New 'CSI style' crime blood test 'could help police pinpoint suspect's age'
Published 23/11/2010 | 13:48
A new crime solving test which can determine the age of a criminal suspect from a tiny spec of blood has been developed by scientists.
Using current DNA techniques, researchers found they could narrow a person’s age to within nine years.
Experts said the new test, which can work on dried bloodstains that are several years old, could lead to a major breakthrough for crime scene investigators and offer new hope to “cold cases”.
Existing methods rely on teeth, bones or other body parts to establish the age of a suspect.
But scientists at Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands have used a characteristic of immune cells, known as T cells which recognise foreign invaders, to calculate an age.
Their study, reported online in the journal Current Biology, says their test provides better results than previous attempts to pinpoint ages through DNA testing.
“We have demonstrated that human age can be estimated from blood with reasonable accuracy using a simple, robust, and sensitive test assay,” said Dr Manfred Kayser, who led the study.
“Our method is applicable in situations where only bloodstains are available, which covers a large proportion of crime cases.
“I wouldn't be surprised if it could be used on historical blood stains that are decades or 100s of years old.”
T cells contain tiny loops of DNA known as “single joint TCR excision circles” or sj TRECS for short.
The scientists said the number of these loops of DNA declines at a constant rate with age.
Dr Kayser said the number of these molecules in a blood sample is counted against a reference gene not affected by age, which allows them to calculate the total amount of DNA in the sample.
"You have a problem because normally your DNA does not change with age," said Dr Kayser.
"What does change is the activity of certain genes over a lifetime, but that is at the RNA level, and crime labs aren't ready for that. So we really had to look for another approach."
The test estimates an age with an error range of approximately nine years.
The study also suggests that the test would be accurate in placing suspects into generational categories spanning over two decades.
Mark Jobling, a geneticist at the University of Leicester told Nature that the "correlation is pretty impressive".
"How useful it will be in practice as a forensic tool remains to be seen, although there will certainly be forensic cases where it will help as an investigative tool," he added.


The birth of a child has drastic short-term effects on new mothers’ sleep, particularly during the first three months after birth. Researchers at the University of Warwick have also found sleep duration and satisfaction is decreased up to six years after giving birth for both parents.
Sibling bullying does have an effect on mental health later in life for both the victims and the bullies, it needs to be taken more seriously by parents and healthcare professionals. There are families where sibling bullying is more likely and can be prevented – says researchers in the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick.
A systematic review of the literature into the effects of caffeine on breastfed infants has concluded that there is no robust evidence for positive or negative effects of maternal caffeine consumption during breastfeeding on a breastfed child - according to Dr Yen-Fu Chen and graduate-entry medical student Aimee McCreedy of the Warwick Medical School.
War, lack of democracy and urbanisation contribute to double burden of malnutrition in adolescents in developing countries
A new study from the University of Warwick blames macro-level factors for the double burden of malnutrition among adolescents in developing countries. The double burden of malnutrition refers to the coexistence of undernutrition along with overweight and obesity, or diet-related noncommunicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes.
A new book highlights how living in our increasingly sleep deprived society is affecting our health. Sleep, Health and Society, edited by academics from the University of Warwick aims to explain to the non-expert the complex medical, sociological, technical and scientific factors affecting us all.


In January Arcadia University introduced its new Crime Scene House. Dr. Karen Scott, director and associate professor of forensic science at Arcadia, gave us more details on this real-life teaching tool for the Masters of Science in Forensic Science (MSFS) program.
What exactly is a crime scene house and what special features does it have?
A crime scene house is a property that is set up as a crime scene for training or teaching purposes. This can be anything from a single room to a whole house and garden. It is not essential to have any special features; however we have a variety of props that we use for our scenes including a mannequin so that we can stage murder scenes.
What is the house’s history and how did Arcadia acquire it?
The house is a standard property that Arcadia owns. Arcadia’s Emergency Services uses it because it ensures a three-minute response time to any location on campus. When Alumni Relations re-appropriated the basement space in another location that the MSFS program previously used, we were able to acquire five rooms in the crime scene house. Working closely with Arcadia’s facilities team over the summer, we set up a studio style apartment on the first floor and two classrooms on the second floor.
Will anyone other than the MSFS program use the crime scene house?
The main use of the house is for the MSFS program’s Crime Scene Investigation and Reconstruction course. The Criminal Justice program also uses it for their undergraduate Crime Scene class. In addition, we hosted a Bomb Squad training day for Montgomery County Sheriff’s department and will use the house to train Montgomery County officers in crime scene techniques. The Center for Forensic Science Research and Education in Willow Grove, the partner lab for the MSFS program, will also use the house for training courses. Lastly we will host high school classes and perhaps other groups in the community.
What might a mock crime scene look like?
We utilize both inside and outside the house for the crime scenes. Outside there may be some tire marks or footprints that the students would collect to determine what the perpetrator was driving or wearing on his/her feet. The students would look for tool marks on the door which would signal forced entry. Inside typically there will be a body and evidence pointing to a manner of death (gunshot, for example) and perhaps some type of theft. The students will look for fingerprints and other types of trace evidence around the body and in other rooms that may have been breached during the crime.
What do students learn in a mock crime scene experience that they don’t learn elsewhere? How important is it for students to have this real-world experience?
They learn how to process a crime scene in a methodical manner. They learn the importance of correct evidence collection and scene preservation. Doing this practically (and learning from mistakes) is a crucial part of their learning. You only get one attempt to correctly process any scene so the hands-on experience at this level helps them gain appreciation for what working a real scene will be like.


Artificial intelligence (AI) does more than execute code; it uses a range of strategies to recognize objects and behaviors, it understands speech and learns in response to changes in the data.
Although AI is not intelligent in a conscious way, not yet at least, these abilities put AI-based applications in a position to make dramatic changes in many industries. Medicine and the healthcare professions are no exceptions.
Data Driven Medicine Goes To Work
AI has graduated from the university laboratory and gone to work in the world of industry and business. Current software applications can use advanced machine learning algorithms and artificial neural networks to crack complex problems that have evaded machines until now. This utility is helping the medical profession as much as any other.
There are many exciting uses for AI in healthcare software, which are just now revealing themselves. The healthcare business will change in response to the newest technologies as AI provides new insights and clarity in diagnosis, care, and administration.
The medical profession is undergoing a sea change in which practitioners seek to base decisions on data more than opinion and the eminence of authorities. This evidence-based medicine (EBM) is one of the factors in the changing architecture of the healthcare industry. The emergence of algorithms that deliver on the promise of AI is another paradigm-shifting factor.
Watson The Oncologist And Other Amazing Machines
Smart sensors connect Big Data to AI to give advanced warning of crisis events such as strokes and myocardial infarction. Systems such as Watson from IBM can find patterns within Big Data and recognize subtle physiological changes earlier than clinicians.
AI systems deliver test results more quickly and prevent medication errors. By sifting through giant piles of data, AIs can test DNA and mine electronic health records (EHR). Automated telemedicine based on AI brings diagnosis to your home and deliver better care for chronic conditions.
Consumer Services And The Changing Structure
Hospitals will consolidate – These changes will cause Medical organizations to consolidate into larger more centralized facilities, and smaller hospitals will close down. More conditions will be treated as outpatient or by telemedicine; you’ll need to be sicker to get admitted to hospital.
Check out how we helped build the world's first free-market telemedicine system for Video Medicine, Inc.
Hospitals will be like ICUs – Hospital wards will be more like critical care units, where smart sensors and AI will predict crises before they become critical and alert staff to intervene.
Storefront medicine – While clinics may concentrate resources, consumers will most likely meet clinicians at shopping center storefront medical outlets. These will probably be nurse practitioners, or patients will connect to doctors via telemedicine channels from home or mobile devices.
Patients will control their EHR records – These electronic data compilations will be open to Big Data analytics. AI systems that mine EHRs will find information relating to individual patients and populations providing diagnoses and issues that require policy updates.
A new healthcare professional will emerge – The new capabilities will change the nature of the medical profession and introduce new roles. The new jobs will go to personnel trained to work with physicians, to monitor and manage patient healthcare. This new career path will most likely combine data science with patient care and focus on providing a customer experience that is pleasant and efficient.
Artificial intelligence will change medicine dramatically, making it more proactive and economical. The automated insights from data will alter the architecture of healthcare irreversibly. Hopefully, as the healthcare system becomes smarter, patients can look forward to better care experiences that result in more productive and happier lives.


Analysis of meteorite data indicates the growth of Jupiter into the solar system’s most massive planet was held up for about two million years during a phase in which kilometre-size planetesimals crashed into it, releasing heat that prevented rapid cooling, contraction and further gas accretion.
Jupiter now has 300 times the mass of the Earth with an equatorial diameter of 143,000 kilometres (89,000 miles). The details of how it evolved have been hotly debated for decades, but Swiss researchers have shown the planet grew in distinct phases.
The planetary embryo rapidly accreted small centimetre-size particles, building a substantial core over about a million years. But the growth rate slowed over the next two million years or so as kilometre-size bodies crashed into the new world, releasing enormous heat.
“During the first stage, the pebbles brought the mass,” said Yann Alibert, lead author of a paper in Nature Astronomy. “In the second phase, the planetesimals also added a bit of mass, but what is more important, they brought energy.”
“The standard model for giant planet formation is based on the accretion of solids by a growing planetary embryo, followed by rapid gas accretion once the planet exceeds a so-called critical mass,” the authors write in the paper’s abstract. “However, the dominant size of the accreted solids (‘pebbles’ of the order of centimetres or ‘planetesimals’ of the order of kilometres to hundreds of kilometres) is unknown.
“Recently, high-precision measurements of isotopes in meteorites have provided evidence for the existence of two reservoirs of small bodies in the early Solar System. These reservoirs remained separated from (about one million years) until (about three million years) after the Solar System started to form. This separation is interpreted as resulting from Jupiter growing and becoming a barrier for material transport.”
In this scenario, Jupiter reached a mass about 20 times that of Earth within one million years and slowly grew to 50 Earth masses in the subsequent two million years. That is “puzzling,” the researchers write, because a planet of this mass is expected to trigger fast runaway gas accretion.”
The researchers concluded Jupiter’s growth was marked by two distinct phases.
“First, rapid pebble accretion supplied the major part of Jupiter’s core mass,” they write. “Second, slow planetesimal accretion provided the energy required to hinder runaway gas accretion during the 2 Myr. Third, runaway gas accretion proceeded. Both pebbles and planetesimals therefore play an important role in Jupiter’s formation.”
While pebbles are important to quickly build the core, “the heat provided by planetesimals is crucial to delay gas accretion so that it matches the timescale given by the meteorite data,” the researchers said.
They argue the results may hold clues to long-standing questions about the formation of Uranus and Neptune and exoplanets in the same mass regime.


5 Standards Citizen Journalists Should Know and Practice
Citizen journalism involves those who aren’t professionally trained in journalism to take part in one of the foundations of democracy by conducting their own reporting and interviewing. The rise of social media has allowed the number of citizen journalists to exponentially grow where information and visuals can be attained and shared in mere seconds. But there’s been skepticism regarding the growing number of citizen journalists and how they contribute, such as the accuracy of information, how that information is portrayed, and a lack of standard training unlike their professional counterparts.
If you want to report news and label such information as factual and journalistic, then you should have a grasp on the foundation and basics of journalism.
Five, Must-Know Standards Citizen Journalists Should Know and Practice:
Journalism EthicsJournalists are given or discover powerful information for a story at one time or another. Knowing how to ethically handle such information is important as the main role of a journalist is to report confirmed, factual information to the public while maintaining one’s reputation.
Aidan White, Director of Ethical Journalism Network, describes the five core values of journalism, which include: accuracy, independence, impartiality, humanity, and accountability.
Media LawWhat may be considered one of the more complex journalism areas, media law involves learning how past cases were handled and how such legal outcomes influence how journalists practice and report today. Understanding the bigger and more historical significant court cases allows citizen journalists to not only understand their legal rights, but also knowledge of how to handle any issues that may arise from obtaining or publishing information.
From copyright to libel and slander, to invasion of privacy and first-amendment rights, journalists must know where the law currently stands with such areas, and how journalism and freedom of press evolved before and during those court cases.
Resources on media law for journalists:
- Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Publishers
- Media Law Resource Center
- 10 Most Important U.S. Supreme Court Cases for Journalists
- Digital Journalist’s Legal Guide
- 7 laws journalists now need to know – from database rights to hate speech
- Want even more? Check out 100 Key Ethics & Media Law Resources for Journalists
Journalists even have their own writing style that citizen journalists should adapt in order to maintain consistency and professionalism.
When I was accepted into UNC’s School of Media and Journalism, all students were required to take a news-writing class that involved learning the do’s and don’ts of AP Style and other areas. I remember studying various parts of the AP Stylebook—literally—and being tested on them, such as when to write out names of cities and states.
Purchase the most recently published AP Style guide and read through the more common sections to familiarize yourself with the proper forms of words and grammar. This, in turn, will increase your professionalism as well as the likelihood that a media outlet, professional organization or person will share or re-publish your article.
Resources on becoming familiar with AP Style:
Being able to find, interview, and successfully include direct quotes and/or paraphrases into your story is a vital and strong skill to have as a journalist. Also, as discussed earlier in the ethical standards of journalism, ensuring the story has the whole story instead of only one side will not only make your story stronger, but will also seem more impartial.
One of my first interviews I ever conducted happened my senior year of high school as an intern at my hometown’s local newspaper, The State Port Pilot. I was very nervous and tried to write down every word the source said, which I successfully did—although my notes were almost illegible! However, the more I interviewed, the more confident I became in my ability to find great sources and record the discussion. You don’t need to record every single word, but instead, be able to note the main topics he/she talks about as well as quoting one or two very strong quotes; this method worked well for me. Also, always ask if you can contact them again in case you need to confirm anything.
Another method involves using a recording device while interviewing; however, there may be some limitations in recording sources, which you should review prior to using one. It’s also polite to let your source know that you would like to record them prior to the interview.
Resources for bettering your interviewing skills:
Double-—no—triple-check the facts: names, places, quotes, and anything else that may slip by. By fact checking your work prior to publication and having a different set of eyes on it, if possible, you’re setting yourself up for success. Ensuring the names of people, places, organizations, etc., are spelled correctly will not only uphold your professionalism but increase the likelihood of no potential conflicts.
Resources on fact-checking:
Citizen journalists who understand and practice these journalistic standards will find their reporting, ability to handle conflicts, and overall reputation become more confident and professional.
Have another tip or technique that all journalists should know? Please share your thoughts in the comments!


- By Micah Dorfner
Home Remedies: Antibiotics or home remedies
For parents, it can be hard to tell whether your child’s illness requires antibiotics or if there are other ways to effectively treat his or her symptoms. To prevent overuse of these drugs, it’s important to know when home remedies can be used instead of antibiotics.
“If your child has an ear infection, consider using over-the-counter pain relievers in place of antibiotics,” says Tiffany Casper, D.O., a Mayo Clinic Health System family physician. “Children’s ear infections usually improve within two to three days, especially for kids who are 2 years or older. If your child’s health does not improve within a few days, it would be wise to take them in to see their provider.”
Dr. Casper recommends antibiotics for an ear infection if:
- Your child is 6 months old or younger.
- Your child is between 6months and 2 years old, and has moderate to severe pain.
- Your child is 2 years old or older and experiencing severe symptoms.
“Don’t use antibiotics to treat your child’s cold, flu and most other respiratory infections,” says Dr. Casper. “Most respiratory infections are caused by viruses, and antibiotics don’t treat viruses. Antibiotics fight bacteria.”
Instead, Dr. Casper suggests offering your child warm liquids, such as tea or soup. These can have a soothing effect and loosen mucus. Over-the-counter saline nasal drops or saline spray also can loosen nasal mucus. Try running a cool-mist humidifier in your child’s room or using steam from a hot shower for additional relief.
Strep throat is caused by bacteria. However, most children with the symptoms of strep throat have a virus, explains Dr. Casper. “You should ask for a strep throat test before turning to antibiotics to cure your child’s symptoms,” she says.
Ice cream, frozen fruit pops or cold beverages may soothe a sore throat. Older children can try gargling salt water or sucking on throat lozenges. Always encourage your child to get enough rest, so his or her body has a chance to recover.
“Consider getting antibiotics for your child when a cough persists for 14 days or more,” says Dr. Casper. “Antibiotics are also necessary if a doctor diagnoses your child with a bacterial infection, such as strep throat.”


by Thaddeus Jaroszewicz
During World War II, Poland was invaded by the Germans and the Soviet Union. Millions of Poles worked and perished in Nazi forced labor and death camps. Their stories have been widely chronicled in literature, film and museums. The eastern portion of Poland (today’s Belarus and parts of the Baltic countries) had a separate story of deportation, resettlement, imprisonment, suffering and death organized by the Soviet Union.
Between February 1940 and June 1941, over 1.5 million Poles and minorities (non-Russians) were deported in four waves to Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union. Historians estimate that between one quarter and one third did not survive the ordeal. They died from cold, starvation, exhaustion or disease.
My grandparents and their seven children were taken from their home in the first wave of deportations that began on February 10, 1940. My mother was five at the time. This is a short overview of their journey of survival, and the historical background that led to their deportation.
For centuries, the land that makes up Central and Eastern Europe has been fought over by Poles, Swedes, Russians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Austrians and Germans. In 1795, Poland was partitioned by the Austrians, Russians and Germans and disappeared from the political map of Europe. The Duchy of Warsaw briefly arose in 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars. Poles thought that the French would help them regain independence from their common enemies. Their hopes were dashed after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Warsaw reverted to Russia. Political uprisings and turmoil continued in the eastern part of Europe and Russia throughout the 19th century.
Poland regained its independence in 1918, after World War I, as part of the Treaty of Versailles. She then engaged in wars until 1921 with the Soviet Union and Lithuania to settle her eastern borders. Poland’s post-World War I western border with Germany caused endless diplomatic and economic disputes until Germany invaded in 1939. Polish domestic politics during the post-World War I period were also messy and contentious.
My grandparents Stanislaw and Victoria were ethnic Poles born in the 1890’s. When they met in 1920, she was a widow with a four year old daughter. He was a veteran of World War I. They were married in 1921 in Radom, a city 60 miles south of Warsaw. My grandfather was a serious, formal and rugged man. My grandmother was a gentle, pious woman. They had grown up in a land under Russian control. He had fought in World War I. They both witnessed the ravages of war. They were intent on having a family and helping to rebuild their newly-formed country.
By 1926, they had four children and were interested in buying land and operating a farm. In 1927, they bought 20 hectares (about 50 acres) near Baranovichi, Poland, 250 miles northeast of Warsaw. Baranovichi was in the eastern portion of the recently reconstituted country. It had been part of Tsarist Russia during the period of partition. It served as a rail hub for the Warsaw to Moscow line, as well as a north/south rail line from Vilnius to Lvov. As a result, it grew quickly after World War I, almost tripling in size from 11,000 in 1921 to almost 30,000 in 1939. It attracted Christian and Jewish Poles in equal numbers.
By the summer of 1939, my grandparents had two sons and five daughters in their home, ranging in age from 16 to 5. My grandmother’s oldest daughter had left to marry. Eighteen years into their marriage, they had a home, a successful farm and their children were being educated as Poles. Their success as land owners and their origin as Poles would prove to be a problem after the new war began in September 1939.
The Germans invaded Poland from the West on September 1, 1939. The Soviet Union followed from the East on September 17th. The Molotov Ribbentrop Pact enabled the Soviets to annex the eastern portion of Poland, where Baranovichi was located. Almost immediately, the NKVD (the 1930’s version of the KGB) began arresting, interrogating and imprisoning men in Baranovichi and surrounding towns and villages. Soviet soldiers looted farms of food, livestock, grain and furnishings.
Instructions for the deportation of “Anti-Soviet Elements” from Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were finalized on October 11, 1939. Stalin’s goal was to rid his western border of Poles, especially landowners and business people, through resettlement, imprisonment or reeducation.
Landowners like my grandfather were one of 11 categories of people listed as “bourgeoisie” or “enemies of the people”. Others included former noblemen, factory owners, shopkeepers, citizens of foreign countries, priests, active worshipers of religious congregations, Trotskyites and Mensheviks. In the Soviet era, these were the usual suspects.
Also listed for deportation in 1940 were approximately 20,000 Polish military and intelligence officers. On March 5th, 1940, the head of the Soviet Secret Police wrote a memorandum to Joseph Stalin, recommending a trial and “the supreme penalty: shooting” for this category of Poles. These officers became the victims of the Katyn Forest Massacre.
On February 10, 1940, the knock on the door came before daybreak for my grandparents and their large family. Soviet soldiers entered their home, ordered everyone into one room, searched the premises for weapons, and barked instructions for packing up. They were told they were going to be taken to a new place. The same drill was carried out relentlessly across Poland’s eastern region. Families could take what they could carry or fit onto a sleigh. They needed to be ready in a few hours. Each family was limited to 100 kilos – approximately 220 pounds of food, clothing, kitchen utensils, farm implements and any items that might be useful in a new settlement.
On that cold Saturday morning, my grandparents and their children traveled 12 miles with their belongings to the train station in Baranovichi. Hundreds of neighbors and people from surrounding villages formed the column that trudged to the train station. Across eastern Poland, approximately 320,000 were rounded up and moved in the days following February 10, 1940 – 160 train loads of people and their limited possessions. My grandfather’s land and home were confiscated by the Soviets. No reparations were ever paid.
At the train station, people were herded into box cars. Although official Soviet instructions limited the number of people to 25 people per car, a typical car was loaded with 40 or 50. Families did the best they could to stay together. Each family’s belongings, other than the food, clothing and blankets they carried with them, were thrown into separate cars.
Most of the boxcars had planks that served as bunks for many but not all passengers. There were no toilets. Holes torn from the floor served as latrines. Most cars had only small windows with bars and a small pot-bellied stove. Little or no fuel was provided. The sliding doors of each box car were locked shut once each was full. My family’s train waited in the station for three days.
My mother’s recollection of the three week journey east is foggy. She remembers the cold and people scraping ice off the sides and top of the cars for water. She recalls the hole in the floor that served as the toilet. She says they were packed into the car like standing sardines. People would pick up small bits of coal at refueling stations that were used to fire the small stoves. In many instances, the planks that served as bunks were torn up and used for heating fuel.
Diaries and essays written by survivors describe various aspects of stench, cold (or stifling heat for those deported in Spring/Summer 1940/1941), hunger, thirst, illness and lice. There were moments of kindness and hope. Women gave birth. Babies rarely survived. Strangers shared food, taking care to distribute small portions to extend the limited supplies. No one knew where they were going, or how long it would take. Many did not survive the journey. Death was unceremonious. Dead bodies were simply thrown off trains at refueling stations. People prayed, sang hymns, cried and were frightened.
My grandfather’s family travelled about 800 miles east to a settlement near Gorki, which is now called Nizhny Novgorod. They were assigned to live in basic barracks with several other families. My grandfather and his four older children went to work cutting and gathering lumber. They were paid 400 grams of bread per day, when bread was available, and a very modest wage in rubles. They scrounged and traded for food. My mother recalls occasionally eating hard millet intended for horses. My grandfather and his oldest son killed a dog by squeezing its head in a door, which they cooked and ate. Descriptions by children who survived similar journeys often reference dogs being killed for food.
Conditions were miserable in the winter, and barely tolerable in the summer. Lice and bed bugs were a constant problem, as were mosquitoes in the warm months. Several months into their stay, a typhoid epidemic broke out in their settlement. They were moved about 300 miles north to another settlement near Vologda.
Younger children who could not work were required to attend school. They were taught by Russian teachers, with particular emphasis on ridding the young Poles of their belief in God. Unlike the Germans in Western Poland, the Soviets made a concerted effort to reeducate the young Poles on the wonders of the Soviet way of life. My mother and her younger brother attended these schools near their settlements. She always refers to their curriculum as “brainwashing”.
In June 1941, Hitler reneged on his bargain with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. Stalin scrambled to make a new alliance with western powers. As part of the overall agreement with the Allies, Stalin worked out an Amnesty agreement with the Polish Government in Exile. The Amnesty, signed in August 1941, provided freedom for many but not all Poles who had been deported to the Soviet Union. Stalin also agreed to permit the formation of a Polish Army in the Soviet Union comprised of deported Poles. General Walter Anders was freed from the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow to lead the Army in Exile. The lack of officers, a result of the Katyn massacre, made the organization of an army complex. At the time, Soviets blamed the Germans for the disappearance of the officers.
For the Poles living in settlements, gulags and labor camps, the Amnesty meant freedom and a chance to fight for their country. Tragically, not all deported Poles were freed, or made aware of the Amnesty. Diaries of survivors recount that the Russians were not particularly eager to see their cheap labor leave the camps. My grandfather’s family was among the fortunate. They left their settlement near Vologda in October 1941.
Their first destination was Kuybyshev (now called Samara), which served as an alternate Soviet capital in the event Moscow was taken over by the Germans. The Communist Party, many government functions, and embassies, including the Polish Embassy, had moved there in the second half of 1941. Neither the Soviets nor the Polish government in exile had made any transit arrangements for the exiled Poles to get to Kuybyshev. They were on their own. The journey from various resettlement and prison camps to Kuybyshev and then the meeting points for the new Army proved to be as miserable, challenging, dangerous and deadly as the train rides of 1940.
One of my mother’s older sisters recalls that they travelled from Vologda to Kuybyshev, a 1,000 mile journey, principally by boat. They stayed there for a brief period, and then traveled 100 miles east by train to Buzuluk, where the Army was being organized. At Buzuluk my mother’s oldest brother Adam, who was then 18, left their family to join the Army. The rest of the family stayed in Buzuluk for three months. My aunt says they were treated well by the Allies. She recalls going to a New Year’s Eve dance with American soldiers.
After Buzuluk, they embarked on a trip that took them several months to complete. They travelled by foot, horse carts, trucks and trains for 1,500 miles through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and finally to Krasnovodsk, Turkmenistan (now Turkmenbasy). They begged, traded, or stole food and water. They also worked on collective farms, including as cotton pickers. There were long stretches of time where little or no food or safe water was available. The land was harsh. The population of dark-skinned Asians seemed strange to them. Along the way, my grandfather joined an Engineering Corps of the Polish Army, in Kermine, Uzbekistan (now Navoi). His oldest daughter joined a Polish Army Corps of women.
After reaching Krasnovodsk, my grandmother and the remaining four girls and one boy boarded a ship to the port of Pahlavi, near Tehran. There they were placed in a refugee camp organized by the British. A little more than two years after being taken from their home in Baranovichi, they had reached a place where they had reliable access to food, shelter, clothing and medical attention. With help from the British, the Polish-government-in-exile, and various relief organizations, Poles in the refugee camps organized schools, churches and scouting organizations.
My grandparents and their family, along with hundreds of thousands of other Poles, survived 18 months of enslavement and hard labor under horrific conditions. Hundreds of thousands did not live to tell their stories. To their knowledge, my grandparents’ family of seven children was the only one from their original town that survived the experience intact. My grandfather always said he thought they all survived because my grandmother had prayed so hard.
In late 1943, my grandmother and five children travelled again, from Tehran to Karachi. They boarded a ship bound for Mombasa, Kenya. The British had organized a refugee camp near Arusha, Tanzania, 240 miles west of Mombasa. They lived in a large camp for Displaced People, with a clear view of Mount Meru. There were about 4,000 other Polish refugees – mostly women, children and older men. My mother’s family lived in a round, thatch roofed hut, in a beautiful jungle setting. They became part of a Polish community in exile that operated much like any small town in Poland, with schools, a church and several civic organizations, including scouting and theater. The Poles commitment to educate their children and pass on their cultural and religious heritage was unwavering. Grammar schools and technical schools for teens prepared the young for higher education or trades. Many worked in the nearby towns of Arusha and Nairobi.
In 1948, the family left Africa for England, where they reunited with my grandfather and their older sister and brother, who had until then been on active military duty. The two older girls married and stayed in England. The rest left for America in 1952. They settled in Cleveland. My mother met my father (who had a similar journey, albeit via German labor camps) in 1955, and they married in 1956.
My grandparents had an incredible journey of survival. They fought fiercely to keep their family intact and alive. They always struck me as people who endured without complaining. Their children produced 34 grandchildren. My grandmother died in 1971, at the age of 77, of natural causes. In what seemed like the ultimate unfair fate, my grandfather was murdered in his home in Cleveland in 1982, by teenagers engaged in a robbery. He was 86.
My aunt, Regina Lozowska, now 87and living in Lens, France
My aunt, Maria Hatala, now 84 and living in Calgary, Alberta
My mother, Danuta Jaroszewicz, now 77, living in Cleveland, Ohio
By Thaddeus Jaroszewicz


Robust enumerated type support in Python.
Superseded by Python standard library.
This package provides a module for robust enumerations in Python.
An enumeration object is created with a sequence of string arguments to the Enum() constructor:
>>> from enum import Enum >>> Colours = Enum('red', 'blue', 'green') >>> Weekdays = Enum('mon', 'tue', 'wed', 'thu', 'fri', 'sat', 'sun')
The return value is an immutable sequence object with a value for each of the string arguments. Each value is also available as an attribute named from the corresponding string argument:
>>> pizza_night = Weekdays >>> shirt_colour = Colours.green
The values are constants that can be compared only with values from the same enumeration; comparison with other values will invoke Python’s fallback comparisons:
>>> pizza_night == Weekdays.fri True >>> shirt_colour > Colours.red True >>> shirt_colour == "green" False
Each value from an enumeration exports its sequence index as an integer, and can be coerced to a simple string matching the original arguments used to create the enumeration:
>>> str(pizza_night) 'fri' >>> shirt_colour.index 2


LTE-M, short for Long Term Evolution for Machines or LTE-MTC, is a low power wide area network radio technology standard for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
It is one of the three LPWA network technologies of the cellular/mobile industry which were standardized by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project). The other two standards are NB-IoT and EC-GSM-IoT. I started my overview of cellular LPWAN technologies with NB-IoT since this standard is most direct answer of the mobile industry to non-cellular LPWAN technologies such as Sigfox, LoRaWAN and Ingenu. Moreover, NB-IoT was first rolled out in Europe and US mobile network operators who deployed LTE-M before are now launching their NB-IoT networks.
LTE-M is also often called eMTC, short for enhanced machine-type communication: both terms are used interchangeably. The specifications of LTE-M (and the two others) were published in 3GPP release 13.
Main characteristics of LTE-M
What is LTE-M, how does it differ from NB-IoT and what are the main features and some typical use cases?
In case low power wide area network technologies are still relatively new I invite you to first read my post on LPWAN. Within the landscape of LPWA technologies, LTE-M (and the others) have their specific places. In my IoT book ‘Digitize or Die‘ I also explain how LTE-M/eMTC, NB-IoT and EC-GSM-IoT, are evolutions of existing mobile/cellular technologies for cellular network operators to leverage their existing geographic base stations’ footprint, private radio spectrum and market access.
Here are the main characteristics of LTE-M/eMTC:
- LTE-M is a more powerful technology than NB-IoT. LTE-M allows the reuse of the existing LTE installed base of operators. It can be deployed within an LTE band and is in fact a stripped-down version of LTE, offering a simplified design with 1.4 MHz bandwidth. As a reminder: NB-IoT was designed for a narrow band of 200 KHz and can be deployed in three different ways.
- The data transfer of LTE-M can go up to 1 Mbps in both directions (uplink and downlink) with actual throughput depending on the way it is used (e.g. full-duplex), the operator’s technology and the local situation. LTE-M has the highest bandwidth and throughput of all LPWAN options.
- Latency of LTE-M is very low with delays of 10 to 15 milliseconds (NB-IoT is 1.6 to 10 seconds), making it fit for full-duplex real-time use cases.
- Battery life of devices is extended through the sleep mode or power saving mode (PSM) and through extended discontinuous reception (LTE eDRX).
- Just like NB-IoT, LTE-M also has a deeper penetration in buildings than LTE networks. LTE-M has a link budget of 155.7 dB.
LTE-M further supports voice (VoLTE) and mobility. Voice can be handy in some use cases (attention: do check if the operator you work with has it turned on) while the good support of mobility makes LTE-M the better choice in cellular LPWAN for use cases with moving ‘things’.
LTE-M use cases
This brings me to the use cases for LTE-M. Although there are other LPWAN technologies that can be a good fit for some of these use cases and there are always overlaps – depending on your region and what your application precisely needs – typical LTE-M use cases include applications with non-stationary devices, use cases needing a real-time communication and use cases where higher data transfer speeds and volumes are needed.
Previously I mentioned that the fastest growing use categories that drive the LPWAN market are smart metering and asset tracking. The latter provides ample opportunities for LTE-M across use cases involving these non-stationary assets. Other examples of LTE-M use case categories include wearables, healthcare devices, smart grid, applications in logistics/transportation, city infrastructure, telematics and more.
The image from an infographic (download in PDF here) by Sierra Wireless below gives a good overview of the main differences between LTE-M (release 13) and NB-IoT with more typical applications per technology whereby speed and latency are two parameters.
The future of LTE-M: hand in hand with NB-IoT
As already mentioned in my article on NB-IoT the networks offering one or more cellular LPWAN standards are certainly not omnipresent yet. However, in 2019 announcements from mobile network operators keep coming at a fast pace.
The fact that both NB-IoT and LTE-M fit in the roadmap to 5G might also play a role in this, on top of the grown awareness that both cellular technologies are complementary. Most new LTE-M network announcements come from the regions, such as Europe, where NB-IoT was the first choice, while in the US it’s precisely the opposite. Still, according to the chart below there are less LTE-M networks for the time being. The image at the top of this post – which gets updated regularly by the GSMA – shows in which countries LTE-M, NB-IoT and both networks are available.
Recently I conducted an interview with the CEO of an IoT startup that works a lot with mobile network operators in Europe on the evolutions in vehicle tracking and cars which I’ll publish shortly. In another interview he says that in Europe operators who already offer NB-IoT “slowly move from narrowband-IoT towards LTE-M” with both likely to co-exist since they indeed serve different needs.
This is also confirmed by analysts who closely follow the cellular market closely. They all expect that the growth of licensed cellular LPWAN connections with LTE-M and NB-IoT will be much higher than that of any other cellular connectivity method, including 5G cellular IoT, throughout the first half of the next decade. Operators have also started activating LTE-M roaming.
In a next post I will cover the final low power wide area standard in my series, EC-GSM-IoT, and compare all the different LPWAN technologies.


With a little unacknowledged help from the Vietnamese Resistance, it was none other than famed Chairman Mao Zedong who reopened China’s door to America in the early 70s. It was Mao who hosted Kissinger, and then Nixon, Mao who guided the early stages of the negotiations, and Mao who brought Deng Xiaoping back into the leadership. In those days China saw itself in the middle of a “two-line struggle” between visionary Maoism (half millenarian communism half national defense) and the road of state-organized capital investing that Deng Xiaoping was to lead China down. The two-line struggle ended with the victory of Deng and the “capitalist roaders” and a developing comity of nations with the US, including strategy, economics, and culture. Kissinger’s gambit succeeded. Opponents of the new relationship with China, such as Secretary of State William Rogers, were marginalized. On the military side, the Vietnam War, marketed domestically as a war against Chinese Communism, lost its (always dubious) rationale and began slowly winding down. These changes gave the US a stronger hand (and a partner) against Russia as well as against a number of key third world nations such as Chile, South Africa, and Vietnam. President Carter recognized China in 1979, the year China invaded Vietnam, and Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980. If a sore point remained between the US and China it was Taiwan, and Ronald Reagan (and his “old right” backers) were Taiwan supporters: for them the defeat of Chiang Kai Shek and his Nationalist Party, confined to Taiwan since 1949, remained an unhealed wound from the end of WWII in 1945 to the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949.
Academic China watchers and sinologists are a cultish lot and drive a lively trade in in-jokes. One from the early 70s was that China has one Party with two lines, while the US has two parties with one line. Another was the jesting prophecy that the polarized US and China were on crossing trajectories, with China becoming more democratic and capitalist, the US becoming more like China. One interesting sign of this was the emergence of a two-line struggle within the Reagan administration over China policy, with Kissinger representing the friendship team and George Schulz (later Donald Rumsfeld) the opposing side, a struggle that continues to this day.
After Reagan took office Kissinger’s influence remained strong and his man, Al Haig, was made secretary of state. But in 1982 Reagan removed Alexander Haig and replaced him with George Schulz. The rise of the Neo-cons had begun. Men like Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney began a steady push to reverse most of Kissinger’s initiatives, and that included China policy. The moment is described by journalist James Mann: “Schulz proceeded to embrace [Paul] Wolfowitz’s views about China policy, the same ones Haig had spurned,” he writes in The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (2004). Mann continues: “The new secretary of state agreed that Washington had been overvaluing the strategic importance of China . . . and been unnecessarily weakening its bargaining position in dealing with China. Shultz began to give greater weight to relations with Japan” (p. 116).
The Neo-con line on pressuring China moved forward by fits and starts until 1989. The Tiananmen events, followed by the fall of the USSR and the first Iraq War gave US policy the opportunity to “lean forward” in Asia as well. More and better arms went to Taiwan. Trade and ideological tensions increased. The Iraq and later the Yugoslav war had an anti-Chinese dimension. Throughout the 1990s the relationship grew troubled. The Chinese took a hard line with Taiwan, and in 1996 US warships went into the area. In April 2001 the Chinese forced down an EP-3 spy plane that flew over Chinese territorial waters, the most overt and provocative sign of incipient conflict. During the earlier part of 2001, virtually down to 9/11, the pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times fairly throbbed with the drumbeat of alleged China threats to U.S. military and economic security. There has not been much variety in the ways Americans interpret these events. But to think through how many Chinese interpret them, one has to take a few steps backward into history since Chinese leaders are often more attentive to long-term historical trends than their American counterparts. Hence this study contains flashbacks to remoter times that may be less immediately familiar to American readers than to Chinese (or Asian) readers.
Many Americans and some Chinese as well, imagine that our two nations have a special relationship, one that goes back to the period of American missionary ascendancy in China in the 19th century. Americans went to China to save souls, and Chinese immigrated through San Francisco’s “golden door” to keep body and soul together. At the turn of the century the US urged rival Powers to save the failing Manchu dynastic state so that it would keep China’s “door open” to all foreign interests and would forestall Russian and Japanese encroachment. At the same time the US waged a lengthy war in the Philippines with a steady eye on developing US interests in China. In those pre-WWI days China was very much on the mind of US policy makers, but the colonial front runners were Britain and its partner since 1902, Japan.
After WWI the US leaped forward economically but remained subordinate in Asia to Britain and Japan. This situation lasted well into the 1930s, indeed beyond the Nanjing Massacre of late 1937-early 1938, a spectacular display of brutality by which the Japanese Imperial Army tried to shock and awe the Chinese capital and induce quick surrender. The Japanese blitzkrieg against civilians failed. The special relationship between the US and China was renewed only in late 1938 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt began to shift US foreign policy from its tolerance of Japanese aggression in Asia (the official phrase was “non-recognition”) toward a clearer pro-China position, supporting Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist Party (the Guomindang). This important shift soon led to war between Japan and the US in December 1941, and culminated, as the war drew to its close, with President Roosevelt’s inviting China to become one of the Four Powers, Britain and Russia being the other two. (France was still part of the Third Reich.) Thus American leaders appeared once again, as they did at the time of the Open Door Policy, to be the guardians of China’s global position. As a check both to Russia and to Japan, out of concern with China’s growing Communist movement, and with an eye on the soon-to-be-formed United Nations, FDR decided to override British objections and remake China as a major post war ally in Asia, ignoring Churchill’s fears of an independent and empowered China inspiring thoughts of independence in India and Hong Kong. In August 1945, as WWII ended in Asia, the Truman administration was determined to sustain its China partner in its unfolding civil war with the Communists.
The obstacle to US policy was the Chinese revolution. The great tsunami that had been gathering force since the mid-19th century finally discharged itself in five short years 1945-49. In October 1949 Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China with words heard round the world, “The Chinese people have stood up.” Truman and those he listened to had misread the situation, ignoring the wiser heads like China hands John Service and Owen Lattimore who had warned him not to cling to the corrupt Nationalists but rather to work out a relationship with the Communists. Thus Truman ended up on the losing, and the wrong side of the civil war. The Americans were very sore losers. Relishing their schadenfreude, the British recognized the new government; so did India. But Truman did not offer recognition, and for the next two decades Sino-US relations plunged into a hostile stand-off that spent itself in proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam. By the late sixties the failure of the effort to conquer Vietnam (which was largely justified as “containing” China) compelled the US to change course. Contained (instead) by the Vietnamese and forced to withdraw forces, Nixon and Kissinger negotiated the breakthrough with China.
One of the most influential supporters of the Kissinger line has been Zbigniew Brzezinski, a national security adviser to former president Carter. His positions on China questions are based on calculations of interest and without sentiment. In his Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century, published in 1993, he saw the emergence of China as a fourth center of economic power, joining the U.S., Europe, and Japan. He urged U.S. leaders to accommodate a rapidly developing China and include it in the Western “club.” “That,” Brzezinski says, “will require not only a positive and cooperative Western response which in fact would almost certainly be forthcoming but also a Western recognition that China will still symbolize, and in part represent, the aspirations of the poorer portions of mankind” (p.199-200). Otherwise, he writes, “China could aspire to leadership of a global revolt of the masses” (p.197). Despite its concessions to the hegemonic West, China has reserved its “third world card.” China’s recent negotiations with Iran, Venezuela, and a number of African nations confirm Brzezinski’s anxiety, although these moves come more under the aegis of economics (than politics) in command. China’s energy-oriented relationships with Russia and India are a part of the same drive toward multi-polarity, which is the Chinese counter to US unilateralism.
A contrasting work in the Neo-con vein is The Coming Conflict in China by Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, published in 1997. A few lines from the Introduction suggest the book’s bent: “Even without actual war, the rivalry between China and the United States will be the major global rivalry in the first decades of the twenty-first century” (p.4). And, “Growing Chinese economic and military strength, linked to the nation’s ambitions and to its xenophobic impulses, are making it more rather than less aggressive” (p. 11). The authors, as their title says, hold little hope for US-China rapprochement and their provocative language seems almost spoiling for trouble.
The strengthening Neo-con line on China changed after 9/11. With American leaders focused on a new enemy, they swiftly moved China to the back burner and lowered the light. The U.S. accordingly curtailed its support for Tibetan independence and Islamic secessionists in Western China and an interval of uneasy Sino-American cooperation began. The ensuing Iraq War offered further respite to the Chinese. Much as Rumsfeld and the Neo-cons would like to resume earlier initiatives and increase the pressures on China, the failing U.S. project to remake and dominate Iraq has devoured the moral and material resources of the State and forestalled until further notice any military conflict with China. This situation has strengthened Rumsfeld’s opposite number, Henry Kissinger. Nevertheless, the two-line struggle goes on. A number of the dueling strategists entered the lists with competing positions in June 2005.
From the June 6, 2005 edition of the Wall Street Journal:
“SINGAPORE — Critical comments by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld regarding China’s growing military capabilities are raising fears among East Asian countries that they could become ensnared in a new period of strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing. . . . [Many East Asian] leaders also are quick to caution the Bush administration against being overly confrontational toward Beijing on trade and security. This approach could divide Asia into competing camps and undermine its prospects for cooperation and growth, they say.”
A week later, Henry Kissinger, advocating strategic accord with China, wrote in the Washington Post (June 13, 2005), “As a new century begins, the relations between China and the United States may well determine whether our children will live in turmoil . . . or will witness a new world order compatible with . . . peace and progress.” His Washington Post article also says, “The American interest in cooperative relations with China is for the pursuit of a stable international system. . . . Preemption is not a feasible policy toward a country of China’s magnitude. It cannot be in our interest to have new generations in China grow up with a perception of a permanently and inherently hostile United States.”
The constant axis in the ups and downs of US China relations has always been Taiwan. It is an issue that has driven all others for half a century. In 1999 the Neo-cons issued a joint public statement that “called for an end to America’s policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ toward Taiwan” and “called upon the United States to ‘declare unambiguously that it will come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of an attack or a blockade against Taiwan” (Mann, 243). Ambiguous rhetoric aside, this was the actual policy all along, and the Chinese knew it. The real change lies only in going public at a high policy level, a move that sends a guideline message to domestic U.S. opinion-makers and in addition gives the Chinese a good public slap. The subsequent attacks on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq all included a strong and intended signal to the Chinese. Moreover, extensive US basing in central Asia has prompted the Chinese to explore alliances with Russia, Iran, and to an extent India, a development that Brzezinski had predicted if the US did not bring China into the “club.”
In its June 2005 issue The Atlantic Monthly featured two articles, one in a Neo-con and one in the Kissinger mode. The lead article, by Robert D. Kaplan, an advocate of US imperial expansion, is called “How We Would Fight China: The Next Cold War.” The cover illustration shows a sinister almost feral-looking young Chinese sailor enlarged in the foreground; behind him a jaunty row of white-clad Chinese naval officers. It may not be racist, but the visual message borders on the racial. The article summary reads: “The Middle East is just a blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was.” The author then proceeds to float various militaristic scenarios, mostly involving naval and/or nuclear conflict. The focus is the Pacific as a war theatre, and the roles of Japan, Taiwan, and Korea.
Kaplan’s article is balanced by a shorter secondary piece in the same issue called “Managing China’s Rise,” by Benjamin Schwartz. The article summary reads: “Far from discouraging the rise of China and other powers Washington should recognize the significant benefits that can result.” Thus, the Atlantic issue embraces the two approaches, though not evenly: the tentative and timidly argued Schwartz article has second billing.
One big problem with the Atlantic Monthly‘s lead article is the title, “How We Would Fight China.” From the viewpoint of many Chinese (but only a few Americans) the question is not how we would fight China, but how we have been fighting China for the past 60 (or 160 years). Again, it’s worth trying to understand how a Chinese reader might react to the title of Kaplan’s article by elaborating on some of the historical points with which this essay begins.
The roots of conflict between China and the US can be traced back to the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, in which the U.S. seconded England in using armed force to press the criminal trade on China and to secure for themselves other “legal” and property “rights,” i.e. unfair economic advantages in trade relations, judicial authority over incidents and conflicts in China, and special privileges for Christian activists. It would take a whole course to cover the century in Asia from 1842 (the year that the Treaty of Nanking ended the first Opium War) to December 7, 1941.
If we stick to the shorter time line of our own era, starting with the end of WWII, we find the U.S. at war in China once again. Within moments after the Japanese had surrendered in August 1945 the Truman administration thrust itself into China’s civil war. While ostensibly trying to broker a peace between the two sides, and a post war government for China, the U.S. was in fact weighing in with money and weapons on the Nationalist side. By doing so Truman prolonged the civil war, thus causing a four-year extension of the suffering that the Chinese endured during their Resistance War against Japan (the official name of WWII in China).
After the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949 Truman had the opportunity to change course and work out a Kissinger-like modus vivendi with them. Most American analysts have convinced themselves that China’s Cold War isolation was China’s choice. The facts do not support this reading of the historical moment. The British and the Indian governments managed to recognize the new Chinese government without undue Chinese obstruction. The Truman administration, however, never offered recognition with a view toward normalizing relations. No one can know therefore how the new Chinese leadership might have responded to an offer of recognition, or how they might have negotiated after that formal step. Instead of creatively exploring diplomatic options, the US leadership pursued a war process, including embargo, sabotage, raids, over flights, and nuclear threats. The Korean and Vietnam wars expanded this process into proxy wars against China. In the end, as noted above, the policy failure in Vietnam compelled the US leadership to abandon the policy of regime change in China. And so it might be said that World War II in Asia came to an end in April 1975, with the Americans finally liberating Vietnam (by leaving it), having made at long last the rational choice of working out a business-like relationship with the People’s Republic of China.
Thirty years have now passed. The US is beset by multiple crises of its own making, in the Middle East, in Central Asia, and in East Asia. As US moral credibility wanes in the first decade of the 21st century, more than one thoughtful observer has begun to wonder if China may be the country destined to succeed the US in a world leadership role. Such a solution to the current complex of crises has been suggested in a low-profile piece in Daedalus (Summer 2004) by the directors of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, John Steinbruner and Nancy Gallagher. The article, “Constructive transformation: an alternative vision of global security,” draws upon a longer on line high-level think piece, by the same two authors, called “Prospects for Security Transformation” (March 2004).
The authors’ concern is that US unilateralism may prove self-destructive. In discussing “transformation” a term used by the US military to discuss quantum leaps in strategies and weapons, they write, “The possibility that the security of the United States ultimately depends on the security of everyone else is essentially ignored. Such a thought is said to be unrealistic.” The authors’ anxiety about the limits of such thinking has prompted them to speculate about who might take the lead in organizing an international response to correct for the American advantage, or rather the unilateral use of that advantage in destructive ways. They write, “The idea would have to be put into circulation in engaging detail if security policy is to be meaningfully affected, and that would require official advocates who are forceful, consequential, and adroit enough to command global attention. By virtue both of incentive and apparent inclination, China would be the most plausible source of such an initiative, but it is not reasonable to impose the burden of global leadership entirely on China. It is more reasonable to imagine a productive collaboration between China and the members of the EU and the OSCE. The basic principles of constructive collaboration for mutual protection have been most significantly developed in Europe over the course of the cold war and thereafter. It is that legacy, adapted by China and extended to Asia, that offers the most promising prospect for improving security through a process of constructive transformation” (Daedalus, summer 2004; italics added).
The underpinning for such a seismic shift in international power balances may have already been laid down. The Sydney Morning Herald for September 13, 2005 says:
“Suddenly, China seems to be holding the levers of the world economy. With foreign reserves of $US711 billion . . . , it holds nearly $US500 billion in US treasury bonds and other American securities. It is one of the leaders among the Asian industrial countries that keep the US housing and consumer boom going by providing the US Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, with the liquidity for his soft-interest rate policy. A switch of Chinese foreign reserves to euros or yen — or a big revaluation of its yuan to encourage domestic spending — could force up US interest rates, bring the spending party to an end, and scupper the Republican Party’s chances of staying in the White House after 2008.
“General Motors is making 40 per cent of its worldwide profits in China, while it and other US firms have put $US42 billion into factories and other investments there so far this decade. Entire corporate boards of global giant companies ranging from Time Warner to BHP Billiton have been touring China to survey opportunities.”
Similar thoughts have been cropping up in European and American accounts of China’s economic development and strategic potential. The cunning of history might have amused even the old owl himself, Georg Hegel. The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal for September 15, 2005 carried an essay called “Revolutionary China, Complacent America.” The authors, Charlene Barshefsky and Edward Gresser, pushing back against the Neo-cons and the recent fiasco of Hu Jintao’s non-state visit, advise US leaders to react creatively to the rapid growth of Chinese power in Asia and the world. In a prophetic analogy the authors refer to China’s long-departed Manchu dynastic house, which was overthrown by the Republican Revolution of 1911: “No country leads the world by divine right. China itself provides a sobering lesson. . . . [The Qing emperors] considered their status natural and eternal . . . [but] in just a few decades China’s leaders were discredited and its vassal states fell away.” The article ends, “Our competition has gotten tougher, and we need to match it. Two hundred years ago the Chinese emperors failed. America must act now to succeed.”
The authors’ prescription is for renewed US economic effort. If the US rulers decide, however, that peaceful co-existence and economic competition, the rule of the marketplace, is no longer working well enough for American business interests, the resort to colonial war, the option of choice in the so-called Cold War era, should be expected. Alternatively, the Iraq war may prove in the longer stretch of history to have been a kind of lightning rod that grounded the US war drive and thus spared much of the rest of the world from being incorporated into the Neo-cons’ “New American Century” dreamworld project. The Wall Street Journal article cited above implicitly affirms Kissinger’s angry warning to the Neo-cons: “Preemption is not a feasible policy toward a country of China’s magnitude.”
Moss Roberts is professor of Chinese at New York University. He has translated classic works of philosophy and literature. Among his political critiques are: “Contra Ideocracy” (Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars), “Bad Karma in Asia” (in Learning Places, ed. Miyoshi and Harootunian), and “We Threaten the World” (in Ross and Ross, Anti-Americanism).


The simple leaves of Heteropyxis canescens grow spirally arranged around its stems, or sometimes alternate. They have whitish petioles, about 6 mm long. Trees of the Heteropyxidaceae genus have no leaf stipules.
The leaf shape is narrowly elliptic with narrowly tapering tip, sometimes attenuating into an elongated drip tip. The base tapers. Leaf dimensions are up to 15 cm by 3,5 cm. The margins are entire and rolled under.
Leaf texture is leathery and smooth on top, the colour glossy dark green, while below it is grey hairy and paler green. The whitish midrib is prominent on the lower surface, continuing in likeness into the petiole. The spaced lateral veins, not growing in pairs, ascend and curve in close to the margins, uneven in size. Secondary venation includes tiny, additional lateral veins among irregular net-veins.
The leaves are gland-dotted, while hairy domatia are also present in the axils of the lateral veins.
The small white or cream flowers grow in dense, branched, terminal heads from spring to early autumn. A flower is about 3 mm long, the inflorescence about 2 cm. Flower stalks and young branchlets have a soft grey covering of pale hairs.
The sexes occur on different trees on all species of this dioecious genus. The dehiscent fruit is a pale brown, globose capsule of 3 mm in diameter, partly covered by the calyx (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002).


Bears Cave is one of the most popular sights in Romania and it is part of the landmarks to be visited at least once in a lifetime. In the following we want to present you a brief history of the cave, from its discovery until today, along with a brief description.
How was Bears Cave discovered?
Bears Cave was discovered as a result of limestone exploitation works executed near the villages Chiscau, and Pietroasa, in Bihor County, in Romania. The lucky one, whose name is forever linked with the Bears Cave, is Traian Curta. He worked as a miner and during a controlled explosion he noticed a crack in the rock, which later turned out to be the only access to a very spectacular world of depths.
Traian Curta was the first to descend into the unknown, where he discovered skeletons that for that time being could not be attributed to any known species. This gave rise to speculation that in the Bears Cave had lived dragons, creatures with supernatural powers. After research and analysis conducted by specialists, it was determined that these skeletons belong to an extinct species, a species of cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). The cave bear as it is known, had impressive dimensions compared with other bear species existing in Romania and even in the world in those times. The discovery made by Traian Curta was reported to his bosses, who were not satisfied, telling him to dynamite the cave as quickly as possible so that the mining could continue. The limestone exploitation had contracts with companies in Germany and Hungary and that kind of discovery would have made it impossible to honor its contractual obligations. Due to this issue, immediately after the discovery of the cave, there have been several attempts to destroy the cave.
Fortunately, the discovery from Chiscau reached to the speleologists of Stei, then Dr Petru Groza city. Together with other specialists from Cluj they have conducted extensive research which subsequently resulted in the cave rescue. However there were many voices to say that the most useful option would be to destroy the cave. At a certain moment this view was just one step from being put into practice, being stopped at the last minute intervention made at the county leadership.
A similar case occurred in September 1973 when Fagului Cave was discovered. Very little time after the discovery, the cave was vandalized and destroyed almost completely, because mining operations had to be continued. Fagului Cave case served as a lesson for what would follow on September the 17th, 1975 when Traian Curta found the Bears Cave. Thanks to a prompt response and repeated callings, the authorities eventually took the decision that was to preserve the cave´s beauties.
Cave landscaping works were completed in 1978, event that was immortalized and is exhibited at the exit of the cave. However, the opening of the cave was made on the 14th of July 1980, when Bears Cave entered the tourist circuit and for the delight of many it is now available for Romanian and foreign tourists.
Bears' Cave (Romanian: Peștera Urșilor) is located the western Apuseni Mountains, on the outskirts of Chişcău village, Bihor County, northwestern Romania. It was discovered in 1975 by "Speodava", an amateur speleologist group. Bears' Cave received its name after the 140 cave bear skeletons which were discovered on the site in 1983. The cave bear, also known as Ursus spelaeus, is a species of bear which became extinct during the Last Glacial Maximum, about 27,500 years ago. The cave has three galleries and four halls: the Candles Hall, the Spaghetti Hall, Emil Racovita Hall, the Bones Hall.


The composite task reveals stronger holistic processing in children than adults for child faces
Background: While own-age faces have been reported to be better recognized than other-age faces, the underlying cause of this phenomenon remains unclear. One potential cause is holistic face processing, a special kind of perceptual and cognitive processing reserved for perceiving upright faces. Previous studies have indeed found that adults show stronger holistic processing when looking at adult faces compared to child faces, but whether a similar own-age bias exists in children remains to be...[Show more]
|Collections||ANU Research Publications|
|Source:||PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science)|
|01_Susilo_The_composite_task_reveals_2009.pdf||280.99 kB||Adobe PDF||Request a copy|
Items in Open Research are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.


Divergent by Veronica Roth was hard to put down once I started reading because the world within the book was described and created with many details and much thought that made me want to know more about what was going on in the story. The setting and story was interesting and engaging, and although it was somewhat unique in a way, I must mention that the plot and setting were very similar to others that I see everywhere. The main character is Beatrice Prior, who starts in the beginning of the book as an unaware, cowardly, and nervous girl and gradually learns more and more about herself while gaining more self-confidence and knowledge about her surroundings, and eventually becomes a completely different person. The best part of the book is hard to point out, but I think it is at the end when Beatrice faces her true enemies. The book is easy to understand and follow, but it contains little vocabulary that is eighth grade level. I think that this book is best suited for ages thirteen to sixteen mostly because of violence and romance. Overall, I would give this book eight stars out of ten.
STUDY QUESTIONS AND VOCABULARY:
FIRST SECTION (pg. 1-162)
1. What are the five factions and what do they represent in the book Divergent?
1a. The five factions each represent action that goes against one of the five reasons that people mainly believed to have caused humanity failure. Abnegation represents the people who focused on selflessness, Candor represents those who focused on honesty, Dauntless represents those who focused on bravery, Erudite represents those who focused on the importance of knowledge, and Amity represents those who focused on the importance of kindness and peace.
2. Why is Beatrice’s aptitude test results unique and what are people like her called?
2a. Beatrice’s aptitude test resulted with three factions, Erudite, Abnegation, and Dauntless, instead of one, which is very unusual. People like her are called Divergent.
3. Why does Beatrice change her name to Tris?
3a. Her name did not sound like a name that someone in Dauntless would have, so after she chooses Dauntless as her faction, when she has the opportunity, she changes it to Tris. She also wanted to start a new life with a new name and a new faction.
4. In Dauntless, what are the points that are earned or lost in the three stages of initiation used for?
4a. The points can be earned or lost depending on the initiates’ performances on each stage of the initiation and at the end, only the people who made it to the top ten highest scoring points can become true members of Dauntless. Otherwise, they end up factionless.
5. What is shown about Four and Eric when they are choosing people to be on their teams for capture the flag?
5a. Eric chooses the more broad and strong people, showing that he is ruthless, but Four chooses the people with a smaller narrower body type who are faster, showing that he is smarter since speed is important in capture the flag.
MIDDLE SECTION (pg. 163-324)
6. Do Tris’s parents visit her on Visiting Day? What do they talk about?
6a. Her father is apparently too upset to visit her, but her mother comes for her and talks to her about family matters and that she knows about Divergent.
7. What is the “initiation ritual” and who leads Tris on this trip?
7a. Uriah leads Tris to a tall building, where they all excitedly zipline down and through the city. The trip is usually only supposed to be for the relatives of senior Dauntless and the seniors themselves.
8. What is the second stage of initiation?
8a. The initiates are tested in a simulation within their own mind, which is almost like the aptitude test. The simulation triggers the person’s fears and the person needs to come out of the simulation in the least time possible by using any means necessary that they can think of, since it is not real.
9. Who attacks Tris after seeing that she is first place for the second stage of initiation. Who saves her?
9a. Peter, Al, and Drew attacks her. She is saved by four, who happened to be passing by the chasm and heard her scream.
10. What is the first fear that Four and Tris face inside the fear simulation?
10a. The fear of heights. Four and Tris stand high enough above the ground to see the city unfold beneath and around them.
LAST SECTION (pg.325-487)
11. Why is Four called “Four”?
11a. He is called “Four” because he has only four fears, which is impressingly less than half of the average amount of fears that most people have. Also, he is probably using a nickname because he did not want everyone to know that he is Tobias, who got Abnegation as the final aptitude test result, but he still chose to transfer to Dauntless.
12. Does Caleb feel happy to see Tris when she goes to visit him? Why?
12a. No, it almost seems like Caleb hates Tris for choosing dauntless over any other faction since he thinks that Dauntless is a useless faction. He also becomes brainwashed to think and have opinions like an Erudite, and to Tris’s horror, he starts to badmouth Abnegation, their beloved former faction.
13. Why does Erudite hate Abnegation?
13a. They detest Abnegation because Abnegation is the faction that currently governs the country and they think they need to live with prosperity, unlike the selfless Abnegation, who see prosperity as a self indulgence and therefore go against it. They think that Abnegation is not doing anything that would help anyone by being selfless because their opinions differ so much. Also, the Erudite think that they are more worthy of being the governing faction because of their intelligence, and they want more power, but Abnegation, which is the current governing faction, is in their way.
14. What does the simulation serum that Tris’s mother warned her about do?
14a. After it is secretly injected into every Dauntless it allows Jeanine, the leader of the Erudite, to to take control of them and use them as an army to use against Abnegation.
15. What happens to Tris’s parents in the end?
15a. Her father seems no longer willing to accept that Tris is his daughter after seeing how different she is, but he still does whatever he can to help on her plans to stop the simulation. However, in the end, Tris’s mother and father both die in their attempts to save Abnegation.


Wood carving is an easy to learn and fun hobby for adventurous children and their parents.
This bright and interesting introduction, from the author of Snitte: The Danish Art of Whittling, includes more than fifty activities at levels for beginners and up.
Each project comes with easy-to-follow instructions, illustrations and diagrams plus inspiring full colour photographs.
Along with their parents, children can craft a tumbling tower game, a racing car toy, a dolphin necklace or even a handy coat hook!
Includes a section on practical steps to get started and advice on knife safety with children.
- Pages: 135
- Full colour photographs and line drawings
- Format: Squareish, 180mm x 195mm


Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see.
A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a substance that could become the ultimate memory-enhancer. The group was studying a poorly-understood region of the visual cortex. They found that if they boosted production of a protein called RGS-14 (pictured) in that area of the visual cortex in mice, it dramatically affected the animals' ability to remember objects they had seen.
Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour.
The researchers concluded that this region of the visual cortex, known as layer six of region V2, is responsible for creating visual memories. When the region is removed, mice can no longer remember any object they see.
If this protein boosts visual memory in humans, the implications are staggering. In their paper, the researchers say that it could be used as a memory-enhancer – which seems like an understatement. What's particularly intriguing is the fact that this protein works on visual memory only. So as I mentioned earlier, it would be perfect for mapping. It would also be useful for engineers and architects who need to hold a lot of visual images in their minds at once. And it would also be a great drug for detectives and spies.
Could it also be a way to gain photographic memory? For example, if I look at a page of text will I remember the words perfectly? Or will I simply remember how the page looked?
I can't see much of a downside for this potential drug, unless the act of not forgetting what you see causes problems or trauma.


While still a youth Paracelsus became aware of many of the conflicting currents of his age. His father was a physician in Einsiedeln and he practiced in a number of mining towns. The boy surely learned some practical medicine at home through observing his father. It is likely that he learned some folk medicine as well. He also picked up some alchemy from his father who had an interest in the subject. And in mining towns he would have observed metallurgical practices as well as the diseases that afflicted the men who worked the mines. Traditionally it has been said that Paracelsus was taught by several bishops and the occultist abbot of Sponheim, Johannes Trithemius. At the age of fourteen the boy left home to begin a long period of wandering. He apparently visited a number of universities, but there is no proof that he ever took a medical degree. As an adult, however, he picked up practical medical knowledge by working as a surgeon in a number of the mercenary armies that ravaged Europe in the seemingly endless wars of the period. He wrote that he visited most of the countries of Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe.
It is only in the final fifteen years of his life that the records of his travels become clearer. In 1527 he was called to Basel to treat a leg ailment of the famed publisher of humanist classics, Johannes Frobenius. In Basel Paracelsus also gave medical advice to the Dutch scholar Erasmus and came in contact with some of the more prominent scholars of the religious Reformation. He was appointed city physician and professor of medicine. But although he was permitted to lecture at the University of Basel, he had no official appointment with the medical faculty there.
Almost immediately Paracelsus became a figure of contention. He heaped scorn on the conservative physicians of the University, and, at the St. John's Day bonfire, threw Avicenna's revered Canon of medicine to the blaze. Then, his patient, Frobenius, died. This was followed by a disastrous lawsuit and he left Basel in haste, even leaving behind his manuscripts.
The final years of his life find Paracelsus moving from town to town, and again, he often left his manuscripts behind as he had in Basel. He comes across as an angry man who antagonized many of those he met -- even those who tried to help him. In the end he was called to Salzburg to treat the suffragan bishop, Ernest of Wittelsbach. There he died at the early age of forty-eight.


Morphological Variation in the Tiger Cowrie Shell, Cypraea tigris Linnaeus, 1758
Collections at the National Museum of Natural History may include many specimens of one species, which ensures that the naturally occurring range of differences is represented for use in comparative studies. This image illustrates the variety of colors, patterns, shapes and sizes that can occur within tiger cowries, a species of tropical snails. The range of this particular species encompasses most of the tropical Pacific from Polynesia and Hawaii in the east to Japan, Singapore and Australia in the west. These mature tiger cowries have been collected from the throughout this range, where live specimens can be found in ankle deep waters down to 30 feet on reefs and under coral rocks. The largest cowries inhabit the coastal waters of Hawaii. In fact, the largest shell in the image was found off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, and is about 124 mm long. Other shells shown here were collected in Fiji, New Caledonia, Guam, Okinawa, Indonesia, Society Islands, Caroline Islands, Samoa Islands, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga.
Snails are mollusks that belong to the phylum Mollusca and class Gastropoda (snails and slugs). Researchers study snail body parts using the scanning electron microscope (SEM) to magnify features such as shell sculpture, radulae (teeth), reproductive organs and opercula which will assist with identifying and classifying different species.
Foot – soft part of body used for locomotion that also contains mucous secreting glands.
Mantle – soft part of body that secretes protein and calcium carbonate to build, repair and enlarge the shell. It may be used as a defense mechanism in some acid producing species of cowries. Cypraea clandestina secretes sulfuric acid when it is disturbed.
Radula – the ribbon-like structure, located in the mouth, made of chitin that can consist of several rows and different types of teeth used to scrape plant material (herbivorous species) or to bore through the shells of prey (carnivorous species).
The radula is sometimes called the “tongue”. Cowries have been observed
feeding on sponges, seaweed, carrion and live bivalve gastropods.
For additional information on cowries:
Learn about a scientific expedition to the Bahamas and the deep water slitsnail:


"With rivers in critical regions already exploited to capacity throughout the world and groundwater overdraft as well as large-scale contamination occurring in many areas, we have entered an era in which multiple simultaneous stresses will drive water management. Increasingly, groundwater resources are taking a more prominent role in providing freshwater supplies. We discuss the competing fresh groundwater needs for human consumption, food production, energy, and the environment, as well as physical hazards, and conflicts due to transboundary overexploitation. During the past 50 years, groundwater management modeling has focused on combining simulation with optimization methods to inspect important problems ranging from contaminant remediation to agricultural irrigation management. The compound challenges now faced by water planners require a new generation of aquifer management models that address the broad impacts of global change on aquifer storage and depletion trajectory management, land subsidence, groundwater-dependent ecosystems, seawater intrusion, anthropogenic and geogenic contamination, supply vulnerability, and long-term sustainability. The scope of research efforts is only beginning to address complex interactions using multiagent system models that are not readily formulated as optimization problems and that consider a suite of human behavioral response."
Gorelick, S.M. and C. Zheng. 2015. Global change and the groundwater management challenge, Water Resources Research, 51, doi:10.1002/2014WR016825.


Following the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, the Allies began steps for the final assault into Germany. The long-delayed US Army thrust over the Roer River, Operation Lumberjack, finally took place in February, placing the US Army along the Rhine. The Rhine represented the last major geographical barrier to the Allied advance into Germany. The plan was for Montgomery's 21st Army Group to leap the Rhine into the Ruhr in a carefully choreographed attack called Operation Plunder. In the event, fortune smiled on the US Army when the 9th Armored unexpectedly found that the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen had not yet been demolished by the Wehrmacht, leaving this one major crossing over the Rhine intact. An armored infantry team supported by the new Pershing tanks stormed the bridge, seized it in fierce fighting and disarmed the charges placed on it. They then held it against numerous counterattacks in which the Germans used conventional tactics and unconventional, including jet bombers, V-2 missiles, and frogmen.
Remagen was not the only impromptu Rhine crossing made by the US Army in central Germany but it was the most dramatic and hardest fought. The irrepressible George Patton, in spite of instructions to stay put, snuck an infantry division across the Rhine in the south, setting the stage for the race into Germany. After reinforcing their two major Rhine crossings, the US Army launched its late-March offensive, encircling Frankfurt, and setting the stage for the defeat of the Wehrmacht in the West. This is a gripping, authoritative account of a crucial battle during the last major set-piece operation of World War II (1939-1945).
About Steven Zaloga
See more books from this Author
Published February 19, 2013
by Osprey Publishing.


What do we Name our Trust?
Naming the Trust -
A trust can have any name. It can be short, long, easy, complicated, misleading, associative, or private.
What's in a name? -
The name that is given to your trust, and to a lesser extent the trustees selected to manage the trust assets, are the main way that the trust protects privacy. Privacy and protection are usually basic goals of the trust, yet simplicity is important too. Associating the purpose, or the asset, or the goal can still be achieved.
Trust Mistake Number One -
The trust policy, custom, habit and practice of almost all attorneys is to name the trust after the family or individual creating it. This completely destroys the entire privacy feature for trust benefits. Anyone even with an online degree could make this mistake. What is worse, the cost to select an anonymous name is exactly the same as the cost to name the trust after yourself; ZERO!
Putting Your Family Name All Over Everything -
Maybe some lawyers are just like a little kid first learning how to write their name, so they write your name all over all of your stuff. Naming the trust after yourself or your family closely connects you to the trust assets. A search through public property records for your name will also reveal the name of your trust, and expose you to the frivolous lawsuits, identity theft, stalking, harassment, kidnapping, and punitive damage awards that may come with having your name and assets public.
Mistaken identity can also associate assets belonging to a trust with outsiders. All mistaken business dealings could betray the safety and privacy of the protective trust. Any namesake trust prevents you from obtaining privacy or protection.
Trust Names You Can Trust -
The perfect trust name has nothing specific associated with you. Use names like the the "Experience Family Trust", the "Angels Management Trust", or some other obscure name. This maintains privacy and protection even though certain documents may be recorded as a matter of public record.
Please do not name a trust after the family name of the creator. Create a name that is anonymous to the family name in relation to the trust. If you do this, a Private Asset Trust will actually protect your privacy and your assets.


*Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
After a four-year fundraising effort, a group of influential businessmen and artists led by diplomat John Jay incorporated the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 13, 1870. Literally built from nothing, “the Met” has become a 2-million-piece collection that is a must-see for visitors of New York City -- and second only to the Louvre Museum in Paris for the number of annual guests among art museums.
Jay, who grew up in New York City and received his law degree from Columbia College, was living in Paris during the mid-1860s. Convinced the United States suffered from a culture gap without a “national institution and gallery of art,” he discussed the idea with a group of expatriates in the French capital. Through a series of conversations, it became clear America needed a world-class museum to elevate the arts nationwide. Without exposure to paintings and sculpture from the masters, Jay and his friends wondered, how could artists blossom in the rapidly-growing country?
When he returned to the US at the end of his diplomatic mission, Jay immediately connected with some of the most influential leaders in New York City -- captains of industry, collectors, artists and city officials -- in order to secure financial backing for the project. Passionate and persuasive, he sold the necessity of a cultural landmark to a wide range of people, including wealthy philanthropists eager to see the Big Apple gain a reputation beyond its burgeoning trade centers.
Finally, on April 13, 1870, Jay received word from the New York State Legislature that the Metropolitan Museum of Art could be incorporated. Though excited by the prospect of seeing his dream come to fruition, Jay realized there was one major problem: there was nothing to put on display. In mid-November, the Met acquired a Roman sarcophagus. Two years later, when the museum officially opened in the Dodworth Building at 681 Fifth Avenue, Jay had negotiated the addition of 174 paintings from European masters -- Anthony van Dyck, Nicolas Poussin and many others.
Over the next eight years, the Met’s collection grew at breakneck pace. Before long, the museum needed more space to accommodate the various artwork and antiquities donated. In 1873, the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street became the new location, but this would be a temporary arrangement until the foundation backing the museum could make use of a six-block land grant from the City of New York on Central Park East between 79th and 85th Streets.
Just shy of a decade after the articles of incorporation were approved, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its own building at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, a 100,000-square-foot red brick and stone Victorian edifice roundly criticized by architects for its dated exterior. (Even the Met’s president called the design “a mistake.”)
People still arrived in droves, curious about the growing number of ancient Greek and Roman artifacts on display, not to mention the expanded collection of paintings from Europe and the US. With new gifts arriving annually, the museum first approved additional square footage in 1888. At the turn of the 20th century, the Board of Trustees laid out a plan for a new facade and Great Hall. When construction finished and the remodeled Met opened in December 1902, the Evening Post called the Beaux-Arts structure “one of the finest in the world, and the only public building which approaches in dignity and grandeur the museums of the old world.” At long last, the museum had an exterior befitting its prestige as a world-renowned bastion of culture.
During the course of the 1900s, the Met grew to be a quarter-mile complex with more than 2 million square feet of space. Within its walls, there are some 2,500 European paintings, approximately 26,000 pieces of Egyptian art -- the largest collection outside of Cairo -- and one of the best displays on the evolution of American artworks in a variety of media.
With more than 140 years under its belt, the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows no signs of slowing down. When its most recent renovation was completed in January 2012, there were 20 permanent collections available for the 5.68 million visitors expected in the coming year.
Also On This Day:
1598 - King Henry IV of France issues the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots
1743 - Thomas Jefferson, American politician and statesman, is born in Virginia Colony
1829 - Roman Catholics receive the vote in the United Kingdom following the Roman Catholic Relief Act
1919 - British soldiers kill 379 people at the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amristar, India
1960 - The United States launches the world’s first satellite navigation system, Transit 1-B