form.
That is to say, the DNA action theory predicts and which experiment confirms, i) is that of a "gene-sign" laser and its solitonic electro-acoustic fields, such that the gene-biocomputer "reads and understands" these texts in a manner similar to human thinking, but at its own genomic level of "reasoning". It asserts that natural human texts (irrespectively of the language used), and genetic "texts" have similar mathematical-linguistic and entropic-statistic characteristics, where these concern the fractality of the distribution of the character frequency density in the natural and genetic texts, and where in case of genetic "texts", the characters are identified with the nucleotides,
and ii) that DNA molecules, conceived as a gene-sign continuum of any biosystem, are able to form holographic pre-images of biostructures and of the organism as a whole as a registry of dynamical "wave copies" or "matrixes”, succeeding each other. This continuum is the measuring, calibrating field for constructing its biosystem.
“Complex information can be encoded in EM fields, as we all know from coding and decoding of television and radio signals. Even more complex information can be encoded in holographic images. DNA acts as a holographic projector of acoustic and EM information which contains the informational quintessence of the biohologram. Only 3% of human DNA encodes the physical body. The remaining 97% of the 3 billion base pair genome contains over a million genetic structures called transposons, that have the capacity to jump from one chromosomal location to another (Kelleher, 1999).
We are 99.9% alike in our genetic legacy. Our individuality is expressed in three million small variations in our cells, called single nucleotide polymorphisms.
Gene-expression is the mechanism by which new patterns are called into being (Rossi, 2000). There is also a strong correlation between modulation of the brain’s EM field and consciousness (Persinger, 1987; McFadden, 2002). The Gariaev group has discovered a wave-based genome and DNA phantom effect which strongly supports the holographic concept of reality (Miller, Webb, Dickson, 1975). This main information channel of DNA is the same for both photons and radio waves. Superposed coherent waves of different types in the cells interact to form diffraction patterns, firstly in the acoustic domain, secondly in the electromagnetic domain -- a quantum hologram -- a translation process between acoustical and optical holograms.”(4)
The distribution of the character frequency in genetic texts is fractal, so the nucleotides of DNA molecules are able to form holographic pre images of biostructures. This process of "reading and writing" the very matter of our being manifests from the genome's associative holographic memory in conjunction with its quantum nonlocality. Rapid transmission of genetic information and gene-expression unite the organism as holistic entity embedded in the larger Whole. The system works as a biocomputer -- a wave biocomputer.
The quantum nonlocality of the genetic information is fundamental. Experimental work of the Gariaev group shows how quantum nonlocality is directly related to laser radiation from chromosomes (coherent light), which jitterbugs its polarization plane to radiate or occlude photons. DNA and the genome have now been identified as active "laser-like" environments. Roughly speaking, DNA can be considered as a liquid crystal gel-like state that acts on the incoming light in the manner of a solitonic lattice.” (5)
This entire section is extracted from the History of Biophotonics website:
Around 1923 Alexander Gurwitsch discovers an "ultraweak" photon emission from living systems (onions, yeast,...), since he suggested connections between photon emission and cell division rate. He calls this photon emission "mitogenetic radiation". His experiments indicate that the wavelength is in the range around 260 nm (Bibliography under Gurwisch and also Ruth (1977, 1979)). Around 1950: Russian scientists rediscover "ultraweak photon emission" from living organisms. Most results are published in "Biophysics" (engl.) and originally in "Biofizika").( Bibliography under Ruth, 1979).
Italian nuclear physicists discover by chance "bioluminescence" of seedlings. They do not think that this finding is significant, but they publish the results. (Colli et al. 1954, 1955, Ruth 1979).
The Russian biophysicist and the American chemist enunciate the first theory of ultraweak photonemission (UWPE) from biological systems, the so called "imperfection" theory. UWPE shall be an expression of the deviation from equilibrium, some kind of distortion of metabolic processes (Zhuravlev 1972, Seliger 1975, Ruth 1979).
Independently from each other and by different motivations scientific groups in Australia (Quickenden), GermanyJapan (Inaba), and Poland (Slawinski) show evidence of ultraweak photon emission from biological systems by use of modern single-photon counting systems. Bibliography (Quickenden, Inaba, Popp &Ruth, Slawinski). While Quickenden, Slawinski and Inaba prefer the imperfection theory, Popp and his group enunciate just the opposite theory:
1. The radiation originates from an almost perfect coherent photon field.
2. Essential sources are the DNA and corresponding resonators in the cells.
3. The mechanism describes photon storage in cavities and information channels, tuned by Casimir forces.
4. There is a close connection to delayed luminescence which corresponds to excited states of the coherent photon field.
5. The radiation is not the product but essentially the initiator of chemical reactions in the cells. The radiation submits the information within and between cells.
6. The radiation is not limited to the optical range but follows a f = const-rule (the occupation probability of the phase space is equal for all wavelengths) and extends to longer wavelengths including the so-called heat radiation of the body.
7. This radiation is the proper regulator and information carrier of life.
The Marburg group of Fritz-Albert Popp calls this phenomenon "biophotons" in order to stress the difference to "bioluminescence": Biophotons are single quanta which are permanently and continuously emitted by all living systems. They are subjects of quantum physics and they display an universal phenomenon attributed to all living systems. Worldwide all scientists who agree with these statements call the radiation biophotons and the scientific field "biophotonics".
From 1972 to 1980 the Marburg group of the leader, the physicist and Dr. Fritz-Albert Popp, evaluated experimentally all the essential physical properties of biophotons.
1. The intensity ranges from a few up to some hundreds photons/(s cm2).
2. The spectral distribution follows in the time average a f = const-rule.
3. The modes are strongly coupled.
4. The delayed luminescence that approaches continuously the biophoton emission follows a hyperbolic rather than an exponential relaxation function.
5. The biophotons originate from an almost fully coherent field.
6. Cells are able to establish cavity resonators which contribute to biophoton regulation.
7. The essential source of non-equilibrium biophoton emission is the DNA.
This group introduces the first time photocount statistics (PCS) into biophotonics. They show evidence that biophotons are emitted according to a Poissonian PCS. Furthermore they show evidence
(1) that the delayed luminescence follows a hyperbolic relaxation function rather than an exponential one,
(2) that the modes are strongly coupled, and
(3) that there are hyperbolic oscillations around the continuous hyperbolic relaxation function. The group finds the first time intercellular communication by means of biophotons. Later this was confirmed by Albrecht-Bühler (Bacteria), Popp and Chang (dinoflagellates), Galle (daphnia), Shen (blood), Vogel (bacteria)….
This term “bioinfoton” is one I am adopting to specify any particle (such as the Ganesh Particle*), wave, or biomolecule that transfers information from an emitter to a receptor. It is possible that if a biophoton is emitted from a coherent source that it will carry holographic information as a form of modulation (possibly frequency modulated) and produce action or results in biological systems.
It is possible that biophotons may even be carriers of psi information and that a coherent coupling can be established between two conscious life forms resulting in a transference of information from a higher potential field to a field at lower potential. Even though this is conjecture at this point, it suggests other means by which disparate life forms can communicate. We know there is a process by which trees communicate and even signal each other in the face of danger. We may be exchanging information with pets and other animals through biophotonic communication. This may be how some people who have a green thumb affect plants they care for.
Even communication with other intelligent life forms in the Cosmos may be effected by the amplification and vectoring of biophotons or via the quantum potential, produce information at a distance.
A virtual photon flux in the quantum potential may be integrating the coordinated wholeness of the organism while the action of bioinfotons may keep every part of the organism in communication with every other part.
Life and living organisms are more than the sum of their parts and are composed of material and non-material parts. The spiral form of DNA evidently produces an electromagnetic wave field that informs the organism’s growth and structure.
Scientist Richard Alan Miller is a pioneer in this field and has written,
“In a hologram, wave fields interfere with one another to lay the foundations for the reconstruction of the image of an object. But how are the wave fields produced? The term "holography" comes from the Greek roots meaning "entire" and "to write". In holography, the image is projected by a coherent light source split into both the object wave and the reference wave background. This dichotomous nature is reflected in the particle/wave nature of the DNA molecule, which can be "read out" with biophotons from chromosomes to set up a holographically produced wave field.
This superposition of wave fields (object wave and reference wave) creates a wave guide for the formation of biological structure. The image is constructed according to the reference information contained in the genes. The reconstructed object wave is identical with the object wave field. The reconstructed wave fields reproduce exactly the recorded ones (the DNA with genetic code). “(7)
Mr. Miller also proposes this hypothesis:
Hypothesis: The organization of any biological system is established by
complex electro dynamical field that is, in part, determined by its atomic physiochemical components. These, in part, determine the behavior and orientation of these components. This dynamic is mediated through wave-based genomes wherein DNA functions as the holographic projector of the psychophysical system—a quantum biohologram.
Images - http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5138/5573329143_8fe3faa15f_b.jpg & Artwork by Alex Grey
Confirmed: The Eye Emits Actual Light (Biophotons)
By Sayer Ji
Look deeply into the human eye, and you are bound to get lost in its abysmal beauty. Much like mirrors facing one another in the dizzying cascade of visual infinitude, the seer gets lost in the spectacle, of which s(he) forms a part, i.e, you are an eye seeing at the same moment that you are seeing an eye; percipient and perceptible; seeing and visible.
That exquisite aperture – the mammalian eye – through which the light of the Universe passes into the darkest recesses of the human brain, is actually an extension of the nervous system – that like a plant – grows towards the light which nourishes it. Nourishes it how? With both energy and information, which is the very dual nature of Light.
The eyes do not age like the rest of our organs, due to the exaggerated expression of the chromosome-healing enzyme telomerase. As cells divide, important code at the end of the chromosomes can be damaged when the telomeres are sliced apart during mitosis (cell division). Like the ends of shoe strings, these telomeres are tended to and healed by the enzyme telomerase. The better shape the telomeres and the enzyme telomerase are in, the healthier will be the daughter cells following cell division, and the more long-lived and youthful these organs will be. Since the eyes have a unique level of chromosome-healing activity at their disposal, this explains so well how an aged individual’s eyes can relume brilliantly the youthful qualities of their soul.
Look closely at your own eyes in a reflective surface, and tell me whether or not you see that they are not simply receptacles of light and perception, but that they project their own light (i.e. their soul)?
Indeed, new research published in the Journal of Brain Research in Jan. 19 2011 show that the mammalian eye exhibits a “spontaneous and visible light-induced ultraweak photon emission.” More details:
Here, we present the first experimental in vitro evidence of the existence of spontaneous and visible light-induced ultraweak photon emission from freshly isolated whole eye, lens, vitreous humor, and retina samples from rats. These results suggest that the photochemical source of retinal discrete noise, as well as retinal phosphenes, may originate from natural bioluminescent photons within the eyes.
During normal vision, the eyes are continuously exposed to ambient powerful photons that pass through various parts of the eyes, which can produce ultraweak delayed bioluminescent photons that arise from diverse parts of the eyes. Although the importance and possible role of ambient light-induced permanent delayed photons (within different parts of the eyes) during vision requires further investigation, our study may provide evidence of an origin of discrete dark noise and retinal phosphenes. View Source
In another study published in May 2011 in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology, on the bioluminescence of the mammalian eye, an explanation of “negative afterimages” is provided. A common example of a negative aftermage is the bright glow that seems to float before one’s eyes after looking into a light source for a few seconds. More details here:
The delayed luminescence of biological tissues is an ultraweak reemission of absorbed photons after exposure to external monochromatic or white light illumination. Recently, Wang, Bókkon, Dai and Antal (2011)  presented the first experimental proof of the existence of spontaneous ultraweak biophoton emission and visible light induced delayed ultraweak photon emission from in vitro freshly isolated rat’s whole eye, lens, vitreous humor and retina.
Here, we suggest that the photobiophysical source of negative afterimage can also occur within the eye by delayed bioluminescent photons. In other words, when we stare at a colored (or white) image for few seconds, external photons can induce excited electronic states within different parts of the eye that is followed by adelayed reemission of absorbed photons for several seconds. Finally, these reemitted photons can be absorbed by non-bleached photoreceptors that produce a negative afterimage. Although this suggests the photobiophysical source of negative afterimages is related retinal mechanisms, cortical neurons have also essential contribution in the interpretation and modulation of negative afterimages. View Source
The light that emanates through the “window of the soul,” the human eye, is not “imagined,” but real and these biophotons contain energy and information (wave-particle complementarity of Light), capable of transforming our understanding of one another, and ourselves.
Additional Reading: Biophotons: The Human Body Glows
About the Author: Sayer Ji is the founder of GreenMedInfo.com, the world’s largest, evidence-based, open-source, natural medicine database. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter
From Wake Up World @ http://wakeup-world.com/2012/01/24/confirmed-the-eye-emits-actual-light-biophotons/
What Are Biophotons?
Biophotons, or ultraweak photon emissions of biological systems, are WEAK electromagnetic waves in the optical range of the spectrum - in other words: light. ALL living cells of plants, animals and human beings emit Biophotons, which can NOT be seen by the naked eye, but can be measured by special equipment developed by German researchers.
This light emission is an expression of the functional state of the living organism and it's measurement, therefore can be used to assess this state. Cancer cells and healthy cells of the same type, for instance, can be discriminated by typical differences in Biophoton emission. After an initial decade and a half of basic research on this discovery, biophysicists of various European and Asian countries are now exploring the MANY interesting applications, which range across such diverse fields as cancer research, non-invasive early medical diagnosis, food and water quality testing, chemical and electromagnetic contamination testing, cell communication, and various applications in biotechnology.
According to the Biophoton theory developed on the base of these discoveries the Biophoton light is stored in the cells of the organism - more precisely, in the DNA molecules of their nuclei - and a dynamic web of light constantly released and absorbed by the DNA may connect cell organelles, cells, tissues, and organs within the body and serve as the organism's main communication network and as the principal regulating instance for ALL life processes. The processes of morphogenesis, growth, differentiation and regeneration are also explained by the structuring and regulating activity of the coherent Biophoton field.
The holographic Biophoton field of the brain and the nervous system, and maybe even that of the WHOLE organism, may also be basis of memory and other phenomena of consciousness, as postulated by neurophysiologist Karl Pribram an others. The consciousness-like coherence properties of the Biophoton field are closely related to it's base in the properties of the physical vacuum and indicate it's possible role as an interface to the non-physical realms of mind, psyche and consciousness.
The discovery of Biophoton emission also lends scientific support to some unconventional methods of healing based on concepts of homeostasis (self-regulation of the organism), such as various somatic therapies, homeopathy and acupuncture. The "chi" energy flowing in our bodies' energy channels (meridians), which according to Traditional Chinese Medicine regulates our body functions may be related to node lines of the organism's Biophoton field. The "prana" of Indian Yoga physiology may be a similar regulating energy force, that has a basis in WEAK, coherent electromagnetic Biophoton fields.
Background Of Biophotons
First discovered in 1923 by Russian medical scientist Professor Alexander G.Gurvich (who named them "mitogenetic rays") and in the 1930's widely researched in Europe and the USA, Biophotons have been rediscovered and backed since the 1970s by ample experimental and theoretical evidence by European scientists. In 1974 German biophysicist Fritz-Albert Popp has proved their existence, their origin from the DNA and later their coherence (laser-like nature), and has developed Biophoton theory to explain their possible biological role and the ways in which they may control biochemical processes, growth, differentiation etc. Popp's Biophoton theory leads to MANY startling insights into the life processes and may well provide one of the MAJOR elements of a future theory of life and holistic medical practice based on such an approach. The importance of the discovery has been confirmed by eminent scientists, such as Herbert Froehlich and Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine. Since 1992, the International Institute of Biophysics, a network of research laboratories in more than 10 countries, based in Germany, is coordinating research in this field of Biophotons, which promises rapid development in the next decade.
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ARM processors are at the heart of every portable electronic device, like mobiles, switches, and portable devices. Low power consumption is the very critical requriements of all battery powered portable devices. This is the most important characteristic of ARM processor that leads to its wide usage in all portable devices. ARM processors are also widely used in embedded systems applications. The current requirements of embedded systems require ARM processors to do much more than the simple phone processor. The ARM Architecture Training course covers wide range of processors comprising the ARMv7 & ARMv8 architectures.
The ARM Architecture Training course also gives overview of how ARM processors are targeted across various SoC requirements. It also gives quick overview of how ARM architecture is different with Intel standard IA32 architecture
ARM Architecture Overview
- ARMv8-A architecture overview.
- ARM Processor Booting.
- CPUSS Architectures.
- ARMv8 registers.
- ARMv7 and ARMv8 Exception model.
- A32 and A64 Instruction set architecture overview.
- ARM Memory Management Unit(MMU).
- Translation tables.
- Address translations.
- ARM Memory Model.
- Memory Types.
- Memory attributes – Cacheability, Shareable.
- L1 and L2 Caches.
- Cache coherency.
- Generic interrupt Controller.
- GIC Architecture.
- Different types of Interrupts.
- Interrupt handler.
- ARM compiler, Linker basics.
- Scatter files, stack and heap
- lst file, tarmac log.
VG-ARM(ARM Architecture Training):
- Course is offered in both Classroom and Online course
- Next Batch: 19/Dec
- Duration: 6 Weeks, 4 Hours on Saturday & Sunday
- Fee : INR 15,000 +GST at 18%
- Certificate of course completion
What are the Course Prerequisites?
- Expertise on any processor architecture, 8086, etc
- Exposure to basic assembly coding, instruction set, etc
Does course cover practical sessions on ARM Architecture?
- Each aspect of course is supported by lot of practical examples
- ARM boards used to implement the examples
What if I miss few sessions during course?
Each session of course is recorded, missed session videos will be shared
Course has started few weeks back, can I still join the course in between?
- Yes, You will have option to view the recorded videos of course for the sessions missed
- You will have option to repeat the course any time in next 1 year
Do you offer support after course completion?
- Yes, Course fee also includes support for doubt clarification sessions even after course completion
- You have option to mail you queries
- Option to meet in person to clarify doubts
Course Material Shared:
- ARM Architecture Training Docs
- ARM Course Presentation
- Design & Verification engineers looking to gets certified on ARM
- Engineers with prior experience in Module leve verification looking to explore ARM & SOC verification.
- 15+ years of rich experience of working in Functional Verification domain across various mobile, networking, high speed peripheral domains.
- Experience of working on functional verification of Multiple Complex SOCs, multiple Sub systems
- Experience of working on multiple complex module level projects


A new study shows that eating breakfast every single day is a key behavior among people who average a 60-pound weight loss and have kept it off for six years. The study in the Journal of Obesity Research was an ongoing look at successful maintainers of significant weight loss.
Nearly 80 per cent of them eat breakfast everyday as part of their routine to stay slender. Cereal was their favorite choice. Nutritionists suggest starting the day with whole grains such as oat meal or brown rice which are low on the glycemic index. These satisfying foods do not cause a sudden rise in blood glucose. Instead, they tend to hold off hunger for several hours because they are absorbed slowly into the bloodstream.
Breakfast can make or break a diet, because breakfast helps set the tone for the rest of the day. If you’re one of those people who thinks skipping breakfast is a good way to lose weight, think again. Here are the top reasons why you should definitely eat breakfast every day:
Break the fast. What does “breakfast” mean? Your body responds to not eating for hours and hours by “slowing down”; diminishing its metabolic rate and burning fewer calories to conserve energy. By eating breakfast, you wake up your metabolism and get your engine humming, burning those calories you need to burn to lose weight.
Eat more, weigh less. Researchers have repeatedly shown that people who eat breakfast have a better chance of losing weight, and keeping it off. When you skip meals, you’re so hungry by lunchtime you eat the entire cow! The National Weight Control Registry shows that among those who’ve lost 30 or more pounds and have kept it off more than a year, 90 percent report eating breakfast most days of the week.
Do better at work and school. Breakfast helps wake you up. Studies show that people who eat breakfast are more alert and do better on tests than people who skip breakfast. Eating breakfast helps “improve memory and positively affects the tasks that require the retention of new information. Conversely, a hungry child can be apathetic, disinterested, and irritable when confronted with difficult tasks. Breakfast is the key.” No doubt adults need breakfast as much as kids do.
Breakfast is your chance to eat the foods you may not eat the rest of the day. You can’t go wrong with a whole-grain cereal and berries with nonfat milk — here is your fiber,folic acid and calcium in one easy-to-grab bowl.
Skipping breakfast makes you grouchy. Studies show that people who eat breakfast tend to be in better moods. Breakfast gets you started on the right track for the day. If you start out with a healthy breakfast, then you set the mood for lunch. You’re more likely to choose something reasonable for lunch if you’ve paid some attention to your breakfast choices.
Cancel the danish or sugared doughnut first thing in the morning; they cause a blood sugar dip a couple of hours later. You’ll be desperate for something to perk you up, and will be more likely to grab another high-sugar refined carb for a quick sugar rush.
Breakfast makes your machine run better. Get yourself on a schedule with a healthy breakfast, and you’re ready to take on the world.
Set a good example for your children. By skipping breakfast, your kids will think it’s not important. Breakfast doesn’t have to be a big affair, but don’t wimp out. Make it a habit, and your kids will be way ahead of the game, too.
Don’t eat dessert for breakfast. If you think a glazed doughnut or a breakfast bar with 30 grams of sugar are breakfast items, then think again. Doughnuts are fried lumps of sugared dough, and many breakfast bars should be labeled “candy bars” instead.
Watch out the labels. “Nutritious,” doesn’t necessarily always mean healthy. Cereal manufacturers are experts in marketing, using words that send a message of health. Unless you read the labels, you eat at your own risk. Kids’ cereals can have more sugar than candy. Protect your kids from getting hooked on these cereals; they’ll get used to all the sugar, and will want only pre-sweetened cereals.
Buy cereals that have minimal sugar such as regular Cheerios, not honey nut or other sweetened versions; corn flakes, not frosted flakes; shredded wheat minis, not frosted and sugared; and look into some of the newer, healthier cereals like Kashi (the unsweetened kind). Then let your taste buds rule. Add your own sugar. I guarantee what you or your kids add will be a fraction of what the cereal guys add — sometimes up to eight or nine equivalent teaspoons per one-cup serving.
What you SHOULD be eating (and enjoying it, too):
- Eat cereals that are low in sugar. Cereal with milk is a great breakfast. It really is a good all-around meal. Remember – low or no sugar is what you want.
- Eat eggs, they are good for breakfast. Eat eggs, but eat them in moderation, of course.
- Try a new egg sandwich. You can put cheese or ham on yours. Use your imagination, these are really fun to make. Be creative.
- Eat pancakes. Yes, they are great from time to time. Try to get yourself one of those griddles that you don’t need to add fat too. That way you’ll be able to eat these pancakes more often. To cut down on calories (and that’s what you want), instead of using butter and syrup, put fresh fruit on yours.
- Eat old-fashioned toast. Toast is still a great thing to eat. Just make sure you don’t load it up with too much butter or similar things.
- Eat oatmeal. Add some milk if you want and a bit of sugar and you have a breakfast that will stick to your ribs!
- Drink juice when you have breakfast! Trust me, you don’t need coffee in the morning; you can get morning energy by just drinking juice. And you don’t have to worry about getting the shakes if you drink too much of this juice.
The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.


Radiation and Your Health
The District has no official role regarding radiation. This web page provides web links to sources for additional information on the issue.
California Department of Health Services, Frequently Asked Questions on Radiation
EPA Environmental Radioactivity (RadNet) in the United States: RadNet is a national network of monitoring stations that regularly collect air, precipitation, drinking water, and milk samples for analysis of radioactivity.
California Department of Public Health: The central information line for questions about radiation and exposure in California is 916-341-3947. The CDPH also has a useful set of FAQs concerning radiation from the Japanese nuclear plants.
California Emergency Management Agency: For updated information on monitoring, response and relief efforts in California and Japan.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: For radiation facts, and information on EPA's radiation monitors.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: For information on nuclear regulation and protection in the U.S.
Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: For information on protective measures.
California Air Response Planning Alliance (CARPA): A website maintained by the California Air Resources Board. CARPA is a network of local, state, and federal air and public health agencies and resources.
American Nuclear Society: Radiation Dose Chart, allows you to calculate your own individual daily radiation dosage.


Edited by Dvortygirl, Flickety, 1guitarhero2, Ben Rubenstein and 47 others
Creating clay animals is a great way to make a small gift for someone you love, create a colorful zoo for your living room, or just to spend a fun afternoon flexing your creativity muscle. If you want to know how to create clay animals, all you need is some modeling clay, a willingness to learn, and a love for clay creatures. Just follow these steps and you'll be on your way to creating your own clay zoo in no time at all.
1Start with a lump of clay. Any sort of clay will work, though modeling clay will work best. Use a lump of clay that is firm enough to hold a position, but soft enough to be sculpted. The more clay you use, the bigger the animal will be. Start off with a piece of clay that you can comfortably hold in one hand -- about the size of a tangerine.
- Make sure to place the clay on a flat surface.
2Roll a snake from the clay. Just place your hand flat over the clay and roll your palm and fingers up and down until you've created a long and round shape. You can even squeeze the clay a bit so it's already long and not too thick before you really start rolling it so the process is easier.
3Break off a small piece of clay to form the head. Just break off about 1/5 of the snake to separate the clay that you'll use to make the animal's head. To break off the head, just gently pinch the snake at the part where you want to pull of the head and pull it off with your other hand.
4Roll the head into a ball. To roll the head into a ball, simply place your palm over the clay and roll it in a circular motion. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds to roll the head into a neat round ball.
5Form arms and legs out of the snake. First, roll the snake one more time to even out the edge that you broke off to form the head. Take a popsicle stick or something with a similar shape and firmness and push it down through the left and right side of the snake. Lift it and see that you've created two arms and two legs for your clay creature.
- Make sure at least 1/3 of the snake stays untouched. This will be the body of the creature.
6Pose the arms and legs. You can pose the arms and legs any way you want depending on what the animal is doing, whether it's sitting, standing, pouncing, rolling over, or lying down. Here's how you can pose the arms and legs a variety of ways:
- Sitting. To make the pose the arms and legs in sitting position, simply bend the clay in the middle and bend the clay so that the entire body and the arms are bent forward, creating an upside-down "U." Then, move the back legs forward so that they face the same direction as the arms and are curved over as well. They should be partly resting on the floor in the back so the creature is in true sitting position.
- Standing (on all fours). Just lift up the torso and lift up the back and front legs, resting it slightly more on the back legs, but making sure that both the arms and legs are positioned perpendicularly to the torso and floor. The front half of the creature will be lifted higher than the back half. This will help support the head.
- Lying down. Tuck the legs slightly under the body and stretch the arms out forward so the creature can by spread out on the floor. You can also stretch the legs back instead of tucking them in, as long as it's clear that the creature is lying down. Just lift up the part of the snake that will support the head slightly.
7Form the head of the animal. You can create eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth, and even eyebrows or whiskers if your want. You can use your fingers to pinch the ears of the animal gently upward, and use a toothpick to draw the creature's features onto the head.
- If you're making a creature with floppy ears, you can roll two tiny snakes and then flatten them out and stick them to the sides of the head.
- You can also make pointy ears by pinching the sides of the animal's head more strongly.
- When you're done creating the features, connect the head to the front of the snake, or the neck. Gently pinch the clay below the head to help position it.
- You can also use different colors of clay to add different features to the animal, such as spots or a cute bow-tie.
- If you want to build your animal another way, go ahead. Birds and bears may work better starting with a ball and then attaching wings, arms, and legs.
- If you are making your animal out of ceramic clay to fire in a kiln, the body should not be too big. Make it about as big as your fist, no more, otherwise the clay could explode in the kiln. Or, If it is going to be larger than your fist, using ceramic clay, you simply need to hollow out the body from beneath.
- Very thin parts, like ears and tails, are fragile.
- In ceramic clay, make sure to attach heads and tails securely. Make scratches in both surfaces with a pencil or anything pointy. Get both sides wet with a mixture of clay and water (called slip) and stick them together firmly.
- You always have to use imagination!
- If you do something that makes a shape you don't like, you can always change it or start over.
- It might help to look at a picture of the animal you want to make and notice how it is shaped.
- Put an old plastic tablecloth or paper bag under your work to keep the table clean.
Things You'll Need
- Clay or dough
- A popsicle stick or a toothpick
Recent edits by: Sachin Shaji K, Bubbles2002, Pancake
In other languages:
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 260,934 times.


Shin splints (medically called Medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS) is defined by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons as “pain along the inner edge of the shinbone (tibia)”. Shin splints are a common injury that affects athletes who engage in running sports or physical activity, including running and jumping. They are characterized by general pain in the lower part of the leg between the knee and the ankle.
MTSS injuries are specifically located in the middle to lower thirds of the inside of the tibia the large inner bone of the lower leg. MTSS is most likely caused by repeated trauma to the connective muscle tissue surrounding the tibia. Shin splints can be attributed to overloading the lower leg due to bio-mechanical irregularities and an increase in stress exerted on the tibia. A sudden increase in intensity or frequency in activity level fatigues muscles too quickly to properly help absorb shock, forcing the tibia to absorb most of that shock. This stress is associated with the onset of shin splints Muscle imbalance, including weak core muscles, inflexibility and tightness of lower leg muscles, including the gastrocnemius, soleus, and plantar muscles (commonly the flexor digitorum longus) can increase the possibility of shin splints.
The main diagnostic criterion clinicians look at for shin splints are a physical examination and clinical history. The physical examination focuses on palpable, or gentle pressure, tenderness over a 4-6 inch section on the lower, inside shin area. The pain has been described as a dull ache to an intense pain that increases during exercise, and some individuals experience swelling in the pain area. Clinical history focuses on an individual’s previously history with MTSS. People who have previously had shin splints are more likely to have it again.


Sugar is one of the most common ingredients in food. Everyone loves dessert but what we don’t realize is that we are killing ourselves. Cold drinks, candies, tea, and even baked foods as well contain a lot of sugar. Not only that even savory foods such as tomato sauce, bread, and protein bars, can have sugar.
People intake so much sugar and they don’t even know realize it. They also don’t realize that the intake of high amount of sugar can lead to many troubles. Here are the top 10 points which are the result of intake excess amount of sugar.
- Sugar can weaken your immune system which can create a lot of health problems. It can also cause a disturbance in the mineral percent in a body.
- Having a high amount of sugar can result in anxiety, hyperactivity, troubles in concentrating, and bizarreness in children. It can create a remarkable increase in triglycerides.
- Too much intake of sugar causes decreases in defense against bacteria and infections (infectious diseases). That’s not all, it can lead to the decrement of tissue function and elasticity.
- Sugar decreases high-density lipoproteins and causes chromium deficiency.
- Eating too much sugary products can cause cancer of the ovaries and can increase fasting levels of glucose.
- Sugar can cause a copper shortage and it can absorb magnesium and calcium and will affect eyes as well.
- A high amount of sugar intake can increase the level of norepinephrine, neurotransmitter, serotonin, and dopamine as well.
- Having an excess amount of sugar can result in hypoglycemia.
- Sugar can lead to trouble in the digestive system, premature aging in young age, the quick increment of adrenaline levels in children and tooth decay.
- High sugar intake can cause advanced glycation end products.
This isn’t the end of the list. Eating an excessive amount of sugar can have many negative health impacts. This doesn’t mean to eliminate sugar from their diet but to limit it. Life is better if everything is in balance and if people fail to maintain that balance then this can result in something horrible.


Inconvertibility - Meaning from English-Bangla Dictionary
Inconvertibility: English to Bangla
Inconvertibility: English to English
Inconvertibility(n.) The quality or state of being inconvertible; not capable of being exchanged for, or converted into, something else; as, the inconvertibility of an irredeemable currency, or of lead, into gold.
Developed by: Abdullah Ibne Alam, Dhaka, Bangladesh


The black and yellow mud dauber can seem like a dangerous pest. However, this wasp has earned an unfair reputation over time due to the habits of other wasp species. Though the black and yellow mud dauber is capable of stinging, they are generally uninterested with the habits of humans and rarely attack unprovoked.
Identifying and Removing Mud Dauber Mud Tubes
Female mud dauber wasps will form mud balls, which are hollowed out to form a nest for their eggs. You likely have seen these mud nests around your home or business throughout the spring and fall seasons. Though the mud dauber itself is harmless, abandoned mud tubes can be utilized by more aggressive or dangerous wasp species.
If you find active mud dauber tubes at your home or business, it is important to utilize the services of a pest control specialist for the most effective removal. If the mud tube is no longer active, property owners may be able to scrape the nest away from the surface it is attached to. If the nest is in a location that would be dangerous to remove alone, seek professional help.
Mud Dauber Control and Prevention
Though mud daubers are considered a non-aggressive and beneficial insect, some property owners prefer to have them removed for safety reasons. Many prefer to leave unimposing mud nests because of the feeding habits these insects have. To feed their young, mud daubers will often paralyze spiders and allow the larva to eat them from inside of the nest.
It is fairly rare for a mud dauber to sting without warrant. However, they do possess stingers like other wasps that can deliver a painful, and potentially dangerous, sting. For individuals that have allergies to wasps or other mud dauber species, this can pose a significant risk.
Why Pied Piper Services for Wasp Control?
There are many species of wasp found in Oklahoma. If you are having trouble identifying the species that are present at your home or business, professional help may be needed. Pied Piper Services can help identify wasps, mud daubers or other flying pests that may be near your home.


A new project will explore how to use animation to communicate the unpredictable dynamics of an infection transmission.
Vicky Isley & Paul Smith (aka boredomresearch), Research Lecturers at BU’s National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) were commissioned by Animate Projects, London in November 2013 to develop a new experimental animation project in collaboration with a biomedical scientist for Silent Signal (a Wellcome Trust supported project).
Animate’s mission is to connect audiences to the art and craft of animation, and through Silent Signal we will communicate to audiences – in UK galleries and online – the beauty and diversity of animation as an artform. The artists chosen for this project employ a variety of techniques and styles in their artistic practice, including 2D, hand drawn, collage, 3D CG, real-time, interactive and rotoscoping, and will be experimenting with the tools and processes of animation to bring an inspiring range of scientific ideas to life. The artists are also demonstrating the novel scientific techniques and technologies that scientists are using to decode the body’s signals, incorporating actual data, algorithms, coding and imaging making tools from the research in their artwork.
– Animate Projects (2014)
Boredomresearch have teamed up with Dr Paddy Brock, who is researching infectious disease transmission at the Imperial College London. Boredomresearch are interested in how they can combine real-time animation with stochastic models, communicating the unpredictable dynamics of an infection transmission scenario to a non-scientific audience. Through using the familiar visual language of landscape and cinematography, an audience will experience the fascinating shapes and movement of a malaria epidemic. Through the project boredomresearch have gained an understanding of epidemiological mathematical models that they can employ to create a compelling expression of real world phenomena.
Further details on the collaborative process are posted on the Silent Signal website.


Recreation On The River
Recreation on the Nemasket River consisted of swimming and boating. The places to swim were identified by the person who owned the property: Frost's Landing, Waterman's Landing, Packard's, Bump's, Ludden's, and others. No fees were charged, there were no clothes changing facilities, people went for a swim when they felt like it. Several areas had slowly sloping shores acting like beach areas. The swimming holes were usually where the water was deepest. The river banks were high and used for jumping into the river. There were a couple of deaths involving the river. In the 1870's or 80's a boy drowned while swimming with a friend near Waterman's Landing. Another drowning was mentioned in 1905. A six year old boy fell from the "Ocean House" window across the street from the electric light plant, hit his head on a stone wall, and fell unconscious into the river and drowned. Although the building was finally condemned in 1908, it wasn't torn down until 1910.
Boating on the river consisted mainly of rowboats and canoes. Even this size craft would just barely fit on the river in places today due to the growth of weeds into the channel from the rivers edge. The original width of the river however, is still visible. Before overgrowth of the weeds, the relaxation of boating was very popular. There were boat houses at the East Grove Street Bridge used primarily for storing canoes. The canoe was paddled in between two platforms used for disembarking from the canoe. The individual would lift the canoe out of the water, turn it up-side-down and store it on one of the racks attached to the inside walls. Space was at a premium so a rental fee of $15 a year was charged. Boating in the late 1800's and early 1900's was truly a social affair. One often met friends on the river and passed the time chatting.


True HumanityScholar Michael Patrick Hearn, in The Annotated Christmas Carol (1976; New York: Norton, 2004), notes that Dickens was a Unitarian. Unitarian Christianity, in Dickens day, focused more on morality and ethics than on traditional theology. Dickens wrote in one of his letters, “I have always striven in my writings to express the veneration for the life and lessons of our Savior . . .” (Hearn, p. 143). While silent here regarding the traditional claim of Jesus full divinity, Dickens clearly feels passionately about Jesus full humanity. For Dickens, Jesus is the perfect example of a godly, loving life. Jesus, in Dickens mind, teaches us what it is to be human. Given this background, readers may consider A Christmas Carol to be an extended meditation on and illustration of one of Jesus central moral teachings, as recorded in the New Testament: “For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?” (Luke 9:25, KJV). Scrooge has pursued the wealth of “the whole world” for his whole life-but, as his ghostly encounters prove, Scrooges real life is in grave danger. And while details surrounding Marleys Ghost (e.g., the hot breeze stirring his hair) suggest that Scrooges eternal life is jeopardized, the whole of A Christmas Carol emphasizes the importance and urgency of a life-giving, life-changing engagement with our fellow human beings (not, one notes, the adherence or lack thereof to “orthodox” religious doctrine!). The book leaves its readers with the understanding that Scrooge-and, by extension, we ourselves-ought to be more concerned with the quality of our lives here and now. The narrative often touches on these questions: What constitutes a real life? What does it mean to be human? Its answer: to be human is to love-and to love, as Dickens knew the Scriptures taught, not with mere words, but in concrete actions (see, e.g., 1 John 3:18). As Marleys Ghost tells Scrooge, our spirits must “walk abroad,” among our fellow human beings, doing what acts of love we can.
Generosity of Spirit
Scrooges nephew Fred first sounds this theme when he praises Christmas as “the only time . . . when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely . . . .” Freds language indicates that, for Dickens, generosity involves more than the giving of money. It requires the giving of ones goodwill and compassion. Throughout A Christmas Carol, the examples we see of generosity are more about the spirit in which something is given than the thing itself-from the schoolmasters offer of food and wine to young Scrooge and Fan, or the modest but joyful celebration sponsored by Mr. And Mrs. Fezziwig, or even Freds offer of assistance to a bereaved Bob Cratchit in a future that does not come to pass: as Bob says, “Now it wasnt for the sake of anything [Fred] might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful” (Stave Four, emphasis added). And, of course, the Ghost of Christmas Present, with his cornucopia-like torch, is generosity personified. Generosity of spirit defines Christmas for Dickens, and goes a large way toward defining true humanity for him as well (see above).
The Importance of Memory
A Christmas Carol is a largely nostalgic work: as discussed in comments on Stave One, Dickens is not so much recording the “traditional Victorian Christmas” as he is restoring ancient practices which became associated with the holiday thanks in large part to this book. Unsurprisingly, then, memory is honored throughout the book, and is even ascribed a salvific quality. The Ghost of Christmas Past is memory personified; the light from its head allows Scrooge to see and learn from both the good things and the bad things in his past. The task of keeping alive Tiny Tims memory, in the future of Stave Four that does not transpire, allows the Cratchit family to move on in life: in Bobs own words, “[H]owever and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim-shall we? . . . .” Dickens structures his story to show how memory of ones past affects and-if but allowed to do so-can even transform ones present and future.
Readers must remember that, as A Christmas Carol begins, Scrooge is not condemned for his miserly ways alone. If he were simply a stingy man, whose penny-pinching ways hurt no one but himself, he might be a pitiable character, but one about whom readers do not overly concern themselves. Scrooges miserliness, however, is symptomatic for Dickens of the way in which his society ignored, exploited, and abused its poorest and most vulnerable members. Remember Scrooges objection to charitable donations (“Are there no prisons,” etc.) and his dismissal of the poor as “surplus population” (a phrase coined by laissez-faire economist Thomas Robert Malthus, who represented a “hands- off” school of thought to which Dickens objected [Hearn 24]). Such cynical and calloused refusal to share (see also comments on generosity, above) is, for Dickens, an outrage. The clearest call for social justice in the book occurs when the Ghost of Christmas Present warns Scrooge to beware of Ignorance and Want, forces which, if left unchecked, can spell doom not only for the poor but for the whole of society. Dickens stresses the humanity common to all people, and demands that those who “have” act accordingly towards those who “have not.”


Gresham Lecture, Wednesday 23 March 2011
How the Middle Ages were built:
Exuberance to Crisis, 1300-1408
Professor Simon Thurley
The title of my lectures this year is God, Caesar and Robin Hood. We saw in my first lecture that to understand Saxon and Norman building we needed to understand the contemporary obsession with Rome (that’s the Caesar!). Then in my second lecture I talked about God and the invention of gothic, an architectural style designed to bring man into proximity with an earthly representation of heaven. In my second two lectures, tonight and on April 13th, I want to move on to Robin Hood, perhaps a more surprising emblem for English building endeavour, but one which, when I have finished, I hope you will agree, captures the extraordinary richness of English building in the period 1300 to 1520. But tonight I will deal with the first half - the extraordinary century that started in 1300.
Thirteenth century England was rich and populous but by 1300 it had peaked. The century that followed brought a lot of bad news. Underlying many of the problems was a very modern concern – climate change. Between 1290 and 1375 the British climate became instable and unpredictable, there were a series of wet summers which prevented crops from ripening, rotted seed in the ground and nurtured pests and disease. There was costal flooding inundating thousands of acres, while torrential rain made thousands more unusable. Between 1315 and 1322 there was crop failure and widespread famine killing perhaps half a million people. Starting in the 1330s the countryside began to contract, villages were abandoned, clayey and sandy soils were left for more fertile areas
So, for instance, in Dartmoor during the thirteenth century hamlets and farmsteads were built on agriculturally marginal land. In 1300 in the southern hamlet at Hound Tor there were four longhouses and seven ancillary buildings. The farmers who occupied these fought to keep the moorland from eating up their fields by building stone walls. Initially they must have had success, but in the 1330s they built corn driers to combat the effect of wet summers. This cannot have been enough for the whole settlement was abandoned less than twenty years later.
A better developed agricultural economy might have resisted the effects of climate change, but climatic factors brought an immature system to its knees, particularly at the margins. A second global factor undermined thirteenth century stability, a failure of money supply. This was partly caused by a genuine shortage of silver – the mines simply couldn’t produce enough to supply the mints as well as the luxury goods market. But part was due to taxation demands made by the crown to pay for war: For forty of the sixty years between 1290 and 1350 England was at war. These wars were not skirmishes; they involved armies of 20,000 men or more, ships, horses, massive castles and extended supply lines.
To support the war effort the crown imposed heavy taxes and manipulated and exploited the wool trade. Both were bad for the economy and meant that the self-confidence and prosperity that had knitted society together in the thirteenth century was coming unravelled. In 1348 it suddenly fell apart. The Bubonic Plague reached the south coast of England in that summer and gradually spread northwards, bringing continued death in Scotland in 1350. Half the population was killed. Recurring bouts in 1361-2, 1369 and 1375 probably killed another 10-15%. So in all around 60% of the populatopn died in 30 years, most of it in two.
Of course many architects and masons were killed by the Black Death, many building projects were halted, many rich patrons died with cheques unsigned. In a few places this can be starkly illustrated. At the parish church of St. Oswald, Ashborne, Derbyshire a very ambitious rebuilding that began in about 1300 suddenly stopped. In 1349 the tower and spire together with aisled transepts were in place as was the south aisle of the nave. The north aisle was never built. Work stopped in 1350 and was never resumed and so a large buttress now protrudes into the church supporting the crossing.
If the death toll amongst architects, masons and sculptors was similar to the population at large, half would have died of plague. New men of a younger generation filled their shoes, with a different outlook and working in different styles. Patrons were often new men too and an epidemic that left half of England dead must have had a huge effect on the way they felt. There was an emotion and movement in the architecture of the thirteenth century that I described in my last lecture. If you were here you will remember me showing you the west end of St. Denys Sleaford with its wild tracery and the east end of Holy Trinity Hull containing not only remarkable and inventive tracery but decorated niches in the buttresses and much more decoration. I showed you Heckington, Lincolnshire with its remarkable sedillia and Easter sepulchre. This was the architecture of wealth, confidence and exuberance.
But as we enter the fourteenth century English architecture gets much less emotional and more static; less exuberant and florid, more controlled, less individualistic. These changes began in the 1330s, unconnected with the tragedy of the mid century, but after the Black Death they seem to have captured the mood and stylistic changes accelerate after 1348.
In understanding this it is essential to realise the importance of regional variations in style. Masons leant their craft in the great regional centres and looked to models nearby as well as to those in London. Thus buildings in Oxford, Warwick or Tewksbury looked different from those in London and the Home Counties. Yet two metropolitan buildings did have an important role to play in the changes that took place in the middle of the fourteenth century:
St Stephens Chapel at Westminster Palace and the chapter house at St. Paul’s Cathedral. These were the twin showpieces of London masons incorporating ideas taken from French royal buildings. The specific innovation that was important was the use of tracery as wall decoration rather than simply as structural glazing bars. In my last lecture I described how the introduction of tracery revolutionised architectural design and the appreciation of architectural space. Its translation from the window to the wall was the crucial next step and can be seen here in a nineteenth century reconstruction of the internal elevation of St. Stephen’s Chapel.
It is very likely that the architect of St. Stephen’s chapel was Michael of Canterbury and that he, faced with the problem of modernising the interior of the south transept of Gloucester Abbey (now Cathedral), covered the walls with a veneer of gothic tracery and built a south window in which a big central mullion splits and meets the outer arch effectively creating two arches in one. These features were to become increasingly popular and, in due course, defining of a federation of stylistic components that were christened in 1817 the Perpendicular Style. The choir at Gloucester was built from c.1337 to c.1365 under another architect who extended the stylistic experiment of the transept. It is an exciting place to be, lit by the single largest window built in medieval Europe. The effect is of a single graph-paper-like grid of vertical panels covering the whole internal surface, window included. This was a new aesthetic, for everything was subjugated to the net of tracery, no individual element stood out - in contrast to previous interiors where statues and individualistic carving were everywhere. There is another aesthetic shift too: in the way that the panels and shafts emphasise the verticality of the space rather than its horizontality. The vertical shafts sprout into a multitude of ribs that knit themselves into a bewildering but symmetrical geometric vault.
From about 1360 the architects of Gloucester took the design principles of the choir to their logical conclusion by applying the grid of panelling to the vaults. The east cloister has the first fan vault in England: a technological and aesthetic revolution. Previous vaults had relied on the ribs for their strength. These fan vaults, shaped like up-ended half trumpets, were made of brilliantly jointed carved ashlar panels decorated with blind tracery unifying wall, window in ceiling in a single modular grid.
The components of a new style, seen best at Gloucester, soon started to make earlier buildings look old fashioned. The most important of these was Canterbury Cathedral where, in 1377, the monks started to rebuild their Norman nave. The architect they commissioned was Henry Yevele, the chief royal architect, who took six years to complete one of England’s greatest architectural masterpieces. The nave of Canterbury reversed the existing architectural canon replacing the massive engineering of the arcades with thin arches and virtually eliminating the clearstory and triforium. The original effect of extreme verticality has now been diluted by the insertion of later screens, but the clusters of vertical shafts sprouting into a vault 80ft above the floor set a model that was widely imitated.
And imitated all over the country, for despite economic stagnation and depopulation for many communities the period between 1380 and 1530 was one of active participation in architectural patronage. That century and a half saw the rebuilding of perhaps 50% of all parish churches, a process quite different from previous waves of church building. First, there were few new foundations. New parishes more or less ceased to be formed after 1300, each church jealously protecting its existing rights and jurisdiction. The fifteenth century saw new naves, towers, porches, re-fenestration and internal reordering, rather than new building on fresh sites. Second, this work was funded, not by ecclesiastics or the aristocracy, but by the gentry and merchants, and by middling or lesser men contributing to their local project.
So here is the great parish church of St. Mary Saffron Walden built in around 1430 by the wealth of the town merchants. It is a grand, but typical, example, a great big rectangular box and inside a big arcade with a grid of tracery between it and the clerestory. This was an expensive endeavour even for a town as rich as Saffron Walden was in the fifteenth century. We have to ask why was the perfectly good church that preceded it replaced with this cavernous building? Death is the answer. The dynamo that drove so much building in the fifteenth century was the spectre of death that still hung over England after the catastrophe of the Black Death.
The tragedies of the fourteenth century left a residual strain of morbidity in society. This is perhaps most starkly symbolised by a fashion amongst some rich (and dead) patrons for double tombs. The upper tomb commemorated the patron in all his worldly glory and below lay his emaciated cadaver wrapped in a shroud. Sometimes worms creep from the belly sometimes from eye sockets. In the Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel Castle, is the tomb of John FitzAlan, 7th Earl (d 1435). His armoured effigy lies on an open arcaded tomb beneath which is an emaciated cadaver.
More common expressions of morbidity were the terrifying murals that were painted above and around the chancel arch and behind the rood. Worshippers at St. Thomas, Salisbury still stare at a huge doom where Christ in majesty judges the world. On the left angles are raising the dead, some of whom are carried (with evident relief) heavenwards. On the other side is the Prince of Darkness watching a group of the damned, wrapped in chains, being dragged into the mouth of Hell.
But let’s move away from churches for the century under consideration this evening was also important for some of the most remarkable secular buildings of the middle ages. As builder King Edward III (1327-77) eclipsed his great predecessor Henry II and became the greatest patron of English architecture of the Middle Ages. His greatest project was the rebuilding of Windsor Castle over a period of 18 years at a cost of £51,000. The bulk of this, some £44,000 was spent between 1357 and 1368 on rebuilding the upper ward. Here a massive residential block, partly subsuming the work of Henry II, rose. On the north front there were Henry II’s great towers but on the inside, facing the inner ward of the castle, were the royal rooms laid out in a single range, the great hall, the chapel and the king’s chamber. At the west end was a tall, slender tower, the Rose Tower containing private chambers. On the west and north were further chambers for the king and queen.
To the modern eye the great south elevation looks austere and monotonous, but to the contemporary observer it would have been radical and novel. Its sheer size, 389ft long made it the longest secular façade in England, its lack of external sculpture would have set it apart from previous monumental structures, but most of all was the impression that individual elements were less important then the overall effect. This was part of the aesthetic that was born in St. Stephen’s Chapel and exploited at Gloucester, the aesthetic normally called perpendicular.
Windsor spawned, in particular, another royal building, Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire. John of Gaunt, Edward’s fourth son, came to prominence when his older brothers died leaving him the greatest aristocrat in the kingdom. While Westminster and Windsor have either gone, or been completely altered, at Kenilworth some of the bravura of Edwardian Court architecture remains. Gaunt’s great hall, approached by a massive stair, is England’s grandest ruined domestic interior, its deep bays panelled with tracery, its cathedral-like windows overlooking the mere.
Important as Windsor and Kenilworth were the real centre of power in medieval England was at Westminster, not in a castle, but in the unfortified palace founded by Edward the Confessor and consolidated by William the Conqueror and his son. Henry III (1216-72) had made Westminster Hall into the principal throne room of the land with a permanent marble throne set on the dais behind a massive marble table. Near this met the courts of King’s Bench, Chancery and Common Pleas, in the presence, as it were, of the king. In 1393 Richard II decided to rebuild Westminster Hall, a project that was completed by 1401. The massive Norman walls were retained and Richard’s masons inserted big new gothic windows in them. Beneath was a cornice richly carved with Richard’s heraldic beasts. The Norman roof was replaced with the largest and most important piece of carpentry in Western Europe. The challenge for Hugh Herland, Richard II’s carpenter was how to span the incredible width of the hall. To do this he used an emerging structural technique that was being successfully employed at Dartington Hall, Devon: the hammer beam roof. This type of roof shortens the span that has to be covered by cutting the tie beam and leaving its stubs as projecting timbers or hammer beams. These are supported by curved braces from the wall. The hammer beams then reduce the span for the principal arches.
On each hammer beam was a massive angel holding the arms of England, the roof was thus a representation of the heavens spread over the earthly court of Richard II. This was not the only religious connotation of the hall for The entrance façade was also treated like a cathedral or great abbey with two towers clad with a screen of twenty-seven niches containing statues of kings and queens. In terms of architectural hierarchy Westminster Hall, uniquely in English medieval architecture, sought equivalence of status with the most important religious buildings, a comment on Richard II’s conception of kingship.
While lesser patrons never dared copy this audacious building in its entirely almost every individual element of the hall became architecturally influential. The King’s personal heraldic devices displayed on the cornice set the fashion for the profuse display of personal heraldry in the interiors secular buildings. Timber roofs already had status in English building (unlike in France) but the hammer beam instantly became a special kind of roof which referenced back to the principal throne chamber of the land. Edward IV and Henry VIII chose them to cover their halls at Eltham and Hampton Court and courtiers as late as the Jacobean Period used them at houses such as Burghley. The religious connotations of the roof were taken up by parish churches, either as at St. Wendreda, March, Cambridgeshire, where there are three tiers of angels on a double hamerbeam roof,
I have made much of the effects of plague, but I now need to turn to the effects of war because the Hundred Year’s War and royal and aristocratic architectural aspiration went hand in hand. Fighting in France could bring wealth and honour which in turn could support the aggrandising of landed estates to pass on to their heirs. For the courtiers of Edward III honour and knighthood was in their blood. They wanted to build houses that reflected their martial success and would push themselves to their financial limit to do so.
Until after the Black Death England north of Yorkshire was thinly populated with great houses. There were royal castles at Carlisle and Berwick, for instance, and the castle-palace of Durham but few noble houses of any size. During the reign of Richard II two families became the leading forces in the north, the Percys and the Nevilles, both were given wide ranging powers of governance by the crown and fees to maintain substantial armed retinues. These families and their followers built, in a period of about a century, a series of residences of extraordinary scale and magnificence. The Nevilles were the greatest and most important builders in the north before the eighteenth century, starting at Brancepeth (c.1360-80) then at Raby (c.1367-1389) at Middleham and Sherrif Hutton. Supporters of the Nevilles built in imitation at Bolton and Lumley. The Percy family meanwhile redeveloped Alnwick Castle in 1310-60 and the masterly Warkworth Castle in the 1390s.
The most important development in the lives of the men who built these houses from around 1300 was a noticeable decrease in household mobility. Early medieval households were always on the move but during the fourteenth century noble households moved about less, some stayed put for most of the year. This change in lifestyle had no single cause, but the fact that so much land was now tenanted meant that lords could not live off their own estates as they travelled and at the same time had less reason to visit their far flung holdings. Much longer periods spent in one place affected the design and economy of the great houses.
Principally they became larger, more complex, and more richly appointed and most lords chose one, or at most two houses that could be brought up to the expected standards. So While Edward I had twenty houses Henry VI had only twelve. The Bishop of Hereford had thirteen houses in 1300 but in 1356 decided to limit the number to just seven.
So these mighty residences built in the north of England were palace-forts, massive, lavish and theatrical, heavily influenced by Windsor and Kenilworth Castles. They tended not to have a strong single visual focus provided by a keep but the silhouette was made up of numbers of towers and walls. Crucially they were planned round a central courtyard, a development that had began just before 1300 and can be seen at Goodrich Castle, Herefordshire, where the Valence earls of Pembroke built an up-to-the-minute castle with a series of
self-contained lodgings round a central court. The best surviving northern palace-fort is at Bolton where around 1378 John Lewyn, the most important architect in northern England, started a brand new castle on a fresh site for Richard Lord Scrope. Scrope was a former soldier turned courtier who rose to be Chancellor of England. Like Goodrich, his new house was built round a courtyard with five strong towers at the corners. Its external appearance is utterly uncompromising, plain but overpowering in bulk. This austerity is all show for it wraps round a plan of extreme ingenuity that creates a large number of luxurious lodgings for Scrope, his household, guests and servants. Bolton represents the first generation of English aristocratic houses where the complexity of a lavish civilian lifestyle is architecturally integrated with the visual communication of military power.
In it we see the growth of the individual lodging, for owners, their households and their guests. Generally speaking lodgings for the lord and lady of the house developed at the upper end of the hall, normally in a wing built at right angles to it. Before 1400 most grand houses had a withdrawing chamber in this position, but increasingly this was only the first of a sequence of rooms which became progressively more private. We have already encountered Penshurst Place which was sold to Henry V’s brother John, Duke of Bedford in 1429. He built on to Sir John Pultney’s withdrawing chamber a large three-story block, containing household lodgings on the ground floor and two fine rooms above for himself plus a lobby and a private closet. To provide access to this suite the staircase from the hall was also rebuilt in a more stately fashion.
Such lordly lodgings, which today are often gaunt and empty ruins, were furnished with extravagance. Key to a display of magnificence was plate and textiles. Textiles, particularly tapestry, often woven in the Low Countries, was hung in any room of status, and in the most important rooms sets of tapestries shot through with precious metals sparkled in candlelight. Thomas Woodcock at Castle Pleshy in 1397 had a bed of cloth of gold valued at £180 equivalent to the annual income of a well-heeled knight. One of his tapestries, showing the history of Charlemagne, was 72ft long and was valued at over £48. Buffets covered in fine carpets or linen supported a dazzling display of plate: ewers, chargers candlesticks and goblets. Lord Scrope had, in his bedroom at Bolton Castle a bowl and ewer of silver and in his great hall 35 gold and silver salt cellars.
Let me leave royal and aristocratic housing, for although developments in these types of house were interesting they were not as important in the long term as what was starting to happen in the towns. English towns reached a peak in about 1300 and from that time on population stagnated, before plummeting as a result of plague. Some towns, like Lincoln and York halved in size between 1377 and 1530. Yet in 1530 30% of the population were still living in towns and some places like Exeter or Worcester had grown in size and wealth.
English towns were run by merchants and successful artisans who would make key decisions taking account of the views of common council, the representative body of small-scale operators. This was a new class eager to express their wealth and sophistication in bricks and mortar and they had a tremendous impact on the appearance of English towns.
Merchants and artisans were also the leading members of religious fraternities or guilds. These groups had existed before 1350 but after became more numerous, prosperous and prestigious and grew to occupy a key place in the local economy. While at heart they were clubs investing in a collective chantry employing priests to pray for their souls, their charitable activities were vital. They founded and funded schools, hospitals and almshouses and paid for local infrastructure such as roads and bridges, in fact in some small towns most public buildings were funded by Guilds.
In York, second only to London in wealth and population, two medieval guild halls remain: the Merchant Adventurers hall of 1357-61 and the Merchant Taylors of c.1400. Both are timber framed and the Adventurers hall is one of the best surviving of the period. The Guild was originally a social and religious one, but it was later absorbed by a craft guild, the Guild of Mercers and Merchants. Their building combined spaces for trading, social events, religion and charity. The huge aisled ground floor space and stone chapel was a hospital for tending the sick, elderly and orphaned as well as passing travellers and pilgrims. Above was the hall, the hub of the Guild’s trading and social activities.
The fraternities, craft guilds and their buildings, together with the feasts and ceremonies that were an integral part of their purpose, gave a sense of character, history and pride to towns. In the richest towns this was expressed by the town government in its own civic structures. By 1300 the City of London had won self-government from the crown, a mayor, twenty-four Aldermen and two sheriffs were established and they commissioned the mason John Croxtone to replace the old city guild hall in 1411. Over nearly twenty years he built the largest and most important building in the City after St. Paul’s. Most of it was hemmed in by other structures, so the entrance porch, facing Guildhall Yard, became the public face of England’s wealthiest Corporation, and it looked it. The whole surface was covered by blank arcading and niches containing four-foot high statues. At the top was Christ in majesty, below, on the next level, figures representing law and learning and then, flanking the archway, four female figures representing the virtues of discipline, justice, fortitude, temperance, trampling vice beneath their feet.
The porch led to the great hall built in emulation of Westminster Hall and, in England, only second in size to it. It was probably originally intended to be vaulted in stone, a feat indeed considering its 46ft width. In the end it was given a hammerbeam roof with steeply pitched covering visible above the adjacent buildings. Inside the entire wall surface was decorated with gigantic screens of tracery, the upper parts of which sailed over window openings on the same plane as the wall giving the interior a remarkable harmony.
As the English economy grew, the machinery of government developed and the church prospered, the monarchy, church and aristocracy competed for able administrators. Many of these aspired to a degree. The purpose of this was to equip them with the skills needed to run estates, go to law and fill church posts. A degree in the middle ages covered grammar, rhetoric, logic and theology and a fourteen year old would be a Master of Arts by the time he was 21. A doctorate would take another ten years.
Nobody founded a university in Oxford; it grew from the concentration of teachers who gathered there in the shadow of its monasteries. The word university comes from universitas, which means those who are licensed to teach and, by the 1190s, the town was well known for its teachers. In England, students went to live in the town where they studied, they didn’t, as on the continent, go to university where they lived. So, at first, there was a big market for rented houses in Oxford but from the 1240s Academic Halls began to be founded. These were essentially large houses, indistinguishable from private residences, normally belonging to a monastery but leased to graduates who would rent out rooms and provide meals for students. By the 1320s there were perhaps a hundred of these in Oxford catering for perhaps 2,000 students.
From the mid-thirteenth century Academic Halls began to give way to colleges which were founded both to educate scholars in a more disciplined way but also to act as chantries for their founders. Colleges were founded at the very highest level of society and were endowed with land and other revenues and so acquired a wealth, independence and freedom which they retain to this day. One of the first was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton, who had twice been Chancellor of England and then Bishop of Rochester. His college was for 30 to 40 graduate fellows who were to teach while pursuing higher degrees in law, medicine and crucially theology. Merton College, like other early colleges, whilst like a monastery in character, has a much looser and more informal plan. There was a first floor hall on an undercroft for lectures and for dining, then there was a chapel, unfinished, but still today large and ambitious. In 1304-7 came the first residential buildings for the fellows, these were, by 1378 with the addition of further chambers, to form the first quad in Oxford.
Life in Mob quad would have been relatively basic and quite different from communal life in a monastery. The blocks of lodgings were one room deep with the chambers lying either side of a lobby and staircase. Each chamber was for perhaps four fellows who slept communally but had their own cubicle for study lit by a window. There was no glass in the windows, no fireplace and the ground floor rooms had earth floors
Oxford, like so many other towns, was hit hard by economic decline and plague leading to depopulation in the 1340s and 50s. This presented an opportunity to found new colleges in vacant parts of the academic quarter. The most important of these was New College founded by William of Wykeham in 1379. To fully understand the ambition and significance of this building, certainly one of the most important and influential of its age, it is necessary to return to Windsor where Wykeham was in charge of building operations for Edward III.
From 1380 to 1402 New College took shape, its hall and chapel built as a single range just like the royal lodgings at Windsor. These formed the north side of a quadrangle. Around the other three sides were chambers for 70 scholars and a gatehouse with an adjacent barn to hold produce from its estates. To the west of the chapel was a cloister added in 1389 and completed with a bell tower by 1400. Winchester College, which was built between 1387 and 1401, also for 70 scholars, had a plan very similar to New College with a hall and chapel in a single range and close by a semi-detached cloister. These were educational establishments, but they were also colleges of priests: New College, for instance, had 10 chaplains, 3 clerks and 16 choristers. It was their duty to observe the full rites of the church including processions in the cloisters.
The great nineteenth century architect AWN Pugin said that ‘the history of architecture is the history of the world’. In the architecture of the period 1300 to around 1410 or so we see the reaction of a society to incredible hardship and trauma. It was also a society in which the economic balance was radically changing and with that came a change in political balance too.
The black death remarkably meant that those who were left were better off. Not the big landowners but their economic and social lesses. The poorer were richer and the merchants and gentry created a self-conscious and assertive political community represented in parliament. The Peasants Revolt had ensured that this community would not, as in France for instance, make the common people entirely responsible for direct taxation, giving the upper classes fiscal immunity. That all classes shared the burden of taxation meant English society was far less stratified and much more mobile than in most northern European countries. Englishmen now spoke a single language that was rapidly becoming the official language of administration and culture. These points are important because it meant that England had a much more uniform culture than any other state in Europe a fact that was expressed in its architecture. Fifteenth century buildings in England have a much greater commonality of style than in France, Germany or Italy where the centripetal forces were much greater.
But above all from the fourteenth century architecture is for more people, not just the bishop and the lord. The disposable income of people lower down the social scale enabled them, not the aristocrats and the abbots, to be the patrons of the churches and cathedrals and, as we shall see in my next lecture, enabled their standards of living to dramatically rise.
The passion that drove English architecture was moving. Of course God mattered, and so in a small way did Rome, but out of the misery of plague and economic collapse emerged a self confident and individualistic nation who did not want to owe anything to bishop, lord or king. If we were to choose an eblem top exemplify their free spirit and Englishness for my money it would be Robin Hood. But more on this on April 13th. I hope you will join me.
©Professor Simon Thurley, Gresham College 2011


A watershed is an area or region of land whose runoff drains into a creek, river or other body of water. Since much of Los Angeles is paved, many people are not aware that we have watersheds here in Southern California. However, the truth of the matter is that we all live in a watershed. Los Angeles has four primary watersheds.
The Industrial District of downtown Los Angeles is in the LA River Watershed.
From the LA Stormwater website:
"Together with community organizations and environmental groups, the City of Los Angeles is working to improve water quality in Southern California. Projects throughout the watershed are improving water quality by reducing the amount of pollution flowing into rivers and creeks that drain into the Los Angeles River."
Mission: To create a balance between urban and natural resources within the Los Angeles River Watershed.
The Los Angeles River Watershed covers a land area of 834 square miles. The eastern portion spans from the Santa Monica Mountains to the Simi Hills and in the west from the Santa Susana Mountains to the San Gabriel Mountains. The watershed encompasses and is shaped by the path of the Los Angeles River, which flows from its headwaters in the mountains eastward to the northern corner of Griffith Park. Here the channel turns southward through the Glendale Narrows before it flows across the coastal plain and into San Pedro Bay near Long Beach. The Los Angeles River has evolved from an uncontrolled, meandering river providing a valuable source of water for early inhabitants to a major flood protection waterway.
The Los Angeles River Watershed Section is tasked with finding ways to restore or revitalize the channels within the watershed and thereby provide significant opportunities for recreation and aesthetic improvement for the Los Angeles metropolitan area while protecting the Los Angeles Basin from major flooding.